Prove it's You
It had been a hard week for everyone.
Monday had started with a mission for the team, all of them arriving at Mt. Justice as soon as school was over for the day. Batman and Robin were waiting for them, as always - Batman to assign the mission, and Robin because they always arrived with their mentor. Once the rest of the team arrived, however, Robin came over to join them, settling comfortably in between Miss Martian and Artemis.
Once everyone was settled in, Batman began. “Your mission is to infiltrate the United Nations headquarters in New York.” he told them, getting straight to business. “Lately, three different UN representatives - representatives of Qurac, Markovia, and France - have been acting suspiciously - voting on policies that go against their own countries’ interests. It’s up to you to find out why.” Batman told them, his voice heavy as it always was. But when Robin nodded their understanding after another few minutes of briefing, none of them missed the slight smile on the Bat’s face.
After that, it was six days of sneaking through ventilation systems, fighting aliens, and second-guessing their teammates at every turn as they wondered who might or might not be their original selves. Queen Bee of Bialyia had teamed up with a distant cousin of the Martians in order to abduct and impersonate several key members of the UN who were opposed to what she was trying to do in her mission for world power. In the process of defeating them, the team had to deal with two team members being replaced - who were then discovered when they couldn’t replicate Kid Flash or Superboy’s powers.
Then it was a lot easier to keep track of who was who. Every thirty minutes or so, they would have everyone use their powers - while Artemis and Robin were kept in the direct line of sight of the team at all times.
8888
They arrived back at Mt. Justice - sweaty, sore, covered in alien gunk and ready for a nap. But Batman was waiting for them for debrief, so there was no chance of them escaping anytime soon. The mission itself had been taxing. They had had to infiltrate parts of the UN, and the team had had to sneak through the UN to find the aliens' hidden nest and release their prisoners. It had taken them almost six days straight to defeat the enemies, making them all just sleep on the way back, letting the Bioship take them home.
The mission had been rough, so none of the team were too mad at themselves for not noticing the person standing next to Batman for a few minutes.
The boy with Batman approached them all, looking slightly worried - and that was when they all noticed him, having been silent til then. “Everybody praises Robin/Singing early, singing late.” he said softly. The team was confused. It was obvious who the boy was - even in his civvies and sunglasses, Robin was unmistakable. Which meant that the person who had been with them wasn’t Robin. Still, the team was confused - the Robin that had been with them had been a perfect match for their Robin, and it wasn’t possible to mimic Robin’s acrobatics so flawlessly. People had tried, but had always failed. None of them seemed to have any idea of what was going on - none except for Kid Flash, and the Robin that had been with them for the last six days.
“But whoever thinks of saying/A good word for Robin's Mate?” came Robin’s response, sounding slightly irritated. “Really, Rob?” Still, behind the irritation there was an obvious worry there.
The civilian Robin just looked amused, but relief was written in every inch of his body. “Can never be too careful, Rob.” he cackled, but quickly pulled the other Robin into a tight hug, tension bleeding from his body the second they touched. The pair seemed to be having a silent conversation, and it was almost unnerving.
“What's going on?” M’gann asked, looking between the two, confused. Even her telepathy wasn’t working to tell her which one was the proper Robin - she was only able to read Robin’s thoughts when they let her in, and they rarely did. “Robin, please explain.”
The pair turned to look at them with identical grins. “Which Robin?” they asked, completely in sync. It was almost eerie - something that the Robins noticed, judging by the way their grins grew even wider. They had always appreciated having that little bit of fear factor - they couldn’t be as intimidating as the big bad Bat, but they could be scary in their own way.
Kaldur took a step forward, his stance becoming almost defensive as he took in the two Robins watching them. “The real Robin.” he said carefully in reply.
Instantly, he knew that that had been the wrong thing to say. The pair sprung apart for a moment before attacking each other, mirroring each other’s movements as they attacked and defended themselves. “I'm the real one!” the costumed Robin yelled as they flipped over their opponent, grinning as they sent a vicious kick towards the civilian Robin’s solar plexus.
“No, I'm the real one!” the other returned, blocking the kick and returning with a kick that quickly turned into a back handspring so they could dodge their clone’s blow.
They fought for a few minutes, neither one of them actually landing a blow on the other. They were perfectly matched - and the team watched them in awe. So many questions were flowing through their minds that they didn’t know where to start. However, the main question that they had spawned back to something Hal Jordan had told all of their mentors years earlier, which had then been passed down to their mentees in turn. He had a theory that the Bat was creating clones of himself - that he had hundreds of them, all growing up in test tubes that only came out to train.
Now as they looked at the dark haired fighters, their fighting styles identical, they couldn’t help but wonder if maybe this was the proof that Green Lantern was right.
“Robin.” a single word from the Bat, but more than enough to have his children calming down. They stopped their mock-battle, turning to look at him with their heads tilted at the same angle. The three bats just stared at each other for a little bit, having a silent conversation that was making the rest of the team more and more anxious as time went on.
Finally, the two Robins split into identical grins. “Really?” the civilian one asked, looking at their clone. The costumed Robin looked back, equally excited.
Batman nodded. “You can’t tell them anything about your identities, obviously.” He reminded his children. “But other than that, you have free reign.” with that reminder given to his children, Batman then turned to the rest of the team, and they were frozen with fear. They had seen terrifying things before - had fought terrible battles. But nothing seemed as terrifying in that moment as the Batman. “If anything should happen to Robin because of what you’re about to learn,” he began, staring each one of them down, “I will personally see to it that -”
That was when the Robins jumped into action, the civilian one backflipping over Batman to pull at his cape, while the costumed Robin stood in front of him. “B! I know that you want to intimidate them and all, but the sooner that we’re done here the sooner Rob and I can come home and you can be all overprotective.” the team just stared at Robin, a mixture of fear and awe on their faces. They had never heard of anyone talking to the Batman like that - most of their mentors were more than a little afraid of the vigilante. But here Robin was shoving the Bat around like it was nothing.
Eventually, though, they managed to get Batman over to the Zeta tubes and heading back to Gotham. The second that he was gone, the pair turned to their friends.
“Robin, what is going on?” M’gann asked, flying closer to the pair.
“Which one of us are you asking?” the costumed Robin asked carefully, repeating their question from earlier.
But M’gann just shrugged, gesturing at both of them. The Grayson twins looked at each other, small smiles on their faces as they did - there had been a while whenever they first thought about telling the other sidekicks the truth about Robin where they had been worried. They hadn’t been sure how the others would react - especially considering that Wally already knew. But it was too late to be having doubts now. So Darcy turned away for a second as she peeled her mask off, quickly replacing it with the sunglasses that her twin handed her. Then, she pulled off the clips that had been holding her hair back for the past week - while it was still short, it wasn’t as short as Dick’s was anymore.
Now that the mask had come off - even if it was just replaced by sunglasses - more of the costumed Robin’s bone structure could be seen, and it was becoming a little bit more clear. That was all the team could focus on - the tiny differences between the Robins that were made clearer.
“You’re not clones!” Artemis said, sounding surprised.
That froze both of the Robins, identical expressions of confusion on their faces. “What?” one of them asked - all of them too surprised by the revelation to note which one it was.
Wally ran around so he was between the pair, throwing an arm over each of their shoulders. “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you two - some of the Justice League has this theory that you guys are clones that Batman grew in case he ever dies.”
“Wally, you knew?” Artemis asked, looking betrayed.
“Of course I knew!” Wally nodded, leaning closer into Dick. “This is Rob we’re talking about - the peanut butter to my jelly, the chocolate to my marshmallow, the -”
“The pain to your annoyance?” Darcy teased, laughing when both Wally and Dick turned to look at her, betrayed.
“Wait, I’m confused.” Conner said, looking between the twins. “What exactly is happening? How do you guys mimic each other so well?”
“We don’t mimic each other - we know the same moves because we trained together as children.” Darcy explained. “And we’re not clones, either - we’re twins.”
Suddenly, things started to make just a little bit of sense. Why some days Robin would try to hang out with Miss Martian and Artemis instead of Kid Flash like normal. Why they would laugh louder at certain things on certain days, or like something one day and then despise it the next.
It had been two different people in the Robin suit the entire time.
There was nothing but silence for a minute, and then Kaldur stepped forward. “Now that we know the truth, will you come here at the same time?” he asked, and the youngest member of the team - or rather, the youngest members - smiled.
“Sounds asterous, Kaldur.” Dick said happily.
“But what do we call you?” Conner asked, looking between the pair. “That is, how do we tell you apart - we can’t keep just calling you both Robin.”
But the twins just shrugged, not seeing any problems with it. “Why not?” Darcy asked. “We can’t tell you our names by Batman’s rules, and we are both Robin. It makes sense.”
M'gann went to argue with her, but Kaldur stopped her. While he might not have been as close to the Robins as Wally was, he had known them for almost as long. And he recognized the looks in their eyes that said that there wasn’t a way to argue with them on the subject.
“Very well then,” he agreed, smiling at the both of them. “Robin.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Darcy spoke. “Great.” she said, grimacing as she ran a hand through her hair. The mission had been a success, but she had been covered in alien goo for several hours at this point, and it was starting to get old. “Now if you guys don’t mind, I’m finding a shower. This stuff is disgusting.”