Fanfic / After The Fall Of Olympus

After the Fall of Olympus is a What If? for Young Justice where the events of "Failsafe," a deadly training simulation involving aliens, were real. With the entire Justice League being vaporized along with millions of civilians, Robin is the only survivor of Young Justice.

Now, he has to pick up the pieces along with the few surviving remaining heroes and sidekicks keeping the world safe and sound from criminals, alien invasions, magic apocalypses, and the mysterious and deadly organization the Light. Written by Killthespare

Tropes belonging to After the Fall of Olympus include:

• Action Mom: Ha, there's no one who fits this bill better then Jade Nguyen. Not only is Cheshire one of the founding members of the Titans, she's a master at weaponry, poisons, and a former Professional Killer to boot so she's more than experienced in the underworld. You can bet even after giving birth to Lian she hasn't given a single thought to retirement as she's content raising Lian and later Roy with Will.
• Adapted Out: Beast Boy never got involved with the Doom Patrol in this AU because after the Titans discovered him in a hidden, underground laboratory, he quickly grew attached to the group and joined them right away instead of becoming a member of the Doom Patrol.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: Tragically, the way Beast Boy attained his powers is much more traumatizing than just getting a blood transfusion from M'gann after getting hit by an explosion. Here, he got into a car accident caused by Queen Bee and was kidnapped and expirmented on with Martian DNA by the Light. Then he was periodically iced whenever they couldn't find a use for him. So, it's hardly a surprise when the Titans come across the hidden laboratory and find him, he's quick to bond with and join them.
• Adaptational Badass: Raven was already a powerhouse that even Zatanna acknowledged had overwhelming potential that could surpass her one day. On top of all of that when she put on the Helmet of Fate to help fight Trigon, she became the new Dr. Fate and the only known person that could put on and take off the Helmet at will.
• Adaptational Romance Downgrade:
  • Due to the age gap between John Constantine and Zatanna, there's zero romantic attraction connecting them compared to their comic book counterparts. Instead they have more of a "I won't take this crap from you so pull your head out of your ass" relationship.
  • Another change is Beast Boy's famous romance with Terra never happened in this continuity considering Garfield wasn't a part of the Titans when Terra was a member and therefore had zero interactions.
• Adults Are Useless: Justified since the world got so used to letting the heroes handle everything, from deadly criminals that kept cropping up all over the place to major disasters. After the Invasion killed off all the heroes in the Justice League, the world was desperate for anyone to come and help them in their time of crisis again. It's why the Titans received so much support when they first debuted depite only being teenagers themselves. Especially considering the only adults left actually capable of doing anything or supporting them are the JSA, who are all retired and vocally opposing the Titans operating, and Lex Luthor who's the last person anyone wants running the show.
• Alternate Universe: One might wonder how it's even possible Bart Allen still exists in this continuity considering his grandparents have long been dead without any living descendants. Well, the answer is simple; he came from a different dimension altogether. To be clearer, he came from a world similar to the YJ universe where the Invasion never happened but the Reach takeover has. In any case, something went wrong with the time machine and while Bart time traveled correctly... he somehow managed to switch different dimensions by accident and since it was a one-shot trip he's now stuck there.
• Always Someone Better:
  • Hoo boy, it's been noticed multiple times already that Dick has a bad habit of constantly comparing himself to Batman when the going gets really rough and he can't help but wonder "What would Batman do in this situation" or if he'll ever hold a candle to him. This is mostly because of how young Dick was when he lost Bruce whereas if he had grown up with him, he would have eventually recognized that while Bruce was still a good man... he certainly had flaws too. As such, he now puts him on a golden pedestal and has a much harder time seeing any fault with the man. Though, Dick's gotten better about this in recent years, making decisions Bruce obviously wouldn't have agreed with.
  • Bart holds this belief towards his predecessors Jay, Barry, and Wally. As the only active Speedster and last surviving member of the Flash legacy excluding Jay, it's a lot of pressure to live up to for anyone much less a thirteen year old kid. It's really not helped that he was born and raised in an post-apocalyptic Bad Future and as such tends to view the world a bit... differently then everyone else. That's why he's constantly struggling with continuing to uphold their legacy while trying to figure what kind of hero he truly wants to be.
    Bart: I’m not like them. I know I’m not. I know what people talk about when they see the Flash. Wally, Grandpa Barry... they were hope. They were a light in the dark. I’m... I’m just the dark. I can’t be the hope for people if I’m still trying to find it myself, Dick. That’s just the truth.
• Artificial Limb: After the Orginal Roy was discovered with a missing arm, Dick asked Cyborg if his dad, Silas, could make a replacement for him to help him adjust to his new reality. He ends up agreeing and in the end it functions just as well as a real arm does and now he has no problem using a bow again.
• Asshole Victim: While the price for surviving the Invasion was steep and was paid for with the millions of civilian lives and most of the heroes, the villains also suffered some casualties. Most notably the Joker, Sportmaster, and the Brain have all been confirmed to have been killed off in the onslaughter and unsurprisingly no one is even pretending to mourn them.
• Assurance Backfire: Whenever the team brings up Deathstroke's strange and outright off-putting relationship with Nightwing out of concern, Dick always reassured them in more concerning ways why they shouldn't be worried about Slade... which always ends up distressing everyone even more then they were already much to his own confusion. This is most notable when Nightwing tries to persuade the team to work with Slade temporally against Trigon much to the Titans disbelief and horror. It's no wonder why all his attempts to convince them otherwise has gone nowhere considering his arguments usually end in:
  Nightwing: Relax, if Deathstroke really wanted to kill me, he would’ve by now.
• Balance Between Good and Evil: Discussed between Zatanna and Nightwing. She's known for years that ever since the Invasion, the world's balance has been out of wack. It's because of that, evil Primordial beings like Trigon have been able to gain more power in recent years while she's been gradually losing her's. It's for this reason she decides to break of from the Titans along with a few other members to form Titans Dark, a branch specially dedicated to fighting chaos magic and restoring Order back to the world, making her stronger as well.
  Zatanna: I hate to say Constantine’s right. I really, really, really hate to say that so I’m not going to. But, magic has been out of balance for years. Before the Invasion. Trigon was a result; but, he’s not the only one. And just because we have a Doctor Fate again, just because we’re starting to get magic back together again, doesn’t mean it’s not going to be work.
• Big Brother Mentor: It doesn't matter what iteration Nightwing's from, he's always been some sort of role model and mentor figure for his brothers. Here, however, he plays a even bigger role in this area for his siblings since Bruce isn't around anymore to train them. Instead it fell on Dick's shoulders to teach them how to properly be crime fighting vigilantes and sometimes shares advice on any internal strife they're going through while growing up. He also serves as this for the younger and less experienced members of the Titans.
• Breaking the Fellowship: After the attack on the tower from Kori's sister Komand’r and Trigon's seal breaking at the same time, Nightwing and Zatanna decided it was best to split up the team responsibilities with her starting her own branch Titans Dark. In doing so she recruited Raven, Tula, Lilith, Billy, and Constantine into her team to focus on supernatural threats. At the same time Starfire decided it was best to leave the team for a couple years for space so she could oversee her sister's imprisonment, help solidify her brother's right to the throne, and help set up intergalactic alliance between Earth and Tamaran.
• The Chains of Commanding: Oh, Nightwing gets affected with this Big Time. Dick is well aware of all the pressures that come with being a leader. Especially, after the Invasion leaving him the sole surviving member of Young Justice and Survivor Guilt can be nasty. Unfortunately, with the world falling apart and in desperate need of heroes, he had to step up as leader for the Titans as he was the most qualified one to do so. Later on after the world gains more heroes and regains its footing a little bit, the team encourages Nightwing to take a break from being leader if he really needs it. Despite the temptation, he decides to stay the leader, finally making this his own choice.
• Charity Ball: Dick, honestly loathes attending galas and Wayne events but unfortunately with him being the heir to Bruce's fortune and the eldest of his siblings... it doesn't give him a choice but to go to these events on occasion. Thankfully, he's learned to take some enjoyment out of them by managing to sucker one of his friends into going with him.
• Child Soldiers: Jay Garrick labels the Titans as this when vocally opposing the Titans and the sad thing is Nightwing doesn't entirely disagree. He knows they're too young to fight and agrees but having been in their shoes, he also knows that there's no use trying to stop them. If they want to help people, they'll do it with or without anyone's help. Nightwing's only options are to either support them in the best way he can so they don't get themselves accidentally killed, or let them help people on their own terms and risk them getting into something they can't handle by themselves.
• Clones Are People, Too: The Titans are all huge believers of this philosophy, which shouldn't come as a surprise as some of their good friends and teammates are clones themselves. Something they've learned over the years is, no matter how much one might try, it's impossible to clone someone to be a perfect copy personality wise since they have free will and their own anatomy. It's why Superboy and Superman turned out to be polar opposite personalities from each other despite half of his DNA belonging to him.
• Convenient Coma: Played with in the case of Guy Gardner who managed to avoid getting vaperized like the rest of the Justice League on the sole basis that he was in a coma during that period. Even before Robin debuted offically and teen heroes were even a thing. He was heavily injured and his Lantern ring has been keeping him in a stasis ever since.
• Critical Staffing Shortage: An ongoing issue the heroes have all been dealing with ever since the Justice League and most of Young Justice have been vaporized in the Invasion as discussed between Nightwing and Zatanna. While the Titans have been getting stronger in that respect, they still have a obvious shortage of allies and heroes to help them. Its why Nightwing didn’t argue too much about letting Cheshire - a former assassin who he once fought against in Young Justice - join the Titans and it's a part of the reason Zatanna goes off to create Titans Dark; so they could divide and conquer between the magical and the foreign threats.
  Zatanna: You know, Dick, one of the reasons the Justice League was so effective is that they had the numbers. They could delegate. They had smaller groups and contacts. Young Justice and the Justice Society, yeah, but they also had others. Local heroes. International bases. What I’m saying is they didn’t need to be everywhere, they had help.
  Dick: They did.
  Zatanna: We don’t have their numbers, But... we do have more than we did. There’s some local heroes starting to rise again.
• The Dreaded:
  • Despite the multitude of villians in the DC universe, there's no one in the universe that's not terrified of the deadly robot aliens from the Invasion. They were strong enough to wipe out the whole Justice League and most of Young Justice in one fellow swoop. Worse yet, no one can figure out where they came from. To make matters even more dire, Earth wasn't even their first stop as they wiped out five other more advanced planets along the way with not even a speck of dust remaining. Not even the Lantern Corps could do a single thing to stop them and they only know just as much as everyone else.
  • In a strange twist of fate, Earth soon gained this reputation around the universe after the Invasion solely because they managed to destroy the dangerous robot aliens where five other more advanced planets and even the Lantern Corps couldn't succeed. On top of all that, they have always played a key role in every major interstellar conflict within the last few decades and the planet is home to 60 percent of the universe's meta-gene population. As such, civilizations started fearing the threat Earth could become in the future and to try to manage that fear, the Corps decided to cut off connections with the planet and label it a non-restricted zone.
  • Deathstroke also counts as this as he's not your average run-of-the-mill villain. Even on a bad day, he's extremely dangerous with his meta healing abilities, mastery of weapons, hand-to-hand combat skills, and years of experience. It's not helped that he often takes jobs that openly conflict with the Titans since he's known for working for the Light. Thankfully, after he made the decision to forcefully train Nightwing, he's become a slightly less of threat as Slade's grown an attachment to him and Nightwing also started holding his own by slowly getting stronger over the years and more experienced in fighting him. Despite this however, even the League of Shadows respects his skill and body count. He's certainly made it clear while fighting the Titans, he's known as the world's deadliest mercenary for a reason and should not be taken lightly.
• Easily Forgiven: In spite of Cheshire being a former assassin, her connections to the League of Shadows, and all the bad blood between her and Young Justice, Dick barely put up an argument about her sudden transformation into a good guy. Regardless of all the crimes she's committed over the years, he handwaved them all away. This is mainly Justified though because he trusts Red Arrow's judgment regarding her and with nearly all the heroes' sudden deaths, they were strapped for heroes and rather desperate for help.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Jason absolutely cannot stand the nickname Dick gave him: Little Wing and always let his ire known whenever he's called it. It's something that Dick takes great joy in and refuses to stop teasing him about even after Jason's clearly grown even taller then him.
• Expert Consultant: Due to Zatanna and Omen's lack of experience and there being no one else around to help them anymore with supernatural matters, they're occasionally forced to ask advice from John Constantine who's had years of practice handling magical types of threats. Later, when Zatanna created the Titans Dark, a branch specially designed to deal with protecting and restoring the Balance Between Good and Evil and supernatural threats, she offically recruited Constantine onto her team. Word of God says he acts as second in command now with him dragging Boston into the role of the consultant.
• Evil Mentor: Unsurprisingly, Slade took an interest in and forms this relationship with Nightwing who was hardly thrilled about it. Despite his offers to join him for an official apprenticeship, something Dick doesn't hesitate to shoot down, he still takes time out his busy schedule to pop by and forcefully train him every once in a while. It's gotten the point that Nightwing's completely given up on trying to fight it and just takes advantage of the extra training, much to his teammates' and families' concern.
• Failed a Spot Check: Jade had always prided herself on being a professional assassin back in the day and knowing her stuff. So, when it's revealed her husband had been an undercover sleeper agent for the Light with her father being his handler, she wanted to kick herself for not seeing the signs earlier. She's seen Sportmaster gain intel from him in the past but only assumed it was a one-time hypnosis trick instead of something more dastardly. In any other scenario, she would have looked into it so she knew what kind of job she was dealing with. However, due to her dysfunctional relationship with her dad, she let her emotions get the better of her and refused to look into it deeper just so she could end the mission as quickly as humanly possible. Something, she clearly came to regret in the near future.
• Family of Choice: The Titans and the Bat family are perfect examples of this where even outside of heroing, they regularly spend time together having movie and game nights. While their predecessor, the Justice League, were co-workers and friends at best, the bond developed between the Titans are much closer. After all the hardships they've been through saving the world countless times and being there emotionally for each other throughout the highs and lows of their lives growing up, there's no better way to describe them than this. That being said there's a few special mentions below that stand out:
  • It's no secret that Jay Garrick cares for and deeply loves his family- blood related or not. It's why he took the aftermath of the Invasion especially hard since he lost literally everyone. His wife Joan, Barry who he thought of as his own son, and Wally who was like a grandson to him. It's because of their deaths, he reformed the JSA and tried on numerous occasions to shut down the Titans out of worry that they would also get themselves killed. Despite his current strained relationship with the Titans, as soon as Bart showed up, he didn't hesitate to take him in and think of him as his new grandson regardless of the kid's refusal to leave hero work behind.
• First-Person Perspective: As stated by the author, After the Fall of Olympus is based entirely in Dick Grayson's point of view since he's the central protagonist.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Before, Earth barely managed to scratch the basics of interstellar communication and doesn't possess any kind of interstellar defense which is why no one expected them to survive the onslaughter of the robot aliens much less destroy them. After all, the Earth was originally only considered to be "promising" but nothing more. However, the Invasion happened and Earth's reputation drastically changed. Both the Lantern Corps and other alien civilizations around the universe started to consider Earth to be The Dreaded and quickly started to fear how powerful they'd become after Earth somehow manage to destroy a threat not even the Lantern Corps were able to defeat.
• Happily Adopted: Since neither Kara or Garfield had a place to go to besides the Titans, Dick eventually found a new home for both of them with the Kent's who were delighted to take them in after the loss of their son Clark. Now, they're all happily living together as family and inviting friends over all the time.
• Happily Married: Will and Jade have been officially married for years and are raising a teenager and a child to boot. Even with the hiccup of Will's identity crisis after discovering he was The Mole and that he's a clone on top of that, their relationship has always stayed relatively a stable and untroubled.
• Heel–Face Turn: Despite the constant hostility from being on the opposite sides, after Artemis' death, Cheshire decided to quit her job as an assassin and join the Titans as a way for her to honor her sister's death, showing she truly cared and loved her sister in her own way.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners:
  • Roy and Jason counts as this. Jason was one of the first people Roy's met after he was iced and they've only grown closer since. They go on missions together and hang out so much Will jokes with Dick a lot about trading out his batarangs for arrows.
  • Tim and Bart easily get on like a house on fire and it shouldn't be a shock to anyone either. They're both crime fighting teenagers and child genuises at that. More often than not you'll find them discussing scientific ideas or just plain getting into endless mischief together. They're best friends, your honor through thick and thin!
• Homeless Hero: After Nightwing met Billy again, who he learned managed to secretly survive the Invasion, he quickly picked up on the fact that the kid couldn't have had a easy time of it these past few years based on how dirty and ratty his clothes were and how tired he looked. He was proven right after Billy admitted while he was lucky enough to survive the onslaught of invaders, his foster uncle Dudley wasn't and he's been living on the streets homeless and de-powered the last seven years.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Barbara loves to tease Dick over his terrible sense of fashion and rightfully so since he thought getting a mullet originally from the 80's was a good fashion choice. Not to mention, his original designs for Nightwing included neon yellow and a collar up to his ears.
• In Spite of a Nail: The classics are sure hard to beat sometimes as proven here. Despite Batman not being in the picture anymore, Jason gets the "brilliant" idea to steal the tires off of Nightwing's Wing-cycle which triggers Jason and Dick meeting for the first time. Just like Bruce, it eventually leads to Dick taking in Jason who discovers his Secret Identity and becomes Robin not too long after.
• Insistent Terminology: Downplayed. At first after Robin changed his name to Nightwing, he tried to stop his friends from calling "Rob" all the time... to absolutely no avail seeing as it's an ingrained habit of their's. He eventually just gave up and accepted his fate.
• The Leader: The reason both Donna and Red Arrow were so determined to push the Boy Wonder into being their leader despite him literally being the youngest person on the team? His experience. Both Donna and Garth didn't know enough about the outside world to be effective in leading anyone in battle and Red Arrow hasn't had any experience working in a large group before. In fact, the only partnership he's had was with Oliver which... didn't end on a pleasant note to say the least. Later, however as Nightwing grew older he turned into a mix of the Mastermind, Charismatic, and Level-headed type of leader. He's become so trusted that he's now the most looked-towards hero in the world.
• Legacy Character: Later when Dick retired from being Robin and Jason entered the picture, Nightwing decided to pass down the mantle of his old suit to his younger brother. Averted with Tim who skipped the journey of being Robin since Jason already was at that point and become Red Robin instead.
• Legacy Team: Quite literally in this case seeing as the Justice League was completely wiped out in the Invasion and some of the survivors were trained directly underneath them.
  Garth: If the heroes have fallen, someone must stand.
  Roy: What comes after heroes fall?
  Robin: What about... the Titans?
• Long-Distance Relationship: After Garth decides to join the Titans to honor Kaldur's sacrifice, he and Tula kept up a long distance relationship with him visiting Atlantis every two weeks. However, after three years Tula ends up breaking it off because she couldn't handle the separation anymore much to Garth's grief. Although, Tula later moves to the surface to support Garth after Terra's betrayal and joined the Titans, after which they rekindled their relationship.
• Love at First Sight: Beast Boy fell for Raven hard the very first time he saw her and makes it VERY obvious about to everyone around him much to the others embarrassment. Raven isn't too far behind either as she also quickly developed a crush on him but is much less obvious about it.
• Meaningful Name: After Dick admits that he wants to retire from being Robin as he doesn't feel right wearing it without Batman, he picks a new moniker: Nightwing. It's a name Dick thought was perfect considering it used to be from a old Kryptonian story Superman told him once. A story symbolizing rebirth after destruction.
• The Mole:
  • It shouldn't come to anyone's surprise that Terra turned out to be a spy working with Slade against the Titans given her track record in other media. However, here she takes it a step beyond by framing Starfire as the real traitor to the team and nearly gets away with it if it weren't for Nightwing's gut instinct and detective skills.
  • Sadly, it was discovered even later that Red Arrow's secretly been a sleeper agent unknowingly and a clone of the real Roy Harper at that. News he understandably did not take well whatsoever and soon underwent a full blown identity crisis. Thankfully, the blow was slightly lessened with his original handler Sportmaster dying in the Invasion, along with half of his triggers becoming inaccessible to the Light. He soon picked himself back up earlier with the Orginal Roy already being found and Jade and the team's continous support and assurance that they don't blame him in any way for this debacle.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: After the Invasion, the Lantern Corps decided the best move available to them was to cut all ties with Earth in an attempt to control the other alien civilizations growing fear of the planet. The only Gurdian against it was Ganthet who tried to reason with his brothers and sisters but was only able to get them to agree to label Earth as a non-restricted zone and setting up a patrol to guard against entry. However, at best it only stops low level threats and on top of that the Corps are forbidden to send out aid or warning if a threat gets through. While Ganthet's intentions were noble, he in fact made matters worse because labeling Earth as a non-restricted zone will only encourage otherworldly threats that'll consider Earth as a challenge. Plus, due to the patrol he recommended being set up around the sector makes it really difficult to gain new allies along with a new information network since the Corps aren't feeding them intel anymore. Not to mention, they need a better reputation so other planets don't consider Earth to be The Dreaded anymore.
• Not So Invincible After All: If one thing is for certain after the Invasion, it's that the world learned a harsh and brutal lesson and that's no one's invincible no matter how strong they are or appear to be. It's why even years later the Titans are struggling to get new recruits when before there was an abundance of hero teams and local heroes popping up all over the place. It's because now people are much more aware of how dangerous being a hero can be- that even the smallest of mistakes can have deadly consequences. In response, the public scrutiny is nowadays much more critical towards the heroes' actions moving forward since they now know they can lose.
• Old Superhero: Alan Scott has long been retired in the superhero business and stays that way despite Nightwing's ongoing offer to join them. That being said, he still goes out of his way to help them get into contact with the Green Lantern Corps again and has been much more supportive of the Titans actions compared to the JSA, another group of retired superheroes.
• The One That Got Away: A tragic example of this unfortunately concerning Dick and Wally. Even years down the road after his death, Dick can't help but wonder if he and Wally could have ever been a "thing" if it weren't for his untimely death. Word of God confirmed this by saying Wally will be Dick's forever maybe.
  • This apparently went both ways as they also affirmed that in the Bad Future Bart came from where Nightwing died first and Kid Flash survived the Reach invasion, even years down the road Wally couldn't help but think as Dick as a forever maybe too.
• Parental Substitute: It's been heavily implied Wally used to be this for Bart while he was still alive. According to Bart, he was one of the few remaining heroes in the Reach invasion and so he took it upon himself to look after him. Wally taught him how to survive in a post-apocalyptic Reach infested wasteland and eventually even gave up his own life to protect the kid. Looking back, Bart only had fond memories of him and still to this day believes he had to be the kindest person in the universe.
  Bart: Wally was always like that. He liked to teach me things. He taught me the periodic table before I turned one. He taught me about my speed, how to find food. He was everything. ...I miss him. It’s been years now and I really, really miss him.
• Platonic Life-Partners:
  • Dick and Donna Troy have this in spades. They've started out as simply teammates but it didn't take long for then to blossom into best friends after fighting and training alongside each other. So much so that Word of God had to point out often that the love they hold for each other is purely platonic and is in no sense romantic. She was also the first one to figure out that Nightwing faked Robin's death to the world so he could infiltrate Sypral for him just based off his reaction to his brother's "death" which seemed off to her somehow.
  • Dick admits that whatever feelings he held for Zatanna fizzled out immediately after the Invasion. Not long afterward, they became close friends understanding their grief and helping each other through it.
• Posthumous Character: This refers to a crapton of characters since the story revolves around the Titans rebuilding the world from the ground up after the Invasion took the lives of the Justice League and most of Young Justice. It's hardly surprising given the effect they had- both personal and unpersonal- on the surviving heroes lives and the holes they left behind that they would often be referenced by them.
• Precocious Crush: Hilariously, Jason admits he once had a crush on Catwoman when he was a kid. It's something he completely owns up to though because one- he was hardly the only person who had a crush on her as a kid and two- ...it's Catwoman so you could hardly blame him.
  Jason: "Shut up, shut up! She wears a skin tight leather outfit and could show up Batman. It’s practically a Narrows’ right of passage to have a crush on Catwoman.”
• Promoted to Love Interest: Since Beast Boy wasn't in the picture when Terra joined the Titans, she instead formed a relationship with Garth who used her as a rebound after he broke up with Tula. Unsurprisingly, their relationship didn't last.
• Promotion to Parent: Subverted. Kara's orginal mission after being sent to Earth was to watch out for her younger cousin Kal-El aka Superman. However, something went wrong with her ship going haywire and ended up frozen and lost in space for decades. To make matters worse when she did finally make it to Earth, she was quickly captured by Luther and put on ice for several more years only to reawaken again to find out her cousin's long been an adult who died protecting the planet he was raised on.
• Psychosomatic Superpower Outage: Billy loses his ability to transform into Captain Marvel after he used his other form to survive being vaporized during the invasion. He assumes this is because the magic abandoned him for being too afraid to return to the life a hero, and he no longer met the Wizard's requirement of being pure of heart, but Dick later theorizes that Billy himself subconsciously sealed his powers away because he felt unworthy of them. He's ultimately proven right when Billy finally regains his powers in time to help seal Trigon away.
• Recovered Addict: Will admitted to Dick a few years later that he didn't handle the aftermath of the Invasion well as well as people think. He used to drink himself silly and even tried heroin once unbeknownst to anyone except Jade who managed to snap him out of it by threatening to slit his throat open if he didn't get clean. Suffice to say, the threat worked and he pulled his act together not long after.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: After John Constantine initially refused to help Nightwing with the serious matter of Trigon's seal breaking, he teleported him right in front of Billy, who shortly revealed he clearly wasn't as dead as people once thought. While he was "vaporized", he didn't disintegrate like everyone else since Captain Marvel's magic protected him even if just barely. He temporally lost his form and was terrified of the thought of rejoining the battle upon reawakening after seeing all the destruction the aliens wrought against the planet. Later, the combination of being wracked with guilt about his former cowardice and inability to turn to Captain Marvel convinced him keep his survival a secret from everyone.
• Secret Identity: It should go without saying since this is a story about superheroes so of course they have to hide their identity from the public. Be that as it may, compared to the Justice League, the team is much more open about sharing their identities with their teammates though.
• Shared Family Quirks: Dick finds it absolutely hilarious in a bittersweet kind of way that despite the multitude of differences between Bart and Wally personality wise, the one trait that sticks out like a sore thumb is their frustration with the existence of magic and their constant need to explain it away as science. This turns out to be a case of Truth in Television as we come to find out since Wally practically raised Bart in the post-apocalyptic future, he probably picked up the habit from him.
• Sole Survivor:
  • One of the main reasons Nightwing became one of the most looked-towards heroes in the future was because of his accomplished history to date. Not only is he the member with the most experience with superhero work and teamwork but he's also the only survivor that directly fought in the Invasion. Not to mention, he's the guy responsible for coming up with the plan to wipe out those deadly aliens- a enemy might I add, the team's predecessors orginally died trying to defeat. Suffice to say, Nightwing has more than earned his impressive reputation and he's suffered for it too as his whole team lost their lives fighting those creatures.
  • Just like her cousin before her, Supergirl has to now live with the fact she's the last remaining person from Krypton. Even made worse with the fact that, unlike Superman, she knew what her homeworld was like before it was destroyed including all the people she personally loved there. Someone give this poor girl a hug...
• Spanner in the Works: Nightwing admitted the only thing giving the Titans a proper advantage against the Reach was Impulse's spontaneous time travel mishap landing him in an Alternate Universe. The really scary thing is? In this world, the Reach might have actually gotten away with their Evil Plan to take over the Earth because unlike Canon, they don't have a speedster that would be able to Time Travel and avert the Bad Future.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Jason Todd never gets crowbarred to death in this continuity thanks to the Joker dying early on as he tried to take advantage of the chaos the Invasion created to escape Arkham only to get vaporized not long after. However, in a bid to go undercover in Spyral, he still faked his death as Robin to the world with only his family in the know.
• Suicide Mission: Dick confessed to Red Arrow and Donna in a desperate attempt to explain why he'd be a terrible pick for team leader that he knew how likely Young Justice's chance of dying was and still went through with his plan. Though, he admits he didn't know they would all die, he knew that not everyone would come out alive and it was a sacrifice he was willing to make, even disclosing that the only reason he survived was Wally's quick thinking. It's something he still deeply blames himself for years down the road.
• Survivor Guilt: Yeah. There's no doubt in anyone's mind that Dick Grayson was hit hard with this and for good reasons too. Grown men and women have a difficult time dealing with situations like this and for a thirteen year old boy to come up with a plan that's basically amounts to a glorified Suicide Mission with his friends where he's the sole surviving member? ...Yeah, there's no easy way to rationalize that it's not his fault because if he didn’t follow through with it, everyone would have been dead anyway. It shouldn't be surprising that he still blames himself for his friends' deaths years down the line.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Everyone is already well aware how strict the Justice League was with their no-kill rule and the Titans have also adhered to uphold that principle too. However, out of all the members Nightwing is often the one who strives to maintain it the most. This is shown multiple times throughout the story when he's the one mainly trying to reason with his fellow teammates and allies when they consider murder a viable option. That being said, it doesn't stop Nightwing from covering up Jason's murder of Blockbuster from the public and claiming self-defense to the Titans.
• Unfortunate Names: No one's earned this more then Dick Grayson. However, he's hardly upset over it and even finds it hilarious seeing as it's something he even encourages with his fellow teammates.
• Universally Beloved Leader: Downplayed. As soon they announced their plan to establish the Titans to replace the recently deceased Justice League and Robin was going to be leader with Red Arrow and Troia as members, the team received near instant popularity and suppport. So much so one newspaper even went as far as to call the new teams formation the "New Dawn in the Age of Heroes”. However, there were some groups unhappy about this change such as Jay Garrick who believed the kids shouldn't out risking their lives on the field and Luthor who hoped to create his own League.
• Walking the Earth: After Batman was confirmed to be dead in the Invasion, Selina made the decision to leave Gotham all together knowing that staying in the city that's moving on without him would have killed her in the end. The thing is Dick held a grudge against her years down the road as he was deeply hurt she left without saying any sort of goodbye to him. We learn later it's because she knew he would have begged her to stay and she wouldn't have had the heart to say no. That decision comes at a cost years later though, when she returned to Gotham to inform Dick about how serious of a threat of Spyral is and needing to work together with Helena in order to take it down. Anyone could tell how strained the tension was between them.
• We Used to Be Friends: Downplayed. After the Invasion, Dick decides to create the Titans to counter Luthor's League which consists of mostly teenagers. Something Jay Garrick strongly disagreed with after losing everyone close to him to the Invasion. He believes that children- teenagers or not- shouldn't be heroes so they could stay safe and leave it to the adults instead. He even went as far as to reform the JSA and vocally oppose the Titans. The tension's gotten so thick between them that newer heroes are surprised they were considered close allies in the beginning.

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