Title: Satellite and Le Luna.
Summary: Even in the midst of torture and decay of the body, there is a light shining from the corner of the eye. That is worth the trouble of experience, yes? Batclan one-shot. The Bats have invaded Mount Justice: BEWARE the ANGST.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, I do not own the franchises, I do not make a cent off of this.
Warning: In connection to my other YJ Batclan fics, kinda. Spaced out, though.
Dedication: This is dedicated to RobinFangirl for urging me on to continue the work here in YJ on something focused on the Batclan. Also, this is done for her request as a birthday gift. It's a little dark, but I hope she'll enjoy it. It did take longer than usual for me to finish, but it was worth the wait, no?
-:-
…Can't stand in my way.
My body is weak and it may break,
Though not today!
-Mouse Guard.
They're not exactly sure how to recall and piece together an explanation of the mission's events in a way that would make any sort of sense to their mentors or in a way that can be written down clearly and finitely in a report to be looked and studied over and pinpoint the exact moment when everything went to hell, but there is the hope that they could try. Most certainly, they would try. If not for themselves, than at least they can do it for Robin. He won't be able to speak again until the damage along his throat mends with due time, love and tender care. At least he should have something to listen to.
Wally still isn't sure how to take in the giant of a man that is one of Dick's oldest brothers. In fact, he really is having a hard time—all due to the second degree concussion he received to the occipital region of his skull via Klarion sending some kind of rock monster at him in the tiny warehouse the speedster had been dropped in by that psych ward Clown, and not at all due to Artemis's theory that he only had an I.Q. just shy of ninety points—taking in the fact that all of Robin's elder brothers have taken to milling around the mountain since Robin was attacked. That, and the added fact of realizing that Dick was, indeed, the runtof the family litter. All of the black haired, domino mask wearing young men scored at least six feet and then kept inching up.
Sitting in the kitchen, soda open but barely touched and still occasionally (much to uncle Barry's chagrin) bringing up his hand to prod at the mound of cotton and stitching that was the injury sustained in combat days previous, Wally sat and watched Dick's…middle…brother walk around the kitchen—IN CIVVIES—organizing himself before he tried to called Miss Martian in. As it appeared, the blue eyed brunette that allowed Wally to call him Tim (this being only because, unless absolutely needed, he found lying about his secret identity was pointless among "people who were going to find out anyway") was determined to teach Megan how to properly bake something before the day was out. It was only morning, but Tim wanted to leave room for error in case he simply had to re-do it.
After the battle and the session of Robin's torture at the hands of the Joker that had called in Dick's older brothers en masse to their location to bail them out—and beat the ever-eternal shit out of the clown himself—Robin had to stay at the mountain's infirmary, because they couldn't risk jarring the broken bones along his sternum, lower ribs and both his thighs. He also was required to have his neck in a brace as Joker had…not choked him. The clown had been sure not to cut off the oxygen to Robin's brain, but he had used his nails and fingers to apply specific pressure to points that caused extreme pain. The bruising there was terrible purple and black in coloring—like the Joker's clothing and weaponry—that gave Wally the shivers every morning when he went to see the injured bird.
And then there was the stuff Joker had injected into Dick…
Entering the stuffy cupboard of a room with Robin's elder twin brothers—one in white and red and one in blue and black—and Artemis beside him, for Kid Flash, was along the same lining and theorem of stepping into an excerpt from Dante's Inferno.
While the entire complex workings of warehouses the team had been kidnapped and stuffed into by Joker and the people the clown had perhaps baited into tormenting the team were wide and difficult to maneuver in—they were in Gotham, Wally could tell, as no other place on Earth had this radiating sense of complete loneliness and desolation at night—this room that the two other members of the Batclan had lead them into was small and dark. The only light was the blinking florescent line attached to the ceiling, coating the room and dim yellow (the same yellow as tobacco stains Wally had once seen in a bar he'd had to hide in when he and Barry were fighting the Rogues of Central City) and illuminating Robin's prone form on what must have been a stolen, wheelie hospital bed. Robin's wrists and ankles had been bound and he had been without any clothing other than his domino mask and his gloves.
Wally had thrown up only after he's undid the straps in two thirds of a second.
As the door to the infirmary opened wide for Kaldur, the handsome Atlantean felt the skin along the ridges of his shoulders rise and twitch just enough to send a vibe down his back at the double set of eyes that met him immediately upon entrance. Gold and blue looked upon him, sizing him up before closing again.
The twin guards that were Robin's mirror older brothers—Damian and Tallant, as far as the leader of the Young Justice knew—were sitting just within an arm's reach of their baby brother, not dressed in their heroing outfits, but instead each sporting rather polarizing wardrobe. Damian was in all black, pants a tight sort of denim mix, shirt of a turtleneck that fit against him as a glove would to a thin female hand in contemptible Victorian times and steel-toed boots with cleats along the bottom to easily inflict damage on a person; the other twin, Tallant, sat in blue loose fitting denim rather like bell-bottoms, a type of Arabian white shirt with little loops of thread styled at the bottom and his feet were bare and tanned quite dark, long hair in a Japanese bobtail as the Samurai wore it.
And that wasn't even the best part.
"Hello again," Kaldur greeted as politeness dictated, pausing only long enough to eye the black painted katana Tallant was sharpening with a rock, as well as the bo-staff with the built in metal balls that each weighed half a pound Damian held in his hand; before taking a seat next to Robin, "I just came to greet Robin as he awakens for the morning. If you two don't mind."
"Not at all," Tallant smiled—a smile that really actually freaked Kaldur out a little—with teeth showing, "You're his friend, he'd be glad to see you as he woke up."
"Bet he'd appreciate it more if it was the magical chit, though," Damian snorted, inhaling in discomfort as his brother took that opportunity to hit him in the back of the head with a slap of fingernails and an open palm.
The dark Atlantean ignored the two as they started to squabble in a language he could not understand—perhaps something from the middle-east—and settled into his seat, bring one dark hand up to place on Dick's much smaller, lighter one.
Truth be told, he blamed himself (as all of the rest of the team were) about how they had allowed Joker to manipulate them, separate them and trap them in his own personal game that was, as it seemed to them now only in hindsight, really only meant to make Batman and the rest of his clan very angry. The clown wanted to see how he could make them snap and bite even at others who were trying to help, and he succeeded.
Kaldur's pointer and middle finger pressed delicately on Dick's wrist, testing the wired and connecting tissue for breaks, his moon river eyes trained on the younger hero's face, ready to pull away at the slightest inclination of discomfort.
But, to the contrary of when he came in and Dick's face had been in the impassive faze of exhausted sleep, it had changed in the moment of given comfort into something less painful; something quiet and nice that caused the very tips of his mouth to turn up and the crease that has previously been along the center of skin between his two eyebrows to vanish and smooth out.
If the twins, still bickering behind Kaldur, noticed the tension in Dick diminish, they didn't let on, seeing as Damian was using his staff to fend off Tallant's hands from slapping him again.
"Where's my brother?"
Trying to breath in oxygen—and oh, oh, it hurt so very much at that point—with fire and dry air still slithering in and out of the breaks in the walls around them, Kaldur still lay on his back, being shaken a little by a black clothed figure with all the features and terrifying aspects of Batman himself, save for the cape and without tights, with much more strength in his hands. Kaldur really only noticed the strength because the eldest of the Batclan's brothers was squeezing his arms so hard he left bruise the Atlantean would only find later after being submerged in salt water back at Mount Justice.
"Where's Robin, Aqualad?" The figure repeated, somewhat more forcefully as he hauled the teen up and onto his own shoulders, the strange structures that served as crimson wings causing some even more discomfort as the bat figure had to fly them out of the building Kaldur had been trapped inside for hours, lest they be crushed by the floor above with the tons of sand and dry canyon rock the Joker had packed into it.
The last thing Kaldur really remembered about what happened before he blacked out—he would later realize he had gone into a sort of shock that was his body's defense mechanism from the strain—was the smell of gunpowder (the old fashioned kind that was used in muskets, not the simple stuff that came from a semi-automatic) and breaking through a window into the night.
Artemis and Megan walked sluggishly into the kitchen, sugar, eggs and various other ingredients for the green little lady to practice with spread out lavishly—a better way to look at it, would be to say 'in style'—in pairs and trios. Tim had counted and left no room for really screwing up, just standing there waiting for her with a positive smile.
"Hello, girls," Tim greeted, drying off his hands from previously washing out the last large cooking pot Megan had used the night before in a lark's try of making some expensive dessert she had seen in an October addition of a cooking magazine; some debris of the charred remains of the meal and cleaning were still stuck in the lining of Tim's nails and he had given up trying to clean that out. Proper cooking was best done wearing gloved, anyway.
"Hey," Artemis greeted, keeping at least three feet away from the tall man as she grabbed a bottle of vitamin water from the fridge and then took a seat with Wally—as in, sitting right next to him because he was more familiar than Dick's big brother and far less intimidating—and observed Megan floating a few inches from the ground at the sight of all the ingredients.
"Hi again, Mr. Tim," Megan smiled, eyes roving over the variety of chocolate and caramel chips held in four separate bowls (each bowl that was like a miniature, grooved out model of a barn animal; pig, rooster, cow and ram that Artemis had given her for no reason at all).
"Now, Miss Martian," Tim admonished, picking up the spare blue apron from its hook—himself wearing the other yellow one with the red dots—and looping it over her head before turning her around to tie a Hello Kitty style bow at her waist, "Today, and before Zatanna and Conner finish that little potion for my brother, I am going to tell you all there is to truly know about baking cookies."
"Yeah, good luck with that," Artemis muttered discreetly and at the decibel of a meadowlark's whisper.
Tim picked up the large baking book Megan oft used for all of the cookies she made and held it just below his chin so it was exactly level with her eyes where she was hovering.
"First rule of baking…"
And here, as her smile spread and she hovered a little higher, his foot found the pedal at the base of the trashcan at his hip and he dropped the book into the container. It made a heavy, judges gavel on his table, echo when it hit the bottom and her smile dropped from her lips. Artemis and Wally stopped drinking from their beverages.
"…Is that more often than not the ingredients add up, but the book is more often than not a liar."
"Ooooh," both Artemis and Wally echoed, eyes fully alert and following Tim's movements as he brought out cinnamon and black pepper, explaining certain tricks to a basic recipe that a book would never give.
Shrieking in the face of Superboy having gone down from the Kryptonite appearing like unwanted chunks of sleet from the magic of Klarion and Abra Kadabra pouring it down on them, having lost Kid Flash already through another trap door Joker had set up, Megan stood rigid over her boyfriend's prone form as the smirking, terrifying With Boy raised up both hands and was about to send what made have been a falling set or a storm of black fire at her.
Then, and quite a pleasant sound after the Joker's voice on some megaphone placed about the warehouse, the black window above their heads broke with a resound of thunder and witch's blight, raining glass down on the two magic users before smoke came in as well.
Megan watched the two magicians panic as they could not readily disperse the smoke—blue, smelling of ironworks and resisting their magic—before a touch came to her shoulder and she spun, fist raising to attack.
She was met with the sight of a boy not much older than Robin, dressed like a person who rode a motorcycle and a red, metal helmet that revealed white lenses for eyes and had grooves lining it. Superboy was hefted atop his form, military fashion and over the shoulder.
"Come on, let's hurry it up," the voice of the young man ordered, pulling Megan with him through the trap door in the wall that had shut when Megan and Superboy had fallen through, trapping them despite Conner's strength. His voice was deep and she felt that if she could see his face, he would be sneering at her as he pulled her through the trap door opening and slammed his foot on the door again, locking Megan and Conner's assailants within as they choked on the smoke which had, doubtless, been his own doing.
"Who…Who are you?" Miss Martian asked, floating quickly behind the boy, his strides long and flowing and fast.
"Baby Bird's older brother," this time the voice seemed half cheerful, "Or, one of them, anyway."
…Juice of an Empress of India Lily planted the wrong way underground, fourteen mosquitoes that had bit three members of the human race, powdered wings of a black vampire moth, sea water distilled for three evenings in the skull of a witch's dead familiar under the moon with an orbiting satellite overhead and finally the potion was almost complete. All except for the one last ingredient, which was on its way, on foot by Zatanna.
Conner sat with his arms outstretched upon the tops of his knees, the sun high in the sky as he—and the eldest of Robin's brothers across from him—was in an unknown area of the Rain Forest. Leaves from the trees covered Conner and, though perhaps he enjoyed it, Terry of the Batclan with thick shadows that did somewhat adjust the temperature and cool them off as they waited for Zatanna and Jason to return from the river a mile or so away with the last ingredient for the potion Zatanna promised would help improve Robin's condition remarkably quicker than drugs from Batman's stores. It would have to help better, seeing as the drugs already being used in the IV attached to the little bird's arm weren't working to properly remove the pinworms, conditioned opium and something that caused Dick to have nightmares.
"Breakfast?"
Conner blinked out of his moment of spacing out to see what smelled up close like a turkey Slim Jim held out before his face by Terry. The taller blue eyed brunette was smiling without teeth—thank God, since every other member of Dick's family, when they smiled enough to show their teeth, set Conner on edge—and wiggled the strip of jerky, almost coaxing.
Conner frowned, but accepted the food, immediately replying in a sullen voice, "It's not breakfast. It's lunchtime by now."
"Well," Terry raised a finger in a tutting way of a woman, "It will be when we get back to your base, and if you don't eat now before you get jet-lag, believe me, you will feel sorry."
"I can eat on the plane," Conner replied.
"Not on our plane, you can't," Terry grinned, chewing his own jerky while his eyes focused on an expanse in the trees, "It's a safety thing Batman has about getting food on the consoles and a fear he has about someone throwing up during the fast spins in the air."
Conner admits to the point, but doesn't say anything about it, biting and swallowing another bit of the Slim Jim as a flock of red and orange colored birds fly above their heads, shrieking and chirring mating calls. It makes the Superman clone even more uncomfortable than the meaningless small talk he has been forced into by Robin's eldest brother over the last few days. He much preferred the debates and jibes from the second youngest of the Batclan. At least Red Hood was somewhat entertaining, as well as—admittedly—being more daunting than the one before Conner now.
The little lassie in his arms was still unconscious, and Zatara would probably kill Tim for bringing his daughter to him like this later, but given the time and the situation, Tim couldn't be happier. Better she be unconscious while they waited for the Justice League to arrive, than to be awake at the moment and worry over Dick like everyone else was.
A little too close to one of the many burning buildings than was exactly safe, Damian and Tallant were still beating the crap out of Joker, slamming their fists into his mouth every time the clown managed a comment around his broken jaw and kicking his legs out from under him whenever he laughed. Tallant had more hits to Joker's legs and Damian had more to the psycho's face and arms; though neither were counting.
Tim ignored the fighting and went over to a safer area of the empty city block radius of warehouses to deposit Zatanna next to the still unconscious forms of Superboy and Aqualad. Megan and Artemis looked up at the Red Robin was mixed faces of awe and suspicion. He ignored them as well; he was sporting a break in his left tibia from Killer Croc and his nose was busted and still pouring blood down his face in a most disgusting manner (the blood was coating his teeth as well as his mouth and dribbling down his chin) but that didn't matter as he limped over to where Terry and Jason were administering first aid to their exhausted and prone baby brother. Kid Flash was standing nearby watching them, worrying his lower lip and ignoring the fact that he was without the upper part of his costume; he had given it to Robin so the Boy Wonder was no longer naked, after all.
"How is he?" Tim asked—or croaked—as he wiped the blood off his face in a vain attempt to make the itching of his own blood cease.
"How do you think?" Jason snarled, holding Dick's right leg as Terry wrapped more gauze from his utility belt around the bloody appendage.
"Stop it, Red," Terry ground out in a voice that would give their father a run for his rather sizable amount of money, trying to stop a shouting match before it started, "He's badly injured, but I gave him a shot to dull the pain and keep him unconscious so he doesn't wake up screaming. He's on the mend, brother."
Joker laughed again and, with a finality of the rumble of drums and call to the chorus playing in an opera fit to be played for kings, both Damian and Tallant finally knocked him out with a round of two sucker-punches to his kidneys and a pressure point to his neck that would have killed him without the exact amount of control both mirror images possessed.
By the time the quartet got back to the base of Young Justice, Jason and Zatanna were sporting equal amounts of itching, puss filled sores caused by the weird, layered tree they'd had to crawl into in an effort to get the last ingredient—an already dead frog that had crawled into the tree through a crack to find a final resting place—for the potion, and neither of them wanted to talk about it when they were greeted by a brilliantly smiling Megan on their arrival at nine in the morning.
All Jason kept muttering about was that the ends had better have justified the means and to call him after the baby bird had choked the crap down. Until then, he had called dibs on the first hot shower and bolted off, much to the indignity of Zatanna, who just muttered something like, "Boys are such…" and then followed Megan into the kitchen.
Zatanna was amazed to find that the cookies decked out on the counter were completely unburned—Wally swore and Artemis mentioned it was because he'd eaten the first half—and tasted delicious.
"So, where's the…stuff…that will make Dick better?" Wally chirped as Zatanna had three more cookies to add to the first, completely aware that Tim and Megan were trying to be modest and not simply watch eagerly all the faces that had some of the cookies.
Zatanna tried not to growl as she corrected Wally, grabbing the padded bag she had used to carry the potion back and held it out, its fat bottom and thin neck adorned in curves of silver metal that reminded many people of the curving of wood in Celtic art and the sludge purple colored liquid inside sploshed around in the movement, "Potion. You can take it to him now if you-"
She didn't finish the sentence as the speedster took the curative and vanished in a blur.
A second later, the occupants of the kitchen heard Wally scream, and Terry and Tim shook their heads in exasperation. Damian and Tallant had probably been spooked.
"You guys enjoy your food," Terry smiled, pushing Conner next to Megan in an action that left the two of them pressed against the kitchen island in a near compromising potion that left Artemis and Zatanna grinning around the cookies each held in their mouths.
Both brothers saw Jason rush out of the bathroom five seconds later toward Dick's room, still wet and with just a towel around his waist, a gun that shot rock salt and sleep inducing sedative in both hands like James Bond just finished screwing Pussy Galore in the shower.
"We'll go make Dick swallow that stuff down and make Damian and Tallant not kill Kid Flash."
Walking into the medbay that Dick was kept in; Terry and Tim were pleased to see that Kaldur was pulling Wally out one of the other doors, a few words of admonishment directed at the redhead as Damian and Tallant stood with their weapons still drawn up and Jason sulked in his towel, the potion in hand.
"You didn't have to frighten the poor kid so bad," Tim stated toward the twins, taking to the other side of Dick's bed to gently prod the youngest of the brother's awake.
"He startled us first," Damian replied, crossing his arms like a petulant child.
Terry rolled his eyes and took a seat as Dick started to wake up, blinking sleepy blue eyes up at the ceiling, before focusing on his oldest brother. His eyes then swerved around the room at the rest of his siblings, a crooked smile forming, despite noticing the bottle in Jason's hand that he would doubtlessly have to take.
"Hey baby bro," Terry greeted, Tim sitting down in the seat opposite while Jason gave the bottle to Damian, unable to pop the cork himself while trying to hold onto his damp towel, "Zatanna made you a potion that will get rid of that stuff Joker injected into you. If you drink it, she says that it might even let you start walking later around noon. You wanna try downing it?"
At the mention of anything that would even remotely allow him to get up from the laid down position he had been in for what felt like a couple weeks, Dick immediately smiled wider, unable to nod or say anything. Damian and Tallant finally popped the cork, each giving a little jump as the brown thing ricocheted off the ceiling and spun back to hit Tim in the back of the head.
Damian handed Jason back the bottle as the Red Hood laughed as he handed the bottle to Terry, enjoying the ensuing chaos of Tim politely walking around Dick's bed, before chasing the twins out of the room, yelling profanities in echoes down the same hallway Wally and Kaldur had retreated to.
"Now, I gotta warn you," Terry said, Jason helping Dick sit up a little, going the extra mile to pinch his nose in an attempt to keep the boy from gagging at the drink as Terry pressed the bottle to his mouth and inclined it up, "It's pretty gross, but Tim taught Megan to make proper cookies, so that should get rid of the taste once you walk into the kitchen."
Dick did, indeed, gag once or twice around the rim of the bottle's mouth, tongue swerving and cleaning out the nooks of his gums when he was finished in order to rid his mouth of the taste entirely, but he didn't hold it against Jason for laughing at the look on his face.
A perfected batch of cookies would be worth the choking down something that tasted like the bottom of a flat tire in a trailer park, as well as having his brothers—his crazy, crazy brothers—around him for so long.