(A/N: Sorry I forgot to update! Been a busy couple of weeks. Anyway, lot of plot stuff going down this chapter, so buckle up, read slowly, and enjoy! Content warning for fighting/violence/swearing.)

Chapter Twelve:

MAN ON A MISSION: second chances

Gar has always thought of Kori as blinding.

The way she lights up the room, bright like a firecracker, and burns through boundaries and walls. The way she explodes in Gar's life, louder and hotter than he knows how to keep up with. The way she fills the empty spaces, the grayness, the holes.

He likes that she twirls him into dances on the white sand and skips through wet clouds and throws another pile of shirts at him over the wall of the mall's changing room. He likes that they can sprawl in the park for hours, swapping word games and old stories, until their skin is red and prickling, until their voices are hoarse from laughter.

Gar has always thought of Kori as blinding as the sun. But suns are hard to look at. Hard to examine, hard to see past the artificial layers and find all the raw sunspots, hard to get close to.

Riding low to his motorcycle, hands curled around the handles, thighs clenched and eyes squinting through the warm wind, Gar stares at Kori's back. The yellow tinge of late noon glints through old thunder clouds and spills across her hair and shoulders. Her hands are corded tendons tensed around Dick's waist; her knees are stiff against his bike.

Why didn't she say anything about Galfore? Or the civil war, or her brother? There are three years of a storyline arc that Gar hasn't lived yet, and his stomach curls in with guilt. She brushed him aside, Sunday morning in the conference room, side-stepped his questions with a smile, and why didn't he say anything?

He thinks they are friends. After everything that they have lived through, every battle and broken bone and mall trip, he knows she trusts him. He knows she smiles when it hurts—that they both do, that they choose to. But after Sunday morning, when she blazed like a warrior and reassured him that he belonged, he thought that maybe she dropped her own mask, sometimes, around him. He remembers the deflections now.

We can return to my troubles later, if you would like. But please, what is bothering you?

He knows that technique. He breathes that technique, exhales it on repeat to his friends. And yes, they both agreed—too many years ago—to be the team's rainbows and lollipops, but he always thought if it was serious…really serious…she would come to him. Two clowns who can be real with each other.

Wheezing, Gar steadies his motorcycle.

It's too hot, humid air baking off in the sun, asphalt black and steaming; his throat keeps clearing while he tries to find the right words to say. Overhead, a streak of purple jet stream leads straight into the heart of downtown and disappears in the skyscraper lines.

Gar can't unsee the scorch marks in the third-floor hallway. The windows' broken glass, the singed footprints of Blackfire's boots, the last place anyone saw her. He can't explain away the fact that Dr. Jace, when they asked, said she hadn't seen Richards since Gar was a brown bird in the common room.

Vic wanted to sound the Titan alert, but Kori said no.

So it's personal.

It smells like fishy ocean and salt and sour battery acid, and Gar's nose might be their only chance at tracking down Blackfire or Richards. His nose and the purple streak splashed across the sky, leading to wherever the hell she disappeared to. Wherever the hell she probably abducted Richards.

Because the third floor was nothing but caved in walls and burnt carpet, and Gar doesn't fucking trust her.

Dick's eyes dart across his visor, presumably checking the JCPD channels for an alert, but Gar knows there is nothing. Radio static and seagull croaks. And the awkward silence of unspoken questions because how does he ask?

What words are there?

Gar clears his throat again, hoping they will unstick and fall out, and how are they not accusatory?

Why didn't you tell me about Galfore?

Why didn't you ever mention a brother?

Does future Gar know?

Am I not good enough to know? Not trustworthy enough? Not him?

"Need a cough drop?" Dick asks, voice staticky in Gar's earpiece.

"I—no, I was just. Never mind."

"Trail is getting fainter. We'll lose our sightline as soon as we turn onto ninety-sixth."

Kori is painfully silent, and Gar wants to ask about Blackfire. Needs to understand the messy lines between them, the ways that people forgive after unforgivable betrayals, because it doesn't make sense, and Blackfire in the conference room on Sunday was just as harsh and bitter as he remembers her. He opens his mouth.

Inhales.

"How do you know we can trust her?"

The static crackles in his helmet. Four feet in front of him, Kori's back snaps into a rigid line. Her words are clipped. "She is my sister."

"I know, but—that doesn't mean a lot, with Blackfire." He licks his lips and tangles the words with memories. "She sold you into marriage, remember? She—"

"—do not lecture me about things you do not understand."

Hurt spills into his voice. "I was there."

"What she's trying to say is that Blackfire has changed…a lot…over the last three years," Dick says placatingly. He turns toward an exit, motorcycle bobbing over loose gravel and a pothole. "And we're heroes. Innocent until proven guilty."

"But—"

"This is just a search and recovery. We'll find Blackfire and Richards and make sure they're okay."

"But—"

"Now is not the time," Kori says quietly. Her words are edged with steel. "I will speak with you later, if you distrust my judgment, but right now you will focus on the mission and stop blaming my sister for crimes she committed many years ago."

Gar looks down at his black gloves, fingers curled over Re-Cycle's handlebars, and anger is starting to splash through the cracks in his smile. Today has been too much. And he doesn't know if it's the ring, or the deadline, or wearing future Gar's body like an ill-fitting costume, or if it's that Kori trusts her sister more than his gut, but he wants to press at this hardened scab of a conversation until he stops feeling raw.

"She knows a lot about time travel."

The next three seconds are deafening. Heavy, thick silence clamped around his ears, heart pounding in his chest, the frustration bleeding like an open wound.

Kori's breath hisses through his earpiece. "Why is that relevant?"

"Well…we never, um…" The rest of the sentence whistles out. "We never figured out who was mind-controlling Geo-Force."

The wind whips past as Dick crunches onto a new street, so hard that his hands shake and the bike growls. Kori's voice is a low hiss.

"You are not being serious."

"It's just—fishy, okay? She's a hotshot royal advisor, and Tamaran was pretty involved in funding the time travel research, so I was just thinking, ya know? Where was she when the earthquake hit?"

Dick's breath crackles, but Kori speaks over him. "She was not involved in the decision to provide rothanium."

"And she doesn't have any reason to want to go back three years? No motivation? Look, I don't trust her. I don't know what I missed, and sure, maybe she doesn't break the law on the weekend anymore, but—oh, wait." Sarcasm slides across his tongue, and this is an argument now, he knows it is, but he doesn't care. He's hot steam, and Blackfire's the vent.

"You do not need to trust her for her to be innocent."

"Then why did she throw starbolts around on the third floor, huh? Why was she yelling at Richards?"

"Why are you so determined to prove that she is bad?" Kori's voice is louder, sharper, swinging toward something feral. "Can you not accept that I am grateful to have my sister back? Galfore is dead, and she is all I—"

A shudder hitches through Kori's shoulders.

"You have us," he says fiercely. "And a brother. Apparently."

Kori whips her head around to glare at him, her fists shimmering with starbolts. "You are being the passive aggressive with me."

"I'm just saying that all the pieces fit, okay? And I know she's your sister, but she's got a bad track record, and I don't have time to pretend she's innocent."

"What do you—?"

"—I—nothing," he backtracks, furious with himself because now is not the time to admit there is a deadline on his life in this timeline, and because he prefers denial. "I just meant that you're too forgiving. People don't attack people for no reason."

"We do not know—"

"—she fucked up the third floor and broke a window."

"—but we do not know why—"

"—and I'm telling you I think she knows something about time travel. I bet you anything she messed up the time spell at STAR Labs."

Gar's and Dick's motorcycles fall into line, streaking past the line of cars on the highway and onto an exit that leads downtown, the wheels humming over asphalt. Gar finds Kori's eyes glued to his face, streaming green light and ferocity, and he has never seen her quite like this. Shaking with barely contained restraint, the anger simmering off in red sparks of her hair.

"So where was she when the spell went wrong?"

"I do not keep her schedule for every second of the day—I am not her jailer, and it is irrelevant because there is no reason—no way she could have interfered with the spell—"

"Well, that's because Geo-Force did for it for her—"

"—she has no desire to be out of the law again—"

"—but what's her motive? When did Galfore die?"

The silence is screeching. Louder than the crackle of Kori's fists lighting with starbolts, louder than the flare of her eyes when her face catches his. Twisted and livid, the tendons rigid in her neck, temple veins pulsing, and her heart is bleeding across her face because he crossed the line.

"I—"

Boundaries and he just broke right through them. Splinters in their friendship. Crumbling rock. Foundations splitting open.

"I'm sorry, I just meant that she—but I—"

"You were not there," she says, and her voice is cold. Detached.

"I didn't—"

And that is when a scream reverberates down the alley and past the dumpsters.

Kori looks away, and he is losing her.

"I shouldn't have said—"

It echoes through a side street, reverberates with panted breaths and footsteps.

"Later," she says, and suddenly it clicks what he said; what he can't take back. A small voice inside him thinks, good. Angry is better than sad. Better than falling apart. Better than admitting that today is overwhelming and painful, and he doesn't know how to process it without screaming.

Gar hits the brakes on his motorcycle, skidding so hard that tread marks slide down the street, and he thrusts his feet out to catch the bike before his weight topples it. They are in the middle of something. He doesn't have time for this.

"No visual," says Kori, kicking off the back of Dick's bike to scan the alley. Her voice is steady. Calm. Like they were not shouting five seconds ago, and Gar knows what she is doing. Shutting down unnecessary emotions for the mission, just like he does, just like they all do. He has spent years compartmentalizing to be a good hero, but this—

This is asking too much of him.

"Starfire," he says, pressing his helmet onto the bike's handles. "I'm really sorry I—"

"Later," she says, and he can't read her voice. He hates being on unsteady ground.

"Formation gamma," Dick says quietly. "Behind me."

"But—"

"Beast Boy."

He folds under Dick's masked glare, the thick weight of professionalism that crushes him back into proper form. Their dynamic settles into something familiar. Steely trust, darting eyes, backs to each other, because arguments are supposed to be shoved aside until everyone's safe.

"Any scent?"

Gar follows Dick at a distance, sniffing the air for battery acid, but the reek of dumpsters dulls his nose. "No," he says, scanning the closed-down storefronts and dusty canopies. Overhead, skyscrapers crowd out the sun, and Gar remembers this street used to be arcades and fast food.

Clink.

Gar's head turns before his brain registers the sound. A kicked pebble. The crunch of boots twisting on asphalt. Puffed breath. Nine o'clock.

Dick swivels toward the corner. Toward the sound of breathing.

"Oh, sister."

Blackfire's voice croons through the alley and curdles Gar's blood. A vindicated little thrill that shoots through him as he sinks into his knees, nails shifting into claws. Fucking knew it.

One metallic shoe steps through shadow. Purple eyes glow in the dark, and Gar barely holds his tongue. He crouches lower. Digs his fingers into the road, ready to push off, but waits for the signal.

Behind him, Kori flutters into the air, expression unreadable. "Komand'r?"

Black hair swishes forward; purple leather crinkles. "Oh, don't give me that look. You know me better than that."

"Where is Dr. Richards?"

Gar looks over at Dick impatiently, but Dick shakes his head imperceptibly. Wait.

"Oh, nowhere important." She giggles, cuter and sweeter than her usual laugh.

"Did you hurt him?" Kori asks through clenched teeth, muscles shuddering, hair curling in loose tendrils through the sudden breeze that rockets down the alley.

"Well, 'hurt' is a matter of perspective, isn't—"

Blackfire chokes the rest of the sentence because she is pinned to a brick wall, Kori's golden hand curled around her throat. Dust shimmers from the building, swirling through the gray light, and Gar gapes.

"Starfire!"

Dick holds him back with one fist, and Gar could break through—if he wanted to—

"Where is he?"

"Krkch—"

"You promised me at our k'norfka's evali'wanpaq that you were done with this."

"Ngh—"

"You dishonor him."

Gar inhales sharply and doesn't smell battery acid. Thirty feet above them, Blackfire sucks desperately for air. Her fingers claw at Kori's, and they are shiny with at least ten rings.

Cold horror drips down Gar's back, but he can't…quite pin why.

"Tarv'i paqinart vo nulia zan, ul ma voe Xhal, chlorbag."

"Starfire, let her breathe."

Kori's fingers slacken, even though she does not bother to look in Dick's direction. "You are weak. Rutha. You are too ashamed to fight me?"

"This—isn't going…the way I had…hoped," Blackfire pants, feet pushing against the wall to relieve pressure on her throat.

"You deserve to be banished to the moons of Yntx."

But there is something off-kilter about this entire situation, the way that Blackfire's body hangs limp without flight, or the bare skin of her knuckles without starbolts, or the way her face is not purpling beneath Kori's death grip even though her throat is garbled choking. All Gar knows is the tingling sixth sense at the nape of his neck, screaming that something is wrong.

"Star," Dick says slowly. "Let's take this down a notch. She's not going anywhere."

Kori's knuckles whiten. "I do not tell you how to act with Batman—"

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

Crack.

Static and electric energy whistle through the air, piercing and shrill, and an explosion of pink and violet throws Gar through the glass of a storefront, ears ringing, nails clinging to the asphalt. The world swirls around him, dust kicked up and drifting, and he watches Blackfire's lifeless body scrape down the brick wall and slump to the ground with a crunching pop of flesh and bone. A flash of red hair indents a nearby canopy.

"XHAL POORVA FE!"

He cannot be sure who is yelling, even with his ears rotating back and forth, his lungs wheezing against gravity because the air is knocked out of them. He sucks desperately for oxygen, coughs, nearly rolls off-balance as he crawls through broken glass and burnt carpet.

"Nightwing," Gar says hoarsely. His feet stagger and ground themselves, torso tilting upright, neck straining toward the smoking skyline. To his right, Blackfire's body groans weakly in the crystalline glass shards, and he stumbles past her because forty feet overhead, haloed by the gray sun, framed by the tall brick walls and dusty smog…

…is a second, seething Blackfire.

A thick, gravelly voice gasps to Gar's left. "Sister?"

"WHERE IS HE?" second-Blackfire roars, floating closer. Her face is haggard, black hair fanned out, glowing pink eyes blazing through the brown fog until they catch on the limp body behind Gar. Her teeth are grit in a feral snarl, starbolts streaming off her fisted hands, and Gar feels it crackling through the air, so strong that his hair statics beneath his uniform, and goosebumps prickle down his arms. His brain is yelling at him to attack, but his eyes refuse to pick a target because this doesn't make sense.

Green electricity whizzes past Gar as Kori teeters into the air, off-balance and wounded, fresh blood dripping down her back. "Vaan tu?"

"Tai vilkar b'ina," second-Blackfire bites back, and another crackle of starbolts jolts through the electrified air. With a fierce growl, she shoulders into Kori's body. "Why are you protecting him?"

Kori shoves back, green sparking from her eyes, skin freckling with it. "Prove you are Komand'r."

Second-Blackfire howls at the wind, her laugh biting and bitter. "You have to ask me to prove it?" Pink energy swirls in her palm, growing in size, causing the alley to shudder with static. She surges forward with a resounding crack, haloed in pink, and the alley booms with the sound of starbolts, cracks fissuring through the old brick, Gar's ears ringing again.

He looks desperately through the swirls of brown dust and neon light, praying to whatever's listening that he'll find Dick's body somewhere in the streets—because Gar is too shaken to shapeshift, too groggy and injured and confused to join Kori in the air, and guilt is horse hooves trampling over his heart.

Someone tried to make Blackfire look guilty.

He sprints through the street, dodging pink and green lasers, not bothering to brush off the glass shards that stick to the backs of his legs, and he finds the crumpled brick where first Blackfire fell, but her body is gone. A few splashes of blood track to the left, and—

"Gar," says a dry, rolling voice, and he swears his heart stops.

Raven lays spread-eagled in blood, her cloak immaculately white, hair un-tousled, barely propped up on her elbows.

"Gar," she repeats.

His real name.

"When did—?"

"Help me up," she says, sounding raspy and weak.

"Komand'r," Kori shrieks in the distance, and another explosion ripples through the street, the road rolling with the force of their starbolts.

"RUNAA VO AND'R," second-Blackfire bellows.

Gar's hand reaches forward, as if in a trance, emotions muted in the background of his brain because Raven is right there. Her palm extended out. Reaching for him. Desperate. And it does not matter that she is sitting in someone's else's blood, that she is supposed to be at STAR Labs, that he cannot feel the familiar snap of her mind, that he cannot smell woodsmoke or lavender—

An arm catches around Gar's waist, thick and warm, and pulls him half a foot to the left. "Beast Boy," someone gasps in his ear.

"Nightwing?"

"That's not Raven," Dick hisses, and Gar growls, pulling against him, too hot and worried and fucking overstimulated to hold back.

"Nightwing, let go—"

"Must have over-exerted," Raven coughs, clawing at the nearest apartment building to push herself upright. "Vic sent out an alert. I came as fast as I could."

Two real names.

"Are you okay?" Gar whines, panting against the grip on his waist, his nails shifting into claws and pulling beads of blood from the rips in Dick's gloves.

"Fine. Just used more magic than I should have."

"I told you to take it easy," he says with a gasped laugh, shoving harder. Dick's muscle cords behind him, and his mouth falls against Gar's shoulder and hisses—so lowly that he barely hears through the ringing—

"Holo-rings."

Gar's eyes dart down.

They freeze on the silver rings littered across Raven's fingers, glinting in the dusty light, and realization splashes down his throat like ice water.

Behind him, wind rockets forward. Green flashes, and a stripe of purple bulldozes straight into Raven, knocking Gar off-balance. Another boomechoes down the street as second-Blackfire, bleeding pink, her hair gleaming electric with sparks, shining bright and fierce and bloodcurdling, pins Raven fifteen feet overhead.

"Varblernelk!"

"Ngh—!"

"You fucking asshole," second-Blackfire snarls, and Raven's head pounds against the wall.

"Thought you…liked me…"

"How many holograms do you have?" Another shove into the brick. Cracks spiderweb through it.

"Don't know what you're…talking about…"

"How did you get them?"

"You're hurting me."

Second-Blackfire has a loud, derisive snort. "Thought you liked that." She shoves again, bashing Raven's ringed hands against the wall, and light ripples down her body.

Blonde, blue-eyed, long and bony. A holo-ringed version of Tara's body hangs limp in second-Blackfire's fists. Another shove, and an illusion of Dick's body appears against the wall, haloed in white light, his uniform sparkling like a hologram.

"S-stop it," fake Dick gasps.

Another shove. Dr. Richards' body shudders against the brick.

Gasping, Gar grabs real Dick's shoulder for support because time just screeched to a standstill; the hourglass shattered.

Second-Blackfire—real Blackfire—has a crooked smile and narrowed eyes, and Gar is standing dumbly beneath them.

This doesn't make sense.

She drops Richards' lolling body to the ground, where a plume of smoke rises from the crumbled pavement. "Still want a confession?" she snarls, whipping around to glare at Dick.

"But—" Gar says disbelievingly, still clutching the back of Dick's shoulder. He takes a nervous step back, cowed into submission, because this Blackfire is innocent—actually innocent—and regret prickles at the base of his skull next to the draft of his apology that Kori deserves. "You weren't—you didn't—?"

She ignores him, beady purple eyes fixated on Dick, one foot pressed over Richards' heaving chest. "On my honor. He attacked first."

"I do not understand," says a quiet, muffled voice, and Gar twists to see Kori hovering unevenly at the end of the alley, nursing a sore shoulder. She wipes blood off her mouth and spits. "Why would Dr. Richards impersonate you?"

"I swear," Dick hisses, surging forward to lean over Richards and pull him up by his shirt collar, "if you fucked with the time spell, if you planned this—"

Blackfire scoffs. "That's not Richards. Take off his rings."

Dick's neck swings like a pendulum. "Then who the fuck—"

"I am Richards," coughs the limp figure, swallowing against the hoarseness. "Really. I am. And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"Hands," Dick orders coldly, temple vein throbbing, and he fits handcuffs over Richards' shaking wrists. Gar and Kori stare heavily at the half-dozen rings littered across his fingers. Stolen data. Confidential names. Access to the Tower, its blueprints, their security systems, and—god, how did they miss it? All those questions this morning, when Gar was stuck as an eagle, ringed fingers stroking his feather down. Asking how Vic fit that much information in Gar's holo-ring.

"I—I'll take them off," Richards stutters. "I don't want any trouble, look!"

Before anyone can stop him, Richards tugs at the thick stud on his pinky finger, and his body vanishes behind a ripple of light. A holo-ring version of Cyborg, perfectly copied with glowing blue parts and one gleaming gray eye, appears in handcuffs.

"How did you—how many—?"

Fake Cyborg waves his hands impatiently, pulling another ring from his hand, blonde hair spilling down his neck, long legs splaying, and Gar hates this. Hates watching this asshole switch through his friends like they're costumes, and something twitches in his skin, an old, shuddering vibration, and no, no, not now, not in front of—

Fake Terra throws a ring into the street, and the holo-ring version of Blackfire reappears, lips pursed, eyebrows knitted, and this is the final straw that breaks Gar's cells.

A vision bangs full steam through him.

It rips his atoms into numb scraps of feeling, and he collapses to his knees with a whimpered cry, feeling the curling shadows of another premonition fold over him—

—long swatches of golden cliffs, starry space and galaxies, Blackfire's dark hair fanned out beneath the double moons, a silhouette in the distance so far off that Gar is not entirely sure it's her, but he knows that is Raven bent over her lips, dipping her head down—

He slams back into his body, disoriented and fuzzy, and finds Kori gripping his bicep so hard it bruises.

"Beast Boy," she whispers urgently.

"Fine," he says. "'m fine." But his knees crumple beneath him, and she tugs him against her chest with bright, shiny eyes.

"Are you injured?"

"Later—we'll worry about me later—"

"Your skin is smoking," says fake Blackfire, sliding off another ring, and red hair tumbles to the ground. Green eyes blink. "Wow, I thought this was completely theoretical, but—"

"But nothing," Gar says sharply.

Dick looks between them, his eyes narrowing. "You said your cells were stable."

"Stable's not an option, anymore. Timestream is trying to heal itself," says fake Starfire, throwing off another ring. Fake Nightwing knocks his handcuffs against his knees. "Jace said it was a possibility, but actually seeing it—there's no way he's got much time left. I actually have this device that might—"

"Shut up," Gar snaps, clinging to Kori's side because his heart rate is accelerating and humming, and he needs to breathe long and slow to make the visions stop

—Kori wearing a metal crown, Blackfire on her right, a young man with hair like wildfire—

"Your skin is hot," Kori gasps, pulling her hand back from his steaming forehead.

Fake Nightwing slips another ring off, and fake Raven stares Gar down with flickering eyes. "You're getting his memories, aren't you?"

Gar shakes his head angrily, muscles tensed and dancing, his tendons jumping.

Dick tugs fake Raven forward by the chain of her handcuffs. "Memories?"

"You know—his future memories. The timestream is trying to accelerate him through three years of growth, to fix the paradox, but that's too much for anyone to handle, so it's killing him."

Kori's fingers tighten in his costume, and he hates for them to find out like this, when he is in too much pain to explain, when they are in the swirling dust of an abandoned back alley, when he just found out this morning. "Beast Boy?" she says, her voice a cracked whisper.

"Raven—real Raven—is working on it," Gar gasps. "Didn't know until—ngh—recently. We were gonna tell you tonight, but—ah—"

"You're dying?" Dick's voice is a thin wire.

Fake Raven slips the second last ring off, and Gar thinks he is looking in the mirror. "I'd guess you've got a week left," says fake Gar. "Maybe less."

"Who the hell are you?" Gar growls, digging his nails into the metal plates of Kori's armor.

"Oh. Um." Fake Gar looks down at his black-gloved hands and wrings them self-consciously. "I'm Will. Will Meyers."

The last ring tumbles to the pavement with a clatter, and Control Freak offers an awkward, cringing smile.

Oh my god, Gar thinks.

"Xhal mara," Kori whispers.

Ginger, broad-set, sheepish. He has road rash on his face, is pink-cheeked from exertion, and blood drips from his lips. Bruises ring his neck, and he looks quiet. Downtrodden. Three years have given him a squarer jaw, thicker hair, watery blue eyes that shoot down with shame.

This is…not what Gar expected, and his cells pinwheel angrily inside his internal organs.

Kori steps backwards. "But I started the fundraiser for your STEM program. We talked about my planet. My people. I do not—I cannot—"

Blackfire speaks up for the first time in minutes, lazily leaned up against a brick building and examining a dent in her armor. "It's my fault, really. He dropped the monkey suit and tried to recruit me into his silly little club for reformed villains, but I don't react nicely when people aren't who they say they are."

"You attacked him?"

"I panicked," Control Freak—Will Meyers—says in a high, squeaking voice. "I didn't want her to tell anyone—who I really was—I was scared—"

"Scared?" snarls Dick.

"I am Dr. Richards. It's just—I just—he's a fake identity. My identity."

Gar groans and bites the inside of his cheek, new memories like bowling balls bludgeoning his brain.

—Control Freak on the common room sofa, cross-legged and watching Kori intently, nodding as he scribbles into a thick notebook—

"It's just…" Will hesitates.

"Just what?"

The words fall out in a harsh whisper. "No one would hire me."

"Breathe with me," Kori murmurs into Gar's ear, inhaling so slowly that he forgets they are supposed to be mad at each other.

Will laughs hysterically, on the edge of tears. "I tried so many times—so many—but my history—I just wanted to work in a research lab again. I just wanted to do something big. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't think anyone would find out. It was just—it was for me, okay. I was tired of not being able to invent things. No one would let me build. Even—even my STEM program, they put hard limits on what we were allowed to use. What we were allowed to buy. And I like working at STAR Labs. It's time travel and laser beams and all the stuff I always dreamed about, you know? And it's you guys. The Titans—and it was cool and awesome, and I felt like you actually liked me when I was Richards. So I lied. I built a secret identity. I didn't mean for you to find out. It was just supposed to be for me, but I messed it up. Because…" His watery eyes twitch toward Blackfire.

"Oh, god," Gar gasps. His uniform is smoking now, white vapors creeping through the creases of fabric, and he is sweating and hot, his atoms vibrating so damn hard he can't feel his own feet.

"I can—I can help with his cells," Will says suddenly. "I was trying to say earlier, but I can—"

"So you can what?" Dick pulls at the handcuffs. "Steal Titan confidential files? Make more holo-rings?"

"No, I just—I've been working at STAR Labs for a while, and I work under Jace. I think I can—"

"Do it." Kori shifts her arms around Gar, and he whines at the lost support.

"Starfire—"

"I trust him. And we do not have the time to argue."

Will stutters, and Gar is starting to lose track of people, lost in the fuzz of someone else's memories, the timestream pressing into him, heavier and heavier.

"It's a space-time problem, really," Will explains, "and I made the Time-Stopper ages ago when STAR Labs was recruiting new scientists to work under Raven…impressed Jace with this at my interview…so if I can reconfigure…"

—a dark violet sunset, swirling gold bodies and bright red hair, streaks of purple cloth and double moons, Blackfire pulling Raven by the hand toward an archway far away from the crowd—

Gar gasps at the sensation of cold metal on his skin and fingers beneath his chin, stroking down. His cells sputter halfheartedly, trying to pull forward, apart, but something holds them back. He can feel his lungs again, and they inflate with cold air, slow and smooth and practiced.

"Better?" Will asks, and Gar blinks to see him standing three inches away, holding a glowing white metal strip to his bare cheek.

"How…how did you…?"

"I've played with some technology to slow time down—for STAR Labs—and I figured if I extended the magnetic field—"

"Clever," says Blackfire, looming over Gar's shoulder. "And you just happen to carry that around with you?"

"Jace and I were using it to work on a Time-Stopper II—large-scale, you know—but I thought my old prototype might help with...um…" Will turns to look at him, arms falling, and Gar snarls.

He rips the metal plate from Will's hands, pressing it back to his face, moaning at the cold relief. The feeling that time is still, that he is not whiplashed and displaced and falling forever. He ignores the images fluttering behind his eyelids, new memories of Tamaran and Will and Blackfire.

"S-sorry," Will stammers, hand falling away from Gar's face. "The prototype is already a couple years old, so I wanted to wait to run a few tests—"

"Is Dr. Jace aware of your real identity?" Kori interrupts.

"No. I created Richards for my interview with her, and oh god. I'm going to miss working there. I don't know how I'm going to—and Gizmo was doing so well, and—" Will's smile tightens painfully. It trembles downwards. "And I guess it's my own damn fault."

Gar feels something hard and rebellious rise in his throat, too big to swallow, but his tongue is heavy and numb. He drops the Time-Stopper from his cheek and flaps a hand up, trying to get Kori's attention.

"Please rest. We will take care of this."

"But he's like her," he whines, pointing in a vague direction, shoving the words past the pain.

She looks at him, and she is not Raven—no magical aura seeps between them and folds their minds together—but something passes between them. Gar, desperate and groggy and tired of being overwhelmed and angry. And Kori, who always reads him so easily.

Kori, who screamed her voice raw that her Komand'r was innocent, and Gar knows she can see the apology in his eyes, and the question, and hopes she will give Will Meyers a second chance because that's where Gar fucked it up with Blackfire. Where he got it right with Tara.

"Really?" she asks, quiet enough that only he can hear.

"'m sorry," he mumbles, nodding even though his head is still sort of pounding, because he is tired of messing up his friendships by holding onto grudges. Tired of being paranoid that people can't change.

Kori's eyes stick on Gar's, warm and pleased and glowing like oil lamps. "Will Meyers, I do not have to take you to jail today."

"Starfire." Dick's neck pops as his head swivels.

"Beast Boy and I will vouch for him."

Dick's mask softens. "You know that makes him your responsibility. Your reputations, your names if it backfires."

"I know."

"If what backfires?" Will asks anxiously. "Where are you taking me?"

Kori smiles at Gar, and he tries to mirror it, even though his brain is foggy and gray, and his cells are sore and raw. Because that's the choice they made, when they joined the team, and it feels good to have her back.

"To the Tower."

Will's eyes flutter. "W-what?"

"Do not take this offer lightly. I gave you a second chance when I funded your STEM program two years ago, and you used that chance to illegally download Titan data for your own purposes."

"I—I know. And I'm sorry. I don't…I don't have an excuse. It was just backup. In case—"

Kori raises a hand to stop him. "But I also know what it is like to start over, after incarceration. I helped my sister, more times than she deserved, and people have called me naïve."

"Was wrong," Gar murmurs against her shoulder, feeling his consciousness flicker because he is so damn tired of being awake.

"I am taking a risk on you, Will Meyers. I believe you can change. With the right support. With accountability."

"But—but I caused so much damage—"

"Damage can be fixed."

Will's mouth trembles; his shoulders heave.

"Do not say yes unless you are certain. I will vouch for you to the Justice League, so that you will be placed in our network, under someone we trust, but please understand that the League is not forgiving. I cannot promise you will be given another chance."

"No more pulling shit like this," Dick says.

Will's mouth circles into a small oh shape. "The League?"

"You will be closely monitored. There will be no more lies, no more secrets, no more breaking of your parole. You must understand the magnitude of what you are committing yourself to. There is no going back once you are in the League network. If you wish to choose it."

Will breathes in, all reedy and nasally and teary-eyed. "Thank you," he gasps, so genuine and real and vulnerable that Gar's chest hiccups. "I won't let you down. Thank you."

Kori leans her head against Gar's and scratches her nails at the back of his cowl, pulling out a purr. And it does not matter that he is dead in a week, not when he is here in the dark, rubble-filled alley, beneath gray clouds and pale light, learning how to forgive.

Tara and Komand'r and Will Meyers, but all he cares about is Kori on his right. Sunshine and broken glitter and choosing to smile when it hurts.

And knowing that they have each other, if the smile ever drops.

(A/N: If anyone is confused, Control Freak made the holo-rings as an easy out in case his true identity was ever discovered at STAR Labs. More of a contingency plan than anything else. Come yell at me in the comments!)