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Chapter Text

The tourist season had come and gone in Blüdhaven, the casinos and glitzy nightclubs on the boardwalk closed their shutters one by one until the only the handful of year-round attractions still flashed with false neon promises. The city was quieter this time of year, and not anywhere near as glamorous. Without the distractions of flashing lights and slot machines, it was easier to see how rotten the whole place was. A blighted, ugly place, infected with the greed and cruelty of men who watched the city decay from their penthouses, spilling chilled champagne on their bespoke suits.

It would have been easy to see, at least, but tonight, a thick fog had descended on the streets. Obscuring the world in a milky haze, hiding the truth once again, swallowing the penthouses in quiet mist.

Something was wrong.

Over the past month, Nightwing had been on the trail of a serial killer. The body of a man named David Lowe had been found in an alleyway, caked in mud. The cause of death wasn't a hard conclusion to reach, he was buried alive. The worms had already started to eat at his soft tissue when he was found. It was later discovered that Mr. Lowe was carrying nearly half a million dollars in gambling debts. The police closed the case with a ruling of gang violence.

If it ended there, that would be one thing, but it didn't. More victims, all found above ground yet suffocated by earth, all apparently drowning under financial pressure or expectations. A man who had inherited his father's failing business. A student with poor grades from a family of doctors. A woman on the run from her husband and his crushing control over her life. A clear pattern that still made no sense, and left them with no motive, no suspect, and no real clues to follow. So, the police gave up. Even the press—who followed the first few killings with a frenzy of reports about who they christened "the Gravedigger"—moved on.

Nightwing, of course, was not going to move on.

He had run tests on the dirt found on the bodies. It matched samples from the island exactly, which meant the Gravedigger was operating within the city. Now to find where.

After ruling out the city park, the suburbs, every single empty lot, and anywhere else on the island with a sufficient amount of exposed dirt as crime scene candidates, he had turned his attention to the dockyard. The docks were usually full of crime. If he had learned anything from his years under Batman's wing it was that there was no better site for an illegal operation than an empty warehouse, and along with the fact that two of the victims had worked in the industrial district nearby, it wouldn't surprise him if it turned out they were being buried in a shipping container hidden away by the sea instead of your more traditional graves. So far though, he hadn't found anything, just a trio of rowdy kids he sent home and a group of far rowdier drug pushers he sent to jail.

The fog was thicker than ever, pooling around his feet, making it almost hard to breathe. Nightwing sighed. It was getting late, even for him, and he had been losing more sleep than usual over this case. Maybe Babs was right, he needed a break. There hadn't been another victim in weeks, maybe the Gravedigger's reign of terror was already over.

There was one more spot he wanted to check, and then he'd turn in for the night. Babs would be back from Gotham on Monday, they could talk about their next move then.

It was only when he approached the last warehouse that he realized the lights were on. Strange considering he had checked the records and knew that this particular building had been unused since March. He climbed up the wall and peered through one of the skylights. Sure enough, there was someone there, two someones.

It was hard to see from here, but Nightwing immediately got the distinct impression that whoever these people were, they definitely weren't just a couple of homeless people looking for shelter. One of them was rather short, with long, flowing hair. They wore robes that looked straight out of a Dark Souls game, and a mask that covered their face completely, except for two dark holes for the eyes, which shone an unnatural shade of green.

The other person was turned away from him, and was mostly obscured by a hood and a long coat that seemed oddly nautical. A ship captain maybe?

If he didn't know better, he would have jumped down and told them that the Renaissance Faire was on the mainland, and ended months ago, but he knows a metahuman when he sees one, and he wasn't stupid enough to confront them without more information.

He could see that they were speaking to each other, but he couldn't quite make them out. Discreetly as possible, he shot a microphone towards them from one of his escrima and listened in on his comm.

"You're sure its the Buried?" Said what Nightwing could assume was the stranger in the coat. They had a posh British accent that echoed strangely, if they were a captain they definitely weren't one of the locals.

"I'm not ruling out a more mundane explanation but it's worth looking into." Said the other, even posher. "This city has attracted its fair share of Avatars before."

"None we've ever had to deal with, don't we have more important matters at hand?"

"We're in the area anyway, Martin. Do you just want us to let it run wild? It could get stronger." They waved their arm and the robes floated like they were underwater.

"Right, right. Shouldn't be hard to exorcise anyway, as long as we can find it."

An exorcism? Was there a demon in Blüdhaven? He hoped not, he wasn't qualified for that kind of thing, and Constantine was a pain to deal with.

He was busy bemoaning this possibility when the masked figure turned, and looked directly at him.

Nightwing nearly lost his footing on the roof and knocked his chin hard on the windowsill as he scrambled for purchase. The stranger's eyes bored into him with an unparalleled intensity, even an angry Batman or particularly disappointed Oracle couldn't give him a look that shook him as bad as this one did.

"Careful, Martin." They said. "It seems a bird is listening."

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Nightwing grasped at ideas for how to get out of this but all his thoughts seemed frozen in place.

The other stranger, Martin, he was guessing, turned and shouted up at him, his face was similarly obscured by a woolen scarf and a pair of fogged glasses. "You can come down! Um..if you want… We aren't here to hurt you!"

Nightwing didn't exactly trust this statement, but it at least showed they were willing to talk. He dove down from the skylight and landed on a shipping container, making a point to keep some distance between himself and the strangers.

"Then why are you here?" He spat, drawing his escrima.

"That's nothing you need to know." Said the masked stranger, their voice icy.

"Excuse me? Newsflash, buddy, this my town! The keychains in the gift shops have my face on them! Ever heard of the 'Protector of Blüdhaven'? That's me!"

Though he couldn't exactly see it, Nightwing was sure the masked stranger's eye twitched. "Yes I've…heard of you." They said slowly. "I am saying it is none of your concern."

"I think it's totally my concern actually, because I'm the hero here. If there's a demon or a ghost whale or whatever haunting the city you have to go through me first." He twirled one of his escrima absentmindedly in his hands. "So either you tell me what that ominous conversation was about, or I kick your ass, choice is all yours." He flashed a smile at them, just because he thought it would make the masked stranger even angrier.

"I wouldn't recommend that." They muttered, tilting their head upward to stare at him again. Nightwing quickly averted his gaze.

"Was that a threat?" He hissed.

"Oh, lay off of him, Jon." 'Martin' chided, "We have the same goals here."

'Jon' scoffed. "What, you want to join forces or something?"

"If he would let us, he's taken down multiple Avatars just on his own. We can get this done even quicker with his help."

"Total secrecy, Martin, does that ring a bell?"

"I'm right here, you know." Nightwing snapped, though he had to admit he was eager to see where the bickering would go from here.

Martin sighed. "Alright, alright. I'm Martin Blackwood, this is Jonathan Sims. We are…"

"Guardians." Jon finished.

"Yes, we're separated from the heroes you know. Most of them don't even know about us, we try to keep under the radar, you see." Martin continued sheepishly, seeming like he was choosing his words very carefully.

"Right, total secrecy." Nightwing snipped.

Martin laughed nervously. "Yes, anyways, all around the world there are these monsters—Avatars—humans who have transformed into something terrible. What we do is stop them so they can't hurt people…or worse."

"And there's one of these 'Avatars' in Blüdhaven?" He slid his escrima back into their holsters, his eyes narrowed in thought.

"We believe so, yes. That killer—oh what did the papers call it?—the Gravedigger? Lines up with what we know about Avatar activity."

"And you're here to track it down?"

"As quickly as we can, yes."

Nightwing folded his arms behind his head. "Right. Well, I've been investigating for weeks and haven't found a single thing. So I'd like to see what the two of you can do."

"We have…alternative methods to what you may be used to." Jon said.

He would love to know what the hell that meant.

"Okay, sure. I'll let you track down this Avatar or whatever." He conceded, "But I'm coming with, and if I decide either of you are a threat, you're going down, understood?"

"Understood." Jon said rather smugly. "Now then, we should leave, I have a feeling our culprit strikes at dawn."

"Wait, now?" Nightwing protested.

"Yes, now." Jon looked back at him. "Or are you not feeling a sense of urgency, Nightwing?"

He groaned, so much for a break. "Yeah, yeah. Lead the way."

The three of them left the warehouse, the fog thick as ever. The sky was just beginning to lighten.

Jon stared up at the sky, his eyes glowing slightly.

"There." He whispered, "A survivor, close by." He started off across the docks.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" Nightwing said, catching up, "There's someone that escaped from the Gravedigger, and didn't tell anyone?"

"She might not have even known that was who she met." Jon said.

Was he a psychic? Nightwing supposed it would make sense. "Right, where are you even going?"

"She has an apartment in the slums."

"So we're going to question her?" He asked.

Jon thought for a moment. "We need to take her statement."

"Okay, that's the same thing." Nightwing was getting really sick of this guy. "You know that's the same thing, right?"

Martin stepped between the two of them. "Not to him, they aren't."

"What?"

"You'll see."

Nightwing was obviously not getting anywhere with the questions, so he shut up until Jon came to a stop in front of a run down apartment building.

Jon stared intensely at the street corner, after a few tense seconds, a young woman walked around the bend. She couldn't have been older than nineteen, and was wearing a supermarket employee uniform. She must have just finished a night shift.

She stopped in her tracks when she saw them, the color draining from her face.

Nightwing took a few careful steps towards her. "Uh, Miss?"

Her eyes were wide. "N—Nightwing? Why—you're not here to take them away are you? Please don't—Plea—" Tears started to roll down her face.

"Woah—woah, I'm not here to take anyone away, alright? Here." He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Let's start easy, what's your name?"

The girl sniffed. "Leah…Leah Malcolm."

"Got any family?"

"My brothers." She said, eyes shining. "Twins, they're eight."

"Parents?" He said cautiously.

She shook her head.

"I'm sorry to hear that." He murmured. Memories reared their ugly heads and guilt welled up with them. "I lost mine too." He looked down at her knowingly, "I was about your brother's age, actually. It uh—it gets better, if you let it."

She leaned in to hug him and he let it happen, poor kid was obviously going through a lot.

Which is probably why the Gravedigger targeted her.

"Why are you here?" She asked, she nervously looked behind him at the strangers standing between her and her front door. "Who are they?"

"Friends of mine." He lied, "Listen, I just need you to answer a couple questions."

She nodded. "A—about what?"

He pressed his lips together, he wasn't actually sure. "Have you…seen anything weird lately?" Now that he said that out loud, that was probably a very stupid question.

"Oh um…" She furrowed her brow, "I'm not…"

Jon stepped forward and met Leah's eyes.

"Speak." He said. His voice was chilling and wrong.

Leah stepped back, eyes wide and frozen like a deer in headlights, and then, she did start to speak. The words pulled from her mouth like teeth.

"I was barely an adult when the Man Without a Heart took my parents from me. Barely an adult when I had to lie on the forms and to the social worker so that the only family I had left wouldn't be torn away too. It was hard, the double shifts, the penny pinching, I managed.

Even though I lost sleep and gave up on my dreams and went to bed hungry sometimes it was better than being alone, but you can only do that kind of thing for so long before it weighs on you. Before you start to convince yourself it isn't worth it, start wishing for life to go any other way. I hated the things I thought to myself sometimes, how ugly they were. My brothers were not burdens. They aren't, but I am young and exhausted and grieving. I shouldn't be living this way, but it's better than being alone.

As I worked shift after twelve hour shift making overpriced eclairs for granola moms with marketing jobs knowing their designer purses could pay my rent for the next year and that they never had to worry about how they were going to pay for groceries or keep the heat on, the weight of my reality started to crush me. This was my life now. It wasn't going to change. It couldn't change. I was never going to get a job in marketing or a designer purse. It was just this, forever.

I pack the bakery items that didn't sell that day away into my bag. I'm not allowed to, but when my boss first caught me she just gave me a sad look and let me go. So now I do it as often as I'm able. One less thing to worry about paying for.

I walk home and its dark and I know that at any moment someone as desperate as I am could kill me for the crumpled 5 dollar bill in my pocket. I walk a little faster.

And then I see him.

A man, in an immaculate suit, smiling and waving at me. What is he doing out here? People like him don't walk out at night, not in this rotten part of the city.

He calls me by my name and shakes my hand and there is dirt caked under his fingernails even though he smells like expensive cologne and he says that he can help me.

"I can dig you out of the hole you are in." Yes, that's what he said.

I shouldn't have followed him, but I did.

I stood in that room and I admitted everything I never wanted to say out loud, every horrible thing I hid from myself. Everything that was crushing me. With every word the earth swallowed me until I was choking on the dirt, and then I stopped. I was carrying more than I should, but God, oh God, it was better than being alone.

In the end I dug myself out. I brushed the dirt off my uniform and walked home.

I still taste it sometimes, after bad shifts, after the bills come in, earth filling my mouth and coating my tongue. I am not drowning anymore but I am still in a hole, and when I try to climb the walls crumble underneath me. I don't think I'm getting out anytime soon."

When she had choked out the last few words she fell to her knees, sobbing. Nightwing stood in shock.

"Hm, not too useful." Jon said with a sigh, like he had just wasted time reading an article instead of…whatever that was. "At least we know what exactly we're looking for."

Nightwing gathered his composure enough to speak. "You…what did you do?" His voice raised to a shout. "What was that?"

"A statement." Jon said matter-of-factly.

"You couldn't have just asked? Like a normal person?"

"Asking like a normal person means information that is non-specific, fragmented and inaccurate. Being efficient is the only way to make sure an Avatar causes as little damage as possible."

"So you forced her, against her will, to tell you all of that, and you don't think that's a little messed up?" He glanced down at Leah, curled up and crying softly, and his anger flared like fuel thrown on a fire.

"It's a necessary evil." Jon said.

"Oh fuck you." Nightwing snapped, "You think you're so important, protecting the world or whatever. You can't help people by bulldozing over them."

Jon's eyes blazed behind his mask. "We are protecting the world, you don't have any—"

"I don't have any idea what I'm dealing with, huh? I've been fighting crime since I was nine. I have spent the overwhelming majority of my life dealing with it. Blüdhaven is my city, I don't need your help, and I certainly don't need you putting innocent people through your 'alternative methods'"

Jon huffed. "Fine then. Do it your way." He chuckled. "We'll be watching."

They disappeared down a side street and Nightwing relaxed his fists.

"Assholes." He hissed through his teeth. He sighed and turned to Leah, who seemed to have mostly calmed down by now. He kneeled next to her and he looked up at him, wiping tears from her eyes.

"So, I'm guessing they aren't actually your friends?" She asked, her voice weak.

"Nope. Here, pro tip, don't conduct a criminal investigation with strangers you met in a warehouse half an hour ago."

Leah giggled. "Is that the story?"

"Yep." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Really though, I am sorry, for everything."

"It isn't your fault." She said, "You're helping a lot actually." She smiled. "My brothers are actually big fans of yours, it would mean a lot if they got to meet you."

"I would but…I do have a serial killer and/or supernatural monster to catch right now." He said apologetically, "Maybe I'll swing by later though."

"Of course." Leah said, "Thank you."

"All in a day—er, night's work. You're sure you're okay?"

She nodded, "Shaken, but okay. You'll find him right? The man in the suit?"

Nightwing nodded. "Of course I will. It's what I do."

He launched a grappling hook onto the roof of a nearby building and leaped into the quickly lightening sky. As the wind whipped at his face he made a note to make sure that Leah's rent was paid for as long as she needed it.

Tracking down the Gravedigger seemed like a relatively pointless task from the vague description Leah gave, which is why he had a different idea.

If his victims are those who are carrying huge burdens, well, Nightwing had a whole city relying on him. The perfect bait. All he would have to do is walk around and feel sorry for himself and it would surely lure the Gravedigger right to him. A flawless plan that couldn't go wrong at all.

After a quick change into some nondescript civilian clothes, he picked a side street that was practically empty at this hour, leaned against the wall, and thought.

He thought about this city, how broken it was, how every time he tried to fix it someone seemed to tear the stitches out again. He thought about his family, his siblings who looked up to him, the legacy he started when he was just an angry, grieving kid. How that legacy got his brother killed. Everything he tried not to think about but still crept up on him late at night when he was alone and watching Blüdhaven from above.

Nightwing, the best of all of them. Dick Grayson, the only rich man in Blüdhaven with a soul.

"Why, hello." Said a voice from down the alley.

Dick looked up. There he was, rimmed in pale yellow sunlight. A tall man in a crisp, cream colored suit. His thinning hair slicked back and a wide smile splitting his face. He looked meticulously put together, but Nightwing noted that his hands were stuffed into his pockets.

"What do you want?" The question came out different than he wanted, his voice cracking slightly with emotion.

"Just to help." The Gravedigger said, stepping forward. "You're looking like you need a friend."

"I have plenty of friends."

"Sure, but do they listen to you? Do you even talk—really talk—to them?"

He scoffed. "I'm not here for a therapy appointment."

"Oh, I understand, that isn't what I'm offering, I just want to—help take some weight off your back." He extended a hand, dark moons of dirt caked under his perfectly manicured fingernails. "All you have to do is follow me."

He could have taken the Gravedigger out right now and been done with it, but curiosity got the better of him. Besides, what if there were other bodies hidden away wherever he was about to be taken? Victims they never even knew about? He shook the man's hand and he smiled even wider, in the dim light of morning his teeth looked sharp.

They walked through Blüdhaven's winding streets, the rising sun had chased off the fog and cast long, claw-like shadows. Dick pulled his hat down over his eyes, no one had recognized him yet, but he couldn't be too careful.

The Gravedigger stopped in front of an old looking building sandwiched between an ancient dive bar and a vintage store with piles of old, dusty knickknacks proudly displayed in the windows. The faded sign above the dented metal door marked it as a loan office, and not the kind of loan office you could trust. Not unless you were truly desperate.

The man opened the door and it yawned open, dark, cavernous. It really did remind Dick of a grave. It opened—not into a lobby—but directly onto a carpeted staircase, as Dick took his first step, murky water pooled beneath his feet.

Down he goes.

At the bottom of the staircase there was an office, dimly lit by a single bulb, unfinished with a dirt floor. The only furniture was a couple of filing cabinets and a desk with a molding office chair. The Gravedigger took a seat at the desk and folded his hands in front of him.

"Richard Grayson." He said, stretching the syllables like taffy. "What brings you to my office today, fall on hard times?"

"I'm going to stop you." Dick said, though he wasn't sure if he meant to speak or not.

"Oh really. And why is that?"

"I'm supposed to keep this city safe, you're making that distinctly difficult."

The Gravedigger grinned. "And it is difficult, right? The city counts on you, you give everything to it, and what do you get in return?"

Dick's mouth moved before he can think. "Nothing, the city still rots."

Earth shifted beneath his feet.

"Go on, friend, I'm listening."

"For every problem I fix two more manifest themselves. I can do everything right and its not enough and—" He tried to stop speaking—dirt crawling up his ankles, swallowing him whole—God, could he shut up for once. "—And I'm not doing everything right. This place I—its a lost cause. I don't know why I'm still here, why I don't just give up. I'm tired, of all of this, the constant loss, the failure. I don't know how to be anything else."

The words spilled out no matter how hard he tried and he sunk deeper and deeper.

"Everyone loves me, don't they? I'm everything a hero should be, I'm an inspiration to everyone I meet. Batman's greatest pride, someone even Superman looks up to."

The dirt was up to his chest now, each doubt spoken into the humid air pushed him further in as the Gravedigger grinned and grinned.

"The others looked up to me. He looked up to me. I failed him, Robin, Red Hood, my brother. I failed this city. I failed."

Dirt swallowing his shoulders, creeping up his chin. It filled his mouth and he still didn't stop.

"It ends here, doesn't it? I did this to myself."

The smiling man in the suit leaned over him. "Yes. You did."

The earth closed over his head and he sunk down down down into a grave of his own making.

Chapter Text

Darkness.

Don't breathe in; that will only make it worse.

Which way was up again?

Can't hold breath for long…

Running out of air.

How long has it been? A minute? Two?

Running out of time.

Consciousness fading.

No. No. Not like this.

It can't end here.

No.

Something cold and ephemeral wraps around his wrist and gains form, a hand? It pulls. Arms wrap around him and pull his body from the grave, his head bursts into the open and he gasps, blinking dirt from his eyes as he gulps in air.

"Are you okay?" Says an echoing voice. Martin materializes in front of him, drifting like mist. "We should have come sooner, I'm sorry, we were already heading to Gotham when Jon realized you were in trouble."

Dick spit a clump of grit from his mouth. "Thanks." He said flatly. His chest ached and he was in desperate need of a long shower, but he was alive. He peered behind Martin and watched the ragged form of Jon rise to his feet, slow and stumbling. Jon turned to look at him with blazing green eyes. His wooden mask was splattered with blood.

"What…" Dick stammered. He stood up on trembling knees. "What did you do?"

Jon's gaze narrowed. "My job." He said.

Something was on the ground behind him, mangled and unrecognizable and…wearing a suit. The cream fabric was still visible in some places where it wasn't soaked in red.

"What the fuck…"

Martin stepped in front of him. "Listen, I know it looks bad—"

"Looks bad?" Dick shouted, "You murdered him! I don't even know how you did that—" He looked down again at the corpse and bile rose in his throat.

"Murdering a murderer." Jon muttered, "What a shame."

Dick stepped forward, looming over Jon's small form. "You…ever since you got here you've done nothing but hurt people." His voice raised to a disgusted snarl. "You're not guardians, you're just more human scum that I have to clean up after! Hell, I don't even know if you are human!"

"Just calm down…" Martin pleaded. Dick shot him a glare and he backed off.

"You can't just treat an Avatar like your average criminal, Nightwing." Jon said, his tone condescending, like Dick was an ignorant child who needed to be told how the world worked. "They're monsters."

"As far as I'm concerned, so are you." Dick clenched his fists. "What gives you the right to do this? What makes the two of you so different from these 'Avatars' you kill?"

Jon tilted his head upward. "Nothing." He said.

Dick didn't need further convincing, he leaped forward and tackled Jon to the ground, pinning him. This seemed to catch him off guard and he let out a grunt as he hit the dirt floor. Dick met those uncanny eyes with a glare he hoped was intense enough to throw his opponent off of his game.

"I don't know who you think you are." He growled, "But I am not letting you out of this city. Whatever you want out of Gotham, you aren't getting it."

Jon looked up at him, if he was worried, Dick couldn't tell behind the mask. "You…" He warned through gritted teeth, "have no idea what you're doing."

Dick punched him across the jaw and he heard Martin yelp. Jon's mask flew across the room.

Jon spit out some blood and stared up at him, his green eyes were no longer hidden behind the mask and they were burning with anger.

Dick paused, frozen in place by the unrelenting stare. "Then tell me." He said through gritted teeth, shaking off the feeling. "Tell me what the hell is going on here. Tell me what you are."

Jon smiled, his teeth stained red. His face was peppered with scars, weird round ones that were unlike anything Dick had seen before. He saw Jon's lips move before the word hit his ears, strange and otherworldly. For a second that seemed to move in slow motion, Dick knew exactly what was coming.

"Speak." Jon said.

The command echoed through his mind, destructive and grating like the tolling of a bell, impossible to ignore and impossible to resist. Dick opened his mouth and his story spilled out.

~~~~~

When it was finally over, Dick's voice was hoarse and his mind was swimming. Jon sat on the edge of the desk, watching him, drinking in his pain.

"That's quite the story you have." He commented as Dick stumbled to his feet, "You've been through a lot."

A wave of nausea nearly brought him to his knees again. Parts of his life he had forgotten, parts of his life he wished he could forget, horror stories from the last twenty years forced to the surface, plucked from his mind and told in a voice that didn't feel like his. Dick fought back the urge to vomit. His head pounded and the world seemed to have turned on its axis.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" He demanded, bracing himself against the wall for support. "What did you do to me?"

"I took your statement." Jon said far too casually, "You attacked me, was I not supposed to fight back?"

"So you force me to tell you my life's story?"

Jon shrugged, "Well, technically I only have the authority to force your account of your encounters with the supernatural. Fascinating how there are so many."

Dick mulled over what stories had poured from his mouth, what enemies had been retroactively framed not as ordinary villains but as Avatars, these mysterious monsters he knew nothing about yet had apparently haunted him his whole life: Heartless, the Court, Deathstroke. Were there more? How many had been lurking in plain sight?

"Are you insane?" He shouted.

"You punched me!" Jon protested.

"I'd think you could have anticipated that happening after you killed a man."

"I was doing what I had to." Jon said, "You may have faced Avatars before, but you don't have any idea what they're truly capable of. I have seen the consequences of letting these forces go unchecked; I have the scars to prove it. All you have is an ego and a misguided moral compass you got from a man in a bat costume."

"Jon…" Martin said gently, he had been watching nervously from the sidelines this whole time, coward. "Let's just leave."

"You think I'm going to let you leave?" Dick asked, "I don't know what you're capable of either, for all I know, you're planning to wring Gotham for all its secrets before turning countless people into meat pulp. Either you tell me what the hell your deal is or I call in the cavalry and you will never see the outside of a cell again, I swear."

Jon looked furious, but Martin placed a hand over his clenched fist and brushed a strand of hair away from his companion's eyes.

"We need his trust." Martin whispered, "Or we're just going to fail again."

Jon seemed disarmed by the gesture, and Dick found himself speculating on the nature of their relationship.

"Fine." Jon said sharply, his expression however, began to soften. "My powers give me…visions sometimes. Little pieces of information. About a week ago, I received a rather disturbing revelation that these forces we've been embattled with were going to attempt an incursion in Gotham. If they aren't stopped it would be apocalyptic, the world as we know it would end."

"And you think you can stop it before it happens." Dick said.

"We hope so." Martin added, "We think we know how they're going to do it, if we can disrupt the ritual than they won't be able to try again for a long time."

"And you're the only ones who can do this?" His suspicions were still high, and the massive headache he got from Jon's little stunt wasn't helping his opinion of them.

"We're the only ones with sufficient knowledge of our enemies." Jon said, "And we can't tell any of your hero friends about this, if word got out, it would cause a mass panic, and would only make the situation worse, which is why you need to stay quiet and not interfere."

Dick raised an eyebrow, it sounded like an excuse to him, but he wasn't about to risk them being right. If Gotham really was in danger, he didn't want to be the one to blame if something went wrong. At the same time, the idea of letting these two loose in the city made his stomach churn. Bruce, Damian, Tim, Cass, he didn't want them, or anyone else for that matter, to be left at Jon's mercy. As long as it had been since he called Gotham home, he knew a large part of himself never really left its streets.

"Fine," He said after some deliberation, "You can go as soon as you tell me how to deal with this mess." He gestured at the room around them.

"Concrete." Jon said in a way that made it clear this was a regular occurrence for him. "Fill it with concrete and demolish the building. Is that something you can do?"

"Concrete?" He echoed.

Jon nodded.

He sighed and hoped Mel wouldn't ask too many questions. "Yeah, sure, whatever." He said with a shrug.

Jon smiled and picked his mask up off of the ground, nestling it back on his face. "Your assistance has been greatly appreciated, Grayson." He said icily before turning away and walking back up the stairs. Martin followed close behind, giving Dick a bitter look as he went.

Dick got the feeling they didn't like him very much, but he wasn't a fan of them either. Which meant he wouldn't feel too bad when he directly ignored their instructions.

He waited in the office for a while, trying not to look at what was left of the Gravedigger. He tried to tell himself that he was a monster, a killer who caused more than enough suffering to justify what had come to him, but the sheer extent of the violence unsettled him. The corpse looked like it had been simultaneously exploded and turned inside-out. Flies were already lazily buzzing around the mashed remains of his skull. Dick took a DNA sample and tried to calm his nerves. Questions he wasn't even sure he wanted the answers to stuck in his mind like spiderwebs. How had Jon even done this? What was he? What had he wandered into?

Unwilling to continue to meditate on this, Dick swallowed his doubts and climbed out of the office, calling his sister once he reached the street. It was solidly mid-morning by now, and the few people that passed by him looked at him strangely.

"Make it quick, I'm in a meeting."

"Oh, uh, I can call back later if its important."

He heard Mel chuckle through the phone. "No, its just some rich asshole, wants approval to build an office or something. He did say he knows you though. Thomas Real ring a bell?"

"Not in the slightest, anyway, I've got a creepy loan office I need you to fill with concrete."

"What? Why?"

"Not important, I'll send you the details. And can you take care of Haley for a few weeks? I'm going out of town."

"Right…I'm just going to assume you have everything under control and that you're not going to be fighting back an alien invasion or a kaiju or something a few days from now."

"Why would I be fighting a singular kaiju? That's a Superman job. Anyway—" He grinned, "Everything is absolutely under control. I'll drop off Haley in an hour okay?"

"Whatever you say, Dick, now, I gotta get back to signing this egomaniac's papers. Take care."

He stuffed his phone back in his pocket after shaking most of the dirt out of it, and made his way back home.

Everything is under control.

He stood under the torrent of water from the shower and scrubbed clean. He traced over the scars that he now knew were more than just old injuries, but marks from…something, whatever great and terrible evil Jon and Martin were fighting against. The bullet wound in his shoulder, the many scars Deathstroke had left him with. He ran his tongue over the empty space one of his back molars used to be, and as he washed the grime out of his hair his fingertips danced over the scar on his scalp that represented his brush with death. It was surreal. To find out so much of his life had just been fighting against whatever this was. The Avatars. The monsters that hid in plain sight.

Everything is under control.

It had been too long since he'd slept, but there was no time. He got dressed and dropped Haley off at Mel's place, scratching between her ears and cooing her name before turning to leave. He couldn't stop thinking about what lay before him, the uncertainty of Jon and Martin's intentions, what could happen if they were telling the truth, what they could do if they weren't. His head was still pounding and exhaustion was beginning to set in. Stop, focus, breathe.

Everything is under control.

As soon as he told the others about the situation they would be able to figure out what to do far better than he would. The end of the world could be handily avoided…hopefully. Besides, he was due for a visit anyway.

He started his motorcycle and lowered the visor on his helmet.

Everything was under control.

Chapter Text

The Batcave was more populated than usual, especially at this hour of broad daylight. Such a gathering while most beings of the night were still slumbering meant that something big was happening. A family meeting had been called.

Not everyone was happy with the urgent call to action, Steph was yawning, still in her pajamas, and Duke had been in the middle of patrol, but all gathered around and listened, because Nightwing had returned without fanfare and without announcement, and that never meant anything good.

"Right, we're all here." Bruce said, nodding at the assembled vigilantes, which resulted in a groan of exhausted protest from Steph. "Dick, what did you have to tell us?"

The others listened with baited breath as he recounted the story of last night: meeting Jon and Martin, Leah, the Gravedigger, and his doubts about the self-proclaimed Guardian's true intentions with the city. Reactions ranged from Tim, who mostly looked bored, to Babs, who was lost in thought, to Damian, whose hand twitched like he was itching to grab the hilt of his sword while Dick danced around the statement that Jon had taken from him.

"I don't know what they are, what they can do, or what exactly we're dealing with." Dick said, "And I definitely don't know if we can trust them, but we absolutely can't just let them run free in Gotham." His brow furrowed as he thought back to the events of that morning. "It doesn't matter if they genuinely want to help or not, they're dangerous and they evidently don't have any gripes about hurting innocent people to get what they want."

"We could just imprison them." Damian suggested, "Can't hurt anyone in jail."

"Maybe not," Bruce mused, "But it's very possible they have the means to escape again. We know they're metas, but we don't know how their powers work, and considering what happened to Dick when he tried, I don't think we can fight them without further information."

"And what if they are telling the truth?" Duke added, "We'd be dealing with the end of the world without the help of the only people who know how to stop it."

"We could try and force them to tell us their secrets." Steph said, having mostly woken up by now.

"Unless we have an Amazo on hand to turn their powers against them I don't think that's going to happen." Dick admitted.

"Why don't we just work with them?" Tim asked, "Keep them on a short leash, make sure they're not up to any funny business while still combating the potential Armageddon."

Cass nodded in agreement.

"Would they even want to?" Babs asked, "They don't seem like the collaborative type, and Dick might have burned that bridge when he punched Jon across the jaw." She looked over to him and smiled, "Not that it doesn't sound like he deserved it."

Dick rubbed the back of his neck, "I don't know, but it's at least worth a shot to call a truce, I think. I'm assuming we have a common goal of not wanting the world to end, and working together is probably the best way to go about that." He grit his teeth. "I'm going to hate it though."

Bruce nodded, "Then it's settled. We'll work with them, not against them. But first, we have to find them. I assume Oracle is up for the job?"

Babs was already opening her laptop. "Of course, what did you say their names were again?"

"Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood." Dick recalled, "But I don't know if those are pseudonyms or not. They seemed oddly willing to give up their identities."

"An act of goodwill?" She wondered, "Since they obviously know yours."

Dick shrugged, "They didn't seem interested in keeping rapport."

Lines of text reflected onto Babs' glasses as she searched through database after database. "Hm, there was a hotel room booked under the name J. Sims on the other side of town this morning." She typed something. "I'll keep an eye on social media for any mentions of robed strangers. Either they are working under oddly specific pseudonyms or they don't legally exist because I can't find any documentation. You said they're British?"

"Unless they're faking the accent too." He said.

Tim peered over at the screen. "Think they're in witness protection or something?"

"Could be, these two seem to defy logical explanations though," the laptop pinged. "Ah— someone's spotted them in Crime Alley."

She turned the laptop around to reveal a blurry photo of what was clearly Jon and Martin in their costumes walking through a graffiti-laden alleyway. The caption read, "i have GOT to get out of this city bro" followed by three crying emojis.

Tim squinted at the username of the poster. "nightwingluvr69?" He read. Babs snorted.

Bruce sighed, "Well, we know roughly where they are. Suit up, Dick, it's time we formed an alliance with these 'guardians'"

"Why me?" He complained, "It's been established that they don't like me."

He frowned, "They know you, seem to respect you. Besides, you're the most charming person here if our informant is any indication." The corners of Bruce's mouth quirked up into a teasing smile.

Duke forced back a laugh.

"I would understand if you didn't feel up to the task, however." Bruce continued. "You've had a long night. I could go alone, if you want to stay behind."

Dick groaned, "No, I'll come with. You'll need backup and God knows if you take Damian it'll be a disaster."

Damian glared at him in response and he laughed it off. Still, his stomach twisted when he thought about leaving Bruce at the mercy of Jon's powers. There wasn't any doubt that he had experiences he would rather not relive. They all did.

He met Barbara's eyes, she was quiet but the look she was giving him told him that she could tell he wasn't nearly as confident as he was trying to seem. He sighed and smiled at her and she stifled a giggle, tilting her head just slightly.

She always saw right through him.

~~~~~

They didn't end up being too hard to find. Jon and Martin may have been accustomed to slipping through the shadows, but it was safe to say they were nothing compared to Batman, who had them cornered in a condemned building soon enough.

"You followed us." Jon said, glaring at Nightwing. "I told you not to interfere."

"And I thought I told you to fuck off, so I guess neither of us are very good listeners." He gave a wolfish smile and he could feel the rage radiating off of Jon, even with his face hidden behind the mask (which appeared to have a crack in it now, thanks to him.)

Batman gave him a warning look. "Nightwing has told me quite a lot about the two of you."

"And I told you to stay quiet." Jon hissed. Nightwing opened his mouth for another witty retort when Batman raised a hand to shush him.

"I believe we have shared goals here," he said, "If what you are saying about a doomsday plot brewing here in Gotham is true, then it's in our best interests to work together. You may think you're in control, and you know how to handle things, but we have been uncovering crime in this city far longer than you have, and we know how to get the information we all need without your—" His eyes narrowed to slits. "Alternative methods."

"You want an alliance?" Jon asked. He turned to Martin and muttered something to him. They spoke back and forth like this for a while. If Nightwing strained his ears he could manage to make out a few words.

"—Reasonable enough."

"—Not worth the risk."

"—He's Batman, Jon."

Jon turned back to them, his head held high. "If we did work together, what would you want from us?"

"Tell us what we need to know." Batman clarified, "Any information that would help us prevent this. Additionally, you will not be allowed to take a statement from anyone without prior approval from me. I won't tolerate the harassment of innocent civilians."

Jon scoffed and Martin turned to glare at him. They exchanged a few more whispers.

"—we need this."

"But what if—"

"—better on our side than against us—"

"If we fail—"

"They know better than anyone—"

Nightwing cleared his throat. "And if we find out you are taking statements from random people we're throwing you in jail." Jon glared at him again, he responded with another smile. "If that influences your decision."

"Right," Martin said, his voice a little strangled. "We'll work with you."

Batman extended a hand and Jon took it.

"I want it to be clear that this doesn't mean we trust you, Sims." He said as he shook the hand of his new ally.

"I wouldn't expect you to." Jon replied.

And with the uneasy alliance established, it was time to form a plan.

For the second time that day, the Bat-Family gathered in the cave, joined this time by two strangers who couldn't quite be called heroes.

Jon paced in front of the gathered audience, regarding their masked faces with suspicion. Nightwing regarded him right back.

"Well?" Batman said.

Jon took in a deep breath.

"For the length of your lifetimes, and lifetimes beyond that, your world has been home to alien forces that influence your reality." He began, "Me and my partner know of them as the Fears. You do not know them at all. Their presence has gone unnoticed all this time, partly because we have made an effort to keep it hidden, and partly because in the chaos of this world, certain things get lost in the shuffle. Against alien invaders and demons from hell, the unexplainable can quickly be dismissed as a quirk, something natural."

Nightwing frowned, he was already getting more questions than answers, and from the looks on everyone else's faces, he suspected the others felt the same.

"These dread powers are fear itself made manifest. They bleed into our world, causing supernatural events, creating Avatars to help fuel them. Usually, the threat is small scale, one or two people here or there, nothing to worry about."

He watched Batman bristle.

"—But the more power the Fears gain, the more we have to worry. Martin and I have been trying to keep them under control, but we are just two people, and there's only so much we can do. Recently, we have received some worrying premonitions regarding this city and its people. That's why we need your help, and why you need ours."

Tim tapped rhythmically against the counter he was sitting on. "So, do you actually have an idea of what this horrible threat actually is or did you just like— get a bad vibe?"

"We think that Scarecrow is going to attempt a ritual," Martin said while Jon was busy letting out a dejected sigh. "He's able to singlehandedly generate a massive amount of acute fear, combine that with a few other factors and he could be able to summon the Fears into our reality."

"And if he does," Babs asked, "What happens?"

"Chaos," Jon said with a faraway look, "Complete chaos."

"I don't know if you've noticed," Nightwing pointed out, "but we're pretty used to chaos."

The other vigilantes nodded.

"No, no, beyond the usual crime and villainy. This is the end of the world as we know it, a total apocalypse unlike anything you've seen."

"We're pretty used to that too." Batman said placidly. Nightwing snickered.

"The world turned into a factory farm for our fear, hell on earth." Jon pressed further, "It's not something to be taken lightly. We need to stop it."

Damian crossed his arms. "And you know this…how?"

"We lived through it." He said, his voice hollow and forced. His eyes burning with resolve as he surely recovered memories he wished he could forget. "We aren't from your world; we were brought here after the Fears did this to our home. I have dedicated my entire life to preventing that hell from manifesting again and I will be damned if I let any of you get in the way of that. Watch your tongue."

The boy rolled his eyes. "Just asking questions, old man. Collaboration requires being on the same page, doesn't it?"

"We don't want this any more than you do." Nightwing added, frankly not batting an eye at the fact their new allies were from another dimension. "But we can't be very helpful if you keep being a jerk about us just trying to know what the situation is."

"I've told you what you need to know." Jon snipped.

"You haven't told us what we actually need to do." Steph said. "What's our role? How are we supposed to help?"

Jon narrowed his eyes, but Martin stepped up to answer the question. "Find Scarecrow, uncover his plan, stop him. You have more experience dealing with him, and you're all better detectives than we ever will be. We'll do our own work trying to gather information while you focus on the person you're already used to fighting."

Batman looked at Martin suspiciously. "And this independent investigation of yours," He said, "It will remain within the parameters we agreed upon."

"Of course," Martin replied, "You have my word."

"Even though that will make it take longer than I'm comfortable with." Jon grumbled.

"Your apocalypse won't come to fruition." Batman assured, "We will make sure of it."

~~~~~

The first order of business was, of course, finding Scarecrow in the first place. He was currently at large, and had been for a while now, but if he was planning something in Gotham, he had to be holed up somewhere he could produce enough fear toxin to poison the entire city, as was so frequently his plan. Somewhere like the manufacturing plants of a young upstart CEO who had recently made an aggressive expansion into Gotham City.

"Totally Real Industries." Nightwing said in disbelief, reading the gleaming new sign on the distinctly much older building. "He named the company Totally Real Industries?"

"I had the same thought." Batman said, ushering him and Robin forward. "But from what I can tell it is, in fact, totally real. They manufacture a wide range of machinery: from surveillance systems to weaponry to culinary equipment. The owner is a young man named Thomas Real, graduated from Princeton, seems to come from money. It all seems legitimate, but I still have my suspicions."

Nightwing chuckled, "Yeah, no kidding. Thomas Real…hey, Mel mentioned him! Said he'd been expanding into Bludhaven and that he asked about me in the meeting."

"Odd," Batman commented. "He recently bought up basically every vacant warehouse and manufacturing facility in the city, so he's the person to interrogate about potentially harboring Scarecrow's operations. The others have been assigned to scope out the sites of interest tonight, but the three of us are going to confront him directly."

"Why do I need to be here?" Robin said with a scoff, "Three seems excessive for a mission such as this."

Batman passed him a small box. "Your job is to plant bugs so Oracle can keep an eye on him while he's not being directly confronted by vigilantes, besides, it's a school night, you can't be breaking into factories with the others."

Robin glared but ultimately didn't protest, slipping the box of surveillance equipment into a pocket on his utility belt.

They walked through the sliding glass doors and into the lobby. Which was boringly decorated with white furniture, tasteful indoor plants and a slick modern water feature. While Batman talked to the flabbergasted receptionist, Robin darted around the lobby, no doubt looking for the best place to plant a microphone or a security camera that needed hacking. Nightwing, however, wandered to the large abstract painting covering one of the walls. It was your average bland, inoffensive art: just at home in a dentist's office as it was in a hotel room, but something about it unsettled him. Maybe it was just how huge it was, swallowing him whole from its place on the wall. Maybe it was the slightly nauseating way the colors mixed, or the disorienting swirl of the brushstrokes. Maybe it was the fact that if he looked at it long enough, he could make out the shapes of eyelids and pupils hiding in the canvas, staring at him. Were they put there intentionally or was his pattern-seeking brain finding eyes where there were none? Whatever it was, he couldn't stop staring at it.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" An unfamiliar voice tugged him back into reality, a tall Black woman in a pantsuit with—were those shoulder pads?—had appeared next to him while he was engrossed in the painting. She turned to him, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she smiled.

"It's…definitely interesting." He said, trying to hide how caught off guard he was by her sudden presence.

"Annabelle Cane." She said, extending a hand, her fingers were encrusted in large rings, to his amusement, one of them looked exactly like a cast metal version of the spider rings you got as cheap hand-outs on Halloween. "I'm Mr. Real's assistant. I was informed you wanted to meet with him?"

"Yes." Batman said. He looked hilariously out of place in this bland lobby in broad daylight. "We need to ask him a few questions."

Annabelle nodded. "Of course, unfortunately Mr. Real isn't quite back from Blüdhaven yet, but I can escort you upstairs to wait for him, if that's alright for you." Her voice had a slight lisp that for some unsettling reason, invoked images of a mouth full of fangs.

"Fine with me," He looked back over his shoulder at Robin, who was leaning against the receptionist's desk. "Come Robin, Nightwing." He said with a sly smile.

The three vigilantes and Annabelle filed into the elevator, where she pressed the button for the top floor. Nightwing watched Robin's wrist move slightly as he pressed a microphone onto the wall of the elevator. This continued when they stepped out into the hallway, Robin planting tiny devices anywhere he felt would be helpful. He even saw him bump into Annabelle and cause her to drop her clipboard, which he handed back with a half-hearted reply and undoubtedly a bug glued onto it. Nightwing couldn't help but swell with pride.

Annabelle ushered them into a meeting room. "Alright, Mr. Real should be with you shortly. I've gotten word that he has arrived in Gotham City. Is there anything I can get for you while you wait? Water? Coffee?"

"We'll be alright." Batman turned away from her. "Leave us for now, please."

"Of course, Mr. Batman." She said with a smile that made Nightwing feel like she knew more than she let on.

When she was gone, Robin began darting around the room, planting the rest of the devices. "There." he said, turning the case upside down. "All bugged."

"Good work." Batman said with a nod, "Oracle, are all connections secure?"

"Connections are secure." Her voice crackled through their comms. "I have eyes and ears all over this place."

"Perfect. Now we wait."

Nightwing looked out of the floor to ceiling window on the opposite wall. "Do you think Jon and Martin are telling the truth?" He said, mostly to himself.

"About what?" Batman asked, joining him at his side.

"Anything, the Fears, the world ending plot. Is any of it true?"

Batman turned to look at him. "You've known them for a full six hours longer than we have, what do you think?"

Nightwing thought for a moment. "I think so. I don't trust them, but I don't think they're lying, just not telling the full story, and they're upfront about that."

"That's my conclusion, too." He paused, "Those two…they seem very…haunted. Like they wish they could run from something but they can't bring themselves to."

He barked a laugh. "That sounds familiar."

Batman hummed. "Yes, it does."

"They said the Fears took over their world, that they've seen this all before. Whatever they saw—It scared them enough to start hunting Avatars down when they arrived here. Enough to want to do anything to prevent their past from repeating." Nightwing looked out on Gotham and tried not to think about another crisis bringing the city to its knees. He tried not to think about a disaster spreading like blood in water over the entire world.

The Dark Knight said nothing, lost in thought.

"They seem so desperate." He continued, "I don't think they would be working with us if they didn't think they had to."

"They seem to me like they have been alone for a very long time." Batman said with a nod. "What about you? You're seeming troubled, it's unlike you, even in a dire situation like this. I think, in a way, you're also coming across as…desperate."

Nightwing opened his mouth, the words sticking in his throat. He hadn't actually told the others about his statement. About his past haunted by the Fears. He didn't know if he wanted to talk about it. Why would he willingly recount a story that had been so violently forced out of him?

"Everything's changing, Dad." He said at last, his voice sounded small and insignificant. "Or maybe everything is the same and I just…know how to look at it now. These Fears have just been…hiding under the surface. Who knows where they've been lurking? Who knows how they've already been affecting us? I just feel like nothing is ever going to feel normal again after this."

Batman thought for a moment. "That's just how life goes, Dick." He said. "But I will say, despite everything, I'm glad you're here. "

The door swung open and in stepped a rather scrawny man in a crisp suit with a carefully styled head of blond hair. He oozed old, blood-soaked money in a disquieting frat boy manner. Following close behind him was the strange assistant from before, Annabelle.

"Batman and Robin in my meeting room," He said smugly. His gaze was cold and gray. "I never thought I'd see the day."

"You're Thomas Real, I presume?" Batman said, looming over the CEO.

"That's me!" He said, rather chipper. His voice had a thick southern drawl that was rather distracting and sounded just a little fake. "You said you had some questions for me?"

Batman turned to Nightwing, prompting him to take over the conversation. Great, make him talk to the Totally Real rich asshole.

"Mr. Real, we have reason to believe that the Scarecrow is planning an attack on Gotham City." He said, "We also have reason to believe he's hiding out in one of the warehouses or chemical manufacturing plants around the city, many of which are owned by you."

Thomas smiled. "What exactly are you asking?"

Nightwing rolled his eyes, an action he was happy wasn't visible beneath his mask. "Do you know anything? Any suspicious behavior on your properties? Any sign of Scarecrow at all?"

"Now, Nightwing, I don't know what idea you've got rolling around in that pretty head of yours, but I'm not involved in any of this. I wish I could tell you where Scarecrow is, I really do, but I'm just a man doing business. I'm not harboring any criminal activity, and if I was, you would know about it. trust me."

He frowned, Nightwing doubted there was such a thing as 'just a man doing business'.

"If that's true," Batman said, "then you wouldn't mind us investigating these sites, just to make sure Scarecrow isn't hiding there without your knowledge?"

Thomas waved his hand dismissively. "Do whatever you want, you won't find anything, and I doubt I could stop you either way."

"You couldn't."

"Yes, you're Batman, you do whatever you want with no concern whatsoever for the law. Vigilante stalking the night blah blah." He yawned dismissively, "Do you have what you need then? I'm late for a meeting."

Nightwing scoffed, this guy was impressively obnoxious. "Yeah, whatever, we've asked our questions."

He watched them go with a self-satisfied expression. "I do wish I could help more," he said. Nightwing suspected it was a lie.

"Tread carefully, Real." Batman said as he turned to leave, "We have eyes on you."

Thomas chuckled. "Believe me," he said just before the door closed, "So do I."

Weird. And ominous.

"He seemed overconfident." Nightwing said as they walked back down the hallway.

"I don't trust him." Robin hissed, "He's hiding something."

"I agree." Batman reached down to slip something under the door of a server room they passed. "But we can only do so much. I've looked into him many times before and he has a perfectly clean record."

"Keep trying." Nightwing muttered, "No one's that perfect, especially people like him."

"I'm well aware. He's a prime suspect in this matter, believe me, but we've done all we can for now. We'll head back and start investigating potential hideouts once our normal work hours come around."

The receptionist waved them a nervous goodbye and they climbed back into the Batmobile. As they drove, Nightwing mulled over the events of the day. His mind lingered on the painting, and Annabelle. Why did he feel like he knew her? Like he had met her in a dream, or a time so long ago that the memories and dreams bled together.

Something didn't feel right.

~~~~~

Babs was lounging on the bed behind him, resting a book on her lap and absentmindedly twirling a strand of her hair as she read. Dick wanted to join her, to curl up next to her and drift off to sleep with his head nestled on her shoulder, but he was restless. Exhaustion had crept deep into his bones, but he did not feel like sleeping. He leaned against the railing of the balcony, the brisk evening wind cutting right through the worn sweatshirt he was wearing.

He heard footsteps. "Is everything alright?" Babs asked, placing her hand over his.

"I'm fine," he said plainly, watching the way the lights of the city were reflected in her glasses.

She eyed him suspiciously. "Yeah, right, how long has it been since you've slept?"

"Uh—a while." He bowed his head, "I don't know, I've already been losing sleep over the Gravedigger and now this…yeah, it's been a long time."

She reached up and kissed his cheek, the warmth of her lips against the cold October chill almost made him forget about the Fears and the doubts clawing at the back of his head. "Then come to bed," she said, "You can't save the world if you're going to keel over at any moment."

He wrapped his arms around her and leaned into her touch. "You're right. I've just had a lot to think about, you know?"

"You're not dealing with it alone." She cupped his face in her hands, "Trust me, I'm sure we all have a lot on our minds, I know I do."

He pressed his lips to her forehead. "Do you want to talk about it?" He asked.

"In the morning, it's cold out here, and you're in no state for heart to hearts." She pulled him inside and he followed, even though his mind still swam with the day's events, exhaustion and the smell of her woodsy perfume began to cloud his mind. The covers were warm and soft and smelled like her. She ran her fingers through his hair and he felt the racing of his heart and mind begin to calm.

"I love you." He whispered, though muffled by the pillow, it came out more like "loff ooo."

"I love you too, Boy Wonder." Babs murmured, leaning down to kiss him again. "Now sleep, there's room for heroism in the morning."

Dick wasn't exactly sure when he drifted into sleep, the lines blurred in the frigid night and the sound of Babs humming softly, but he knew when the nightmares started. There was no mistaking the paralyzing stare of those too-green eyes.

Chapter Text

For the past few days, the Bat-Family had been working tirelessly to track down Scarecrow. They searched Thomas Real's warehouses and facilities, they kept very close eyes on the water quality, and they placed informants in every corner of Gotham. They turned the city upside-down and still there was nothing. Not a single piece of straw. Either Scarecrow wasn't in the city at all, or someone was doing a very good job of hiding him.

"You're sure you can't—sense him with those weird powers of yours?" Nightwing asked Jon as they stood in a disused subway tunnel, a last resort of hiding places that turned out to be yet another dead end.

He shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. I can only really 'sense' people if they have a statement to give. Outside of that I can Know things but that isn't really something I can control."

Nightwing snorted. "What, does it just happen when it's convenient for the plot or something?"

Jon fell silent.

"You're joking."

He sighed. "The point is, no, I can't just track him down. I wish I could, trust me. We'll have to do this the hard way."

"The hard way isn't getting us anywhere either." Nightwing kicked a crushed tin can he was pretty sure belonged to a brand of soda that got discontinued when he was three. "At this rate, Scarecrow is going to reach antichrist status before we even see him."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that." Jon turned to leave, while Nightwing lingered behind, watching suspiciously.

The best detectives in the world were tracking down one man, and they hadn't found a single trace of him. Not one clue that would tell them where he was or even what he was doing. Gotham was a big city, but it still didn't line up: something wasn't right here. Jon and Martin could be lying completely, or at least entirely misguided. Maybe Scarecrow had entirely skipped town, or denounced his life of crime, or just fell down a hole and died somewhere. Or maybe, he and his plans were being squirreled away, hidden somewhere and by some means that even Batman couldn't discover, and if that were true, that meant this whole operation was far bigger than any of them thought it would be.

From what he had gathered, Jon's powers seemed to deal with perception and the flow of knowledge. He could reveal hidden information, pulling secrets from someone's mouth or knowing things he was never told, who says he couldn't hide things as well? How deep did this go? Were Jon and Martin actually their allies or were they all being played?

Nightwing couldn't say for sure, but considering how Jon had been watching him in his nightmares ever since the day they met, he wasn't too keen on calling him a friend. He wasn't too keen on believing he was any kind of hero at all.

He hadn't told any of the others about the nightmares, and he continued to keep quiet about his statement. They didn't need to know, in fact, it was better if they didn't. No doubt they would try to do something about it, try to fight back against Jon, and that wasn't something he could allow to happen, not until he knew exactly what was going on.

That being said, he knew they weren't ignoring the fact that the bags under his eyes have grown deeper, or that his caffeine consumption was probably over recommended limits. He knew Babs definitely wasn't ignoring the way he woke up in a cold sweat, panicked sobs racking his body as he tried to remember that he wasn't back there, whatever the subject of a particular dream was that night. She didn't say anything—he suspected she knew that he wouldn't want to answer—but between her soothing words as she tried to pull him back to sleep and the looks she gave him as he brewed his fourth cup of tea of the evening, she didn't need to.

He hated to worry her, but hopefully when this was over, she wouldn't have to anymore.

Nightwing turned away and walked down the tunnel. He didn't feel the need to continue working with Jon today. Being around him bordered on nauseating. He thought, for a moment, about looking back into Thomas Real, someone who was so obviously suspicious, yet appeared so bafflingly innocent. He didn't where to start; something told him that confronting him directly again might be a bad idea. All they had was the hope that the bugs they had planted around his building would reveal something, anything, but so far, all Oracle had seen was boring corporate babble. Much to his surprise, their surveillance hadn't even revealed any juicy office scandals, utterly useless.

He emerged from the subway tunnel. Gotham at night would never stop being nostalgic. The lights of the buildings, the sounds of traffic, the looming gothic skyscrapers that boxed you in and made you feel like a tiny figurine in a model city. Something about this place at this hour made it feel dream-like and fabricated. An architectural drawing of a city that could never be and yet was.

Some part of him missed it, flitting through the streets in a colorful outfit, trailing Batman as a wide-eyed child and running into danger with a smile. Though he had moved on with his life he knew a part of him would never leave these streets, just like a part of him would never leave the circus. The people and places that shaped him forever branded on his heart, even as he left them behind.

He caught a flash of red out of the corner of his eye, leaping down from a fire escape. He turned to face the newcomer and smiled. Speak of the devil.

"You're back in town. huh?" Jason asked, his arms crossed.

"Temporarily," He explained, "Me and the others are working on an investigation."

"And they needed you to join in?" He took off his helmet and tucked it under his arm, "Must be serious then."

"Very, we think Scarecrow is planning to become the harbinger of the apocalypse."

Jason snapped to attention. "What? Scarecrow?"

Nightwing waved him off. "Long story, I'll tell you later. For right now though, I think I need a break from looking at clues. We could patrol together, catch up, if you want." He made the offer sheepishly, he and Jason rarely talked, and he was maybe the person Jason talked to the most. There was no denying the rift that had grown between them, the fact that while they could never stop being brothers, it was impossible to call each other friends.

Don't think about it too hard. He thought as he once again felt the earth began to open beneath him, and the gritty taste of dirt rose in the back of his throat.

Jason shrugged. "Whatever, man. Not like I have anything better to do. The city has been…quiet lately."

He had noticed that, crime rates were down, the mobs were quiet, Nightwing hadn't heard a peep out of any of the rogues. It was strange, like a forest without any birdsong.

"Do you think it's waiting?" He asked.

"What?"

"The city, do you think its waiting for something?"

Jason gave him a puzzled look. "I think this investigation of yours is getting to your head, Dick. Are you sure you're doing alright?"

"I'm fine." He said a little too quickly, "Just tired, I haven't been getting much sleep lately."

"If you say so." Jason stuffed his hands in his pockets and started walking down the street, "What about the others, how are they?"

Nightwing trailed behind him, letting Jason lead the way. He knew this part of town better than anyone. "We're all pretty exhausted, basically working overtime to find anything. Bruce is starting to think we're being sent on a wild goose chase, but I don't think so." He nervously looked at the graffiti spray-painted on a nearby wall, a huge green eye. "I mean, you've been feeling it, right? Things are weird. Something big is about to happen, I can feel it."

"For me its just been same old, same old." Jason said, "You're probably just being paranoid. Something else stressing you out? You and Babs having trouble in paradise?"

"What? No, we're fine." He ran forward so he could meet Jason eye to eye. "And I'm not being paranoid, this is real." He said that with a little less confidence than he could have hoped. "You're sure you haven't been getting a weird feeling at all?"

"Not really, I guess there were those two guys the other day but I run into a lot of weirdos like that."

"Two guys?" Nightwing echoed.

"Yeah, I was on patrol and they came up to me and started saying a lot of really odd shit. I'm pretty sure they were threatening me. I would have thought they were just junkies but they were wearing masks like they were trying to be vigilantes or something, and one of them had these really weird eyes…"

Nightwing stopped in his tracks. "The one with the eyes, did his mask have a crack in it?"

"Yep, real creepy stuff."

"And the other one, was he dressed like a sea captain?"

"…Yeah, he was. Do you know them or something?"

He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We're working with them, they're the ones who gave us the lead on Scarecrow's plan."

Jason's eyes went wide. "You're telling me you're taking orders from those freaks?"

"No one's taking orders, we're collaborating. If anything they're getting ordered around by us." Jason looked unconvinced. "Okay, trust me, I don't like it either, but we need to work together if we're going to stop the world from ending."

"And you're sure these clowns aren't trying to end the world themselves?"

He paused. He wasn't sure about that, but it was better to watch and wait than let them go free. "Look, Jason, what did they tell you?"

He thought for a moment. "A bunch of threats, mostly that they were 'watching me' and that I was 'lucky'. Then they said that I 'better not be involved in this' and to 'tread carefully'."

Nightwing sighed. "Sounds like something Jon would say. But I don't understand, why you?"

"They called me an 'Avatar', whatever they meant by that. It's not like I'm involved with the Green or anything."

He froze. Jason? An Avatar? It couldn't…no.

"Dick?" He reached over to support him as he teetered on his feet. He felt suddenly unsteady and faint, like he had been teleported to a high wire instead of remaining on solid ground. "Dick, what the hell is going on?"

"I—I don't know what it means, exactly." He said, "They keep throwing it around but they never really explained it." Nightwing remembered what Jon did to the last Avatar they encountered and started to feel very sick. "I think it means that you—you serve one of these things, these entities, these Fears, but I don't—they're wrong. You're not a monster, Jason, you're not one of them." He distantly wondered if he was actually saying that for Jason's sake and not his own.

Jason stammered. "Okay, you're really freaking me out. You're going to have to explain this, now."

"The Fears, Jon and Martin said they came from another world— their world—and if they were fully brought into our reality they'd cause some terrible apocalypse. They weren't clear on the details, but that's what we're all trying to stop." He felt like he was rambling, and not making any sense, but he was panicking and Jason was in danger and nothing made sense to him now anyway.

"Right." Jason said, likely already convinced that he was going crazy. "And these Fears are…?"

"Inter-dimensional eldritch gods that are created from and fed by fear, I think."

Jason swore under his breath and said something about Lovecraft.

"The point is, Jon and Martin have made it their job to kill Avatars. If they think that you're one of them, and if they think that you're a threat, then you're in huge trouble. You need to be careful."

"Okay, okay, I'll lay low, but Jesus." He shook his head, "You're sure about all this?"

Nightwing winced. "No."

"Are you sure they're wrong?" Jason asked, his voice wavering. "About me being one of these Avatars?"

No. "I'm sure."

"Right, okay. This is a lot. I get why you look like that now." Jason said, casting a concerned glance at his brother.

"Look like what?" Nightwing asked.

Jason frowned. "Uh…haunted? Tormented? Afflicted with visions?"

"Thanks." He said dryly, his racing heart beginning to calm as he settled back into familiar banter. He sighed. "This whole ordeal is going to do a number on my good looks."

Nightwing's comm crackled to life. "Oh shush." Oracle said, "If anything the harrowed look in your eyes enhances things."

He felt the color rise to his cheeks. "Oracle! Any, um—any updates?" He cleared his throat and heard Jason snicker.

"Yes actually." She said, her voice sounding oddly hollow. "I found Scarecrow. He's nearby…really nearby. I'm sending you the location now."

"Wait, really? How?"

The line went quiet for an unsettlingly long moment. "I—I just knew."

Nightwing really didn't like the sound of that. "You just…knew?"

"I just knew okay! Now go, we're running out of time!" Her voice was desperate and pleading. She sounded…scared.

"Warehouse, two blocks that way." He instructed Jason, panic twisting his stomach. "We need to stop Scarecrow, now."

"Guess the city wasn't too quiet after all." He muttered, drawing a pistol from his belt.

~~~~~

Scarecrow looked like he wanted to be found. He stood in the center of the otherwise empty warehouse, turning to stare at them as they entered. The stitched smile of his mask seemed to widen when he saw them. This didn't make sense. Where had he been? Why didn't they find him already? He was sure this spot had already been crossed off the list.

More spray-painted eyes watched from the walls of the warehouse. They seemed to mock Nightwing. Chide him for how much of a fool he was.

"Scarecrow." He spat, drawing his escrima. "It's the end of the line."

Scarecrow said nothing, but a deep laugh boiled up from the depths of his burlap mask.

Jason charged forward, a hunting knife shining dangerously in his hand. Before he could use it, however, Scarecrow grabbed him by the helmet and tugged it off his head, then grabbed him by the wrist to twist the knife out of his grasp. Jason stumbled forward, thrown off by the unexpected attack. Scarecrow peered at the helmet curiously before tossing it away.

"Oh," He said, his voice curling maliciously. "We won't be needing that."

Scarecrow turned Jason's knife around in his hands, as soon as he lunged for it, he threw it up, where it severed a pipe on the ceiling.

Noxious yellow vapor began pouring out of it, descending on the three of them in slow motion.

Fear toxin.

Nightwing was prepared for this, with their main goal being to find Scarecrow, it would be really, really stupid not to carry a gas mask. He held his breath, and managed to put on the mask with hopefully what was only minor exposure. He was just putting his thoughts together when the sound of a massive explosion scattered them again. It shook the ground, and then he heard another, and another. He tried to think of what came in threes.

The bridges.

Shit.

He whirled around, trying to gain his bearings. Jason had no doubt been exposed to the fear toxin, and his helmet was on the other side of the warehouse. Quiet. Focus. Calm. The gas was thick and impossible to see through, but he could hear Jason and Scarecrow fighting nearby. He ran towards the sound.

Even through the haze he could see that Jason's eyes were wild with panic. He had drawn his crowbar and was flailing wildly at his opponent. Scarecrow already looked battered, one of his arms was clearly broken and from the way his breathing sounded, Nightwing suspected he had at least a few broken ribs.

He thought he dimly heard Oracle's voice in his ear but he couldn't afford to listen. There was something uniquely disturbing about Jason's terrified expression, and some deep instinct within Nightwing told him that even if Jason managed to take Scarecrow out, he still wouldn't be able to stop fighting.

He leaped forward and wacked Scarecrow clean across the jaw with a CRACK! He crumpled to the ground like tissue paper, out cold.

Looking up, he met Jason's eyes, wide and full of fear. Despite the blood splattered across his cheek, he looked like an animal caught in a trap. His shoulders heaved as he hyperventilated, something that would only make his mental state worse.

Even when he was a child, Jason was stupidly brave. Only a stupidly brave kid would put on a cape and start doing back-flips around Gotham in the first place. Nightwing did not see him wear fear very often, and now that he did, his mind couldn't help but wander to the thought that this is how he must have felt on the night he died.

"Jason?" He said cautiously, trying to ignore the taste of earth. "Jason, it's me."

His brother lunged forward with an animalistic snarl. Nightwing dodged the swing of the crowbar so narrowly that he felt it whiz past his nose.

"Shit— Jason, stop! I don't know what you're seeing, but it isn't real!" He twisted away from the attacks as they came. Again and again and again. Jason seemed blinded to anything but violence, of fighting just to make the danger go away. If Nightwing could just find that helmet he could fix this…where did it land again? Where even was he? The toxin ever pouring from the broken pipe—just like the fog on the night this all started—lay thick over the world and hid nearly everything from view. Everything except the fact that Jason was doggedly committed to breaking his bones at the moment.

Nightwing eventually elected to just pick a direction and run, blindly sprinting through the haze in hope that he would run into either the helmet or an exit, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to worry about the sound of Jason's footfalls following after him. In some miracle, he tripped over something. The helmet! He grabbed it and scrambled to his feet, Jason was standing about twenty feet away, the gas swirled around his legs.

He watched him raise the pistol, Jason's face twisted in rage and fear, two emotions that Nightwing now understood must have been one in the same for him. He knew what was about to happen before Jason pulled the trigger, but that still didn't give him enough time to get away from the bullet.

~~~~~

Oracle watched the city fall apart from dozens of cameras. She watched the bridges explode and collapse into the sea. She watched the hidden canisters of fear toxin dotted around the city spill into the streets and send civilians into panicked hysteria as the gas filled their lungs and flooded their mind with visions of terrifying things that were not there. She watched and watched Gotham being thrown into chaos from what felt like hundreds of angles. Frozen as it all happened far too quickly for anyone to move against it and the horrifying realization dawned on her that they had failed.

She steeled her nerves and began formulating a plan. Batman and Robin distributing the antidote they had prepared for such a disaster in the Batplane. The majority sent on damage control for the bridges and the chaos in the streets while Nightwing and Red Hood handled Scarecrow—

"Nightwing?" She repeated through the comms, "Nightwing, do you read?"

Scarecrow did seem to be handled already, but considering how Nightwing was ignoring her, they had a bigger problem. The feed was hazy, but she could definitely see that Red Hood wasn't wearing his helmet with the convenient built in gas mask.

"Careful, Nightwing." She found herself saying, even though she knew he wouldn't be listening with the threat of his own brother facing him.

She turned her attention back to the rest of the feeds. The Batgirls were doing well dealing with crowd control around the ruins of the largest bridge. Batwoman was breaking up fights between civilians in a crowded square that had been hit hard with fear toxin. Even Azrael was doing his part of deactivating canisters to stop the spread. Still, this well oiled machine could not do much against what Scarecrow had done. She was sure that if even if she took off her headset, she would still be able to hear the screams. She did not want to know what was hiding beyond the view of her cameras, the countless innocent people facing their worst fears. Giant spiders and dying loved ones and house fires and cancer and burrowing worms and war and scrutiny and death, death, death. The fear of thousands building as they were trapped within this dark, dark city and farmed for their terror. This is what Jon and Martin were afraid of. This is what they wanted to stop at nothing to prevent, but through intentional interference or plain bad luck they failed utterly and completely and—oh God—paralyzing hunger and winding snakes, a face in the mirror they can't recognize, a world barren and empty, the fear of the wicked flash of a knife, of lungs filling with cold water, of a man who clutched a gore-splattered crowbar and laughed like the bloodied and beaten child on the ground in front of him was the punchline to the funniest joke in the world.

If she did her job right, than all will be right again before day broke over the city, but for now, Fear was Gotham, and Gotham was fear.

The sound of a gunshot wrenched her thoughts away from wherever they were wandering. She saw Nightwing's vitals spike as he collapsed to the floor, and though the thick blanket of fear toxin obscured the culprit, she didn't need to see him to know who it was.

"Nightwing!" She shouted through the comms. The report from his suit indicated he had been hit in the leg, which was better than most of the alternatives. Still, he was trapped in a room with someone who had just shot him in a haze of delusional terror, and most of the other heroes were busy with the rest of the city.

To her relief, he responded, his voice a pained whisper. "Not dead…bleeding a lot…and Jason…" he paused. "I need backup, and soon."

"I'm sending Red Robin to your location." She said, packing her emotions away again. She had to focus if she wanted everyone to walk away from this alive. "Hang in there."

"Listen to me." He said, his breathing getting increasingly ragged. "There's something wrong with Jason, really wrong. I- I think he's an Avatar. He's been one this whole time."

Oracle bit at her lip and the taste of iron filled her mouth. Focus, Babs. Think about it later. You have a job to do.

"Alright, then I'm sending Jon and Martin, too."

~~~~~

Jon was disgusted with how good he felt right now.

The city oozed with Fear, everyone they passed was drowning in it. He didn't even need to take their statements, he just absorbed their terror with every breath he took. The power seeping into his bones and reminding him of just how much he had missed it: when he could erase his enemies with a glare.

But they weren't there yet, they hadn't failed yet. As much as the Fears must be feasting right now it was not enough to bring them into reality. No one had done any summoning yet.

Yet.

He watched the streets of Gotham whirl by as the Batmobile raced through winding roads flooded with fear toxin. Beside him, Martin stared blankly out the other window, and in the driver's seat the older Robin they had been told to join was clutching the wheel with so much intensity there was no doubt his knuckles were paper-white beneath his gloves. Even though his face was steeled with determination, Jon could tell he was scared.

"Listen, you two." Robin said, gritting his teeth, "Dick has told me what you fucks are capable of, if you treat Jason like you treat the other Avatars you are dead, understand?"

"Crystal clear." Jon muttered. He wasn't about to murder Jason Todd. He didn't want to. Ultimately, he felt sympathy for the boy, lost and confused, imbued with an anger he didn't know what to do with. Jon, more than anyone, knew what it was like to die and wake up a monster. He and Martin were sent here for assurance and protection as the experts on fighting Avatars, nothing more. Though the true reason Jon had agreed to accompany Robin's mission was so he could have a few words with Scarecrow.

The car screeched to a halt in front of the warehouse Scarecrow was found in, and Robin raced into the fray, not even pausing to shut the door of the Batmobile behind him.

"Do you think Nightwing will be okay?" Martin said, staring at the disturbed trail in the clouds of fear toxin that Robin had left in his wake.

"He isn't dead yet," Jon replied.

"You know that isn't what I meant. He was attacked by an Avatar of the Slaughter after he was almost killed by a Buried Avatar, and you marked him with the Eye. That statement you took was already disturbingly long—"

Jon shot him a glare. "What are you implying?"

"I'm saying we have grounds to be concerned if he ends up marked by any other entities, now please, let's go help."

He sighed deeply, mulling over Martin's words. Even in the midst of this hurricane, he couldn't help but worry that there was a far bigger storm on the horizon.

Upon entering the warehouse, Martin stood by Robin, who was crouched on the floor beside an unconscious Nightwing. He was handing Martin a helmet he recognized as the one the Red Hood wore.

"I'm getting out of here." Robin said, rising to his feet and doing his best to support Nightwing's weight. "Can you two handle Jason on your own?"

"We'll do our best." Martin assured, his voice becoming faraway and echoed as he shifted his body to mist. "Now go."

As Robin left, Martin drifted forward, surrounding Jon with his being. He carried the helmet with him, clutched in one of his incorporeal hands.

"Do you see him? Jason?"

"Cowering in a corner." Jon said, pointing in a direction. "Seems his bloodlust has subsided."

"And Scarecrow?"

"Not here, but he's injured, he can't have gotten far."

Martin hummed. "Find him, I'll help Jason." He rushed off towards the boy, helmet in hand, while Jon navigated out of the haze of the warehouse.

He was right, Scarecrow didn't go far. He was leaned up against one of the walls of the warehouse, one of his arms hanging uselessly at his side. Blood was soaking through the burlap of his mask and dripping slowly onto the ground. He was beaten, but he was breathing. Jon might be able to wring some answers from him before he passed out from blood loss or shock.

"Jonathan Crane." Jon said, stepping in front of him. Scarecrow's head immediately shot up.

"Who are you?" He demanded.

"A Guardian." Jon answered. "Now, tell me, were you attempting a ritual with this little stunt?" Power pooled on his tongue as the question took shape.

To his surprise, Scarecrow trembled. "N-no? I don't know what you're talking about."

"Really? The Fears, the Dread Powers, unfamiliar to you?"

"I don't know anything about that. This is a controlled experiment on what happens to an isolated population exposed to my fear toxin. It's gone…very wrong though, all wrong."

Jon smiled, Scarecrow was far more pathetic than he thought. He wasn't even an Avatar, just a man who happened to feed them. More of a caterer than the monster he craved to be. "Elaborate experiment." Jon commented, "Surely you had to work with someone, who might that be?"

Scarecrow stammered for a moment, and then something strange happened. Jon gained the distinct feeling that someone was watching him, but predictably, he could see no one there, not even one of Oracle's cameras.

"Nobody, I did this on my own. I don't know about any 'Dread Powers' or anything, I swear."

"Interesting." Their assumption was evidently wrong. Scarecrow was not attempting a ritual, at least not intentionally or directly. Whatever was looming in Gotham, it was only just beginning, something bigger than Scarecrow was at work. Whatever it was, they needed to root it out.

Jon turned away and left Scarecrow to bleed. An action he was sure his tentative allies wouldn't be happy with, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He reunited with Martin inside the warehouse. Jason was slumped in the corner, his helmet wrestled back onto his head. He didn't seem to notice Jon's arrival.

"He'll be okay." Martin said, "He tried to fight back but it's rather hard to stab someone made of fog."

He took his hand and held it fast, Jon resisted the urge to melt into his companion's touch, no matter how cold it was.

"Scarecrow knows nothing. If this is part of a ritual, he isn't aware of it." He informed, "We have more work to do."

"I don't have a good feeling about this," Martin murmured, "Why do I feel like we're missing something?"

"We are, I'm sure of it, but we can find it. We have to." Jon drew Martin's hand to his chest. "We will not relive that hell, I promise."

Martin met his eyes and did not flinch. "I hope you're right, Jon, I really do."