Fic: Faith Wayne (19/?)

Superman swayed as he arrived in the 30th century, the effects of time displacement far more easily thrown off than the Hall Of Heroes' grandeur, its polished, gleaming roof, and most of all, the holograms of heroes inspired by his generation, that hadn't even been born in his time.

"Clark," Lightning Lad rushed into the hall, a small smile splitting the younger hero's face. "It is a honour to see you!"

"And you Garth," Superman hid his discomfort at the younger man's hero worship behind a tight smile. "I've come for help."

"Well," Garth's eyes grew guarded. "We have to be careful of -."

"The timeline, I know," Superman interrupted as they hurried out of the Hall, smiling and nodding at any and all enthused greetings from heroes who'd grown up idolising his legend. "But I don't know if I don't ask."

"Of course, Clark." Garth led him into a sparsely furnished office, the door sliding soundlessly shut behind him. "How may I help you?"

"I'm here seeking information about an upcoming event called the Heavenly Schism," Clark replied as he took a seat.

"Ah." Clark grimaced inwardly as he noted Garth restrain a shudder. "The Dark Times," Garth shook his head. "I can't fill in many details, it's one of those times that we can't interfere with, it has to happen. The time of the 'Not Green Lantern', a hero who fought in one battle, but then refused to continue, his name never recorded, the Lantern with one brown and one emerald eye who -." Garth shook his head. "No I can't inform you."

"Okay," Clark nodded and began to rise. "Thanks -."

"Where are you going?" Garth grinned suddenly. "We might not be able to give you information that'll help you stop the event from occurring doesn't mean we can't help you personally."

Clark's brow furrowed. "Isn't that a contradiction?"

"No," Garth shook his head then reddened, "well maybe a little. But if we help you then I think that means we were always meant to help you, and just aren't aware of it yet because it isn't recorded in history vids and hasn't happened yet in our personal time streams."

Clark wasn't sure about the logic, but he wasn't going to protest about getting help. "Okay."

"Give me a moment," Garth spoke into a wrist communicator, "Querl could you come to my office."

Superman forced himself to relax when the door swung open and Brainiac 5 walked in. Being in the presence of the descendant of one of his bitterst enemies was never easy for him. "Greetings," the purple-skinned teenager nodded at him before looking towards Garth, "how may I assist you?"

Garth looked towards him. "Clark has requested our assistance with an upcoming crisis in his timeline."

"Interesting," Brainiac 5 stared at him and then at Garth. "Which particular battle?"

"The Dark Times." Garth supplied.

The purple-skinned teenager nodded. "In that case my history-files would suggest we send the legionnaires with the most physically offensive powers."

Clark groaned at Garth's agreeing nod. This sounded more and more ominous. "I'd agree. Who would you suggest?"

"Yourself, Colossal Boy, Ultra Boy, Mon-El, Wildfire, Blok, Thunder, and Super-Girl," Brainiac said.

"Thank you," Garth looked towards Clark. "Call for us, we'll be there."

"A warning," both heroes looked towards Brainiac. "Should we be involved in this event, we will be forced to break the no kill rule, that is why the event was so-named."

Bruce swallowed as he pulled up outside the 'school' that Faith and her boy-friend ran. It had been three days since he'd last seen his newly-discovered daughter, a stony wall of non-communication springing up between the pair of them. He'd told Alfred he'd been too busy patrolling the devastated city to visit her. Unfortunately though he could lie to his butler and best friend, he couldn't lie to himself. It was fear that had held him back, an unfamiliar feeling for him, but there was a cold dread that after this meeting, Faith would never want to see him again.

However, he climbed out of his Mercedes, he had to face his daughter and his fear, otherwise he'd never speak to her again anyway.

Wayne grimaced as he pulled his cashmere overcoat tight in an attempt to dull the cuttingly cold wind. Ducking his head from the unseasonal downpour, he hurried to the school's forbidding front door and knocked on it.

After twenty or so seconds, the door flew open to reveal a hauntingly pale red-head. "Hello Erin isn't it?" Wayne in fact knew the girl's name, her age, and everything his sources had been able to find out about her. When he'd discovered about his daughter, he'd made it his business to find out about everyone related to her, past and present, and commit it to memory. "I'm here to see Faith."

The Irish-American stared at him before nodding brusquely. "This way."

"Thank you." Bruce's brow furrowed as the girl led him a different route than the one leading to Faith's room, even as he cleared his throat to ask the girl where he was going, then belatedly recognised the route and clamped his jaw shut. Might as well get it over with.

The young girl stopped and knocked on a thick wooden door. "Yes?"

"Hi, Xander, Mr. Wayne is here. You said you wanted to see him before he went to see Faith."

"Oh, thanks Erin, send him in, and go back to whatever you were doing."

"Thank you," Wayne nodded at the red-head as she hurried off before reaching down, grabbing the door's cold ivory handle, opening it, and walking into the office.

Xander looked up at his entrance, his one-eyed stare distinctly unfriendly. "Mr. Wayne, I wondered if Faith would see you again."

"Perhaps you hoped she wouldn't?" Wayne challenged, meeting the gaze unflinchingly.

"I know what you said, how hurt she was," Xander replied. "Ever since she was a kid, Faith always wanted to belong, to have someone to be proud of her. She's had friends, mentors, even students. But that wasn't the same, not for her. She wanted family to claim her as her own."

"And she-."

The young man continued over him, Bruce noticed the young man's gaze hadn't shifted an inch. "When you found her, she was so happy, but terrified about what you'd think about her, her past. And I have to admit, you took it pretty well. But then she found out about you know. And for a minute there you were just another guy who'd lied to her. But I, idiot I am," a bitter smile twisted the young man's face, "helped convince her you had a damn good reason to do so."

"And I did," Bruce said, his tone calm as he realised one of them had to stay in control of emotions before this erupted into the full-blown argument that he'd expected and feared he'd be having with his daughter.

"Yeah maybe so, but you don't get the right to judge her, and you don't get to break her heart. You hurt her and I'll have your head on a pike." Xander's solitary eye burnt into him. "I don't care who you are, and Superman, heck the Justice League themselves, won't stop me, am I understood?"

Bruce stared at the youth. It was all he could do not to react with derision or laughter. The young man had mettle and resolve to stand up to him like this, not to mention it spoke well of his love for his daughter, but when you had a rogue's gallery that included the likes of the Joker, Bane, Ra'as Ghul, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, and Scarecrow it took a lot to intimidate him.

Nevertheless, the lad had nerve, worked hard to protect not only those he cared for but the wider world, and dearly loved his daughter, three very good reasons to respect him. Bruce nodded. "I'll bear that in mind."

Bruce swallowed as he walked up to Faith's room, his palms moist and his mouth dry. Every minute for the last few days had been spent finding reasons not to come here, yet simultaneously yearning to be nowhere else but here. And now that he had finally arrived, he was terrified, more terrified than he'd been in a long time.

His arm felt unbearably heavy as he lifted it and knocked on the door. "Yo? Who is it?" His heart soared at his child's distinctive voice and his mouth opened to reply only for nothing to come out. Cheeks burning, he opened it in another attempt. "I said-," the door swung open, his daughter looked up at him, dark eyes filling with distrust, "oh it's you." Faith pursed her full lips before flicking her long mane and stepping back. "I suppose you should come in."

"Thanks," he was profoundly grateful when his voice returned. He followed his daughter into her room, noting the clothes crumpled on the floor, the unmade bed, and the posters stuck to the wall.

"You don't share with Xander?" He asked as his daughter strode over to her loudly playing ipod and turned it off.

"Not that it's any of your business," hostility dripped off every word, "but I spend pretty much every night in his room, but sometimes I need my space." Faith half-smiled. "Plus these days he's turned into a neat-freak, and I ain't."

A smart comment was on the tip of his tongue, but he bit it back in the interests of regaining a relationship with his daughter. Faith's eyes hardened as she dropped onto her knees on her bed. "I wasn't gonna kill that asshole."

"You weren't?" Bruce felt a huge weight if not lift from his chest at least lighten.

"Nah," Faith shook her head, "I was wicked pissed, and I took it way further than I should, but I don't regret a moment of pain I caused that fucker." Faith's eyes sharpened to knives that then skewered him. "And I don't regret what I said to you either. How many people has the Joker killed after you threw him into a prison that you knew couldn't hold him? Hell, what about my good buddy, Bane?"

"Those deaths are on them, not me," Bruce kept his tone even, determined not to feed into his daughter's aggression.

"Really?" Faith raised a quizzical eyebrow. "One snap of their neck and dozens, hell hundreds of people might still be alive."

"And one snap of a neck, and you might not have been there to help Angel defeat the Beast and Angelus," was his reply.

Faith whitened. "Don't compare me to those nutty fuckers. I didn't have to be forced into prison, I gave myself up, I never tried to escape 'til I was needed. Jesus," Faith shook her head, hurt filling her eyes. "If that's what you think, you better leave here now, and don't bother comin' back. I got friends who've got my back, I don't need you."

'I don't need you.' If those words were meant to hurt him, they did their job and how. "No," Bruce forced down his panic. Damn this girl, whenever he was around her, he lost all his glibness, easy charm, and elocution. But whatever it took, he wasn't losing her. "I only brought up you and Angel because your history illustrates what I believe in. If Angel hadn't believed you could be saved, that you might see the error of your ways, he'd have had to kill you and we'd have never had the chance to meet."

"Maybe you'd like that?"

Faith's words were a whisper, but hit him like a sledgehammer to the face. "Never ever say that," he reproved. "The only regret I have is I didn't know about you when you were a child."

"Finch and Worth ain't the only humans I've killed," Faith had her arms crossed, her posture defiant, but under it Bruce sensed a deep undercurrent of fear. "There was a rogue Slayer hired by the Order of Takara to kill Xan, I stopped her. A voodoo priestess tryin' to cause a civil war in Haiti so she could have her own power base. A slaver dealing in Slayers and other supernaturals, selling them into servitude or for sacrifice. And a necromancer hired by Wolfram & Hart to bring back the Circle Of Black Thorn. None of them were murders, all were either self-defence, had too many influential contacts to be put in prison, or were too powerful to be imprisoned." Faith paused. "And 'part from Finch and Worth, I ain't lost a moment's sleep 'bout any of them. I'd gladly kill a thousand crims to let one innocent kid live."

Bruce didn't know what to say to that so instead he changed tact. "Earlier the night we argued you also saved me," Bruce continued at Faith's bemused look. "Deathstroke was beating me pretty badly. I was close to passing out, when I heard your voice in my head, telling me we'd only just found one another, we couldn't lose each other."

"And what's the point of that little titbit?"

Bruce soldiered on over the hostility in his daughter's voice. "The point is, I care about you, I love you. That doesn't mean I'll always agree with you, but it does mean I'll always want you to be part of my life."

Faith looked utterly lost at his words, as if life itself had robbed her of the tools to deal with a declaration of unconditional love. Bruce stood and waited, he was prepared to take as long as it took.

BLAR! BLAR! BLAR!

"What the fuck!" Faith looked shocked then almost relieved when alarms erupted. "Defences have been breached." The curvy brunette lunged for the pair of tomahawks hung crossed between a Skid Row and a Pearl Jam poster. "Let's hustle."