Chapter Text
Tim woke up with a groan on the couch aboard Bart’s spaceship after their totally Justice League approved mission, one they had as something of a tradition since one rather unfortunate accident, which was apparently corrected by the writers, as they had physical proof of it every year. But they still kept going on their little mission on terrorizing the dark lord year after year - usually, it took shorter time than this, since they were delayed by a few accidents and got banned in a new sector of the universe.
And normally, there would be more of them, of Young Just Us, but since some of the others were unavailable, it was only up to the Core Four of their team.
Bart was sleeping on top of him (the team found out that if they trapped him, he would be forced to sleep and Cassie made the decision that if Tim hadn’t slept in a day, someone would go sit on him until he fell asleep) and they had a blanket thrown over them. He could hear voices from the main room, Cassie and Kon.
Tim patted Bart’s head in an attempt to wake the speedster up.
Bart stirred, before quickly zipping next to the couch, looking at a clock before speaking, “Goodmorning Robbie, do youwantZesti?”
Tim sat up, nodded and mumbled the greeting back.
Bart beamed at him, disappearing in a blur and lightning, before appearing back before him, handling him a can of his favourite lemonade and food.
Tim gave him a small smile, reaching to take the food and drink, before shortly freezing. He didn’t have the gloves on, which gave a free view of symbols on his inner forearm.
Bart noticed his stillness and placed his things on a small table, taking Tim’s hand in his own, overlooking the collection of symbols.
“Did we get tattoos?” Tim faintly murmured.
“Nope, Idon’t thinkso,” replied Bart with furrowed eyebrows.
There was a group of smaller symbols - blue bird, bigger than the rest of the smaller symbols, along with a black bat, penny and even smaller cat - and a group of bigger symbols - lichtenberg figure scar in red and white, white star, S shield exactly like the one on Kon’s t-shirt, black arrow with red fletching, cloud of glittery smoke and an Emperor’s stick.
Bart traced his hand along the red-white lightning scar and a warm feeling spread through the mark into the rest of Tim’s body, along with a wave of energy and a mix of emotions - confusion, concern, fondness and some more he can’t quite point down as something snaps into place between the two of them.
Tim yelped at the unfamiliar feeling and Bart zipped away to give him more space, letting go of him and watching him with worry in his amber eyes.
There’s a pull between them and Tim misses the presence of the speedster next to him almost instantly, before shutting the thought process down.
Then he feels curiosity, not his own, even as he still feels it.
“Did youfeelthat?” speeds Bart, vibrating in place, at times making movements to go to Tim before he aborts them.
Tim wordlessly nodded.
What the hell did we get ourselves into, this wasn’t in any records, he thought for himself with mild panic.
Why don’t we have a contingency plan for this?! This is what happens when I don’t overthink things. And others wonder why am I so paranoid.
“Do you have these too?” he asked aloud, sitting down on the couch.
“Dunno I’mgonnalook,” replied Bart, zipping to sit down next to him as he rolled up a sleeve of his Flash hoodie (which was actually Tim’s, but belonged to Dick beforehand and Tim and Bart were pretty sure the acrobat stole it from Wally).
On his forearm were the same few bigger symbols as were on Tim’s arm, but instead of a lichtenberg scar, Bart had a robin in flight with a small domino mask on its head.
“That looks just like you,” cooed Bart.
Then there were other smaller symbols, more lichtenberg scars - one in gold-red, another in silver-red and one in white, then there was a green lantern and a black simple quill.
“Huh,” Tim let out thoughtfully.
Despite being almost always aware of his surroundings and his own movements, he raised his hand to lightly touch the robin on Bart’s arm. Which his body did without his own accord. Stupid body. Stupid aliens or cursed artifacts or Klarion or-
His thoughts were interrupted when the thing between him and Bart settled and he felt more of Bart’s emotions - excitement, worry, anxiety, concern- Wait, which was his own? What was he feeling? What happened-
His train of thoughts was interrupted as Bart pulled him into a tight hug. Then the door to the room opened and inside ran a panicked half-Kryptonian and Amazon with a lasso ready in her hands.
“What happened, is everyone okay? Rob, your heart rate has gone up,” splurted Kon as his TTK curled up around Bart and Tim, not that dissimilar to a blanket.
Tim waved his hand in a pacifying motion before signing, “All good. Problem. Forearm, look. Mental connection. All of us here, possibility.”
Bart loosened his grip on Tim, settling by his side and pressing into him, as they both showed the two of their friends the weird yet-unexplainable symbols on their forearms.
“What the hell,” muttered Kon.
“What in Hera- When did that happen?” asked Cassie, momentally wavering before returning to her more confident voice of the team leader.
“We found out after we woke up, about five minutes ago. The marks seem to represent people a person considers their family, from what we gathered. If we touch our mark on the other person’s arm, there will be a link established through which we can feel the emotions of the other person,” Tim replied, not letting anything of his inner turmoil bleed into his voice.
Bart snatched his free hand into his own and squeezed it reassuringly, sending another wave of warmth through the bond, before putting down into Tim’s lap a packet of cookies.
Concern, worry, food helps, come through the bond next.
“Thank you,” Tim smiled.
“Did we catch some weird alien flu?” muttered Kon as he and Cassie too found out that they had their own collection of marks.
“Kon, you are half alien and we are all more or less human-like,” Cassie reacted.
“I’m half Kryptonian,” defended Kon.
“Yep, alien,” nodded Bart with a smirk.
“Should we call GL before we proceed with anything else? Where are we?” asked Tim.
Green Lantern might have some information about this whole situation. And he had blackmail on Hal, so they wouldn’t get grounded or get the ship taken away.
“Close to Earth. Yes, that is a good idea, Hal can meet with us here, right?” agreed Cassie.
“Yep,” nodded Bart.
“I have blackmail in case he wants to make a move against us,” offered Tim.
“Metoo,” agreed Bart cheerfully.
Cassie nodded to herself and went off to go call up Hal.
“Why do I have a feeling like Rob is a bad influence on us?” mumbled Kon.
“Hey, I’m not a bad influence,” defended himself Tim.
“Yea, he’s teaching us thewayofRobinsandBat,” sped out Bart.
“You mean illegal stuff? Breaking and entering? Stalking?” asked Kon.
Tim motioned around them.
“Right, right, we don’t have a leg to stand on here,” muttered Kon to himself.
Tim spoke up, “We should probably get ready for GL’s visit and get to Cassie.”
The other two agreed, which was the reason why a few seconds later they were all tangled up on the floor, a mix of emotions floating through them, uncaring of who it originated from.
A green glowing blanket wrapped itself around them.
“Hey, kiddos, you alright?” asked a concerned adult.
Core Four members of Young Just Us gathered themselves up and stood up, green blanket disappearing, as they came face to face with Hal without his mask. They were all leaning into each other and Bart was playing with a fidget spinner Tim gave him.
“So, wemighthave sorta gonetosomesectorofgalaxy we didn’t know, beatup bunchofpeople and then mighthaveslightly got cursed,” Cassie sped up through the explanation in a way which would make people unfamiliar of speedsters dizzy.
Hal only sighed.
“Show me what's wrong, please? I won’t tell anyone if any of you aren’t in danger,” he sternly said.
“Of course, we are all totally fine,” nodded Bart quickly before they all showed their now marked forearms.
“Okay, okay, this isn’t all that bad,” hummed Hal.
At the questioning look from the teens, he explained, “Certain cultures in the universe have rituals through which you can gain insight into emotions of your family members or whether they are endangered. It appears you got hit by a ritual of some sorts like that. Remember any positive events with different culture on the theme of importance of family while you were in space?”
The teens' minds flashbacked to a certain event they got invited to after defenestrating the planet’s totalitarian leaders.