AN: I own nothing.

Characters such as Kid Flash, Aqualad, Miss Martian, or any other known sidekick, will make an appearance later. Enjoy!

xXx

Nightwing loved to show off.

Growing up in a circus was the main reason for that. Being raised to perform in front of a crowd made a serious impact on the way he fought. He couldn't help but do a flip in the air to dodge an attack, or do a series of hand springs to put some space between him and the bad guys. It was just what his brain was programmed to do. Actually, it was what his brain wanted to do. Showing off while he was in some sort of ridiculous costume was like a respectful nod towards his parents and his upbringing. He was a Flying Grayson, after all.

As he leapt through the air, there was a certain amount of grace in his movements that might have received some applause, or a look of awe, if he wasn't fighting a group of armed men.

"Enough with the theatrics, Nightwing." Robin was suddenly at his side, ramming a bostaff into a man's temple to knock him out. "I have a test to study for. You promised me that if I received perfect scores, we would attempt the quadruple flip again." He looked down at the fallen men with a sneer. "You taking your time here is an act of betrayal. If I don't learn the quadruple, I will take your head as compensation."

Nightwing chuckled and flipped over the form of an attacking man. Once on the ground, he turned around and sent a perfect kick at his attacker's head. "Lighten up, little wing. I'm sure that you'll ace the test without even trying. What's your sudden interest with the flip anyways? You've been bugging me about it for weeks!"

Robin collapsed his staff and stored it in his belt. "I have seen you use acrobatics to your advantage in battle. I only wish to learn it to better my own set of skills."

"I thought acrobatics were below you." The young man teased as he dragged the men together.

"I only said that relying only on acrobatics itself is a poor choice of a fighting style. I believe that adding your tricks to my own skill set will make me a better fighter." The boy tossed the man some rope, who used it to tie the group of criminals together.

"Is that so? I think that you only want to learn the quadruple because I always take you out for ice cream after each try." Without waiting for a response, Nightwing ran to the edge of the rooftop and threw himself off. Deep laughter pierced the air as he shot his grappling hook at a distant building. Wind ruffled his hair as he was pulled to his destination. He smiled cheerfully as he pressed a finger on the comm in his ear. "Hey, B. We handled the thugs and now we're on our way to your location."

'Understood. Maintain radio silence from this point on. The Joker's hideout is in sight.'

"Understood. Nightwing out." At that moment, Robin landed next to him. "Took you long enough, kid. Bats says to keep radio silence, by the way. I guess he's close to the Joker now."

"I do not understand why that would be a surprise. The Joker is a simple buffoon and is easy to track." He folded his arms over his chest, actually showing the childish instincts he had. "And for your information, I do not wish to accomplish the quadruple flip just for a trip to the ice cream shop. Don't be ridiculous."

Nightwing simply smiled knowingly and ignored the glare that it brought him. While this kid's glare definitively was intense, it was nothing compared to the famous bat-glare. "The Joker is anything but simple, little bro. If he wasn't such a crazy maniac, boss would've let us go after him ourselves."

"-tt-"

The two of them simultaneously took out their grappling hooks again and swung down onto a lower building. Nightwing ran across the roof and ducked just beyond the edge, squinting as he watched the environment below. "This is where Batman's signal is."

Robin knelt down next to him, producing a pair of binoculars. "The perimeter is secure. If we move in now, we can assist Batman with the Joker." He moved to get up, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. "Unhand me at once."

Nightwing shook his head, but removed his hand anyways. "Don't you think it's suspicious that there aren't any guards out?"

"Father must have taken them down already. We are wasting time with your worrying nonsense."

"Still, this is the Joker that we're talking about. I think we would've heard some noise by now."

"-tt-" The man could almost hear the child's eye roll. Gosh, kids these days. "Perhaps Batman already brought the Joker down. The more time we waste, the angrier he will be. Come on, he won't want to be kept waiting."

"But-" Robin ignored his protests as swung down to the ground in front of the building, slipping inside immediately. "I don't get paid enough for this." He grumbled to himself as he quickly followed, sprinting in order to catch up. Once inside, Nightwing used his grappling hook to silently bring himself up to the rafters. Even if the Joker was already down, it wouldn't hurt to be careful. Robin must have thought the same, since the boy was up there as well. "You know, I never had to deal with this from Red Robin. From Red Hood, yes, but I doubt you want to be compared to him," he said in a harsh whisper.

"-tt-" Robin glared at him. "Be silent, Nightwing. If there is a criminal in here, we must have stealth on our side."

"What happened to 'Batman already took care of it,' huh?"

Another glare answered his question. Maybe the brat finally realized that he wasn't thinking about this the right way.

'Batman to Nightwing.'

The man brought a hand up to his ear. "Nightwing here. What's up, B?"

Nightwing could picture the glare that was being directed at him for his unprofessional way of addressing him. 'The lead was a false one.' He paused. 'Care to tell me why yours and Robin's signals are on the other side of Gotham?'

"Um, what? Batman, we're in the same building as you."

'...Where are you?"

Sharing a look with Robin, Nightwing answered, "The abandoned candle factory on Whipple Street."

'I'm not there.'

If Nightwing wasn't uneasy before, he definitely was now. "What? But-" He lowered his voice. "Someone must have messed with my ability to track your signal. There's foul play." He said this more for Robin's sake, who was starting to get confused by the one sided conversation he heard.

'Agreed. I'm tracking your signal as of now. Leave the premises of the building, but stay nearby. Once I am there, we will investigate the cause."

"Understood. Nightwing out." He turned to look at the kid. "Well little wing, let's go." He jumped down from the rafters silently, the boy falling next to him.

The lights suddenly turned on. "Leaving so soon?" Someone asked teasingly. Wow. That was cliche.

In a flash, Nightwing had his escrima sticks drawn, and Robin had his staff ready. A pale man with dark green hair, wearing a purple suit, stood in front of the two, twirling a crowbar. On the left of the man stood a brown haired woman who wore a black and red dress with matching tights, which had a diamond pattern printed on them. Surrounding the couple were a few men with bulging muscles, who were obviously hired for their brawn, and not their brains. "Oh, what awful guests." The woman said with a pout. "Surely you aren't leavin' already?"

Nightwing smiled and twirled his weapons with ease. "Sorry, but Robin and I have other things to do. Maybe next time?"

The Joker grinned. "Ah, the original Boy Blunder."

"In the flesh." Nightwing said with a mock bow.

"Won't you stay a little while? For old times sake?" The clown waved a dagger in front of his face. "Gotham just isn't the same without you, birdy! It makes your dear uncle Joker sad."

Robin glanced at Nightwing, clenching his fists. 'I want to attack.' Was the silent message.

Nightwing gave him a tiny shake of the head, unseen by the others. 'Not a good idea.'

A scowl. 'What do you know? You're not my boss.'

Shoulders rose slightly in a shrug. 'Closest thing you have right now.'

A twitch in response. 'Where's Batman anyways?'

Nightwing's smile fell. 'No idea.'

'-tt-'

"Aww. The two are doing the silent bat-talk. Man, this brings me back to the old days." The Joker wiped away an invisible tear. "Now, to business." He shoved a gloved hand into his pocket and retrieved a gun from its depths. Nightwing narrowed his eyes, not recognizing what it was. This looked like some sort of laser gun that you saw in really bad sci-fi movies. "I've been needing someone to test this baby out on for ages!"

Robin snorted. "Good luck with that." He spat before rushing towards him. One of the muscle men got in the way of the attack, but was soon knocked unconscious by the scowling child.

Nightwing sighed. "I don't think I ever disobeyed my elders this much when I was a kid." He muttered to himself as he joined the battle, twisting away from one of the brutes and kicking his back to force him onto the ground.

"Kids these days, huh?" Nightwing barely avoided the swing of Harley's mallet, which would have broken some ribs if it had hit. "I remember when you was jus' a little one. You were always lettin' us finish speakin' before ya attacked us."

Soon, Nightwing was dodging attacks from both Harley and the Joker, who joined in on their conversation as well. "Right you are, Harls! These new kids that Batty's getting aren't nearly as fun as you used to be."

"I'm touched." Nightwing said dryly as he blocked a blow with an escrima stick. While he was distracted with that, the Joker managed to land a hit on his collar bone. Pain blossomed in the area and Nightwing was forced to simply exhale and ignore it. Even if his bone was broken, he wasn't going to let Robin fight these guys by himself.

"Aw, does little Nightwing have an ouchie?" Harley smirked. "I'll kiss it and make it all better, hon."

Nightwing fell to the ground purposely and swept her feet out from under her. As he stood, he gave her a charming smile. "Don't let the Joker hear you say that. I can't imagine how mad he'll be once he learns that you're trying to kiss me."

The woman scowled, but the vigilante was already moving away from her.

'Nightwing, I'm preoccupied.' Batman's voice suddenly said over the comm. 'You and Robin are to go back to the Bat Cave.'

Nightwing ducked to avoid one of the beefy guys' punches. As he jumped to avoid yet another fist, he quickly rose a hand to his communicator. "Sorry B, but we're preoccupied too."

The sound of gunshots was heard over the link. 'Preoccupied with what?'

One of the men managed to swipe at his arm with a dagger. Nightwing grabbed the man's hand, twisted it with enough force to break it, and then headbutted him to knock him out. "Ah, you know, the usual. The Joker threw me a welcome back party. I thought it would be kinda rude to decline his gracious invitation."

An unamused growl rumbled in his ear. 'Decline it anyways.' He snapped. 'The Joker isn't someone to take on by yourself. Grab Robin and retreat immediately.'

Nightwing was going to reply when a glimpse of yellow caught his eye. He focused on that, watching as Robin took down yet another man. His feet were moving by themselves just as he caught sight of the Joker pointing the gun at the kid. 'Shit. Crap. Damn it.' Nightwing thought as he ran towards the kid. 'Bruce'll kill me if I lose his son!'

Robin punched a man in the face and slowly turned around. However, he was not fast enough to get out of the way as the Joker pulled the trigger. A bright light streaked across the room and would have hit Robin if it weren't for the man who rammed in to him. Nightwing's fingers curled around Robin's arms as the light hit his shoulder.

Everything went black.

xXx

"Nightwing? Nightwing!"

The man groaned softly as the small form of a child came into focus. "What's up, little Wing?" He asked with a weak smile.

"You idiot! What were you thinking?!" Robin glared at him fiercely. "We had no idea what that gun was capable of! You could have been killed!"

"Didn't know that you cared so much. I'm touched."

"-tt-" Robin turned away. "I was simply concerned that father would be angry at me for allowing you to die."

Nightwing chuckled at that. "Whatever you say little bro." He sat up, ignoring the waves of dizziness that it brought him. He finally realized that they were no longer surrounded by villains, and the factory seemed to be even dirtier than he remembered. "Um. Where did they go? How long was I out?"

"You were unconscious for approximately five minutes. As for where the villains went, I am unsure. After you pushed me out of the direct line of fire, there was a sudden bright light. When I could see again, the Joker and his associates were gone."

"That's...odd." Nightwing shook his head. "We'll figure that out later. Have you called Bats yet?"

"One of the thugs damaged my ear piece."

"I'll do it, then." He brought his hand up to his comm. "Nightwing to Batman."

Silence.

"Listen B, the Joker has escaped with a new weapon. I'm not sure what it does, but he managed to shoot me with it. I am willing to go back to the Cave for a checkup, but the Joker is still at large."

Silence.

"Bats?" After another period of silence, Nightwing looked at Robin. "He's not answering."

Robin looked thoughtful. "Perhaps the gun is the reason why we can't contact him. It could be blocking radio signals."

Nightwing nodded slowly. "There is the possibility..." He then activated his holographic computer, hoping to find Batman's coordinates. However, all his screen came up with was static. "It must be messing with my computer as well. Let's head back to the Bat Cave and contact him from there."

Robin nodded in consent. "That seems to be the best course of action."

Nightwing stood and shook the layer of dirt off of his uniform and then joined Robin in the short journey to the exit. Once outside, they saw that the buildings were now covered in a thick layer of snow. "That's not right." Nightwing muttered. "It doesn't snow in August. Batman must have been occupied by an ice villain when I last spoke to him."

"Then he will need us to assist him." Robin said shortly. "We still need to go to the Bat Cave."

"Yeah..." The two used their grappling hooks to pull themselves up to a higher rooftop to get a better view of their surroundings. Nightwing felt his heart hammer loudly in his chest at the sight of this city. For some reason, Gotham looked...off. It was like the atmosphere was a lot darker than usual, for some reason.

Robin stiffened next to him, obviously sensing the same thing. "My 'hero senses,' as you would call them, are detecting something. I don't like it."

"I feel it too." Nightwing depressed a shudder. "Let's take the zeta tubes. We'll get there a lot faster if we go up to the Watch Tower and take another tube down to the Cave."

"If you insist." Robin muttered and followed the older man. The two of them safely lowered themselves onto the ground and quickly made their way to an abandoned police box. Nightwing threw the door open and gestured for Robin to go in first. The boy scowled but complied, waiting to be let in...

"Not recognized." The machine declared, returning to silence.

"Did Bats not register you yet?" Nightwing frowned.

"I went up to the Watch Tower several times, Nightwing. Father registered me a long time ago." Robin scowled as if Nightwing just said the most offensive word in his vocabulary.

"It's probably just a glitch." He cleared his throat and spoke to the machine, "Override: Nightwing B01."

The machine stayed silent before replying with, "Not recognized."

Nightwing's stomach filled with dread. There was something wrong here, he knew. "We don't have time for this. I'm going to hack it."

Before Robin could protest, Nightwing activated his holo computer and used it to get into the zeta network. It was a good thing that the only thing that was damaged on his computer was his communicating devices, or this would be a bigger pain than it already was. After a few seconds, the zeta tube hummed in acceptance.

"Children first." Nightwing said with a cheerful smile.

"The expression is ladies first, idiot." Robin walked back into the tube. "And if that's the case, you should have gone first." With a flash of light, the kid disappeared.

"Didn't stop you from going first." Nightwing said under his breath as he stepped inside the tube. There was a moment of weightlessness before the bright light dimmed down. Used to this by now, Nightwing simply ignored the dizziness that it always brought him and walked over to Robin. "Okay, we finally did something right."

"-tt- Speak for yourself, Grayson. My techniques were perfect."

"No civilian names." Nightwing scolded. "And who was the one who wasn't paying attention and almost got shot?" Silence. "Yeah, I thought so. Now, let's head over to the Cave, and-"

"Stop right there!" The two of them were pulled out of their conversation as a group of Leaguers sprinted into the room. Wonder Woman, Superman, Black Canary, and Martian Manhunter glared at them from the other side of the room. "What business do you have here?" It was Wonder Woman who spoke.

"Wow, guys. No need to be so hostile." Nightwing was immediately reminded of the multiple times that the League was under some form of mind control. Those were the only times that these people have ever looked at him with such dislike. "We were just going to the Bat Cave."

"Like hell you are." Batman walked into the room from the other entrance, Green Arrow and the Flash at his sides. Nightwing realized with a jolt that the Flash was the original Flash, and not Wally West. He survived?!

"Oh, there you are, B. We were trying to contact you but-"

An arrow was being pointed at him, and a lasso was pulled out. Nightwing nervously inched his way in front of Robin as the other members of the League shifted into fighting stances, instinctively wanting to protect the younger hero in case there was any violence. His mind raced as he tried to figure out what villain could be behind this. All possible candidates were known to be in prison. This could probably be something new.

Robin seemed to notice what Nightwing was doing, if his glare was anything to go by. Black Canary seemed to notice as well, because her expression softened just a tiny bit. "One of them is a child. Maybe this is just a misunderstanding."

Batman grunted. "It wouldn't be the first time a child has been swayed to the other side."

Nightwing brought his hands up in the universal sign of surrender, trying to calm everyone down. "Look Bruce, I don't know what's going on, but-"

Suddenly, there was a fist in his face. Nightwing stumbled back in shock and was unprepared for kick that the dark knight used to knock his feet out from under him. As soon as Nightwing's back hit the ground, a crushing foot was forced onto his chest to keep him in place. When the black spots disappeared from his vision, Nightwing saw the enraged expression that the older man wore. Never has that look ever been directed at him, and he had to admit that it was terrifying. "You know my identity?!" Batman growled.

"Get away from him!" Batman was pushed away by a blur of red, black, and yellow. Using his new surge of adrenaline, Nightwing immediately rolled over and jumped back up to his feet. When he saw Robin, he was taken aback. Never before has he ever seen that kid so angry on his behalf, or so...scared.

"Robin, stop." Nightwing ordered right as the kid was about to lunge at Batman.

Robin grit his teeth. "But he hurt you. Father would never do that!"

"Come here. We're dangerously outnumbered, and I'm too injured to be much use."

'We'll wait until the perfect time to make our escape' was what he was actually saying.

Robin scowled, yet complied. The boy took a few steps backwards until he was directly in front of Nightwing. The man could barely hold back a smile. No matter how much he denied it, Robin obviously cared for the older hero. The fact that he was trying to protect him was just too cute.

"Father?" The Flash was suddenly at the dark knight's side. "You two must be crazy. Batman here isn't exactly fatherly material."

Nightwing snorted. "You can say that again. He is Robin's father, though. You can do a DNA test if you don't believe me."

"We'll be taking DNA from both of you. Though it's unlikely that your names will show up in any records, we will take the chance." Superman glared at the two.

Nightwing furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Did mind control also include memory loss? Man, this was just too weird. First, the warehouse looked different, then their technology wasn't working, after that it started snowing for no apparent reason, and now they were stuck with brainwashed League members.

Hold on a second...The League members themselves looked different! He couldn't put his finger on it, but there were subtle differences in the people in front of him compared to the ones he saw just a few hours ago. This was a crazy idea, but it certainly made sense. "Hey, um, can I ask what the date is before you start ripping hair out or taking blood samples?" Robin stiffened next to him, obviously sensing where he was going with this.

Batman narrowed his eyes, obviously thinking that he was going to pull some sort of trick on him. After a few seconds, he finally activated his holo computer and showed them the date on the screen, "January 13th, 2017."

Robin's eyes widened. "Nightwing..."

Nightwing chuckled weakly. "Okay, so it's definitely not August. That explains the snow...But our world was only two years behind. Time travel is ruled out. They would still recognize us..." The League members shared an unidentified look between themselves.

"You two really are crazy."

"If you are ever faced with the scenario of traveling to another universe..." Nightwing recited under his breath before he looked at Batman, meeting his gaze head on. "Scenario 16B."

Batman stared at him for a moment, and Nightwing briefly feared that the scenarios didn't exist in this universe. However, Batman finally turned to look at Wonder Woman. "Cuff them."

xXx

AN: Wow. I have no idea where this idea came from. I'm not even sure which fandom this would fall under. I feel like I took three different universes and mushed them together to create...an alternate universe fic. Um.

We'll say that this is from Young Justice. 'Kay?

Alright, my dear readers, you know the drill. Leave a comment, and tell me how I did. I would appreciate anything you have to say, even if it's harsh criticism. I love hearing what you all have to say. :)