Dick knows that he lives in a very peculiar world.
On Mondays, he tends to avoid alien attacks on the way to school. Tuesdays are usually for eco-terrorists, while Wednesdays are split between boring things like hostage situations, train robberies, and bomb threats. Each Thursday, Dick usually finds himself dodging de-aging rays and then, by Friday, the rays become multiverse travel beams.
The weekends are chock full of zombie plagues, big headed esper-mutants, megalomaniac supervillians, and prison breakouts.
Dick knows that this amazingly jumbled world never seemed real before the age of heroes. Still, it's hard for him to remember that the world is pretty weird without stopping to think about it. Dick can't help this flaw; he's lived the life of a superhero for far too long.
He doesn't really mind all the craziness of the world all that much anyways, so why change a good thing?
Dick crawls out of bed and yawns as he crunches down on the alarm clock's snooze button. Alfred, thank god, will come and get him back up if he falls back to sleep for too long.
Dick's eyes pop open. Something isn't right. He glances sidelong at the blinking lights of his clock. 293:3333AM? What kind of time is that?
His hands reach out wildly and searches for some clues. He pulls up a laptop from his messy desk.
Some quick research lets Dick know he is in a reality not his own. Of course he already knew this tidbit as it happens to AU-Friday. He scrolls down the web page some more and learns that in this dimension time travel is the newest fad and is only eclipsed by genetically splicing your test tube babies.
Dick takes this all in stride. The real kicker is what he finds out next.
He pulls up the most recent copy of The Gotham Post.
In big, bold font the headline streams: PRESIDENT WAYNE'S SON SEX OFFENDER, PROOF IN PATERNITY! ! ! !
Dick is flabbergasted by not just the facts that he's knocked up some girl and that Bruce was elected president, but by the terrible abuse of exclamation points in a nationally syndicated newspaper. And here Dick thought he was the world's worst offender against the English language.
He clucks his tongue and hopes to discuss this point with Alfred later; he always seems to know where to rank different language abuses. It must be a British thing.
Dick is about to start reading this wonderful example of yellow journalism when someone blows a hole in his exterior wall with a grenade which has the smiling face of Hello Kitty emblazoned across it.
Dick always knew Sanrio was an evil merchandizing overlord. Damn you and your little bow too, you plushy cat.
The bomber lands her glider to a sputtering stop before she jumps into the room from the new door in the wall. She is a girl with legs that go all the way (and by that he means she's literally nine feet tall) and a very long neck (he suspects giraffe splicing was involved in her birth).
Dick normally doesn't have mad bomber attacks from giraffe women scheduled on Fridays, but he's flexible. He flashes her a winning smile as he folds over the newspaper and sets it aside.
"Can I help you, Miss...?" he says in his best impersonation of Bruce's airy, playboy voice.
He makes a graceful gesture towards her heavy backpack to the closest chair which has managed not to become covered in dry wall and rubble. She ignores the mod egg chair which is really for the best considering a giraffe woman in an egg would work against the flirty mood Dick is going for.
"How dare you pretend not to know who I am," the girl growls at him, her long throat rippling. She opens her mouth and bares her fangs to extenuate her rage. She lunges forward like a lion attacking its prey.
Dick hops out of the way, the leaping antelope to her big cat, and crouches on top of his bed. What do you call a saber tooth giraffe exactly? Girabertooth? Saberaffe? Really, if there is no good portmanteau available then Dick sees no point to the animal splicing in the first place.
"I like that grin of yours," Dick whispers through his own Cheshire cat grin. He grabs a bow staff placed conveniently beside his bedpost; alternate realities or not, a Bat is always prepared for the worst.
"The better to bite you with," she screams as she opens her mouth unnaturally wide and snaps at his hands.
Dick whacks her away with the far end of his staff. He flips her over and prods her back.
"I'd really prefer if the biting was kept optional..." Dick trails off as a small and barely noticeable gurgling fills his ears.
"Is that," he pokes her backpack again, "a baby! Uh? Wha-!" Dick, in his confusion, forgets his abhorrence for the overuse of punctuation marks.
"He's our baby, you philandering fop," the mother proclaims.
She pulls down the bag, which is really more of a baby sling now that Dick's had a good look at, and pushes aside the frilly bonnet that hides the kid's face.
The bouncing baby boy is green skinned with fluttering stokes of reptilian scales across his cheeks. He has yellow and orange fur puffing out from around the sides of his pointy ears. Of course this isn't the first time Dick has met a chameleon lion mix, but it is the first time someone's claimed he's fathered one. He has a right to be momentarily set back.
"My...baby? I'm sorry but I only accept mutant love children on the third of odd numbered months and," Dick picks up the newspaper, "today is the fourth, so that's entirely impossible."
"There's no way," the mother forces the baby into Dick's arm, "you can't see he's yours."
Dick is somewhat proud that a chameleon lion has a brilliant portmanteau: chamelion. How he loves abusing the English tongue in a stylish way, thank you very much Gotham Post.
"Well…did we go with this mix because I'm fascinatingly ever changing and have the bravery of the lionhearted?"
"No, because you eat flies and let the women do all the hunting!" she retorts.
Dick frowns and readjusts the cub-youngling in his arms. He drops the bow staff which he now realizes is still wedged underneath the crook of his arm.
"Chameleons," Dick argues, "don't primarily eat flies and the head of a pride-"
"It's for the portmanteau!" she screams.
Dick blinks rapidly. Apparently Miss Saberaffe knows him well.
"Fine," Dick tries to hold up his hands in defeat but can't while holding the baby, "but why would I let you make us a chamelion? I'm too young to be a father."
"You're twenty-one," Miss Saberaffe dismisses his argument with an indignant expression.
"Oh." Dick glances down at his body and finds he has mature, rippling muscles building up his considerable height, although he has nothing on a giraffe. Bruce will kill Dick when he finds out that he overlooked a data point so crucial like his age in his reality.
Dick angrily thinks that Bruce should try waking up in this AU and see how he does.
"How time flies," a carefree and playful yet knowing and slightly terrifying voice interrupts Dick's pity party.
Shit. That voice. That is Bruce. His Bruce. Dick crawls into himself to hide from "President" Brucie's condescending smile and Miss Saberaffe's haughty glare.
"Hey Dad," Dick pauses for an uncomfortable beat, "Or should I call you Grandpa now?"
Bruce's expression doesn't change on the surface from its light bemusement, but Dick sees the invisible threat to get him back for that comment. He gulps.
"Or not?" Dick offers sheepishly.
Suddenly, a blur of color enters. When the image focuses, Dick makes out Kid Flash sans costume.
He counts the freckles on Wally's face and when he finds the right amount knows that this is his Wally. Freckle numbers tend to be an inconstant thing across realities; Dick has never met two Wally's with the same amount.
"He can't be the father. He'd never cheat on me," Wally insists, "not with…Miss Girabertooth."
"I've been using Saberaffe," Dick mentions smugly.
"Oh, that's cool, bro," Wally smirks, "Makes her sound even more like a terrible disease."
Bruce pushes his hands into the pockets of his two grand, or maybe even three grand, dress pants.
"Miss Jones, my son will be taking full responsibility for his actions. I'll have a nursery made up shortly where you can leave the child's belongings," he motions his head towards the diaper bag atop her glider, "and then I think that will be all."
Miss Jones nee Saberaffe nee Girabertooth scowls and lets her fangs show. The long teeth shine amid the sun rays which pour in through the crumbling hole in the wall.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" she asks.
Bruce scratches his head as if in thought. "The lawsuit," he says slowly, "you should drop all claims of rape." Bruce shakes his head sadly. "Really, was that necessary?"
Miss Jones doesn't answer. Bruce snaps his fingers as if just remembering something.
"You will be justly compensated for you troubles, of course," he says with a biting smile, "I almost forgot that part."
Bruce turns to Dick and Wally. "Come on boys, it's time to go home."
The teens numbly comply.
"Is it really his baby?" Wally whines as they make their way to some sort of glowing portal which Bruce has rigged for their trip home.
"No," Bruce answers. He pulls a suitcase from behind a potted plant. Wally grabs his costume from the container first and has it on before anyone can blink.
Dick tries to change into his Robin outfit only to remember that he's still in his alternate self's body.
"You'll return to normal when we jump back," Wally tells him. The redhead eyes the other boy's body. "Unfortunately," he whimpers.
Dick rolls his eyes. "Not in front of the baby, Wally." He turns to Batman. "If it's not my baby, why are we keeping him?"
Batman only continues his evaluating stare back in the direction where they left Miss Jones. Dick takes this as an answer in itself.
"Right. Chamelion's family is somehow more screwed up than ours… so why not." Dick slaps his head with his open palm. "Oh wait, because I'm thirteen and this is entirely insane?"
His complaints are lost as they leap into the portal with the baby in tow.
Batman is the only one who manages to not stumble out of the beam and into the team's cave. He glides away and mutters something about writing up the case log.
Dick eyes his bristly demeanor and hopes that this is Batspeak for I'm really worn out and I'm going to go take a nap.
"Uh, guess what guys," Dick says as he finds the rest of the team, "I got framed for knocking up a giraffe so now Wally and I are going to raise a chamelion baby."
Conner grunts indifferently. Artemis looks up from picking her painted nails for a second to smirk at Wally's attempts to hold the baby properly without smelling its diaper. Megan nods happily and offers a Martian recipe for mushed peas while simultaneously focusing on painting Artemis' fingernails pea green.
Kaldur is the only one who cares enough to give Dick and Wally some real attention for their new development.
"I'm sure you will be wonderful parents," Kaldur says. "What is the baby's name?"
Wally's eyes pop with enthusiasm. "Dibs! I get to name it!"
Dick glowers back at the redhead. "No way, Wally. First off, you called him an it. Secondly, I'm still pissed that I didn't get to name Conner."
Wally sighs and gives in as he remembers how Dick had put the dis in disconsolate for the weeks after Red Tornado named Conner.
Conner's head perks up at the mention of his naming. "You wanted to call me Kendrick James Boi Le Tempus III," Conner reminds.
Dick doesn't take this snarky comment as an insult. "Oh, Kendi III," Dick says, ignoring Conner's scowl, "You're right…we should call him Kendrick James Boi Le Tempus IV."
Wally nods along with his boyfriend like an idiot. Kendi IV gurgle-growls appreciatively. Conner stops caring about the conversation and returns to watching the replay of last Monday's Thanagarian invasion on the oversized television.
Dick huffs. "Why does nobody care about my," he looks to Wally, "our awesome new baby?"
Kaldur smiles magnanimously. "Well, quite frankly," he pulls Kendi IV into his arms, "we've seen far odder things."
Dick wants to argue but realizes Kaldur has a point. The world really is weird when he stops to think about it.
He shrugs and starts helping Wally untie Kendi's mutant tongue which has wrapped itself around Kal's webbed hand.
A/N: Kudos to TheWickedWizardOfOZ for picking out Kendi IV's animal cross.