Work Text:
Bruce…wasn't exactly sure what happened.
Hal stood in front of him, head bowed, jaw tense, refusing to meet his eyes. Guilty. It was hard to make Hal admit he messed up.
And then, a voice — small, wavering, uncertain. Like walking a tightrope, afraid to fall off.
"Is that Batman?"
"Uh…" Hal glanced at something behind him over his shoulder, green eyes flicking uncertainly to Bruce's, then back. "Yeah, kid."
Bruce had just enough time to think oh good, Hal picked up a stray before the toes of blue-and-yellow tennis shoes peeked out from behind a green-clothed leg, and mud-brown eyes risked a glimpse from behind Hal's back.
Wait. Was that —
"Hal." Bruce said, flat.
Hal shrinked. "Yeah, Spooky?"
"Who do you have."
"Um," Hal grimaced into a smile. "A smoothie?"
Bruce levelled one of his more severe unamused stares on him. Hal's smile fell into a plain grimace.
"But — you don't have a smoothie?" The small voice again. Quiet, wavering, but pitched with confused curiosity.
If Bruce didn't know any better, he'd say it sounded like a pre-pubescent Connor.
"It's, uh —" Hal glanced anxiously at Bruce, then back to the child hiding in his shadow. "It's a joke, kid."
"I don't get it."
"Spooky here'll explain it." Hal looked up and mouthed help, expression halfway between guilty and panicked.
Bruce almost snorted. Hal's experience with children was limited to vigilantes and Iris's toddlers when he volunteered for babysitting. He was a little impressed he'd managed to keep the kid so calm as it was.
Well. He supposed he better save the poor guy. He had brought the kid to him for a reason, after all.
Bruce lowered himself to the floor, shrugging his cape behind his shoulders. In a flash of green light, Hal lifted himself into the air, pat the kid's head — and he flinched he noted subconsciously — and whisked away.
The kid left in his place was, undoubtedly and unquestioningly, Connor.
But not Connor.
Connor was almost a foot and a half taller, with short hair curled around his earlobes and a fondness for t-shirts that bled colors together until it was unclear if he was wearing blue or gray.
The child in front of him was not that Connor. He had the same eyes, round and innocent until you looked closer, but smaller. His hair matted and clumped near the back, and fell until the ends barely brushed his shoulders.
And…well, he was small. Not just in height. He was curled in on himself like he might've had a tummy ache, and his hands were pulled near his chest like he was trying to physically protect his heart. His eyes darted around nervously, but his weight shifted too heavily for him to be planning to run.
Bruce's gaze flicked over him, studying him, until it landed on a blue Nightwing logo backdropped against a brown t-shirt.
"Do you like Nightwing?" Bruce asked softly.
He wasn't sure what he was expecting. Connor guarded his interests carefully, masking them in claims of convinience and accompanying or helping others. But this wasn't his Connor — this was a Connor much younger, somehow — this was a Connor before the mask, maybe even before the streets. A Connor had looked a bit shorter than Dick did when Bruce took him in.
Connor's eyes to suddenly flicker with light, head perking up, wasn't exactly it, though. "Yeah," he said, voice regulated to a perhaps unintentional whisper. "You know him?"
A soft smile whisked across Bruce's face. Seeing Connor light up about something he liked was not a privilage he got to enjoy very often. "I do," he said. "I can call him right now. Do you want to meet Nightwing?"
Connor's eyes widened as wide as the moon, shining like the light of the sun. "Can we?" He asked, even softer, clumsily pressing his fingers together.
Bruce's heart melted like butter. "Yeah," he murmured. "Yeah, we can."
"He's trying to escape down the alley." Tim's voice reported in Dick's ear. "Nightwing, cut him off on 19th."
"On it."
Dick swung across the street into the opening of the alley and landed in front of the muggers, hands propped up on his hips and flashing a toothed grin. "Hey boys. Nice night."
"Shit," one of the muggers hissed, stumbling to a stop. He looked over his shoulder at where Tim was boxing them in from the other end, white eyes against shadow.
"Hey, boys. Nice night for a —"
Riiing, riiiing.
Dick paused. Why was Bruce — was Bruce calling him?
"One second," Dick said, entirely unconcerned with wasting the muggers' time as he pulled his phone out.
A video call?
Something a little heavier settled into Dick's bones. B never asked for a video call. Whenever he received video call requests from Batman's number, it was a supervillain aiming for money or multiple Bat's capture.
Dick pressed accept, braced to face a battered Bruce or a gloating supervillain —
And instead received a bad camera angle that gave him a perfect view of Bruce's neck and about half of Connor's face.
"Come on, chum." Bruce said, his voice gentle like it got when he was dealing with kids at a crime scene.
"Is it really him?" Came Connor's voice, except — that wasn't Connor's voice. Not even considering the way it was whispered, quiet and struck with sincere awe, it was too high, too light.
But when Bruce finally handed the phone over, it was undoubtedly him, and Bruce wouldn't miss something so obvious as a chance in voice, so…
What?
"Um, hi." Connor said, barely a whisper, like they'd never met.
"Nightwing," Bruce said, his words deliberate and tone lightly dusted with meaning from off the screen. "This is Connor. He's a big fan of yours."
Dick kept the confusion off his face. Whatever was going on, Bruce clearly wanted him to play along. "Hey, Connor." He said, putting on a charming grin and giving a wave. "I'm on patrol right now — can I call you back once we've dropped these guys off?"
"You're on a mission?" Connor gasped, his eyes barely peeking over the bottom of the camera and his breath blurring the lens. "What are you doing?"
Dick couldn't help the smile that slipped across his face. Whatever this was, it was a little endearing. "Just some run-of-the-mill muggers." He angled the phone so Connor could see the two muggers frozen in the middle of the alley.
"Woah," Connor murmured, amazed.
Dick turned his phone back as the camera on Bruce's shifted and tumbled until it settled on Bruce's face. "Meet us back at the Cave," he said, then smiled. "Take your time."
It's not an emergency. Dick translated as the screen went dark.
Still…something was off.
"…He's been de-aged." Dick said, slowly, like he was deciding if he believed it.
"Yes." Bruce confirmed.
Dick's eyes tracked Connor as he timidly trotted around the Batcave, Alfred trailing behind him. "How old?"
"He said he was 8." Bruce said, watching as Connor narrowed his eyes at the dinosaur. Dick used to give chandeliers the same look before he pounced on them.
"And do we believe him?" Tim raised an eyebrow as he approached from behind Bruce.
Bruce hummed. It was a valid question. "I think so. He doesn't have a reason to lie about this." He hesitated, lingering on the thought, before adding, "And he hasn't lied that much yet."
Dick chuckled. "That much?"
"The bar is low." Tim pointed out, leaning past Bruce to grab his cup of coffee off the desk of the Batcomputer.
(Bruce would be a failure of his own teachings to miss the pinprick to his arm. Tim checking that he really was himself and nothing else was going on. He let it go.)
A loud gasp echoed across the cave. "Is that a giant penny!?" Connor exclaimed, apparently forgetting his anxieties for the moment as he shot across the platforms at a speed that made Bruce a little nervous about the edges. "What's that from!?"
"Ah, that is a souvenir from one of Master Bruce's older cases…" Alfred said as he followed, smiling softly.