Chapter Text
Wally raced through the streets. He had last heard from Bart three hours ago, when he told him he would be on a mission with the other former members of young justice.
Dick informed him that he had gotten a distress signal from Tim, but now there was no sign of them anywhere.
Wally feared the worst. What if Bart and the others had been taken captive, or worse, dead?
Wally took a deep breath and ran faster. He wouldn’t let that happen; he couldn’t.
Once he got to the area they had last been seen in, Wally paused. It was a small alleyway, no one in sight.
That's when he heard sniffling. It sounded like a child crying. But too young to be one of the heroes.
Wally decided to check it out anyways, he couldn’t just leave a kid in need. And maybe they knew where Bart and the others were.
He passed some trash cans and found the kid. Or he should say kids. There were four of them, one dark haired one holding a knife looking menacingly at Wally, while the other three hid behind him.
A young girl with blond hair and a boy with red hair hid underneath a red cape, clearly belonging to Red Robin at one point. And the last boy wore a leather jacket that was far too big for him, on the side was the superman symbol.
“Stay away!” the boy in front yelled, he swiped the knife once in Wally’s direction, not particularly dangerous since Wally could take the knife from him in a second, but Wally could admit the kid had some courage.
But something in the eyes of the ginger kid in the back caught Wally’s attention. They were green, just like his own. Green just like Bart’s.
Pieces fell into place quickly, but Wally wanted to test this before taking them home. “Tim? Bart?”
The boy with the knife cocked his head, then recognition sparked in his eyes. “Flash? What are you doing here?”
Wally sighed, crouching down to meet Tim’s eyes. “I came to rescue you four.”
The four all soon settled down as they recognized Wally. Kon and Cassie climbed onto Wally’s back, while he scooped up both Tim and Bart. Bart’s crying, which had been the crying he heard earlier, finally settled as he rested against Wally’s chest.
As Wally began to walk slowly back to the zeta tube, he called Dick. “Nightwing, we have a situation, and you’re going to need to call the Kents and Ms. Sandsmark.”
Two hours later, Wally sat on the couch in the tower. Dick, Jason, Diana, Zatanna, and Martha Kent all sat on the couch watching the four play on the ground. Wally and Dick had managed to change them into some onesies they had lying around from merch sales.
“And we’re entirely certain it's them,” Jason asked, looking at baby Tim, who was building a tower with blocks that Kon looked like he wanted to knock over.
“We’ve done genetic testing, I’m sure,” Dick said, shaking his head. “And they look to be all four years old.”
Martha sighed, placing her head in her hands, “and I thought I was over raising kids.”
“Don’t worry,
Mrs. Kent,” Zatanna said, looking up from her spell work, “the spell should wear off in a week.”
“So we have to figure out what to do with four toddler heroes for a week,” Diana said, crossing her arms.
“Pretty much,” Dick said.
“We’re taking Bart back to the apartment, I think it’d probably be best for them to be in familiar places,” Wally said, looking down at the young speedster. He was wearing a small batman onesie, and was running circles around the other kids. Wally couldn’t wait for his speedster energy to run out and Bart to crash.
“I think we should take Tim too!” Dick said, grinning. He was already taking numerous photos of all the youngsters. “I mean since Bruce won’t be coming back from his off-world mission anytime soon.”
“No,” Wally said, glaring at Dick. “I called Jason for a reason.”
“You’re giving me my replacement! Not cool dude,” Jason said, throwing his hands in the air.
“But he’s so cute!” Dick said.
“And do you need another child on top of the superpowered child we already have?”
Dick sighed, “probably not.”
“Well this was fun and all,” Diana said, standing up. “But it's rather late, and the children need their sleep. I’ll take Cassie back to her mother’s for the night and we’ll figure out the arrangement from there.”
“Sounds good,” Martha said, standing up as well. “We’ll take Kon home, and set him up in his old room.”
“I guess we’ll figure something out with Tim,” Jason said, scooping him off the ground. “Lian’s going to like having him around at least.”
“So that leaves us and Bart,” Dick said, sighing and picking up Bart. He was already starting to nod off. “If either of you need any money regarding the kids just let us know, Bruce won’t mind covering the charges.”
Wally stifled a laugh. Sure Bruce was sharing with Dick and the rest of his kids, but with random members of the league, he could be slightly stingy.
“We’ll keep that in mind!” Jason said, talking to the zeta tube, Tim still in hand.
Soon they were all alone in the room. Wally sagged back onto the couch. “It’s going to be a long week isn’t it?”
Dick sat down next to Wally, placing Bart in his lap. “Sure, but you always did say you wanted baby photos of Bart didn’t you.”
Wally sighed, giving Dick a dry look. “This was not how I imagined we would be getting Bart’s baby photos.”
“Wally?” Bart asked, looking up at him. His voice was so soft and innocent, that Wally couldn’t stay frustrated for long.
“Come here Bart,” he said, wrapping him in his arms. “We’ll take you home.”
Jason wasn’t having a good day to say the least. He had been in the middle of a stakeout when Wally called asking him to come to the tower. Jason had figured it was some kind of emergency since Wally never called Jason, so he abandoned his post calling Roy to finish the job for him.
But instead of someone dying Jason got stuck with taking care of his younger brother, and not even the one he got along with. If this had been baby Damien, Jason would be having a blast. He had already helped raise the young assassin and it would be a piece of cake. But Tim, nope Jason had no idea what to do with the kid.
He couldn’t exactly go back out on the stakeout now. Tim would most definitely make some kind of noise and their cover would be blown. Damn kid.
So it left Jason one option, go home and try to figure out what they’re going to do for the week.
As he walked home, Jason quickly texted Roy letting him know everything was alright, and he would be heading home. Roy sent back something mildly sexual that made Jason blush.
“Jay?” Tim asked, stirring from his nap.
Jason looked down at him. Although the kid was a brat when he was an adult, he was sure one cute kid. His big blue eyes shone up at Jason, making Jason melt.
“Hey Timmy,” Jason said, smiling. “We’re almost home, don’t worry.” Tim nodded, before settling back into Jason’s arms.
When they walked into the house everything was quiet. Which was to be expected for a night both Roy and Jason had patrol. He quickly walked over to the closet and pulled out some blankets and sheets.
“Can you sit here and be quiet for me?” Jason asked Tim as he set him down on the ground. “Lian’s sleeping and I don’t want to have to put her to bed again.”
Tim nodded solemnly and settled down on the ground. He seemed to be playing with some of the paperweights Roy had bought from their numerous trips abroad for missions. Taking one last glance at Tim, Jason began to set up the couch for Tim to sleep on it.
It didn’t take long, and as soon as it was done Jason was setting Tim to bed. He seemed to fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Jason sat down next to Tim on a chair and pulled out an old copy of Pride and Prejudice. He had better wait for Roy to get home, before going out again. He didn’t feel comfortable leaving the two kids at home by themselves, even if Lian was used to their late nights.
Jason sighed, in the morning he would most definitely need to go shopping for Tim. They had some baby clothes from Lian still, but he felt sure Tim wouldn’t like wearing them.
When Roy eventually came home he walked into the room and froze. Jason was mid drifting off, when he heard Roy say, “Jason why do we have a random kid sleeping on our couch?”
Wally was in way over his head. The next morning, Bart had woken them up at four am, to tell them he was hungry and wanted waffles.
Dick was still out patrolling and Wally didn’t feel like cooking so he decided to take him to Waffle House. But unfortunately Wally had forgotten what it was like to order five waffles and three all star meals and eat them all in one sitting. The woman at the counter when she found all the plates empty stared in disbelief.
As Wally tried to take Bart home, he realized that Bart had managed to get his onesie sticky from eating. But what store would be open at five am?
Apparently Target?
He and Bart quickly picked out enough clothes to last them the month, since Wally was sure if this morning was any indication that Bart would go through clothes like no tomorrow.
The whole time they were out Bart stayed scarily silent, looking around like something was going to happen. It worried Wally, but he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He knew Bart had trauma from his future, but Wally didn’t know the extent of it. This silent boy was nothing like the Bart Wally had come to know.
Whatever the case Wally would figure it out once he got home. Target, while being incredibly less crowded at five am, was still too public for Wally to feel safe having this kind of conversation with Bart.
He was about to head to check out when Bart made his first noise since waking him up that morning. “Toys!” he said, reaching out to look at the toy section.
Wally’s eyes widened, he had never seen Bart with any kind of toys from his childhood (or anything really) and he wondered if Bart had any. It wouldn’t surprise him, given how he had looked at Don and Dawn’s toys when they were first born. He seemed surprised that they had gotten anything at all to play with, not the soft plushies that had been given to them.
“Yeah we can go look at some toys,” Wally said, taking the cart over to the toy section. He passed by the older kid section and towards the baby and toddler section. There he saw a large bin of stuffed animals. Bart made grabby motions for it once more, and Wally grinning walked him over to it.
Bart dug through the bin for a moment before pulling out a small fox toy. Wally smiled when he realized it was the same color as Bart’s hair.
Bart clutched the toy in his lap and made his way back to the child’s seat in the cart.
“You can get another if you’d like,” Wally said, looking at Bart’s face. He beamed up at Wally in surprise and reached over to look once more.
This time he pulled out a slightly larger dog stuffed animal. This one had curly black hair, and resembled a doodle.
“That’s cute Bart,” Wally said, pushing the cart down to the register. “How about later we can go to Barnes and Noble with Dick and we can get you some more stuffed animals.”
Bart beamed, pulling the two into his lap and playing with them silently.
They got home with no mishaps thankfully, although Wally was going to have to get used to running with a toddler and a ton of bags on his arms. As soon as Wally dropped Bart onto the ground, did he start running around the apartment at top speed, playing with his new stuffed animals.
Wally sighed, but knew it was to be expected. He quickly placed all the new clothes into the washer and ran out to the living room to make sure nothing that was breakable was in Bart’s reach.
He walked into the bedroom to find Dick sound asleep in the bed. Normally Wally would be joining him, or already be there with Dick, but at the moment they had a superpowered four year old that was racing around their apartment. And depending on whether or not Bart learned how to phase through objects this was going to be a long week for them.
The first accident happened around eight that morning. Bart was still playing with his toys, burning off all the energy he had gotten from breakfast, when he crashed into the small coffee table.
Wally was cooking breakfast in the kitchen when he heard the cry of pain and the sound of something crashing.
He dropped what he was doing and ran into the room. Bart had sped to the other side of the room holding his mouth like he had just said a potty word, while the table was in pieces.
“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” Wally said, kneeling down in front of Bart. Bart shook his head, tears falling down his face.
“It’s not your fault, and look I can fix it in no time,” Wally said, then using some speedforce put the table back together.
But when Wally came back to Bart he was still crying, his hand still clutched at his mouth.
“Hey, hey, it’s all good Bart,” Wally said, picking up Bart and placing him in his lap. “Are you hurt?”
Bart shook his head, but Wally decided to check just in case. Nope there was nothing.
“What's wrong baby?” Wally asked, looking into Bart’s eyes. He felt so useless, like how was he supposed to help Bart if he wouldn’t talk to him.
“I have to be quiet,” Bart said, in a whisper.
Wally’s eyes widened. “What? Who told you that?”
“Mama,” Bart said, eyes glistening with tears.
Wally pushed back his own tears and anger. Why on earth would someone tell a four year old to be quiet like this? It was natural for children to be loud and make noise.
“Last time I wasn’t quiet,” Bart hiccuped. “Mama didn’t come back.”
Wally clutched Bart to his chest, holding him tightly. “I won’t leave you. I promise.”
Bart shook in Wally’s arms. “That’s what Mama said, but he took her still.”
“Who?” Wally asked, pulling Bart away to look into his eyes.
“Grandpa,” Bart said, looking around the room, like even saying the word could summon him here.
Wally froze, Barry? Barry, who loved his family and wanted to protect them against everything? No that couldn’t be him.
Then he remembered something Bart had said once. His mother’s maiden name was Thawne.
“No, baby, he won’t get me or you,” Wally said, pulling Bart back in. He gently rocked the two of them back and forth, rubbing the back of Bart’s hair. “I’ll make sure of it. He will never get us. And you don’t have to be worried about making noise. No matter how much noise you make he’ll never find you.”
Bart nodded, and wrapped his arms around Wally’s neck. “I love you.”
“I love you too dear.”