Chapter 24

England; August 17th, 19:45 EST

He walked down the empty hallway with a destination in mind. His jaw was set, and his gaze locked straight ahead of him. He wasn't going to be deterred from the solitary mission that he had decided to embark on. He knew he couldn't tell anyone about it, or they would try to dissuade him from it.

He wouldn't be prevented from doing what he knew had to be done especially after what he had done to Charlie and Katrine. He deserved every bit of what was about to happen to him and so much more. He wished that he could make him suffer so much worse, but this was the best that he could right now.

He nodded his head at the agents standing guard outside of Callum Fleming's hospital room, walking in to find the Son of Ripper sleeping peacefully in his bed. His lips curled into a sneer as he watched him for a long moment. He knew what he had to do and yet he couldn't deny the way his heart was beginning to pound a little harder, his blood rushing in his ears.

His hand slipped into his jacket pocket, pulling out the small syringe that he'd placed there before he'd left. He was certain no one had noticed him leaving, allowing him to do what he felt he must. He closed the distance between them, coming to stand right beside Callum's bed.

He pulled the cap off the syringe, leaning over Callum like a looming specter of death. "I hope you rot in hell," he softly hissed as he grabbed hold of his IV tubing, ready to inject a lethal dose that would take his life instantly.

"Don't do it, Griffin," Alfred said as he emerged from the shadows of the hospital room.

Griffin froze with the sound of Alfred's voice, stunned that he was there in the room with them. He could've sworn that he had been in the bunker when he had left. "Alfred…" Griff began, looking down at the syringe in his hand, the IV tubing in the other. He'd been caught red-handed.

"Please, Griff," Alfred continued. "He's not worth it."

"He's caused so…much…pain," Griffin slowly ground out as tears welled in his eyes. "He deserves far worse than being paralyzed. He deserves to die."

"For him, this will be torture in the worse possible way…I promise you that," Alfred guaranteed him as he came to stand beside his friend and teammate. "Being paralyzed and not able to able to take a life, knowing that we beat him…it's going to torment him for the rest of his days."

Tears rolled down Griffin's face, dripping from his chin and landing on Callum's bed as he stared at the serial killer. "We're going to lose Peter next," he softly murmured. "It's not fair."

"I know, but Peter's cancer isn't Callum's fault," he reminded him. "Peter's paying the price for his years of smoking. He knew better and yet he didn't want to quit."

"Those damn Gauloises," Griff spat out, pausing to draw a shuddering breath as he wrestled with his self-control. "I should've made him stop smoking them forty years ago."

Alfred placed a gentle hand on Griff's shoulder. "You never would've been able to stop him from smoking," he pointed out. "Peter's far too lackadaisical about life and his health to have worried about the future or the risks of his smoking. I think in a strange way Peter believed he was immortal."

"Callum still needs to pay for what he's done to Charlie, Katrine, and all the others," Griff insisted, steeling himself against the sudden wave of doubt that washed over him with Alfred's presence.

He wasn't supposed to be here. If he hadn't been here, he would've been gone by now, Callum dead and gone forever. He would be on his way out of here…out of London and out of England forever. He'd disappear into some European country where they'd never find him. He just needed to finish what he'd started out to do.

Alfred watched as Griffin put the needle of the syringe to the tubing once more. "If you're going to do it, do it quickly before the agents outside grow suspicious."

Shocked by his words, Griff's head whipped around to look at his friend. "You think I should do it?"

"You seem to believe it's the right thing to do," Alfred replied, folding his arms against his chest as he watched him. "What do you think Charlie and Katrine would want you to do? What about Peter?"

Griffin's shoulders sunk, knowing what Alfred was doing. He put the cap back on the syringe before slipping it back into his pocket. "I always hated it when you did that," he grumbled, annoyed.

"Did what?" Alfred innocently asked.

"Used psychology on me," he bit out.

"Come on," Alfred said, turning on his heel and heading towards the door. "I'll buy you a cup of coffee at the diner around the corner."

They walked out of the hospital room together, Alfred nodding to the agents still standing guard and unaware of what had almost taken place. They continued down the hallway, Griff feeling as though he had failed his team. "I'm surprised Callum didn't wake up," he commented.

"The nurse gave him a sleeping pill to knock him out about an hour before you came in," Alfred revealed. "Nothing could've woken him up."

Griffin's eyebrows knitted in confusion. "What were you doing in there?"

Alfred sighed wearily. "I couldn't sleep," he confessed. "I came to see Callum to get some answers out of him, but he was already out like a light. I was just sitting there in the corner in the dark thinking, watching him sleep…wondering how I could've missed him rigging Katrine's closet to explode."

"None of us saw it coming," Griff reminded him. "Despite our suspicions that he'd done something more, there was no way we could've predicted something like that."

"I should have," Alfred insisted. "He'd rigged that cottage in the country to explode, nearly killing Bruce and Diana. I should've known that it wasn't going to be an isolated incidence."

"You're not God, Alfred…none of us are," Griff replied. "There's no way that we can know everything or anticipate what another person is going to do especially someone as unhinged as Callum Fleming. It's difficult as it is to understand how the human mind works without trying to know the workings of a psychotic mind."

"I guess you're right," Alfred reluctantly admitted. "It's just hard not to think that I missed something."

"Hindsight is twenty-twenty," he pointed out.

"Very true, my old friend," he agreed as they left the hospital.

"When Peter dies, there will only be four of us left," he solemnly remarked.

"You really do care about him, don't you?"

"I do," he admitted with a snort of amusement. "He annoys the bloody hell out of me and yet he's like my brother. You all are."

"It's funny," Alfred thoughtfully responded. "When our team was first formed, we all had that mentality that we'd live forever…we were indestructible and invincible. Soon, we'll have lost four of our teammates. It's difficult to fathom."

"I'm glad that you came back for one last mission, Alfred," he told him.

"Me too," he said with a nod. "It's been heartbreaking, but I wouldn't have missed it for anything in the world. This was where I belonged—with my second family."

"We couldn't have caught him without you."

Alfred smiled softly as they got into Alfred's car. "I'm sure you could have," he replied. "Even though it's been a painful one, I was glad I was here for one last ride with you."

Watchtower; August 18th, 08:26 EST

"What do you think if we added this?" Wonder Girl asked as she studied the schematics of their device. "Do you think that would change it up enough to make a difference?"

"It might," Cyborg replied as he reviewed her work. "Let me see if we can tweak it any further to have an even bigger impact."

"That would be awesome," she agreed, glancing up to see Red Robin and Mister Terrific unpacking the supplies they would need to build the device.

With a little bit of luck, they'd be able to directly tap into the Watchtower to generate the massive amount of power that they would need to use the device. She wondered if maybe they could find a way to launch it directly into the middle of Legionnaire.

"What do you think about adding a power generator to it instead of tapping into the Watchtower's power source?" Wonder Girl asked. "If we could do that, we could jettison it right into Legionnaire."

Cyborg suddenly sat forward in his seat, typing furiously on the computer. "That…is a fabulous idea," he agreed. "If we can modify…this and move the control panel here, I think we can make it work."

"Hey, guys!" Wonder Girl called. "We're going to try to jettison our device directly into Legionnaire."

"That's an awesome idea," Red Robin replied. "Why didn't we think of that before?"

"Because we weren't creating it for Legionnaire in the beginning," she reminded him. "We were creating our device for a grade."

"What did you get for your project?" Mister Terrific asked.

"We got an 'A'," Red Robin proudly relayed. "I just got the call from our professor this morning. Our design was also chosen to be built by Wayne Technologies…except we're beating them to it of course."

"That's pretty impressive," Flash replied as he suddenly appeared beside Mister Terrific. "I'm here to get this thing built in no time."

"That's good because we have no time left," Cyborg told them. "J'onn has been scanning for Legionnaire. It's now four days out as of last night."

"Crap," Flash grumbled. "Where do you want me to start?"

"We need all of these supplies unpacked," Mister Terrific replied.

"Consider it done," the scarlet speedster assured them, pausing to pull Red Robin aside. "Hey, have you talked to Wondy yet today?"

"No," he replied with a shake of his head "Why? Is something wrong?"

"I just saw her leaving the infirmary and she was crying," he told him. "I asked her what was wrong, but she wouldn't tell me."

"I'm going to see if I can find her," Red Robin said, abruptly turning on his heel and leaving.

"Alright," Flash announced, rubbing his hands together. "Let's get this done."

XXX

Diana wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hands, doing her best to keep the tears from falling, but it was difficult. She needed to leave before she got cornered again by someone. Flash had been sweet, asking her if she wanted to talk, but she didn't want to talk to anyone at that moment and not about this.

She found herself walking towards the transporter room, desperate to return home. She'd come up here to meet with J'onn to find out if she were pregnant. Unfortunately, she'd found out far more than she had expected, and it had broken her heart.

Reaching the transporter room, she was stopped by Red Robin. "Hey, what's wrong?" Tim asked. "Flash said you were upset about something."

Diana attempted to force a smile, but it fell flat as more tears began to stream down her face. "I don't really want to talk about it right now."

"Come here," he murmured, grasping her upper arm and leading her to an empty conference room. He closed and locked the door, allowing them some privacy. "What's going on? Are you alright?"

She sat down in a chair, reaching for a tissue from the box on the table. "Bruce and I were trying to have another baby," she revealed.

"That's awesome!" he exclaimed, sitting down in a chair before her. "What's the problem?"

"I can't have any more children," she softly confessed, swallowing back the tears that clogged her throat.

"I'm so sorry," he told her, his heart hurting for her.

"I don't know how I'm going to tell Bruce," she said, slowly shaking her head. "He was so excited about having another baby."

"Is there nothing that J'onn or a specialist can do for you?"

"No," she replied. "J'onn feels fairly confident nothing can be done short of a miracle."

Tim leaned forward, wrapping her up in his arms. "I'm sorry, mom," he whispered in her ear. "I know it really hurts, but you still have all of us and you know Nick and Kaia are going to be even more of a handful as they get older. I can only imagine what trouble those two are going to concoct together."

Diana chuckled softly as she returned her son's embrace. "Thank you, Tim," she murmured.

"And Bruce is going to understand," he reassured her. "He loves you so much. There is nothing that could ever make him stop loving you."

She pulled back, a faint smile on her lips. "I love him too," she admitted. "I need to go talk to him."

"Maybe things will still work out," he ventured. "You never know, mom."

"Maybe," she replied, not sounding the least bit convinced as she stood to her feet. "Let us know what we can do to help build your device."

Tim stood to his feet as well. "What do you think about calling it Pegasus?" he suggested. "We're going to propel it into Legionnaire to guarantee absolute contact with the device."

"I like it," she told him, her hand coming to rest against his cheek. "You've grown into such an amazing young man and we're both so proud of you."

"I hope it's okay that I stay at the penthouse for a few days longer," he tentatively said. "I need to see what it's like to be out on my own before I make the decision."

"We understand," she assured him. "It's hard to think of you not being there, but I know you need to start building a life of your own."

"You won't be rid of me forever," he replied. "If I do move out, I'll still be over all the time to eat and to help out with Nick and Kaia."

"Don't worry about us," she told him. "You do whatever you need to do."

"Thanks, mom," he said, hugging her once more. "Go talk to Bruce."

"I will," she confirmed with a sigh as she headed for the door, trying to figure out how she was going to tell him.

Batcave; August 18th, 10:37 EST

"I hope you don't mind doing this," Bruce said as he appraised Cassandra. "I just want to find out your skill level."

Damian snorted from his position against the wall of the training room. "I don't think you're going to want to do that, father."

"It's okay," Bruce assured him. "I can handle myself."

"That's not what I'm worried about," Damian countered. "I don't know if you'll be able to handle her."

"Just because she flattened you in two point five seconds doesn't mean that Bruce can't handle her," Jason pointed out.

"I told you I wasn't ready," he insisted.

"I saw the video feed," Bruce revealed, giving his son a pointed look before turning his attention to Cassandra. "I can tell you've been trained extremely well. You've obviously been trained by some of the best."

Cassandra smiled softly, not really wanting to remember her childhood or how dark that it had been for her. She'd rather focus on her future and not on the past. She didn't want to look back, only forward, but she understood Bruce's need to learn her skill set.

"Your father was one of them, right?" he asked.

She nodded curtly, a frown forming on her lips. It was clear that she did not hold warm, fuzzy feelings for her father. Bruce could hardly blame her. David Cain certainly wasn't the warm, fuzzy kind of person either. Her father would have to get through him if he were ever going to get his hands on his daughter again.

"Don't worry, Cassandra," Bruce told her. "You never have to go back there unless you want to. You can stay here for as long as you want to."

She smiled in response, relieved by his offer. "Tim said she has lots of scars," Jason volunteered, unmistakable horror in his voice.

"I'm sorry you went through that," Bruce softly said. "No one should ever be treated like that."

He watched as Cassandra nodded in agreement. It cut him deeply to think of what this poor girl had been through. He had a feeling there was a lot more that they didn't know about. He already wanted to get his hands around David Cain's neck. He wasn't sure that he wanted to know anymore.

Hearing the alarm from the transporter, Bruce held up a hand. "Diana's back," he announced. "I want her to help assess your skills as well. I'll be right back."

Bruce jogged out of the training room towards the transporter to find Diana heading to the changing room. "Hey, what did you find out?" he asked, following her.

"I'm not pregnant," she softly said, heading into the changing room.

Bruce frowned as he waited outside the changing room. He could tell something was wrong, more than just not being pregnant. She was upset and it scared the hell out of him. "Diana, it's alright," he gently replied. "We'll keep trying."

"It's just a dream that we're going to have to give up," she revealed as she changed out of her uniform into workout clothes.

"What do you mean?" he asked, confused.

Diana exited the changing room, tears trickling down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, Bruce," she murmured. "I can't have any more children."

"Diana," he whispered her name as he took her into his arms, engulfing her in his protective embrace. "It's alright. There's nothing to be sorry for."

"But you were so excited about it…and I wanted to have another baby with you," she confessed, tears falling onto his shoulder with the pain that consumed her.

"I was excited about it, but I'm also happy with the family that we've already made," he tried to tell her. "We've been blessed with a large family…and two children that are amazing, beyond gifted, and completely rambunctious. You know that they're going to keep us on our toes for many years. I have a feeling they'd cause us a lot of gray hair if we weren't immortal."

Diana chuckled despite her tears, knowing how true his words were. "It was unexpected news," she confessed. "It's disappointing to know that we can't have any more children."

"I know…it is for me too," he said, rubbing her back. "Did J'onn have any ideas about why you can't conceive?"

Diana pulled back, her hands coming to rest against his chest as she considered it. She drew a deep breath to calm herself, releasing it slowly before responding. She knew that he wasn't going to take this part of the news very well.

"He wasn't certain, but he felt that it could be an intervention from my gods," she revealed, bracing herself for the worst.

Hot anger surged through his veins with the revelation, furious that her gods were meddling in their lives once more. "They have no right intruding on our lives like this," he ground out, pulling away from her. "See what you can find out from them. I want answers and I want them soon. If they are the reason for this, they're going to hear from me."

"Bruce," Diana cautioned him with a shake of her head, wrapping her arms around herself. "You can't go up against the gods of Olympus. They'll incinerate you without a second thought and not look back. I refuse to raise our children without you here with me."

"They can't pry into our lives and make decisions for us," he angrily countered. "It's not right and I won't stand for it. If we want to have another baby, that is our business and no one else's."

"I agree with you, Bruce, but we're basically powerless against them," she pointed out. "If they've made up their minds, there will be no changing it no matter how much I petition or try to negotiate."

"They haven't met me," he told her.

"Let me petition Aphrodite for some information," she suggested, doing her best to calm him. "She's always been our biggest supporter."

The corner of his lips ticked up minutely despite the indignant anger that continued to thrum through him. "That's because we pay homage to her on a frequent basis."

A soft smile spread across her face as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. "We do, don't we?"

"I still don't like this, princess," he snapped with a scowl.

Diana made her way to him, her hand coming to rest against his back. "I don't like it either and I'm going to make sure they know how angry we are if they are involved," she assured him.

He knew that she was just as upset as he was about it. She was trying to hold it together. His being angry was only going to make it that much harder for her. He took her hand in his, squeezing it tightly. "We'll figure something out," he promised her. "We can always adopt if want to."

She smiled tenderly at him, loving him even more for his offer. "Let's focus on Cassandra right now," she decided. "We can worry about having a baby later. It's not nearly as important as helping her is."

"It is important, Diana," he insisted. "If it's important to you, it's important to me."

"I love you," she murmured, kissing him deeply.

"I love you too," he replied. "Do you feel up to watching Cassandra spar with me? I'd like your thoughts on her skills and technique."

"Sure," she agreed. "It'll help to get my mind off things."

"Come on," he murmured, kissing her on the forehead before leading her towards the training room.

"Where are Nicholas and Kaia?" she asked.

"They're upstairs playing with Claire and Conner," he revealed. "Donna was watching them for me while I spent some time getting to know Cassandra. I want to see what she's capable of."

"You mean besides being lethal?"

"Yeah," he uttered with a sigh of dread. "I'm afraid she's been through far more than we can begin to imagine."

Diana internally shuddered with the thought as they entered the training room. She swore to herself that she would do everything in her power to help Cassandra feel safe and protected. They would be the family that she never got to have if she wanted to stay.

It was obvious that Nicholas and Kaia were quite attached to her as well as the others. It felt as if she fit right into their family, melding seamlessly into the very fabric of the Wayne family. Diana hoped that they would be able to make it a permanent arrangement.

Diana smiled at Cassandra, pushing aside her heartache in order to focus on the teenaged girl. "Are you ready to take on Bruce?" she asked the girl. "He's almost the best."

"Almost the best?" Bruce questioned her.

"Yes, you're almost as good as me," she teased, earning a laugh from Cassandra and Jason.

Damian merely rolled his eyes as he stuffed his hands into his sweatshirt pockets. "None of you are as good as I am."

"Cocky to the core," Jason told him, shoving him in the shoulder. "I want to see Diana take on Cassandra."

"I'm going to test her first," Bruce ultimately decided. "Diana is going to give me her assessment on Cassandra's skills."

Cassandra looked hesitantly at Bruce, glancing at Diana as if asking for help. She slowly shook her head in the negative. Bruce approached her, a gentle expression on his face. This girl had been through hell already and he wasn't about to add to it.

"I promise you won't hurt me, Cassandra," he assured her. "I've trained with Ra's al Ghul himself."

Cassandra's eyes widened with the mention of the leader of the League of Assassins. She had been trained since birth to be a killer and to protect Ra's al Ghul. She had run away from the calling deemed by her father, knowing in her heart that it was wrong. She only wanted to make amends for what she had already done, not add to it by hurting the very people who had taken her in and treated her as their own.

Diana came to stand beside her, putting her arm around Cassandra's shoulder. "Bruce is best that I've ever fought against and I'm an Amazon warrior," she reassured her. "I've fought against many warriors in the last thousand years and he's by far the most skilled."

Bruce gazed at his wife with a warm sense of love invading his heart. She was an amazing warrior in her own right, and she esteemed him as the best. It was high praise coming from the Champion of the Amazons. He knew that she must be somewhat biased since he was her husband, but it was gratifying just the same.

Cassandra finally nodded her head in agreement, her arms falling to her side. Diana patted her on the back before moving back to join Jason and Damian. "Show us what you've got, Cassandra," Diana encouraged her.

"I still think you should have sparred with her first," Damian told Diana as she sat down on the floor next to them. "She could kill dad."

"You honestly think she's better than Bruce?" Jason questioned him as if he'd lost his mind.

"Maybe not better, but definitely equal," Damian clarified.

"Do you think she's killed before?" Diana asked them.

Jason shifted his gaze to Cassandra and Bruce who were circling each other. "I have no doubt about it," he softly replied. "You aren't a part of the League of Assassins without being trained to kill and to take a life."

"It could be why she ran away," Damian pointed out.

"Poor thing," Diana murmured, her heart breaking even further for her. "I wish we could communicate with her."

"Barbara is working on it, but it's going to take some time," Jason told her. "Unfortunately, we don't have much time before more assassins show up to take her home. It'd be nice to find out more from her before they arrived in Gotham."

"I have a feeling there are a lot more already here," Damian commented, grimacing as Cassandra delivered a blow that could shatter an arm, but Bruce was able to block it.

The flicker of emotion that passed over his face was indicative of some level of pain, but it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Bruce was the master of self-control and shielding his feelings from those around him. For that emotion to briefly surface made Diana wonder if Cassandra's level of skill was taking him somewhat by surprise. Then again, hardly anything in this world took Bruce by surprise.

Diana watched in awe as Cassandra put Bruce on the defensive, delivering kicks and strikes at a rapid rate that stunned even the fierce Amazon warrior. Cassandra was so petite and slim, but the powerful strength that she possessed in her lithe frame was impressive, to say the least.

She could hear the boys beside her softly gasping in awe as Bruce ducked, avoiding a roundhouse kick to the head. He maneuvered around her, wrapping his arms around her only for her to flip him over her head. He swiftly compensated, flipping and landing on the balls of his feet with his fingertips on the mat.

They continued to spar, besting each other and ending up in a draw on more than one occasion. They battled for what felt like an eternity but had only been about half an hour. It appeared that the two were evenly matched on almost every skill level.

"Impressive," he praised her with a slight smirk. "You're as good as I had presumed…maybe even better."

She smiled broadly with his praise, backing off from her predatory pose. She appeared quite pleased that Bruce thought so highly of her skills. At the same time, it caused her to internally wither, wondering if he would still praise her if she knew that she had taken a life.

She bowed her head slightly, unable to make eye contact at that moment. It was something that Bruce picked up on, but he didn't press it. He wanted her to feel comfortable and at ease in their home. She'd been through more than enough for a lifetime without adding to it. Whatever she had done or been through, they would work through it together.

"It looks like a tie," Jason said, standing to his feet. "They're so closely matched."

"I think she was holding back," Damian noted.

"I have to agree with you," Diana told him. "I think she could've easily broken his neck in that one move, but she didn't."

"She's a trained killer," Jason reminded them. "It's all she's been trained to know, but she has a good heart. She left in order to protect us from the League. A deadly killer with no conscience wouldn't give two cents about us."

"That's true," Diana agreed. "You guys can head upstairs for lunch."

"We'll be right up," Bruce said, watching as Cassandra, Damian, and Jason exited the training room. "Well, what do you think?"

"She was holding back," Diana replied. "There were at least two times where she could have killed you or seriously injured you, but she didn't."

"I noticed that too," he responded with a nod.

"How's your forearm?" she asked with a curl to her lips.

"It's going to bruise," he told her with a wince. "It felt like when I spar with you, and you momentarily forget to temper your strength."

"Only because you goad me," she pointed out. "You don't think she's a meta, do you?"

"No," he readily decided, shaking his head. "She's not a meta. She's been trained how to use her body and channel her strength. She's small, but she's very strong."

"Jason and Damian believe that she's killed before."

"I have no doubt," he agreed with a sigh. "She's carrying a lot of anger and shame inside of her."

"She has a tortured soul, but a soft heart," Diana replied.

"Hopefully, we can help her channel those raw emotions into something productive and worthwhile."

"I hope she'll stay with us," she told him. "I think she can really be happy here…find the peace that she's obviously seeking."

"I hope so too," he agreed.

A/N: Poor Bruce & Diana! :(

UP NEXT: The League of Assassins makes their presence in Gotham known which leads to a confrontation with the Batclan. Who will win?