Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

HeroWatch News @HeroWatch ✓

BREAKING: Justice League assassinated during press conference by unknown sniper. Main article [here]. #HeroWatch #BreakingNews #JusticeLeague

HeroWatch News @HeroWatch ✓

UPDATE: 11 out of 14 Justice Leaguers confirmed DOA, 3 confirmed alive and critical. Main article [here]. #HeroWatch #JusticeLeague

HeroWatch News @HeroWatch ✓

UPDATE: Batman, Flash and Green Lantern “alive but not expected to wake in the near future”. Main article [here]. #HeroWatch #JusticeLeague

Skylar(he/him) @skysthelimit

@HeroWatch This was not what I was expecting to see on my timeline today.

yip yip @lorithefox

@skysthelimit I don’t think literally anyone was. #Herofall caught everyone by surprise.

coffee is my goddess @sleeplessinphiladelphia

@HeroWatch Just watched the #Herofall footage, and dear god, those poor kids.  

it’s going just swimmingly @deepdarkblue

@HeroWatch The tiny #Herofall detail that shows exactly how scary this sniper is- Flash was the seventh to get shot, and the sniper hit him after he started running. I don’t know how that works, but I am scared.

chirp chirp @RobinOfficial ✓

Update on #Herofall- we're still reviewing the evidence, but so far we have several major suspects, all of them assassins for hire or mercenaries. The real question- who hired them, and how did they get enough information to pull this off?  #JusticeLeague #TheSidekicksAreStillKicking

dance til ya drop @DanceMafioso

@RobinOfficial The press conference was pre-scheduled and open-air, though?

chirp chirp @RobinOfficial ✓

@DanceMafioso Red Tornado was shot in his power core, even though it’s not where a human’s heart is. They disrupted Green Lantern’s shields before firing the kill shot. They tranquilized Flash with a drug specifically designed to work on him before they actually shot him. It wasn’t just shooting Superman with kryptonite, they determined the best way to take out every Justice Leaguer with a conventional firearm and then did it.

dance til ya drop @DanceMafioso

@RobinOfficial Okay, that makes the question of how one sniper managed to take out the entire Justice League at once a lot easier to answer. 

chirp chirp @RobinOfficial ✓

Update on #Herofall- We now have our suspect- Birdseye. An assassin whose signature is killing people in incredibly improbable ways is not a good person to mess with, but we’re still going to bring them to justice. #JusticeLeague #TheSidekicksAreStillKicking

frognado alert @princess_amphibia

@RobinOfficial I know I’m probably going to regret asking, but…exactly how improbable are we talking?

chirp chirp @RobinOfficial ✓

@princess_amphibia In-person kills always use a seemingly harmless object that belongs to the victim that somehow produces horror-movie-level gibbing and sniper kills are always done with a small-caliber pistol at sniper rifle ranges. We suspect metahuman powers.

mixtape monster @jujubekid

@RobinOfficial no duh, they’re deffo a metahuman if they managed to take out the League!!!

Chapter Text

Barry wakes up in a hospital room- one that is obviously not one of the ones in the Watchtower’s medbay, even with his pounding headache and blurred vision.

His body aches with every movement, which is probably at least partially because there’s tubes and wires connected to several places on his arms and torso.

And most importantly, he’s not wearing his costume, or even a mask- just a backless patient gown.

His most recent memories are hectic, with Bruce being shot in the chest in the middle of his speech, shortly followed by the rest of the League. Strangely enough, he hadn’t felt the bullets coming beyond a vague ripple of motion around the platform- even though he definitely should have felt objects moving so quickly so close to him.

And he knows Hal is a casualty. Barry had been standing next to Hal- close enough to see Hal’s terrified expression as he processed the hole in his chest and feel the motion of the bullet itself punching through his flesh. 

He’d also felt Diana’s death, but he wasn’t looking at her at the time, and they weren’t nearly as close.

Barry curls up as best as he can with the tubes connected to his body, and sobs into his hands. Eventually, a nurse finds him.

“Can you tell me-” she starts.

“No, I’m…I’m not really fine, but I’m definitely not panicking.” Barry interrupts. “What’s with all of the tubes?”

The nurse nods. “The tubes are because you’ve been in a coma. It is currently the 24th of May, 2013.”

“What?” Two years. Two years and nine months. I’ve been unconscious for years.

“The bullet you were shot with contained a drug which appears to have been tailored to your biology, causing long-term sedation and paralysis. Mr Allen-”

“How do you know my name?”

“A few days after you were shot, Robin, as Acting Leader of the Justice League, ordered that the surviving members of the Justice League could be unmasked in order to facilitate long-term medical treatment and visitation by civilian relatives.” Well…that’s reasonable. Unexpected, but reasonable.

“Members- plural?”

“Yes. Both Batman and Green Lantern survived-”

“Hal’s alive?”

“He is.” The nurse checks what looks like a patient file on her phone. “Mr Jordan is currently in a coma, but has been showing signs of limited consciousness recently. Now, please be aware that that’s not a guarantee he’ll ever wake up, or that he will wake soon, since we don’t have enough data on this particular condition to know how much your healing factor and altered biology affects things.”

“...Can I visit him?”

The nurse flicks through Hal’s file further. “I believe you can, yes. It would depend on how much independent mobility you have, though given your healing factor, it’s unlikely that walking would be out of your current capabilities. We’d also have to disconnect you from life support first, which will take about half an hour.”

“Okay.” Barry pauses. “Can I have some actual clothes?”

“We have some in storage, yes.”

Hal is unnaturally still, with a half dozen different pieces of medical equipment hooked up to him. If not for the fact that he’s breathing faintly on his own and the regular beeping of the heart monitor at his bedside, Barry would have thought he was dead.

Barry pushes the cheap hospital chair up to Hal’s bedside, careful not to disconnect any of the machinery.

Gently, he grabs Hal’s hand and twines their fingers together. It’s limp and cool to the touch, though still warm enough to belong to a living human.

“I’m so sorry, Hal.” Barry whispers.

Surprisingly, that gets a reaction. It’s nothing more than a momentary twitch of a single finger, barely noticeable even with speedsense, but it’s enough to prove that Hal can hear him. (Probably.)

“Yeah, I know I’m an idiot, I really shouldn’t be sorry for something out of my control.”

Hal doesn’t react this time, but Barry continues anyway, rambling about a dozen different things and receiving a few more twitches in response.

Eventually, a nurse, a different one from the first, comes to fetch him. “Unfortunately, you have to leave now, sir. Visiting hours are over.”

Barry sighs and gives Hal’s hand one last squeeze. “Love you.”

It’s hard to sleep that night. It’s always been hard for him to sleep properly after getting his powers- he always wakes up after about fifteen minutes, unless he’s very tired, then can’t get back to sleep for another few hours. 

But this time, he can’t even get to sleep initially. It’s one thing to see the corpse of a stranger- it’s another thing entirely to sense the deaths of your closest friends and see your boyfriend get shot in front of you, all in a matter of seconds, and then wake up three years later in a hospital with nothing familiar.

Eventually, he’s exhausted enough that he falls asleep anyway, but he’s pretty sure he only slept for about an hour and a half.

When he wakes up, there’s someone sitting by his bedside. It takes a few seconds for Barry to place their face- after all, the last time he saw them, Bart was a tiny prepubescent ten-year-old, not the tall, muscular thirteen-year-old they are now.

“...Bart?”

“Hi, Uncle Barry.” Bart smiles. “I missed you.”

“Where’s Wally?”

Bart flinches, the smile on their face falling. “…I don’t think you want to know.” He’s dead, then.

“What about Iris?”

“Alive, but currently in Witness Protection.” Bart sighs tiredly. “Too many death threats, several of which got followed up on.”

“...How are you doing?”

“Fine, I guess.” Bart says, tone flat.

“You don’t look fine. You look like you’ve been to hell and back.”

“Yeah, I know.” Bart huffs. “I’ve been a superhero since I was eleven. Mundane crime never stops, even if the supervillains do.”

“You’re…” They’re a kid! Who let an eleven-year-old be a superhero?!

Bart’s hand blurs through the air before coming back to rest on their lap. “Flash II.” Well, that’s not the question I wanted answered, and that also raises so many more questions.

“Did you-” Barry starts.

“No, I didn’t copy Wally’s experiment. They just activated on their own.” 

“...Why super speed, then?” 

“Well, there’s been a bit of research done, and apparently people can have the potential for powers, but not specific powers. What powers someone actually gets are based on environmental factors, and one of the strongest influences is contact with an existing metahuman.” Bart is a lot more animated now, a lot closer to their normal self. (Well, as Barry knows them.) “And you’re my uncle, so it makes sense that I’d have a version of your powers. Combine that with being so close physically to Wally when…” 

Bart freezes, then coughs and begins talking again. “Anyway. I have super speed because I was exposed to two people with super speed for a good chunk of my childhood. It didn’t really matter how they activated, they were probably going to end up at least similar to yours.”

“You’re still a child, Bart.”

“I know I’m only thirteen physically. Can’t we just leave that aside?” Bart’s phone chimes, and they sigh as they read whatever message was just sent to them. “Sorry, Uncle Barry. I’ve gotta go now- a League meeting just got called.”

“Can’t someone else handle it?”

Bart gives Barry a dry look. “The last time I left an all-hands meeting unsupervised, we had to replace half the building and pay about $120,000 in hospital bills after an all-out brawl started.”

“...What?! How?!”

“I’m sorry, what else did you think was going to happen when you cram thirty-odd supervillains into one room and expect them to get along? I really have to go now, bye!”

“Supervillains?!” Barry shrieks. Bart doesn’t answer- they've already left the room, and are likely halfway to the meeting site by now.

Chapter Text

Over the last twelve hours, Dick has done a number of very exhausting things.

He’s become the (admittedly only Acting) Leader of the Justice League thanks to the pre-arranged order of succession.

He yelled at hospital workers for thirty minutes in order to keep them from unmasking Barry or Bruce(Hal was fine- his domino mask wasn’t really an issue for medical care and wasn’t connected to the rest of his costume).

He’s dealt with a media shitstorm(why becoming the leader of the Justice League doesn’t automatically give you access to the official Justice League social media accounts, he doesn’t know, but at least he hasn’t lost his gift for puns).

He’s helped arrange ten funerals(staying far, far away from anything to do with Aquaman- Kaldur can deal with being de jure King of Atlantis on his own, Dick has his own fish to fry).

He’s arranged for Bruce Wayne to “go on a jungle expedition” and “get horrifically lost”(a rather difficult endeavor when Bruce is unavailable and Dick is working off of a written contingency plan not designed to account for the near-simultaneous death of the entire Justice League)

And finally, he investigated every possible culprit for the murders(Why does the League of Shadows have to have so many members?!) and pored over every relevant file he could find, until Alfred kicked him off the Batcomputer.

Now that he’s found a culprit, dealt with all of the immediately pressing problems and finally gotten a chance to sleep(and sob into his pillow because why is he not allowed to have a father? whyyy?) , he doesn’t really know what to do with himself. 

Doing casework is more likely to send him into hysterics than produce any constructive result, going on patrol when exhausted and grieving is a recipe for disaster(not to mention that Alfred has put a blanket ban on any cape activities), Gotham is currently on the brink of a riot and going out as a civilian is thus not an option, and school is still out for the year.

Which is when he gets a text from Bart.

unofficial sidekick sidekick: hey 

unofficial sidekick sidekick: are you free

no. 1 bird: absolutely

no. 1 bird: why?

unofficial sidekick sidekick: i have snacks and drinks and no one to eat them with

no. 1 bird: what about wally?

unofficial sidekick sidekick: hes been fighting criminals for a while

unofficial sidekick sidekick: havent seen him since he left

unofficial sidekick sidekick: but the news and flitter are blowing up

no. 1 bird: so 

no. 1 bird: do i come to you

unofficial sidekick sidekick: yep

no. 1 bird: or you come to me?

no. 1 bird: nvm

no. 1 bird: zetaing to 4th street now

unofficial sidekick sidekick: yay!

Bart answers the front door alone, a few seconds after the doorbell rings.

“Where are your parents?” Dick asks.

“Dad’s at work, and Mom left a few hours ago for something.” Bart sighs. “I’m pretty sure she forgot I live here- she didn’t tell me she was leaving. ”

“That sucks.” Dick tosses his shoes vaguely in the direction of the shoe rack and lets Bart lead him into the house.

“I know! And my birthday’s tomorrow, too.” 

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah.” Bart sighs and gestures to the three half-empty bags of chips on the kitchen counter. “So, do you want all dressed, cheddar bacon or sour cream and onion?”

“What kind of flavor is cheddar bacon?”

“How dare you besmirch the name of cheddar bacon chips!” Bart gasps overdramatically, pretending to clutch imaginary pearls. “They’re awesome!”

“Okay, I have to try them, then. Gimme a bowl.”

Bart grabs a large plastic bowl from a cabinet and tosses it at Dick’s head. “Here you go!”

“Hey, I said gimme a bowl, not toss a bowl at me!” Dick complains, pouring himself a serving of cheddar bacon chips.

“You still caught it, didn’t you?” Bart points out, then waves a hand in the general direction of the fridge. “There’s cola and orange soda in the fridge, take as much as you want.”

“Thanks for coming over, Dad.” Bart says, barely glancing at Dick as they flop onto the couch.

Dick splutters. “I’m only three years older than you! And you’re ten!”

Bart freezes. “I…I…please…please don’t take that-that the wrong way!” they stammer, eyes wide with fear. “You-you’re not my d…dad, okay? I’m…I’m sorry!”

Dick knows that Rudy West hasn’t always been the best father- Wally and Bart complain about him all the time. 

Still, there’s no reason for Bart to be so terrified of a simple joking slip. 

“It’s fine. You can call me your dad if you want.” Dick assures, softening his voice.

Bart stares, face shifting through a dozen emotions rapidly.

“...I can’t.” They curl into a ball, pressing their face into their legs and shaking. “I want to, but I…I can’t. I can’t.”

“Why?” Dick can’t help but ask.

“Because you’ll end up dead. You will.” Bart sobs. “I killed Barry. I’ll kill you too.”

Okay, Bart is a lot more messed up than Dick thought they were. He should probably deal with that.

…He has no idea how to deal with that. How do you comfort a ten-year-old who blames themself for their father figure’s death, especially as a thirteen-year-old who may also be blaming himself for his own father figure’s death?

(They’re not dead- they’re just in comas, Dick reminds himself. They’re not dead, he thinks, carefully leaving out the yet.)

Tentatively, Dick sits down next to Bart and wraps an arm around their shoulder. Bart’s breath hitches, but they lean into the touch and squirm a little closer.

“...I don’t want you to die.” they whisper.

“I won’t.” Dick promises.

“You will. The League’s already dead, and there’s only one way this can end now.” Bart whispers ominously. “And it’s all because of him. He broke it. ”

“...Broke what?” Dick asks. There’s an uneasy feeling in his gut.

“Everything. He killed them, killed the people who are supposed to live and left shells of hope and fakery behind.” Bart laughs, a haunting, broken sound. “I can’t see anything but ash and dust and blood ahead, aeons upon aeons of suffering and loneliness in the ruins of what could have been. He doesn’t even know what he’s done. He doesn’t even care. He can’t.”

“Who is…he?” Dick prods, deciding to focus on the most pressing element of that highly concerning rant.

Bart glances nervously around, hands curling and uncurling. “...Wally.”

Chapter Text

“What?!” Dick shouts, barely hearing his own voice. Wally couldn’t have…even if he didn’t really like the rest of the League, he loved Barry and Hal. They were like fathers to him. He couldn’t have.

“Think about it for a few seconds. Who were the three survivors?” Bart cuts in. “Oh, that’s right- Flash, Green Lantern and Batman. His uncles and his best friend’s father.”

“No-” Dick gasps.

“Just look over the evidence- every other kill was instant and precise- and involved no drugs. Birdseye could have killed them if he tried, but he didn’t. He just sedated them. Intentionally.”

“He can’t have! He’s…”

“A speedster. Please, Dick. Forget he’s your best friend, forget he’s my brother. Just consider this as a hypothetical contingency. How easy would it be for someone with superspeed, the ability to sense motion and trajectory and access to JL servers to kill everyone with firearms?” 

“He’s a hero!” Dick shouts. Honestly, he’s trying to convince himself more than Bart. “He wouldn’t!”

“Of course.” Bart sighs, sounding extremely exhausted. “Should have known you wouldn’t believe me. After all, there’s only two types of seer- the ones who are believed, and the ones whose advice is helpful and explanatory.”

That jars Dick out of his mental loop. “You’re a seer?”

“Yes. Did my little breakdown earlier not spell that out plain as day?” Bart snaps. “Seriously, are you Robin or not?”

“How?” Dick asks, mind racing.

“I’m Wally’s sibling, aren’t I? Super speed isn’t actually that far removed from prophecy when you think about it. Super speed allows you to do things before anyone else can register what happened. Prophecy allows you to see things before they happen.” Bart huffs. “And both are connected to time and fate. Touch the strings without knowing where they go or how they connect, see the strings and the tapestry but not be able to touch them.”

“Okay, but you never had a manifestation? At least as far as I remembered?” 

“In what world do you think prophetic visions would have an explosive and highly visible manifestation?!” Bart spits. “Even if I completely screwed up while I was still adjusting to all of the future knowledge, all that would have happened is a psychiatric appointment and a schizophrenia diagnosis!”

“Why didn’t you tell someone?” Dick asks. It seems like the best way out.

Bart takes several deep breaths, squeezing their eyes shut.

“...I’m only able to tell you because Wally took the script Fate had written and decided to kill two-thirds of the main characters without caring what happened to the story.” Bart admits. “Reality is broken.”

“Uh, exactly how is it broken? Reality seems to be working just fine…”

“There’s a MeTube video that will come out in a few years, where someone tries their best to alienate and kill as many people as possible in a playthrough of the Mass Effect trilogy. By the time they get to Mass Effect 3, so many people are dead that the game’s plot barely makes sense and the game is constantly panicking in an attempt to salvage the remnants of a coherent storyline and gameplay loop.” Bart explains. “That’s basically what happened to the timeline when the Justice League got murdered.”

Dick blinks. “What does that mean, though?”

“Well, for one, I can’t accurately predict the future anymore. It’s not even that there’s too many options to sort through- it’s that most of my future visions still assume that people who are currently dead and in comas are alive. And the ones that take into account the deaths aren’t any more accurate or detailed than mundane detective work.”

Dick considers that for a few seconds. “...Well, shoot. What are we supposed to do now?”

“Well, that’s the thing. They’re as accurate as amateur detective work, because I’m getting incomplete data about a specific future and having to extrapolate.” Bart pauses, glancing at something only they can see. “For example, in one specific future where Hal Jordan is murdered on August 10th, 2010 as a civilian, Barry Allen falls into depression, then apparently drowns himself in Coast City’s harbor on October 12th, 2010.” 

“Really?” Dick raises an eyebrow. “You couldn’t have picked a less depressing example?”

“No.  I tried to pick a useful example that wasn’t actually that bad, but important people dying tends to make a timeline depressing and the only currently useful timelines are the ones where someone important is dead.” Bart huffs. “Anyway, if I poke at that future a little bit, I can get a few additional pieces of data, like the fact that October 12th was the date of his wedding anniversary to Hal and that his body was never found, just his clothes and phone sitting on a pier- but unlike with a normal vision, I don’t actually know that he committed suicide because the anniversary reminded him of Hal’s murder, it’s just the best explanation based on the information I have available.”

“So what you’re saying is that you’re going to throw information at me and let an actual detective put the pieces together.” Dick summarizes, shelving his extreme concern for Bart’s mental health.

“Exactly.” Bart pauses. “...We should probably do this somewhere with computer access. Like Mount Justice.”

Bart absolutely wasn’t lying when they said Hal being murdered and Barry committing suicide two months later was actually one of the least depressing timelines. 

Dick gets why they sound so haunted and exhausted now- just the summarized and clinical verbal descriptions of the more twisted timelines are probably going to give Dick nightmares, and the way Bart describes things implies that they’re not getting objective data, but living through the memories of people in those potential timelines.

When Dick brings that possibility up, Bart just looks at him blankly for several seconds, their hands twitching.

“...You’re absolutely right. They are alternate-timeline memories, not just visions.” Bart eventually whispers. “But really, you should stop poking.”

“Why?” Dick asks.

“It’s not just reading the police reports and eavesdropping on the Leaguers when the news breaks. It’s also killing people- quite a lot of killing people. People I love.” Bart’s breath hitches. “The fact that I’m in a speedster’s body a lot of the time just makes it worse- feeling someone die with speedsense is a lot more visceral than just seeing and hearing them die.”

“...Oh.” Dick doesn’t really know what to say to that. Bart might not have actually done it, but Dick has the sneaking suspicion he remembers killing Barry- probably several times. 

“You know what? Let’s call it off here for today.” he decides. “I’ll do the rest of the work- you get some sleep.”

“That…that sounds good.” Bart takes a sip of orange soda and starts walking towards the zeta tube.

With a flash of white light, they’re gone.

Dick gasps and flails to catch himself as his ankles are suddenly swept out from under him.

With no more warning than a momentary flicker of motion in the corners of his vision, the heel of a boot catches him in the chest, knocking the breath from his lungs, cracking his ribs and flipping him onto his back.

Dick lashes out, fists meeting only air in the instant before gloved hands slam his skull into the floor, making his head ring with agony.

“I wish I didn’t have to do this, but sacrifices have to be made. Can’t break a loop without killing a few heroes.” A chuckle, awfully reminiscent of the Joker. “Shame. My brother really loved you.”

A flicker, and cold metal presses up against his temple- the barrel of a pistol. 

“I…trust…ed…you.” Dick gasps, wincing as he feels his splintered ribs tear through his lungs. “Why…?”

Dick’s head is yanked up to eye level, and he stares into emerald eyes and a sharp-toothed grin. “You were the most convenient domino.”

There’s a bang, and everything goes black.