"Dixie still has that cape you sent her home in at the back of her closet."
"Same with Dick and yours." Batman responded, the shadow of a fond smile briefly crossing his face. "I think he still pulls it out sometimes, when the nightmares come."
Batwoman nodded. "Same with her. Never thought I'd be able to get used to not having that scrawny girl come poking her head in my bedroom door when she couldn't sleep." He hummed a brief agreement.
The two heroes were still walking through the grey mists, keeping their eyes peeled for any sign of their missing partners, but somehow, able to make light conversation while doing so. That wasn't something either of them was used to doing, and if any others had been around to hear the pair of Bats, they'd have been very surprised. However, to the Gotham heroes, talking to each other was even easier than having a discussion with Alfred. It just... Came naturally.
And since they were alternate versions of each other, neither was really surprised by it.
Still, the quiet words they exchanged were halted the instant new noises made their way out of the mists. Straining his ears, Batman could just make out the faint sound of words - an argument, actually.
"...Can't believe you morons would start fighting with barely a word!"
"Don't you know better, when stuck in a strange place without any idea how we got here?"
"Not our fault!"
"Nightwing never told me that story anyway, so how was I to know about her?"
The pair of Bats quickened their steps, finally breaking through a mist bank and coming upon an odd sight.
Two slim teens, each in a Robin uniform, were being grudgingly released from tangled grappling lines by a pair of red-haired young adults. It was the younger girl who first noticed their arrival, her face lighting up with delighted recognition.
"Batwoman! Thank god." She cried in relief, before shifting to annoyance. "Batlad's being a jerk." Said crimefighter paused in his yanking off of the cable to gently whack the back of the girl's head.
The other Robin had opened his mouth to say something similar, but Batgirl's glare stopped him cold. Her attention turned, though, as Batman swept closer and placed a hand on either of their shoulders.
"Are you both alright?" He asked gruffly, aware that behind him, Batwoman was saying much the same thing.
"We're fine," Batgirl assured him, though Robin muttered something under his breath about just a little bruised. The adult helped in pulling away the last of the grappling line before asking what happened to incur such a thing.
"These two morons were fighting, and didn't hear us yelling at them to stop." The young woman answered simply, ignoring the teen's scowl.
"Maybe we ought to get their hearing checked." Batlad suggested, chuckling even as he ran an exasperated hand through his red hair. His alternate grinned as well, her gaze now shifting to take in the other Bat.
"Wow. She really does look like Selina." Blinking, Batman turned his head and realized with a start that the young woman was right. He'd been so startled before, and then focusing on finding Robin, that the similarities hadn't had time to jump out at him as they now did.
Batwoman's uniform was nearly identical to his in design, though obviously with a few format differences. And it was in those different curves that she closely resembled the Catwoman that he was used to dealing with.
Both of the other younger heroes were looking at him with scrutiny identical to Batgirl and Robin in their studying of the female Bat.
"Same for him and Cedric." Batlad noted. "Bet you tend to take the more hands-on approach in clobbering people, though, rather than spinning around."
"Sounds about right." Robin said, still rubbing a spot on his side. "So, unless the two of you were going through a zeta tube like us, I don't think this is a teleporter malfunction."
"We were on the Watchtower." Narrowing her eyes, Batgirl glared at the mist-covered ground. "With the Team and half the League."
"And that begs the question - are they all here too?"
-DS-
"You have got to be kidding me." Red Arrow snarled. The woman wearing his costume crossed her arms and glowered back.
"If you think I'm any happier about this than you, you're going to find that bow in a very unpleasant place, very soon." She warned.
Not far away, the two Green Arrows were arguing with each other, even as the pair of exasperated Black Canaries were shaking their heads.
"If they don't start behaving, I'm for knocking all of them unconscious." David Lance muttered under his breath, and Dinah had to agree with him. So far, Ollie, Olivia, Roy and Reyna had shown no signs of cooperation, and the only reasonable-minded heroes present were getting tired of it.
Before either Canary could intervene, though, a new voice cut through the arguing.
"Well, well, well. Why doesn't this surprise me at all?" Emerging from the mists were a pair of figures in green and black and wearing grinning cat masks.
"Cheshire," Everyone groaned: the Red Arrows in annoyance, the Green in disbelief, and the two Back Canaries in an acceptance that things were just about to get worse.
A/N: You all should really count yourselves lucky - I was having a hard time writing this chapter, and if it hadn't been for my friend Aisling Moon providing me a place to rant about difficult scenes, I never would have noticed I forgot to include Babs and Brandon in the story. And just like that, bringing them had the words flowing beautifully.
Next update might not come 'til the end of this school week, so just bear with me, folks. We'll start getting to the good stuff soon enough. And let me know if there's a particular person you really want to see the scene of them meeting their alternate, I'll see about making it happen. /Sly grin
-Triscribe