Nightwing - One Shots

~ Elemental - Part 2 ~

A/N - Ah I apologize for the wait- lost motivation again like literally the day after I posted the first part and that's the wOrst feeling, especially when I know I really want to write it for you guys, but then I find myself procrastinating on everything else in the process lol. I love you guys and I want to distract you from what's going on in the world right now so ..HERE WE GO! (AJR reference if anyone knows them~ <3)

Quick recap: the team were flying on a jet to a location that was suffering from a huge amount of fires and Barry explains that its an enemy that may be controlling the elements. Said enemy shows up during their flight as the element of air/wind and appears right outside the plane next to Nightwing... then it disappears. This bad guy seem a little interested in our boy... we can't have that now can we?

-

"When we land, what do you think we'll find?" Wally asked softly beside Richard. The bat protege didn't respond quickly, just looked out the window, watching for signs that told him something could be amiss. Finally, he turned to Wally with a grave expression, close to concerned.

"I.. don't know. I'm sure that it's not going to be what we want... or what we expect. I think we should be ready for anything."

Wally nodded, glancing at Barry who was sitting in the chairs opposite them. Barry just sighed softly, catching the glance. He found himself wanting to turn the ship back around to protect these... children. Who knew it would come to this? Bringing children to a battle meant for no one but the elements themselves.

"You think we're stepping into something we can't handle?"

Richard bit his lip and then looked Wally in the eyes. A split second of communication, and then he smiled wide. The charming, sly Richard Grayson smile.

"I don't know what we're stepping into, therefore I have no clue whether we can handle it or not- but I do know this: we're a team. We should be able to handle that much, and we should communicate. If one of us thinks we should fall back, we fall back. I trust my team."

Barry Allen shifted his feet on the floor, squinting. Of course he trusted his team. Should he trust Barry Allen? No. He probably shouldn't. Even Batman doesn't know. He can't even believe his own actions, he wants to throw himself out of this plane. So if he had told Batman, he would be in an even worse situation. He sure wouldn't be where he is now.

"I can't believe the jet is still intact!" Beast Boy suddenly exclaimed softly, changing the subject for a minute. He drew everyone's attention from the window to let them have a look around at the bent out of shape inner plane. Fortunately it was only the middle of the body that was bent odd. Everything else, the wings, the engines, the windows, they were fine... somehow.

It was almost like the being wanted to keep it from crashing. Like they wanted to protect someone.

Nightwing leaned forward to rest his clasped hands on his knees and think.

Kid Flash looked over the hero's shoulders, seeing the flames raging below on the mountain side.

"Is it one person?"

He looked down to find Nightwing had his head turned toward KF slightly, having asked him the question. Kid Flash chuckled softly, leaning down to put his clasped hands on his knees as well and said, "I wouldn't call it a human if that's what you mean... but yeah, I'd say only one thing is controlling these elements. Sounds like they happened one at a time, like it controlled each at different times."

Nightwing shook his head, hair flopping, "Yeah, so um... if we just encountered it being wind.." he sat up, hand coming up to rest on Wally's shoulder. Wally scrunched his eyebrows, confused. He waited for the explanation.

Nightwing turned toward his best friend and pointed at him, his hand slowly beginning to move up and down as if he's making sense of it all, "If we just encountered him as another element, then that means that he's not controlling the fire anymore."

"Yeah!" Beast Boy agreed from behind them, making sense of it in his head too. Some of the other teammates mumbled their agreement, and the tension among the whole jet began to lighten up. Then Superboy spoiled it.

"Yeah but..  now that he's gone, couldn't he have just turned back into the fire? Gone back to controlling the fire? I mean, where did he go?"

M'Gann wanted to punch him, but she knew he was right. Of course he was right.

"Wherever he is, that's the real threat, and the faster we find out what he is next, the faster we erase that threat," Barry said.

-*-

The plane landed safely in the flatlands near the fires. The team grabbed what they needed and headed out of the jet, moving quick and subtle through the woods.

Leaves crunched at times, leaves that were burned and charred. Black bark pieces littered the grounds and the trees high above were struck clean of nearly everything. They, too, were burnt.

The wind surrounded them at times, blowing their hair and touching their cheeks. Wally found it odd, that the wind was blowing so hard down at the bottom of the mountain full of terribly scarred trees. Perhaps the element controller hadn't changed from wind..?

A sudden gust of wind brought the team flying back in all directions... all but one.

Nightwing stood alone in the forest, eyes suddenly wide and hand reaching for his baton on his thigh. The team, all in different areas of the forest around him, were groaning and struggling to make sense of what just happened.

"Finally," a voice whispered in his ear... it sounded... it felt like the wind. It whistled and the air was suddenly surrounding him, seemingly protecting him from his team. Then a man, barely a man, appeared in front of him, in the midst of the rushing air. Nightwing's eyes widened slowly, but in his short life, he'd seen a lot. This was just one of those things. His jaw tightened and he brought his batons out slowly, ready to use them at a moments notice.

"Finally," the man said again, more loud, and then he continued this time, "we're alone. I haven't seen you... why, I haven't seen you since you were this high!" The man gestured with an airy, transparent hand, to about three feet high.

Nightwing's eyebrows furrowed, "What?"

"I know, you don't remember me," the man chuckled, "but that's because you never saw me. I saw you though. How are you, Richard Grayson?" He leaned in slightly, looking honestly curious.

Nightwing's mouth went slightly slack at the question, but he kept in the shock and instead said matter-of-factly, "You must know Bruce Wayne then."

"Oh yes, that Bat sure needs to keep his eyes out better than he does. Sometimes I was thinking I needed to step in! But now... finally! I get to see you again, and you get to meet me. Though, I understand how unfortunate the circumstances are.." he trailed off for a second, turned his hand, and with a flick of his hand, a blurry figure flew off into another tree. It was Impulse, who had tried to rush him from behind, Nightwing guessed.

"Hey! That's my team!" Nightwing took a step forward and rose one of his batons to bring it slamming down at the enemy. However, he was stopped when the man suddenly came up and grabbed his arm with force, a force that Nightwing never thought wind could have.

"Maybe you should have trained them better then," he whispered harshly. Then he smiled, a knowing smile, "and look at that. He knows better."

Nightwing found the man was staring behind him, and he slowly turned around to find the Flash standing behind him, watching with wide eyes. He met Nightwing's eyes for a moment, and they stared at each other.

Barry heaved a breath that came out looking like a silent sob. He kept his gaze in Nightwing's eyes, and when they didn't disconnect, he began to tap his finger on his leg. When he made sure that the man wasn't watching, Barry looked deep into Nightwing's eyes and then glanced down at his own hand. Nightwing got the message. He looked down. Morse code.

He nearly had to stifle a chuckle at the quick thinking of the speedster... that is until he made sense of the words that the hero was giving him.

'S o r r y. I k n e w. I b r o u g h t y o u t o h i m'

'T o  b e t h e i n s i d e m a n'