My communicator beeps urgently, though it only succeeds in wearing down my already thin patience. I silence it as the blinding gateway explodes into existence in front of me, a whirlpool of light and color. Without hesitation, I enter.

"Where are we at?" I demand as I exit the portal, acknowledging Phantom with a slight incline of my head. I hadn't known it would be him but let nothing-not the change of scenery, his presence nor the pressing matter at hand-distract me.

"Vanishing Point: the end of time," he responds ominously, allowing the portal to close as I step away from it. He's looking a little worse for wear; his hair is a tangled mess, dark shadows fall beneath his eyes and his suit is scratched and dirty. In the white belt around his waist, there's a scroll I'm assuming is the Infa-map.

"And the rest of the League?"

"Already fighting. This way." He gestures down the hallway we're standing in and starts flying down it. I follow at a sprint, cursing the cape for its annoying drag. As we cross the space, Phantom gives me a brief rundown of what's going on. "We followed Batman through time, but he was always a couple steps ahead of us. I think the map did it on purpose, honestly. Pesky, awesome thing."

"Phantom." He can get easily distracted, I'd realized, when he isn't actively fighting. Best to center him before he spiraled.

"Right. So we ended up here, eventually. The guy that 'killed' him actually infected him with something he calls the 'Omega Sanction'. He lost his memory but he has it back now. He used something called the Time Sphere to get everyone here so we can defeat something he calls the 'Hyper-Adapter'. It's been in every time period so far and only here can we touch it. It's powerful, though. We're going to need everyone."

"Good thing I'm here," I grunt, and we reach the end of the hallway. I kick open the double doors into a huge atrium, where I'm overwhelmed by the sheer amount of chaos. The full force of the League is here, barring a couple missings, and they're all going at this bat-like creature that looks just like Batman, but with tentacles and real wings.

I launch into the fight, feeling Phantom leave my side to catch an airborne Green Arrow. The creature is adapting to the might of the League, learning Superman's strength, Flash's speed, Green Lantern's concentration. In its tentacles it squeezes Black Canary, the other Green Lantern, Huntress and Zatanna (the edge of the tentacle wrapping around her mouth to keep it closed), only wasting its energy to squeeze those who can't resist.

With several flicks of my wrist, I send batarangs to protected areas of its body, simultaneously withdrawing a wicked sharp batarang and slicing through the tentacles. They're dense, but not dense enough. They release the members in its grasp and fall, lifeless, to the ground. Unfortunately, they regenerate.

I recognize the beast's pattern for isolating the League members in order to learn them, and shout out orders to retreat into a group. Relief and joy shoot through me when I hear my commands being echoed by none other than Bruce Wayne himself. But now is not the time.

As the beast comes at us as a whole, I shout to Phantom, "Shield, now!"

As the tentacles shoot forward, a glowing green shield materializes around us. The tentacles slam against it, causing Phantom to grunt and add more power. I repeat the command to the two Green Lanterns and Icon, who add their strength to Phantom's shield.

"It's studying us individually," I inform the League, "So we need to fight together. No one League member can add two consecutive attacks. Two or three members will get close and attack, two or more adding some long range from behind. Then we switch before it can catalogue. It's thinking like a computer, so we need to act heuristically."

"That'll only keep it confused," Bruce adds his experience, "We need to get it into the Time Sphere." I take only a couple instants to take in his strange attire: a black jumpsuit shot through with dark gray lines, continuing seamlessly into gloves and boots and ending with his neck. Barring his strange outfit, his face, hair and eyes are the same as they have been since I met him all those years ago. It's Bruce.

"Force it back?" Wonder Woman clarifies, simultaneously reeling me back in and studying the glowing mirror through the shields. I take it that's the Time Sphere. "That might prove difficult."

"What if I overshadow it?" Phantom grunts, still focused on the shield.

Bruce immediately shuts down the idea. "It's power runs off memories. Once it has them, we can't get them back."

Phantom smirks. "Yeah, I'd like to keep those."

"You're in no shape anyway," Superman interjects with finality. "You haven't been back to Amity since we left and haven't recharged."

Phantom groans, "But you don't have to say it…"

"No, if all fails," Bruce announces, "I will allow it to possess me. My memories will come back. It's the Omega energy in me."

"We've been here too long," I worry, watching the tentacles regroup. "It's learned."

"Then let's move," Wonder Woman shouts. "For justice!"

Not waiting to see if anyone takes up her battle cry, she pulls out her sword and flies into the air, breaching the shields. As soon as the shields drop, the League scatters, all preparing attacks. Wonder Woman and the Flash go first, hitting hard high and low, respectively, as Huntress and Green Arrow fire their arrows.

Immediately after their attacks, they fall back and are replaced by Superman, Power Girl and Captain Marvel, who all add several incredible punches that knock the Adapter back. Phantom adds a powerful blast just as they retreat, blowing it back.

Not giving it any time to assess, Green Lantern and I fall in, peppering it with explosives and blasts. Zatanna shouts a fire spell that erupts as soon as we clear the tentacles.

We cycle through, adding more and more power until the entire League is forcing the monster back at once, forcing it towards the Time Sphere. After it's sufficiently disoriented, I shout above the noise, "TOGETHER!" The attacks fall back and the Adapter begins a reboot. Only for half a second, but it's plenty of time. "NOW!"

As one, the super strength heroes combine their forces, backed up by explosive, energy and electrified blasts from the other members, all forcing him back through the Time Sphere. It's enveloped in the light, screeching, and the League falls back.

Phantom is suddenly at my shoulder, urgently telling me something. I don't hear, focusing on the creature and the solitary figure running towards it. From the midst of all the other heroes, Bruce launches at him, entering the Time Sphere as well.

Before I can shout out to him, the Sphere erupts, momentarily blinding me. Blinding everyone.

The screech of the Adapter is suddenly gone, leaving confused chatter as everyone clears their vision. When mine refocuses, I find myself in the Watchtower, surrounded by the League. "Bruce!" I shout, silencing the other members.

"Here," responds Superman, and I stride briskly over to his voice, the other heroes moving aside to let me through. Bruce is on the ground, eyes glowing brightly. "He's trying to talk."

I hold up one hand and every noise ceases. Bruce struggles around heaves in his chest, "Stop… heart…" I shake my head, both not understanding and unwilling to kill him again. He glares at me through the light shining in his eyes. "Stop my… heart… Omega… energy through time… release… before kills me…"

Zatanna appears at my shoulder. "He needs to release the pent up energy he's been gathering. We need to stop his heart."

I look at the members that had gathered. "I need adenosine and epinephrine," I direct to the Flash when I see him. "It's in the med-bay. Now."

He blinks out and returns with a syringe in each hand. "Black Lightning, I need you on standby as an AED. Black Canary, you're doing compressions. Zatanna, Doctor Fate, can mystics help keep him viable for resuscitation?"

They look at each other, then at me. "Not for long," Zatanna allows.

"Long enough," I respond. "Hypothermia will help. Phantom."

There's no response. When I get none, I look up from Bruce, searching those surrounding me. "Phantom?" Superman echoes.

I swear, remembering Phantom's urgent words as Bruce rushed into the Sphere. I can't recall what he said, but recall my brief connection with the word "go". As in, "I have to go." Phantom left. "He's not here," I grit out.

"Fine…" Bruce forces out, trying to speed us along. "Works without him…"

"Okay." I hold out my hand to Flash and get the syringe, carefully checking for air bubbles before holding down Bruce's shaking arm.

"No… Heart…"

Catching his meaning, I hesitate only for a moment before plunging the syringe directly into his heart and releasing the plunger. Bruce groans and his limbs flail of their own accord, jerking and twitching. I step back, gesturing the League to do so as well. Bruce heaves a few more times before falling still.

I glance to Superman. "No heartbeat," he confirms, worry clouding his eyes.

Bruce jerks once, followed by a burst of orange-white energy. It dissipates quickly, soon followed by another burst and another.

The energy bursts gradually decrease in power, slowly, until stopping six minutes after Bruce's cardiac arrest. After fifteen seconds of no other energy burst, I gesture to Black Lightning and the Flash. "Begin compressions, BC."

Black Canary kneels beside Bruce and starts pumping his heart. When I count thirty, I gesture to Black Lightning. "Now."

Black Canary leans back as Black Lightning shocks Bruce with his hands. Black Lightning steps back as I approach and gesture to Flash. "Epi."

Once I inject Bruce with the epi, the cycle repeats. Compressions, shocks. The time worries me, seeming to stretch on, though it'd only been a few minutes longer. I felt like my heart was going to stop.

"It's beating," Superman decrees after the sixth cycle.

The air thick with anticipation, we step back and watch as Bruce slowly returns to life. His skin flushes with blood again, and his eyes open. He jackknifes, coughing violently, and I rush in to help him.

Without any prior warning, Phantom phases through one of the walls and crashes onto the ground. Wordlessly, the League watch him scramble to his feet. His eyes dart around, landing on Bruce and I for a second before resuming his search. I stand. "What is it?"

He doesn't respond, scanning the room and slowly rising to his feet. His aura is dimmer than when I last saw him, and his hover is only a few inches off the ground.

"Where were you?!" Wonder Woman demands, stepping forward. I stand fully, preparing to step between them.

Phantom glances at her and then at me. "I told Batman…"

"That you were abandoning the League?!"

His eyes widen a fraction and he raises his hands placatingly. "I wasn't abandoning the League! I felt a ghost!"

Wonder Woman's gaze doesn't soften in the slightest. I decide this is a good time to deescalate the situation, stepping between them and looking to Phantom. "Did you get it?"

"Him," he corrects immediately, and looks down. "And no. This ghost, Plasmius… He's older and more powerful than I am. But I managed to stop him from getting to the Time Sphere. We were fighting and he got ahold of the Infa-map…" His hand moves to rest protectively on the Infa-map, still tucked into his belt. "We fought for it and the conflicting commands brought us here. He got confused and I got the map back and forced him back inside the portal before it closed."

"You ordered the map here?" I ask, voice dark.

"No, no, I ordered it to this time period's Ghost Zone. He was the one who wanted to be here. We slipped into the Zone and then here, so he's probably stuck there for now."

Reluctantly, Wonder Woman stands down, accepting his explanation. I nod once, letting him know I do as well. "You can mark up a full report later," I tell him. "For now, head back to Amity Park. You're looking a little worse for wear."

He offers a faint, amused smile. "Yeah, I know. Day's not even over yet." He floats a little to the left, looking at Bruce, who's being helped to his feet by Superman. "Good to see you back, Bats."

Bruce offers a still-handed wave. Phantom salutes to the League and withdraws the map, pulling it apart and commanding it, "Far Frozen!"

It pulses with purple light and both it and Phantom vanish.

"I think that goes for the rest of you guys, too," I address the League. "We can report this later." I walk up to Bruce and pull off the cowl, looking at him eye to eye. "It's good to have you back, Bruce."

He nods, a small smile flitting across his mouth. "Let's go home."

I let Superman pass Bruce to me, supporting part of his weight. He did die for a few minutes; even the great Batman can't walk that off. We pass through the League and head to the Beams, walking slowly but steadily.

"Oh, by the way," I forewarn as the Beam announces our codes. "I might've brought someone in from Bludhaven… I hope you don't mind."

He looks to me with amusement. "You adopted someone?"

"Well…" We transport then, leaving my response open for a moment. We appear back in the BatCave, greeted by the dim lighting and echoing chambers. "I didn't adopt her… But she is staying here."

"Does she know?" Bruce asks, but I don't get the chance to respond, because we're interrupted by Alfred rushing forward from the stairway and embracing Bruce tightly. Bruce laughs painfully, returning the hug best he can. "Good to see you, too, Alfred!"

Alfred releases him when he grunts in pain, observing him sharply. "And what did you manage to do this time, Master Bruce?"

"He died for a few minutes," I offer. "We had to stop his heart to keep the Omega Sanction from killing him."

"I'm not sure what you mean by 'Omega Sanction', Master Dick, but if it's not killing him now I can't say I care." He gestures to the stairwell. "Let's get you to bed, Master Bruce."

"Wait," Bruce interrupts as Alfred goes to his other side. "I want to see Damian and Tim." He directs the request at both of us; I give a helpless shrug and Alfred looks uncomfortable. Before either of us can question his reluctance, Bruce's request is answered by someone else.

"They're occupied," comes Dani's voice from the stairwell. Her hair is wet, like she just took a shower, and she twirls a wet strand in her fingers absentmindedly as she descends the steps.

I suddenly remember the mission I'd sent them on, and my eyes dart to the hall leading to the medbay. "Are they okay?"

She waves it off, her eyes dancing in amusement. "They'll be fine. They're sleeping off the drugs."

Bruce stiffens beside me. I hurriedly interject before he can interrogate Dani. "Sorry. What happened?"

She gives me a cryptic smile. "The things that can happen in one night…" Dani flicks the strand she'd been playing with behind her shoulder. "By the way, Jason's staying here for a little while."

I search the mischief in her gaze and sigh at her antics. "Can you please tell us what happened?"

She hums. "Okay. So Jason was playing impostor Batman and kidnapped Tim and Damian and then drugged them. I didn't know where you were so I went after them myself. Then I hung out with Jason for a while and we did this whole deep-personal-talk thing, and he agreed that he was just grieving his dad's death and we all came back here to await your guys's arrival."

Dani beams, proud of herself.

"...WHAT?"

She blinks at my outburst and folds her arms. I barely recognize the defensive stare she fixes me with, too busy imagining what happened or, even worse, what could've happened. "The Batman… Dani, do you know how dangerous he is?!"

Dani sighs when she realizes I'm not going to calmly take this. "Was dangerous. It was Jason!"

I can't see why this is a good thing. All I can see is the brutality with which this Batman took down criminals; the traps he set for us, the mocking tone in his voice, the guns. I leave Batman's side and go to stand in front of her. "You went against him by yourself? He's a killer!"

She looks up at me in defiance. "Really? You weren't saying that when you told me about him!"

"I told you he went over to the other side," I refute, still burning with anger and worry. "Where's your sense of self-preservation? You keep telling us you aren't a hero. You can't do things like this! You got lucky Jason didn't shoot you in the head."

"Are you kidding me, Dick?"

Jason enters the conversation, coming out of the medbay hall, wiping his hands on a white rag. I turn to him, furious. "What am I supposed to assume?"

"You could not assume at all," Dani bites back, reminding me of our other conversation. This doesn't shake me from my anger, though.

"I'm looking at the facts," I snap. "He kills, and you don't have a week of proper training. You're defenseless, and I won't have you-"

"Too bad you're not the boss of me!" she shouts, eyes blazing. She turns on her heel, stomping back to the stairs. I catch the nearly imperceptible shake of her hands and the tensing of her shoulders and move to follow, but Jason steps in front of me. Without thinking, I throw a clumsy punch at his jaw and Jason catches it in his palm, face dark.

"Do you honestly believe I would shoot a girl in the face?" he snarls, dropping my fist. "We may have different ways of doing things, Dick, but I'm not a monster."

"Tell me what you did to Damian and Tim and then we can talk," I respond in the same tone.

"I see things haven't changed," Bruce uncharacteristically quips from behind us. We both ignore him, focused on each other.

I shove Jason aside, but he moves in front of me again. "Get out of my way."

He narrows his eyes and raises his fists, ready for a fight. "Let With-an-i be. You scared her."

My own fists, which had come up in case Jason threw one of his own, suddenly drop. I feel a different emotion smash down on top of all the rage and worry, filling me with something else I can't quite place. "What?"

He gestures with his head towards the stairs. "It was part of our kumbaya talk. The person she lived with before you, he scared her. I think you might've reminded her of him for a second."

My anger deflates completely, and I now place what's filling me now. Horror, regret. The need to talk to her, to apologize, is so sudden and so intense, I almost miss what Jason says next.

"I've never met anything like her, gotta say. She knew me before she ever even met me, strolling in like she owned the place. I tried to get her out of the way, but she was back in minutes... And she picked my belt!" He laughs softly, shaking his head. "Let her be for a little while. She's kind of awesome; she'll be fine."

After that, he leaves his post in front of me and approaches Bruce, but his voice is now in the back of my mind.

A couple moments pass, my head swirling, until I reboot my thoughts and head to change out of the Batman uniform.

For the next few hours, I check up on Damian and Tim, who're recovering from their inebriation smoothly and are ecstatic when they discover Bruce is not only alive, but back in the Manor. They also laughingly tell their own views of Dani's rescue. Damian in particular recounts the degree of frustration he was in when trying to communicate with her.

By that evening, I finally make my way to Dani's room, convinced I would otherwise go crazy with the building apology.

Her room doesn't have a door, because there's one at the bottom of the steps, but I knock on the wall anyway, softly calling her name.

When there's no response, I enter anyway, flipping on the light.

Empty. I give the room a once over, checking to see if I'd missed her first glance, but only see a half sheet of paper laid on her unmade bed.

Crap. Crap.

I reach the paper and unfold it.

DICK it reads in big, angry letters, blurring the line between my name and a name.

I'll be back. When you chill.

~Your employee

I swear, crumpling the letter.

Crap.

Sorry for the short delay; Comic Con and a busy spring break. Plus, I haven't finished the next chapter yet (Whoops) and wanted to buy myself from time. This chapter introduces the first conflict between Dani and Dick-not that there will be too many more.

Also! Thank you so much for all the comments! I got what, 13, 14? Doubled all the other chapters' totals! Some responses:

I feel the same way about romances in DC. If I introduce one (still so-so at this point) it will be like Connor and M'gann's in season one of Young Justice. I still don't understand the whole "you tried to destroy my mind so now we're over" thing. Nothing but unnecessary angst. I'm a firm believer that innocent romances can exist.

Danny will be making an appearance in the next chapter, which will clear up a lot of what he's doing off in Amity.

Finally, the main plot is already in action. It'll take a while to finish, though, because I have a loooot of stuff I need to fit inside. There's just so much to do with Dani!