Disclaimer: Don't own them.
Bats in Jump City Chapter 10:
Snow fell gently over the rooftops of Gotham City… the cracked, decrepit, abandoned rooftops of Gotham City.
Batgirl, Robin, and Tim had changed back into their costumes after tying up Emil (a.k.a. Warp) and electrocuting him a couple times for kicks.
"So, what's the plan, leader?" Batgirl asked automatically looking at Robin.
"Find someone – anyone - who can help us and…" Robin paused.
"And?" Tim asked.
"That's as far as I got. Are we supposed to ask them if we can use their handy-dandy time machines? Whatever's left of Warp's technology was fried before we started prodding him with tasers." Robin frowned.
"Hmm, who should we look for?" Batgirl mused. "Batman? It would be pretty interesting to see him as an old man… HEY, IDIOT! How far away in time are we from where we started?"
When Warp refused to answer, she reached for her utility belt and he answered hastily, "About ten years."
"So he's not an old man yet. Come on, let's go find Wayne Manor," Robin said leading the way through the snowy streets.
"You wanted to kill me?" Tim asked Warp serenely. "I'll settle for dragging you around on a rope and maybe getting in a few good hits."
"Tell me if you want help," Batgirl called back brightly. "Hey, Rob, you okay?" she asked running up to Robin.
"Not really; I'm worried about what happened to my team. When I agreed to come visit Bruce, I didn't know that I was also going to be dragged into the Watchtower and put on an undercover mission for two weeks… and then sucked ten years into the future." Robin sighed. "If Warp really did send Slade to attack Titans Tower…"
"We'll get back to the right place in time, we'll kick Slade's butt, and if you're still not feeling well, I sure the Justice League would give Warp to you as a piñata for your troubles." Batgirl said comfortingly.
"Yeah, thanks Batgirl," Robin said flashing her a smile. "I really missed you when I was in Jump City."
"I'm sure Starfire misses you even more right now," Batgirl said a little uncomfortably.
Robin, however, saw worry flicker across Batgirl's face and pulled her into a hug, which Tim of course saw too.
"Jealous, Jack[Remember, for the undercover mission, Tim, Babs, and Robin all used their parents' names" Warp asked smugly.
Tim didn't reply but instead resolved to electrocute criminals more often in the… future.
Titans Tower (Back in the Past/Present)
"I was kind of hoping Robin would be here," Slade said conversationally as he easily blocked a punch from Cyborg and tossed him into a wall casually. "Robin puts up more of a fight."
"You would like a fight?" Starfire asked, eyes glowing.
"Bring it on," Raven said at levitated chunks of ceiling debris [remember, in the first chapters how Starfire started shooting Babs and the ceiling collapsed? Well, Slade attacking didn't exactly help keep it together.
"Snarl, snarl-snarl, snarl, hiss!" Beast Boy said menacingly in tiger form.
"Titans, GO!" Cyborg said peeling himself off the wall.
They all rushed Slade but he sent them each flying into a wall one by one and when finished, he sat down and rummaged calmly through the refrigerator.
"Oh man, that's my emergency two foot-er sandwich! Why are you doing this?" Cyborg called weakly from his spot next to the stereo system.
"I'm hungry." Slade replied shortly and started adding fillings to the already large sandwich Cyborg had prepared.
"No, dude, why are you doing this?" BB whined unable to move.
"Beast Boy's right … for a change. It's been twenty-five minutes." Raven said staggering up and shakily trying to brush off some plaster.
"Please finish quickly and mercifully." Starfire said lying with her eyes closed.
"I've got my reasons for dragging it out so long." Slade said slicing up the sandwich with a freakishly sharp knife he'd pulled from the inside of an arm guard. "Reason #1: I just don't like you kids. Reason #2: I'm a mercenary getting paid by the hour who gets a bonus for a bloody death. Reason #3: I'm waiting for Robin. So stop your complaining and brace yourselves for a painful next few hours. Or better yet, pray Robin comes home before the day ends."
Back (not quite the word I was looking for) in the Future
"Alfred?" Batgirl said cocking an eyebrow as the butler opened the front door of the mansion. "Quite honestly, I was expecting a robot servant or something."
"Ms. Gordon? Master Dick?" Alfred almost yelled in surprise.
"Yeah, sorry we disappeared in time and all that. Tim's behind dragging along the perp." Robin said quickly. "Listen, can we talk to Bruce?"
"I'm rather at a loss for what to say," Alfred said with a quizzical expression. "Since, it appears that you are also talking to him in the main living room at this very moment."
"I'm going to ask the obvious question. What?" Batgirl said and exchanged a look with Robin. After a knowing nod, both rushed past Alfred and into the mansion
Tim hurried up the steps of the mansion (with Warp in tow). "Hi Alfred, have you seen -?"
Alfred heaved a sigh and said, "Into the living room we go, then."
"I can't believe this…" Bruce Wayne stood up from his seat in a large armchair and stared in amazement at Batgirl, Robin, and Tim as they ran into the room, breathing heavily.
"Um, hi, Bruce, did Al just tell us that we're here?" Robin said clutching his side.
"Am I seeing my younger self? In the same room as me?" A tall thin man with long dark hair stood up abruptly. Then, suspiciously, he asked, "Bruce, you didn't put something in my drink, did you?"
"Ah, well, time travel: this is exactly what I should be expecting on a Saturday," said a red-haired woman who sat in a wheelchair by the fire.
"And I'm the only one getting a déjà vu feeling?" asked the young man (who still looked a lot like the first man even if his hair happened to be shorter) said from his seat next to the woman.
"Hey, let us say something, too," Batgirl said indignantly. "'cause, just for the record, I was expecting at least one of you to be bald or something."
"Ah, that's me alright," the woman said wheeling herself over to the trio. "Barbara Gordon, I'm Barbara Gordon, at your service, but you might as well call me Oracle. The one who's in dire need of a hair cut is you, Dick, Nightwing. Tim… I'm sorry to say that you still are - and might forever be – Robin, over there in the corner."
"That's just like you, Barbara, to overlook all the rules of existence saying that two of yourselves can't exist in the same time, and introduce everyone to each other," Bruce said with a roll of his eyes.
"Yes, yes, nice to meet you too," Tim said cutting in hastily. "But we kind of need to be getting back to our own time… My brain is hurting from all the strange possibilities this adventure could bring… I don't want to break the space time continuum or something. So, if it's possible that we could, I don't know, hitch a ride back to the past...?"
"If this, me and me being here in the same time, is possible," Nightwing said staring idly at the glass he had been sipping from, "then, right now, I think anything is possible."
"Sure, just let me dig out my handy-dandy time machine," Bruce said sarcastically.
"Took the words right out of my mouth, Bruce," Robin said appreciatively.
"Stop changing the subject," Tim said, "How do we do it?"
"I'm sure a genius like me could develop a way to salvage Warp's tech and send you back to your own time," Oracle said smugly. "Come on, Batgirl, let's get to work."
"Um, I guess we'll just, um, stay here then…?" Tim called half-heartedly after the females as they promptly exited the manor with the hostage in tow.
"Soooo… anything good on the television, lately?" Robin asked in a desperate attempt to fill the following silence.
"Don't even try to fool us," Nightwing smirked, "You want to know about the future don't you?"
"Yes," Tim replied instantly. "Very, very, very badly."
"You don't even want to know how you can exist in the same timeline as yourself?" Bruce asked as if that conversation would have been more exciting than finding out possible future events.
"It's probably a fact that time travel has been established in this time period so upon arrival we will - and are going to - be promptly sent back to our own time where we will continue normally with our lives for the next ten years, probably forgetting that this little excursion ever happened until the moment we burst into this room again…?" Tim and Robin stated at the same time, somehow turning the theory into a question.
With a resigned sigh, Bruce asked what they wanted to know with as much grace as he could muster.
"You and Selina?" Robin said in a mock interrogation voice.
"They tied the knot!" Nightwing said smirking as he pointed to the ring on Bruce's finger.
"Dammit! Now I have to give Babs two hundred dollars when we get back," Tim growled.
"You get used to losing bets with one of the smartest people in the world after a while," Future Tim said sadly.
"The rest of the titans?" Robin continued insistently, betraying the hint of worry in his voice.
"You'll arrive in time to stop Slade, save the day, and everyone gets married," Nightwing said grinning.
"SERIOUSLY?!?! WHO?" Robin demanded not content with the fact that he would be able to save the day.
"Raven and Beast Boy, Cyborg and Bumble Bee, a certain boy wonder and an angelic warrior from Tameran…" Nightwing said trailing off dreamily.
While the boys gossiped like middle school girls, the girls were hard at work disassembling Warp's suit.
"That idiot," Batgirl muttered under her breath.
"Which idiot are we talking about again?" Oracle said with a laugh. "The male or female kind?"
"Boy, duh."
"Do I get ten guesses as to who it is?"
"Try two."
"Hmm, I'll take time-traveling boy blunder, Dick Grayson for my first." Oracle laughed as she teased her adolescent self.
"Why would I be mad at Dick? He's my best friend even though he's also my secret crush and probably breaks my heart every day with how much he loves Starfire." Batgirl said giving a casual shrug as she welded together parts of the suit.
"Oh. You're still not over him." Oracle said offhandedly, implying a 'yet'. "Well, then I'd have to go with the other Robin."
"Clarify; are we talking about Jason, the arms dealer Robin, or Tim, the recent orphan and great detective Robin?"
"Jason," Oracle said sarcastically with a roll or her eyes.
"You are so off target I can't believe that you're actually me. How could someone who just won two hundred bucks off Tim be so unintuitive in ten years?" Batgirl said horrified. "I could never be angry at Tim!"
"OH! So we're talking about Bruce?" Oracle said with feigned stupidity.
Batgirl shook Oracle roughly by the shoulders. "WARP!! I'M TALKING ABOUT WARP!!!! He is the person who wired this suit all wrong, used an unreliable and highly expensive power core that needed replacing, and failed to hammer on a circular knobby thing on the front of his suit the right side up!!!"
Batgirl took several deep breaths and Oracle patted her knowingly on the arm. "I'd choose Tim if I were you. He's better for you in the long run. Now let's get the new suit over to Bruce's."
Opening a portal in time in the middle of Bruce's living room, Oracle nodded once and signaled for Batgirl, Robin, and Tim to step through one at a time. Batgirl disappeared with a smile and a wave for everyone and Robin quickly followed suit after throwing Warp into the portal in front of him. Tim took a last look around the room and decided he couldn't go without one last remark.
"It's nice to know that my future as a superhero is looking so bright," he said shaking his head.
"Other than still being Robin, I think you future's going to be just fine," Oracle said beaming and she quickly wheeled up to him and kissed Tim lightly on the cheek.
Tim disappeared into the portal quickly with a wolfish grin at his future self and the portal evaporated, leaving the main room silent.
With a nervous cough, Future Tim said, "I hope this doesn't mean you're leaving me for a younger man, Babs." And the whole family erupted in laughter.
Author's Note:
Um, sorry it took so long to get the story back up and running. Let's just say I took a December break. I hope this super long chapter makes up for the absence. Up in the next chapter our trio is back in the right time… mostly. Please review!
JaxWin