Title: How We Came to Be
By: Xmarksthespot
Disclaimer: I don't own YJ or How I Met Your Mother
Notes: Thank you for the reviews and favs/alerts, guys!
Italics — Future!Dick
Normal Font — Past!Dick
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Kids, you may think that being the ward of The Bruce Wayne had its privileges, both at school and at home, but back when I was thirteen, that wasn't the case.
You see, back then you only stood at the top of the school if your parents stood at the top of the city, and even though Bruce Wayne was The Prince of Gotham, kids only respected you if you were his legitimate heir. Eventually, many of them did find out that they should have been friendlier to your dear old dad and that blood relation didn't always matter.
For instance….
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September 7, 2024
"Hi, you must be Damian Wayn—"
"Touch me and I'll stab you."
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Yeah... So like I said, school wasn't that great for me back then, but it wasn't that bad either. At least I had Barbara and Artemis. At home though…
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"And young master, I advise you to actually come home this evening rather than going straight to the mountain."
"But—"
And then he gives me The Alfred, a consciously, well-crafted look that's basically the butler version, but much scarier than the infamous, feared by the entire Justice League, and copyrighted Bat-glare. If there is a hierarchy of the three things that could and would get me to do Bruce's and Alfred's every beck and call, it would be the name Richard at the bottom, followed by the Bat-glare in the middle and then The Alfred on top.
I swear, it's only fun when The Alfred is used on Bruce.
But I'm not going down without a fight—I'm a superhero! I can withstand this. I gulp and finally muster the courage to say:
"But Selina—"
And then he smiles at me, a grandfatherly smile that's used to guilt both Bruce and I into caving into his demands and is a double combo K.O. when paired with The Alfred.
I sigh.
"I'll be home after school…But only for you, Alf," I tell him, finally relieved that The Alfred and the guilty-I-know-you-ate-cookies-before-dinner smile dissipate.
I step out of the limo and look onwards to the facility that's supposed to be the best four years of my life.
And it's times like these that I like to quote Mean Girls: "You got your freshman, ROTC guys, preps, J.V. jocks, Asian nerds, Cool Asians, Varsity jocks, unfriendly black hotties, girls who eat their feelings, girls who don't eat anything, desperate wannabes, burnouts, sexually active band geeks..."
And of course—
"Watch where you're going, circus freak!"
—the coolest group ever at Gotham Academy subdivided into two smaller groups made up of myself and Barbara Gordon, and Bette Kane and Artemis Crock, only because we're not close enough friends in our civilian identities to form one, super epic, tight-knit group.
Yet.
And the worst—
"Hey look, Scholarship Number 2 has an imaginary boyfriend named Wally!" A girl yells, yanking Artemis's arm upwards to show everybody the colourful cast.
—well, there's no actual group that's the worst of them all here at Gotham Academy, unless I decide to spend the next ten minutes listing the top 75 percent of the student population whose parents are the basic infrastructure of Gotham City minus Bruce Wayne. Please, like I have the time to do such frivolous things.
"Hey, let go of me!" Artemis tells her, pulling her arm back.
"Boo-hoo, scared you can't afford another cast?"
I grimace as the crowd of jerks start circling her.
"No, but I'm pretty sure I won't be able to afford treatment if I catch whatever you have!"
Sometimes I wish I was as bold as dear old Arty.
I form a smirk, brush a stray strand of hair back into its coifed up position, and walk up to my pretty blonde friend. She is stomping alone towards her locker, which is coincidentally next to mine.
Oh, I just love having all these benefits.
"Artemis! Nice cast," I point out as I proceed to open my own locker.
She grumbles a thanks under her breath, which is followed by a string of words that I'm pretty sure is Vietnamese—regardless of the language, I'm pretty sure Alfred wouldn't have approved. And I'm betting that it's about Wally.
Speaking of Wally, I notice that Kid Crush had managed to scrawl his name in bright red ink in the middle of her cast. It's like he was taking ownership for what he did to her.
She slams her locker shut and continues to make way down the hallway, and even though it's been over a month, she still hasn't learned that she can't just escape from me that easily.
"Artemis, wait up!" I call after her and easily pick up my pace to match hers.
"What do you want?" She asks me angrily—case and point. I told Wally that her period came on the third week of every month.
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Kids, you have to understand that ever since your uncles and I were children, we had been surrounded by female superheroes who could crush us with their pinky fingers or kill us in our sleep. We had to mark down when we thought their time of the month was.
Trust me when I say: it kept our limbs intact.
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"I have first period with you, remember?" I smile and look up to give her the innocent, widened puppy-dog eyes that make just anyone other than Alfred smitten and accepting. I'm thinking of calling it The Grayson, but I'm going to have to work on that.
While I'm in freshman classes for three of the four subjects I'm forced to take by the government and school system, I had quite easily managed to pull myself into Artemis's sophomore pre-calc class first thing in the morning. All I have to do now is wait for the day when Artemis comes to me and ask me to tutor her in three-dimensional vectors, which –based on her marks—she totally will in less than two weeks.
"Right…"
"Anyway," I start and I could hear her prepare herself for whatever I have to say next. Ah, the choices. What shall I pick on her for today? I glance at her cast.
Target acquired.
"Just how did you break your arm like that?"
"Uh…"
"I had a friend who broke her arm once. It was dis…astrous. It was just in a simple game of Tag too," I say, smiling slyly.
She looks down at me conspicuously with a rise of her eyebrow. Come on, Arty…just look deep into my eyes…deeper…deeper…
"Mr. Grayson, Ms. Crock…can you please stop blocking my hallway and get to your class?"
And that would be the principal—whom I keep insisting Bruce should fire.
I give a small laugh. "You can tell me later at lunch, Artemis. I can't wait until you tell me who this Wally is too," I tell her, pointing to the cast. "Sounds like a flashy kind of guy." I snicker again when she freezes on spot at the doorway, eyes wide like saucers.
I just love it when I get that reaction out of people.
The day goes on just as it normally does. I sleep through second period, forcing Barbara to recite the history chapters that we had went through. Artemis spends lunch time staring at me with a suspicious look in her eye, and I text Wally throughout the period before gym, reminding him that he shouldn't have written his name like that across Artemis's cast, and no, I'm not going to send an express cargo delivery of Alfred's cookies all the way to Keystone.
And now comes home time.
Surprise, surprise, Selina is here waiting by the time I step into the manor.
"It's about time you showed your face here, kitten," she purrs. She's still wearing her work clothes. She must've gotten off work early. "I was afraid I might have scared you off the last time we spoke."
"Selina," I greet, only through Alfred's insistences as he hangs my coat up behind me. When he leaves, I add, "Did the sewer rats scare you back into the house? I thought cats went for that kind of thing."
She frowns, and clearly isn't as amused as the first time I insulted her in front of Bruce, but then her lips twist into something else. "My, my, looks like you had a bad day at school," she says and approaches me, and then somehow lowers herself down while wearing that tight skirt and high heels; we are eye to eye.
"And F.Y.I., not all cats go after rodents." She smirks. "Sometimes we prey after birds."
"Is that a threat?" I ask and I ready my utility belt from beneath my school uniform. Bruce was right; it sure did come in handy to have on me all the time, though sometimes I think he's just as paranoid as they say he is.
Not that that's a bad thing, but even I don't think it's good either.
Selina lets out a breath through her nostrils. "Of course not, kid. To me, you're just a tiny kitten wanting to be loved by dear old daddy," she says, and then runs her fingers in my hair again. Like a cat.
I don't care what she wants.
I'm not giving up Robin to be Catlad.
I spend the next hour sitting at the dining room table, glaring at Selina while she looks at her nails and talks to Alfred. It isn't until Bruce comes home that I manage to excuse myself from the worst after school program ever.
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While I was locked up in my room with no means of escape unless I wanted to cross paths with Selina and Bruce again, your Uncle Wally was having the life beat out of him by your Aunt Artemis.
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"Uh…Black Canary?" M'gann starts. "Shouldn't we…stop Artemis? The system's already announced his failure twice."
The remainder of the group, along with their trainer, turn to the center ring when Artemis raises her leg, hitting Wally, who is running circles around her, square in the chest and cause him to fall to the floor once more.
Kid Flash: fail.
Roy, who had decided to visit the team that day, nods at the action in front of him.
"Replacement isn't so bad after all…" He mutters to himself. "Even with a handicap."
"Hey!" Wally groans, raising an arm from his position on the floor. "Just whose side are you on, Speedy?"
"Hmph." Artemis grins triumphantly. "Even with a cast I can still kick your ass."
Wally sighs and uses his elbows as leverage to try to pull himself up. "I told you I was sorry!"
"Because of you, I can't use my bow for another month! A month, Wally! How would you like it if I broke one of your legs?"
"Artemis…" Black Canary starts, but the younger blonde continues.
"And then you wrote your name on my cast while I was sleeping! How do you expect me to go to school with this? How do you expect me to answer my mother when she asks who the fu—"
"Artemis, that's enough."
"—ck Wally is and why the hell does he have dumbass name?!"
"Artemis—"
"I'm not done! Hey, what are you guys doing? M'gann—Kaldur, wh-hey! Put me down!"
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Kids, it took your Uncle Conner to stop Artemis from giving Wally a concussion that day. And I know what you're thinking: why would Wally be so hopelessly in love with someone who had tried to break his legs during training?
Well, I asked him the same thing.
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"She's on her period if it helps, bro," I tell him through our online video chat. I could see my best friend on the other screen rolling his eyes, but then wincing when the slightest movement ached. "Wally, just put the ice pack on."
He sighs and lifts the bag of ice to press onto his swollen left cheek.
I leer over to the doorway where I could hear Bruce's booming laughter from whatever joke Selina just told him, and frown. Ugh. He's never laughed that hard for my jokes before.
"Dick, your jealousy is flaring," Wally says.
And he said he was on my side.
"Anyway, as I was saying…I still don't get why you're so in love with her if you guys treat each other like this." I don't get it. I don't get it at all. Catwoman stole from Gotham. Catwoman attacked Batman. She's the epitome of how corrupt this city is and yet…
They're laughing together.
Is it some law of post-puberty-esque attraction that if one person is into another person, she has to beat the crap out of him?
Oh man…It's terrifying how similar Bruce and Wally are.
"It's…It's complicated."
"Wally, don't tell me that it's some gut feeling you have and that deep down inside, she's as kind as a kitten because need I remind you that kittens grow up to be cats and there is a cat clawing Bruce Wayne downstairs."
"Well—"
"Gah, Wally! Artemis is our friend. I trust her with my life. But there is no way you can be in love with her based on your gut and nothing else!"
"Whatever, Dick. You may have had like, a gajillion girlfriends in the past—"
Total lie.
"And you may be the next Playboy Prince of Gotham or something—"
God, I hope that's not true.
"But when you're not there, and the team's not there and I get to be alone and talk to her, she's…She's Artemis."
I raise an eyebrow. "Yeah, I think we established that she was Artemis on the first day, Wally."
"No, I mean, we spend all this time fighting so we never got to really know each other, and well…I got to know her."
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And suddenly, Wally's face softened, and I swear, up to that point, I had never seen him look so bruised and yet so happy in his entire life.
So I decided to help him out a little—trust his quick, metabolising gut that I always thought acted on impulse.
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"Okay, Wally. You want to apologize to her for breaking her arm? Why don't you help her out a little by doing things that she normally needs two hands for?"
"I did offer!" Wally interjects, waving a hand around before flinching and setting it back down. "But she said I'd done enough damage and didn't want me breaking her other one. Honestly, if I could buy her a new arm, I would."
Huh…buy…a new arm.
Buying…
Money…
"That's it!"
Wally looks at me skeptically. "Dude, I'm not buying Arty a new arm."
"Not that," I say with a smirk. "Go help her civilian life. She has the team helping her at the mountain, who do you think is helping just Artemis?"
But he shakes his head. "Already offered, bro. Green Arrow just threatened me even more."
Dang, Oliver really is overprotective of his archers. Now I can see why Roy wanted out ASAP.
"You know how you live in Keystone and Barry lives in Central?"
"So?"
"What makes you think Arty lives in the same city as her uncle?"
"Wait, so she doesn't live in Star?"
"Nope," I said with a pop on the 'p'.
He furrows his brows. "Why wouldn't she tell us?"
I casually wave him off, hoping that Artemis would trust us soon enough to tell the team why she is situated in Gotham. Thankfully for her, I am awesome at covering tracks. "Bro, if I had you tailing me around, I wouldn't tell you where I lived either."
"Ouch. Not cool, Dick. So you know where she lives?"
"Uh, duh."
"Where?"
I pause for a moment. I know I would tell him what city she lived and where she went to school—not that that's a big deal or anything—but there has to be something taken out of this. Something…that would benefit me.
On the other screen, Wally sighs knowingly. "Okay, what do you want?"
I grin. "Help me with my plans." To get rid of Selina Kyle.
He groans. "Deal, but only if you get blamed when Daddy Bats—"
"He's not going to—"
"—finds out."
"…Fine."
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For the rest of the night, your Uncle Wally came up with a list of things to do for your Aunt Artemis with the information I had provided him and I decided to plot the break up between Bruce and Selina.
Meanwhile, your Uncle Roy was still at the mountain visiting. And while I was known for being the one who knew everything because of my security camera and computer privileges, there were some things I knew better to leave alone.
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"You are not smoking, I take it?"
Roy chuckles. "I told you, Kal, I kicked the habit years ago."
The Atlantean smiles genuinely as he approaches the redheaded man standing at the edges of the mountain. "I am glad."
They are silent for a while, up until Roy clears his throat. "So how's the team?"
"It is…not the same without you, but the team is managing and things are well. You would have liked working with us, Roy. Even with Artemis."
Roy looks up towards the horizon, watching the beach waves. With a frown, he says, "I still don't trust her," but before his friend could respond, he continues, "but she can fight from what I saw today. Wally should stop underestimating an archer's leg strength."
Kaldur barely hides his amused smile. "I take it you are sympathizing her condition?"
"You never mess with an archer's arms, Kal. You know that."
"Of course. It was the lesson learned during the Harper Defeat of 2009."
Roy rolls his eyes. "You enjoy bringing that up too often." He pauses. "Do you miss it?"
"I'm sorry?"
"When we used to hang out. Just the four of us."
The blond looks contemplative before turning to face his friend. "While I am enjoying the team as it is now, I must admit, the times spent with you were indeed the best of times."
Roy nods. "Well, maybe I'll stop by again someday, just for you to enjoy the best of times again. Anyway," he says while stretching out his arms, "I should go. It's getting late and I gotta get up early for work tomorrow."
"Working? I was not aware that you had a job."
"Yeah well, gotta pay the bills somehow now that I'm moved out of Ollie's place."
"What is it that you do?" Kaldur asks.
"Eh, just things." Roy shrugs before holding out a fisted hand. "Bro-Fist?"
Kaldur hesitates at first, but then extends his own arm to bump fists. Both men withdraw their hands and extend all their fingers with Roy mimicking the sound of an explosion.
Roy grins. "Just like a true Surface-Dweller."
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The next day, school went on just as it normally did. I talked to Artemis in the hallways before pre-calc, slept through history and had to have Barbara explain to me what we learned during lunch, and then breezed through chemistry and gym.
Artemis on the other hand, had a more difficult time adjusting to life now that her dominant arm was rendered useless, until…
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Artemis scowls as one of the Gotham Academy students push passed her without bothering to give her a second glance or apologizing.
"Jackass," she mutters, and continues to struggle with putting everything into her backpack before choosing to carry some of the books with her non-dominant arm. It isn't until she leaves the building that she sees a familiar redhead approaching school grounds.
"Wally?! What are you doing here?"
He smiles at the sight of her. "Don't worry, Arty. I'm not from around here—none of these spoiled brats will know who I am."
"I'm not worried about that. It's just…how did you know I went to school here?"
"Eh, I know people," he says with a shrug.
Artemis groans, instantly knowing which brat he is referring to. "That dick."
"You have no idea how right you are," Wally responds and then reaches out for her books. "Here, let me carry those."
"I—" But he easily pulls them away from her.
"It's fine. I mean, it's the least I could do. And you always did tell me I should work on my upper body strength. This can be like lifting weights." He begins to raise and lower the textbooks in his hold.
"T-Thanks…" she replies hesitantly before her eyes become wide. "Wait, don't you have school right now?"
He shrugs again. "Like I said, I know people."
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Kids, for six consecutive school days, the fire alarm had went off during Wally's last period, cancelling his classes and permitting him to come to Gotham to carry Artemis's books.
Unfortunately, her cast didn't come off for another month and a half, but the moment your grandfather and Wally's parents found out he had been missing his last period and that I was responsible for these fire alarm fiascos, Wally was prohibited from entering Gotham on both the Wests' and the Bat's terms until further notice.
But in the end, Wally didn't mind.
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"Wait, are you doing this because I said that I was going to break your legs in your sleep?" Artemis asks with a smirk just as they cross the street to her apartment.
"What?! No! I mean, I didn't think you were serious…until now. You aren't going to, are you?"
She laughs, and only after sometime does Wally gain the confidence to laugh along with her too
"You know, that's a nice uniform. You should wear it to the mountain sometime."
"Shut up, Wally."
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And neither did Artemis.
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A/N: So I hope no one minded the random POV changes. Part way through writing this chapter, I realized I would have to show some scenes that Narrator!Dick wouldn't be aware of, so I kind of took the same route that How I Met Your Mother takes sometimes in which Future!Dick will lead you guys into the next scene. I'll try not to get it too confusing with the first/third person narration switch, because I really don't want to go back and switch everything I've written into third person, but I may have too if this doesn't work; I guess only time will tell. Let me know what you guys think about it!
P.S. Anyone want to beta this story? Preferably someone with some HIMYM knowledge and is familiar with YJ and DC characters. I don't really know how the beta thing works, but it'd be pretty awesome if someone could read things over and point out what's (un)necessary, what's boring, and what's grammatically incorrect (especially the first two on that list. I tend to ramble with these kinds of stories. A lot. Kind of like what I'm doing now.) PM me please if you'd like to! :)
