"So, yeah, turns out poking too many holes into the fabric of spacetime can unzip a whole universe." Finished Jazz, having spent the last twenty minutes explaining how she and her family got there.
Batman simply stared stoically, taking a moment to process.
"I appreciate you taking the time to explain this. I know it can't have been easy."
"It's... well, it's not fine," she admitted, "but it will be... eventually."
"It doesn't have to be right now," he, rather hypocritically, insisted, "we do have a therapist in the Watch-."
If Batman was anywhere near as surprised as Jazz was at the outburst, he certainly didn't show it. Instead, the two stared at each other for a solid minute, before Jazz looked away.
"I wear a mask every day. It has a name, a personality, expectations, and a number of people it answers to... it's name is not Batman."
"You don't want to spend too much time wearing a mask."
Elsewhere, Sam was chatting with Wonder Woman.
"I swear, my parents annoyed the hell out of me," she groaned, "they didn't agree with anything I did, had an opinion about everything I liked, and made sure I knew how little they cared about the things I cared about."
"...Yeah," she admitted, "why? I mean, I didn't hate my parents, even when I told them I did, but I never thought I'd miss them this much."
Wonder Woman smiled wistfully.
"When I was young, I was the baby of the island. The youngest of them all, so I basically had a mother in every woman of Themyscera."
"That's the badass Amazon warrior island, right?"
"A lot of people are surprised when I tell them this, but not everyone was a warrior. I mean, we were all trained in the ways of war, but not all of us considered that path a lifestyle.
"Some were weavers, cooks, farmers, ranchers, shepherds, singers, dancers, poets, builders, architects, and so on. It takes more than soldiers to run a nation, even a small one like Themyscera."
"And you learned from all of them." Sam guessed.
"Hmm, not always. I was a tad... rambunctious as a child. I didn't always have the patience to learns the fine details of planning a building, weaving, sewing, or knitting... Looking back on it, I regret some of it, now that I cannot see them. They were all trying to teach me what they thought would be valuable to learn for the future, yet I only ever cared about swords, hammers, and shields. I do wish I'd let them teach me to weave sometimes."
Wonder Woman shook her head, "By leaving Themyscera, I became an exile. I wander the world of Man now, and can only return under very specific circumstances."
She gave Sam a moment to gather her thoughts.
"How do you deal with it?"
"I grieved the loss of my mothers long ago," she took a tissue and dried tears that Sam hadn't noticed on her own face, "but grieving takes time... time that you are not giving yourself."
Sam, for the first time since they arrived, finally gave in and cried like the child she was.
Tucker, for his part, was (trying) to have the time of his life. Cyborg was, in his geeky opinion, the absolute coolest superhero he'd ever met.
"Man, that is still, so epic," he swooned as Cyborg connected a wire to his head during a system test, "did it hurt?"
"Oh, a lot," admitted Cyborg with a chuckle, "technically it still does, but the system takes care of that. There's a bridge in my brain that keeps me from feeling it."
"It's cool, you get used to the oil changes."
They had a chuckle at that.
"So... Batman said you needed something?"
"Yeah, Jazz said you're good with coding. Mind helping me with some troubleshooting?"
Tucker practically flew at the terminal and started looking the code over. It was odd, but some terms in C were different in their universe and Python was called Boa. It was one of those things that were just slightly to the left between their universes.
"I wonder if I could add some of your stuff to me," mused Tucker, "not all of it, I like my hands, but just some stuff to make things easier."
"Eh, I wouldn't recommend it. This looks cool on the outside, but on the inside it's a mash of tech from three different alien cultures, time-travel bullshit, and really itchy nanobots."
"Still better than being helpless."
Cyborg raised an eyebrow at that, "You wanna elaborate on that?"
Tucker closed the terminal and went to the next one across the hall, "Not really."
They worked silently for several minutes, closing and opening terminals when needed. Cyborg worked faster, his wetware/hardware patching meant he could code at the speed of thought, but Tucker's coding was creative in a way that his wasn't. A wetware patch would make him a digital monster.
"How did you...? Nevermind."
"Had an accident," Cyborg replied to the unfinished question without looking up from his work, "bad one. Most of my limbs and internal organs were pulped. The doctors weren't sure how I made it to the hospital. They called it a miracle. I called it hell."
Tucker looked up from his work.
"This isn't a weapon, it's a prosthetic," he reminded him, "it's primary function is to keep me alive. Everything else is... a bonus."
"Don't be. I'm not. Just being alive is a good place to start."
At the same time, Val was pounding away at a sandbag in the gym. Her father, her city, her friends (?), and every hope she had for the future had vanished in mere seconds, leaving her to pick up the pieces.
She punched the sandbag over and over, forcing herself to stay angry. Anger had fueled her so far, so why-?
Her armor was on in a heartbeat, but the targeting systems wouldn't lock onto non-ectoplasmic threats.
"Eh, you'd have missed," dismissed the Flash, "fastest man alive."
Val felt there was an obvious joke there, but she was better than that.
God help him if he met Danny though.
"You didn't answer the question though. You good?"
Val scoffed and went back to the sandbag.
"Well, considering almost everyone I know is dead, I'm stranded on a new dimension with no papers, I'm going from graduating with honors to struggling through a GED, and my super-powered suit barely works on anything here, I'd say I'm dandy!"
She stopped, panting from the strain, "I'm pissed, ok? I'm just- I'm just mad right now."
"Umm, you don't really look mad," Flash admitted, "you don't even look-."
"Are you saying I can't be mad?"
"Oh, you have every right to be angry," he rescinded, "I know I was, but I'm not sure that you are."
Val wasn't sure where to start, so she did what she did best.
"What do you mean that you were?"
"Oh, long story," Flash dismissed, "but to keep it short, I once traveled back in time to save my mom."
"Yeah, she was killed when I was a kid. My dad went to jail for it, though he didn't do it."
"...Oh. I'm sorry... but she's fine now, right?"
"...Not really," he sighed as he sat down on a pile of gym mats, "turns out tinkering with time is a very bad idea. The League didn't exist and most of its members were either at war or dead."
"I had to undo it," he affirmed, "worst day of my life."
"...My mom died when I was seven."
Flash looked up at her. She'd gone back to the sandbag.
"We saw it coming, cancer's a bitch."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Thing is, I thought that'd be the worst feeling of my life," she half-heartedly punched the sandbag a few times, but stopped and let her arms hang limply by her sides, "but I was a kid, so it eventually... dulled. Then Danny and I had a...misunderstanding and I mostly felt angry. I thought he was out to get me, so I went out to get him."
She gestured at her armor, finally retracting it back to wherever it went when she wasn't using it.
"It wasn't fair to you either, was it?"
Flash thought very carefully before his next question.
"Is that why you were mad?"
She looked sharply back at him, wanting to tell him off for something, but couldn't quite grasp what for.
"I- why can't anything be fair? Why did I have to lose my mom? Why did that stupid dog have to destroy my stuff? Why did Vlad have to notice me? Why did I have to lose everything and everyone else!?"
She wasn't even punching the bag anymore.
"Worst part is, I'm not even the only one," she sighed, "Sam, Tucker, Jazz, and the Dannys. They lost everything too, so I can't-."
"Yes you can," Flash interrupted, locking eyes with her intently, "you always can. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise."
"... but I don't want to. I'm tired."
She dropped on her knees, looking up helplessly at the sandbag.
"I'm so tired of feeling angry and sad and everything else. I just want to stop for a bit. Is that too much to ask?"
Flash sighed and moved to sit next to her.
"I don't know if it's good to stop feeling," he admitted, "but for now, you can at least rest. Take all the time you need."
Val sniffled, allowing herself to lean on Flash's shoulder.
In the daycare, three apparent toddlers had a brief moment of clarity.
The oldest thought, "I can't lose again."
The youngest thought, "I can't run again."
The middle thought, "I can't fail again."
