Welcome to Day 2 of Piades' YJ/DP Ficathon!

It's now day 2! Thanks for sharing your thoughts on yesterday's post, guys. There's a poll for yesterday linked from my tumblr as well - it's with a post titled round 1 day 1. This, however, is day 2 of round 1! I'll put up something on tumblr for this one, too. Just a head's up - the 'winners' from round 1 go into round 2 - so please let me know which story you like better, here or via the poll linked on tumblr. Whether they 'win' or not, I'm always happy to see other people's interpretations of these ideas, too, so if anything takes your fancy, feel free to give it a whirl!

round 1 - day 2/16 - story A (Thermos Time Capsule AU)

Jazz ate breakfast it the kitchen so she could look out over Happy Harbor bay. She was thirty-nine now, she'd been a surgeon for almost half her adult life. Now she worked at the Happy Harbor surgery, far away from her dreams — the dreams she'd achieved goddamn it — of being a top brain surgeon. And yet here she was, living in an out-of-the-way tourist trap, and it was all for her younger brother.

Danny — not a day over fifteen — traipsed down the stairs and halted at the bottom step. He gazed at nothing for a while. Jazz broke the silence.

"Earth to little brothers!" she called.

Danny blinked. "Hi Jazz," he mumbled, and then looked up at her. Sometimes, when Danny looked at her, it was hard to see the hard-headed little brother she'd known in her days before college. Brains were tricky — and Danny's brain had been stuck in the thermos so long it was a wonder he was as sane as this.

But he was sane. A bit ill, perhaps, but sane.

He plonked himself down in the second chair. "I've decided to go to school."

Jazz gagged around her toast. "What!?"

"I've enrolled and everything."

"Did you overshadow them?" Jazz asked, unable to keep the note of accusation out of her voice.

Danny shrugged and looked at the table.

"I'm just — I worry about you is all," Jazz said, getting up to fix him some breakfast. If she didn't do it, he'd probably forget. "We are living under the shadow of Mt. Justice and all."

"Mmm…" Danny agreed, tipping his chair back and looking towards the wall like he could see Mt. Justice through it. "Maybe…"

Even with the twinges of anxiety running through her, Jazz smiled. This was the brother she'd lost when he'd been sucked into the thermos — and he was as much a hero as she'd ever been.

"I'm not going to argue," she said, even though he was tiny, fifteen years old. "Just try not to get us in trouble with the Justice League of America, alright?"

She ruffled his hair and helped him pack his bag.

round 1 - day 2/16 - story B (Danny and Wally Explore Cadmus AU)

Wally had made a poor showing in gym class. He just... had his mind on other things! Now that it was lunchtime, he was going to prove to himself (and his classmates) that he could handle a basketball fine, thankyouverymuch. But he'd failed to check the pressure of the ball he'd got from the equipment shed. His fingers sank deeply into it. He pointed to the hoop.

"I'll get this in, and you'll all buy me chocolate. After it's it's been pumped up. Deal?"

He crossed his arms - the ball dropped to the ground with a sad bounce - and glared at his classmates, who laughed. Well, he thought, turning around. He'll show them!

The equipment shed was halfway across the grounds. Wally passed several groups of students as he headed for it. In one of the groups, he spotted Danny, a new kid in his class. There was a furrow between his brows and his body language was confrontational.

"— it's fucking Cadmus, of course it's true."

Wally stopped. The new kid had said Cadmus — that was the place he, Robin, and Kaldur had rescued Superboy from. The basketball slipped from his fingers and bounced away. Casually, he wandered over.

"You're such a conspiracy theorist," another of the group muttered.

"Did you say Cadmus?" Wally asked.

Danny turned to him. "Yeah. Did you hear about the fire and the explosion a few months back? I always knew they were creeps, I bet they really did clone Superman."

Wally almost said "They certainly did!" but then he remembered that he had a secret identity. Sorta secret, anyway. "What makes you say that?"

Danny's face went blank. "I know who owns the place."

"Lexcorp sold it off a few months back," Wally said. He knew this — Lex Luthor had been forced to retract his claws from it by the League. There was no surprise in Danny's face, though. He already knew that. "I mean, I know Lexcorp's pretty evil. You're saying the new guy is bad too?"

He had his phone out, and was googling even before the rest of the group could groan. Wally didn't care. He checked up on Cadmus, the current owner was someone called Sheila Storm, and she was touted as a humanitarian. Then again, so was Lex Luthor.

"It's not her I'm worried about, really," Danny said — and that was it for the rest of his group. They gave a few little waves and wandered off chuckling. "It's who might be in control of her."

"Like mind control?" He really needed to stop thinking like a super.

"…Yeah," Danny said.

The bottom dropped out of Wally's stomach. Or… maybe he should be thinking exactly like a super. "Why haven't you told the League about this?" Wally asked.

"You believe me?"

"Yeah."

Danny rubbed his face and his throat. He dipped into his pocket, brought out his phone, and shakily wrote a few words down on it.

Cadmus has my cousin.

Wally felt anger boil in his gut.

"I'm going to find her," Danny said.

"So when do we leave?" Wally asked. Wally, not Kid Flash. Yikes.

Well, too late to back out now!