Title: We Meet Again
Author: Takebuo Ishimatsu
Pairing(s): None?
Summary: Young Justice is accidentally transported to another dimension in which their mentors have no idea who they are. Things get complicated. Fast.
IMPORTANT AN: Ok, someone made me realize that perhaps I didn't explain this well enough in the first chapter – this is not a *real* crossover with the Justice League cartoon. Pretty much, YJ has gone into a dimension that's almost exactly like the JL 'toon, but there's Barry instead of Wally AND they have no side-kicks of any kind!
Disclaimer: Ido not own Young Justice.
"Talk," Batman ordered.
"I don't know if I should," he answered defiantly with his hands.
Robin went to cross his arms over his chest, before realizing the tiny Medbot was still patching him up, not to mention the IV hooked up to his right arm.
Right, not a good idea.
He vaguely noted in the back of his mind that he had to be on some heavy anesthetics for him to not have even noticed that he was still being sewn into.
Unable to produce the determined "stance" he'd been going for in his current condition, he simply turned his head away instead. He knew it wouldn't do him any good; Bruce was hardly one to give up so easily. But it made him feel a little more in control, and he'd settle for that after the past couple of weeks he'd had.
Batman continued to stare at the other, waiting for the kid to break. Even turned away, it was easy to see that he was tense, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. A few minutes passed, and Bruce was vaguely impressed by the boy's holding out; though if he truly thought he'd win in their little game, he was a fool.
Robin finally sighed, knowing Batman was going to get the full story whether he wanted to give it or not. Even if his silent stares weren't quite as bad as Alfred's.
"Shouldn't you already know all the facts via Kid Mouth?"
"I was informed of your claims."
"See?" Batman could "hear" the emphasis on the word through the boy's jerky sign-language, "What's the point in saying anything if you're not going to believe it?"
"Humor me."
"You just want to see if our stories match," Robin muttered verbally, not quite meaning for the other to hear, but guessing that he'd probably read his lips and knew what he'd said anyway.
Batman didn't reply and Robin sighed again before really looking at his adoptive father. He didn't fully trust the man, not after what had happened to them already, but he supposed it couldn't hurt to give him a few facts in order to appease the Bat.
"Fine . But, I reserve the right not to tell you everything," Robin said, ending his sign-speak with a pointed finger towards the other.
Batman raised his eyebrow at the kid's audacity. How did the other Batman deal with him on a regular basis?
"Well, I've been you're partner for..." his hands paused momentarily, "awhile. In fact, you..." he paused again and gave Batman a discerning look.
"You," he started again, "adopted me after my family was killed."
Robin looked away, uncertain if that was the best way to begin their relationship. Again. Probably not, he decided, but if he knew anything about Bruce, it was that he liked all of his mysteries solved. And the reason why he'd suddenly take on your average, non-meta kid as his sidekick was one of the biggest mysteries revolving around the Batman of his world. Even if he'd been one of the few people around that could land the quadruple somersault at the tender age of eight.
Bruce nodded slowly, accepting the story as a plausible reason for the young Bat-boy, even if he didn't fully believe it. He'd always had a soft spot for orphans.
Though he was perhaps being too sentimental, he didn't press the other for more details regarding his loss. He could already guess as to how events had unfolded in the other universe. In order for him to have actually adopted someone, even someone with a tale so similar to his own, he'd probably met the young man while investigating the deaths. Or perhaps as Bruce Wayne, writing out a check for the other's trust fund, while they both pretended that having a solid financial future was enough to take the ache away.
"I thought I'd find you in here. Interrogating the poor kid without his lawyer present," Superman joked as he came in. Noting the somber expressions on both Bats' faces, he wondered if he was truly rescuing anybody with his interruption.
Bruce wiped the look off his face quickly enough, and Clark almost wondered if it'd been there at all, before the other swept out of the room without saying a word. Superman gave the boy a questioning look.
Shrugging, Robin answered, "Old wounds," not bothering to sign it since he was certain the Man of Steel could hear him through his mask.
Superman nodded slowly, guessing as to what the conversation had been about. How in the world Bruce had managed to let himself be maneuvered into speaking about his parents was a question he doubted he'd ever have an answer for, seeing as he wasn't too keen on having Kryptonite sprinkled down his throat while he was sleeping.
"So, looks like you're all patched up," he said awkwardly, trying to shift the conversation to lighter topics.
Robin blinked and looked down, not having noticed that the little stitch-robot had finished its work some time ago.
"Does that mean I can go?" Robin asked and was sitting up and pulling off his medical hook-ups before Superman even had the chance to answer.
"I'm not certain you're quite up to roaming around just yet."
"Why not? The wound's all stitched up and," Robin breathed in and out deeply, "I don't actually need that stupid mask."
"You needed it half an hour ago, and that's enough to tell me you haven't had time to properly heal, even if you do feel better."
"Relax, big guy. I'm fit as a fiddle." Robin abruptly hopped off of the bed and did a few flips before landing on his hands. Shifting to hold himself up with just one palm, he stuck the other hand out and said, "See?"
"Maybe we should call Batman back in and get his opinion," Superman said, crossing his arms.
Robin winced, "No need to threaten. I'll chill."
He flipped himself back right side up, only to wobble and force the senior hero to catch him before he landed on his butt.
Superman gave him a Look and Robin rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.
"Ok, maybe not as fit as a fiddle, but at least a tuba, right?"
Superman shook his head exasperatedly as he pushed the boy back into bed, wondering how in the world such a chipper child managed to work efficiently with the world's champion brooder.
"I'll admit, you've got some nice moves, kid. They'll probably be much nicer once you're not suffering from blood loss," Superman replied, pushing the IV back in as gently as he could. The boy didn't wince, so he supposed he'd done a fair-enough job.
Or Bruce had given him one of his special cocktails of drugs, in which case the boy wouldn't even blink if he knocked him through the wall. Those kinds of concoctions were usually reserved for when the Dark Knight knew he shouldn't keep pushing himself, but was going to anyway, but Clark knew he couldn't stand the sight of children in pain. Even if the snarly Bat tried to pretend that he thought the intruders a Level 4 threat.
Level 6 for the "mellowed-out" little hacker.
Clark smirked. He was going to have to find a way to work in Bruce's soft side into some random conversation, if only to see his "You think you're amusing, but I think you're stupid" look. Which was actually kind of funny when there was no Kryptonite nearby.
"Totally," Robin agreed with a self-proud smile, drawing Clark's attention back to the young hero.
The boy's thoughts were unknowingly similar to the Man of Steel's as he silently wondered again what kind of drugs Bruce had put in him.
Though he wouldn't admit it to the Boy Scout if his life depended on it, he really shouldn't have been able to play around so soon after such an injury.
Superman couldn't help but smile in return, even if he hadn't yet decided whether the other was subtlety making fun of him by speaking to the head of the Justice League so candidly. Perhaps he was still just immature. No matter his mentor, he could only be in his early teens, maybe even younger, and that sort of age came with a lack of maturity that was expected.
"I was wondering, how old are you?" Superman asked, just as he heard the tell-tale half-joking, half-arguing (all flirting) that indicated Hawkgirl and GL had come back from their mission.
"What's up?" Robin asked, seeing the other tilt his head in the famous pose that indicated Superman was hearing something you couldn't even if you tried.
"Sounds like the others are returning. I'm afraid I'll have to hear your answer later," Superman said, noting how Batman had already begun to explain the situation in the worst possible fashion to their teammates. The last thing he needed was to have everyone against the children before they'd even met them.
"Excuse me." He nodded good-bye to the boy, before taking off down the hall before Bruce could do too much damage. He smiled as he heard Robin shout at him that Batman had torn off the chest of his outfit and that he could use a new shirt if they had one laying around anywhere.
"So they're dangerous?" John asked.
"Extremely," Batman answered just as Superman said, "Hardly" when he landed next to the other.
Batman snorted, "Some amongst us like to ignore the obvious, even when it smacks them in the face. Literally."
"B, they're just kids. Scared kids," he added, turning towards his fellow heroes, "Who thought we were the enemy."
"We still have no proof that their story is true," Batman pointed out.
"We have no proof that it's false," Superman, ever the optimist, countered.
"Maybe we should wait until we meet them before passing judgment," Hawkgirl said.
"Right, where are they?" John asked.
"One's in the medical bay, the others are with J'onn and Flash," Batman answered.
"Perhaps we should wait until Wonder Woman arrives before we introduce anyone. That way we can do it all at once and then maybe take a vote as to what we're going to do with them," Superman said.
Batman gave him a look, one that told Clark the other man thought the answer should be obvious, and the Man of Steel could just guess as to what his master plan was regarding the young heroes. Mr. Paranoid probably wanted to lock them up and throw away the key, regardless of how comfortable he'd made sure the youngest was.
"Sounds like a plan," John agreed.
"I don't know," Hawkgirl said with a mischievous smile, "Now I'm anxious to meet them. Especially if one of them is suppose to belong to Batman."
Bruce just scowled in reply.
"I'll contact Wonder Woman," Batman said, moving to break away from the happy, i.e., annoying, group.
"Actually, if I could have a word with you, Bruce?" Superman asked. Batman's eyes narrowed, though he nodded easily enough.
Tapping his ear, Clark spoke through their comlink, "Hey, Flash, could you do me a favor?"
"Whatcha need, big guy?" Barry asked, suddenly by the other's side.
Superman rolled his eyes, amused, "Could you contact Diana, please? Also, if you have any extra shirts in your quarters, Robin needs a new top and I don't think mine'll even come close to fitting."
"No prob, Supes. And, I've got just the design in mind for his new threads," Flash said with a wink before he was gone again.
Hawkgirl and GL looked at each other once the League's two leading heroes walked off by themselves.
"So, I guess it's just us again, huh?" Hawkgirl asked.
GL smiled, "Guess so. As much as I'd like to meet these kids, I'm starving. Wanna get a bite to eat?"
"Just a bite? After all that action on our mission, I could eat an elephant!"
John chuckled. "I doubt they're serving that right now, but let's see what we can scrounge up."
BREAKY BREAKY BREAKY BREAKY BREAKY BREAKY
"Wonder Woman here, what's the emergency?"
Flash tapped the button to respond, "No real emergency, D. More like a need for a Founder vote, ASAP."
"Can I vote from here, then? I'm in the middle of something, but I have a moment for explanations."
Flash smirked, though he knew the other couldn't see it, "Actually, you're gonna want to see this, trust me. Get up here when you have a moment, will ya?"
Back on Paradise Island, Wonder Woman raised an eyebrow, "Now you've got me curious. I'll wrap this up as quickly as possible."
"Be seeing you soon! Flash out!"
Wonder Woman smiled fondly, not bothering to respond with the customary "Wonder Woman out" since she doubted Barry was still at the controls anyway. A nice man, but sometimes he seemed to forget that not everyone was as "up to speed" as he was.
Unbeknownst to Barry, he was proving Diana correct as he was in his Watchtower quarters not two seconds after he'd said his last words. Throwing things out of his drawers left and right, he exclaimed in triumph after he finally managed to find what he'd been looking for after a whole ten microseconds.
"Hey there, kiddo, I-"
Flash darted to the side as Robin jumped like he'd been electro-shocked and twisted around to beam whatever he'd been holding right at him. Causally moving to the side, Barry caught the object, raising an eyebrow as he realized it was one of the kid's gloves.
"Hate to break it to ya, kid, but even with such nice reflexes, this isn't going to do much damage," Flash gently shook the leather at the other as if scolding him, though his smile betrayed otherwise.
Robin flushed slightly before gliding over to take it from him.
Kid moved smoothly, perhaps even more so than Big Bat.
Pulling it on, Robin said, "Yeah, you just freaked me out. Usually only Batman can sneak up on me like that. Did you bring me my shirt?"
Robin nodded towards the black bundle in his hand, a smile that said "thanks" on his face.
"Sure did! Ta da!"
Flash unraveled it to reveal a bright yellow Flash symbol on the front.
"Picked it out myself," Flash said with a wink, handing it over.
"Really?" Robin asked as he put it on.
"Hey now, that's a piece of official Flash merchandise. And, considering I don't normally go around telling everyone I'm the Flash, I had to pay full price for that baby," Flash joked, shaking his finger at the other.
"Well, in that case, I'm honored," Robin answered playfully. Flash shook his head, once again amazed at how easy-going Batman's sidekick could be.
"Flash, I require your assistance," J'onn said over the comlink.
Frowning, Flash put his finger to his ear to answer, "Trouble?"
Robin tilted his head curiously, gauging the conversation's topic by the speedster's reactions.
J'onn's voice came through the link again, "Not necessarily. Kid Flash needs to use the restroom and Batman insists upon an escort."
Flash rolled his eyes, "I'll be there in a sec." Looking back towards the young man, he added, "Anything else I can get you before I take your bud on a potty break?"
Robin's lips twitched, "I told him to go before we were randomly transported to your dimension."
Flash smiled at the joking, "See ya later kid."
BREAKY BREAKY BREAKY BREAKY BREAKY BREAKY
"So, what's this 'emergency, but not really' that I was called up here for?" Diana asked with an amused look.
Everyone turned towards Barry, who shrugged at their raised eyebrows.
"What? I just wanted to be polite and let her know that if she was doing something important, this could wait a few hours."
"Thanks for informing us, Flash. If I'd have known that it could have taken hours for Diana to arrive, I might have gone and done something useful," John said, voice dripping with annoyance.
"Hey now, it only took like 45 minutes, half of which you were shoving your face full. Besides, you know you wouldn't have done anything else. You're just upset that you had to wait so long to meet them," Flash said, waving his finger at the other.
Hawkgirl gave him an amused smile and GL seemed to relax.
"Damn right. I should have demanded to meet them right away," John only half-muttered.
"Them?" Diana asked, sitting at her usual spot around the table.
"Accidental intruders," J'onn answered.
"Justice League apprentices from another dimension. One of them Batman's," Hawkgirl cut in with a conspiratory smile. Diana's eyebrow lifted in interest.
"Tell me more," she said, leaning towards her fellow female.
"Before we get into how utterly amazing it is that Bruce hasn't managed to scare the kid away yet, we do have a few things to discuss. Namely what we're going to do with them," Superman said, ignoring Batman's glare.
"Bruce and I have been speaking about this privately, and I've come to the conclusion that we should keep them up here on the Watchtower."
"Wait a second, big guy. Let me get this straight: these kids randomly show up from another dimension, attack you, damage the Watchtower, and now we're going to let them live here as if they're part of the League?" John asked incredulously.
Superman pointedly ignored Batman's trademark "I told you you were an idiot" smirk.
"If you take a moment to think about it, you'll see it's the best solution. With their sort of powers, we don't want them running lose on earth, and we don't want to lock up juvenile heroes with our usual meta-powered criminals. We can't even be certain that we could properly contain them down there even if we were going to do that."
Batman's entire aura was screaming that he knew how to "properly contain them," but Clark refused to use Kryptonite and hero fail-safes on kids that hadn't caused any trouble after the initial confusion.
"We can set the transporter so that they can't pass through it and block the escape pods, thus making this the easiest place to hold them."
"Unless Superboy and Miss Martian decide to leave their more humanoid companions and simply go out the wall," Batman countered, and his gruffly exasperated tone told the group that the two had already had this discussion three too many times. Clark should have said "arguing" rather than "speaking" earlier.
Superman tried not to let the "more humanoid" comment mean more than it did. If Bruce had wanted to hurt him by mocking him and calling him an alien, he wouldn't have bothered with subtleties.
"I feel that they are genuinely worried about their comrade," J'onn supplied. Superman nodded a thanks for his support.
"Yeah, but they could make some sort of plan and decide to temporarily leave them," John retorted.
Batman nodded, "There is also the issue of Robin threatening to bring the Watchtower down."
There was a gasp from their Amazonian member.
"And he has the ability to actually do so?" Diana asked, though she knew Batman wouldn't have brought it up if he didn't believe the boy could.
"Well, yeah, but he didn't. He could have done it any time but instead chose to give us a new screen saver. That's got to count for something, right?" Flash said.
"When he hacked in, he could have found the ultimate override but been unable to hack that. So he pretended to be merciful instead."
Superman snorted, "B, you're getting to the point of extreme paranoia, even for you."
Nobody else commented, knowing only Superman ever brought up Batman's character faults and managed to walk away with most of his pride still intact. The two previous times anyone else had tried, Diana had gotten so mad she'd had to leave before she smashed the Dark Knight's face in, and Flash had looked on the verge of tears when Bruce had gotten done with him.
"He claims to have been trained by an alternate version of myself. What I just laid out is something I would do."
"Even if he's trained by you, it doesn't make him your clone," Superman said, regretting his choice of words even as they left his mouth.
"No, I don't have one of those."
Superman did feel the sting that time, knowing that gibe had been on purpose.
"This arguing is getting us nowhere. I suggest we take a vote," Diana broke in before one of the infamous Superman/Batman fights could occur. She did make a mental note to ask about the "clone" comment, though. It wasn't something Bruce would just throw out there.
"That's a good idea, but don't you think this should be something all of us should get to decide on? I mean, we're not the only ones that use the Watchtower," Flash asked.
"Indeed, one of the lads claims to be a subject of Aquaman. He should at least have a say," J'onn agreed.
"We don't have time to call together every single member. They are here now," Hawkgirl responded.
"If we take a vote with any members outside of the Founders, then everyone will want to know why they weren't asked," Batman said, knowing how petty some of his fellow heroes could be when it came to perceived power.
Superman sighed, knowing they were going to have to take a vote on whether or not to take a vote and either outcome it was going to come down to him to explain everything to everyone else. As much as he and Bruce were the acknowledged "top two" of the group, Batman wasn't much of a spokesperson, even if Clark did wish he could push the spotlight onto him every once in a while.
"How about we take a vote, then ask later if anyone can offer any suggestions that would be better?" Superman asked, always trying to find a solution that would make the most people happy.
Everyone nodded and, as much time as it took to argue these things over, the vote itself was done in minutes. It was agreed: they would stay at the Watchtower, but under close surveillance and with limited privileges.
That done, Batman locked eyes with Superman and the other knew before any words left Bruce's mouth that he wasn't going to like what was coming.
AN: What'd you think? As always, criticism welcome & let me know if you see any mistakes!
Also, I realized after I wrote this, I think Aquaman is a Founder...but he never answers his JLA communicator in half the comics & doesn't seem too pleased by them bothering him in general, so whatevs~
Another Note to my Flashy Friends: I seriously have no concept of how fast Flash is. I've seen Wally go get a dress for Linda in the comics in the time it took for her to turn around and demand where her dress was. (Good thing for speed, poor Wally's kinda forgetful. ^_^) Yet, at the same time, Joker has threatened in the TV series that not even he can move the bombs fast enough before they blow up. (Which he does manage to, but only as a last resort...not even Wally realizes how fast he is?)
...Ok, so the point of that major little AN is that you may notice throughout the fic that I switch from saying he can go down a hall in a second to saying he can do it in a millisecond, then a picosecond, then back to a second...I'm working on it. -_-0