Work Text:
“They weren’t on the planet at the time of the crisis”
He doesn’t really know who says that, it could have been the Flash, Martian Manhunter or hell, Booster Gold, but all he can do right now is try to portray a relaxed stance.
Dick’s eyes lock with the boy’s, the boy who presented himself as Red Robin.
He gulps visibly, the boy leaves his eyes off him to look at someone else.
Dick looks around and finds Orphan having a stare fight with Red Robin.
“It isn’t hard to believe that B has another one” a voice distracts him. He hums at her. “He even fits the theme” Barbara adds, and Dick only looks again at the new person.
Red suit, bird name and his eyes? The calculation that Dick can totally read on his eyes is all Bruce.
“He does, I even think he fits it better than we do”
Barbara hums. “We can’t all be goths who like to punch people around”
Dick chuckles. “We manage”
A shriek is heard around the room causing silence.
“Impulse” Superboy reprimands, Dick hasn’t been able to hear the guy’s voice for more than a second since Red Robin took charge in explaining and introducing themselves but for some reason it sounds familiar.
“Sorry! Didn’t mean to scare him, just wanted to meet the new Kid Flash” Impulse answers back, “it’s okay, you can keep the name, I prefer Impulse anyway”
Dick can’t hear what Kid Flash answers but he can read his lips and he’s sure the kid thanked him. He remembers when Impulse presented himself as Kid Flash and then decided on the spot to call him Impulse as soon as he saw their Kid Flash.
“We’ve been on a mission for the last six months in space, yes the three of us, Batman, how hard is it to count—?” Red Robin gets interrupted by the sound of what he thinks is a Zeta Tube, but Dick is pretty sure that there are none of them in this room, so what made that sound?
“That was low even for you Rob, and I mean low” a girl who appears to be wearing a shirt with Wonder Woman’s symbol suddenly shows up behind Red Robin. “Run”
“Code Alternate” he immediately says, not bothering to turn around.
The girl scowls. “What are you talking about? These are the correct coordinates, all of us checked them, you did it thrice”
“It’s Code Alternate but in our own universe, we are still trying to figure it out” Superboy finally says more than one word, and it begins to bother Dick how familiar his voice sounds, yeah, it’s similar to Clark’s voice, but there is something else...
The girl tenses. “Magic?”
“Already asked, it seems that there have been some changes in the timeline while we were away”
“You said three” Batman interrupts them.
Red smiles innocently. “I miscounted, it happens”
Batgirl next to him takes a deep breath, and he gets it, because that smile? It reminds him of his, back when he was newly fresh out of oven Robin and used to practice all his faces in front of a mirror.
Batman grunts at his answer.
Red ignores him and looks toward Impulse who is talking to Barry.
“What do you mean crisis?”
Barry stares at him. “This Earth has gone through some changes due to some time travel problems, there have been others causes but that’s the short explanation”
Superboy starts. “And since all these crisis happened while we were out of Earth”
Red continues. “We didn’t reboot or went through the changes with all of you, is that what I’m getting?”
“So what? The world wrote us out of it?” Bart asks while he is running around the room full of heroes.
“Well, I don’t see any other versions of us, but they could exist and not be involved with any heroes”
“No, they don’t exist” Red and Superboy say at the same time.
“How do you know that?” Superman finally talks.
He had stared at Superboy for a long time at first but it seems that he finally got a hold on himself, Dick wonders what made him react like that.
Red explains to Superman. “Is the first thing I did when I noticed the differences, I thought this was a different universe so I wanted to know how different, we simply don’t exist here, or at least not yet” he turns to look at his companion.
Superboy answers. “I can’t find any other heartbeats similar to theirs, sometimes in different universes they are the same or very similar, but there is neither of those in this universe”
“How can we be sure that they are from this Earth?” Wonderwoman walks up front, “they say they tried to go to their universe and ended up here, but it could be a malfunction, they could be missing from their own Earth, from their own families and friends”
“No” everyone turns to look at Flash, “I know them, I have very few memories of the past timelines, and the moment they arrived some of them came back and I’m still getting more, it happens everytime someone who remembers the first timeline appears”
Diana looks at Barry. “So you mean to tell us,” she steals a glance at the girl wearing her symbol, “that we were the ones missing them without knowing?”
Barry doesn’t answer her and instead looks at Impulse. “You are Bart, aren’t you?” Impulse looks at him. “You are my grandson”
Dick shares a glance with Wally who is standing next to Kid Flash.
Impulse (Bart?) doesn’t answer and only smiles at Barry.
Flash keeps looking at the four. “Kid Flash, Red Robin, Superboy and Wonder Girl”
Wonder Woman stills at the confirmation of the name.
“Young Just Us was the name you wanted when you were Wonder Girl, Superboy, Impulse and Robin”
Dick watches Bruce’s back still, it’s a miniscule movement but everyone who is a bat in this room notices it.
The new heroes groan while Impulse beams and nods.
“If you guys don’t remember that time then I don’t want any mention of it” Wonder Girl says jokingly.
“Why? You don’t want to remember when you used to wear a wig and goggles?” Superboy smirks.
“Please, don’t forget who was the one with the literal leather jacket and fake piercings” Red says.
“You should go back to wearing goggles! We could be twins” Impulse points at his goggles.
“Oh my god, who was the one who had an actual rebellious phase? If I remember correctly you even stole a whole Batmobile!” There’s a tilt to his voice, and Dick has the name on the tip of his tongue but he gets distracted by the last word.
Wonder Girl hums and ignores the other two. “They could be useful when I fly, lately my hair gets on my way”
“That happened after and let’s not even get into who had rebellious phases because we would never be over”
“All right, Robin” he says and he stands in a way that is clearly to portray he is playing along, just making jokes with his friends but—
In front of him Batman takes a deep breath and a few steps away from him Superman widens his eyes.
There’s something he is not catching, something he is missing from the interaction, but it doesn’t matter because even though he doesn’t have super hearing, he can read lips just fine.
So when Superman mutters. “Lex?” He finally gets who Superboy reminds him of.
“Thank you, Superboy”
“I thought for a moment you were going to do the Robin and Clone boy thing again” Impulse runs and stands between the two.
Wonder Girl follows where she is standing next to Red. “I thought so too”
“This was not a Robin and Clone boy situation.” Red states, “Anyway, I don’t think there’s anymore to be discussed and I’m not sure about you but I’m not planning on staying the night or another minute in here.”
And Dick gets it, while the Watchtower is one of the greatest buildings he has been to, it will never replicate what he feels when he finally falls asleep in his bed at the Manor.
“So unless you have another reason to keep us here…?” He asks and observes them.
“Where will you be staying?” Batman inquiries.
“Well, that’s for us to find out but if you really need to know, Gotham of course”
The rest of their team nod.
Gotham, uh?
Nightwing smiles at Red when they make eye contact, the other tilts his head, like a bird.
This will be interesting.
“Well, we should introduce ourselves to our new neighbors, shouldn’t we?” He nods to the rest of the bats while he walks upfront to their little group, Young Just Us, he thinks that’s the name Flash called them, or was it Young Justice?
Batgirl, Orphan and Robin follow behind him, the rest of the Bats being on patrol back in Gotham.
He smirks.
He can’t wait to go back home.