cat_13145

Series Title: Renegade Part 1
Part Title: Divided We Fall
Author:
I finally have a beta (does little dance) Green Galands
Rating: Pg-13
Disclaimer: If I owned them, you think Battle for the Cowl would have happened?
Warnings: Character Death fic, I'm sorry, you're all probably going to hate me.cat_13145

Author’s Note: Warning during this Fic I will play pretty fast with DC Cannon, mainly because I’m a new fan and not to sure of the timeline. This part is based on the Divided We Fall story line in JLA, which I’m fairly certain was after Jason’s restriction, but in my cannon it’s before…well I won’t spoil what happens next. It is advised that you have read that story line before reading this, as I suck at summaries
Character: Jason, Roy, Tim, Batman (briefly), Marie (OC)
Summary: When ID Spilts the JLA in two, how do the younger members cope without Dick.

“Bruce?” Jason’s voice came as he ran down the steps to the Bat Cave. “What’s going on? Is everything all…”

He trailed off as he gazed at the scene. He was seeing the Justice League, in the Bat cave. That was unusual enough in itself, Bruce was fairly strict about the cave just being for bats (and occasionally Clark, but as Marie said he was family), but it wasn’t what made him stop.

What did that, was that he was also facing their alter egos. He recognised Bruce (obviously) and had met Clark at a couple of fund raisers. Wally had been one of Dick’s friends, so he was a no brainer, and Kyle had been a Titan. He didn’t recognise the guy with brown hair, or the slimly looking guy, but one of them had to be Plastic man, and so the other must be J’onn. His money was on slimy guy as J’onn.

He shook himself. “Tim said something was up, but this…what happened?”

“We don’t know.” That was Batman alright, even if the cowl hadn’t been a dead give away. “Something has spilt us.”
Jason rolled his eyes, in a manner that he knew irritated Bruce. That was pretty freaking obvious.

“Wonder woman and Aqua man will be supervising us.” He presumed that meant the costume identities.

He sighed, deeply.

“Guess that means we’re responsible for the Civs.”

Explaining the situation to Alfred, and Tim, and Babs took time. Alfred merely sniffed and muttered something about twice as much work to do. Tim kept looking at Bruce half like he wanted to dissect him, but Babs was a lifesaver. She had current addresses for all Civilian identities, and contact information for friends of those like eel O’Brian (Plastic man, who it turned out was Slimy guy) and John Jones, who didn’t have any sidekicks to keep an eye on them.

At first, everything seemed to be O.K.

All right, there was that incident with J’onn, or John really crashing his car, but after years of relying telepathy, they should simply be grateful it wasn’t worse.

It was about three hours into a patrol that Oracle phoned in.
“Check on Bruce!” she said firmly.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Just do it.”

He got the full story out of Alfred later, how some random guy had spray painted something (from Alfred’s manner, he guessed it was rude), on the side of one of Bruce’s cars, and that Bruce had flipped. His date had apparently taken off, and it was touch and go whether she’d go to the tabloids.

Nothing however compared to coming into the mansion to find Bruce in the big chair in the study. Not doing anything, just sitting still, staring out the window. At that moment, Jason had felt like he was 14 again, coming home from school to find Bruce in the same position he’d adopted after patrol.

He tried talking to Bruce, to get his side of the story, but got exactly the same response he’d got then, when telling Bruce about his classes. Nothing.

He’s glad Tim’s with his folks and not having to deal with this. He wouldn’t wish this on his worst enemy, not even the Joker. And there wasn’t much he wouldn’t wish on that motherfucker.

He doesn’t hear Marie come up, too caught up in the past, but he feels her hand on his shoulder.

“We have to do something.” He says, aware of how desperate that sounds. Marie nods.

“Question is what?”

It was Kon who brought them the news at the next meeting. It had been postponed twice, cos with Batman virtually out of Gotham Jason and Tim have been on patrol virtually every night, and the first thing anyone says to them is “you look like shit.”

“Thanks for the newsflash.” Jason growled, sitting down at the head of the table. “Anyone got any useful observations they’d like to share?”

“Clark and Lois are separated.” Kon says, as though it’s no big deal. “She couldn’t handle him not been superman.”

“Why?” Marie asks. She looks nearly as bad as Jason and Tim, having been on “Bruce Watch” most of the week. Plus her normal Alfred duties and school.

Kon shrugged. “She didn’t like Clark without Superman.”

Kon may be very popular with Tim, but there were points when Jason would have gladly strangled the guy.

“What” he asked, channelling the Bat. “Is Clark without superman?”

Kon shrugged. “Scaredy cat.” He said. “He’s scared of paper if you can believe it.”

And when Oracle’s spying on both Eel and Kyle revealed that both were on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Jason decided the time for action had come.

Clark rarely visited Gotham. The Bats didn’t like Anyone in their city without their permission, and in light of recent events he didn’t think he’d get that.

However had the phone call come from anyone but Alfred, he’d have said he was panicking, but it was Alfred and it was about Bruce and that was enough to get him on the first flight to Gotham.

Alfred had opened the door, somehow managing to look dignified despite a jagged cut held together with butterfly tape over his right eyebrow.

“I am very glad to see you, Master Clark.” He said, with quiet dignity. “The others are in the study, if you would follow me.”

“What happened your…” he began, but Alfred interrupted him. “ a minor accident, while cleaning. Absolutely nothing for you to worry about.”

He opened the door of the study and Clark stepped in.

The room was a mess.

Someone had evidently being throwing things around, there’s some china plates missing from the dresser, and a lot of fragments still on the carpet.

John is sitting on the sofa, a bandage wrapped around his head. Kyle is in a corner, pencils and pens scattered about him, his fingers working on what Clark hopes is a pinned up wall paper roll.

Eel sits, his eyes darting around like a caged rat. Wally is…sitting still. Clark thinks that’s the most disturbing thing, until he sees Bruce.

Bruce is sitting in a chair, his face bruised, with a bandage across a broken nose. He’s shivering, like he can’t get warm, even though the room isn’t cold.

“Bruce.” He’s by the chair, though how he got across the room that fast without super speed, he doesn’t know. “Bruce. What happened?”

“He’s being in a fight.” Alfred had opened the door and the kids-what were the papers calling them? The Little Justice League?- had entered. Standing beside and behind Jason and Marie, Clark couldn’t say that he saw anything amusing about the nickname.

“Three in fact.” Marie continued. “Last night alone.”

Clark blinked. Bruce? In a fight? But why?

“You know why” Jason’s voice was hot and furious. “Look at you. All of you. If we don’t fix this soon, then Arkham’ll have six new patients.”

Clark wants to argue, but finds he can’t. There’s no way he can pretend he likes his life as Superman, but without it…it’s unbearable.

And one look at Kyle and O’Brian is enough to convince him that it’s true for them.

Wally’s just looking at his hands. But then John speaks up.

“No. I will not go along with what you are suggesting.”

He glances at Jason, expecting an argument, but Jason sighs. “We could force you. Argue that the moment the league went down, protection came over to us, but that’s not important. Bottom line, we can’t force you. And if we could return the rest of the league to normal without you, then we would. But,” he pressed a small button. Wonder Woman’s voice came through. “Said…ID escaped by accident…lied…experiment to rule our…heavy casualties. ..Batman…Manhunter…Hera no!”

The transmission faded to static. Jason stared at the assembled JLA. “We’ve got a plan to fix this. But we need your help.”
“And if I still refuse?” John demanded.

Jason shrugged. “We’ve got a back up plan.” He said, calmly, and his eyes rested on Wondergirl. “But we’d rather not use if there’s another way.”

There was a moment silence before John nodded.

“But I will not join back with him.”
Jason shrugged. “Let’s hope you get an option.”

Most of the bats seemed to take the opportunity once they were airborne, to fall asleep. Clark wasn’t surprised. He’d seen enough articles in the last couple of weeks speculating on Batman’s disappearance, to know that the boys must have been protecting Gotham on their own. This probably meant Marie hadn’t been sleeping either, waiting for them to come in and probably keeping an eye on Bruce.

Bruce.

He forced himself to have a look at Bruce. Despite looking at least as exhausted as his charges, the prince of Gotham was still awake. He looked like…Clark couldn’t even come up with a word for it. There was so much tension, so much angry, so much pain radiating off the man, that Clark had to fight the desire to either pull away, or pull Bruce towards him.

It was strange. He’d always thought, he supposed everyone had, that Bruce Wayne without Batman would just be a flop. That was who Brucie was after all.

But what he’d never thought about, what none of them had ever truly considered was what drove Batman out every night, beside the Bat mobile.

It was a little boy of eight or nine, kneeling in his parent’s blood. That boy was Bruce Wayne, not batman.

“The spilt was imperfect.” He blinked. The words came from Kyle, who was sketching at the paper on his lap as though his life depended on it.

“Huh?” he couldn’t manage anything more fluent.

“He’s right.” The bats, while they could sleep anywhere, were also light sleepers, and Kyle’s seat was just behind Marie’s and Jason’s. “Clark Kent isn’t a scaredy cat.”

“So who is he?” He asked, without really caring about the answer. Marie’s mouth is open, but it’s Bruce that answers.

“He’s the man Kal-El would have been if Krypton hadn’t been destroyed.” The words sounded like they came from someone who didn’t speak very often and wasn’t sure if they liked it. “Not a superhero. But a good man.”

“Everyone sure of the plan?” Jason asked for what felt like the hundredth time since they’d landed.

From the roll of Kid Flash’s eyes, he agreed with Clark, but he obediently recited.

“I run get the…thingy and slap it on Superman’s head.”

“Make sure it’s superman.” Tim warned, adjusting the utility belt. “Clark won’t do us much good, it has to be Krypton.”

The Kid begins to roll his eyes again, but Marie raises an eyebrow (which Clark guesses is her equivalent of a Bat glare) and he stops.

“Rest of us’ll run distraction.” Jason shot a glance at Marie who added “we stay back, unless it looks like you guys are in over your heads. Then we go in with conventional. Well as conventional as the Bat cave ever gets.” She patted the strange shaped gun at her side. “But if everything goes to plan, we wait until ID is on Superman. Then hopefully I provide cover while they join up.”
Jason nodded.

Clark looked at him, remembering the angry kid who he’d first met. Jason had grown up a lot, it was scary to think that he was still younger than Dick had been when he died.

He looked so much older.

“O.K.” Jason said, pulling his mask on more securely. “Let’s do this.”

The screams were inhuman. Marie caught Jason looking back at her, and tried to smile, to convince him that they were O.K. and that the situation was actually under some form of control.

Hah!

The only person who even looks vaguely O.K. is J’ONNonz. And that’s mainly because he and John are united in their desire not to join up again.

The rest are a combination between the two, both sides screaming. She can hear mixtures of Kryptonese, mixed in with the yells from Clark. Batman and Bruce…she’s no idea what’s holding them together. Batman is pulling away, apparently desperate to get away from the emotional mess that is Bruce Wayne.

“Dick.” Jason’s voice, loud and desperate comes through her ear piece. “Just tell him Dick.”

“Jason…” she begins cos she knows as well as anyone that one of the golden rules is you don’t mention Dick. Cos Bruce gets even more broody when that happens.

“Just do it!”

She does so, praying that her Nightwing knows what he’s doing. The scream isn’t identifiable, even as human, but there’s a moment. And Suddenly Bruce Wayne and Batman are one.

Kara, suddenly by her side nods.

“On with the plan.” She mutters, grabbing Bruce and flinging him in the direction of the thing.

“Bruce.” Suddenly Clark and Superman are one, and flying towards Bruce.

“It’s working.” Marie screams at the Little League. Jason grins.

“O.K.’ Flash, do your stuff.”

The bat cave is silent when he makes his way down. Everyone else is upstairs, celebrating the JLA being back together. Everyone except Bruce.

“Don’t Blame Marie.” He says softly, to the figure by the case. “It was my idea.” He moves so he’s standing along side him. “Dick’s murder broke both of you. But Bruce recovered first.” He shrugs. “Only time I could remember that happening.”

Bruce nods.

“It was a good plan.” He says softly.

“But what I did was wrong.” Jason argues, feeling the fury ride up. “I had no right to_”

“No!” the sound is torn from him. “I never want him forgot. Never.”

Jason nods softly.

“He won’t be.” He promises softly, standing in front of the case that holds the original robin Costume, reading the inscription on the Glass

Dick Grayson.

1987

Robin.

A good soldier.

End of Part 1