A/N: Don’t own Teen Titan’s, the villains, heroes or innocent scenery in the between the battles. This is also a VERY DARK story that is rated M for good reason. Be forewarned in that not every story has a happy ending. This is also an AU which should become obvious to those that read it. Now then, on to the story; Enjoy!

Blood to answer Blood

“What do you see?” asked the rasping voice, hard eyes boring into his.

Shaking his head, attempting to hide his eyes from the piercing gaze, Richard Grayson let a ragged breath expel from his lungs. “No, I don’t want to see it again,” he muttered, his voice taking on a scared and wounded quality.

“What do you see?” snapped the raspy voice forcefully, commanding the young man’s attention.

His eyes closed involuntarily as he began to live within his memories once more, a time of love and peace playing before him.

Lying on a bed of white, surrounded by friends, Raven held a small child. Her face held a look of joy and happiness that would have been all but impossible for her not so many years before. With adoring eyes, she looked up into the face of her husband and father to her child, Dick Grayson. “She has your eyes Dick,” she told him proudly, arms unconsciously tightening around her bundle, holding it closer to her chest.

Reaching forwards, he first touched the sweat damped hair on the side of her head, brushing the thick bunched strands back behind her delicate ear. “With any luck, that’s ALL she’ll have from me,” he joked, giving his love a wink before turning his attentions to the baby he’d helped create.

His breath caught in his throat as he beheld his child. Feelings of fear, love, protectiveness and even a bit of trepidation flooded his normally impassive demeanor. Managing to control the shaking of his fingers, he tenderly touched the chubby cheek of his daughter, smiling distantly as she seemed to wiggle beneath the attention.

“Yo Robby, she ain’t gonna break man. I’m thinking she’s got your thick skull as well as your eyes,” joked the half man next to him, Cyborg. The hulking brute of a man with a heart bigger than his body, clapped a hand on the man’s back. “Besides, my little sis there ain’t gonna let NOBODY hurt her, ain’t that right?” he added good naturedly, having already wiped the tear of joy from his lone biological eye before anyone could notice.

Holding his body still despite the super powered slap, Robin looked back at the man with a crooked grin. “I’d like to see anyone even THINK about hurting her,” he countered, knowing full well that they’d have to deal with not only mother and father, but the collective might of several of the more powerful heroes of the world today.

“Dude, trust me, ain’t nobody gonna get within a hundred miles of her without US knowing about it!” said a confident Beast boy, his arm draped across the shoulders of Terra.

The blonde terra-kinetic nodded at her one time rival and now close friend. “You got no worries on that front, we’re not gonna let ANYBODY hurt either of you,” she swore, her eyes flashing in testament to her determination behind the words.

“Friends, this truly is a glorious time for all of us! This requires the sharing of gifts for the newest member of our family and the consuming of all the sugary foods that we can find,” chimed in Starfire, her green eyes moist from the barely pent up emotions she was experiencing.

Kid Flash chuckled at his girlfriends enthusiasm, knowing full well what those foods would do to not only her but him as well. Not wanting either Robin nor Cyborg to rip his arms from his well developed torso for having a spastic sugar high, he held up a warning hand. “No thanks for me, I’ll just have some decaf. Don’t need anyone trying to put me into a matching bed near the dark queen and princess here,” he joked, earning him a good natured chuckle from his team mates.

From the corner of the large private room, a set of dark eyes watched the going’s on closely. Though he’d warned them both of expanding the relationship to this point, he was secretly glad and slightly envious of the happiness and joy his adopted son had found. ‘I only hope it lasts Dick, I truly do,’ he thought with a pang of doubt.

A gentle hand slipped into his, bringing him from his ominous thoughts. “They’re happy and owe much of that to you,” said the dark haired, blue eyed beauty by his side.

Looking at Diana from the corner of his eye, he smiled distantly as he shook his head almost imperceptibly. “No, not me. They got this because of the strength of their feelings for each other,” he corrected his lover and sometime partner in crime-fighting.

Inclining her head to him playfully, the Amazonian Princess smiled coyly. “Why Mr. Wayne, could it be that you’re SOFTENING in your stances after all this time?” she asked him.

Raising an eyebrow at her, he turned his ice blue eyes to look into hers. “Hardly. I’m just stating that they’ve worked hard at their love to get this far is all. Despite every warning and the dictating of common sense, they’ve done what most of us only dreamt about,” he said, his tone edgy though the expression he wore softened the words.

Leaning into him, she smiled warmly, enjoying the quiet strength of the Dark Knight. “He is his father’s son after all,” she reminded him, feeling the slight jump in his breathing, the only indication of how proud he was of Richard.

“Bruce, you wanna see your grand daughter?” asked a teasing Dick, enjoying the look of irritation that crossed his father’s face.

“Don’t get too cocky, old age and treachery will overcome youth and enthusiasm every time,” he joked in return, crossing the room to stand by the bedside of his daughter in law and the newest member of the Wayne family.

The occupants of the room laughed softly at their banter, though they stepped back in respect as the patriarch bent over to look at the little girl cradled in her mother’s arms.

“What do you see?” asked the voice once more, his tone taking on a hard edge that cut through the warmth of the memories.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” muttered Robin, more recently Nightwing. His eyes were haunted, darting about the brightly lit room as if seeking a way from the thoughts he knew were coming.

With slow deliberate words, the voice once more asked it’s harsh question. “What. Do. You. See?”

Hanging his head, tears slipped from the corner of his eyes as he clenched his eyes shut, not wanting to relive the pain but unable to stop the memories from crushing him once more.

“CYBORG!” screamed Robin, hand outstretched in a vain attempt to stop the horrific end that was delivered up on the man.

The bluish tinged wave washed over the hero, causing a cascade of brilliant electricity to spider into existence across his body, most notably the cybernetics that kept his flesh and blood alive. With mocking slowness, the once mighty man toppled over, his body making a hollow sounding clang as it collapsed onto the unforgiving concrete and asphalt of the road he’d been fighting on.

With triumphant laughter, Brother Blood raised hands to the skies above. “My revenge is now complete Cyborg, as I have proven myself as the superior construct!” he crowed before turning dark red eyes to the horrified heroes below him.

Pointing a hand down to the remaining former members of the Teen Titans. “Your fates have been sealed. For too long have we allowed you the luxury of life, a luxury we will now take from you,” he told them darkly, a sadistic smile crossing his features.

Throwing the remote for the massive EMP generator that had vanquished Cyborg at them, he stepped back from the lip of the building he stood upon, disappearing from sight.

Racing to the side of their fallen comrade, they rolled him to his back. His once luminescent armor was dulled and dark, the red eye of his cybernetics was dark and cold. His lifeless eye stared up into the dark and cloudy skies above, the expression on his face one of shock and pain.

Shaking his head, Robin felt the tears coursing down his face as he struggled to lift the heavy man from the ground. “NO! This isn’t over! C’mon guys, we’ve gotta get him some help,” he ordered his former team-mates.

Starfire was there immediately for him, slinging the dead man’s arm across her deceptively slender and delicate shoulders. “I will take him Robin,” she said quietly, struggling to control her own sense of loss and outrage.

With a grim expression, the man formerly known as Robin, turned his face back towards where the man had disappeared. “Right, I’ll go after Brother Blood! He’ll PAY for this!” he vowed darkly, feeling hate and anger empowering him, looking forward to accosting the man and wrecking horrible vengeance upon him.

“I’m going with you,” stated a similarly grim faced Beast Boy, changing into a peregrine falcon and taking flight into the skies above.

His face set, the dark clad Nightwing ran to his bike, hopping aboard it and igniting it’s powerful engine. Racing after the rapidly disappearing Beast Boy, he forced the sudden and shocking death of his friend from the forefront of his mind.

Rounding a corner at wildly unsafe speeds, he caught sight of a now transformed Beast Boy valiantly fighting against a slew of Brother Bloods. The T-Rex form was ripping the clone types into metallic pieces; teeth, claws and sheer brute power unleashed with unstoppable fury.

Flipping the switch that engaged the bike’s autopilot mode, Nightwing leapt from the saddle and into the air, tumbling through the air and bringing his bo stick out with a deadly flourish. His feet touched the ground running, pushing his body as fast as he could to get to the battle to assist his long time friend.

The bright explosion caught him off guard, lifting him up into the air, reversing and accelerating his momentum backwards. Thrown hundreds of feet back, pummeled by a barrage of brick, mortar, stone and concrete as he flew. Slamming into the side of a building some blocks back, he slid painfully down to lie in a crumpled heap at the base of the building, blood easily and quickly flowing from an untold number of wounds.

Numbed fingers reflexively sought out his weapon, only to find it no where near by. Blinded and mostly deafened by the unexpected explosion, Nightwing struggled to gain his bearings, falling deeply into the training the Dark Knight had given him. Shunting off the pain that threatened to overwhelm his remaining senses, he sought the emotionless center, focusing instead on what was around him.

A vibration in the stones and debris around him alerted him to the approach of someone trying to pick their way towards him, attempting to not be discovered in doing so. With the loss of both his eyesight and the majority of his hearing, he trusted in his sense of touch, waiting until the last possible moment until he struck, lashing out with a leaping kick from a deceptive semi-prone position.

Connecting solidly with the mid section of his visitor, he smiled through broken lips as he felt his opponent fall back with the blow. Landing in a crouched position, one hand resting on the ground beneath him, he struggled to hear something through the ringing in his ears. The world around him was mostly blacks or whites, with a subtle shading of greys in-between, giving him nothing to go on.

Feeling the slight vibrations once more, though a distance off, he waited patiently for his prey to once more enter into his striking distance, trying to buy himself precious time to recover. A voice seemed to blend with the ringing, not enough to identify or understand it, simply enough that it was apparent that someone was speaking to him. “Who are you?” he snarled, turning his head slightly so that his ear was pointed in the general direction he thought the person was.

The voice abruptly stopped, to be replaced with mocking laughter. Growling in his throat, Dick Grayson cursed his condition, wanting to lash out and punish whoever it was that had attacked them. As he opened his mouth to say something, the ground around him vibrated distinctly as a small, heavy metal object bounced to a halt near him.

Throwing himself instinctively from the device, he rolled protectively as the explosion propelled him once more. The debris and his sudden movement actually saved him, the brunt of the explosion bringing down a shower of the ruined building he’d been against. As the glass, concrete and steel fell with deadly indifference nearby, he suddenly found that his tumbling had brought him into a void. Falling rapidly, he had little time to prepare before once more slamming into the ground beneath. The last thoughts he had were of a sickening sweet smell and the cool rushing of water around him before darkness closed off the last of his senses and unconsciousness claimed him.

His body shook with the pent up emotions and power the memories held for him, in many ways chaining him to the past, a past he couldn’t escape. Wide unblinking eyes stared down at his booted feet, the black of the gear clashing with the bright white of the tiles. A sense of numb detachment held him, his mind no longer his own as he was enthralled by the horrible events of less than a year prior.

“What do you see?” asked the voice again, this time showing some compassion, as if knowing what the next series of memories were to bring.

“Pain,” he whispered back, haunted by what he saw within his minds eye. His boots became unfocused in his eyes as he could only see what his mind pushed upon him once more.

Nightwings body was battered and bloodied as he crawled from the sewers he’d fallen into, the building have come down atop him. Unable to gauge time in his make shift dungeon, he’d stumbled through the ruins of the sewers, searching for an egress and only finding more tunnels and branches. More by sheer luck then by skill he’d come across a main junction beneath a maintenance facility.

With slow painful progress he’d made his way up the slick metal rungs set into the worn smooth sides of the tube that led to the surface. It took a supreme effort of will to shoulder the cover from atop him, and with choked back sobs of agony he’d thrown himself from the sewers and once more sucked in great lungfuls of non-fouled air.

Once more pulling his communicator from his belt, he flipped it open, praying to the heavens above that Raven would answer his call. Static was the only thing that showed on his screen, sending a deep seated fear through the core of his being. Not willing to think of the possibilities that the static could herald, he grit his teeth and brought himself up to his feet. Wavering slightly as he moved towards the door, he almost wept in relief to find the door open. The sun was sinking on the unseen horizon, shadows chasing deep vibrant pinks and oranges from the skies.

Blinking almost dumbly at the sight, his mind raced to figure the amount of time he’d spent both unconscious and underground. “Must’ve been about 5 hours or so,” he muttered, a dull throbbing beginning in the back of his mind.

Swallowing past the dry mouth and tunnel vision, he pressed forwards, almost oblivious to the slight glow coming from the harbor. Clutching his ribs as he moved in the shadows, a sense of hopelessness started to wash over him. ‘We were set up, someone set us up,’ his mind fought against weakness, injury and emotion the best way it knew how, by entering into problem solving mode.

Pressing the activating signal in his belt to call for his bike, a jolt of power arced from the now ruined transceiver. Groaning, he hung his head for a moment, wondering if the entire world was currently against him. The dull throbbing turned to sudden stabbing ache that almost drove him to his knee’s, his hands flying to the sides of his head.

Stumbling slightly he finally caught his balance as the pain suddenly disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. With a stricken expression his hands fell back to his sides, an emptiness replacing the pain. “Raven,” he whispered, his eyes widening as he began to realize what the pain had signified.

Clenching his eyes shut, he stretched himself to find the peaceful touch of his wife that usually resided in the back of his mind, only to find nothing. Fighting down the panic, he tried again, desperate to find a trace of her and once more finding naught but an empty darkness.

Adrenaline and emotion spurred him forwards, fear giving his wounded and battered body new found power and endurance. The glow that had been on the far horizon slowly took more and more precedence as he navigated the desolate streets of his former home. Reaching the top of a hill near the bay, he finally looked first hand upon the true horror the glow held. The mighty tower the Teen Titans had once held so dear lay in smouldering ruins, fires that were burning unnaturally hot and bright still eating away at it’s foundations.

Finger nails dug into his palms, his fists clenched so tightly that they almost drew blood. “I should’ve died, I never should’ve lived...not again, not like this,” he murmured tonelessly, eyes wide and shining with unshed tears.

“What do you see?” whispered the voice, pressing him to open himself more to the memories, to immerse himself into the past further.

“Loss...and death, so much death,” he replied, not realizing he’d even vocalized the answer.

Biting back a sob, Nightwing could only stare in horror at the remains laid out before him. Starfire, Terra and the now dissected remains of Cyborg resting in crucifix positions atop a large metal slab that had once supported the upper portions of the tower. The two girls had been stripped naked, large portions of their flesh burned away to reveal charred yet still bloody organs beneath. The beautiful and luxurious red hair of Starfire had been cut away in an uneven fashion as if done out of haste or sheer hatred.

Falling to battered and bruised knees, he couldn’t tear his eyes from them, as if challenging his eyes to see past an illusion. No matter how much he blinked, they didn’t dissipate nor disappear, but rather laid cold in the setting light of the sun. “No...no...no...” he said over and over, a deathly cold chill falling over him.

The distant sounds of sirens reached his ears, pulling his attention woodenly from the remains of his friends. Keen eyes could see a number of police boats enroute to the tower, and behind them a thick column of smoke that rose lazily to the dark skies above. A distant and still wholly rational part of his mind accepted, stored and disseminated this information for later, his body working on instinct as it got back to it’s feet.

Before he truly knew what he was doing, he’d dived into the chilly waters in a somewhat graceful arc. The water helped to clear his mind as he swan deeper into the waters, following the rocky base that held up the tower to the hidden access point they’d sometimes used. The number-pad glowed dimly in the murky waters, showing that the auxiliary power system weren’t destroyed in the attack on his former home.

His training and endurance paid it’s dividends as he stayed under the water for more then 3 minutes before surfacing in the darkened hanger that held so many of Cyborg’s pride and joy’s. Given the metal man’s affinity for machines, it was of little surprise that he doted and tinkered with them almost religiously. As such, Nightwing was able to find a working amphibious vehicle that closely resembled his own cycle, if it had even been designed to travel underwater as well.

Tears sprang to his eyes once more as he thought of the good natured giant of a man, the ache of loss just starting to cause him pain and agony. Forcing the thoughts from his shocked mind, he concentrated on getting the small vehicle ready to go before the arrival of the local law enforcement agency. Even with the excellent working relationship between the heroes and the legitimate law, he knew that the longer he waited, the worse it was going to get. The absence of Raven within his mind scared him to his very soul, pushing him to action.

Slipping the helmet over his head, he then engaged the engines and leapt the vehicle into the murky waters, speeding back towards the shore, beneath the boats that sought to render assistance to the fallen tower.

Minutes later he was racing through darkened streets, finding not only the street lights but traffic signals all offline. Once more his mind worked and started putting together a very dark and sinister picture of exactly how badly they’d walked into the trap. A trap that had devastating and far reaching consequences for everyone he cared about.

Taking corners at high rates of speed forced him to concentrate on his driving as the bike wasn’t anything like his normal cycle and didn’t handle as well. Raven, or Rachel as she liked to be called when alone and away from the public eye, had chosen their home out of a sense of ascetics and need for privacy. No one would have ever dreamed that two of the world’s most recognized super-heroes lived in their midst, especially in such a modest neighborhood.

Their home was as dark as the rest of the neighborhood, though there was some activity as people had wandered out of their houses to see if anyone had any good information or rumors about the power outage. Cursing under his breath, Nightwing navigated his bike to the allies behind the homes, mentally thanking the memory of Cyborg for his foresight in giving all his vehicles silent running features.

Stashing his bike behind a dumpster, he pulled off his helmet and quickly and quietly made his way to the back of his home unseen. The inside of the home was a wreck, furniture was smashed into splinters, pictures wrecked and shattered on the floor. With growing trepidation at the dead silence of his home, he raced up the stairs, vaulting over the railing to land lightly on his feet in the hall.

The walls bore the scars of battle, showing that Raven had utilized her considerable powers in defense of herself and her child. The door to Mary Arella’s room was shattered and burned, remnants of it scattered throughout the hall. Stopping only briefly to survey if the room held any survivors and finding none, he continued his path to his and Raven’s room. Unlike the other doors on this floor, it was intact and unblemished, a fact that frightened him to a degree he’d not expected. With a slow reaching hand, he grasped the knob and turned it hesitantly, finding it to be unlocked and swinging inwards easily.

The interior of the room showed a violent battle, nothing that was discernable as furnishings could be seen, but rather various piles of debris and refuse. The walls were streaked with blood, from smears left by hands or bodies, to the spray normally emitted when an artery had been struck, it gave the room a ghoulish cast. He stood numbly in the doorway, forcing his eyes to survey the room, knowing what he would find but hoping against all hope that he wouldn’t.

By the north wall of the room, laid almost reverently on the floor was the naked and mutilated body of his lover, best friend and wife. She had been pinned to the floor by large warped chucks of metal driven through her wrists, a matching band of metal wrapped tightly around her throat. A long ragged cut started at the nape of her neck and extended down to the top of her pelvis, her insides having been pulled roughly out and draped around her midsection.

Her eyes were still wide in pain and terror, as if eternally reliving the last few moments of her life upon the mortal plane. Feeling his body collapsing beneath the shock and horror, he found himself lying on the blood spattered and covered ground. Eyes focused on the multiple boot and shoe prints left in the tacky blood...Raven’s blood. Gloved fingers touched the slowly drying fluid, giving the appearance of seeking a portion of her life’s essence in the action.

Shaking from shock, he gradually pushed himself up to a modified seated position, weight resting solely on his muscular forearms. It was this awkward angle that gave him the final and most painful sight of his life. Lying in a heap of bloody clothes and dismembered parts, lay his only daughter. A scream ripped from him at the sight, his mind disconnecting from his body. Brilliant pain flared into his mind, drowning out his sense of self, his very hold on the sanity he’d been struggling to maintain.

Faces in the darkened street turned to look at the modest home of the nice young couple that had moved in not so long ago. More than one shivered at the sound of the screaming that now echoed through the darkness, unsure if they should interfere in the lives of another family. An old man made his slow way towards the residence, mounting the stone laid steps and rapping firmly on the door. As if flipping a switch, the screaming suddenly stopped. No trailing off, no drowning out or loss of vocality, simply stopped.

“Son? You all okay in there?” he called out loudly, leaning his head closer to the door in an attempt to hear something from within. Pounding his palm on the door with force and determination, he called out once more for someone to answer him.

There came a roaring of a motor from behind the homes, squealing of tires and a bright headlight that raced down the street, scaring everyone as it passed. For weeks the residents would be questioned about the mad man dressed in black that had fled the scene of the grisly murders of Rachel Roth-Grayson and her daughter Mary Arella Grayson. The young husband was wanted for questioning in the matter but he’d disappeared into the mysterious power outage that had covered Jump City that fateful night.

The tears had stopped flowing as he pulled himself from the memories of the deaths of the two most loved people in his life. Once more his hands folded into tight fists, shaking with the intensity that was being pent up within him. “No one listened to me, no one,” he said with dark anger and bitter hatred.

The face of his mentor and father figure flashed in his minds eye, bringing a sense of rage and loss up in him. “He KNEW and yet he wouldn’t give me the help I needed...the help I DESERVED!” he snarled, whirling to face the voice once more. This time his eyes didn’t stray from the ice blue eyes that regarded him, instead bored into them with a burning hatred and passionate madness.

“What do you see?” the voice asked him calmly, as if daring him to answer the question, to face his anger and the madness behind his eyes.

“Betrayal,” Richard Grayson, Robin, Nightwing all answered, each feeling the burning that the word brought to the many persona’s of the one time mighty hero.

“Dick, this isn’t the way to solve this,” said the dispassionate voice of Batman, pulling the dark clad Nightwing back into the shadows with him. He was surprised at the power of the younger man, realizing how much his ward had grown since the last time he’d truly worked with him. Lean and powerful muscles rippled beneath the skin tight body suit that doubled as armor. It had been a gift from him, a peace offering to mend the last of the bridges between them. Bridges that were now in danger of not only being burned but destroyed irrevocably.

Slapping away the powerful hand, Nightwing spun on his friend and partner, coming almost eye to eye with the mythical Dark Knight. “DON’T! You don’t KNOW what’s right in this case Bruce,” he spat at the man, breaking the unspoken code between them of never using real names on patrol just as he had. He was gratified to see the older man wince at both the name and tone used against him.

“And you think what you’ve been doing is? The trail of broken bodies and lives you left in your wake to find the killers? You’ve been no better then the one’s that did this to you in your efforts to find them, and for what? It’s obvious to everyone what your goals are here and I can’t allow you to do that,” he stated coldly, not backing down from the pain and anger in the face of the man he barely knew now.

His upper lip and face twitched with barely restrained rage, a massive struggle taking place within him to control the violence. Feeling the slight edges of his control regained, he glared at Batman. “They crossed the line this time. This wasn’t about getting away with a crime, they KILLED everyone I loved! They KNEW exactly what they were doing, planned and EXECUTED it to perfection...with ONE mistake,” he said, emphasizing the word execution.

“They didn’t finish me off,” he ended in a tone utterly devoid of mercy and warmth. “A mistake I’m going to make SURE they don’t live to regret,” he promised his one time partner.

The man’s words and sincerity chilled the normally hardened Batman, realizing that he’d been blind to the full extent of the damage done to his adopted son. ‘I didn’t want to see it, to see that it had pushed him over the edge. I wanted to believe that he would stay true to our ideals, our crusade,’ he thought dismally, realizing that he was going to be forced to bring in the young man before him before his rampage killed anymore people that may or may not have had something to do with the murders.

“I can’t let you do this Dick, I’m sorry, you’re going to have to come with me,” he said firmly, hand subtly moving to his belt in case this got ugly, a forgone conclusion in his mind at this point.

Nightwing had learned his lessons well at the side of the Dark Knight, knew his partner better than anyone did, including his methods and fighting style. Seeming to ignore the noticed movements of his hand, he asked the man a final question. “You’re going to try to stop me? KNOWING what they did to my family Bruce, to YOUR family?” he asked him, gone was the anger and rage, replaced with a profound sadness.

Batman faltered at the question, memories of losing his own parents and witnessing the death’s of Dick’s birth parents. ‘He’s known death and loss all his life,’ he thought, before squelching the pitying thoughts mercilessly, knowing that he’d crossed the line between hero and villian, vigilante and loose cannon. “Yes, you have given me no choice now,” he answered, drawing the line deeply between them for the last time.

Just as his hand closed on the capsule that would loose a cloud of debilitating gas, he felt Nightwing’s knee connect solidly with his groin. Though armored and protected, it was still shocking enough to foul his aim, never having expected him to actually fight him. The gas capsule billowed around them, for a moment blinding him with it’s white fog within the shadows, his fist lashing out towards the dark silhouette before. Knuckles crashed into the man, blasting breath from his lungs with the impact, a follow up kick attempting to fold his knee inwards to limit his mobility.

Nightwing rolled with the blow and flipped expertly over the kick meant for his knee, a hateful smile on his face as he did. Landing, he carried the motion forwards and slipped inside the larger man’s guard, slamming an elbow first into the midsection, the exploding it upwards into the lower unprotected jaw. The telltale sound of teeth clinking then chipping greeted his ears as he moved through his former friend using the brief moment he was stunned to set him off balance and stumbling backwards out of the gas cloud.

Batman brought up his forearm in guard, instinctively knowing the other man’s fighting style and catching the incoming kick squarely on the armored gauntlet he wore. The power of the blow numbed his hand temporarily, but not enough to hamper him in the fight or his counter attack. Seeing that Nightwing was off the ground, he lashed out with his left hand, driving his fingers into the tender spot on the inside of his thigh, gaining a gasp of pain through grit teeth for his efforts.

As the younger man fell, Batman capitalized on his pain and distraction, rushing him even as he fell, slamming into his body violently and driving him into the solid brick wall behind them. The muscles of his arms bunched as he wrapped them around the man, pinning an arm to his side, putting them once more face to face. “It’s over Dick, don’t make me hurt you anymore,” he said in a gravelly voice, taking the full persona of the Batman to fight this, his most dangerous foe.

Smiling darkly at him, he shook his head. “You made a mistake here old man, I ain’t got nothing left to lose,” he said, driving the edge of the batarang between the armored plates of his former partners suit. Twisting it cruelly, he slammed his head forwards into Batman’s at the same time, breaking the steel like grip he’d been in. Releasing the weapon he’d lifted from the other man’s belt, he pulled both hands onto the back of the other man’s head, crushing his face violently into his rising knee.

He witnessed the man’s arcing passage from him distantly, as if it was happening to someone else, taking a cold satisfaction as he landed heavily on his back some feet back. “Don’t come after me Bruce, I don’t want to have to kill you,” he warned his former father, turning and disappearing into the night around them before Batman could fully recover from the damage he’d taken.

Groaning softly, Batman struggled back to his feet, blinking his eyes rapidly to clear them of tears and pain. Stumbling slightly, he caught himself on the side of the building, vainly attempting to catch sight of Nightwing, knowing that he’d trained him too well for something that easy. Bringing a hand up to his mouth, he called for the Batmobile, his face cold as he began the pursuit of the only man capable of besting him. ‘It’s time to find out how well he’s learned his lessons,’ he thought, sliding painfully into the cockpit of his vehicle and closing the canopy. Opening the communications with Alfred, he gave his old friend a pained look. “He’s loose Alfred, and he’s not stable. I don’t want anyone else coming after him. This is personal,” he ordered his butler.

“I understand sir, though I dare say that you may not have an option at this point and time. Young master has left quite a wake in his activities recently, and more than one of your colleagues have been following this chain of events quite closely,” said the distinguished gentleman.

Growling at the thought of any of the Justice League attempting to apprehend his former ward and partner, he scowled at the screen. “They may be paying attention, but they don’t know what I do. Make sure you monitor any activity on the locations I’ve marked, let me know if he makes an appearance. I have a feeling he’s not going to sway from his chosen course, we just have to be between him and them when the time’s right,” he said, piloting through the deserted streets with practiced ease.

Hands tightened their grip on the white porcelain of the sink before him, only dimly aware of the chill seeping into his blood hot hands. A feral snarl marred his handsome features, anger thrusting past the sorrow and loss, relegating them to the far recesses of his psyche.“I’m going to finish this, once and for all,” he vowed, eyes slowly rising to meet those across from his. The hatred and madness there empowered him, giving him the fortitude and determination in face of such long odds.

“They’ve no IDEA of what I’m capable of, and if they’re smart, they’ll stay the hell out of my way,” he growled, a cold smile playing on his face.

Nodding he awaited the question, the question he’d been avoiding, not ready to accept it for all it’s implications and intentions.

“What do you see?” asked the voice, supportive as their eyes met.

Dick Grayson rested his forehead against the reflection in the mirror, answering the question he’d been asking himself, torturing himself with since the fateful confrontation with Batman. Taking a deep breath, he banished the last of his doubts and fears, steeling himself for the final run of his illustrious career. “I see...” he paused, considering the depth and truth of his answer for a long moment. Bringing his eyes back up to those of his reflection, he smiled without warmth or reason, steeping himself within his hatred and primal need.

“Revenge,” he answered finally, slamming his gloved fist into the mirror, shattering it to thousands of pieces and cratering the wall beyond. His dark laughter echoed in the safe house he’d holed up in, awaiting his next move, ensuring his timing was correct, and striking at the unprotected underside of his prey.

Meanwhile, on the Watch Tower in orbit...

Zatanna frowned in a pretty way, tracking the appearance of Lobo back within the system. “What are you up to this time?” she wondered aloud, tracing his path and giving the information to the Monitor Womb to decipher possible locations.

When the list came up and were plotted on the holographic display, she felt a chill run down her spine. Leaning forwards in her chair, she rapidly reverse routed the path he was taking to discover where he’d come from. “He wouldn’t have...” she whispered, discovering her fears to have been borne out.

Her hands fell into her lap as she slumped back into the chair, debating the depth of her loyalty to the Justice League against that of her one time love interest; Batman. Shaking her head, she pulled her personal communicator and opened a channel to contact the Dark Knight. “I have a feeling I’m going to regret this,” she sighed. Though Wonder Woman had won his heart, Zatanna still pined for the brooding man, knowing she’d do what ever she could to help him in where ever his solitary crusade took him.

The events from 6 months ago had shocked and stunned the entire heroic community as well as some of the villains they’d commonly faced as well. To discover that someone had intentionally targeted and destroyed several of the younger heroes had caused quite an uproar that led to several of the villains coming forwards, breaking ranks with the rest of their ilk. None of them wished to be associated with the one’s they felt were marked by the heroes, not sure if said heroes would begin to take a measure of revenge for the killings.

It was only after several deaths, that at the time seemed unrelated, that they realized what was happening, only it was too late to stop the rogue hero from his chosen course. Batman, being one of the few that actually KNEW Nightwing was still alive, worked tirelessly to catch up to his young protege, only to discover that even his great influence was lost on the young man. Using the skills he’d learned at the knee of the Dark Knight, refining them in his own crucible of adventures then sharpening the rest of his abilities to a razors edge, he’d begun the hunt and killing of those that had had a hand in the slayings of his loved ones.

Zatanna had accidentally stumbled across his illicit activities when doing some research for Batman into the possible visitation of an alien thought banished. Blackfire’s one day reappearance then again vanishing from Earth stoked his curiosity, especially given the coincidence with the date of the murder of her sister, Starfire. When she approached him about his interest, she was brusquely told to mind her own business; an obvious invitation to meddle about to find out what was really happening.

‘I wish now that I hadn’t stuck my big fat hat into this mess,’ she thought darkly, still struggling to come to terms with what the wonderful young man she’d so fondly remembered had been doing. He was a man possessed, beyond reasoning in his single-minded pursuit and destruction of those that had killed his friends, raped his wife and dismembered his child.

Shuddering at the memories of the pictures they’d received of the atrocities committed by persons at the time unknown, she felt little remorse in the deaths of the one’s so far, only regretting that it had been done by one of their own. “Batman, when you get this message contact me, I’ve got some information you’re not going to like,” she said quietly, watching as Lobo made his way towards Earth.

In Jump City...

“I’m going to ask you one more time,” Nightwing said in a hissing voice, hoisting the underling up by his lapels to bring him eye to eye. “Where is Brother Blood hiding?” each word punctuated with a vicious shake.

The man had been beaten severely, both shoulders having been wrenched from their respective sockets, elbows and knee’s shattered. Barely able to hold his head up right, he groaned and grimaced at the treatment. “I’m telling ya, I DON’T KNOW!” he screamed, spittle flying from his lips to land on the irate man’s face and mask.

“Wrong answer,” he responded coldly, eyes narrowing as he spoke. Shoving him bodily against the cinder block wall, he pressed his forearm into the man’s larynx with slowly increasing pressure. Maintaining eye contact the whole time, he smiled cruelly as the goon grunted and struggled against the powerful man.

Shaking his head from side to side, the man’s mouth opened and closed in rapid succession, tongue extending as his face darkened. “Sorry, time for answers is past. When you get to hell, tell’m that there’s more coming...A LOT more,” Nightwing said menacingly, and with a final brutal shove, he crushed the man’s throat.

Dropping the dying man to the wet puddles of the alley, he melded back into the shadows, his mind already moving on to the next target on his list. ‘Looks like they’ve gone to ground, must’ve heard of my exploits with the others,’ he thought distantly, not even bothering to remember the lives he’d taken in pursuit of the one’s responsible for his pain.

The darkness and shadows were his home, and in recent months, the only true friends he had left. They’d protected him, sheltered him, helped him to complete his tasks, no matter where they led him. Mounting his bike, he raced off into the night, heading towards the hole where he’d find his next rat...and hopefully, to the end of his road.

Somewhere under Jump City...

The white haired man paced in silence, a thoughtful expression on his face. “We are certain now, then?” he asked quietly, turning to face a shadowed figure in a seat nearby.

“Yes, it would appear that our efforts for revenge were amiss, and Robin survived your attempt on his life,” said a calm voice, steepling his hands before him.

Clucking his tongue, Brother Blood nodded as he once more paced. “He is...resourceful, though even I have to admit to being taken aback at how efficient he is at dispatching those we’d set against him. It is only a matter of time before he discovers our lair here, you know this,” he said, not phrasing it as a question but as a statement of fact.

The shadowed figure leaned forwards, revealing the scarred mask of Slade, still showing the damage done to him almost 5 years prior by the boy wonder. “I’m DEPENDING on that,” he answered, almost eagerly.

“I had thought our original victory too easy, little did I suspect the repercussions would come about so quickly however,” he said, slowly getting to his feet and crossing to a panel of computer terminals. With a flurry of his hands, he brought up several displays of their cohorts in the murders of Robin’s friends. Blackfire, Gizmo, Dr. Light, Brother Blood and Slade. The only two remaining members being themselves, others already fallen against the driven man they’d wronged.

“It was an unexpected event for him to hire Lobo to deal with Blackfire, quite ingenious but unexpected nonetheless. I would never have expected something of that nature from him,” allowed Brother Blood, standing beside his partner.

The masked man simply nodded, hiding his expression and thoughts behind the metal. “Indeed, though it really should have been something foreseen. We’ve taken everything from him in our bid for ultimate revenge, it stands to reason that he would be willing to do the same,” he answered quietly, his voice still showing nothing of his thoughts or feelings.

The cyborg turned to Slade with a raised eyebrow. “He will be coming for us as well, perhaps we should split up?” he asked, thinking of the possible location he could squirrel himself away at.

“I think that is what he’s expecting, it’s how he capitalized on the others after all. No, I think that we should face him together. He’s only one man, no matter how trained or driven. Besides, we hold the advantage here, and we are going to need all the edges we can get at this point,” Slade told him, pointing to the display that showed a battle being waged above them.

In Jump City...

Superman shook his head, clearing the cobwebs from his mind from the mighty blow Lobo had just hit him with. Picking himself up from the rubble, he tried once more to reason with the mercenary/bounty hunter. “I’m telling you that I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” he said reasonably, though irritation bled through into his voice.

Pulling the ever present cigar from his mouth, Lobo spat something green, smelly and still slightly moving onto the red boot of the man of steel. “Don’t care about none of that nonsense ya bastich, I only want what’s mine and the word I got was that YOU’RE going to be the one to give it to me,” he replied, shoving the cigar back in his mouth and rolling it from one side of him mouth to the other.

Rolling his eyes, Superman tried to contain his annoyance at the man’s nature and attitude. “You’ve been USED Lobo, haven’t you figured it out yet? Why would I PAY you for ANYTHING?” he asked, taking a step closer to the man.

Shrugging his massive shoulders, Lobo shot him a cocky grin. “Funny, that’s what the man said you’d say. He ALSO said that if you don’t pay me my fee, that I could take it outta yer hide free of charge,” his smile growing wider as he also stepped closer to his super powered foe. Cracking the knuckles of massive fists, “So, let’s just cut with the words and get right down to the skraggin’, whaddya say?” he asked, launching himself once more into fisticuffs with Superman.

The ground shook as they fought, Superman attempting to take him from the city to minimize the damage and casualties. Lowering the binoculars, Batman shook his head in disbelief. “Well done Dick,” he muttered, realizing how in-depth his former partner had planned his revenge.

Pointing the grappling gun to a nearby roof, Batman once more began his search for the renegade hero, frowning at the thought of once more tangling with the man. Perching atop the building, he crouched next to one of the many gothic statues that decorated the buildings, indiscernible from them as he did. The earpiece chimed in his suit, before the soft voice of Zatanna called for him. “You there Batman?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah,” he answered gruffly, never taking his attention from the world below him.

“Lobo’s back in town, but you already know that by the looks of the fight going on. What you don’t know is that he killed Blackfire...along with about 2 trillion other lifeforms in an outlying system by the Alpha Centauri. Looks like our boy hired him to take her down as quickly as possible and promised him that the Justice League, Superman in particular, would pay him for services rendered. On one hand it solves having the meta’s getting involved in your business of catching him, on the other...” she trailed off with a sigh, closing her eyes and covering her face with a hand.

“It means that he’s pretty far gone if he resorted to using Lobo to help get his revenge. Are you SURE you don’t want some help here Batman? I don’t think he’s going to just come quietly,” Zatanna asked earnestly, knowing the answer well before asking her question.

“No. I’m going to do this, ALONE...for HIS sake. I failed him once Zatanna, I won’t do so again. Batman out,” he said darkly, closing off the communication abruptly.

Leaning back in her seat, Zatanna watched in trepidation as Lobo and Superman continued their battle, with Lobo wearing a lunatic grin while getting pummeled by the man. “That is SO not going to end well,” she muttered, shaking her head and signaling several other local heroes to rally to his location.

From the shadows behind her, Wonder Woman wore a concerned frown, having seen and heard everything. Stepping quietly from the womb, she made her way to the hangers, troubled at what the near future would hold for everyone involved. “I’m coming Bruce, I just hope you can forgive me for intruding onto a personal matter,” she prayed silently, knowing she was about to abuse the fragile trust she’d worked so hard to gain from the emotionally distant man.

Elsewhere in Jump City...

Nightwing smiled as he heard the sounds of the titanic battle being waged just outside the city limits. “Looks like Supes got my present, I hope he appreciates the trouble I went through for him,” he chuckled darkly.

He’d been staking out a supposedly deserted warehouse in the industrial sector of the city, though the bright shiny locks on the gates and doors belied it’s deserted appearance. His patience had paid off almost 2 weeks prior as he’d trailed some young wannabe villains back to this location. They’d disappeared within it and hadn’t been seen since, giving him the key indicator that this could be the chink in the armor he’d been searching for.

Brother Blood was arrogant and power hungry, but above all he NEEDED to know that others respected and looked up to him. What better way then to have a new generation of villains in training, similar to the hive. With all the local heroes dead or preoccupied, he’d taken it upon himself to locate a headquarters here, beneath the very noses of those searching for him and his followers.

‘Sometimes, it’s just TOO easy,’ thought Dick, disabling the electronic sentries that had been installed atop the roof. The cult leader had modified the technology he’d stolen from Cyborg, but doing nothing drastic or revolutionary with it. Given the number of times Robin and Cyborg had worked together, he found it a simple matter to bypass the systems with ease.

He crept into the warehouse, leaving no trace of his passing, making his way to the lower levels and finding exactly what he’d been searching for. A set of armored elevator doors were recessed into the outer wall, no obvious means of opening or operating them around. Raising an eyebrow, Nightwing considered his options for a moment, moving back to the shadows to contemplate his entry.

Pursing his lips, he slowed his breathing, cocking his head to the side as he traced out the power conduits that covered the walls. Smiling slowly, he shook his head as he figured out his way to enter. “Very clever old man, but not good enough,” he whispered, almost hearing a dark chuckling in his head for a response.

As silently as he entered, Nightwing left the facility unmolested, disappearing once more into the depths of the night.

A few moments later, some blocks away...

“Okay, time to ring the door bell,” said a smiling Nightwing, having set a series of explosive charges to the power substation that fed the district. Racing away from the buildings and transformers, he made sure to disable all his electronic devices so that they wouldn’t be ruined in the coming EMP that would emanate from the destruction of the station.

The explosions rocked the ground almost as much as the battle between Lobo and Superman, though it held a more spectacular visual display as a mighty fireball loomed into the dark skies above, laced with electric blue bolts from the massive discharge of stored energy.

Opening the hatch nearby, Nightwing dropped into the maintenance tunnels that laced the underbelly to the city, moving towards the warehouse. His mask contained a starlight function that allowed him to move with speed and ease through the murky darkness, until he found the welded shut door that stood between him and his quarry.

Breaking out the miniature acetylene torch he carried, he quickly set to work cutting through the shoddy welding and in moments the door fell inwards. Discarding the now useless tool, the driven man entered into the lair of his prey, a sadistic smile on his face.

Meanwhile...

The lights flickered then died, coming back on dimly as the generators surged into life to power the facility. “It would seem that he’s not only found our location but the traps laid out for him as well,” said Brother Blood, getting back to his feet with a sigh.

Slade turned from the now blank computer screen he’d been observing, nodding in agreement. “We will stay here while your students and defenses wear him down, then we will finish what we started 6 months ago,” he ordered the half man before him.

Shaking his head, the cult leader turned his back on his forced comrade, distrust evident in his voice. “Rather convenient wouldn’t you say? To simply WAIT while he stalks us to our respective doom?” he asked.

Rising from his chair, Slade walked past the robed cyborg. “It may very well be convenient for him as well as us, but I also know him, perhaps better then he knows himself. Trust me, he’ll come here looking for blood...if you’ll excuse the pun,” said the man reaching into a recess in the wall and pulling his telescoping bo staff from within.

Not taking the verbal bait, Brother Blood retook his seat. “Just ensure that he doesn’t reach us here, I don’t care WHAT it takes,” he told the armored man before him.

Looking over his shoulder, he fixed the unmasked eye on the seated man. “In the end, he’ll do whatever he has to do to reach us here, no matter the consequences, which is EXACTLY how I wanted him to be. Now we’ll find out who is superior...and who is dead,” Slade said, walking out the door from the control center of the school.

A furrowed look came over the cyborg’s face as his reluctant partner left. “I wonder if you didn’t INTENTIONALLY allow him to live simply so you could have this battle you’ve craved for so long,” he pondered, resting his hands on the arms of his chair.

Nodding slowly, he spun the chair and slid across the floor to the console, tapping a button to reboot his systems. As they came online, he opened up his files he’d been keeping on the strange man known as Slade. Leaning forwards, he began to study in-depth the man’s relationship with the demon lord known as Trigon, and how it might pertain to what was surely coming for them.

Within the corridors of the facility...

Nightwing pulled the knife from the side of the man’s neck, hand covering his mouth as he silently bled to death. Gently placing the man on the floor, he cleaned the blade on the man’s top distractedly, eyeing the corridors around him. The guards had been ill prepared for his coming, scared and jumpy from the sudden loss of power and communications from central command. He’d moved through them like an ill wind, leaving only bodies in his wake, dead and the dying silently lying still as he passed.

The clambering of footsteps alerted him to the approach of another group of guards. Ducking into a side room, he softly shut the door only moments before the stormed past, shouting instructions and calling for missing comrades. Taking 5 steady breaths before moving again, he opened the door a crack and peered into the now deserted corridor. Slipping from the room, he made his way through the myriad of corridors, stopping at key intersections to determine his location and progress.

The students and guards had made his approach easy, none of them being silent or stealthy in their search for the intruders. Placing yet another quarter sized explosive near the floor, he checked to make sure it was receiving his signal before leaving it and heading onward.

The hallway ended in a T intersection, the echoing sound of running feet approaching him once more. Shooting a look over his shoulder, he frowned and released a resigned breath. Pressing his back against the wall, he closed his eyes and intently listened to them racing towards a one man ambush.

As the lead man put a running foot into the intersection, Nightwing exploded into action, swinging his left arm out and clothes lining him down to the metal plating that made up the floor. His head made a dull thunking sound as his limbs convulsed from the sudden crushing pressure on the back of his skull. His fall had a domino effect on the other 4 that had been accompanying him, knocking the middle two to the ground as well and staggering the final 2 as they jumped awkwardly over them.

They landed in a perfect position...for Nightwing. Never stopping his momentum, his smiled as they leapt past him, his right fist connecting solidly with the back of the closest’s skull. Pushing forwards, he lifted his left knee into the small of the only remaining standing guard, sending him totally off balance and to the floor, landing on his hands and knees.

Crouching slightly, his punched into the kidney’s of the man with his left hand then brought the point of his elbow down between his shoulder blades, hearing and feeling a satisfying crunching noise from the action. As the man slammed face first into the plating, Nightwing spun in a fighting crouch to face his final two opponents.

Snapping a crescent kick to the temple of the closest man, he evened the odds to one. The last man, seeing he was faced with a very skilled and deadly foe, tried crabwalking backwards from the man, his face a mask of fear.

His face never changed expression as he jumped at the final man, driving a heel into the man’s chest, fueled by the full weight of his body. The man simply folded around his foot, breath and blood exploding from his mouth and nose at the impact. Springing lightly from the blow by bending then flexing his knee’s, Nightwing simply continued down the corridor at a quick jog, ignoring the adding number of bodies he’d left in his wake.

The decor changed abruptly, with the few and sparse decorations disappearing as he entered into the depths of the hidden facility. He paused at yet another T intersection, placing the last of his miniature explosives in a cluster along the outer wall. The single green flash from them gave him a sinister smile as he righted himself. Looking left and right, he took a deep breath and listened, straining his hearing to determine the best direction for him to choose. It was the lack of noise to the right that attracted him, his body moving as quickly as the decision was made.

The lights flickered slightly as he moved, the generators starting to fail in their efforts to power the entire complex. A door was cracked open, the hydraulics having failed during it’s closing sequence. A soft cry came from within the room, giving him pause as he was about to pass it. Cocking his head to the side from across the hall, he quickly surveyed what was visible through the 2 inch opening.

It looked to be a medical room of some sort, complete with tables that could raised and lower via a hydraulic lift in the floor. They also could tilt forwards and back, allowing the patient to be strapped to the table from a standing position and it was this feature that alerted to the true nature of the room. His lip curled in disgust, the image of his mutilated wife and child coming to mind, his hands gripping the leading edge of the door and straining back against it.

It moved reluctantly at first, protesting for every inch it gave, before he crossed the equilibrium of it and was able to wrench it open enough for him to step into it without having to twist sideways. The cries, which had been muted and quiet from the hall grew louder the moment he stepped fully into the room, showing the amount of thought that went into the construction of the room. A naked woman was lying at the back of a steel barred cage in a fetal position. Even from this distance he could easily make out the fresh marks on her pale flesh, bright pinks and reds coloring both her body and the floor of her cell.

He quickly double checked the room to make sure it was clear and that there were no further entrances or exits before crossing quickly to the cage. He was torn, the overpowering need to kill those that had wronged him fighting against his ingrained instinct to protect those that needed him. “Hey, you okay?” he asked gruffly, unconsciously sounding almost exactly like his foster father and mentor.

The crying stopped almost instantly at the voice, her body going rigid as if the sound of it had assaulted her. “Please...I don’t know anything else...please...” she begged in a broken voice, not raising her head to meet his eyes.

Frowning at the tone and her words, he shook his head. “Get up, I’m not here to hurt you,” he said, not changing his tone, crossing to the door and checking the sonic lock. Shaking his head, he pulled a small reinforced vial of super acid and poured it delicately on the mechanism, not bothering to try and pick the powerless lock.

With a slow deliberate motion, she brought her face up from it’s hidden position to eye the man speaking to her. The fact that she hadn’t been tortured, prodded, fondled or otherwise molested by the man, breaking through her fugue and drawing her attention. “Why are you...NIGHTWING!” she cried, in both surprise and relief, tears springing to her eyes.

His head snapped up as he glared at the woman, finally seeing her face in the light. Her hair was down from it’s normal gravity defying pose, though still having the vibrant pink shade she’d always favored. Her cat slit pink eyes were wide with relief and subdued horror, as if seeing something she was afraid to be a figment of her abused mental condition. “Jinx?” he asked, disbelief in his voice at her condition and location.

With a mighty pull, he wrenched the door open and took a knee next to the woman as she struggled to rise. Taking her shaking hand in his gauntlet, he helped her to her feet. “What are you doing here?” he asked, noticing how frail she seemed, how light her body was.

Wincing in pain as she moved, she almost started to sob in relief that the dark man was actually here. “Brother Blood...wanted revenge...on me,” she gasped out, struggling to maintain her composure. She had been prepared to die, accepting that the last moments of her life would be filled with pain and humiliation. To have someone simply show up out of the darkness went against everything she’d ever heard or experienced, especially given her powers over entropy.

Sitting her tenderly on the cold metal of one of the tables, he pulled a stark white sheet off a nearby table and draped it across her shoulders. His frown was dark as he accepted her words, his knowledgeable hands moving quickly across her myriad of wounds. Ignoring the winces and gasps as he poked and prodded some of the nastier looking ones, he sighed. “I take it they heard about your recent involvement with the Justice League?” he asked, helping her wrap the sheet around herself into a more comfortable and modest dress, the end result closely resembling a toga.

Giving him an offended glare at the treatment, she wiped the tears of relief and pain from her pale cheeks. “Yeah, ya THINK?” she asked sarcastically, flinching slightly as he focused that driven gaze on her fully. “I didn’t think that he would be able to touch me...I was wrong,” she said as way of explanation, eyes straying to the cage she’d been kept in and shuddering.

His hand on her shoulder caused her to jump slightly, unused to the feeling of comforting touch. “You need to get out of here, things are about to go really bad for them and I don’t want you in the middle,” he warned her firmly.

She blinked at him for a moment, realizing that all the rumors she’d been hearing about him were true, he was on a blood hunt. “You’re going to kill him aren’t you?” she asked quietly, not taking her strange eyes from the whites of his mask.

When he didn’t respond with a word or action, she set her lips into a line. “I’ve got a score to settle with him for what he did to me, I’m coming with you,” she said, eyes narrowing as if daring him to challenge her in it.

Cocking an eyebrow at her, “This isn’t your fight Jinx, you’re just going to get hurt,” he said coldly.

With a huff, she swung her legs off the table as if to show him that she could handle herself and almost collapsed to the ground for her efforts. The tortures she’d endured had severely weakened her body, taking it to the point of failure. Blushing deeply as she was forced to latch onto the man to keep from falling, she brought defiant eyes up to his. “I’m already HURT, I just want some payback. Either you take me with you or I’m just going to follow behind you, it’s your choice,” the pinked eyed woman said.

His sense of time screamed at him, a growing sense of urgency having built up during the sojourn he’d taken to help her, a sojourn he somewhat regretted in the darker recesses of his soul. “I can’t protect you, you’ll have to fend for yourself when I’m going after them,” he said finally, righting the young woman to her feet almost gently.

Giving him a crooked smile, she nodded. “Fine by me, I just want the chance to pay the bastard back for what he did to me,” beginning to fix her sheet into a more convenient form to allow for greater range of motion.

Not bothering to wait for her to get done, Nightwing crossed back to the door and checked the hallway before exiting the torture room. For all her rush, she was still able to move with a measure of stealth, though it still seemed loud and ungraceful to his ears. Holding up a hand, he paused and crouched lower to the floor, glancing both ways before signaling that they would move to the right.

The hall ended with a set of large double doors colored in varying degree’s of red from top to bottom. Jinx’s hand on his biceps stopped him, “That should be where he hangs out, he’s not one to change too much when it comes to decorating,” she whispered to him, her lips close to his ear.

He cut his eyes at her for a moment, annoyed yet strangely comforted by her close proximity, the first anyone had been since the murder’s of his family some six months ago. “Stay outside, I’m going to deal with him,” he said, still unsure if he could trust his back to the former H.I.V.E. member.

Opening her mouth to argue, she caught the full brunt of his silent glare and wisely nodded her agreement rather then argue. ‘I see why him and Batman are so feared...geeZUS!’ she thought with a slight shiver, her arms wrapping around her self.

Seeing that she wasn’t going to pose anymore arguments, he pulled his escrima sticks from the backs of his gauntlets. Reaching to the opening panel, Jinx once more stopped him, earning her another of the patented glares.

“Becareful, okay?” she said in a hushed tone, fear and concern bleeding through her bravado.

‘Great, just freakin’ spectacular,’ he thought harshly, realizing that she was relying on him much more then he was comfortable with for her survival. The fact that he didn’t care about his own set this new development at odds. Nodding once, he opened the door and entered into the darkened room confidently.

Jinx moved to the side of the door, peering cautiously into the room as he strode in, seemingly without a care. The new demeanor he’d showed scared her, gone was the confident banter and sarcastic comments, replaced with icy determination and single minded purpose. ‘They were right to worry about him, I only hope he remembers that I need his butt to get me out of here,’ she thought, swallowing hard as she did.

“Well well, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” asked the calm voice of Brother Blood, stepping from the darkened recesses of the room. His hands were clasped behind his back as he wore an expression of interest at the arrival of the dark clad avenger.

Nightwing’s hands moved with blinding quickness, the stick in his left hand flying out and catching the man in the throat, almost taking the robotic head off his shoulders. As the rest of the clone crumpled to the ground, he spun and raced towards the shadows at his right, pulling a razor sharp shuriken and hurling it before him.

Sliding in the classic baseball position, he went under another of the robots, his remaining stick shattering the metallic femur of the clone as he went past. Leaping to his feet, he took two running steps and bounced off the wall, twisting in the air and avoiding a blast of bright red energy that disintegrated the place he’d spring boarded off of.

Another of the symbol shaped shuriken flew from him, scoring a direct hit on the real cyborg and drawing a colorful curse in response. Landing lightly, he tumbled back into the center of the room, pulling a small specially made grenade from his boot top, depressing the small trigger atop of it and sliding it into the shadows. Continuing his movements, he came to his feet and raced into the shadows around the lone pool of light in the center of the room. Encountering yet another of the clones, he easily dispatched it using a combination of blade and escrima, bastardizing his fighting styles into something wholly unique and unpredictable.

He was a study in perpetual motion, all actions fluid and economical, not over powering his attacks nor using a stylish flourish that would detract from his deadly dance. Four more times he slid the strange grenades into the surrounding darkness, seemingly at random directions. With a brutal over hand strike, he crushed the head of the last clone and paused with his back to the wall behind him. His eyes were closed and his chest moved only slightly faster then normal, the only indication of his great physical exertion.

“You were a fool to come here Nightwing...or should I say...Robin. You should have stayed hidden from us, then you might have lived a long and fruitful life in the shadows, but now I’ll simply have to...” the man started to taunt, only to catch yet another of the shuriken, this time into one of his eyes.

Screaming horribly as the blade stuck into the bone surrounding the orb, blood gushed from between his fingers. His mind raged at the indignity and brutality of the attack, not comprehending that he’d been one of the leading factors behind the new attitude of Nightwing. Focusing his mental powers into the room, he attempted to overpower the man’s will with his own, to paralyze him and make him an easier target for his own revenge.

Nightwing felt the mental intrusion, piercing his training and defenses against such attacks. Gritting his teeth, struggled to maintain his sense of self against the mental raping of his mind. He could hear the man’s pained laughter in the far part of his mind, though he seemed powerless to overcome the paralysis that had come over him. His hand shook with the effort of trying to reclaim their independent use.

“You may THINK you’ve been pushed far enough, but I have yet to show you the true depth of my powers. I am going to make you think what happened to your wife and child were mere CHILD’S PLAY!” the cyborg screamed, throwing a powerful burst of red electricity into the stunned man on the ground nearby. He cackled insanely as he watched the man’s body go rigid and start to convulse with the powers flowing through him.

A wave of pink energy swept over him, first sapping then stopping the attack. With a muted crackling, his hand split and small metal parts began to fall out of it. As the cracks grew larger and spread up the arm to the torso, the number of parts and the speed at which they dropped increased exponentially. “JINX!” he screamed, pulling his remaining hand from the ruined eye and pointing towards where the sheet clad woman was timidly standing.

Her eyes were wide as she unleashed more entropy onto the man, unsure if her powers were going to be enough to overcome him now that he was fully aware of her presence. As the power shined in his palm, she winced her eyes shut and prayed that her death would come quickly, not wanting to hurt anymore at the hands of this mad man or his partners.

An escrima stick whirled from the darkness, slamming into the weakened wrist and knocking the attack well wide of the woman, spinning the man to the right as well. Before he could fully recover, Nightwing was upon him, knife leading his body and driving deeply into the side of the man’s head, where the upper and lower jaws met. The force of his momentum tumbled them both to the ground, with Nightwing rolling with it to land back to the balls of his feet some feet from the severely wounded half man.

Looking over his shoulder, he gave the cyborg a sadistic grin. “This is for Cyborg and Beastboy,” he uttered with pure malice and hatred, pressing a small button on the back of his gauntlet.

The five grenades went off simultaneously, releasing a powerful EMP that devastated the room and it’s lone cybernetic entity, destroying him as effectively as he’d done to the real Cyborg. Slowly rising back to his feet, he pulled a trio of jet black grenades from his belt, crossing back to where the shell of a man had fallen. “Are you hurt?” he called out, kneeling next to the body, placing one of the grenades on the man’s head, chest and torso.

Picking herself up from the ground, she eyed the dark hero closely, fear warring with gratitude in her eyes. “No, I’m ok I guess, he missed but I banged my knee’s on the ground when I fell. What are you doing?” she asked, hesitantly walking closer to him.

“Don’t. Go to the door, this is something I have to do. It’s a time for reckoning, one that is long overdue,” he said coldly, a trace of sadistic pleasure in his voice.

“You’re really going to kill him aren’t you,” she said to him while stepping back. His demeanor was more than enough to give her pause about not listening to his orders.

“I only wish I could make him hurt more for everything he’s done. This isn’t about justice, about right or wrong anymore. They made it personal, and so I’m giving them exactly what they ALL deserve,” he answered, standing and walking away from the body. Tapping another button, he ignited the white phosphorous grenades placed in key locations on the cyborgs body. They would burn until there was nothing left, utterly and completely destroying the being formerly known as Brother Blood for all time.

Jinx shivered at the man’s tone, but felt a ribbon of pleasure at the thought of him being unable to harm anyone else ever again. Though it went against what she felt was proper, she understood his actions, his desperate need and drive to destroy the one’s that had harmed him so greatly. “That isn’t going to make your super hero buddies very happy, you know that right?” she asked him, cocking her head to the side as she watched him approach. He carried no remorse or regret in his motions, but rather appeared indifferent to the life he’d just taken.

“They’re NOT my buddies, and I’m not a super hero any more. I’m just a man that’s going to get his retribution...no matter what it costs,” he said, pausing to pick up his sticks from their points on the ground where they’d fallen.

She never heard Slade’s approach, only the cold steel of his gloves on her body a fraction of a second before he locked her close to him. Only able to give a startled gasp, her eyes went wide as his hand covered her mouth.

The sound drew his attention, though he didn’t look surprised to see him. “I was wondering when you’d finally show yourself,” he said without emotion.

“I’m flattered that you still think so highly of me Robin, but I have to say I’m disappointed that you’d rescue this one. She would only hinder your progress and give your opponent a valuable hostage to utilize against you,” Slade chided the man, eyeing him carefully as Nightwing came back to his feet, having pulled the last of his shuriken from the remains of the clones around him.

“You don’t know me, not any more Slade. You created something you cannot POSSIBLY understand, control or stop. You’re not going to escape, not this time. I’m going to finish something I started a long time ago,” he said, beginning to move forwards.

A slender blade leapt from a hidden compartment in his glove, the sharp edge drawing a fine line of blood across the woman’s face. “Another death you want laid at your feet Robin?” he asked calmly, as if nothing were amiss.

“Not mine, yours. She was bait and I know it Slade, but it wouldn’t stop me from trying to save at least ONE person from your sick clutches. Let her go, your time is about up,” he warned, stopping almost ten feet from them.

His visible eye showed mirth at his words. “How would you know how much time I have left Robin? I am the controller of my destiny, haven’t you figured that out yet? I’ve spent YEARS orchestrating this, manipulating hundreds if not thousands to ensure that you would be ready to give me the fight of both of our lives. I ask not for your gratitude, but your hatred, your darkness. I’ve CREATED you!” he said in a gleefully triumphant tone, tightening his grasp on the woman in preparation to slice her throat.

Just as his hand started to move, Nightwing smiled sardonically. “You figured WRONG Slade. You forgot something fundamental, something VERY important. I don’t CARE what happens anymore; not to me, not to you...and especially not what repercussions my actions will have,” he said with a cryptic tone.

Pausing, Slade eyed the man intently, struggling to discern what he was thinking. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be going, he should have been blind with rage and vengeance by now, attacking with everything he had to kill the man once and for all. The ground beneath their feet tremored slightly, growing more and more deep and insistent with each passing second. Streams of dust fell from the ceiling around them, lit up almost ghoulishly by the brilliant glowing of the white phosphorous behind him.

“You see, every super hero in the area is on the way down here right now, looking to take me in. If you run now, I’ll fight you at a later point and time...without distractions or interruptions. If you harm her, I’ll delay you long enough that both Superman and Lobo get here and will put an end to our hostilities before either of us finish this,” Nightwing said, gesturing to the shaking room around them.

Nodding in respect to the man’s foresight and planning, the knife flashed back into it’s recessed compartment. “Very well done Robin, I’m impressed and intrigued. I look forward to our battle. You know how to reach me?” he asked, shoving Jinx forwards into his waiting arms.

Nightwing nodded in return. “I’ve ALWAYS known Slade, I just wanted to save you for last...to ENJOY gutting you alive, just like you did to Raven,” he said with dark intensity.

“We’ll see Robin, we’ll see,” he said, fading back into the darkness and disappearing from sight.

Tears in her eyes, she looked up in fear and relief at the man as she clutched herself to him. “Thank you,” she whispered brokenly, a thin line of blood flowing down her face.

As if realizing she was in his arms for the first time, he looked surprised, his hand moving to wipe the blood from her cheek. It smeared across her pale grey skin, giving a vibrant color that matched her eyes. “C’mon, we’ve got to get out of here before the real good guys show up,” he said, his tone belying his tender actions.

Grasping her hand in his, he pulled her almost roughly from the room, pushing her into the corner near the panel he’d used to gain entrance to the room. Pressing his tone and muscular body firm against hers, he pinned her to the corner, one arm around her shoulders.

She struggled against the intimate position, shocked and worried at it for a moment before a deafening series of explosions reverberated around them. Wincing and jumping tighter against him, she buried her face into his torso, fingers digging into the kevlar/nomex suit he wore.

Scooping her up, he ran down the ruined corridors, past the bodies of new and previous victims without pause or concern. He idly noted her arms around his neck as he moved, his senses super tuned from adrenaline. The sound of his booted feet, the way her sheet flapped behind them, his steady breathing in contrast to the wildly beating heart within her chest, all assailed him, each he took note of in a distant part of his mind.

For the first time in days, Jinx felt safe, no matter that they were running from people bent on stopping them or that there were an unknown number of guards looking to kill them. She was in the arms of a man that was determined to survive, no matter the cost, just so he could kill someone. ‘At any OTHER time, that might even sound insane,’ she thought distantly, shock and exhaustion finally beginning to take it’s powerful toll on her from her ordeal. She was vaguely aware of the rush of cold air before darkness wrapped her in it’s embrace, chasing the last of her thoughts away.

Elsewhere in the complex...

Batman shook his head in disgust as he pulled back his hand from the dead man’s throat, not finding a pulse. It wasn’t the first he’d found and he was sure it wasn’t going to be the last. Throats had been slashed, necks broken, skull’s crushed, Dick had went through them like a hot knife through butter, and by the looks of it, all without remorse or hesitation.

“You can come out now Diana,” he said to the darkness behind him, knowing the princess had been following him for the last few minutes.

She stepped from a shadowed alcove with a chagrined expression, “I should have known better than to think I could stalk you,” she said, pointedly not mentioning the collection of bodies he’d examined.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he growled, turning his back to her and walking deeper into the facility.

Pacing him easily, she didn’t bother to justify his comment with a retort, having learned long ago that it would have been an effort in futility. It was easy to follow his trail, though the disregard she’d witnessed chilled her.

A thundering shudder shook the floor beneath them, causing the Dark Knight to stop and clench his fists. “He’s NOT making this easy,” he muttered darkly.

Wonder Woman placed a hand on his shoulder as if to comfort him, more than marginally surprised when he didn’t immediately shrug it off. “I’ll deal with Superman, go...find him before he slips away again,” she said, turning and running towards where she knew the man of steel was making himself a new entrance, as well as setting off the booby traps left for Nightwing.

He watched her as she left, a look of forlorn sadness on his face. “Thank you Diana, I only hope I get to him before they do,” he whispered to the darkness, turning with a swish of his leaden cape, he continued his search for his son and former partner.

The next day, an unremarkable apartment on the outskirts of Jump City...

He looked down at the sleeping woman with a distant expression, unsure of what to do with her now that they’d arrived at one of his last true safe houses. Her body had suffered horribly from the abuses she’d received at the hands of Brother Blood, but she was young and strong, recovering quickly with his help.

It was the mental and emotional scarring that worried him. She would wake up in the middle of the night screaming for the pain and suffering to end, or for someone to get off of her, only truly calming down if he were present with her until she fell back into an uneasy slumber. She was reclusive in her details about the abuse, only giving vague details of it, a fact that had started to wear thin on his nerves.

Her body started to shake in her sleep, her eyes crunching shut in prelude to another outburst. He moved to the bed and laid beside the young woman, feeling guilt and desire warring within him. He’d had not experienced the comforts of another person since the death of Raven, to the point of isolation from anything that could be even vaguely considered humane contact. His sense of betrayal about comforting her ate away at him, as if he was dishonoring the memory and love he held for Raven.

He sighed lightly as she nestled into the warmth of his arms, burying her face unabashedly into his chest, silent sobs racking her body, letting him know she was awake. He stroked her pink hair almost tenderly, shushing her in a soft voice to sooth her.

They laid like this for some time, her sobs slowly lessening as she regained control of her emotions. Sniffling loudly, she gave a wistful smile. “This is the first time anyone’s ever just HELD me,” she said, her voice slightly raw from crying.

He nodded at her words, the warmth of her body next to his giving rise to the tender emotions he thought long dead within him. “You should really get some professional help, I’m not much in the way of dealing with stuff like this,” he said, wincing internally at how cold he sounded.

Her light laugh surprised him, having not expected such a reaction. “Like anyone is gonna want to listen to my bitching,” she told him with slight sarcasm and self depreciation.

“That’s what they get paid for, to listen,” he countered, moving his torso slightly so he could look into her eyes. Though he’d taken off his suit, he still wore the mask, unable to bring himself to reveal himself to the woman. ‘Old habits die hard,’ he thought, though it brought him little solace.

Rolling her eyes, she kept the smile though it was obviously pained and forced. “I don’t know about you, but being one of the supposed ‘good guys’,” she said the phrase with a biting tone. “Don’t mean we get paid that well and I’m not exactly what you’d call inconspicuous. Could you just imagine the looks I’d get walking into some shrink’s office?” Though her tone was light, it carried a bitter undercurrent.

He smiled despite himself, finding some common ground with the woman. “True enough, but there ARE ways to get some help you know,” he said, shrugging slightly, still not wanting to give up his point.

Raising an eyebrow at the man, she fixed him with a firm look. “Like YOU have much room to talk? Face it, neither one of us is what you could even REMOTELY consider normal, especially given our rather unique histories,” Jinx told him, wondering about the change in his demeanor from the killing machine he’d been the night before.

His face harden involuntarily, not liking the not so hidden jab at him. It was only the look of trepidation on her face that brought him out of his simmering rage. Taking a deep breath and releasing it in a sigh, he forced a smile on his face. “Look, I know that it ain’t going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination, but you don’t want to let it go on for too long. It’ll only get worse, trust me,” he said quietly, eyes going distant with the thought of how true his words were.

“It’s not too late for you either you know,” she offered softly, forcing herself to continue looking at the man. He was incredibly handsome when he wasn’t trying to scare the pink out of her hair. The recent months had taken a heavy toll on him, weary lines forming at the corners of his eyes and lips. Through it all she could still see the glimmers of the man he’d once been, buried but not forgotten beneath the pain and suffering he’d been going through.

Abruptly he released her from his embrace and got off the bed, turning his face away from her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he informed her, leaving her alone in the bedroom.

Pulling the sheet up with her, she followed him with her eyes as he left. “That could have went better,” she muttered, swinging her legs off the bed and picking up her shorts and shirt lying on the bedside table.

The apartment had only 2 windows that looked out into the world around them, both of which were not only covered by shades but heavy curtains as well, giving the place an underground feel. Dick rested with his hand on the top of a door frame, leaning his weight against it as his mind raced with the aborted conversation. Raven’s smile haunted him, threatening to bring the tears he’d thought long banished.

He heard her stomping from the bedroom to the bathroom, the water of the shower turning on moments later. “Good, maybe a shower will chill her out,” he said darkly, feeling very petulant and immature over the whole event. Shaking his head, he pushed aside the thoughts and pulled his disguise case from beneath the futon in the living room, setting to work making himself someone else.

Two hours later...

Dick unlocked the door and shoved it open with his shoulder, finding himself face to face with a butcher knife wielding irate pink haired witch. “Um, something you wanna tell me?” he asked dryly, not moving.

Giving the man a fierce glare she humphed at him and spun on her heel, stalking back to the living area. “You could have at least ASKED me if I wanted to go out,” she said icily, crossing her arms under her breasts, still holding the butcher knife.

Finding dark humor at the situation, he chuckled while kicking the door shut with his foot. “Would’ve taken too long, I know how you women are with your showers,” he taunted, walking delicately past her into the kitchen, still smiling just to egg her on. This was the closest she’d come to being back to normal since their escape.

Making an aggravated sound, she thumped her way into the kitchen after him, prepared to give him a piece of her mind about the dismissive treatment she’d been receiving. A small box flew at her as she did, causing her to fumble and drop the knife in order to catch the freezing box with bobbling hands.

“Think fast,” he said, having tossed it over his shoulder without looking at her.

Although sorely tempted to hurl the box into the back of his arrogant head, the flavor of ice cream halted such fantasies. “Chocolate chip cookie dough!” she said in a happy voice, smiling broadly and slightly salivating. Looking up she gave him an odd look, “How’d you know?” she asked suddenly, knowing that they hadn’t spoken much about likes and dislikes in the time they’d spent together.

He looked over his shoulder while putting away the groceries, “Hello? Detective here,” he said, a natural smile gracing his face.

She blinked at him, feeling touched and a bit disturbed that he’d know something so inane about her without her knowledge. “So, what? You’ve been following me or something?” she asked, truly curious as to how the man’s mind worked. Opening a few of the cupboard doors until finding the bowls, she waited for his explanation as she set about treating herself to the ice cream.

He shrugged, closing the refrigerator door. “Something like that. When you and Kid Flash started your ‘thing’,” he started, fingers giving the imaginary quotations marks at the word, “I did some checking into you. Wanted to make sure you weren’t another sleeper agent. You checked out and I got entirely TOO much information on you,” he said dismissivly, picking up another bag and putting the canned goods away.

It was her turn to shake her head, a slight frown on her face. “I’m not sure I like the idea of you knowing so much about me while I know next to nothing about you,” she said, putting the spoon into her mouth as she turned to face him once more.

“Get used to it, I know a lot of things about a lot of people, it’s what I do,” he said, turning and leaning his back against the counter to face her.

Opening the drawer beside her, she pulled out a spoon with her free hand and offered it to him. “Want some?” she asked.

He nodded and accepted the spoon with a smile. “Sure, it’s one of my favorites too,” he replied, taking a heaping spoonful from the half gallon box.

They stood in respectful silence, enjoying the company and ice cream in almost equal portions. It was Jinx that finally broke the reverie, stabbing the spoon into the ice cream and turning her face up to his. “I know this is kinda late and all, but I wanted to say...I’m sorry, for what happened,” she told him sincerely.

He paused in mid motion with the spoon, his blue eyes going ice cold for a moment as he stared at her, looking for duplicity or deceit, only finding sympathy. Relaxing his facial and body muscles that had tensed at the mention of his dead family, he nodded sharply, his eyes going downcast. “Thanks, I know you were at the funeral too and I appreciated it. They would have as well,” he said quietly, blinking rapidly to control his emotions.

“You saw me there? I thought for sure no one recogni...oh wait, sorry,” she said looked perplexed, then smiled sheepishly as he gave her a knowing look. “Detective,” she finished lamely.

“I’m sorry too, for the way Kid Flash dumped you. If it’s any consolation, it didn’t earn him many points with us for the way he treated you,” Dick said, acknowledging the break up between the pair, one that hadn’t been pretty or pleasant by any stretch of the imagination.

Her eyes showed the pain the event had given her, multiplied by the fact that he had almost immediately started dating Starfire. She’d never publicly disparaged either of them, though her disappearance from the circles they all were in was testament enough to her feelings over the matter. “Thanks,” she said simply, feeling horrible that a man who’d lost his wife and daughter would be trying to comfort her. ‘Kinda makes you feel really small when you look at it,’ she thought to herself, playing with the spoon in the ice cream.

The two of them stood in uncomfortable silence, neither sure of what to say next in the suddenly emotionally charged conversation. “That’s why you’re doing this, isn’t it? Gonna make the bastards pay for what they did?” she asked him directly, broaching the subject with him.

The change that came over his face was instant, going from unsure and hurt to a murderous rage in a less then a heart’s beat span. When he looked up at her again, she felt the sudden urgent need to not only leave the room but the uncomfortable pressure on her bladder to void.

“Yes,” he said darkly, the power of his stare and presence holding her fast in place. “I don’t expect anyone to understand it, but it’s something I HAVE to do,” he said, his tone dropping the temperature in the room by ten degrees.

Setting the carton of ice cream on the counter next to her, she swallowed hard, holding up her hands, the spoon still clasped in one of them. “Hey, I’m on YOUR side, remember? I just wanted to make sure I know what we’re getting into,” Jinx told him in an effort to placate his sudden violent anger.

His eyes narrowed, “This doesn’t involve you Jinx, you’ve no business getting involved in this,” he stated bluntly, as if to brush aside her declaration.

Now it was her eyes that narrowed, not liking being summarily dismissed by him. “Just a second, maybe you forgot but I was TORTURED by them...for WEEKS!” she said, her voice rising a few octaves due to her anger.

Dick put his hands on his hips, shaking his head. “They’ll pay for that as well, but you don’t need to get involved with this, it’s only going to hurt you,” he said to her.

Lifting up her shirt, she bared some of the horrible scars she bore on her flesh. Stabbing a finger at them, she glowered her pink eyes up into his blue ones. “You think THIS doesn’t hurt me EVERYDAY? You tell me, how’m I just supposed to go on with my life when I have to live with the physical and emotional scars? And don’t give me any of the shrink crap either! If it worked so damn well you’d of been there a long time ago!” she spat back at him, not truly thinking about her words before they left her mouth.

His hand moved before he realized it, slapping her hard across the face and almost knocking her into the nearby wall. The event seemed to move in slow motion, the only sound the resounding crack of his flesh against hers.

The side of her face felt like it was glowing brightly from the blow, her hand coming up to gently touch it in disbelief. Tears of pain and embarrassment sprung to her eyes as she slowly righted herself and turned to face him. Moving her tongue around the inside of her mouth, she tasted the faint coppery traces of blood.

The look she gave him horrified him, coupling with the shame he felt at having lashed at her in the first place. “I’m...I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...” he said lamely, reaching forwards as if to comfort her for his malice.

Batting his hands away, she pushed past him, leaving him in the kitchen as she fled to the bedroom. The look of shame and horror he’d held for hitting her had given her an insight into the troubled young man that had rescued her, but didn’t excuse him slapping her around. “Don’t worry about, it ain’t like it’s not something that hasn’t happened to me before,” she told him coldly, struggling to maintain her composure, even though she felt like curling up and crying once more.

She never heard him enter the room behind her, jumping when she whirled around and found him standing there with hands up to show her he meant no harm. “I should never have hit you, I can’t even begin to say how sorry I am about it,” he started, not closing the 5 feet to her, but neither did her move from the doorframe either.

Jinx put her hands on her hips, glaring at him hotly, her anger finally rising past the shame and pain he’d given her. “Like THAT is supposed to make me feel any better? Life’s a bitch, don’t I know it, but I haven’t done ANYTHING to you to deserve that kind of crap from you! I have tried to just be your friend, but if that’s too much for you, just say the damn word and I’ll get out of your life and let you run off and kill yourself! That’s what all this is about after all isn’t it?” she shouted at him.

His mouth opened to say something in his defense, only to find that her pause was only long enough to put some more air into her lungs before ranting at him again.

“And ANOTHER thing,” she continued, ignoring his look of annoyance, too wrapped up in her anger to care at this point and time. “I know it’s not MY place to say anything about how you wanna live your life but I DO know something about what your friends and family would think about you tearing off on this little homicidal crusade of yours, and let me tell you something; THEY WOULDN’T LIKE IT ONE DAMN BIT!” she almost screamed at him, tears now flowing freely from her eyes and she took a step towards him, losing control of her emotions.

Her words were like a physical blow to the young man, bolstering the guilt he dealt with daily over his actions since the murders of his friends and loved ones. The depth of her own fear and pain were clearly evident on her face, her entire body seeming to radiate it off her in waves. Before either of them knew what was happening, he’d crossed the gulf between them and pulled her into his arms to comfort her.

Jinx fought his arms, pounding her fists into his chest and neck vainly to try and halt it, before her sobs broke through her anger and she fell into his chest letting go of the remnants of her control. “You don’t have to do this Robin, you aren’t like them,” she told him brokenly, shaking her head in emphasis, her eyes tightly clenched shut.

He could feel her shaking, struggling to get her raging emotions under control all the while trying to reach him within his own personal living hell. “It’s not that simple Jinx, this is something I HAVE to do. I never asked for this, they crossed the line, broke that unwritten rule and killed the good guys. I have to answer blood for blood, even if it means that I’m no longer a hero. What would you do if the one’s you loved were murdered around you? Tortured horribly before they died, all because of some stupid vendetta from years ago?” he asked her bluntly, for the first time truly speaking of his mind set without the protective barrier of hatred he’d hid behind.

Swallowing hard several times, she forced herself to look up into his intense blue eyes. “I’ve BEEN tortured, all for doing something that was right. Unlike you, I don’t have ANYBODY that would care about me, not in the way you guys all did about each other. Even though I was part of the team, I never was really accepted or trusted. Even you admitted to checking up on me to make sure I wasn’t lying to you guys. Do you have any idea how HARD it was for me?” she asked him, starting to ramble, not wanting to lose this rare and valuable window into himself that he’d opened.

“You ask what would I do? I answered that earlier; I’d go after the bastards and make them pay. Just like you said, ‘Blood for Blood’. All I want is the chance to help you, to make a difference for once and show them that there are consequences for killing,” she pleaded with him, not wanting to be brushed aside once more, to be cast off so easily as she’d been by Kid Flash.

Nightwing let out a frustrated sigh, wondering to himself if this was even remotely what Batman had felt like in taking Robin under his proverbial wing. “You know first hand how many people are hunting me Jinx, all BECAUSE of wanting to do just that. I can’t let you throw away your life in my search of MY revenge,” he said in a tired tone, opening his eyes to look at her once more.

As she started to say something in argument, he shook his head and slightly tightened his arms around her. “Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, is hunting me Jinx, trying to stop me or worse. You’ve been on the other side, you know how determined and tireless they can be. I don’t know that I can protect you from them when they finally catch up to me. I’m not saying you’re asking me to, I’m just saying that I can’t run forever, sooner or later, they WILL catch me,” the man said in a passionate voice, scaring her slightly with it’s intensity.

Narrowing her cat like eyes, realization truly dawned on her about what he was saying. “You’re really serious about this aren’t you? No matter WHAT happens, you’re not coming back are you?” she asked him in a shocked tone. “Even after you take care of Slade, you’re going to fight them, aren’t you?”

The thin set of his lips was his only answer, as if vocalizing his plans would some how jeopardize them.

They simply looked at one another in silence for long minutes, neither sure of what to say or do about what was discussed. It was Jinx that finally blinked, speaking in earnest but hushed tones. “Robin, Nightwing...who EVER the heck you are under that mask or disguise you wear,” she started, licking her suddenly dry lips.

“I want you to think about something. What would Raven want for you? What would your friends want for you? Would they want you to throw away your life like this, fighting not only your enemies but your ALLIES to the death?” she pressed him, her arms sliding around his waist and tightening in emphasis.

Standing up on her tiptoes to meet him eye to eye, her actions startled the driven man into silence for a moment. “Once you’re gone, that’s it, I’ve got no one else. No hero is gonna wanna be seen with me, and every bad guy in this hemisphere is going to be gunning for me just for helping out the Justice League like I did. Why do you think Brother Blood took the time and effort to capture me? It wasn’t just for his sick pleasures,” the woman told him, not able to suppress the shudder of revulsion she had at the memories of her time in captivity.

Bringing his hand under her chin, he looked at her intently. “Did he...” he paused, unsure if she was ready to speak of her treatment at the mad zealot’s hand’s.

Her eyes were wide, vulnerable and open as she shook her head. “No, he, uh...didn’t have the right EQUIPMENT, if you’ll excuse the pun, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t put other things...” she started to say, to have Nightwing’s hand stop her by pressing lightly on her lips.

“You don’t have to tell me Jinx, it’s okay, I understand. I’m just sorry I didn’t get there sooner,” he said, feeling shamed at what she’d endured at their hands. ‘I could’ve raided them earlier, saved her the pain and humiliation they did to her,’ he thought darkly, self loathing and guilt boiling within him, giving him a metallic taste at the back of his throat, his stomach churning at the thought.

The smile she gave was crooked and brave, belied by the look of pain and haunting deep in her expressive pink eyes. “Just the fact you care is enough Nightwing, it’s the first time in a long time anyone really has. I can see it in your eyes,” the wounded woman assured him.

He tried to smile in response to her words but found it hard to do so. For so long he’d immersed himself in the pain and hatred, using it to drive him to the very limits and beyond of his endurance and sanity. To be faced with such a simple thing as gratitude confused him now, making him unsure of what he was doing or the path he had to walk.

“This doesn’t mean I’m going to just let you come with me you know,” he said finally, once more taking his initial stand.

Cocking her head to the side, it was her turn to sigh at him. “We’ve already covered this, and I HATE repeating myself. Look, don’t think of it as ‘letting me’ or anything like that. Try to think of it as keeping an eye out for a friend while she does the same for you. In case you forgot, I DID help you out of a jam with Brother Blood,” she trumped him, managing not to smile at the look that crossed his face at her point.

“I’ll THINK about it, fair enough?” he asked in frustration, not wanting to abandon his position and not wanting to acknowledge her point either.

“Done. Now then, you’re going to apologize to me by cooking us dinner,” she told him, letting a shy smile creep back onto her face.

Groaning slightly, he rolled his eyes. “Fine, but no complaining, got it? If you don’t like what I cook, make it yourself,” he countered, though smiling slightly as well. They walked back to the small kitchen, his arm across her shoulders, her’s around his waist, both finding what comfort they could in the other.

The next week...

The peace they’d made with one another slowly grew into comradery, that building into something powerful and undefined that blossomed more each day. In her he found a kindred spirit that didn’t judge him nor begrudge him his mission, a stalwart and true friend that honestly cared for him and his well being.

She’s found someone willing to look beyond her past, to find out who she was, what her dreams and desires were. He’d been more to her than any friend she’d had in some time, becoming closer to her in many ways then even Kid Flash had in such a short amount of time. Their existence relied on one another, working together to keep their whereabouts and activities hidden from all, while plotting the next move against Slade.

He caught himself looking at her when she wasn’t paying attention, wondering about her thoughts and future, how what was happening would affect the outcome of her life. Though he cared for her, as much as protector and friend, he found something growing in him for her. While no where near as powerful or intense as what he’d shared with Raven, but distinct in it’s own right, and it frightened him to the bone. ‘You can’t afford to have such liabilities, you KNOW what happens to the ones you love,’ his mind told him, in the same ugly voice that taunted him when he looked in the mirror.

So, as the days past, he fought the growing feelings he had for her, ignoring her subtle overtures to him to deepen their relationship. Though not cold or cruel about it, he feigned ignorance about it, knowing how badly it frustrated the woman, but not sure if he was ready to take what they’d been developing to the next level.

Jinx, for her part, bided her time, knowing that the longer she spent with him, the greater the chances he wouldn’t do something stupid that would get him killed. ‘I’m tired of being alone all the time, never having anyone to just talk to, to hold...to kiss,’ she thought, blushing slightly, thankful for her complexion that helped to hide her true feeling about the man she was with.

After a few days at the apartment he’d used initially, they moved once more to stay on the move. His explanation had been simply and easily understood; Batman is in town looking for him. Neither had much in the way of belongings, so it was easy for them to leave and find another spot to hide in. Nightwing still made solo trips into the city, utilizing his various disguise techniques to move amongst the normal people of Jump City that were all but oblivious to the secret battles being waged in their shadows.

Slipping back into the tiny apartment, Dick released a heavy sigh and leaned against the door, hanging his head. His harbored his thoughts closely, his expression was one of weary neutrality, giving no indication of the emotional battles being fought in his mind and soul.

Walking quietly to the bedroom, he paused to simply watch the woman sleeping peacefully, taking the moment to smile as he looked at her. She still slept in a modified fetal position, tightly clenching a pillow to her chest, burying her face in it. It was the normal position for her if he wasn’t in bed to take it’s place. Though they hadn’t had sex, they both found comfort in each other while they slept, the only time either of the truly relaxed.

Stepping to the side of the bed, he sat down gently, not wanting to wake her with his movements. Her eyes snapped open as the last of his weight settled on the bed. For a brief and terror filled moment, she wasn’t sure where she was or who she was with. Only smiling and relaxing as she looked into his blue eyes. “Hey. What time is it?” she asked, stretching beneath the thin sheet, her arms going over her head as her legs went rigid.

“Early. Here, got something for you,” he answered, flopping a small paper sack next to her.

Eyeing it curiously, she gave him a sarcastic smile. “It had better not be breakfast, there wouldn’t be enough food in here to feed a hamster,” she teased, picking it up and unfolding the lip of the bag.

Dumping it’s contents out in her lap after she sat up, the contents sat untouched before her. Picking up the small documents, she looked bewildered, not quite comprehending what she was holding.

“Welcome to the world of the living Jinny Crofter,” he said with an easy smile, picking up her new drivers license, passport, bank account, social security card and birth certificate and handing them to her one at a time.

“Huh?” she asked dumbly, “Jenny?”

“JINny, not JENny. Figured you’d appreciate the play on words. It’s not much to really hide you from most of the people that knew you before, but it should be good enough to let you get what you need done without attracting TOO much attention to yourself. The secret is to LOOK like you know where you’re going and what you’re doing, once you master that, the general public won’t even look twice at you,” he explained, shifting around on the bed to place his back against the wall to sit next to her.

Shooting his a glance out of the corner of her eye, she examined her new documents. “So, what? You thinking that I can just blend in with society or something?” she asked him, not sure how she felt about this turn of events.

He gave her a crooked grin, “People like us don’t BLEND Jinx, goes against who and what we are. You NEED to have an identity besides the one you normally use, and protect it religiously,” he said, tapping her new information.

Opening up the bank book, her eyes about fell out of her head at the number listed for her balance. Slowly swiveling her head to look at him, she held it up in askance of if that was legitimate or not.

“Yeah, well about that,” he said sheepishly, blushing slightly and rubbing the back of his head with his hand. “I have a bunch of off shore accounts I used for various operations and just figured you could use some funds while working out what to do next. Like you said, the good guy business doesn’t pay very well...unless you count on the ill will of the bad guys we take down,” the man explained to her.

Handing the book back to him, she took on a crestfallen expression. “No thanks, you can’t BUY me,” she said in a hurt tone.

Looking at the book then up to her as if she’d lost her mind, his face furrowed. “HUH? What the hell are you talking about? I ain’t trying to BUY you...I’m just trying to help out a FRIEND that needs it. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s not like either one of us have a long list of people we can count on,” Nightwing told her defensively, shoving the book back to her.

Her body turned so that she could face him, an intense aura seeming to envelope her. “That’s just IT Nightwing, look at us,” she exclaimed, her hands moving animatedly as she spoke.

“We’re being hunted by both bad guys AND good guys, hiding out like criminals for doing what’s right as opposed to what’s proper. To top it all off, you’re going to fight a man to the death with no guarantee’s that you’re even coming BACK! It’s not that I doubt your skills, cuz if you want MY opinion, you’re going to dismantle Slade into bite sized chunks, I just don’t know where I stand in YOUR view,” she told him in exasperation, tired of dancing around the bush and playing the waiting game. ‘Every time I think there’s nothing there, he does something sickeningly sweet for me to make me wonder what’s really going through his head,’ she thought, mind struggling to keep up with his mood and temperament changes.

Now it was his turn to frown, not willing or wanting to confront this topic, especially in a bed of all places. “Jinx,” he began in a warning tone, only to be cut off by her once more.

“No, don’t ‘Jinx’ me this time dammit! I’m not asking you to marry me or run away or anything stupid like that, all I want to know is if I’m only a friend to you. Do you even see me as something more or am I an idiot for reading more deeply into this than I should have?” she asked him bluntly, taking his hand into hers before he could move away from her like he normally did.

Base instincts screamed at him to yank his hand from hers and flee the situation, supported heavily by the mocking voice that was his constant companion, showing him horrible fates that awaited anyone foolish enough to love him. The quiet parts of his mind reminded him that he was still human, in spite of all that he’d been through, with human needs, desires, wants and dreams. In her eyes he could see the promise for a new life, a new start...a second chance. Yet, lying there in symbiosis with that chance was the fact of who and what he’d become in his bloody crusade for personal justice and retribution.

Forcing himself to stay with her, to answer her blunt and pointed question, he nodded at her finally. “I...I don’t know what to say Jinx...I really don’t. Do I have feelings for you beyond that of just a friend or a partner? Yes, I do. Do I find you beautiful and desirable? Again, yes,” he told her, part of him thrilling at the wide smile she wore at his admission, even as another part of him ached as he continued to speak.

“But,” he said, the word chasing her smile away and replacing it with a fearful look. “I DON’T love you like I did with Raven,” he admitted, knowing there was no comparing what he’d shared with Raven.

“When I look at you, I see someone that I respect and admire, someone I enjoy spending time with...even if we weren’t being hunted by just about everybody under the sun,” he said with a rueful smile.

“I also see my failures, to my family and friends. They used them against me, killed them BECAUSE of me. I don’t want to take the chance of it happening again, I CAN’T take the chance of it happening again,” he growled, easily finding the anger and madness that drove him.

Jinx moved quickly, closing the distance between them so that her face was only inches in front of his. She could smell the distinct cologne he used, underscored by the natural way he smelled; a scent of power and strength. “I don’t want to take her place Nightwing, I would never DREAM of doing anything like that to her...or to you,” she said in a husky tone, not wanting to lose out on what she viewed as her last chance for a life that could be considered remotely normal.

“All I want is the chance to love you and be loved in return, that’s it. I know it hasn’t been easy on you, but I’m not afraid. Not of them, not of what MIGHT happen...and especially not of you. No matter WHAT you think or feel about yourself, you’re NOT a lost cause or a burden to me,” the pink haired woman said, closing the gap between them even more, her head tilting to the side.

He found himself paralyzed at her words and actions, unable to speak or move in his defense as her lips approached his. ‘Is this real? Is this really happening?’ he questioned himself, finding a surreal sensation coming over him.

“You want this, I want this, so why deny it anymore? If tomorrow never comes for either of us, I don’t want my only experiences in love to be bad ones. I want to show you how deeply and strongly I can love, I want you to show me what it means to be loved, whole heartedly and without reservation,” she whispered to him, then pressed her lips to his.

Dick’s eyes widened, then slowly shut as he allowed himself to enjoy the feeling, loosing his tightly held grip on his emotions and controls. Bringing his hand up to the back of her head, his lips parted to allow her tongue and his to dance, drawing a moan of desire from the woman as her hands flew to the sides of his head.

Pulling him back with her, she positioned his body atop of his, enjoying the full pressure of his muscular body against hers. For the first time since her ordeal at the hands of Brother Blood and Slade, she felt desirable and beautiful, no longer damaged goods that were beyond notice or worth.

Dick pulled back from the kiss, breathless with passion and desire, warring with himself over what the possibilities of the next few moments could bring. “Jinx,” he whispered huskily, unable to take his eyes off of hers.

“Shhhh. Don’t. Just go with it. I trust you, more than I’ve ever trusted anyone. Love me, please,” she asked him, pulling his face back down to hers and kissing him deeply.

With her whispered plea, he released the last of his doubts, his fears and reservations, allowing his building passions to explode behind his eyes. They moved clumsily, clothing being pulled and in more than one instance, ripped, from one another in their haste. Muted giggles and gasps marked their first time together, far from the ideals so many set, yet perfect for them.

Hands caressed and teased, legs entwined and embraced, bodies moved hesitantly at first, gaining both speed and confidence as they went. Moans and sighs were the most obvious signs of their love making, followed by the creaking of furniture and rustling of sheets. Her arms and legs wrapped around him as she buried her face into the side of his neck, letting out a scream of passion as he carried her over the edge, before he did the same, uttering her name reverently into her sweat soaked skin.

Laying there, gasping for air and trying to slow the pounding of their hearts, smiles slowly grew on their faces. Almost as one, they turned their heads to look at each other, Dick’s hand coming up and brushing a few strands of plastered pink hair from the side of her face. Basking in the love they’d shared, neither wished to ruin the moment with words, instead letting looks and touches speak what they needed to say, until before long they once more were intimately engaged. This time they went slowly, worshiping one another’s body, exploring the wonderland they’d discovered with each other, drawing delight from the pleasure of their partner.

The next day...

He held her closely to his chest, smelling the clean scent of her lightly colored hair, his mind lost deeply within his thoughts. Emotions assailed him over what he’d allowed himself to do and feel. Guilt plagued him, skewering him cruelly for letting himself feel something for another woman, though his wife was months dead. Fears of her ending up like his wife riding on the coattails of that guilt, compounding it ten fold.

Peace and love were ever present as he laid in her arms, protecting her with his. Directly opposing these were the memories of his actions over the last few weeks, the death’s he’d caused in his revenge, causing him to wonder if he even should find peace and love again.

She slept soundly in his arms, a small loving smile on her face as she nestled more closely to him, as if reading his thoughts at the moment. ‘She looks so fragile like this, so innocent,’ he thought with wonder, studying her face and committing each and every minute detail to his memory.

Kissing her forehead tenderly, he forced away what he could of his misgivings and tried to focus on the moment. Faces of the dead kept coming back to haunt him, staring at him with dead, accusing eyes for seemingly abandoning his sacred mission for restitution of the ones that had murdered them. With a vengeance, the guilt pervaded him, slowly but inescapably consuming him. ‘She’s going to die horribly as well, just as Raven did,’ the voice in his mind echoed repeatedly, hammering away at the gains he’d made with Jinx.

For every argument he posed, two more cropped up showing him the folly of his endeavors, that no matter the outcome, happiness was forever beyond his reach. ‘Only the solemn embrace of death and the promise of being with your beloved in the hereafter can you find the peace you so desperately crave,’ the words seemed wistful, yet carried with it a steely undertone.

Jinx slowly came aware of her surroundings, smiling a bit more broadly as she moved her tired and somewhat sore body, enjoying the warmth of being in another’s arms. Opening her eyes, her good mood quickly fled at the expression on her lover’s face. “You regret this, don’t you?” she asked quietly, gone was the strength she normally carried there, replaced with despondency.

Her voice served as the distraction he’d needed to pry his psyche from itself, removing the circular and harmful thinking he’d trapped himself in. “Hmm? Oh...oh NO!” he said hastily, eyes opening wide as he earnestly began to explain.

“I was just kinda thinking about...well, you know, what’s going to happen to us now. I’ve still got to fight Slade and figure something out about what’s going to happen with the Justice League,” he said, pressing his forehead to hers and holding her gaze.

Desperately wanting to believe him, yet still uncertain, she blinked slowly. “Are you sure? You looked awfully...pained, for a second there,” she asked, licking dry morning lips anxiously.

Kissing her dry lips, he shook his head. “I’m sure. I don’t regret ANYTHING, trust me,” the man told her, emphasizing his words with a tender squeeze of his arms.

Smiling into the hug, she let the fears melt away. “I was afraid, well...that you didn’t...LIKE it...me,” she told him, sharing her hidden fear, one she’d carried for some time.

“Huh? You aren’t serious are you? What’s not to like?” he asked, stunned by her admission and more than a bit confused by it.

Clasping herself to him, she closed her eyes, as if the simple gesture would make any admissions easier for her. “Well, I haven’t exactly done THAT too many times before. Wally was my first...and you’re the only other man I’ve ever had sex with. I don’t count what they did to me,” she added quietly, cheeks coloring more than usual at the memories, both good and bad.

Maneuvering his body so that she was forced to meet his eyes, he gave her a loving smile. “You’re only my second as well you know, besides, it’s not how many times you’ve had sex, it’s what emotions you put into it,” he explained carefully, not wanting her to feel preached to or looked down on.

Her smile started small then grew wider as she thought about his words of comfort. “Thank you Nightwing,” she said quietly, kissing him softly.

“It’s Richard, but my friends call me Dick,” he corrected, giving her his real name, one known by only a select few.

For long moments she simply stared into his eyes in disbelief. It was legend how jealously he guarded his true identity, and though he’d not given her a last name or details of his life, she felt honored and thrilled that he held her in such high esteem to entrust her with it. “Dick huh?” she asked with a crooked smile.

He rolled his eyes playfully, “Don’t EVEN go there,” he joked, easing the last of the tensions between them.

The next few days were a blur for both of them as they researched into a location to meet Slade out that would benefit them. The man was a master manipulator, easily twisting situations to his advantage, a fact that both of them were well aware.

He felt her arms wrap around his neck from behind, her chin coming to rest as his shoulder as she looked down to what he was working on. “You think that’s going to work?” she asked with interest. She’d been amazed at his level of competence at tactics and strategy, as well as the devotion he spent in researching his foes. ‘It’s a wonder he didn’t single handedly take down H.I.V.E. a long time ago,’ she thought.

Leaning into her embrace, he nodded thoughtfully. “I think so, but I won’t know for sure until I make contact with him and set up our fight. I’m banking on the fact that he’s going to underestimate me in a lot of ways. I stunned him before at the facility with Brother Blood, showing me that he isn’t in control as he thinks he is. He’ll over compensate for that this time around, wanting to make sure he’s covered all the bases. I just have to play into that and capitalize on his meticulousness,” he explained, rubbing her fingers absently.

A dark feeling held him, one he’d not shared with his lover, fearful of losing what he’d worked so hard to gain. The end of his journey was upon him, yet he felt little lightness to his load at the fact, rather it was as if a giant chasm had opened before him, ready to swallow him once and for all into the darkness.

“When are we going to do this then?” she asked him, assured in her belief that he was going to take her with him.

“Tomorrow or the next day. I don’t want to let him get too comfortable or able to plan too much. Besides, Batman and company are getting closer to us and the sooner it’s done, the sooner we’re free,” he answered, squeezing her hand as he hid the guilt at his lie.

Kissing the side of his face, she smiled wistfully. “Good, then we’ll get the hell out of dodge and disappear for a while, let things cool down,” Jinx replied, moving off to the bedroom.

He waited almost an hour for her to fall asleep before he moved, using his skills to cross the house without making a noise. Slipping an envelope onto the desk next to their bed, he gazed upon her face one last time, unable to resist the urge to caress her cheek and kiss her one last time.

Her smile and quiet murmurings almost broke his resolve, “I love you,” she whispered sleepily, unaware that she’d spoken aloud.

“I love you too Jinx, that’s why I’m going to do this,” he replied, hating himself for what he was about to do, and hating the ones that forced him to do it even more.

He held his breath as he broke open a small capsule, setting it gently on the floor at the side of the bed. The near colorless smoke drifted upwards, slowly wrapping around the sleeping woman, entering her nose and mouth as she slept. The narcotic effect of the smoke would ensure the woman slept for the next 10 hours or so, giving him more than enough time to deal with Slade and end his murderous rampage once and for all.

Placing the mask and rebreather on his face, he stopped one last time to look at the woman he’d come to love. He’d cried himself out long ago, but he felt the warm burning that signaled his tears threatening to burst loose, before ruthlessly crushing them beneath the weight of his hatred and pain.

3 hours later, in a warehouse in the shipping district...

“So Robin, it’s finally come. The day when we settle our differences is at hand. Tell me, are you prepared?” asked the masked Slade, easily twirling his paired katana’s as he stepped into the pool’s of light that shone down from the ceiling.

Nightwing felt empty, cold and hollow. His burning rage and hatred had evolved, transcended to icy determination, utter conviction in his abilities and his purpose. His life, one way or another, simply ended tonight. He couldn’t see past this moment, this battle that had been so long in coming. Nothing existed for him beyond it, and that knowledge brought him power and peace, accepting his fate and choices.

Rather than answer or banter with the man, he charged the man as he pulled the escrima sticks from his gloves, easily meeting the man’s blocking swords and counter attacks. He moved with controlled fury and power, easily out maneuvering the clearly stunned man with his attacks. His expression was devoid of emotion, only showing almost a cold indifference to the battle they waged.

The blades slipped past his defenses, seeming to capitalize on an opening, only to have the blade in his right hand shattered at the guard by the specially designed escrima in a stunning show of power from the slashing block.

The left blade clove through his armored suit with relative ease, drawing first blood for the swordsman, scoring the flesh but doing no real harm. Instead, Nightwing moved in closer to the man, removing the reach advantage as well as placing himself within striking distance with his armored foe. Snapping a kick at the man’s knee, he spun suddenly as he aborted the move, having seen Slade commit to a dodge and drove his left hand stick into the man’s abdomen as he tried to leap away.

The sheer force of the blow drove the air from him and caused him to stumble backwards. He was unable to truly recover for Nightwing was immediately upon him, never relenting in his attacks or their vicious and deadly nature. Catching the man on the wrist with the right hand stick, he numbed the grip on his remaining sword, kicking it clear of the fight as he spun a knee into the man’s side.

Once more Slade found himself being man handled, tossed about like a ship lost at sea. He adapted easily and began a counterattack, fists and feet becoming his weapons, trusting in his abilities to carry the day for him.

Nightwing had changed greatly in the past six months, no longer following his training and moral code, the code he’d lived by for the majority of his life. He wasn’t fighting to take a criminal off the street, seeking to defeat the man in honorable combat; he was looking to kill him. Rather than attempting blows and strikes that would incapacitate Slade, he struck with brutal accuracy and ruthless efficiency, landing his sticks into vital and crippling areas of the other.

Slade tried to fight with the same fire and intensity, using his own sense of pain and humiliation to empower his fighting prowess, and found that it was lacking against the man. For every blow he’d land, it was shrugged off with seeming indifference and was retaliated with two crushing blows from the escrima.

Nightwing systematically struck at the man, numbing then crippling the shoulders with well place blows into the armpits, dislocating the left one with almost savage glee. Even as the man stumbled back to garner himself some room and time, he found Nightwing there before him, blurring sticks, knee’s and feet into his body.

A double strike arced into the man, blasting aside the almost feeble block and driving the stick into the side of his metal mask. The sound of metal on metal echoed in the warehouse, ringing clearly in the night air. His right hand stick swept back, striking only a scant second before the left did on the opposite side of the mask, driving him to his knees before him.

Twirling the sticks in his hands, he reversed his hold on them as he brought them up over his head, driving them downwards into the soft hollows just above the collarbones. They cracked and pierced the man’s armor, crushing bone and soft tissue beneath, almost forcing consciousness from the man.

Pulling his weapons from the now ruined upper torso of the man, Nightwing paused, feeling the deep hatred and rage boiling rapidly inside him. With a feral snarl, he slammed his sticks into the man’s mask, shattering it once more, just as he’d done in their last fight, when the man had tried to kill Raven.

There was no one to save Slade this time, he’d killed the two that had inadvertently become the tools for their own demise with the actions. The mask crumbled from his head, leaving Slade open to scrutiny from his arch nemesis of so many years. He looked old, tired and beaten. His once dark hair was streaked with grey, thinning on the top and sides. His ruined eye was puckered and whitish grey, set in his tanned and once handsome face. Bearing the scars of their previous encounter on the right side of his face, Slade looked much older than his years.

Standing over the fallen man, Nightwing’s chest expanded and contracted with rising frequency, his hatred consuming him. “I should’ve finished you off the first time, then NONE of this would have happened,” he said, his voice barely recognizable even to his own ears.

The man on the ground writhed in agony, a bubbling repetitive sound chortling from him. It took a moment for Nightwing to realize that is was sick and pained laughter.

“You’ve won, but so have I. I made you become just like me, my true successor, heir to my legacy,” he gasped out, his voice taking on an almost guttural sound from the blood slowly filling his lungs.

With methodical motions, Nightwing replaced the sticks on his gauntlets before pulling a wicked looking serrated edge blade from a holster on his leg. “You’re wrong Slade, I’m NOTHING like you. I’ve DESTROYED your legacy and everything about it. You’ll be lost to the ages within a few years, nothing more than a footnote,” he said, slamming his fist into the man’s face, crushing his nose and shattering a cheek bone.

Slade lay on the cold concrete in a puddle of blood and broken armor, barely cognizant of what was happening as Nightwing pulled the remains of his armor off. The blade jerked, tearing through the thin undershirt the man wore, removing it to lay flesh bare beneath the light.

Moving the knife to his left hand, he pulled out a small capsule and crushed it within his right, holding it beneath the man’s ruined nose until his eyelids fluttered and he spewed blood in an attempt to get away from the noxious fumes.

“Stay with me Slade, I’ve got something to show you, something I’m SURE you’ll appreciate,” hissed Nightwing, bringing up the blade so that the light reflected off of it in horrible promise.

His eye widened at the sight, realizing what the man had in store for him. Shaking his head, he tried to work his jaw, only receiving a nasty blow to the side of his face for the efforts. The blow wasn’t hard enough to break the bones, but it did succeed in dislocating it.

Smiling viciously at his helpless prey, Nightwing’s face filled his line of sight. “She was alive when you raped and tortured her Slade, able to feel every pain and humiliation you gave her. It’s the least I can do for you, making sure that you get to sample the fruits of your efforts,” he said, his eyes blazing with madness, lost to the voices of the damned and the dead within his mind.

Pulling a needled ampule from his small compartment on his belt, he slammed it into the man’s chest, coursing his body with a concentrated dose of adrenalin, causing his heart to yammer in response. “Now then, I believe you started...HERE!” he said through clenched teeth, driving the blade into the tender lower abdominal regions and jerking it violently across, opening up the flesh from hip to hip and exposing living organs.

The man’s screams, only intensified by the dislocation of his jaw echoed horribly through night, sending chills to the homeless and destitute that made their homes nearby. Covering faces with hats, scarves’s or shirts, they silently left the area, not wanting to get entangled in what ever bloody mess had come to their pitiful little world.

Swooping low on the grappling line, Batman hit the ground running, a solid shadow racing in the darkness around him. He blasted his shoulder through the wooden door, turning it to kindling in the blink of an eye.

The warehouse was almost empty save for the terrible sight near the center of it. The lights shone down on the bloody mess that used to be a human being. Standing over it like a predator does it’s kill was the motionless form of his former friend and partner, eyeing him warily.

Walking forwards, Batman could see the man’s intestines and majority of organs had been removed and crushed, the remnants lying haphazardly on and around the man. His blood adorned the black of Nightwing’s costume, shining almost proudly in the dim lighting.

“It’s over Dick, it’s time to come with me,” Bruce said gruffly, struggling against his nature to simply rush the man and take him into custody.

“Why? So you and your ‘friends’ can play judge, jury and executioner for my supposed crimes? You ALL stood by, doing NOTHING about the killers of my wife and daughter, all my friends...and NOW you decide to get involved? That’s too rich Bruce, even for you,” was the derisive reply, snorting in disgust.

He threw the blade in his right hand into the opened chest cavity of the dead man at his feet, the handle quivering slightly as it sank home in the ruined flesh. “Don’t you think it’s kind of poetic, getting killed in the same fashion he’d killed Raven? I’m learned my lessons of irony from the best, wouldn’t you say?” Nightwing asked his former mental, taking an emotional jab at him.

He took slow steps forwards, eyes never leaving the shadowy figure of the bat, knowing how much a master of the darkness he truly was and respecting that. “Speaking of poetic, don’t you think this little drama unfolding now is worth a song? A dirge perhaps? Father and son, best friends, partners; about to engage in mortal combat, only one of them surviving the day?” he asked, his smile was chilling to behold, showing the depth of madness and hatred that boiled with the deranged and pained younger man.

Batman narrowed his eyes, hopes of taking the young man in peacefully all but evaporating with the man’s words and actions. “I don’t want that Dick, I want to help you. We can get through this...together. This doesn’t have to play out this way,” he tried to reason with the man, waiting his time to strike, giving the man every last opportunity to walk away from this in one piece.

“Together huh? Why now? Why not BEFORE, when I NEEDED and WANTED your help? You WANTED this to happen Bruce, made it happen by your own actions,” he spat back, sounding betrayed as his mind painfully remembered the last fight they’d had and the reasons it had come about.

“YOU WANTED THIS!” shouted Batman, stabbing a hand at the body on the floor. “How is THIS justice Dick? This is the 32nd person you’ve killed in this lunacy, how many more will you kill before you’re satisfied? How much more blood has to be spilled to avenge their deaths? It NEVER ends Dick, never. You’re walking down a road that only has one ending; your own death. Is that what you want? To die?” the older man asked him, taking a circular route around the man, keeping him talking in a vain hope that he could still save his adopted son and friend.

Shrugging, Nightwing looked over his shoulder at the body that bore witness to this exchange. “It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? The one’s that committed the crime have all paid for it, blood for blood. They made the rules and died by them, what happens now is irrelevant,” he answered, circling with Batman around the body like predators over a kill.

The callousness of his remarks struck deeply at Bruce Wayne, knowing he was looking at a vivid picture of who and what he could have become. “I’m sorry Dick, sorry I couldn’t make you see how wrong this is. This wasn’t justice, this was murder, hidden beneath the illusion of righteousness,” he said, his voice taking on a somber tone, truly regretting his lack of insight earlier into the man’s psyche.

Nightwing’s eyes narrowed, “Everyone I killed played a part in the murders of my friends and family Bruce, EVERYONE!” he shouted at the man.

“What about Joey Numbers? Johnny the Finger? They were at BEST low level thugs that only had marginal contacts with Slade and his operations. How could they have taken part in what happened? Were their deaths justified in your quest too, or were they just a means to an end?” he asked hotly, listing off names of a few of the deceased that had been no more then collateral damage to the young man.

“They had information on the operations and locations, but only responded to pain. They died stupidly by trying to cover for the real murders. They DESERVED what they got,” Nightwing expounded, refusing to feel guilty for what he viewed as justified homicide.

Shaking his head once more, Batman stopped his circling, squaring his body to the man before him. “Are you listening to yourself? How many more DESERVE to be killed for knowledge they might have? Where does it end? What about a rape victim too scared to identify her attacker? Would you kill her as well to get the information you need to find her assailant?” he asked, showing him the slippery moral slope he’d put himself on.

“Don’t twist it Bruce, it’s NOTHING like that and you KNOW it!” was the heated response he got back, Nightwing also ceasing his movements.

“You tell me then Dick, what gives you the RIGHT to decide who lives and who dies? Are you a god? Omniscient and wise that can say with impunity that this person should live, and that person doesn’t?” Pointing to the dead body of Slade on the ground nearby, he continued his reasoning.

“Did he deserve this? I’m not the one to answer that question Dick, but I’m not sad he’s gone. What I’m sad about it that it was YOU that took it upon yourself to do it. You’re supposed to be ABOVE this, you’re not like them. Could you look Raven in the eye after all you’ve done? What about Cyborg? Beastboy? Starfire? Any of your friends that died at his hands that day?” he asked, listing off the supposedly avenged.

“I told you before; the road we walk is dark, but it’s our responsibility to not abuse our chosen paths. What you did is murder, no matter WHY you did it. That’s why I’m here, not because I don’t believe in you, but because it was WRONG to do what you did. Now, PLEASE, come with me, and we’ll work this out somehow, I promise you that,” he said earnestly, holding out his gloved hand in friendship, a life line to sanity and his last chance at redemption.

Nightwing was torn, his madness and logic fighting for dominance within him, knowing that what he did was right, yet hard pressed to accept it with who and what he’d used to be. “I can’t Bruce, I just can’t. There’s no where for me now. I’m trapped between what’s right and wrong. Nobody is going to be able to accept what I’ve done, and those that followed them are going to be looking to even the score with me for it,” he said sadly, his head hanging slightly.

Batman gave a tight grin, “You forget who you’re dealing with Dick. Nightwing and Richard Grayson will die tonight, but that doesn’t mean YOU have to. Trust me like you used to. I failed you once son, I swear to you now; I won’t do it again,” he pledged to the man, taking a furtive step forwards.

The ground under them rumbled ominously, causing both men to pause and spread their legs further apart to maintain balance. Nightwing looked up at Batman with a hostile expression, jumping to conclusion about the nature of the disturbance but found him to be wearing a confused expression as well.

“What the hell?” he muttered, struggling to maintain his feet as the rumbling grew and began to shake the building and it’s surroundings almost violently.

“We need to leave now!” shouted Batman over the loud rumbling, moving quickly to the doorway in which he’d come.

“Right behind you,” called out Nightwing, instinctively falling into the long held partnership they shared.

A mighty crashing came from above them, a red and blue streak landing in the warehouse behind them. “NIGHTWING!” called out the man of steel, looking very stern and imposing.

Both the men that owned the night turned to face the newcomer, one with an expression of betrayal and rage, the other of sick surprise and horrified betrayal. “SUPERMAN! NO!” shouted Batman, extending a hand towards the man, hoping to warn him off of his former partner.

Dick felt the bitter and painful betrayal as a mortal blow to the last of his hidden hopes. He could barely register that Batman looked as shocked as he did, but it was washed away as he realized that he was now truly alone, and that he wouldn’t be walking away from this one unscathed. Though the ground was beginning to split in strange lines, he raced from the light and back into the shadows, knowing that his only chance would be to disappear into them.

‘I’m sorry Jinx,’ he thought, her pink eyes haunting him as he set himself for battle with a living god.

Batman, rather than move towards the exits, raced to grab Clark, turning him so that he could face him directly. “What are you doing here? This DOESN’T involve you!” he accused hotly, eyes narrowing beneath his cowl.

Clark gave him a pitied gaze, “I’m sorry Bruce, but I HAVE to get involved now. He hired Lobo to kill Blackfire, and the lunatic killed trillions of beings in the process. It goes far beyond just what’s happened here now. In order to protect our own credibility, I have to bring him in to stand trial for his crimes,” he explained gently, not wanting to do it this way but unable to take the chance of losing the young man once more.

Knuckling up his right hand, Batman just barely fought off the urge to slam his fist into the man. He’d hit him once, after losing Jason Todd, and almost shattered his hand in the process. “You IDIOT! He was going to come with me, OF HIS OWN FREE WILL!” the man was irate at the interference and destruction of the hard won truce he’d garnered with Dick.

Shaking his head, Superman sighed. “I’m sorry Bruce, I really am, but you’re too close to the situation and it was decided that I should be the one to take him down. To save you any further pain,” he said, beginning to move off into the shadows to hunt his prey.

Before Batman could move, a blur slammed into the back of the man of steel, sending him crashing from the building, through the wall, across the street and into the next building.

Wonder Woman landed lightly next to Batman, a fixed expression on her face. “Hurry, I’ll try to slow him down,” she ordered tightly, giving her lover a knowing look of pained understanding.

“Diana,” he whispered, truly touched at her actions and understanding, knowing how dearly both of them would pay for what they were about to do.

In a rush, she crushed her lips to his, before breaking it off and striding to where Superman was getting back to his feet.

He watched at the two meta’s did wary battle, Superman’s face twisted in anger as he wrestled with the Amazonian Princess, both determined to do what they felt was right. ‘Do you even realize what you’ve started Dick? The rifts your crusade has caused?’ he questioned the man silently, joining the shadows as well.

The cracks in the ground yawed open amidst a hissing cloud of steam, the rumbling ceasing as the doors had finally slid open. There was movement within the vaporous clouds, dark vaguely man shaped beings climbing into the realms above them. Hundreds of Slades rushed forth, wielding a collection of weapons the man had used, all intent on killing the superheroes they found.

Cursing loudly, Batman moved in deadly dances with dozens of the robots, taking three to four blows to dispatch just one, while not only did two more rise up to take it’s place but he received multiple blows in return. A whirling sound slashed past him, a symbol smashing into a robot that had been attempting to behead Batman. He smiled tightly, knowing that Dick hadn’t deserted them after all.

Nightwing, having left the building and found hundreds of Slades final revenge waiting for him. He fought a retreating battle, only marginally aware of Superman being blasted out of the building, closely followed by Wonder Woman. Leaping up to a window ledge, he pulled himself in, somersaulting to the interior of the warehouse, followed by the robots in Slade’s likeness.

Seeing Batman fighting a valiant but doomed battle with too many robots to count, he threw several of his shurikens into robots at his back, giving the Dark Knight a way out of the slowly tightening noose of attackers.

He rushed by the robots, giving them slight distractions as he wrought havoc and destruction on them as he passed. Far more used to dealing with the mechanical creations then the others, he also had an almost intimate knowledge of their workings from the long running battles he’d waged with them.

Rolling up to his feet from a sliding attack he’d just delivered, he paused to gauge the battle once more. Both Wonder Woman and Batman were engaged almost back to back, encircled by the robots, though they were obviously giving better then they were getting. Crouching low by the wall, he eyed area carefully until he finally caught sight of Superman. He was using his heat vision to blast apart greater concentrations of the robots before diving into them and pummeling them into broken pieces.

Though they’d destroyed hundreds of the robots, more were still climbing or jumping from one of the three openings in the floor. ‘This isn’t like Slade, this is way too forward and up-front,’ he thought, his mind putting all he knew about the man into play and not liking the picture it was painting. “Unless,” he muttered, suddenly remembering his words to the man in the sanctuary of Brother Blood.

Bolting from his hiding spot, he used the heads and shoulders of various robots as platforms and springboards, showing his prowess and acrobatic abilities as he made his way across the metallic sea between him and the chasms in the floor.

Once more somersaulting into the air, he led with his feet down into the darkness of the holes, only seeing dim lighting from the depths.

Batman caught the movement from the corner of his eye, unable to focus on the situation due to the sheer amount of foes they faced. “We’re being delayed, we need to get out of here,” he said darkly, slamming his fist and a foot into another of the robots.

Ripping the arm off of one, Diana used it as a makeshift club, crumpling a dozen more before it simply broke apart in her hands. Looking at the stump of wrist in her hand, she gave a disgusted look at it’s workmanship. Throwing it at another approaching robots, she agreed with him. “True, but we can’t just let them loose onto the city.”

Superman created a mighty wind that buffeted several more away from them, shooting the duo an aggravated look. “I’ve sent for more of the Justice League to help contain these robots. Nightwing went below, I’m going after him,” he announced, almost as if to cause them pain in knowing that this time they were all but powerless to stop him from doing so.

“Don’t do this Clark, he’s not lost yet,” growled the Dark Knight, his sentiments almost immediately echoed by Wonder Woman.

“He fought with us AGAINST these things, that should show you he’s still in there somewhere,” the woman argued, giving him a vile look.

Ignoring their collective expression, Superman lofted into the air. “One action doesn’t prove he’s rehabilitated, that’s for the courts to decide, not us,” he responded, flying quickly into the depths of the facility below them in pursuit of Nightwing.

“Damn you,” glowered Batman, feeling impotent to help save Nightwing as the robots rushed them once more.

Unable to leave his side lest he be overwhelmed by sheer numbers, Wonder Woman fought like she was possessed, attempting to destroy them as quickly as she could so that they could also pursue them.

Meanwhile...

The steady stream of robots came from one of three corridors, corridors that led from the bowels of the facility and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. They were single minded in their activities, unaware of the dark clad man hiding within the shadows around them as it made it’s way into the central area several floors below ground.

What he found shocked and scared him, causing him to pause in the threshold of the room. Before him lay a fusion engine that was powering the mini-factory, it’s sickly green radiance casting the room in a hellish glow. The heat of the room was almost oppressive, heat waves giving the illusion that the far side of the room was underwater. “What have you done Slade?” asked Nightwing, getting a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Snapping out of his reverie, he raced to the control panels and quickly surveyed the layout and programs being used, cursing loudly as he did. The man hadn’t even planned to escape this day, instead using the fight and subsequent ambush to delay them just long enough for the fusion reaction to overload and create a devastating explosion that would not only level the city but render it lifeless for hundreds of years after from radiation poisoning.

Pulling up a seat, he began to frantically work on stopping the steadily decaying controls. For every series of robots the factory produced, it further added to the increasing destability, in effect creating a self destructive loop that would unleash the full brunt of it’s power in a matter of minutes.

“It’s time to go Dick,” came the deep and firm voice of Superman as he walked into the room.

“No time to deal with you, got bigger things going on right now in case you haven’t noticed,” Nightwing replied, not looking over his shoulder at the man or ceasing his frantic work to stop the nuclear explosion that was quickly looming.

Narrowing his eyes, Superman eyed what the man was doing as well as the critical fusion engine that was increasing in brightness. “What’s happening?” he asked, changing his tune rather quickly.

“Slade rigged some kind of fusion explosion that was linked with the start up of those robots we’d been fighting. For everyone it created, it added to the critical mass of the fusion engine over there until it reaches it’s designated mass, and then...” he paused in his words but not his actions.

“I’ll get it out of here,” Superman announced, speeding to the side of the engine and grasping it in his hands, tensing to pull it from it’s mounts and cables.

“DON’T! It’ll explode if you do that, just give me a second,” shouted Nightwing, gritting his teeth and focusing his attentions to the task at hand.

The kryptonian eyed his carefully, feeling a twinge of sorrow at what had happened to the man, but knowing that he was bound by his word to bring him back for trial for what he’d done. “This isn’t personal Dick, I want you to know that,” he said quietly, wanting to show the man he wasn’t thinking ill of him.

“It was to me,” was the terse reply, before he pointed quickly at the engine. “GO! You have about 20 seconds before that thing go’s off,” he ordered the man, his eyes still locked on the terminal in front of him.

Swiveling his head as he watched Superman pull the engine up, he gave the man a fleeting smile. “Tell Batman and Wonder Woman that this place is going to self destruct, I’ll do what I can to delay it as long as possible,” he said as the man leapt into the air with his burden.

“What about you?” Clark asked, hovering for a moment.

Nightwing gave him a fixed stare, the expression on his face showing the resolve he felt. “The punishment must fit the crime, right?” he asked quietly, turning his back on the man.

Superman was torn, needing to get the device clear of the city while at the same time not wanting to let the disturbed young man sacrifice himself.

“GO! You don’t have much time! Even with all your powers and speed, it’s still going to be close,” yelled Nightwing, aggravated that the man was still present with a bomb that would level the city.

Even before the man finished his statement, Superman flew back upwards, blasting through the flooring and destroying many of the remaining robots. “Quickly! The facility is rigged to explode! Nightwing is buying us as much time as he can,” he shouted to them, then shooting through the roof and into the night sky, getting as much altitude as he could.

Wonder Woman eyed Batman, seeing the man’s struggle to go after his son and letting him do what he felt was right. “Bruce, we have to go,” she said quietly, taking his hand in hers.

He attempted to yank away his hand, momentarily forgetting how powerful she really was. “We can’t leave him Diana,” he said, looking back at the holes, wondering how much time was left to them.

“He wouldn’t want you to die too Bruce, you know that,” she said, making his blue eyes meet hers.

He was torn between throwing himself into the jaws of death or fleeing and trusting in his partner to know what he was doing. In the end, it was decided for him, Diana clasping her other hand to his and flying him into the air and away from the warehouse.

A faint green light met them in the skies, Green Lantern racing to them even as the ground below them buckled and cracked, light and fire escaping from between the cracks. “Holy hell,” shouted the warrior, sending his energy down to encase the growing explosion and contain it so that it wouldn’t level the entire district.

The bubble worked, all too well. The contained energy expanded upwards, then compressed downwards to release it’s devastating power into the ground and subterranean levels that Slade had built. The result was a gigantic crater almost a hundred feet deep that quickly filled in with water from the harbor, the explosion having burst through into the water table.

As the last of the rumbling died away, the remaining heroes surveyed the damage to the area. A new lake sat in the middle of the shipping distance, within sight of the harbor and the memorial to Titan’s Tower.

Batman stood to the side atop a high building almost a mile away from the crater, feeling a cold hollow spot within him as he looked down at the district. He didn’t move when Superman rejoined them, standing beside Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter, speaking in quiet tones as if in respect for the fallen.

His eyes were cold as he and Superman locked eyes, not giving away a hint of what turmoil was boiling within him. As he approached, Batman pointedly turned from him and strode away towards the far edge of the building. “Save it Boy Scout,” he said gruffly, beyond caring about what the man could possibly say.

“Batman, we need to discuss the actions of you and Wonder Woman,” he called out to the man, stopping in the middle of the roof.

The man turned and coldly regarded him. “I’ll make you decision easy, I quit,” he stated with finality, his cape whirling as he spun from them. Pulling his grappling gun he targeted a far roof and quickly left the heroes to their own devices.

Wonder Woman walked past him without saying a word, only stopping when he put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “What about you? Are you willing to just throw everything we’ve done away as well? All to sooth hurt feelings?” he asked, wanting it to sound non-confrontational but having it come out almost spiteful. ‘The man has a way of getting a rise out of everyone he comes into contact with,’ he thought angrily, hating that he could do that to him.

He never expected the slap from her, almost falling to the ground from the sheer power of it. “He’s just lost his son and all you can think about is how this is going to affect something that had NOTHING to do with it? Clark, I honestly expected better of you,” she spat, her eyes flashing her anger at the treatment he’d given Bruce.

Placing her hands on her hips she glared at all of them, shaking her head in judgement. “I’m done with the lot of you. From now on I’ll make my stand with him. In time, once you all remember that our mission was to protect and help the mortals here, perhaps we’ll return. In the meantime, stay out of Gotham, NONE of you are welcomed there anymore,” she grimly told them, lifting up into the air and soaring after Batman.

Superman shook his head, a blazing hand print on the side of his face as testament to her words. “Leave them. We’ll let time heal these wounds,” he said to the his remaining teammates.

As Green Lantern and Superman took to the skies as well, Martian Manhunter gave a long look over at the destruction, eyes closing as he concentrated deeply. With a heavy sigh, he opened his eyes and levitated up after the other two heroes. ‘Rest well Richard Grayson, may you finally find the peace you so desperately sought,’ he thought in memorial to the fallen man.

Early afternoon, the next day...

A persistent knocking roused Jinx from her slumber, piercing the headache that throbbed happily behind her eyes. “Ohhhhh...I think I can feel my eyebrows growing,” she mumbled, almost falling out of the bed. Kicking the door on the way past, she colorfully swore her pain and annoyance, hopping on one foot to open the door as the knocking once more began.

Ripping open the door, she glared at her unexpected guest. He was a distinguished looking older man, dressed in a fine suit of black with a white shirt and black bowtie. He carried a bowler under his right arm and wore perfectly white gloves on both hands. He bowed slightly to the disheveled girl, “Good morning Madam, I do hope I’m not intruding,” he said formally, his accent slightly clipped British.

“What ever you’re selling, I ain’t interested,” she said darkly, starting to close the door and turn away from the man as she still rubbed her aching toes.

His hand stopped her actions and almost tipped her over as she overbalanced. Narrowing her eyes, she turned on the man, summoning her pink entropy to her hands. “Get lost before I make your regret you were ever born,” she threatened with narrowed eyes.

Taking back his hand that had stopped her from closing the door, he once more nodded at her. “My apologies Miss Jinny Crofter, I was asked to come here by a mutual friend and transport you to his residence,” he explained to her, nonplused in the least by her powers and threats.

“What? How’d you know that name?” she asked, blinking rapidly as she began to piece things together as to how he possibly could know about her new identity. “Dick sent you?” she asked, her voice slightly strangled, fear gnawing her insides.

“May I come in Madam? What I have to say shouldn’t be overheard by anyone else,” he said neutrally.

Moving back from the door, she felt numb as he shut it behind her. “Dick?” she called out, knowing in her heart that he wasn’t there. Moving rapidly to the bedroom once more, she could see that he’d never slept in the bed with her. The remains of the small capsule was still on the floor by her side of their bed, giving substance to her growing fears. Rushing to the small bathroom, she threw open the door and switched on the light, showing her nothing more then the nimbus of her tears that threatened to blind her.

“Ms. Crofter, if you please?” asked the surprisingly tender voice of her unexpected guest.

Turning she saw him extending a hand to her, wishing to escort her to the living room once more. She didn’t even realize she was moving until her weight was sinking into the plush couch. “Where is he?” she asked hollowly, her eyes wide and unblinking as tears slid silently down her cheeks.

“I’m quite sure that I don’t know Madam, though I would hazard a guess that you are to be filled in upon arrival at our destination,” he said, handing her a linen kerchief from his breast pocket.

She took it almost woodenly, struggling to cut through the sense of loneliness and fear inside her that was muffling and smothering her intellect. “Where again are you taking me...and who the hell are you?” she asked, her voice taking on more of it’s normal fire.

“I, my dear, am Alfred Pennyworth, man servant to Master Richard and his adopted father. More shall be explained to you once we arrive at that residence, as I am not at liberty to say more. I beg your understanding in this, though I had been assured that the letter would have explained all this prior to my arrival,” he said, looking slightly vexed at having to disclose so much information.

Jinx looked confused at his statement, “What letter?” she asked harshly. Seeing that he didn’t have a clue about it other then it’s supposed existence, she moved hastily back towards the bedroom. There on the bed side table sat a plain white envelope with his handwriting in her name.

Shaking hands picked up the letter, her mind screaming at her to wake up, that this must be a dream. As she broke the seal, she found a folded piece of paper within as well as another sealed envelope that had her name and a same set of instructions as well.

Looking at the second envelope, she read the words quietly aloud. “Jinx, don’t open until you’re alone,” was all it read, also in his neat handwriting.

Licking her lips, she struggled to force down her emotions that wanted her to wail at the implications of her morning. Unfolding the paper, she sat down heavily on the bed, reading the words he’d left for her the night before.

Dear Jinx,

I know this isn’t how you expected this to go, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t take you on this path with me. I know what’s going to happen when I fight Slade, and win or lose, I won’t be coming home this time. They’re NEVER going to stop hunting me Jinx, not after all I’ve done. To them I’ve become no better then any of the others they’ve spent so much time fighting. I won’t take you down that road to destruction with me, I love you too much to do that. You deserve a chance to make something of your life.

Tears spattered onto the paper as she read his words, knowing that he’d been thinking along these lines but having trusted that she could keep him from doing what she’d been so afraid of. “What about me? Didn’t that chance include you?” she asked morosely.

Sniffling, she hastily wiped her eyes before the tears smeared the ink on the paper and continued to read his thoughts.

I’ve sent for an old friend to come for you if things went the way I feared they did. He’s someone that I trust implicitly and no matter what comes, he’ll stand by you till the end. You can trust him, I swear to you about that. Where’s he’s taking you, well, that’s another story altogether, but I’m going to leave you another letter with this one. Read it while he’s driving you. The trip should take about 4 hours or so and if I know Alfred, he’ll have some refreshments ready for you in the car. Think about what I’ve written in the other letter on the trip, and know that even though I may not be with you, I only want what’s best for you. We’ve both been hurt deeply Jinx, to the point that we’re trapped outside society.

I wanted to stay with you Jinx, always remember this. I do love you, despite what’s happened. It’s BECAUSE of this love that I did what I did. Please, for me, go with Alfred and hear what he has to say. I’ve left you means to live modestly for the rest of your life, so even if you decide to walk away from this, you’ll be taken care of. I wish things could have been different Jinx, I truly do. Life however had other plans for us, plans neither of us wanted.

So, you have to decide what you’re going to do. I would go with Alfred, read my other letter and hear his story before you decide. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Don’t blame yourself for any of this, it was going to happen no matter what. I don’t regret or begrudge anything that’s happened between us other than I wish I could have been stronger sooner, to let you know what I felt for you.

I love you Jinx, remember that,

Dick

Her hands fell limply into her lap, crumpling the simple paper she’d been holding as tears flowed down her cheeks in steady streams. She could almost hear his voice as she’d read the letter, creating a longing in her to clutch him to her and lose herself there. Knowing that he’d wasn’t ever going to be there again deepened the ache and longing to a hopeless level, sobs breaking through and racking her body.

Crushing the letter to her face as she buried her face into her hands, she sobbed at the injustice of it all. The gentle and comforting touch of her strange visitor should have shocked her, but she was so lost that he could have killed her and she’d never of noticed.

“There there Ms. Crofter, he told me that he loved you, ensuring that I would arrive this morning to look after you. Please accompany me and all will be revealed. It was his final wish of me and I would endeavor to carry it out to the letter,” he said softly.

Something in his tone, or perhaps that Dick had spoken so highly of the man collapsed her walls as she all but threw herself into his arms, sobbing her pain into his finely tailored suit.

He gently stroked her pink hair as he comforted her, attempting to sooth her as he’d soothed a young Bruce Wayne and later in his life, a young Richard Grayson. Now he held an almost broken young woman that had lost her anchors in life, leaving her adrift and seemingly alone. Taking the matter personally, he vowed once more to give this young person a chance to see that life wasn’t as cruel as it seemed.

On the trip to stately Wayne Manor...

“We should be arriving within the hour Ms. Crofter. Do you wish anything else before we arrive?” asked Alfred from the drivers seat, looking at her in the rear view mirror.

She shook her head slightly, leaning against the cold window that was being streaked with the falling rain. “No thank you Alfred, I’m fine,” she said quietly, still awash with feelings of loss and pain.

He nodded curtly and placed his eyes on the road once more. “If I may Madam, perhaps you should read the letter Master Richard left you. You did say he asked you to read it during the ride,” he said, hoping that the young master in question would explain several very important things before they arrived. ‘If not, then Master Bruce is going to have the proverbial kitten,’ he thought dryly, knowing how irate this little turn of events was going to make him.

The letter was still clutched tightly in her hand, as if taunting her with his death. ‘I’d do anything to hold him instead of this stupid piece of paper,’ the woman thought morosely, knowing it would never happen.

The envelope opened easily, and once more she was immersed in his words, almost able to hear his voice as she read.

Dear Jinx,

Well, if you’re reading this and you listened to my instructions, you should be on the way to my former home. I’ve spent years away from my adopted father, most of them due to our pride, though the latter parts were out of respect for my new family.

You knew me first as Robin, the Boy Wonder. Then as Nightwing, a dark avenger. Finally as who I really am, Richard, a kid that had lost his whole family to the predations of organized crime. It’s a long story of how I evolved, but suffice it to say, that I’ve never been what you’d consider normal. Sound familiar?

She laughed through the sheen of tears in her eyes, able to mentally picture his face and placing the resulting expression with his words. ‘You’re with me now,’ she thought, feeling slightly warmer at the thought.

You’re heading to Wayne Manor. Yes, I’m Richard Grayson, member of high society and ward of the playboy Bruce Wayne. Since you also know me as Robin, I’ll bet it don’t take you three guesses to figure out his identity. Therein lies the problem. I’d patched things up with him before the whole incident that killed my family, but he tried to stop me from taking revenge on the one’s that did it. In the end, we were right back where we started from, only this time he was hunting me instead of ignoring me. I’ve enlisted Alfred and someone else to help soften the blow to him. Hopefully by the time you get there, he’ll have been informed. Trust me, his bark is much worse than his bite and for all his brooding and dour demeanor, he’s got a heart of gold. He won’t turn you away, not knowing that you carry my love with you. Besides, if he does, Alfred’s promised to not cook his meals, clean his clothes or manage his identities until he relents. I came to realize a long time ago that Alfred is the one that truly keeps the myth of Bruce Wayne and Batman going, it’s about time he did too.

I want you to stay with him, make a new identity for yourself. I’ve already started the ball rolling by creating Jinny Crofter for you, all you have to do is make it real to the public. Getting out of Jump City is a start, establishing yourself in Gotham will help cement that. Bruce owns hundreds of companies, so don’t worry about finding work if you’re so inclined. He’s not one to shy away from charity, but he also highly respects hard work and dedication. Not only that, but he’s got a soft spot for reformed villains. Everyone heard about his liaisons with Catwoman, just in case you needed concrete evidence to that fact.

No matter what happens to me Jinx, I want you to promise that you’ll live your life to the fullest. It’s all I can ask of you now. I don’t want you to waste yourself or your talents in crime or misery. You proved to the world you’ve got the heart of a hero, standing up to H.I.V.E. and the Justice League in doing so. Help the ones that can’t help themselves Jinx, don’t let my actions tarnish the true legacy of what we’d done. People need to know that there are still people out here that do care what happens and will make a stand when they can’t. I fell from grace, answering the blood call from the one’s that sought to destroy me, but I’ve never forgotten where I came from. Do it because it’s the right thing to do, even if it’s not the popular thing to do. Batman is a master of meting out true justice, even if it involves breaking the law. His way is brutal, but effective. The world is going to need a kick in the pants every now and again, and he’s been more than willing to do it, but he can’t do it alone forever. Keep an eye on him for me, make sure that the darkness he works in doesn’t swallow him as well.

She frowned for a moment, feeling a bit queasy about the request, unsure if he meant for her to seduce him. ‘You aren’t that sick, are you?’ she questioned his memory, shaking off the ill feelings as she read his next words, as if he was already reading her mind.

Not like that you sicko. Just work with him, talk to him, show him that life is more then shadows and missions. He needs to laugh, to live...and to love. He’s got a great lady at his side, sometimes it takes a pain in the ass to remind him of her. I know you well enough to know that you’re PERFECT for the job. He’ll grumble, complain, threaten and most likely even try to bribe you. Diana will be your friend in this, he’ll never stand a chance against you two. I believe in you Jinx, and I’m trusting you with the last of my family. It’s all I’ve got left now, and so I’m giving it to you. Remember the love we shared Jinx, but don’t let it consume you. You’re beautiful and loving, and worthy of being loved with the white hot intensity you’ve showed me. Not that I could blame you for pining away for my manly body and skills in bed.

The last remark burst laughter out of her, knowing how he really was yet still being able to see and hear the way he’d state the last remark. He loved to make her laugh, usually at his own expense. He didn’t take himself too seriously, not unless he as dealing with the one’s that killed his family. ‘And in the end, killed him too, albeit in a round about way,’ she thought, the smile partially leaving her face.

Wiping the tears once more, she saw the letter was almost finished, causing her to panic slightly, not wanting to let it end. Steeling herself, she took a deep breath and continued to read, forcing herself to be brave and strong, though she felt very small and weak.

Seriously though, live you life the way you see fit Jinx. Don’t let ANYBODY dictate it to you again. You’ve paid your dues and suffered for your beliefs. Make sure your friends are ones that will stand with you no matter what. At the end, I was alone, until I rescued you. In many ways, that fateful encounter rescued me as well, more than you’ll ever know. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you would have ridden into hell with me, no question asked. You gave me love, showed me that life wasn’t all lost to me, and gave me the lone source of light in my soul. You earned and deserved my love, though it may have been too brief. Know that I did love you, and carried that with me, no matter how today ends.

Take care of yourself Jinny Crofter, show the world why you’re special and don’t let them tear you down.

I love you and will be waiting for you on the other side. Let’s just hope Raven let’s us keep our collective skins. Though, to be honest, I feel her smiling down on us for what we’ve found. She always was one for irony and the dark humor of life. We’ll be waiting for you after you live a long and fruitful life.

Love always,

Dick

Jinx carefully folded the letter back into the envelope, her face burning slightly as she thought about his wife and the possibility of life after death. ‘Great, even after he’s dead he STILL makes me think,’ she thought with chuckle.

“Alfred, you knew Dick pretty well. What was he like outside the mask?” she asked suddenly, wanting to know more about the man that held her heart in the palm of his hand.

They talked and laughed openly for the remainder of the trip as Alfred regaled her with tales of a young and impetuous boy that had terrorized the Wayne Manor long before the dark criminal elements of two cities.

When the car pulled up before the mansion, Alfred opened her door and escorted her to the length of stairs as if she were royalty. He could feel her nervousness in the way she carried herself, and did his best to ease her fears.

As the reached the top, the doors of the manor opened to reveal a handsome older man and a stunningly beautiful woman on his arm. They were dressed casually, both looking tired and sorrowful, but gave her hesitant smiles nonetheless.

“I guess you’d be Jinny Crofter...or would you prefer Jinx?” asked Bruce Wayne, having had the riot act read to him over the last few hours by his lover. Though he didn’t exactly support or appreciate what his adopted son had left in his legacy, he was forced to agree that his logic was sound. She shouldn’t be punished for his actions.

Extending his hand, he took hers and shook it firmly. “I’m Bruce Wayne, welcome to my home. I’m hoping you come to consider it as yours as well,” he said graciously, turning on the infamous charm that won him the hearts and minds of the social elite.

Jinx was stunned into silence, trying to comprehend being before not only a billionare but the legendary Batman as well. The fact that he was accompanied by Wonder Woman no less didn’t help her situation any. Feeling very small and suddenly light headed, she wavered on her feet as if to faint.

“Bruce! You’ve intimidated the poor girl enough. Come here,” said the raven haired Amazon, enfolding her into a warm hug and smiling at her.

“I’m Diana, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Dick sent me a message telling me all about you and I have to say that his words though very becoming did you little justice. Ignore mister playboy over there, he’s just trying to charm you. C’mon, we’ve got dinner waiting for you,” she said in a rush, putting her arm over the smaller woman’s shoulder’s in a sisterly fashion and escorting her into the manor, leaving the men on the porch.

Shaking his head, Bruce looked at Alfred with a wounded expression. “Was I THAT bad?” he asked the man plaintively.

Clearing his throat, Alfred stepped next to him and escorted his old friend inside the home. “Sir, it’s been my understanding that no matter what we, as men, do,” he stated with a straight face, before turning and closing the door.

“We’re ALWAYS the uncultured ones. We can but hope that the spirit behind our actions and best of intentions win out in the end. If you don’t mind the advice of a simple old man that is,” he said, walking past Bruce formally, as if this type of conversation happened all the time.

Bruce chuckled and shook his head, heading towards the informal dining room they used for their meals. “If you’re a simple old man, I’m Solomon Grundy,” he joked to himself, oblivious to the smile that crossed his oldest and truest friend’s face at his words.

4 months later...

The waves gently lapped at the man made shoreline, a group of children playing with their parents in the afternoon sunshine.

“Fitting in a way, isn’t it?” asked Bruce, not taking his eyes from the boardwalk that surrounded the farside of the lake.

Jinny nodded absently, leaning on the wood railing with her elbows, lost in thought about the man this lake had been named for.

The Wayne Foundation had immediately purchased seventy percent of the warehouses in the area at a fraction of their cost due to the sudden instability of the bedrock’s foundation. While most thought this was a foolish venture, they were soon shown who was foolish in the business deal.

Constructing one of the finest examples of a man made recreation area and resort, complete with lake, water park, amusement rides and petting zoo. It turned a once crime ridden area into a tourist attraction over night, quelling and silencing the nay sayers while putting a significant chuck into the stock price of Wayne Enterprises, it’s primary funder. All the while, Bruce Wayne, reclusive billionaire and business tycoon had smiled for the camera’s and did countless interviews for the public. When questioned about his choice of locations for his venture, his winning smile and charm sparkled.

“Just kinda thought Jump City could use a positive shot in the arm. This city had sacrificed so much in such a short amount of time, it just felt like the right thing to do,” he answered smoothly, fixing the camera’s with a knowing smile.

“I think he’d appreciate it, especially given the hidden jabs you took at the Justice League,” she finally answered him, smiling warmly at the thought of Dick Grayson, and his namesake park.

Diana couldn’t help but chuckle at the memory of it, leaning into Bruce affectionately. “According to Lantern, Superman about spit his coffee across Mother Womb. I would have given a lot of money to have seen that,” she told them.

The three of them had settled into a comfortable life since Jinx’s arrival on their proverbial doorstep. Rocky and awkward at times, she’d proven intelligent and resilient to the both of them, eager to learn what ever they could teach her. Soon, other members of the Justice League started making inquires about them, under the guise of making sure everything was okay. Slowly but surely they began to grow, finding a large number of disgruntled heroes that wanted to make a difference in the world and not just doing what was the proper thing to do.

Jinx jumped slightly, her hand going down to her swollen womb, a peaceful smile on her face. “Looks like he’s active today,” she said affectionately.

Bruce smiled down at the girl and her unborn child, the last remaining legacy of Nightwing. “Considering his father, it’ll be a miracle if we can keep him in sight once he begins to walk,” he agreed.

“You two seem awfully convinced it’s a boy. I’m telling you it still could turn out to be a girl. Your baby’s not even old enough to have an ultrasound done to determine it’s sex!” she said in mock exasperation.

Raising an eyebrow at the woman, Bruce simply smiled condescendingly. “True, but she’s had some ‘off world’ attention to help her discover her baby’s sex. Martian Manhunter paid her a visit no so long ago while you were off training with Speedy and Aqualad. Seems like she just couldn’t wait for the test and cajoled our stoic friend into it. He sends his love by the way,” he told her in an offhanded by line.

Jinx laughed lightly at her playful anger with the man, a man that had loosened up since having to confront the death of his adopted son. ‘Still too anal retentive at times and man does that guy brood over EVERYTHING, but all in all, he ain’t THAT bad,’ she thought of the man that had accepted her.

Sighing, her eyes drifted out across the sparkling blue lake, shining brightly in the sunshine. The happy squeals and laughter faintly reached her, reminding her of so much that was important beyond just the present. For a moment, Dick’s blue eyes superimposed themselves on the waves, his smile able to be faintly seen in their movement. It was one of the reasons she loved coming here. Though it was the place of his death, it also was the place she felt him the most and as such felt the greatest connection with him, turning what should have been a somber memorial into a celebration of his life.

Seeing her far off expression, Diana smiled. “Feel like spending the night Jinny?” she asked, pointing to the resort nearby.

Nodding, she straightened up and stretched her back. “Please. It’s nice being around the younger heroes. Old fuddy duddy here keeps moaning about the lack of crime in Gotham recently and has about driven me nuts,” she teased Batman.

He gave her a stern glare, which was pointedly ignored. “I’ll have you know that I take my responsibilities VERY seriously. Is it MY fault if most of the criminal element has taken a hiatus?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

Rolling her eyes, she played along with the man, both of them knowing why crime had drifted off recently. “True, but then again if you were a criminal and thought the mentor of Nightwing was hunting you after the rampage he did, you’d head for the hills as well,” she stated confidently.

Looking wounded and even placing a hand over his heart, he mock staggered a bit, earning him a laugh from the two women. Shrugging, he joined them in laughter, truly letting himself enjoy the simple moment of peace they’d all fought so hard and sacrificed so much for.

Diana placed an arm across her shoulders once more, leading her away from the railing and towards where they’d be able to enter the hidden facility beneath the waves that housed the next generation of heroes. “We’d better get going before the paparazzi figure out we’re here. As much as I enjoy the days we get to spend away from the daily grind, they certainly are a pain,” she explained, knowing the Bruce Wayne and his fiancee Diana Prince would attract entirely too much attention, even if they did own the park.

Bruce smile at them, walking behind them at a leisurely pace. “But I do enjoy making them wet themselves in the dark. Some perks of the job are well worth it,” he admitted, remembering a couple of recent events with the paparazzi with a wistful smile.

Shaking her head, Diana finally relented and laughed, knowing how good it had felt to prey upon those that hunted celebrities.

Jinx was only vaguely aware of their banter, her eyes once more drawn to the lake and it’s dancing waves. Central to the park, it acted as the very heart of it’s attraction, offering a safe haven for families to enjoy themselves and put aside the worries of everyday life.

“Dick would’ve loved it here,” she whispered happily, still missing him but knowing that they’d find each other again one day, her hand straying to the life growing inside her.

Authors Notes:

Well, I know this was VERY dark and AU, but it was an idea that struck me not too long ago and worried away at the edges of my mind until I finally fleshed it out and wrote it. While fully intending it to be a tragedy, I also wanted it to show the depth of the characters and how complex their relationships are. Things are rarely cut and dried, even for heroes. I also wanted this to show how easy it is to fall when confronted with a life altering or in this case, destroying, event. To want justice for your loved ones is there within all of us, just ask any that have lost someone to crime, war, ignorance, disease...what have you. I know this isn’t the normal fare for the Teen Titans, and I rated it as such. I’ve read so few Robin/Jinx stories that I had to throw that into the mix, though his primary love would always be Raven. I know, yet another conflicting thought with the main stream, but I happen to like that pairing way too much. At first glance, they wouldn’t fit, at least not until you read deeper into the characters. They compliment each other too well to ignore. Anyhow, this isn’t a soapbox for my support of one couple or another, but rather my thoughts at the end of my story. This is a one shot, obviously, but who knows when or where my muse will strike again. There are many authors I’d like to thank for their stories and efforts in the FF realms. HeyBats is my obvious first shout out, his stories always make me stop what I’m doing to read them. He’s followed closely by DC Lady, for much of the same reasons. She gives her thoughts and insights into characters as well, hoping to show a different take on the traditional view. RangerMike, for his KOTOR stories. Not only is he an actual ranger, but he writes tactical scenarios like no one’s business. Innortal for any and all of his stories and support. Some of his stories will make you laugh till you about pee yourself, others will make you so enraged you wanna reach into the story and strangle a character; PLUS he updates weekly...lol, always a bonus. MzKittyKat, for her emotionally driven and gripping stories. She should be writing for either prime time drama’s or soaps, the way she can capture emotions and scenes with characters. AliceTheRaven, for her stories and friendship as well. Even though she’s an officer, I still respect and love the heck outta her. She’s another that drives into places most don’t tread, making even old characters appear new and fresh. There are many more but rather than risk enflaming the powers that be at FfdotNET, I’ll cut it short and say thank you, to everyone with the guts to put stories out here. Not for the enjoyment of the masses, but rather for the simple love of writing and telling a story.