Author's Note: This chapter is set in the POV of Austin, the son of Clark Kent/Superman and Lois Lane. I really like him because he's so much like his father, kind and optimistic. It's a fresh way to look at the story, too, because he has only been spoken about-and that only happened once, with Destiny. In this chapter he and his father journey out to Wayne Manor, where he meets up with Damian, who is a close friend due to their fathers being close. Some Young Justice characters make small appearances, too. Charlotte's also introduced, but I'll explain her in the next chapter. You'll see.

Disclaimer: I don't own TT, YJ, Batman, or Superman. If I did this would be canon.

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"Can I come?" I ask. Dad's at the apartment door, looking in the mirror. He straightens his Clark Kent glasses and looks down at me. "If you hurry. I'm sure Damian will be happy to see you."

I throw my shoes on in record time and join him. He and I walk down to the apartment parking and we get into the car, a nice new convertible that Dad just bought. He's going to Bruce Wayne's place to "talk," or in other words, hang out. If he's going to Bruce's, though, then Damian will be there, and I get to hang out with a friend. I text my friend on the way. "Hey, Dami dude! My dad's coming to see yours, so I'm hitching a ride."

He messages me back an instant later. "Awesome. What do you wanna do?"

"Kingdom Hearts roleplay," I respond. He just got this new set that comes with weapons so you can play in reality. He and Mar'i spent the weekend together and I wonder where he went to get it, since I want one. He sends me back, "Cool. I call being Sora."

"Then I want to be a Shadow," I tell him. "It's only good if you've got a Heartless to play with."

"Done deal. And after maybe we can hang out in my room," he says. I send back an "okay" and turn to my father. He's been silent since we left, and I think he only brought me along so I would stop pestering him about going over there. He spends a lot of his time with the Justice League, saving the city, or working with Mom. I miss when he and I used to just sit in the living room, watching TV. "Dad, why are you never around anymore?"

"What do you mean?" He turns away from the road for a minute. I sigh, thinking how to word it. "You're always on some Superman gig or at the newspaper. We never hang out anymore."

"I thought you hated it when I made you do that," he says. "You always said how bored you were."

"I was bored. But now that we don't just watch TV or hang out I realized I miss it."

"Well, I'll drop a shift at the Watchtower, okay?" I agree with the compromise. Then, I move onto other subjects. "Speaking of, do you ever see Connor or Kara there? They never call. Or come visit."

"I assume Kara's busy with Jasper," he says. "She's dropped most of her duties as Supergirl. And your brother. . .. I don't know about him."

"Probably with that team of his," I mutter. We stop at a light and my father turns sharply. "That team is the reason he's alive right now. He was kept in a basement, not seeing anything, and his whole life would've been like that. And after Dick left, the large team they'd made collapsed. He's got his girlfriend M'gann, Artemis, and Kaldur that count on him now."

"Yeah. And Wally left to raise Spark, too." I remind him. "Do you think he wants it back?"

"The team? I have no doubt in my mind. They won't let us induct them into the Justice League, either. They said they would all get inducted at once or not at all, and KF and Nightwing can't anymore." He says. I ask why, and my father answers, "They left the team for their identities, and they've been gone too long to be considered for induction. That's just the way the system works."

"I don't like it," I tell him. "Con told me his biggest dreams were a family and getting in that League with his friends."

"I can't say I enjoy it either, Austin. But there's nothing we can do, unless Dick and Wally decide to do something."

"Guess so."

We pull into Damian's driveway and Dad stops the engine. I open my door and am greeted by Titus's friendly face. "Hey, buddy! I missed you, fur ball."

I walk up the front walk and find Damian waiting on the porch. He and I initiate our handshake and Bruce comes out to say hello. I wave and Dami drags me inside. We race up to his game room, him winning as always. We close the door and Dami leans against it, panting. "Aus, I have so much I need to talk to you about."

"Speak, dude."

"Okay, first of all your brother is downstairs." He says, looking at me. I scowl at him. "You had better not be joking."

"I'm not. He and M'gann came down here from the airport and she's sick, I think. He was carrying her and she looked ready to pass out." He tells me. I process this and swallow. "I hope she's okay. Connor loves her to pieces."

"She's got some kind of really bad alien flu. Connor didn't want to try the trip back to Metropolis with her," a female voice says. I look up to see Charlotte with her arms crossed and one hip popped as she stands on the other side of the room. Dami turns to me and murmurs, "Something else on the list."

She nods to me, and I smile. "You hanging until the party on Friday?"

"Yeah. I don't know what the plan is for tonight, but tomorrow going to the Tower to help set up," she says. "Daddy got a call from Connor, saying M'gann was sick, and so he called Bruce asking if they could check her out here. He said okay and I came up to hang with Dami."

"Well, lucky for us. Don't wanna worry too much." I tell them. "Dad said he was coming out here because Bruce wanted to 'see him,' which is what he says every time they want a boys' night out. I figured this was just one of those nights."

"It was intended to be," Damian informs me. "Now come on, I want to do something fun."

"Cool." Char says. She plays Kairi, Damian pretends to be Sora, and I act out the part of Riku. We reenact a scene from the first game, and we're fighting over the girl's affections. It's decided that a race will be the decider, in the game, at least. We want to run through the whole house as our race, so Charlotte tells us to go to the west end of the house and come back. "And be quiet, okay? I think my mom has a migraine, with all of this stress."

"I wouldn't be surprised if that's the deal with my dad, too," Dami says. "First Mom and now this."

"What about your mom?" I ask. He sighs. "She wants me to enroll in public school, come fall. I like Alfred teaching me, and besides, I would be pushed up a grade anyway. I don't want to do that, and Dad's not going to make me."

"Poor you. I hope it works out," Char tells him. He shrugs and we get on with the race. We start off down the hall, but we stop when we get to the area open to below. I see Connor with crossed arms, eyes darkened with the lateness of the night. M'gann's passed out on the couch, her green skin paper-white as she half-shifts between her true form and her Martian disguise. Victor is looking over her, Bumblebee half-collapsed against the wall. She looks half-asleep, and judging by the fact she just flew across the country and was probably the pilot for most of it, I don't blame her.

Bruce is with Dad, watching from Connor's other side. They're talking, and smiling as they do. I wonder why, nothing exciting has happened in weeks!

When we finish the race, Damian winning, we go to play Kingdom Hearts. Charlotte observes, kneeling in her frilly dress, until her parents take off. M'gann is fine, leaving with Connor and heading back to the apartment, where Lois will greet them-she's been begging the pair of them to come home for a while now, and today is the day. Now I'm the one begging, asking if perhaps Damian and I can have a sleepover here until the sunrise.

They oblige. We change into pajamas, and I borrow a pair from Damian. They tell us to settle down and watch a movie, maybe, so that we can sleep. We dig through Damian's extensive collection and settle on a CD burned from his computer. It's a group of music videos, ranging from old stuff like Taylor Swift's Tim McGraw to new things like Aria's new video, released this week, called Highway to Home.

We end up in a pillow fight and Damian ducks under the bed to avoid me. I laugh, chasing him, and without any room to strike, we stop. The wood boards are lined with writing, names, and I see Spark's, Bri's (of course, she's Damian's niece), Mar'i's, and Charlotte's. He points to them and says, "Put yours."

I do, but I have to ask why. He replies, "You guys are the first friends I've got. I want to remember."

"You do realize nobody is going to see these, right?"

"Yeah. It's. . . okay. When my brothers take off, my dad takes off, I'm alone. I remember I've got someone to be there if I just look here."

"True," I say, capping the silver Sharpie. Before anything, though, voices in the hall make us jump. "I wonder what they're doing."

"I know what they should be doing-sleeping." My dad and then Dami's. We wriggle out from under the bed and face them. "No. Sleep is for the weak."

"Words are ignorant. Sleep is not." Damian's father bats back at his words. We reluctantly find ourselves in Dami's bed, with the covers over us, and our fathers walking away. I close my eyes, my friend doing the same, and swallow my excitement over the end of the week and the party within it.