Work Text:
The five former members of Young Justice smiled as Happy Harbor came into view, their old base right there where they had left it. Their second base had been better, having beds to sleep in had been a plus at the least, but this had been home first.
It had been where they had first come together. Where they had trained with one another.
Where they had stood by one another, even if it was the Justice League themselves that they were having to stand against.
It had been where they had their first camp out, the fire burning bright before them all as for one night they got to act like kids.
They never really did get to act like them again after everything was said and done.
The sight of the base was comforting as they walked up to it with the body in toe, Kon using his TTK to levitate it instead of any of them trying awkwardly to carry it between them.
None of them let themselves wonder if this was something that a future version of themselves had once done as well, even if the body was a different one.
"You guys are taking me out to dinner soon and we're going to have a long conversation about this," Cissie said as she watched as their Robin, always theirs, put in the pass code.
"Yeah, yeah," Cassie said, but there's a grin on her face as she agrees.
When they walked into the round table room, there was someone waiting there for them.
"I see you've got it," Constantine said as he looked at the floating body, as he looked at the blood stained upon it and the way that the mini wonders stood before it, guarding it, as mini blue stood at their backs and the blonde archer stood off to the side with the speedster.
They all looked ready to attack.
John thought that they just might survive this world yet.
"And your end?" The latest sidekick to the big bat asked, his voice cold in a way that was slightly different from that of the Batman, something that none of the other Robins had ever been able to manage.
Had never wanted to either.
John raised his hand, a card held within it that he could tell the kids were eyeing carefully, even through the masks. He slid it across the table without another word, waiting for the speedster to pick it up, the wind gusting around him as the teen did.
Impulse nodded to the three before becoming a blur once more, the magical card that he had given them disappearing into one of the pockets on Tim's utility built without the Robin needing to take his eyes off of the member of Justice League Dark.
It was when the teen felt the new weight that he nodded and Cassie motioned for Kon to walk forwards and place the body on table.
"Pleasure," Kon said, walking quickly away from what they had done. He didn't even want to know what the older man needed the bones of Santa for, he just wanted to go to sleep.
Maybe eat some of the brownies that he and Jon had made the night before while Clark watched them as if he thought that they were going to burn the kitchen down.
…they hadn't.
(Much)
"Let's never do this again, yeah?" Bart asked, buzzing in place as he looked between the rest of those within the room. He could see that most of them, everyone that mattered, agreed.
He'd rather have their illegal operations being terrorizing people like the D.E.O. than killing someone that most children seemed to worship.
Little weirdos.
—-
Cissie was the first to go home, the four of them dropping her off just the same as they had grabbed her early in the night's adventures. It was easy to get her back where she had been before without anyone ever having noticed that she was gone.
The rest of them were not so lucky.
—-
Central City, Garrick household
Bart was quick as he zipped into his room at the Garrick house, slipping under the covers as if he had always been there.
He should have glanced around the room first.
"Out chasing elves, were we?" a voice asked in the darkness of the room, making the young speedster start to the point that he phased through his bed.
It took the teen a moment to realize that the other speedster wasn't actually serious as he asked that.
That the question was rhetorical, likely based on when he had tried to hunt down the famed goat sucker.
"No," Bart replied, not looking at the other as he picked himself up, rolling out from under the bed and standing with a little jump. If he wasn't looking then the other couldn't see for sure that he was lying. Something that he had picked up from the only person that he knew that was brave enough to lie to Batman. "Just went to go see Kon and Cassie and Cissie and Tim for a bit."
It wasn't like it was a lie.
"Cissie?" Jay asked as he looked at his ward. "Like the archer that used to be on your old team?"
Bart nodded. "We wanted to see her, so we did."
And those words were simple, simple and there and reminiscent of just how impulsive the child used to be. The older speedster figured that he could let it slide this time, after all they had just visited a friend with the other three stooges that his charge loved.
"Go to sleep," the man decides, walking to the door and sighing as he turns to find the kid already curled up in the bed as if he had never left it at all.
—-
Metropolis, Kent apartment
Kon crashed onto the couch in the living room when he got back to Clark's, a tiredness settling down into his bones at the thought of what had just occurred in the hour before.
He was embarrassed to say that it took him a bit too long to notice the heartbeat coming from the kitchen on the other side of the couch until it's owner was topped before him.
"Want to tell me where you've been?" Lois asked as she looked down at the boy that would technically be both her stepson and brother in law from the way that Conner and Clark acted with one another, neither quite sure what to do with the other even after so long.
Especially after so long.
"Murdering Santa Clause," Kon answers honestly, too tired to lie, not even bother to open his eyes as he reach blindly for the blanked on the back of the couch, murmuring a thanks when Lois pushed it into his hands with a laugh.
"Fine," the woman says, her voice fond and tired all at once, "don't tell me. Good night."
"Night," the teen called back, only realizing as the sound bedroom door closing reached his ears that he should be very glad right then that Clark was asleep, because there was no lie in his words and the other super would have known that.
—-
Gateway City, Sandsmark home
Helena was sitting on the couch when her daughter walked through the door, the demigod slipping through it silently. Not that such a thing mattered when Helena knew from the start when her daughter had left the house after they had gone to sleep for the night.
There was a long moment when the pair just stared at one another as the door closed behind the younger.
"Shit," Cassie cursed as she looked at her waiting mother.
"Shit," Helena agreed.
—-
Gotham, Wayne Manor
Like the others, Bruce was waiting for Tim when he slipped through the window in his bedroom. Unlike the others, Dick, Cass, and Jason were there as well when he did so.
Lucky him, siblings.
"Tim," the bat said, his voice cold as he did so.
Batman, not Bruce.
"B," Robin answered back in turn.
Dick looked nervously between the pair, Cass' eyes narrowing as she glanced between Jason and Tim, as if reading something that the rest of them couldn't see.
Jason knew that she was right then.
"Where were you?" Dick asked, worry in his voice. After all, he had been the one to find the empty bed waiting for him when he went to go and ask the other bird something for Christmas Day. Something that he didn't even remember anymore even as the panic has subsided.
"Just took a visit to go and see some members of Young Justice," the current Robin answers, none of the words a lie, just a shallow sort of truth. "You know that we like to spend a lot of our holidays together."
"Bullshit," the crime lord said, seemingly despite himself.
The words weren't quite pointed enough.
"No, no," Tim starts, looking at his predecessor. "We really do spend a lot of out holidays together. Halloween, Christmas, other random ones depending on the time."
"That's not what I meant and you know it," Jason argued back, his words getting a bit heated and frustrated as the others in the room looked at the former Robin.
Everyone missed the smirk that Tim sent the other in turn.
"Then what did you mean?" Bruce asked as he looked at the teen's predecessor, a brow raised.
"The little bastard was talking about killing Santa Clause tonight," the older teen said back, pointing at the younger one.
"I think out of everyone here you have the least ground to stand on wheel it comes to murder, Mr. Heads in duffel bags," Tim retorts, honest and true as he looked at the other, making both Dick and Bruce wince at the reminder of what the second Robin had done. It was a cruel reminder, but was needed to make them both focus a bit on something else. "And, Santa Claus isn't real, idiot."
"Lying," Cass said, her voice carrying through the room like a weight. Quiet but sure.
"Yeah, okay, I'm lying," Tim admits, knowing that, in that very specific point, he was caught. "But we only watched him die once," not a lie, they didn't really get to see it up close the first time around, "and that was nowhere near as bad as the time that we stole a flying car from one of the citizens of Apokolips."
"When you what!?" Dick asked, his voice going high, as Bruce's brows do much the same. Neither of them never did figure out where the Supercycle came from.
Bingo.
They never did get back to the full conversation of what had occurred that night before he came back into the room, something that made Jason's eyes twitch for days. Especially when he heard the younger teen humming a very specific song from the Nightmare Before Christmas.
It was worth it in the end.