Chapter Text
The sound of someone falling to the ground was all the warning the superheroes had before the figure of a panting Flash appeared.
The Justice League was in guard instantly, weapons raised and fighting stands secured, after all, their Flash had been sitting with them in the meeting before the second Flash crashed it.
The silence felt heavy, only the breathless pants of the second Flash ringing in their ears. No one moved.
"Who are you and how did you get in here?" Batman demanded, as calm and compose as always, with batarang in hand.
Flash turned to him, a grimace and a expression of something more crossed his face. "Batman…" He breathed.
"Who are you and how did you get in here?" Batman repeated.
Flash gingerly got up from his knees, making everyone tense. He slowly lifted his hands in a calming positions and carefully took off his mask.
"I'm Barry." He said.
Someone took a sharp breath.
In front of them was their friend; but, wrong. The Flash upon them looked disheveled, and older. Tired to the bone.
"I come from an apocalyptic future and I'm here to help you prevent it. Code 6-8-1, 1-13, Alpha. First Epsilon." Flash delivered the message, his voice almost begging to be believed.
Nightwing looked at Bruce. "B, isn't that…?"
"Yes. Call everyone to the Watchtower. Immediate emergency meeting." Batman commanded.
The heroes started to move, organize chaos trying to contact their own teams as soon as possible.
Future Flash felt a bit of weight falling from his shoulders. First step completed: making them believe him. Thank God and the bats' paranoia to have a secret code for all kinds of situations.
"Separate Future and Present Flash, we don't know how they interacting together can affect the time stream."
Future Flash huffed. "I can't believe I missed that tone of voice. Don't worry, Big Bat, I have an amulet which prevents most time-related problems."
Batman just stared at Flash for a moment, almost calculating. "We will talk about it later. You will make a report at the end of the meeting too."
Flash sighed before handing a USB. "Yeah, yeah, copy that. There's also a presentation for the meeting in there."
Batman nodded.
Within minutes the Watchtower was flooded by superheroes, although, mostly only the main members of each team.
Everyone had a somber look in their faces, the frown only deepened when they notice the two Flashes.
Tim sighed. He didn't have enough caffeine in his system to deal with a time travel problem.
Batman stood in front of everyone.
"Forty minutes ago, our monthly meeting was interrupted by Flash, a version of him who comes from the future. Confirmed by the given Code 6-8-1, 1-13, Alpha. First Epsilon." He started.
Tim blinked. Oh shit. He thought.
Tim definitely didn't have enough caffeine in his system. He knew what that code meant and it wasn't good.
No, not good was an understatement. It was catastrophic. A world ending threat that if left alone can evolve to a Universe ending threat. Multiple worlds destroyed if not dealt with.
Of course, the rest of the JL couldn't grasp the severity of it with the code, but they absolutely knew the seriousness of it.
"Flash." Bruce let space for the hero to continue, a presentation lighting up the room.
"Great. Like Batsy said I'm Barry, from the future, where the whole world is in shambles." He took a pause. "We lost. Utterly and plainly lost." A hand shot up, pointing at the images behind him of pure destruction.
"It started in the U.S.A. but swiftly spreading to the rest of the world."
Next slide. A bright green figure floating in the sky. They had a gas mask covering their face and wore a tailored emerald suit with a veil over their head, barely letting see the white hair underneath.
"His name is Wraith, a global threat who declared war against the US government, but quickly snowballed to him leading systematic destruction all over the world with a legion of ectoplasmic beings."
Tim felt himself tense. He recognized that term, that type of glow.
Ghosts.
Fuck. Fuck him sideways. He wanted to sigh despite the bad feeling underneath his skin telling him something wasn't quite right with what Future Flash was saying.
Flash went on, talking about the destruction caused by these beings.
With each sentence the pit in Tim's stomach only deepened.
If all of that happened in the future.
Where was he and team Phantom?
Tim's hand twitched. He wanted to call Danny.
"We lasted as long as we did thanks to Pharaoh." A person with their back facing the camera showed up in the slide. Golden and black clashing in Pharaoh's jacket. "He appeared out of nowhere claiming we needed his help, which we did."
Flash huffed, something close to fondness crossing his eyes.
"Information about him is close to zero. Everything we know is because he told us about it. No civilian identity identified."
Next slide. A bust picture of Pharaoh with half of his face being covered by tech glasses, and scarce information of him.
"He is a hacker with deep knowledge about this beings. He gave us tech strong enough to restrain them and information about some of their plans. He worked most of the time as a guy in the chair for us heroes, his skills rivaling Oracle and even Cyborg. Believe of possessing technopathy higher than 70%"
Well, that answered where was one member of team Phantom. At least Tucker helped.
Tim still didn't like how nothing about Phantom was mentioned, or even about Tim himself.
Flash gave a few more details before stopping, seeming like he finished at least the most important parts to know, letting people ask for clarifications.
"Any more questions?" He asked after answering a few of them.
Tim raised his hand. Waiting for this moment. He needed to know.
"Who died?" He asked, a broad question. Necessary? Not much, still helpful to him.
Flash grimaced. "Of course nothing escapes your eyes, Red." He sighs. "It's actually correlated to the first thing we need to prevent: the fall of the bats." He said.
The room stared at him.
Tim blinked. Once. Twice.
Fuck.
They from the future were so cooked, weren't they?
Tim watched with fascination how Future Flash professionally ignored the turmoil he just cause, continuing.
"The bats where the first to went down, actually, even before Wraith appeared."
Wide eyes all over the place. Tim felt himself doing the same.
Well, they'd be dammed. Of course Wraith was smart enough to know that without the bats the possibility of winning skyrocketed.
Nevertheless, the pit in his stomach only become bigger. He felt the void trying to swallow him, something in the back of his mind screaming at him he was missing something.
Danny.
Yep. He still needed to know where Danny was in all this (and the rest of team Phantom for the matter).
"The bats? The bats? The ones who have contingency plan after contingency plan?" Green Lantern asked with great alarm.
Barry only stared at him before avoiding his eyes.
"Green Lantern." Batman grunted.
Future Flash pursed his lips. "It's okay. Yes, those bats, but beware, they weren't took down by the threat... They fell by their own hand."
Tim did a double take because.
What?
He isn't delusional enough to believe the bats are invincible. Hell, most of them have died at some point, however, they themselves being the cause of it…
"Listen, I don't have the exact information of what went down. The bats either went missing, didn't talk about it, cut contact or died, so bear with me."
Okay, yeah, Tim did not like the sound of any of that. What the fuck happened to them?
The meeting become heavy with silence, each detail made the future look grimier and grimier. And they weren't even talking about Wraith.
"Barry." Wonder Woman put a comforting hand in his shoulder. "Just tell us what you know from the beginning."
Taking a steady breathe, Future Flash nodded.
"What I know from the little pieces I heard and the information Pharaoh compiled; Batman found a maybe rouge in Gotham, a seventeen year old kid studying Astrophysics in Gotham U."
Red Robin frowned. No… it couldn't be.
"Batman and the rest of the bats except Red Robin, and Red Hood agreed on keeping an eye on him. The reason why the two of them where kept away are unknown to us."
Tim didn't like this. He absolutely didn't like where this was going.
"The bats found out the boy was a meta and decided to make a contingency plan."
Dread fill his veins.
"Not longer after, they put the plan into motion. The boy was going in a rampage in the nearby forest, destroying trees and everything he crossed."
No. Please. Do not let it be what I am thinking this is.
"Of course the bats where called, but— the plan they had? It had a fatal mistake."
No. No. Red Robin took a sharp breathe. He had had a nightmare similar before. He didn't want to think that in a future which no longer is could have happened.
"It wasn't bound to the no kill rule."
FUCK. He needed to call Danny yesterday. (Does Bruce know now? Has he already known about Danny and he never told him? Has the present reach at least some part of that future?)
Tim couldn't breathe. No, Red Robin needed to think. Flash didn't say it was Danny, it could be any other unfortunate meta who just happens to share interest with his boyfriend.
"The details of how the fight went down are loss to me, the only confirmed fact was... Batman poisoned the kid. The kid died seconds after."
Silence.
Oh.
Bruce felt his hand tremble.
"Only after his dead they found out the boy didn't went rouge, he was drugged with fear toxin. He went out of his way to the forest as fast as he could to not hurt anyone." Flash looked away.
"And he got killed for it."
Everyone in the room went silent, mourning a boy who died too soon.
"The realization of it devastated the bats. Bruce gave himself up to the League, claiming he was a murderer. The blood of a innocent kid in his hands was too much for him to handle; we had to put him on suicide watch just in case. He completely shut down after it."
Tim instinctively reached for Bruce.
"The next to go was Red Robin, suicide."
Bruce reached towards Tim back.
"Signal cut contact and went missing shortly after, Spoiler and Black Bat followed him. Red Hood cut contact with everyone except the Outlaws." Flash continued.
Nightwing grimaced. Hood huffed. They moved closer to their family.
"The only left holding Gotham together were Nightwing, Oracle, Robin and Bat Woman."
Batman glared. An uncomfortable silence fell upon them.
No one knew how to respond to that.
"Who was the boy?" Batman asked. Tim felt dread crawl under his ribs again. Bruce's hand in his shoulder didn't give him as much comfort as he wanted.
"Danny Fenton."
Tim wanted to throw up.