Chapter Text
Chapter One
Bruce tried to conceal his smirk as he and the rest of the League listened to Barry tell them about something that happened that day on the police station. Two years after Steppenwolf was defeated, the League had found a rhythm.
During the days of the week, each one followed with his life and his responsibilities. At weekends, they would gather to train, compare cases and try to find individuals similar to them to expand the League. Bruce could not deny that, for all his initial fears, it was good to be part of a team and have constant company and reinforcement when necessary.
“So, will we be talking to Green Arrow this weekend?” asked Barry while they walked to the cave, the place where they usually went to talk business.
"Yes, I made an appointment with him for tomorrow night" Bruce answered as he was typing the code to open the secret door to access the cave.
"Wait, did you make a date with him like Bruce Wayne?" Clark asked with a frown on his face "So when you said that you knew who Green Arrow was, you mean you two know each other?"
"Yes, even if I’m certain that he has-” and Bruce stopped talking as Clark put a hand on his chest to prevent him from descending the rest of the stairs.
"We're not alone," Clark whispered as he began to float lightly up the stairs and adjusted his posture to look more like Superman than Clark Kent.
"How many?" Diana asked with her hand already going to the bag where it held the lasso.
"I can count seven heartbeats," Clark replied as he closed his eyes and concentrated.
"What will we do?" Victor asked, already in a fighting stance.
"I don’t know if you guys already notice this, but we're all in our civil identities," Barry began to speak quickly.
"If they're waiting for us here, they already know who we are, Barry," Bruce commented, starting down the stairs again, even more carefully. Being quickly accompanied by Diana and Clark, with Victor and Barry last.
As they reached the last few steps, four metal blurs appeared whistling through the air and stopping at the feet of the League members, with the exception of Bruce.
Bruce needed little more than a quick glance to recognize a version similar to his batarangs.
"Dick?" Bruce intonated in a volume just above a whisper and the shadows began to move until seven people with different superheroes outfits appeared.
"Long time no see, old man" One of them, with a red masked, snarked.
"Jason" Bruce complied with clenched jaw.
“Father, we need your help” one of the lowest commented. Bruce looked at them with narrowed eyes for any sign of injury and when he did not find any, heaved a little sight.
"Can we sit down?" He commented pointing to a long table in which the League usually gathered. Not everyone would be able to sit down, but it was better than the current situation where both groups looked at each other as if they were going to fight.
Not expecting an answer, Bruce headed for the table sitting on one end, the rest of the League followed his example; Diana sat on his left side, with Victor on her side and Clark sat on his right side with Barry on his side.
After a few seconds of hesitation, the others began to sit down too. Standing only the boy Bruce had referred to as Jason and one of the girls, in Batman-like clothing and long blond hair.
"What happened?" growled Bruce, automatically taking on the mantle of Batman, not Bruce or Brucie Wayne.
"Just over a month ago, I started investigating a case about three women who seemed to fund a number of criminal organizations in Bludhaven." Dick, who sat opposite Batman, began to tell "Initially, it did not look like there was anything strange there, but then Barbs and me came to discover that these three women were metahumans"
"Honestly, we do not even know if metahuman is the right term," the girl in Batman-like red-haired clothing commented, "from what we've found, they have some sort of magic or very advanced science that they can use in a group of their clients and that make them younger .Literally, their body returns to be equal to years ago"
"We tried to capture them a few times as much as Richard Grayson and Barbara Gordon, as Nightwing and Batgirl, without much success," continued Dick. "So I got in touch with the rest to explain the situation and ask for their help. We spent a week setting a trap"
"The truth is ..." Tim began to speak for the first time "that we don’t remember much of what happened after we confronted them. The original idea was to attack them in their apartment ... but as soon as they arrived, we attacked ... "
"We woke hours later, with an echo of the voice of those freaks in our head" sneered Stephanie
"An echo?" Bruce interrupted for the first time since they started telling the story.
"Warning that since we seemed so interested in their powers, we were going to fall back fifteen years," Tim reported with his distant gaze as if he was remembering at the moment, blinking then and looking at Batman as he pulled out his cowl. "At first, we we did not take it very seriously, but ... some effects started to appear "
Clark glanced over at Bruce to see his hands contract and relax and heard a quick intake of air. He turned to Diana to see that she was watching Bruce worried.
Until then, she and Clark were letting Bruce and his wards handle the situation, but both could not deny their concern or fail to realize that Victor and Barry were almost vibrating with curiosity about the situation and the new people at the table.
"Um ... Except for Bruce, I do not think anyone here really knew you personally. I mean, I remember when you were adopted because that made news almost all over the country, millionaire Bruce Wayne adopts one more and all, but I I can not tell you exactly how much younger you look, "Barry said quickly looking from Bruce to the boy he now knew to be Tim Drake.
"By our calculations, we're three years younger," commented Richard Grayson.
"And this happens out of nowhere?" Clark asked after a brief silence and when Bruce looked like he was not going to do anything more than observe them.
"So far, I've obeyed the 24 hour rule, the last time was six hours ago. No matter what we're doing, we fall asleep being unable to resist and wake up younger"
"And you know how to find them again?"
"No, when we woke up the first time, it was the first thing we tried to do, but we did not succeed, they do not seem to be going to any of their usual places"
"Do you think they would be able to reverse this?" asked Victor gravely.
"We don’t hav-”
"As far as I know," Jason interrupted irritably. "We're here to call for help from Batman, Dick, after you've insisted a lot, not the his new little group of friends"
"Jason, please," Dick said wearily.
"He's right," Damian arrogantly backed up before turning to Bruce. "Father, will you help us?"
"Of course, Damian," Bruce replied, staring at his youngest son.
"Drake has all the information we have saved and available," Damian continued, and Tim slid a pen drive down the table that Bruce picked up and, after turning his pen drive with an intense look of concentration, handed it to Victor.
"WHAT THE HE-"
"Enough!" Bruce snapped, interrupting the scream of Stephanie, Jason and Damian. "I will do everything to help, and I trust the League. You have asked for my help, then things will happen on my terms"
"I knew it was not a good idea to ask for help from a control freak like you-"
"Jason, please" Dick asked low "Bruce, thank you. After everything that happened, we were not sure if-"
"I'll always help you" growled Bruce. "Introduce yourself and we can rest until the time that Alfred will serve dinner. Then we’ll decide the details on how we will proceed.”
"Details? What details?" Asked Stephanie
"At dinner time," Bruce said, and hears a brief moment of silence before Barbara smiles.
"My name is Barbara Gordon, and my alias is Batgirl"
"Call me Dick, or, you know, Nightwing"
"My name is Tim Drake, nice to meet you.Today I'm known as Red Robin"
"tt, Damian Wayne"
"Call me Steph," one of the girls commented as Tim prodded her "And this is Cassandra"
"Jason Todd"
"It's nice to meet you. I'm-" Barry started smiling.
"We know who you are," Damian said aggressively. "After you started walking with Father both in your civil identities and in secret identities, it became obvious. Only an idiot not to find out"
With that said, he rose and headed toward the mansion. One by one the others followed them, even though Dick had looked apologetic to the others and especially Bruce and Cassandra had stopped by Bruce to give him a quick kiss on the forehead before following them.
As soon as everyone had left and only the League remained on the table, Barry glanced quickly at Bruce.
"They do not seem to like us very much"
"You're not the problem," Bruce admitted in a low tone of voice. "We have not talked to each other for three years. They have come for help because they are desperate and none of them deals well with being powerless in a situation. "
"How do you want to deal with it?" asked Clark, because no matter what his personal opinions were, this situation was first familiar and not a League affair.
"If you are willing to help, I would like Cyborg to analyze the information they have brought in by tomorrow, so we can come up with a strategy for how to identify and find these women." Bruce explained ignoring the quick nods and demonstrations of support they gave “Today we need to think where they want to stay and what they want to do while we try to solve this; and how they want to proceed if this is not reversible "
"They're your children, are not they? I mean, most of them? Would not they be staying ..." Barry slowed down in front of the glare that Bruce addressed him "here?"
"As I said, we didn't end on a good note" Bruce said dryly as he got up "It's better that we rest a little until dinner."
Barry and Victor looked at each other as Bruce left the cave, followed quickly by Diana and Clark.