Chapter Text
“Why are we spending the day watching Drake’s silly little attempt at entertainment?” Damian asks, the question not surprising anyone in the least as the gathered family continues to walk forwards, though it does earn a tired sigh from Dick nonetheless.
“I’m with the Demon Brat on this one,” Jason says, his voice undisturbed by in the manner that it usually is when he wears his helmet, though this was entirely because he was not wearing it at all. The man had donned a domino today instead of his well known red helmet, they were going to be around a bunch of Justice League members and associates today and he didn’t need to get arrested within moments of stepping foot in the area.
“We’re here to support Red,” Dick says, the words spilling from his tongue as if it were the most natural thing in the word.
Really, it should have been, it was no different than Bruce going to watch Cass as she dances, or Damian at one of his art competitions. But because it was Tim that was the subject for today things were… difficult. They always were when it was the third Robin, a fact that Dick hated as much as he couldn’t really change.
“Sure, sure,” Jason says, almost distractedly, but not entirely dismissively. He and Tim had been getting along better since the teen’s return to Gotham after finding the evidence needed to retrieve Bruce from the time stream, better still after he did whatever he had done to anger B enough that the man had been thoroughly icy with the kid. “But why a concert?”
Because that was what they were going to watch today, a concert put on by a bunch of teens whose names made a great deal of the older Justice League members uncomfortable, faced with their own guilt in a way that most heroes didn’t like to admit that they had. Dick and Bruce were no exception.
“Because it is a charity event that Tim is having to help with expanding and funding the Neon Knights program,” Bruce says, his voice a mix of Batman’s and Bruce’s when he speaks. “It’s a good cause, and since so many heroes are going to be here to watch their former sidekicks, it brings in even more attention.”
“And the more attention that something has, even in a nice city like Metropolis, the more need for security,” Dick continues for the man, his grin lopsided and a bit strained in ways that Jason and Damian didn’t understand.
“But can any of them even sing?” Jason presses in a manner that could almost be seen as whining had it not been coming from him.
“No clue,” Clark says in a bright (yet seemingly tainted) voice, appearing next to the bats in a manner that would have startled them had they not been bats, “but we’re going to find out at least.”
The super, much like the four bats and every other hero that had come today, was dressed in his suit. The same could be said for the small boy at the man’s side, in some manner, as Jon was wearing the familiar zip up that Damian liked just as much as he loathed.
The allies (friends) placed the other immediately at their sides as the super and the Baytown greeted one another with nods that had Dick and Jason rolling their eyes under their mask.
“Where are the girls?” The young super asked, glancing around as if he would be able to spot a shock of purple or something of the like.
“Spoiler and Black Bat are working with the Sirens and Signal to keep an eye on Gotham in our absence,” Damian says primly, wishing that he could be there himself to join the fight and not wasting time listening to the pathetic attempt at singing that the failed adoption case was going to be doing.
Jon only nods, obvious to his best friend’ thoughts.
“Four bats outside of Gotham,” a new voice said, one as bright as the lighting clinging to his skin, “Halloween must have come early.”
“Five, Walls,” Dick corrects, his smile bright nonetheless at seeing his friend, “Red Robin is here as well. He’s one of the performers today, remember.”
“I would hope that he is,” Barry says as he joins the conversation, late to the exchanging of words but surprisingly on time for one of the first times that many of the bats and supers could remember, many wondered how many false alarms Iris had to set to make this happen, “Impulse has been rushing off with him and the others for the last two weeks for their performance.”
“My girl has been as well,” Diana adds as she joins the amassed group, unintentionally completing the bringing of the big three members of the Justice League to one place as they all stood together in a the crowd but with a clear view of the stage. “Though she’s been rushing off to meet with any one of your boys since she got them all back. I think that she’s scared of letting them out of her sight again after anything.”
“She never lost Red though,” Dick breaks in, his confusion clear to the warrior.
Her response was not unkind when she spoke it. “But we all did in some manner that year, did we not?” She asks, her head tilted to the side as Wonder Woman spoke with a bluntness that only she ever really could.
Dick didn’t really know what to say to that, not that it mattered since while they had been talking that introductions had been made and now the first group was taking the stage.
The vigilantes and heros listened to the music as the teen heroes sang, their voices carrying nicely through the afternoon air. There were some group acts and some solo acts as the night went on, the music ranging from popular songs to ones that clearly had to have been some kind of inside joke for how ridiculous of a pick they had been. Dick didn’t think that so many people had been Rick Rolled at once, and yet there they were listening to the too familiar song by the third performance. And truly, it was going better than most of the gathered group had thought that it would, no rouges had attacked yet, and the children (teens, adults in their own right) could actually sing, those that could not clearly having been relocated to working tech for the night. It was going well, and yet none of the children of their group had been seen yet.
(If they had known what was to come, the nine of them might have asked to wait just a bit longer to hear from the four of them)
“And now for our last group,” Cissie says, having been taking the role of announcer for the night, donning her old Arrowette costume just for the night, likely strong armed into it if any of them were to guess. “Red Robin, Superboy, Wonder Girl, and Impulse, doing an original song together.”
There was a polite clapping as four bodies walked onto the stage and one left, the archer grazing a hand across each of the newcomers’ shoulders as if reassurance as she did so. It was such a casual touch and yet it was more than any of the four kids had allowed their mentors and family to give since the start of their preparing for the concert. If Wally had to pick a way to describe it, he would say that it felt like Bart had been picking at an old wound that had not completely scabbed over. One that he didn’t want to let scab over without being truly acknowledged.
He wondered if the others in the group gathered around them were going through the same thing with the other kids on the stage.
When the music starts, the first thing that the crowd hears is a sound that resembles that of ringing in the ears after a bomb has gone off. It was quiet and carried through the crowd of heroes and civilians alike, bringing silence with it as heavy beats of guitars and drums soon joined, one after the other.
It’s Bart that sings first.
“I'll watch and learn from afar,” the teen’s voice is strong as he sings, resonating though the space around him, the words crystal clear as he sings so slowly compared to how he usually speaks, as if every word was something special. Something meant to be heard.
And they do, because the young speedster is looking right at Barry and Wally as he sings, no doubt about it. Only six words in, eight seconds in all, and it already feels as if the pair had been punched in the gut, because they knew that this was exactly what the child had done since Iris had brought him into this world. Neither of them had let them into their own worlds until after he had already like half of the children on that stage, the other two having suffered fates worse than death in their absence.
“I'll pull the weeds from my heart and,” Tim sings next, his voice soft and filled with a sorrow that speaks of life that it had been devoid of in Gotham for so long now, parts of the boy having been buried with everyone that he had ever lost, regardless of if he had gotten them back or not.
Just like Bart, Tim is looking out into the crowd staring at Bruce as he sings, something cold in his stance that makes something in the bat scream of danger that Bruce didn’t understand. He knew that they had not been getting along recently, not since Captain Boomerang and Tim almost having taken a life. But he didn’t like what the lyrics seemed to be suggesting - what Tim’s stance seemed to be backing up - that Bruce was a weed that the boy had let grow there and now he was pulling away.
(He liked even less the evidence that was there to support such a theory)
“Put lipstick on for your family party, In the garden,” Cassie’s voice comes next, the blonde girl looking at Diana from the start. It didn’t take a bat level intellect for Wonder Woman to know what her student was speaking of.
Cassie was not like any other student that Diana had trained before. She had come later from unconventional means, already a teen and filled with such personality and defiance that just wasn't the same as the other warriors. She had been hard to understand and there had been distance between them as they had felt each other out in their new roles, the young girl trying to shape herself to be like the original Wonder Girl even though they were not the same at all.
Amazonians were fierce in battle, but didn’t sacrifice their beauty to be so, something that many of them were proud of. Cassie’s idea of beauty had always been different from their own. She wore sneakers, leather jackets, loosely fitting clothes, and those damned goggles in her tied up hair. She was wild and free in every meaning of the word, and it had felt like a bit of her had died when she was dressing in too bright colors and skits, even though some of the others had liked the change. Diana thought that this was why the girl had dressed in her old style today, a purposeful show that she was still herself under it all, even if she was dressing up ‘put lipstick on’ to make Diana pleased.
“I stare at the house you were brought up in,” Tim sings once more, the colors of his Red Robin suit cutting a formidable figure as the teen looked down into the crowd, his gaze shifting to where Dick stood in it. The older man looking a lot like a bug trapped in a jar when the teen did so, the wording making him stand as still as the gaze.
‘You were brought up in,’ Dick notes to himself, feeling a bit sick for reasons that he couldn’t yet explain other than instinct kicking in. He didn’t like how the words seemed to imply that only Dick had been raised there, even though Tim had lived there too.
“All the photographs and door frames are wooden,” Kon’s voice finally joins the mix, the young super looking at the man who he shared half his D.N.A with, the man who had somehow wanted him in his life less than the owner of the other half despite one being a hero and the other a villain.
Clark met the teen’s gaze, something veering a bit too close to uncomfortable rippling up under his skin as the boy sang. The words weren’t pointed in the way that Impulse’s had been, but were much less vague than Red Robin’s and Wonder Girl’s. The point still got across though. Clark had photos all over the Kent home, Conner had a few too, Jon as well. There were, however, next to none of the teen in Clark’s own home.
“I wish I'd known you when you were younger, before all of this,” Tim sings again, his gaze placed firmly on the man donned solely in red and black, much like he himself was, though for much different - yet so similar - reasons. Jason met the teen’s gaze, but thought that he was only able to do so because of their recent developing relationship, not that it could have devolved much more from how it had started.
The words were more blunt than the ones that the teen had sung before, their meaning more than clear. Tim was the third Robin, and Robin had been magic, and Jason had been a demon dressed in red sent to steal that magic away. He came out of the grave wrong, just as Tim seemed to have come back from his search for Bruce even more wrong than he had been when he had left. They were both outsiders in a family full of them, plates that had broken and had been out back together with a few pieces missing in the fall. Sometimes he too thought of what they would be like if they had met before the fall had occurred at all, wondered if there was a timeline where his hands had not been bruised from hitting a child like he had sworn that he would never do.
Still looking right at Clark, his voice growing a bit colder as he does, Kon sings, “'Cause I've changed my accent.”
(Clark knew that he had, had heard it himself when the teen’s voice had changed from something with a bit of the islands to something much southern. Ma and Pa had hardly noticed the change at all when he had brought it up to them after having noticed it, but that was because they had been the ones raising the teen.
‘It was much like watching a child grow before your eyes,’ they had explained to him back then, ‘you don’t notice how tall they’ve gotten until a stranger points it out.’
The words alone had felt like a kryptonite dagger to gut. The fact that he had never seen either of them more disappointed with him than they were when the topic of Conner came up, was the blade twisting)
“And I gave a false name,” The third Robin looks at his friends this time as he sings, something similar to a smile passing over each of their faces for just a moment, there and gone like some distant memory that they held close. The bats had no idea what the boy was talking about, and wasn’t that something in of itself? For four detectives in a family full of them to have no clue about the words of a fifth.
“I hope I throw a party,” that one is from Cassie again, the words seemingly shallow, though the heroes could all guess that the thought was incomplete as the girl looked to the speedster at her side.
“In a house of my own some day,” Bart sings next, finishing the thought out, the word a bit breaking in the manner that every lyric that the kids have sung have been. Because Bart has spent his entire time in their present being passed around. Wally had said that he would mentor him, and yet it was Mark who had raised the boy till his death. And when Bart came back, Wally and Barry finally chose then to want to be around. The kid was a nomad through no more fault of his own than Superboy’s when it came to genetics. The only place that had been home for him constantly was with the three teens up there on that stage.
“When you were a kid,” Tim sings, taking over once more as he looked at his eldest brother, something a bit bitter in his stance and more than a little bit so in his voice. “you'd come in through the back gate. B left the light on, in case you get home late.”
Jason and Damian didn’t understand at all what the third Robin meant when he sung that, Jason having always thought that Bruce had shown Tim the same amount of care from the start of the teen’s tenure as Robin as he had Dick, Jason, and Damian, and Damian having only been around to know a time when Tim was living in the manor and moved out on his own. Neither had been there in ways that mattered for either Tim’s or Steph’s tenures as Robin. Neither knew what a difference there was between the first two and fifth Robins, and the third and fourth. But Dick did. Bruce did. And that was why when Jason and Damian glanced at one another in confusion, Dick’s and Bruce’s eyes stayed glued to the third Robin, everything about them screaming guilt in the same way that everyone in the group of gathered heroes other than Damian and Jon seemed to be as well.
“And I bet you grew up eating at the table,” Cassie sings, looking at Diana once more, the meaning clear for those that were looking for it, listening for it, could hear the separation that the girl’d had from the rest of her kind.
“Fed love from silver spoons, reasons to be grateful,” Bart’s voice, always so joyful and hyper, takes on the same bitterness that the other three had as he looks down at Wally, knowing that the cutlery may have never been so fine as the lyrics made it seem, but that the man had so many more reasons - people - to be grateful for than the Flashes had allowed him at first.
Tim seems to take in a breath before his sings once more, looking not at the crowd, but at the super standing at his side. Kon was already looking right at him when he does so. “You ask about kids,” he sings, earning sharp, painiced sort of breaths from a good deal of the gathered in the small group that they had made, because none of them knew when that had happened and were wondering (hoping) that their assumptions were wrong, “I don't know if I'm able.”
The moment, shocking and yet somehow also a bit sweet while it had lasted between the pair, Tim’s voice softer than it had been before, was over as soon as Kon turned to look at Clark once more.
“I bet you grew up being asked how your day was.”
Because Kon certainly hadn’t by anyone not seeking to study him, or date him even when they shouldn’t have been. Not until he had made it to the Kent’s much too late for the damage not have already been done, not that Clark had seemed to care about that.
“I bet you grew up grazing your knees,” Cassie sings, her voice that of a warrior’s kept from battle far too long, though she knew that this wasn’t Diana’s fault but the bitterness of being looked down because of it was carried within the teen’s chest all the same.
“But the fall wasn't fatal like it was for me,” Tim sings, for the first time looking at his youngest brother, his hand swiping through the air in a manner much too like one of the bats might throw a batarange for it to be a coincidence of any kind.
The other three bats standing with the boy didn’t understand what Tim meant, but they knew that Damian must have from the manner in which the boy had flinched. It was a conversation to be had when all of this was said and done.
(They all had a thought that there was likely to be many of those)
“We're the product of love that we do not receive,”and for the first time that night, all four of them sing together, their voices strong in the night air, and their message crippling in a way that the heroes and vigilantes had never wanted to understand and yet were now being forced to do so. “I'll corrupt every branch of this family tree.”
Damian and Jason didn’t understand what their brother meant when he said such a thing, both thinking that he had been showered in love since he was young.
The looks of Dick and Bruce told a different story.
They told the story of a brother that wasn’t around and a father that didn’t want to be one until much later, not for Tim at least. Not back then.
Jon felt confused as he looked between his father and his brother, the words and their meaning not lost on the boy despite his young age. He knew, had known for a while now, that Conner and Dad’d had a rough beginning with one another. He’d seen the grief that Conner couldn’t hide in his gaze when had seen Dad acting like a father to Jon, the jealousy there. He’s heard the fights that the pair has had when they had thought that he was asleep and could not hear. He’s heard and seen it, tucking the bits of information away in a manner that he thought would make Dami proud of him, even if he had nothing to do with the information he’s amassed. Yet, even with all of that, the confusion was still there.
Jon had thought that they were getting along better now, even if it was largely motivated by love for Jon himself and little else that kept them trying on some of the worse days. The broken look on his father's face told him that he wasn’t the only one thinking that the pair had been doing better lately.
(The heroes and vigilantes thought of the fights that they’d had with those on the stage, about their methods, capabilities, and habits, the four chafing as they tried to be better mentors (most of them at the least). The lyrics were clear to them, even if it wasn’t to Jon, Damian, and Jason. Just because the League members were trying now, that doesn’t mean that the kids had not been shaped nearly entirely during the time when they couldn't have been bothered to give a shit)
“I spilt the good wine, I panicked,” Tim sung, looking at Kon as he did so, as if this was a conversation for them and them alone. As if no one else was there to hear the words, but they were and the following sentence only made them all the more worrying. “A disaster, a knee-jerk reaction.”
“Then everyone around us starts laughing,” Kon sang, picking the train of thought up for the other teen, as the pair sang a story that no one other than the two of them and those that had been there that day knew. “Is that how it's meant to happen?”
And god, if it didn’t hurt to hear how genuine of a question that seemed to be.
(Not for the first time, the heroes and vigilantes found themselves wondering just how much their own willful ignorance had hurt the children in their care)
“Your mother said I'm always welcome,” when Tim sings this time he looks to Cassie, the girl meeting his eyes with empathy in her own. Her mother had been one of the only adults that they had ever met to admit that they were not as stellar of parents as they had made themselves out to be, to admit that she did not know what she was doing when it came to Cassie. Their childhoods had been the exact opposite of one another, with Cassie being taken with her mother, while Tim had spent so many years left behind on the same type of jobs. The difference between them was that her mother had tried. Her mother always tried, she was safe in a way that so many had not been to most of the former Young Justice. “To visit, to take second helpings. I said, "No, thanks", I'm so full on resentment, that I learned to fend for myself but,
“You were sweet,” Tim looks at his friends, at the three of them gathered around him, he being the only one to wear a symbol so different from the first one that he had when they had all started together, “I got mean,” because he had, hadn’t he? He had gotten mean, and violent, and so utterly changed in his grief that he looked like a ghost even to himself.
The other three smiled as if it was okay.
“And when we fight, I refuse to eat,” Bart sings as he looks at his friends, each of them knowing just how much of a problem such an act could be for the speedster. But families fought and that’s what they were to one another, they couldn’t promise to not fight, just promise to not fall apart from one another when they did. To look out of reach other even when angry, just like they always have.
(Because back then no one else was going to do it for them)
“You're sensible, I'm hating it,” Bart starts, his gaze turning to the crowd, to the man that was supposed to have been his mentor but had given him away at the first chance that he had gotten. Before then even, Bart having spent a good deal of time homeless in a world that he didn’t yet fully understand. “What a good job that your family did, oh.”
Wally at least had the brains to look ashamed as the sarcasm tainted words knocked into him.
“You were kind, I was cruel,” Kon sings, looking at his little brother for the first time since walking onto the stage, though his gaze and tone of voice weren’t unkind. It was neither of their faults that Jon existed, just like it was neither of their faults that Kon did. There was still a bit of bitterness and longing there that the teen could not erase though. Didn’t really try to. “In another life, maybe I was you.”
“And I grew up into something good,” the four sang together once more, voices filled with the rage of those that had grown up far too young, “Somebody who could swallow love, oh.”
“I bet you grew up eating at the table,” Bart sings, looking at Wally and thinking of a family that he still wasn’t sure he even had a place in no matter how much the Flashes seemed to be trying these days.
“Fed love from silver spoons, reasons to be grateful,” Kon sings as he looks down at Clark, knowing that the only reasons that Kon’d had to feel grateful for such a long time were standing up there on the stage with him.
“You ask about kids,” The super continues, tearing his gaze away to look at Tim, just the same as the other boy had looked to him when he had sung the same lyrics before. The only difference was this time, Kon reached a hand out between them and Tim took it into his own. The evidence was damning this time, and the heroes didn’t know how they could have missed such a thing. “I don't know if I'm able.”
“I bet you grew up being asked how your day was,” the former Robin sung, looking at the man that he had fought alongside, been ignored by, been psychologically tortured by, and adopted by all at once.
The look that passed between Tim and Bruce was filled with the damage done by a father, and the desperation of a son to be loved by a father that tried too late. A father that the child could claim to anyone that he was not close to, but struggled to do so to the man himself.
“I bet you grew up grazing your knees,” Cassie sang once more, looking at Wonder Woman and Diana alike (because much like Bruce and Batman, there was a difference between the two).
“But the fall wasn't fatal like it was for me,” Tim sings once more, though he looks to Dick this time, a hand on his chest where Ra’s had once kicked him in a suit too much like the one that he was wearing now for the eldest Wayne sibling to see it and not shake just a bit where he stood from the memory, the fear of not getting there in time.
(The almost certainty that Tim had not thought that he was going to be there at all, and had simply lied to spare his feelings)
“We're the product of love that we do not receive,” the children that had never gotten the chance to truly be so sang once more, “I'll corrupt every branch of this family tree.”
“Silver spoons and butter knives, living hand to mouth, I'm getting by,” Tim sings on his own once more, looking out into the crowd at those that claimed to be his family. “Your love is spreading thin,” he continues, the lyrics blunt in a way that none of them could miss even if they wanted to (and they did) “But my medicine goes down alright.” The teen’s hand goes down to the side of his stomach, to a scar there that the bats could not see, but Tim knew was there. He knew the price that he had paid for love spread too thin.
“Silver spoons and butter knives,” Bart’s voice joins the mix, the message the same, but unlike all of the times before when the children had taken turns singing, Tim’s voice remained, singing alongside his teammate. “Living hand to mouth, I'm getting by. Your love is spreading thin, but my medicine goes down alright.”
Bart lays a hand on his heart, the heart belonging to the fastest man alive and had beat on and on as the boy had died slowly at the hands of the rogues, beating and never giving up.
“Silver spoons and butter knives,” It’s Cassie’s voice that joins this time, the three singing together, three parts of a whole. “Living hand to mouth, I'm getting by. Your love is spreading thin, but my medicine goes down alright.”
Arms are held out on either side of the girl, a girl that will love a life much longer than any of those standing at her sides, will live to watch them die, to bury them all once more, because of them blood flowing through her veins.
“Silver spoons and butter knives,Living hand to mouth, I'm getting by,” Kon’s voice is the last to join, all the puzzle pieces complete once more as they sing like an army going to war. Kon held a fist up into the air as he sang, a marker of the blow that had taken him from the people singing along with him (the people that made up his entire world)
The words that followed this time were different though from the times before:
“Just feed me love and give it time. Oh, maybe in another life!” The four all but screamed together right before the music went silent, like a battle that was finally won, like children accepting that they would never be loved in the way that they should unless it was another life.
(And in a way it was, wasn’t it? Bart and Kon had come back to life. Tim had changed so completely that the parts of him that had died alongside everyone else that he had loved, had been brought back wrong. And Cassie too had gone off the deep end back then, something that she was not proud of. The world felt different to them, and yet too much the same to how it had been before)
The children clung together in the same manner, the four going immediately for one another as everyone in the crowd but the small gathered group clapped for them four. The families of the four just watched as the children held one another as if they could stitch back together the wounds on their own hearts that they had just torn open.