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The kid sat at a different corner of the diner today. Pale, dark-haired, roughly the same age as Damian, pondering a stack of buttermilk pancakes with a fork and vintage syrup dispenser. The first day, it had been waffles, and the second day 'just orange juice please'.
This was Bruce's third day in the time loop. Two minutes post reset on a full twenty-four hour cycle. Out of all sixteen patrons at RUBY'S DINER, this kid was the only wild card, an impressive feat considering he shouldn't be. The Hottest Firemen of 2026 Calendar always read August 1st, the checkered flannel guy always ordered Ruby's Big Breakfast Special with three eggs, scrambled. Everyone had a set pattern.
-"A wonderful Tuesday today, looks like another brisk twenty-three degrees, just warm enough for a nice walk in Gotham Park, AQ toxicity levels sitting at a calm fifty-six," the overhead TV buzzed in off-color static.
"Coffee?" the waitress raised the coffee pot expectantly, a patient half-smile on her face.
"In a minute, thank you," Bruce nodded politely then stood up, the couple next to him snapping a few photos. He turned a sharp right down the aisle of empty booths, stopping at the furthest left corner. "May I?"
The kid startled, knees banging against the table. "Uh."
"Thanks." Bruce casually took a seat across from the kid, mindful of the glossy syrup handprints on the checkerboard. Something unusual caught his eye. An anachronistic medallion stuck out of the kid's scuffed jeans pocket, embedded with the words CW. "Fancy piece of jewelry you got there."
The anomaly immediately hunched, defensive, shoving the item deeper into his jeans. "It's nothing."
"Sorry if I scared you," he relaxed his stance, palms open on the table, "Sometimes I'm a bit forgetful. You could say it feels like I've been repeating the same day over and over."
The kid's eyes widened, then narrowed in suspicion.
"I'm Bruce," he tried, "and you are?"
"... Danny."
"Danny. I hope you don't mind the intrusion, you see, I'm trying to solve this problem, and I could really use the help-"
"Look man, I don't know you, and I can't help you with the time loop thing-" Danny suddenly covered his mouth.
"So it is a time loop," Bruce mused, "I appreciate you confirming it. Anything else I should know?"
Bruce's tone must have come out as too Batman interrogation mode because between one second and the next Danny disappeared entirely off the visible spectrum, unfinished pancakes still dripping on the table.
Well then.
-"A wonderful Tuesday today, looks like another brisk twenty-three degrees, just warm enough for a nice walk in Gotham Park, AQ toxicity levels sitting at a calm fifty-six," the overhead TV buzzed in off-color static.
"Coffee?" the waitress raised the coffee pot expectantly, a patient half-smile on her face.
"In a minute, thank you," Bruce nodded politely then stood up, the couple next to him snapping a few photos. He turned a sharp left down the aisle of empty booths, stopping at the furthest right corner. "May I?"
Danny tracked every motion like a cat ready to make a hundred-yard dash out the front door. His hands gripped the sides of the table so tight the aluminum trembled, blueberry muffins wobbling dangerously.
"I was hoping we'd continue our conversation from the last time loop," Bruce made sure to emphasize as he squeezed himself opposite, "Danny, was it?"
"You…" Danny finally managed to squeak, "You remember me?"
"I do have to admit, you made quite the impression," he tried to smile the way Dick had taught him, relax the cheek muscles, a little less teeth, a little less will-scare-a-small-child-or-teenager, "Considering I've never had anyone disappear right in front of me-"
-Danny, as if suddenly remembering that was an option, disappeared again.
-"A wonderful Tuesday today, looks like another brisk twenty-three degrees, just warm enough for a nice walk in Gotham Park, AQ toxicity levels sitting at a calm fifty-six"-
"Coffee?" the waitress raised the coffee pot expectantly, a patient half-smile on her face.
"No thank you," Bruce politely excused himself and immediately turned to his right, then left.
Danny wasn't here.
Danny hadn't shown up the next cycle, nor the one after that, not for an entire week.
"Long day?" Tim took his customary seat next to Bruce, a cup of coffee in hand and breakfast sandwich in the other.
"Hn." Bruce loaded the Batcomputer, adding database specifics. Lost artifacts. Time-related relics. Black-haired blue-eyed kids named Danny ages fourteen to sixteen. Still no definite results, he needed more information. He needed to find Danny and ask-
Thud thud thud.
That was new. Bruce turned around. "What are you doing?"
Tim placed his WORLD'S BEST BOSS mug back on the table, eye-level with the bottom of the cup. "Hmm… ½ an inch off this time. Exactly one inch last iteration. A completely different cup prior. Reset variances unaffected by cup choice."
Bruce paused his research. "… How long have you been in this time loop?"
"Seven days, two hours, thirty three-minutes."
"Why didn't you-" Tell me, say something? -"Submit a direct report?"
"I genuinely thought weren't aware until today, actually. Thirteen relics by the way, five of them being sold on E-bay."
"What?"
"Neckpieces, circular with a gold cogwheel frame, embedded with a stylized CW?" Tim looked up from his 'crime scene' investigation, eyes completely bloodshot. "I'm the one who keeps on adjusting your search results to include vendor metadata-" he suddenly craned his neck left, expectantly staring at the elevator.
Damian stepped out five seconds later, scowling. "I already told you I didn't touch your disgusting bean juice, Drake."
"Trying to murder me again, Damian?"
"You would know if I did, Drake."
"Unless you want to count Alfred, who is upstairs, we're the only three people stuck in this time loop."
"Four," Bruce corrected, frowning. Eliminate all variables and coincidences no longer look like coincidences. "... You can come out now."
Silence.
Damian pursed his lips. "Father-"
"You can come out now, Danny."
"…Damn," Danny stepped into full visibility, holding the other half of Tim's breakfast sandwich, "Busted."
Bruce rubbed his temples. "How long?"
"Just a few days," defended Danny, "I was going to use the cool super fast computer after you guys were done."
Tim stared.
"Ha," Damian stated, "I told you I did not search 'Is Bruce Wayne Rich' on the Batcomputer."
"So you're a meta," Bruce watched Danny consume two-and-a-half breakfast sandwiches and three more cookies before accepting a glass of milk from Alfred.
"Uh, sort of? It's more of a medical condition, but in the fun way."
'Sort of?' was a question for a future time loop. "Your ability makes you appear invisible."
"Um actually, the term is turn invisible, which again, is a part of my medical condition." Danny looked down at his worn sneakers, wiggling one toe through the outsole, "Would it help to let you know I didn't tell Batman anything either?"
Bruce hesitated. "…I am Batman."
"Wait then who was-" Danny stole a glance past the Batcomputer at Tim, "I knew he looked too skinny."
"I heard that," Tim said without looking up.
"Um, you're not mad at me right?" Danny deflated, "I promise I wasn't doing anything bad I just wanted to figure out why this was happening-"
-"As do we all," Bruce tried reasonably, "Focus on working together first, and then discussing circumstances later."
"Y-yeah. Uh. I mean sure! Of course. Later."
Bruce knew Danny was lying but it wouldn't be the first time someone Danny's age had lied to him.
Danny craned his head up, and up some more at the impromptu wall littered in articles and trailing red threads. "You made this in two hours?"
"Drake doesn't deserve all the credit," Damian grumbled, still cutting the edges out of a black-and-white article titled 'BERT'S CLOCK SHOP MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARS INTO THE NIGHT', "We have yet still to list everything in chronological order-"
-"As long as I understand it, it's good enough," Tim defended.
"Set in your selfish ways again, Drake?"
"You're one to talk you pipsqueak-"
"It's very helpful as a visual guide, thank you," Bruce stepped in before the two could derail themselves into an every-third-time-loop altercation. The more resets, the more disheveled the two of them looked, despite the clean 'reboot' in the morning.
Danny yawned, still holding his newly acquired WORLD'S BEST BOSS mug. "I'll head out in a bit, see if anything else is new."
"Keep me updated," he said instinctively, relaxing a bit when Danny amenably nodded. Alfred had caught footage of Danny disappearing to and from the Batcave, though where and how were still up in the air. Bruce highly suspected some form of levitation or flight was involved.
"This article is outdated," Damian micromanaged, "And it is irrelevant."
"You're irrelevant," Tim muttered under his breath before glancing over, "Oh, that's related to the time dilation stuff, which is related to the secret government agency controlling our perception of time over there."
"Your article reads 'Man Stalked By Ice Cream Shop Owner After Leaving a 1 Star Yelp Review'", Damian stated flatly.
"Yeah, but did you read the part about how he got the Gotham PD on the scene? Nobody gets the Gotham PD to respond that quickly, not even Batman."
"Clearly, you have not been paying attention to-"
-The elevator whooshed open, Dick in his Nightwing suit standing at the entryway, one hand on his hip. "Did someone ask for Batman?"
"You can stay here if you'd like," Bruce offered, "The loop will reset soon."
"If you say so." Danny yawned again, and without any further protest, curled into the quilt blankets and closed his eyes.
Bruce continued his research alone. Two hours before reset. There was an extra variable they had overlooked, and Danny was the missing link. Fortunately or unfortunately for Bruce and his sanity, they had all the time in the world, including earning Danny's trust, one reset at a time.
He sighed, eyes tired, plagued with what ifs and what could be's. He needed to start off fresh.
The Batcave suddenly rumbled then escalated into a loud motorcycle-engine roar. A red bike lazily swerved past the Batmobile, stopping in a neat U-turn at the end of the ramp. Tearing off his helmet, Jason paced up the stairs two steps at a time. "Listen, asshole, you can't just-"
Jason stopped at the railing, looking at Bruce, then at the startled head poking out of the blanket fort. "Danny?"
Danny did a double-take. "Jason?"
Bruce surveyed the Batcave. At some point, Cass had smuggled a sleeping bag, five pillows, and an oversized teddy-bear 'for emergencies'. Tim's coffee cups sat as paperweights for the 'to be sorted' articles, Duke's homework occupied the rest of the corner next to Damian's neater stack of textbooks. Danny's blanket fort had mysteriously acquired two pillows, and an extra teddy bear. The cave looked lived in. For the first time in the forty-two resets, Bruce felt a twinge of something years long forgotten.
"And we're sure, positive here, that there's no, I dunno, time traveling power superheroes unaccounted for? The part with the time travel powers part is important." Danny repeated, reflexively phasing through Dick's mandatory cuddle-hug. They had an unspoken working system. Danny would offer new, often vague insights every morning, they would workshop it in a pseudo-meeting. Whomever Danny was talking to knew too much, though the kid was impressively tight-lipped about who and how.
"Time travel is a vague term," Tim explained in 'lecturer mode', pointing his bo staff at the highest point of the evidence board before trailing a line to the bottom-left. "Take for example, those with access to the Speed Force, who are considered time-adjacent. Regardless, we've covered them. Extensively. You can track where each of them were leading to this day if you follow the different threads I pinned-"
"Or you could check your phone," Dick chimed in, sitting on the table cross-legged next to Danny. He glanced down. "Yep, Kid Flash junior’s still hanging out with family."
"And you're sure sure," Danny continued to press, "Like everyone on and uh, off planet?"
Tim gave Danny an even-more-tired look, "Do you even know how long that would even take?"
Bruce sensed something there. The extra variable. "Let's narrow our search down to anyone from Earth scheduled on off-planet missions."
"There's Wally," Tim hesitated, "He's on that mission with Kory but they won't be returning for another five days. No sightings in Central City, no social media updates which means his story still checks out."
"That's because he never updates on the day, you should check Kory's updates instead," Dick jokingly scrolled a few times before pausing, "…Hey, uh, guys?"
Wally slapped both his cheeks, staring up at the Hall of Justice. "Okay, you can do this Wally. Remember, don't talk to Superman, do not take the wrong elevator, and whatever you do, don't tell Cyborg your cool joke and cause him to mess up and accidentally engage the hyper-fusion collider." He did felt a little guilty resetting the same day so many times - there were probably side effects to using the Speed Force like that. Probably. "Maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead. No, no, this is the one chance I have to apologize, I can do this - I can fix things this time."
A bright green portal tore open, exactly four figures popping out of it, one of them distinctly resembling the statue behind Wally.
"Or," Batman said, sounding more tired dad than the Batman, "You can stop right there."