Fair warning, and perhaps goes without saying, but this will not be a happy chapter. Still, I hope you all like it! Thanks again to everyone who has read/reviewed/favorited/followed. It really means a lot to me! I'm not sure how many more chapters there will be in this, but definitely a few more on the way.
August 27, 2014 20:53 – Bekoji
Of all the moments in his life, this was the one Dick would close his eyes and wish away the most. He knew the instant he thought about it, all of those long-buried sensations would come back to him, fresh as yesterday. The burning air, ash, and metal twisting together with the vicious heat that surrounded them. Still, he tried, time and again, to make it not true.
"Nightwing!" Batman's voice broke through the surreal white noise in his ears, solidifying the reality. "Stay back!"
"But—"
"No. Stay back."
The Batwing and Sphere landed within seconds of each other, but time seemed to stretch on forever. Though Dick wanted nothing more than to run into the wreckage and search for his brother, something—obedience or fear—kept him rooted on the spot.
At a safe distance from the fire and debris, he watched helplessly as Batman searched for the missing bird. Just as the Bioship approached, Batman's search stopped.
Why was his mentor so still? Why was he so quiet? If he had found Jason, he should be barking orders about how to care for him until they could get him to the med bay. He should be yelling at Jason for being so stupid. He should say something, do something. Anything.
Against his better judgment, Nightwing rushed toward Batman. As he approached, he could make out figure, small and crumpled, curled against the vigilante.
It doesn't mean anything. He's just telling Jason everything is going to be okay. We're going to get help. Everything will be fine.
In spite of his reassuring thoughts, the young hero propelled himself faster toward the scene. He could just make out blistering skin and singed cloth when something caught his foot. A tangled mess of blond hair and burnt features lay in a heap beneath him.
"Sheila?" he guessed.
The heap nodded. Her breathing was labored; her eyes rolled back a time or two into the back of her head. Dick was no doctor, but he had seen enough dying people to know what was happening.
"He tried to save me," she strained to say.
Pride surged within Nightwing, momentarily lessening his panic. "He does that."
"He… was a good son."
No. No, he is a good son. Is a good brother.
Nightwing never had the chance to correct her. Like countless other victims before her, he watched as Sheila took her last breath and left the world behind. Though not particularly religious, Dick closed his eyes and said a few words for the woman that had given birth to his little brother. When the boy was well enough and found his efforts had been in vain, he knew how much it would hurt the emotional, impulsive boy he had grown to love. The boy who was curled in Batman's arms with fire raging around them.
"Batman!" he yelled. "How is Robin?"
Silence.
"Batman!"
Again, nothing. Just the Dark Knight cradling his bird.
Nightwing broke out into a run. They were thirty, twenty, ten feet away.
"Stop," Batman ordered.
"How is he?!"
"Nightwing…"
"No! How is he?! Tell me he's okay! Tell me he's—"
"Richard!"
Oh, God. Names in the field. Batman used his name in the field. The weight of it threatened to crush Dick as he stood there, waiting for something, anything, to come from Jason. A snarky remark, a cough, even just a shuddering breath. Just something that would take this terrible nightmare away.
"Richard, you need to stand back."
Batman's—no, Bruce's—voice shook with emotion. Though his large body and cape kept most of Jason shielded, Dick could see what counted.
He wasn't moving.
"He isn't… He can't be…"
"Stand. Back."
Dick felt his world crumble beneath him as he took a step back. He could sense the others departing from the Bioship, watching every movement, but no one made a sound. The crackling of fire and the thumping of his own heartbeat drowned out everything else. Finally, after forever and no time at all, Batman lifted Robin into his arms and stood amongst the destruction.
His mentor was careful to wrap the boy into his cape, like folded wings around a fallen baby bird. He turned the boy, just barely past fifteen, into his chest and away from the inferno that had angered his sensitive flesh. The pieces of him that were still visible once Batman had carefully adjusted him looked untouched. If Dick didn't know better, he'd believe Jason was only sleeping.
In some sense of the word, he supposed he was sleeping. It was better than thinking of the alternative.
"He's not breathing," Conner suddenly said to the crowd of shattered soldiers behind them.
It was then that Nightwing turned to face his teammates. Their expressions varied, from horror to disbelief, but they all just stood there. When Batman got closer, Nightwing following behind and careful to keep his gaze off the broken boy, an unbridled sadness began to make its way through the crowd.
"No. No." Barbara said first. Her red hair swung as she shook her head, eyes incredulous in spite of the sight in front of her. The closer they got, the more the doubt changed, morphing into watery grief. "No!"
Her shout felt like a gunshot through Dick's stomach. It both exhausted every part of him and sent a surge of energy through his chest. He had to do something to stop this pain. To make it go away. Immediately, his eyes landed on Zatanna, her own expression as pained as it was the moment she lost her father to Fate.
"You can bring him back, can't you?" The words left Nightwing before he knew what he was saying. "You know how. You know some incantation to bring him back. I know you do."
"Nightwing…"
"You have to know something," he tried.
Zatanna's eyes swam with tears, and she reached out to rest her hand gently on his arm. "I can't. I'm sorry."
He wasn't sure if he wanted to cry, scream, or laugh at the absurdity of the request and the clear insanity that was breaking out around him. When no one moved, he took one more look at the wrapped-up body clung to Batman. In that horrible second, everything became real. Jason was dead, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Dick wanted to break down, to yell and sob into the blackened air around him. To hell with pride, with nerve, with whatever else he was supposed to have. Nightwing faded against Dick's suffocating grief.
"Team, get back to the cave. We will… debrief later. Nightwing, you, Batgirl, and I will go to Gotham," Batman ordered.
Dick did not understand how his voice could remain so steady. Wasn't he feeling the same thing? The overwhelming sadness and loss? He took one look at his mentor, at the whitened eyes of the cowl, and knew this is how his adoptive father dealt with pain. He didn't. Chose not to. Not in front of anyone, anyway. He compartmentalized it into a neat little box in the back of his mind, choosing instead to square his jaw and forge on.
For that brief second, as much as he loved Bruce, he hated Batman.
Still, like the good soldier and obedient protégé he was, he nodded and stepped toward the Batwing. He barely felt it when Wally pat him on the back in a show of brotherly solidarity. Didn't register it when Troia closed her eyes and whispered a small, "Jason". Refused to listen to the apologies and cries of the others. He couldn't now, or he'd shatter entirely.
He stepped into the plane, a steady but trembling Batgirl behind him. With one last glance to the smoldering earth where Jason took his last breaths, Nightwing felt a part of him die along with him.
August 28, 2014 02:35 – Gotham
The ride back to Gotham was silent save for the occasional flight instruction and the beeping of instruments. Batgirl had adopted the same look both Nightwing and Batman were far too accustomed to sporting—clenched teeth and gaunt, focused eyes.
"Beginning descent," Batman said from the controls.
It suddenly hit Dick that neither Alfred nor Tim knew what had happened. Though he understood Bruce's reasons for telling them in person, he couldn't help but feel the whole incident happening all over again. Tim would be happily asleep after hours of training, video games, and detective work. Alfred would be waiting up for them as usual, fully prepared to mend their wounds and tend to all four heroes before he allowed himself to retire for the night.
Three heroes. Only three, now. Nightwing looked back, through the plane's long corridor to the form lying securely in the back. Batman had found the longest, softest blanket he could find and draped it over his dead son's body, strapping him in like a toddler going for a car ride rather than a corpse on his final visit home.
Corpse. His throat burned at the thought of the word. Dick turned back around, tears blurring his vision. He had to hold it together. Had to be brave for Tim and Alfred. For Barbara. And, though he'd never admit he needed it, he had to stay brave for Bruce.
As they approached the Batcave, Bruce finally pulled off the cowl and allowed himself to turn back into the man behind the bat. Even now, Dick could see him wearing a mask. It cracked at the edges, shaking at the corners of his eyes and mouth, but somehow it held as he turned to Batgirl.
"Barbara, you should head home. I'll call your father and tell him… something happened. You should go home and see your family."
Abruptly, the redhead pulled off her own cowl and stared Bruce down. The watering of her eyes did nothing to soften the hardness of her glare. Though Dick knew she would never say it out loud, he heard her thoughts clearly as though they were still psychically linked.
They were part of her family, and she wasn't going anywhere.
Bruce simply nodded and turned to Nightwing, who kept his mask firmly in place. At the moment, it felt as if it were the only thing holding him together. "I'll tell Tim and Alfred."
"I'll tell Tim," Nightwing voiced firmly. "He doesn't need a clinical explanation."
Bruce visibly winced at his son's tone, and Dick was almost apologetic at the unintentional harshness that came with it. That did not stop him from feeling he was right. The thirteen-year-old may have been a genius-level detective, but he was still thirteen. He didn't need to hear his older brother died with some technical language.
His adoptive father turned back to the controls and powered down the Batwing, his large form shuddering with unshed emotions. Then, like tin wind-up toys, they rose in unison and went through the motions of departing the plane and returning to their lives. Dick closed his eyes as he walked passed what was left of Jason, wanting nothing more than to be someone else, live someone else's life, until the pain went away.
Bruce was the last to depart, unbuckling Jason and lifting him back into his arms, careful to keep the blanket over him. Dick heard the man take a shaky breath, watched as he closed his eyes and steeled himself for what was still to come. How he could hold so steady was beyond him. Dick couldn't be sure if it was strength or weakness that allowed him to carry on as if it were just another part of the job.
"Hey!" Tim's voice carried through the cave. "How did it go? Jay, what's she like? Did you show her that move you were showing me in training? Oh, and you might want to restart on Street Fighter, by the way. I totally crushed your score."
Shit. Tim was awake. Why the hell was Tim awake, and in the cave no less? Dick braced himself, intercepting him before the younger teen could see Jason. Though his mask was still on, it didn't take more than a second for Tim to note the rest of the look on Nightwing's face.
"What's wrong?" he asked, unblinking.
Dick reached up and pulled the mask from his eyes, taking a deep breath. "Tim, something happened."
"Where's Jay?"
"We ran into some unexpected problems. He…"
Dick winced at the sound of his own voice. He sounded just like what he would expect from Bruce. Calculated and clinical.
"Where's Jay?" Tim asked once more, blue eyes staring through him.
Shuddering breaths met shaking limbs as Dick prepared for the words he couldn't bear to say. "He's gone, Tim."
"What do you mean, gone? Where did he go?"
Thank goodness Barbara approached them in that moment. Dick felt like his knees would have given out if he had to try to say it one more time. He felt her place her hand on his back, steadying him, giving him whatever strength she had left so he could finish his unpleasant task.
"We lost him. There was an explosion and… Tim, he didn't make it."
Tim shook his head, eyes darting between the pair of them and Bruce emerging from the plane. At the sight of the youngest son still awake and in the cave, apparently he had thought it better to leave Jason out of sight. The dark look on his face was all it took for it to become real to the bird-in-training. Without another word, Tim turned on his heels and ran out of the cave, darting past a distraught Alfred.
"Master Bruce—"
"We need to make the necessary arrangements," Bruce said, rubbing a hand over his face.
Something in his words sent a fire through Dick, hot and angry as the one they had just pulled Jason from. The teen approached his parent, glaring daggers into him.
"Arrangements?! Is that what you care about right now?! Jason died, Bruce! Died! This isn't some damn Wayne Enterprise banquet or something! This is his life, and it's gone!" he screamed.
Silence washed over the cave except for the occasional squeak of bats and his own shallow breaths. For a moment, Dick was sure Bruce was going to slap him square across the face. He wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't deserve it, either. He didn't care.
Instead, Bruce stepped forward and placed his hands, somehow both firm and gentle, on his son's shoulders. "I know, Dick."
At that, everything he had been holding back burst forth, and Dick collapsed into Bruce's arms with a gut-wrenching sob. Everything he had, every ounce of strength left in him, left as he cried into Bruce's shoulder. He felt his adoptive father wrap his large arms around him, the only things holding him upright. Dick wrapped his own arms, horribly weak and shaky, around the man's shoulders. Together, they just stood there, letting the world come crashing down around them.
It could have been a minute or an hour, Dick wasn't sure. But, after his tears ran out and his throat felt torn and swollen from his cries, he finally pulled away. Barbara immediately approached him, wrapping an arm around his middle, though whether it was to steady herself or to offer him strength was unclear. Perhaps a little of both. They could support each other through this. They would have to.
"Go try to get some rest," Bruce ordered the pair of them. "We'll… we'll talk about everything in the morning."
Dick nodded and let the fog of exhaustion fall over him, carrying him in a haze toward his bedroom and into a restless sleep. The rest of the sights and sounds of that night blurred together, and he couldn't be positive about what happened later. He couldn't be sure of the words Bruce and Alfred exchanged, and he was not certain he heard Bruce break down in a way he hadn't since his parents had been gunned down in front of him.
The only thing he knew was Little Wing was gone, and nothing was okay.
August 28, 2017 03:43 - Infinity Island
"Why did you bring us here?" Nightwing asked Talia, struggling to keep from staring at Jason.
"Certain wrongs needed to be righted," she stated simply.
"Jason's death?"
How someone could look judgmental, bored, and intimidating was almost lost on Nightwing. Except he had seen that look before a few times in his years as a budding hero. She and Bruce really did have more in common than he realized sometimes.
"One of many," she said, glancing between her beloved battling her father and the still Jason in front of them. "His resurrection was not what we hoped."
I almost ended it at the second scene, but didn't want to be completely cruel...
-Defective
