-I'm Lowkey letting my dance teacher adopt me. She got my a birthday present, has a nick-name for me, I've met her husband and cats, he have inside jokes, she's driven me home after rehearsal... I've read enough Irondad fics to know where this is going!!!-
-this part isn't early, it is technically Halloween morning where I live, but timezones might fuck it up a little-
"Is that the pizza guy?" Tim asked, glancing up. "...Or is that Bart?
"I'll check." Conner remarked, since he was he closest to the TV room door. They herd his stroll through the foyer and open the door. "Time!" He shouted.
Cassie leaned over the snack table and paused the stopwatch on Tim's phone. She held it up, reading the number aloud as Conner and Bart entered. "Gentlemen, as of tonight, I am ecstatic to announce that Bart Allen is only... 45:02.38 minutes late."
The other two gave a round of applause. Bart looked a little sheepish. "Sorry, I thought the trip would take fifteen minutes, so I spent extra time getting ready, and it took longer than fifteen minutes so.... But, I brought Pringles."
"Who said Pringles?" Tim asked.
"That was me." Kon exclaimed.
Tim and Cassie grumbled and slid their pocket change across to him. "I was so sure that he was going to get pretzels..." The former grumbled.
"He got pretzels last time." Conner Explaimed. "There's a pattern."
"There is?" Bart asked, both surprised and offended that his friends were gambling over him..
The kryptonion nodded. "You are ironically predictable."
Tim got back to his work. "We forgot to put out jack 'o' lanterns this year, so I'm just..." He grimaced, shoving his hand into the pumpkin.
"Do a Green Lantern Jack 'o' Lantern!" Bart suggested.
Tim shrugged. "Okay. But we don't get as many trick-or-treaters up here."
"Really?" Kon asked.
"Well... we give out two king-sized bars to each kid, so some of them make the trek up here, but a lot of kids are too tired to walk out here. "Shit I got membrane on my hands. "Cassie, can you turn on the TV? We'll pick our first movie."
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"Hey... Lemme guess. Kid with daddy issues?" Roy snarked.
"Vampire." Jason replied. "Let me guess, you are... another kid with daddy issues?"
Roy looked down. "I don't actually know, it's just the things I had in my room."
"I'll say that you're a zombie, we can both be undead." Jason remarked, the two of them moseying down the dark sidewalk.
"Hurry up! we gotta cover all the good houses!" Dick exclaimed, jogging about a quarter of a block ahead of them.
"Chill out!" Jason shouted to his brother. "It's only seven-fifty-five! You've got all night!"
"I know, but we're doing the proper trick-or-treat!" Dick explained.
Jason turned to his undead companion. "It's this thing we do- used to do every year. You bring a bunch of pillow cases, and you have a backpack to dump them in, and then, when everything's full, you drop off a bunch of bags at a drop spot and pick them up later in the car."
Roy bopped his eyebrows, vaguely impressed. "Efficient."
Jason nodded. "But He's the only one trick-or-treating that much, so I don't think we'll get a lot of candy..."
Jason was drastically wrong.
Dick was determined to get more candy than he knew what to do with. He sprinted carefully from door to door or the rich neighborhoods, giving puppy eyes to the homeowners.
"That's not even your real voice!" Jason exclaimed, jogging a little to keep up with his brother.
"No, but it's cuter." Dick justified. "Adults love it!" He grinned, pulling Jason's backpack down. "I gotta empty it so they think I just started. They'll give me more!"
Jason thoughtfully unzipped that backpack for him. "In only twenty minutes?" He asked, Dick was never this efficient before. "Hand-outs must be good this year."
Dick shook his head. "I have a technique."
"A technique?" Roy asked.
Dick nodded exaduratedly. "You gotta be cute! and energetic and polite, and say please and thank you, and compliment them, and they'll give you SO much!"
"If one kid got this much in twenty minutes..."
Jason and Roy looked across at each other, equal mischievous grins spreading across their faces.
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Damian had mixed feelings on Halloween, ignoring all the capitalist who thrived off the occasion, it was night to have everyone going out. He had the cave all to himself. The obvious downside to this was that practically everyone in the city was out tonight at parties, which made patrol practically impossible.
He'd lit a few candles, just for the ambiance, and was working diligently behind the batcomputer, breaking every hour or so to glance over his course work for the semester.
Tim had left a headband with cartoon devil horns on the desk for him. Damian had immediately removed these from his eyesight.
Right now Damian had about a billionwindows open, monitering cameras around downtown Gotham.
He opened yet another window to check his schedule, curious about which day his assignment was due. In a blink, the screen went black. The faint lights overhead snapped off. Damian sat there blankly, lit only by the light of his candles.
Shit. He must have maxed the cave's power grid while working. Anxious to make sure that the documents he had open had auto-saved, Damian sprang up, grabbing a candle for light. He hoped his father had payed the Manor's electric bill. He would leach off the Manor's power for a bit.
The batcomputer required so many Watts, than it might mess with the manor's electricity for a bit. Luckily, no one else was home, so it wouldn't matter.
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"Honestly... Meh." Bart admitted, splayed across the couch. "Some of it was creepy, but the effects were so cheap that I wasn't even scared."
"Well, Paranormal activity two. You failed to scare even Bart Allen." Conner said. "Even with Kristi being played by a real babe, That is still a new record low."
"Lets just put on some buzzfeed unsolved." Tim said, carrying out his newly finished jack 'o' lantern to set it on the porch.
"OH! DUH! I forgot I brought this!" Bart dove into his backpack and pulled out what looked like the cardboard from a board game, a little work and scuffed up. "Twenty bucks on craigslist. Hope it was worth the money..."
"Oh, that's the Ouija board you said you were getting!" Cassie exclaimed. "How do you use it?"
"I dunno. I guess we should just google it." The speedster shrugged. "wonder if anyone's ever died in this old place..."
"It's a heritage mansion, about a hundred years old. Someone's probably kicked the bucket in here." Kon observed.
"What are you- oh, the Ouija board! I forgot!" Tim exclaimed wandering back in. "Hell yeah, let's try it out!"
After looking up the instructions, they circled the planchette three times and began spelling out their names.
"What now?" Conner asked.
"I think we ask them a question." Tim replied.
"Are there ghosts here?" Bart asked aloud. "If there are ghosts here, can you tell us you're a ghost so we know... that you're a ghost?"
"You're speaking to ghosts and you can barely complete a sentence in English." Cassie remarked, She wasn't completely sold on this yet. She quoted something she'd seen in a ghost hunting show. "Spirits of the past move among us. Let you're presence be known."
A beat. Before Bart could ask where she'd gotten that line, there was a faint buzz, and the lights shut off, plunging the teens into darkness.
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Got, the kids were thriving. Jason regretted not putting more effort into his costume! Sure, Dick being eight gave the boy the upper hand in looking cute, but his method worked!
Jason and Roy where making whole characters which they presented to the adults answering the door. They said that they were twelve (Lie) it was their first year Trick-Or-Treating without their other brother escorting them (Half-Lie), and that they had to make the most of it before their little brother had to go to bed (Complete Truth).
"Man, this rules!" Roy laughed as the boys ducked into an ally, emptying their pillow cases into the backpack, which was getting quite heavy now.
"I know! Why didn't you tell us about this years ago, Dickie?"
Dick shrugged. "I never really thought about it, but adults give you anything when you're cute!"
"Is that why dad lets you go to sleepovers at age eight?"
Dick shook his head. "That's cause I'm the youngest. He got so tired out from you three that he doesn't care about it anymore."
"Lucky bastard." Jason grumbled, zipping the heavy backpack closed and swinging it on with an 'oof'. "What do you say? Next block?"
"It's only been an hour." Roy pointed out. "at this rate, we could do half the west side in one night!" He tossed a Snickers in his mouth. "When's your curfew?"
"Nine-thirty." Dick said.
"But..." Jason said, a mischievous look claiming his face. "Bruce and Selina won't be home until midnight..."
The redhead caught on. "...And what they don't know won't hurt them!"
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Damian tried to start up the computer, but there wasn't even enough power to light the monitor. That couldn't be right! The manor was overflowing with power. it had to be with all those devices plugged in all the time!
The little Power the eldest batbrother had gotten was suddenly cut off. Impatient, he crossed the cave again, and re-redirected the power to the cave. again, he got power for a few seconds, and then nothing!
With a grumble he headed up to the manor. Maybe somebody had left the lights on, and it was disrupting the circuit...
He rounded a corner and tripped into a side table.
As if in slow motion, Damian watched the vase atop the table shudder, spin, and topple clean off the wooden surface. He threw out a hand to catch it, but was a mere second too late.
The vase hit the tile floor with a splintering crash.
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Bruce and Selina weren't just having an expensive dinner. They were having an expensive dinner AWAY from the kids. And boy they were making the most of it.
"-Then just pressure Tim into volunteering at the library, get Jason to visit his future-boyfriend in Star, and Send Dick to a playdate with his redheaded friend in Central." Selina sipped her red wine pleasurably. "Then we have the manor to ourselves."
"You've really thought this through." Bruce observed, digging into his food, relieved to have a night where he can enjoy his dinner instead of Yelling at his sons to stop fighting.
"Just some planning I do in my spare time." She smiled.
"So I take this to say that you accept, and want to move into the manor?"
She nodded a little. "At some point soon. I haven't actually planned the moving in part specifically well, but I do know you'll need to fix the lock on your bedroom door."
Bruce groaned a little. "I've been putting that off. You see, when Dick has nightmares, he likes to come in to sleep in my room."
"Start training him to go to Damian's room. Or Tim's. Because there are going to be some nights where a nightmare could be quite inconvenient."
Bruce let out a slight sigh. He was torn. On one hand, he agreed with Selina about not traumatizing the boys by having them walk in unexpectedly, but at the same time... he was a father first, and he didn't like the idea of Dick having a nightmare and him not knowing.
They ate for a while, enjoying the golden silence that you just don't get when you have four kids. Eventually, Bruce sat back and had a drink. "Did you ever expect to have children like this? Unrelated to each other, and calling you by your first name?"
Selina laughed a little. "I'm sure they'll call me mom behind my back. They do it to you."
"They do?" Bruce asked. "Even Jason?"
She nodded. "You've never heard? I always hear them calling you 'dad', 'daddy'...That one's mostly just Dick."
"I never hear those kind of things." Bruce muttered. They took another break to eat, Selina finished her second glass of wine and sat back, contented.
"If I get arrested, before we tie the knot, we weren't in a relationship and you knew nothing." She said. "Gotham's favorite rich boy marrying a criminal. You would never make it out of that PR nightmare."
"You never get arrested."
"Maybe I would have if you'd done your job instead of letting me get away all those times." She gave the waitress a polite smile as she passed.
"What about me? What if my secret gets outed?" Bruce asked in a low voice.
Selina sipped her ice water since the waitress had taken her wine glass to refill it. What? It was a date night without the kids, she was going to savour it!
"If that happens, we leave the boys with Alfred, move to Orlando, and become Sophie and Paul Webber: a middle class newlywed couple." She said, staring off in thought. "You're a lawyer, I run a burlesque club downtown."
"It's alarming that you have that planned out." Bruce observed. She just nodded.
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"Dickie bird." Jason panted tiredly. "It's been great, but I think the backpack is at capacity..." He adjusted the (now several pound bag) so it's straps wouldn't cut into his shoulders. "Also it's been like four hours..."
Dick glanced at his full pillowcase. "Yeah, it's getting late. Most of the houses have started closing up."
Roy's eyes lit up a little. "Hey, Jay. Since we've spent all night doing Baby stuff, What do you say we head out for some REAL fun?"
Jason's face lit up at first, but then his face fell. "Demon and Tim are at home, if we just drop Dick there and head out again, they'll tell dad for sure."
The boys deliberated for a few while Dick enjoyed a pink starburst.
"Just bring Dick, he can guard the candy while we're doing our thing."
Dick pouted a little. "I wanna do your thing too! I taught you my whole method, and 'm letting you have some of the candy, it's unfair!"
"Would he tattle to your dad?" Roy asked quietly.
"Yeah..." Jason muttered back. He straightened up, addressing his little brother. "We've reached a decision. Since you taught us how to act like cute little children for the purpose of candy. We will generously teach you to be a fucking rebel for the purpose of fun!"
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The hallway light flickered back on, bathing them in a the low-light. Tim locked worried eyes with Kon, who sat directly across from him on the floor.
"Hey, uh, ghosts?" Bart asked quietly. "Can you please not?"
"Well we did ask them for a sign." Cassie admitted.
Instantly the lights shut off again, they let out another orchestra of squeals as they were once again plunged into darkness.
"Ghost?" Tim asked. "Is there a ghost here?"
Nothing.
"If there is a ghost here, and you want us to stop, send a sign." Conner announced.
For the second time, the lights snapped on again. The teens sat in silence, chills suddenly running up their spines. The four shifted towards each other a little.
"Uh, if you're a ghost, and you want to hurt us..." Bart started.
"What are you? a fucking idiot?" Conner hissed.
"Can ya please send us a sign?" The speedster finished.
There was nothing, for several long seconds.
From the hall, a few rooms over, they heard a bump, and a deafening smash of something shattering. That's all that the four needed to know that they had to get out of there.p