A Different Time, A Different Place
Author: shallowesque
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: Tim, Bart, and Kon get sent back in time--or possibly to an alternate universe--where they meet up with some very different Teen Titans.
* * *
For once, Bart thinks, they can't blame it on him. It's not his fault that the sorcerer Moglock didn't like being interrupted in the middle of his spell. It was an evil spell, anyway, or at least Bart's pretty sure it was, what with the icky green smoke and really super disgusting smells. He probably saved them all by knocking the guy over, even if they did get weird liquid all over them and end up--here. Wherever "here" is. Bart's not really sure.
The last thing he remembers, he, Superboy, and Robin were in the creepy cave that the (evil) sorcerer had set up shop in. They're definitely not there now. In fact, they're about as far away from a creepy cave as they could get.
They're in a town. It's not just any town, though; it's the kind of town Bart's only seen on TV, with friendly people everywhere, little shops where the owners themselves seem to be greeting their customers by name, and the air is clean and the sky is blue and there are birds singing happily. Bart's starting to think that maybe they got sucked into a TV show or something, like that one movie, because he's been pretty much everywhere in the world and he's never seen anything like this.
"Whoa," he says, staring as a car drives by. It's old--not just 1980s chunky Buick old, but old old.
"This is not good," Robin says. His dark expression and wary stance look out of place in their idyllic setting.
In fact, they all look out of place here--they always do, being superheroes and all--but no one's really giving them more than a mildly curious look. Even in their own world, or time, or whatever, people tend to be a little more--something when a trio of costumed people show up in their midst. Generally, Bart finds, they're worried, because the good guys only tend to show up if the bad guys are already up to something. Or if they want Chinese food, in Bart's case.
"Where are we?" Kon asks, looking around wide-eyed. "Or maybe--when are we?"
Bart can totally answer both questions. He zips off to find a newspaper, reads it, and comes back.
"1967," he says, "and we're in Berkshire, Pennsylvania. According to the news, Robin just saved the Mayor's daughter from a masked menace, with the help of the Teen Titans and Speedy. Robin, you're old."
Somehow, Robin manages to make it clear that he's rolling his eyes behind his mask. It is an ability that Bart sometimes envies, even if his mask is a lot less opaque.
"It's obviously not me," Robin says. "In fact, I don't think it's anyone we know."
"But if we've gone back in time--" Superboy says, looking confused.
"I don't think we have," Robin says, cutting him off. "I think we've been sent to an alternate dimension."
"Like the world without adults?" Bart asks. "Because that place kind of sucked."
Robin nods, expression serious. "It seems like our best option would be to find the Teen Titans and ask for assistance. It's possible that Moglock has some sort of connection to this world, and if not, they're still the most likely people to have connections to someone who could help us."
"Cool!" says Bart. "I want to meet the alternate me!"
"Oh man, two Impulses," Kon says, looking alarmed. "I don't know if the world can handle that."
Bart sticks out his tongue and dodges when Kon tries to grab him. They race around the park they're standing on the edge of for a few seconds before Robin somehow manages to smack Kon with his stick and get them to stop.
"This is serious, you two," he says, and Bart and Kon exchange a glance.
"Everything's serious with you," Kon says, but he shuts up when Robin gives him a look. Bart's pretty sure that he learned it from Batman, along with that creepy ability to sneak up behind people without warning.
"Our presence in this universe may alter its course in unimaginable ways," Robin says, and starts talking about the multiverse theory and butterflies and Bart stops listening, because it's really not as interesting as watching the little girl across from them play with her dog.
He tunes in again when he realizes that Robin's finished talking and is staring at him.
"What?" he asks, trying to look like he was paying attention.
"Did the paper mention anything about the Titans having a headquarters, or some way of contacting them?" Robin says. His tone of voice indicates that he doesn't buy Impulse's expression one bit.
"They've got a toll free phone number," Bart says, and recites it.
Robin goes to pull out his communicator, then pauses and says, "We'll need to find a pay phone."
Bart goes out on reconnaissance before anyone asks him to, because he's getting bored just standing there. He's back before Robin even finishes doing up the latch on his belt.
"Two blocks that way," Bart says, pointing. "Next to an ice cream place. We should get ice cream."
"With what?" Kon asks. "Future money from another universe?"
Bart pouts the rest of the way to the pay phone.
Usually, when they end up in weird universe or on other planets or in hell dimensions, it's a lot more exciting. Here, people smile at them as they pass by and the closest thing Bart's seen to a crime is someone eating grapes while he walks through the grocery store, but he pays for them when he gets to the cash, and Bart sighs a little. This past-alternate universe-whatever place is boring. He wonders how his alternate universe whatever clone person keeps from going crazy.
Robin calls the number that Bart found in the newspaper and quickly explains their situation to whoever's on the other end of the line. Kon listens for about a minute, then gets distracted by a pair of pretty girls walking by in miniskirts and high boots.
"I think I could get to like it here," he says, but Bart's more interested in the ice cream shop, anyway. The man behind the counter is serving up real milkshakes, the kind Max occasionally reminisces about when Bart brings home the kind you get at fast food places. He really wishes he had some sort of money.
"Hello, son," a man says, walking up to Bart, "are you one of those Teen Titans?" He's got thick grey hair and a dapper plaid suit, and he looks vaguely familiar--not in a way Bart can place, just like he's seen the guy before.
"No, we're from Young Justice, and the future, or an alternate dimensionorsomething," Bart says. Behind the man, Kon covers his face with his hand, then shakes his head at Bart.
The man blinks a couple of times, then says, "Well, you'll be wanting to call the Titans, then."
"Oh, we are," Superboy says, tilting his head towards Tim, who's still on the phone. "Sorry for the confusion."
"If you're superheroes, too, do you think you could do me a favour?" the man asks. Bart and Kon look at each other; Kon shrugs.
"If we can help, sure," he says, and the man smiles at him.
"My cat, Missy, is stuck in a tree," he says, and one of Kon's eyebrows goes up. "I know it's a little beneath your usual fare, but I could really use a hand in getting her down."
"Of course we'll help!" Bart says. "Where's the tree?"
But Robin apparently has the ability to hold a conversation and eavesdrop on them all at once, and puts his hand over the phone for long enough to say, "No, Impulse, we can't interfere."
Bart opens his mouth to protest--the man's cat is stuck in a tree, it's pretty much the dictionary definiton of something requiring their help--but Robin's already back to the phone. The man looks unexpectedly angry for a second, but his features smooth back out before anyone but Bart notices.
"Don't worry about it, boys," he says, smiling. "I'll call the fire department." He turns and walks away, disappearing around a corner.
"People here are so nice," Superboy says. "It's kind of freaky."
"Do you think this place would give me free ice cream?" Bart asks, his mind back on the important things, like food. It's been a whole hour since he's eaten. He may perish without ice cream.
"Probably not," Kon says, and Bart sighs. This is the suckiest alternate universe yet.
Next to them, Robin says, "Thanks, we'll see you soon," and hangs up the phone. They turn to him and he says, "Robin--the other Robin--and Speedy are on their way to pick us up. It took me a while to convince them that we were who we claim to be, but they've agreed to help us."
* * *
Bart zips around the city for a few minutes before Robin makes him stay put, then settles on the ground next to Kon, who seems happy enough just staring at the girls that go by. Robin remains standing, shoulders tight and expression wary. However, aside from the same vaguely curious looks as before, no one seems to notice them at all. It's weird.
"At least they're easy enough to find," someone comments.
The boys look up to see Other Robin--in the old costume, with the panties and weird boots--and another boy, who looks like a miniature version of Green Arrow, only in red. He's got one hand on his hip and looks like he's about to laugh at them, and Robin is smiling. It's a bit of a strange sight; their Robin smiles, but not as easily as Bart already suspects the one in front of them does.
"You must be Impulse, Superboy, and Robin," Other Robin says, looking down at them. His face shifts a little when he sees Bart and Kon's Robin, but it doesn't betray anything particular emotion. His voice is different from the first one, which means it's the other guy who made that comment.
"That's us!" Bart answers, grinning at him. He likes this Robin already for some reason.
"I'm Robin--as well--and this is Speedy. Sounds like you've had an interesting day," Other Robin comments, and Kon laughs.
"You could say that, yeah," he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and leaning his elbows back on the counter to survey the boys facing them.
"Well, come on," Speedy says. "Got a bit of a trip back to HQ." He pauses and looks at Other Robin with a hopeful expression. "Unless we have time for malted milk?"
Other Robin sighs a little but says, "I suppose we aren't in any real rush."
Robin frowns a little at this, but doesn't argue--even he can't resist the siren call of ice cream, apparently. They pile into the ice cream shop, where they're greeted warmly by the man behind the counter. Bart gets two milkshakes; they're as delicious as Max's stories made them sound and he's going to be sad to leave them behind. He wonders if they can take the ice cream shop guy back with them. One guy shouldn't have that much of an impact on the world, right?
"Hey, Rob," he says, and Robin doesn't even look up, just says, "No."
"But you don't evenknowwhat--"
"No," says Robin again, and Other Robin laughs a little.
Bart sulks for all of five seconds, a very long five seconds, until the arrival of his second milkshake distracts him.
"So you're the Teen Titans, right?" Kon asks the newcomers, looking curious.
"Two of them," Speedy answers. "Aqualad, Kid Flash, and Wonder Girl are doing other things today."
"Kid Flash?" asks Bart, curious. He knows that Wally used to go by that name--maybe he'll get to meet him as a teenager. He wonders if he could get any good stories to annoy Wally with.
"You're a speedster too, right?" asks Other Robin, looking at him. While he's distracted, Speedy makes a valiant attempt to steal a spoonful of Other Robin's ice cream, but is foiled by Robin's deft spoon maneouvering. It reminds Bart of him and Kon and Robin, and it makes him smile.
"Yep!" he says. "Probably not the same one, though."
"You seem to be taking our sudden appearance rather well," Robin says.
"Time travel isn't that unheard of in our circle," Other Robin says in response. "Superboy--not this one, I don't think--and the Legion have come back to visit us a few times, for one."
"Another Superboy?" Kon asks, sounding surprised. "Is he around now? I'd like to meet him."
Robin frowns. "We should really try to get home as soon as possible," he says.
"Right, yeah, that whole thing with altering the universe," Kon says, waving a hand dismissively. Robin's frown deepens, but Kon cuts him off before he can say anything. "Okay, fine, we'll go home and not explore this cool new universe."
"We should get going," Other Robin says, putting some money down on the counter and clapping Speedy on the shoulder. "And you should wipe that malted milk moustache off before we do."
* * *
The Teen Titans HQ is familiar and strange all at once. Bart resists the urge to go zipping around and check it all out, mostly because as soon as he thinks about it, Robin frowns at him. Even though everyone says that Robin doesn't have powers, Bart is pretty sure that he has telepathy or something. There's no way he could know everything without it.
Other Robin is a lot less creepily prescient, but there's still something infinitely...Robin-y about him. Even if he does smile more, he's still got that sense of permanent alertness. Bart's pretty sure that Other Robin and Speedy don't entirely trust them, no matter what Robin said on the phone, mostly due to the way that they were blindfolded on the way here.
Also strange but familiar are Other Robin and Speedy. Bart has a pretty good idea who Speedy is going to grow up to be--he'd worked with Arsenal on the Titans back before Young Justice, and the chances of there being another red-headed, slightly arrogant bow and arrow specialist running around are pretty low. Of course, weirder things have happened. Way weirder things. Also, they're in another universe, or something.
Even here, though, Bart recognizes the kind of strange friendship that comes about when you're on a team together, fighting bad guys and getting into trouble and saving the day. Robin and Speedy bicker comfortably as they flip through old case files, trying to find anything on Moglock.
"The name's familiar," Robin had said when they'd arrived, "but I can't place it exactly. It might not have been a case I was directly involved in."
So now they're waiting, which Bart is really, really bad at.
"Are you sure I can't help?" he asks for the third time.
"We're sure," Speedy says, sounding vaguely annoyed. Other Robin doesn't even look up from the piles of paper in front of him.
"Maybe it was that case, with the people turning into frogs--" he says, and Speedy says, "No, because that was that girl, the fairy tale one, remember?"
"That one time traveller?"
"Science, not magic."
"Who says it couldn't be both?"
"I do."
"Like you're always right."
Bart sighs and flops down against one of the walls, staring at the wall of screens facing him. They're all weird and bubbly, nothing like the ones they have in their world, and Bart wonders how they even communicate--it's not like they have the internet or anything.
As he's wondering, though, a screen flicks to life and Kid Flash's face fills it.
"Hey, Robi--who are they?"
Other Robin looks up and says, "Time travellers. Universe-hoppers, really. I'll tell you later, it's a long story."
"Oh," says Kid Flash, staring at them for a long moment, then, "I got a weird request from a man in Star City--"
"What were you doing in Star City?" Speedy interrupts, eyes narrow, but Kid Flash ignores the question and keeps talking.
"He said he had a request for Robin, and to bring 'the new kids', which--I can only assume he means those three." Bart stares at the screen, trying to figure out if the teenage boy on it is Wally or not. He looks and sounds right, but--he's not being a condescending jerk, so Bart really can't tell.
"Word travels fast," Other Robin says, looking concerned.
"Probably because of me," Kon says, and Robin elbows him in the ribs. It doesn't hurt Superboy, but he shuts up anyway.
"Suspicious," comments Robin, and Other Robin nods. Bart doesn't see why--three new costumed heroes showing up has got to be a bit weird, right?--but Robin's pretty good about noticing strange things, and if two Robins are saying it's bad, it's probably bad.
"Did he say what he wanted?" Other Robin asks. Kid Flash shrugs, the movement barely showing up at the bottom of the screen.
"Not really, just that it was an 'important matter'. He was kind of shifty. Reminded me of someone, too, but I don't know who."
"Hmm," both Robins say. It's a little creepy getting it in stereo, and Bart suddenly isn't sure that it isn't the same Robin. Maybe Batman clones them or Rob is secretly a robot or something. It would explain a lot.
"When and where?" Other Robin asks, after exchanging some sort of unreadable Robin look with Robin.
"An hour," Kid Flash says, and names a location that Bart's never heard of before signing off. Bart still has no idea if he was Wally or not.
"Hey, is Kid Flash's name--"
Superboy claps a hand over his mouth and then pulls him into a headlock. "Secret identities are called secret for a reason," he says, and Bart says, "Oh, yeah." He tries to squirm out of the headlock and succeeds, mostly because Kon lets him go. When he looks over at Robin, he sees the expression that means that Robin's trying to look stern but actually wants to laugh. Bart grins at him and gets a little smile in return.
Suddenly Speedy, who's been looking through the files while Other Robin talked to Kid Flash, looks up. "Got it!" he says, holding up a folder.
Moglock, it turns out, is actually a high school student named Morgan Locke. The Titans had encountered him a few months back and interrupted him mid-spell, at which point he'd vanished--no one had been able to figure out where he'd gone, so the case had been banished to the cold files.
"The Moglock we dealt with was old, though," Superboy points out, and Bart nods. He'd definitely had grey hair and wrinkles, he's pretty sure.
There's a long silence as everyone ponders this new information.
"Could he have been sent to our universe?" Robin asks, and Other Robin looks thoughtful.
"If he was doing similar magic to the spell that got you sent here, I suppose that's possible," he says, finally.
Bart really doesn't care what happened to the guy; he just wants to get home, where he's allowed to do things. He fidgets his way through the Robins' planning session, barely resisting the urge to poke buttons on the communications console to see what they do. One just says "SQUID", which is incredibly tempting. He wonders if it's a code word or if it really does just release a squid somewhere. He wonders if poking it would get him in a lot of trouble, or just a little bit.
"Impulse," calls Robin, and he looks up, finger hovering above the button. At first, he thinks that Robin has been keeping on eye on him even with his back turned--which he probably has--but no, Robin actually has something for him to do. The plan is ready to go.
* * *
Moglock is almost too easy to find. He's exactly where he said he'd be, standing in an abandoned warehouse in full evil sorcerer regalia, which kind of looks like a fancy bathrobe and pointy hat from a Halloween costume. The set up in front of him is pretty similar to the one he'd had in the cave back home, as far as Bart can tell; a cauldron with smoke and really super disgusting spells. The smoke isn't as icky as it was last time, but it's pretty close. He hopes it's the same spell, because that's what the plan depends on.
"I AM MOGLOCK," Moglock says, voice thundering ominously, and Kon says, "Whatever, Morgan."
Moglock stops and stares at him, ruining any sort of dramatic effect he'd managed. Then his eyes narrow and he continues, "You will rue the day you ruined my life, Titans! Your meddling cost me my powers and my life--"
"You're not dead," Bart says, confused.
"--I am speaking in metaphor, you insolent fool!"
"Wait," says Robin, looking at Moglock intently, "You're the man who tried to get Impulse and Superboy to rescue your cat."
Bart and Kon look at him in surprise, then take their own close looks at Moglock. Like always, Robin's right--Moglock is the man who'd asked them about his cat. No wonder he wears all the silly stuff, Bart thinks; he's really not intimidating at all.
"It was part of my plan," Moglock says, peevishly. "I would lure you away and send you back in time!"
"By putting an innocent cat up a tree?!" Bart says, horrified.
"There--there wasn't a cat," Moglock says, staring at him. "The cat was a lie, a fabrication meant to entice you into my trap." He pauses, apparently to gather his thoughts. "Titans! You have ruined my life--"
"Yeah, we ruined your life, okay," Speedy says from where he's perched on a rafter, arrow notched and aimed towards Moglock, just in case. "You were trying to take over the city. Maybe you should rethink being evil if you're that worried about the consequences."
Moglock sputters angrily, then turns to brandish some sort of stick at Other Robin.
"You will pay, Titans!"
With a flourish, he throws some sort of powder into the liquid.
"Like you ruined my life, I will ruin yours! You will be sent forever into a future that you have no place in! Haunted forever by your mistakes!"
This is the sign that they've been waiting for--Moglock's sealed his own fate by revealing his plan. As he runs into action, Bart wonders why bad guys always do that. It seems like it should be a pretty easy thing to avoid.
Within a few seconds, the Robins have tied Moglock up and Superboy's got him by the collar, floating above the cauldron. Bart's job was a little more cerebral, but he's done, too.
"Page 87," he says, handing Moglock's book of evil spells to Other Robin. It says "Moglock's Book of Evil Spells" on the cover, which sounds exciting, but it's mostly notes on what breeds of animals work best for which spells and things like that. Bart's a bit disappointed; he'd hoped for better than an evil textbook.
"I guess this is it," Speedy says, dropping down from the rafters to stand next to Other Robin. He's got his bow in his hand still, but the arrow's back in the quiver. Bart gives him a long look, wondering if this kid is going to grow up to be Arsenal or if this universe has other things in store for him.
"It was nice to meet you," Other Robin says, "even if we couldn't really get to know each other."
"I think we do," Robin says, giving him a little smile. "Just not yet."
Other Robin looks surprised, then pleased. "I'm glad," he says. "Are you ready?"
Robin looks at Impulse and Superboy, who nod, then says, "Yes."
A few seconds later, the three of them and Moglock, still trussed up, are back in the world they came from. Superboy says, "I'll take this loser off to the cops," and flies off, leaving Bart and Robin alone.
Bart sighs and Robin gives him a curious look.
"I thought you'd be glad to be back here--you were pretty bored over there," he says.
"Oh, I am," Bart says. "I just wish I could have brought the ice cream guy back with me."
* * *