You're gonna be sooo haunted

Chapter 5

Duke was still relatively new to the whole vigilante thing. He'd come to understand that along with the dark alleys and disturbing crimes came an unrelenting sense of paranoia.

The boy was no stranger to the occasional chill down his spine. His hair standing on end, or seeing a figure out of the corner of his eye was a common occurrence.

Despite his skill when it comes to perception, he still hadn't been able to figure out what exactly was going on with Tim.

Over the past few weeks, Duke had been noticing things about his brother that were... off, to say the least.

The bats had said that it would take time for Tim to get better. That he needed time to process what he was feeling.

The first few days had been the worst, with Tim barely leaving his room except for coffee and the occasional meal.

Then, things started to change.

It was small differences at first. Red Robin going out for hours without telling anyone, his comms occasionally cutting out or going completely silent for lengths of time.

If any of the other bats had noticed, they didn't say anything. Maybe this was just his way of coping.

It wasn't until late one night, after a particularly rough patrol, that Duke's suspicions were confirmed to be warranted.

He had made his way down to the kitchen, hoping to grab a snack before sleeping off his wounds.

Not bothering to turn on the lights, pushed open the door to the manor's kitchen.

Duke wasn't surprised to be met with the sight of light spilling out of the fridge, silhouetting one of his siblings.

"Better hurry up with whatever you're getting. You know how Alfred gets when we mess around in his kitchen."

Just as he finished his sentence, the other boy turned to face him. Duke took a step back.

The boy that stood in the litchen with him, bathed in pale light, was not one of his brothers. He was definitely batdoption bait, with his black hair and blue eyes, but when the flickering flow from single fridge lightbulb hit his eyes, they reflected back like a cat's.

Not to mention the fact that Duke seemed to be able to see partially through him.

"Who-" Duke started.

"Nobody's going to believe you," the boy said, fading quickly out of view and disappearing.

Duke tried to focus, hoping to use his powers to find him. He was met with nothing but an empty room and a still-open fridge.

All the juice boxes were gone.

------

Tim rubbed his temples, trying his best not to raise his voice.

"You're telling me... that you were found out... because you wanted some damn juice boxes?"

"Strawberry kiwi, man," Danny replied from his seat on the floor, a pile of juiceboxes in his lap.

"How did this even happen? I thought other people couldn't see you if you didn't want them to?"

"It's not like I did it on purpose! Sometimes, it's hard to tell whether im visible or not. Besides, I think it was the meta. You said he could see ghosts sometimes."

"That doesn't mean you should GIVE him the opportunity to see you. You could have just asked me to get you some juice," Tim sighed.

"But you were sleeping so peacefully... I didn't want to wake you the one time you actually got to sleep."