I woke up alone. And freezing. Painful shivers tore through my muscles. I sat up anyway.

An injured soldier is as good as a dead one.

"Woah there, Goldie." Jason was at my side again, pressing me back down onto the cot. "You've got a fever, and your shoulder is seriously fucked. You're not going anywhere."

Somewhere in my brain there had to be a witty retort, but I couldn't find it. Instead I just murmured, "Thirsty."

"Figured." He held the rim of a bottle against my lips and I sipped tentatively. "No ice chips. On account of not having a freezer. Sorry."

He looked so worried, so I managed a smile and a quip, "Who needs ice chips when I have such a cute nurse?"

There was a hesitation - his breath hitched almost imperceptibly, and then he rolled his eyes and smiled, too.

"Good news and bad news. Good news is we found you some antibiotics. You'll be fine. Probably." Jason pressed a handful of powdery pills into my palm. I eyed them with suspicion, but took them anyway.

"And the bad news?" I probably should have asked that first. But I had a fever - lapses in judgment were bound to occur.

"They're fish antibiotics. Damian's idea. They raided a pet store." Jason's eyes lit up as if he'd just told the world's best joke.

"They still have pet stores up there?" I asked.

"Really? That's your question? Not, 'Why am I taking fish pills' or 'How do fish even swallow pills?'"

The banter, the back and forth, Jason's easy smile… things I savored. Things I wanted to remember for the rest of my life.

Which suddenly wasn't looking very long.

"We have heat signatures at the north entrance to the stadium, everyone," Tim barked, loudly enough for me to forget the pain and jump to my feet, biting back bile as the bunker swam and spun in front of my eyes.

"How many?" Bruce leaned over Tim's shoulder, eyes darting from screen to screen as he tried to assess the situation.

"Looks like at least a full team of ten. Could just be a patrol?" Babs tried to sound sure, but we were all vibrating with the unspoken fear: they found us.

I sucked in a breath, stood to full height, did my best to seem unhurt and fully capable. Because I knew what had to be done.

"We need to throw them off the scent. Send me out there, and Jay, if he wants to come. We get in a few hits, run off to one of his old apartments, then ditch them. Circle back here when it's safe. They'll think they found an active safehouse and be satisfied. And they won't think to look too deeply here."

Bruce narrowed his eyes, and I did everything I could to hide weakness from his scrutiny. "Your shoulder?" he asked.

"Better," I lied. "Good enough. We don't need to hit hard, we need to be fast. And we can't send everyone because they'll know they found our hideout. It has to look like a coincidence, like we came and found them, not the other way around."

Bruce glanced back at the computer, noting the heat signatures moving deeper into the stadium, closer to our sanctum. He nodded. "Go. Take Jason. Be quick. No unnecessary risks. Get them off our trail and come back."

I did my best to ignore Jay's scowl that said 'this is a fucking terrible idea' before nodding decisively to Bruce. "You got it, Boss."

We moved, Jason and me. I tried not to look back at Damian's desperately anxious face. An expression that begged me not to go. This is a suicide mission and you know it, Grayson.

I didn't have any words of comfort. He was probably right. But I also knew I was too far gone for fish pills and a prayer - I was dead anyway. And this beat lying in a cot for days, using up supplies, then dying of sepsis.

Once we were far enough away from the bunker to safely talk, Jason grabbed my good shoulder and stopped me, hissing in a low whisper, "What the fuck is wrong with you? You are in no shape to be out here. I only agreed to come along to keep you from getting yourself killed."

"You can yell at me later. Now, we need to go. They're getting close."

We knew the tunnel system under the stadium intimately, and we should have been able to catch the intruders at the concourse. But Jason was right. I was slow. Tired. Sick. Really fucking sick. And the Enforcers were barreling through the derelict concessions stands on the lower level by the time we made it up and out.

We ducked behind a concrete wall - the old partition between the bathrooms - and waited until they had just passed by. Then, with the best smile I could manage, and a nod from Jason, I lobbed my last escrima stick at the head of their point leader. It connected, and he dropped with an echoing thud.

The others spun around, firing blindly into the space behind them, but we had tucked ourselves back out of sight. We waited. They stopped. Looked around bewildered.

With my fingers I counted to three, and as the last digit slipped out of my fist, Jason and I took off at a sprint, hollering taunts and insults at the patrol, booking it for the exit. Predictably, the Enforcers followed. I leapt over the turnstiles on my way out, jarring my shoulder. The pain was immediate, nearly bringing me to my knees. I kept running.

This wasn't our first time playing cat and mouse with soldiers. Usually, on nights with Bruce, Jason and I would run like this, peeling away groups so Bruce could rain hell on them with efficiency.

But right now we needed all of them on us, needed to get them far enough away so they wouldn't come back. And maybe if they managed to pick one of us off, blocks away, they might even consider the threat neutralized and stop searching for us all together.

I could be ok with making that sacrifice. I'd prefer a bullet to the back to languishing in bed, waiting to die of an infection. Go out a hero, not a burden.

And it looked like I wouldn't have much choice, anyway. We'd only gotten a few streets away before I lagged behind, breathless and in pain. Jason was running on pure adrenaline. Laughing like a maniac. Drawing attention to himself. Following the plan.

I fell. A loose cobblestone plus a jacked equilibrium and I was down, sprawled flat on the road. Surrounded by armor clad soldiers and their M16s.

Don't look back, Jason. Keep running. Please, just keep running.

I shut my eyes tight. Waited for the booming gunfire that would herald the end.

"It's one of the Bats. What should we do, Sergeant?" An incredulous voice whispered instead, and I slowly released what I expected to be my final breath.

A brusque order came next.

"Tranq him."

I opened my eyes in time to see the terrified face of a junior Enforcer as he crouched down beside me and jammed a needle in my thigh. I did my best to stay awake, stay oriented, but it was less than a second before the warm darkness creeped into my vision.

And then I was gone.