Weeeell that took longer than I intended, but I had a bit of trouble writing the middle part of this chapter. I do better with dialogue, or specific POV, but a lot had to be just 3rd person. O.O So my apologies if that part doesn't make any sense.
On the bright side, I'm really proud of the Dick/Babs feels. Also, jsyk, Wednesday and Thursday are my weekend now, since I work all the other days, so I'll probably updating then from now on.
If I die young, bury me in satin
Lay me down in a bed of roses
Sink me in the river at dawn
Send me away with the words of a love song
Dick stared at his ceiling, with its peeling wallpaper that revealed the crumbling drywall above.
The city lights, a mile or two in the distance, cast bluish patterns across the walls, refracted through the cracked windowpane.
It was quiet, disturbed only by the distant rumble of traffic, and the trickle of his pathetic shower.
The shower shut off, and Barbara stepped into the bed room, wearing one of his old t-shirts and ringing out her hair.
"Well this day went to hell fast." She grumbled as she slumped down on the bed beside him. "In fact there's not many ways it could have gone worse."
"Believe me, I know." He sighed, moving his arm to cover his eyes. "Add this to this list of things I've fucked up. I shouldn't have trusted Jason."
Barbara pulled his arm away, glaring at him. "Stop blaming yourself for everything. It was better to give him a chance than to just take him out, okay? There's no way you could have foreseen what happened."
"That's the problem, Barbara! I went in blindly, and I didn't even think how bad it could end up." He sniffed, glaring at his pillow. "Bruce warned me. He would have seen it coming."
"Hey." She cradled his face. "You're not Bruce, and I don't want you to be. In some ways, you're so much like him, but in the ways that matter, you are you. Yes you can be an idiot at times, but you're strong, and brave, and even if you don't show it, you want to believe the best of people. And that's not something to try and change."
He finally looked at her, smiling weakly. "Thank you. But that doesn't change the fact that this is about the fifth time I've let something like this happen. And every time I do, someone gets hurt." He shook his head. "Kaldur, Artemis, Wally, Tula, Artemis again. All my fault."
"They knew the risks, and your plans all worked in the end. If this doesn't work, it's on Jason's head, not yours."
"Yeah but I made everyone go along with it! If this doesn't work-" He choked. "It has to work."
Barbara looked at him sadly, then leaned in and kissed him gently. "Then it will. But there's no point in worrying about it right now. You need sleep just like the rest of us."
Dick chewed his lip, unsatisfied, but nodded, sliding his hand under her waist and pulling her into his arms.
"I love you."
She laughed quietly. "You'd better."
"Yeah, we're dead." Wally grumbled as he crouched beside Tim on the support beam of the bridge connecting Gotham and Blüdhaven, overlooking the abandoned ferry port which housed what they hoped was the entrance to Luthor's secret facilities.
"Ye of little faith." Scoffed Jason over the com-link from an alcove on the opposite building.
"Remind me again, what are we waiting for?" Asked Barbara. "We've been sitting here for twenty minutes."
"I'm hacking every camera feed within four hundred feet of the entrance so that we'll have at least some element of surprise." Dick answered. "Unless we trigger some alarm that I haven't been able to detect yet."
"And that's taken you this long?" Barbara turned to him. "I think you may be losing your touch."
"That's not all I was doing." He grumbled. "I was also disconnecting the motion sensors down below and patching them into my computer instead so we'll know if anyone is coming in after us."
"Fine, fine, but are you done yet?" Jason complained. "I don't do patience."
Dick muttered something about what Jason could do instead, but the nodded. "It's done."
"Then here goes nothing." Jason dropped from the alcove, checked once more for any guards, then darted towards the door.
After fiddling with the keypad which slid out from a concealed flap in the wall, the door opened and Jason gestured for the others to follow him.
The door led directly onto a flight of stair which led down into the darkness, lit only by a flickering sconce about twenty feet down.
The moved with a silence possible only because either they had been trained by a Bat, or in Wally's case, could move at a speed which didn't really require touching the ground.
About three floors down, they arrived on a landing, lined by doors on either side.
The first door was a guard post, manned by three men who were currently sleeping, eating, and half-heartedly staring at the monitors, not even flinching as the five slipped past.
The next room looked like some sort of laboratory, but was empty, lit by a fluorescent liquid bubbling in a beaker on the far side of the room.
"We're close." Jason whispered, indicating the flashing gps in his hand.
They rounded the corner to find themselves in a weapons cache, which was also deserted.
"The hell, Jason?" Dick whispered. "What's this supposed to be?"
Jason didn't answer, moving to a table on the far side of the room, and picked up the lone object sitting on it.
"Of course." He sighed. "I should have realized Luthor would do that." He raised Roy's mechanical arm. "But there's still a good chance they're here."
Wally's jaw was set. "You better hope they are." He growled, lifting Artemis' bow, quiver, and knife pouch from a haphazard pile of firearms.
Dick tapped a button on his wrist, activating the computer.
"Looks like there's another eight floors below us. Plenty of room for a prison, I think?"
Jason nodded. "Right. So we keep looking."
They filed out of the room once more, Jason still gripping the mechanical arm.
"We should spread out. We need to search the building as quickly as possible."
Artemis' ears were still ringing. It had taken the guards nearly half an hour to come and sedate the Joker again, and even though he couldn't get at her, it was terrifying to be around him, his horrible, cackling laughter echoing through the metal chamber.
Roy sat on the floor, his back pressed into the corner and his knees pulled up to his chest, trying to get some sleep, his breath raspy.
She couldn't tell if they had been sitting here for minutes or hours or days, but in the dead silence, all she could do was silently repeat to herself that Wally would come. He would. He would.
A muffled thud against the metal door to the chamber startled her from her ruminations.
Another bang.
A grunt.
Then silence again, before the door opened with a crash, and two figures rushed into the room.
Wally rushed to the bars of the door, while Tim typed rapidly on a keypad beside the door. A bell rang, and all the cell doors unlocked, and Artemis fell into Wally's arms.
"Areyouokaydidtheyhurtyouareyouhungrywhathappenedd oyouwantmetocarryyouiloveyouimsorry—" He ran his hands over her arms and torso, checking her for injuries.
Apart from a few bruises and cuts, she was fine, though a little sore, but Wally still looked frantic.
"I'm fine. Babe! I'm fine. Really." She wrapped her arms around his neck. "You came for me. I'm completely fine."
"You thought I wouldn't?" He sounded hurt.
"No." She laughed weakly. "God, no. I knew you would. I was more scared of who and what you would break in the process."
He chuckled, and opened his mouth to speak but Tim cut him off as he helped a limping Roy out of his cell.
"Is this the time?"
Artemis blushed, but Wally did not look even remotely abashed.
"I guess not." He replied, shrugging Artemis' weapons off his back and handing them to her.
The four of them rushed out of the room, into the hall.
Tim glanced down at his computer.
"Okay, good news, we found the chemical compound Luthor's been spiking the drugs with, and have enough proof to prosecute him. Bad news, we set off silent alarms by disarming these guards," Tim gestured to the unconscious figures on the ground. "And more bad news, this place is going to blow in about three and a half minutes."
The others gaped at him.
"This place is rigged with an automatic self-destruct function if it gets infiltrated."
They were silent, then Roy groaned. "So, basically—run?"
They ran into the others on the fourth level, along with a fully armed platoon of security thugs. They spared little time trying to engage them, however, painfully aware of the countdown.
Wally zipped between them, wrenching their firearms away from them, then the others incapacitated just enough of them to clear a path.
Three floors. Two minutes.
Two floors. A minute and twenty two seconds.
One floor. Forty nine seconds.
They rushed to the final flight of stairs, up and out the door, running away from the building.
They came to a stop in the middle of an empty street, several hundred feet away.
A boom echoed from deep under the ground, shaking the foundations of the abandoned structures around them.
Another one.
Three more.
The pavement cracked, spreading out from the epicenter, which began to collapse downwards into the burning basements.
Flames were visible down inside the explosion, and a cloud of smoke and ash billowed up into the sky.
After a moment, Wally sighed. "Well I suppose that could have gone worse?"
Artemis laughed, hugging him again.
Barbara and Dick sighed in relief, but Jason and Tim both stood rigid, still supporting the half-conscious Roy.
"Wait." Tim's tone was sharp. "It's not over. The last explosive hasn't detonated yet. Brace yourselves."
A moment passed, then Jason whipped around to look at Tim. "Wait, did you find the—"
A cackling laughter filled the air once more, and the group whipped around to see the figure in the middle of the street.
"Ooh, kiddies! How kind of you to leave the door open for me!" the Joker screamed with laughter again. "And look at the toys Lexi left behind for me!" He raised an automatic rifle and pointed it at them. "Who wants to play?"
Jason snarled, reaching for his own gun, but before he could draw it, the ground shook the final explosion, sending cracks splintering out from the epicenter as the ground began to cave in behind them. He was thrown forward onto the pavement, his helmet cracking and flying away from him as he face planted.
Dick ran forward to help him up, and Tim and Babs darted forward to catch Roy, who still looked rather dazed.
Just as Dick was pulling Jason back to his feet, however, the sound of a gunshot echoed through the street, and the two of them whipped around just in time to see the Joker running away, laughing manically, while from behind them came the thump of someone collapsing on the pavement.
Jason screamed in frustration, trying to pull himself away from Dick to run after the clown, wrenching his gun from its holster.
Dick didn't resist. In fact he let him go, stumbling back over to the others, and falling to his knees, choking out a hoarse "No!"
In front of him, unconscious in a pool of her own blood, lay Barbara.
I'm a horrible person. It actually hurt to write that last part. T.T But it was kinda necessary.
On a brighter note, I was originally going to have a part where Artemis and Wally were like making out in front of the fiery inferno because that would be such a hilarious and perfect depiction of their relationship, but it just wasn't working :P
So I'm thinking there will probably be one or two more chapters and then the epilogue. Hopefully you'll hate me a little less after that.
Thank you guys for sticking with me :)
Reviews are still awesome.
-Hopeless.