Okay.. Yay... atleast I got another chapter in before the new year! sorry. I've been sick, depressed and had serious writers block... Someone said in a review for the Xmas side story I did, they were happy to see Rob/Sparrow being nice.. Cuz they kindda hate each other.. It's not that they hate each other.. He's jealous like a former 'only child'. He's not the baby, he's not special anymore.. so he butts heads with her.. and due to his animosity towards her, she retaliates out of defense and instinct. She loves her older 'brother' and I say 'brother' cuz she was never formally adopted.. she's.. like a foster child that the state is just like 'hey, he's rich and not beating her.. let her stay..'
WARNING! serious angst ahead... and sad stuff... yea..
CHAPTER 28
"What happened." Canary was standing in front of everyone, her hands on her hips as she looked over the two birds sat on the medical beds. Robin and Sparrow had been bandaged and stitched. Sparrow was wrapped quite a bit from the burns she'd received, the pristine white bandages keeping the ointment in and the bacteria out of the less than severe burns. She knew they had only her suit to thank for saving her life. Instead of a few burns they'd be wondering which color casket to put the small girl in without it.
The two tried to shrink in on themselves, looking much younger than they were. Everyone shrank back. No one really knew how to reply. How do they explain what happened? Instead they were all silent, looking to the ground.
Black Canary sighs, shaking her head. She moved towards Robin. She picked up his chin in her fingers, examining his swollen and bruised face. She gazed deep into his white out lenses. "You sure you're alright..?"
"I'm fine!" He said curtly, twisting his head away from her. He had much bigger things to worry about than their den mothers concern over his well being. He turned back to glare at the television in the corner of the ceiling displaying the images of Gotham. Though the volume was on mute he felt he could hear the panic of the reporters. On the shaky video they were getting he could see The jet hovering and flying through the sky as the dark knight ran through the city, attempting to help those that needed to be evacuated from their businesses, their schools, theirs homes... Red tornado was there as well as Flash. Red would try to contain and control the gas through his manipulation of the wind. When needed, Flash would create his own little tornadoes but for the most part he was playing taxi for those in danger.
Canary turned to see Sparrow gazing up to the same screen, the same heart wrenching worry displayed so freely on her face. It broker her heart to see these looks on her kids faces. Yes. Her kids. Being with them for so long, training them, listening to their issues, watching them grow older, grow stronger, they were her kids.. Even if they all did have their own parents. What shattered her heart, was it wasn't the concern over failing a mission, wasn't fear of being punished that brought this look to their two tiny birds faces. It was their home they were seeing destroyed. It was their father they were watching risk his life with no certainty that either would survive. Deep in the back of her mind something was nagging her that it was, for this very reason, that heroes should never have children. It wasn't fair to them.
The kids snapped out of their trance at the television when the screen flicked to black. They turned to see Canary with the remote in her hand. "No more of that." She said simply, smashing the remote in her hand, knowing the kids would try to tun the TV on again the moment she was gone.
"I think everyone should get some rest. I want everyone to go relax, go take a nap or something. We'll debrief later..." She said, trying to let the understanding side come clear in her voice. These kids were beating themselves up, killing themselves inside with guilt. She needed to give them a distraction, somehow let them unwind and stop blaming themselves.
"But Robin.. He was hit on the head and.." M'gann began, knowing they probably shouldn't leave the boy alone.
"It's okay M'gann.. He's been up long enough. He should get some sleep. He'll need it." She said placing her arm around the green skinned girl. "I'll be her to watch him.."
"I'll stay here..." Came Sparrows soft voice, barely audible from where she sat on the medical bed, her knees pulled up.
"No way!" Artemis said quickly and much louder than she needed to.
"Artemis..! Canary said a bit strictly
Artemis looked around at her remaining team members. "Am I the only one that remembers not an hour ago she was trying to take off his head?"
Sparrow curled in on herself, turning her face into her raised legs. Kaldur watched this closely, watched how Sparrow tried to hide, no longer the angry, confidant if not cocky girls she'd started as when this all began.
"I don't think anything is going to continue." The Atlantian said calmly.
"You can't be serious.. BC?" She said turning to the older woman.
"Come on." Said Canary as she escorted M'gann out. "I'll check up on them in a few hours.."
"So I'm the only sane person left on the team.." Artemis said exasperated. "Great..." She said as she stormed out the room. "I don't wanna hear it when one of them ends up dead!"
Robin waited a few moments until everyone was out of the room, making sure there was no one outside the door. He reached for his communicator, shuffling the sheets as he picked it up.
"Al's in the cave..." Came the soft voice from the other bed. He turned to look at her. "I called him before I came to the med bay... Batman warned him..." Robin put down his communicator, leaning back against the lifted back of the bed. He ignored the movement from the other bed, the rustling of the sheets and the shuffle as one bandaged and one bare foot scuttled across the floor. He wanted nothing to do with her.. Until she was at his side, can of solvent in hand, swabs and disinfectant in the other.
Being that his identity was something to be protected at all costs, he hadn't allowed them to remove his mask to tend to the obvious black eye and multiple cuts and gashes that extended under the black domino.
"This will probably hurt..." She said softly. It felt like she was asking permission. It was nearly as if he was looking at an entirely different person than the child that had come to live in his house, that had pushed her way into the cave and allotted herself a spot on the team. This was a shy, timid and fragile girl.
With soft, tender hands, several fingers wrapped, she sprits the solvent around the edges of the mask, jumping each time he flinched at the chemical moving into a wound. As slowly and carefully as if she were handling a newborn she reached for the domino, pulling it back to reveal his beautiful blue eyes in stunning contrast to the darkening skin. In silence she went about caring for his wounds.
"I'm sorry.." She said finally as she set aside her tools. "I... I don't know what came over me..." She lied. She knew exactly what had come over he. Fear.. no.. terror. An all consuming terror that haunted her still now. The thought of such tragedy befalling her older brother. A world without her annoying, clingy, corny older brother filled her with dread enough to drown her heart. She had never personally know Jason but she still felt the effects of his death and she saw it in the faces of Bruce and Dick each and every day. She knew they were in pain, but at the mere thought.. She knew she wouldn't survive it. She knew she could not face that world...
"You should sleep.. Canary will be back soon enough to check up on you.." Sparrow said as she pulled her own mask from her face, feeling just the slightest hint of the weight that Sparrow carried shift off the shoulders of Danielle.
"I'm not tired..." Dick said stubbornly even as his eyes closed halfway without his permission.
Danielle allowed a smile to tug at the corner of her mouth. Sometimes it almost felt like SHE was the older sibling.
Danielle looked down to her dangling feet as she'd taken a seat on the side of Dicks bed. She thought a moment. After a minute her head began to sway to a tune in her mind, joined a moment later by a hummed tuned. Dick turned, his mouth a gape. He knew that tune, but had not heard it sung by another in many a year. It had to be by chance.
"INCHIDE OCHII DULCI
CACI VIATA-I DOAR O CLIPA
MAI BINE SA TE CULCI
PE-A VISULUI ARIPA. "
It was clear that it was not her native language. It was clear it was not one she knew well or practiced often. She struggled over the words, stuttering in their pronunciation, her tongue inexperienced in their execution, but he knew it...
"INCHIDE OCHII DULCI
CA VIATA-I O MINCIUNA
IN VISE-I FERICIREA
COPILE, NOAPTE BUNA "
"How do you know that song..." His heart was frozen. His mother.. That was his mothers song.. The very night before they were killed, she'd whispered it into his ears, despite his protest of being too old for lullabies. He could feel the tears well in his eyes at the long buried thought. He'd said he was too old to listen to his mother lullaby.. The very last one she'd ever preform for him..
"I learned it from you.." she said softly. "That night we found Derringer... The night we found out about the microbots... the night I lost my sisters... You came home... You scooped me up in your arms the minute Bruce came through the cave with me.. and you didn't let me go all night" She blinked rapidly, pushing back the tears at the thought. Dick had taken her from Bruces arms, taken her to her room and held her, surrounded by pink and lace on her canopy bed, not caring how it looked. He'd not let her go, even long after his shirt had been soaked through with tears, not when she beat against his chest screaming 'why' and not even after she'd fallen into a fitful and nightmare filled sleep. "You sang it to me at least a dozen times that night... I remember it only because the microbots hadn't been deactivated... It was the last thing they helped me store to my super memory.. I've never sang it out loud before..." Now... Now she was in enough control to look at him. She turned with a large smile, the same smiles she'd had years to practice. It was her heiress smile, the 'there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with me, I'm rich' smile. "You sing it much better than I can!" She said with a laugh...
"I hate that smile.." Dick said with a low voice. Danielle gave a start, her eyes blinking and her smile fading as her mouth hun open in a soft 'o' "It's fake!" He growled out. "Every time you bring something up you turn away and when you turn back you've got that fake smile on your face with a stupid joke or laugh to cover up! We're not Danielle and Dick, kids of Bruce Wayne. We're not in front of the press!" His voice raised with each sentence. She just stared at him, eyes shiny. "I don't want acts... not here..."
In an instant, the girl that had shown up on their door, the girl that had walked to the manner with a bullet wound, the girl who took down a human trafficking ring and challenged the Joker, turned into the most fragile girl Robin could imagine. Her shoulders were slumped, her lips in a pout as she scrunched her face, still trying to fight back the tear that slipped free to roll down her cheek. A moment later she had her face buried in his chest.
He was surprised by her actions. He'd gone so many years with Bruce.. The Dark knight, the man who was far from emotional and affectionate. His parents had hugged him many many times.. but it'd been so long..
"What if something happens to him..."
Dick looked to the black TV... The same questioned had been on his mind since they last saw their mentor. He held her, happy to feel her arms wrapped back around her. He didn't know how badly he needed this, how badly he need to be held, to be free to worry, to be scared.. Robin was never scared. Robin was strong, Robin was fearless and always knew what to do next. He was independent and trained and disciplined..
But he was Dick.. and Dick was none of those things...
OKAY! So I went with the whole Dick is Romanian thing that I've heard about before... so the song (to my knowledge and research) is Romanian... an old lullaby. So yea.. Here are the translations..
"Close Your Sweet Eyes
Life Doesn`t Last Long
You`d Better Go Sleeping
Flying Through Dreams
Close Your Sweet Eyes
Cause Life Is A Lie
Find Happiness In Dreams
Have A Good Night, My Child"
