A/N: A collection of AU version of the Daring Dangers! Personalities are tweaked a little to fit the chapters. When I saw the preview clip of Performance (way back then in season 1) I immediately fell in love with this group combination! I don't know why, but it just felt so…natural (because I lack the proper word at the moment to describe this). I did miss Wally though...SIGH. And somehow I was okay with Aqualad not being there. Zatanna's still new so I didn't care that much.
So, enjoy!
Disclaimer: I wish I could just have some sort of ownership of this awesomeness but alas, I do not!
Foreword:
Railroad Cars and Sleeping Performers
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He awakens to the sound of soft breathing and a warmth that is not his own.
Blue eyes flutter open, groggy and mistaking the warm object in front of him as a pillow, he buries his face into it. The pillow shifts once, twice (he wraps his arms around it to halt the movement because come on, he's finally asleep!) before turning around the moment he decides to immerse his face further into the material. His eyes snap open almost instantly when he realizes that now his face is full of breasts and he pulls back in embarrassment, nearly falling off the bed.
Blood rushes to his face momentarily as he assesses his surroundings. In the dim moonlight peeking in from the train window, he makes out the form of the person he's sharing his bed with. Face serene and a golden curtain fanned out behind her, he swallows. Artemis. Or by the name she goes by here, Diane. Somehow the palm of his hand had made contact to his forehead. Great. He had just buried his face in Artemis's—no, Diane's breasts. Wonderful. Asterously wonderful.
He shook his head. Stay whelmed, stay whelmed, he chanted in his head while sitting up, now fully alert. He adjusts the blanket back over the sleeping figure's shoulders, blowing his bangs out of his eyes.
He looks over to the other occupants of the sleeping car; a figure to his left is curled up under a blanket, red hair splayed over the pillow. In the bunk above her, there is slight grunting and some tossing until the boy with black hair finally settles down, one of his bulky arms hangs from the edge of the bunk. The person in the bunk above his (or rather, theirs) moves and the bunk creaks softly.
There were only four bunks, each one was supposed to accommodate for the original four who were supposed to go until an unexpected addition to their…family or in the words of young adult sleeping above them, "clown car", decided to come along. One had to either sleep on the floor or share beds. There were slight oppositions but he managed to make everyone take a bunk. Everyone, especially Roy and Connor (he gave him a knowing look), had offered to take turns but it was beginning to be too much of a hassle so he asked Artemis (ugh, Diane, he has to get used to calling everyone by their aliases). She simply smiled and patted the place next to her.
He sighs, lying back down. Tilting his head to the side, he watches Artemis (just forget it!) breathe, her eyelids move infinitesimally and he's wondering what she's dreaming about.
The sound of the train running over tracks and the rumbling of the whole mechanized vehicle is familiar to him. It had taken him so long to finally fall asleep earlier but now, he's being lulled back into sweet unconsciousness so easily. And the thought of being back to the circus, back to his past, and the anxiety and fear and—it diminishes.
He shifts so that he's lying under Artemis's chin, resting his forehead on her collarbone and imagines for a moment that he's back not under such pretenses.
He's back with his family.
His new family.