Deja Vu

Chapter 12

Dick lands on his feet but crumples on impact, blinking rapidly. The world around him is... dark. And his head feels so fuzzy...

He groans and presses his palms into his eyes, hoping it will help the headache. Seriously. What. The heck. Was he hit by that moving truck or something? Maybe steamrolled over a couple of times for good measure? How did that fight end anyway? All he remembers is the car chase. And what about...

Wait.

Moving truck. Fighting the bad guys. Time device. Glimpses of pasts and futures. Blue light-

His eyes fly open, darting to take in the area.

It looks like a bomb went off.

There's the U-Haul truck the would-be-time-machine-thieves had decided would make a great getaway vehicle (it hadn't). The doors are crumpled and hanging limply open, the inside coated in black- probably actually a bomb then. It sits awkwardly on its wheels and its front side is crushed against the alley's wall.

He squints. Yah. He thinks he can remember a crash.

Suddenly, there's the whoosh of a cape and Batman touches down atop the moving van. To Dick, his motions scream tension. His movements are stilted and abrupt in a way that is distinctly worried Bruce. Not to mention his landing was definitely less-than-silent. "Boys, report. Is everyone alright?"

There's a clank of metal on asphalt and ragged breathing from the side. "Yah, great timing B," a voice responds wryly. Dick looks over to see Tim pushing himself up, leaning heavily against the wall, device at his feet. Hair is falling in front of his mask as if he's just come out of a tussle with a hurricane and something black is smudged across his cheek (bomb residue?). "But... I think everyone's... I think we're all aright. Relatively. Everyone... back? All memories in place?"

"Shut it, Red," Jason grumbles, and Dick turns to see him flat on the ground, arm over his face. His helmet is off, leaving his shock of white hair and grimace on full display. "Hea's killin' me."

"Disgraceful, Todd," Damian sniffs. Dick turns to the other side to find him sitting cross-legged on the ash and rubble, katana laying neatly across his lap. "Have you never time traveled before?"

Dick frowns, trying to sift through his memories. ...time travel? "What... happened? My head feels like mush."

"It'll come back in a minute," Tim says, shifting to look at him. "When we reconnected the timeline and brought you back, I think all of your memories snapped into place at once. Gremlin only got his bearings faster because he has less years of his life to sort through."

Years of his... oh.

Dick blinks, taking in the scene with new clarity. "...whoa. But... how...? I mean are we... We all were..." He puts a hand to his head, thoughts a mile a minute as his gaze bounces around the smoldering wreck. "Are we safe? Where's Ras? The thieves? What happened? Did we break the timestream??"

"Richard," Damian says, rolling his eyes. "As we appear to be sitting here unharmed, it would be unlikely that the time stream is ruined."

Dick takes a deep breath, conscious of the many gazes his way. "True. That's... that's good."

Batman still hovers at the periphery, seeming unsure of where to jump in. "Injuries? Complications?"

"Right," Tim says, tapping on his wrist computer in motions reminiscent of his younger self. "All readings suggest that the travel was success— uh... that's weird..."

"What's weird," Jason demands with a scowl, pushing himself up on his elbows. "I am so done with all this timestream garbage. So help me—"