Hi everyone! So, I'm back for another chapter and is fully based on: THE BAT FAMILY! Yeah! Anyways, this is a Dick chapter, not that important, but fun anyways. :)

Disclaimer: I Empress Pyrus, do NOT own Young Justice or any of the brands I may or may not have mentioned.

Chapter Ten

Dick POV

I stood outside the Wayne Manor, for what felt like years. It was just as big as I remembered. huge. The tall turrents, and frikin' HUGE wooden maple door. The gardens were just as neat, and the porch just as clean as I had left them.

This place hadn't changed for generations. And wouldn't change after that. Not after Alfred and Bruce. Even Tim and Damian. Nope. This place was going to be here, and honour the Bat-family and Wayne legacy forever.

I held a bouquet of flowers and ringed the ginormous doorbell. Moments later, Alfred opened the door.

"Welcome, Master Richard!" he said leading me in. I can't believe this place used to be my house. I lived here, for years, and now I was being treated like a guest in my own house.

"Go to the dining hall, Mater Bruce is already there, and Miss Gordon will be arriving shortly," he told me and took the bouquet. I just flung my jacket on the couch, like I used to do. That drove Alfred nuts. He'd get really pissed, and that was the beauty of it. It worked when I was 10, and I intended for it to work when I'm 22.

Leaving my coat on the couch, I made my way over to the dining hall. It wasn't used as a family very often. Mostly because we never had dinner together. When I first moved in, it was usually just me and Alfred. It was nice having him, but the two of us would get bored no matter how much he hates to admit it.

When I moved out, it was just Jason. Then it was just Tim. Now, there were three kids in the house, so it must drive Bruce crazy with the amount of noise. He didn't even like it when I played music, let alone three very irritable kids. Then again, they were all in the bat-family, so when they were told to be quite, they were quiet.

Inside the dining hall, Bruce was sitting there, with his phone shoved in his face. I knew he was only there because Alfred made sure that he wasn't late again. Bruce was rarely late for anything, except dinner. It was like this guy didn't care about food. The only way he ever made it here on time was if it was Christmas, when Alfred took away most of his electronics, and Thanksgiving when there a huge feast when he died to eat. Other than that, he was rarely here on time.

"Hi Bruce," I said sitting at the seat right of him. Surprisingly, we were the only ones here, when Bruce said 8:30, I knew to be here at 8:15, and Barbra had League business, so she called saying that she was going to be late. But, it was 8:26, and the kids that lived here still hadn't arrived.

Finally, Barbra showed up, and she was right on time as well. I decided not to ask where the others were, but did laugh when Alfred took Bruce's phone away. The kids all arrived one by one, and took their sweet time settling down.

The first to arrive was that youngest, "Grayson," he greeted me taking a seat opposite from mine, next to Barbra.

"Wayne," I greeted him back grinning. This was definitely Bruce's kid. Over the years, people had confused me, as well as Jason and Tim to be biologically related to Bruce. We all looked freakishly similar to him, and did have the same attitude. All three of us were pretty different, but had one different quality that belonged to Bruce. But this kid, oh he was like a carbon copy.

Damian looked like Bruce. He had the same scowl, and same annoyed demeanour that Bruce carried with pride. They both acted the same. Damian was just as grumpy and irritable. I only met Damian twice before, but as soon as I saw him, I instantly recognized him as Bruce's son. This kid was a Wayne, no doubt about it. He just needed to stop threatening to kill people, and everyone would be happy.

Next, in for dinner came Stephanie. We were all half way done our soup, when she decided to make an appearance. She showed up in a really tiny pink tube top, a black mini skirt, black heels, and loads of makeup on. It was definitely different from her usual preppy or batgirl attire.

"Steph, what the hell are you wearing?" asked Babs, being the only one of us that had that power to do so.

"Kitty called, last minute girls night out, I'll be back round one, okay?" she told Bruce.

"Stephanie, it's a family dinner, you're going to stay, it's not like we have these often," Bruce reasoned, knowing that she wasn't going to give into a bat glare, "besides, tomorrow's a school day, you're not going out that late."

"Oh, so I can patrol that late, but you won't let me have a little fun?" she asked obviously pissed. I knew from years of experience, that messing with teenage girls was never good. Artemis, M'Gann, Zatanna, and all of the others on the team at that time. They were scarier than Joker when they were angry, and Bruce seemed to know that, but he replied anyways, "that's right."

"Stephanie," said Barbra giving her a pleading look. Stephanie glared at her, then finally sat down a few seats away from me. The wonder of this table was that it was huge, and could fit 18 people on it, so everyone could sit as far away as they wanted.

She looked down at the food presented and said, "I thought I can't eat this, only health crap," speaking about the restrictions I had given the team on their diets. Okay, so I knew that out of all my ideas, that was the most cruel thing I had done.

One night, Wally called me at 4 in the morning because Bart wanted some 'real food' so ran over to palo Alto to get some from Wally. But, Wally and Artemis weren't giving him the money or food, but he was pretty persistent, so I got another death threat from Wally, at 4 in the morning. I let Bart have a couple bags of chips tops, knowing that unlike the rest of the team, his metabolism would eat up the food.

Other than that, these kids got one dessert per week. M'Gann had basically begged me to let them have better food, at least when they were't training. Besides, these kids were the best of the best, a little junk food wouldn't hurt them. But my reasoning wasn't so it would be good for the team. Nope. I had reasons, and they weren't to bore these kids with healthy food.

I knew that over time, that Light would figure out that we were after them. Sadly, that time was a lot closer than the team thought. I had agents in all of their little projects. Artemis was very lucky so far, and she knew it. We all made slip ups, and her's was going to be here soon, we couldn't avoid it forever, so when they found her, they found us. It was as simple as that.

I knew that we had to work fast right now, because if anything happened, then our team was really in trouble. The Light was going to target them, I know that Artemis, M'Gann, Kalder, Connor and I were all going to be left alone. They knew that we're all adults now, and from last time have learned to to underestimate us, so if anything happened, for us, it'll be death. Straight up, death, we wouldn't be the ones in trouble.

The people that will be in a lot of trouble will be the kids. Of-course, they aren't kids anymore. That's what the Light doesn't understand at this point. They constantly think that if you're not immortal, and haven't been alive for fifty thousand years, you don't have any talent, and underestimate you. That's what they've been doing for the past decade.

Quite frankly, I know that none of us are afraid of death. When you're new on the team or in the fighting business, sure you get a little nervous, and try and protect your life. But, after some time, one of the main reasons you live is for the good of the world. It's the sad truth. Even all the teenagers on the team were ready to give up their lives. But, the real pain was in those who you left behind. Not yourself, and if any member of the team died, everyone would be in dumps, and the Light would have the upper hand.

The problem is that the Light knows, that if we cross paths again, they'll just kill whoever they can get their ands on to send the team into emotional dumps.

So, the main reason I've been forcing the Team to do all these exercises and eat this health like a diabetic, is mostly so if anything happened, they'll be ready for the worse. I keep constant tabs on all of them, to make sure they don't cheat. But, they're all good kids. They don't cheat.

In training, I want them to feel dead, and curse me. I'm preparing them for the worse, and the food is so if there's ever a shortage, they know how to survive with only a little bit of fuel. The health part is just so they don't get used to eating as much.

I decided to shake this all off. We had been lucky so far, and I just wanted to enjoy one dinner with my family before evil idiots took over the world. Or at least tried.

We were all done soup when Tim was literally dragged in by Alfred. He had headphones on. I knew that Bruce hated it when kids were constantly listening to music, and didn't pay attention to the world around them. It was apparently 'rude'. That must have been the reason Tim had them on. With Tim and Stephanie, it oddly enough seemed like Damian was the good kid. That was definitely…wow. Damian wasn't a bad kid. But he was definitely not a good kid either.

"Well, I see you finally decided to join us," said Bruce calmly, concentrating on his food.

"More like forced in here," he replied, "Alfred, I thought at least you would understand!" he was yelling, but not because he wanted to, but because of the headphones on.

"Take your headphones out!" yelled Damian.

Tim rolled his eyes, "why should I?"

"Because your yelling, and father doesn't like them on."

Tim rolled his eyes again. It seemed like Bruce was getting that a lot lately. But, he took them out.

"Tim, you can stay here, or take your food to your room," Bruce told him which finally got Stephanie's attention, "WAIT! He gets to go to his room, but I was forced to stay down here?"

"Tim sit down," Barbra told him. I just watched all this unfold in silence. Normally, the Bat didn't really care about 'family get togethers' but today, he was actually making an effort, so Babs was going to take his side.

Tim glared at her, "please, you only want me here because he wants me here!" he glared at me. Okay, I think I'm safe to say, that I was not expecting that. What did this have to do with me?

"Umm, I'm kinda having soup," I said jokingly which got him even more upset.

"Why the hell do you act like that? Huh? Seriously, stop pretending!" he yelled and stomped off upstairs. Probably to try hacking into the Pentagon. Cause that was a Tim thing to do. I also knew this because I may have been looking into his laptop when I was bored last week. He enjoyed trying to get into the Pentagon, it was like a hobby.

"What's up with him?" I asked Barbra and Bruce who just shrugged a bit.

"Tim's been moody lately but he's never said anything about you, so I have no clue," Bruce admitted.

Stephanie scoffed at this, but said nothing and continued eating her chicken.

'Why's he acting like this Stephanie?" asked Bruce, "did he tell you something?"

"Oh please, we don't exactly talk anymore, we may be together all the time, but that doesn't mean he tells me his deepest darkest secrets or crap," she was avoiding the answer, then finally decided to open up a bit, "look, he's been a bit off lately, have none of you noticed?" she looked around at all of us with question marks on our faces.

"We know that Tim's been moody lately, but we all thought- think that it's because of exams, and all the new stress, when Dick was that age, he got so mad, he moved out," pointed out Bruce which got me to roll my eyes.

"Huh, you're oblivious. Think about it. He's been acting off, and injuring any one that comes in his way. He's even been yelling at Cassie. When did he ever yell at Cassie?" she said this in a totally neutral voice, but we all knew how much she really cared.

"Did you ever even consider that he's been acting up because of a reason, I mean this is Tim. The kid known for having a levelled head. And suddenly, he's acting like some troubled 12 year old, and all of you think it's 'growing pains' but seriously? Is that that the best you could come up with?" everyone looked around guiltily.

"So what does this have to do with me?" I asked, not sure where she was going with this.

She gave me a dirty look and continued, "Ever since you showed up, Bruce, Barbra, Alfred. The've all been running around everything that you say He feels like he's not getting any attention. I mean, I'm not getting any either, but I'm used to it."

"Don't say that!" said Barbra a bit shocked.

"Why not? It's the cold hard truth."

She got up and calmly made her way out of the room. That just left Bruce, Barbra and I staring at each other awkwardly.

"Well, that was an interesting display, I suggest you get back at her for that, but I respect her for being able to yell at you father. That was a change in outcome," Damian spoke up. Truthfully, since he wasn't giving his smart ass comments, I had forgotten he was there. Till now.

"Damian, go to your room," Bruce said irritated. Damian didn't argue, just shook his head and made his way up the stairs.

"Master Bruce, I suggest that you let Master Timothy cool off, and go talk to him tomorrow when both of you are ready," suggested Alfred.

"Well, there's nothing else we can do tonight," Bruce agreed.

We were almost done dinner, so Alfred went ahead to get dessert. But, after that whole outburst, it was pretty awkward to say the least. The three of us had no clue how the Tim felt. We also had no idea what Stephanie thought either. This crap was hard, and I knew that it was also very time wasting, but we were just humans. Super smart, rich and great fighting humans sure, but humans all the same.

"Bruce, I need you to do something with Stephanie," said Barbra snapping us all out of our own thoughts.

"What why?"

"Because, she feels like you're giving her charity letting her live here, she asked me to take over her custody so many times, I've lost count, plus, if Steph's on your side, it'll make Tim easier to clam as well," she responded.

Bruce took a breath, "I don't really think that will work, we both are pretty happy with the agreement we have."

"Um," said Barbra laughing, "not really, she wants to prove herself to you, and I know that if she got a chance to kill Cluemaster to prove it, she would."

"Well, what do you suggest I do?" asked Bruce dryly.

"I think that you should take a day off from work and crime fighting, and take her shopping or something," as Barbra told him this, I flinched and almost spit out the brownie that was melting in my mouth. For a normal person, this was not much of a problem. But none of us were normal people. Bruce Wayne was working almost all the time, and Batman even more than that. I was convinced that the only reason he ever went to sleep was because Alfred threatened him if he didn't.

"WHAT?" yelled Bruce, "Barbra, you know I have too much work, and the safety of the city! I can't just stop all my work to take her shopping!"

Barbra just rolled her eyes in response. "Oh please, Bruce you're over reacting. Old age has finally gotten to you," she said shaking her head, "you will take Stephanie shopping."

"Or what?" asked Bruce.

Then Alfred came in the room again and said, "or I can guarantee that I will freeze that Bat cave's computers, and not give you any dessert for the rest of the month."

"Ooh, Bruce, you're going to have to take her shopping or get grounded," I joked earning myself three dirty looks, "sorry," I said meekly and got back to the cake, but had my full attention at the argument at hand.

"But Alfred," said Bruce using that winey tone that no-one outside our little family ever heard.

"No buts master Bruce, you will take Mistress Stephanie shopping, and with a smile on your face," said Alfred in a we're-not-continueing-this-arguement tone.

Bruce growled and got up from his seat and headed towards the Bat cave like a teenager would after they found out they couldn't go to a party. But in his case, he was being prohibited from doing work for a whole afternoon.

As he left, I couldn't help but laugh. This dinner hadn't gone as planned, but it was the best I had in a long time. I needed the time off, just to listen to people bitch. It was a good time.

"What fun are you getting out of this?" asked Barbra who had wheeled herself away from the table, and was being nice to Alfred so was helping carry dishes back to the kitchen.

"Eh, this was fun," I told her, "I needed it."

She smiled back at me, a little sad. Barbra knew that I wasn't necessarily having the best time in my life lately. But, I was putting up a pretty good act in front of the others, so she was the only person who had actually talked to me about it. I knew that Kyle noticed as well. The Green Lantern and I weren't like best friends. But, we really did rely on each other for these kinds of problems.

I needed to talk them through, but was admittedly too stubborn to do so. He was brutally honest, and someone I knew that wouldn't judge. He was there to help me stay sane. No-one really knew that we were close. No-one even guessed it, but we were friends. In a sense.

"Well, if you need another time like this, we can arrange something," she said smiling warmly. This was Barbra Gordon. My best friend since I was nine. My partner in crime. One of the only people in the world that could read me like a book. We had something once. Until I fucked it up. Then left. And here I am, three years later, when we didn't see each others faces, but acting normal. Like friends. Maybe something more…

She left, but I was still sitting there. It was almost like a trance. When I realized how much I missed her, how much I missed them. I may have come back, but seriously, I really knew nothing about them. Not anymore. And they accepted it. They accepted me. It was really … nice.

Alfred came back into the room, "Master Richard, I believe you told me there was something you had to tell Master Bruce, so that's why you called this dinner," he said.

I suddenly remembered why I was here. The real reason. "Right, well, come down to the Batcave, and bring everyone down, Including Tim, Stephanie, and Damian, then sprained towards the entrance to the Batcave.

Barbra and Bruce didn't even flinch as I ran in at top speed. I quickly sat at one of the computers and hooked it up to the big screen Bruce had installed lately.

5 long minutes later, Alfred and three grumpy kids made there way down.

"Alright, Dick, tell us what you need to tell us about," said Bruce.

I nodded, and put a picture on the scree.

"Red Hood, and new idiot out on the streets of Gotham, 'ridding it' of the criminals, the easy way," said Tim immediately.

"Who has had an encounter with him?" I asked. The only person who said anything was Stephanie, "I did, he was just shooting some guys, and by the time I got to the scene, he was gone, but I did get a good look at him, why are you asking?"

Wordlessly, I shrunk that picture on half the screen, and put another one beside it. Everyone in the room gasped as they saw who it was. Even the kids who had never officially met were shocked.

"He's dead," said Bruce bluntly.

"Not so much, he was lucky enough to get a once in a life opportunity to have a special bath," I explained, "in the lazarius pit."

"Grandfather," Damian growled.

"So, what, now he's back and killing everyone he thinks should die?" asked Barbra.

"Yeah, basically, that's it," I told her. Everyone stared, still in shock. So, I decided to continue, "he's not contacted anyone yet, only got to Gotham 2 weeks ago, and the resurrection happened about a month ago. He hasn't contacted anyone, but he will, and soon. I'm not sure why he's went on this … killing spree, but knowing Jason, he won't be able to stay away for long. he will contact Bruce and try to rub it in. What's most disturbing is that apparently he's the newest agent for the Light."

Haha, so another Jason cliffhanger :D Truthfully, at first I wasn't going to add him. But, as usual, I gave into my love for all the Robin's and decided that I wouldn't write the story without him. So, yes, I have figured out his role in the whole thing, and can promise you that he will make an appearance before chapter 20. Haha, I know, I'm only on chapter 10, so it could be in the one after this, or the one after that, or the one after that...

So, I'll just put it out there, that I am more of a reader than a writer on FanFiction, and lately, I've not been finding any good stories, so I would really appreciate it if you could tell me some good stories. They could be your own, they may be some that you really like. I read just about everything, so don't worry about that either, any good story, I will read. But, please tell me a couple because I have already read a ton of the YJ ones on here. Please, that would really mean a lot to me if you told me any good ones :D Plus, then I'll update faster.

And one more thing: Please review.

~Empress Pyrus