Work Text:
The Hall of Justice had a problem.
Not a world-ending problem.
Not even a city-ending problem.
Just...
"...the Watchtower's environmental systems have decided the Arctic should be tropical and the tropical simulator should be Antarctica," Batman finished.
Across the conference room, half the League groaned.
The Fab Five Titans looked up from where they'd been sharing a basket of fries.
Dick Grayson blinked.
"...That's it?"
Batman looked at him.
"That's it?"
"It sounds fixable."
"It's been three days."
"Oh."
Roy reached over and stole one of Wally's fries.
"Three days is embarrassing."
"It really is."
The League had tried.
Mr. Terrific. No luck.
Cyborg. Somehow made it worse.
Steel. Managed to isolate the issue but couldn't explain why it was happening.
Even Brainiac 5 had looked at the code, frowned, muttered something about "non-Euclidean software architecture," and gone home.
Now everyone was tired.
Batman pinched the bridge of his nose.
"We're waiting on another specialist."
Dick tilted his head.
"Can we see it?"
Several Leaguers laughed.
Barry smiled fondly.
"Oh no."
Hal looked between them.
"What?"
Barry sighed.
"I know that look."
Twenty minutes later.
The five Titans were sitting around the Watchtower's central systems.
None of them were touching the controls.
Instead...
Dick was sketching geometric diagrams on a whiteboard.
Wally had somehow filled three notebooks with equations.
Garth was reading an alien engineering manual upside down.
Donna was comparing historical maintenance logs from six different civilizations.
Roy...
...was asleep.
Or appeared to be.
Hal whispered,
"Why is the archer here?"
Oliver answered immediately.
"Don't underestimate Roy."
"He's literally asleep."
"He does his best thinking horizontally."
"He isn't asleep," Dick corrected without looking up.
Roy raised one finger.
"Thinking."
Finger lowered.
Immediately resumed looking unconscious.
"Okay," Wally announced.
"I think I know what's wrong."
Dick nodded.
"I do too."
Donna looked over.
"So do I."
Garth quietly closed the manual.
"It is very similar to an Atlantean tidal prediction algorithm."
Batman frowned.
"...Explain."
The four of them looked at each other.
Then looked back.
"...How much math do you know?"
Batman stared.
"...Enough."
Dick winced.
"...That's concerning."
"What do you mean how much math?" Hal asked.
Dick smiled politely.
"The short explanation or the correct explanation?"
"...Those are different?"
"Very."
Wally grabbed a marker.
"So."
He drew a circle.
Then another.
Then several hundred more.
"The station predicts airflow."
Everyone nodded.
"It also predicts heat."
Still following.
"It also predicts gravitational fluctuations."
"...Okay."
"It also predicts everyone moving around the station."
"...Sure?"
"So every prediction affects every other prediction."
Hal nodded slowly.
"I understand those words."
Dick smiled.
"You won't in about thirty seconds."
The whiteboard disappeared.
Not literally.
Just beneath equations.
Matrices.
Topology.
Tensor notation.
Probability trees.
Geometry.
Something Garth added that looked suspiciously like ocean current simulations.
Donna quietly corrected one of Dick's proofs.
Dick nodded.
"Good catch."
Roy, eyes still closed, muttered,
"Negative sign."
Wally erased it.
"Oh."
Dick looked.
"...He's right."
Roy never opened his eyes.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Hal finally spoke.
"...I have no idea what any of that means."
Barry nodded.
"Me neither."
Superman raised a hand.
"I lost track after the fourth equation."
Green Lantern looked at Batman.
"You?"
Batman remained silent.
Hal gasped dramatically.
"You don't know either!"
Batman finally answered.
"I know enough to understand they're correct."
Dick smiled.
"High praise."
Mr. Terrific arrived halfway through.
Walked in.
Looked at the board.
Went very still.
"...Where did you learn differential manifold optimization?"
Wally shrugged.
"I was bored one summer."
"...You were bored?
"I read."
Mr. Terrific pointed at Dick.
"You."
"What?"
"The recursive proof."
"Oh."
"Who taught you that?"
Dick blinked.
"...No one?"
"...You invented it?"
"I mean..."
Dick looked around uncertainly.
"It seemed obvious?"
Mr. Terrific just stared.
Donna interrupted.
"Actually it wasn't Dick."
Everyone looked at her.
"He reinvented something similar."
Mr. Terrific visibly relaxed.
"Oh thank goodness."
Donna continued.
"The original theorem is from a Tamaranean mathematician approximately eight thousand years from now."
Silence.
Starfire wasn't there.
Donna had simply...
...read it.
Somehow.
Mr. Terrific looked ready to lie down.
Meanwhile—
Aquaman wandered in.
Saw Garth reading six Atlantean scientific journals simultaneously.
"...When did you memorize those?"
Garth looked confused.
"They're introductory texts."
Arthur blinked.
"They're doctoral material."
"...For surface universities."
"...Garth."
"Yes?"
"You were twelve."
"I liked biology."
Aquaman sighed.
"Right."
He forgot.
Atlanteans didn't separate biology, chemistry, fluid dynamics, ecology, geology and climatology the way surface dwellers did.
Ocean currents connected everything.
Which meant...
Garth knew everything.
Across the room—
Roy suddenly sat upright.
"I figured it out."
Everyone jumped.
"You weren't asleep?!"
"I told you I was thinking."
He walked over.
Looked at the equations.
Pointed.
"The bug isn't mathematical."
Everyone frowned.
"It's linguistic."
"...What?"
Roy pointed at one line of alien code.
"Translation error."
Dick blinked.
"..."
Wally blinked.
"..."
Donna leaned closer.
"...Oh."
Garth's eyes widened.
"...He's right."
Batman walked over.
"...Explain."
Roy shrugged.
"Whoever translated the original operating system confused two alien words."
"...Which words?"
Roy smiled.
"'Average' and 'consensus.'"
Mr. Terrific looked.
Read it.
Read it again.
Then laughed.
"Oh you've got to be kidding."
The entire catastrophic systems failure...
...had been caused by one mistranslated noun.
Five minutes later...
Everything worked.
"...That's it?" Hal asked.
Dick nodded.
"Yep."
"You solved three days of work in under an hour."
Dick frowned.
"...It took us fifty-three minutes."
"...Dick."
"We were slow."
The League stared.
Later that afternoon.
The story had spread.
Mostly because Hal couldn't stop talking about it.
"So," Booster Gold asked, "Dick's a genius?"
Barry laughed.
"Oh no."
"He's one kind of genius."
"What does that mean?"
Barry started counting on his fingers.
"Dick's absurd at mathematics, logistics, psychology, strategy, architecture, cryptography..."
"He does geometry for fun," Wally added.
"That too."
"And Wally?"
Barry looked proud.
"Wally accidentally explains quantum mechanics the way normal people explain recipes."
"I do not."
"You absolutely do."
"And Donna?"
Wonder Woman smiled.
"Donna has one of the finest memories I have ever witnessed."
Donna sighed.
"I read quickly."
Diana looked amused.
"You remember books you read once ten years ago."
"They were interesting."
"And Garth?"
Aquaman answered.
"If you ask Garth a question about the ocean, be prepared to lose the next six hours."
"It's a broad topic."
"It's one topic."
"It really isn't."
"And Roy?"
Oliver smiled.
"Roy notices things."
Roy shrugged.
"People leave clues."
"No," Oliver corrected.
"They leave clues you notice."
A week later...
The Justice League received another technical crisis.
Mr. Terrific sighed.
"...Call the Titans."
Batman nodded once.
"They're already on their way."
When the Fab Five arrived...
They found the League waiting.
Hal smiled sheepishly.
"So..."
Dick grinned.
"Homework again?"
"...Please."
The five exchanged amused looks.
Wally rubbed his hands together.
"Ooh."
Donna smiled.
"I brought notebooks."
Garth looked delighted.
"What field is it?"
Roy stretched.
"I hope it's weird."
Batman, who had somehow become resigned to this entire phenomenon, simply gestured toward the malfunctioning system.
The five immediately began talking over one another.
"No, that's not electrical."
"Looks computational."
"Actually, listen to the vibration."
"Can I see the maintenance logs?"
"Who's the last person that touched it?"
The room filled with excited debate, half-finished equations, and references that flew over everyone else's heads.
Hal watched them for a long moment before leaning toward Superman.
"...They're terrifying."
Superman smiled.
"They're having fun."
Indeed they were.
Because for the original Titans, saving the world was work.
But getting to solve an impossible puzzle with their best friends?
That was just another perfect afternoon.