Dick decided that this was either a horrible nightmare, or his own personal version of hell. He'd arrived in the 'future' (and he said 'future' because he still wasn't fully convinced that this was his future) two days ago, and already he'd had enough.
He was Batman. For some reason, in this horrible, messed-up version of the future, he was Batman. Future-him (he refused to call him Batman) refused to tell him how it had happened, or what had happened to Bruce. That alone left a bad feeling in his gut. Sure, he wasn't on the best terms with Bruce at the moment, but the man was still his dad. He knew Bruce would never retire, certainly not this early, so what did that mean?
And then of course there was the fact that Jason was no longer Robin. Future-him had assured him that Jason was alive (again, he didn't want to think about what that meant for Bruce, since Future-him had avoided the topic altogether), and Dick wanted to believe that his younger brother had simply outgrew the role, but something just didn't feel right. Sure, he and Jason weren't exactly close, but…the boy was his brother. No matter how hard he tried to distance himself from his family, he knew he'd never be able to forget them completely.
The new Robin was just odd. He was moody, anti-social…basically a miniature-version of Bruce. And that fit, he supposed, since the kid was apparently Bruce's son. His biological son. Damian Wayne. He still couldn't wrap his mind around that. Dick had spent ages trying to figure out who the mother was, but kept drawing a blank. Catwoman would have been his first pick, but the kid's clearly mixed heritage conflicted with that theory. After all, the kid certainly didn't get his darker complexion from Bruce. There was one person he could think of that matched that description but…no way. There was no way Bruce would have a child with her.
So, strange kids and missing family members aside, things were…still very, very bad. For one thing, his hair was completely destroyed. The fabulous mullet, that he had spent ages growing out, was gone. When he'd first been introduced to future-him, that was the first thing he'd noticed. All of his glorious locks…gone.
No wonder he and Kory had apparently broken up. She'd probably gotten sick of his mullet-less self. And the lack of finger stripes — because he was Batman now, and apparently Batman was too good for finger stripes.
But he could handle that. He could handle all of that (…well okay, no, he definitely couldn't. He really, really, really wanted to know that Bruce was okay, and he wanted to see for himself that Jason was alive. And he wanted to know what the hell had happened between him and Kory. But he could handle the other stuff…probably).
The thing that terrified him — truly, and completely scared the shit out of him — was his new attitude.
Somehow, his fun, laid-back style had completely disintegrated over the years. He'd become…he'd turned into…
…an overprotective dad.
To a kid that wasn't even his own.
It was a nightmare. Over the past two days, he'd had to watch future-him cooing over the kid (Damian), using every opportunity he had to hug him, checking on the kid at least three to five times after he went to bed…hell, future-him had sat him down, and had forced him to look through photo album after photo album of childhood photos — all of which had been taken in the past few months.
So, okay, fine — future-him was proud of his younger brother. He could understand that, he supposed, but…couldn't he just calm down a bit? Dick sure as hell didn't act like this with Jason.
And now it was happening — again. After a bit of nagging, he'd been able to convince future-him to allow him to join them on patrol for the night. And then the kid had run ahead, had taken a bit of a tumble on the opposite rooftop, and future-him had…completely lost it.
But no — no, Dick was not going to let this go on. He was going to set future-him down, and explain that he needed to calm down a little, because there was a reason he'd left the manor, in case he'd forgotten, and it had something to do with Bruce's overbearing, way too overprotective behaviour —
But, well, future-him just didn't seem to want to listen.
"Robin!" future-him cried out in distress. "Robin, are you hurt?! Do you need any help?! Robin!"
Dick grabbed future-him by the arm. "The kid just fell over!" he said firmly. "Look, he's fine!"
And yeah, the kid was fine. He was getting up, dusting himself off, and seemed more embarrassed than anything.
Future-him glared (and wow, he had completely mastered the bat-glare). "He could be hurt!" he snarled, sounding like…god, he sounded just like Bruce.
"I'm telling you," Dick insisted, trying not to mull over that little comparison, "he tripped — look, he is fine — "
"Robin!" future-him yelled, completely ignoring him, "if you don't answer in the next five seconds, I'm coming over there!"
The kid shot future-him a deadly glare (which, again, looked a lot like the bat-glare. And Bruce thought he was the only one who could master it…if Dick wasn't so horrified, he'd be gleefully plotting the moment when he could tell his ex-mentor that his characteristic expression was no longer unique).
"I'm fine!" the kid snapped. "Don't you dare come over here Gra - Batman."
"See, he's fine," Dick insisted.
Future-him hesitated, and Dick felt a brief moment of hope — maybe future-him wasn't too far gone after all.
"…Oh my god, he always says that, but what if he's not, what if he's hurt…"
(Yeah — yeah, that was way too good to be true).
"Okay," Dick said, squeezing his eyes shut, "he is literally just a few metres away — "
"I'm going over there," future-him replied, his eyes narrowing.
"No!" Dick snapped. "No, just stay here!"
Future-him ignored him, pulled out his grappling gun, and fired it. A moment later he was gone, and Dick heard Damian's furious cries.
Dick stared at the floor, and let out a small whimper. "Oh god, what happened to me?" he moaned.
…
AN:
Okay, I know Dick is a bit OOC in this but…I just had to write it xD