A Basket Full of Bats

Food Fight

There was something of a blow up in the house when Catwoman's intentions became clear. Terry grabbed Jason, Cassie and Damien and dragged them down to the Batcave.

"Get changed. We've got a mission. Umm... In Japan," spoke Terry. It was still dark in Japan and Terry had been working there before getting called home so he had a relationship with the police force there and he could throw mini-vigilantes at some of the gang problems for a few hours.

Tim came trudging down the stairs.

"You too?" asked Terry pushing back his bangs. Four was a lot of Bat kids to manage. Thankfully it was Wednesday and Carrie had Girl Scouts.

Tim nodded.

The Zeta beam activated announcing Martian Manhunter. Everyone looked over. The martian floated down the last few inches to the floor and morphed into his Dr. Jon Jones persona. With everyone staring at him questioningly, he softly explained that he was going to babysit while everyone calmly discussed the current problem.

"Calmly?" repeated Damien incredulous. "Yeah, half the household is hiding in the basement because everyone is calm." Thankfully no one was in masks yet. The Justice League didn't know all the kids were in on the night work.

"We're going to the beach!" declared Terry with an very artificial and flustered smile on his face and one hand discretely linking Alfred on his communicator. "Put your swimsuits and towels on and take a duffle bag of essentials! We'll Zeta to somewhere with sand!"

"I'm not building sandcastles and squishing toes in the sand," protested Jason grumpily. He wanted to go kick some butt. Terry said they were going...

Cassie grinned a rather creepy grin and kicked Jason in the shin because he was being dense.

J'onn looked suspicious. "How has everyone been?" He asked conversationally. He understood that Bruce was up to his eyeballs in some sort of big issue upstairs but if all the rest of his kids were planning some kind of trouble?

Tim pushed his glasses up. "Stephanie had her baby. It was a healthy baby girl, 8 lbs 2 oz. She had a full head of hair too, strawberry blond. She had brown eyes. The adoption was lined up months ago. They seem like a nice couple: desperate for a baby, nice backgrounds, stable jobs that sort of thing. Bruce did a really thorough background check."

The bat lift came down with a load of swimsuits and towels. Everyone scattered then came back in a few moments dressed in swimsuits, with towels round necks and very heavy looking duffle bags.

Cassie still grinning creepily waved goodbye as she stepped into the Zeta. The Zeta flashed four more times and J'onn floated upstairs thinking he'd better let Bruce know his kids were almost certainly up to no good.

Furious, concerned, frustrated, desperate, grieving, frightened... ugh! J'onn put up stronger shielding then went to relieve the nurse and doctors so that everyone could go somewhere and sit down and talk. Richard was crying. J'onn suspected the little one's frantic upset was the only reason everyone wasn't yelling at each other at the moment.

"Take this out of the nursery please," ordered J'onn.

Stephanie, a mystery woman in a head scarf and dark glasses, Bruce, Alfred, the pediatrician and nurse and Dr. Thompson (Leslie) filed out of the room like a dark and furious storm cloud. J'onn made sure the sound insulated door was closed behind them.

J'onn opened himself to Richard and sent him a wave of comfort and calm. Oh, you think your sucking thing will help? Here it is. No I'm sorry, I can't pick you up. I'm not warm like they are.

^ᴕ^

Selina had asked Stephanie to breastfeed Richard. The old fashioned term was nursemaid. Not only wasn't Selina producing enough milk but the colostrum content was too low. The overall quality of the milk was not good. Formula however, would have been worse. The complex proteins in breast milk, not to mention the immune system boosting antibodies, breast milk was a far superior option to formula.