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Barry wakes up with a grunt, stretching his arms above his head before clearing the mist from his eyes and sitting up… only for him to squint his eyes in paranoia and distrust all in less than a nanosecond.
Waking up on a hospital bed isn’t particularly uncommon for him, but a hospital bed not in STAR labs or the Cave?
No.
Standing up, still in the speedforce, he checks if the doors are locked, and walks out in surprise and no small amount of suspicion when he sees it isn’t. As he checks all the corners spotting cameras, he goes room by room until entering a large meeting room.
A meeting room that isn’t particularly empty.
Here’s the thing.
There are many different conspiracies. Specifically conspiracies about different heroes. Barry isn’t oblivious to internet forums questioning different things like which hero is the best detective and which one’s the hottest. He finds it funny and sends really out there ones to Bruce to make him laugh, like the one he found where Batman was actually a doll that came to life from a magical wish from Robin like a Pinocchio sequel.
But to get back on track: he’s aware of how people are unsure about who would win in a race between him and Superman. He actually asked Bruce what he thought a few months ago.
Bruce did the calculations, he normally would have brushed it off actually but Dick and Wally were also curious and so Bruce made it a teaching moment and taught them all how to calculate the speed and velocity from the different videos of Superman to compare it to Barry’s recorded runs.
Anyways. It was very informative. Bruce said Superman tends to use more speed than Barry in more daily life (barely), but in actual battle, Barry’s speed rises exponentially, and that if he had enough adrenaline- it wouldn’t even be a competition.
Barry watches a group of ‘superheroes’ in a circle surrounding his kid. His nephew’s best friend. And his brother’s son. His kid .
As he watches in a frozen moment as Superman’s hand- invulnerable, strong, deadly -is wrapped around his kid’s arm as he looks confused and scared where he is, he gets such a boost of complete and utter f u r y he can’t help but watch in detached fascination as he watches Superman’s eyes meet his in a very very slow motion and widen at whatever he sees on his face before taking out the kryptonite toothpick all of them carry on their person for emergencies and piercing it right through the tissue of Superman’s still frozen shoulder blade and punching him hard enough to break his jaw.
When he blinks out of the speedforce, he has a quickly calming Robin on his back smiling relief into his shoulder, a currently in pain and weak Kryptonian moaning in the corner, and various ‘heroes’ staring at everything in growing horror.
Barry nudges his still covered head against Dick’s (and thank god they both have their cowl and mask on) and asks gently and lovingly even as he makes the adults in front of him pale at his expression, “Are you alright, Sunshine? Are you hurt?”
The adults in front of him look at him in confusion and some offense.
Wonder Woman actually immediately opens her mouth, “We would never hurt a chi -”
He gives her a look so dark he feels the rage burning underneath his skin as he speaks with a coldness Captain Cold would envy, “I could take your lasso and wring it around your neck before you can blink. I’ll speak to you when it’s your turn,” making her jaw snap shut in surprise, along with the others.
Back to loving, “Sunshine?”
He gets a squeeze as Robin takes a moment to breathe before putting on a smile he can hear without even seeing it (the real question is whether it’s fake or not), “I’m okay! Just a little startled is all. We seem to have been de-aged though, and you probably didn’t need to break Superman’s jaw.”
The two superheroes in green look over to see Superman still groaning in some pain as he sits up against the wall which makes him wince since the toothpick is still in his shoulder.
“ Did you know he could do that? ” One whispers to the other worriedly.
“ No. I don’t think any of us did. ”
“Well, Sunshine, some people need to have their jaws broken. And he had a hand on you, so really that’s on him.” He feels the kid nod sagely behind him even as he turns a serious look to those in front of him.
“Explain. Now.”
A man in a white cape and a boyish nervousness to him, takes a breath before stuttering through an explanation, eyes flipping between everyone in the room as he goes, “It’s 2017. We are all part of a group called the Justice League. About an hour ago, you and Batman disappeared in a flash of light. When the light went away, you and the kid were left behind. We put you both in separate rooms as we were unaware of his connection to the disappearance of Batman, however he seemed to wake up first and tried to escape. Superman had caught him just before you came into the room as we were discussing what to do.”
Barry hums to himself plainly.
“Robin. Confirm?”
He feels the air of a nod behind him even before he hears, “Confirmed.”
“Robin, what year is it for you?”
“2006.”
Barry hums again as he slightly calms down, “Me too.” Which makes everyone flinch a little in surprise. He does suppose, givingly, that it wouldn’t seem like he changed much in 11 years under a suit, from an adult to an adult, compared to Dick, who must have turned from an adult to a child.
But if he was the adult…?
“Robin. Use the computer to find a picture of Batman and verify his identity.”
Everyone in front of him tilt their heads in confusion even as Dick stills behind him.
“...you think I’m Batman.”
Which has the adults in front of him blink in surprise.
Barry just glares, “Maybe. It could be an alternate universe. But you’d be old enough for it, hypothetically.”
Dick moves away from him in silence as Barry keeps watch. Tilting his head, “How long has the Justice League been around, kid?” He questions white cape.
White Cape looks nervously around him at the nickname, “Not a kid, but about four years.”
“Huh.” Dick would be twenty-one and there’s no way he would have let him do something this big at age seventeen… even if something happened to…
Focus.
He holds back a flinch as Dick finally speaks up, more genuine than before, “I am not usually Batman. Looking at the pictures I’ve been filling in off and on over the past year.”
Stealing a glance behind him he watches for the details and huffs a breath of relief.
“Thank god,” he can’t help but breathe out, “Don’t look up anything else.”
He feels the little bird climb back on his back, as he finally calms down to a level much better for his blood pressure.
Looking back at the others in the room, he gives them a once over with more clarity then he’s held in the last ten minutes put together.
Gentling his face to the heroes in front of him, “I apologize. I woke up in a place I didn’t know about with an almost invulnerable alien’s hand wrapped around my very fragile and scared kid’s arm. I didn’t mean to alarm you- well I did actually. I meant to scare you a lot. On purpose. I guess I’ll say I'm sorry I had to do that. I’m very protective over my family.”
The greens (Green Arrow and… Green Lantern? Barry thinks that’s what his name was) look at him in the kind of upset similar to that of a puppy. Frustrated by the situation, but also sad.
Wonder Woman looks at him with a harder jaw, while Superman looks at him in slight anger even if it’s accompanied by understanding.
White cape on the other hand looks on curiously with a tilt of his head, “How long have you known Batman? We didn’t know you knew each other before the JL?”
Barry and Dick tilt their heads at the same time in confusion, “It’s been on the news, though?”
Everyone blinks. Green Lantern, especially hurt for some reason just squawks, “What?”
Barry looks back at Dick for confirmation, which he receives quickly, “Yeah! B and F were all over Gotham News since F came by to help disable all those bombs last month and Central tried to give B a key to the city when F brought him in to save the Mayor’s granddaughter. Everyone knows Batman and Flash work together- that’d be impossible to hide. It’s been years,” he says happily as he starts to climb around Barry like he’s a jungle gym.
Barry stays still and steady. Practice made it so.
Green Arrow pulls out his phone suspiciously before going slack-jawed at the google results.
“What the fuck,” he murmurs as he shows whatever he pulled up to Green Lantern who goes equally slack-jawed.
“Hold on, hold on, I wanna see!” Dick mumbles excitedly as he flips off of Barry’s back into a perfect arch, and then cartwheels towards the two distracted heroes.
Barry just keeps watch. Fond as always, even while Wonder Woman and Superman seem to not want to be anywhere near the kid just in case.
Barry can appreciate that, he thinks with a smile.
Snorting at Dick snatching the phone from between them and looking up recent news.
“Oh my god! F, look! Look! It’s B and KF!” He waves Arrow’s phone around excitedly.
Barry blinks in surprise before appearing right behind him making the others jump, as he wraps an arm around his kid’s stomach and leans down to rest his head on Dick’s head.
Watching the screen he sees Batman and Flash fight off Captain Cold and Mr. Freeze in Central.
“Oh how sweet. We must be trading off duties so you guys can get to know how to do everything. I bet KF’s replaced me a few times, too…” He looks at his brother and nephew fight together flawlessly with a smitten look.
He looks up confused to see some stricken looks from the others and tilts his head with furrowed brows.
“What’s wrong?”
Lantern looks at him hurt, “Flash, we get this is weird for you but you’re basically saying that you often lie to us and let someone we don’t know pretend to be you. I get you don’t know us, but we thought we were your friends.”
Barry and Dick blink at him before trading a look and looking back.
“Lantern, B might be emotionally constipated but I can promise you that none of us are switching around personal matters with strangers. KF is my son and Robin is Batman’s. If we’re actually friends, any days they substitute for us would have been days filled with boring meetings to help them learn bureaucracy, small missions every now and then to gain experience, or for rare emergencies. Hell, depending on how often we’ve shared the suit, they may be your friends, too, or at least consider you to be. I’m not going to lie to you and say that part of wearing a mask doesn’t also mean wearing a mask personality-wise, too. Give me the proper padding, and I’m sure if we look at the previous pictures we could find that I’ve played Batman before, too. If you trust we’re friends, then I’ll assume we are. You’ll just have to ask and trust me when we go back to normal if I say we are. But in the end, Batman and the Flash will do their best to defend what’s important regardless of which of us is under the mask,” Barry shrugs neutrally.
He doesn’t want to be mean and tries to stay nice about it, but there’s only so much sugar-coating you can do when you don’t actually have all the details.
Dick also shrugs along with him, before moving on with the grace of a child who’s over the current conversation, “Do you think KF and I are married, yet?” He asks with widened eyes that can be seen with the expressive mask.
Ruffling his hair, he gives him a happy grin, even as he watches his surroundings carefully for any sudden moves, “I don’t think the world ending could’ve stopped you two from getting married as soon as you turned legal,” he adds mirthfully.
Dick just grins at him before freezing.
Within a blink, Barry looks up at the ceiling from the floor. Groaning in a sense of deja vu he looks around to take in his surroundings.
Clark is still in the corner wincing painfully, Diana looks worried and frustrated, Hal and Ollie look sad and upset, and Billy looks curious and suspicious.
“Huh. You know- I knew it was sometime this year but for some reason I wasn’t expecting it to be today.”
Standing up and ignoring the others, he stands up and stretches happily, “Thank fuck, I hated waiting for today,” gently nudging Dick with his foot, he waits for a grumble, before yelling with a smile, “Morning, Sunshine!” Making a few of his friends flinch, “Come back to the living! Oh how I miss My Dearest Little Ball Of Love and Light-”
“Oh my god shut the fuck up uncle B before I tell ‘I’ that you accidently broke her camera and blamed it on the dog,” he grumbles trying to cover his face and ears much to Barry’s amusement.
“Then I’ll tell your Dad that you broke Superman’s jaw,” which makes Dick sit up in mocking outrage, “Excuse you! I didn’t do shit! I was a cute little child trying his best!”
“But who will he believe,” Barry raises his eyebrows superiorly.
Dick just rolls his eyes, well actually his whole head cause he’s back in the cowl but still, “ Me . Because he knows you’re a little shit. And also cause there are cameras .”
Barry pretends to stroke a beard he doesn’t have, “Yes. Yes. What you speak is true. I am a little shit.”
Dick just stands up and tries to trip Barry which he just jumps over nonchalantly before staring at everyone and waving happily, mirroring the exact way he did it as a child, “Hi everybody! First off I wanted to say that Flash and I actually remembered everything that happened here eleven years ago and that many things we did or didn’t do in the decade between now and then were to make sure this event could happen exactly the same way and keep the timeline intact. I know F was kind of a dick-”
“-hey!-” Barry laughs as everyone looks back and forth between the two.
“-but rest assured that while KF and I have indeed substituted in for emergencies, we haven’t been here nearly as often as we made our past selves think. We doctored a lot of photos for realism and such, and we always pretended we were under the weather or having a bad week so we didn’t fall into any accidental personal conversations.” Dick shifted slightly embarrassed but feeling happily successful.
Barry just snorts with a large grin as he pats Ollie on the back, throws an arm around Hal, and gives him an affectionate kiss on the cheek in apology making the other man blush, “I felt really bad about how cavalier I acted about everything once I actually got to know everyone! You guys are me and B’s friends don’t worry! And we can be more open now about some things we had to keep on the down low for the timeline’s safety. Promise!” He says cheekily with a wink, making the others finally calm down.
“Oh shit! Nobody ever took the kryptonite out of Clark!” Dick exclaimed before running to help.
Barry just looks at his son-in-law and friends in fondness as he feels an arm wrap around his own midsection and shares a smirk with the friend beside him.
“My wife’s been wanting to meet you for the past few years,” he finishes with a wink.