Five - Let's Change The Subject

Earth 168

Location: Gotham

Date: December 6, 2023

Time: 7:55 P.M.

Riley climbed the stairs, breathing heavily as she went. On most days, the walk to the top floor would cause no problems at all, but today was different. The vigilante was hiking towards a meeting with an unknown visitor. And what's even worse, she had accidentally revealed her identity to none other than John Constantine only a few minutes before. Her palms felt clammy as she fumbled for the apartment key.

The door closed with a resounding slam. The girl winced at the loud noise.

"Hey, Kenze," Riley called, "I'm home."

She shrugged her bag onto the ground. "Who was the person you wanted me to meet?"

The Vigilante stopped in her tracks when she saw who was sitting on the couch next to her aunt.

Flashback 2008 - A School in Gotham

Riley rammed herself into the boy's stomach. She didn't know his name, and she didn't care. He was one of the ones who hurt Stephanie, and that was enough.

The young girl knocked the larger boy into the ground. She punched, and punched, over and over again until she was pulled off of the boy by a teacher.

This was the same day that her aunt introduced her to her new boyfriend, John Constantine.

Now - Gotham City

"Riley, you're home," her aunt said stiffly, "I'd like you to meet my new boyfriend, Dick."

"Hi, Riley. Isn't your aunt super?" the man, Dick, said.

Riley knew that smile. She had seen it every morning when she woke up. It was on the poster on the wall across from her bed. The one that Zatanna got her right after her house was blown to smithereens.

She knew that voice, too. It was the voice that had interrogated her that first night.

Nightwing was dating her aunt.

And sitting on their new blue fuex leather couch.

Because of course he was.

Flashback 2023 - Outside the James' Apartment

Riley was sitting in the living room when she heard a knock at the door. Curious, she went to open the door. She squinted against the darkness of the city. Gotham was always dark. Even on the nicest days, when the sun managed to brake through the ever-present clouds, the city was covered in a thick layer of car exhaust.

Standing before her was a boy. He had light brown hair that might have been blonde a few months before. His face was covered in a scattering of freckles that reminded Riley of a painting she saw ounce when her aunt had brought her to the art museum in Metropolis. Speaking of Metropolis, that was likely where this boy was from. Not very many Gothamites wear superman t-shirts out and about. Unless they have a death wish, of course.

"Hi, I just moved in next door and-" he said sheepishly.

"If you're here to ask about how to survive this city, I can't help you." Riley interrupted.

"What? No! I wanted to give you this!" He held up the covered tray in his hands that Riley hadn't noticed before.

She sighed. "Rule number one of Gotham, never take or give a stranger baked goods."

The boy smiled at this, ignoring the rude tone that Riley had used and said, "I'm Kyle."

"Riley."

Flashback - Walk to The Bus Stop Two Days Later

Riley had a feeling that something was going to happen that morning. It was like when you know you have a test that day, but you don't remember what class it's in. this feeling increased as the morning went on.

On their walk to the bus stop, Riley felt the feeling almost as strong as the bitter cold of late november. They were standing in front of a coffee shop when she felt it. A sharp painful tingle in the back of her neck. She heard a soft ticking sound, like an amplified synthetic heartbeat. She knew what was going to happen. And she didn't know if she could stop it.

"Get down!" she screamed, jumping on top of Kyle.

She felt the shock wave from the explosion slam into her back and side. The heat that was flowing over her was unbearable.

It felt like she had been run over by an on fire monster truck. Repeatedly.

Riley rolled off of Kyle, rubbing the dust and grit out of her eyes.

"Are you okay?" She asked, sticking her hand out to help up her friend.

"Yeah, thanks for that." Kyle coughed out.

"No problem."

Now - James apartment

"Riley?"

"Yeah, I guess she is." Riley said.

She stood there for a few moments, wallowing in the tense air before she said, "well, it's kinda late, I should probably get to bed."

She may have gone to her room, but she didn't sleep very much that night.

And when she did, her dreams were filled with ash and tears.

She was fighting Catastrophe in the square like before, only this time he managed to gain the upper hand and Gotham burned to the ground.

She heard the screams of civilians, crying out for help, and she could do nothing. Her legs refused to move. The stones underneath her feet shifted, leaving her to fall. She tumbled for what felt like an eternity through the darkness until the scene shifted. The darkness was overcome by a brilliant orange light.

Her back slammed into the ground, knocking the air out of her lungs. The air around her was harsh and smoke-filled, wringing any remaining fresh air out of her body. She sat up, gasping for breath when she heard a scream. The sound was weak, but was filled with pain and despair.

Riley crawled over to the noise, coughing up blood and ashes as she went. When she reached the person that had let out that heart-wrenching cry, she almost screamed herself. It was her aunt, and she was trapped under one of the largest metal beams the girl had ever seen.

"McKenzie!" She breathed, voice cracking from exposure to the smoke-filled air.

"Riley? What are you doing here?"

"I-I was fighting this big fire man-thing and kicking his butt by the why, but then he somehow managed to get me on the ground and escape. And then I teleported here to stop him, but as you can see the g0t away again. And-"

"Riley, you need to go, save yourself."

"What? No, I can't leave you here, not like this."

"You have to Riley, we both know I'm not making it out of this,"

"No, no, nononono, don't talk like that, I'm gonna get the both of us out of here, just stay with me,"

"Riley don-" her aunt's words were cut off by a large piece of concrete falling from the ceiling of the crumbling building and crushing her chest.

Riley saw the blood splatter across the rubble. She felt the bile rise in her throat as she stumbled away from the gruesome scene. She saw her aunt's eyes go glassy.

That was when she heard the second scream. This one was sharper, more youthful. The girl ran to the noise, trying to ignore the bodies that littered what remained of Gotham City. All of the sounds of the dying city seemed to fall away, leaving only haggard breaths that weren't her own and heartbeats that were slowed and weak.

She ran towards the sound as it rang louder and louder in her ears. She saw a bronze glint in the hoary ruble. Riley quickened her pace as her own heart nearly burst out of her chest. Please don't let it be him. Please don't let him be gone, was the only thought in her mind as she landed on the chunks of concrete on the ground.

But it was him. It was Kyle Spencer, with a metal rod sticking out of his chest.

"Kyle?" Riley said, still holding onto the hope that the head in her lap didn't belong to her best friend. The injured boy looked up at her, recognition flashing across his face despite the domino mask covering his friend's eyes.

"Hey," he breathed, his voice barely a whisper.

"Hey," Riley whispered back.

"You're a superhero,"

"Yeah, I have powers."

"Cool,"

"Listen, you have a massive metal spike sticking out of your stomach, and if I take it out," the girl paused for a moment, debating what she should tell her friend whose eyes were quickly losing focus, " you'll die."

"Oh,"

"Yeah,"

"At least I don't have to pay for college."

Riley laughed at this, the bitter, wet sound echoing throughout the ruins of the city she had called home for the better part of her life. She looked up at the ash and smoke-filled sky, trying to keep her tears from falling, from her friend from seeing that she knew he wouldn't see the sun again.

"I don't know how to save you."

"Hey," Kyle said, placing his hand on her cheek, "you'll figure something out. I know you will."

"I-I don't think I will, Kyle."

But it was too late. She knew that he was wrong the moment his hand slid off of her cheek. Her best friend was dead in her arms.

Riley didn't know how long she sat there with her best friend's limp body in her lap, but after a time she heard footsteps coming toward her. They were rapid, and there was an excruciatingly fast panting accompanying them.

She looked up. It wasn't Catastrophe. It was Nightwing. His already tanned skin was caked in ashes, blood, and sweat.

"You know you aren't being very sneaky, right?" The girl said.

Nightwing's panting was the only response she got as he grabbed her shoulder and pulled her up off the ground, and with him into the night. She quickly regained her footing and ran alongside him. They ran through the burning remains of the city that made them both who they were that day in a futile attempt to find a way out of the rapidly rising flames.

Suddenly, the scene shifted, and Riley was standing in the middle of a circle of fire which made it impossible to tell what part of the city they were in. She looked around, realizing that her hero's hand was no longer in her own. She saw the bright blue of his costume, encased in the flames approximately six feet to her left. The flames had already reached his chest.

Riley knew she couldn't make it in time. That just made it so much harder to watch, and the screams made her want to gauge her eardrums out with butter knives. The mask melted off of Nightwing's face, and for a moment she could have sworn she saw his eyes, which were such a bright blue it was as if they were made of flames themselves. But his body followed soon after, and she watched the flesh melt off of his bones and the hair burn into his scalp.

The girl still tried, still ran to his crispy husk of a corpse even though she knew he was long gone. By the time she got there, Nightwing was little more than a pile of ashes at her feet. She fell to her knees and ripped the torn domino mask off her face to let the tears free.

No more than three tears had made their way to the ground before a calloused hand landed on her shoulder.

"Hey, kid," a familiar male voice said. The voice barely registered in her mind before she whirled around, fists up and ready to fight.

"John?" Riley choked out, dropping her hands to her sides and flinging herself into the man's chest, "I can't believe it. I didn't think I would see you again." her tears began to flow thickly now, soaking the men's ash-covered trench coat. The man tentatively wrapped his arms around the girl, patting her back in an awkward rhythm.

"It's okay. I'm here now," John whispered, barely holding in tears of his own.

"Are you? Because last time I thought that about you, you left without even saying goodbye," the girl said, pulling herself away from the man, and raising her ash and tear-streaked face to look him in the eyes, "We needed you, I needed you, and you left us."

"Rye-Bread-"

"No, don't call me that. Not here, not now." Maybe not ever again, the girl thought. Her vision was clouded by saltwater, and it made it hard to see anything but the man before her's face. His eyes looked like blue opals in the firelight, and they sparkled with a strange wetness. John was crying. Riley could barely hold herself upright anymore, so she let herself be pulled back into the man whom she had almost thought of as a father's arms.

"I love you," John whispered into Riley's ear, "And I'm never going to leave you again."

At that exact moment, a sharp burning pain blossomed in Riley's stomach. A hot, wet liquid soaked through her blue ash-coated shirt, and when she looked over John's shoulder, she knew why. Catastrophe had found her, and John was in his way. They had both been stabbed through the middle, like marshmallows on a stick about to be roasted over a campfire. She closed her eyes to block out the sight of the dying man in her arms.

Riley's last thoughts before her body was overtaken by flames were the words "This is all my fault. They all died because of me. He died because of me." Those thoughts swirled in her mind as the flames spread up through her aorta and into her heart.

Riley opened her eyes to find only darkness. That was until she noticed the wetness of tears on her face, streaking down her otherwise clean cheeks. It was all just a dream she thought to herself in awe. The reality in which they had died, in which he had died had never come to pass, and all she was left with was a wet pillow and a stronger resolve to protect them, protect them all. And if that meant not telling them about the horrors that she had seen in her sleep that night, then she would stitch her mouth shut before she would let even a peep out about it.

One day Later - Gotham City Public Pool

Riley enjoyed swimming. It was one of the few things in life that she could do to relax her racing mind and heart. When she felt the smooth fluid flowing through her hair and in between her fingers, all of her problems seemed to drift away into nothingness. It was all she could do to calm herself. It wasn't like Kyle would understand her dreams.

On an especially stressful day like this one, she could swim for hours on end. Lap after lap, she would swim until she could barely stand.

She had been swimming for over two hours or so when she noticed a boy, slipping into the lane next to hers. He had hair darker than Gotham Bay at night and pale, ashen skin littered with scars. And even though his flesh was that sickly grayish shade, he was incredibly muscular. Almost like he was a gymnast who only practiced in caves. They swam a few laps in sync before coming to a silent agreement. And then the race was on. Lap after lap, Riley pushed herself with every single one. She pushed herself harder than she had in a long time.

The two teenagers raced in almost perfect silence for over three hours. Riley knew she was losing, but she didn't care. That was until a man who looked vaguely familiar walked in. Then she really tried to win. She still lost, but it was the thought that counted.

Riley enjoyed swimming, and loved the city of Gotham even more. Then why did she feel so uneasy when she walked home that night?