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Chapter Text

Tim hadn’t slept in forty-two hours.

Not that he was counting.

He was simply tracking time via the number of espresso pods left in the Batcave's industrial-strength coffee machine. (Down to three. Two if Alfred walked by and noticed one mysteriously missing.) But it didn’t matter. He was fine. Fine.

He’d hacked into two black market arms deals, rerouted a satellite, and helped Bruce shut down a warehouse full of drugs in Lisbon. That was Tuesday.

And now it was Wednesday morning, and he was back at Wayne Enterprises because apparently even vigilantes needed to fill out quarterly reports for the R&D department.

His plan was simple: grab a fresh energy drink, avoid Lucius Fox's You Need a Vacation look, and disappear back into the server room where no one expected eye contact or emotional availability.

And then.

Then it happened.

The elevator doors opened.

Tim blinked.

A teenage boy stepped out—lean, slouched, wearing a WayneTech intern badge and what looked like genuine nervousness. His brown curls were windswept in a way that suggested a close relationship with city updrafts. He had two pens behind his ear, a backpack slung over one shoulder, and the distinct aura of a person who'd survived at least one building collapse and still apologised when someone bumped into him.

His name tag read:
Peter Parker
Dept: Systems Support – Tech Intern
Clearance: 1 (which made Tim scoff—amateur)

And his face…

Tim stared.

Stared harder.

Then squinted.

“What the hell,” Tim whispered to himself, stepping behind a plant like a Victorian widow spotting her late husband’s ghost.

Because Peter Parker—this random intern—looked like Dick.

Not exactly , no. Dick was taller, broader in the shoulders, had more… Nightwing about him. But the structure? The eyes? The cheekbones? The easy, automatic smile he gave the receptionist?

Carbon copy.

Like someone had dropped a baby Grayson in a microwave for ten seconds, added a little science trauma, and handed him a MetroCard.

“Nope,” Tim muttered. “Nope nope nope.”

Peter passed him without noticing.

He was even humming. Some low, vaguely familiar tune. Something suspiciously close to “Holding Out For A Hero.”

Tim wheezed.

He followed.

Not obviously . Not creepily.

He just—kept a close and invasive eye on the new intern, who had clearly been manufactured in a lab from Dick Grayson’s DNA and questionable decisions.

He watched Peter troubleshoot a malfunctioning server, type 120 words per minute, and speak fluent technobabble to a senior technician.

He took notes.

He counted similarities:

• His eyes crinkle when he smiles. Same as Dick.
  
  
• Dumb heroic posture when distracted. Definitely Grayson-coded.
  
  
• Terrible taste in lunch choices. (Peter pulled out a bologna and peanut butter sandwich. Tim cried a little.)
  
  

And then Peter laughed at something—soft, warm, good-natured.

It hit Tim like a fist to the solar plexus.

That was a Dick Grayson laugh.

Back in his office, Tim stared at the whiteboard.

Then in the photos of Peter Parker and Dick Grayson.

Then at himself in the reflective surface of a WayneTech tablet.

“I’m not crazy,” he said. “I’m not crazy. I am very smart and reasonable.”

He pulled out his tablet.

Opened PowerPoint.

Slide 1: “The Secret Grayson: A Theory”
Subtitle: “How Peter Parker is Obviously Dick’s Son (From the Future?)”

He paused. Fingers hovered over the keys.

“Too soon for time travel?”

He added a second slide.
Slide 2: “Why Cloning is Unlikely (But Still Possible)”

He began gathering evidence.

• Peter's mannerisms.
  
  
• Facial similarities.
  
  
• Height projection charts.
  
  
• A side-by-side of Dick at 18 and Peter now.
  
  
• An audio comparison of their laughs. (Tim had recordings. Don’t ask.)

He added dramatic red arrows and an interlude called "Nature vs. Nurture: How Peter Screams Grayson Despite the Sandwich."

He needed confirmation.

“I just want to talk,” Tim whispered, standing next to the vending machine Peter had approached. He tried to look casual. He looked like an anxious cryptid.

Peter blinked at him.

“Uh. Hi?”

“Hi,” Tim said. “You’re new.”

“Yeah.” Peter smiled, friendly, confused. “Peter. Parker. Systems Support.”

“Tim Drake. Systems Security. Also, everything else.”

Peter nodded slowly. “Cool, cool. You good, man? You’re kind of doing a wide-eyed stare thing.”

Tim nodded. “Just tired. Long week.”

“It’s Wednesday.”

Tim narrowed his eyes. “Time is fake.”

Peter laughed.

The same goddamn Grayson laugh.

Tim dropped his protein bar.

He fled. Not dramatically. Just fast-walked with intensity.

Back to his desk.

Back to the PowerPoint.

Slide 14: “Alternate Timeline Offspring Theory: Starfire Edition”
Slide 15: “But What If the Multiverse is Real?”
Slide 16: “He Called Me ‘Man.’ Dick Used to Call Me ‘Man.’ Coincidence? I Think NOT.”

He was adding animated transitions when Barbara pinged his comm.

Babs: “Tim. Why is there a file on the server titled ‘ParkerGraysonPowerTheory_v3.2’ with red arrows and a .wav file labelled ‘laughproof.mp3’?”

Tim: “...Research.”

Babs: “Do I need to call Dick?”

Tim: “No! Wait. Actually… yes. Yes, you do.”

He cracked his neck.

Time to schedule a family meeting.

Chapter Text

There were moments in life when you had to ask yourself:
“How did I get here?”

Dick Grayson asked himself this exact question as he walked into a WayneTech conference room and saw:

• Tim Drake in a hoodie that said TRUST NO ONE (EXCEPT BIRDS)
  
  
• A smartboard flickering with a title slide:
  "THE PARKER PROTOCOL: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Start Believing in Time-Travel Offspring"
  
  
• A pitcher of coffee
  
  
• A stack of notes, colour-coded in what appeared to be paranoia and hope
  
  
• Bruce Wayne sitting silently in the back corner with his arms crossed and the look of a man mentally preparing for another Wayne-adjacent crisis involving genetically improbable children.

“...He’s not even pretending to be okay anymore,” Dick whispered to Barbara.

“Just wait until Slide 12,” she whispered back.

THIRTY MINUTES EARLIER

Tim stood in the conference room, shuffling flashcards and muttering like a man reciting his own descent into obsession.

This was it. This was the moment .

He was going to blow their minds.

He’d updated the deck all night. Added motion graphics. Coded a custom animation that made Dick’s face morph into Peter’s, because science needed visuals.

He even made themed section titles:

• Slide 1–5: “The Visual Overlap (Open Your Eyes, Bruce)”
  
  

• Slide 6–11: “Behavioural Symmetry: A Study in Sass and Acrobatics”
  
  

• Slide 12–20: “The Sandwich Incident: A Culinary Clue”
  
  

• Slide 21–30: “Parental Probability Modeling (or, You Brought This on Yourself, Dick)”
  
  

• Slide 31–45: “Time Travel is Real, I Have Sources”
  
  

• Slide 46: “Live Footage: The Laugh.mp3” (yes, there would be audio)
  
  

Barbara entered first, eyes scanning the setup.

“Oh good,” she said. “You’ve achieved full red-string energy without even needing yarn.”

“Thank you,” Tim said proudly. “Wait, that wasn’t sarcasm, right?”

Barbara patted his shoulder. “We’ll see how Slide 6 goes.”

BACK TO PRESENT

Dick sat down cautiously.

Bruce gave him a long look that said, You’re here because this is probably your fault.

Dick responded with a look that said, I am equally confused and afraid, Father.

Tim stepped up to the smartboard like he was walking onstage at a TED Talk about the End of Days.

He clicked the clicker.

Slide 1.

“THE PARKER PROTOCOL: What If Dick Grayson Secretly Had a Kid from the Future and Never Told Anyone Because of Reasons?”

Dick raised a hand. “Okay. Pause. What??”

“No interruptions until after Slide 15,” Tim said. “You’ll want context.”

Barbara had already opened a bag of popcorn. 

Bruce had not blinked in three minutes.

SLIDE 2: VISUAL EVIDENCE

The screen split.

On the left:
Young Dick Grayson – acrobat tights, wide smile, messy hair, subtle smugness.

On the right:
Peter Parker (Intern) – oversized hoodie, same hair, same smirk, tech badge barely clipped on straight.

Tim pointed dramatically.

“Observe the brow line. The jaw curve. The 'I didn’t do it but technically I did' vibe. ”

Dick squinted.

“I mean… he’s cute, I guess? But lots of people have brown hair and trauma.”

“Not like this. ” Tim advanced the slide.

SLIDE 3.5: ACTION FOOTAGE 

Tim had secretly compiled CCTV of Peter from various WayneTech hallways. Barbara frowned.

“Where did you get this?”

“I had Oracle-level clearance. And no supervision.”

“Yikes.”

Bruce muttered, “Typical.”

The footage played:

• Peter dodged a dropped tray with inhuman reflexes.
  
  
• Helping an intern who’d spilled coffee while still catching a falling server tablet.
  
  
• Laughing at a joke, a full two seconds before it was finished being said.
  
  

“His instincts are enhanced,” Tim said seriously. “He is trained or future-bat-sense or both.”

Bruce leaned forward an inch. “Did you just say bat-sense?”

“Let me finish.”

SLIDE 12: THE SANDWICH 

Tim slammed a dramatic photo on the screen.

It was Peter.

Eating.

A peanut butter and bologna sandwich.

Barbara gagged.

“Why.”

“That,” Tim said gravely, “was Dick’s favorite ‘we’re out of groceries and Alfred’s in Milan’ snack from age thirteen to fifteen. I confirmed with Alfred.”

Dick blinked. “Oh my god. He is my son.”

Bruce stared at him. “Don’t encourage this.”

Dick shrugged. “I mean. That’s not something you just make up. ”

“Exactly!” Tim pointed the laser pointer at his own face. “I’m not crazy! I’m OBSERVANT.”

SLIDE 12-30: THE SCIENCE STUFF

Tim launched into a set of genetic diagrams that Barbara was 98% sure he stole from a biology PhD thesis. 

There were Punnett squares, theoretical mutations, and a graph called “Grayson-gene Timeline Entanglement via Quantum Daddy Issues.”

Bruce looked like he was being held hostage by theoretical physics.

At one point, Tim opened a vial.

“I may have acquired a DNA sample.”

“ How? ” Bruce barked.

Tim hesitated. “He… left a tissue in the tech lab?”

Barbara covered her mouth. Dick burst into cackling laughter.

“You DNA-napped an intern!”

“For science!” Tim cried.

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. “And?”

Tim inhaled dramatically. “Partial match. Not clone. No Luthor markers. Just blood-related. ”

Dead silence.

“Like… 47% match,” Tim said. “Which means—”

“He’s your kid,” Barbara finished.

SLIDE 46: THE LAUGH

Tim tapped the final button.

A .wav file played.

It was Peter laughing. That light, Dick-coded, joy-in-chaos laugh.

The room was quiet.

Dick looked a little stunned.

Barbara looked extremely smug.

Bruce finally said, “Get the boy in here.”

“Wait, what? ” Dick yelped. “I do n’t—I don’t have a—he can’t be—Bruce, I never even—”

“You once time-travelled with Zatanna and Wally, and you don’t remember three months of your life,” Barbara said gently. “It’s not impossible. ”

Tim nodded solemnly.

“I think the real question is… what does Peter know?”

Chapter Text

Gotham. WayneTech R&D Building. 4:00 PM.

Peter Parker knew something was off the second Karen pinged him with a warning in his HUD:

KAREN: Peter, three extremely intimidating men in black are looking for you.
PETER: I haven’t broken anything today. I’ve been good. I drank water.
KAREN: One is Bruce Wayne.
PETER: That explains the death aura.
KAREN: Also, Nightwing.
PETER: … Okay. Deep breaths. I can handle this. I’m mature.
KAREN: And Red Robin, holding a tablet labelled “THE PARKER PROTOCOL.”
PETER: ABORT. HARD ABORT. ESCAPE PLAN DELTA-NOPE.

Inside the Conference Room (a.k.a the Interrogation chamber)

“I’m not going to interrogate him,” Dick said, pacing in front of the projector. “We’re just gonna talk. Casually. Like normal people.”

“You’re sweating,” Tim noted.

“I AM NOT SWEATING, RED ROBIN.”

“You just said his laugh was genetically inherited through time.”

“I stand by that. ”

Bruce, ever the bastion of calm, leaned against the wall like an oil painting come to life and said nothing.

That was worse than yelling.

That was expectations .

Suddenly, the elevator pinged.

Everyone turned.

Footsteps approached.

Then… silence.

Tim frowned. “He was just outside—”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed.

Dick squinted.

Then something caught their eye.

A blur. Up near the ceiling.

Moving like—

“…No,” Dick whispered.

But yes.

There he was.

Peter Parker.

Clad in a black hoodie, sneakers, and a backpack slung over one shoulder like a teen ninja courier. Hanging upside down on the ceiling beam like gravity was just a concept he politely declined.

He froze when he saw the three of them watching.

“…Hi?” Peter offered, voice cracking just a bit. “Soooo I feel like you’re all mad at me. And I don’t really know why. And I didn’t eat anyone’s yogurt in the breakroom if that’s what this is about.”

Tim held up a single finger.

“You climbed to the ceiling to avoid walking through the door ?”

“Look, man,” Peter whispered urgently, “I don’t do well with dramatic confrontations, okay? I was raised in New York. We run from our problems. ”

Dick’s mouth opened. Closed.

Opened again.

And then Peter, realising his audience was both Bruce Wayne (a.k.a Batman) and what looked like two very tired vigilantes, made a decision.

A terrible, wonderful, Peter Parker decision.

He dropped into a full aerial backflip off the beam, somersaulted across the room in a move straight out of an acrobat training manual, landed in a perfect crouch—

— and bolted.

“HE’S NIGHTWINGING AWAY!” Tim shouted, already sprinting after him.

Code Red.

A kid in Jordans was out-parkouring Gotham’s most trained vigilantes.

Peter zipped up a stairwell railing, flipped over a railing, ran along a wall Matrix-style, and left Tim gasping behind him like an exhausted Roomba.

“Stop!!” Tim wheezed. “We’re not even mad at you!! We just want to talk!! ”

“Yeah, that’s what villains say before they drop me in a tank!” Peter yelled back.

Dick reached the mezzanine level just in time to see Peter backflip down the lobby’s massive spiral staircase, land perfectly, and— WINK. He winked. At him.

Something in Dick snapped.

That wink was his.

That grin? That was his.

That panic-flavored improvisation chaos?

Also his.

“Oh my god,” Dick muttered. “Oh my god. He’s me. He’s me but shorter and caffeinated, and he’s running away like I ran from Bruce after I broke his car and— Bruce, what if I accidentally invented myself?! ”

Bruce, watching this unfold with the weary expression of a man who had definitely fought a demon today, blinked.

“Are you having a breakdown?”

“YES,” Dick gasped. “I THINK I’M THE DAD.”

Meanwhile, Peter had yeeted himself into a ventilation shaft because his life was at stake.

KAREN: Sir, this is perhaps overkill.
PETER: Karen, they brought a PowerPoint. That is premeditated parental energy. I’m not emotionally prepared.
KAREN: You do realise running makes you more suspicious.
PETER: Correct. That’s why we climb.

Peter launched upward through a maintenance hatch and landed in the penthouse lounge, where he quietly collapsed on a couch and considered legally changing his name again.

BACK AT THE CONFERENCE ROOM

Tim re-entered first, panting.

“I lost him.”

Dick followed, looking haunted.

“I saw my own acrobatic trauma unfold in real time.”

Bruce stepped in last. “We’re not chasing him. He’ll come back.”

“He left his ID badge,” Barbara said, holding it up. “It has a little cartoon spider sticker on it.”

Dick took it like it was a sonogram photo.

Tim was already back at the smartboard, typing frantically.

“What are you doing?” Bruce asked.

“Updating the presentation,” Tim said. “New section: 'Observed Nightwing Tendencies in Peter Parker – Live Data Set.' ”

Dick was staring into space, muttering to himself.

“…What if he’s not from the future? What if he’s from an alternate universe? What if I raised him there? What if I died and he was raised by Alfred? What if Alfred taught him the sandwich recipe? Oh god, what if me of that timeline—”

Barbara slapped a post-it on his forehead.

It said:
“DEEP BREATHS, GRAYSON.”

Chapter Text

Earlier that day: Wayne Enterprises, 4:36 PM

It was, technically speaking, a normal day until the maybe-son-of-Dick Grayson backflipped off the fourth-floor balcony and disappeared in a very Nightwing-ish sequence of webbed acrobatics.

Cue immediate chaos.

Security footage? Erased.

Eyewitnesses? Bribed with Starbucks gift cards and NDAs.

PR team? Promised a bonus if they didn’t ask questions.

And Tim Drake, running on a coffee-fueled existential crisis, pulled up the building schematics and started muttering, “No, no, no—he moved like Dick. But lighter. Faster. That was genetic memory. Or spider stuff. Or both.”

“Tim,” Dick said, dragging a hand down his face, “Please stop narrating this like an evolutionary biologist losing his mind.”

“I’m not losing my mind!” Tim barked. “I’m—WAIT, look at the shoulder roll on that jump—he does the Grayson Tuck and Roll™!”

“I don’t have a patented roll—”

“You literally named it that on the training boards. ”

Wayne Manor: The Batcave, 7:13 PM

Bruce was already waiting at the Batcomputer, cowl off, arms crossed, looking like an emotionally constipated thundercloud.

Alfred stood behind him, quietly brewing enough tea to sedate a rhino.

The rest of the Batkids filtered in one by one. Jason (in sweats), Steph (in Tim’s hoodie), Cass (silently with popcorn), Duke (with backup popcorn), and Damian (glowering like a cat that someone tried to pet).

“Everyone, sit,” Bruce said in that tone. 

The Batman tone.

They sat. 

Even Jason .

Tim opened his mouth.

“Tim,” Bruce interrupted, not looking at him. “You have ten minutes to sleep or I will drug you myself.”

“I’m FINE—”

“Alfred, sedatives.”

“Already in his tea, Master Bruce.”

Tim made a betrayed squeak and glared at his mug.

Bruce turned to the others. “We’re calling a full family meeting.”

Jason leaned back. “No shit. That’s what we are all here for, old man.”

“Peter,” Bruce said, cutting through the chatter, “—may be Dick’s biological son. From the future.”

Everyone froze.

“See?!” Tim cackled sleep-deprivedly. “SEE? IT’S NOT JUST ME!”

“He’s not confirmed to be from the future,” Bruce added, calm as ever. “But his DNA matches yours on multiple paternal markers. There’s no indication of cloning, tampering, or time travel residue—yet.”

Jason blinked. “Time travel residue? Are we testing for temporal dandruff now?”

Bruce ignored that.

“He left after you tried to approach him,” Bruce said quietly to Dick. “He’s not comfortable with us. Yet.”

Dick’s mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again.

“I scared him?” he asked, voice small.

“We all did,” Alfred said gently. “Though I’d wager that Master Peter may have perhaps had spent most of his life running. From others, and perhaps from himself.”

Dick stood abruptly and turned his back. His voice shook.

“What if he doesn’t want me? What if I wasn’t—what if I won’t be a good father? What if something happened between us, and I can’t fix it, because it hasn’t even happened yet ?”

Cass approached and gently put a hand on his arm.

“Brother. Kind,” she whispered.

Dick laughed bitterly. “I was a wreck after leaving Bruce. What if he’s my wreck?”

“You won’t make the same mistakes,” Bruce said, stepping closer. “None of us has to.”

Everyone blinked.

Did Bruce just say something emotionally intelligent ?

Tim blinked sideways. “Did he get therapy when we weren’t looking?”

“I’m still drugging you,” Bruce reminded him.

“Okay, fair.”

Meanwhile: Peter Parker’s Sad Little Apartment, Gotham Narrows

Peter tossed his hoodie across the couch and faceplanted into a pillow.

“KAREN,” he groaned.

KAREN: Would you like a hug, emotional validation, or sarcastic comments about your life choices?
PETER: All of the above.

KAREN: You were spotted. Seven different times. Spoiler took a video.
PETER: Yeah, that one in purple filmed me with her PHONE.
KAREN: She added emojis.
PETER: I am never leaving my apartment again.

KAREN: You have 12 text messages.
PETER: From who??
KAREN: Tim Drake. They are labelled: “Not a threat,” “Please respond,” “How do you feel about family dinners,” and “Do you like IKEA?”

Peter whimpered into the pillow.

Meanwhile: Back at Batcave

“I say we suit up,” Jason said, cracking his knuckles.

“To do what, exactly?” Duke asked.

“Observe the target in the wild,” Tim replied, already changing into his Red Robin gear.

“You guys—he’s a KID,” Steph laughed. “This is creepy.”

“He’s also potentially from the future , and is your NEPHEW,” Tim countered.

Cass was already halfway into her suit.

Damian had vanished to prep the Batmobile.

“I'm not gonna lie,” Jason said, adjusting his helmet. “I’ve always wanted a younger generation to ruin emotionally like Bruce ruined us.”

“Okay,” Steph said, pulling on her gloves. “ Now I’m in.”

Bruce, deadpan: “You are not to engage unless necessary.”

Dick, who hadn’t moved: “He ran from me.”

Everyone paused.

“You’re not a bad person, Dick,” Bruce said, low. “You’ve never been.”

“I just—he looked at me like I’d already let him down,” Dick whispered, eyes glassy. “I don’t even know what I did. What I will do.”

“Then let’s find out,” Bruce said. “Together.”

Pause.

“…Are you suiting up?” Tim asked Bruce slowly.

Bruce gave him a look.

Tim squeaked.

“Oh my God. Batman’s gonna stake out his grandson. This is better than the time we stalked Tim’s boyfriend.”

“I HEARD THAT,” Tim shouted.

Elsewhere, at 2:34 AM: Rooftop near Peter’s Apartment

Peter, hoodie up, coffee in hand, froze coming back from his coffee run as he spotted it.

Seven Bat-shaped silhouettes.

Staring directly at his window.

“…nope,” Peter muttered, turning around. “NOPE. NOPENOPENOPE.”

He swung away.

Behind him, all seven Bat-family members slowly tilted their heads at the same angle.

“Yup,” Jason muttered. “Definitely a Grayson.”

Chapter Text

Gotham City – 4:47 PM – South End
Peter Parker wasn’t having a bad day.

He was having a Gotham day.

Which meant a “you-might-be-multiversal-bait, emotionally targeted by crime orphans in tactical gear” kind of day.

He ducked into an alley with all the grace of someone who had lived too long in New York to be fazed by men in capes anymore but still retained the street-level paranoia of someone with Spidey-sense and seventeen kinds of unresolved trauma.

“KAREN,” Peter muttered, peeking around the edge of a graffiti-covered dumpster. “Are they still following me?”

KAREN: Heat signatures confirm two individuals maintaining visual. Identified as Jason Todd and Richard Grayson. Former Robins. Current emotional hurricanes with extra biceps.

“…My dad is in Gotham?” Peter whispered, heart stopping. “Karen. Are you telling me my dad is in Gotham?”

KAREN: Incorrect. You are experiencing emotional misrecognition due to facial similarity and unresolved paternal grief.

KAREN: Statistically, this is your 8th “dad alert” in Gotham this week.

KAREN: Would you like to activate the “Maybe Therapy?” protocol?

Peter slowly peeked.

Yep.

There they were.

Two suspiciously attractive men standing near a pretzel cart, failing spectacularly at blending in. One was arguing with the pretzel like it had insulted his dead mother. The other was crying behind aviators like a man on the brink of narrating a coming-of-age musical.

Peter’s breath caught.

“…Uncle Ben,” he whispered.

And next to him?

“Dad?”

His heart squeezed so tight it could’ve rung out a sponge.

“…He used to get me cinnamon ones,” Peter whispered to no one.

KAREN: Would you like me to activate tactical avoidance?

“No,” Peter said, eyes locked on the two men. “Screw it. I’m talking to them.”

KAREN: Pinged medevac just in case. Please don’t die.

Peter ignored Karen.

Across the Street – With Dick and Jason

“Okay,” Jason muttered into the side of his mouth, flicking his comm, “we’re just watching. Watching, Dick. Not kidnapping.”

“I’m not kidnapping!” Dick whispered, already emotionally compromised. “I’m just… marvelling. Quietly. Like a guardian angel with incredible upper-body strength. ”

“You’re sniffling. ”

“I’m fine.”

CASS (over comm): Lie. Not fine. 

TIM: Is Dick crying?

DUKE: Who has the footage? I want the raw emotion.

DUKE: ACTUALLY. I have screen-recording ON. Give me a moment, I’m adding music.

“SHUT UP,” Dick hissed under his breath. “Everyone shut up. This is a delicate moment.”

STEPH: He’s so baby. Someone give him a tissue and a juice box.

ALFRED:If it is too much for you, Master Dick. I would recommend returning to the manor for a break before continuing your…observations. 

Then, at the same time, Peter crossed the street.

Every Bat-comm channel went silent like the apocalypse.

“SHOWTIME,” Jason hissed.

“I’ll okay Alfie, and I swear to God,” Dick muttered, then mostly to himself,  “do not ruin this.”

“Ruin what? You just said you weren’t kidnapping him—”

Dick inhaled like it was his last breath.

Peter reached them. Hoodie up. Eyes wide.

He stared for a second.

Like he was trying to memorise them.

Like he didn’t know if this was real.

“Hey,” Peter said. “This might sound kinda weird but… You do acrobatics like the Flying Graysons? You, uh, look like him? Richard?”

Dick blinked.

Jason blinked harder.

“…Yes? I am Richard Grayson?” Dick offered, voice doing the ‘I am not okay but pretending I am’ wobble.

Peter’s face lit up.

“Oh my god. I knew it.”

Jason subtly took a step back.

TIM (over comm): What the hell is happening?

DUKE: Did he just say “knew it?” Knew what?

BABS: Nobody. Breathe.

“My dad and I used to watch this old VHS,” Peter continued, voice going soft, nostalgic. “Of the Flying Graysons. Over and over. It was our thing.”

Dick’s soul ascended.

“We didn’t go to the circus or anything,” Peter added. “We’d just watch it at home. Dad would make popcorn and narrate it like he was the ringmaster. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, behold the masters of the sky!’” Peter grinned, mimicking a goofy announcer.

Jason blinked like he was watching someone peel back his ribcage.

Dick hadn’t blinked in 47 seconds.

“And then,” Peter added, eyes bright with something achingly soft, “he’d take me out to the yard and we’d try the routines together. I was maybe six? Seven? Just little stuff. Cartwheels, handstands, trying to copy the combos. He was so good at it. He was the best.”

He laughed.

“Like—flips and everything. He tried to make me do it . Every single time. Said he’d keep trying ‘til I could fly. Because I was his little bird .”

BRUCE (over comm, very softly): …Oh.

CASS: Truth. Nephew means Brother. Family.

STEPH: He means Dick. He means Dick is his dad. I’m going to cry.

DUKE: I am feeling too many emotions, and I blame all of you.

TIM: Are we sure he’s not—like, time travel? Or memory implantation? Or a clone? Because this is unsettlingly specific.

Dick swallowed hard. “That was… your dad?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, smiling wistfully. “He looked a lot like you, actually. That’s why I kinda panicked when I saw you. Thought—” He laughed awkwardly. “Thought maybe I’d finally lost it.”

TIM: Bro you definitely didn’t lose it, but we’re about to.

JASON (under breath): What do I say? What do we say? Dick looks like he’s going to collapse into his own emotional black hole.

DUKE: Do a flip.

JASON (hissing): What?? That’s your solution?

Dick suddenly burst out: “Do you… wanna do a flip?”

Peter blinked. “...Yes.”

Park – 5:13 PM – Emotional Damage Hour

Somehow, somehow , they ended up in a public park doing circus routines on the grass like emotionally repressed weirdos.

Because apparently that's what you do when you're trying to emotionally process a circus flashback from a potential alternate son.

Peter cartwheeled.

Dick flipped.

Jason filmed with the intensity of someone making a documentary called “My Brother Might Be A Dad?”

Peter did a three-part handspring into a twist-landing that should not be humanly possible.

Jason zoomed in with his phone. “We are so sending this to Alfred.”

DUKE (over comm): He’s doing circus combat. He’s one of us.

TIM: He’s a Bat. He doesn’t even know it. Wait. He does. But he’s in past-like.

Dick blinked. “I did.”

“You remembered!” Peter lit up. “I could never stick the landing after the twist, but you. I mean, ahem, my dad always told me to keep trying, and then gave me a Capri-Sun when I wiped out.”

Jason slowly turned to Dick, and whispered.

“Did you… Give anyone else Capri-Suns after flips?”

Dick looked like he was re-living seventeen different emotional flashbacks.

“No.”

Peter flopped onto the grass, laughing. “God, you were the best. I mean, my dad was. You’re just—you look like him. Sounds like him. Even your laugh's the same.”

Dick made a sound that was part-wheeze, part-sob.

Jason sat down like he needed to process anything at all.

Peter turned his head, eyes on the clouds.

“I used to think… maybe I’d be good enough to join my dad one day. Swinging in the air. Part of the act. He told me, ‘You’re already part of it, kiddo. You’re the best part.” Peter smiled, a little sad. “I think about that a lot.”

Dick covered his face with both hands.

Jason threw his jacket over Dick like a blanket. “Emotional timeout for the acrobat.”

STEPH: I’m crying.

TIM: We’re bringing him in, right? We have to bring him in.

CASS: He is ours. Nephew.

BRUCE: Meeting. Tonight.

DUKE: THEY ARE IN A PARK, BRUCE. CALM DOWN.

It was night. Jason and Dick were backcave for debriefing. 

Peter was gone. 

Back to wherever he lived. 

Off with his tragic smile and circus flips, and trauma memories that may or may not belong to this timeline.

Dick was cocooned in a blanket burrito on the couch.

“I gave him Capri-Suns,” he whispered, hollow.

Bruce handed him a mug of cocoa. “You good, champ?”

“I taught him flips and probably died in his world. That’s so rude,” Dick muttered.

Jason blinked. “…Yikes.”

Tim looked up from the five digital charts he had made in two hours. “So he’s either from a different timeline, a different Earth, or some weird psychic echo situation.”

“Or he’s just Peter,” Barbara said gently. “And we just... don’t know him yet.”

Bruce stared at the Batcomputer, jaw tight.

“We’re bringing him in.”

“Gently,” Steph added.

“Not like last time,” Duke grumbled.

“Cookies?” Cass offered.

“No cookies,” Bruce said.

Everyone glared.

“…Fine,” he muttered.

Elsewhere – Rooftop – 9:12 PM

Peter sat on a Gotham rooftop, knees pulled to his chest, staring up at the batsignal.

He wasn’t sure what had just happened.

But for once… the world didn’t feel like it was collapsing in on him.

Not completely.

Those guys?

Weird.

But weird in a way that felt like an inside joke.

Weird in a way that felt like home.

He looked up at the stars and whispered:

“…Thanks, Dad and Uncle Ben. I don't feel so lonely anymore.”

And far away, every Bat in Gotham felt something shift.

Like someone had just stuck the landing on an emotional twist-combo that none of them knew they’d been trying to pull off.