Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Relationships:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Collections:
蝙蝠家, The Batfam Fanfic Survey, Time Travel Fics, hayden's liked ones!, DC Fic Favs but prob mostly Batfam
Stats:
Published:
2019-08-07
Completed:
2022-06-30
Words:
14,594
Chapters:
13/13
Comments:
1,217
Kudos:
7,590
Bookmarks:
1,714
Hits:
92,954

A Time To Reflect

Summary:

Bruce finds himself stuck in the past, and while waiting for the league to pick him up, struggles to get along with his past self. Plus being in a practically empty manor is a bigger adjustment than he'd like to admit.

Notes:

I did my absolute best trying to work out this timeline so if any of the years or amounts of time seem off, feel free to ask.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Back To The Start

Chapter Text

The fact that time travel was such a common occurrence that there was a standard, agreed-upon protocol was concerning. But Bruce wasn’t going to complain. 

There was some new villain wreaking havoc and shouting about how he was going to rule the world. The league was called in and it was all going pretty normally. That is until said villain’s final act before getting knocked out was to shoot Batman with a beam of light and he vanished.

Bruce landed in the bat cave in a flash of light, barely stopping himself from face planting on the cave floor. As he took in his surrounding his eyes fell on the man watching him. Even if the cowl had been up he would have recognized himself instantly, the batsuit itself was also kind of a giveaway. The Bruce standing in front of him was younger. His hair didn’t have any grey in it, there were no worry lines on his face. There was also this shadow in his eyes, Bruce wondered if the others saw it in his eyes too. 

He shook himself out of his thoughts and stood up, his younger self tensing at the movement. Bruce took off his cowl so his double was sure of who he was if he hadn’t been already. They stood there for a while, studying each other, cataloging their similarities and differences, until the younger one relaxed.

  After a few minutes spent verifying identities, Bruce explained the protocol when it came to time travel to his younger self. Don’t interfere, don’t give anything away. Unless you have a solid lead on how to get home just sit tight and wait to be picked up. Considering his team already had the one responsible for this in custody and full access to his tech it shouldn’t be a long wait. 

Bruce began to bandage where the blood sample was taken, “What year?” 

His double didn’t look up from his work, “2003.”

Sixteen years, he was sixteen years in the past. Or an alternate universe set in the past, he couldn’t be sure yet. He knew the justice league at this point but was only partly involved with the organization, so he couldn’t be sure how willing they would be to help. Or more accurately how willing his double would be to ask. 

“Where’s Alfred?” 

“It’s his night off. He’s already asleep.” 

He nodded and turned to the screens that were set up, “Does the batcomputer have the files on other heroes yet? I’d like to compare them to what I know to make sure I’m in my timeline.”

“Does what have the files?” The younger one asked. The shock and confusion he exhibited was probably the strongest emotional response he’d seen from his double so far.

Bruce blinked, “The batcomputer?” he gestured to the setup of monitors.

His expression of befuddlement didn’t change, “Why did you call it that?”

“Call it wha-” Bruce cut himself off. He almost forgot how most of his equipment had gotten their names. Dick took the bat theme very seriously in his early days, adding the prefix to everything from the batarags to the bat-fridge. It had been very amusing and the naming convention had just stuck. It would be about a year until that fateful circus performance, so of course, nothing would have the names he was used to. 

This line of thought brought on another realization, there was no Robin right now, and wasn’t that strange. For years now, whenever he pictured his darker identity there’s always a colorful bird by his side. “It’s nothing.”

His younger self stared at him for a few more seconds, his suspicion clear, before shaking his head. “I need to start patrol, the files are in the folder labeled JLA,” then gathered up his gear and started to stalk out of the cave. 

“I can operate as support since Alfred is unavailable.” Bruce offered. 

His double didn’t stop walking, “I’ll be fine.” 

The behavior reminded him sharply of Jason. Instincts kicked in and he took a step forward, about to insist that you shouldn’t patrol without backup, that it was dangerous and you didn’t know what could happen, but the words caught in his throat. He knew for a fact that wouldn’t go over well with his younger self. God his kids were right. He would try and mentor anyone . 

Bruce got to work reading through the files. As he worked a sense of unease began to creep in making him pause. Something wasn’t right. He listened carefully to figure out what was wrong and that’s when it hit him. 

It was completely quiet. 

Bruce’s lip twitched. Leave it to him to finally get some quiet and for it to make him nervous. He tried to enjoy the peacefulness as he worked, it was a rarity after all. But that feeling that something was wrong wouldn’t leave. Bruce found himself glancing more and more at the cave entrance or moving to check comms before pulling himself back. Twenty minutes past before Bruce put some music on to drown out the oppressive silence.