by IronRaven
My apologies to all. This got stuck behind this thing called the "real world", ick. It has actually just been waiting on a final edit for a month. Sorry, everyone.
Disclaimer: Batman, Wonder Woman, The Justice League, Teen Titans and related entities, characters and concepts are the property of DC Comics. This continuum was developed by Bruce Timm. The title and image of the '57 Bel-Air and the Metro are both property of General Motors' Chevrolet division.
A slightly different result to the start of Hereafter. Last time, we witnessed the funeral of Batman and Wonder Woman, which was dramatically interrupted by the mysterious collapse of Superman.
Because of how much this chapter jumps around in location, I'm going to be putting locator tags in each of my separators (---).
--- Metropolis, the night of the Funeral
Still brushing her hair and dressed in an old pair of sweats, Barbara Gordon stepped out of the bathroom into the muted chaos of the penthouse. It had been a long and tiring day, not to mention frustrating. Between the funeral and Clark's collapse, she had a hard time remembering a worse one, with the possible exception of Tim's recovery.
Green Lantern had gathered J'onn and Superman in a bubble and launched immediately for the Watchtower. Nine hours later, the footage of the emergency takeoff was still on the new channels. Between repeats of Flash's impromptu, stumbling press conference and the talking heads dancing around the subject of the League's readiness, Barb had given up. She was so wiped out she couldn't even remember Hawkgirl and the Queen leaving.
At one end of the living room, through a heavily encrypted link to the cave, Dick was looking for something. He had said he had a hunch. She glanced at his screen as she went past, frowning when she saw windows full of credit card and bank information. At the sliding door, she heard the last bit of Tim's phone call. "I miss you to, Star. I'll be back in a few days, there is something just not right here.... I'll call again tomorrow."
Barb was about to give him grief about being on the phone when she went into and got out of the shower as he stepped through the door, but all three heads snapped about at the sound of something hitting the wall, before the door of the guest room banged open. Visibly containing her anger, Kara Kent stalked into the room. "They won't talk to me! They won't even answer the com signal!"
The others scowled, looking at each other. They had tried to force their way into the Watchtower's communication's system earlier, but it had been blocked by a security system. Barbara had looked at it, but whatever they were using for a pass key seemed to be shifting at psuedo random intervals. She was pretty sure she could break in with the big computer at the cave and a few hours, but not over a remote link. So Kara had been using a tactical frequency that Bruce had set the League up with early on. Apparently, there had been upgrades.
"That sounds a lot more serious than simple exhaustion." Dick closed his laptop. "And I think I know where to get some answers."
--- Elsewhere, Transition 2 days.
"Batman, you haven't' said anything all day."
"There is nothing to say." Bringing the Bel Air to a stop, Batman leaned back, stretching as he shut off the motor. "The tank is nearly empty and we are running out of natural light."
"Isn't it better to cross the desert at night?" Diana opened her door, and stretched her long legs with a grunt. She was hungry, but much more aware of her thirst. Their path had brought them into the start of the foot hills, with snow capped mountains beyond. They would be in the valley's of those peaks tomorrow, or more likely, the next day. Already there were scrubby plants around them.
"In a hot desert, yes. This is more like the Gobi. I'd rather when I have sunlight." Batman breathed out deeply, letting Bruce Wayne look about. He started to gather dead growth from the bushes around them.
Diana joined him, tieing long stalks of grass-like growths into bundles with strands of the same stuff. "So a fire tonight?"
"Most animals are afraid of fire."
--- Metropolis, later that night
"I'm sorry, Sir, but the occupant of room 537 isn't answering his phone." The young lady behind the desk smiled sweetly to soften the news. "He might have stepped out; the funeral service for Wonder Woman and Batman was today, many people are still paying their respects at the memorial."
Dick Greyson shook his head. "Thanks. Does anyone mind if I go up and knock to be sure?" Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heel and walked with quick, purposeful steps to the elevator. On the fifth floor, he found the door, setting down the bag he had carried before knocking. After waiting a moment, he knocked again. Sighing, he looked around as he slipped the lock pick and tension bar from their hiding place behind his belt buckle, popping the lock as quickly as if he had had the key.
Confirming the room was indeed empty, he set the warm bag on the table, and sat in one of the arm chairs that faced the door. "Irony: waiting for the Fastest Man Alive while dinner gets cold."
--- Elsewhere, also the same night.
Warmed by the fire, Diana had given up the cape, which Batman carefully stretched between the car and several rocks, hoping to catch dew with it. He had done the same with the some of the fabric he had salvaged from the other cars.
Batman glanced at the long spar of light metal that had once been a part of the newsstand's security shutter. Wonder Woman had borrowed his multitool, and was using the file to put a crude point on it. It wasn't much, but it would work.
She blew the flakes from the file, the fire lapping them up greedily, before she looked at him. "You think I'm being foolish, don't you."
"No."
Testing the tip with her thumb, she tried to hold his eyes with hers. "You wouldn't be saying that to humor me, would you?"
A canine howl rose from the hills to greet the rising moon, as he raised a single eyebrow under his cowl. "Not at all."
--- Still the same night, Metropolis.
Wally West stumbled from the elevator, a small backpack over one shoulder. He was glad it hadn't been stolen from the air vent he had stashed it in- he wasn't sure if he had the energy needed to run up the wall to his room if he didn't have his street clothes. He slid his key into the lock, and a stepped into the room.
"Good evening, Wally, I brought dinner. Shut the door."
Flash's pulse went from exhausted to nearly supersonic panic at the voice. Dropping the pack and kicking the door shut, he raised his fists, ready. "Who's there!"
Turning on the lamp, Dick smiled warmly. "It's been too long, Wall. Sit down, the chicken has been getting cold." He opened the bag on the table, flood the room with the rich scent of thirteen secret spices wrapped around fresh, moist chicken. He set a box, along with some biscuits, at the other chair.
"Dick? Little Dee?" Wally felt numb as he sat down, his mind whirling at seeing his old friend from college for the first time in years. The face was harder than it had been, but even that had a familiar cast to it. "What are you doing here?"
Dick unthinkingly pitched his voice to his working one. "We need to talk, and you need to eat."
Flash might not have been the swiftest hero on the planet, but the second voice his friend used was one he had heard earlier that day. The pieces dropped into place. "Oh, wow, you are Nightwing." Taking a bite of the chicken, his stomach threw him a thumbs up, since all it had had today since breakfast was some canapés at the fiasco that should have been a wake. "So Batman figured it out?"
"I don't know. But it was easy enough to find out." Dick added a bottle of electrolyte laced water to the pile before his friend. "I thought I recognized your voice, and you are still using that same horrid cologne. I checked the records of the Wayne Society for Justice. The grant to the Flash had been moved through a couple of bank accounts, into a regular checking account at Central and Keystone Credit Union. Then you checked in here with your debit card." Taking a bite of chicken, he let it sink in for a moment. "It was a matter of checking the card's usage with the Flash's movements. I also put a flag into your records- I think you will find that the calls asking if you were in someplace or if someone had stolen your card will stop."
Wally was quiet for several minutes, looking at the food in front of him, struggling for something to say. "Dick, I'm sorry about what happened to Batman. I was busy with the Weather Wizard, and by the time I looked around, he was gone. There was nothing I could do."
"I'm not looking for someone to blame. I'm looking for answers."
"Like what?" That was when a flash bulb blew up in Wally's brain, illuminating the tangled web before him. "Wait, you are Bruce Wayne's foster son. The various Wayne organizations have helped the League a lot. Batman was Bruce Wayne!"
"He adopted me, but yes."
"Oh, man. Now I really am sorry. I always thought you guys were just his students, I never believed that you were actually his kids. Did he adopt all of you guys? Does Barbara know? I know you two were an... Oh, wow, I really am an idiot. I always thought you two were out partying when you missed the first class of the day. If only Old Man Warznyak knew he had world savers in the class."
"Wally, you are getting off topic. I want to know what is wrong with Superman. Supergirl can't get any answers and I'm waiting for her to put a fist through my wall. I thought about bringing her, but, well, I didn't think that would be a good idea. She's really worried about her cousin, Wall, and we aren't getting any answers. So do his parents."
"Uh.. Dick, you have secrets you need to keep, just like I do. I need to talk to the rest of the League, this is a matter of our..." He thought back through the lectures he'd gotten from John, looking for the right term. "our operational readiness. I think you should know, and Supergirl damn well should, but I can't say on my own. Besides, I haven't been able to get through to them all night. They aren't picking up the phone, so this has to be bad."
Dick stood, is back cracking loudly. "OK. Reach us like you would have called Batman, the computer will forward it to us. We can tell Supergirl if you can't reach her through the com. But don't take to long. The League is going to need new blood, and if it won't open up, you will have more groups like the Titans popping up. Oh, and I was asked to tell you they are ready to handle anything on the west coast, by the way." Without saying anything more, Dick walked out the front door, leaving his friend to scratch his head.
A fist through his wall? Does that mean that Dick and Supergirl... Nahh....
--- Elsewhere, Transition 3 days.
The first night they had heard the howls, they had seen no sign of the their source. Diana glanced at the bundle of crude spears leaning against the side of the car. Tomorrow would be the last of the gas, and from there, it would be walking the entire way. They had been able to gather a little water in the cloths, but she was under now illusions.
Her debate about freezing to death or dieing by dehydration were interrupted by Batman sniffing the air. "It feels like it is going to snow." He tossed another grass and brush bundle on the fire, shooting pitchy sparks into the sky as the first howl of the night rose, nearby.
Diana shuddered. She had never seen winter before she left home, and she wasn't overly fond of it now that she had seen it. Hera's gifts had kept her warm before, but this time, she thought she would freeze if it got any colder. "So, how far do you think we will get tomorrow before we run out of gas?"
"A lot of the depends on if they just watch all night or jump down." Slowly, calmly, Batman eased a pair of batarangs out of his belt, just the tiniest tip of his chin up to the edge of the cliff above them to show Diana were to look.
Diana looked as cautiously as she could, seeing many pairs of eyes glinting in the fire light. "Great Hera!"
--- Metropolis, two nights after the Funeral
Lois Lane woke to a soft tap on her balcony door. It was a tap she had been waiting for. Struggling her robe on, she tripped her way to the sliding glass, pushing the blind aside to open it the door. "Superman! I've been so... You aren't Superman."
"No, I'm not." Supergirl scowled. "If anyone can tell me what's happening, you can."
Batgirl's voice came from the shadows that had concealed her. "You are the closest thing to a girlfriend he has." Stepping into the light, the redhead smiled gently. "May we come in."
Stepping back into the apartment, the reporter waved to the younger women in silent acceptance. "Supergirl I understand, but what brings you here, Batgirl?"
"There is a mystery here. Batman would have investigate, he was Superman's friend." Glancing around the room, Barb glanced at the first Pulitzer she had ever seen. "And I'm her friend."
"What happened in the fight, Lois? What happened to Toyman?"
Lois looked down at the carpet for a moment. "Superman usually comes here, after a fight, and we would talk. He is afraid he might loose control one day. He told me once, years ago, that he had thought about making sure Luthor couldn't make trouble again. He is scared of himself, even more now that we've seen the Justice Lords. I've seen him, other versions of him, and he could be a monster. He once said I was the thing that kept his demons inside. He's afraid of failing, and having someone, anyone, even a criminal, getting hurt as a result."
Supergirl scowled. "He knows better, we aren't little kids. We do the hero thing because we choose to, he can't do everything."
Lois shook her head grimly. "I know him differently than you do. He has a martyr complex bigger than the sun. I love him, but thinks he can make everything right because how special he is." She crossed her arms, staring out the window. "I watching him shake Toyman. It was like something on the Discovery Channel, about tigers or something. Toyman was screaming, struggling, but Superman just whipped him back and fourth, over and over.... His face...." She drew in a shuddering breath, reliving the moment.
Batgirl laid a gloved hand on the woman's shoulder. "What about his face, Lois?"
"He looked empty. Like someone had sucked his soul out. He wasn't a person at that moment, he was an animal, or a machine. If the Martian hadn't stopped him, Superman would have continued until there was nothing left of Toyman." She took a shuddering, strained breath. "Being brainwashed by Darkseid almost destroyed his credibility. This will, despite all the good he's done since. I called in favors I don't have to keep this out of the press. You understand why, don't you?"
Supergirl's frown deepened. "So Toyman wasn't hurt when Superman destroyed his robot?"
"Not all of it. He wasn't himself, he was gone." Lois turned away from the window, unable to look at a sky he might come from any moment now. "Then yesterday, he's standing there, like nothing happened. He didn't say anything to me. It wasn't like him. He hid for almost six months after Darkseid messed with him, and he spent a lot of those nights here, crying. He turns into everything he's afraid of, and he acts like nothing ever happened. No one has even called me to say if he's ok, or if he's dead."
Glancing at a photo of Lois Lane being saved once again by Superman, the blond girl growled. "The Justice League won't talk to us, either."
"What? But you are heros."
"Yeah, well, someone didn't tell them."
--- Elsewhere, the same night
"How's that; too tight?"
Batman flexed his arm slightly, the whiteness of the bandage stark against his suit. "It's fine. Thank you." His eyes settled again on the pile of vaguely canine bodies. He had shoved his arm in the jaws of one, letting it bit down on his forearm rather than his throat. He had been mildly suprised when his arm hadn't been ripped off, or at least broken. Instead, there was a flashing of light and dark that was accompanied by a cracking sound from somewhere on the otherside of the wolf-thing's skull. He had felt the hammer blow on his arm, then she was gone again.
Then he looked at her as she stood. He had been innoculated against every desiese known to man, and even a few that weren't, but his belt didn't have anything for rabies. "Did you get bitten?"
"Nope. I thought your suit was bullet proof." Diana rummaged in the open truck, looking for something in the small bag of tools they had scavanged.
"Bullet and slash proof, but not stab proof. That would have been too bulky." He frowned when he saw the glint of the utilty knife in her hand as she approached the cooling bodies. "What..."
"We need the hides and meat." Diana, Princess of the Amazons, grabbed a hind leg of the beast on top and pulled it to her. "Dog is a delicacy on Thermascara."
Bruce's reply was a strangled noise.
--- Watchtower, three days after the funeral
Hawkgirl pressed the door switch with her elbow, one hand occupied with a try of cold, dried food. She left behind a fresh one. At least this one had been picked at, even if it didn't look like Superman had moved at all from the chair he had spent the past few days in. He had only gotten out of the chair once, to throw a tray at someone, before returning to his spot.
Flash was in the galley, making something that smelled vaguely mexican. As much as he ate, he had learned to cook well in self defense. "Hey, he ate something."
"He didn't look at me, even when I tried to talk to him." Sighing, Shayera shoved the tray into the cleaning system. "He's taking this harder than he should."
"I'm not sure how I'd take it in his place." With a bitter flick of his fingers, Flash killed the power to the heating element. "I've been thinking a lot about the others, since they died."
Shayera leaned back, half perching on the edge of the counter as she studied the decking. "We all have, Flash."
"No, not like that. The other us, the Justice Lords. Thier Flash died. You didn't see the look on that Batman's face when he thought I was dead." He pushed the pan full of half cooked stuff to a cold burner. "I'm usually looking around more in a fight. I might have gotten there in time, but what if that is when I was supposed...." Thinking, brooding, on this thought hadn't made it any easier to say.
Shayera closed her eyes painfully tight. It wasn't hard to guess was he had been about to say. "You die, they live, and we start burning the brains of criminals."
"I feel like I sentenced them to die; I sacrificed them." With his eyes on the floor, he couldn't see hee her. But he thought he could feel her eyes on him, looking at him with all they hate his eyes had held after talking with Dick. Every morning since then, he stood before the mirror, wondering how deep he could reach if he slipped shaving, his eyes overflowing with thier loathing of him. "Even if it does make a better world, it isn' worth it."
He jumped in suprise when she hugged him. "None of us like what we saw there, Flash. Especially Batman."
"I'm afraid we're going to turn into them no matter what." Wally pushed her back, gently. "You and John talk about improving the defenses of the Watchtower; we already carry Hellfires on the Javelin, and the laser battery. I look at what we are doing to ourselves, at our future, and I get scared."
---Elsewhere, transition 8 days (yes, time is moving differently in the two settings)
Trudging through the deepening snow, Batman was glad his nose was numb. The furs were warm, but green and they were fairly rank. The makeshift pack on his back bulged with rope, a few tools, one car battery and roasted meat, he carried a javelin in his hand. This one was better than the first ones, fitted with a head made from a sharpened piece of body panel and wired into place.
"At least we don't need to worry about water now." Wonder Woman was similiarly encumbered, but she still wore his cape. She had tried to give it back, but he had argueed that his suit and cape were similiarly armoured. A rope was wrapped around her waist, linking the two of them, just in case one found a crevasse under the snow. "You haven't said anything since the last time we stopped for bearings."
"Nothing to say."
Several minutes later, they crested the ridge and paused. From here, they could look quite a way in the direction of the signal. He dug a monocular from his belt, and peered into the distance while he rubbed his coarse beard with ihs free hand. "Look at this."
Diana took the offered glass, and smiled. "It looks like a jungle in that canyon. It will be nice to be warm again." She surveyed the mountain, looking for a good way down this side, and the one between them and the valley. "Camp in the low lands tonight?"
"And follow that river to the valley. It means we might not be able to get a signal for a few days, but I don't think can climb those cliffs." Pocketing the optics, he nodded to her. "Your turn to broadcast, Diana."
"Wonder Woman to any Justice League member. Wonder Woman to the Justice League. Batman and I are still homing in on your signal. We are going to be behind mountains for a few days; do not look for us if you loose our signal. We are heading towards a jungle canyon, we will be following a river. Hera willing, we will see you soon." She stepped forward carefully, following her partner.
--- Batcave, Funeral 4 days
"So, do you think this will work?"
"Why not? They took this thing into space before. It is the same kind of clean ion drive that we use on the Batjet. They just added a contagravity generator and one of the early warp generators. Don't ask me where he got it from." Dick looked up from the mass of hardcopy he had been reading, the source code of for the IFF transponders that the League used. Just burning it the program into a chip wouldn't work, it would have to be syncronised with the Watchtower's computers, which they were locked out of. But if they League hadn't changed thier IFF, Dick was pretty sure he could anticipate the psuedorandom jump in frequency to where it was now. If he couldn't, it was going to be plan "b", which was to try and pick the lock on an airlock.
Barbara shook her head, not looking up from the vaccume suit she was inspecting. "It was built in a kid's basement as a submarine, then they shot it into space. What was up with that?"
"Starfire had some kind of panic attack and ran. Trust a teenager to blow a personal problem into a major crisis." Dick turned back to the computer, tapping slowly as he glanced back and forth between the screen and his calculator.
"So Tim and the others followed. Sweet. Stupid, but sweet." Barb grinned as she twisted the valve to the air tank, letting the suit slowly fill. "Tim was probably going nuts while they got it ready to launch." The suit began to swell under two atmospheres before she closed the valve. If it maintained pressure for a few hours, it would be good to go. "So, why didn't you ever do anything like that for me?"
---
Author's Notes:
For scary versions of Superman, we've seen the Justice Lords, and the version where he and Lex take over the world after Lois Died (SM:TAS, Brave New Metropolis)
And it is documented that Dick Greyson and Wally West knew each other in college. As for the Wayne Society for Justice grants, there was to be some way for these guys to pay the bills. Bruce is filthy rich, Clark is probably writing freelance these days, but the others have no visible means of income. Even if those grants do mean that everyone is working for Bruce. evil chuckle
As for my Robin being Tim Drake, DEAL WITH IT! Nothing we've seen proves that the Teen Titans' Robin is Dick Greyson. That thing with Larry was just a bad dream caused by pain. Tim has always seen himself as being the "inferior" Robin, and in Dick's shadow. Having that spaz Larry be his "rival" is a form of one uppance. If that dream ever happened at all. No, it never happened, trust me. I still have scars from where I tried to claw out my brain from that episode. And I've addressed the whole Nightwing thing, so shush! shudders