Chapter 3 is up :)

Thank-you to everyone who reviewed, completely made my week... Ask Celticliliy, she was there when I was literally bouncing down Winchester high street :)

YAY, It's the penultimate chapter in this arc, but do not fear I am not stopping this story, I'm having too much fun writing it to do that :)

Disclaimer: Really you think I own Batman? Okay so I'll own batman when Lex Luthor becomes President of the United States... that's already happened? well I'll own Batman when Superboy Prime punches a hole in reality, therefore creating some time anomalies and Jason Todd comes back from the dead... That too huh?

I'M SORRY OKAY... I DON'T OWN BATMAN... you happy now? (I got bored of normal ones ;D )


They were in the Principal's office quietly waiting for Bruce to arrive. Apparently if there was an assault of any kind it was school procedure to contact the parents; made sense really. It took about 20 minutes to get from Wayne Enterprises to Gotham High; Alfred got Bruce there in fifteen.

"Woah! I hope Alfie didn't break any speed limits getting you here" Jason said teasingly as Alfred opened the door and he and Bruce stepped into the office.

"Of course not Master Jason, we just managed to catch every green light on the way here" Alfred replied in a matter-of-fact manner, but made sure that the boys caught his wink once the Principal's back was turned. That was why they all loved Alfred, well the older boys at least, Damian had yet to warm to the fact that Alfred was more than just a butler; he was, for all intents and purposes, their grandfather, and most of the time they treated him as such, which they knew warmed his heart. A bout of giggling broke out, before Bruce silenced them with a kind, but stern, glare. He rolled his eyes at Alfred; who then proceeded to give them a 'who me?' look, which made even Bruce smile.

The Principal turned back around from looking out of his window, and, in a truly businessman like manner, requested that they sit down, so they sat. There were only three chairs in the Principal's office apart from the Principal's own, so, Damian sat on Dick's lap, who still had tissue plugged up his nose to stop it from bleeding, and Alfred stood by the door in true stereotypical butler fashion; playing his part in the family's façade was his favourite thing to do when out of the house.

After about twenty minutes of the Principal's ramblings of how sorry he was; what they were going to do with Tony; trying to persuade Bruce not to sue; Bruce lifted up his hand. The Principal was silent immediately; the power he had over people as Bruce Wayne still surprised Bruce and he let out a gracious smile.

"Please Principal Ashtkins, we are not going to sue anyone." the Principal was visibly relieved, "but I will ask to talk to Tony's parents to see if I can get a blood sample to take back to the labs at Wayne Enterprises. I know Tony, he has been a friend of my sons' since they began at this school and he has visited our house on many occasions. This is not like him at all and I just want to make sure he isn't sick with anything that might have impaired his judgement." slightly bemused by the request the Principal looked at them blankly for a moment then agreed and led the group up to the nurse's office where Tony's parents were sitting next to their still unconscious son.


Being an extremely expensive private school the nurse's office looked more like a mini hospital than a school nurse's room, it was immaculately clean and equipped for anything. 'Nurse' Anderson herself was a highly trained doctor who could deal with just about any problem the kids could come up with. Tony's case however had left even her bemused. She had given up on trying to wake the boy up and was now sitting behind her desk filling out the necessary forms for him to be transferred to a hospital in-between researching what could have caused his current predicament.

"Why hasn't he woken up yet? He should be awake." Dick was first to speak, his voice was high pitched and nasal. Jason snorted at the sound he made, no one else laughed; it was a valid point.

When he spoke Tony's parents turned round and stood up;

"Mr Wayne I'm really sorry it's not like Tony to-" she was cut off by Bruce

"Relax Mrs Green, my one and only concern in this matter is Tony. How is doing?" he directed the last part to the school nurse. She looked up from her desk took of her rather large reading glasses and took a sheet of paper, from beside her computer screen, over to them, giving it to Bruce who started to study it.

"It's weird. He's not comatose, just asleep. Deeply asleep. We have tried everything to wake him up but, so far, to no avail."

"How is he not in a coma if you can't wake him up?" Tim asked, being somewhat of a know-it-all he was genuinely interested

"Well apart from the fact that he hasn't yet been unconscious for the designated six hours before we declare him comatose, he responds to light and sound stimuli, he tosses and turns sometimes, and he was snoring a few minutes ago." Tim's face scrunched up in concentration as he processed the bizarre information just given to him.

"So what's keeping him asleep?"

"That's just it; we don't know. By all accounts he should be awake and okay to be in class at the moment, albeit with a few weeks' worth of detentions, he just isn't. I have called for an ambulance to take him to Gotham General so they can run some tests and keep him under observation, but apart from that there's nothing I can do." She returned to her desk and continued to fill out forms.

"Mr and Mrs Green" Bruce began "I was wondering if you would let me take a sample of your son's blood back to Wayne Enterprises. The samples from Gotham General get sent to us anyway and I can put it in as a priority one vile so that we will get the results back in a couple of hours, not days"

"Of-of course, anything to help our little Tony, Doctor Anderson already took a sample for the Hospital which I guess you can have" The doctor nodded and went to the fridge, removed the only blood sample in there and gave it to Bruce, who took it and gave it to Alfred whilst he put his briefcase on the table and opened it. To most of the room's amazement inside wasn't a load of files but a special designed cooling system for samples of presumably all kinds. Seeing the open mouths Bruce explained the origin of his briefcase whilst he put the vile into one of the compartments.

"It's a R&D project for crime labs, obviously some evidence must be stored at low temperatures, like blood, and some smaller labs don't have the facilities to transport samples to bigger labs so they can do tests the smaller labs can't without paying out huge amounts of money, and having to wait days to get enough samples to make the transport financially viable. So we came up with the- well a forensic investigator at the Central City Crime Lab, by the name of Barry Allen," the boys, and Alfred, all smiled at the reference to their family friend "came up with the idea of a briefcase that solves the problem, we just tinkered with the idea and made the product. They're cheap, easily stored and powered and we are about ready to put them into production, all that was needed was a test run. Then Dick called and told me what had happened, when he told me of Tony's symptoms I immediately thought he would need a blood test, so arranged to test the brief case… and that explanation took far longer than I had hoped, I must be going. I want to get this" he held up the briefcase, indicating the blood sample "to our labs as soon as possible, Alfred." he nodded to the door

"Of course sir" came the reply

"Alfred and I will be around after school to pick the four of you up, Jason; please don't get into any more trouble."

"How did he know" Jason mouthed at Dick, who smiled and mouthed a

"He's Batman and you're… you" back. Bruce seeing none of this nodded to the Principal and the Greens

"Thank-you Mr Wayne" Mrs Green said looking at Bruce directly in the eye, the sincerity in her voice made Bruce smile;

"As I said before no harm done; I hope Tony gets well soon" he stood up straightened out his suit and walked to the door where Alfred was waiting expectantly, handle in hand, when Damian suddenly rushed over and gave his dad a small hug goodbye, which was reciprocated, then Damian retreated back to standing just in front of Dick with the elder boy's arms comforting him around his neck.

Once the formalities of goodbyes had subsided Alfred opened the door, to a little more resistance then he expected. As it turned out on the other side of the door, trying to open it at the same time and therefore stumbling into the room and falling into Bruce; was a fifth grader, who looked as though she had just seen a ghost.

"Doctor Anderson, Doctor Anderson" the kid said not paying any attention to the man she had just run into "please you've got to help, my friend, Jimmy, he just got really angry in the middle of French and then collapsed, Miss Colrain sent me to get you, we don't know what's wrong, please he needs your help." She then saw Principal Ashtkins standing in the room looking at her in a very disbelieving way "Principal Ashtkins… I'm sorry for barging in like that, I'm just scared for my friend, I didn't mean to-"

"Ella, breath. Calm down, you are not doing your friend any favours by panicking," he looked to Dick, "Dick could you explain what happened to Tony to Ella." Dick nodded and took the tissues out of his nose so he at least sounded a little less bunged up;

"Well, at first he complained about his head throbbing and feeling like it was on fire; and he collapsed for the first time. Then he started coughing and convulsing. Then he woke up with hugely dilated pupils and completely bloodshot eyes and acted all aggressive towards me, then he punched me and collapsed again, and now he's asleep and we can't wake him up."

"That's exactly what happened to Jimmy" Ella piped up without even having to be asked. The adults in the room shared a look and three more kids came running in complaining about just the same thing.

"Mr Wayne, how many blood samples can that briefcase of yours take?" Doctor Anderson asked after collecting a blood sample from the eleventh pupil with the same symptoms.

"Eighteen at a push… well at least it will have been well test driven…" smiles came to their faces for a brief moment before yet another pupil asked for Doctor Anderson's help.

"I don't think this is some mysterious new illness" The Doctor said as they rounded another corner "I mean it makes no sense, there is no pattern to who has come down 'ill', most have never met each other, although some are best friends, and many are from different grades and classes, there has to be something more to it."

"Wait, What? You think someone is poisoning the kids? Why?" Bruce tried to put on the best surprised voice he could

"I don't know, a lot of these kids have wealthy parents, such as yourself… what's the old saying; "Follow the money". I just know this isn't like any virus studied in known history"


"So what do we know?" Dick asked as he paced around the empty classroom they had found themselves.

"Well as of now twelve children have come down with the same symptoms as Tony" Tim received a few how-the-heck-did-you-know-that looks from his brothers, he blushed and looked down to his feet shuffling them a bit "… Dad just texted me"

"Fair enough, Timmy can you set up a database, to log everyone who has come under the influence of the drugs" Tim nodded "Do it" he moved to the computer at the side of the and turned it on. "What we need to figure out is how they all ingested the drug" there was silence as the boys pondered what could have happened,

"Could it have been something they touched?" Jason suggested

"From what dad told us after analysing the drug last night, it has to be ingested to work" Dick replied still thinking

"But we also know that the drug's been modified to put kids to sleep afterwards, could it have been changed to get into someone by skin contact?" Jason added with bright eyes as he had actually thought of a good idea, that was usually everyone else's forte but not his. Moments like this made him smile.

"Possible but then wouldn't more kids have had drug induced episodes throughout the day? I mean how is it that these children have been influenced and not others? like why has no one in first or second grade come been affected? I'm still guessing it's something they have eaten or drank" when Dick's reply came Jason's face fell a bit, it made sense though.

"Well Tony was eating that sandwich and I saw the fourth grader, Jimmy, eating a similar one" Damian spoke up, and silenced the other three boys. They all looked at Damian; then broke into smiles.

"Damian, I think you've got it"

"Would explain why only some kids have been affected…"

"First and second graders are separated, not allowed in the big part of the school"

"And that would obviously explain how it got into their systems"

"But how did it get into the sandwiches?"

"Kitchen staff?"

The three older boys kept bouncing around ideas at such a speed that Damian found it hard to keep up, he caught a few suggestions here and there, mostly Jason's outrageously stupid ones.

"Oh, Oh the dinner lady did it, it's always the evil dinner lady… can we go punch her now?" Damian and Tim rolled their eyes; Dick just looked at his brother

"No"

"But-"

"No, I very much doubt, however evil you think she is, that the dinner lady, or anyone on school staff did this. I also doubt that it was a giant mutant marshmallow, or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trying to rid the world of Shredder but accidently poisoning some defenceless school kids in the process, geeze Jason, you need to stop watching Saturday morning cartoons…" Jason smiled sheepishly

"So what's your great idea Dicky Boy?"

"Will you please stop calling me that and I was thinking that we should check whether the school has employed any new kitchen staff this year, as they could be possible suspects and we should check the visitors logs, to look for any suspicious visitors"

"Already way ahead of you bro" Tim said from the corner of the room "New kitchen staff was easy, I'm just waiting on the visitors logs, the server's being a little slow."

"One day you are going to have to teach me how to do that" Jason commented as he ran over to the computer with Dick and Damian

"No you'd just spend all your time hacking into your grades and changing them"

"YOU CAN DO THAT?" Tim facepalmed his brother's comment, wishing he had never mentioned it.

"No that is highly illegal"

"And this isn't?"

"This is only kinda illegal"

"Oooooooh, and I'm the rebel of the family" The boys rolled their eyes at their brother

"Yes." Tim said in a monotone voice that started a new bout of giggles from Dick and Damian, Damian especially.

"Okay" Dick interjected bringing them all back to the matter at hand "Can we get a print out of this?" Tim flicked his eyes towards the printer, he had already printed out the job list "How did I not hear that?"

"You were too busy talking about giant mutant marshmallows and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"

"And the visitors' log?"

"Should be out in a couple of minutes, as I said, the server is being slow."

"Cool, then we go steal a sandwich and find Dad"


The Principal breathed a sigh of relief. The last ambulance had just left and they had had no more reports of infected children. The total count was twenty two, out of a school of over a thousand he guessed it could have been worse, a lot worse. He rounded the corner to his office but when he heard laughter he paused and looked in the glass window. Wayne's kids were still in there, three of them were at least. Dick, the eldest, was still off being questioned by the police who were looking into what was going on. It looked to him that Jason and Tim were keeping Damian occupied with piggyback rides, and a game of catch that looked somewhat to be a danger to his office. It was amazing just how much like a family they had become, each from drastically different backgrounds, with some sort of tragedy that forced them together, it was quite sweet really. He opened the door and they immediately stopped what they were doing and almost stood to attention.

"At ease boys" he said jokingly "Shouldn't you be in lessons"

"No sir, the police told us to wait here" Tim said

"Why?" the Principal enquired

"How should we know" Jason blurted out, annoyed at something. Tim un-surreptitiously stomped on his brother's foot to get him to either shut up, or show more respect, both of which were futile aspirations.

"I think they just want to clarify the facts, sir" Tim answered for all of them.

"Okay, it's almost lunchtime, once the police have 'clarified their facts' you four can go straight to lunch" the three burst into smiles, Jason even whispered a small but excited "Yes", which received a raised eyebrow from the Principal

"I'm supposed to have chemistry now, things… don't go right for me in chemistry" It was true, the boy couldn't make more things go wrong for him in that subject even if he tried. The principal smiled and Dick came back through the door with two police officers. They went back over the facts of the day which must have been recounted at least ten times already, then said they would look into the kids' theory and left the room. The boys also turned to leave the room when the Principal stopped them

"What theory?"

"Well it was Damian's theory, really…" Dick said nudging Damian forward, who then proceeded to blush and run around to the other side of Dick. The Principal laughed, and Dick explained it to him. "Damian remembered that Tony was eating a sandwich he brought from the canteen, and said he saw Jimmy, the fourth grader who was affected second, also eat one. We then talked to the friends of the affected and all of them said their friends had eaten a sandwich"

"So, what are you saying" the Principal enquired, he knew where they were going with this he just wanted verbal confirmation

"We think someone's tampered with the sandwiches, sir" Tim said and the three other boys nodded "We managed to give one to our dad before he left, so the labs at Wayne Enterprises can test it, but we suggest that you stop selling them in the canteen sir" the principal nodded and went over to his telephone, after punching in the number for the kitchens he looked over to the boys,

"You can go" they smiled at him and left the room.


"Who knew an afternoon could be so… boring" Tim said as he and Damian found their brothers waiting at the school gate.

"Speak for yourself; Jason somehow managed to set fire to his book in English Lit"

"Check me, I don't have a lighter or matches on me, I seriously don't know how it happened"

"At least you didn't set off the fire alarm; I don't think the principal could've handled that too" they boys laughed a bit at Dick's comment. This was defiantly the worst part of the day; being picked up. Well being picked up and being dropped off. People always gave them dirty looks for being dropped off at school and picked up in a limo. It wasn't anyone's fault really; they had plenty of cars… but none of them had enough seats for all of them to get to school, and for Bruce to get to work. Dick sighed; he hoped Tony and the other kids affected were okay.

"Where are Father and Pennyworth, school finished ten minutes ago and I want to go home" Damian wined, he seemed to turn into an arrogant rich kid when he was tired and his brothers rolled their eyes.

"They'll be here in a minute, it's rush hour, they're probably just stuck in traffic…" just as Dick replied Alfred pulled into the car park "speak of the devil… see Damian, we'll be home soon" Damian smiled and climbed into the door Alfred opened for them. Inside the car Bruce was sitting looking at some papers, when they got in he looked up.

"When we get home, suit up, I know who drugged Tony and the other kids"


I'm, thinking of doing a chapter on Jason's mishaps in Chemistry and was wondering if anyone had any ideas of what could happen, baring in mind this is Jason ;)

Also, the next chapter will be the last in this arc (as I said at the beginning), so if anyone has any suggestions of what to do next I'm all ears :)

Thanks for reading; please review :)