Fanfiction: The JLI saves the world . . . sort of.
This is a thing that I am actually pretty proud of. There may or may not be more in this 'verse. I hope there is, because it's living in my brain, but nothing's written yet.
Title: Saving Grace
Fandom: DC Comics
Pairing/Characters: gen; Birds of Prey, Arrowclan, Batclan, some Supers, two Lindas, Beetle and Booster, J’onn
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Canon AU. Oracle watches over a world slow to heal from Checkmate's control.
Disclaimer: DC owns them, I just hijack them and give them new lives.
Author's Notes: NOT FINAL CRISIS COMPLIANT. This interrupts Booster Gold canon literally a page and a half before the end of issue #9. For those not up on Booster Gold, Booster and a bunch of time-traveling Beetles went back in time and saved Ted Kord. When Ted and Booster came back to OYL, they found a world where Max Lord won because Ted hadn’t died and alerted the heroic community to Max’s plan. Thousands of people and dozens of superheroes are dead. Max has been using a mind-controlled Superman, Brother Eye, and the OMACS to, basically, rule the world. Booster, Ted, and a reunited JLI shut down Brother Eye and kill Max Lord. This is where our story begins.
Word Count: 6,380
Somewhere down on earth, shielded to a fare-thee-well, a magician senses the moment they have been waiting for. They have been in hiding for more than a year, secluded and focused on waiting for this moment, the end of Checkmate. Maxwell Lord is dead. Superman is free. Brother Eye is disabled. All the death, all the sacrifice, has ended. The world can be allowed to heal.
This one magician reaches into the fabric of the world and yanks. Nothing can change their victory.
*
Time shutters, splits, realigns. In another world, the Time Stealers appeared on the satellite and began a knock-down, drag-out fight. In another world, Skeets appeared to tell them that Booster was collapsing. In another world, Ted Kord made the choice to go back in time and die to save the world.
Somewhere else.
The reality that continues to exist where none of these things happened is an epiphyte, living on the main reality while being neither a parasite nor a symbiote. Here, Booster’s continued existence is stable, as is Blue Beetle’s. Here, there is no undoing the damage done by Booster’s rescue of Ted Kord. Here, the only saving grace is knowing there is a reality where things went better.
*
Somewhere else, Babs is trying to talk Dinah out of marrying Ollie. Here, Dinah never even had a funeral. There wasn’t enough left to bury.
*
Oracle is everywhere. She is in the OMACS and what little remains of Checkmate, she had insinuated herself into Brother Eye, she took up residence in the computer systems of every government and corporation on the planet. And yet she is a ghost, despite the team of hackers and AIs put to the task of tracking down the living person who is protected by the mask avatar. When the superhero community finally realized the danger it was in, Oracle was the first to go into deep hiding. Because her identity is known only by a handful of heroes, half of whom had been killed in the initial wave, no one alive knew where she was except for those who had gone into hiding with her.
Barbara Gordon gives Helena a small smile as she wheels into the elevator in Dalton Towers next to her primary operative. Both women are dressed casually. Eyes follow the pair regardless, however, between the beautiful redhead in the wheelchair and the jagged, puckered scar that runs from Helena’s temple, over her jawline, and stops halfway down her neck. The skin is tight around the scar and pulls her face slightly out of true. She holds a stack of boxes, as does Barbara, a few personal things that couldn’t be trusted to movers. Barbara owns the building, and the top four floors are entirely hers. Helena has her own apartment on those floors, and several more are vacant for those who will be moving in soon. The top two floors belong to Oracle and the Birds of Prey--room for the computers, and training and equipment spaces.
The elevator stops and Helena puts a hand on Barbara’s shoulder, squeezing it. Barbara nods, and the other woman leaves the elevator. It closes on the redhead, and goes up.
Barb gets out two floors up, in the apartment that’s half living space and half devoted to Oracle and Oracle’s new and improved mission. Heroes existed too far apart from each other before the Crisis, too far away to call for help, or to notice when someone went mysteriously missing, or had an abrupt personality change. No more.
Setting the box down on a couch, Oracle makes her way to the console. It’s been a long time since she was able to operate in relative freedom, in her home, without the analog tech and impenetrable barriers that kept her safe from the chaos. She toggles the console and her screens blossom into glowing life, bathing the room in green. One small screen on the far left monitors absolutely everything about the lives of those who remain, and alarms are set for suspicious activity. They’re still picking up the pieces after Beetle and Booster’s miraculous world-saving, finding friends and loved ones who survived, and the bodies of those who didn’t--if there were bodies left to find. Several bodies have been too gruesome for Oracle to feel comfortable turning them over to whatever family remains--no one should have to know their loved one was experimented on and vivisected.
She sets one of her searches to look for evidence of Red Hood’s movements--they’re pretty sure Jason’s not dead, but no one seems to know where he went--and heads to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. Just as her kettle finishes boiling, her doorbell rings.
Right on time.
Barb checks the security feed even though she’s expecting company. Some mistakes you only make once. It’s him, alone, and she opens the door.
Standing sheepish in her doorway is the hunch-shouldered, flannel-clad form of Clark Kent.
"Hi," he says. Clark pushes his glasses up his nose, a habit he’s exhibited more often since being freed from mind control. Barb suspects it has to do with grounding himself in Clark Kent again.
Barb backs up and gestures him into her home. He takes the apartment in, hands stuffed in his jeans pockets. "I know this is important, Barbara. Believe me. But I . . . I don’t know how much I’ll be able to tell you. I remember . . ." Clark wipes his hand over his face. Barb watches. "I remember all of it. I just don’t know how much I can tell you before I. . . ."
She puts her hand on his forearm and he startles like a nervous horse. Bright blue eyes, cut by thick lenses, stare at her.
"I know, Clark." Barb holds tight, knowing she can’t hurt him. Not physically. "If you can’t do this, I can ask J’onn to come. Take it out of your head. But he’s still not as stable as any of us would like, and it’s going to be a long time before he can blithely flit in and out of people’s heads again."
Clark’s shaking his head. "I won’t ask it of him." His clenched fists betray his stubbornness and fear. This is a duty he wishes he could put on someone else’s shoulders, and can’t. No one saw as much of Checkmate as he did, as Max’s "secret weapon." He saw and did things that no one else living can tell them about. The whereabouts and deaths of friends and allies, of enemies and supervillains, of secret headquarters, weapons stashes, double agents. Months upon months of being forced to do Checkmate’s dirty work, all stored in Kal-El’s photographic memory. He couldn’t forget a moment of it if he wanted to.
Oracle needs to know everything.
Clark takes a deep breath. "I’m as ready as I’ll ever be."
Barb nods. She lets go of his arm and wheels ahead of him. Oracle leads him to her console, lets him get comfortable, and then prompts him.
Clark huddles on the armchair and stares at the floor. "I felt a strange buzzing when it started, like what a headache might be like."
*
Somewhere else, Clark and Lois and Jimmy are enjoying a night out at the park, watching a Superman tribute movie. Here, Max forced Superman to watch Lois’s death, and Clark left a message on Jimmy’s answering machine, telling him that he was leaving Metropolis and the Daily Planet.
*
Bruce hasn’t been a demonstrative man in a long time. First with Dick, then Jason, Bruce had been carefree, had felt their joy allow him to love them and be with them in their spontaneity. Barbara’s injury and Jason’s death changed everything, and Tim hadn’t been the kind of Robin to show his joy physically, as Dick and Jason had.
Yet he reaches out and runs his hands through his friend’s hair, kneels beside the bed and rests his forehead against the mattress. Clark is curled up, shaking and sweating, on the bed. His eyes are closed, his face contorted with a nightmare.
"Clark," Bruce whispers. There is danger in this, in staying beside a bed with a startled Kryptonian in it, but it’s one that Bruce finds he cannot forego. There are so few of his family left. And Clark is among the casualties.
Bruce knows when Clark wakes because the other man stills. He keeps running one hand through his hair.
A swallowing sound. "Bruce?" Clark asks.
"I’m here."
Bruce feels trembling fingers on his head and looks up. Clark’s fingers trace Bruce’s hairline, one ear, the curve of his jaw. Bruce almost asks what Clark’s nightmare was, but thinks better of it. After spending the day reliving his horror for Oracle, Bruce doubts Clark lacked fodder for night terrors.
When Clark pulls his hand away, Bruce does as well. "You should go back to sleep," Bruce says. Clark nods and closes his eyes.
Bruce leaves the dark room, closing the door quietly behind him. The hallways of Wayne Manor echo with emptiness, though only he and Alfred have lived here for years. Clark brought a silence with him when he moved in, and even before that, with Dick’s death, with Tim’s, the silence grew. Without a family to fill its halls, even in potentia, Wayne Manor is giving way to its ghosts.
*
Somewhere else, Roy Harper is ecstatic to be on the new incarnation of the Justice League, and has chosen a new name to ally himself again with his legacy. Here, Roy and Lian Harper haven’t been seen since news of Black Canary and Nightwing’s deaths reached them.
*
The too-solemn face of Oliver Queen has become a familiar one for Barb. He’s been on her monitors fairly often, an all-human hero whose genetic makeup alone saved him from the OMACS nearly till the end. They’d lost contact before he and Hawkman headed up the tiny London resistance, but she’s kept an eye on Mia and Connor the whole time.
She’s been on suicide-watch for Connor Hawke since news of Kyle Rayner’s death got out. So far the kid has held it together, but Mia looks incredibly relieved to have Ollie back.
"So where’s my boy, Oracle?" Ollie asks. Barb arches an eyebrow at the screen, even though she knows he can’t see her. "You must know where he buried himself. I want to see my granddaughter."
"He went deep into hiding, Green Arrow."
"He’s family. And he lost--" Ollie stops. "I can’t leave him alone out there anymore. I should’ve gone to get him before, but there was too much, and he had to keep Lian safe."
Barb hesitates. This is the man that broke Dinah’s heart more times than she can count, who kicked Roy out of his home when he found out about his addiction, who lived while Dinah died.
"Oracle. Please." Ollie’s eyes are bloodshot and raw, his face that of a man only composed because he has no choice; too much to take care of to let the grief in. This Ollie is the man who inspired and adopted a feisty street kid, who cherished both his sons, who cleaned up his act and his town and would never, ever put anything before his family ever again.
"He and Lian are still in New York. I’ll get you there."
"Thank you."
Connor follows Ollie and Mia into the still emergency-only use teleporters, and feels his component atoms scatter and realign. He’s been following instead of thinking since he got the news of Kyle’s death, put one foot in front of the other, ate when Mia put food in front of him, carefully went out as Green Arrow to keep mundane crime off Star’s streets when the OMACS had slim chance of catching him. Other’s deaths--Eddie Fyre’s, Dinah Lance’s, Robin’s--had hit him in the gut, but for Kyle he is numb.
The pain will hit, and soon, Connor knows. The emergency is over. They’re dealing. Connor doesn’t know what he’ll do when people stop putting things to do in front of him.
He doesn’t have to worry about it yet, though, because Roy’s apartment is a mess. Lian comes pelting out of the back rooms and Ollie swings her into a hug, roaring and tossing her like she’s a tennis ball. Lian’s giggling and talking a mile a minute. Mia lets Ollie deal with the Harpers and heads for the living room, which is buried under a pile of toys, locked gun chests, and empty DVD cases.
Connor takes her as an example and heads for the kitchen. Scrubbing off crusted crud is soothing. Connor hears sobbing from the rooms in the back, and Mia and Lian getting into a race to see who can find and put away more DVDs. Hours pass. Ollie joins Mia and Lian, and then the three of them join him. They make dinner. Mia, Connor, Ollie and Lian eat, and then Ollie sends Lian to the back rooms with a plate of food for her daddy.
Mia and Lian sleep together in Lian’s bed. Connor sleeps on the floor, and Ollie takes the couch. The carpet, revealed from beneath weeks’ worth of accumulated mess, is surprisingly comfortable.
Ollie and Mia take Lian to the park, the pool, the playground. Connor goes grocery shopping, and to the library. He, Mia and Ollie take turns reading Lian bedtime stories. Mia gets into Agatha Christie and makes him get her more every time he goes to the library. Ollie finds an archery range and keeps his hand in, and Connor stays with Lian at night while Green Arrow and Speedy hit the streets.
One week and two days later, Roy comes out. His hair is a disheveled mess, down to his shoulders, and his eyes are bloodshot. He’s pale from grief and being indoors too long.
With Lian hanging on one leg, he looks Ollie in the eyes and says he wants to come home. New York is too much, has too many memories of everyone he’s lost, and he can’t. They have a new house in Star, with more than enough room for Connor’s brother and niece.
Connor and Mia stay behind to pack up Lian’s stuff. Roy takes one duffle bag with him, and says the rest can burn for all he cares.
*
Somewhere else, Supergirl is a ditzy teenager who talks too much. Here, she’s become a hardened survivor and the new caretaker of Metropolis--and she isn’t alone.
*
This time, the face on her monitor screen in unfamiliar, though Barb knows she will memorize it the way she has Dinah’s, Helena’s, and Zinda’s. Taking on the task of protecting Metropolis and keeping it shining is too much for anyone to take on alone anymore, especially after the seeming betrayal of their last hero. With herself and Huntress the only surviving Birds of Prey, adaptation became the name of Oracle’s game.
"Come in, please," Barb gestures, and the young woman walks into the empty apartment. She is on the short side, with chin-length, straight hair of a mousey brown color, and freckles spread across her nose and cheeks. Most of her belongings were mailed here, but she wears an overstuffed backpack with a skateboard strapped to it, and is carrying a pair of full duffle bags with ease. "It’s more spacious than it looks, and you’ll have run of the training facilities on the floor above you. Not to mention a number of discrete entrances and exits, and full-time, beyond state-of-the-art security."
The young woman looks down at Barb and gives her a small smile. "Believe me, I appreciate the benefits." She shifts. "You don’t need to sales pitch me, I’m convinced. Checkmate killed too many of the metahuman heroes for me to justify hiding away anymore. I don’t think I would have ever considered doing this on my own again, though. Is anyone else living in the building? Besides you?"
Barb nods. "Huntress lives on the floor below you, and Kara will be moving in soon. She’ll be right next door."
Linda Danvers smiles wryly. "Both Supergirls in one place?"
"It does make you easier to keep track of."
"She drives me a little crazy."
"She drives everyone a little crazy, Linda, but she was just learning about Earth when everything went sideways for her. She’s gone a little Sasha Donner Chronicles, but I think she’ll have an easier time of it once she settles."
Linda nods and steps farther into the apartment. "I can guess that every inch of this place is wired, right?"
Barb reflects her wry smile. "Audio and video of the highest quality, but don’t worry, I don’t watch it all the time."
Linda glances over her shoulder at the other woman. Physically, Oracle is her elder. All she can think, though, is that this child is going to lead them into their new world. An entire lifetime wiped from everything but her memory, her daughter safe--and out of her reach--centuries in the future, it all crowds up in Linda’s head sometimes. She’d run away from being a hero, the life that had gotten her into that debacle in the first place, but now she can’t justify running away anymore. Whatever had protected her from the OMACS, whether it was a lingering trace of Matrix or another manifestation of her telekinesis, she is one of the last and most powerful metahumans left on the planet. And with great power . . .
"Is there anything I can get you? Help you unpack?" Oracle--Barb--wheels closer, and Linda turns around to face her fully.
"I think’d like to unpack by myself, actually. Um, but if you could get me some basic knowledge, like, say, where the nearest grocery store is and which pizza place will deliver at two in the morning, I’d be grateful." Linda gives the other woman a faint but real smile.
Barb smiles, faintly, back. "It’s all on your computer. If you think of anything else, just give me a call. Hero-related, on the comm., mundane-related, your phone has all of our numbers in the building on speed dial. It’s labeled."
"You thought of everything."
"I am the all-knowing Oracle," Barb says. Then she shrugs. "And a former librarian."
*
Somewhere else, Booster is turning down membership in the new JLA to become the greatest hero the world has never known. Here, the JLI have taken up their battered mantle as the world’s greatest superheroes, though the world is wary and distrustful.
*
Booster sneezes, glad his future immune system will keep him from catching anything in the run down New York Embassy of the JLI. The Embassy is old, dusty, and abandoned, and the only place the JLI can think of to set up shop. They appeared before the UN after stopping Checkmate and declared the world could go back to their status quo, and that they, as a body again answerable to the UN, would be stepping up.
The roar of protest almost drowned out the JLI’s reasonable arguments, but eventually, with Dr. Light negotiating, they were able to work out a compromise. The biggest tool that Dr. Light brought to the bargaining table was that this was the team that had survived every one of Max Lord’s schemes, perhaps not in the best public light, but history’s newest boogieman had run their team for years and never once had the JLI let him take over the world.
They’d never dreamed that one day, surviving Maxwell Lord would be at the top of their superhero resumes.
Ted and Booster have been given the job of clearing out their New York Embassy as a headquarters because the others are too busy fighting emergencies around the world. First priority is rooms--none of them have a home any more, not after being captured, on the run or time traveling.
There are no other teams up and running, and in the power vacuum left by Checkmate, that could be disastrous. Though Checkmate’s toll on meta supervillains was as high or higher than the one on heroes, the smartest, sneakiest and therefore worst of the bunch survived.
"This place is not as moldy as it should be," Ted says, uncovering banks of ancient computers. Dust motes glitter in the fluorescent lights when he sets the covers aside.
"Max probably searched it when he was looking for metas. He certainly had our London headquarters booby-trapped," Booster says as he collects debris in a sack meant for the giant dumpster out back.
With a series of security measures finally satisfied, Ted starts everything up. It’s all they have, no matter how outdated.
"We’re going to need help with this," Ted says. "Oracle, if she survived, definitely Bruce, anyone we can hire who’ll put up with us. We need a support staff, and funding--"
Booster makes his way over to his friend while Ted jabbers and turns on the computers. "Can’t it wait a little?" Booster puts his hands on Ted’s shoulders, and the other man looks up. "I just got you back."
Ted gives a small nod, not looking away from Booster. "And we switched universes," he points out. "Though I suspect this universe’s version of you will show up eventually."
"I think--I think I’m this universe’s version of me. With divergent timelines and dimensions involved . . ." Boost shakes himself. "Whatever that magic user did, I don’t think Rip’ll be by soon to check up on me."
"Isn’t that terrifying. Bwa-hah-hah." Ted winks at his teammate, and Booster grins. Ted goes back to tinkering with the computers and considering the JLI’s options. "Bruce might help us with funding, but the Bat’s staying in Gotham, is what I hear. And with Superman retired and Wonder Woman dead, the JLI is it."
"We are indeed." John Jones steps into the dim light of the headquarters. "And we must also win back the trust of the world. Many, too many, came to agree with Max and Checkmate on the subject of costumed metahumans."
"Win back people’s trust? When did we have it?" Ted snorts. "We can operate without big love. That’s practically our motto."
"How goes tracking people down?" Booster asks. J’onn as resident telepath had been asked to take up the task of collecting a complete casualty list. Ice and Booster had been reluctant to tax the Martian with that job, but they simply didn’t have anyone else. J’onn has begun to take refuge in his human guise more and more often, and no one knows whether or not to be worried about that.
"Oracle’s casualty list expands," John says. "The mostly-human families tend to be more intact, though not even they are unscathed. The loss of Bruce’s sons . . ." John shivers, a completely inhuman movement, at the memory of his brief exposure to Bruce. "Many of the metahuman families are just . . . gone. Flashes. Titans. Marvels."
"Mary?" Booster asks, aghast. He and Ted close their eyes when John shakes his head.
"Some metas survived, but there are many less. To protect the world the way we have in the past, Oracle is going to ensure we are all connected. We can’t be out of touch for so long that no one notices disappearances."
"Or random changes in personality, or death," Booster adds. "Noticing death would be good, but preventing death would be better."
John raises an eyebrow. "Hmm. Yes. Death would be bad, I shall put it in a memo. Meanwhile, I shall do my best to keep us all in touch."
*By any means necessary, though I am loathe to create the kind of deep battle-link I used with the JLA again any time soon.*
"Hey, don’t do anything you’re not ready for, J’onn," Booster says.
Ted nods. "We appreciate it, but we’d like you intact more than constant communication."
John nods. "I appreciate your concern, but I . . . the link is better. Than being out of touch, alone in my head. Right now."
Ted and Booster exchange a glance. Booster says, "That’s fine then, J’onn. Back to the search?"
"Yes. Call me when you have reached a reasonably clean point, and I shall gather everyone back in for the night." John Jones walks out of the Embassy the same way he walked in: through the front door.
Ted leans back in his chair and pokes at the old computers. "This’ll be fun. We’re gonna be here all night getting stuff prepped and everyone else’ll just get to come home and be comfy? Not fair."
"On the other hand . . ." Booster holds up a dusty golden shoe that must have been Bea’s. "We get to go through whatever everybody left here."
A speculative look steals over Ted’s face, and Booster says, "Bwa-hah-hah."
*
Somewhere else, Rogues gather to kill the fastest man alive. Here, Checkmate killed the Rogues and that hero is the last.
*
Linda startles when the phone echoes through the shabby apartment that was all she could afford without Wally’s connections. Between hiding and losing and running away, Linda hasn’t held a job in six months. She isn’t sure how she can take care of the twins and hold down a steady job, but she’s going to have to. Other women manage single motherhood, and despite the fact that she knows--she knows--that none of them have to worry about raising speedsters, Linda can’t let herself think she won’t be able to handle it. There isn’t anyone else.
Shaking her head, Linda gets up and answers the phone before it wakes one of the babies. "Linda Park-West," she says, refusing to give up the surname that is her last connection to Wally on all the paperwork. She’d changed the identity of the twins’s father to help hide them from Checkmate.
The voice on the other end of the line is a strangely familiar computerized one. "Hello, Linda."
"Oracle!" Linda yelps, then brings her voice down. "Why are you calling?"
"How much do you know about what’s happened?"
Linda shakes her head and slowly sits at the battered kitchen table that came with the apartment. "Not much. The JLI--of all people--defeated Max Lord and Checkmate and won the day. They’re declaring their reemergence in the wake of the deaths of the JSA, JLA, Outsiders and Titans. And they’re putting themselves back under UN jurisdiction."
"That about sums up the public events, yes," Oracle says, and Linda stills. Oracle waits a moment before continuing. "J’onn is helping me put together a casualty list."
"I see." Linda swallows. "I don’t know much, Oracle. After Wally--I just went as deep as I could. The twins register as metahuman, I couldn’t take any risks."
"I know." Somehow, the inhuman voice is gentle. "It’s okay. I was just calling to ask if, well, Wally was really dead--"
"Yes."
"--and to tell you that you aren’t alone. There are people left who will help you until you can get back on your feet. And--"
Linda takes the phone away from her ear and stares at it before bringing it back up. "What?"
"It took a few days, but J’onn locked onto the thought patterns of a speedster. Bart isn’t who he was, precisely, but he’s still alive."
Linda closes her eyes and feels herself sink down into the uncomfortable chair. "Bart’s alive. Thank God."
She hadn’t had time to worry about the boy, not really, except to mourn that he’d apparently died or been sucked into the speed force, and it’s a relief to hear that the boy Wally had never valued as much as he should have has survived.
"He’s in about the same straights as you," Oracle mentions. Linda opens one eye suspiciously. "Crappy little apartment on the wrong side of town."
Linda wouldn’t have rented a place in a dangerous area, but two of the neighborhoods next door aren’t full of white picket fences. "Are you suggesting something?"
"That nobody should be alone anymore, especially not right now. If we’re going to rebuild, I want us to rebuilt right." Oracle sounds as fierce as the computer can let her--Linda has been assured it is a her, though she can’t tell. "And that means depending on each other and helping each other, more than we ever have in the past. It means I’ll be making a regular, intrusive nuisance of myself. It means I think you and Bart should get an apartment together, because he knows what you’re going through, you don’t have to hide from him, he can help with the twins and the bills, and at least you’ll be able to afford something in a better part of the city."
She finds herself nodding. Linda sits up straight, her mind a little blown. Even when Wally’d been on the JLA, in the middle of crises, she’d only met a couple of the other superheroes and those mostly speedsters, who were mostly dead now. All but Bart, impulsive, loving Bart, who because of Wally’s pig-headedness had never spent much time with Linda.
Now the emerging forerunner of the new superhero order--or perhaps, community, truly, if she has anything to say about it--calls her up and offers help and advice, all unasked for.
"Okay," Linda finds herself saying. "Okay. Just--let me talk to Bart, and work it out with him? Unless you went to him first?"
Pleased laughs should never be computerized. They’re creepy. Linda shakes that off and listens. "No, I called you first. I already know what Bart will say."
Oracle knows Bart--her cousin, if only by marriage--better than Linda, because she has no idea what he’ll think. "What?"
"Bart doesn’t do well without a group, or a family. He’ll say yes. And Linda--" Oracle pauses again. Linda has become wary of those. "Bart spent some time in the speed force. He isn’t a kid anymore--his body, at least, is in its early twenties. The impression I got from him is that he isn’t Impulse or Kid Flash anymore, but I also don’t think he’s been warped in any way besides the way we all change when we grow up."
Linda feels cold. "When things settle down, he’ll be Flash."
"Yes."
"I guess--" Linda laughs, mirthlessly. "I guess I can get used to living with the Flash again."
*
Somewhere else, the heated and persistent questions of why Batman’s second dead Robin never got a Case are finally answered. Here, Batman was presumed dead, and the questions were never asked.
*
Running away might have saved her from the OMACS and let her recover from the nightmare of Black Mask, but as soon as she remembers that she should wear a hero’s mask, she makes her way back to Gotham.
Instinct wants her to head right for her mother. Common sense tells her she has someone else to visit first.
The taxi drops her off at the Drake’s old residence, next door, and doesn’t give her the speculative glance she’d have gotten if he had let her off at Wayne Manor. The walk proves longer than she thought it’d be, and with her ratty clothes and backpack, she feels out of place. The knowledge that a vast cave system stretches beneath her and houses what is left of the Bat doesn’t help. Presumed dead or not, she and Batman hadn’t parted on the best terms, and with everything that happened in the last year, she has no idea what her reception will be.
But this is where she belongs.
Of course the only way onto Wayne property is the driveway. A long stretch of black asphalt passes under her gym shoes. Finally, the last trees give way and reveal the façade. She really hopes there’s a doorbell.
There is. Embedded in the elaborate doorway, it rings in a pleasant series of tones. Doorbells where she comes from are always off-key. The doorknob turns with a thunk, bringing her to attention. She expects to see Alfred’s face, and is struck momentarily speechless when a tall, broad-shouldered man with black hair who isn’t Bruce Wayne answers the door.
"Hello?" he says.
She shakes herself internally. "Is Bruce here?" she asks. Calling Bruce Wayne by his first name is odd, but that’s what Tim called him and she won’t be treated like a second-stringer again. This time she’s going to act like the first-rate superhero she knows she is. "My name’s Stephanie Brown."
The man pushes his glasses up his nose and half-turns to call inside. "Alfred? Do we know a ‘Stephanie Brown?’"
Steph bites her lip to contain laughter. That’ll bring Alfred at a run.
True to her prediction, Alfred comes trotting into the foyer, dishtowel in hand. His eyes widen as he rounds the man’s shoulders.
"Miss Stephanie?"
She smiles sheepishly. "Hi, Alfred. You, uh, might want to call Doc Leslie if you think I’m some kind of . . . ghost, or clone, or something."
Alfred’s overjoyed expression hits something in Steph’s chest, and she stares down at the marble tile.
"Miss Stephanie." Alfred hands the dishtowel to the surprised man and hugs her. "Welcome home."
Steph blinks, trying not to cry. She knew facing Alfred would be harder in some ways than facing Bruce. If she can handle this, she can handle anything.
"Um, Alfred?" The mystery man is still standing in the doorway, looking awkward.
"Forgive my manners, Master Clark." Alfreds shuts the door and ushers her into the house. "Miss Stephanie, this is Clark Kent, late of Metropolis. He has recently relocated to our home. Master Clark, this is Stephanie Brown, lately supposed to be dead."
Clark Kent starts. Steph grins. "I’ve been traveling around Africa with Leslie. We’re both human, and everyone thought I was dead, so Mom was safe from the OMACS."
"Late of Africa, then." Alfred gives her a considering look. "Master Bruce is downstairs. I think I shall give him some warning so that his heart does not make the alarming palpitations mine did."
Steph lets out a deep breath. "Thanks, Alfred."
"It is my great pleasure, I assure you, Miss Stephanie."
She and a bewildered Clark Kent follow Alfred to the study, where Alfred disappears behind the grandfather clock.
"I take it since Alfred went to the Cave in front of you, you know Bruce wears lots of black and sometimes has pointy ears?" Steph takes in the diffident man: slightly slouch-shouldered, kind of nervous, and definitely dorky. Still. That tall and broad . . . whoever he is, he has--or had--another name.
Clark Kent nods. "I’m afraid I haven’t figured out who you are. So many people disappeared, presumed dead . . ."
Steph lets out a bitter laugh. "Oh, I had the good luck to vanish before Checkmate started its global takeover. I watched the world go to hell from a hospital bed, without being able to do anything about it."
Clark winces. "I . . . know how you feel." They stand in silence for a moment. Steph can feel his eyes on her, not the usual predatory male glance she’s used to, but something more like Tim’s, trying to figure out a mystery. Unlike the first, it’s not a scrutiny she minds. She’s also waiting to see if he’ll--
"Oh."
--figure it out.
Steph waits for him to say something, and turns when he doesn’t. His head is cocked a little, and though she listens, she can’t hear anything.
"Alfred’s managed to convince Bruce not to shoot you full of tranquilizers before talking to you," he says. "It’s probably a good time to make an appearance."
Steph feels a confused expression twist her face. Clark shrugs. "Superhearing."
Steph nods slowly and opens the grandfather clock. Taking a deep breath, she takes the steps down into the Cave one at a time. The walls are cracked, pillars tumbled in some places, and while the stairs are clear, there are piles of rubble along their edges, as though the cleaning process isn’t yet complete. Broken trophies and equipment are piled in neat heaps, and places where she trained and showered and forced her body into new contortions are bent or nonexistent. No wonder even other superheroes thought Batman was dead.
The Case is untouched. Bruce has erected four more next to it, and Steph wonders whose costumes they’re intended for.
She knows the first two, of course. The day she heard about Tim’s death at the hands of the Penguin, of all villains, she walked around the village she and Leslie were staying at like a zombie. When it really hit her that she’d never see Tim’s shy smile again, or hear his tiny little laugh, or get past third base, she cried for a week.
Nightwing’s death is much more recent, on the heels of Black Canary’s and the youngest Green Lantern’s.
The other two--Steph doesn’t know. Cass? God, she hopes not, but no one’s been able to tell her where her best friend is. Huntress, maybe? Batman can’t want to honor Onyx and Orpheus personally, they weren’t around very long. Possibilities range from Red Hood to Oracle or Catwoman.
Steph turns her attention away from the Cases and steels herself. She strides toward Bruce, and Alfred steps back. She stops far enough away that she only has to look up a little. "Leslie helped me, hid me away. I couldn’t do anything about Checkmate. But Checkmate and the OMACS are gone, and I can do something about Gotham."
"You certainly sound like Stephanie Brown."
Steph raises her chin and meets his eyes. "I am Stephanie Brown. Do you want to see the scars?"
Before she registers what’s happening, Bruce takes a step forward and puts his arms around her. "No," he says. "No."
Steph is still reeling in shock from--did she just get hugged by Batman?--when he pulls back.
His eyes are a little hooded, again, and he glances toward the stairs before looking back at her. "I’ll need a blood sample."
She rolls her eyes and relaxes. "Of course you will."
Title: Saving Grace
Fandom: DC Comics
Pairing/Characters: gen; Birds of Prey, Arrowclan, Batclan, some Supers, two Lindas, Beetle and Booster, J’onn
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Canon AU. Oracle watches over a world slow to heal from Checkmate's control.
Disclaimer: DC owns them, I just hijack them and give them new lives.
Author's Notes: NOT FINAL CRISIS COMPLIANT. This interrupts Booster Gold canon literally a page and a half before the end of issue #9. For those not up on Booster Gold, Booster and a bunch of time-traveling Beetles went back in time and saved Ted Kord. When Ted and Booster came back to OYL, they found a world where Max Lord won because Ted hadn’t died and alerted the heroic community to Max’s plan. Thousands of people and dozens of superheroes are dead. Max has been using a mind-controlled Superman, Brother Eye, and the OMACS to, basically, rule the world. Booster, Ted, and a reunited JLI shut down Brother Eye and kill Max Lord. This is where our story begins.
Word Count: 6,380
Somewhere down on earth, shielded to a fare-thee-well, a magician senses the moment they have been waiting for. They have been in hiding for more than a year, secluded and focused on waiting for this moment, the end of Checkmate. Maxwell Lord is dead. Superman is free. Brother Eye is disabled. All the death, all the sacrifice, has ended. The world can be allowed to heal.
This one magician reaches into the fabric of the world and yanks. Nothing can change their victory.
*
Time shutters, splits, realigns. In another world, the Time Stealers appeared on the satellite and began a knock-down, drag-out fight. In another world, Skeets appeared to tell them that Booster was collapsing. In another world, Ted Kord made the choice to go back in time and die to save the world.
Somewhere else.
The reality that continues to exist where none of these things happened is an epiphyte, living on the main reality while being neither a parasite nor a symbiote. Here, Booster’s continued existence is stable, as is Blue Beetle’s. Here, there is no undoing the damage done by Booster’s rescue of Ted Kord. Here, the only saving grace is knowing there is a reality where things went better.
*
Somewhere else, Babs is trying to talk Dinah out of marrying Ollie. Here, Dinah never even had a funeral. There wasn’t enough left to bury.
*
Oracle is everywhere. She is in the OMACS and what little remains of Checkmate, she had insinuated herself into Brother Eye, she took up residence in the computer systems of every government and corporation on the planet. And yet she is a ghost, despite the team of hackers and AIs put to the task of tracking down the living person who is protected by the mask avatar. When the superhero community finally realized the danger it was in, Oracle was the first to go into deep hiding. Because her identity is known only by a handful of heroes, half of whom had been killed in the initial wave, no one alive knew where she was except for those who had gone into hiding with her.
Barbara Gordon gives Helena a small smile as she wheels into the elevator in Dalton Towers next to her primary operative. Both women are dressed casually. Eyes follow the pair regardless, however, between the beautiful redhead in the wheelchair and the jagged, puckered scar that runs from Helena’s temple, over her jawline, and stops halfway down her neck. The skin is tight around the scar and pulls her face slightly out of true. She holds a stack of boxes, as does Barbara, a few personal things that couldn’t be trusted to movers. Barbara owns the building, and the top four floors are entirely hers. Helena has her own apartment on those floors, and several more are vacant for those who will be moving in soon. The top two floors belong to Oracle and the Birds of Prey--room for the computers, and training and equipment spaces.
The elevator stops and Helena puts a hand on Barbara’s shoulder, squeezing it. Barbara nods, and the other woman leaves the elevator. It closes on the redhead, and goes up.
Barb gets out two floors up, in the apartment that’s half living space and half devoted to Oracle and Oracle’s new and improved mission. Heroes existed too far apart from each other before the Crisis, too far away to call for help, or to notice when someone went mysteriously missing, or had an abrupt personality change. No more.
Setting the box down on a couch, Oracle makes her way to the console. It’s been a long time since she was able to operate in relative freedom, in her home, without the analog tech and impenetrable barriers that kept her safe from the chaos. She toggles the console and her screens blossom into glowing life, bathing the room in green. One small screen on the far left monitors absolutely everything about the lives of those who remain, and alarms are set for suspicious activity. They’re still picking up the pieces after Beetle and Booster’s miraculous world-saving, finding friends and loved ones who survived, and the bodies of those who didn’t--if there were bodies left to find. Several bodies have been too gruesome for Oracle to feel comfortable turning them over to whatever family remains--no one should have to know their loved one was experimented on and vivisected.
She sets one of her searches to look for evidence of Red Hood’s movements--they’re pretty sure Jason’s not dead, but no one seems to know where he went--and heads to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. Just as her kettle finishes boiling, her doorbell rings.
Right on time.
Barb checks the security feed even though she’s expecting company. Some mistakes you only make once. It’s him, alone, and she opens the door.
Standing sheepish in her doorway is the hunch-shouldered, flannel-clad form of Clark Kent.
"Hi," he says. Clark pushes his glasses up his nose, a habit he’s exhibited more often since being freed from mind control. Barb suspects it has to do with grounding himself in Clark Kent again.
Barb backs up and gestures him into her home. He takes the apartment in, hands stuffed in his jeans pockets. "I know this is important, Barbara. Believe me. But I . . . I don’t know how much I’ll be able to tell you. I remember . . ." Clark wipes his hand over his face. Barb watches. "I remember all of it. I just don’t know how much I can tell you before I. . . ."
She puts her hand on his forearm and he startles like a nervous horse. Bright blue eyes, cut by thick lenses, stare at her.
"I know, Clark." Barb holds tight, knowing she can’t hurt him. Not physically. "If you can’t do this, I can ask J’onn to come. Take it out of your head. But he’s still not as stable as any of us would like, and it’s going to be a long time before he can blithely flit in and out of people’s heads again."
Clark’s shaking his head. "I won’t ask it of him." His clenched fists betray his stubbornness and fear. This is a duty he wishes he could put on someone else’s shoulders, and can’t. No one saw as much of Checkmate as he did, as Max’s "secret weapon." He saw and did things that no one else living can tell them about. The whereabouts and deaths of friends and allies, of enemies and supervillains, of secret headquarters, weapons stashes, double agents. Months upon months of being forced to do Checkmate’s dirty work, all stored in Kal-El’s photographic memory. He couldn’t forget a moment of it if he wanted to.
Oracle needs to know everything.
Clark takes a deep breath. "I’m as ready as I’ll ever be."
Barb nods. She lets go of his arm and wheels ahead of him. Oracle leads him to her console, lets him get comfortable, and then prompts him.
Clark huddles on the armchair and stares at the floor. "I felt a strange buzzing when it started, like what a headache might be like."
*
Somewhere else, Clark and Lois and Jimmy are enjoying a night out at the park, watching a Superman tribute movie. Here, Max forced Superman to watch Lois’s death, and Clark left a message on Jimmy’s answering machine, telling him that he was leaving Metropolis and the Daily Planet.
*
Bruce hasn’t been a demonstrative man in a long time. First with Dick, then Jason, Bruce had been carefree, had felt their joy allow him to love them and be with them in their spontaneity. Barbara’s injury and Jason’s death changed everything, and Tim hadn’t been the kind of Robin to show his joy physically, as Dick and Jason had.
Yet he reaches out and runs his hands through his friend’s hair, kneels beside the bed and rests his forehead against the mattress. Clark is curled up, shaking and sweating, on the bed. His eyes are closed, his face contorted with a nightmare.
"Clark," Bruce whispers. There is danger in this, in staying beside a bed with a startled Kryptonian in it, but it’s one that Bruce finds he cannot forego. There are so few of his family left. And Clark is among the casualties.
Bruce knows when Clark wakes because the other man stills. He keeps running one hand through his hair.
A swallowing sound. "Bruce?" Clark asks.
"I’m here."
Bruce feels trembling fingers on his head and looks up. Clark’s fingers trace Bruce’s hairline, one ear, the curve of his jaw. Bruce almost asks what Clark’s nightmare was, but thinks better of it. After spending the day reliving his horror for Oracle, Bruce doubts Clark lacked fodder for night terrors.
When Clark pulls his hand away, Bruce does as well. "You should go back to sleep," Bruce says. Clark nods and closes his eyes.
Bruce leaves the dark room, closing the door quietly behind him. The hallways of Wayne Manor echo with emptiness, though only he and Alfred have lived here for years. Clark brought a silence with him when he moved in, and even before that, with Dick’s death, with Tim’s, the silence grew. Without a family to fill its halls, even in potentia, Wayne Manor is giving way to its ghosts.
*
Somewhere else, Roy Harper is ecstatic to be on the new incarnation of the Justice League, and has chosen a new name to ally himself again with his legacy. Here, Roy and Lian Harper haven’t been seen since news of Black Canary and Nightwing’s deaths reached them.
*
The too-solemn face of Oliver Queen has become a familiar one for Barb. He’s been on her monitors fairly often, an all-human hero whose genetic makeup alone saved him from the OMACS nearly till the end. They’d lost contact before he and Hawkman headed up the tiny London resistance, but she’s kept an eye on Mia and Connor the whole time.
She’s been on suicide-watch for Connor Hawke since news of Kyle Rayner’s death got out. So far the kid has held it together, but Mia looks incredibly relieved to have Ollie back.
"So where’s my boy, Oracle?" Ollie asks. Barb arches an eyebrow at the screen, even though she knows he can’t see her. "You must know where he buried himself. I want to see my granddaughter."
"He went deep into hiding, Green Arrow."
"He’s family. And he lost--" Ollie stops. "I can’t leave him alone out there anymore. I should’ve gone to get him before, but there was too much, and he had to keep Lian safe."
Barb hesitates. This is the man that broke Dinah’s heart more times than she can count, who kicked Roy out of his home when he found out about his addiction, who lived while Dinah died.
"Oracle. Please." Ollie’s eyes are bloodshot and raw, his face that of a man only composed because he has no choice; too much to take care of to let the grief in. This Ollie is the man who inspired and adopted a feisty street kid, who cherished both his sons, who cleaned up his act and his town and would never, ever put anything before his family ever again.
"He and Lian are still in New York. I’ll get you there."
"Thank you."
Connor follows Ollie and Mia into the still emergency-only use teleporters, and feels his component atoms scatter and realign. He’s been following instead of thinking since he got the news of Kyle’s death, put one foot in front of the other, ate when Mia put food in front of him, carefully went out as Green Arrow to keep mundane crime off Star’s streets when the OMACS had slim chance of catching him. Other’s deaths--Eddie Fyre’s, Dinah Lance’s, Robin’s--had hit him in the gut, but for Kyle he is numb.
The pain will hit, and soon, Connor knows. The emergency is over. They’re dealing. Connor doesn’t know what he’ll do when people stop putting things to do in front of him.
He doesn’t have to worry about it yet, though, because Roy’s apartment is a mess. Lian comes pelting out of the back rooms and Ollie swings her into a hug, roaring and tossing her like she’s a tennis ball. Lian’s giggling and talking a mile a minute. Mia lets Ollie deal with the Harpers and heads for the living room, which is buried under a pile of toys, locked gun chests, and empty DVD cases.
Connor takes her as an example and heads for the kitchen. Scrubbing off crusted crud is soothing. Connor hears sobbing from the rooms in the back, and Mia and Lian getting into a race to see who can find and put away more DVDs. Hours pass. Ollie joins Mia and Lian, and then the three of them join him. They make dinner. Mia, Connor, Ollie and Lian eat, and then Ollie sends Lian to the back rooms with a plate of food for her daddy.
Mia and Lian sleep together in Lian’s bed. Connor sleeps on the floor, and Ollie takes the couch. The carpet, revealed from beneath weeks’ worth of accumulated mess, is surprisingly comfortable.
Ollie and Mia take Lian to the park, the pool, the playground. Connor goes grocery shopping, and to the library. He, Mia and Ollie take turns reading Lian bedtime stories. Mia gets into Agatha Christie and makes him get her more every time he goes to the library. Ollie finds an archery range and keeps his hand in, and Connor stays with Lian at night while Green Arrow and Speedy hit the streets.
One week and two days later, Roy comes out. His hair is a disheveled mess, down to his shoulders, and his eyes are bloodshot. He’s pale from grief and being indoors too long.
With Lian hanging on one leg, he looks Ollie in the eyes and says he wants to come home. New York is too much, has too many memories of everyone he’s lost, and he can’t. They have a new house in Star, with more than enough room for Connor’s brother and niece.
Connor and Mia stay behind to pack up Lian’s stuff. Roy takes one duffle bag with him, and says the rest can burn for all he cares.
*
Somewhere else, Supergirl is a ditzy teenager who talks too much. Here, she’s become a hardened survivor and the new caretaker of Metropolis--and she isn’t alone.
*
This time, the face on her monitor screen in unfamiliar, though Barb knows she will memorize it the way she has Dinah’s, Helena’s, and Zinda’s. Taking on the task of protecting Metropolis and keeping it shining is too much for anyone to take on alone anymore, especially after the seeming betrayal of their last hero. With herself and Huntress the only surviving Birds of Prey, adaptation became the name of Oracle’s game.
"Come in, please," Barb gestures, and the young woman walks into the empty apartment. She is on the short side, with chin-length, straight hair of a mousey brown color, and freckles spread across her nose and cheeks. Most of her belongings were mailed here, but she wears an overstuffed backpack with a skateboard strapped to it, and is carrying a pair of full duffle bags with ease. "It’s more spacious than it looks, and you’ll have run of the training facilities on the floor above you. Not to mention a number of discrete entrances and exits, and full-time, beyond state-of-the-art security."
The young woman looks down at Barb and gives her a small smile. "Believe me, I appreciate the benefits." She shifts. "You don’t need to sales pitch me, I’m convinced. Checkmate killed too many of the metahuman heroes for me to justify hiding away anymore. I don’t think I would have ever considered doing this on my own again, though. Is anyone else living in the building? Besides you?"
Barb nods. "Huntress lives on the floor below you, and Kara will be moving in soon. She’ll be right next door."
Linda Danvers smiles wryly. "Both Supergirls in one place?"
"It does make you easier to keep track of."
"She drives me a little crazy."
"She drives everyone a little crazy, Linda, but she was just learning about Earth when everything went sideways for her. She’s gone a little Sasha Donner Chronicles, but I think she’ll have an easier time of it once she settles."
Linda nods and steps farther into the apartment. "I can guess that every inch of this place is wired, right?"
Barb reflects her wry smile. "Audio and video of the highest quality, but don’t worry, I don’t watch it all the time."
Linda glances over her shoulder at the other woman. Physically, Oracle is her elder. All she can think, though, is that this child is going to lead them into their new world. An entire lifetime wiped from everything but her memory, her daughter safe--and out of her reach--centuries in the future, it all crowds up in Linda’s head sometimes. She’d run away from being a hero, the life that had gotten her into that debacle in the first place, but now she can’t justify running away anymore. Whatever had protected her from the OMACS, whether it was a lingering trace of Matrix or another manifestation of her telekinesis, she is one of the last and most powerful metahumans left on the planet. And with great power . . .
"Is there anything I can get you? Help you unpack?" Oracle--Barb--wheels closer, and Linda turns around to face her fully.
"I think’d like to unpack by myself, actually. Um, but if you could get me some basic knowledge, like, say, where the nearest grocery store is and which pizza place will deliver at two in the morning, I’d be grateful." Linda gives the other woman a faint but real smile.
Barb smiles, faintly, back. "It’s all on your computer. If you think of anything else, just give me a call. Hero-related, on the comm., mundane-related, your phone has all of our numbers in the building on speed dial. It’s labeled."
"You thought of everything."
"I am the all-knowing Oracle," Barb says. Then she shrugs. "And a former librarian."
*
Somewhere else, Booster is turning down membership in the new JLA to become the greatest hero the world has never known. Here, the JLI have taken up their battered mantle as the world’s greatest superheroes, though the world is wary and distrustful.
*
Booster sneezes, glad his future immune system will keep him from catching anything in the run down New York Embassy of the JLI. The Embassy is old, dusty, and abandoned, and the only place the JLI can think of to set up shop. They appeared before the UN after stopping Checkmate and declared the world could go back to their status quo, and that they, as a body again answerable to the UN, would be stepping up.
The roar of protest almost drowned out the JLI’s reasonable arguments, but eventually, with Dr. Light negotiating, they were able to work out a compromise. The biggest tool that Dr. Light brought to the bargaining table was that this was the team that had survived every one of Max Lord’s schemes, perhaps not in the best public light, but history’s newest boogieman had run their team for years and never once had the JLI let him take over the world.
They’d never dreamed that one day, surviving Maxwell Lord would be at the top of their superhero resumes.
Ted and Booster have been given the job of clearing out their New York Embassy as a headquarters because the others are too busy fighting emergencies around the world. First priority is rooms--none of them have a home any more, not after being captured, on the run or time traveling.
There are no other teams up and running, and in the power vacuum left by Checkmate, that could be disastrous. Though Checkmate’s toll on meta supervillains was as high or higher than the one on heroes, the smartest, sneakiest and therefore worst of the bunch survived.
"This place is not as moldy as it should be," Ted says, uncovering banks of ancient computers. Dust motes glitter in the fluorescent lights when he sets the covers aside.
"Max probably searched it when he was looking for metas. He certainly had our London headquarters booby-trapped," Booster says as he collects debris in a sack meant for the giant dumpster out back.
With a series of security measures finally satisfied, Ted starts everything up. It’s all they have, no matter how outdated.
"We’re going to need help with this," Ted says. "Oracle, if she survived, definitely Bruce, anyone we can hire who’ll put up with us. We need a support staff, and funding--"
Booster makes his way over to his friend while Ted jabbers and turns on the computers. "Can’t it wait a little?" Booster puts his hands on Ted’s shoulders, and the other man looks up. "I just got you back."
Ted gives a small nod, not looking away from Booster. "And we switched universes," he points out. "Though I suspect this universe’s version of you will show up eventually."
"I think--I think I’m this universe’s version of me. With divergent timelines and dimensions involved . . ." Boost shakes himself. "Whatever that magic user did, I don’t think Rip’ll be by soon to check up on me."
"Isn’t that terrifying. Bwa-hah-hah." Ted winks at his teammate, and Booster grins. Ted goes back to tinkering with the computers and considering the JLI’s options. "Bruce might help us with funding, but the Bat’s staying in Gotham, is what I hear. And with Superman retired and Wonder Woman dead, the JLI is it."
"We are indeed." John Jones steps into the dim light of the headquarters. "And we must also win back the trust of the world. Many, too many, came to agree with Max and Checkmate on the subject of costumed metahumans."
"Win back people’s trust? When did we have it?" Ted snorts. "We can operate without big love. That’s practically our motto."
"How goes tracking people down?" Booster asks. J’onn as resident telepath had been asked to take up the task of collecting a complete casualty list. Ice and Booster had been reluctant to tax the Martian with that job, but they simply didn’t have anyone else. J’onn has begun to take refuge in his human guise more and more often, and no one knows whether or not to be worried about that.
"Oracle’s casualty list expands," John says. "The mostly-human families tend to be more intact, though not even they are unscathed. The loss of Bruce’s sons . . ." John shivers, a completely inhuman movement, at the memory of his brief exposure to Bruce. "Many of the metahuman families are just . . . gone. Flashes. Titans. Marvels."
"Mary?" Booster asks, aghast. He and Ted close their eyes when John shakes his head.
"Some metas survived, but there are many less. To protect the world the way we have in the past, Oracle is going to ensure we are all connected. We can’t be out of touch for so long that no one notices disappearances."
"Or random changes in personality, or death," Booster adds. "Noticing death would be good, but preventing death would be better."
John raises an eyebrow. "Hmm. Yes. Death would be bad, I shall put it in a memo. Meanwhile, I shall do my best to keep us all in touch."
*By any means necessary, though I am loathe to create the kind of deep battle-link I used with the JLA again any time soon.*
"Hey, don’t do anything you’re not ready for, J’onn," Booster says.
Ted nods. "We appreciate it, but we’d like you intact more than constant communication."
John nods. "I appreciate your concern, but I . . . the link is better. Than being out of touch, alone in my head. Right now."
Ted and Booster exchange a glance. Booster says, "That’s fine then, J’onn. Back to the search?"
"Yes. Call me when you have reached a reasonably clean point, and I shall gather everyone back in for the night." John Jones walks out of the Embassy the same way he walked in: through the front door.
Ted leans back in his chair and pokes at the old computers. "This’ll be fun. We’re gonna be here all night getting stuff prepped and everyone else’ll just get to come home and be comfy? Not fair."
"On the other hand . . ." Booster holds up a dusty golden shoe that must have been Bea’s. "We get to go through whatever everybody left here."
A speculative look steals over Ted’s face, and Booster says, "Bwa-hah-hah."
*
Somewhere else, Rogues gather to kill the fastest man alive. Here, Checkmate killed the Rogues and that hero is the last.
*
Linda startles when the phone echoes through the shabby apartment that was all she could afford without Wally’s connections. Between hiding and losing and running away, Linda hasn’t held a job in six months. She isn’t sure how she can take care of the twins and hold down a steady job, but she’s going to have to. Other women manage single motherhood, and despite the fact that she knows--she knows--that none of them have to worry about raising speedsters, Linda can’t let herself think she won’t be able to handle it. There isn’t anyone else.
Shaking her head, Linda gets up and answers the phone before it wakes one of the babies. "Linda Park-West," she says, refusing to give up the surname that is her last connection to Wally on all the paperwork. She’d changed the identity of the twins’s father to help hide them from Checkmate.
The voice on the other end of the line is a strangely familiar computerized one. "Hello, Linda."
"Oracle!" Linda yelps, then brings her voice down. "Why are you calling?"
"How much do you know about what’s happened?"
Linda shakes her head and slowly sits at the battered kitchen table that came with the apartment. "Not much. The JLI--of all people--defeated Max Lord and Checkmate and won the day. They’re declaring their reemergence in the wake of the deaths of the JSA, JLA, Outsiders and Titans. And they’re putting themselves back under UN jurisdiction."
"That about sums up the public events, yes," Oracle says, and Linda stills. Oracle waits a moment before continuing. "J’onn is helping me put together a casualty list."
"I see." Linda swallows. "I don’t know much, Oracle. After Wally--I just went as deep as I could. The twins register as metahuman, I couldn’t take any risks."
"I know." Somehow, the inhuman voice is gentle. "It’s okay. I was just calling to ask if, well, Wally was really dead--"
"Yes."
"--and to tell you that you aren’t alone. There are people left who will help you until you can get back on your feet. And--"
Linda takes the phone away from her ear and stares at it before bringing it back up. "What?"
"It took a few days, but J’onn locked onto the thought patterns of a speedster. Bart isn’t who he was, precisely, but he’s still alive."
Linda closes her eyes and feels herself sink down into the uncomfortable chair. "Bart’s alive. Thank God."
She hadn’t had time to worry about the boy, not really, except to mourn that he’d apparently died or been sucked into the speed force, and it’s a relief to hear that the boy Wally had never valued as much as he should have has survived.
"He’s in about the same straights as you," Oracle mentions. Linda opens one eye suspiciously. "Crappy little apartment on the wrong side of town."
Linda wouldn’t have rented a place in a dangerous area, but two of the neighborhoods next door aren’t full of white picket fences. "Are you suggesting something?"
"That nobody should be alone anymore, especially not right now. If we’re going to rebuild, I want us to rebuilt right." Oracle sounds as fierce as the computer can let her--Linda has been assured it is a her, though she can’t tell. "And that means depending on each other and helping each other, more than we ever have in the past. It means I’ll be making a regular, intrusive nuisance of myself. It means I think you and Bart should get an apartment together, because he knows what you’re going through, you don’t have to hide from him, he can help with the twins and the bills, and at least you’ll be able to afford something in a better part of the city."
She finds herself nodding. Linda sits up straight, her mind a little blown. Even when Wally’d been on the JLA, in the middle of crises, she’d only met a couple of the other superheroes and those mostly speedsters, who were mostly dead now. All but Bart, impulsive, loving Bart, who because of Wally’s pig-headedness had never spent much time with Linda.
Now the emerging forerunner of the new superhero order--or perhaps, community, truly, if she has anything to say about it--calls her up and offers help and advice, all unasked for.
"Okay," Linda finds herself saying. "Okay. Just--let me talk to Bart, and work it out with him? Unless you went to him first?"
Pleased laughs should never be computerized. They’re creepy. Linda shakes that off and listens. "No, I called you first. I already know what Bart will say."
Oracle knows Bart--her cousin, if only by marriage--better than Linda, because she has no idea what he’ll think. "What?"
"Bart doesn’t do well without a group, or a family. He’ll say yes. And Linda--" Oracle pauses again. Linda has become wary of those. "Bart spent some time in the speed force. He isn’t a kid anymore--his body, at least, is in its early twenties. The impression I got from him is that he isn’t Impulse or Kid Flash anymore, but I also don’t think he’s been warped in any way besides the way we all change when we grow up."
Linda feels cold. "When things settle down, he’ll be Flash."
"Yes."
"I guess--" Linda laughs, mirthlessly. "I guess I can get used to living with the Flash again."
*
Somewhere else, the heated and persistent questions of why Batman’s second dead Robin never got a Case are finally answered. Here, Batman was presumed dead, and the questions were never asked.
*
Running away might have saved her from the OMACS and let her recover from the nightmare of Black Mask, but as soon as she remembers that she should wear a hero’s mask, she makes her way back to Gotham.
Instinct wants her to head right for her mother. Common sense tells her she has someone else to visit first.
The taxi drops her off at the Drake’s old residence, next door, and doesn’t give her the speculative glance she’d have gotten if he had let her off at Wayne Manor. The walk proves longer than she thought it’d be, and with her ratty clothes and backpack, she feels out of place. The knowledge that a vast cave system stretches beneath her and houses what is left of the Bat doesn’t help. Presumed dead or not, she and Batman hadn’t parted on the best terms, and with everything that happened in the last year, she has no idea what her reception will be.
But this is where she belongs.
Of course the only way onto Wayne property is the driveway. A long stretch of black asphalt passes under her gym shoes. Finally, the last trees give way and reveal the façade. She really hopes there’s a doorbell.
There is. Embedded in the elaborate doorway, it rings in a pleasant series of tones. Doorbells where she comes from are always off-key. The doorknob turns with a thunk, bringing her to attention. She expects to see Alfred’s face, and is struck momentarily speechless when a tall, broad-shouldered man with black hair who isn’t Bruce Wayne answers the door.
"Hello?" he says.
She shakes herself internally. "Is Bruce here?" she asks. Calling Bruce Wayne by his first name is odd, but that’s what Tim called him and she won’t be treated like a second-stringer again. This time she’s going to act like the first-rate superhero she knows she is. "My name’s Stephanie Brown."
The man pushes his glasses up his nose and half-turns to call inside. "Alfred? Do we know a ‘Stephanie Brown?’"
Steph bites her lip to contain laughter. That’ll bring Alfred at a run.
True to her prediction, Alfred comes trotting into the foyer, dishtowel in hand. His eyes widen as he rounds the man’s shoulders.
"Miss Stephanie?"
She smiles sheepishly. "Hi, Alfred. You, uh, might want to call Doc Leslie if you think I’m some kind of . . . ghost, or clone, or something."
Alfred’s overjoyed expression hits something in Steph’s chest, and she stares down at the marble tile.
"Miss Stephanie." Alfred hands the dishtowel to the surprised man and hugs her. "Welcome home."
Steph blinks, trying not to cry. She knew facing Alfred would be harder in some ways than facing Bruce. If she can handle this, she can handle anything.
"Um, Alfred?" The mystery man is still standing in the doorway, looking awkward.
"Forgive my manners, Master Clark." Alfreds shuts the door and ushers her into the house. "Miss Stephanie, this is Clark Kent, late of Metropolis. He has recently relocated to our home. Master Clark, this is Stephanie Brown, lately supposed to be dead."
Clark Kent starts. Steph grins. "I’ve been traveling around Africa with Leslie. We’re both human, and everyone thought I was dead, so Mom was safe from the OMACS."
"Late of Africa, then." Alfred gives her a considering look. "Master Bruce is downstairs. I think I shall give him some warning so that his heart does not make the alarming palpitations mine did."
Steph lets out a deep breath. "Thanks, Alfred."
"It is my great pleasure, I assure you, Miss Stephanie."
She and a bewildered Clark Kent follow Alfred to the study, where Alfred disappears behind the grandfather clock.
"I take it since Alfred went to the Cave in front of you, you know Bruce wears lots of black and sometimes has pointy ears?" Steph takes in the diffident man: slightly slouch-shouldered, kind of nervous, and definitely dorky. Still. That tall and broad . . . whoever he is, he has--or had--another name.
Clark Kent nods. "I’m afraid I haven’t figured out who you are. So many people disappeared, presumed dead . . ."
Steph lets out a bitter laugh. "Oh, I had the good luck to vanish before Checkmate started its global takeover. I watched the world go to hell from a hospital bed, without being able to do anything about it."
Clark winces. "I . . . know how you feel." They stand in silence for a moment. Steph can feel his eyes on her, not the usual predatory male glance she’s used to, but something more like Tim’s, trying to figure out a mystery. Unlike the first, it’s not a scrutiny she minds. She’s also waiting to see if he’ll--
"Oh."
--figure it out.
Steph waits for him to say something, and turns when he doesn’t. His head is cocked a little, and though she listens, she can’t hear anything.
"Alfred’s managed to convince Bruce not to shoot you full of tranquilizers before talking to you," he says. "It’s probably a good time to make an appearance."
Steph feels a confused expression twist her face. Clark shrugs. "Superhearing."
Steph nods slowly and opens the grandfather clock. Taking a deep breath, she takes the steps down into the Cave one at a time. The walls are cracked, pillars tumbled in some places, and while the stairs are clear, there are piles of rubble along their edges, as though the cleaning process isn’t yet complete. Broken trophies and equipment are piled in neat heaps, and places where she trained and showered and forced her body into new contortions are bent or nonexistent. No wonder even other superheroes thought Batman was dead.
The Case is untouched. Bruce has erected four more next to it, and Steph wonders whose costumes they’re intended for.
She knows the first two, of course. The day she heard about Tim’s death at the hands of the Penguin, of all villains, she walked around the village she and Leslie were staying at like a zombie. When it really hit her that she’d never see Tim’s shy smile again, or hear his tiny little laugh, or get past third base, she cried for a week.
Nightwing’s death is much more recent, on the heels of Black Canary’s and the youngest Green Lantern’s.
The other two--Steph doesn’t know. Cass? God, she hopes not, but no one’s been able to tell her where her best friend is. Huntress, maybe? Batman can’t want to honor Onyx and Orpheus personally, they weren’t around very long. Possibilities range from Red Hood to Oracle or Catwoman.
Steph turns her attention away from the Cases and steels herself. She strides toward Bruce, and Alfred steps back. She stops far enough away that she only has to look up a little. "Leslie helped me, hid me away. I couldn’t do anything about Checkmate. But Checkmate and the OMACS are gone, and I can do something about Gotham."
"You certainly sound like Stephanie Brown."
Steph raises her chin and meets his eyes. "I am Stephanie Brown. Do you want to see the scars?"
Before she registers what’s happening, Bruce takes a step forward and puts his arms around her. "No," he says. "No."
Steph is still reeling in shock from--did she just get hugged by Batman?--when he pulls back.
His eyes are a little hooded, again, and he glances toward the stairs before looking back at her. "I’ll need a blood sample."
She rolls her eyes and relaxes. "Of course you will."