Thanks go out to Patty, Tammy and Beth for betaing this part for me. Part of this was a bear lol. I hope y'all enjoy it.

Char :-)

COURT MARTIAL PART 9:

John Stewart slammed his hand into the wall as the door to the conference room slid shut. He stalked over to the round table and slammed his fists down. Ted Kord looked up from the mound of books that surrounded him and his lap top. "Going that well, huh?"

"Pompous arrogant ass," Stewart sputtered.

"Who?"

"Harper. Do you know he was actually thinking he could break Nightwing out of here? Out of the Watch Tower!" The Green Lantern was livid as he spoke. Sparks of emerald energy flickered around his ring as his hand gripped the back of the padded leather chair.

"I'm sure it was just talk, John. They won't do anything like that." Ted shut the thick blue book and slid it to his left. Looking into his colleague's eyes, he continued. "They know they couldn't escape. Where would they hide from the JLA?"

John pulled the chair out and sat at the table. He picked up one of the thick books and read the spine: Trial Evidence. He looked through the pile of books. Most were on criminal law and procedure. "You're really getting prepared."

Ted shrugged, "Always do your best, no matter what you're doing. You know that Bar -- Oracle -- is an attorney. In real life. She has two degrees in law, so I figure we need all the help we can get. John," Ted started, and then paused, his voice hesitated with uncertainty. "Do you still think we're doing the right thing? Prosecuting Nightwing?"

"Yes," he replied with conviction. "Don't you?"

"Yes," Ted sighed. "I was just hoping we were wrong."

"There's no way we can learn all of this in two weeks," Stewart said flipping through the enormous book.

Ted nodded, "I know. That's why I called in back-up."

"Back-up?" John asked quizzically, sitting the soft cover green book on the table.

A soft feminine voice sounded behind him. "Oh you know, you Leaguers can handle alien invasions, demons and monsters; but a lawyer -- you are so out of your element and ... out of your league." Her soft laugh filled the room.

John stood and turned quickly, "Jean! Jean Loring, good to see you." He stretched his hand out to her and she took it. Her grip was surprisingly firm.

She sat her leather briefcase on one of the chairs and glanced at the books with a cocky grin. "Haven't seen this many books since I was studying for the Bar. So, you boys need someone to consult on how to try a murder case?" She smiled at them as they nodded. "Let's look at your case file, start outlining how you're going to try this case, and who your witnesses will be."

"It's a cinch case," John said. His hand pointed across the room as a bright green light erupted from his ring. The light shot out toward the counter and a glowing green pair of hands grabbed the coffeepot on the counter, along with three cups, and brought it to the table. The emerald light dissolved back into the ring as Stewart motioned with his hand for Jean to join them at the table.

"Thanks," Jean said as she poured herself a cup. Turning toward Stewart, she stated, "I hate to tell you, but nothing is a cinch case."


Barbara wheeled closer to Dick and gently placed her hand on his back. He jumped away as if she had burned him. "Don't touch me!"

"Dick, honey, it's ... it's okay. I ... I understand."

"Understand? You don't understand! I wasn't raped. Women don't rape men, Barbara. That's not how it works!"

"You just said that she had sex with you and it wasn't consensual. What would you call that?"

"I call it none of your business," he angrily replied. He breathed in quick, painful breaths. Why wouldn't she just go? She needed to leave. She needed to leave him. They all needed to leave him.

Barbara's heart ached for Dick. She understood the pain and revulsion he was going through. His state of mind was such that she knew why he was so close to giving up. He felt responsible in so many ways. Responsible for things that weren't his fault. Barbara knew what he was going through from first hand experience. She also knew that Dick would not react well to any perception of sympathy or pity at the moment. Barbara was terribly afraid that he would mistake her ... concern ... for just that. So, it was best to deal with this from a different front at the moment. An intellectual one. "Okay, short pants, lets go over what happened. You went to the Haven Hotel with Tarantula looking Maxine Michaels."

"No. I told you already," Dick began exasperated. "I went there alone. Tarantula just showed up in the stairwell."

"How did she know you were there?"

"What?"

"How did Tarantula know where you were? How did she know you were fighting Blockbuster at the Haven Hotel at that exact moment?" Barbara looked up at him waiting for an answer.

Dick stammered. "I ... I ... How did she ... I dunno." He ran his hand through his thick black locks. The detective in him started to wake up. How did Tarantula get there at that exact moment?

"Well, that's something we need to look into. It helps your case that you didn't go there together. You're not acting in concert if you don't have a common plan, purpose or scheme that you're both trying to accomplish."

"We both wanted to stop Blockbuster," Dick said meekly as he sat on the floor in the cell. He leaned against the wall and looked up at Barbara. "Is that common enough?"

"Not necessarily," Barbara replied. She picked the pad up from beside her in the chair and scribbled a few notes. "So, you were fighting with Blockbuster and she shows up armed and dangerous. But she had been working for Desmond. Why'd she want him dead?" Her breath caught as she stared at him. Even sitting on the cold metal floor in those drab green scrubs with the mottled blues, blacks and purples of his bruised skin peeking out from the sleeves and spread across his face, he was still the most strikingly handsome man she had ever known. Being close to him was intoxicating to her. So much so, that on occasion, he had flustered her to the point she couldn't think straight. This couldn't be one of those times. She had to stay focused on the job if she ever hoped to have another of those moments again.

"Because he killed John Law when he blew up my apartment building," Dick replied. "He was her hero and she was trying to emulate him." He pulled one leg up and hooked his arm around his knee. His mind kept telling him this was a futile effort.

Barbara's mouth twisted and she scrunched her nose. "That's lame. She barely knew John Law, if she knew him at all. She may have been using his name, but she wasn't emulating him or any other hero. Besides, how did she know he was there at that exact time?"

"I don't know. It doesn't matter how she got there ... what matters is --"

"Richard John Grayson! Don't sit there and tell me it doesn't matter. You're a detective! Why don't you start acting like one? Look at the facts ... look at me!" Dick turned to face her. Silently, he waited for her to continue. "What do you know about Ms. Flores?"

"I first met her at the rec center where I was teaching a self-defense class. She had been in the FBI academy and wanted more training."

"In a ghetto rec center self-defense class? That's not very likely." Barbara tapped a few keys on her laptop relaying commands to her massive computer systems to start a detailed background search on Catalina Flores. Whatever information there was about the new Tarantula, Oracle intended to find it. "We're missing something and I intend to find out what."

"Babs," Dick shook his head. "Look, I understand what you're saying; why you need to do this. But it is what it is. I let her kill. I turned her into a murderer because I wanted Desmond dead."

The red head's temper flashed like a stray lightning bolt. She had snapped before she thought, flinging her legal pad at him. "God! Can you be anymore blind! Hello! Is the fact that she murdered Redhorn still rolling around your head? You were, after all, the one who figured that out. Or had you conveniently forgotten that?"

"No, I hadn't forgotten that but ... Babs ... it's just ... God." Dick dropped his head and pulled his legs up to his chest. Why couldn't she understand? It hurt so much. No one wanted to understand. They just wanted to absolve him from his sins. Absolution, however, is something that must be sought, not something freely given. He had to ask for that declaration of forgiveness. They couldn't release him from his sins because he couldn't release himself from them. All the remorse he felt wasn't enough. He could never truly repent for what he had done.

Barbara continued undeterred. "You did not make her a murderer, Dick! Do I have to shake sense into you? Tarantula killed Redhorn, she killed Blockbuster, she has sex with you without your consent, whatever you want to call that," Barbara rattled off, her voice steadily increasing in volume. "Who knows what else she's done! You are NOT responsible for her! You don't need to sit here beating yourself up and feeling guilty for what Tarantula did. She's not an innocent doe-eyed ingénue. Why can't you see that? What is wrong ..." her voice trailed off as she noticed for the first time how small he had seemed to become. Knees drawn up, arms around them, head down. "... with me?" she finished, her voice barely above a whisper. Closing her eyes, Barbara Gordon silently cursed herself. In her attempt to snap Dick out of his malaise, her temper had flared at the wrong moment and she had caused him pain. She was an idiot. Of all the people in the world, she knows how he must be feeling -- worthless and dirty. And here she was yelling at him and confirming his fears and feelings.

She prayed that her legs would work again ... just for a few minutes ... so she could literally kick herself for her stupidity. "I keep hurting you," she said softly.

"I deserve to be hurt," he said softly, his eyes not looking at her.

"No, you don't."

Quickly sitting the laptop on the bunk, she maneuvered herself onto the bed and then onto the cold metal floor. She slid across the floor and wrapped her arms around him. Her body jerked as his started to shudder. Hugging and patting him, she reassured him. "Baby, shh. I care about you ... I don't want you hurting ... Dick I ... aw dammit ... I love you. Even when I'm stupid. I was so stupid to send you away, to break up with you."

"Babs, don't say that! I don't want your pity," Dick said as he tried to pull away.

"I don't pity you!" She replied as she kept her grip on him. "I'm not letting you go, Dick. I love you. I always have. You should know that, but I've given you enough reason to doubt me. Please, please don't doubt me now, Dick. Please."

Dick looked up at her, surprise in his eyes. Her voice was so full of conviction. He knew Barbara was trying to give him a reason to fight. She didn't want him to give up. Wally and Roy didn't want him to give up, Clark didn't ... even Bruce didn't. That had surprised him the most, given Bruce's feelings toward killing; and yet, Bruce hadn't disowned him. Bruce hadn't turned his back on him. Bruce didn't condemn him.

The person he failed the most in the world hadn't condemned him.

No one had reacted to him as he had imagined. Superman didn't seem to think he was guilty, tried to talk him out of turning himself in. Wally and Roy were still his friends. They hadn't deserted him. He wasn't a pariah to them like he had expected to be. And now Barbara was telling him ... Could they all be wrong? Or was he making another mistake. God, he'd made so many mistakes lately. It seemed everything he touched he destroyed.

Yet, all the people he loved and admired seemed to see something still in him worth fighting for. Maybe there was a reason to keep fighting. Absolution was something that had to be sought. His mother had taught him that a long time ago. Say you're sorry, really mean it, and take some action to make it right. Repent and do penance. God only knew how sorry he was for what he allowed to happen. How he would take it back if he only could.

But Desmond's death was not something he could take back. Like the time he had broken his grandmother's teapot. His mother had treasured it as one of the last things she had of her mother's. Her tie to home she called it. It had been the ornate Aladdin lamp's type teapot and had fascinated him, so much so that despite her instructions not to touch it, he climbed up in the trailer to the pull it from the top shelf. His plan hadn't worked and he and the teapot crashed to the ground. He had gotten up, the teapot hadn't. His mother had cried. He'd never meant for that to happen. He couldn't put the teapot together, but he had saved his allowance for months until he could buy her another one. It wasn't the same. It could never be the same. But it had been his attempt to rectify the wrong he had done.

Remorse was not enough. He could never right the wrong he done and breathe life back into Roland Desmond's body. But he could stop wallowing in his own self-loathing and stop hiding from his responsibilities.

A determined resolution washed over him as he realized he still had a job to do. He had failed, but the only way to truly atone was to keep fighting the good fight. He had to seek his absolution and do penance to wipe away the stain his sin had left upon his life and his soul. He had to stop taking the coward's way out. Clark, Wally, Roy, Barbara and Bruce had been right. That was what they had been trying to tell him.

His voice was low and hoarse when he spoke. "You can't love me, Barbara. Not now. Not yet, I haven't earned it ... yet."

A faint smile crossed her lips before she kissed his raven locks. "Always. You know what they say. For better or for worse. This is our worse. It'll get better. I promise, it will get better."


"Now that you've looked over everything, what do you think about the case?" Ted asked closing one of the manila file folders.

Jean sighed and leaned back in her chair. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, slightly shaking her head. "Like I told you a few hours ago, there's no such thing as a cinch case. Especially this case. First of all, you have a sympathetic jury. No one on that tribunal wants Nightwing to be guilty. Second, remember you have the burden of proof in this case ... beyond a reasonable doubt. That's a high standard. It's not all doubt or a shadow of a doubt, but a reasonable doubt. Its a hurdle. The defense doesn't have to do one thing and they don't have to prove anything. Third, and most importantly, this is going to be iffy on legal grounds. I'll do all of your legal research and go over it with you, but I can tell you that the cases are going to be inconsistent. You don't have a conspiracy, at least you don't seem to have enough evidence to prove one, and Nightwing wasn't the shooter. Add one two and three together, and you boys have your work cut out for you."

"So, what do we need to make this a slam-dunk, Jean?" John Stewart asked as he looked through the folder containing the crime scene photographs. They weren't anything he hadn't seen before. He'd seen much worse in his career, but ... these photographs bothered him in a different way. This death had been caused by one of their own. One who had crossed the line they all swore to uphold. He had made mistakes. They still haunted him, and he knew they always would. He had caused deaths through his actions or lack of actions, but even at the worst -- he never turned away from his duty. He never intended to hurt or kill anyone. He NEVER allowed someone to die because of his own views. Because he wanted them to die. Not even Star Sapphire ... as much as he wanted to watch her take her last breaths with his hands gripped tightly around her throat. As much as he wanted to, he hadn't crossed the line.

He didn't like prosecuting Nightwing, but he liked the thought of letting him off scott-free even less. Nothing was as bad as a dirty cop. Bludhaven had been filled with them. The dystopian city's corruption had oozed out even upon its hero, seeping into his very pores to the core of his being. Nightwing had become like those dirty Bludhaven cops. It was Stewart's job to make sure that Bludhaven's corruption stopped with Nightwing and did not penetrate the rest of the superhero community.

Standing and moving from the table, Jean Loring stretched. She felt her neck pop and the sensation was contemporaneously pleasurable and painful. She breathed in a deep breath and then exhaled it. "An eye-witness. Nothing's better than an eye-witness. Next to that, a confession, preferably signed in blood."

"Done." Ted Kord moved a few files as he looked for a certain object on the now cluttered table. He smiled when he held up the shiny silver computer disc, "It's not blood, but audio and video will have to do."

TO BE CONTINUED ...