Issue #12: Tears for a Fallen Titan Pt. 2

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Issue #12: “Tears for a Fallen Titan” Part Two
Plot by Mark Bowers, Matthew Davies and Brian Burchette
Written by Mark Bowers
Cover by Ramon Villalobos
Edited by Brian Burchette[/center]

Then:

Nightwing stood in a dark Las Vegas alleyway; his teammates behind him, and, in front of him, a team of heroes he recognized immediately – The New Outsiders – still coming to terms with the death of one of their members.

As the rain pounded down, he looked over at Zatanna’s moonlit body, cradled in Batgirl’s arms. Dressed in her stage outfit, he still found it hard to believe that the magician was dead and half-expected her to suddenly step out of the darkness, or for Batgirl to suddenly rip her mask off to reveal Zatanna’s face. But sadly this wasn’t one of Zatanna’s magic tricks – the look on Barbara’s face made that painfully clear.

As he looked at Batgirl’s face more closely, he suddenly noticed the tears in her eyes, tears he’d initially mistaken for rain. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Barbara cry. She hadn’t even cried the time she’d got captured by The Joker, no matter how much pain he’d put her through.

But, as he looked at Zatanna’s smiling corpse, he realized that The Joker had finally found a way to cause Barbara enough pain to elicit her tears.

Nightwing swore to himself, at that moment, that it would be for the last time.

Starfire was beginning to see what Dick saw in Barbara Gordon. Barbara - well, Batgirl - had refused to leave her friend’s dead body behind, back in that rainy alleyway, and had instead insisted, despite Dick’s offers of help, on carrying Zatanna’s dead body unaided up the numerous flights of stairs that led to Oliver Queen’s penthouse apartment.

Now that they were there, Batgirl gently laid down her friend, and then let her mask slip, both figuratively and literally, as she finally allowed herself to fully succumb to the emotions inside her.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Barbara,” said Starfire, seeing the red-head’s face visibly crumple before her.

“Thank you,” whispered back Barbara.

Over in a corner of the room, Raven watched the exchange between Starfire and Barbara, and could feel the strong emotions building up inside Barbara. Seconds later, Barbara was in tears, and then Dinah, and then Donna. Raven winced as the waves of grief buffeted against her.

Roy Harper, the drug addict currently known as Speedy, looked across at Raven, and assumed, by the look on her face, that she was obviously tapping into the pain of his withdrawal symptoms. Maybe he was just being paranoid, but it looked like she was yet another person in this room that he’d have to avoid. Actually, in his current shaky state, he was probably best avoiding anybody he knew. That meant that all the Titans, along with Ollie, Barbara and Dinah were off limits. So, he ended up sidling up to the woman they called Huntress... the only other alternative being the silent man in black across the way, who was suddenly looking at Roy as if he wanted to shoot him.

While Roy stood with Huntress, desperately trying to act normal, with his hands clasping his elbows to stop himself from shaking; Wally West was on the other side of the room, his back to the others, his mind elsewhere. Suddenly, Wally felt a hand on his shoulder and turned around to see Black Canary standing there.

“I heard about what happened to Jay,” she said. “It must be tough for you. He was a great guy.”

Kid Flash nodded in agreement. “I’ll miss him.”

“We all will,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye.

“Still, life goes on,” said Wally, attempting to say something comforting and just saying something stupid instead. After briefly inwardly cursing his ultra-quick brain for not coming up with a better line, he decided it was best to change the subject. Maybe he could mention her hair, which wasn’t the blonde color he’d been expecting. “So, what’s with the black hair? Get bored of wearing a wig all the time?”

“You’re thinking of my mother,” she replied. “I don’t wear a wig... well, not normally.”

Wally suddenly noticed her tears for Jay coming back.

“Anyway,” she said, excusing herself, “I better get back to the others.”

As she started to walk away, Wally’s attention drifted over to the end of the room, where Nightwing and Green Arrow were hunched over a table, drawing up a plan of attack.

“We should all be going after The Joker,” reasoned Ollie. “We owe it to Zee.”

“That bit’s non-negotiable,” said Nightwing, matter-of-factly. “The Joker’s mine... ours.”

Ollie shook his head and sighed. “Okay, Dick, but if you need reinforcements just holler... So, any clues as to where we’ll find this Royal Flush Gang of yours?”

“Only thing approaching a clue is this,” replied Nightwing dismissively, taking out a matchbook he’d found at the Royal Flush Gang’s old hideout.

“The Red Diamond Men’s Club,” exclaimed Ollie, recognizing it instantly. “I almost bought that building when I was scouting for land for my casino. That and the adjacent Full House Casino were purchased together.”

“So, that’s a diamond and a full house. The names certainly fit in with the overall card motif,” reasoned Nightwing, “so I guess we should start there.”

“So, from what we’ve said so far, we’ve got two Royal Flush Gangs and The Joker,” Ollie said, and began jotting down his plans for the necessary team formations. “How does this look to you?”

“Well, you obviously know Vegas and its inhabitants far better than we do, so I can see why we’ve got an Outsider on each team, but what’s with this back-up team of Black Canary, Wonder Girl and Starfire - that doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you, Junior,” argued Green Arrow. “Besides, it’s non-negotiable.”

“Ollie, I realize this isn’t the best of times, but maybe you’re letting your emotions get in the way of your thinking.”

“Maybe I am being over-protective where Dinah’s concerned,” said Ollie, starting to get angry, “but you’re the one putting just you and Batgirl against The Joker. That wasn’t exactly a great combo last time.”

“But...” began Dick, when he suddenly noticed Barbara and Dinah looking over at them. “This isn’t the time to argue among ourselves,” he said to Ollie. “Let’s just stick with what you’ve got written down.”

“Okay,” agreed the archer, and then added, under his breath, “but you better bring Barbara back alive, or The Joker will be the least of your worries.”

And with that, Ollie and Dick turned to the assembled heroes and started telling them how the teams would be split up. While the others listened intently, Donna noticed Raven standing on her own in a corner, a pained expression on her face.

“You okay, Rae?” she asked, sidling up to her teammate.

“It’s nothing really,” replied Raven, her face scowling. “It’s just being stuck here in this small space with all of these emotions bombarding me... Crowds aren’t really my scene. It’ll be better when we’ve split up.”

Donna smiled at her teammate, thinking that she was talking about the Titans and Outsiders splitting into teams, but, in actual fact, Raven had another split entirely in mind. It involved Rachel and a certain shadow being - but, truth to tell, these days Raven was having difficulties telling the two apart.

With power having finally been returned to the majority of Las Vegas, the reassuring noise of slot machines once more provided the background noise at the Full House Casino. While the majority of the gamblers were happy to have their familiar sound return, it provided little comfort to those who’d already bet away their life savings assuming that the world was about to end, and had therefore inadvently made one crisis out of another. It also wasn’t music to the ears of the latest arrivals; Raven, Kid Flash, and the New Outsider calling himself Vigilante.

“Are you okay?” Kid Flash whispered to Raven, who was looking even paler than usual. “The crowds bothering you?”

“No, it’s not them...” she whispered back. “It’s him.” She nodded towards Vigilante. “There’s so much anger and pain and rage inside him, and now there’s something else... ever since we entered here... Then again, this place is beginning to give me a bad feeling too.”

“Maybe he just had a bad experience in a casino once,” suggested Kid Flash. “No reason to look on it as some kind of omen. Anyway, just try and ignore it. We’ve all got to work together - him and us. Speaking of us, I think it’s about time I explained what went on in Central City... you wanted the truth.”

“Please, Wally, this is neither the place nor the time,” she said, raising her voice above a whisper. “We will discuss this later.”

“I’m sorry Raven, but my feelings… I just want to know if I should even be feeling them.”

Raven found it ironic that Wally was questioning his feelings. That’s what she’d been doing for the longest time. Suddenly, those thoughts went away, and Raven no longer cared about any feelings. That was all irrelevant now, as was the darkness inside Vigilante.

There was only one thing that mattered now. She sensed them, they were near.

“They’re here… and they want to kill me,” Raven cried as the far wall exploded in.

Kid Flash responded mid-explosion and grabbed Vigilante and Raven, moving them away from the explosion’s path.

As the smoke cleared, the three heroes looked over at the large hole in the wall to see seven Club-adorned members of the Royal Flush Gang emerging.

As Nightwing somersaulted onto the roof beside Batgirl, he suddenly realized that, even with the passage of time, his natural instinct was still to show off in front of Barbara. She probably realized that too, as she was staring at him.

“You okay, Babs?” he asked, guilty that he was indulging in aerobatics when he should really be putting all of his efforts into capturing The Joker.

“Yeah, fine,” she shot back, clearly embarrassed by his antics.

He stared down from the rooftop. “Any idea on where to start?”

Knowing Barbara as well as he did, he realized that his question was rhetorical before he’d even said it. Even in her current emotional state, she was still totally on top of things, knowing exactly where to go in their search for The Joker. Then again, he’d known her long enough to know that there was something else on her mind.

“Barbara, are you all right?” he asked.

“Of course I am,” she replied, which was the sort of reply he was expecting. It looked like she wasn’t ready to open up just yet, but he was prepared to wait.

He didn’t have to wait long. A few seconds and a few lines of conversation later, Barbara was in tears, telling him how she blamed herself for Zatanna’s death.

Seeing her sorrow, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight, and saying words to try and take away her pain. In a few moments’ time they’d both be back on The Joker’s trail, following leads and finding clues, but, in the time until then, he just wanted to hold her... and never let her go.

In the Full House Casino, the Clubs were squaring up to Kid Flash, Vigilante and Raven.

Kid Flash, eager to finish things quickly, started to run at them, but the Seven waved his hand with lightning speed and a portal suddenly opened up in front of Kid Flash, closing behind him as soon as he’d run through it.

“So, that’s your friend on the other side of the world,” said the Ace of Clubs. “Now, for the one called Vigilante. You, I’m afraid, will die...”

And with that the Seven opened another portal up, and the Ten then used his telekinetic power to fling Vigilante into it. The Seven was just about to close the portal, when somebody suddenly ran into him, sending him flying across the casino and on to a roulette table.

“Sorry, I took so long to get back,” said Kid Flash, who was now standing in the position the Seven had previously occupied.

“Yeah, me too,” said Vigilante, as he crawled back into the casino through the open portal. “Weirdest thing was they sent me home. What are the odds?”

“Enough,” said the Ace of Clubs, as she pointed upwards. The next moment, the Ten’s telekinetic powers had suddenly lifted Kid Flash and Vigilante up and thrown them at the ceiling. As they fell unconscious to the ground, the room started to fill with darkness, and in the heart of the darkness stood Raven.

"This ends now."

Nightwing went around the back of the Red Diamond Men’s Club, and saw a familiar face – The Joker. After a brief set of greetings, The Joker had only one question for Nightwing.

“What kept you?” he asked. “I thought you’d never show up.”

“I’m here because of what you did, Joker.”

“I suppose you mean that whole Deathstroke thing,” surmised The Joker. “Well, I got the Clubs to do the actual hiring of him.”

“You were behind Deathstroke being hired to kill us?” asked Nightwing.

The Joker laughed. “No, of course not. If we’d asked him to do that, you’d all be dead. No, he was just playing with you, acting as bait to lure you in.”

“Bait?”

“Yes, he led you to the Clubs division of the Royal Flush Gang. Sorry, Boy Blunder - or is that Teen Blunder these day - but this is all very complicated. Normally I carry around a diagram but you’ve caught me on an off day.”

“Try me.”

“Okay, well you Teen Titans went to visit the Clubs. Now, one of the Clubs – Five, I think his name was – was a shadow-being, capable of taking over bodies.”

“I remember him. He came at me, but Raven saved me.”

“Well, the original plan... oh, I hate all of this exposition – I’d much rather kill you... was for the shadow-being to take over your body. We’d then send him/you up against Batman.”

“You were going to use me to kill Batman?”

The Joker burst out laughing. “Oh, puh-lease. You kill Batman? No, Batman would have killed you. That would have really wrecked his day.”

“But your plan failed,” said Nightwing, stepping closer to The Joker.

“Well, the shadow-being didn’t end up in you, but it ended up in the Titans. All of this time, it’s been spying on you. You’ve had a traitor in your midst and now they’ve come back here to tell us all your secrets.”

Nightwing suddenly remembered who’d been the driving force behind their search for the Royal Flush Gang.

“Raven,” he gasped.

“That’s right,” laughed The Joker. “Now, could I please have my matchbook back?”

Outside the rear exit of the Red Diamond Men’s Club, The Joker finished his conversation with Nightwing:

“So now that you know the rest of the story,” he cackled, “I’ve got to say toodles, until we meet again.”

As acid squirted from the flower attached to The Joker’s lapel, Nightwing stepped aside to avoid it with ease. After all of his years avoiding such attacks by The Joker, this was second nature to him by now.

As The Joker turned around to run back inside the building, Nightwing stood there waiting. She should be here by now.

At which point, Batgirl appeared to block The Joker’s path.

“The Bat-babe, too! Hey there, hottie, nice new duds,” he said, as his hand reached into his jacket, but before he could produce a weapon, a kick from Batgirl sent him stumbling backwards toward Nightwing, who delivered a punch to his still smiling face.

“Stupid move, kid,” said The Joker, pulling out a gun.

Nightwing, his life on the line and yet still trying to impress Barbara with his acrobatics, somersaulted out of the way, while Batgirl, her mind focused solely on The Joker, made him drop the gun by hitting his wrist with a batarang. She then grabbed hold of him and slung him over to Nightwing.

“Oh, two against one, now that doesn’t seem fair at all,” said The Joker, as Nightwing held him tightly.

“Just remember when you’re rotting away in Arkham again,” said Nightwing, “that it
wasn’t Batman that beat you this time, it was his ‘kids’. You’ve maimed and
killed for the last time.”

Nightwing realized that his words might have been a bit premature, when The Joker suddenly broke free from his grasp, cutting his arm with a playing card that had suddenly appeared in his hand. Knocking the card out of The Joker’s hand, Nightwing then sent The Joker toward Batgirl with the aid of his fist.

While Batgirl grabbed The Joker’s arms, forcing them behind his back, Nightwing started searching The Joker for weapons. As he did so, The Joker burst out laughing, as he bit down on a tooth blowing smoke into Nightwing’s face.

Stunned, Nightwing fell back coughing, and then he heard a scream... Barbara!

No, she had to be okay. She had to be.

Then he looked up in Barbara’s direction.

“NO!” yelled Batgirl, who was on her knees, holding on to The Joker’s legs to stop him getting away.

Suddenly Nightwing was on top of The Joker, pushing his white face into the ground.

“The first time you caught us off guard, Joker, but like I said, we grew up. We’re a team now, and this time you can’t win. Thanks to Batgirl’s uncanny memory, she remembered, at the last minute, about a police report she had read where you had killed two policemen with that fake tooth, Joker gas, trick. We already had the antidote prepared for us.”

Nightwing looked at the joyous look on Batgirl’s face. They’d done it... they’d brought in The Joker... together. The nightmare was over now, for both of them.

It had been a long night for everyone but now they were back in the penthouse.

Kid Flash sat there with Raven by his side, being quiet so as not to wake her up. After all she’d been through, she deserved a good night’s sleep.

Donna looked across at them, Raven sleeping so peacefully, and then across at Roy. It had been a rough couple of months for him, but now that they knew about his problem, they’d be able to help him through it.

Roy looked across at Donna and smiled. After all he’d done, and all of the lives he’d put in danger, they, like Ollie, were prepared to forgive him. He was glad to have such friends... he was just sad that he still couldn’t risk being totally honest with them.

Meanwhile, Dick had just found Kory sitting in the stairwell.

“You okay, Kory?”

“Don’t worry about me, Dick,” she said, her head turned away from Dick. “Go back to Barbara.”

“But I want to be with you,” Dick said, sitting next to her.

“But I know how you feel about her, Dick, and I know she feels the same way about you.”

“But, she’s in my past,” he said, trying to convince himself as much as Kory.

“I know how you feel about her, Dick. When I learnt language from you, I found the feelings, the images you attach to words. I’ve seen language through your eyes, Dick Grayson, and I know I can never compete with Barbara Gordon.”

“And she feels the same way about me?” asked Dick.

“I got it straight from her mouth,” replied Kory.

“Well, I couldn’t help but notice,” said Dick with a smile, as the memory of Kory and Barbara kissing leapt into his mind.

Kory frowned at Dick. “It was like swallowing a dictionary,” she observed, before continuing. “She loves you more than you love her even. Her memories of you... they’re so crystal clear, whereas your images of her are fuzzy and grainy in comparison.”

“Ah, I guess that’ll be her photographic memory,” explained Dick.

“Oh,” Kory gasped, realizing her mistake. “But I still know how you feel about her.”

“Those were my feelings about her then,” said Dick, trying to reassure her, and then he realized actions spoke louder than words. Leaning over he pressed his lips against hers.

Kory closed her eyes as she re-learnt language as Dick perceived it. There were a few new words there since last time, and one of them was Koriand’r and another one was Starfire.

“Happy?” asked Dick.

“How could I not be happy?” she exclaimed. “You love me even more than you hate broccoli.”

Dick laughed, as Kory rested her head against his shoulder and looked into his eyes.

“It must be hard being human,” she sighed. “Not being able to tell how much you’re loved from just a kiss.”

“Oh, but we can tell,” he said, as once more his lips approached hers.