Wow, this one ended up HUGE, but then again, we're wanted to get this chapter out there for months, so it shouldn't be a surprise. And with all the planning and plotting for the future of the series, the muse just wanted to get it all out there. I'm crossing my fingers that my characterization for Batclan isn't too far off with my consultant on them being out for the next little while. *takes a deep breath*
Gotham City was in a state of shock, but that wasn't the primary objective tonight. Helena Bertinelli—better known as Huntress—kept scanning her surroundings for any sign of Red Hood. Unlike the rest, she had no personal history with him. Not so for Dick, whose taut focus was fairly scary, given how much it resembled Bruce's. That wasn't his normal method of operating; Dick was the lightest-hearted of all the Bats.
Then again, the last hour or so had set the tone pretty clearly. And that tone left every Bat breathless. With the entire clan of them still reeling from the surrealness of what happened in that dirty little apartment, Helena knew nothing was or would be normal tonight. "Northeast quadrant's clear. No sign of Hood," she said into her comm.
"Northwest is clear, too," Dick said gruffly.
"Nothing on the cams, either." That wasn't Oracle's voice; Helena could tell even through the digitizer. The phrasing and cadence were different but familiar.
She watched Dick's brow furrow, the change clearly throwing him out of his thoughts. "Canary?"
"You guessed it. I'll be running the comm the rest of the night. I hate to say this, kids, but it looks like Hood got away clean."
Helena bit her lip. If Dinah was running the comm, then Babs was worse off than she was letting on. Then again, Babs had known Jay when he was Robin. So had Dick. It looked like Hood had scored the direct hit he was looking for, even if it hadn't been with a bullet. It was beginning to feel as though Dinah and Helena herself were the only fully functioning capes in Gotham tonight.
"I'll find him." That was Bruce, his voice even harsher than usual. Helena almost flinched from it grating against her ear. He had just dropped the Joker into police custody, and returned to the scene in Crime Alley.
Dinah didn't quite stifle her sigh. "Probably not a good idea, B. A building just blew up around you. Maybe a trip to medical?"
"I'm fine. We have work to do," was the gruff response.
A pause, and Dinah said, "Have it your way. Wing, Huntress, I need you both. We've got a turf war between whatever's left of Mask's people and some of Hood's over at 54th and Kane. And a riot about to start outside the Geraldi Arms complex three blocks from the blast."
Helena tapped her comm. "I'll take the riot."
"I'll take the gangs." Dick's voice was somewhere between angry and disgusted; Helena could guess why. All this was breaking out, and Bruce was going to ignore it and hunt for someone they hadn't been able to track at all so far. But then, Bruce had reason to be obsessed. Shaking her head, Helena headed toward the apartments.
The riot wasn't much—a large group of residents from several apartment buildings had come outside after the explosion, maybe fearing their buildings were next—or maybe just wanting to watch the show. The reason didn't matter; large groups of people were basically riots waiting to happen, and something had touched off a spark there. Luckily it hadn't progressed much when Helena arrived to break it up, just a few smaller squabbles here and there, mostly fists and a few knives. No one had broken out guns yet, and the majority of people were still bystanders. All Helena had to do was knock down a couple of brawlers, pitch a few smoke bombs, and the crowd lost its taste for trouble fairly quickly.
With that handled, she headed back up to the rooftops and dropped in on Dick. The gangsters didn't seem all that committed to their fight, either, and were quickly dispatched. Helena and Dick regrouped and surveyed the scene below. "Gonna be one helluva night," Dick murmured.
"You all right?" Helena asked.
He turned to her, and even through the domino's lenses she felt the weight of his stare. What he said next took her by surprise, despite the current situation. "No, Hel, I'm not all right. That's my little brother out there somewhere, maybe buried in rubble, maybe bleeding to death—or maybe he did get away, and he'll come back again for revenge. That was my little brother who put my other little brother in the hospital a few weeks ago, and he tried to kill B tonight. Tried to kill 'Dad'. And this is the brother I thought was dead, the one I mourned. The one I cried my eyes out over because I couldn't save him. So no, I'm not even in the same zip code as all right."
Helena blinked. Dick wasn't a locked door like the others, but he generally wasn't that forthcoming with what he was thinking; she'd touched a nerve, and she'd meant to. He was being a little too Bruce, a little too locked down, and someone had to let off some of the pressure before he exploded. She didn't mind being vented on. She just hadn't expected him to be this off-kilter. He'd just used her real name while they were in costume, and that spoke volumes.
"I'm gonna be all right, though," he said, his voice low and determined. "Because he isn't. And tonight it looks like it's just you and me and Canary who have our heads screwed on right in this town. I just hope Robin doesn't decide to come home early."
Dinah piped up in their comms. "He won't. Robin's under protective custody, and it's the super-powered kind. Spoiler's with him too. And Oracle called in some backup for you guys tonight."
"What kind of backup?" Helena asked.
"Look up," came a new voice, and they both did, Helena's hand dropping to her crossbow, and Dick's grip on his escrima sticks tightening.
Helena relaxed immediately at the sight of the rippling red cape. "Superman," she said, and he landed gently beside them.
"Huntress," he replied with a nod. "Nightwing, if Red Hood is still in the city, we'll find him. And get him some help."
"I think it's going to be more complicated than that," Dick muttered. "And Batman needs a little help, too."
Clark smiled. "Don't worry there. We already have that under control. When Canary made the call, Wonder Woman immediately insisted on dealing with him herself."
The comm crackled, and Helena grinned. "I've got this," she said, before Dinah even started speaking. If anyone could set Dick back on an even keel, it was Big Blue himself.
….
Batman was virtually impossible to sneak up on … unless you owned an invisible jet. He was also very difficult to find when he didn't want to be found, but as in all things, there were ways around that. "What do you have for me, Chairwoman?" Diana said into her comm.
Oracle oversaw the JLA's communications network as well as Batclan's, so it was very easy for Black Canary to patch into Diana's comm unit from her seat at Oracle's computer hub. Lucky, that, and even luckier that Dinah was motivated to help. "Give me just a moment, I'm trying to find the tracking signals for the comms… Hold on, Wondy."
The nickname, which only Dinah dared say to her directly even though she was well aware most of them used it behind her back, gave Wonder Woman a fleeting and badly-needed smile. And then Dinah came back on the line a moment later. "Thanks, Oracle—yeah, that'll be faster. Okay, the tracking information should be uploading to your jet's computer right now."
Ah, the perks of having an exceedingly tech-savvy individual on the team. "Thank you both. How is Oracle faring?"
A sigh. "Better than expected, considering. Worrying about me destroying her system is a fairly effective distraction. If I notice her getting too caught up, I'll just ask what 'reformat C' means."
Even Diana heard the growled, "Not funny," from somewhere near Dinah's microphone. She left them to sort it out; everyone affected by this had someone to keep watch over them, regardless of their possible reluctance. Barbara had Dinah with her in Clock Tower, Clark had gone to check on Dick, Tim and Stephanie were being watched over by Jason and Cassie in their exile at Titans Tower, and Bruce had her.
Whether he liked it or not.
With the feed from his comm pinpointing his location, Diana was able to park the jet right over him. She simply stepped out, her enhanced senses picking out movement no human would ever hear.
And yet, even though she didn't touch the ground or make any other sound, he still turned around before she reached him. "I don't recall asking for your help," he growled. "Or authorizing anyone else in my city."
Diana sighed, taking a moment to restrain her temper before responding. Why had she come to Man's World, again? And why, by all the gods, did she get herself involved with one of the most frustrating men alive? It couldn't just be the challenge.
Of course, she knew why. She'd strongly disliked Bruce when they first met: he was autocratic, abrasive, and arrogant. It didn't help that he'd kissed her when she wasn't expecting it; Diana wasn't particularly fond of being manhandled at the best of times, and at that moment she had still been somewhat out-of-sorts.
And yet, he was one of Clark's best friends. The only reason she'd given Bruce a second look was curiosity, wondering what someone like Clark saw in him. Eventually she'd seen where that terrible resolve came from. Everything Bruce did, everything he was, came from that one awful moment in his life, and his determination not to let it happen to anyone else. Of course he couldn't stop every crime in the city, but he could damned well try. That unwavering purpose was what his rogues' gallery feared most about him.
"Nor would you, truth be told. And you don't have to ask for my help," she told him, deliberately pitching her voice low and calm. "This is what partners do."
His eyes behind the cowl were unreadable, cold and hard. "I thought I was clear. My Robin, my failure, my problem, my fault. No one else's."
Diana bit her tongue to keep from saying, Do you ever wonder if maybe that's why you're always alone in the end? Because you won't let anyone else in? Instead she responded, "We share our burdens. That's what the League is for. Didn't you tell Superman the same thing in Nevada?"
"Nevada was different," Bruce said, and turned to walk away.
Diana followed. "Not so different. Both times a lost child went astray. We both helped him, even though he didn't want us to. You were the one who went behind his back and organized the search. You were the one who had League members on the ground in Nevada ten minutes after he and the kids got out of that lab."
He turned on her again, a threatening shadow-shape looming out of the dark. "You don't know Jason. I do. I can find him."
"I can help you," Diana said, some of her frustration showing in her tone.
"No, you can't. You've got that fancy jet and you don't even know he was taken out of here in a helicopter," Bruce growled.
"So you do have a lead," Diana replied. "Fine, get in the jet and we'll track the copter."
"I've got the Batwing."
"The jet's invisible."
"This helicopter isn't traceable by any ordinary means. I've lost visual, and we're wasting time arguing that could be used to try picking it up again."
"So stop arguing and get in the jet already." She crossed her arms and stared at him, and he stared back at her, momentarily stymied. Her jet was the most logical use of resources at the moment. The fact that he coveted it, and didn't want to accept help, didn't change that.
While Bruce paused in a rare moment of indecision, Diana decided to break out the heavy artillery. "And if we do find him, if we do capture him, what are you going to do? Ground him? Take away his allowance?"
He sneered viciously. "Bring him to Arkham for evaluation. Just like any other criminal whose motives suggest psychological issues."
"His motives suggest revenge," Diana said, her temper fraying.
"Something happened to him. He's alive and relatively unscarred when all the evidence we saw at the site of the explosion suggested that there weren't enough of his remains left intact to even attempt an autopsy. Either his death was faked—by whom, and for what purpose, we still need to find out—or something happened afterward. Either way, I need to know." Bruce's voice was even more grating than usual, his grief coming out as wrath.
"Bruce, listen," Diana began, and he cut her off.
"No real names in the field, Princess," he snarled.
That was the moment when she lost her temper, and her own voice had an edge he rarely heard. "Stop all of this deflecting; there's no one to hear us, anyway. Listen to me. Your son has come back from the dead, apparently wanting to kill you, or at least force you to kill your nemesis. You shouldn't be on the street right now. You can't possibly be functioning at peak condition."
He smiled, more a baring of teeth than anything else. "Oracle is being awfully free with information, I see."
One more moment, and she was going to just grab him and shake him until his teeth rattled. Amazingly, his tenacity was one of the things she liked about him. Most of the time. "Let it go, Bruce. You need to deal with this. Let me help you."
Bruce scoffed, his voice scornful and full of pain he probably didn't realize showed so well. "Don't tell me what I need to do, Princess of Themyscira."
"Stop it. Just stop it, Bruce. No amount of self-recrimination will change things. Neither will attacking your friends." As furious as he was making her—which had to be at least half intentional—her heart still broke for him. Clark had biological children, Bruce had adopted children whom he tended to treat more like soldiers than kids, and Diana herself had sisters. She'd longed for a child of her own, sometimes, but her life was too full at the moment. Diana could imagine how much pain Bruce was in at the moment, but knew her projection had to fall short. There was no grief like the loss of a child, and Bruce had never properly allowed himself to deal with that. Now Jason was back, full of savage hatred, and then gone again, leaving all in ashes a second time.
"I've had enough of this. We're wasting time. And you're not my therapist." Bruce turned to leave again.
He'd slept with his therapist, too, as Diana recalled. Even more tactics of avoidance. "No, you're not going to walk away from this and bury it with all the other things you refuse to deal with," she warned, one hand dropping to the lasso on her hip.
Bruce looked over his shoulder, his stance changing. He'd been defensive before; now he was furious. "Use that, Amazon, and it's over," he promised.
Her retort was swift and final. "So be it, Batman. I care more for you than I do for this relationship."
They didn't actually talk about their relationship all that often. She had known he was attracted to her almost from the moment they met, but then, Bruce was attracted to many women. The actual relationship had been an on-again, off-again thing for the past three years. He frustrated her to no end, but something about him kept drawing her back. Maybe compassion of the man she saw before her. Maybe it was his fractured soul, that Diana couldn't help wanting to heal.
Bruce didn't want healing, though. His scars, physical and otherwise, made him who he was, and he could never stop being the Bat. Now he glared at her, and she could picture his eyes narrowing behind the lenses of his cowl. "You're not the only one whose resolve is legendary, Bruce. Come with me. Let Jason go, for now. This is his city, too—he'll be back, and you can deal with him when your mind and heart are better suited to the task. Spend this time with your family. They need you. And let your friends help you. You won't admit it, but you need us. Especially when you've been practically blown up in addition to everything else."
Still he hesitated, and then a bitter smile hardened his mouth. "Or else you'll hogtie me and drag me in, is that right?"
"Exactly. And don't bother dropping a smoke pellet, I'll just track you down again. I didn't come here to play hide and seek all night."
He moved toward her then, and caught the lasso that was already in her hand. "Then why did you come?" Bruce growled.
The weight of the question traveled up the golden rope. Using her own weapon against her; so very Bruce of him. But she wouldn't have tried to lie anyway. "Because I care about you, you foolish, stubborn man," Diana snapped, making the last word an epithet. "We're all worried about you. Clark and I know you're acting like this because you love your son and it's killing you to see him so. Now come in, or one of us will drag you in."
With that she neatly flipped the coils of the lasso around his wrist. Not quite enough to bind him, not yet, but the threat was there. His shoulders tensed; at that moment, with the lasso around his arm, Bruce couldn't lie or dodge the truth. He could have kept silent, but chose not to. "He was my son. I loved him, and I failed him. I failed him from the beginning. He should never have been Robin. I should never have let my needs outweigh his. All of this, everyone who died, is my fault."
Diana didn't know the whole story, but from what she'd picked up from Clark and Babs via Dinah, it wasn't that Jay should never have been Robin. It was that he should've had a year's worth of therapy first, actually doing something about his anger instead of just channeling it into making him a replacement for Dick.
She sighed, and touched his cheek gently. "We all make choices, Bruce. You did, and he did. Some of those were mistakes. You can't change the past, you can't always predict the future, and scourging yourself with guilt accomplishes nothing."
He knew she was right, but even then, Bruce couldn't say it. All he could say, in the most hollow of voices, was, "Let's go home."
Diana smiled sadly. "Let's."
…
Dick could remember being fourteen or fifteen, being Robin: bright uniform, bad puns, bold attitude. Most of the time, it had been fun, a thrill that called to his high-flying soul. The leaps, the acrobatics, the danger, the daring, he'd loved it all.
He had idolized Bruce, of course. All of them did. The Batman, who knew everything about everything, who appeared and disappeared from the shadows as if by magic, who lived by a stringent code of ethics that was the only thing separating him from his terror-inducing villains. It was even in his name: Clark was Superman, Diana was Wonder Woman, but Bruce was often referred to as the Batman.
The thing was, once Dick had lived with and trained with and worked with Bruce, he started to know the real man behind the legend. And that man was stern, uncompromising, brutally fair, light on praise and heavy on training. He loved his boys, but he often didn't show it very well. Dick suspected that Bruce feared showing them too much affection; the world was hard and cruel, especially for them, and he wouldn't want to create any chinks in their mental armor.
Clark was a different creature entirely. Just as idolized as Batman, but for other reasons. His amazing powers, his stunning deeds, and most of all, his unexpected niceness. Superman was humble, always glad to extend credit to the police and fire crews. He was universally kind to civilians, and as much adored as Bruce was feared by the general populace. Bright and shiny, it was little surprise to those who knew him that the Kryptonian had the most 'normal' life of any superhero.
Dick looked up to him as well. He'd been a fan of Big Blue even while he was in training with the Bat, and the occasions when he'd met Clark as a kid had been etched in his memory. So much so that his current codename was taken from Kryptonian myth. The funny thing was, even though he he'd worked with Clark and knew him fairly well now, had met his kids and his wife a few times, something about the man just turned everyone into a starry-eyed fanboy.
And now, when the world seemed to be falling down all around them, here was one of his childhood idols putting a warm hand on his shoulder and telling him it would be okay. "It isn't your fault, Nightwing," he said.
"Yeah, it kind of is," Dick said dismally. "All of this goes back to B and how he never really got Jay. He was always trying to make him into me. And Jay's a totally different person, he comes from almost a different world, and he needed different things. I saw this coming, I saw them having trouble, all the arguments, but I didn't fight hard enough for Jay."
He sighed. "I would've taken him, you know. Made him my sidekick. Jay always needed approval, and B couldn't give that. I could've. But B wouldn't let me. Sometimes I wonder, if I'd fought harder, if I'd gotten him, maybe he wouldn't have been so desperate to find his mom, maybe he would've never been in that warehouse in the first place…."
"Stop this, Nightwing." Clark tugged at his shoulder, making the younger man face him. "What happened tonight wasn't your fault. You couldn't have possibly predicted everything that happened, and even if you could've, there's no guarantee you could've stopped it from happening. Stop blaming yourself."
"Then who am I supposed to blame? Jay? He was always kind of wild; he always had some anger issues. B tried to channel that. Maybe we should've tried another way, but Batman needed a Robin and I'd checked out." Honestly he was furious with Jay for everything he'd done, most especially for hurting Tim, but Dick couldn't help the fact that his anger was tempered by grief. And even pity.
"Everyone has to grow up and find their own path. Even and especially our kids. You're a man now; it's unreasonable to expect you'd stay the Boy Wonder forever." Clark smiled sadly. This had to be bittersweet for him, with both of his own children about to leave their teens.
Dick lowered his head with a deep sigh. "I just don't know what to do. We thought he was dead."
Clark put an arm around his shoulders and hugged him. "What we always do. Fix what we can. Deal with the situation at hand. Plan for the future. Learn from the past, but don't dwell on it. And have hope, Nightwing."
This was hell, remembering the kid Jay was while trying not to hate the man he'd become. There was something wrong, something fractured in his psyche; this was more than just revenge. Dick couldn't do more, at that moment, than to return the hug. If Bruce stood for justice, and Diana for truth, then Clark was the living symbol of hope. And Dick definitely needed a dose of that at the moment.
…
The hour was late, the latest of the concerts over for the evening, and Kala was happily snuggled into Dustin's arms. Lately she'd found herself pretty worn out after a performance, feeling a little off-balance for some reason. Dustin was getting pretty good at re-grounding her. "So you like Denver?" she asked.
He shrugged. "It's got nice views. We haven't really seen much of it, though."
That brought on a chuckle as she grinned tiredly up at him. "We never do, honestly. That's life on the road—I think I've stayed in half the Holiday Inns in the country, but I almost never have time to explore, especially now that we're doing these structured tours. It was a little different when it was just the three of us and the van. There's so much I wish I could see. I always end up rehearsing in the afternoon, singing at night, and sleeping all morning."
"It's pretty hectic," he remarked, and nuzzled her hair. "Luckily the view in here is just as good as the one out there."
Kala laughed. "You sure know how to flatter a girl. I just took my makeup off and I'm wearing one of your t-shirts. I'm sure I'm the height of stunning."
Dustin tipped her head back and kissed her cheek. "You are."
That made her smile, warm as sunlight. Dustin really was just about the perfect guy, and she was incredibly glad to have him with her. She'd been even more on edge than normal all night, just antsy and irritable and out-of-sorts, but all of that tension had bled off after she got back to her hotel room with Dustin.
And then her phone chirped. Kala groaned and grabbed it off the nightstand, eyes rolling before seeing the message was from Jase. A frown crossed her face, especially since they had just talked the other day. What it said made her hair stand up, even without knowing the actual tone of the words. Need to see you soon as you can.
Something's wrong. Very wrong. Another chill down her spine. Her first reaction was to focus her hearing around his heartbeat. Quiet, except for ragged breathing: someone else's, sounding pained, not threatening. Quickly, Kala texted back: What's going on? You okay? At the same time she told Dustin, "It's Jason."
"Is he all right?" he asked.
"Not sure," she replied, and the reply came in just as she finished speaking. After-school club issues. I need a hug. Kala sighed, biting her lip. She should have guessed; the creepy anxious feeling was back, and she knew he wouldn't text if it was as simple as it sounded. It had to be something within the capes and something that had him in knots for this to be happening. She had to get out there, if only for a few minutes. Give me ten and I'll be there. Excuses to make. Love you.
"Not good, huh?" Dustin said, watching her face.
Moments like this always gave her a moment's pause over the choices she was making in her life and made her wonder for the thousandth time how Dad had done this for several years without anyone knowing. She respected him even more every time. "Something ungood in real life. I really hate to do this, but I really need to talk to him. Dustin…" Kala trailed off, trying to think of what excuse she could make, making it clear that she was reluctant to leave.
Thankfully he had had quite a few years of dealing with their closeness and let her go willingly and with that little of an explanation. "Privately, twin to twin. I get it, Kal." He smiled and pulled her in for a kiss. "I can go hang out in the hotel lobby."
"No, honey, you're already comfortable. I'll just throw some clothes on and take this call in the tour bus. It shouldn't be long." Kala kissed him again, lingering to steal a bit more warmth and comfort.
"Take all the time you need. And tell him I'll call him tomorrow and see if he's okay. And he'd better make it out to Kansas on school break."
"I will. Promise. Love you." With that, Kala slid out of bed to grab a pair of jeans and hurry into her boots, waving as she stepped out of the door. As soon as she closed the door behind her, she was down the hallway faster than the eye could see and in the air seconds after, immediately regretting that she hadn't tied back her hair.
She was on the roof of Titans Tower even before Jason could send another message, where a weary and miserable twin awaited her. She knew that look on his face, hating it before she even knew what brought it on. It was the haunted look of the aftermath of their childhood nightmares, a look they had seen in each other's eyes many times. Without a word, Kala came straight forward and he enfolded her into a long hug.
These days Jason didn't scare easy, so whatever had happened really had to have unnerved him. And it rattled her to see him so intense. As much as she loved her life, as much she had wanted the singer's gypsy life if she couldn't trust herself to have her birthright, she hated the distance that yawned between them these days, both literally and figuratively. "Hey, it's okay, Lizardboy. See, I'm here and with that special delivery hug you wanted, all the way from Colorado," she murmured against his shoulder, hugging him a little tighter. "Jase, what happened? What's got you so freaked out?"
"You haven't seen the news?" he asked, still holding on tight, sounding exactly like he looked when she had touched down.
Kala shook her head before leaning back to look him in the eyes. Now she really was worried. "Not in the last three hours. Tonight was a work night in Denver. I've been in rehearsal for most of the day and onstage until about an hour ago. So tell me what going on, Jase, okay? 'Cause you're starting to really scare me."
The look on his face told her she wasn't going to like the answer.
…
Once Tim and Steph were huddled together in his quarters, both still tied up in knots over what had played out on that feed from Gotham when they were exiled so far from home but at least together —still under Cassie's watchful eye as she sat at Comm monitoring the situation for them with Dinah—there was something Jason had to do. He had wanted to call her, but felt too twisted up to even manage the words if he spoke to her. There was nothing more he could do without breaking than pace the roof of Titans Tower until she landed, coming all the way out here the way he knew she would, and then he swept Kala into a hug. He had to clench his jaw to keep from bawling like a kid, Tim's words from earlier striking deep, deeper than he'd acknowledged in a long time. Seeing her soothed the memory that had been called up: his twin sister's quirky grin, the candy scent of her shampoo, and the sound of her voice all the opposite of the one fear that hadn't left him since all this began.
Tim had been understandably upset, and he'd vented to Jason. The Bats were notorious for their secrets and their clannishness, but there were even secrets amongst them, as he had learned over the years he and Tim had been good friends. Fears they never even shared with each other. Jason had the feeling that he was the first to hear a lot of what he had tonight when he'd separated the two of them from the girls, so much confusion in the usually stoic Red Robin, so much pain and anger and hurt bound uneasily together. Red Hood had quite literally turned Tim's world upside down and he was struggling not to lose control.
And there was absolutely nothing right now that Jason could do beyond listen. But the only part that had truly scared him had been when Tim, his voice breaking, had snarled, "He should've been my brother! I admired him, you know that? When he was Robin, I admired him just like I admired Dick! I wanted to be his friend; I could've been his brother. We could've helped him, but he comes back and tries to kill me and burns down my city and tries to kill Bruce…!"
That had chilled Jason's blood. He remembered catching sight of Kala in Nevada, of seeing a stranger behind his twin's eyes. He remembered seeing her come into the fight—on Zod's side, shouting at their dad to leave him alone. Fighting him, though she'd snapped out of it enough to save him.
Enough to save them all, but very nearly at the cost of her own life. Tim had no idea how much he'd affected Jason; at the moment he'd needed a shoulder to lean on, and Jason had been that, not showing how much Tim's tirade had rocked him. After, though, he needed to see his sister. He needed to remind himself that she was weird and goofy and funny and so full of herself she was about to burst at the seams; that she was okay, she hadn't gone dark on them, she'd always be there for him.
The hug helped. Kala was real, she was safe, and she was here, right where she belonged. Of course, she had no idea, so Jason had to fill her in on the things she'd missed. Not all of them, of course. An overview was fine, but Kala didn't need all the painful details of how badly this had hurt everyone. That Red Hood had been the second Robin was a shocking enough piece of info for someone not actively part of the cape and cowl crowd to know.
"…and from what I heard last, he got away somehow," Jason finished. "Dad and Diana are out there trying to scour the city and talk some sense into Uncle Bruce. Tim and Steph are here. Everyone's just played out."
Kala looked guilty at that, what she was thinking about all too obvious in her brother's eyes, and Jason gave her a tiny shake. "Don't even think about it, Kal. You didn't know. Plus Gotham has been completely locked down. You couldn't have gotten in to help even if you did. You can't feel guilty when you have a real life out there and none of us told you. Kala, there's nothing you could have done. Period."
Her lower lip pouted stubbornly. "I could have done something. Tim's my friend, too, remember? Uncle Bruce was the main one helping the family … back then." Jason saw the cloud that passed over her face, both of them thinking of the same day three years ago for a moment, a day that they barely talked about. "I owe them, and Diana, for helping me back then. You and Dad should have called me. I was singing earlier, and then I was just relaxing in my hotel room, and there's this huge crisis going down with you guys while I'm eating popcorn in bed with Dustin…."
"Kal, stop it. We said I'd hit the caped scene first so no one suspects we're twins."
"We both know that's not why it's like this, Jase. I told you to do it for a reason and we both know you were the better choice for the Mission. It doesn't mean I don't feel responsible, too," she interrupted with a sad smile, one that broke his heart. Kala was right; they both knew who had been the better student for Jor-El, the one that could still quote half the teachings they had learned verbatim. Kala had been the front-runner for the legacy despite Jor-El's protestations, the one who was the most well-versed, but nothing had been the same after those days after New Years' in Nevada. Since then, Kala had barely visited the Fortress and had made a decision to follow a completely different path, a slightly more mundane path.
He sighed and leaned his forehead against hers. "You're right, it's not the reason why. But that's what I tell people because you're full of it about not being right for the family legacy. Kala, I know you're one of the good guys, no matter what you're scared of. That's not all you are. I also know you've got to do this in your own time and in your own way. I know you'll do it because it's part of who you are. And until you do, it's not fair to expect you to hold my hand all the time. If you ever come into this, it'll be as the hero you are in your own right, not as my sidekick."
Jason saw her open her mouth to protest, already shaking her head. He caught her chin then, making her look him in the eyes. She couldn't keep blaming herself for what she saw in herself as ultimate darkness and betrayal; none of it had been her fault. "Don't even bother to say it. I know what I know and I know you better than anyone on this planet. You will be here with me someday. I know it, you know it. Because you're my sister and you are a hero, Kala. No matter what you think you did that day, whatever you think you did wrong, it was you that saved us. The entire planet, even, if Zod had been able to go forward with his plans. You did it. So stop doing this to yourself, okay? I believe in you."
She had started crying half-way through his speech, but his sister stayed silent. And then Kala moved back forward and hugged him tight, her eyes shut and moisture dampening the shoulder of his suit. Jason returned it just as tight. "Maybe … maybe one day. I'm sorry it's like this. I'm sorry I'm like this."
Jason hugged her back. "Don't be. You're the best twin sister a half-alien teenage superhero could ask for."
That, finally, got a weak chuckle out of her. "And you're biggest dork of a twin brother that a rockstar could want."
A beat of silence as they held each other, comfortable in their togetherness. "I miss you like hell," Kala finally said.
"Me, too," Jason admitted. That was all that needed to be said between them—the rest was understood. Life might be taking them down different roads, but as long as one of them could fly at supersonic speeds, they'd never really be too far apart.
…
Jason Todd—former Robin, current Red Hood—was trapped in a nightmare. For him, despair had a distinctive sound, the cruel declarative thwang!CRUNCH of metal meeting bone. He'd survived that, traversed so many unsuspected levels of pain to a place of weary numbness, and everything before that, only to end up here. Broken, beaten, bloody, and so very lost.
Again.
He couldn't remember how he'd wound up like this again. The world was vague and distant. All that existed was the splitting headache (crowbar to the skull) pounding at his brain, and the salt-and-iron taste of blood (failure) in his mouth. Jay drifted in and out of consciousness, haunted by ghosts and the knowledge that he wasn't, hadn't been, would never be, good enough.
Sometime later, as he was floating toward wakefulness again, something real entered his awareness: a hand at his neck. Jay reacted instantly, instinct and training honed to deadly efficiency. One hand under the pillow his head rested on, finding his gun and bringing it out. The other shot out to grab his assailant, catching a fistful of cloth, and he had the muzzle of the gun socked into the hollow of his attacker's throat before he even opened his eyes. When he did so, his vision wavered, and he blinked and shook his head, trying to clear it.
"Jason. This is quite unnecessary." He knew that voice; it was a voice he trusted, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Still, his hands tightened on the shirt … and the trigger. The hand at his throat had never moved.
His eyes finally focused, revealing a well-known face and eyes that held not a trace of fear. Talia al Ghul. She looked at him patiently, waiting for him to withdraw the gun, her fingertips still on his pulse.
He felt … like seventeen kinds of shit, honestly. Eyes gritty, muscles aching, head throbbing, throat parched. "You," he growled.
"Of course, dearest. Lie back and rest, for now. You've lost a great deal of blood, and sudden movement must be making it worse." Her cool fingers skimmed his brow. She still hadn't said word one about the damn loaded gun at her throat, and honestly he was starting to feel like an ass for holding it on her.
Memory was coming back, in fits and starts. The final confrontation—all three of them—that insane laugh, the one he heard even in silence—Bruce walking away, fucking walking away like it was nothing, like he was nothing, and then….
Jay let go of Talia, his hand flying to his neck, and he winced at the fresh ache there. "Sonofabitch. Fucking batarang to the jugular." No wonder he felt like shit. He must've lost a ton of blood. Jay vaguely remembered slapping a military-grade wound sealing patch on his neck and staggering out after the big bang, but then … nothing.
He let the gun drop beside him, letting his eyes fall shut. "So what happened?" he asked hoarsely. "And how'd I get here?"
Talia clicked her tongue softly. "I've been keeping watch, but I was not an eyewitness to every moment of it. From what I did see, someone detonated a completely unnecessary amount of C4, and yet you escaped the blast more or less intact. You made it into the next building before you collapsed from blood loss and shock. I picked you up from there, and brought you here to recuperate."
"So where's here, T?" Every time he blinked, it felt like his eyeballs were grating in their sockets.
"My safehouse. London. You've been unconscious for almost two days." He could hear her moving something around to one side of him, and then blessed coolness started running down his arm. An IV, he realized, and she'd just hung a new bag of fluids. Nothing you'd find in a hospital, knowing Talia, but he wasn't worried about poison. Or sedatives, for that matter.
Jay had bigger things in mind. "What about him? And the fucking clown?"
She hesitated, and Jay opened one eye to glare at her. He tilted the gun up, not quite a threat, just a reminder that he had it. She looked disappointed, but he didn't care. At last she sighed. "The Detective lives, of course. As for the Joker … you will learn this eventually. He is back in Arkham. In a full-body cast."
Bruce won. Batman won. All that planning, all that time, all that effort … and the fucker still won. Jay didn't realize he'd snarled it aloud until Talia caught his chin and made him look at her. "He didn't win, Jason."
"Oh yeah? This was supposed to end with Joker dead, or me dead. And if all else failed, with all three of us dead. That goddamn pointy-eared bastard managed to work it out his way. His fucking stupid, blind, holier-than-thou way!" Shouting made his throat even rawer, and Jay winced.
"We've both underestimated his resolve," Talia said quietly. "He will not kill. Not for me, not for you, not for my father, not for himself. It is the one line he will not cross. The line you crossed, and showed him what he is and what he could have been, had he been less fearful of taking that final step. You won, Jason."
"Funny, I don't feel like I won a goddamn thing," he muttered, finally lying back down, but keeping the gun close at hand. Talia stroked his sweat-matted hair off his forehead, and he sighed. Despair was starting to overtake anger. What had made him think, even with everything he knew, that he could control Bruce? That he could force Bruce into choosing between a son—no, a soldier—and a psychotic? "I should've just offed them both."
"Would it have given you peace to have them lying dead at your feet?" Talia asked, her voice neutral.
"Probably not. Besides, you'd do me in for killing your 'beloved'." He couldn't help the sneer at the end. Jay knew—or thought he did—where her loyalties lay, regardless of who Talia herself happened to be laying at the time.
He heard her take a breath. "Jason. Murder does not confer peace. That is something I learned a very long time ago, and it was a hard lesson. Killing either of them would not silence your nightmares or soothe your soul."
He laughed bitterly. "Oh shit, the assassin—the one who trained me to kill—is telling me not to kill people. What the fuck has the world come to?"
Unperturbed, she answered, "Vengeance, now, that is another matter. And vengeance is yours. You brought him to his knees, Jason. You wounded him as no other has or could. The son he mourned is now his foe—and it is his fault. Better to let him live with that, than to grant him the oblivion of death."
That, finally, brought him a small measure of relief for the burning ache in his chest, and Jay even managed a lopsided smile. "You're one vindictive woman, Talia."
"Quite." With that she leaned in and kissed his temple, her long hair brushing his cheek. "Sleep, dearest. Sleep and heal."
Even as he let himself drift toward hopefully-dreamless slumber, Jay knew he wouldn't—couldn't—stay here for long.