When Night Comes

Chapter Sixteen

I looked over the waking city with a sense of dread and failure. Bruce's city in flames without a protector and I had done nothing to help, didn't even step a foot out of the mountain.
"Clark, you okay?" The lowered voice was Diana's.
If the night had taken a toll on her, she wasn't letting it show, not to the public at least. Back at the mountain, she had become quieter, reserved and a permanent frown was on her face. Out where the public could see her she stood tall, tried not to frown as deeply and was as reassuring as she could be.
"I never got to be a father to Conner." I muttered as I looked over to her, "I left him to fend for himself, I knew I would never be able to care for a kid, but now that he's gone. I look back at our time together and I could have been a father. I should have helped him more."
"If we have learnt anything from tonight it's that we all could have done more." Diana said, "That we all could have fought harder, cared fiercer, saved more. But sometimes we do reach our limit, I'm learning that now, and when we can learn to accept that, that's when we'll become stronger when we'll learn to forgive ourselves for the actions of others. We're going to get through this."
I managed a weak smile at her, she was wise. Always had been, and I loved that part of her. I looked around the hopeless scene again, the troop of heroes with resigned faces that marched the streets, the scared citizens of Gotham, the red city, and looked at it the way I should look at it. The way that the fear on some of the citizens faces eased as they saw a troop of determined heroes that were here to save them, the get rid of the evil that haunted the city of justice. Gotham city, rebuilding itself from the Batman up. I heard an alert ahead as Arthur looked back down at our tracker screen.
"He is close." He explained, "Split up and search if you find him, do not engage alone."
We all nodded and I took to the sky, looking through buildings to try and spot the forms of Talon and Jason. Diana had gone the other way so I was alone in the sky, searching, searching... There. Two people alone inside a store, but was it them? I flew down closer to see if I could get a better look, focusing on identity points for both of them, but if I recall correctly neither had blonde hair or were female. Moving on.
As the search continued hope continued to lower again. The kid was trained by Batman to hide, add on the fact it was his own turf and then the fact that he didn't want to be found. He wasn't going to be found. I turned back towards the meeting point, still keeping an eye out, but as I landed I still turned up empty. I wasn't the first back either, Jade had already arrived.
"Nothing?" She asked as I came to a stop in front of her.
"Nada." I replied, "If he doesn't want to be found we're not going to find him."
"We have to." Jade said, "Not finding him isn't an option."
"This is Kaldur, I do believe that I have located Dick, I mean Talon, meet at my location." The voice crackled through our headsets and Jade gave me a knowing smirk.
I picked her up and raced at full speed towards Kaldurs location, spotting his silhouette against the midday sun outside an abandoned looking store. It wasn't soon after that Diana landed and then Barry with Arthur in his arms and we moved into the store. The sight was overwhelming, and I wished my vision were not so perfect. Dead meat hung from the ceiling and decorated a front supply desk, the flies the only other live costumers on the room as they helped the decomposition process along. Blood pooled on the floor, some dried but some fresh, the only sign we needed that people had been here recently. We moved through the store, trying to hold our breaths as best we could and avoid stepping in any of the mess until we came to a final door at the back. It probably used to lead to an old storeroom of something of the sorts, but now I can only imagine that it leads to horrors. We all looked at each other, a nod shared that we were ready to complete our mission, and Jade slowly opened the door, its hinges silent, and we looked inside, unprepared for the sight it held.

We had been walking for what felt like forever. We were following Dick to the exit as he called it, but he didn't seem to know the way himself.
"How much longer is this going to take?" Wally moaned from beside me and I lightly hit him.
"I don't know." Dick replied, "We should have been out of here by now, Talon's changed it all."
"What do you mean?" Bruce asked he hadn't left Dick's side since we had started walking, a hand constantly on his shoulder.
"The pathways." He explained, "Normally they remain vaguely similar but everything here is the same. I'm half convinced we're just walking in circles at this point."
"You've got to be kidding me." Roy sighed but reigned himself in with another look form me, "Right, okay, we just have to regroup."
"I can always try to force a new pathway." M'gann chimed in, "Connect you back up to the main circuits."
Dick looked at her for a moment, calculating but it was familiar. It was strange how the exact same look could feel so different depending on which personality gave it to us.
"It's worth a shot." He shrugged, brushing off Bruce's hand and moved over to M'gann.
She placed her hands on his temples again and so the process began. Nothing at first and then I felt vibrations under my feet and the scenery began to flicker. One moment it was blank walls, the next a circus tent. And after a few minutes of disorienting changes, it stopped in the circus tent and M'gann and Dick disconnected.
"Is this..." Wally trailed off as Dick walked towards the centre of the ring.
His face seemed to hold emotions older than him, wonder, sadness and resignation all at once. But then he looked up and his face dropped to a mixture of fear and resignation. We all followed his gaze to see Talon sitting atop a trapeze bar.
"Nice of you to drop back in." Talon grinned as he swung back and forth,
"Let them out of here and we'll finish this." Dick growled up, "Once and for all."
"I give them thirty seconds in all my generosity." Talon said, "And then I'm coming for you."
"Through that door." Dick said, "Get out of here."
"We can't leave you." Bruce said, "We came in here to stop him, we're not leaving until we do."
"Get out by your own free will or by mine." Dick ground out, "Whatever happens you're leaving at the end of the thirty seconds."
"What are you going to do?" I bit, "Fight us?"
"No." Dick sighed, "I'll just erase you."
"No." M'gann caught in a breath and we all looked to her for an explanation, "To erase us from here in a way to kick us out he'd have to remove every memory he has of us. It would be to him as if we never existed."
I looked back over to the little boy. The one who was defined by his friends, and saw that he was serious about this. For once I was the first to resign and walk over to the door.
"Arty-" Wally began but stopped as Roy and M'gann followed me over.
"We'll save you, Dick." Was a whispered word from Bruce before he joined us.
And finally, Wally came over, trying his hardest not to let any tears spill. I opened the door and stared at the blackness inside, sparing one look back to see Dick standing by himself in a single halo of light, and stepped through.

I woke back up slowly, my muscles aching and my eyes slowly peeled themselves open. The room was bright, plain and I instantly recognised it. The medical bay.
"Anyone else up?" I asked and heard a chorus from the group I had gone in with reply.
"You're awake, good." I jumped at the sound of another voice, Dinah, "You have a lot of catching up to do."