Authors' Note: There is a reason for everything that happens in our fic. Trust us.
Halfway around the world, Damian's hands were shaking as he lifted his wooden practice sword. "Again," Ra's al Ghul said impassively.
Damian did not argue that he was too exhausted to continue. He knew better. Perfection was the goal, and sword drills would continue until he showed improvement. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and raised the blade to salute his trainer. This one was a professional swordsman, one of the most talented in that field, and Damian knew he could not defeat the man. All he was being asked to do was defend himself, using the techniques he'd been taught.
So far, his success had been limited. He couldn't seem to move fast enough, to interpret his attacker's moves correctly, or to position himself properly. And his grandfather would not accept anything less than a fight worthy of the Demon's heir.
As the trainer stepped in, his own wooden sword ready, Damian thought of his mother. He missed her keenly; she had been gone for weeks now. Without her, Damian found himself feeling lonely despite all the servants in this palatial compound. He had his grandfather, of course, and Ra's often indulged him in conversation, but he was no substitute for Talia. She was just as demanding about his studies, though somehow she managed to be so while still showing him warmth and affection. Damian complained sometimes when she kissed his cheek or ran a hand through his hair, asking him half-scoldingly why he was growing so quickly. He didn't really mean it; he thrived on those tender moments.
If she were here, Ommi would tell him that the blood of the Demon ran in his veins. That he was her son, and destined for greatness. That his father – whom he did not know – had been a man of rare martial arts prowess. According to Talia, though, his father's finest quality was his indomitable will. It was willpower he needed now.
Damian looked at his opponent, and imagined his father stood in his place. The shadowy figure in his mind had no discernible features, but Damian felt a little taller, a litter stronger, for pretending so. His sword stopped shaking. For a moment, Damian told himself he was his father, and when the trainer attacked, he met the wooden blade with his own.
Perfectly.
Strike and counter-strike, dodge and parry, the blades met in a measured dance, Damian focusing all of his energy on being the warrior he envisioned his father to be. Stronger, faster, more agile than his young body could actually achieve. Somehow, he succeeded, surprising even himself.
At the end of the drill, Ra's al Ghul nodded. "Well done," he said, and all of the exhaustion and muscle aches crashed back in Damian, all at once. He staggered, but his grip on the sword did not falter. That had been among his first lessons, and all the training since had only reinforced the principle.
His opponent bowed slightly, and Damian returned the courtesy. Ra's dismissed the man, and clasped Damian's shoulder affectionately. "You have done very well, grandson," he said.
"Thank you, Jaddi," Damian replied. He was somewhat in awe of his grandfather; he might try the patience of his teachers, and even his mother to some extent, but never Ra's.
The older man nodded, his eyes distant. "Bathe, and tend to your injuries. I would like you to dine with me."
"Will Ommi be joining us?" Damian asked, his voice rising hopefully.
Disapproval showed in those luminous green eyes, and Damian quailed inwardly, but he did not show. Talia had inadvertently taught him a great deal about how to handle the disappointment of others; keep your chin up, accept reproof silently, never let them know they scored a mark.
"Not yet, hafidi," Ra's said, relenting. "She has important work to do."
Damian nodded, accepting that answer. No one would tell him when to expect Talia to return. He loathed her absences; there were servants aplenty to see to his needs, trainers and tutors to expand his mind and martial skills, but only his grandfather for company. And if he were entirely honest, Ra's al Ghul was not the warmest of companions. Talia made her affection plain.
Some of that showed in his expression, for Ra's patted his shoulder. "You miss her. As do I. It is no easy road for a child to walk, being of such blood as ours. I suppose you might even envy the village children, who see their mothers and fathers each day."
"No," Damian said, quickly shaking his head. He had only seen other children from a distance, and they seemed like some other species to him: uncoordinated, irrational, overly noisy. "I don't want to be like them."
Ra's nodded. "You are of a different stock. It is good that you prefer the life you've been born into. Much grief comes of trying to change one's fate." His eyes looked shadowed again, and then he gave a slight shrug. "It is what it is. Join me for the afternoon meal."
"I will," Damian replied, but Ra's was already walking away.
…
In Gotham City, Kala hovered in midair, a flaming Molotov cocktail in one hand. People were staring at her, both halves of the crowd and the cops momentarily transfixed. In for a penny, in for a pound, Kala thought ruefully, glad now that Selina had started that rumor about her being an Amazon. She wrapped her hand around the burning rag, cutting off the oxygen and snuffing the flame. Her glove wouldn't have been quite enough protection without some invulnerability to back it up.
And then she looked out at all of them, her gaze level and calm. "I said, no one else gets hurt today. We are watching, and we will not allow any further violence. The boy is safe, his injuries are minor. The woman will not be harmed in custody. Return to your homes and allow the police to carry out their duties. We are watching them, and you."
Kala meant to be clear and precise, and to slightly lean into the fact that she was a meta of unknown power. She didn't realize until she saw Jay's brow furrow just how much she sounded like the Empress.
It worked on the crowd. Everyone knew the Blur had speed; the public had no idea she could fly. They all had to be wondering what else she could do. More importantly, they were realizing that bricks, bats, and Molotov cocktails wouldn't do much against her. The crowd began to melt away at the edges, and Kala stayed hovering there until they all dispersed.
Only then did she land, and Jay handed the megaphone back to cops. "Told you to let us handle it," he said gruffly.
"What the hell are you?" the most vocal officer said, looking at Kala as she drifted down to a landing. She had to suppress a smile; her father would've said, A friend. Then again, he wore a brighter uniform and worked in a less suspicious city. The question he'd answered had been 'Who are you?' This was Gotham, and a different era besides. Kala wasn't surprised to be asked what she was.
Jay was the one who answered for her, as angry as she couldn't afford to be. "She's the vigilante who just illegally saved all your asses from getting killed. Or worse, shooting someone and starting a fuckin' riot." They had the wit not to argue with that, and the oldest cop even looked ashamed.
Ignoring them for the moment, Kala glanced up when she heard sirens, and closer, a familiar engine. Just the thought of Bruce's response to her slip-up had her holding back a sigh. Yeah, the debrief wasn't going to go well, no matter what her end-results. So be it, she had done what she had had to do, what no one else could have in the moment. She would take the consequences. But for now, avoiding the Bat was for the best. "SWAT will be here in a minute or two," she said. "Batman, too. I meant what I said, gentlemen – we're watching this one. It had better be handled by the books. And it's worth remembering that justice is nothing if not tempered by mercy."
The Batmobile pulled out, blocking the street, and the SWAT van stopped beyond it a moment later. "Let's get out of here," Jay said, slipping his helmet back on. "The debrief on this shitshow is going to suck."
Having already tucked that away for later, knowing it would, Kala had more immediate concerns. "Has anyone told the woman that her grandson is okay?" she asked. And then, glancing toward the cop car at the end of the street and its confused, irate occupant, she added, "What about the father?"
"There's nothing to disclose," one of the officers said.
Kala didn't need x-ray vision to know Jay was rolling his eyes. "Blur, you tell the shooter. I'll let this guy know."
Even as Batman got out, looking steadily at the SWAT team, Jay trotted off toward the car. And Kala leaned past the cops, reaching for the doorknob. "Hey!" one of them snapped. "You can't go in there!"
In most situations involving the authorities, Kala tended to play it low-key and let the boys handle it. But this time, they deserved it. She handed him the extinguished Molotov with a sweet smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "You can't stop me."
Once inside, the aftermath tried to creep back again despite her bravado. Her heart had started pounding, the way it did after a close call. Kala's mind was helpfully conjuring up all the ways that confrontation could've gone wrong, all the bad endings she'd managed to avert – mostly by luck, it seemed. She forced that stuff aside, focusing on her breathing, and on not touching anything inside the building. The police were already scowling at her.
Up the stairs, past cops who frowned but didn't try to stop her, and Kala found the right apartment all too easily. "I need to speak with the woman," Kala told the officer at the door, her voice level. She'd never done this before; usually they left the bad guys tied up for the cops instead of interacting directly. The only time she'd really handled the public as the Blur was bringing that poor kid to the hospital over the summer.
Batman did this regularly, just walked into a crime scene and stated what he wanted. He always got it. This was Gotham; very few police officers were willing to gainsay the Bat, and those that did were never successful anyway. Here was hoping that it would work for someone that was known to be affiliated with both he and Red Hood.
The young cop on the door scowled, but let her in. Kala's sensitive nose picked up on cordite, burnt coffee, blood … and death. She resolutely ignored it all, walking steadily through the living room and past the body on the couch as if it all wasn't there. Right now, she had one goal; this was her place in things. Let the others sort this out. There were voices in the kitchen, so she headed there.
Two officers sat at the kitchen table with an older woman whose eyes were glassy. They were asking her questions, but her answers came at a slight delay, her voice wandering. Kala guessed the woman's age as somewhere in her fifties, but the pitiless fluorescent light and her stunned expression made her look ancient.
For the first time since giving the coordinates, Babs spoke up in Kala's comm. "Her name is Susana Torres. The latest news on Roberto is that he's stable and in good condition."
Kala touched her ear and said softly, "Thank you, Oracle." That got the cops' attention, and she nodded to them. "Officers, I'm a little ahead of the information curve. May I?"
She didn't actually wait for their permission, though. It might advantageous to them, from the point of view of extracting a confession, to let Mrs. Torres think she'd done more harm than she actually had. Kala wasn't going to play that kind of game, not when all indications were that Mrs. Torres had shot her husband in self-defense.
So Kala dropped to one knee beside the older woman's chair. "Señora Torres?" she murmured, using the correct Spanish pronunciation, and saw a spark of life in that miserable gaze. "Está bien. Your grandson is going to be fine. It was just a scratch. The hospital says he's in good condition."
Mrs. Torres looked at her blankly for a second, then broke into a trembling smile. "Muchísimas gracias," she said, and reached out for Kala. She let herself be drawn into a hug, feeling the older woman shudder with relief and regret. The cops had tensed up a bit, but Kala just rubbed her back gently as she thanked God in a broken voice for protecting her grandson.
Looking over her shoulder at the police, Kala added, "We cleared the street, and SWAT is here. You should probably take her downtown while things are relatively calm. We'll be on watch, just in case, but I'd rather not back down an angry mob twice in one day."
She drew away from Mrs. Torres, taking her hands gently. "You're going to be all right. Te prometo. Your family is going to be safe."
Overcome with emotion, Mrs. Torres could only nod and squeeze Kala's fingers. Kala stood up and headed out, her own emotions threatening to spill over. The whole thing was a goddamned shame, and unlike fighting Joker or Black Mask, there was no clear solution to the problems that had led to this day. There wasn't just some guy with a hate-on for the civilized world that they could lock up.
In the living room, a detective turned an unfriendly look on Kala. "You got anything useful to add to the investigation, or you just here to hold hands with the shooter?"
He sounded so much like Jay, way back at the beginning, that Kala had to fight the urge to laugh even as she bristled and narrowed her eyes. All she said, though she lowered her voice so it wouldn't carry, was, "That's a funny way to thank me for not letting the mob outside firebomb this place and kill a couple of your officers. Or did you want to fight your way through a hundred angry people with improvised weapons and however many guns the average Bowery citizen has?"
"I wouldn't, Carswell, she's not just a speedster," another detective said laconically. "Ma'am, we'll be moving her to the precinct here in a minute, and the coroner's van is pulling up…"
"Understood. In that case, I'll get out of your way," Kala replied with a nod. Inwardly, she winced; dammit, she really had done it. Now that her flight was out of the bag, lots of things were going to change. As soon as Bruce got done dressing her down over it, she and Jay were going to have to plan damage control. Shit, shit, shit. "Thank you, gentlemen."
They both stood aside to let her pass, and Kala couldn't wait to rejoin Jay. She just couldn't help the heavy, eerie feeling that this was going to be the longest day ever and she couldn't wait until it was over.
…
The cops outside saw him approach the car where one guy – the father, James Wakefield, according to Babs' voice in his ear – was bouncing around in agitation. One of the officers called out, "The hell do you think you're doing?"
"Right now, stopping this guy from kicking out your window," Jay shot back. His lock gun popped the front passenger door of the cruiser easily, and he stuck his head in. He couldn't open the back from the outside, and wouldn't have wanted to get too close to the angry father anyway. "Hey, cool it, guy, or they'll take you in for damaging police property."
"Fuck you, man!" Wakefield shot back. "That bitch shot my kid!"
"Nah, she shot her old man. She just didn't know bullets go right through the shitty walls in places like this. Look, we heard from the hospital. Your son is okay. You need to calm down and cooperate so they'll let you see him, okay?"
The man froze, staring. "You serious?"
"I'm the Red Hood. I got no reason to lie to you."
Wakefield stared at him for a long moment, and Jay just waited. He heard Kala come out and head his way, and Wakefield tensed. "The fuck is she?"
"Right now, she's the reason this whole goddamn block didn't get shot up," Jay said. "Look, the cops will let you go once you settle down. Batman's here, they can't get away with any bullshit. The sooner you chill out, the sooner they'll let you see your son."
"I 'spose you're gonna tell me not to kill that bitch, huh?" he asked, jutting his chin out.
Jay just laughed. "Don't kill anybody. You do, then you gotta deal with us, and cops, and court. You wanna be part of your son's life, go to his games at school when he's old enough? Or you wanna be some man he only sees once a month behind glass, and maybe gets letters from? You want your boy to grow up like a lot of us grew up, with Mom working three jobs and Dad locked away? Mrs. Torres is going downtown tonight. Let her worry about her own shit."
Kala had arrived at his side, and added, "Honestly, I don't think you could do anything worse to her than the moment she realized one of her bullets had hit the boy. Hood, we need to get out of here and let Batman handle it."
Standing up, Jay noticed how the crowd was thinning, but some of them were still focused on him and Kala. This was the perfect time to leave; they would all be thinking about how the two of them could be anywhere, and not hanging around actually watching them to see what the metahuman would do next. "Yeah, we should roll out. Let's go find a nice abandoned building to lurk in. We need to talk."
He could see it in her eyes that she was already all-too-aware of the dressing-down she going to get. Kala managed a weak chuckle, the brief flicker of a nervous smile. "Plenty of those around. And yeah, I figured."
Jay just nodded. He knew what he had to do, and he was more nervous about it than she would ever guess.
…
Monitoring the scene, Babs breathed a sigh of relief. Batman could keep things contained. He was one of the very few who could back down SWAT just by looking at them. At least the police scanners showed that Mrs. Torres had been removed from the scene without further violence, and the gathered mob had simply melted away.
Babs found Mrs. Torres' hospital records and browsed them, forwarding the files to the GCPD via her usual anonymous route. The numerous 'falls' ought to show self-defense, or at least create enough sympathy for a lighter sentence. She was going to do some time for having an illegal weapon, at the very least, but perhaps that would be enough to mollify the vengeful section of the crowd tonight.
She was also monitoring the comms, and a few minutes after Jay and Kala left the scene, she spoke up ruefully. "I'm pretty sure where this is going. There wasn't time to think it through, Red. Do I get to skip part of it if I can tell you exactly what you're gonna say and add that I screwed up and I'm sorry? There has to be a way to work around it."
Jay sighed deeply. "About that. Oracle, we're going off comm. I need to have a private conversation. And since I know you can activate these remotely, we'll go a couple rooms over to talk."
"Understood," Babs said, her eyebrows going up. She knew there was a lot on Jay's mind this week. He and Kala had never been able to spend so much downtime together, and she'd watched them together over the past few days. Escaping to a cabin in the Blue Ridge mountains together – that wasn't normally on Jay's agenda, but he'd come back refreshed and easier in his skin than Babs had ever seen him.
There was a question he might want to ask without any eavesdropping, and back about May, Babs would've laughed if anyone suggested it. But now … all sorts of things seemed possible.
…
Jason Kent dropped the tablet he was reading on and rubbed his eyes. He couldn't concentrate on reading the article, which normally would've held his interest, being about black holes. He would've blamed eyestrain, but Kryptonian hybrids didn't get eyestrain. It was just restlessness. Something felt wrong.
Usually when Jason felt like this, someone or something nearby was in trouble. He chalked it up to his subconscious mind and Kryptonian senses noticing tiny cues his conscious mind missed; afterward, he could often point out what particular thing had first drawn his notice. When Clyde the goat had gotten his horns stuck in the fence last summer, Jason had methodically checked on all the farm's inhabitants and the property. The subtle wrongness that time had been Patsy and Betty not coming to inspect his pockets for treats as soon as he neared their pasture. The mares turned out to be sticking near Clyde, sniffing him worriedly until Jason bent the fence wire and freed him.
Now, as the cold winter wind sang mournfully around the eaves, Jason looked out the living room window. Except for the tracks he'd cleared to the barn and other outbuildings, the property was covered in deep snow. The trees were bare and solemn, and the roofs held a burden of white as well. Jason knew the animals were bedded down warmly, safe and secure with plenty of food and warm water. On sunny days, the mules chased each other around the pasture, kicking up the snow, but on an overcast windy day like this, they'd be snug in the barn. Patsy and Betty were getting to an age where winters were harder on them; Jason supplemented their hay with sweet feed and warm bran mashes, and the vet had given him some bute to administer if they showed signs of stiffness. So far, though, they were weathering it just fine. Clyde the goat was probably in with them. The barn was quite a bit warmer than most barns would be; Elise's secret lab was underneath, and it was heated. The construction had made the old barn more weathertight and secure, too.
The chickens would be fine, too. Jason had wanted to put a heater in their coop, but the guy running the feed store had advised against it. The bedding was too flammable. Besides, chickens had wintered safely here for generations. Feathers were excellent insulation, and their coop was situated out of the prevailing wind, with plenty of perches for them to roost on and huddle together. An evening feed of cracked corn kept them nicely full and warm as they digested it. All he really needed to do was put a little petroleum jelly on their combs to protect them from frostbite.
Inside the house, the guest rooms were all closed off to save the cost of heating them. Right now Jason and Elise were mainly using the living room, the kitchen, and their bedroom which was directly over the kitchen. The wood stove in the living room put out plenty of heat, in addition to the furnace keeping the rest of the rooms they used tolerable, but for the most part they just wore a little more clothing in the winter. The dogs - Tippy, Hank, and Bart, all descendants of Ben's hound Barkley - clustered around the wood stove, or the oven whenever Jason or Elise cooked.
Also in the living room was Gazeera's cage. The iguana was eighteen years old now, and Jason worried about him every winter despite the insulation placed around three sides of his cage and the heat bulbs and full spectrum lights radiating into his cage. Jason got up to check on his pet, his heart sinking. Kansas just wasn't the right environment for a giant tropical lizard.
The living room was a comfortable seventy degrees, with the stove burning. Gazeera's cage never went below eighty, and his basking spot was in the high nineties. That was where he was dozing, blinking sleepily at Jason. "Hey, Gazeera," Jason murmured, reaching in to pet him. He checked the thermomenters and hydrometer, noticing the humidity had dropped a little, and misted the cage lightly.
Nothing in the house, then. There was one more possibility, one Jason hadn't let himself think about: Elise. Her due date was early February, but they had no data for second-generation hybrid gestation times, so it could be later. He had watched the weeks slip past, holding his breath as they crept into the range where a premature birth might be survivable. On this New Year's Day, they were solidly in the middle of the third trimester by anyone's reckoning, and Jason had seen their girls, tiny and perfect. He and Elise had been talking about names, mulling over their options. If anything was wrong with Elise, or his daughters…
He pulled on a jacket in case someone saw him before heading out to the barn, stopping briefly to check on the hoofstock. Betty thrust her nose toward him, and he petted her gently - none of them were shivering, and their automatic waterer was full. Jason moved on, pulling the trap door and walking down the stairs.
Elise was peering into a microscope with a frown, and Jason focused his hearing and vision on her. Her heartbeat was normal, so were the twins' heartbeats. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. "Hey, gorgeous," Jason murmured.
"Hi, handsome," Elise replied, sitting up. She put her hands to the small of her back with a wince. "God, I can't wait for these two to be finished cooking. I swear every day is a new ache somewhere."
Jason, who'd been in bed beside her when one twin decided to plant her feet against Elise's ribs from the inside and stretch, could only give her a commiserating frown. "I'm sorry. If I'd known they would be twins…"
"Oh, stop it," Elise said, reaching toward him. Jason took her hand and let her pull him close, wrapping his arms around her. She sighed and buried her nose in his shirt. "We wanted kids. Now we're having kids. It's not your fault that we're doing this on the accelerated plan."
"Yeah it is. Twins run in my family," Jason said, rubbing her back. "And it's a lot harder on you than I ever realized. There's not even that much I can do to help."
"Jason, you're doing everything you can," Elise told him, gently scolding. "It'll be fine. Our moms got through it, I will too. Even when they kick me in the bladder at four in the morning, I don't regret it. Now why are you down here being all mopey? I thought you were going to read that article about Venus you were so excited for."
He smiled, thinking that they were perfectly matched nerds. On New Year's Day, when most people were hungover from partying, he and Elise were both absorbed in their respective sciences. He wasn't going back to college this semester, but that was no reason to ignore the news. "I was, but I felt like something was wrong. The animals are fine, so I figured I'd check on you."
"Thanks for looking after the critters before your wife," Elise teased.
"Hey, you're a certified genius. I know you can look after yourself. They're just animals," Jason replied.
"Don't underestimate the animals. Those chickens killed a freaking copperhead last March, and ate it," Elise pointed out.
That was true, and Jason chuckled a little at the reminder that their friendly hens were decidedly omnivorous, and descended from dinosaurs. "I don't know what's got me antsy, then," he said.
Elise knew him well, and asked a shrewd question. "What's your team getting up to, with you on pregnancy watch?"
"Trouble, probably," Jason laughed, and took out his phone. He glanced at the time; midday, so even if they'd had a late night, they should all be awake. Elise leaned against him as he dialed Cassie's number.
She answered, sounding a little groggy. "Jason? What's up?"
"Just checking in. The missus and I wanted to wish you a happy New Year," Jason said. Elise elbowed him for the 'missus'.
Cassie laughed. "Happy New Year to you, too. Mom and I watched the fireworks and split a bottle of champagne. Did you two have a good time?"
"Yeah, we split some sparkling grape juice on account of the twins. It was quiet out here, except for some illegal fireworks over by the Ellzey property. Did Cissie tell you how the team spent the evening?" Cassie, Jason, and Tim had, on realizing that all of them had obligations this week, left Arrowette in charge of the Titans.
Cassie sighed heavily. "Rose spiked the punch. As I specifically warned Cissie to expect. But then she spiked the backup punch, too. Most of them are hungover, but everyone's alive. And Rose is in good spirits because she got away with something, the contrary little brat."
Elise rolled her eyes at that, leaning close to the phone. "She probably just misses being able to troll you, Jase, and Tim."
"I wouldn't put it past her. Speaking of Tim, he's stuck at some Wayne corporate thing today, but he sent me roses at Mom's house just to say he missed me," Cassie said, her voice warm.
"Aww, that's sweet. My husband told me I'm smarter than a farm animal today - that's all I've got," Elise replied.
"Hey, no fair ganging up on me," Jason said hurriedly. Honestly, it was great that Elise and Cassie were friends. Things could've been extremely awkward, working with his ex who was dating his best friend, and Jason was grateful that all of them genuinely liked one another, and the two women didn't feel any jealousy. But sometimes he wished they weren't quite so close, usually when they made him the focus of a joke.
He ended the call after a little more small talk and banter, Elise smiling as Cassie signed off. Then she looked up at him, and her gaze turned solemn. "How's Kala?" Elise asked.
He probably should have thought of her first. Kala had sent him a text last night, wishing him a happy new year, and he'd wished her the same. Now that he thought about it, his unease probably did come from his twin. "Crap, you're right. She still hates this time of year."
"With good reason," Elise said.
Jason looked at his phone, thinking. "The Gotham crowd doesn't get up early, and if Tim's at something corprorate, probably Bruce is too. She wouldn't be at something like that. I don't want to wake her up if she's asleep."
"Is she having a nightmare, you think?" Elise asked.
He shook his head. Jason was familiar with that creeped-out feeling he got whenever Kala one of her really bad nightmares, the ones where she woke up speaking Kryptonese. This was a restless kind of foreboding, not the sheer terror of those nightmares. "It's probably just the day," he said. "It was eight years ago today that she ran away, you know."
"I remember," Elise said, and hugged him again.
What Jason hated most was not being able to protect someone he cared about. That was why, when he felt perturbed, his first instinct was to check on the safety of everyone and everything around him. He hugged Elise, and murmured, "If it was that bad, she'd call me. I don't want to bug her while she's with him."
"My sweet, protective farm boy," Elise said, smiling sadly.
"I am not a farm boy. I was born in Paris and lived in Metropolis most of my life," Jason replied indignantly.
"Sweetheart, there's hay in the pockets of your jacket," Elise pointed out. "And probably goat poop on your shoes. You were splitting logs for the wood stove yesterday. You're a farm boy."
Jason scowled at her, and then grinned, the expression Kala always pointed out when she called him the evil twin. "If I'm a farm boy, that makes you a farm wife. Dear."
Elise glared at him, incensed, and retaliated the only way she could in her heavily-pregnant state: she tickled his sides mercilessly. Jason roared laughter, swatting lightly at her hands, and let his sense of foreboding fade away.
Kala was a grown woman, after all. And she was in Uncle Bruce's city. Nothing there could really harm her.
…
Jay put down his helmet, and took off the domino underneath. This abandoned apartment building ought to be safe enough, no one else was around, but he still felt strangely naked taking the masks off. Kala left hers beside his, and followed him with a worried frown.
And yet she still followed him. She was expecting to get bawled out, he'd made her leave her domino and the comm in it so no one else would hear this, and still she followed his lead. What the fuck had he ever done to deserve that kind of trust from someone like her? How the hell could he possibly measure up to that?
The voice of his thirteen-year-old self, the one who had wanted to keep her first, was screaming at him, but Jay was good at ignoring voices in his head. In the early years he'd learned to shut out Joker's laughter, and then Bruce's disappointment. Silencing a kid who didn't understand how damn dangerous he was to the woman he loved, that was easy.
He walked into one of the deserted apartments and looked around at the peeling walls, at last giving a nod. This was a desolate scene, but what could be more fitting? Everything between them had begun here in Gotham, in the Bowery, in the stubborn hope that clung to its ruined roots. Jay slipped his hands into his jacket pockets and touched the small box hidden in the inner lining.
He knew what he had to do. It just scared the hell out of him to do it. And hurt, too. So many parts of his mind and heart had come back to life in the past few months, and some of them still tingled like a numbed limb reawakening, pinpricks of pain that let him know he was alive.
It couldn't go on like this. All the things they knew and didn't talk about. He had to be the one to call the shots; Kala wouldn't. She had let him lead from the first, agreed to accept his training, and while she was no pushover in the field she let him take command there, too. She only defied him when she felt lives were at stake. Hell, fucking Supergirl had come to love him on his terms, not hers. And there was no doubt in his mind anymore – even if she'd never said the words aloud, as she had half-asleep that one night, Kala showed it in a thousand ways.
She listened to him. Not in the sense of obedience, she listened and cared what he thought, what he felt, not so that she could better manipulate him but simply because he mattered to her and she wanted to know him. No matter how black and awful the secrets he gave into her keeping, Kala never wavered, and never told another soul.
She supported him. She'd been willing to kill Joker from the moment she saw how the Clown affected him, and the more she knew, the higher her wrath burned. Now, the next time Joker broke out of Arkham, Jay knew he could count on Kala to plan his demise – and help cover his tracks. She was ready to murder for his sake, to risk everything, even her father's censure, and he knew what her father meant to her.
He knew because she'd been open with him. She'd shared her past and all her secrets, but more than that, she'd taken him into her world. The Fortress, which so few humans had ever seen, with its fantastic crystal artifacts and the holograms that were all that was left of an entire culture and people – hers – destroyed and nearly forgotten. Kala had taken him to North Carolina, too, for a taste of normal small-town American life that was ironically more familiar to the half-alien chick than to Jay, fully human though he was. He'd spent too much time in the big city, and then traveling the world as an assassin in training, to connect with the heartland of his own country. Oh, city life was part of the American identity too, but a city like hers, like Metropolis, industry and innovation and the cultural melting pot that brought a thousand peoples together under one banner. Not the canker sore that was Gotham. His city was a festering wound, always had been, and all their efforts to make things better for the ordinary people who lived there just stemmed the tide of violence. Nothing could stop it, only slow its inexorable toll.
He'd brought Kala here, and she shone. The black sheep of her own family – inasmuch as those functional and mentally healthy people had a black sheep – the Kryptonian with a temper to match the fire in her eyes and a splinter of darkness in her soul, the one who'd been dismissed by other heroes, Jay made her see his Gotham, and give a damn about it, and here in this miserable hellhole she burned with a clean, fierce light that inspired people.
Even today, that misstep of letting them see her flying, there were already rumors in Gotham that Blur was some kind of Amazon. They'd see her as displaced from her people, another misfit like them. If he let her, she'd take up the banner the women of the East End had raised and stand true, be a beacon for others. Her courage wasn't something her powers gave her, it was just her nature, her brave and brilliant soul shining out through hazel eyes he saw in his dreams.
And nightmares. Because Jay knew damn well that being in Gotham called out her dangerous side, the flaw in her shine, the remnant of Kala's stay in the shadow of both Luthor and General Zod. He called out the Empress, just by being himself, he made Kala want to protect him and fight at his side, and running with him had thrown her into so many situations that forced her alter ego to the surface, Jay had been flirting with her shadow-self. That Nevada Protocol file was twice as long now, they'd been dealing with the Empress so much and had to find so many ways of controlling her.
Jay had been standing with his back to her, his hand down, gripping the box in his fist, and Kala had slipped up close behind him. "Jay? Talk to me. Are you okay?" she asked, sounding worried.
About him. About what he thought. About how he felt. The child his birth-mother hadn't wanted, the boy his father hadn't understood, the kid who couldn't save the only mother he'd known, the Robin who lost his way, the assassin who couldn't kill his nemesis. The man who couldn't bear to say what he needed to say to her, when she'd been everything to him for months now. Kala made him happier than he'd ever been, and yet his throat closed up when he thought too hard about it. He had nightmares and panic attacks about getting her killed, he'd watched Joker run a knife along her throat and if it had been his knife she'd've bled out in his arms.
And still, all he wanted was to keep her. He'd been lingering around jewelry stores, for fuck's sake. With Kala, he knew it could work.
"Listen, I'm sorry, I know what we said. I know you're worried about anyone getting too many hints," she murmured, sounding chastened and anxious, close enough to touch him but hesitating. Yeah, Kala was realizing what she had done. "All I could think about was, what happened if it landed in the crowd? If it landed on you? I fucked up, I know I did and I know what I promised you. I know. I know, I'm sorry. I … I couldn't think of any other choice. It won't happen again."
It would, and he knew it. Which was why he had to do this now, had to set things right before it all went over the edge.
Jay turned around and looked at her. So goddamn beautiful, and those eyes, she killed him every time with those hazel eyes. So full of love and trust and care. He could just say it now, and she'd do everything in her considerable power to make sure he was never unhappy again. She'd move heaven and earth for him, risk her life, whatever it took. Pure devotion.
She saw his troubled eyes, and reached to touch his face. "It's not just that, is it? It's something else, too. What are you thinking, Red? Please, talk to me. Tell me what else is wrong?"
He was wrong, that's what. She knew something was breaking inside him, she could see right through him. But Jay was the reason she kept slipping, sooner or later she'd reveal what she was and then the whole underbelly of Gotham would glow green with kryptonite. They were already gunning for her, all of them, Joker had seen her face, Selina had warned him there was a target on Kala's back. If they found out her weakness, they'd all carry kryptonite. Hell, he was kryptonite for her, in just a few months with him she'd run up against all of Gotham's deadliest, she'd been fear-gassed and Ivy-poisoned and held hostage by Joker. What kind of person was he, to drag her into all of this?
Like radiation poisoning, he didn't look dangerous to her, he looked like something she wanted to hold, and the whole time he was changing her, warping her, dragging her even deeper into his mess of vengeance and trauma and nightmares. The longer she stayed with him, the more often her dark side came out to play, to the point where the Empress was lurking under her words and even in her kiss. She couldn't help that, the Empress existed to protect her from the greatest dangers in the world, and all of them were right here in Gotham. Jay couldn't help clinging to the brightest thing in his entire life, but he was smothering the very light he loved just by virtue of what he was.
And he couldn't just send her away, because she wouldn't go. She was too goddamned Super to leave when she knew she could help here. Gotham needed a light like hers, and Kala would stay even if she was bleeding. She couldn't stop herself from caring about these people, from trying to save them, even though eventually it would cost her everything. And he was the reason she was here, he was why she looked deep into the abyss of the Bowery. She'd been scheduled to train here for the summer, Jay was the reason she kept coming back.
But Supers weren't for this kind of shit. They were for world-shaking events. Bringing Kala to a riot was like using a firehose to water a potted plant. Dangerous overkill, the same way the cops bringing a SWAT team before the first threat was made was overkill. A fucking super-powered meta just stood down Gotham cops and a mob of armed humans. Where could that thread lead? Nowhere good.
He'd been trained as a detective first, before becoming a vigilante or an assassin; Bruce always wanted the boys to see where each action lead. It was the only advantage that normal humans had against superheroes and supervillains, being able to out-think them. Hot-headed as ever, it wasn't always easy for Jay, but the training had stuck nonetheless and he couldn't help following that thread.
A Super's perception was too wide for that. They saw all the little threads, all the time; the way Kala described just her hearing was enough to exhaust him, and all her senses were superhumanly keen. She had to narrow her focus and rely on her reaction speed. If she started looking for and pulling every suspicious thread, she'd be paralyzed. Too many choices, too many paths. But there wasn't a Super on the planet – least of all his girl – who could see that Molotov flying toward a person and not react to prevent injury. It didn't matter if the projectile was aimed at a cop or a civilian, a good person or an evil-doer, innocent or complicit. From a Super perspective, they were all people, and people were to be protected. Metas like them were not capable of calculating how much harm was acceptable, and given how much harm they could do, Jay was damn glad of it.
On the balance, Jay would still choose to end this one her way. Because if the bottle had landed, the cops would shoot into the crowd, the crowd would shoot back and charge with every weapon they had, then the SWAT team would roll up with riot gear and shoot everything, and there were innocent bystanders in the buildings all around. After years of Jim Gordon's leadership, the GCPD was better than it ever had been, but it was too easy for a cop with a gun to see shooting people as the answer to their problems. The situation had been explosive, and Kala had defused it without any losses – except for some of her secrecy.
Babs maybe shouldn't have sent them out to something so volatile. It was hard not to play that card, though, knowing she had super-speed in her deck. Having Kala in Gotham gave them an extra option that maybe they shouldn't have, or shouldn't use. But they couldn't help using her because she was so fucking good. K had the heart of a Super whether people knew it or not, and even this filthy fucked-up city responded to it. She'd had the crowd, except for that one bobble, if the cops had just stayed chill for a minute longer she could've brought the whole thing down without a single projectile thrown.
Hell, he even understood why Babs would want to use Kala. He'd been the one who trained her, he'd basically built the Blur, and Jay took a helluva lotta pride in the magnificent warrior he'd created. Kala was an enormous credit to him, and to the Bats as a whole. She was too fucking badass not to want to see her in action.
But every time she went into action, she risked more and more of herself. And Jay wasn't objective, where she was concerned, he couldn't make cold-hearted decisions like Bruce or Babs, because he fucking loved the girl so much it was pouring off him like the scent of cheap cologne. He'd never said it, not even to her, but everyone knew it and he couldn't deny it even to himself. He loved her so damn much he had nightmares about losing her every goddamned night. And she loved him, too, so much that she kept willingly walking into this city where so many things were dangerous to her – when most of the world wasn't – and kept fighting for him. She had a life, she had a job, she had a family who loved her, she had fucking fans, but she made time to come here and roll in the dirt trying to make things better with him. She was risking her life and maybe losing her mind to be here, and Jay was the reason for all of it.
Call it a curse, just what happened when the son of some awful people got murdered by a psychopath and was too goddamn stubborn to die, so he clawed his way back to life with Lazarus-green fractures in his soul. He was toxic, that was all.
Kala deserved better than this. She really did.
I love you, Kala, Jay thought, and felt a pang in his heart.
Jay took a deep breath, steeled himself as he grabbed her wrist before she could give that familiar caress of his cheek, and looked her in the eye to answer her question with a harsh tone. "What's wrong? You."
