Author's Note: THIS IS A SEQUEL! PLEASE READ FailsafeFIRST! That being said thanks to everyone who did read and review Failsafe, as I'm sure you all know this is my Fem! Robin (Diane Grayson) universe. Now I must clarify a few things. Damian will unfortunately not be in this story as he has not been born yet. Roy Harper, AKA Red Arrow will be making an appearance though I have yet to decide if I should let Mr. Angsty Arrow stay cause we are gonna have a lot of angsty Daddy Bat in this one. Also small note on the Lazarus Pit, yes I'm aware it's supposed to drive its user insane but I needed Diane mostly coherent so I tweaked the side effects a little. This one picks up almost where Failsafeleft off. But anyway here we go, I own nothing. Please review.

Death and Fate

1. Cruel Awakenings

Infinity Island, November 16th, 1:24 am

Fire. Heat. Pain, so much pain. It felt like she was being burned all over again. Pain was all her world consisted of, blinding white pain and the feeling of drowning in liquid fire. So much pain, she couldn't handle it. She opened her mouth to scream and the liquid fire invaded her lungs, she couldn't breathe. She tried to gasp, to cry out, but the fire was everywhere. It was in her lungs and oh God all she wanted to do was breathe.

Talia watched as Diane Grayson shot upright in the glowing green waters of the Lazarus pit, coughing up its contents as she screamed. She knew from personal experience that the pit was not the most pleasant way to cure wounds or come back from the dead but Talia had no choice. She needed Diane awake and coherent for her plan, this was the only way to do that efficiently and mostly safely. She caught hold of the young acrobat as she began to thrash in the glowing pool. She held her close as the young girl cried and screamed. Talia carried her out of the pool and set her down as she coughed up more of the green liquid. Talia rubbed her back gently murmuring in the young girl's native language.

"E in regula putin Robin. E in regula."

Diane coughed again. She felt weak, the only other time she had felt like this was when she had caught pneumonia after a particularly bad brawl with Mr. Freeze. She coughed and dry wretched onto the stone floor. She was completely confused. The last thing she remembered clashed horribly with what was going on around her. Her last memory was of being trapped in the mother ship of that alien invasion, of setting off the charges and of fire consuming everything. But that couldn't have been real, she wouldn't be here now if it had. She took a few deep, if raspy breaths as she took in her surroundings. She was in some kind of underground chamber, in front of her glowed something she hadn't seen in a very long time. A Lazarus pit. She had to have been badly hurt if she was here. She couldn't remember how she'd been injured though.

Someone was rubbing her back soothingly, speaking words her mother had once spoken when she was sick as a small child. Diane tensed. It couldn't be her mother, could it? She whirled slipping and falling to her side, her instincts taking over as she rolled until she was facing the woman in question from a safer distance. Her eyes widened as she took in who it was sitting in front of her.

"Talia ah Ghul?" She coughed out, her voice raspy as if she hadn't used it recently. Her head ached and her world was still working on becoming clear so she wasn't actually sure if she was in fact face to face with the daughter of Ra's ah Ghul and second in command of the league of shadows. Talia nodded.

"Yes little Robin, I am Talia ah Ghul. It's nice to finally meet the Boy Wonder in person." She smiled sardonically. Diane's eyes widened, she knew. But how? Then her brain caught up to her and reminded her that she was one of Bruce's more infamous exes and she would logically know who Batman was and thus figure out who Robin was, it wasn't that big of an investigative leap if you were intelligent. Still it was unnerving to have someone call her the boy wonder out of uniform. What surprised her more was that Talia ah Ghul knew Romani. It was a difficult language to learn unless you were raised around it as Diane had been.

"Vorbesti Romani?" She coughed again and Talia stood. Diane wanted to stand but her legs and arms felt like jelly so she was forced to simply glare up at Talia from her spot on the floor.

"Nu este sufficient de bine. That's part of the reason you're here little Robin. We aren't going to hurt you, we need your assistance." Robin glared at the hand Talia held out to help her up. Talia smiled.

"You really don't have a choice little Robin. Unless you want all of Gotham to know the identity of the Dynamic Duo." Robin's eyes widened at the threat. She'd read the files on Talia, she always followed through on her threats and she knew that Batman could handle himself if his identity was let out but Diane wasn't about to be the reason that the world discovered that Batman was Bruce Wayne. She would figure out what to do, there had to be a way out of this but for now it looked like she didn't have any other options. She nodded and let Talia pull her to her shaking feet and blindfold her. She had no idea where she was and it didn't look likely that she would find out any time soon.

Gotham City, November 16th 4:30 am

Bruce was groggy as he woke up. Something was clearly wrong but he couldn't remember what had happened. He slowly cracked open his eyes and blinked slowly. He was in the batcave. There was someone standing next to him, several someone's in fact. He ran over what he did remember rather quickly in his mind's eye and it made him shoot up on the bed.

"Diane!" His side was lanced with pain but he didn't care, he needed to find Diane. Someone laid a hand on his shoulder and gently but firmly pushed him back down onto the soft cotton sheets. He struggled but the hand did not release him. He knew the only person who would dare to keep him from looking for his daughter even if it was for his own good.

"Clark. I will pull out the kryptonite if you do not release me this instant." It wasn't an empty threat either, he would and could do just that and Clark seemed to realize this because the retraining hand disappeared an instant later. Bruce sat up slowly blinking until his vision cleared. He was on one of the medical beds in the batcave . Clark and Diana were standing in front of him, both in civvies and both looking concerned.

"You shouldn't be getting up yet Bruce, you were pretty heavily dosed when we found you and we still don't know what it was they…" Bruce interrupted him.

"Benzodiazepine, a very strong sedative among other things. Where is Diane?" Clark looked at Diana, concerned.

"We were hoping you could tell us that. She was gone when we got here. What happened? Did she wake up? It looked like you got attacked but there wasn't anyone here when we arrived." Diana said stepping forward to speak directly to Bruce. Bruce's heart dropped but he did not let himself show it.

"What time is it?" Bruce demanded. Diana looked down at her watch.

"Four forty in the morning." Bruce stood wobbling slightly but not even caring about his own pain.

"Bruce you shouldn't be up, you were shot twice. Alfred was unconscious in the kitchen when we found him! He said something about gas but that was all he could tell us. What happened!?" Clark was getting antsy but Bruce didn't care.

"The league of shadows broke in and caught me off guard. They drugged me and took Diane. They have now had her for five solid hours. What's worse is that I have almost no way of tracing her because she does not have her utility belt or any of her equipment with her. She is currently in the hands of Talia ah Ghul and I need to go after her." Diana and Clark stood stunned as Bruce made his way to the bat-computer. He looked determined, no wound was going to get in his way, he was coming for Talia and if there was even a hair out of place on Diane's head when he found her he was coming for blood.

Translations

Just a note here the language I use here is not in fact Romani cause the mighty Google doesn't speak it. So it is in fact Romanian.

E in regula putin Robin. E in regula. It's alright little Robin. It's alright.

Vorbesti Romani? You speak Romani?

Nu este sufficient de bine. Not well enough.