Chapter Text
Recap:
- Bruce and Oliver know that Talia has Tim. They went straight from fighting a ninja army in LexCorp tp going after him.
- the Hive, a bunch of street children from Gotham, are currently living in the Cave
- so is Ted Kord, who everyone thinks is dead
- Zach recently rescued Traci 13 and Black Alice from Shadowcrest and brought them to the Cave, before leaving to meet with the Titans.
- Giovanni is an asshole who mind controls people
- Superman ditched Oliver, Bruce, Azrael, Huntress and Man-Bat in their moment of need.
- YJ found out that the JL was mind controlled into killing the JSA. WW also knows about that
- Batwoman, with the help of Nightwing, has revealed the truth about the Bats to the whole JL.
- Damian is under a spell to look like Impulse
- Kon has wanted to talk to Supes about something for a while now.
- Babs had poison in her body threatening to kill her baby, and then she died.
- The Bats have been holding Cheshire captive since she found out about Damian
- Tim dreamt of his Other self was he was unconscious.
- Roy was last seen with the LoA, interrogating Tim
...
..
.
Sometimes, the simplest, dumbest plans were the best.
Bruce and Oliver were hiding behind a large rock on a hill overlooking one of the League of Assassins’ hideout. It was planted in the middle of the Atacama desert, Bruce had assured his fellow crime-fighter, a conclusion he’d apparently drawn from air humidity – or lack thereof – present flora, and the average size and weight of the pebbles they came across. Olivier had eyed him dubiously.
They had hitched a ride on Talia’s private plane as it left LexCorp’s helipad. Dressed in ninja garb, and armed with Bruce’s knowledge of LoA protocol, they had blended in perfectly with all the other mindless stooges Talia kept around her. Once the plane had landed a good thirty minute walk from the hideout, they had discreetly eclipsed themselves to the nearest rock, well aware they wouldn’t pass the mandatory security checks with the rest of the ninjas.
Night had already fallen, a pity. It made it hard to see the shiny new black eye Bruce was sporting, courtesy of Oliver keeping his promises.
“The problem is their alarm system,” Bruce was saying, “Every five guard carries a flare, so there’s no disabling it effic –“ the man suddenly paused, and let out a long suffering sigh. “What are you doing here.”
Clearly the question wasn’t addressed to Oliver.
Someone squeezed themselves between the two heroes, grabbing Oliver’s pair of binoculars right from his hand. Oliver hadn’t even noticed them approaching. But that wasn’t his main question. Upon seeing who it was, it couldn’t have been.
“What are we spying on?” Tim casually asked.
“Tim what the $#!t.”
The teenage girl was getting ready for bed when the emergency alarm started wailing. Everyone jumped out of their hammock at once, and the children of the Hive were suddenly buzzing with activity. It wasn’t the first emergency they’d faced, but the very same feeling of confusion and fright was ever so present. They knew what it could mean – armed invasion, like the one that had them move to the Cave in the first place.
They remembered it.
Possibly, they would never forget, not even if they tried.
Without being told anything, the children sleeping in her section of the Cave shuffled out in a hurry. All, except for the girl’s brother.
“Hey ‘Ron,” she shook him, “’Ron.”
Her brother didn’t wake. He was breathing, he was warm, but he wasn’t moving – and that was unlike him.
Fear gripped her heart.
“’Ron!”
The little boy suddenly shoved her, and she fell to the floor.
Slowly, tentatively he cracked an eye open.
He immediately retreated under his blanket with a hiss.
“’Ron?” She asked.
“Who – who are you?” He asked, “what are you doing here?”
“Who am I?” She repeated, horrified, “I – it’s me! Becky! Your sister!”
“You don’t look like her!”
Funny thing for a kid with his eyes clamped shut to say.
“How am I supposed to look like?”
“More… loud – I can’t – I can’t hear – and why are the lights so stupid bright?”
Becky looked around for any aberrant source of light, but the Cave was as it always was at night. Never completely obscure, but made navigable by dim hanging lightbulbs. They were purposely set to provide night lights for the kids sleeping around them, without disturbing those who preferred sleeping in the dark, a few strides away. Anyone could look directly at them.
Still, ‘Ron was clearly suffering, and there was nothing she could do to sooth his… sensory overload. She could go for the light switches, she knew where they were, but they didn’t have time, and it was dangerous.
“I’ll find an adult,” she promised, “just stay here. It’s dangerous – just stay, okay?”
“Batman,” he told her, “Find… Batman.”
“…Who?”
It was the wrong thing to say. It was so very clearly the wrong thing to say.
‘Ron stilled. His breath hitched.
He ran.
He ran – with his eyes closed, with his hands clamped over them.
Becky raced after him.
Full-sighted, with legs twice the height of his, yet ten steps behind.
She didn’t know how he was doing it. He turned when he needed to turn. He leaped over rocks and dodged stalactites like he was dancing. All without taking a peep. All while running.
Becky could barely keep up.
She called his name, tried to stop him even though she could not reach him – but her brother stayed deaf to her.
Children running the other way were zipping past them, some offering warnings about running away from danger. Becky didn’t pay them mind. She cared for her life, yes. She was terrified, yes. But any trouble in her life, any difficult moments, she’d gone through with her brother, and she wasn’t about to let him go now.
Unfortunately, ‘Ron was fast, ‘Ron was nimble, and ‘Ron was… tripping.
Over a stray blanket.
“’Ron!”
Becky finally caught him. She kneeled next to him, and grabbed his shirt with both her hands, balling as much cloth as she could in her tiny fists so he wouldn’t escape again.
“What is happening to you?”
Her brother’s behavior was much more concern for her than whatever new disaster had struck the Cave.
Right until she laid eyes on said disaster.
‘Ron had lead them to the ‘command’ room, where Harper, Plebe, and all the other grown ups liked to plan and discuss things. The whole place had been turned over, meticulous notes and plans strewn across the floor, desks and chairs broken and shattered. Three of the older kids – maybe seventeen or eighteen – were passed out. Or dead. Becky couldn’t tell. Becky didn’t want to think about it.
In the middle of it all, two girls. One was dressed all in black, with black pigtails, black lipstick, black combat boots, a black choker – Everything. Black. The other’s outfit stood out much less, but she made up for that with the huge staff she carried around. It looked like something from a fantasy adventure, all oak and twisty like a branch from a misbehaved tree.
Staff. Magic. There was a glowing circle on the ground. The two girls were chanting.
And in the middle, in a cloud of smoke, someone was forming.
A man.
With a top hat.
“Zachary?” Becky guessed in a murmur, remembering the boy that had stayed with them for a bit. They wore the same slacks, the same jacket, the same bowtie. It couldn’t be a coincidence. No one wore bowties.
Except this was a man, taller, larger.
Becky was yanked back into the tunnel that had led to this room. She was gently pinned to the wall.
“Shhh.”
It was Ted, with a finger on his lips. He looked dead serious, and that wasn’t a face she had ever seen him wear. Ted was, Ted was the cool teacher. The Cave’s fun uncle. Ted showed them how to make fairy lights and robots that threw grapes at anyone with an orange shirt.
He gestured for them to follow him away from the scene, and Becky dragged her brother along.
“Some of the other kids saw you two going this way,” he whispered, harshly, “what were you thinking? The emergency alarm is blaring!”
“Back there –” Becky started.
“I don’t know but I don’t care to find out until we’re all safe,” Ted growled, “Lori and Traci seemed to be under some kind of trance, and Giovanni is bad news if we’re to believe Zach and Bruce.” Then, as if remembering he wasn’t alone, “don’t worry midgets, I’ll get us out.”
“No,” ‘Ron corrected him, “I will.”
And then, like the horrible little brat he was, he ran off again.
“What is he doing?” Ted hissed, “And why is he covering his eyes?”
Becky threw her hands in the air, “Guess we die.”
And she followed him, ignoring Ted cursing a few steps behind her.
“This is the opposite way!”
And once more ‘Ron led them through a merry chase, up and down, and snaking through the tunnels of the Cave.
“No one’s ever been this far deep!” Ted continued complaining. “This is dangerous!”
“I am not half a foot tall!”
“There’s barely any light!”
“I think I’ll take my chances with the witches!”
Finally, fifteen complaints later, they stopped in front of a crevice. One of many. Be careful where you step had been the first words spoken on orientation day at the Cave. The large cavities were safe enough, but the tunnels between them were riddled with cracks and hole that seemed to be just waiting for a careless child to swallow.
This one was no exception. It looked hungry. Becky couldn’t see anything past the edge of the hole, and Becky wasn’t too sure of stepping where light didn’t reach.
“This way,” her brother beckoned.
“Does this even have a bottom?” Ted asked warily, out of breath. He had poor cardio for a man his age.
“It only looks deep.”
‘Ron jumped in.
Kon hung back as Cassie and Connor explained the situation to Wonder Woman. They were obviously leaving out a few things – namely everything about the secret room and what they had found in it – but the story they gave was solid and devoid of falsehoods. Zach and Tim had gone missing a few days back. They had come to LexCorp Tower on a hint from Talia Al Ghul that they were being held there. Bane had ambushed them. Superman had saved them. And from there on there was a lot of ninja brawl involved.
Then Oliver and Bruce had dumped a bunch of unconscious assassins on their hands for them to babysit, and Bart had gotten creative. Only, Bart had never actually seen the original statue of the three wise monkeys, and as such wasn’t sure in which order they were supposed to be. So, after a few trials and errors, Dami – er, Impulse got fed up, and bullied -- er, crococodile-teared Bart into letting her direct the project and –
“While your creative process is nothing short of interesting,” Wonder Woman sighed, “I was really asking more about everything else.”
“I didn’t know Impulse was into the arts. Quaint. I hear Superman has crayons in his fortress,” A man who had been accompanying Diana told them, amused. Diana had come with quite the army of superheroes, Kon could hear them fight ninjas all over, but the only ones with her at the moment were the Flash, Cadet, and this guy with kohl all over his eyes in the shape of a bat and a grey hoodie with blue highlights.
Nightwing, Kon deduced.
“I have a basement full of swords and I know exactly where to shove – I mean, sounds exciting!” Impulse Damian cheered, forcefully.
Nightwing choked a laugh.
Wonder Woman took pity on him, “We know about the Bats, Damian Wayne.”
Damian froze. His head turned around slowly towards Nightwing, who was still laughing under his breath.
“I told them everything,” Cadet explained.
“Batwoman,” Damian realized, and the woman nodded. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a homicide to commit.”
“Welp, nice knowing you guys.”
Nightwing and Damian disappeared in a blink. The distant sound of gnawing and yelping was of mild concern.
“You, I –” Cassie stuttered, “We didn’t mean to hide it from you. How did you know we, well, knew?”
“Wait, Young Justice knew? About the Bats? The whole dimensional swap thing?” the Flash gaped, “Since when?”
“Connor and Zachary,” Diana explained, “that’s why they trusted Wayne, isn’t it? It’s all right Cassandra, I’m sure you had your reasons, and in this story, I am not one to talk about keeping secrets and suspicions to oneself. We will need to discuss how much exactly does each know about what.”
The way she said it – the way it triggered a memory of what Young Justice had just seen – pushed fear to grip at Kon’s heart. Was Wonder Woman aware of…?
“You mentioned Superman,” Cadet interrupted, “Where is he?”
“Superman kinda just ditched us, actually,” Azrael piped in, having just stirred awake. He startled when he noticed Nemesis and Man-Bat propped against the wall with their eyes and mouths covered ominously. “What the –"
“Still as social as ever, I see,” the Flash sighed, “Still, we need him to locate Mrs Gordon-Kord in the building. Cadet told us she would need Dr. Midnight, whom we’ve brought with us to – where is he?”
“Superman?” Bart asked.
“No! Dr. Midnight – he was with us at the Watchtower!”
“So you don’t want Superman?”
“Well, yes, both would be good! Are you doing this on purpose, Kid Flash?”
As entertaining as listening to Bart annoy older heroes was, Kon was concerned. It wasn’t like Kal to ditch. He didn’t mingle with other heroes, but unknown to them, he was always there. A careful distance away, but there. Watching. Caring. A hand already half stretched out to help.
Secretly, Kon had always loved it back before he’d quit. He had been the only one who knew Kal was there, and there was no way Kal didn’t catch him looking straight at him. Kal allowed Kon to see him. They were the only moments he really felt like Superboy, where he felt privy to a side of Superman no one else on Earth knew existed. It was how he allowed himself to feel close to the man, feel like they were actually related in more than half a sequence of DNA.
This time however, he was nowhere to be seen.
Kon scanned the whole city, block by block, street by street. He listened for any flutter of cape and watched out for any misshapen bird or plane. With every sweep, he scanned lower and lower, until –
Was that –
“Oh,” he gasped, without meaning to.
No wonder he had ditched.
“Kon?” Cassie asked.
He turned to them, “I found Superman, I – I have to go.”
“Is it an emergency?” Wonder Woman, already looking quite beat up, tensed.
“No!” Kon assured her, “It’s fine, it’s – intimate.”
Kon was among the clouds before even waiting for an answer. He trusted his peers to have tact. They had all refused to dig into Superman’s life out of respect, and he knew they wouldn’t do so now. If superheroes understood something, it was how precious privacy was.
Kon landed at the hospital. He could have come flying through a window. He could have hovered his way there – there were no secrets to be had, not with the red ‘S’ on his shirt.
But he walked in.
The receptionist gave him a small nod towards the emergency ward, and he nodded back in appreciation. He knew what was waiting for him. He had seen it from the rumbles of LexCorp Tower. Still, it didn’t quite have the same effect as seeing it directly.
Kal was sitting there, looking titanesque over the small chair of the waiting room. Everyone else had scooted away to give him space. Scared, erroneously. He was hunched over himself, feet pulled back under the chair, and arms across his stomach. His cape, usually flying behind him like a valiant flag, was wrapped around his shoulders in the manner of a ratty old comfort blanket. Still, Superman could pop a head like it was bubble wrap, and that’s all a lot of people knew about him.
There was blood on his hands.
Kon glanced at how the procedure was going.
“Humans are amazing,” he said.
“Yeah,” Kal replied tiredly.
“You don’t look happy for someone who just saved a life,” Kon pointed out. The older Kryptonian was spilling on both his neighboring seats, but Kon still sat next to him.
He didn’t side-hug him, or even place an hand on his arm. He wasn’t sure what their boundaries were. Truth be told, they were practically strangers with how little they interacted.
“What kind of life did I save?” Kal grimaced, “both his parents are dead. One of them was a traitor who most probably caused the death of most of the JSA. I checked his family; a grandfather who barely has the means to support himself, and an uncle officially diagnosed as a psychopath. At best they’ll put him in the system but – Ted and Barbara had a lot of enemies.”
That, they did. All the bad guys hated them because Blue Beetle was a good guy and Gorgon was the main information broker for the League, and all the good guys would soon hate Barbara for what the Calculator and Luthor had cost them over the years.
Still, that was not all that weighted on Superman’s heart.
“Kon, I – I had to rip him out of her stomach.”
“I saw,” he replied. I saw the carcass, the blood you left behind, he had the tact to keep to himself.
“I could have left him there,” he continued, “no one had noticed he was still – I could have come a few seconds later and said there was no time. He has no future, and I, I’m forcing him to face that. I just couldn’t leave him.”
“This isn’t like you,” Kon frowned, “you’re the symbol of hope, Kal. You don’t just think things like that, you don’t –”
“We’re putting him in the phantom zone.”
“What?”
“The poison in his system – We have an antidote, but Dr. Midnight said we can’t administrate it with him being so weak from the… the way he was born. We’re putting him in the phantom zone in the meantime. It’s not looking like he’ll ever fully recover though. Pieter says he’ll more likely be a sickly child, a sickly adult, and then won’t live past thirty.”
A bleak future indeed. There were couples who aborted their child with better prospects. Kon was already impressed at how humans dealt with life considering how vulnerable they could be, but this child – this child was going to have to grow with the toughest skin on Earth, or perish to his own body.
“You’re feeling responsible towards him,” Kon realized.
“I can’t,” Kal grimaced, “I can’t do this to another child.”
Another child? Another – oh. Oh.
“I, I mean, I don’t mean to toot my horn, but I think I turned out fine,” Kon shrugged. He flexed his arm and grinned, “very fine.”
Superman snorted, and for the first time that day, dared to lock eyes with him.
“How do you not hate me, Kon?” Kal asked him fondly, “I left you at my parents’ house and cleaned my hands off any responsibility.”
“I could never hate you, Supes,” Kon told him sincerely, “I, gosh this is cheesy, but I – I’ve been wanting to tell you that for a while actually.”
Now Kal looked completely lost.
“The reason I came back in the first place was, well, this,” he waved at the air between the two of them, “when he came to drag me back, other Tim started rambling about a bunch of things, but what he said that really got me, was about not letting anyone else he cared about drift away from him. And, yeah, of course I thought about Tim and Bart and everyone else from YJ, but my first thought was about, well, you.”
“Me,” Kal repeated, unconvinced.
“I’m not asking you to be a father. You never asked for me, and I won’t ask for you. But, I don’t think you realise how much you’ve done for me.”
“I left you –”
“You gave me a name. Two names. Your names,” Kon cut in before Kal could depreciate himself further, “you gave me your family, your home. You – you had no obligation towards me, Kal. And what you did… your identity’s the greatest secret on Earth. Ma and Pa, they’re everything to you, and you’ve spent a lifetime protecting them, keeping a distance from them so no one could hurt them. But you still let me in. Me, an engineered being. Even after it turns out I was half Luthor you still let me – I was no one. A science experiment. A number. I was a clean slate, I could have gone both ways. And that risk you took with me, I think that’s why I didn’t.”
Had Kon practiced that in front of the mirror? Yes.
“We’d already fought side by side before, I trusted you,” Kal told him., “you’re a good kid.”
“We both know I wasn’t when we first met,” Kon reminded him, “I wasn’t thinking in terms of right and wrong. I just wanted to be you. I wanted to be loved and admired like you. I wanted what you had.”
“That’s not intrinsically evil,” Kal pointed out, “there’s nothing wrong with wanting fame, fortune or happiness.”
And it was amazing that Superman could say that while sitting down and looking up. He made it sound like an obvious conclusion, like common sense that was, unlike most of its instances, actually common. He made it sound like this wasn’t the reason he was regularly petitioned for sainthood. You’d imagine a halo popping up from behind his head, or perhaps his hand raised the way preachers and wisemen had theirs in paintings; yet all there was adorning his surroundings was a mustard plastic chair and a half-torn STD awareness poster.
We shouldn’t have to save the world to be allowed to live in it, Bart had said. People like them – metahumans, clones, anyone from strange, unnatural, unfavorable circumstances – It was the greatest irony that to integrate human society, they were denied the very traits that humans often distinguished themselves with in fiction.
Will. Mistakes. Emotions.
If they wanted, they were selfish and evil.
If they stumbled, they were a potential threat to be watched.
And if they felt, if they reacted with anything other than love and utter forgiveness, they were rabid animals to be put down.
Even superheroes had standards; fame-seekers were looked down upon, and many criticized those who used their powers for themselves, those who wouldn’t sacrifice their everything for the world.
And then there was Superman. A far cry from perfection, sure, but perhaps one of the rare people not to demand it from anyone.
“I…,” Kon gulped, “I want to drag you back. Back with your family. We missed you.”
“Kon, you barely know me—”
“When you were five,” Kon told him, “you had twins in your class. So you used to believe that siblings had to be born on the same day, and you threw a tater tot at your teacher when he disagreed. You continued throwing tater tots until she conceded she was wrong about her own birthday.”
“Er…”
“You followed your crush to Comedy summer camp in high school and now you can perform a mean twenty minute mime bit and it’s never come up in life and you don’t know what to do with that knowledge and you keep hoping it’ll somehow be useful one day against some supervillain so you’ll have an excuse to show it off."
“ER.”
“You bite Kit-Kats across the bars you absolute monster.”
Kal-El, the Superman, the being who had faced Darkseid, Brainiac, Mongul – everything in the realms of gods, monsters, and natural disasters, had a look of pure unfiltered horror on his face. There was mortified, and then there was spending your whole education trying to look suave in front of your crush and then realizing they’ve read your diary.
“I’ve been living with your parents for two years, Kal,” Kon reminded him coyly, “I’ve heard all the stories. Some of which, I will never be able to unhear and it haunts me. This isn’t some kind of hero worship. I know you. But you don’t know me.”
“I’m truly sorry.”
“No! No, don’t be. That’s why I came back. I want you in my life. I want to repay for everything you’ve given me, yes, but mostly, I just want us to, I don’t know, be closer. You know, like talk every once in a while, go watch a movie, be up to date when big things happen in one of our lives… And that takes effort. So I’m here to, uh, extend the first hand.”
Kon shoved the crumpled envelope he had been carrying in his pocket this whole time into Clark’s hands. “You don’t have to take it, but it would be dope if you could, but, like, no obligation. Also I’m running out of bravado and this is quickly becoming embarrassing so I’m just gonna –"
Clark caught his hand before he was even halfway through standing up.
“I’d love to come to your high school graduation, Kon. Thank you for inviting me.”
Nope. Nope nope nope. Kon was not going to cry like a six year old. Nuh-uh.
And then Kal stood and hugged him and if a tear rolled down his cheek then that was just the reader’s speculation, you have no proof, and if you did it would be good to remember kryptonians excel at incinerating things.
“Whatever happens with the baby, I’m here. I’ll help you.”
“I’ll need it.”
Someone sniffed.
It wasn’t either Kryptonian.
Kon and Kal awkwardly turned around to see the rest of the waiting room in tears, wiping their nose with handkerchiefs. An old man started clapping slowly.
“Oh my God, that was so beautiful,” Another man said.
“Good for you two!” His wife hooted. They were holding each other like a newly wed couple, but their wedding bands were already scratched by decades.
“When was the last time I spoke to my mom?” One of the middle-aged women wailed, getting her phone out.
Woah. Clark really couldn’t go anywhere without inspiring people.
“Ahem,” Dr. Midnite interrupted, a small bundle of a baby in his arm, “Sorry to interrupt, but…”
He was looking at the waiting room strangely, as if asking, all you had to was wait, how did you turn this into a sob-fest? What have you done to those people? How are you authorized to wander about without supervision?
“Of course,” Kal nodded, gently taking the child and wrapping him in his cape, “I’ll bring him to the Fortress right away.”
“He’ll need a name,” the Doctor pointed out.
“But both his parents are dead. Who’ll name him?”
Both Pieter and Kon were looking at him pointedly.
“No, no, no, I can’t,” Kal spluttered, “I’m, I need to go. Kon, with me?”
Kon beamed, “My pleasure!” Then, as Kal flew away, he turned to Dr. Midnite and whispered, “He’ll come around.”
“I know you know I can hear you, sidekick!”
Kon gasped. He shot after Kal.
“I am not your sidekick!”
“Mascot?”
Kon narrowed his eyes.
“Is that who you really are? Am I going to regret this?”
Superman smiled and turned to face his brother, “No. No, I’ll make sure you don’t.”
“Tim what the $#!t.”
“Hi, Roy got me out,” Tim explained, pointing his thumb behind them.
Roy was indeed standing there, arms crossed, looking at the two grown men crawling on the ground with his eyebrow raised.
“’Sup.”
“Roy? How did you – when did you –”
“I’m Checkmate, I have resources that tell me when my little brother gets kidnapped by international crime syndicates. Perks of the super spy lifestyle.”
“And does the super spy lifestyle provide means to get back to the Watchtower?” Bruce asked, already filing away the League of Assassins infiltration plan and drafting a new one.
God, Tim had missed Bruce.
He looked alright – ah, who was he kidding. Bruce looked like shit. Not the solid kind. Messy, underwhelming shit that had been stepped on and steamrolled over until it was pancaked all over the cracked sidewalk. Bruce was a patchwork of bruises and scars as he always was. Still, it was nowhere near as bad as how he was the last time Tim had seen him, back when Diana had almost killed him on the spot.
Besides, by the looks of him, Oliver Queen had just been through the same wringer. Tim briefly wondered if it was related to rescuing him. He was feeling a bit bad for all the effort they had put in it for, well, nothing.
Roy nodded. “My jet is parked behind that hill over there. We were walking to it when we noticed you geniuses making sand angels in the ground.”
“We were not –” Oliver started furiously.
“You two looked real cozy,” Roy smirked, like the little shit he could be.
The older archer grumbled, “This is what I get for mounting a $%#!ing rescue. Next time I’ll leave you all to rot.”
Then he set his eyes on Tim. He squinted.
Oliver grabbed the young man’s chin, and tilted his head to the right, then to the left. He pinched his cheeks once, twice, and then corrected a strand of his hair. He dusted his shoulders.
His eyes, his touches, they were hesitant, and colder than Tim had grown used to.
“You know,” Tim deduced.
“Yeah,” Oliver confirmed tiredly, “yeah, I know.”
“Great,” Roy sighed, “Everyone’s in the loop. Can we go now and Kumbaya later?”
Not great. It shouldn’t have mattered, but Tim had a hard time swallowing Oliver’s… sadness? Disappointment? He didn’t know what it was, but it was churning shame in his stomach. He felt like a child who should have gone to his parents for help eight problems ago, but who had insisted in hiding his mistakes and creating a ninth, then a tenth one. He felt like he had just kicked a puppy, or accused Superman of being a crook. He couldn’t meet the older man’s gaze.
They trudged back to the plane, which was where Roy had promised it would be. It was standard Checkmate issues, with a bit of camouflage tech. Nothing like Wonder Woman’s jet, of course, just a few mirror tricks, but enough that it was difficult to spot if one wasn’t focusing on it directly.
There was a high chance the League of Assassins was very well aware of its presence, though.
They climbed aboard, and Roy took the pilot’s seat. Oliver went for co-pilot. They also had some catching up to do, which left the two Bats some privacy at the back of the plane.
“Hey, Tim,” Bruce murmured as he sat down next to the teen and a wrapped his arm around his back. “Did they hurt you?”
“No. Roy wouldn’t let them. They listen to him somewhat. I… I messed up, Bruce,” Tim murmured back, unwilling to meet his eyes but leaning his head against the man’s chest all the same, “I messed up so bad.”
“That makes two of us.”
“I just, I didn’t think we’d be in this world for so long?” Tim rambled on, possibly trying to reason with himself, “I was so confident – I kept telling myself that these were not my friends, that they were all strangers, that this wasn’t real. I think I went a step too far. I didn’t just desensitise myself, I think I purposely acted against our friends’ counterparts.”
“I take it Arsenal did not, in fact, free you.”
“Pshh, Arsenal is an ally of the League of Assassins,” Tim revealed, “he’s not one of them, but he’s… like Superman is to you, you know? He doesn’t agree with their methods, but turns out Talia, Cheshire and Roy are, like, best buds in this world. I’m not joking. There are lines they won’t cross, but other than that, they’ll give each other a hand when in need.”
“Are you going to tell anyone?”
“Nah, I cut a deal with him,” Tim shook his head, “he’s not bad. He’s just… not good either. His family is on one side, and his friends on the other. I think he’s just a man trying to protect his world, even at the cost of other people’s, and honestly, his whole situation is impossible.”
If Tim sounded like he was pitying Roy, it’s because he was. For all his insight and genius, that was one thing Bruce would never understand. Bruce was very much the type to turn against his loved ones for his principles, and Roy was very much the type to cross any line for his loved ones – and that was where the thorny choker around his neck was growing from. There was no line to cross to save all the ones he loved. His enemies and allies were inseparable classes. However things would end, Roy could either die early, or he could save half his heart, by betraying the other. There was nothing to do about it.
With that in mind, it was admirable that the archer still worked so hard to keep the status quo. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, knowing it comes from the blazing flames of Hell, and still taking the next step with confidence… It reminded him of Batman.
Not that he’d ever say that to Bruce for fear of getting disowned.
“He won’t move against either leagues, but we were fair play, and we had Cheshire.”
“’had’?”
“Releasing Cheshire was clause one of the deal.”
“And clause two?”
“Stop involving the League of Assassins in this crap. Roy has spent his whole life trying to keep the two Leagues from clashing.”
“A neutral party,” Bruce sighed, “I hadn’t even considered it.”
Tim snorted, “Yeah, and you know you fucked up bad when neutral parties are going after you.”
Tim was surprised that Bruce wasn’t outright punishing himself. He’d expect the man to coldly shut down and boil from within, as he always did. Instead, Bruce looked tired, beaten, and spent, but strangely, at peace. It was like he was watching all his mistakes flow, instead of obsessively scooping them from the river and nailing them to his forehead to scrutinise every time he looked in a mirror.
In theory, it sounded good. In practice, Tim wasn’t so sure.
The string that had been holding him upright his whole life had snapped. He had finally fallen off the stage and stumbled to sit in the audience, like everyone else.
The younger Bat wanted to ask. He really did. Something must have happened, it was obvious.
Yet the thought of being caught up on everything that had happened while he had been held captive drained him. He didn’t want to know what new stones had been dumped on their plates. He didn’t want to know how many more people there was to rescue, and how many more to fight. He didn’t want to know which of his friends had been hurt, physically, or emotionally, or who was mad at who for what reason.
Just for a moment, he wanted to think of now. They’d forgive him, if for just one plane ride, Tim allowed himself not to be a good friend. If he pretended, just for a second, not to notice that there was something wrong with Batman. He’d ask Dick about it. Or maybe Steph, she was the one stuck with him the longest. Or maybe –
Seriously? Was he simply incapable of not planning ahead?
Besides, it wasn’t even true, was it? There was someone who’d know he was skiving his good guy duties. Other Tim was in his head, in his thoughts, and Tim wondered what he thought of them. He hadn’t taken in consideration Other Tim that much during his stay in this world, but now that he’d actually met him…
He was responsible for Other Tim’s body. He was responsible for not mussing up his life more than necessary.
“Tim,” Bruce broke the silence. He must have noticed him becoming increasingly more frustrated. “You did good.”
What.
“I did?”
“Do you know many seventeen year olds who would have kept their cool like you did?” Bruce asked him, “from what I understand, you did save Young Justice when you first came here. You’ve managed to keep Damian safe despite your shared past. Considering our situation, you were brave, and you tried your best to fix our problem.”
That mellowed Tim a bit. He allowed himself to smile.
“I think, like you, my memories of our world are a bit fuzzy where they stop,” Tim pointed out, “but since we’ve been here for almost two months, shouldn’t I be eighteen now?”
“According to Zachary Zatara,” Bruce informed him, “there’s a high chance we’ll be returned to our world the very second where our souls left. So, no. You’re not eighteen.”
“Damn,” Tim frowned, “feels like I’ve been seventeen forever.”
“You’ll take that as a blessing when you reach my age.”
“Ooh, playing the old man card now, are we?”
Tim wondered when the last time was that Bruce and him just had a conversation. He could think of one in the whole of the past year.
“Yes, and as an old man, I am therefore wise, so I can tell you with absolute confidence that you did better than anyone had the right to expect from you. I’m proud.”
That mellowed Tim a bit. He allowed himself to smile.
“You’re right. At least everyone’s alive.”
Tim did not like the way Bruce’s expression flipped to shut down.
“Ah. Tim. We need to talk.”