"Are we there yet?" Dick asked, squirming in his booster seat next to Damian's own ridiculous car seat contraption.
"Not yet," Father said without even looking up from his phone.
"Why not?" Damian said. "We have been riding in this vehicle for far too long. I thought we were meant to return to Wayne Manor."
"We are returning to Wayne Manor," Father said.
"Then why must it take so long?" Damian huffed. He crossed his arms in front of his chest as best he could with the awful straps of the car seat in his way.
"It's not taking that long," Tim objected.
"It's taking too long," Damian said with emphasis.
"It's taking forever," Dick sighed in agreement. "We've been in here forever."
"Chill," Jason said. "The only reason it feels like it's taking forever is because you keep whining about it taking forever."
"No, it feels like it's taking forever because it really is taking forever," Dick countered.
"Is it taking forever?" Duke asked thoughtfully. "I don't know how far away Wayne Manor is, exactly, but I doubt it's forever away."
"But we are still driving!" Damian complained.
"We're still not there yet!" Dick agreed.
That's when the vehicle's engine turned off.
"Oh," Dick said in surprise. "We're here."
Cass and Jason unbuckled and piled out of the car as Father opened the doors for them, and Tim, Duke, and Dick were not far behind them.
As they all rushed towards the doors of the manor, Damian fought with the straps still enclosing him. "Wait! Wait up!"
"Don't worry, Damian," Father said. He hovered nearby for a moment, studying the car seat, then pressed on a few pieces of the straps.
Gratefully, the straps then released. Damian hopped to the floor of the car and strode over to the door before leaping out of the car and racing after his siblings, most of whom were already at the manor doors. "Wait for me!"
"Come on!" Dick called back to him.
Just as Damian reached the manor doors, those same doors swung open, and not by the hands of any of the pseudo-children gathering there.
"Hey there, kids!" Steph crowed gleefully. "Come on in, make yourselves at home!"
"This is already our home, Brown," Damian said, rolling his eyes and stepping forward.
"Yeah, but now it's your returning-to-childhood home," Steph said. She reached down and tried to pat him on the head.
Damian swatted her hand away.
Unperturbed, Steph moved along the line to the next child, which happened to be Tim. She ruffled his hair enthusiastically, bending down a little to reach better and noting, "Wow, you're all so tiny."
"But I'm not as tiny as Damian," Tim said proudly.
Damian scowled at Tim.
Tim didn't seem to notice, waving a hand between his own head and Dick's head. "Plus, I'm taller than Dick! Look! Isn't that cool?"
"Cool," Steph said, nodding approvingly.
"Is Barbara here already too?" Father asked as he and Alfred made their way up to the manor doors.
"Babs is here?" Dick asked excitedly.
"Sure is," Steph said. "B said we'd need to make a plan together on what to do next."
Steph said it casually, but something about it made Damian tense up. "What do you mean about a plan?"
Steph paused. She glanced over at Father.
"Let's discuss this inside," Father suggested awkwardly, ushering them all in.
As soon as the doors were shut behind them all, Damian repeated, "What do you mean about a plan?"
"A plan for however long it takes some of us to catch Baby Doll and return everything to normal," Father said carefully.
Damian did not untense. If anything, he tensed more. There was something off about that sentence.
"Some of us," Jason repeated suspiciously. "Why don't I like the sound of that?"
"Because it means not all of us," Tim said, evidently putting the pieces together. "Because it means B is benching us as kids."
"What?" Dick protested loudest as everyone else gave their own sounds of protest. "B, no! You can't!"
"Sorry," Father said, not looking sorry at all. "But none of you were vigilantes at these ages the first time around. I can't be certain how you'd do on the streets now."
"I was doing fine on the streets by myself at this age the first time!" Jason protested.
"And I was already training by the time I could walk!" Damian added fervently.
Cass said nothing, but she pointed at herself and raised her eyebrows.
"None of you were vigilantes," Father said again, more firmly this time. "The other circumstances of your lives of when you were children before, those I unfortunately can't control. But right now, that I can control. There will be no de-aged vigilantes leaving the Cave."
Steph sighed. "Yeah, it's gonna be so boring patrolling basically on my own."
Tim swung around toward her, looking betrayed. "You still get to go?"
"Well, yeah. I wasn't de-aged," Steph bragged.
"That's not fair," Tim pouted. "That's not fair at all."
"It's not fair!" Damian agreed angrily. "Father, you must let us prove ourselves and return to the fight!"
"No," Father said. "This is the final decision. None of you will be doing any vigilante work until you are your regular age."
"But that could take forever!" Dick exclaimed, and Damian realized with a startle that Dick appeared not angry but genuinely broken-hearted about this.
"It won't take forever," Father promised.
"It could," Dick said miserably.
"It won't," Father said. "I'll get this figured out. You'll all be back to normal in no time."
"But how are you going to do it all alone?" Duke asked.
"You'll need help," Tim agreed. "Maybe one or two of us could go out with you at a time? Or maybe all of us could, if we-"
"None of you are going out as vigilantes," Father said, beginning to sound frazzled. "I already said that. I'll call in some favors: Kate, Luke, whoever else I need to talk to. None of you are going out as vigilantes."
Jason groaned. "This is the number one worst thing that's ever happened to me."
"Seriously?" Duke asked.
Jason paused. "Okay, probably not. But it's up there."
Duke sighed. "Yeah, I think so too. I mean, what's going to happen next? How are we going to do what we normally do?"
"You won't be doing what you normally do," Steph said unhelpfully. "Because you won't be acting as vigilantes. You'll be having well-child check-ups and social worker visits and stuff."
"We'll be having what now?" Jason asked.
"Stephanie, I was going to get them used to the idea slowly," Father sighed.
Steph shrugged, unrepentant.
"We'll be having what now?" Jason repeated, voice going more shrill by the second.
"It was determined that everyone affected by the combination of the invention and Baby Doll's new abilities would need to have a check-up from a doctor and a visit from a social worker," Father said, sounding a bit sorry this time. "They'll be here before supper."
"Well, that'll suck," Duke said brightly. Then he stopped and appeared shaken. "Okay, so, I just tried to peek into the future and see how bad it'll really be? And, uh? I couldn't? So? That's a thing? I'm worried and that's a thing, apparently? My powers aren't working?"
"Of course they aren't working," Damian huffed. "You didn't have metahuman abilities when you were nine originally, did you?"
Duke paused. "No, I guess not. Yeah. I didn't."
"So you wouldn't be able to access them now," Damian said.
"That makes sense," Dick said, patting Duke's arm. "Nothing to worry about."
Duke looked unconvinced and more than a little worried.
Jason slung an arm around Duke's shoulders and started walking forward, pulling Duke along with him. "Yeah, nothing to worry about. Now come on, I'm hungry, so we should go eat a late lunch. What do you think we're gonna have? I'm betting on-"
Jason's voice trailed off as he and Duke went down the hall.
"I'm hungry too," Tim announced. "Anybody else?"
"Starving," Dick said.
"Definitely starving," Steph agreed.
"Let's eat," Cass decided.
"To the dining room with all of you, then," Alfred said, striding forward. Tim, Dick, Steph, and Cass followed him eagerly. That left Damian and Father.
Damian looked up, considering his father's face.
Father was staring after the others, a strange, stressed, yet soft expression about him.
Damian took a tentative step closer to him, thinking many thoughts, ranging from dark to light. Eventually, he settled upon a single, light thought. "Father? I have a question."
"Of course," Father said immediately.
"You stated that none of us are going out as vigilantes until we are our proper ages," Damian said.
Father nodded firmly. "Yes. That's my one big new rule. No going out as vigilantes."
"So we are okay to stay in as vigilantes, then," Damian said swiftly, grinning widely. "We can train and work on cases and run the communications in the Cave. Wonderful! I will inform the others!"
The brief glimpse Damian caught of Father's face, as Damian turned and began to run after his siblings, was that of an expression of pure alarm.