Distracting Birb! Part 28
*throws this and runs* Masterpost
“So what did you find out?” Tim asked as he spun around. He was at the computer, of course, and looked most of the way to villainy backlit by the large screens.
(Dick loved his little brother, but villainy really wouldn’t be the most surprising outcome for Tim.)
“What makes you think we found anything?” Jason answered, just to be impertinent.
Tim rolled his eyes. “You wouldn’t have called us all down to the Cave if you didn’t have anything.”
Jason scoffed. “You underestimate how willing I am to waste your time.”
“Boys,” Cass said calmly, ending the growing argument with just that word.
“Duke still out on patrol?” Dick asked as a distraction.
Tim glanced over his shoulder and back at the screen. “On his way back. He’ll be here in fifteenish.”
Best not to wait in case Danny woke, Dick decided. They’d be sure to fill him in. “Okay. Well, Danny was not lying, he has a lot of plants.”
“Dick managed to turn on the watering system. We’re all very proud of him,” Jason said flatly.
The siblings all golf clapped, which Dick took a dramatic bow to. “Thank you, thank you. Otherwise a pretty normal apartment. Comfortable, a little nerdy, and not fussy.”
Jason nodded. “There’s a hero—not sure if someone real or fictional—that we saw a few times. Someone called Phantom.”
Obliging, Dick sent the photo of the mug from the bathroom up onto one of the screens. Tim spun back to the computer and started searching.
“There were also a lot of medication in his cabinet; vitamins and several prescriptions also. Some of them had weird labels.”
“Damn, Dick, you couldn’t have gotten a clearer photo?” Tim asked as he squinted at the new set of images.
“As much as I hate to defend Dick,” Jason said as he added photos of his own to the screen, ‘that is a clear photo. Danny was writing in the same language along with English in a bedside notebook of his.”
“Are you in need of glasses, Drake?” Damian asked as he looked from the photos to Tim with a judgmental brow raised.
Tim flicked him off, which Dick considered telling Tim off for (Damian had enough bad habits), but was actually curious about this. “No. The text looks glitched out.’
“No,” Damian said slowly and with a scowl, “it is clear. Odd, but clear.”
“Cass?” Dick asked.
She moved a step closer to the television, head tilted. There was a long, quiet moment before she lifted her hand a gave a so-so motion.
Tim looked from her, to Damian, to the screens. “…Dick?”
“So that’s the thing, it looks wrong to me too. If I look at it too long it’s like it gives me a headache. Jason can read it though.”
Jason snorted. “That’s taking it a bit far. I feel like I should be able to read it. I can get a word here or there maybe.”
“Like it whispers,” Damian said, the quiet words oddly poetic for the youngest of them.
“…yeah, like it whispers,” Jason agreed, just as softly.
“Right, okay. Freaky language that only some of us can even see, much less read, and those who can have spent a lot of time in or around the league,” Tim said. “How concerned do we need to be able this? To we need to be concerned about this? I feel like we need to be concerned about this.”
None of them had an easy answer for Tim.
All of them were grateful for the roar of Duke’s bike interrupting the conversation as he pulled into the cave.
“What are you all looking some grim about?” Duke asked. He yanked his helmet off and took a deep breath, like he hadn’t been able to breath in hours.
It was a feeling they all got. Even a good patrol was draining and Duke had been actively on follow up over what had gone down today with the Mad Hatter. Dick tossed a towel Duke’s way and went to grab a drink for the other from the food safe fridge.
“Stuff from Danny’s place. Take a look at the screen,” Jason said.
“Danny? I thought that we liked the guy,” Duke said, accepting the drink with a grateful thank you. He drained half of it his the way to the screens. “Shit, that’s a lot of meds.”
“Take a closer look,” Jason said, though not unkindly.
Duke stepped closer to the screen.
And went alarmingly still.
Dick resisted the instinctual urge to reach out and grab him. “Duke?”
Duke gave an answering hum and turned his head, just slightly, towards Dick. His eyes never left the screen. Dick wasn’t sure if Duke had really heard him. It was Jason who ended up acting, ended up listening to that instinct. He stepped between Duke and the screen, blocking their newest brother’s view. Duke sucked in a sharp, startled breath.
“What?”
“Hey, come on, have a seat,” Jason said and guided Duke backwards into one of the chairs at the table.
Tim swiftly cleared the photos from the screen.
Duke shook his head. “Sorry, man, I don’t know what… that, huh. What did those look like to you all?”
“Magenta tinted pill bottles with different levels of medication in them,” Tim replied calmly. “Dick and I can’t read what’s printed on them. Damian, Jason, and maybe Cass can a little which means it might be League writing of some sort.”
Dick leaned against the table. “What did you see, Duke?”
“Magenta tinted pill bottles with something in them. Like whatever it was my powers were weird about it. I’d have to see them in person to know anything about why, I guess, but they were… I don’t know. But whatever that stuff was I don’t think it’s League because I don’t think it’s human. I don’t think it’s earthly.”
“Well, fuck,” Dick said with a sigh.
He wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.
