Young Writers Society

"I should get Eddie to bed then," she said. They'd be sharing. There was no way she was letting Eddie be in any way alone while they were here.

She gently lifted Eddie into her arms, prompting some more mumbled gibberish, and balanced him on her hip so she could support herself with her cane with her free arm. "Goodnight," she said, "I think I should be able to find my way easily enough." She added that last part more 'just in case' than anything. She wasn't keen on the idea of being escorted.

She limped down the hall and found the room in question. Once she'd laid Eddie down on the bed, she resolved to wait a few minutes before she looked over that notebook. She didn't want any risk of interruption from their host.

After downing a thermos of coffee and changing into a fresh set of clothes, Tim had little desire for going to sleep. He decided to put his unsurprising nighttime energy to a different task: he would start a new entry.

He got to his feet - a handful of goldfish for the short-lived trip - and headed towards where he kept all of his spare notebooks. He grabbed a new one, thought for a moment, and labeled it as "Megara + Eddie". The two of them were one joint entity for the purposes of his record; he couldn't imagine Eddie doing anything without Megara in tow, and it was clear her actions were influenced by his wants and needs.

He started by documenting where they had arrived and everything that had happened since them meeting, noting every detail he could think of that might be significant later. He even started going into their description. It would eventually be supplemented with photographs, but that would have to wait until later.

He had to figure out how much this deviated from canon, and how much work it would take to return it to its rightful place.

Eddie had wriggled all the way under the covers when Megara tried to tuck him in and curled into a ball so he was little more than a lump under the blankets with only the rise and fall of his breathing to signal his status as a living being. She smiled and climbed under the covers herself after slipping off her boots.

If she reached her hand over the side of the bed, she could take one of the knives out from where they were hidden between the outer leather and the lining. Outwardly, the edge just looked unusually thick because of the way the handles of each small knife sat flush against the edge, but she could feel the almost imperceptible ridges with which she could pull out each knife. These boots were one of the things she went back for. Hiding weapons effectively was always a pain.

She glanced at the door. It didn't appear as though their host would be interrupting them.

She pulled out the notebook and looked it over.

There were a lot of words she didn't recognize, but paired with context and pictures she managed to figure out that this was a record of Tim's attempts to track Jason down. Purchase records, notes on Jason and his alter-ego 'Red Hood', photographs, and much, much more.

Well, he knew Jason.

She looked at one of the pictures curiously. It must have been from before his resurrection because his eyes didn't appear to glow green like they did in person. From what she could see, he didn't seem to be scarred up either, but his clothing covered most of where the scars would be.

There was something sad about that.

She shook her head and re-read some of the notes.

Tim didn't know where Jason was. She didn't know how to feel about that.

Tim seemed nice enough, then again, she knew many, many murderers who would gladly share their home with someone in need for a night, that didn't make them saints.

Her trust, whatever semblance of it existed, wavered. Vanished.

She tucked the notebook away and lay down. She'd be going home soon, who got her there didn't matter.

She would like to see Jason again before she left, though.

That was her last thought before she fell asleep.

At some point during the night, Tim's attention wavered. There was only so much he could write about his guests. He put the pen down, sighed, and contemplated grabbing another snack - the bowl that was now on his desk was completely empty. In the end, he decided that he wasn't all that hungry, and that another batch of coffee was probably more beneficial. After all, Megara and Eddie weren't the only complications in the plot that had almost certainly been caused by his actions.

His gaze wandered over to the two boxes he had in his closet.

He got to his feet. In the back of his mind, he knew that Jason's box was just a bit lighter when he picked it up, but he was too sleep-deprived to really focus on it. Instead, he moved it aside to dig out Ian's box. Ian was the real dilemma right now. Jason wasn't. There were multiple factors he could attribute to Jason showing up early, but there was close to nothing to explain Ian Parker.

Ian's notebook in one hand and the bowl in the other, Tim slipped out of his room and headed towards the kitchen. When morning finally rolled around, a cup of coffee had been reluctantly downed, and Ian was still just as much of an enigma as he had been when Tim poured over his notes on him a few nights before.

Megara awoke the next morning to find Eddie still asleep. She let him rest and padded out of the room, finding their host in the kitchen looking more than a little disastrous. She didn't think she looked much better, being without a brush or any other utensil with which to tame the absolute mane of curls that didn't like to cooperate in the mornings whatsoever.

"G'morning," she greeted him, leaning more heavily on her cane than usual. It was too early to do things like figure out how to stand.

He closed Ian's book.

"Morning," he replied. He eyed his empty cup of coffee before getting up and putting it in the sink. He must have fallen asleep at some point last night, but he could barely remember when. He couldn't even remember for how long. Night was often like that - drifting in and out of consciousness, and always impossible to document.

Pulling out his phone - the most expensive one on the market - Tim opened the fast food delivery app that he practically lived on at this point. He would wait until Eddie got up to place any kind of order. "Did you sleep well?"

"Well enough," she glanced down at the notebook in front of him. She should have expected him to have more of them. She wondered who else he was stalking.

She turned her attention to the device in his hands and looked at it curiously, "What's that?" she asked. Briar would love that thing, but she liked anything that glowed. Gods forbid that girl ever find her double.

He followed her gaze.

"It's called a phone," he said. Given Eddie and Megara's outfits, he wasn't surprised by her world's apparent lack of cellphones. "I can use it to call people, and, in this case, order some breakfast."

"Hm." That wasn't nearly as descriptive an explanation as she'd like, but she let it go. She wasn't going to be here long, she reminded herself. There was no need to get familiar with anything here.

She was about to ask what he planned on ordering when something wrapped around her legs. She jumped in alarm and looked down to see Eddie rubbing his eyes and clinging to her.

"I'm hungry," he mumbled.

"Good morning," Megara greeted him - a subtle reminder that he should have done the same - and patted him on the head before turning back to their host.

"What are your friends going to do, exactly, to get us home?"

If Megara and Eddie didn't recognize phones, he doubted they would know the foods they could order for breakfast. Tim made a safe estimate instead. Hopefully, donuts and hashbrowns were something they wouldn't object to. It would only be a matter of minutes before they arrived. Then, Tim was sure, he could actually work on returning them to their rightful home.

"Check their databases," Tim said, shutting off his phone's screen. "If the databases don't have anything, they'll go to some of the other heroes."

He slipped his phone into his pocket, adopting the role of studious Tim Drake to make his next comment all the more convincing.

"I have to go to school soon," he admitted, "so I won't be able to be there when you meet with them."

"Why not!" Eddie whined.

"He has to go to his lessons," Megara told him, "Like you should be doing."

He pouted, "But lessons are bad!"

Megara lifted him onto her hip so he could be at eye level with the other two. Well, almost. Tim was a few inches taller than she was. She had half a mind to get annoyed about that, but then she decided that if she got annoyed at everyone who was taller than her she would never stop being annoyed.

"You want to be as smart as I am one day, right?" she asked patiently.

"Yeah..." Eddie answered, not seeing the point.

"Well, I only learned to be this smart through my lessons."

Eddie just crossed his arms and pouted in response. That made it significantly harder to keep him balanced, but she managed it.

"I'm sorry about him," she said to their host, "What should we expect from them when they arrive?"

"It's fine," he reassured her. He would never admit it - the thought didn't fit his role in the slightest - but he thought Eddie's pout was almost...cute. Most kids didn't want to go to school. He hadn't, and neither had Lila-

His expression, though he was normally good at hiding it, soured for just a moment.

But then the dark, moody expression was gone, and he put his focus back on the question that Megara had asked.

"Their outfits might be a little...strange," he admitted. "They go by the names Batman and Robin. Heroes here use aliases to protect their secret identities, and they're not exception."

She nodded, having taken note of his momentary change in expression. It was probably nothing, a stray thought or memory.

"I can understand that. I've had a few alias's of my own," she said.

Eddie piped up, "Yeah, Meggie is the Queen!"

She sighed - part of her efforts to hide the embarrassed blush creeping onto her cheeks - and ruffled his hair, "Not anymore, I'm not." She shook her head, turning back to their host, "It's an old alias. I can't use it anymore, but Eddie finds it entertaining."

It may have been hypocritical of him to worry about someone with an alias, but Tim still felt a momentary burst of panic at the realization that Megara had needed an alias. An alias like the Queen implied she possessed some kind of power - power that wasn't necessarily good.

But he pushed aside the fear to focus on the task at hand - and on the sound of the doorbell ringing.

"I'll be right back," he said. He got up and walked down the hallway that led to the front door. Two minutes later, he had returned with their hash browns and donuts.

Megara eyed the food carefully. Hash browns she recognized in passing. Some of the servants her father had hired in the manor back when she lived there had brought the recipe over from one of the northern regions. She'd never gotten to try it, but on the rare occasion when she'd had reason to go into the servant dining room, someone was usually eating it. The other thing she wasn't so sure about. It looked like a pastry.

She shook her head. Now would be an odd time to try poisoning them. Still, there was a hint of paranoia at the back of her mind.

She was immune to a few poisons. As many as it was safe to build an immunity to at once, which wasn't many, but she covered a few of the more popular options. Eddie, however, was not, and he wasn't going to be. Save the homebrew she coated her arrows with, she didn't want him building any immunities and risking his health in the process.

She bit the inside of her lip and let the pain focus her for a second. She wasn't about to get poisoned here. She was fine. They were something resembling safe.

When she looked back at their host, she tasted blood.

Eddie was bouncing excitedly a the sight of food and Megara was struggling to keep a grip on him, "What's that?" she asked, somewhat needlessly.