AN: And I am back with another one-shot to release my creative frustration during my writer's block on my multi-chapter story! :D Young Justice, bitches! So, a little background to this: I like to this that this takes place sometime in the middle of "Happy New Year" and this references a lot to "Auld Acquaintance". I hope you enjoy!

Watchtower

"Batman!" Nightwing gasped as he looked towards his former mentor. "It's the missing sixteen hours!"

"Agreed" Batman acknowledged.

Robin—although usually very respectful and obedient—had stuck a small radio device onto Batman's cape that morning before leaving for Mount Justice.

Because it's fun to know things before everybody else.

He had heard everything they just said. As he listened in the privacy of his room at the Young Justice headquarters, he mentally and unintentionally brought himself away from the conversation. There was something in the urgency in Nightwing's voice.

Yes—everybody knew about the missing sixteen hours from five years ago. He knew that six key members of the Justice League—including his own mentor—had mysteriously gone off the radar and none of them could recall what they did during that time span afterwards.

He knew about the Justice League turning against them and it took the entire Young Justice team to sedate and bring them out of that bizarre stupor.

He also knew that members of The Light were completely responsible for everything that happened that New Year's Eve.

He even knew about the one-on-one mentor vs. protégé fights some members of the team had the unfortunate luck to have. But those were all the basic facts that everyone knew about. Robin never really thought about it until now. He was still really young when all of that drama happened.

Now it turned out that Batman and the five other leaguers were wanted criminals on a different planet.

Something in Nightwing's voice sounded almost...what's the word?—frantic.

Wayne Manor

Later, back home in Gotham City, Robin was now Tim Drake, Nightwing stripped down to Dick Grayson, and lastly Batman turned back into billionaire playboy philanthropist Bruce Wayne.

"You staying for dinner, Dick?" Bruce asked as he and his sons stepped out from the secret entrance of the Batcave. Both he and his youngest turned slightly to face Dick as Bruce placed a hand on Tim's shoulder.

"Yeah, I don't see why not." Dick responded. "Today's Tuesday, right? Means Alfred is bound to be cooking up an awesome pasta dish."

Bruce smiled and gave Tim's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Alright then, I have some work for Wayne Enterprises waiting for me in my office. I'll see you both at dinner. Afterwards we'll go on a quick patrol." Then he looked down at Tim. "I want your homework to be done by then, alright?"

"Bruce, this is Tim you're talking to." Dick laughed as he wrapped an arm around his younger brother's neck. "He has probably finished it all by now."

Dick and Tim left the study and closed the door behind them. Dick turned to face his younger brother. "What do you want to do?" he asked in his usual charming manner. "We still got a while till dinner time. Want to spar for a bit? TV?"

This is the perfect opportunity to get a few questions of my chest.

They both strode down the hall towards the grand staircase. "I actually want to ask you something." Tim asked somewhat timidly.

"Is it about that thing Bruce does sometimes after a mission?" Dick asked with a smirk plastered on his face.

"No, I want to ask about—wait, what thing?"

"You know, that thing where he actually shows some form of affection. Hand on your shoulder, ruffles your hair—those kinds of things." he explained as he demonstrated using Tim has his model.

Tim smirked as he fixed his hair. "Wow, I didn't think that there was a deeper meaning into that."

"But apparently that's not what you wanted to talk about?"

Oh right, the actual thing I wanted to know about. "The missing sixteen hours. I want to know more about that."

The smirk on Dick's face dropped slightly then returned back to normal. "What else is there to know?" he asked as they arrived to the base of the staircase. "Five years ago Batman and five other members of the JLA went missing for 16 hours that cannot be accounted for. You know all this."

"Yeah! But…I don't know…" Tim slightly panicked as he stumbled over his words. "Your perspective." How is it that you're a lot smoother in the field with dangerous criminals than when you're trying to lie to your own partner?

Dick just looked at him then glanced up the stairs. "Let's talk in your room." He finally managed to say.

After climbing a set of stairs and walking down a hallway in a somewhat awkward silence, they arrived at Tim's bedroom, which was right across the hall from Dick's. The both entered the room. Tim sat himself on the edge of his bed as Dick closed the door behind him. "So," he finally said as he turned. "You want to know about my take about that whole fiasco five years ago?"

Tim nodded. He was surprised at the seriousness in Dick's voice. He rarely spoke in such a manner. "Yes."

Dick took a seat next to Tim on the bed. "May I ask why?"

Because I secretly bugged you and Bruce and you sounded really anxious about that issue a few hours ago. "Just curious."

Dick sighed heavily and ran a hand through his black hair. "Alright." He sighed. "Sit at your desk and pretend to do your homework. And turn on some music."

"What, why?"

"Just do it." He muttered. "Please."

Tim eyed him oddly, but did as he requested. He got up, turned on some music that began blasting through the walls in a sound system in his room. He took out a textbook, a pencil, and a couple sheets of college-ruled paper from his backpack that was leaning against the wall, then set them on his desk. He angled his body and his chair in a way so that he would be facing Dick as he worked on his homework. "Alright."

"Alright…" he began. "I admit it…it was a pretty scary situation. Easily makes it in the Top Five list for 'Scariest and Most Intense Missions Ever'."

"I bet. With the whole Justice League turned against you, I'd be pretty scared too. How old were you? Thirteen? Fourteen?"

"I had just turned fourteen a few weeks before that. Anyways, the team and I managed to get Red Tornado on our side, who ended up helping us save our butts from Black Canary. We were also able to get a reverse engineered cure from Starro biotech—that was the easy part.

We had just learned that the Red Arrow we all knew and loved was actually a clone of the real Roy Harper—he was the mole. While a cured Black Canary, with Red Tornado and Roy confronted The Light, the Team began giving the Justice League the cure."

Tim listened intently making sure he was scribbling something on the piece of paper every few seconds.

"Eventually, Canary and the Reds began attacking. Vandal Savage brought back Bruce and the other five members to Earth through a portal and were given strict orders to…basically kill us."

Bruce trying to kill Dick? That's really hard to imagine. Tim continued silently listening.

"We split up again to take on the heavy hitters of the League. Artemis, Wally, and Kaldur were able to get the cure onto Flash, Aquaman, and Green Arrow. The rest of us were outside of the Watchtower—where the main six were fighting us."

Dick took a moment to pause his story. "Seriously Tim, why do you want to know more about this?"

"For real, Dick." Tim answered as he put his pencil down. "I just was just curious."

"Tim, I saw the radio devise you stuck onto Batman's cape." Dick smirked at him which helped lighten up the moment. "You know we were going to tell you eventually about what went up there, right?"

"You're not going to tell Bruce, right?" Tim asked feeling slightly afraid.

"No, but come on!" he chuckled. "You're supposed to be the good child! This is very out of the norm for you."

"Oh, like you never have days that you decide to do something that you know Bruce wouldn't like?"

"Touché, Mr. Drake."

"You were finally getting to the part I wanted to know about, Mr. Grayson." Tim teased. "Please continue."

"First, you have to tell me the real reason why you wanted to know more about this." He responded as he leaned over with his elbows on his knees.

Tim sighed heavily and spun around in a complete circle in his chair and faced his brother again. "When I was listening to you guys—when Adam Strange brought up that…"news"—your reaction was very instantaneous and…urgent. A little frantic. I just want to know your point of view…I want to understand."

Dick's big blue eyes slightly widened at that last statement. He felt a little touched.

He casually tapped his hands on his knees then stretched his arms. "Alright, where was I?"

"You and the main six fighting outside the tower?"

"Right. Well, let me start at a certain part. I had just gave one of the Lantern's the cure and Rocket had Wonder Woman trapped in one of her kinetic energy spheres…that was when I noticed that Batman was going in to attack. Rocket got out of the way safely while still containing in Wonder Woman. He threw me aside and when I got back up, for in an instant…we just kind of stared at each other. I was hoping he would be able to snap out of it—that somewhere deep inside him he was fighting the infection—that he didn't want to fight, but when he looked at me…"

It suddenly seemed like Dick couldn't swallow a knot in his throat that he didn't even realize he had.

Tim looked at him worryingly. Maybe this is why he asked for music—so that no one outside could hear him. "Dick, are you ok?" he timidly asked. "You don't have to—"

"No, it's ok." Dick interrupted. "This is probably good for me. I never really spoke about this. It'll get some things off my chest."

"Only if you're sure." Normally Tim would insist on letting go of the subject to avoid any more complication… but he was getting what he wanted to know. His level of curiosity was at an intense high at this point. No going back.

"I hope you will never have to go through anything like this with him—or even with me." With a deep slightly quivered sigh, Dick finally continued. "When he looked at me…I could see that he was no longer Batman—not even Bruce Wayne. His eyes were so full of…hate. Something I had never seen before—at least directed at me.

Then he cracked his knuckles, which is a gesture that basically says 'I'm going to kick your butt into next week'. Then I threw some gas bombs at him. He punched me in the face and so on. While that was happening, Superman and Superboy were getting at each other's throats and it became obvious that we couldn't beat them single-handily.

Long story short, Superboy threw me at Batman, I slammed him against a wall and gave him the cure before even touching the ground. I exposed Superman to kryptonite while Superboy was holding him and gave him the cure too."

Tim stared dumbfounded at Dick. Throughout parts of the story, he actually had to stop and take a breath from the emotional intensity.

"This story does have a happy ending though." Dick said with a little more pep. "Unfortunately the Light got away while we were dealing with the Justice League, but we did it all before midnight. On a weird note, even after going through all that—the clock struck midnight…and I kissed Zatanna."

"Oh really?" Tim asked with a raised eyebrow. "The way I heard it, Zatanna was the one who kissed you."

Dick playfully threw a pillow at his little brother's face. "Hey, you asked for my story!" He laughed. "It was quite a pleasing way to begin the New Year."

Tim threw the pillow back at him. "So…did you and Bruce ever talk about it?"

"Well it is a hard topic to ignore. Yeah, we had a talk about it afterwards and as you can see, things between us are just fine." Dick smiled then leaned back onto the bed and stretched his arms behind his head as he relaxed.

Unbeknownst to them, Bruce was actually listening in on their conversation from the comfort of the dark and dreary Batcave. He was a detective—of course he saw the recording device Robin had placed on his costume. And he had heard the words his sons had exchanged with each other.

Bruce was usually a man who respected their privacy, but in a somewhat childish act of his, he had placed a recording device in Tim's hoodie so that he would later have a talk with him about eavesdropping and when it is appropriate.

At the moment, the eavesdropping issue was currently at the back of his mind. He thought back on the talk he and Dick had when they got home.

Dick didn't actually talk. Bruce realized that this was actually the first time he heard him talk about the events from that night. He was actually the one doing the talking for a change.

Five Years Ago

The meeting up at the watchtower had finally been dismissed. Batman and Robin zeta-beamed back to Mount Justice then took another zeta-beam back to Gotham City where the Batmobile waited in a secluded alley way. Robin walked behind him while remaining quiet the whole way there—which was pretty out of character for the boy.

I'm definitely one to talk about being out of character, Batman thought.

Robin sat in the passenger seat. His face was engaged determinedly to his front view. It was a little awkward for the both of them.

"Achoo!" Robin sneezed suddenly.

"Bless you." Batman responded in his usual static tone.

"Thanks."

"Are you getting sick?" Batman could sense all the tense awkwardness crowding in the car. He hoped that this small gesture of worry would reassure his partner that he was back to his old self.

"No." the young one answered almost immediately. "Allergies, probably."

"Alright then."

Within a minute they entered the Batcave and as soon as Batman parked and removed the hood of the car, Robin jumped out and proceeded walking away.

Batman stepped out of the car and pulled back the cowl. Bruce Wayne is talking now.

"Dick." he called out his real name to the boy with a hint of worry in his tone.

The boy turned towards him. He removed his mask revealing the bright blue eyes he hid. "I guess we should talk about what happened today, huh?"

Bruce nodded. Out of protective instinct, he approached the boy and took him gently by his shoulder—not failing to notice his startled reaction—and led him to the computer. "Sit." he said as he offered the computer chair to Dick.

Dick raised an eyebrow at him, but obeyed and took a seat. He definitely thought that this gesture was really weird. "You're not still under Savage's control, right?" he asked a little hesitantly as he looked up to the older man.

Bruce slightly smirked. "No. Like you said, we need to talk about this. I'm sure the other heroes are probably doing this with their protégées as well."

"Ok."

He could still sense that Dick was keeping to himself. "Dick—"

"Ok, this might be a weird stupid question that I'll blame on puberty, but I really need to know something." He suddenly said and rather quickly at that.

Good, we're getting somewhere. "Alright. Go ahead." He knelt down to be at eye level. "Shoot."

Dick sighed deeply and began to nervously pull on the fingertips of his gauntlets. "You don't…hate me, right? I mean—The Light's spell didn't increase any inner emotions towards certain people or anything like that, right?" He then sprang up from the chair and pulled back his messy hair. "Never mind, it was a dumb question—I just want to go to bed now. Happy New Year, Bruce."

Still in a kneeled position, Bruce put his hands on the boy's shoulders. Dick looked almost frighteningly down at him. His eyes were starting to shine—trying to hold back his true emotions. "Dick, please." He asked in the gentlest way he could conjure. "Sit down."

Dick once again obeyed but kept his head down.

Bruce kept his big hands on him and squeezed gingerly and looked deeply into his eyes. "Richard Grayson" he began with determination laced all over his voice. "I don't have any regrets about taking you in. And I most certainly don't hate you—quite the contrary." He said.

Dick looked at him, his eyes wide with awe at what he was being told.

"I know we don't talk much about our relationship—it isn't… normal as you know very well, but if you take anything with you from this conversation, please let it be this: I love you as if you were my own son, but I will never want to take the place of your real father—rest in peace—and for what I have done to you this evening…I am incredibly sorry. I am sorry for any physical and emotional scars I may have given you, but the man that you fought—that man was not me—not mentally."

Now that he was finally getting a good look, the punches he landed on the boy's face were starting to swell up and turn purple. He also noticed the bruises starting to appear on the exposed areas of his arms.

Dick quickly brushed off the hands on his shoulders and looped his arms around Bruce's neck tightly. Almost as if he didn't want to or was too afraid to let go.

Bruce was slightly frozen for a moment. His hands floated awkwardly in midair—for a moment not knowing how to react—but then returned the hug. He could feel Dick's heavy and vibrated breaths against his chest.

"Are you ok?" Bruce asked as he began ruffling his hair in the middle of the embrace.

"Allergies, I swear." The boy answered with a trembling voice as he gripped tighter. "By the way…you are my dad. You're one of them. One of the best."

A smile sprouted on the man's face at the comment. That's my boy.

"Let's get you fixed up now." Then he led the boy towards the medical area.

Present Day – Wayne Manor

Dick and Tim then began talking about other things. "You like her, don't you?" Dick teased.

"Dick! Just drop it!" Tim sighed in frustration.

"No, no, no! I told you something pretty personal, now it's your turn!"

Their small argument was then interrupted by the sound of knocking at the door. Saved by the bell.

Tim got up and opened the door to see Bruce standing right there at the entrance. He couldn't help but just stand there, not after what he learned from Dick's story. This is the man who almost killed his son.

"Hey, Bruce!" Dick called from the bed. "Not like you to actually come up to us to tell us that dinner is ready."

Bruce smirked. "Thought that I might switch things up a bit, I suppose." He smiled down at Tim who was still standing at the doorway and ruffled his hair. "You and I are going to have a talk later." He said as he pulled out the recording device from his pocket.

If Tim wasn't stiff then, he certainly turned as stiff as a wooden board when he saw it in Bruce's hands. "Aw man." He mumbled as he rubbed his arm nervously.

Bruce then stuck his hand in his hood and fished out the other device. "Then we'll talk about how that makes you feel."

At that moment Dick sprung from the bed and onto his feet and Tim just stared at the devices in awe. Holy crap, this is bad!

"Whoa…uh…" Dick stammered with his words. "Did you just…uh…hear everything?"

Bruce nodded. "I didn't realize that…that day had left such a long-lasting impact on you."

"It's ok, we talked about it afterwards, remember? This conversation Tim and I just had doesn't change anything."

"I know, but—"

"Bruce, that was five years ago." Dick said as he stuck his hands in his pockets. "I don't mean any disrespect, but we have to move on from that. That day wasn't easy, but we both survived it and everything is ok."

Bruce stuck both recording devices in his pocket and nodded. "Right." He looked back at Tim who was watching it all go down. "And I hope that this doesn't change anything between us either."

Tim's features softened and he shyly smiled at his guardian. "Of course. Nothing changes."

"So…" Dick said as he looped arms around Bruce and Tim's necks. "Can we go eat now? I haven't had anything cooked by Alfred in like a week. I am a little anxious."

The trio then proceeded to walk down the stairs to the dining area where Alfred was setting down the plates of food—and as Dick guessed correctly, it was a fancy pasta dish.

"Good evening sirs," the butler greeted with a smile. "Anything interesting to talk about?"

AN: Oh gosh, that ending is a little questionable. Umm…Bye! Review please! :D And I apologize if the characters seem out of character, and I'm also sorry for basically writing down the summary to Auld Acquaintance…Have a nice day!