Summary: Bruce gets a talking-to, and Isobu gets to watch a movie.

The microchip sitting on Bruce's desk sat there, innocently, as though there was no possible way it embodied a narrowly averted disaster. The same size as the head of a pin, it represented a leap forward in data compression and could even extend its formatting into a human nervous system when encoded, applied, and activated.

Bruce wanted nothing more than to pitch it into the air like a clay pigeon and let Clark's heat vision do the rest. Let its legacy—the Joker's legacy—be ash in the wind for the rest of time.

And yet, here it was. Contained inside of a Faraday cage, isolated from all direct human contact, and handled only with gloves, tweezers, and a standby chemical torch. Imminently destructible and still intact, because it was still hiding secrets.

Secrets that Bruce had to know.

"Genbu's account of recent events has its uncertainties," J'onn had said, at the beginning of what would become one of the most dread-inducing conversations in Bruce's life. "But she was honest when discussing her suspicions about the Joker's recent activities. No amount of telepathic resistance training would hide that much genuine hatred, particularly when backed by two minds. Where she falls short is in understanding the details of the scheme. I hope this assists the remainder of the investigation."

"The remainder" implied that there was substantial work being done elsewhere to bring the case to a close. That there was any work Bruce could leave to another party.

Bruce didn't believe that for a second.

As predicted, the Gotham City Police Department's efforts to organize their analysts ended once Bruce relayed his well-substantiated theory to Commissioner Gordon, that the corpses were the Joker and Harley Quinn. While officers already present tried not to disturb the scene, Bruce caught several of them—Detective Bullock being the loudest—openly congratulating "whoever" had done the deed and saved the state the cost of an execution.

"What did this?" Gordon had asked, standing back as his men took photos and set up a perimeter hours too late.

Days too late, Bruce thought in that moment, cut to the bone. Just like me.

"The Joker's most recent victim," Bruce had said, equally as truthful as he was sickened by it. The margins between life and death were thin enough to cut.

Gordon looked somehow older in that moment than Bruce had ever seen. Even so, he let the answer lie.

"If you ask me," Bullock told his fellows at the time, perfectly audible even through his habitual toothpick chewing, "it couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy. We should find the guy who did it and give him a medal."

A paramedic, wearing the uniform of the second-largest ambulance company in Gotham, dispassionately proclaimed both "dead on arrival" after one look at the uncovered bodies. Neither was whole enough for any attempts at resuscitation. Even if either the Joker or Harley Quinn were still in a state where it looked possible, Batman doubted anyone would have bothered.

After that, the remainder of Bruce's time on the scene changed nothing.

Bruce, who had stolen every scrap of information related to Robin's presence in Arkham that night, left the officers to their work with that last parting shot ringing in his ears. The camera was in the Batmobile with every roll of film from the site, as were samples of nearly every liquid in the Joker's arsenal. DNA samples from the operating table and a hidden storage cell would lead nowhere after Bruce destroyed the relevant pieces. If he could do nothing for the dead, or for Genbu's return to her own world, he could at least protect Tim from scrutiny.

He'd failed already in so many other ways. Even this was deeply inadequate. Now, all he could do was burn the evidence. The incinerator was ready.

If he was less logical, less calculating, he would have followed through. The worst of Hatter's mind control devices only began to approach this level of sophistication. The worst of Brainiac's nanotechnology was clearly reverse-engineered by human hands and put back in play, but Bruce had personally supervised the purge of his lingering nanites and digital ghosts years ago. This new problem was by all accounts an electronic abomination and deserved to be incinerated. And yet, Bruce did not.

Because he had to know where the Joker had gotten this.

Because as long as this insidious threat existed—manufactured, potentially implying more— Bruce couldn't leave a single stone unturned. Threats fell from the sky what felt like every week, but this one was an Earth original.

"Bruce, you need to rest."

"I need to find out what went wrong." Bruce's voice was cold steel. He stood up from his workbench, nearly upending his chair, and turned to Clark with his cowl up and his scowl plain as the S on Clark's chest.

"You're not going to find answers while you're exhausted." Clark's demeanor was one of infuriating calm. "I get it. I do. Do you think I don't know how it feels when someone that you're close to—that you're responsible for—is hurt and you can't do anything to fix it?"

As though the sight of Tim's pale, haggard face wasn't burned into Bruce's memory. The sound of his quiet, hitching breaths would haunt the nightmares due the next time he dared sleep. Even his phantom grip on Bruce's costume cape lingered like a ghost.

And Bruce had made him leave. To the Watchtower, to safety—elsewhere.

Gordon had already offered to quash the investigation, in his quiet way, reading the devastation in Bruce's countenance like a Kryptonian.

And Bruce buckled. Agreed without words.

And even so—

Clark wasn't thinking of that. He was thinking of Kara, who'd been beaten into a coma by Clark's own hands and barely saved from dying on the spot by every medical intervention known to man and then some. That she recovered fully was the next best thing to a miracle. If STAR labs had been half an hour slower, she might not have.

Clark took that helplessness out on Darkseid's men.

Bruce—couldn't do that. In this state, if he went back out onto the streets, he didn't trust that everyone would go home alive. Least of all himself. He'd stopped short of putting the Cave on lockdown as a way of ensuring the choice wouldn't be made tonight.

Clark kept talking. For all that he could fly, he preferred to stand his ground when it came to Bruce. "But this isn't the hill to go dying on. You have to take care of yourself."

A part of Bruce wanted to lash out. The rest of him knew that led to broken fingers and a shouting match with either Dick or Barbara, whoever deigned to check on him first. And Alfred, when he emerged from cooking all of Tim's favorites in a desperate attempt to prepare for a gentle homecoming. There was so little they could do now.

The helplessness burned like battery acid, worse than any trap a Rogue had ever set for him in the last ten years.

No, it burned exactly as badly.

Because this was the result of Bruce's complacency. Of recklessly dragging a child into this endless, self-destructive spiral, chasing justice for a city ruthless in its capacity for grinding good into dust. Dragging Tim into this crusade—and Dick before him, and Barbara by inaction—was a mistake. A miscalculation. The worst decisions of his life, all compiled by risking more than his own.

Bruce lived every day defined by his parents' deaths. The tragedy that changed the course of his life together. He bore the cowl and mantle because honoring them—the oath he'd sworn to them— was as much a part of him as breathing. He was Batman until either Gotham was saved or he died in the pursuit of justice.

But those three nights—

Those agonizing nights.

Bruce never considered that there was a terror worse than kneeling there in an alleyway, covered in his parents' blood, until he realized his son was gone. Like someone had ripped his heart out of his chest and crushed it in front of him, taking all color in the world with it.

"The best way to take care of any of this," Bruce ground out at last, hearing his voice echoing off the Batcave's rocky walls, "is to make it sure can never happen again."

"I hope you're planning to consult Tim for at least some of that," Dick's voice called from the stairs. He leapt from the top, over a guardrail, and rolled neatly to a stop just in front of the Batcomputer platform in time to take the last two steps up. "Seeing as he was the one who went through hell. In case you needed the reminder, old man."

"Dick."

"Bruce," was the sharp response. Still in his full Nightwing costume, as he had been the last several times Bruce had seen him, Dick stalked forward until he could jab an accusing finger against the bat on Bruce's chest. "You should be on the Watchtower, not in your case files. Tim needs you there."

Tim needed Bruce surgically removed from his life. What had he ever done other than put that boy in more danger?

Bruce clenched his hands into fists beneath the all-encompassing dark of his cape. No doubt Clark could see the movement. "Tim has you and Barbara. You should be with him."

Dick stepped back half a foot, clearly frustrated. He turned his attention to Clark and said, "So, this is what he's been like the whole time." His tone was too flat for the implied question, and too cold to speak with Clark. "Hate to say it, but he's living down to expectations."

"What brings you here, Dick?" Clark asked, too conciliatory for Bruce's liking. Bruce knew he would take Dick's side fully eighty percent of the time if their arguments escalated.

"Talking sense into him, what else?" Dick shook his head and held an arm out as though to indicate everything Bruce was doing wrong. He jerked his head around to face Bruce again as soon as he finished the movement. "Thanks for trying," he added without looking in Clark's direction, "but I think he needs a bit more than gentle words and a guilt trip for his own sake. You might want to cover your ears."

Clark rocked back, in a way that set him briefly drifting through the air. His cape flowed with him, disturbing days of neglected dust. They'd all been too busy to clean. "I think I need to stay exactly where I am."

"No. Go—this isn't something you should hear."

"Dick—"

Dick blew out a slow breath. "Tell Alfred we'll be up in a few minutes. Both of us. He doesn't need to worry."

Clark paused, clearly torn.

"And neither do you." Dick let a note of desperation enter his voice. "Please."

Bruce nodded when Clark looked his way. So, either cowed or swayed by that reasoning, Clark flew toward the stairs and out the secret passageway.

"Bruce." Agitation visible loud and clear in his body language, mask and costume be damned, Dick said, "I've been keeping my nose out of things here. I have my own city to manage. My own life."

Bruce didn't reply. Once, Dick wouldn't have minded those silences. He could search for meaning in what Bruce couldn't put into words, as in sync as a pair of performers on the same stage. Nowadays, he took them as a slight. Called Bruce manipulative and controlling and too narrow-minded to view anyone as an equal.

Bruce had heard it all before. At length.

Instead of ranting, Dick rose to his full height and said in a voice of pure ice, "You never stop, do you. That's the whole point of Batman as a concept. You won't stop until the job kills you. And you're not even afraid of that. Batman fears nothing. He is fear."

Bruce expected some kind of qualifier there. Something, like a scenario or a caveat where Dick would drill his point home and throw Bruce's failures in his face. His hackles rose just thinking about it, already primed for a fight. He just about managed to keep his teeth-grinding to a minimum in anticipation.

Instead, what Dick said was worse.

"Then stop running away from being Tim's dad."

"I'm not running from anything—" The sentence escaped Bruce unbidden, blistering on the way out.

Legally since Steven Drake's death and emotionally since nearly the first night Tim stayed in Wayne Manor—yes. Tim was Bruce's second son. Which meant there was no way he could stand to lose Tim, or Dick, and yet, they were what the world would take if he gave it half a chance ever again.

There would be no more Robin. There couldn't be. The risk to Tim was unacceptable.

Bruce opened his mouth to say something proactive, and Dick steamrolled right over him. "He talked himself out of asking for you. Like he knew you'd be too busy digging yourself into an emotional foxhole to bother."

Objectively, there was plenty of air in the Batcave. But Bruce couldn't breathe.

It—this was the best choice. Bruce needed to rip his hooks out of Tim and make a clean break, giving him a real chance to live a normal life. Maybe he'd have to be sent to a boarding school to force the issue, but it could be done. He could start again.

"You don't get to freeze him out," Dick snapped, stepping past Bruce to the lab station. "I don't give a shit if you do that to me, again, but Tim's fifteen years old. He still lives in this house. He's been through enough without adding another deadbeat parent to the list."

The chill of the Batcave sank impossibly past Bruce's layers of armor. Dick's last sentence rang against the stone like a church bell. Like steel striking the ground amid demolition charges.

Losing Tim would rip Bruce's heart out. But he'd break everything between them if Tim got to live safely, no matter the cost. He'd have no choice—

"There is nothing critical keeping you here besides your avoidance tactics," Dick said as he placed one of his electrified escrima on the metal of the Faraday cage, thumb over the switch.

As though he planned to destroy the evidence solely to remove Bruce's options.

Bruce surged forward. "Dick, don't you dare—"

Dick withdrew his weapon, stowing it in the hidden storage rack between his shoulder blades. He didn't flinch at Bruce's sudden movement, staring him down with such scouring disappointment that Bruce didn't want to meet his eyes even through the mask.

Bruce couldn't help but feel he'd failed a test. One of many.

Sometimes, it felt like all he ever did.

"This," Dick said quietly, "might just be what you do. Hell, we're all used to this tunnel vision and overplanning and catastrophizing. You raised me to take every precaution, every advantage, and I'm still standing here today. Alive." He leaned back a little, onto his preferred foot in case of a fight. Even so, he kept his shoulders loose. Nonconfrontational. "But I'm still telling you: Be better."

Bruce closed his eyes behind his cowl. He let his hands drop to his sides, still curled into loose fists, and listened to the slow sound of both his and Dick's breathing. To his heartbeat in his ears and in his throat. In the depths of the dark, bats chattered to each other amidst the colony in preparation for their morning routine—resting for another night.

"Give me fifteen minutes to store everything." That ought to be enough.

Dick clicked something in his glove, not even hesitating. "You get ten. Go."

Bruce pulled his cowl down, brows furrowed at his first son, but he got to work.

Public relations were pretty simple among shinobi. If the usual leadership foundation could be broken down neatly, one of the cornerstones was respect. That was non-negotiable, outlined by Machiavelli and then misused by tyrants the world over. Love was an optional factor, and not all candidates for power excelled at cultivating good relationships with those they ruled. Shinobi could afford to be unloveable as long as they were competent, at least in political terms.

But while not always feared by the populace they ruled, the various Kage-equivalent shinobi needed reputations as fearsome as they could manage. Treaties depended on the strength of their backers. And the main enforcement was the threat of war.

Aside from the trappings of war—espionage, sabotage, assassination, blockades, and so on—there was only one real way to keep hold of power: To be so terrifying that people didn't offer challenges. Because if they did, everyone involved would suffer. Imminently, inexorably, and without mercy. Bad actors would be crushed. Proper standards for behavior would be upheld on pain of pain. And then death.

Sensei usually just went straight for the kill. The two hundred enemy shinobi with their throats cut in a single battle attested to that much. People looked at Sensei's reputation and ran the other way, officially. Because facing him meant suicide with extra steps.

In that framework, Batman's preference for wielding fear as a weapon and then clobbering those the law couldn't otherwise touch made sense. Making it clear that there were lines that would not be crossed was a fundamental principle of maintaining control anywhere. But unlike most shinobi attempting similar schemes, killing wasn't a part of his playbook.

This wasn't to say that people didn't die. Gotham was a violent city with a lot of organized crime and supervillains. Sometimes the bad guys were both. The official record still wouldn't have "cause of death: Batman" written down anywhere.

Unlike shinobi warlords strong enough to concern the international community, Batman answered to his conscience—predominately the memory of his parents. And he couldn't fight literally an entire city, given a) lack of powers, b) lack of interest in running a police state, and c) if his entire city fought him, he was doing at least a dozen things wrong and needed to stop.

Not that he would. But he should. Probably. It wasn't like Kei could read his mind.

How this all applied to Robin's situation was a little murkier.

Kei's upbringing made things straightforward to a fault. It had been modeled for her over and over again, from the start of her second life onward.

Mom viewed threats to her family through a mountain of trauma, or so Kei suspected. Though they hadn't found out until after her death, one did not embark on a sixty-target solo assassination streak without powerful motivators. And even if Kei's mother eventually lost her life in the process, she fought for her family the entire way. Kei suspected that if her dad had lived long enough, he'd have behaved the same way.

Someone threatened Sensei's kids? Whether biological or "merely" apprenticed to him? He'd gut that person with a kunai. And he had. Repeatedly, especially during the war, and even though all three of his students were basically grown now and handling solo missions just fine.

With a couple of exceptions.

And Kei, in turn, killed anyone who got close to hurting Hayate. No matter how badly hurt she was, his safety came first and she would enforce that. More recently, she had cemented that streak regarding her students with much more violence, given the bodies tallied after the Sorayama Incident. She'd learned from some of the best in that regard.

Isobu didn't bother with all the woolgathering and just killed when it made sense to do it.

And so, Kei and Isobu had applied their solution for the problem placed in front of them. In front of Isobu, really, since Kei had not been offering her input. Snicker-snack, off went the Jabberwock's head.

This was, to put it mildly, not fully aligned with the social mores of a world where a justice system…existed.

Nobody had argued directly against the violence that allowed Robin to escape further harm. Kei felt pushback from Batman and his allies, but nothing like the explosion that might have occurred under different circumstances. They were apparently okay with villains dying during a mission as long as they weren't the ones dealing the killing blow.

Kei couldn't stop thinking about it.

Suffice it to say: Kei did not pay a lot of attention to Supergirl's attempt at a tour. Isobu could play it back for her later if he felt like being generous.

In the here and now, it was still fine, given that Supergirl seemed to think that the best way to keep Kei's interest was peppering her with questions of varying relevance. None of them demanded particularly thoughtful answers.

"Thoughts on Lex Luthor?"

"He should be in prison."

"No argument there. And about the Ultimen?"

"The who?"

"Not important." Supergirl did a loop around Fire in her transformed state, dodging without so much as losing speed even on the turn. As she righted them both, Supergirl asked, "Anyway, pineapple on pizza?"

"I don't mind." Kei wasn't that picky. It'd been so long since she had pizza that she was ready to consider anything an option. "But now I want pizza."

At least she didn't have allergies to anything in pizza. Konoha had all the base ingredients, but the particular innovation had passed them by. It was one of those everyday, petty tragedies, and not one Kei generally found time to dwell on at home.

"Oh, good, so do I. There's this place down in Metropolis where they swear they've been making them longer than anywhere but New York and maybe Italy—" Then Supergirl cut herself off, frowning a little as she started slowing down. "Though I guess you're not leaving the Watchtower for a while."

"It depends," Kei said, to be accurate. It was similar to pedantry, but with a gentler tone to make it marginally less annoying.

"On what?"

"Whatever the Justice League decides." Though it was nice of them to let her keep borrowing stuff, even if Supergirl was currently doing most of the heavy lifting. Of Kei. And the stuff.

"Wow, you don't need to sound so excited about it."

Kei didn't have the energy to be excited about anything. Even the view of Earth outside the Watchtower's huge windows didn't evoke much emotion at the moment. Said window was fairly close to the end of their circuit around the station, and Supergirl slowed to a gentle floating pace as they approached the infirmary again. Kei could recognize some of the identical halls by now.

Setting Kei on her feet after that too-quick trip, Supergirl noticed that fleeting interest. "It's quite a view, isn't it?"

"Yeah." When Supergirl paused like she expected Kei to explain herself, she added, "I've never been in space before. But I guess this is old news to you."

"Just because it's something I've seen before doesn't mean it's also boring," Supergirl pointed out. With a little shrug, she said, "Before joining the Justice League, I still spent most of my time down there. Getting used to Earth, one day at a time."

Ah. Supergirl was another one of Krypton's refugees, which meant her home planet was probably so much radioactive space dust. "You're not…from there, right? You came here from space."

"Right. Honestly, I thought everyone knew the official Supergirl history."

Supergirl in general? Maybe. The whole space-Moses thing was hard to forget. Kei didn't remember this Supergirl's backstory, or if there were any differences between what had happened to her and what had happened to one tiny Super-baby a long time ago. The scale of the tragedy was too large to wrap her brain around it. And so, Kei shook her head.

"Wait, really?"

"I know you're Superman's cousin. And he's…the last survivor of Krypton." Kei stopped, uncertain and suddenly aware of it. Was that supposed to be true here? "That doesn't make sense."

"Not when you put it like that, it doesn't." Supergirl sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. "Give me a second. And tell me what kind of pizza you want."

Kei's stomach was still iffy about the sandwich from earlier. At least it wasn't an allergic reaction. And if she ducked her head the right way, she could hide her head under one of these darn blankets. "…Honestly, I don't think I can eat right now."

Supergirl eyed her. For reasons of "being a pretty blonde with blue eyes who could kill with a glance, but literally" it reminded Kei of being stared down by Sensei when Kei may have interpreted orders with more leeway than anticipated. A little. Her stomach didn't need more reason to do flips.

Only Supergirl didn't have ten years of authority over Kei's life. "Then forget about me. Are you nervous?"

Though she nodded, the admittance took something out of Kei. Maybe her will to live. "There's an ongoing investigation I'm technically a part of, down on Earth. And there's…all this." Even Kei wasn't quite sure what she meant; Robin's attachment to her, her inability to go home, or her fucked-up arm and the potential it might be examined by entirely new eyes. "So I don't know what'll happen next."

Supergirl cut Kei off from immediate progress toward the infirmary, but just by drifting into her path. It was the gentlest "stop" order Kei had ever gotten. "Hang on a second."

Kei stared at her for a while, then ventured, "…Supergirl?"

Supergirl took a deep breath, floated a little upward to get a height advantage, and put her hands on Kei's shoulders without squeezing or even really restricting her movements. And, in a reassuring voice, Supergirl said, "No matter what, you're going to be okay."

"Thank you?" What else was she supposed to say to that?

Sensing her hesitation—hardly a feat—Supergirl elaborated, "I'm just saying, we don't exactly invite people here on a whim." Kei hadn't assumed they did. "Now, let's get in there and visit some patients."

Kei grasped wildly for a response that wouldn't somehow jack the tension up even further. What came out was, "…because they've been very patient?"

"One, that was super cheesy, and two, so have we." Still, Supergirl let go of Kei with no further protest. Something had still relaxed in her demeanor, though Kei didn't know what. "Come on. We can talk about homeworlds later."

The infirmary was actually a little busier than before, maybe because the time zone thing was in play. Places in space apparently ran on Coordinated Universal Time. To Kei, who had lived in a world that couldn't agree on anything besides their common language and love of magically stabbing other people, it was a smidgen of disturbing familiarity, like déjà vu from a lifetime ago. Or maybe someone's mission went bad and now the doctors and nurses were on alert. Kei, as a guest somewhat involuntarily, didn't think she had a right to ask. She certainly wasn't covered by HIPAA.

Like everything else, though, a superhero pushed gently through the bewilderment and red tape and set Kei in the right spot.

Which was in front of the room where, earlier, a lot of medics had been fussing over Robin. A nurse looked up as they approached and waved to Supergirl, but that was the extent of the current staff presence.

This was fine. It was fine. Kei was mostly intact and unlikely to just drop dead. An airlock wasn't going to burst open and suck them all into space without warning. There wasn't a reunion she was avoiding so hard the void seemed briefly preferable.

But…now what?

"Are you okay?" Supergirl asked, as though baffled by Kei's hesitation. She tilted her head toward the still-concealed room and said, "About five different people have told you Robin wants to see you, right? You'll be fine."

Just go in, Isobu urged her without a hint of guilt. And, well, what did he have to be guilty for? He'd defended himself and Kei's life in an undeniable fashion. He also wasn't the one who had to interact with these people all the time.

Kei pushed the curtain open before she second-guessed herself into running away. With Supergirl at her back and her chakra reserves sitting at well below standard, it wasn't like she'd get anywhere. She just needed to swallow her fear back down where Isobu could grab it and kill it.

There was a gasp when she entered, coming clearly from the adjustable hospital bed. Given two whole vigilantes sitting on it, Kei took a wild guess and assumed the one who reacted to her presence was not Batgirl. Batgirl had seen Kei a few hours ago with clear eyes and her detective hat on, so to speak, so Kei's presence was in no way a surprise.

Kei bowed, bending far enough that she was perhaps overly polite. But between the mask and her overgrown bangs, no one had to know she was observing the room without making it obvious.

Her most relevant thought: Robin was out of uniform. No red sorta-armor; aside from a mask that didn't look as beaten-up as the one before, he was just a kid in a hospital bed, looking vaguely ill. A little too pale, a little too frail, but alive despite the burns, the drugs, the captivity—

Even so, something in that boy's face, undisguised, lit up when he saw her.

Matching relief flared in Kei's chest, unbidden. Damn the Joker for his existence, but Robin—he'd lived.

He'd live. For a long time, hopefully.

And then there was the second-place finisher: Batgirl swinging her legs off the bed, rounding the room to greet Kei. In a split second, she was close enough to catch Kei's bow on the way down.

Ordinarily, that would be strange. "No touchie" was a tried and true social rule in a lot of places. But unlike normal, Kei bowed with her arms in front of her and full of stuff, instead of at her sides, so Batgirl was able to touch her elbow instead of her shoulder as she straightened her spine again.

It still felt weird.

"Let me take some of those," Batgirl said, like she hadn't just zoomed across the small room to say something that inane.

"…If you insist," was the only response Kei could think of.

Batgirl did insist, and piled all of Kei's stuff at the foot of Robin's bed because the mattress was sized for giants. From a quick glance, Robin was nowhere near running out of legroom.

It left Kei with exactly one item of concern blinking on her priority list.

Batgirl asked, "Is something wrong?"

Kei sighed. Then she reached across her body and neatly removed the fingernail-sized spy device from the underside of her sling. While still staring down the suddenly-sheepish Batgirl, she stuck it to her borrowed sweater like name tag; for absurd bonus points, the little device was shaped like a bat, because these people were nothing if not suckers for branding.

Batgirl's sleight-of-hand was good, but Kei and Sensei used the same techniques when planting fūinjutsu on people during battle. Given how Sensei fought, his iteration of Tag-You're-Dead was much more devastating than Kei's, and she was the one who preferred magical sticky bombs.

"It's not what you think," Batgirl said, clearly focusing on Kei's stone-still face. "Zatanna's already tracking you. That is a panic button."

Kei would have preferred just to give that idea a skeptical eyebrow, and yet her mask thwarted her scheme. Instead, she asked in a quiet tone, "Why hide it?"

"I didn't want to distract you." Batgirl stood up to her full height, either shameless or capable of hiding any lingering doubts. "You already have enough to deal with."

Like Kei wasn't capable of distracting herself ten times over. Overthinking was what she did. "Batgirl—"

"Genbu," Batgirl interrupted in the gentlest way Kei had heard since home, which was a terrible thing to realize now, "you nearly died."

Kei didn't frown. She bit the inside of her cheek and stood there like a training post, waiting for a blow to fall. It wasn't like she hadn't almost died before; hell, one could argue that close calls were more a part of the shinobi job description than killing. The main difference now was that people who didn't know Kei's lifestyle were around to make a fuss about it.

"And even if you're tougher than the average person, and even if you're on the Watchtower, having some way to call for help without alerting everyone at once is important." Batgirl nodded toward the doorway. "Not that you can't call for Supergirl, but you looked overwhelmed earlier. I thought it'd be best if you had a way to signal to someone—subtly—that you needed a hand."

If you wanted to bug me, Kei thought, you could have asked. Like Zatanna did. And yet, because of Robin's vulnerability, Kei's (constrained) power, and the situation they all found themselves in while trapped on a space station, Kei couldn't really blame any of them for their caution.

Besides, while she could destroy a Bat-bug and probably snap Zatanna's anklet without losing a foot, there were two more reasons Kei was considered an option of last resort for stealth missions.

And I am not ashamed of that fact.

Keep telling yourself that.

"It looks good on you," Batgirl offered to Kei's ringing silence, as though as a condolence. It did not even approach being an apology.

Kei straightened the Bat-tracker on her sweater rather than replying.

Robin snorted. He'd been watching this entire passive-aggressive interaction like a spectator at a chess tournament, keeping almost entirely silent and judging them both.

Kei figured that was his right.

Batgirl turned a frown on him, but its weight was ruined by the relieved slump of her shoulders. It seemed any sign of life was appreciated.

With a sigh only Isobu could hear, Kei considered her options. Getting into any kind of spat here was counterproductive to everyone's goals and would probably result in expulsion from either the infirmary or the station. What came to mind was: "You look better, Robin."

"L-Low bar," was Robin's reply, croaky literally and dry figuratively. Or maybe both of them were literal. No one looked great while trapped in a hospital room by injury or illness. "But…same to you?"

Kei wanted to brush that off the same way, but it was an accurate assessment. She'd definitely had better days. Hyper-aware of Batgirl's attention and wanting to scrape it off her like an old snakeskin, Kei cautiously extended her good hand and was surprised when Robin mirrored her, with a bit more shakiness. She lurched forward to make sure he didn't overbalance, dragging a chair along with one quick foot and ending up sitting at Robin's bedside.

And Robin let out a bone-shuddering sigh of relief once Kei clasped her fingers around his.

The occupant was unfamiliar, but Kei knew this scene by heart. The weight of a human hand in hers, the quiet enforced by convention and convalescence, and a miserable teenager unable to stand on their own—hell, she could have been the one in the bed and called it a self-portrait. Even Batgirl, looming as best she could, didn't toss the comparison out the window. A few months between Kei's situation now and getting impaled by Kusanagi didn't remove the memory.

No, you blame me for that.

You say that like I'm wrong. But Kei preferred not to think about that, because it would just piss her off every single time. She took a deep breath and tried to blank out her mind, in the hopes it would keep her calm.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Batgirl prompted, maybe noticing how she froze under the force of recollection. Honestly, Kei half-wished there were more participants in this conversation so someone else could be caught spacing out instead of her. It was always her.

To Robin and Batgirl, and without letting her Isobu-spawned annoyance show, she said, "I'm fine. The Martian Manhunter, um, talked to my brain-roommate, so we're good."

"Good to know," Batgirl said, as though she hadn't tried to disguise espionage techniques with "justifiable concern" earlier. "That's good. Robin, do you mind if I leave Genbu with you? I need to check in with Supergirl first, but Nightwing took a detour back down to Earth and isn't answering his calls."

That on its own was an alarming show of either trust or negligence, but Batgirl doubled down on the first option when Robin accepted the deal. Like letting Robin babysit their newest person of interest was fine and dandy while Batgirl went around herding Bats.

What a strange clan.

Kei understood the urge to gather all members of a family under one roof—or on one space station—when the wolves howled at the door. All kinds of organizations closed ranks under threat. It made doing headcounts and rearming themselves to face a disaster so much easier. But some of those people needed to be retrieved, and it seemed Batgirl was going to be the voice of reason.

Robin snorted again, illustrating perfectly what he thought of Batgirl's…bedside manner? Did it still count if she was neither at Robin's bedside nor responsible for his medical concerns? Regardless, he lifted his other hand enough to wave at Batgirl as she departed.

"Can I take my mask off now?" Kei asked. While her left arm was still in a sling, it was mostly a reminder not to use it for combat. She could wiggle out of it to pry the plastic thing off her face.

Robin's eyebrows rose. "But—" Perhaps that had been too sharp, because he immediately fell into coughing, cutting off the thought.

Kei squeezed his hand as she waited for him to finish. At the same time, Kei glanced around for a cup of water and found none. There was an IV in his other hand that seemed to handle keeping him hydrated, even if it was no good for his throat. Her other main instinct was to smack him in the back once or twice to make him stop. It was a bedside manner worthy of a housecat.

"I don't have a secret identity," Kei pointed out once Robin was left just breathing through the rush of that exertion.

If Kei could scrape together enough chakra control to perform a diagnostic jutsu, maybe she could expedite at least a little of Robin's recovery. It didn't take much to encourage bruises, cuts, and minor swelling on their way. Here, heroes with healing powers were thin on the ground compared to those who could juggle tanker trucks, and that never seemed quite as unfair as times like this. And here Kei was, unable to use much power without tripping some kind of alert. She'd rather avoid risking being dogpiled by heroes on a hair trigger.

"It's—okay…" Trailing off, Robin just nodded rather than fight his broken voice the entire time.

Kei started prying at the mask's edges with her fingernails. While Robin made annoyed noises that sounded like "solvent" and "eyebrows," Kei had been wearing this thing long enough that her skin's natural oils were interfering with what was clearly costume glue. Going slowly, she eased the material off her eyes with a minimum of stinging. And where it did, a little, Isobu's chakra buzzed through her coils and numbed the sensation immediately.

Kei took a few seconds to blink, feeling the air on her eyes for the first time in too long, and figured enough of her eyebrows had survived to be tolerable. Then she lifted her gaze to meet Robin's.

Robin tilted his head a little as he observed her in return. "Your e-eyes…?"

Not that Kei had a mirror, but… "Yellow or black?"

Robin held up one finger. Then paused and tried to sign something to her for a few careful seconds. When he realized Kei's look of blank incomprehension was honest, he managed in a croaky rush, "They were black earlier—"

"No, no, it's not a bad thing." She set the mask on the bedside table and ran a finger around her eyes, feeling the remainder of the glue and peeling the bits away. "It's, um, the most obvious sign that Isobu's around. His magic makes my eyes glow."

Robin nodded, since it seemed like speaking was still a chore. Maybe it was as reassuring for him to hear that Isobu was paying attention to current events as it was for Kei, when she wasn't mad at her anti-conscience. It wasn't an uncommon sentiment among shinobi whose careers overlapped with those of their parents, either. Knowing all the claws and teeth involved would only ever be aimed at the enemy made certain at least one aspect of childhood danger taken firmly off the table, though others existed.

Like…basically everything to do with this situation, hastily modified for the existence of vigilantes rather than underage shinobi.

"You can still call me Genbu. Or Kei. It's okay. Like I said, no secret identity." She was in multiple countries' Bingo Books under her own name and face. If Kei wanted to hide in anonymity, the opportunity passed her by years ago. Now she was "wanted"—or at least considered a massive security risk—in at least three countries she'd never visited. If sensor-class shinobi were more common, that number would be higher.

Robin managed a little coughing laugh, maybe because Kei's name was a homophone for a letter and American agencies' naming conventions leaned toward an absolute alphabet soup of acronyms.

Or maybe Kei was still punch-drunk from recent events, and her brain latched onto anything as a lifeline even now. Any semblance of comedy would suffice if she couldn't find something to do about her situation. Robin might feel the same way. Sometimes there was nothing to do but laugh.

…That last thought trended too close to the Joker's philosophy for comfort. She needed better coping mechanisms. Kei made a mental note to talk to her therapist about it when she got back.

Well, there were some ways to kill time that didn't involve much talking. Kei reached over enough to grab the tablet again, tossing it onto an empty spot on the bed before wrestling her bad arm back into the sling. The loose sweatshirt fought her long enough that Robin bent to retrieve the tablet, dragging it onto his blanket-covered knees.

But rather than muttered complaints about not being allowed to use screens while concussed, or letting Kei know how to bypass whatever guest locks were keeping her entertainment options narrowed to electronic books and space cameras, Robin reached out and tapped Kei's shoulder.

"Yeah?"

Robin leaned in, so Kei tilted her head to offer him her ear. And he whispered, taking care to enunciate, "What kind of movies does your friend like?"

"Monster movies." Kei didn't even have to think about it, sprawling a little with her good arm folded into an improvised pillow as she leaned over in her chair. "The bigger the disaster, the better."

Robin made an affirmative noise, rusty at best, and tapped a few things before turning the screen around.

Gojira, in the red impact font of the classic film. Well, classics were classics for a reason. Isobu loved the concept of big, scary monsters smashing civilization as a direct consequence of human hubris. The exact details were less important.

Still… "This isn't in English," Kei said, as she poked a few things to bring up the video player program in full-screen mode. The little gray bar that represented how much video had loaded was very small. And there weren't any captions. "Is that okay?"

"S'fine. Probably gonna sleep through it…" Robin murmured. He leaned a little sideways, gripping the sleeve of Kei's sweatshirt until she took the hint and climbed up onto the mattress to sit next to him. While she settled the tablet computer for easy viewing on its little kickstand attachment, toward the foot of the bed, Robin said, "Just…stay."

"Can do," Kei replied, and queued up a few more videos in case Robin actually slept. It'd only last until the other Bats came back. Hopefully, tracking them all down would go smoothly.

Even if Gojira ran out, there was the entire original run of Neon Genesis Evangelion to puzzle over afterwards. She'd never gotten around to it before the whole "oops all ninjas" lifestyle kicked in. It could be fun to view a world that was, on a macro scale, more fucked up than hers. That was the point of mind-screwy, miserable shows, wasn't it? Catharsis, but without having to get into all the messy reality of actually living like that.

Or maybe something softer. Like Lilo and Stitch. She hadn't seen that in more than two decades, and that meant it was well past time to rewatch.

After almost a whole minute to think about it while they sat through the opening credits, Robin leaned fully against Kei's side.

And as though he was Hayate, or one of her students, Kei tilted her body back to accommodate that. She pretended not to notice his contented sigh afterward. If Robin wanted to act like it never happened later, that was going to be easier if she never brought it up. Teenage boys tended to be a bit touchy about some things, and Kei never knew exactly what might cause trouble.

"Rest, Robin. I'll be here," Kei said to the top of his head.

Robin managed to listen through the first twenty minutes of building dread, twitching occasionally as the music and the voiceover leaned into the suspense. But sometime after the collective panic reached Tokyo in earnest, a quiet snore gave him away.

And Isobu, contented in a way that would've frightened most of Kei's ancestors, settled in to guard them both.

Notes:

I know DCAU!Batman doesn't refer to himself as "Bruce" per some of his later appearances, but let's not make things less clear. Also, if Tim hadn't been saved this early on, Dick's intervention strategy would have failed spectacularly.

Clark and Dick don't interact over the course of Batman: The Animated Series or Superman: The Animated Series, but I felt bad that the shows surgically removing Dick from his entire social circle just because Tim was already Robin by the time Superman debuted. Thus, he gets a bit of a rapport and his entire Titans team back (albeit off-screen).

At this point, Isobu probably needs to watch Pinocchio with Kei at least once. He'd love Monstro and probably hate Jiminy Cricket.

Fun fact: The NGE mention is the result of two things. First, a commenter years back made an off-the-cuff remark that the only people who'd be jealous of the Naruto ninja lifestyle must've been EVA pilots in a past life. Much more recently, I was looking up shows pre-2006 with a kaiju focus and it was on the list (somehow), and I started bothering people about whether they'd call the series mecha, kaiju, both, or neither. General consensus: You could call NGE a kaiju series, but most people rightfully think of it as a mecha show first.