Bruce was late to the event, even later than his usual fashionably late, and Duke's worries were starting to surface. As the newest member of the Wayne household, and secretly as the newest vigilante of the "Batfamily" (as Steph liked to jokingly call it), Duke still felt a little off-balance in situations where the others felt or at least looked unconcerned. This might be one of those situations, so Duke decided to check in with one of the others, just in case something was happening that he should know about, or just in case nothing was happening and he could relax.

But which of the others could he check in with? Obviously he couldn't check with Bruce. Steph, Barbara, and Alfred were also off the table immediately. None of them had been invited to this event, a sort-of-party, sort-of-business meeting, mostly-mingling event before the next day's finalization of a partnership between Wayne Enterprises and another company, some business called Applicable Technologicals or something awful and forgettable like that.

Instead, it was only the better-known members of Bruce Wayne's circle chatting and circulating around the event center, so it was only them that he could search for. Duke looked around, trying to find a good option for someone to check in with.

Quickly visible, Dick stood immersed in a circle of society ladies, moving his hands all around in the air in front of him and laughing boisterously. It could be hard to pull him away.

Damian, on the other hand, couldn't be seen initially, but Duke was getting to know him well enough to do a second check of certain spots in the event center, specifically spots that a kid raised by assassins would use as a strategic hiding place or rallying point in case of… Well, in case of whatever weirdness Gotham could throw into the event center. Sure enough, one of the curtains by one of the far windows had a slight extra bump to it, approximately the size of an eleven-year-old. Duke decided not to pull Damian out from there. It probably wouldn't end well, at least for Duke.

Cass leaned over a table of treat trays, picking out her favorite sweet things, nobody near her at first, so Duke started toward her, then he stopped. In the moment it had taken him to take three steps in her direction, a man had passed between him and Cass, and she'd promptly disappeared. Duke sighed and swiveled, casting a glance around the room, either for Cass or for someone else to check in with.

Tim didn't seem to be a good option. Duke watched as Tim nodded along to the words of a tall man in front of him. At first glance, Tim looked interested in what the guy was saying, eyes wide and lips upturned a little bit, but his hands tapped against the seams of his pants, making his boredom visible even from halfway across the room if a person knew what to look for, and Duke knew. Duke also knew that Tim was just going to have to deal with it, because the tall man turned slightly and that's when Duke recognized the guy. The tall man was an enormously self-absorbed rich guy, one of the highest upper-class men and one of the worst ones for having a conversation with, at least a conversation about anything other than the rich guy himself. Duke tried to remember the tall man's name and drew a blank. He smirked. The tall man was so self-absorbed, and yet so boring, Duke couldn't even remember what he was named. Duke still wasn't going to try to get involved there.

That left Jason. Immediately after spotting that white streak poking out from dark hair, Duke walked around the large invention sitting in a glass case in the middle of the room, working his way over to where Jason was leaning against a staircase railing on the outskirts.

"Hey," Duke said. "Enjoying the get-together?"

"As much as I'd enjoy a hole in my head," Jason said dryly, then he paused. "Actually, at the moment, I might enjoy the hole in my head more."

"That bad, huh?" Duke asked, torn between amusement and concern.

"Eh," Jason said. "It's not terrible, I guess. It's just stupid. And boring. And-"

"Yeah," Duke agreed. "...Not as bad as your first official gala back, at least?"

Jason shuddered dramatically. "Don't remind me."

They stood quietly for a moment, surrounded by the sounds of the party, before Duke remembered why he'd come over. "Hey, have you heard from Bruce?"

Jason shook his head. "Nah. He's getting pretty late to get here, isn't he?"

"That's what I was thinking," Duke said. "Some kind of last-minute commitment he got called away for, maybe?"

"Let's hope not," Jason said, and they shared a pointed look, knowing exactly the kind of last-minute commitments Bruce, or rather, Batman, got called away for.

"What even is this party for again?" Duke asked. "It's something about a technology company deal, but why?"

Jason shrugged. "Beats me. Honestly, I don't think I even knew it was for a technology deal until you said that. I wasn't really listening."

"Listen better," Cass said, appearing by Jason's side with a plate of desserts.

Duke jumped.

Jason laughed.

Cass grinned and took a bite of one of her desserts. Chewing and swallowing, she said, "It's for a… Invention?"

"Yeah, some kind of invention," Duke said, thinking hard. "Something to do with cancer treatments, I think, reversing the aging of the cells. Bruce said it was promising, but that something was up with the company, right?"

"Yeah, I remember that part now. Something like that it wasn't from Gotham, or anywhere in the area," Jason said.

"Maybe not ready for Gotham," Cass said. "Gotham is… Weird."

"Weird is an understatement," Jason said.

"But it can't be a big deal if they're not from Gotham," Duke thought out loud. "Right? I mean, if the technology works, it works."

Cass shrugged.

"But if the technology works, the company might get a little cocky," Jason said. "They might do something stupid, like try to sell to somebody connected with a gang or worse."

"Or worse," Cass said, suddenly staring at the middle of the room. "Not be ready. Look."

Duke looked.

A small person had climbed on top of the glass case that the invention stood in.

"A kid?" Duke asked, looking back at the other two.

"No," Cass said, moving her feet apart a little bit into a fighting stance.

"Baby Doll," Jason growled, his hands going to his sides where his holsters usually sat, then he groaned. "I didn't bring anything."

"Weren't supposed to," Cass said.

"We're defenseless," Duke realized, running through his vague memories from briefings of who Baby Doll was: stuck with the appearance of a child, used to work in entertainment, turned to crime to try to make herself happy. "At least she's not, like, super dangerous or powerful or anything?"

"Uh," Jason said. "She's starting to glow."

"People of Gotham," Baby Doll (who was indeed glowing) crowed into a microphone, and that's when the other event center guests started to look. "Welcome to the show!"

A few clueless people, probably not Gotham citizens, gave scattered applause. Most people started hurrying for the exits, which was pointless. Duke could see even from across the room that all of the doors were now guarded by hulking henchmen.

"You may know me, you may not," Baby Doll said. "But after tonight, you'll know this: when you come to Gotham, you'd better up your security!"

"What do we do?" Duke whispered.

"Not much we can do," Jason said grimly, running a finger in a circle around his eyes for a moment.

Right. No masks. They were civilians at the moment.

"Maybe somebody can slip out?" Duke said.

"Or in," Cass said.

"Bruce!" Duke said hopefully. "Maybe that's why he got caught up, he's-"

"Ladies, gentlemen, esteemed guests in the audience," Baby Doll continued gleefully. "Get a taste of my world!"

And with that, she raised one glowing fist in the air and smashed it down through the glass and into the invention inside.

Light pierced the air, shooting out from the invention, blasting all around the room, heading straight for-

"Duke! Duke!"

Duke opened his eyes. A fancy ceiling looked down at him from his spot on the floor, and a young-ish girl leaned over him, still calling his name. Groaning, he asked, "What?"

Then he froze, memories rushing back in. Hurrying to sit up, Duke stared at the girl who stared back at him.

"Duke, good," the girl said, sounding relieved.

"How do you know-" Duke began, then he paused at the sound of his own voice, so different from what it had been what felt like just a moment again. "What happened? Why- I don't- I'm-"

"Look," the girl said, handing him a phone.

Automatically, Duke accepted it, looking down at it, brushing his sleeve up his arm when it fell across the screen like it was too big for him suddenly. "Why are you showing me some old video of me as-"

Oh.

OH.

"That's not an old video, is it?" Duke asked, looking down at the real-time image of himself but about six or seven years younger.

"Not a video," the girl said solemnly.

Duke looked at her and squinted. "...Cass?"

The vaguely-familiar girl smiled and offered him a hand.

Pulling himself up and noting with surprise that Cass was currently taller than him, Duke looked around a now much-less-crowded event center. "How long was I out?"

"Maybe fifteen minutes," Cass said. "Me too. Woke up five minutes ago."

"Where'd everybody go?" Duke asked, gesturing to the sparse residents of the room.

"Not all affected," Cass said, pulling him by the hand toward a small group of people lying on the floor as Duke barely managed not to trip on his too-big clothes. "Police took them. We wait together."

"Together," Duke repeated. "But-"

"No 'buts,'" a boy called from the group Cass was pulling Duke toward, the only one of the group who was sitting up. "Shut up and sit down, Duke."

Duke blinked. The face was only vaguely familiar, and so was the voice, but the tone and the words rang a bell firmly. "Jason?"

"You've guessed it, you win a prize," Jason said dryly. "Here's your prize: waiting in this stupid room until the police department figures out if the un-aging thing is contagious or not."

"Oh," Duke said, sitting next to him. He looked at the other three people in the group, all three of them lying down and looking pretty unconscious, all three of them kids… And all three of them vaguely familiar in the same way Jason and Cass were.

Duke pointed at the smallest of the three. "Damian?"

"As far as we can tell when he's not awake and threatening bodily harm," Jason said.

"Tim?" Duke asked, pointing at the next person, who was larger than Damian by a good bit but not as big as the third one. Then Duke squinted. "Wait, no. Is that Dick?"

"Dick, I think," Jason said, kicking a little at the second person's leg.

"So then that's Tim," Duke said, pointing at the biggest of three who were lying down. "He's smaller than me, and he's bigger than Dick."

"And Cass is bigger than either of us," Jason pointed out.

Cass started to smile. "I'm a big sister."

That shouldn't have been funny. They were in a really weird situation, turned into children, and a really unfortunate situation, unable to do anything about it as civilians. And yet, it was funny.

Duke's lips twitched. Then he snorted. Then he started laughing, choking out, "Oh man, you're really the big sister now! You're the biggest of us all!"

"So big!" Cass exclaimed, grinning.

"You're both lunatics," Jason said, shaking his head, but he was chuckling too. "Did whatever this is turn us into a bunch of chuckleheads too, plus turning us into kids?"

"We're kids," Duke said. "It's weird. Weird stuff is funny to kids."

"We're kids," Jason repeated, then he said it again, slowly and with emphasis, like the horror was finally dawning on him. "We're kids. Oh no. What are we going to do?"


AN: I hope you've enjoyed this first chapter! This was just the set-up, and there are a lot of interesting situations on their way, so let me know what you think of it!