There's no excuse for the half a year that has gone by, except for me being unwilling to let this story go and getting a massive case of writers block. Anyway, here's the penultimate chapter of Red Stone! Enjoy!
Flaws:
Kat dropped her bag on the porch of Wayne Manor, staring up at the huge house. She noticed a bullet hole someone had tried to patch, eliciting a vague memory of being shot on the aforementioned porch. She couldn't recall the context yet, she was sure she'd have to ask her father about it. Red wasn't really talking to her.
Unease settled into her. She was about to see her father again for the first time in years where she actually remembered him. Her father who believed that killing was unnecessary. What must he think of her?
"Katherine." He said from inside the large manor doors, and she startled at his appearance. The strong stern man from her memories was gone, instead he had been replaced by a weathered old man. Time had not been as kind to him as it had been to her mother. He looked weak, but the relief she saw on his face made the weariness fade away as she watched, making him look at least ten years younger.
"Hi, Dad." She said meekly, hesitating to enter the grand house she no longer felt a part of. He didn't hesitate, reaching through the doorframe and yanking her into his arms, letting his cane fall to the floor. The one crutch she was still using banged against one of the stone statues before joining his cane on the ground. Kat couldn't help the laughter that bubbled up, as they clung to one another, "Look at us, a pair of cripples!"
Bruce chuckled softly, eyes clenched shut. "Yes, yes we are." He squeezed her once, tightly, before relinquishing his grip on her, but they both had to use the other to remain standing.
Kat was trying to figure out how to keep them both from tumbling down onto the marble entrance when Bart appeared behind them, "Someone need some stability support?"
"Shut up you little shit." Kat hissed, increasingly tired of her son-in-law patronizing her.
Bruce snorted, "Would have beat him half to death years ago if Lian wasn't so damned attached."
Bart scowled at them both, saying, "You two are terrible," before zipping back into the house.
Lian emerged a couple seconds later, a couple of butterfly bandages the only sign that she'd been dead just days before. "Gramps, hang on." She put his cane in his hand and slipped between them to embrace her mother, "Hey, Mom."
Kat smiled, "Hi, Baby. How are you feeling?"
Lian shrugged, "Better, much better now that you're finally home."
"Home?" Kat echoed, "I thought you and the shit had your own house."
"We do, but we're here all the time." She explained simply, handing Kat's crutch back to her and picking up the abandoned suitcase.
They settled into the living room, Lian leaning into Kat on the sofa. The look on Bruce's face when Selina practically danced into the room told Kat more than she needed to know. Bruce loved Selina, but the woman annoyed him as well. "Darling!" Selina yelled, grabbing Kat's hands and pulling her up despite the fact that Kat tumbled into her. "You look so beautiful!"
Kat tried to steady herself, and it was only Lian's steadying hand that kept her from knocking Selina over, "Easy Grams, Mom isn't a hundred percent yet!"
Selina was jittery with excitement, "Oh, but she's well enough to meet Terry, and Damian will be here soon! All my kids in one place finally!"
Kat tried shrugging her mother off, "Pretty sure you just had two, and Damian and I were together yesterday."
Selina sighed, "Terry, darling."
"Oh, right, Terry." Kat grumbled, letting Lian help her back onto the sofa.
The boy in question had arrived and was standing awkwardly in the doorway, "Um, hi?"
"Wow." Was all Kat could say, looking at the boy.
Selina chuckled, "I know, he looks so much like your father it's creepy sometimes."
Kat shook her head, "No, Mom, he looks just like Damian did at that age."
They all jumped when a voice from the window said, "Nah, I was better looking."
Kat smiled widely at her brother, standing with her better leg and holding her arms out to him, "Dai!"
Damian smiled back, loping across the room like a jungle cat to hug his beloved sister, "Hey, Kat, you're looking good."
"You are too." Kat replied, holding him tighter.
Selina giggled gleefully, "I've just got to go get a camera. All my kids together!"
Lian sighed, watching her grandmother leave, "She's going to drive all of us crazy with pictures tonight."
Kat and Lian sat back down on the sofa, Damian in a chair facing them, Terry stood by the door looking like he wanted to bolt. Kat stared at her brother, memories flooding back to her. Her face scrunched up suddenly, "Hang on. You died, Dai. That explosion when Lian was an infant, you died in the hospital. You came back, but…Savage never mentioned doing anything to your DNA like he did mine. All they did was use Mom's DNA to fix the others. Did anyone ever look into that?"
Damian shrugged, "Not really. I think Dick tested my DNA after, and there weren't any strange markers or anything, not like you and Li." He got quiet for a minute, "I haven't thought about that in years, actually."
"I think I have something to do with it." Selina said, entering the room gracefully, sitting between her daughter and granddaughter so she could see her son face to face, the camera in her hands forgotten. Terry slipped out the door, feeling like an intruder in his own home for some inexplicable reason.
"Grams?" Lian said, looking worried when the woman took one of her hands in hers, her mother's in the other, her ever shifting green-brown eyes locked on her son.
"Savage used hidden coding in my DNA to augment you girls, but I'm responsible entirely for Damian.
"I serve the Goddess Bast, and from the time I was born, I had nine lives to live in her service as Selina Kyle. I've been other women through time, but those memories are foggy, distant." She laughed softly, "Think of it like the television show you kids are so fond of, Doctor Who. Technically the same person, but different each time. Unlike it, however, I have nine lives to each entity before the mantle is passed on."
"What does that have to do with us and Damian?" Kat demanded, interrupting Selina's sauntering explanation, her short Mina-temper showing through.
Selina sighed patiently, "Somewhere along the way, in my youth, I must have drawn Savage's attention and he collected enough DNA to do with what he needed. Wouldn't have been terribly difficult, living on the streets was hard, by the time I was fifteen, I'd gone through three lives." She sighed again before shrugging gracefully, "Anyway, I can only assume he felt that my child was the best test subject to test his creation on, and it worked, splendidly. He ensured that Red was a carrier for the same genetic mark, and Lian was created."
"We basically knew that, Mom. What did you mean about me?" Damian asked earnestly.
Selina took her hand from Lian's and cupped Damian's cheek with it, smiling at him and staring into his eyes that were so much like hers. "My baby boy." She whispered, looking more than a little crazy before pulling herself back together and sliding back behind her refined facade, "You remember, before Kat left us, when you saved Lian when the Cave exploded?" He nodded, of course he did. He still had to deal with the burn scars every day before he did anything else to keep them from tightening and crippling him. "I could feel you dying. I was being tortured and raped by Red Claw, but all I could focus on was your pain, how your life was slipping away further and further every second. I prayed to Bast then, and for the first and only time in my life, she answered. I begged for her to help you, to save my baby boy who I was too far away from and too weak to save." Selina paused to catch her breath, blinking back a hint of tears, "My Goddess decided to test me, to make me prove once and for all that I was worthy of being in her service. I could save you, but it would mean giving my last life and giving it to you. In the time Bast had been with me, you had died, and I didn't hesitate to give my ninth life for you because you already were my life. You Damian, and you two girls. At that time, you and Bruce were all I had in the world that mattered."
They all three stared at her, and Damian sunk from his chair to his knees at her feet, "You gave up your last life to save me?"
Selina nodded, "It wouldn't have meant anything if my little boy had died before I was able to repair the damage the Light forced me to do to our relationship."
"But you were almost dead when Kat and the others found you!" Damian exclaimed, "You could have died there and that would have been it! For what? Me?"
Selina gasped, and pulled him close, "Oh, my baby boy, you are everything. You'll understand someday, when you have children of your own. Katherine understands, don't you?" Kat nodded, glancing at Lian, who looked unsettled. Selina continued, "There is nothing that I wouldn't do for my children. It's true, following the Light's orders to keep you two safe and then letting you both go sent me into a tailspin, but I did what I did because I thought it was the best for you. Giving my last life up was easy, especially because I owed you so much." Releasing Damian, she turned her gaze to Kat, "I begged Bast to come take the life I'm living now and give it to you when you died, but she didn't come to me. I thought that was my punishment. I could save my son, but I was helpless to save my daughter."
Selina looked between the three, tears in her eyes again as she pulled a tiny red stone from where it dangled between her breasts on a gold chain, "One day, you may meet a young girl or woman who has this stone with her, and you always need to know that she will help you. She won't remember your names, but, deep down, she will never forget that you are her family and that she would give up all of her lives to protect yours." She cracked a tiny smile, "Don't be surprised to see her stealing things though. Bast has expensive tastes and people like to steal her belongings and label them historical artifacts."
Damian shot to his feet. "But you'll be dead. Gone.", he said, voice hollow.
She nodded, finishing for him, "When I die again, it will be the final time Selina Kyle will die. The stone will vanish, and a new Catwoman will be born, drawn to the stone that will deposit centuries of pertinent memories and skills upon her." Damian still looked horrified so she stood, brushing some of his long hair from his face, "Oh, baby, I've been extraordinarily blessed. I'm the first Catwoman to find her soulmate, the first to be blessed with children, not to mention grandchildren. The only reason I'm still alive today is because of your father." Her eyes narrowed, "Don't any of you tell him that, it'll go straight to his ego. He's pigheaded enough."
Lian chuckled, and Selina turned her attentions to her only grandchild, "My little Lian, you are the reason I'm so looking forward to growing old beside Bruce even though his temper isn't getting better with age. I can't wait to see what you do with your life. You have every opportunity to change the world."
"Thanks, Grams." Lian said softly.
Kat stood awkwardly, looking sternly at her mother, "Stop talking like you're dying next week. You're not that old and none of us will ever let anything happen to you. You're gonna die of old age a decade or so after Dad and be bitching about him not waiting on you to be ready to pass into the great beyond or whatever shit is on the other side of this wall we keep bouncing off of."
Selina grimaced at her daughter's verbiage, but shrugged permissively, "I can only hope for that. Bruce and I are too confrontational to ever have an ending like that Notebook movie."
Lian looked stricken, "Ugh, I hate that movie. Seriously, it's Garfield's favorite, but it really upsets Starfire, and every time they watch it, I end up crying the whole time. Now it's gonna be worse because I'll be thinking of you and Gramps."
Selina shook her head, smiling at her granddaughter, "Come on, my darlings, let's go eat dinner. Bruce has gotten so set in his ways he'll throw a tantrum if dinner isn't served before six. He only makes exception for global crisis, you know, not his wife dawdling in the sitting room with his progeny."
At dinner Kat relayed their conversation with the rest of the family with clinical precision, and their Saturday evening dinners became a tradition. Even Dick pulled his head out of his own ass enough times to join them some weeks. Even more rarely, Red would show up. He and Kat mostly ignored each other, but they both wanted to be around for their daughter. The sense of family was nice…until it wasn't.
Dick and Bruce were in a heated debate that had spiraled into the age old 'You'll never respect my judgment because you think I'll never be as good as you' argument, and almost everyone else had tuned out, until Dick insulted Selina.
It had almost turned into a brawl by the time Alfred's nephew, a thin man named Charles, had brought their dinner in. The smell of cooked meat wafted from the tray.
Lian's face went white, "Bart," she whispered.
His eyes went wide and he vanished, returning a second later with a trashcan from one of the many unused restrooms before grabbing the offending food and rushing it back to the kitchen. Lian clung to the can, but the urge to vomit had faded once the meat was gone. "You okay?" Bart asked softly, rubbing a hand up and down her back.
She nodded in response, and then looked around at the suddenly silent table.
All eyes were on them, and Lian tipped her head back, holding her hands over her face in mortification. "I suppose now is a bad time to tell everyone I'm pregnant."
"Oh shit." Bart hissed in displeasure at her side, and sunk in his chair as if he hoped it would swallow him whole.
Her mother spoke first, voice tight and deadly, "Excuse me?"
Lian nodded, taking a deep breath and looking levelly at her family, slipping one hand into Bart's for comfort, "Yup, I'm pregnant, we're pregnant, however you want to say it, the Harper-Allen family is going to have an addition not too long from now, and I'll be retiring from the field for the time being. Decided after I died that waiting was insane. I rushed to get married and that's been amazing, so why not get started on having kids?"
"You aren't even twenty years old." Her grandfather said icily, glaring at the pair.
Bart plucked up his courage and righted himself, "This is what Lian wants, and I know we all want her to be happy."
Kat threw the first punch, and Red followed shortly after.
A half hour later Lian and Bart were sitting on the porch. "That could have gone better." Lian whispered, holding a towel to Bart's broken nose to stem the blood flow. He groaned in pain, and she rubbed his shoulder, "Oh, be a man. Not all of us are blessed with rapid healing. I have to die first."
"It -ill -urts -ike -ell." Bart groaned, his words garbled.
Lian kissed his cheek, "I know. I'm sorry. I didn't think my mom would hit you." Lian moved the towel and hissed, "Ouch, she got you good. I'm so sorry."
"She's got fight, your Mom." Terry said, sitting down next to Lian. He peered at Bart, "You okay, man?"
Bart nodded and gave him a thumbs up. Lian studied her youngest uncle carefully, "What's on your mind, T?"
He gave her a lopsided grin, "It's going to be weird without you two here or at the Tower."
Lian tapped her index finger against his jaw, "Hey, we'll be around. Just not on missions, and we'll have our own place for our rug-rats to zoom around in. You're welcome by anytime you want."
"Knock!" Bart insisted, sniffing carefully and pulling Lian's hand away from his nose to test it's integrity.
Lian laughed, "Yes, knock." Terry continued to stare at her. "What?"
His upper lip pulled up in uncertainty, "You're pretty pregnant already, aren't you? You're kind of glossy."
Lian smiled, and held the towel out to Bart so he could wipe his healed nose clean, "I think you mean I'm glowing, Terry." She glanced at Bart before looking wryly back at Terry, "You're the only one who didn't overreact, I'm not surprised you're the only one to notice. Let's just say I've hopefully only got a couple more weeks of wanting to puke my guts up." He bit his lip, blue eyes studying his hands. Lian touched his dark hair gently, "McGinnis, what is it?"
"You weren't pregnant when you died, were you?" He blurted out, wincing as he said it.
The smile flickered off Lian's face, and she glanced back at Bart. She sighed, her younger uncle wasn't anything like Bruce Wayne, he was so much more emotionally intuitive. Lian shrugged, "No, I wasn't. Savage tested me. Still, we're being cautious for that very incident. Pretty much why we weren't actually planning on telling anyone yet."
Terry sighed, smiling slightly at her, "I'm happy for you, Li, really, I am."
Lian returned the tentative smile, swallowing back a whine at his emotions flowing into her, "Thanks, Ter."
He pulled her into a tight hug, "I'm just so sorry for everything I ever thought about you."
Lian held him and ran a hand up and down his back, "Please don't cry. I don't know what you're talking about, but if you start crying, I'm going to lose it. I'm not just an empath, but a hormonal empath right now."
He took a few ragged breaths, but she felt him pull himself together. He didn't let go though, "I was always a little jealous of you, Li. I felt like a freak, genetically engineered, and you weren't. I feel so guilty."
She got it. Lian understood where he was coming from, she really did, empathy or not. She gave him a tight squeeze, "Terry, it's okay. I get it. That's why I'm so terrified about having this baby. Who knows what I'll pass on to it." Bart put a hand on her back, grounding her. "With Bart and I as parents, there's really no doubt it's going to be a metahuman, empath or speedster or something, but the real question comes about when I think about whatever invulnerability or extra lives I might pass down." She teared up suddenly, "Terry, that's why I'm retiring. My child is going to know all about heroes, and all the incredibly amazing things our family does, but it can't know about Mom and I coming back from the dead."
Terry was frowning at her, "Why not?"
"Because can you imagine the risks a teenaged hero would take if he or she thought that they could just hit reset every time things got dicey?" Bart said gently, running his hand up and down Lian's spine.
"Oh." Terry said numbly.
"Yeah," Lian said in an equally dark tone, "But what if they couldn't? We don't fully understand the genetics of it all, but we can't risk breeding false confidence in our kid. I would never forgive myself if something happened." She shrugged, "Anyway, I'm only retiring from field work. I'll be up in the Watchtower helping J'onn all the time, as well as putting forth a more concerted effort on controlling my empathy. Apparently I was a terrible child, and it will be worse if I'm constantly projecting my emotions onto my possibly all too receptive child."
Terry shook his head, standing up to let Ace back into the manor before Selina pitched a fit at the dog scratching the door, "Man, that's screwed up."
Lian smiled at her husband, "Screwed up is a family trait I guess."
Bart laughed, leaning close to her stomach, "Stay in there as long as you can, little guy, your Momma's family is gonna have you throwing sharp stuff before you can use a fork."
Lian rolled her eyes at him, pulling him up so she could kiss him, "She is going to be beautiful and deadly just like the rest of the women in my family."
He chuckled, "You don't think my Aunt Iris is deadly? I think she's deadly, and Bart thinks she's pretty."
Lian kissed him again, "Alright, both your family and mine."
Bart shook his head, pulling her into his arms and putting his chin on the top of her head, "Nah, our family."
She let his emotions wash over her, warm and safe and loving, and rubbed her stomach fondly, sensing the burgeoning emotions of their child, "Yeah, our family."
"When all of your flaws and all of my flaws
Are laid out one by one
The wonderful part of the mess that we made
We pick ourselves undone
All of your flaws and all of my flaws
They lie there hand in hand
Ones we've inherited, ones that we learned
They pass from man to man
There's a hole in my soul
I can't fill it, I can't fill it
There's a hole in my soul
Can you fill it? Can you fill it?"
Flaws
By: Bastille
The final chapter is done, I swear, and will be posted Wednesday, if not tomorrow, depending on how many of you are still out there reading!
Thanks for hanging in there!
-Jenn
