Young Writers Society

She chuckled, "It wasn't that hard to stay out of relationships I didn't want to be in. I've only ever had one girlfriend..." she trailed off. Shook her head. "It didn't end very well."

Eddie tugged on her arm, "Are you talking about Ro-Ro? Can I meet Ro-Ro?"

Megara shook her head, "No, Eddie, you can't."

He gave a small nod.

He wanted to talk about Lila, but it was no longer his place to. He could never be with her again. Thinking about the time they had spent together - the time he hadn't been Tim - only made this life hurt more.

They reached the doorstep.

He rung the bell, but no one came to the door.

"...Alfred must be out right now," he murmured, digging in his pocket for the spare key. Alfred rarely was out, but he had mentioned a few days ago that he was planning on shopping for groceries soon - maybe this was that trip.

Unlocking the door, he stepped inside the manor.

Wayne Manor put his own house to shame. It was far larger, far more grand and far more...empty. It had more frequent occupants. Alfred lived there. Bruce did, too. And James and him both occasionally slept over. But it still felt like it could be filled with something more, and he wished he knew how to fill that void.

He started to lead them into the main greeting room, but paused when he saw someone sprawled across the couch.

A sinking feeling appeared in his gut.

The manor, apparently, wasn't really empty.

Said someone raised his head, a groggy expression flickering across his face as he looked over from Tim to the two behind him. Tim shifted uncomfortably, turning an unusual shade of pale - this was exactly who he had been hoping to avoid.

"Morning, Dick," he said, a slightly strained tone to his voice.

"Hi, Tim," the former Robin said - the look on his face casual, but clearly expressing to Tim that they were going to have a talk about Megara and Eddie now.

Eddie clung to Megara's leg. He didn't like this new person. Megara agreed with that sentiment. Her grip tightened on her cane. She was fully prepared to signal Eddie to step back at any moment.

These two knew each other, clearly, but his reaction to Megara worried her. Or, more specifically, his lack of reaction. Anyone would wonder who they were. Anyone would ask for their names, their purpose for being there. This guy, Dick, was not anyone. That was something she'd been very carefully trained not to trust.

Tim watched him get to his feet and watched him walk over, silently cursing their difference in height. It wasn't fair. He was technically the older one - why did he have to be stuck playing the role of the younger one out of the two of them? Still, Tim gave him a smile as color returned to his skin. He could sense Megara and Eddie tensing up behind him. They probably thought he was some kind of threat.

The thought made him want to laugh.

They would be fine. It was Tim who would be in trouble, and he hated getting scolded by the man currently towering over him.

"Hi there," the seemingly oldest of the Wayne kids said, an expression on his face that hid what he was really thinking. If Tim stared long and hard enough, he could make out the truth in his eyes, but Tim wasn't trying to find that today. "It's good to see that Tim's made some friends. I just need to borrow him for one quick minute, so feel free to sit down on one of the sofas."

"I'll be right back," Tim said, giving them a smile he didn't really feel as he left the room.

The door was softly shut behind them.

And that was when the facade that was Dick Grayson was immediately dropped.

"Who are those people?" he asked.

"Their names are Megara and Eddie," Tim replied, keeping his voice just as low. "They came from another world. I was going to get them back there as-"

"Jack," he interrupted. "Who are they?"

He faltered - both from the question, and from the name he really didn't use these days. "They're not a part of our stories," he admitted. "I found them when I was walking through Gotham last night - not on patrol, but as me. James, look, I-"

"What were you doing?"

Tim folded his arms and looked up at him. "Does it matter?"

"Yes," James replied. "Because I know that this wasn't the first time you did whatever you did - you're getting defensive. We promised that we'd uphold it, especially now that Red Hood's arrived earlier than he was supposed to."

"It wasn't anything major," he argued. "Just a little stroll through the streets. I know it was stupid, but I couldn't just leave them. You would have done the same thing."

James folded his arms. "I wouldn't have gone against what we're supposed to do in the first place."

"I get it," Tim said. "I messed things up. But if we want to take one problem off of our hands, we're going to have to get these two back home. And if Bruce isn't here by the time I make a very quick costume change, I'm going to need Nightwing to hook me up with some of Batman's tech or the Justice League."

James gave him a long, hard look before groaning.

"Fine," he said. "I'll help."

"Good," Tim replied.

He opened the door and slipped back inside, James once again adopting the persona of Dick Grayson as he followed him in.

Megara sat down on the floor with Eddie when the pair left, then hurried over to the door to listen as soon as it was closed. As the telltale signs of the conversation ending began, she went back to Eddie where he was messing around with her cane.

It wasn't hard to infer that the taller one, Dick, James, whatever his name was, was this Nightwing person. Nightwing was clearly an alias. She guessed she'd know more once they returned in 'costume', as Tim put it.

She tried to get the cane away from Eddie as he began to unscrew the top. "Meggie!" he complained.

"That's not a toy, Eddie," she responded patiently, pulling it away and resecuring the top.

So Megara had something hidden in her cane.

Statistically, it was probably a sword. Most people seemed to put swords in their canes around Gotham - not enough to make it a popular trend among the public, but enough to make it a popular trend among higher class criminals. If Tim was one of them, he might have taken part in it as well.

But he wasn't.

"Sorry about that," James apologized, rubbing the back of his neck. "Tim's like a little brother to me at this point, and I just needed to talk to him about school stuff."

Tim checked the time on his phone. "Which I really should be going to right now," he said. He looked back up at Megara and Eddie. "If I don't see you before you go back to your world, it was nice meeting you."

He fully intended to be seeing them before they left. Still, Megara put on a goodbye smile and nodded, her hands still busy keeping her cane from Eddie, "It was nice meeting you as well."

"Bye!" Eddie chirped and made another grab for the cane. She held it out of his reach, then used it to get up.

She turned to James, "I don't believe we've been properly introduced, I'm Megara," she said, holding out her free hand as she leaned heavily on her cane. Not that she had to, but she figured leaning slightly into the sympathetic angle for now.

"Bye," Tim said with a wave.

He slipped out of the room, headed for the front door as the door to the room shut behind him, and then promptly turned around and made a beeline for the Batcave. He wondered how long it would take for him to get his suit on; hopefully, he wouldn't be leaving James in there for too long. He wasn't sure he trusted him not to make things worse.


He grabbed onto her hand and gave her a warm grin.

"I don't think we have, either," he said, a friendly tone to his voice that he didn't really feel. It wasn't that he was angry at Tim - well, he was, to some extent, but it wasn't the reason for his internal attitude right now. He just wasn't nearly half of the extrovert that he was supposed to be, and the introvert in him desperately wanted to hide away in one of the manor's many rooms.

"I'm Dick," he said, still smiling and friendly. "Dick Grayson."

She wondered how long it would take for Tim to get back in whatever disguise he was slipping into at the moment.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. This is Eddie," she released his hand and gestured to the boy in question, who was entertaining himself counting something on the floor, imperfections, probably. Eddie looked up when he heard his name and waved, then went back to his counting.

"I apologize for showing up like this. The situation is...complicated."

"It's alright," he said, giving her an empty yet seemingly comforting smile. It wasn't alright in the slightest, but he could easily conceal that. "Strange things are always happening in Gotham."

'Strange things' was not a comforting phrase. Not in the slightest.

Still, she kept up her act flawlessly. This was a specialty, after all, acting. The whole reason she was still alive. The one thing she could do that Briar couldn't.

Eddie trotted up behind her and looked up at the man. "He's very tall," he said to Megara.

She didn't bother addressing the impoliteness of talking about someone right in front of them in that manner. Instead, she just chuckled and bent down to lift him up so he and James could be closer to eye level. Unfortunately, she couldn't get Eddie up any higher than she was without hurting herself, and James was a deal taller than her.

"Yes, he is," she agreed, ignoring the lingering bit of frustration with that fact being brought to light.

He gave an amused smile at the comment - though, like with everything else he had done towards the two, it was a smile he barely felt.

"I need to be tall," he joked. "Otherwise, I can't tease a certain black-haired boy who brought you two here."

He resisted the urge to glance in the direction of the door. It would achieve nothing other than suspicion. He just had to wait for Tim to return as Robin.

"Teasing isn't nice!" Eddie insisted.

Megara rolled her eyes and shifted his weight, leaning a little more heavily on her cane. He was going through a growth spurt as of late and soon enough he'd be too heavy for her to carry like this at all. Not that that would ever stop him from requesting she do exactly that.

She looked over their new host. He was tall, as Eddie so gracelessly pointed out, and in very good shape. He wasn't someone she wanted to get into a fight with, not with Eddie here, anyway. The way that he spoke though, how his smile didn't quite reach his eyes, and how there was just a bit of tension in his shoulders and his stance, suggested he was hiding something. He was rather good at hiding those things, though, so there should have been doubt in Megara's mind. She couldn't be bothered with doubt, though. Doubt got you killed. She'd seen it countless times.

After a pause, she lowered Eddie to the ground. He really was too heavy.

He protested, loudly whining something that only might have been English, and she hushed him with a look. "You're too big for me to be carrying all the time, Eddie," she chastized tiresomely, then returned her attention to James, "I'm sorry about him. He's gotten a deal bigger in the last couple of months and he still seems to think I can carry him around in my...state." Her eyes flicked briefly to her cane, then back to him.

"It's alright," he reassured her - that, at least, he meant. He looked down at Eddie. He only knew of a few times where Dick interacted with small children outside of Batman's inner circle. It wasn't nearly enough to come up with a response for this situation.

But he could think of someone else. Someone who wasn't exactly Dick, but who, if one wasn't familiar with the characters, could easily pass as him if he tried hard enough.

"If you want," he said, crouching down on the ground in front of Eddie with a twinkle in his eyes (a twinkle just like Charlie's, because Charlie was physically incapable of not lighting up like that whenever he interacted with other people), "I could pick you up. Then you can see what it's like being up there instead of down here."

He looked around, like he had some kind of secret, and then whispered very loudly and dramatically, "Don't let Megara know I'm telling you this, but it's a lot nicer being taller than Tim."

Megara dutifully pretended not to hear while Eddie's eyes went wide. He gave a big nod and, without waiting to be picked up, leaped to throw his arms around James's neck.

Megara chuckled a bit at that. She knew better than anyone that Eddie's weight thrown at you full force like that could knock down even the most prepared assassin. Then again, she only had herself to reference.