Chapter Text
“I want it on the record,” Jason starts.
“Here we fucking go,” Tim mutters. He and Steph look at each other and roll their eyes. Jason ignores them and continues on.
“I want it on the fucking record,” he repeats, “that this is all Shadow’s fault.”
Damian makes a calm noise of disagreement. “Why would that be?” he asks. Tone a little icy. Not quite at dangerous levels yet, but possibly approaching. Signs seem to point towards Damian being in a bad mood. Situation should be monitored further.
Tim settles in for a long day.
Jason huffs. “If you hadn’t dragged your weird dimension warping meta villain all the way from Chicago to Gotham, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now,”
“And,” Damian says, looking up into the sky, “if I had remained an only child like god intended, we would not be in this situation now either, because I would not have any siblings to ineffectively barge in on my fights.” Damian gives a very insincere sigh, and looks at Jason. “Tragic how the world never works out like we want, is it not?”
Dick snickers. Jason scowls. Tim rolls his eyes again.
Still, despite the seeming hostility, nobody has really gone on the offensive yet. Makes sense. They should really be trying to get along in situations like these. Or get along as much as they can.
“I’m just saying, none of us have any dimension warping meta villains,” Jason points out.
Okay, forget getting along. Tim has to say something to that.
Tone dry, he says, “That’s because you aren’t relevant enough to have villains, Rook,”
“Oooooh,” Dick jeers.
“Ouch,” Steph laughs, “I thought Oracle followed the no-kill rule,”
“Fuck off,” Jason says while scowling. “He’s just salty that our names don’t match anymore and now he’s the only nerd with a Greek mythology name,”
“You’re named after a chess piece,” Tim replies, “how are you calling me a nerd?”
Cass clears her throat. “And what is wrong with chess pieces?” she asks, standing in her newly anointed Knight costume.
She smiles at Tim. It’s a threat.
Dick ooooohs again , while Jason and Cass high five.
“At least I don’t change my name every three seconds,” Tim mutters. Everybody in the family sends him an incredulous look at that.
“Say, who was it that was the first Batboy again?” Steph asks, directing the question to the rest of the group.
Damian hmms. “I seem to remember somebody taking up the Shadow mantle for a while, too. Who could it have been?”
Tim rolls his eyes. “Still a better track record than everybody here,” he retorts. Everyone gives him another unbelieving look.
It’s not like he forgot his past names… he just…
Secretly, he doesn’t really count his time as Shadow as real. Or Batboy, for that matter, even though he was Batboy for much longer. He’s never felt more present in himself than he does as Oracle; the versions of himself from the past, that starry-eyed Shadow and that headstrong Batboy, feel like strangers to him now.
Dick rolls his eyes at the group at large. “You’re all inconsistent and need to get on my level,” he announces. “Come on, standing around is boring. Let’s go explore,”
Tim and the rest of the group all look at each other, then they turn and watch as Dick picks a direction and strides off. His cape billows dramatically behind him as he does, because of course it does. Tim turns back to his family.
Most of them are smiling already, or trying to fight one off. Tim should’ve known that Dick Grayson was the kind of person to land in another dimension and want to explore.
“No exploring yet,” Damian calls out, interrupting Dick’s attempt to scramble up an air-conditioning unit. “We need to figure out a plan,”
“Should we split up?” Jason suggests. He gives Cass a speculative look. “Team Chess?”
“Splitting up in horror movies always ends in everyone dying,” Cass says sagely. She gives Jason an apologetic smile. “Also, sorry, but Team Evil Dads.”
“Fuck yes,” Steph says, fist pumping. “Team Evil Dads for the win.”
“Rejected by the person whose name you match with,” Tim says, shaking his head. “Too bad you destroyed Team Greek Gods,”
Jason pokes his tongue out at Tim. “I don’t need Team Greek Gods. Rook is a versatile name, okay?” He turns to Dick, and points finger guns at him. “Team Avian?” he asks.
Dick, now hanging upside down off of the air-conditioning unit, drops to his hands, executes a perfect handspring, and lands beside Jason.
“Team Avian!” he shouts, putting out a hand. Jason high fives it, and then they proceed to do an elaborate handshake that lasts about fifteen seconds.
Tim rolls his eyes, but he can’t quite fight the smile that forms at the sight.
Actually, why is he even trying? Attempting to hide smiles and other forms of positive emotion is a Bruce or Damian thing—have they really influenced him so much? Yikes.
With everybody else paired off, Tim looks over to Damian to find him already looking back.
Damian raises his eyebrows.
Tim shrugs.
Damian tilts his head slightly.
Tim shrugs again, but with purpose.
“We are not splitting up, so this conversation is pointless,” Damian says, but he does give Tim a thin smile. “Regardless, you will do.”
Tim huffs. “Thanks for the stunning vote of confidence,” he mutters, shuffling closer to where Damian is standing.
Steph claps her hands together. “Okay,” she says, “now if we hypothetically split up, we know it’s Team Evil Dads, Team Avian, and Team…”
She pauses, thinking. Everybody turns to look at her. Tim is a little worried about what’s about to come out of her mouth.
“...Team Daddy Issues,” Steph concludes, nodding her head. Jason and Dick both giggle. Cass just smiles. Steph looks obnoxiously proud of herself.
Tim closes his eyes, thinks it over very hard, and comes to the conclusion that he doesn’t have the energy to argue with that. Or even come near the subject with a ten foot pole, really. He’s instead going to close his eyes and pretend, for as long as the illusion lasts, that he’s on the Greek Isles with the sun shining above him and the wind in his hair.
Damian makes an irritated tsk noise. The image is shattered immediately. Tim sadly opens his eyes and returns to reality.
“If anybody were to qualify for that team, it would be you, Stephanie,” Damian snaps. Bad mood confirmed. Should Tim interfere? It might actually be better if everyone got their claws out and sharpened now, when they’re in a relatively safe place, rather than later.
Plus, Damian always fights better when he’s in a bad mood. The anger focuses him. It makes him batshit fucking terrifying, sure, but it does focus him. Very effective in a fight, and even though nothing has happened in this dimension yet, Tim’s planning for a fight. With their kind of luck, there’s always a fight.
Steph cocks her head. “Oh yeah?” she asks, voice low.
Shit, is Steph having a bad day too? Maybe Tim misjudged this. There’s nobody on earth equipped to deal with a pissed Damian and a pissed Steph. Especially not when they’re in proximity.
Damian narrows his eyes at her. Probably to try and figure out if she’s being serious about her goading or not. Honestly, Tim can’t even tell. She probably is. Steph can be like that.
“Yes,” Damian answers cooly, rising to match the challenge in Steph’s tone. “Even leaving aside Cluemaster, you hold the title when it comes to issues with Batman, did you not?”
Tim tries not to visibly wince. Cass looks towards him and manages to catch his eye; they engage in a short, heated, and entirely silent debate about who’s going to defuse the situation. Halfway through, Jason joins in with his own pointed looks and half-formed gesturing.
Dick sees all of this happen, and facepalms.
“This is stupid,” he informs everyone, snapping the tension in the group in an instant. “Stop being stupid. Dimension travel is wicked cool and if any of you ruin this for me, I will tell on all of you to Superman, and then Superman will be upset at you, and nobody wants that.”
Nobody wants that. Making Superman upset makes you feel like you’ve kicked the world’s largest most dangerous puppy, which is bad enough already, but it more significantly makes Batman upset, which is a fate that no mortal would willingly bring upon themselves.
It's a very effective threat. Tim's pretty impressed. How exactly did his sweet hyperactive little brother turn into this?
Out of the corner of his eye, Tim catches a brief flicker in Damian's haughty expression; for a moment, he looks proud, which, yup, yeah, that explains exactly how sweet hyperactive Dick turned into this.
"We raised a totalitarian dictator," Jason mutters, shaking his head in bewilderment.
"Damian raised a totalitarian dictator," Steph says dryly, and even though those are fighting words, her tone indicates that she's only joking. Or somewhat joking. Either way, Damian doesn't react too badly; all he does is turn up his nose at Steph.
Cass rolls her eyes and points out, "Damian sort of raised most of us,"
There's a moment of silence while they all ponder that.
Then, Jason says, shrugging, "Checks out."
"Checks out," Tim agrees in a dry tone.
"Definitely checks out," Steph sighs.
They all shoot looks towards Damian. He's got an almost-constipated look on his face, and it's only with years of familiarity that Tim recognises that this means he's suffering through the burden that the rest of the world calls emotion.
Oh, right. Damian raised most of us, brought up without any protest or dissent. No wonder he looks like he's going through a crisis. It's almost sweet.
Cass, smiling brightly, says, "So, the plan?"
Damian clears his throat, squares his shoulders, and replies, "Yes, the plan." His expression focuses. "In the last encounter we had with dimension travel, our comms operated on the same frequency as our alternate dimension counterparts. I suggest we try that avenue before anything else?"
Dick wrinkles his nose. "I hope it's not actually those guys," he says. "That universe sucked."
Steph hmms. "I'll bet you anything that you just jinxed us, and it is going to be those guys."
Jason pulls out a handful of coins from his pockets, squints at it, and declares, "I'll bet you $10.40 it isn't,"
"You're on," Steph replies immediately.
Cass says, "$10 that it is,"
The one rule of this family that goes without saying, even if you wilfully want to ignore everything else, is that you never bet against Cass. Tim says, "I'll throw in $10 with Cass,"
"Ugh," Jason huffs. "You all suck, and you're gonna regret this when I'm cashing in,"
Damian makes a face of disdain. "Are you all quite done?" he asks, putting one hand up to his comm unit.
"Wait!" Dick says, before rummaging around in his belt until he produces an incredibly crinkled $10 note. "I'm with Jason," he declares.
Jason shoots finger guns at Dick, which he returns with a grin and a "Team Avian for life,"
Damian makes the dry snort that usually means he's amused, and then he turns his comm on.
He says, clearly and calmly, "This is the vigilante Shadow. I am from a different dimension. My partners and I have been sent here, and require assistance in getting back home."
There's a reply almost immediately, even though it’s only early evening.
"Holy shit," a voice recognisable as Steph's says, "Shadow? From the whacky reverse universe? The one where I'm the Red Hood?"
Jason groans.
Shaking his head, Tim says, "Never bet against Cass,"