Avoiding Past And Future

19

The air at Mount Justice was extremely tense.

Most of the team had been dismissed already. After giving their verbal reports to Batman, they had been sent off to write out their own more detailed reports for the mission records. The general debrief didn't leave much room for elaboration. All that they knew was that as far as they should be concerned the mission was a success with no escapees reported.

That now left the remaining group for the higher ranking debrief.

Batman, Martian Manhunter and Red Tornado as well as Aqualad and Robin were all present in the mission room.

Dick wasn't particularly sure what the adults were talking about. They were standing a bit off to the side around other screens that neither he nor Aqualad could see clearly.

Were they discussing which details to bring up?

Were they discussing him?

It'd been so long since he last saw him. Dick wasn't quite sure how old they were when they last physically met. He was almost sure they had a video call around their 11th birthday.

Right?

It can't have been that long.

Sure, they'd both been so busy and Wally had insisted on throwing a small party with uncle Barry and uncle Oliver there as well. At that point he hadn't met Kaldur yet so he wasn't really close enough to be invited to something like that.

Dick looked up at the Atlantean. Would he have done better? He already out-did the younger when it came to leadership, who's to say he wouldn't have been a better brother?

Was he that much of a fuck up that his own brother didn't want to see him?

That a prison was a better option than him?

Had he been so self-absorbed he didn't even notice anything wrong with his only surviving blood relative?

Is he even worthy of still being called his brother?

Dick felt the beginnings of tears prick in his eye. He looked up and blinked rapidly to avoid actual tears from forming. Of course his movement caught Batman's attention. Trying to play off his sudden reaction, Dick rolled his neck with an audible crack and focused on the debrief that had apparently started already.

"At 21:37 Miss Martian and Superboy encountered an unknown hostile, suspected to be an inmate, and a green hound-like entity. There are no prison records found about the hostile nor the entity outside of vague mentions in staff reports about incidents that occurred sporadically."

If there were no records, then how did he have a uniform and so, so many collars?

Were they just a disguise to make them not suspect anything?

But then how did he fly? Could it have been the green entity that did that for him?

Did he find somebody to replace Dick with?

Somebody or something that supported him better

"At 21: 43 the standby members of the team arrived on site to aid in the extraction of Miss Martian and Superboy. During which the team engaged in combat with the unknown hostile and the entity resulting in extreme damages and injuries to both Miss Martian and Kid Flash."

The sharpness in the Leaguer's voice made Aqualad divert his eyes. He felt the pressure of his decision to act press down on his shoulders. While his teammates hadn't gotten seriously hurt, there had been the potential for more disastrous consequences had their opponent so wished.