sylph_fics

Continuity: PRE-GRADUATION DAY AU
I say again. I hate current canon. So here's a shot at changing it.

Title: Am I Dreaming?
Probable co-writers later:

merfilly,

darkdanc3r, if I can twist their arms into it.
Fandom: DC
Pairings: ...I'm not sure yet. Any that are canon, probably, and a few slash pairs along the way.
Continuity: The Titans, Young Justice, JLofA, pre-Grad Day era.
Word Count: 1,738
Summary: Is this the real life, is it just fantasy...? Or, a single sunny morning may change everything most people thought they knew about the state of the world.

((Aka, yikes, it's another WiP!!))

Donna Troy stretched lazily, opening her eyes to a startlingly beautiful New York City morning out her apartment window, and turned to shut off the alarm clock that was about to go off. //Why did I want to be up so early? Oh. Yes. The photo-shoot at 8...// her mind reminded her. There was still plenty of time to get breakfast before she went--and pray to Athena for a day when no villains, super or otherwise, struck until well after noon.

She slipped out of the bed, and headed towards her shower, wondering if even having the thought was enough to bring something down on them while she was still standing in the spray.

*~*~*

Dick Grayson snapped awake with a gunshot in his ears, disoriented by feeling sheets under his back, over him when the last thing he remembered was being in the middle of a firefight--then he took in some of the details around him and froze, unable to believe what his eyes were telling him. //Dreaming. I'm dreaming--hell of a fucking dream.//

He bit at his lip, wincing at the swell of pain, and the world didn't waver around him. Even slamming his heel against the //long-destroyed// footboard at the end of the bed didn't shock him out of what had to be a dream. It... just had to. He slid off the bed, half-expecting the floor to go out from under him or try to swallow him. This dream was entirely too normal, felt way too real... but it couldn't be. This apartment had been nothing but ash for well over a year... But that was the once-usual noise of the 'Haven outside, everything on the walls, down to a gash in the paper, was correct... //You have a photographic memory, of course it is. You're. Dreaming.//

He turned to look at the alarm clock on the bedside table... and blinked when he could read the numbers. They were always backwards or twisted in his dreams, not clearly shining 7:20 Am at him. He glanced at the wall-mounted clock, and frowned when it, too, was easily readable, not twisted around into impossibility... Then he looked back at the table, and his knees nearly buckled. Gleaming at him against his keys... was his badge, the one he'd lost to buying Amy's life from a man that had once been an ally and teacher, now twisted and lost in some insanity. He reached out, picked it up... and drove the pin into his hand. He nearly yelped at the searing pain, but the world around him never wavered... //Is... is this...//

He refused to let himself even think it might be real, and went to see what would happen if he tried to turn the TV on. Everything worked, TV still tuned to CNN... and the date scrolling across the screen in the marquee he could still read almost drove him to his knees in shock. //That's... that's over two years ago... That's before--// he forced his mind to stop, before he could think it, and just listened to the early news, bits and pieces of it sounding just real enough to make him seriously doubt his sanity. //I... I don't think I'm dreaming anymore... but that just means I'm insane. Because otherwise, I'm in the past somehow, and...//

He locked down on the reaction trying to force its way out at that thought, and went to slip through to the other side of the apartment. He stepped into Nightwing's space... and stared at the gear laying across the table, only then realizing his side ached faintly. He looked down, reached down, and felt fresh stitches along the line of a scar he'd grown accustomed to. //I... I did get hurt, that day, I had to fake it with Amy...//

Everything was crowding in on him, memories of two years of his life slowly disintegrating into a hell of his own making, with him trapped so far away from everyone he loved that he couldn't reach out for them even when he was right beside them and he struggled to breathe as he moved to where, if this was actually real, his Titans' comm. should be. It came into his hand, cool and solid, and he twinked with it for a moment, forcing it to a frequency he hadn't needed to use in most of those two years, and heard his own voice nearly break as he said, "Nightwing to Troia..."

*~*~*

Just out of her shower, Donna blinked as she heard her comm. go off. She flew to it, flicking the mic to life, and Dick's shaken voice came over it. She answered, "Nightwing? What are you doing awake, isn't it bedtime for you bats?"

"D-Donna?"

"Robbie, what is it?!" She hadn't heard him sound like that in... a long time.

"I... I think I've gone insane, Donna. What day is it?"

She told him, holding the comm. in one hand as she mentally said the hell with her photo shoot and struggled into her costume one-handed, thankful she wasn't wearing the armor anymore. "Robbie, you're not crazy."

"I... I have to be, Donna, because..."

"Where are you?" she threw every bit of big-sister into her voice, demanding an answer right now.

"My... my apartment in the 'Haven, Donna, and that's why I think I've gone crazy..."

"Why wouldn't you be there? You're supposed to work today, I thought... Robbie, talk to me, please, shortpants..." She stomped down into her boots, left her hair tangled, and went out her bedroom window.

"I'm supp--oh, god, Donna..." The shaking in her 'brother's' voice had gone to a level she thought was completely terrifying, and she threw everything she had into a burst of speed up and out and down the coast, world blurring under her as she made the trip from New York to Bludhaven as fast as she could. "Robbie, is the window unlocked?"

"Y-yeah, on the other side..."

"Okay. Just... come on, Robbie, talk to me, tell me what's going on," she demanded even as she slowed down just enough to not break windows as she came into the city, "I saw you just the other day, at the Tower, everything was fine..."

"..the other day..."

He sounded almost like he was slipping into shock, and Donna didn't have the patience to be gentle with the window as she forced it up, slid through, and found him standing not three feet from her, barely dressed, //hurt, again!// and with a look on his face that frightened her as she shut her comm. off and dropped it into her boot. "Dick, honey?" she reached out for him, drawing him in against her body--and his arms locked tight enough around her neck that she felt it. "Robbie... It's okay, sweetie, whatever it is, it's okay..."

"please be real, Donna, please be real, please..." his voice was desperate against her ears, hot against her throat, and she tightened her arms around him.

"Dick, you're scaring me. I'm real, I'm right here, it's Tuesday, you have work in... three hours, if I still know your schedule, and you shouldn't be awake yet..."

"...tell me everything about the last time you saw me, Donna."

Despite that she didn't understand the question, she answered, telling him about the mission they'd had, the latest argument between Argent and Jesse, Wally's latest dash-in, dash-out... and felt his shudders grow worse in her arms, not better, as she spoke. "Dick?"

"Donna... in my head... that was two years ago... I have... all of this... this stuff, these events, in my mind, that come after what you're telling me is now... I don't know what to believe, Donna."

//...And you're asking me?// Donna managed to choke that off before she said it. Reminding Dick of her identity problems at the moment would... really not be a good idea. "Then believe me, at least right now. ...Look. I'm calling you in sick, and we're going home, and you're going to tell me everything about what's going on."

"...home... Maybe, if... maybe then it'll feel real, if..." Dick sounded vaguely hopeful, though still deep in shock.

Donna kept him against her side as she reached for the phone. "Number at the precinct, hon? That I don't have memorized."

She dialed what he told her in the flattened voice of his perfect recall, and waited until someone picked up... then turned on her charm and a little bit of bubble-headedness, and spun an entirely convincing story that she was one of Officer Grayson's neighbors, and he had an awful case of the flu and no, he really couldn't come to the phone, oh, alright, if you insist... She handed the phone to Dick with a glare, and nodded as he pulled off the right mix of pathetic and earnest to convince his partner that he really was sick. That done, she hung the phone up again and scooped him into her arms. "Donna, if--"

"Hush. We'll go through one of the shafts. No-one's going to see you, and you have a suit at the Tower."

Something in the lines of his body told her he still only half-believed her, but he wasn't struggling with her and that was good enough for right now. Halfway back, she heard her comm. start to chime again.

"Get that?" She asked, stilling midair to draw that leg up enough for him to tug the comm. out of her boot and flick it on. "Troia."

"D-Donna?"

Somehow, hearing Roy's voice shaking just as badly as Dick's had... barely surprised her, even as it frightened her. "Roy. Easy, Roy, easy... easy, hon..."

"Donna, is it... when is it?"

She answered him, and felt Dick shake in her arms even worse as Roy's voice broke again. "But... it can't be, Donna, that's..."

"Roy. Hon. It is. I don't know what's going on, but it is, and we're going to figure this out. You just... stay put, talk to me, and I'll be right there, okay?"

Feeling Dick shuddering again in her arms, hearing Roy's shaking, distraught voice in her ear, Donna made a promise to herself that if this was Gargoyle's doing she was going to rip its wings from its back and feed them to it, claws first, for starters. And if this was some new trouble, it was going to get the appropriate version of the same treatment.