Please let me know if you find errors. Not beta read.
Info about my updating schedule!
My goal is to post something once a week either on Sunday or Monday. It might be here, on Downward Spyral, or something completely different. It will be a surprise for us all! But I will say I plan to do another Downward Spyral next... *knock on wood*
please enjoy!
The information available at the warehouse was limited – the place trashed. The machine was scrap metal, welding marks left where chunks were taken. Huge scrapes across the floor showed pieces pulled through the back door and tossed into the harbor, others dragged out to the front into trucks. Random pieces were left behind. The control panel was half melted by what Tim though would have been a heavy-duty acid.
Tim saw the tripwire only a few seconds before Damian set it off. The Joker's trademark cackle started at the other end of the room, echoed by explosions. The three took off running, diving off the end of the shipping pier and into the polluted Gotham Bay. They came up coughing, Jason fighting to pull off his hamlet. Tim immediately turned-on Damian who started yelling back. Jason ignored both, signing deeply as the warehouse went up in smoke.
Dick woke up with a splitting headache and an itching feeling of not right. He was in the cave's medical bay, which isn't strange on its own, but there were too many beds and a number of machines he didn't recognize. Voices drifted from the main cave, two he recognized as Bruce and Alfred. A third brought forward a blurry image of a man in a red helmet. The two others were new.
Dick slipped off the bed, swaying only for a moment. He was dressed in a pair of unfamiliar sweatpants and plain white shirt. He was missing his belt, instead gathering a few stray bits of medical equipment: including a few bandages, a pair of scissors, handful of aspirin, and tube of antibacterial cream.
One of the voices, the youngest grew closer, the steps quite but still noticeable in Dick's hyper aware state. Dick jumped from the tabletop of the cabinet, and itnthe vent grate. He slipped in, ignoring the light layer of dust. It closed behind him in time for the door of the med-bay to open.
There was a small pause then a soft call of "Grayson," which grew in panic before the boy took off running again back to the main room.
Dick ignored him, slipping through the vent, feeling for the small switch that – at least in his cave – should exist. The switch slid open a compartment a few feet further down. He scooped up his belt, a spare mask, and a pair of gloves. They were significantly dustier, clearly having sat there for a time. He draped the belt around his chest like a sash, slipped on the gloves and mask before continuing. It was two rights, about a story up, and a left before he came to his intended exit. He slipped out into the familiar darkness of the bat-cave, thrown only for a moment at the multiple additions of decor and finally getting a good view of the other people. Bruce looked older; hair dusted in gray around the temples. Alfred off to one side, reassuringly unchanged compared to everything else. There were a handful of additional vehicles including multiple bat-mobiles and motorcycles. The giant penny and T-rex were joined by a number of additional mementos.
The man Bruce called "Red Hood" was there, mask gone and stripped of his leather jacket and weapons. Two other figures, one around Dick's age who he saw briefly earlier and the second a few years older both in a similar set of casual clothes as Dick. They all seemed to be in some various degrees of concern. Dick didn't get time to analyze when the display case caught his eye, lined up were a number of hero suites, including multiple versions of the Robin costume – one specifically stained with blood – a handful of Batman costumes and a few suites that started achingly familiar to his father's old costume.
"Shit," Red Hood cried, "How did he get out." He turned to glare at the middle boy, "Replacement you said you locked him in."
Said boy scoffed, "He was. Demon Brat probably let him out."
The smallest of the group hissed like an angry cat, "Unlike you imbeciles, I don't make mistakes."
"Enough," Bruce broke through, he was already skimming the shadows. Dick let out a slow breath when he moved past his position. "I often see the time 11:11 or 12:34 on clocks." He yelled into the void of the cave. This gave all the occupants pause.
"What're you on old-" Hood started, only to be shushed by Damian. The man only looked slightly offended at the child when he stepped on his toe.
"It's a code." The younger man said, trying to follow Bruce's line of sight. Damian wouldn't admit it, but it was something Dick brought up when he was Damian's Batman. Something Damian brushed off at the time and they never came back too.
"The paintbrush was angry at the color the artist chose to use," Bruce called this time.
Dick cocked his head, so maybe this was his world. "He dreamed of eating green apples with worms," he threw his voice. The three unknowns whipped around to stare across the room, Bruce – much to Dick's delight was still about ten feet off.
"You bite up because of your lower jaw," Bruce advised the darkness.
"What is happening?" The middle boy asked the others, his voice slightly manic.
"He didn't understand why the bird wanted to ride the bicycle," Dick called back, this time voice normal.
They all turned back in his direction, but still skimming over his location.
"Harrold felt confident that nobody would ever suspect his spy pigeon," Alfred interrupted, this time leaving the three slack jawed.
"Okay, did we get hit with the explosion?" The middle teen asked, "are we going crazy?" At the same time Hood asked about Harrold and the youngest asked if they could have spy pigeons.
Dick shifted, scaling the wall until perched behind the group again. The grapple was still quiet and smooth even after the apparent years of non-use, Dick landed behind the group. He was both delighted and slightly disappointed they didn't seem to notice. "Dimension travel, time travel, body swap, or de-aging?" he asked.
The middle boy squawked, and Hood pulled a gun. The youngest pulled a knife and moved on instinct at Dick. He reacted, twisting around the slightly smaller boy, getting the knife from his grasp. It was a quick movement, using the momentum and swinging them around to send the other boy stumbling back to the others.
There was a short but very tense moment of silence, broken by the clearing of the throat from Alfred. Dick relaxed significantly, as if on reflex and tossed what seemed to be a genuine smile towards the butler.
"De-aging," Bruce says, clearly choosing to ignore what just happened. Even as the knife disappears on Dick's person.
"Magic or Science?" He pressed, rocking back on his heels.
Bruce grunted.
There was another pause then Dick snorted, "Use your words B."
This earned a loud laugh from Hood.
"Who are they?" Dick asked, voice losing some of the playfulness but body still reading relaxed.
"Damian Wayne, Tim Drake-Wayne, and Jason Todd-Wayne." Bruce pointed to each one individually.
Dick raised a signal eyebrow, indicating for him to elaborate. The two stared at one another for a long moment before it was broken by Jason. "Just rip off the Band-Aid," He said, "we're your successors." He trailed off with a pained hiss, as Tim elbowed him in the side. "How does that hurt through Kevlar?" He grumbled mostly to himself.
Dick made a non-committal hum, sizing each of them up again then turning back to Bruce, "So you said de-aging," he powered on. "How many years are we talking?"
Bruce took to the case talk like a lifeline, but the others were shocked. Jason was expecting outrage, from what he remembered from before his death, Dick burned hot and angry because Bruce made him Robin. He was expecting the same kind of reaction, he was expecting the same type of anger and maybe some tears.
"From what we can tell, about a decade." Bruce continued, "We weren't able to do much testing before you snuck out."
"How long-"
"About an hour." Bruce interrupted. "Just long enough to get back to the cave and set up in the med bay."
There was an accusation in there, that Dick just shrugged it off. He turned to wonder back towards the middle of the cave, circling the table to perch on the arm of a chair. "Who-"
"Joker."
Dick let out a long breath, "Any chance he's gotten lazy in his old age?" he asked. "Leave any blueprints lying around."
"Due to unforeseen circumstances the scene and therefore any evidence was distorted." Bruce admitted, pointedly not looking at the other three.
Dick's cackle echoed around the room, throwing his brothers even more off kilter. "That's your 'it blew-up but I'm not going to say it' thing." He turned to zero in on Tim, "You mentioned explosion, what'd you do?"
"Don't look at me," Tim pointed a hand towards Damian, "He hit a tripwire."
"If you hadn't distracted me-" A small white thing, the size of an mm bounced off Damian's forehead and skidded across the floor. All eyes darted over to Dick, was lining up another shot with a pill in hand. "Grayson-" Damian started, cutting off with a choking sound when the pill landed in his mouth.
"What?" Dick shrugged, "You looked like you needed a chill pill."
Jason burst out laughing, bending at the waist with arms around his stomach, "Oh God, I think I like Kid Dick." He gasped between breaths. Tim laughed into his hand, inching away from Damian, not wanting to draw the kid's anger.
"Do you not like older me?" Dick asked, cocking his head curiously. Damian stood there sputtering, pill now in his hand.
Jason's laugh tapered off "Let's just say," Jason took a few steps to take a seat at the table. "We've had our creative differences."
"What is this?" Damian demanded, stalking to the table to place the slightly dissolved pill on the tabletop.
"I believe that is from the medicine cabinet, am I right Master Richard?" Alfred asked, using a tissue from his pocket to dispose of it and clean up the wet spot.
"Alfie, you know me so well." Dick said with a wide smile.
The man hummed in agreement, holding out his silver serving tray. "Please return everything else you've procured."
Dick seemed to debate with himself before producing everything he took from the med-bay but keeping the anything from the vent. Based on the look from both Alfred and Bruce the men were aware he was holding out, but neither man commented.
"So, nothing physical, but what about mask recordings?" Dick asked, glancing between the people around him, "Assuming your tech hasn't gone backwards, there should be a camera in the mask and I assume older me looked up at least once."
"That's actually really smart," Tim muttered to himself, moving towards the main computer to start pulling up the recordings himself.
"You sound surprised," Dick said, giving the other teen pause. His face had gone a mix of curious and blank that left his three brothers a little on edge.
"I mean –" Tim sputtered, glancing at the other's for help.
Dick waved him off, turning to address the room at large again. "Once we figure out if it was magic or science," he continued. "We can call in Zatara," Bruce cringed it was small but noticeable enough, "or whoever you all keep as contact for magic."
Bruce nodded in agreement, "We could call in J'onn to check your mind-" Bruce began.
"No," Dick interrupted, voice cold and whole body ridged.
"Dick."
"No."
The two watched on another, Dick looked away first to tuck his shaking hands into the pocket of his sweats. "Last resort," he conceded, voice smaller than before.
"Okay," Bruce agreed, then hesitated. "Was it recent?" He asked carefully.
Dick glanced around at the others, before looking at Bruce, "Recent enough." He muttered.
The confidence from before was gone, Tim noted. "What about a blood sample?" he offered into the silence. "See if there is anything left in your system to point us in the right direction," he continued when all eyes snapped to him.
Tim watched Dick pull himself together between two breaths, slightly amazed in watching the younger version of his brother. The easy posture and curious tilt of his head, back in place. Tim briefly wondered what Cass would read from the younger version of their oldest brother.
"Good thinking, Tim." Bruce agreed, causing the teen to preen a little bit under the attention. "Dick, let's go to medical and take a sample, now. I'll do it."
Dick shook his head, "Thanks but no thanks, B. I'll give you a sample but, I'm taking it myself."
"What," Jason spoke up, at some point during the conversation he had tipped back on to two legs of his chair, feet resting on the table. "One handed?"
Dick shrugged as if to say not that hard, "nothing I haven't done before."
"When the hell were you drawing your own blood?" the second robin asked, slightly outraged.
"Master Jason," Alfred chastised, "Language."
"Look, clearly some things have changed over the last ten years," Dick shot back, looking pointedly around the cave before turning back to Jason. "But I'm used to three less pairs of hands, technology a decade older, and chemical warfare that is probably old hat to you all but was fresh out of the lab. Point being, I had to learn how to make my own antitoxin."
"Okay, but you don't have to now," Jason pointed out, his face tight and unreadable. "why not let one of us do it?"
Dick visually bristled but didn't respond.
"He doesn't trust us," Damian said, his voice even and face thoughtful. Even as a child, he can read his Batman, small tells carried through life.
They all turned to look back at Dick, who winced, "There's still a chance you're not my Batman." He said, turning fully to Bruce again. "This could be a trap or some kind of mind trip. Maybe a different universe with the same codes. You taught me to be suspicious."
"What do you need for us to convince you?" Tim asked curiously, perched now against the back computer.
Dick glanced at him, up to the computer ,then back to Bruce. "I want access to your systems, let me verify for myself."
"No." Bruce shook his head with a small frown.
Dick scoffed, "Now you're actively being suspicious. I mean come on, B. It's not like you can keep me out anyways."
The man's frown deepened but he didn't respond.
"See," Dick continued, standing from his chair, "before I wanted to check some details in the past, now I think you're hiding something. You're going to have to give me more than 'No' or I'm hacking in myself."
"Wow, kid." Jason muttered, slightly impressed.
The silence stretched again between the two, a conversation just between them.
"Master Richard," Alfred interrupted, always the voice of reason, "I believe the intent is to prevent any unnecessary complications. As you yourself have mentioned, things have changed significantly, and there are things you won't be happy to learn. If we are able to change you back quickly without any unnecessary grievances, why would we want to put you through that?"
Dick glanced between Alfred and Bruce thoughtfully, "twelve hours," He offered.
Bruce threw out a counteroffer, "Give us forty-eight."
"twelve and a half."
"forty-eight"
"twelve and three quarters. I can do this all night, B."
Bruce let you a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose, Dick smirked knowing he already won. "Twenty-four hours and you let Alfred take your blood."
"Deal," Dick agreed, launching himself over the table with an easy flip and offering out his hand in a shake. The two shook, and Alfred pushed his once again young charge back into medical.
"It's not like he could even hack the computer any ways," Tim stated to the cave. There was a long pause before he asked, "Right?"
...TBC...
Guys please feel free to share ideas! I have the next two chapters planned out but I'm kind of lost from there.
This isn't your typical Dick deaged story, and I have a reason for how... chill he might seem right now. But I'm not sure what to do when I'm done with this.
So hit me up with ideas or people you want to see. I'm thinking of tossing in Cass and Roy. Dick chill of this former assassin, he already knows Arti. Roy as the big brother again, really throw off Jason who only knows Roy his best friend. Maybe some Clark and Jon for some weird tension. Zantanna is already making an appearance soon.
Or do we want less of Young Dick and have him reage and have someone ask what happened? What made him change, why didn't they know x fact about him?
Let me know what you want to see!