Chapter Text
Jason woke up. Like, really wide awake all at once. He couldn’t figure out what had done it. It wasn’t a nightmare or some other stupid fear. He didn’t need to use the bathroom or anything like that. Rolling over, he grabbed his phone to check the time.
12:22am.
He flopped back onto his back and, without even looking, stretched his hand out for Batman. The toy was off to the side, right where it usually was. Jason ran his fingers down the silky smooth material of the cape and cowl, and closed his eyes again. Whatever it was that woke him up, he needed to get back to sleep. Tomorrow was school and—
His eyes flew open again. That… that had been a sound coming from the hallway just now, right? Like a kind of creak? He hadn’t imagined it.
Bruce wasn’t supposed to be back from being Batman until 12:30, and Damian and Alfred were both in New York with Cass seeing some kind of show. Duke was here keeping an eye on Jason until Bruce got back, but he always slept solid through the night, so he wouldn’t get out of bed unless Jason actually called for him or something.
Silently, Jason sat up and slipped out of bed, leaving Batman behind in the covers. He was probably just being stupid. The manor had crazy tight security; you needed to have the right fingerprints and eye picture and whatever else to get inside. If someone tried to break through, there was this alarm that went right straight to Bruce no matter where he was and he’d—
Fuck, that was definitely something. It sounded like a set of super light footsteps, the kind you only got from training really hard for a really long time. But even though pretty much everyone here knew how to walk that way, they didn’t really do it just hanging around. It was this weird thing where it was more polite to actually make a bit of noise so it was easy for people to tell when you were coming.
Jason faced his door and took a deep breath. His heart was thudding, but he wasn’t gonna chicken out. There was gonna be some stupid reason for someone being upstairs and awake right now. Maybe it was Jon trying to sneak in and visit Damian. That’s what Damian did sometimes with him, so it made sense if the opposite also happened, right?
Silently, Jason eased his door open and peeked out. The hallway was totally dark, just like he’d expected, but—
Then someone dropped down right on top of him. Jason tried to roll to get out of the way, but the person was ready for that. They kept hold of his shoulders with a tight, strong grip, one that threw off Jason’s balance and kept him on the floor, vulnerable.
Well, no fucking way was Jason going to let that happen. He snapped his head back, smacking his attacker square in the nose. As soon as the grip loosened, he raced away, getting back to his feet as he went.
He didn’t look back. That was a total beginner mistake that Jason couldn’t afford to do right now. He couldn’t afford to make any mistakes at all. He was a kid; he was in his PJs and bare feet, which was a bad outfit for getting into a fight even if he was magically six feet tall again.
He knew he needed help. He could run to Duke’s room, but… Duke was a kid, too. It’d be better if he could stay safe. Instead, Jason started running for the panic button that he knew was hidden right behind the bookshelf—
He didn’t get there. A kick landed on his shoulder blade, knocking him to the ground again. Fuck. Jason scrambled around to his back, trying to stumble to his feet. That’s when a fist came flying straight towards him. He tried to duck out of the way, but he didn’t do it in time. The punch hit him right on his chin.
Pain exploded in his bottom lip and his head snapped to the side. He tasted blood on his tongue.
But he couldn’t let himself get distracted, even if he wasn’t used to getting hit for real anymore. He rolled away, pulling himself back up to his feet in a tumbling move Dick had taught him months ago. It got him some space fast, and so he could finally turn around to face—
“Holy fuck! Robin?!”
Because that’s exactly who it was. And it wasn’t Damian. It was the Robin that Jason had seen when he’d been a kid the first time: a bright yellow cape, a red tunic, a green leotard with boots the exact same colour. There was a black mask over his eyes and—
Oh, yeah. There was also blood dribbling out of his nose and down his face. That part was Jason’s fault.
There was a huff, and then all of a sudden Robin started charging towards Jason again.
“Stop! You don’t—”
“You attacked me!” Robin shouted.
“You attacked me first!” he shot back, but it didn’t do any good.
Robin was already throwing himself into a fancy flip that was gonna end in a surprise kick. Well, it would have been a surprise if Jason hadn’t learned that exact same move from Dick just a couple weeks ago.
This whole thing was so not fair, but Jason wasn’t gonna stick around arguing about it just to get hit again. He finally got to the bookshelf and he started to climb—
But before he could, Robin grabbed the back of his shirt and slammed him back down to the ground. A leg snaked around Jason’s body and tried to pin him in place.
Fuck, Jason should have realized right away that he’d been fighting someone that was the same size as him. He had just been so surprised when it first happened that he hadn’t been paying attention to that. But now that he knew that he was fighting another kid, he could change things up.
Robin had a hand on Jason’s shoulder and was holding on with that ridiculously tight grip he’d got from all that trapeze work. Jason found the hand and twisted the fingers with everything he had. That was just enough for Robin to loosen his hold a little, and Jason rolled them both around as quick as he could, flipping the hold so that now he was the one pinning Robin down. But before he could get a real solid grip, Robin’s knee shot up and hit Jason in the stomach, right below his ribs.
Jason hated getting the wind knocked out of him. Now that he was a kid, it always made him tear up just a little every single time no matter how much he tried to ignore it. So, the fact that Robin hit Jason like that and was gonna see those tears pissed Jason off.
With a snarl, he yanked hard on Robin’s stupid cape. He did it fast enough and hard enough that there wasn’t enough time for the quick release to work. Robin fell to the ground, and Jason got his own kick to the stomach in. Then he went to grab hold of Robin again. He just needed to get him to be still for two fucking seconds and then—
Before Jason could try that, a bright light hit him square in the eyes. It hurt bad enough that he had to slam his eyelids shut and curl away. He dropped his hold, but he could hear the groan from beside him and he knew Robin wasn’t going to try anything else.
Then, just as the light started to fade to something that didn’t hurt as bad, Jason heard someone say:
“What the hell.”
It was Duke. Duh. No one else could have done that thing with the lights. He was still kind of doing it, too. Jason had to squint really hard to be able to look over at his brother.
“Wait…” Duke took a step closer, staring at Jason and Robin.
They probably looked really crazy. Jason was still gasping from that kick from before and his face was wet from those stupid tears, plus the blood he could taste on his tongue. Robin had sweaty hair and was just as breathless as Jason. The blood from his nose was smeared all the way across his cheek. His cape was all crooked and there was a nasty carpet burn on his knee.
But Duke looked past all of that. He stared Robin down, and his eyes got wider. Then, he tilted his head to the side a little. “…Dick?”
They didn’t need to actually get an answer. The way Robin’s breath caught just a little when Duke asked said everything.
Okay. So. It was still a total mystery for how it happened and where he’d come from and all that but… This was actually Dick. Jason hadn’t been totally sure it wasn’t some kind of weird trick.
But now that he knew it was probably a version of Dick from when he’d been a kid Robin, Jason was starting to feel a little… well…
A hot feeling was burning in his chest and on his cheeks. Pulling in a deep breath, he turned back to Duke. He straightened his shoulders and stood as tall as he could and then said:
“He started it!”
Bruce stared at the two boys sitting side by side on a cot in the med bay. There had been several cycling worries in his mind around leaving the manor for a very brief patrol while Alfred was out of town, but none of them had been this. Watching Duke march these two boys (both bloodied and bruised) down into the cave just two minutes after Bruce had gotten home had been… extremely shocking. And concerning. He was still catching up.
In so many ways, it felt like looking at twins. Both of them had messy dark hair, both of them had bright blue eyes. They had knobby knees and wiry arms and feet that didn’t reach the floor. They also both had ice packs pressed to their faces, red rimming their eyes, and identical pouting, moody expressions.
Capping the ointment he’d used on the carpet burn, Bruce fixed Dick with a serious look. “This is why I keep talking to you about modifying your uniform. Imagine how much worse your skin would be if this was road rash. I…”
He stopped, motivation running out as soon as he realized how ridiculous he was being. His very legitimate critiques of this uniform’s design didn’t matter when it was one that hadn’t been used in nearly twenty years. What was far more important was the person wearing it.
“Tell me again how you got here,” he said. Most likely, it was time travel, although the possibility of alternate universes shouldn’t be ruled out. And then there were the other considerations: cloning, shapeshifting, other forms of impersonation.
Dick (the impossibly young version of Dick) rolled his eyes. “I already told you. I hitched a ride out of Gotham on the back of a delivery truck. They’re always heading in the same direction across the bridge. It only took me a few minutes to walk the rest of the way and then I came in through the—”
“No.” Bruce scrunched his eyes shut as he massaged his forehead. “I meant how did you get…well…”
He didn’t want to give any more information away than he absolutely had to, but when he opened his eyes again, he was greeted by a cold, calculating expression. “How did I get… where?”
Bruce held back a sigh. He couldn’t blame Dick for being guarded. The boy could tell that he wasn’t in the home he expected. And of course with the way he had apparently been greeted…
“Let’s take another look at that lip, Jaylad.” Gently, Bruce took the bloodied towel and ice pack from Jason and leaned in to get closer. The bleeding had finally stopped and he had a clear view of the split lip and the developing bruise around it. “I think this will heal on it’s own. Duke, pass me a clean towel?”
He cleaned the wound a little more thoroughly now that Jason’s lip had been numbed with ice, but when he turned to get the fresh towel from Duke, he was met with yet another stony expression.
“You’re really not going to tell him anything?”
Bruce felt a twinge between his eyebrows. He knew he shouldn’t get frustrated. He’d updated Duke on all of their more… far-fetched protocols, but nothing could fully prepare someone for facing this kind of thing in actuality. “We can’t be sure—”
“Oh, c’mon, Bruce, he’s Dick! It’s not some kind of trick.”
“I’m aware.” Bruce could feel it as surely as he could feel anything: this was his little Robin from years ago. That didn’t help to relieve any of his concerns, though. And the fact that the adult Dick had yet to reply to any communications so far just made things worse. “Unfortunately, we don’t know—”
“That it’s time travel?” Dick interrupted.
Bruce whipped his head around to stare at his little Robin.
Dick shrugged, adjusting the ice pack he was pressing to his nose. “It was pretty obvious, B. You look old.”
“I—”
“–er,” he finished with a dazzling, irritating grin. “Older. That’s all. It also explains how these other kids know who I am. But I still think it’s dumb that you adopted a kid who ends up breaking my nose.”
Jason puffed up to object, and Bruce cut in before things could escalate. “It’s not broken, Dick. I examined it myself, remember?”
“It sure feels broken.”
“It was your fault!” Jason burst out. So much for that de-escalation. “You’re the one who jumped me in the middle of the hallway!”
“Cause you were in my house!”
“It’s my house, too!”
“Boys.” In unison, the two boys snapped their attention away from each other and back towards Bruce. Even their eyebrows looked similar: both sets pulled into dark frowns.
An awkward beat of silence followed as Bruce absorbed the eerie sight. He didn’t turn, but he could sense Duke staring.
“Look.” He massaged the twinging spot in the middle of his forehead, but his headache didn’t go away. “I know this has been hard for both of you, but—”
That’s when the alert for the cave security system pinged.
Bruce barely had time to look at the monitor in the med bay before a red blur rushed in to meet them.
“Oh, good.” The Flash’s shoulders sagged in relief when he caught sight of nine-and-a-half-year-old Dick in his original Robin costume. “You’re here.”
Dick’s forehead wrinkled. He tilted his head to the side as he stared at Wally.
“Flash,” Bruce said, putting every ounce of authority into his voice that he could. “Outside. Signal, watch the boys for a bit.”
With Duke sputtering behind him, Bruce led Wally out of the med bay and into the passageway just outside. He crossed his arms and arranged a look onto his face.
“Okay, wait, it wasn’t just my fault!” Wally said.
“Hn.”
“Dick was— Well, he was lending me a hand; just some backup while I looked into an anomaly with the time stream. I didn’t think he’d be the one to get pulled into the temporal bubble.”
“Temporal bubble,” Bruce echoed. That headache was getting worse by the second.
Wally sighed, scratching at his hair. “Yeah. We’re on one end of it. And it’s a, uh, balance thing, but I think the Speed Force got a little confused. The Dick of our time got pulled in, and instead of fixing that, we ended up with a ten-year-old version of Dick getting shot into the future to take the older him’s place.”
“Nine year old,” Bruce corrected absently. From the corridor, he could still see the child version of Dick sitting on the cot. His eyes were roaming around the med bay, sneaking in looks at Jason and Duke while pretending to be completely disinterested. Bruising aside, Bruce could perfectly recall every single era of his Robins lives. “Where is the Dick of this time?”
“In the past,” Wally replied with infuriating confidence. “Like I said, it’s a balance thing. The whole issue will resolve itself in a couple days.”
Bruce frowned. The way the Flashes talked about time travel was extremely irritating: all high level science until it suddenly turned into obscure mythology. And there never seemed to be any rules that could consistently be relied on.
Wally kicked at the ground with his boot. “Look, I’m sure adult Dick is going to be just fine. He’s got allies from back then he can rely on.”
Bruce shook his head. “He won’t reach out. He’ll— We have protocols regarding time travel. No contact of any kind.”
Wally tilted his head back and forth and then finally shrugged. “Well, at the very least he knows how to access supplies and a place to hole up. He’s already got a message through the time stream to me; he’s doing okay.”
“How—” Bruce shook his head, changing his mind. There was something else more important to establish. “You’re going to be dedicating all your efforts into bringing him back as quickly as possible.”
“I’ll—” Wally took in a breath. “I’ll try, okay? But piercing a temporal bubble’s harder than you’d think.”
“Hn.”
“But I can promise things’ll work out fine. Just keep an eye on little Dickie for—”
“He can’t stay here.” A spark of panic shot through Bruce’s chest as he said those words. He didn’t want to let this younger version of Dick out of his sight, but he knew he didn’t have a choice. “It’s bad enough that he’s met Jason and Duke, but there’s any number of things he could learn here that would put his entire future at risk.”
“Oh. No.” With a single shake of his head, Wally shrugged off Bruce’s very appropriate, valid, critical concern. “The temporal bubble’s stable, remember? No way the Speed Force is gonna let that happen.”
“Hn.” And there it was, as predictable as always. Suddenly, physics had become personified, with its own sense of agency.
“Little Robin won’t remember anything when he goes back,” Wall said plainly. Confidently. “No harm to the timeline; no butterfly effects to worry about.”
And as much as Bruce hated it, it was enough that he felt himself caving. Differences aside, he knew that Wally could be trusted. Especially when it came to Dick’s safety.
“I want the same as you,” Wally said. “Get our Dick back, but make sure the kid is safe in the meantime.”
Bruce’s eyes strayed back to the med bay. He gave in. “Fine. But then afterwards, we’re going to sit down and—”
There was a crackle, a spark of energy, and The Flash was gone.
Of course he was.
For just one more second, Bruce indulged in standing in the empty passageway. It was quiet. It was peaceful. It didn’t have any unexpected guests.
Then, he gathered his energy and waded back into the fray. As he re-entered the med bay, he caught the tail end of Dick’s sentence:
“I just think it’d be really cool is all.”
Duke was staring back, one eyebrow raised. “I’m not using my powers to make my teeth glow in the dark.”
“But— Oh, B! Hey. Where’s your friend?”
He’s your friend, Bruce thought as he looked down at the bright, bubbly child he hadn’t seen in years.
“He had to go,” he finally answered. “But he did help clarify what’s going on. You’ve switched places with the version of you from this time.”
“Okay…” Dick’s feet swung from the cot as he glanced to Jason, to Duke, and then back to Bruce.
“I’ve been… assured that the situation will resolve itself on its own. In the meantime, you’ll be staying with us for a couple days.”
Jason straightened up when he heard that, but didn’t say anything. He’d know all about their usual time travel protocols and know that this was out of the norm, but the trust he had in Bruce was clear. The only outward sign of confusion he showed was the way he tugged on the sleeve of his Wonder Woman pyjamas.
Dick, unfortunately, was the opposite. He didn’t have as much reason to be suspicious. Bruce had waited to share his strict no contact rule until Robin had turned twelve which, in retrospect, was still far too young to tackle a problem like this independently. But even though he didn’t know how out of the norm this plan was, he still eyed Bruce with extreme caution.
“So… I’m gonna be here for a bit. And, uh, how many years…”
“A little less than twenty.”
“Oh.”
Bruce felt those curious eyes crawl over every wrinkle on his face, every strand of silver hair. Then, a sneaky smile popped up on Dick’s face.
“I would have figured at least twenty-five.”
“Hm.” The corner of Bruce’s mouth flattened and Dick beamed back at him. It was a well rehearsed back-and-forth that Dick was exceptionally good at, even at this age.
He’d always been a showman, from before Bruce had even known him. It was an enviable skill to be able to put on a brave face, to crack a joke, to push through even the most unsettling of circumstances.
But even though it had taken him some time at first, Bruce had developed his own skill of being able to look beneath that polished, sunny facade and find the truth that lay beneath. It came out in subtle ways: the downward curve of a shoulder, the wandering of an eye, the smile that faded away just a little too soon.
Dick might be safe here with Bruce for as long as they needed him to be, but he didn’t feel safe. He didn’t feel at home.
And that was the only thing that mattered.
Written by a human in Ellipsus.