Chapter 30

Alex followed the crowd of kids trailing out of the batplane. He had made eye contact with Batman during the journey, and Batman had given him a look that said "we'll talk later." Or at least, that was what it seemed to mean. Dick had made the same gesture before when meaning that, so he would assume it was the same for both people, but they could have different meanings for the same gesture based on the person. Batman could have conveyed disappointment. He was at the back of the line, dragging his feet, as they entered the embassy complex.

There were kids everywhere, some looking healthier than others. He had wanted to stay and see if they weren't wrong. He wanted proof that Richard and Damian were either dead or alive. Red Arrow had gently nudged him into the batplane, telling him that he would be more helpful calming the younger kids at the embassy and checking through his book to see who had been rescued and who was still missing and most likely dead. They had it handled here. Red Arrow had taken over for Miss Martian an hour after the building collapsed as she was needed to help find those buried beneath. That had been weird because Dick had only briefly mentioned Roy had a clone, who was also pretty badass, after Original Roy had died. Turns out, all Roys seemed to have a soft spot for little birds, but were smart enough and strong enough to work around that soft spot.

All the kids were sent through the nurse station to be checked for any urgent matters before being passed to the Leaguers who were recording everyone's name and personal information to search for parents. Alex would join them with his book once he was cleared, but the lines were long. They had gotten several out of town doctors for the emergency, but it still was going slow as they tried to be as thorough as possible Apparently, the crisis had somehow avoided the news so far. He imagined the reporters would flock in soon, especially with practically the whole league here, besides the ones holding the fort around the world. Every kid with white hair was being pulled aside and sent into another room for increased scrunity. Alex wondered how they knew. Roy had clued him in about the worry, but admonished him not to tell Dick or Damian about the danger. There was nothing the two could do about it after all.

Alex was cleared within five minutes. He only had some mild scrapes from dropping to the ground outside the building, and even those were small enough to not merit band-aids. They gave him a small thing of hot cocoa for the shock, after checking for allergies, and then sent him on to the personal information station.

"H-hi." He said to Black Canary when it was his turn to approach. Without waiting for her to respond, he ploughed on. "Red Arrow told me to give you this." He hesitantly held out the leather bound book that he had held so protectively. "I-I've been gathering all the names of the kids that I could ac-access without the Bluemen noticing, and getting them to sign the book for evidence." He chewed his lip. "I thought… I thought maybe we could take attendance with it?"

"ALEX!" He heard. Alex snapped his head around and barely got a glimpse of warning before a boy his same height hit him like a missile and wrapped his arms around the surprised younger teenager.. Alex staggered under the impact, but kept his grip on the book.

"Ch-Charlie?"

"Mm-hmm." The boy nodded against him.

"CHARLIE!" Alex hugged him back fiercely. "You- you made it!"

"I did! Well, we did. 65 of us made it here."

"65? They said 83 escaped… but I know some people got caught?"

"Yeah. Well, it's a really long story." Black Canary cleared her throat. "Oh." Charlie blushed. "Umm."

"May I see that?" She asked, gesturing to the book.

"Oh. Right!" Alex said, handing her the book. "Umm. My name is Alex. Alexander Anderson. A-N-D-E-R-son I… I don't have any family except an older sister somewhere, but
I don't know where. I'm 15. Birthday: April 28th, 1997."

"That makes you 16, sweetie. Today's May 8th."

"It is?"

She nodded absently as she input his information and glanced through the book. She stopped on a page, and her eyes seemed to almost brighten a bit, and then dim. Alex glanced at the page she was looking at and felt his heart sink as he saw Richard's curly, slightly shaky signature swerving across the page. She shut the book. "You should probably give this to Batman. He'll know what to do with it."

"He's… he's busy." She nodded understandingly.

"Then give it to Flash or Blue Jay, and then go to the food station and get something to eat and drink. I'm sure you're hungry. After that, I recommend you catch up with your friend or find other people to talk to." Alex nodded, and slashed an arm at the tears threatening his eyes. He took the book back. They stepped out of the way.

"Here. I'll show you where to go. Flash has been coming in and out, but Blue Jay has been hanging out near the food station and making sure everyone gets something to eat and drink." Alex nodded. Charlie looked around. "But first, where are the pipsqueaks and Roy? We might as well wait for them."

Alex froze. "Charlie-." He said softly. Charlie met his gaze, with desperate hope shining in brown eyes. "Charlie, we're the only ones who made it." Charlie's eyes dimmed and he looked down.

"I…" He started. "I don't want to believe that. Roy said… He said to take care of them, but…" He took a deep breath. "How?"

"I don't know exactly. Well, I know how Roy died, but Dick and Damian… They didn't make it out before the building collapsed. I…" He paused and reflected that he couldn't tell Charlie exactly how he knew that Dick, at least, was dead, without revealing things like Dick having close ties to the Justice League. He would rather be closer to Batman's good side than bad. "I don't think they survived."

Charlie sucked in a breath and then nodded. "I… I had a feeling. Roy?"

"Died within an hour of the escape. Jumped in front of a gun aimed at Dick."

"Can… can you tell me what I missed?" Alex nodded.

"Yeah. Let me give this to Blue Jay, whoever that is, and then I'll tell you the whole story, if you'll tell me yours."

"Oh. That's Robin's new name. Apparently, he's been going through a phase lately."

"Robin?"

"Yeah. Kid Flash told me when I asked."

'He might want to hear this too.' Alex thought. Out loud, he said, "Well. Lead the way."

Alex took a deep breath to calm his nerves as Batman led him into a small soundproofed room, and then turned and locked the door behind them. It had been three days since the rescue, and he supposed this was the first chance Batman had to question him privately. The Justice League had been working hard to protect the large group of kids, getting them what they needed, helping with security, and getting them home. Then, there was the continued efforts to excavate the destroyed building, to find anyone still in there. At this point, they were looking for corpses. A bout of rain two days ago may have given anyone trapped some much needed water… or it might have drowned them.

Besides the copse of kids who had formed a haven in the Target Dump, apparently mostly through Alex's missing roommates' efforts, three other kids had been found in the basement levels. Two of them had been protected by a female blueman who had apparently shoved them into a vault of some sort, leaving the door open so they didn't suffocate, and shielded them from the blast.

An additional thirty kids on the upper levels had been rescued by the Justice Leaguers still in the building when the bomb went off. Green Lantern alone had been responsible for 20 of those as he had rescued 8 kids on the upper floors and had been leading them down when he had found that two of the larger dorm rooms had gotten trapped by the initial fire. He barely managed to get a shield around the kids when the bombs went off. Superman had five kids cling to him as he shielded them to the best of his ability while Wonder Woman had three and Red Tornado two. The only reason Alex knew that much detail was because Blue Jay had taken to dragging his main source of information on his brothers around when he didn't have anything better to do.

It was astounding how many kids the Bluemen had been able to collect in the time since the escape. The estimate was at almost 200 kids rescued in addition to the 65 who had made it to the embassy. The arm numbers were into the upper 400s, which were daunting.

Batman sighed, bringing Alex back to his current situation. If he hadn't known that this was Dick and Damian's father, Batman sighing probably would have freaked him out. After all, he was Batman.

"Alexander Anderson?" Batman clarified, stating more than asking. Alex assumed he had already did an intense look for recording or transmitting devices, like Dick did as a habit.

"That's me."

"Miss Martian told me that you approached her about Robin being in the building."

"Well, he wasn't really Robin at the time, but yes."

Batman seemed to sigh again. "How much did my son tell you?"

Alex took his turn to sigh. He pushed himself up onto the table and dangled his legs. After a moment of staring at his hands, he looked up and met Batman's eyes. "Not everything, but enough. And which son are you speaking of?"

"What do you mean 'which son'?"

Alex looked around. "Is this room secure?" Batman opened his mouth to response. "Right. Stupid question." He wiped his hands on the new pants he'd received from donations. "We wouldn't be having this conversation here if it, if it wasn't." He looked up at Batman. "Did he, did he manage to tell you before the building blew? I know he would have prioritized it, but maybe, maybe he didn't want to? Mio dio, I never wanted to have this conversation. I mean. I-I knew it was a possibility. We all did, but I couldn't. I didn't." Alex felt a hand on his shoulder. He hadn't even realized his eyes had been darting all over the place, and he had been shaking. Batman knelt down in front of him and met Alex's watery brown eyes with clouded, emotionless white lenses.

"Calm down." Batman said, placing his other hand on Alex's other shoulder to ground him. Alex took a moment to steady his breathing.

"I'm, I'm sorry. You must think I'm pathetic." Alex wiped his eyes.

Batman was silent, and then, "My son obviously thought highly enough of you to trust you. Start from the beginning."

Alex gave a barklike laugh. Dick had said Batman would want the full story. "Well, I was taken from the streets. Italy. I'm Australian by birth, but grew up there from 8. My parents, we were on vacation when they died, and I got separated from my older sister, Anita. She'd be 20 something now. I put up a fight, managed to hurt one of the guys who grabbed me, so they declared me 'special order.'" He paused. "That's what all three of us were. Me, Dick, and Damian. I don't know how Damian got it. He never said and I don't think they ever figured out who his parents were, unless they picked up how close he was to Dick. Dick would have gotten the status from being a billionaire's son, your son."

He looked up and met Batman's lenses again. "If, if it's all the same, it's your choice really, I'd prefer to tell this to you as Bruce Wayne, as the man Dick saw as a father." Alex looked more towards his mouth as he ploughed on. "He didn't betray you, Dick that is. Damian didn't understand how important secret identities are, and his mother had told him who you were. I knew Dick was a fan of Batman, before I knew, I mean. They kept taking him away to experiment on him and I wanted to make him feel better so I painted Batman, you, on one of the walls. Dick wasn't there, but Damian was, and he asked, he asked me 'why are you painting my father?'" He said with a laugh.

"And I got so confused and told him I was painting Batman and, and that's how we found out Damian was your son, and how I found out your secret identity. I figured out Dick's a few minutes later. I said that Dick could talk to you and you could introduce Damian to Batman and he got confused and I got confused, and it all came out. I, umm, I accidentally taught him a curse word or two that day. Dick wasn't pleased. His, Damian's mother is Talia al Ghul." Alex could have sworn he saw Batman jolt in surprise. "Dick and I both came to an agreement that she was a… actually I'm not sure I should repeat that to you… But, we agreed he would never return to her, if we could help it… This was not what we had in mind."

Alex took another fortifying breath. To his surprise, Batman released his shoulders, and slowly removed the cowl to reveal the face of Bruce Wayne, grieving father. The man looked as if he hadn't slept in months, at least not well. His eyes were bloodshot with circles underneath, and his hair, while gelled back to stay in place under the cowl had strands poking out in random places. Alex smothered a laugh as a sudden thought popped into his mind.

"Something funny?" Bruce Wayne narrowed his eyes into a glare that Alex was sadly well acquainted with, if he was used to seeing it on two different people.

"I'm sorry, sir. Da-Damian was convinced you were black eye makeup under his eyes and I don't think Dick tried very hard to convince him otherwise." He took a deep breath and met Bruce's blue eyes. Damian hadn't quite inherited those. The four year old's eyes had tended towards green at times and blue other times, often taking an in between shade. "Thank you, Mr. Wayne."

"My son?" Bruce asked, and Alex could have sworn the man shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny Alex had subconsciously put him under. "My sons?" Bruce corrected, before Alex could.

"Right. They came in the same time as me, but needed more time to recover. The Bluemen, they don't treat Special Order kids the same. We don't see the light of day for a good month minimum from our kidnapping, by their policy as far as I can tell. They dumped us in this room in the basement. We called it the Target Dump because so many Special Order kids were targeted. I heard that was where they made the fort. Everyone who is Special Order before getting there goes through an ordeal and we need major healing. Dick, Dick had it worse than anyone. He was practically a skeleton when we arrived, and he never fully recovered from that, as far as I could tell.

"There were five us when I became… aware… so to speak of where I was. One of the other kids with us didn't make it through the week. It was scary. I, I was the first one out and got put in a room with three beds. Dick joined me two weeks later and Damian came a week and a half after that. He would have come sooner, but he was allergic to some medicine they gave him and got a bad fever.

"I kept the book from the beginning. I managed to smuggle it from a classroom. Turns out, it had been hidden there by someone who had died, Scout. Her name is on the front cover. I got everyone to sign it personally, and did numbers to figure out who was missing. A lot of kids were already dead, and some friends filled in names or nicknames the best they could. I thought it would be good for evidence, and it looks like it is.

"After we got out of the Target Dump, they gave us the night to adjust to our new room, and then took us for tests the next morning. I think they did it similarly to the Regular kids, but I can't attest to that. They tattooed Special Order kids a few days before we left the Target Dump. The tests determined what class we went into. They actually gave us a pretty decent education while we were there, as contradictory as it seems. We even had homework sometimes and got rewards for good behavior. I got some good art supplies from them."

"Did Dick get anything?"

"Well, in the beginning, he barely talked, and, from what I understand, was pretty reluctant and rebellious in turn with anything they gave him, but he managed to get almost enough supplies to make an excellent stuffed animal for Damian, so he must have done something for that. The rest of the time, we were used in experiments," Bruce flinched. Alex ignored it. "So that affected him later on."

"What did they do to him?"

"I don't know for sure. He wouldn't talk about it, but Damian started going with him towards the end and he spent the last week or so crying about animals and swirly lights of doom. I don't know what that was about."

"Swirly lights of doom." Bruce muttered. "Did Dick have a backup plan? A way to get out if all else failed?"

Alex blinked. "No. I imagine he would have said something or used it to get Damian out if he did. Or incorporated it into the Escape Plot. The one that got the other kids here."

Bruce nodded. "Charlie told me you were involved in that. Tell me about it."

Alex took a deep breath before launching into that fiasco.

At the end, he could practically feel the concealed pride beneath the overwhelming grief dropping off Bruce Wayne in waves.

"That's my boy." He whispered. He shook himself after a minute. "What experiment did they do on you?"

Alex fidgeted. "I'm not sure, really. I got a lot of injections, but they didn't really seem to have an effect. Honestly, I think the Bluemen were disappointed in me. I was sort of a dud."

Bruce eyed him. "Maybe." He said.

"No, really. I got lucky. Dick got the short end of the deal. He." Alex cut himself off.

"He?" Bruce narrowed his eyes.

Alex slowly exhaled, rubbing his hands down his legs. The new pants were really comfy. "He… The experiment he was in. There were rumors of an experiment that turned your hair white. It was one of the bigger ones in that a ton of kids were fed into it. Dick's hair started turning white shortly after I found out about, well, you. Honestly, it might have been a little white that day. I didn't think anything of it at first… Then Roy, did Charlie tell you about him?"

Bruce nodded.

"Right, well, Roy clued me in. He asked me not to tell Dick and Damian, and tried to push forward our timeline for the Escape Plot. I agreed because, well, how do you tell someone they're living on borrowed time?"

"So… my son might have died soon even if we got him out."

Alex hesitantly nodded.

"Yes. But, he kept living and I kind of just, pushed it to the back of my mind because I didn't want to deal with it. Then he disappeared, three days before you rescued us. I, I thought he was dead and that Damian had followed him because they didn't need a baby anymore. I think he was only really used for leverage after the Escape Plot."

"How old was Damian?"

"Four."

"They experimented on him?"

"Yes, but I don't think they did so too intensely. He was the youngest I know of."

Bruce nodded, and looked deep in thought.

There was silence for a few minutes.

"Do you know who came up with the title of 'Bluemen?'"

"Heh. It was Damian. He called them something in Arabic that translated to 'Blue men.' Dick thought it was hilarious, and before I knew what was happening, it had spread around to everybody. It was pretty early on."

Bruce nodded, and then suddenly tilted his head listening to something. He stood up abruptly pulling the cowl on. Alex watched him as he headed for the door. Batman paused with his hand on the handle. "Thank you. Alexander. We will search for your sister."

Alex nodded as Batman left, stalking off to wherever he was needed, and then slumped with a sigh. That had been hard, and he wished it hadn't been necessary. On top of that, Alex knew that he would try to keep in contact with the Bat, or at least with Jason. He was the last person to really know Dick, and the only person they could talk to about Damian.

Maybe they could find his sister though. He hoped she would take him in. He didn't really want to live in the streets anymore and he didn't think Mr. Wayne could take him in, even if the man wanted too. Alex was too old and it wasn't that easy. Plus, he would be a constant reminder of the sons he lost. Bruce Wayne didn't need that, and neither did Jason. Why was he even thinking of this? They would find Anita. They had to…

"It's not your fault, you know."

Wally's head popped up to see Dick's roommate leaning against the doorframe. Alex Anderson, an orphan originally from Australia, but apparently grew up on the streets of Italy. Batman was working on finding his sister, but Wally had the feeling that was at the bottom of his to do list. Not just priority wise either. Wally thought he might be deliberately stalling. Alex was one of the last kids remaining. Nearly a month after locating the kids, most of the homeless and guardian-less had been transferred to hospitals or group homes to heal and find a new home. Over half the rescued had been escorted home to loving families, with a few pulled back when the family turned out to be not so loving. Wally had personally witnessed many tearful reunions, and felt his heart sink with each one.

"What are you talking about?" He asked.

"Dick dying. It's not your fault."

"How-?"

"Dick told me about you. His best friend. He didn't say you were Kid Flash, he was really careful about that. It doesn't take much to figure it out knowing what I do, but, to your credit, I only really put two and two together last week, when I realized how close you were to Artemis."

"Artemis?"

"Yeah. Dick asked about her the first day I met him. He was afraid they got her too, and went on about how his best friend Wally would fall apart if they were both gone."

"Oh."

Alex shifted. "Look, I've seen people in mourning before, especially kids who lost their best friends. It's not your fault."

"He died after we got there! If we'd just been faster…"

"No. Logarithm would have shot him in the head if he'd had the time. The second you entered the building, in fact, if he'd been near him. As it was, he only had enough time to get as many of us as he could and run for it. He was happy leaving Dick trapped downstairs. I heard that the Bluemen had express orders to make sure he didn't make it on the bus. If he'd made it outside, you would have been perfectly on time."

"But, if we'd known he'd been down there…"

"You would have been slowed by the door, and you know he would have demanded that he take him last. That's just how he was."

"But Superman-"

"Could have disabled the structure further and brought the roof down killing everyone. You can only go so fast with passengers, I imagine."

Wally was silent.

"You wouldn't have had enough time to get everyone out safely. Nothing you could have done would have saved everyone. Maybe there was a way to save Dick, but only the kids downstairs knew where he and Damian were.

"You all did the best you could. They were ready for you."

END PART ONE

I'M BACK IN BLACK, but actually. I keep finding comfortable black clothing.

CONGRATULATIONS ON MAKING IT THROUGH THE MEDIUM BETWEEN! I hope you enjoyed the ride.

Anyhow, I'm 99% healed from my concussion, but it took forever before I could use a computer again. Mid-June. -.- I want to thank everyone who wished me well and pmed me and reviewed. I could read them on my phone, but couldn't respond until later. Let me know if I didn't respond to you. I've been mostly working on the sequel and this story's epilogue, but it was pointed out to me (by multiple people) that this didn't really feel complete, and needed another chapter.

In my defense, I did not do the final editing on the last chapter because I was, you know, concussed. Thanks for posting for me Inky!

Inky would like to thank everyone that made it this far, past all of ASV's cliffhangers and emotional rollercoasters.

I've also posted a few deleted scenes and thoughts that turned into quick scenes in TMB: If Only, so if you want to check those out, feel free.

I want to thank dlsky in particular because they sent me a list of points they wanted answered with impeccable timing. Dlsky! I didn't hit all of them, but I hope this is to your satisfaction.

In other news, yes this is related to Flashpoint. I'm glad so many people picked it up! However, it's not a full crossover. I think Flashpoint is way too unstable to send Dick and Dami to. It was the apocalypse! I'm sort of picking and choosing from multiple canon DC universes to create my own AU. Thomas Wayne will be the Flashpoint Batman, but that's all that's really set. I will take any requests, suggestions, and questions you have, please.