All rights reserved

Edited: 7-16-2018

It's not true what they say, you know. About how time heals all wounds. What a load of bullshit! Even years and years later, Taffy can point to each nonexistent scar across her body and tell you its story, because when she looks in the mirror they're all she sees. They haunt her even when no one else knows they exist. When people touch her, all she wonders is if they can feel the ridges of old tissue. Heal? No. Time hasn't been that kind.

Taffy was born Tiffany Azeri, but no one knows that anymore. It's been a long way and a long time since her mother died of cancer, and even longer time since she became part of the great American sex trafficking underground. Yeah, she could tell you all the sob stories, why not just put the blame there? Isn't it all those experiences that made her who she is today? Couldn't she spit out some shit about survival, about the right to be an criminal because of something or another that happened in the past? But the past is the past and Taffy doesn't want to fuck around with the past. In the past she was a different person. In the past, she made bad choices. And other people made bad choices for her. But what does that matter now? All it is are scars across her back from all the stabbing that's been done.

But one thing Taffy can't ever get over is being the back stabbing one. She's done it on a few occasions, hell, what human hasn't? But its experiences of the past that always weight her down, like carrying around every knife she has used in the act, and damn, she's so tired of carrying around weapons.

Wounds. Wounds inflicted by others or by yourself. Mental, physical, emotional. There are so many. Taffy knows them all. She knows them all because hers have never healed. And sure, she pretends like they don't exist, but still, still…how could it be explained? Every move she makes these days hurts, her skin has been scabbed over so many times that it has healed too tight and left her graceless. They don't make her who she is, they only inhibit her from moving forward in the same way she had before. And even if she pretends, well, you can't pretend it isn't raining, can you? Taffy will always know they are there. But she knows how to live with it. She can live with everything but betrayal.

Yeah. Taffy knows she's a hypocrite.

"What do you think, darling?" Carmine asks, "What would be the best move here?"

Taffy meet John Wilder when she was still working under her pimp in Star City, the only real memory she has of the event is this thick smell of castor oil as it's poured over the floor of that attic where her and the others slept. She was sixteen and John, God, he must have been twenty one or twenty two, and he had stopped by the house to put some money in one of the girls. They had a conversation while he waited, but Taffy doesn't remember anything about that. She thinks they made a deal, but Taffy had to be told about that years later. She also had to be told that she was on heavy narcotics at the time to flush out an STD.

But John came back, horrible and cruel and wonderful man that he is, to make good on that deal he made. Taffy remembers that second time, she remembers the gun shots and the money and the sound of a crying baby, and she remembers sliding into an old BMW next to that girl who two years before had been bought from slavery-Nate was her name, and Taffy would not have guessed then that someone would have been able to kill that crazy bitch with anything made of lead. They drove across states to Gotham and LaDasha met them at the door, and the shop smelled like parsley and basil and frankincense, the walls were half painted yellow, and John sat across from her with a contract written on a scrap of canvas paper detailing the payment of what the money he spent to buy her from captivity.

And Taffy's been paying him back ever since.

"Just don't move that queen," Taffy responds.

No, don't move your queen. Carmine isn't like John, this much Taffy knew since she had meet him. In some ways both men seem to out-cruel each other, Carmine would shot down a man without thought or preconception, and John would sit back and come up with ways to make him suffer longer before death. Both are shameful ways to die, and it shows more about their personalities than the men who do them wrong. And in Gotham, every man does wrong.

"No, not the queen," the thick Italian is like cotton candy to her ears, soft and melting into her body. "I want you right where I have you."

John Wilder wasn't her pimp, but he was her employer. And because he was her employer, loyalties were only tied in paper and money, not in flesh and sweat. When John assigned her to east end, flushing out dealers and rival gangs, he never would have thought she would break away ties so readily. She wasn't a first rate spy, but she knew her business. She had lots of practice over the years. And the best way for a woman to get to the leader of a gang is to fight to the top tiers and whore herself the rest of the way, and it was exactly this pattern that led her to Carmine Falcone.

Taffy didn't expect to fall in love.

But it had happened. She could waste away all day over her feelings-Carmine is the only man to ever make her feel safe in unsafe situations, his words are light and kind, and there is a constant air around him with attracts Taffy more severely than a fly to bright light. Her hands go sweaty, her knees weak, she breathes in his scent and knows his abilities-yes, Taffy knows his cruelty but she also knows his kindness, and fuck, she loves powerful men-but even her feelings cannot excuse her from being a double agent, and it cannot excuse her from leading her former employer and that makeshift family to their deaths.

But what's done is done.

The warm, salty wind blows up from the sea to their villa, making the curtains flutter against the terracotta tiles. The distant whiteness is born from the perfect marriage of sea and sky, and creates an endlessness that is to vast for the human mind to comprehend-and so it is seen in pieces, subtracting from the unimaginable depth because of the need to understand. Below, crystal waves erode at sand colored rock, and above, the sky is cloudless and the sun is rounded, hot. Left and right, there is never a break in the rocky cliffs of this land. There is never an end to the timelessness that rests here.

The sitting room is lined with small tables and wicker chairs, Italian prints made in Crete, a wall of wines in exotic languages imported from Barcelona, and the air of serenity as both Taffy and Carmine Falcone recline in white tunics and sip gin from a half full glass handle. The chess game in front of them is played leisurely, and has been for hours as the two lovers alternate between soft conversation and passionate lovemaking.

It has been six hours since she arrived in Italy. It has been six hours since she left Gotham behind in the heat of boiling turmoil.

Italy is more beautiful than Taffy thought it would be, and Carmine is twice the gentleman she expected when she thought of her future fiancé. This is a far cry from her old pimps attic, an even farther cry from her apartment she shared with Remy. She can't bring herself to feeling even slightly guilty for everything she's gained, even if it left John and his girls in the rot of Gotham. The city of no return. The city of darkness-no, she will not think about it. She left that city hours ago. This is her life now.

"Your move, love," Carmine says. "Surprise me."

"Don't I always?"

A knock on the door makes them both look up.

"Come in!"

The butler-yes, a butler, she revels in that for a moment-enters and says something in thick Italian, to thick for translation. He is from southern Italy, near Pompeii, and uses a stranger dialect. Taffy promises herself that she will learn it one day.

Carmine goes hard and rigid all at once, his hands gripping the glass of gin that has stopped just short of his lips. Taffy watches the changes, to use to them to be alarmed, "what is it?"

"No one is supposed to know of this place," Carmine says.

No sooner was the word out of his mouth than she gets a glimpse of a strong, straight backed old man enter the room confidently. The first thing she notices are his eyes-if there is a God, Taffy thinks she would have seen more knowledge in this man than in Gods own. Maybe he is God, or a god, Taffy isn't to sure. But they are a bright emerald green as if doused in bleach, energy and understanding flickering in the background like a fire ignited. Those are young, passionate eyes, but also eyes unlike any that should be on a mortal-and maybe it's Remy's ideology getting to her or maybe this is entirely the truth, but Taffy cannot tell. She watches them flash from place to place, all corners of the room, under the table, up Taffy's legs even though there is no interest in her body-as if looking for a weapon-and settle somewhere in the distance where the sea and sky mate and create beauty. His face is both too old and too youthful, but not in the Botox way. As thought he had run his finger down the length of his wrinkles and smoothed them down.

"Good morning," he says, sliding his eyes over Carmine, resting on his glass of gin, focusing finally on his face. There is a very faint accident at the end of the 'good', "I hope my arrival has not caused you alarm. We spoke on the phone just yesterday."

"Yes," Carmine answers, "I was not expecting you here so soon. But please, sit down. Let us talk as you say-man to man."

The old man come into the room, his head bowing to Taffy directly before settling in the offered armchair across from the couple. A chill runs up Taffy's spine. She nods back, "Welcome."

"Thank you," the old man says, "A lovely reception. Who might this creature be, Mr. Falcone?"

"My fiancé," Carmine responds, and that same feeling-that warm, bubbling sensation that comes ever time Taffy thinks of her Carmine-starts in her toes and runs the length of her body. She's so unused to that word, but yet it makes her heart sing. "Gigi Falcone. Gigi, this is an associate of mine, Ra's Al Gual."

Taffy gave that fake name ages ago, when she first started in Carmines faction. It's always easier to change a name, malleability was important to John-don't think of it. She will think of another name instead, of this man before her and her fiancé. It's a Middle Eastern name, and she can see it on him-the sun kissed skin, the face shape-Taffy could barely hear it in his accent. But still those eyes…those are not normal eyes.

"Soon to be business partner," Ra's Al Gual says, confidently. Taffy glances over to Carmine, but his face remains passive.

"Can I offer you a drink first? It's a hot day, and you've traveled far," Carmine offers, always the gentleman.

"A pinch of watered wine will do me no harm," Ra's Al Gual says, and Carmine motions the butler to choose from some of the exotic bottles lining the far wall, "The heat of my home is much the same as this."

Taffy finds her voice again, "where are you from?"

Mr. Al Gual motions to the sky, "not to far south from here."

"Mr. Gual, if you have your own home why would you bother with my own?"

Al Gual rests his eyes on Carmine again, accepting the wine from the butler and leaning back in his chair. He looks suddenly older as his face passes into shadows cast from the columns. Taffy can almost believe the age his hair makes him appear, "Let me explain for your understanding. The world is split into many different, little pearls-that if collected and strung make the most beautiful of necklaces. My jewelry collection is extensive. But it is somehow not enough."

"If you're thinking of buying me out-"

Al Gual raises a hand, "no, no, I think nothing of the sort. It is not Gotham I want, not in the slightest. Perhaps the prizes that Gotham offers me."

"There's nothing worth selling in Gotham," Taffy answers. Her hand entwines with Carmine's, and she gets a chill again. She thinks of her little old family dying as she speaks. Yes, Gotham is the place she would most call her home. But she has no real connection to it besides the people. And apparently, they are worth selling out for this-Carmine and Italy and the almighty Freedom.

"I'm not interested in what Gotham can sell me," Al Gual answers.

"Then what are you interested in?"

Al Gual lifts his head to Carmine, and stares somewhere past his shoulder for a minute. His eyes are wide and intense. "I want to retrieve something that was lost."

"Lost?"

"Indeed," Al Gual answers. "That is why I seek an alliance with you."

Carmine sits silent. It's not the way that John use to sit. John would be open and still, ready to strike but also seemingly unconcerned with what anyone else was doing. Carmine is different. His hand is close to his belt where his gun is, and he always leans forward when he is interested in something, like he's doing now. "Don't think I didn't do my homework. Go back to Black Mask. You do not need me."

"That," answers their guest, "Is where you are very wrong."

"Please," Carmine says, extending his hands, "Tell me how I am wrong."

Al Gual rolls his wine in his glass, watching it circle slowly around the rim-but none falls. It's almost mechanical the way it is done, and for a sudden second the whole world around them turns cold, and dark-the bright sky dulls and the gin sticks to the roof of her mouth in an unsettling way. Taffy is reminded sharply of when John speaks, and sees his features on the old man's face as his lips move, "It is true what you say. You are a smart man, Falcone. So you know that Gotham belongs entirely to no man while the Bat lives."

Carmine nods, watching grimly. He lets go of Taffy's hand and leans forward, and in doing so, makes Taffy feel left behind.

"I have made a promise with someone dear to me, to leave the Bat his city, and in doing so I no longer have a reach within its borders," he smiles thinly, "A story for another day. What happens there no concern- that worry no longer belongs to me."

"Then what do you call your connection to Black Mask?"

"I call it business. Like I said, I have no concerns with Gotham. But a good businessman will keep his eye on the stock market, even when he is not interested in buying stock. I protect my investments- I had made those long before I made the promise to stay from Gotham. I would not see that money wasted."

Carmine waits.

Al Gual considers, "I had done something unspeakable. Men like us, we do many things that we are ashamed of, but this one, I must say, has been my worst." He pauses, probably wondering how much he should tell. His eyes flicker towards them, and the intensity is astonishing, "I have found that mankind can endure eternity, Mr. Falcone. I have found that it is within our capability to withstand the test of time, and be reborn, immortal, again and again. The fountain of youth, so to speak. I believe strongly that humans were meant to reach this state. But death is death. It is one thing to trick time. It is another to change a state of nature. But I became curious. What does it take to force a soul back to the body? What does it take to undo the natural balance?"

He pauses, smiling grimly. Carmine does not betray all his feelings. "Did you do it?"

"Oh yes," Al Gual says, "But it did not come without consequence."

"What does this have to do with what you lost?"

"My dear," he turns his head towards Taffy and she immediately wished she had not talked. "What did you say your name was?"

"Gigi," she responds, and tries to feel fearless like she always does. It doesn't seem to work, it never does with sharks.

Ra's Al Gual smiles the smile of a snake and flicked his eyes back to Carmine, speaking to him as though she never had spoken, "I discovered what it took to bring a man back from the dead. But they do not return in a whole piece, but in smaller, broken ones. Their memories, their thoughts, their emotions, their minds, all that makes us human. I thought that I could control what I had created, but I was mistaken. The boy could not be contained. And he was lost."

"Then the man you speak of…"

"Yes. You are a very intelligent man, Mr. Falcone."

Taffy doesn't understand what they are talking about anymore. Her eyes flicker between the men, her body on the edge of her seat, intent on catching every bit of information. She is not a stupid woman. She would not have survived this long if she was, "Then what you lost is in Gotham?"

"Correct," Mr. Al Gual says, "By the time we were able to track the boy down, he had already reached the city, and three men had already been killed."

"The Red Hood," Falcone says.

"That is what they call him now," Al Gual agrees. "They would not have named him so if I had acted sooner. I trusted the Bat to take care of the situation. But I am old enough now to know how unwise it is to wait for another man to clean up a mess you made."

"But you made a promise not to screw around in Gotham, so you can't act on your own. You needed someone to act for you."

Ra's Al Gual leans back and downs his wine. Taffy keeps her eyes on the liquid as it disappears down his throat, wondering just what kind of man brings back the dead. What would it take to bring back her mother? Would she want that woman to see what she has become? Or even worse-or better-what would it take to bring Nate back from the dead? Taffy thinks of LaDasha and Red, their eyes broken and tearless as they sat in the morticians office, collecting the ashes of their friend-their sister-and the shrine that stood so achingly alone in the hallways that LaDasha felt the need to fill the space with her regrets.

"Indeed. It was Black Mask who contacted me again after so many years, not even two months ago. He had felt threatened by another rising power on Gotham's streets, and I had hoped their blood feud would…distract the boy. It had. But instead of coaxing him back into the vigilante roll he had once assumed, it directed him to the knowledge of my relation with Black Mask. He seeks now to cripple me through that connection, and cripple the Bat by placing Venom on his streets."

"So, it's the Red Hood who is selling the Venom on Black Mask's lost territory."

"The boys' vengeance is a well fired shot," Al Gual praises, "the situation is, as you would say, priceless. And getting to be quite dire."

"But why do you need me? You already have Black Mask."

"His ambitions were becoming tiresome, he is hard to work with, he rarely follows set plans, and I do not like his brashness," Al Gual answers, sipping his wine, "I have arranged for him to be quietly led from the city as we speak. He will do as told-if he wants his life. Without him, the situation will calm. And there will be no one left to rally the men who had followed him."

Taffy watches Carmine, his eyes searching the other man with an open interest.

"We need each other, Mr. Falcone. Gotham is being ripped apart as we speak. No one stands at its helm, and the Bat and his army struggle for control. I have paved the way for your raise to greatness. All you need to do for me, is return what I have lost."

Taffy thought she would never return to Gotham. She thought that she would spend the rest of her life here, with Carmine, in love, in sickness, in health, and she had left behind everything that had once used, abused, and hurt her. This was her second life. This was the heaven that life had before denied her. But she knows Carmine. And she knows men.

Men. They are not difficult creatures, only powerful, and reckless. She knows them. She has been on the responding end of so many, many men. She can see their desires so plainly, it is like day and night. Carmine is a man who has dreams. He is a man of stars. He can reach into the sky and pull out the stepping stones that will get him to the sun. His goals rest there. And his goals are ambitious.

Carmine stands and moves towards the window. He leans against the glass and stares out at the ocean rolling against the rocks. For one, terrifying moment Taffy imagines that he is leaning against open air, and that he will plummet to his death at the jagged rocks below. He leans towards the sky, as though leaning back towards Gotham.

Taffy follows him, trying to force down the panic and distress. She has talked men in and out of murder before. She has faith in her powers, "Love, what about-"

But Carmine is a dark shape against the cold, pale backdrop of the sea. He seems to be flouting in air, unreachable, unobtainable, and damn it all if Taffy cannot reverse it. She grips his shoulders, resting her chin on her folded hands-grounding him. Grounding herself. "Gigi, I started in Gotham. Why not finish it there?"

"We don't need that," Taffy says, "Look at what we have."

Carmine smiles, his lips gone thin, "I would have none of this, if not for Gotham."

Irritation prickles at the back of Taffy's throat. I, it is always I. It is never We.

"I wouldn't go back."

Carmine smiles, and agrees, "no."

In hindsight, Taffy should have seen it coming. She had been born on the streets. She knew violence. The men she had surrounded herself with all have a knack for it. And in times before, she knew how to defend herself. But heaven makes you weak. She should have known. She would have seen it if she had not been so terribly blinded by the sun behind Carmine, that bright halo that always encircles men with to much ruthlessness for their own good. Blinded. perhaps she always has been.

Men with those kinds of dreams, they are never held back by things like love. Love, in fact, means little to them. Taffy had heard a rumor that Falcone had spit on his father and cursed his mother, and that neither were seen again after that. But she had dismissed the idea. He loved her. He would never do things like that to her. She is safe. She is special. She is getting what she always wanted, and she will not look past the first layer into those dark passageways that had before defined him-because with her, he changed. Why sacrifice a chance at happiness?

As Taffy's body is thrown against the glass of the window, she realizes there has not been a moment in her life that she has not been controlled. The ring on her finger is not real gold, it's gilded, and it always had been, even before it was hers. John had controlled her too, but not with a ring. He coaxed her with the sense of family, with the way his voice commanded with a power to move mountains, the way he curled his fingers around his gun. And before that, in her underground days-they tell you that sex is power and that sex is control and that women had the power during sex, but all sex is is another tool like a wrench or a knife and you have to know how to use it or else it gets wrestled from you and used against you and damn it, damn it all it hurts. Yeah, she had always been controlled, even when she thought she had a sort of freedom. She had been stupid, and tried to make her life more bearable by telling herself that she was strong, and she was powerful, and she was a woman, and that makes her a god.

She is not a god. Gods do not die.

Taffy will die, and she will fade, because no one will remember her. No one remembers the whores. No one remembers the ones who died for love, real love, the kind of love that is bone wrenching and one sided and painful because they don't really understand what it is or should be. Taffy had deluded herself into believing so many things. She had stabbed a lot of people in the back in her life, and this is maybe a little taste of her own medicine.

But she had done what she wanted, didn't she? She had left Gotham and her past behind. When her body washes up on the shores of Italy, no one will know that she used to get high before sex so that she will be able to smile through it. No one will know that she had killed three people in her life, and that she was proud of two of them, and ashamed of the third only because the third was a woman. No one will know how worthless she had felt, and how that worthlessness was only taken away with the tilt of Carmine Falcone's smile. She will be a ghost. She had left Gotham behind her.

She had left behind LaDasha, and Red, and Remy, and John.

As Taffy hit the rocky waves twenty feet below where her fiancé stood, she was getting what she deserved. But her last thought was of that little family, falling to pieces, and the sudden brokenness of her body seemed to mirror the image that appeared in her mind like the broken glass of a picture frame-fragile and human and precious.

And then she saw heaven….

Tim lets Robin go.

It's not a slow thing, it is a sudden, rushing thing. Tim gets the same sensation from repelling out windows, or high speed chases, or the time when Dick stole the Batmobile and they took a joy ride down the coast. Peeling Robin off and leaving him behind is like the leap of faith it took to be able to do all these things, and the weightlessness, the air across his face, the sudden, disoriented grin that spreads across his cheeks, those are things born to birds that finally learn to fly. He has jumped from the nest and spread those wings given to him years ago, and he adopts them just as easily as he processes information.

Tim is wholly, completely Tim. Just Tim. And for the first time, being Tim is enough. Tim has no other identity to hide behind, and no other bits of himself that feel like they belong to someone else. Robin, that abstract concept that was his and Jason's and Dick's, no longer plagues his mind space. It's not Robin moving, it's Tim. It's not Robin's experiences, it's his. He can look back on all his life, and pick out the times in that suit when he had made a right decision, and it had been his own, but he accredited it to the magic of Robin. But it wasn't! Tim had done all of that! Tim, and just Tim. Tim has accomplished so many things that he had never realized before, and all it took to know it was the moment he left his mask and cape behind in that warehouse, dashing out in only his Kevlar under suit, feeling naked as the day he came, but reborn, as if from the ashes. A bright, brilliant phoenix.

But Tim's mind never stops working. Those thoughts lead to other thoughts, and those other thoughts weigh him down. His feet slow to a stop. Before him spreads out Gotham, the unending black hole. His home. His place of belonging. Where everything he loves has breathed and lived day by day with the same, common struggles of the city. The struggles they fight against. The struggles that pay their bills and inhibit their freedom of movement and effect their taxes.

Tim doesn't remember the last time he felt like this. What was happiness to him? Happiness, it was when Dick called him little brother. It was when Stephanie Brown cracked a joke too corny to be funny. It was the metallic sound the cave made when Bruce came home. It was when Alfred hummed while making dinner, and the sweetness of his apple pie. Simple things. Little things. Those were the kinds of things that filled life, and makes it worth living. Tim isn't a stupid kid, and he had always thought it was because he paid attention. But how much had he really noticed?

Tim counts things. He counts things that he will remember. But what about the things that Tim doesn't want to remember? Those were the things that he let Robin count, because Robin was a costume he put away every morning, and put back on every night. Had Robin counted the days that went by between each one of his smiles? Had Robin counted every time someone looked at him and scowled? Had Robin counted how many hours he spent in the training ring? Had he counted the bruises that resulted? How many band aids has he used in the past seven years? How many broken bones? But Robin counts them because Robin never counts anything Tim considers worthy of remembrance.

Tim has wasted a lot of time and energy, and on what? Being angry? Feeling left out? Feeling unworthy? And each morning he puts away those feelings and begins a new day, but in the back of his mind, he was never happy with that, was he? Had Tim separated Robin in his mind from his identity as a person because it's easier to let Robin deal with the heavy stuff, Robin counting the things that make him upset, and in doing so he never dealt with the problems at hand, had he?

Tim never counted the amount of pills that he took from that bottle. But Alfred must have. When had the pills switched from red to blue? When had Alfred made the subtle switch from sleeping pills to antidepressants?

Tim's body moves without him really knowing where he was going-and for the first time in a long time, that's ok. Tim thinks that he had subconsciously known all along that Alfred had made the switch, but the part of him that is Robin recognized that things became easier afterwards. And they had. Tim recognizes that now. And without Robin as a mental buffer for all the things Tim doesn't want to deal with, Tim becomes cold and ashamed.

Tim had become Jason. He had become that angry, bitter kid that jumped to his death. But Jason jumped to his death as a Robin, and Tim has made his escape as Tim. Tim chose the way that Dick chose, but in Tim's own way, not anyone else's. Tim is, and will never be, Jason. Every Robin grows to old for his Bat, but each one of them had chosen completely different ways to split off. Dick grew to old. Jason grew to angry. Tim supposes he grew to upset. Tim can recognize now that, for a long time, feeling like Jason had hurt him. It was Jason, the idea of him and what he left behind, that made Tim's training so hard, and made taking the mantle so hard, and Tim could never forgive...who? Himself? But it's over now. Tim is not Robin, and Robin is not Tim.

Tim's legacy has only begun.

Tim knocks softly on the glass of the window, hanging one handed by his fingers with his feet planted firmly on either side of the sill, in a crouch. His mind flies through several different scenarios if this plan should fail, and he has a few back ups hidden up his sleeves. He had pulled out a spare mask, without all the technological bits that Batman is so found of, which he is certain has no tracking device. If Tim doubts all but one thing, he knows Bruce will come after him.

The window slides open.

"What the fuck-"

"-Stephanie Brown," Tim greets, "Mind if I step in for a moment?"

She's beautiful. Tim has always thought so, but tonight seems different than all the other times he has seen her-like looking through a new pair of glasses. Her hair pulled up in a messy bun, eyes muted by sleepiness, a ratty old t-shirt and what appear to be men's boxers-she's a goddess. Tim gets a shiver up his spine that has nothing to do with the sweat cooling from where his cape had once draped his shoulders. Of course, he is well aware that he looks like none of the known tight wearing heroes in Gotham currently, and she has no idea who he is, nor have they ever spoken directly in class, but still. He has hope she'll let him speak.

"Yeah, sure," she responds, easily, as though talking to someone she knows well, "Step into my office."

Tim is about to go into the room of Stephanie Brown. He can honestly say the only girl's room he's ever been in is Babs, and that was because she slept at her desk late one morning. And even then it had been like a jungle to someone who lives in the desert.

She steps aside and Tim easily folds into the room, a bight pink expanse of four walls marred with posers and bright magazine clippings, purple curtains and purple bedding left so messy with dirty clothing and beauty products that the air smells like powder and deodorant-the floral kind he likes so much. The doorway is shut, and he dodges a swinging figurine hanging by a chain to the ceiling fan-an anime character. She's perfect. Tim watches as she sits cross legged on her bed-yes, she is wearing boxers. Where did she get those from? Tim wants to know everything. What kind of perfume is he smelling? What kind of shows does she like? Is the My Little Pony bedspread from her childhood or does she just like it? Tim wouldn't judge either way.

But words. He needs to speak words first. "Sorry to bother you so late."

"Wasn't really sleeping," she offers, shrugging, "It's…well, you know. Everyone's going crazy out there. No one sleeps through that."

"No," he agrees.

His courage is running low. He had a plan, but Stephanie Brown just takes it all away. It's probably because she's beautiful. The room smells like her. He's a mess.

"So, ah, shouldn't you be somewhere else? You know, fighting the good fight, all that. Or the bad fight, that's fine too!"

Tim touches the metallic Bat symbol sown into his body suit. He shakes his head, "I'm one of the good guys. Trust me."

"Well I figured. Though it did cross my mind that I was letting a serial killer into my room. But only, like, twice, so I think we're good."

She's brilliant.

Silence prevails. Where is that courage he had just a second ago? But Tim is so infatuated, and the room smells so good, and she's wearing men's boxers, and for the first time that Tim remembers he's having a hard time fighting with hormones and his ever pressing need to 'fight the good fight'. But he's a teenager, right? He's allowed moments like this, right?

"So," she pauses, "What's up?"

"I need your help."

Her eyebrows raise in surprise and her eyes dance behind her lashes. Thick and black and long and dear God, focus on the problem at hand, Tim. This is the first time he is speaking to her directly, ever, and he's not doing so great a job. He wishes for a minute he would have taken the Huntress seriously when she gave him girl advice. "You? You need my help?'

"Yes," he says.

She snorts and laughs, hand clutching her left ankle in her hand, "ok, so, so you need my help? Ok wow, ok. I mean, really? Does the Batman…Are you…?"

"I was Robin," Tim doesn't think about guilt, and he doesn't give himself time to even feel it. "But I'm not anymore. You can call me…Bird...Blackbird."

Stephanie snorts, looking at his with a smirk pulled against her lips, "That's original."

"It's not the name that matters," But Tim knows that the name matters more than anything else.

She muses for a moment, "I don't know, I can see you as something really cool, like Black Fox, or Dark Vibes, or something. Like, there are some really cool names out there. I was reading a comic the other day about this guy named Black Panther, now that's a cool name! Or something like, Red Thorn, that ones awesome! I don't know everyone in Gotham has such straight forward names."

"Like Spoiler?"

She sobers a little-which is unfortunate, because Tim loves to see her happy-and she shrugs, "Yeah, she's such a fraud."

"I don't think so," Tim says, "in fact, I really need her help."

The look on her face is priceless. Tim wishes he had a camera, so he can document the pure surprise, worry, and amazement that flickers through her expression, mouth hanging open and eyes wide-she's even beautiful like that. Tim, Batman, Barbara, the Birds, even Dick have all known for months now-nothing happens in this city without the Bat clan's knowledge, and really, a bright blonde vigilante suddenly appearing to foil only the Cluemaster is something really difficult to overlook. But there was never a reason to stop it. Spoiler only spoils her father's schemes, and they watch her very carefully when she does. Nothing escapes the notice of the Bat.

Tim tries not to feel put off by that thought.

"Is it…is it my dad?"

"No, not this time," Tim says, "but I can't do this alone. There's this girl, this little girl who needs our help."

"A little girl?"

"Probably twelve."

Tim knows he is appealing to her better nature, and using her past as the daughter of a known criminal against her. Honestly, helpless children are all most semi-heroes need to pick up the cowl and go fight. And to get a chance to work with her, and to save that girl, the one who, even when he never looked her directly in the eyes, stays in his thoughts constantly over the last few days, well, it's a win-win.

Tim is tired. He's tired of them losing focus and forgetting about the ones who truly suffer. He's tired of playing games with Extraterrestrials and meta humans and teams thrown together to appease sidekicks. He wants to go back to what Dick had started with, and what he remembers most about those early days. Getting organized crime off the streets, one pimp at a time. Clinics and soup kitchens, those are where the real super heroes are in these cities of poverty and ruin. Those people make the real difference. Sometimes it's not a problem of what is good for the whole, because a whole is only as strong as its weakest parts. And right now, the city is very, very weak.

Tim wouldn't ignore the girl like Brue does. He wouldn't over look her cry for help, or the price she has had to pay for her life thus far. For all the struggles that Tim has known, he recognizes that there are thousands of others in this lost city that have it worse off, who suffered relentlessly and still continue to, and saving all of them is futile. But he doesn't have to save all of them, he just has to save her. Because she represents all the people they couldn't save, all the kids whose homes are cinder blocks and who shiver in the cold and only own one jacket. The girl is a martyr in Tim's mind.

It's unfair, isn't it? It's not a personal connection. Tim pities her. Tim wishes everything upon her that he cannot get from his own life, and sure, it's not fair, but in the long run, if her life is saved, what does fair have to do with it? She deserves to live. She deserves more than she has ever gotten in life. And Tim will fix it. This he swears. Before God, before country, before the freaking president, before everyone.

"So where do we start? Where is she?"

Stephanie Brown didn't even think twice about her decision, she simply stands and stripped right then and there-her skin is a golden color and her hair is a golden color and she has no bra on and her underwear are pink and Tim thinks she is spring and happiness and everything good in the world all rolled into one because he doesn't think he would have been selfless enough to make that decision as easily as she did. She is pulling on her cotton costume, and stands ready for the fight ahead by the time Tim finds himself-unafraid, brave, a bit foolish, yes, but God makes an exception for the fools, for the drunks, and for the children, doesn't he?

"East side," he manages.

Spoiler nods and follows him out of her bedroom window.

He has never felt so alive.

"Where the fuck is Taffy?"

The roar comes from above the screaming metal and is lost around them in the sound of their thundering footsteps. The gate slams back into place with that emphasized curse, closing on the hand of a policeman, who howls, blood still running from his temple from an earlier wound-John had seen it happen, seen the blood burst from the soft cartilage of the skull from a water pipe found on the floor by an angry, misplaced youth. But as in all things, John doesn't allow any of them to stop and wonder if the added broken hand was going to slow the cop down. He all but throws LaDasha towards the street in front of them, and manhandles Remy into running again.

He has three bullets left. He will use them, but only if he has to.

LaDasha gives off a screech, her hands clutching at the brick siding of the building to their left. She has slipped on something dead-who knows what it is now. John barely notices it as he barrels out of the alley and skids to a stop in the middle of the street.

Three cop cars have set up a barricade, but they are facing away from John and his girls. Going around the back way wouldn't be too hard if they can manage to cross the road without drawing attention to themselves, and even if they were noticed, losing them at the intersection on 67th would be easy, if they had to. Their footsteps were not heard, and the crying becomes muffled by LaDasha's hand placed palm down upon her lips. John's shoulders become level and his chin raises. His body becomes calm-

-But just as John started to think that they could slip behind them without consequence, the officer with the bloody temple stumbles out of the alleyway, lifts his gun with his good hand, and shouts, "Freeze!" At the top of his fucking lungs.

Stupid bastard.

John doesn't have time to grab his own gun from his pocket, but Remy does. Her anger is what gives her that edge. John has always admired it, and the pinpoint accuracy that comes when the rage-better than being on Speed, better than having Meta powers. Raw emotion drives even weak men to being strong. John doesn't have explosions like that within him, but he does have cold torrents that seep out of his skin. Sometimes he wonders which one is better. Times like these, he doesn't doubt which one he would rather have.

"Don't come any closer, damn it!" Remy screeches, watching keenly as every last one of the police at the blockade rear their guns upwards almost in unison, ready to strike any one of them down should Remy pull the trigger-John seethes inside, calculating what it would take for them to get out of this alive. Being a black man with two women next to him, his odds are bad and keep on stacking. It doesn't take much to give Gotham cops reason to kill. "I said DON'T!"

The red and blue lights are blinding, and reflect technicolor in the thick fog that has settled over the area, like a spray of white sand marred by drops of blood. So much blood tonight. There is a part of John that hates it and a part of him that doesn't. The part of him that doesn't almost always wins, because what he hates most about blood is more practical than what drives him to dislike it. John hates cleaning up after himself. Ever since he was a child, ever since his home land-no, he hates cleaning up after himself. A man should never have to. That is what women were made for.

The manic look in both Remy and LaDasha's eyes tells him that there will be to much to clean up tonight for just the two of them. They are experiencing two different kinds of panic, but both of them are driven by death-the weight of death and the feel of death and what death does to you when your holding a bloody knife. They've all killed tonight. Even the cops have. It's just the way it goes in gang-wars. Some people are stronger than others and natural selection does a good job of weeding through the weak ones.

John counts eight cops, including the one with the head wound. There are three of them. LaDasha doesn't even have her gun anymore, that stupid bitch. Taffy was supposed to come two hours ago with ammo, but she never showed which leads John to only having three bullets. Dead, probably. John only cares because he put a lot of money in her getting there, and if someone fucks with his money they fuck with him.

"Put the weapon down!"

"Let us through!" Remy screams, "Let us FUCKING THROUGH!"

She stepped forward, her eyes wide as though in shock, her hair plastered to her forehead and cheeks. She's a pretty girl. Smarter than anything, with a temper to match. Her Pilipino eyes are dark with it, that anger. All the police in the area back up and shuffle at the same time, in a grand sound, all at once-John guesses they can feel it, and are responding to her rage. "Stay right where you are!" "Put down the gun, honey! This doesn't have to be so hard!" "Put your hands where I can see them, now!"

"Hold on!"

From the dark beyond the flashing lights comes a figure, slimmer, with both hands raised, the red playing off his mustache to give him a feel of a middle aged detectie. As he gets closer, John can see age on him, age that he wears like the vest that is strapped over his chest. It weights his down and makes him heavy looking, his shoulders slumped even though his hands are raised, shuffling feet kicking up dust. But still his men respond to his words a though he had spoken through a megaphone, and John is put immediately on edge by it. Powerful men don't have a pleasant history with John. He is to dominate for other people's bullshit.

"Hold on," he says again, "We don't want to hurt you. My name is Jim, Jim Gordon. I'm putting my own weapon away, see? Putting it away. There, just like that. It's not hard, ma'am. It's about choosing to do the right thing-"

"-When did you ever chose to do the right thing?"

Jim Gordon seems to consider that, "Not as often as I wanted to. It's about regret."

"You're a pathetic asshole," Remy growls.

"I'm doing the right thing," Gordon says, "What are you doing?"

Her wide eyes flicker.

Shit.

No one is looking at John. His hands fly to his pocket, and he slips the automatic from where it's been since they left the port, no hope of back up or relief in sight. He's never had a problem with death. He's never had a time when he felt bad for it. It's easier than cutting paper, easier than climbing steps. Just cock your gun and let it breathe. They were made for murder.

John thinks people are like guns and knives and spears and anything else that is easy to use or handle. You put a gun in a kids hand? They're going to use it. That senseless, horrible cruelty is something that is innate in human kind and gives them the power to become great. It's a cruelty that is so easy to manipulate-

"NO!"

The scream is the only thing that made him turn. He swivels and nothing but dark covers the glaring lights, and the butt of the gun in his hand jams into his stomach, and a warm body is wrestling him for control of the weapon-fingers entwined with fingers and nails entwined with nails. The gun goes off, once, twice, three times-each with such a pounding sound that John's teeth clattering in his skull. There is a horse order, "Stop!" and warm, sticky liquid runs down his hands and abdomen.

LaDasha's eyes are listless in front of his, her nose almost touching his-the smell of sage with the difficult twinge of iron. Her lips tremble, and slowly the color fades from those beautiful lips as though they have no remorse or shame. Her eyes suddenly settle, and fix on him, pleading. "No. T-too many lives, John. Too many…" And a shuttering, body wrenching breath is taken in, tumbles out through the hole in her lung, splattering blood on his arms, until there is no more strength in her body to keep going.

Her eyes plead no more. She drops heavily on the grimy cement of Crime Alley.

John sees everything in many colors, several people running around him, but no one reaching for him nor trying to stop him as he moves. He steps on LaDasha's body with a jolt as he makes a grab for a quiet, stunned Remy-a wound in her left shoulder from a bullet, and he only knows it because of the warmth seeping into his hand. A continuous moan, "Commissioner? Commissioner, say something! God, he's not breathing, God-!" And John pulls Remy from the bloodbath they had created, the gun in her hand still shaking as they break into a desperate run.

No one follows. The crowd around Jim Gordon's body is thick.

Tears roll down Remy's cheeks, but damn it all if John even thinks of stopping. He throws them both forward, his chest heavy as he breathes, and barrels around a corner towards the safety of the shop. He does not shake. He does not cry. He does not feel anything but what running does to your breathing, making it labored. But for no other reason than the intense need to escape.

The door to the shop is unlocked. It's the first time he has ever seen the street entirely empty. None of the barrels are lit tonight, and are cold in the rain and fog-some still smoking as though put out by the weather and not by human hands. In the distance, the city is lit like a torch, burning, from the inside out-to much fire for the rain and fog to stop. It smells like iron and blood, and sulfur. The shop has no fragrance. All the herbs and Jamaican remedies have lost their magic, and the from window is smashed in, glass littering the hard wood like mirrors which reflect the vision of smoke and fire on all the walls.

John limps, heaving Remy's dead weight through the door to the house and into the heavy interior, damp with dew. He throws her on the ground, heavily, tossing his gun on the armchair, heavily, stumbling to the kitchen on nothing but on foot and his dragging hands. Where the fuck is the first aid? Remy needs to be in working order again, before those damn police get here. Before they come for him. Before they destroy everything he has built, everything!

A gasp, a cry of a name, "Remy!"

John hadn't noticed Red was in the room, but he rarely does. She always seems to blend into the background, mold into the furniture, fold under carpets and bed frames. Her eyes are a dark, terrified brown, the color of sickness, and her pale, slender fingers grab at the hands covering Remy's bullet wound, pushing them further down to apply more pressure.

John throws the first aid kit on the ground from where he found it, sitting heavily on the couch, messaging the bridge of his nose in his fingers. He watches Red frantically pulling bandages and ointment and thread from the box, watches the ashen features of Remy's pretty face swell and her breathing heave, life draining from her as she claws at the carpet. She would never go calmly. She was nothing like LaDasha. Remy was a solider. A damn good one. John will never find another quite like her.

Even as John sits there, lamenting on his failures, he thinks of the future.

John was born to poverty. A poverty so intense that they wouldn't show it on American television. Child soldiers mean nothing to politicians. But that was where John came from. John, the boy with no future. John, the Biblical man who changed the lives of hundreds, thousands. He never changed his name when he managed to sneak onto that cargo ship, and never looked back as he ventured across the sea. The shores of Jamaica didn't seduce him. He had his sights set on bigger, better things. He wanted America. The home of the brave, the free. But had anyone here shot a gun? Had anyone here known the types of horrors he has known?

He realized quickly that none of them did- stupid, selfish creatures that they are. Americans. He could spit on that word, set it on fire, watch their dreams burn. He hated the concept. He believed for a long time that every single American lived in a dream world, a land of broken fantasies where their lives were so perfectly paved, and things fell so perfectly into place, and the world was such a great, happy one.

He started where he knew the business best. The sex trafficking underground of Atlanta. LaDasha had been born in the Virgin Islands, and acted as his green card. He got in easily, and wasted no time securing ties. Richman, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Los Vegas. He collected girls along the way. Those early ones are dead now-John still remembers Gretchen and Aliyah, but only in the way you would remember a long dead pet. He replaced them easily. They were nothing but names and manpower anyway. The last set was his favorite. He accomplished more with Remy and Nate and Taffy, and hell, even little Red, than he had anyone else.

But business is business. And empires are not built in one day, nor with one army. John will try again, from where he is left now. He has been in worse situations than this.

"John?"

"What is it?'

"What happened? Where were you?"

John watches Red. She was a good investment. Her work on that shoulder would have saved Remy is they hadn't been to late getting here. John likes Red. He likes her because she is like a little mound of clay, so easy to mold, and ready to be exactly what he wants her to be. Or at least, that's how he liked her before the world took its influence. She's not been what he wanted lately. And he doesn't keep around anything he doesn't want.

"We were at the dock, waiting for a shipment to come in. Never came," John tells her.

Perhaps he should start over, find another little one, now that he knows how rewarding it is to craft them from childhood. It's so tiresome, trying to find ones who are already what you want them to be. It's like trying on all the wrong pairs of shoes. But building them? It's worth the investment.

But he invested so much time and energy already into her, and LaDasha was fond of the girl. From the moment he brought her home, LaDasha loved Red. She gave his wife a focus, something to nurture, something that wouldn't fight against it, like the others did. LaDasha had always kept the girls in line, been their friend and their mother and their sister and their lover, when they needed it. She took care of all the things John hated to deal with. She built bonds with them. It made her weak, yes, but John knew the importance of the act. And with each one came their own unique problems-drugs and abuse and absent mothers and foster homes and the list never ended and the list kept getting bigger with each person they brought into the family. But little Red had not known what any of these things were like. When he found her, she didn't even know herself. Sometimes John thinks it was drugs, sometimes he thinks she got hit on the head a little to hard. How could a kid just appear there, not knowing where or who she was? What else could it possibly be? But it doesn't matter, does it? She came to them. And LaDasha believed she was sent by God.

Yes, LaDasha loved her, and that made a difference. It made a difference to John. Because John still remembers when they lost that baby, and he remembers thinking, 'this will be her child now.' How could he get rid of LaDasha's child? This was all he had left of her. She will carry on what LaDasha had started. Red will be the cornerstone that his wife had been, and failed.

Remy dies on the carpet of the living room.

Red sobs, her hands curled into fists, her clothes scattered with dirt and grime so that she appears much like she had the day John found her. One shoe is missing, and her sock is torn and wet. That face is drawn and those eyes that were once a calming coffee color now seem melted and dark. "We have to do something!"

"Do what?"

"Something," she says, brokenly.

John thinks about it, "Where is the package from Shark?"

Red shakes her head, a jerking motion, as though chasing away bad memories, "The Batman has him! They…There were so many cops, I just…."

John pushes down cold anger. This is LaDasha's child.

"He betrayed us?"

Red nods, another jerking motion. She keeps her hands on Remy's shirt, and lets the fat, ugly tears fall. John allows her to do this. "Where…where are…?"

"Dead," John answers.

A choking noise follows. The air is heavy and thick with wet.

-clap- -clap- -clap-

John is rarely surprised, but he has to admit that the sound of clapping hands catches him off guard. His hand flies to the gun on the armchair, and he has it pointed within a moment of standing. But he is to late. With a –bang!-, John feels the pressure in his chest release, coil again, and then tighten impossibly tight. His breath is lost. His sight goes black for an amount of time. He falls back where he was sitting.

Standing in the doorway of the shop is a tall man in leather-a bomber jacket tight against his chest, his pants the sort of spandex that comes with costumes, his shoes laced military style. There is no face, but a head draped in a red mask, with no visible marks or blemishes. It smells like polish, even feet away, and his body is muscled and hard looking. He leans in the doorway, his arms crossed.

"I have to say," The voice comes from the dark shape where he is standing, a sort of deep, distorted voice that murmurs behind metal, "that was touching. It really was."

Red has backed up into the wall, as though she could disappear there. John growls from between his teeth, trying to keep the pain from coming forward, "Who the fuck are you?"

"Are you just going to hide?" The man says, talking directly to Red as though John had not spoken, "You should know. You can never hide from me."

"Don't talk to her! Who are you, damn it?"

"Come here, kitty…kitty,"

John scrambles for his gun.

"Oh," the voice is directed back at John, a pistol positioned at his head. "I wouldn't do that. I won't let you keep breathing next time around."

"John?"

"Shut up, Red," John manages. The tightness in his chest has given way to a flood of liquid, which makes his head swim. Why is this fucker in his house? His hand trembles as he tries to lift the gun, but the automatic only clicks. –click- -click- -click- -click- "God damn it!"

The man ignores him.

"Hello, there, kitty." He murmurs, "Its ok, look, I'm just going to sit."

"Don't talk to him, damn it! Get away from her!"

He is ignored again.

"You know who this is?" The man asks, reaching into his leather motorcycle pants to pull out a crumpled photo. He shows it to Red with little more regard to John, as though the one who owns her isn't sitting only a few feet away, bleeding. Red glances over at John before looking once again at the picture, small and thin and pale looking.

"Don't answer," John commands, trying to keep himself calm-

-Bam!- the gun pointed at his head goes off.

John sees in reds and blacks, and whites, where the light is brighter. He is distantly aware of the rough fabric of the couch, the heat surrounding his body like a shroud, liquid trickling down his neck. Breathing is labored and unevenly timed. A hazy feeling thickens his perception of reality and turns it muddy. But still, he holds on. And still he is ignored.

It's infuriating.

John is infuriated as he watches Red speak, her lips almost gone in the bloody spot that is her head. John is infuriated as he watches Red try to stand as the man reaches for her. He is infuriated as she goes boneless in his arms, hoisted up like a toddler, her toes feet from the ground. He is infuriated as he is ignored, and left there, to bleed and to die. His anger festers under his skin like a drug, like a disease, until it fills his whole body and makes his heart beat long and fast.

There are no children in this world of power, in this world of men. There are no children when eight, seven, five years old is old enough to hold a gun. John had learned that the hard way, and he knows. The Americans may not teach their children to shot weapons, or unlock safeties, or how to crouch in gunfire, but they do teach them disregard to the rest of humanity. The humanity that suffers. The humanity that does not live in their dream. They teach their children that it is ok to care one minute and forget the next, to sit around all day and do nothing with their future. In the arms of their parents, these small men are a waste of life. Look what John had done with those he has chosen as his own! Look at what he built with only lost, sad little girls! Give them firearms, and they become soldiers.

Girls are so predictable. They are driven by simple thoughts, and easy monopolized. Their power rests in their bodies, and bodies are controllable, all it takes are men like John to take ownership of all that they have to offer. In his homeland, these were facts of life. Here, they are simply something fought against, dormant sexuality that is, even during their bullshit of feminism, still not their own. It was never meant for them to own. Give them the sense of power, and they will bend over to your will. Feminism is make believe, another delusion that the Americans like to tell each other, to give them a sense of that equality. But John is a black man. He knows there's no such thing as equality.

John seethes, and seethes, but not for long. He never lingers. It's time to start over.

Yes, John will start over. If there is anything life has taught him, it was to never lose your drive. It's the only thing he has when everything else crumbles. John will start over in a new city, with new girls. This time, he knows what not to do with the little ones. This time, he will make them what he desires of them, he will get a new LaDasha, he will-

-he will create just what he had escaped when he was a small boy.

John, for the first time in twenty years, pauses. His greatest achievement in his life was escaping that place-where his body and soul and ideas and beliefs were not his own. He has spent every day after that one creating…what? Creating just what he had escaped. But he didn't know it like he did. He prides his ability to escape, but had he really?

No. John had never escaped. He had never given up that life. As far as he had known, he was always living it. He hadn't slept since he was born, not really slept. And had wondered what it was that separated him from all these Americans, accomplishing dreams and living them. But this had been it, hadn't it? You cannot teach an old dog new tricks. He escaped slavery in Kenya, and came to this country with the intent to rule-but he had accomplished it in the same way that the men who lorded over his platoon did. He created a government around him, a dictatorship, a military operated monarchy. And he is the king. As it always should be.

But what is the point in being king if he were only going to die? If he were only going to make others of himself, others in slavery, others who live in the same life he had escaped. But it is not the same, is it? Where is the true, unbending poverty?

No. Gotham is poverty. Not all homelessness is the same. It has never occurred to John, but, can you own everything and still have no home? Yes. Because that is how John had lived, all these years. This is how he lived when he lost LaDasha to that dead baby, years ago. He lost his wife when he brought home Red, and gave her someone else to love and devote to. He had lost Taffy, when he sent her on that boat. He had lost Remy, when he decided it was better to lose her and start over than to try and save the life of a comrade. He had lost Nate, long ago, when she took the bullet and LaDasha's sanity with her.

Were these the broken pieces of a life long since shattered by war? Were these the reality he had built up and covered his own eyes with when his village was burned down, so long ago, his mother and sisters raped and torn and thrown ragged on the dusty road-when his father stood back and watched before his brains were blown out the back of his head, eyes black with defiance and rage as tears seeped from his eyes, as the men who raided their village stepped on his corpse-"Only weak men cry tears"-, when John was given his first rifle and told that real men lug heavy burdens?

He had thought he forgot about these things.

John thinks of Red and how not all white people are privileged. He thinks of Remy, with her eyes wild and her tattoos seeming to grow and move across her skin when the light is dim. He thinks of Nate, with her endless silences and the final one that broke all that is sacred. He thinks of Taffy, who had fondly broken the rules and fondly received her punishment. He thought of LaDasha, standing on the beaches of her home, hands dunked into the salty spray, surrounding her like a jewel. He thinks of LaDasha, her hair newly twisted in braids that glint with beads. He thinks of LaDasha, reading her sisters palm over the cool of a shallow stream, eyes dancing as they peek through the trees at him watching as they swim. He thinks of LaDasha, dancing with her Jamaican mother on pine flooring, smelling rich as fresh bought cinnamon. He thinks of LaDasha, her knuckles gone pale on the boats railing as they watch her home disappear into the distant light. He thinks of LaDasha, on their wedding day surrounded by sand on the Florida coast, regarding the ocean but thinking of different beaches and different sand. He thinks of LaDasha, who always stayed by his side. He thinks of his wife, who broke under the pressure of dead girls, friends, daughters, companions, loved as dearly as she once did her sister. He thinks of his wife, who carried them emotionally when John could not understand the people behind the faces, nor the importance of other human lives.

John thinks of himself and how he will never start over. John thinks of himself, and how his dreams would never come true. John thinks of himself, and wonders how long he has to mull over the idea of an afterlife. John thinks of himself, his hands calloused and empty.

John Wilder does not have time to make peace with these things. John Wilder dies angry.

Tonight, Father Gregory prayed over more dead bodies than he has since he was in Iraq.

The clock hanging on the hospital wall ticks stead as a heartbeat-4:26 AM. Had so few hours really passed since he had come to Gotham Central Hospital, dispersed by his convent as they try to hold together pieces of community in the ensuing chaos? But it is true. Both the clock on that wall and the small one placed at the bottom of the TV screen, blaring news reports and live footage from different parts of the city, are the same, and the Father does not doubt the time that is shown there anymore than his disbelief could take him.

He is tired, but a Father's job is never done, because neither is God's will. He had made his vows long ago, and even now, in this horror, upholds them. Even in the face of unexplainable death and suffering. Father Gregory will never go back on his vows-that is not the sort of man that he is, and that is not the nature of God that he so well knows.

So the Father prays. There is nothing else for him to do, when the medical professionals know not what else may help. God will always bring mercy, and sometimes that mercy is death.

"-National Guard has been called in from Washington, and joined the last officers fighting bravely in Gotham's streets. Batman has been spotted earlier on east side, but has since disappeared. The question remains-where is our Knight when we need him most?"

The child laying twisted on the bed is too young for bullet wounds, but still they seep bloodstains on the bandages taped to her legs. No more than thirteen, her hands are small and browned by genetics and sun, her hair long, tangled, a honey color. She is a beautiful child, molded perfectly in Our Makers hands. Yet, it will be a struggle for her to walk again. She was caught in the crossfire, as many were tonight, four bullets that burrowed nastily into her legs.

Father Gregory doesn't know why he chose this bedside, on this hour, when she was left in the hallway to afford someone who needed surgery more the chance to live. Several other beds have been rolled here and forgotten, broken limbs and beaten faces bloodshot and weary as they listen, watch, if they can, the television seen from around a corner in the waiting rooms-so full of people, and yet so unnaturally quiet. The only sounds are the shuffling of feet, the occasional whimper from a child, and the groans of the wounded.

But the girl had caught his eye, alone, unlike most others who have sought comfort and shelter in the arms of the hospital. No family nor loved ones flank her bedside. Her eyes are dark and numb looking, for so young a child. So he sat to give her company. He sat to give her relief. And like all the others, he sat to give her a time to reflect, to repent, to make right what was wrong-as he has been doing for so many others, some who would last the night and some who would not.

But she had made no move to ask for prayer, and Father Gregory does not push anyone into something they do not wish for. He simply sits with her, and holds her cold, solid hand.

His thoughts wonder back to the TV, where police cars make the image look like strobe lights from a night club.

"Abandoned."

He jumps. He had not expected her to speak. She lays haphazardly on her side, watching where he is, her head down at an angle that makes her neck look broken. There is dried blood on the sheets, but there is little to do about it now. "I'm sorry?"

"He's abandoned us," the girl murmurs, "Batman."

Father Gregory never gives much consideration to the heroes-no, they have enough consideration already. They do not walk the path he wishes they would walk, but he is not one to begrudge a person's life. He only wishes to guild and help. Even still, he has his opinions. And the younger generation believe so strongly in these night dancing shadows.

"I do not believe so," the Father offers.

The girl's dark eyes flicker to his-he tries not to flinch at the pain there. So young, to young for this horror. Children are so precious. Sometimes the Father thinks that God puts these obstacles in his life because these are his weak points-to see the little ones suffer. He prays to Saint Nicholas nearly every day, perhaps more for his own broken childhood than for theirs. But the prayer counts the same in the Saviors eyes.

He smooths her hair from her face, her body temperature so low it should be considered unholy, "a man who has devoted his life to something so wholly, they do not abandon that. It is not in their nature."

"Then what is?"

"I do not know," the Father respond, and then places a hand over her heart to signify there, and goes back to smoothing back her tangled locks, "Each person has been placed a burden on their heart. Something they care so deeply about that even death would be a better option than to lose it. Some, they defy death for that which they love. But that is the strength of free will."

"Will he come back? Batman?"

"I cannot say."

"Does God know?"

Father Gregory chuckles, "Oh yes. But those are the greatest of secrets. Only He knows."

"How do you know that He knows?"

"Because," the Father says, "I have faith."

The woman in the bed nearest them gives off a shuttering breath. She has been crying for some time, and God only knows her suffering. But it must be deep and intense. The Father reaches over to tap the button on the wall, hoping that a kind nurse will come with morphine. None come. Minutes pass, and her shuttering slowly stops. The Father says a prayer over her, and keeps his head bowed. The child becomes hotter and hotter, as her fever rages. But no one but him is there to care for her, and there are so many sick.

"Has God abandoned us?"

"No," he answers immediately, watching as the words tumble hoarsely from her lips. What must he do to save her life? Dear, holy God, please give him direction. Please, do not take this one. Not this one, "No, he has never abandoned you."

"How do you know?"

"I do not."

She studies him, her eyelids fluttering like butterflies on her cheeks. Father Gregory begins to plead and bargain, but he knows it is futile. He knows his God. If He has chosen to take this one, then He will take her. But Father Gregory can hope and pray until he sees her better, and only then will he stop praying.

"-Fires spreading across Lee park and into residential areas, where fire fighters are keeping the outbreak contained. Commissioner Jim Gordon has been admitted to the hospital, and we take you live to Gotham Central Hospital with…"

"I don't get it."

"I know," the Father says, "It is a very difficult thing to understand."

"Then….what?"

Father Gregory smiles, and that smile touches his eyes, "There are some things that you cannot explain with words. You must feel it. You must believe."

Father Gregory cannot believe that God's word is a lie, that God has never been in his life, that God has left them here to suffer, in the same way that Batman cannot leave his city and his people here in ruin. They both have a fair bit of trust, and a fair bit of faith. Faith in the unknown, and the people around them. That one day this city will be restored to what it could be, washed clean and emerging from the waters like baptism. Father Gregory cannot believe that he or anyone else has done something wrong, that they are not the Sodom and Gomorrah of the modern day, and that prays that these innocents will know that they are not to blame for the current state of the world, but that God teaches them something as He teaches them all. Even Father Gregory is still learning, and still being tested.

Faith is not about believing in what is real and tangible, it is about believing in something that does not scientifically exist. Love is not seen physically, is it? But humanity looks for love in others and trusts when that love is told to them. They have learned over centuries to accept small tokens and gestures, and calls these things the proof of love, and uses their lack of existence as a means to prove they were never loved in the first place. God works in ways very similar to this, and so does the devil. Sometimes it amazes the Father that people fail to notice-an unexplainable urge, the feeling of a hand upon your shoulder, another person's kindness, simple blessings like no traffic, the beep of the coffee maker, the beat of a newly born heart. The Father has experienced chills down his spine and miracles as they know of them today, not large nor breathtaking, but coincidental and entirely strange and wonderful.

This city has been touched by evil, it's true. But so have many, many other things, and it is said that through Him, all things are possible and made true. This is what the Father believes in so wholly, so entirely.

Children suffer every day, and there is no excuse for it. Children suffer and die, as adults would and do, and there is no one there to protect them. The idea of Batman gives every child, even ones like this girl who have no one here to fight for her, a sense of comfort. Like a faraway father moving in the shadows. If they knew more of their Heavenly Father, perhaps they would not feel so wounded when Batman makes human mistakes, as all humans are wrought to do.

"What is your name?"

"Rose," came the soft answer.

"That's a beautiful name," the Father tells her, "Would you allow me to pray with you, Rose?"

"Yes."

Father Gregory prayed over Rose. He prayed that the Heavenly Father would spare her life. And in his mind, he mourned. He mourned this beautiful, unloved girl, all those who today have passed, the blood now staining his hands. He mourns the innocence that is now lost in her eyes, and in the eyes of others. He asks, pleads, to God, to his angels, to the Saints, to anyone that will listen, to allow her life beyond her wounds. And if not life, then carry her soul painlessly to heaven, to paradise, to the ends of what is known and unknown, and there give her back life again.

Hours. Hours have passed since he has stepped out into this dark night. And when, not thirteen minutes later, sirens blaring about the walls sending the patients and people flinching against their seats he tells her, "I will look after you."

Rose smiles thin and pale. Those soft lashes close and her breathe evens as she sleeps. And he looks after her, as he promised. Because if God upholds His promises, then so does his priests.

Father God in heaven. You are all knowing, and Your will is whole. Father Gregory trusts his God.

Everything will be ok.