Title: Folded In
Author: Yami no Kaiba
Fandom: DC Comics
Rating: PG
Characters: Robin, Alexander Luthor, Superboy-Earth Prime, Superman-Earth 2

Summary: When the entire multiverse folded in, there were parts that wouldn't fit quite right.
Disclaimers: DC Comics owns all of the characters and I receive no money for this work of entertainment. Warnings: Spoilers for Teen Titans #29, Current Nightwing Issues, and Infinite Crisis.
Note: This is virtually a short plot re-write of Infinite Crisis #2 and beyond.

*---*---*---*---*

It... makes so much sense. (The need, the continued nightmares, the way he couldn't really remember his parents at some points and he'd just said "they're out of country", how they'd only *really* appeared when Bruce started questioning him about them, how he had fit so *well* into the position...) It's just a bit *too* much to take in, and even though he's had so much training from Bruce and his other teachers, he can't immediately process it.

"...What?"

Superboy (not Superboy, *Kon* is Superboy) stared, taken back. "You haven't figured it out yet? I'm surprised... You *are* supposed to be the second best detective on this world."

"Being a detective doesn't matter if you have no evidence to believe there's a mystery."

Superman (not Superman, too old to be Clark, too weathered) just smiles. "Scientific to the last, aren't you? Following facts instead of your heart."

This isn't getting him anywhere. "Give me--"--proof, he wants to say. But isn't the mere *existence* of their beings proof that their claims of a previous multiverse have merit? That he's... not real?

That he's actually an amalgam of other Batmans and Robins from the other Earths?

He has Dick's fright of turning into Bruce. Has Bruce's detective and stalker skills. Has computer skills he doesn't remember learning...

And he remembers how Jason had looked, at the Tower. Jason had been wearing yellow tights, and as far as he knows, that's never been in Jason's Robin uniform.

Jason had always worn pixie boots, too, and suddenly he wonders if Jason is also an amalgam. A fast calculation of the dates Alexander had given during the retelling, and he thinks... It could be. Jason *was* Robin at that point, and yet from what he's been told, Dick was still Robin on at least one world.

And the ultimate question comes to mind: Who *is* real? Who doesn't have a folded amalgam of some hero?

It makes his head hurt just thinking about it. Reminds him of that last test Bruce had pulled on him before his Dad (was his Dad real, or just as fake as he is? He can't *remember* seeing his father or mother outside of the story he's given Dick, Alfred, and Bruce about his childhood) had found out he was Robin. The one where Bruce had made him suspicious of everyone--

No. He can't think that way. It's too paranoid, even for him. (Or is that just the Dick personality tempering the Bruce?)

"Assuming what you say is true... What would be the point of 'creating' me at the age I was? Why not older?"

Alexander finishes a few strokes on the virtual keypads before he answers. "I've been thinking about that. The most likely hypothesis is thus: that your *entire* generation of heroes was created out of the bits and pieces of prior multiverse worlds heroes, and were created at the age you were to ensure the status quo. To ensure that there will be another Batman, another Wonder Woman, another Superman, and so on."

He narrowed his eyes behind the mask, "But that's stupid. It would promote stagnation for practically a century--"

"Which, I think, is the *problem* we're facing now," Alexander butted in. "The universe is in constant change; that the time line *insists* on stagnating in the section of space-time of Earth, to become fixed to a certain degree--"

He could tell already that they had lost Superboy in this discussion, and he was intimately reminded of Kon (is Kon another Earth version of this boy?). "It's causing the breakdown of reality, isn't it? It's why---" (Why Jason was wearing tights and boots in a Robin uniform. Why he's been getting angry like Dick more often, why he's been shifting from periods of Dick!Robin joy to Bruce!Batman broodiness--)

(Why Dick is acting on the edge of becoming Deathwing.)

"We need to fix this," Superboy inserts, in youthful zeal.

Superman nods. "The only question now is: how? Which is why we needed you, Robin. Alexander could use your help in the calculations, and the theory."

He nods. After all, it makes sense. Only-- "If we do fix it... If we do manage to stabilize the flux, I want to know: what's the likelihood that a repeat of mass-amnesia will happen again? And in correlation, what happens if we don't manage it?"

Alexander bites his lip in concentration. "If the flux is stabilized, everything *should* go back to what you consider normal... The obvious and erratic emergence of singular fold personalities will disappear. If not, the extreme solution the universe would take would be to re-create the multiverse... Effectively 'killing' the amalgams."

Well. This wouldn't be the *first* time his life has been in eminent jeopardy of a slow disease. "Alright. Then lets get started shall we? We need to also think about the prevention of a recurrence of this situation, and as such, I think in order to prevent a future flux, we need to cancel out the chronoal stagnation..."

--Fin.