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r3noradrake · 5 years

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Yessssss

Like It Never Even Happened ch 2 sneak peek

Dick didn’t know why he bothered taking nights off. Every time, without fail, someone would call him three hours into his rare nighttime sleep with some massive crisis. It was usually Tim or Damian. Sometimes it was Bruce. And that one time it was Jason.

He should have been expecting it. Honestly, he shouldn’t have even gone to bed. Maybe next time he’ll just call around and ask everyone what the crisis will be tonight instead of taking a night off.

Yeah. That’d be prudent of him. Save time. He wouldn’t get comfortable and relax, just to have that piece stripped from him by this issue or another.

“Hey, Bruce,” Dick said, answering his phone and trying to sound pleasantly surprised, instead of absolutely done with his dad and perhaps entire family for interrupting his sleep.

“Dick,” Bruce said, serious as ever, “Something happened. I need backup.”

‘You need backup,’ Dick mouthed, just feeling how the words felt on his lips. When was the last time Bruce said such words? Had he ever said those words before? Usually Dick either had to force himself into cases or Bruce would just give ‘Nightwing’ orders, instead of actually explain or ask for anything.

“What happened?”

“Come to Wayne Tower.”

Ah. There it was. Nevermind.

“Bruce,” Dick said, running his hand down his face, “What happened.”

After a long hesitation, Bruce said, “It would be better to show you in person. Come to Wayne Tower. Meet me in my office.”

“B, it’s my night off. Where are the kids? Can’t they help?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know whether they can help, or you don’t know where they are?”

“I don’t know where they are.”

And that was all Dick needed. Had Bruce just led with ‘the kids are missing,’ Dick would have been on his motorcycle, still in his pajamas, within ten seconds. As it was, he did take the time to put on a pair of jeans and grab his wallet. But even doing that, it only took him ten minutes to get to Wayne Tower.

The entire way there, his mind was coming up with progressively more dramatic explanations for the boys being missing. Everywhere from ‘got lost’ to ‘kidnapped by every rogue in their gallery. At once.’

But his mind couldn’t have come up with what had actually happened.

It was too outlandish.

Because when Dick got to Bruce’s office, the first thing he did was show two concurrently recorded security cameras. One showing the boys exiting the building and walking out onto the street, and the other showing them at a table in the banquet room.

“What?” was all Dick could say. Because it made no sense. How could there be two Tim and Damians? “Are you sure the time stamp is correct?”

In answer, Bruce pulled up more footage, which showed the boys continue down the street, each camera confirming the others’ time stamps were correct.

“This is where I lose this set,” Bruce said, right when the camera feed cut to static, “all cameras cut out at the same time here. This set,” Bruce pointed at the screen showing the banquet feed paused, “went up to the penthouse and have been there ever since. We don’t have cameras up there, but I do have eyes on them in the elevator.”

“So what are you thinking? Clones? Shape shifters? Magic? Which are the real Tim and Damian?”

Bruce pressed play on the banquet hall video, and Dick watched as the boys chatted for a minute before Bruce appeared. Dick’s eyes widened a little when Damian jumped up and hugged onto Bruce. It was almost as if Damian had though Bruce were dead, with how absolutely relieved and giddy he was to see him.

Damian wasn’t against physical affection, per se. It just took a long time to build up a relationship with him to get him to the point of initiating things like hugs. Dick wasn’t aware that he and Bruce were there yet.

The real shocker, however, happened a minute later, when Tim wrapped his arms around Damian. As if he were protecting Damian. From Bruce. From being hurt by Bruce’s lack of response to his affection. Like his arms were there to remind Damian he was loved.

That was something Dick did.

That was not something Tim did.

Bruce furrowed his brow as he observed Dick watch the video for a second time. Then, he pulled up the elevator footage.

And Dick would have fallen out of his seat, had he been sitting.

“Why don’t we have an audio feed on these?” Dick desperately wanted to know what his littlest brothers were saying.

What on earth had prompted the smiles on their faces?? Damian’s actual happy smile, at that. And the hug! The easy hug that Damian melted right into. That Tim initiated. Tim never initiated hugs with Dick. He happily returned them, but he never offered them. And Dick had never seen Tim and Damian get along. Not even for half a second. They tolerated each other, at best. Not this.

“The lawyers advised against it,” Bruce grumbled, “we’re a one party state.”

“And for once in your life you followed privacy laws. I’m shocked.”

“The two who left the building are acting in character for our boys,” Bruce said, pointing back at a still of the boys obviously arguing as they walked down the street. He shifted and pointed at the hugging Tim and Damian and continued, “while these two are acting nothing like Tim and Damian.”

“Well, maybe they act this way when they think we can’t see them?” Dick offered, hoping beyond hope that these weren’t shapeshifters or something ridiculous trying to infiltrate the family. He wanted his baby brothers to get along. He’d give anything for these two to be the real Tim and Damian. “Maybe they got kidnapped outside of time or something and love each other now because of it.”

“Dick,” Bruce said, leveling him a flat look.

“Okay, fine. Taking this seriously.” Dick crossed his arms and looked back down at the two screens, narrowing his eyes as he thought. “So where are each pair now?”

“That’s the problem. These two are locked in the penthouse, currently. These, however,” Bruce said, frowning now as he clicked through a dozen feeds on the computer, “are no where. For a brief time, there were two sets of trackers for the boys. But the two outside just disappeared. Vanished right off my program mere moments after all the feeds in the area went dark.”

Dick nodded as he scanned over all the evidence Bruce had laid out. “Hmm. So something knocked out all the cameras and kidnapped Tim and Damian? Our Tim and Damian?”

“And whatever these are, they’ve duplicated everything, right down to the watches the boys wear.”

That, out of everything, was what gave Dick pause. Because how could a shapeshifter do that? How could clones do that? He could buy that someone had observed them long enough to create almost passable Tim and Damian copies. But to copy their tracker watches? Something Bruce practically forbade him from taking off, back when he was a kid and still under Bruce’s thumb. The thing was waterproof so they could take showers in them, for crying out loud.

“Wait,” Dick said, grinning now, “the boys still wear those ridiculous watches? That’s amazing.”

“You’d all wear one of my watches if I had my way,” Bruce grumbled.

Dick just smiled as they both made their way to the elevator. “Should we play it cool? Act like we don’t know something’s up?”

“They’ve been up there for a few hours. They’ve probably already discovered I triggered the intruder protocol.”

“Right, of course you did,” Dick mumbled.

He almost hoped these two weren’t Tim and Damian. Because the fallout of their own dad pulling the intruder alarm on them would be massive, otherwise.

Actually, this entire ordeal was going to cause a lot of waves in the family, if this really was just some really weird mishap and not alien clones.

But, even then, Dick would never wish that his brothers had be kidnapped. He’d never wish harm on them, and hoping that these two weren’t Tim and Damian felt too much like wishing harm on his own brothers.

Maybe he should just wait until he sees them in person to make up his mind.

AN: Second half has Bruce and Dick confronting the boys!! I appreciate feedback, especially on whether you think that phone-call conversation worked. Also on what you liked or didn’t like about this bit. Since it’s just a sneak peek I consider it a rough draft. Plenty of time to change it. :). Thanks for reading, I’m blown away by the response to this alt ending I’ve already gotten.

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