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The horror story started when Dick couldn't babysit. Bruce had had an emergency call to the watch tower while Alfred was on vacation. That would have been fine, except Dick got called away on business too. This left the next person in the line of babysitter duty. Jason. He had tried to find someone else to takeover, but Barbara was out on business, Selina couldn't be contacted, and everyone else who could have done it were gone too. Jason knew. He had checked everyone's files on the batcomputer for even a sliver of trustworthiness and tried to contact them. No, go.
Apparently Dick hadn't worried about that when he had abandoned Jason with the children, saying that he was "The next oldest!" And, "Tottaly capable!" Now both Duke and Damian were in his charge, along with Cass and Tim if they decided to stop by. Yay.
The fire alarm started blaring and Jason sent another SOS to Roy. Then jumped up from the couch to go put the fire out.
"Please don't let anyone be on fire! Pleasedon'tletanyonebeonfire!" Jason ran to where the sound was coming from, running down the bedroom hallway, than reversing direction when he realized it wasn't coming from there and instead one of the drawing rooms. Jason threw open the door and then the windows, letting the smoke out as the sounds of Damian and Tim bickering broke through. Along with the background sobbing of Duke.
"What the #$%! happened here!" Jason grabbed the fire extinguisher in the corner of the room spraying what probably was a science experiment before it blew up. Tim and Damian stared guiltily back at him, their own argument paused for a fraction of a second.
"Drake tried to do my science experiment for me!"
"You asked for h-"
"He said that I was incapable!"
"I said that I had more exper-"
"And then he #$@%^&! ruined it!"
"DON'T SWEAR!"
"Todd swears all the time!"
"Well YOU sprayed PAINT THINNER at a BUNSEN BURNER!"
"You #$%%&^! WHAT!" Jason at that moment considered hiding in a blanket and calling his dad with the emergency bat-phone to come down from space and let him go back to his safe house. This was a $#@%^&# bloodbath and he $@##$! hated babysitting. He shakily took a deep breath.
"Tim, what are you doing here." Jason had no energy, how did Alfred do this?
"My business meeting was canceled so I thought I would come finish some cases here." Tim shrugged nonchalantly then quickly pushed the spray bottle of paint thinner away from one of the still burning fires. Then patted the fire out with his shoe.
"Mmhm, I- okay." He could do this. He COULD do this! Yeah, he literally worked in crime ally on a daily basis, and these were his SIBLINGS! He could do this.
"Tim, could you clean this up while I-"
"What! No! This is Damian's mess! I am not cleaning it up! I don't have to listen to you!"
"You started it Drake! I was only-"
"SHUT UP! Will you just all shut up!" Jason felt the pit rising up in him and accidentally let out a sob.
"I- I'm so-sorry J-Jason. Wh-what can I d-do to help." Duke, in the corner still, picked himself up and went to grab the fire extinguisher from Jason.
"N-no, no. Duke... no. It's okay. I just... Tim? Can I talk to you? I just... give me a moment."
His breathing was rough and he hated himself for it. He was just babysitting, so why was he so worked up!? Tim followed him out of the room and into the hallway, looking chastised for once.
He took a few breaths to stop his stuttering. "Dick left." It was all he could get out as he tried to explain to Tim.
"What do you mean? What is going on Jason!?"
"I-" Jason had to grab on to a decrative table to stop himself from passing out, ٪#$! was he really having a panic attack just from babysitting!
"Jason?"
"Al-Alfred's not here. And, and B had to go to the Watch Tower." He took deep breaths, going through a few of B's grounding techniques.
He centered himself, taking a deep hard breath to bring his prefrontal cortex back online.
"Tim. I am the designated adult at the manor today and I need you to listen to me. I am in charge. I need you to help clean up the mess in that room, now."
Tim looked at him for a second, and a curious gleam came to his eyes. He listened though. "I- Fine."
Jason smiled as Tim walked back into the room with the fire.
"Thanks, Replacement." Tim just nodded back.
Jason took time to just breathe for a second, bringing his breath into a more normal rhythm, before he followed Tim into the room.
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Jason nearly cried when Bruce came back from the Watch Tower, slamming into the man in a Dick like hug the second he came through the Zeta tube.
"Do not ever leave me to babysit ever again, or I SWEAR! I will never call you dad again."
Across the cave an echoey and indignant cry of, "You were babysitting me!" was heard.
Batman just laughed. "You didn't burn down the house did you?"
Jason threw a smoke bomb and ran for his bike.