Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Connor is a clone. A clone of Superman. There should be nothing unexpected about him. There should be no questions about his genetics. But when everyone scrutinizes his behaviors and his appearance and his obedience or his lack thereof and his features and his failures, always his failures—

—Sometimes all Connor wants to do is run long and far from humanity and scream.

But he doesn’t. Because Connor has worked with Black Canary ever since his very cautious integration into the team.  

And he worked hard so that Zero wouldn’t feel afraid of him, so he wouldn’t feel afraid of himself. 

He stops, fist freezing in place before it could pummel another concrete pillar. Its neighbors were nothing but broken stumps, the result of this “stress relief” session. He’s supposed to be working on his super strength output. 

Zero. 

“I’m sorry to say this, but we can’t afford the time and resources to search for her if she’s alive.” Batman had said, words firm and making it clear that there would be no argument. “The Light has gathered an ally with unknown numbers and ambiguous technological capabilities, and that must remain our top priority.” 

He should’ve been there. If he wasn’t captured, if he wasn’t going feral, If he wasn’t distracted, if he was faster - 

If - if - if - if  - 

He was with M’gann, in that moment when that energy weapon had been fired. He could still remember the sound, the vibration of the discharge, earsplitting, how it was so loud it felt like his head was vibrating from the intensity of the volume, a bright flash of light combined with a powerful shockwave forcing him to close his eyes and fall to the ground. There’s a thump in his chest, a whooshing of air being pushed out of the way of the explosion. 

There was screaming, yelling, both out loud and through the mind link. By the time he could see clearly again, he was already stumbling out of that holding tent, the regaining of his memories making him cry out a name in an attempt to find his closest companion.

His little sister. 

Zero!

There was still ringing in his ears when his eyes widened, as if he were trying to swallow the entirety of the scene before him with his pupils. 

The military base was in ruin, as if a tornado had swept through it, buildings torn apart, vehicles flipped, some were melted into piles of slag metal, others were still on fire, smoke and dust clouded the air, obscuring his vision. 

Zero!

He approached the center of the base, sand shifting under his feet as he searched. The center seemed to be where the destruction originated, where the source of the explosion was, and he spotted something in the distance, a towering hulk of mangled metal and mechanical apparati that belittled the size of the bioship with  a large barrel of a cannon that had been bent and warped. 

The mass of emasculated armaments neighbored an equally large, if not bigger mountain of a dark rock, silhouetted against the setting sun. 

As he ran closer, he realized that the mountain of dark rock was not rock, but something that resembled roots curling together, spiraling upward, its surface jagged with crusts of melted sand, glass. 

It radiated heat underneath his fingers. 

Zero!

His supersenses couldn’t detect anything, her voice, her breath, the thump of her heartbeat. It was as if she disappeared into thin air.

Where was Zero? 

Later, after the rest of the team had regained their memories, after they had reconvened at the bioship despite how much he wanted to go out and continue looking for Zero, Robin told him what had happened during those moments, what happened to Zero. 

The military base was about to activate some secret weapon, a machine capable of firing immense amounts of energy using something called a “graviton particle emitter.” The blast emitted could theoretically rip apart anything in its path, pushing the atoms away before they would crash back together, causing explosions that would rival nuclear fusion in the sun. It was even thought it was capable of destroying Superman, Mr. Invulnerable/Indestructible. 

The weapon was already armed and on an automatic countdown to fire, aimed at the prime target to show the Light’s supremacy over all things. 

The Justice League Watchtower. 

There would be no warning, it was all happening too fast, it would kill everyone on the space fortress before they could activate the propulsion system to move out of the way, the resulting blast probably showering Earth’s atmosphere with deadly, superheated debris that would boil the oceans. 

Robin was in the middle of trying to disable it, at the same time trying to signal the Justice League of the inevitable disaster, when he was overwhelmed by a platoon of Bialyan soldiers. By the time he knocked them all out, it was too late. 

It fired. 

Connor listened as Robin’s continued, voice trembling. 

He professed that all he could do was watch, in that moment when a white blur intercepted the blast, shooting into the air  in the middle of the weapon's trajectory. 

It was Zero. 

Robin couldn’t see clearly considering how bright everything was, but he caught a glimpse of what had happened. 

The two collided, Zero’s entirety glowing as if she had been dipped in liquid gold, arms spread wide like she was accepting a hug. The blast dissipated under her touch, while the glow around her only got brighter, like her being was being fused with the energy itself. Shrinking and shrinking until it was nothing. 

It all happened within the span of seconds. 

Then she dropped from the sky, falling to the ground with an unnaturally heavy thud. 

Robin told him that he tried to run towards her, to make sure that she was alright, that she was okay - 

He felt an intense heat radiating from her even though he was standing several meters  away, the sweat he exuded evaporating as he got closer, the temperature growing with every step. 

He could see that she was still breathing, but she seemed to be hyperventilating, bleeding profusely from several wounds. 

“Zero! Hold on, I’m coming!” Robin shouted above the rush of air. The temperature was so high that she was heating up the air around her, melting the sand underneath under her body. 

“Don’t - Stay away!” He heard her scream, her voice distorted, warbling, as if she were trying to speak through a mouthful of glass. She had staggered to her feet, stumbling out of reach. “Don’t come closer!”  

Both the heat and the rushing air increased exponentially, and he faltered. “Just - Zero, tell me what to do! I can help!” 

“No!- “  She had gasped,  cutting herself off with a scream—a horrible, grating scream—that filled the air and tore from Zero’'s lungs and Robin could do nothing, but watch . 

She clutched her head, then dropped to her knees. As she did, Robin was horrified to see her side split - crack - open. Instead of blood, light, pure and white, shot out of it like lighting. He stumbled back, the lighting striking the sand around her sporadically, more cracks appearing all over her body. 

“Zero!-” 

FWOOM. 

A noise like a gunshot, sand clouds his vision. He was blown backward, rolling for several seconds before he had found  his footing again. 

And she was gone, a giant winding obelisk standing in her place.  

Robin had apologized to Connor for not doing more, for not being able to come up with a solution, but Connor was already blanking out, stomping away to stop himself from blowing up at him. 

Connor learned later that the giant aggregation of scorched granules was something called fulgurite, petrified lightning. The result of a thunderbolt burning 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit slices through the air and hits the ground, piercing it, splintering as it lances the sand.

In an instant, no more than one second, the white-hot thunderbolt melts and fuses the sand around it and creates an object, a rock, a hardened mass of matter in the shape that the lightning took when it entered the earth.

It makes a jagged, plaster-looking cast of itself, trapping air inside its structure, making it hollow. 

Hollow. 

Just like how he feels now. 

“Zero……”

Where are you?

Chapter Text

It happened on a stormy Saturday night, a night filled with winds and rain, lightning and thunder. It had also been filled with nightmares, remnants of his own past coming back to haunt him, what he had done, what he had failed to do. 

“Da-Dad……I’m scared….” 

The events of that night would replay in his head constantly, no matter how hard he tried to bury it under mundane thought and random activities. His conscious would always torture with images of who he had lost. 

He would have these nightmares every night, and tonight would be no different. 

So he thought. 

His eyes snapped open, his entire body sweating and shivering. His heart thudded in his chest as he automatically went to scrutinize his surroundings, as he would every night that he woke from a night terror. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, his tensed muscles started to relax as he noticed nothing out of the ordinary. 

The room was dark, the lights off, lit by sporadic flashes of lightning followed by the low rumble of thunder. The sound of rain pummeling the roof came from above, the wind howling as it blew around the farmhouse. The door to the room was still closed, knick-knacks and books in their proper places on the shelves. 

He blinked, trying to take deep breaths. 

He was in his shared bed, on the left side of Peter, who was snoring away next to him. He couldn’t help but envy the man as he slept peacefully, free of dark thoughts. Peter once offered to teach him a self-hypnotizing technique that would prevent him from having any dreams. It was apparently something that his father taught Peter when he had nightmares as a child, and it had worked for over three decades for him. 

Jason had refused, due to obvious reasons of no more mind fuckery please,  and Peter had understood, then offered different coping mechanisms. They were more orthodox, things like not  eating too much before bed, warm tea, listening to music. So far, nothing has worked. 

He groaned quietly, rubbing his temples. Sleep was an option that he wished he didn’t need, and he might as well get up now. 

He slipped out of bed, careful to not alert Peter. He didn’t need another sleepless night. 

He was half aware of what his body was doing as he left the bedroom, walking downstairs, staring out the windows, dull eyes watching raindrops trail down the glass. 

The storm itself was accompanied by a dark sky overcast with clouds so thick he could see nothing but black,  occasional flashes of lightning that outlined silhouettes of trees thrashing violently in the wind. Thunder rumbles and crashes once more. 

She used to be afraid of thunderstorms. His subconscious decided to torture him with more memories. Memories of huddling under blankets, telling stories and making laughter so that she wouldn’t cry, and wouldn’t feel ashamed of crying. 

“It’s okay to be scared of storms Birdy, it’s a natural thing.” 

“You know, it's part of our past. this physiological response, a leftover of when humans were limited to trees and caves as homes.” 

Those were happy memories. 

Instead it made him want to cry.

His fingers dragged against the walls of the house, tapping rhythmically in a familiar pattern, trying to pull his mind out of the inevitable downward spiral. His hand soon struck a built-in shelf, and he pulled out a random book. 

Cold was the hardwood floor underneath his feet as he navigated the house in the dark. The layout was as clear as his own instincts as he found himself making his way to the old chesterfield in the corner of the living room. Another flash of lightning from the window, its brightness soon drowned out by the light of the Arc Lamp that he switches on. 

His heart drops when he realizes what book he’s holding. 

The Complete Brother Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Folklore.  

“Dad, can you read another one? Please?” 

Fuck. 

The thump of the book falling from his hands and onto the floor brings a robotic visitor. 

“Jason, are you alright?” Baymax announces his presence clearly with his pudgy footsteps and pneumatic gears pumping. 

He doesn’t answer.

Baymax waits, his white balloon body standing in the doorway to the living room, giving him some distance.  

Baymax had learned that some of his undesirable base reflexes were triggered when something sneaks up on him, regardless of who they were, and had adapted to his needs. Baymax was originally built by Peter to take care of her more medically intensive needs, and Peter had inserted something known as “polymorphic code”  into his programming on top of all the medical stuff. It would enable him to learn more and adapt as time went on, and Baymax soon established himself as a member of their little family. 

The two didn’t have the heart to shut him down after the incident. Not when Baymax helped them stick together. 

He closes his eyes trying to block out her voice with the ambience of the raging storm.

 “I’m fine,” he whispers, less firm than he would’ve liked. 

Another rumble of thunder. 

“Would you like for me to make chamomile tea?” Baymax offers in his stilted, synthesized voice. 

He opens his eyes. He picks up the book, “.....I’m fine.” Jason repeats, staring blankly out the window. 

Lightning flashes, illuminating the rest of the property visible from this angle. Their crops wave their leaves frantically at him in the wind. He would have to inspect them tomorrow morning, after the storm passed. 

“....Are you thinking of her?” Baymax steps closer, coming to stand next to him. His optics blink as Jason clenches his fist around the book. 

That one grocery trip. 

A gunshot. 

He’s running, running as fast as he can. He’s not fast enough. He’s always not fast enough. 

“Papa’s bleeding! He won’t wake up!” 

Another silhouette grapples with him in the dark and he tries to fight them off. There’s a scream, a gurgled cry. It abruptly cuts off. 

He tries to shout. To warn her. Tell her she needs to run-

A blow to his head makes him crumble to the ground. 

“.......Yeah……” He admits. 

Lightning flashes. 

Years of just being Jay. Dad. Or the occasional Jason!!! - left him slow. Sloppy. 

Peter had survived, though barely.

“....Would you like to talk about it?” 

Calling the cops or the “Justice League” was out of the question. He was supposed to be dead, and Peter was a con-man/underground doctor with many waiting enemies, no doubt they would be tossed in jail, or worse. They had stolen something important from them after all.  

Thunder rumbles. 

It was a constant back and forth. What started as busting the local gangs to find her transformed into zig-zagging between contacting brokers and following leads - investigating traffickers and networks of whole illegal operations that always ended with nothing but more questions. And never her. 

He blinked back tears. “...I don’t know-”

He’s  tired.

 He’s tired of having these unshed tears at the corner of his eyes , this constant lump in his throat, this hollow feeling in his chest. He’s  tired of carrying this weight, always coming in crashing waves, when he’s driving the Jeep, when he’s washing the dishes, when he’s doing  maintenance on the farm equipment - 

His mind would suddenly recall how much he missed her, and his breath  would catch and his vision would blur. It hurt. It hurt so much. 

When will it be over?

A flash of light.  It doesn’t flicker like lightning, instead a trail of it streaking across the horizon like a shooting star. 

What the-

His head snaps to follow it. His instincts were creeping up on him, his hands were itching, his mind was running more than a hundred miles per second.  He watches as the light continues to travel through the black, descending-

THWUMP

Something just crashed into the orchard, falling right out of the sky, leaving behind a glowing scar where the leaves of the apple trees were set alight before being put out by the rain. 

The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, all of his internal alarm bells ringing. 

 The world that they lived in was filled with waiting catastrophes, fucking alien invasions, supervillain attacks, and overall strange hostile phenomena combined with people that just don’t give any shits.  Time has proven again and again, they couldn’t rely on the omnipotent “Justice League” to protect everyone. 

Matters needed to be taken into their own hands if they at least wanted some reassurance. 

“Baymax, go take Peter to the basement.” 

  The shotgun stashed underneath the coffee table is in his hands. His parka is lined with more slugs and shells in their pockets. His work boots have both his glock and his knife tucked into it, and then he’s outside, moving through the shadows like it’s second nature. 

It is second nature. 

It’s automatic, the way he walks, the way he breathes, the way he thinks. 

Checking his surroundings, keeping his movement constant, yet gradual, blending in with  the elements around him-

He now has only vague recollections of what his life was like, who he was, before being extracted out the Mediterranean Sea like the fish he was netted with onto the little fishing trawler. 

“What the fuck?” 

Those were the eloquently spoken first words that Peter said to him when the body he pulled onto the deck turned out to be not a body, but a barely living man with a lot of  bullets in his back. 

A barely living man that apparently had amnesia. 

From then it was a bewildering blur to try to find out his identity, running from CIA authorities that seem hellbent on killing him for reasons he didn’t remember, exercising skills of both combat and espionage he didn’t know he had but just did, Peter running away from a terrorist organization hellbent on using his father’s research to end the world in some “science fair showdown,” in Peter’s words. 

And there's the gun in his hand. And God, it just feels so natural -- checking it -- stripping it down -- holding it -- aiming it -- like this is something he's done a million times before... This is something he definitely knows how to do.

He prefers not knowing. He likes his new life enough to want to keep it after the incident. 

He’s moving silently through the corn field now, keeping his body low and his pace stable,  moving steadily despite the mud under his feet threatening to suck his boots under. The shotgun is loaded and cocked as he arrives at the apple orchard. 

He nudges the gate open, just the right way so that it wouldn’t creak, making sure it doesn’t bang against the latch. He’s scanning the rows of neatly planted apple trees now, searching. 

He’s moving downwind from where the thing fell, the smell of smoldering leaves permeating his senses, and he spots a crater (He’s calculating in his head, something very small and dense caused the impact. Probably. Peter’s way of teaching physics was unorthodox at best.)  where it plowed into the earth. There’s a trench leading from the crater, probably due to the angle of impact. 

The darkness doesn’t hinder his vision, in fact, he welcomes it. The gloom provides a cover for his moving form, and hopefully whatever came down can’t see that well.

He stalks in a semi circle around the crash site, trying to see it from all angles, trying to examine the details, assess the threat. Trigger-happy dumbasses are the ones that die first, and he’s not gonna end up dead after all the effort he put in to make it out of all the bullshit life threw at him. 

He narrows his eyes, spotting something. 

There’s indents in the slough of mud and wet grass that lead outside and away from the crater, vaguely looking like footprints. Tiny footprints, like they belonged to a kid. He blinks, gripping the shotgun tight. He’s moving a little closer to them now - 

He stops, a bloom of bright colors at the corner of his vision. 

Basal rosette. Toothed leaves, five notched petals the color of the morning sky with a sun-yellow stamen, a perfect specimen right out of their botanical gardens book.

“Primula Acaulis - That’s my favorite!”

Shit. 

Under any other circumstances, he avoided this area of the property as much as he could. It brought back too many memories that were nothing more than agonizing reminders of his- their- loss. 

Why did people have to say that time heals everything? 

He could still remember, in vivid moments, how much time they would all spend in that gazebo she helped them all build with her own hands, adding the paint with glee and carefully controlled precision. She would spend hours under the overhang, reading the books Peter managed to buy from the tiny bookshop from the town twenty miles north, practicing her drawing skills on the snoozing channel catfish that lived in the little stream near it, growing flowers of various colors in the planter boxes, talking to the birds that would roost in the nearby cedars. 

(He asked about that weird quirk of hers, Peter proposed a theory that because of her unique body type, birds were attracted to the electromagnetic signature she gives off. He had other hypotheses about why birds of the corvid family, like ravens, crows, jackdaws, etc.,  seemed to be especially fond of her, even cawing back at her like they were having a conversation, but they never got a concrete answer. The birds never came back after the incident.) 

He gives himself a shake.  Now was not the moment to spiral, he needs to focus, concentrate. Concentrate-

“CAW! CAW!” 

He nearly shoots the bird in his panic to reorient himself, and it takes off from its perch and flies away, as if sensing that his addled mind was an active danger. 

 (Carrion Crows, one of the more frequent bird visitors. Why were they back? And how were the flowers still alive? No one had tended to them in years, as far as he was aware.) 

He draws in a trembling breath, trying to steady himself, to think of something else. 

Breathe. 

Breathe. 

In. Out.

He’s struggling to remember those breathing techniques Baymax lectured him on- fuck why was this so hard!?

He freezes when the sound of a barely audible, keening whimper reaches his ears. It’s followed by a high-pitched, intense wailing. 

“Da-Dad……I’m scared….” 

Something about it felt too familiar, too intimate. 

“Papa’s bleeding! He won’t wake up!” 

Something about it struck a chord within him. His hands clench around the shotgun, his knuckles turning white. He holds his breath, listening. 

And now he notices that the rain has stopped. When did it stop? ( Why? ) 

There’s a flapping of wings, and he sees the crow land back on the perch on the roof of the gazebo. 

The gazebo is old now, decrepit and definitely in need of some gardening, overgrown with weeds and kudzu vines so thick he could barely see past the railing. The crow seems to stare at him with an air of judgment, like it was disappointed that this special place had fallen this far into disrepair. 

“CAW!” 

It’s croaking at him now, piercing him with its beady eyes. It cocks his head at him, hopping around the paved roof wildly. 

“CAW!” 

Like it was trying to tell him something. 

“CAW!” 

For him to do something. 

There’s another sob. 

“Dad!” 

He’s running. Running before he could think about what he’s doing, thorny brambles snagging onto his sweatpants as he stumbles onto the platform of the overgrown gazebo, the wooden planks creaking under his boots. 

He stops. 

He does not believe in miracles. 

But the world he - they-  lived in was full of miracles. 

“Una?......” 

Chapter Text

Billions of  stars.

Billions stars were enfolding her body.

Or what could be defined as her body.

Everywhere, anywhere, floating into nothing, with no end nor beginning, warping through planets, cutting through galaxies, extending beyond the reality of this world to end up in another one.

She could feel everything in front of her, shining lights coming from behind, next, inside her.

Everything at once, and in the end it was nothing.

Events were unfolding as if they ever existed in the first place.

All that happened in a microsecond, leaving infinite wrinkles in the space time continuum. 

She knew all and she knew nothing.

The moment she managed to catch something in her grasp, it was fading away, and she forgot.

Even if somewhere else she knew.

A second lasted an eternity, and the eternity was only there for a second.

She didn’t know how long she had been there. Was it days ? A few weeks ? Only a second ? Multiple millennials ? Did it really matter ? Did time even make sense anymore ? Could she even comprehend it, could she even formulate those questions without a mind ?

Everything was the same, always. Or that’s what she thought. She should have known that nothing lasts forever, after all.

It started as a tickling sensation in her stomach; or what could be considered as it. Enveloping her, wrapping around her limbs. What felt like electricity running through her whole body was burning her very being, as if her entire soul was on fire even if she didn’t have a body.

The blazing heat would have made her shout, would she have had a mouth.

Then a flaming bright tear  opened, bringing an insufferable amount of pain. She felt her nonexistent vision narrow, her consciousness shrink at inimaginable speed, somehow realizing the sensation that could be best described as not taking consciousness that she was resenting everything while still knowing it in the back of her mind stopped.

She was condensing on herself, still catching glimpses of the conscience she left behind, without being able to hold onto it, to really know, just as if she was duplicating herself inside of her, and being cut down to something much smaller, like she was her own core.

Her whole existence was being reduced from every extremity, burning with jolt-like  energy.

Gaining in intensity at every instant, the light engulfed her, an excruciating pain filling her, as she started to take form. Her thoughts were being limited to a fractional part of her, contained in physical bounds, as images of everything she knew and saw flashed in front of her, along with memories of her life, the overwhelming amount of information shattering her mind several times at once on her forming body. Leaving her old being behind like a snake sloughing.

Flashes.

Flashes of the team, of Superboy - Connor  - Robin - Kaldur - Wally, Artemis, M’gann. The Batman, the Justice League - 

They faded, ephemeral, burning away like smoldering paper passports.

Faces, names, memories and understandings erode to nothing but blank faces and clear slates of an uneasy vacuum of no recollections, an empty gap in her life. 

The memories that remained, however, were brought to the forefront. Moments of people she thought were dead - People she thought would despise what she had become.

A rekindling, the urge to reunite with them. 

They’re still out there - Find them - Not caged anymore!

In a last jerk of energy, a breach through space and time opened within her and she felt herself being torn apart from the rest of herself, falling to no end.

For an instant, she was nothing but pain, until the blinding light climbed to a climax.

A split second between this instant and the other, the suffering stopped and she was able to go back to her senses, forming her first coherent thought:

I want to go home……

Then it stopped.

Chapter Text

Peter doesn’t have dreams, not since he was ten years old. 

That was the more simple answer.  In reality, on one of the rare occasions his dad was helpful, the man taught his little boy how to condition himself. Every night before he went to bed, he repeated a mantra in his head. 

“Please don’t dream tonight. Please don’t dream tonight. Please don’t dream tonight.” 

He couldn’t stop his brain from creating dreams from his subconscious, but the self-hypnotism made it so he couldn’t remember any. Not remembering  dreams meant no memories of nightmares. 

Just a gap, a sensation of passing time. Then he wakes up. 

He would usually wake up alone now, in an empty bed that felt like an abyssal plain of ice cold sheets. 

He remembered arguing - screaming - at Jason, they need more time, more preparation, more information, and Keep doing this at this pace and you'll fucking die, Damnit!

His pleas were enough to stop the man from throwing himself into slaughter, but it wasn’t enough to stop him from drifting away, drifting apart. 

Was it selfish to say that? To do that? He couldn’t lose anyone else he loved, not anymore. 

Not after his baby sister. Not after Tori. 

He wants to burn everything as much as Jason did, but he couldn’t stand the chance that he might be left alone again. 

Another lost soul, just ambling aimlessly all on his own. 

Now that he isn't alone anymore, he doesn't want to lose it. Can’t you understand that?!

He still has Jason, and he wants to hold on to what he has left. But it’s hard, walking out of the bedroom to find Jason staring blankly at the mirror, mindlessly moving about the property, eyes glazed over as if seeing something far away, something no one else could see. 

Peter used to be awoken by Jason having nightmares, thrashing and rambling in different languages in his sleep, seemingly fighting phantom foes from memories of a forgotten past. Peter would try his best to comfort him whenever he could, holding him in his arms, talking about anything and everything just to get his mind out of whatever hole he’s in. 

You’re not a monster because of a past you don’t remember. 

But that stopped, Jason somehow internalized that his own grief was something to deal with by himself, and he just sneaks out of the room whenever he has a bad dream. 

Yes, Peter was dealing with losing her too. He understood grief, he lost people, relationships he couldn’t rewind time for. He tried to build a shell, some fortress around his heart so there would be no chance of being hurt like that ever again. 

It never worked. Somehow people, amazing people, wormed their way through the cracks, and made him fucking care. Care so much that it hurts when they’re everywhere but where he needs them. 

Sometimes he could still hear her voice echoing in the house, sometimes he could hear her footsteps padding around the hardwood floors, sometimes he would prepare breakfast for three instead of two ( Fuck, it’s been four years. He’s still making that mistake). 

Whenever they get back to the house to recuperate after a raid, Peter's working away in his basement lab, hacking servers, downloading data, combing for information, searching for something, anything - 

Baymax, God-blessed Baymax kept him anchored. Kept him from crumbling into himself, asking questions with answers that were more for him instead of the robot he built to take care of her.

“Are you still investigating her kidnapping?” Baymax had asked once, setting a mug of tea next to him. “......One, if not more, of my thought processors are occupied by memories of her.” 

Peter turned to Baymax, and asked for the robot to elaborate. 

On top of all the medical knowledge that would constantly get updated as the practice of medicine evolved in leaps and bounds, Baymax’s interaction programming was built by advanced software that was written by his little sister, but that software has no awareness of its process for coding an AI. 

It was like DNA, Peter can map out entire genomes, but that doesn’t tell him what any of it does. Baymax’s purpose provided an outline of how he would act, but everything else was up in the air. 

“I find,' Baymax had said, his voice the automated benign beside manner Peter had given him, “that I am constantly wondering where she is. Where she has gone. Whatever task I am in the midst of performing, wherever I am, I am speculating: Where is she?” 

Baymax had blinked at him with those advanced scanner optics he had built himself. 

“ I believe you are thinking, ‘ She can't have perished. She must be somewhere. All I have to do is find her. I will  look for her everywhere, in every street, in every crowd, in every audience. That's what I am doing, when I look at them all.’ Is that correct?”

Yeah. 

A lot more correct than he expected from a robot. The more rational side of his brain put forth that she was too valuable to ‘unexist,’ and that she was still alive, still out there. That they would find each other again, someday. 

That day came unexpectedly.  The storm in the area was also unexpected.

“Peter, please awaken yourself. There is an emergency.” Baymax’s voice wrenched him out of the dark void of dreamless sleep, the words emergency sending to his feet before he could think. 

He blinked, finding Baymax supporting him with one arm. The room was dark (middle of the night?), the clock reading 2:55 am (middle of the night), he couldn’t  the rumbling of thunder and rain pounding the roof (storm stopped?), and besides Baymax, he was alone (His heart gives another painful twist at the empty spot next to his, did Jason have another nightmare?). 

 “Emer-Where’s Jason? Details Baymax, I need details!” He takes a step, needles shooting into his legs at the movement. “shi-” 

“An unidentified object fell from the upper atmosphere into the apple orchard,” Baymax helps him stand, “Jason went to investigate, he has advised that I transport you to the lab as quickly as possible -” 

Fuck, did the guy go by himself?!

Peter’s not listening, instead grabbing the two-way radio on the nightstand. Jason always kept his on him whenever he walked out, and he’d better have it on him now after he reminded the guy so many times-

The walkie-talkie blares to life before he could even touch it. 

“Peter-” 

Oh no. 

Peter’s running down the stairs, adrenaline pumping through his veins. He’s checking the rooms, looking out the windows, holding the radio to his ear. 

He needs to think. Assess the situation, identify the variables. Find a solution. 

The shotgun under the coffee table in the living room is gone, and so is Jason’s parka and his boots. He’s already outside. 

“Peter - I need - I ne-need you to - please don’t die - please don’t die - Fuck!’ 

Peter could already see Jason’s panic attack, the hyperventilation, shortness of breath, rapid shallow hiccups.  Panic attacks suck ass, and having experienced some over his lifetime, Peter knew what signs to look for, what to do and how it feels. 

Effects can vary but a  panic attack absolutely cripples a person. Their brain is spinning up to the point that it interferes with proper processing of external stimuli and the person pretty much shuts off until they can get past it.

Any awareness of time is broken, seconds seem to stretch forever into infinity. The 'moment of panic' sensation when accidentally missing a step walking down stairs, put on a steady loop.

“Jason,” He tries to keep the trembling out of his voice. “Jason, can you hear me? Where are you? I’m coming to you right now- ” 

“I-No! Peter, don’t!”

Jason’s harsh answer sends him stumbling to one side with how loud he screams it. Peter fumbles with the receiver, “What?!” 

In the background, he hears a whimper. It wasn’t Jason’s.

“Jason?!-” 

“Peter.” 

Suddenly Jason’s voice drops into a stone-cold lucidity, an eerie, cold-blooded calm that only happened when Jason was dead serious. 

“I need you to get all the medical supplies out, set up that emergency gurney you have in the lab, we’re coming to you-” 

We? 

Did he say we?

Baymax is already moving, probably having a better awareness of the situation with his long range scanners. “I am detecting another biosignature besides Jason’s,” Baymax stated as they both made their way down to the basement, “Their vitals are not stable, a full diagnosis scan is needed to ascertain all the damage.” 

As the two of them set up, Peter pulling out bottles of disinfectant and rolls of bandages and setting them up on the main lab table, Baymax arranging a variety of tools on the other side and lowering the emergency gurney, Jason seemed to be talking to someone else. The channel was left open for them to hear. 

 “-It’s okay, everything's going to be okay. I’m here - Peter and Baymax are gonna make you feel better - Just hold on for a little longer-” 

Who was he talking to?

Peter can recall only one other person that Jason would use that tone of voice on, one person that could make words of affirmation fall out of his mouth like water. And that one person - Could it be - 

The basement exterior door is kicked open from the outside, and Jason’s footsteps could be heard descending the stairs. 

There’s the confusing cacophony of noise feedback now that the radios were near each other. Peter quickly switches his walkie-talkie off. 

Jason’s holding something in his arms. Someone. 

“-Oh my God.”

Chapter Text

“Her pulse is gone!” 

“Starting chest compressions.” 

Her hair is just how he remembered it, long, white like snow. It’s even longer now, her hair at least reaching her knees. Her skin is deathly pale, complexion ghastly, gaunt. She looked malnourished, more scars littering the surface. A majority looked to be  straight and purposeful incisions from various medical instruments, but the worst of them were a collection of Lichtenberg scars, branching outward like leaves of a fern from the area over her heart, like she had been struck by lightning. 

Inky black liquid coats his gloved hands. It's soaking his apron, leaving a heavy, strange reflective sheen that definitely wasn’t natural. The floor is covered in it. Sodden towels and rags everywhere. 

The black liquid seems to be a sort of substitute for her blood, metallic, Baymax had noted. Microscopic vision confirmed that her blood had been changed into something entirely else, the stored profile of her blood parameters differing from what was in front of them by nearly 79 percent. 

Fucking around with his niece. Peter grits his teeth in anger. 

The nanotechnology system designed by his sister, Tori. Signs of tampering, messing with the replication cycle. Someone was trying to turn her into a human production factory of nanomachines, trying to modify his little sister’s legacy. 

The urge to throw up returns. He suppresses it. 

“Jason! Stethoscope!” 

The man retrieves it in a flash. His face is blank, but his eyes betray the feeling of dread reflected in his own. 

“Pulse is reestablished.” 

Jason lets out a breath, but Peter’s still tense. There’s a very high chance that they might lose her again, there’s signs that she's bleeding out internally, he needs to work fast- where is it?!

He’s listening to her lungs as Baymax continues the chest compressions. His robotic arms aren’t shaking like he is, pushing down on her sternum in even beats. 

Peter’s probably swearing in three different no languages underneath his breath as he listens. There’s a crackling, rattling sound (His mind goes to popping popcorn, what the fuck? ) as he moves the diaphragm from the base to the upper part of her lungs. 

Baymax confirmed the feared conclusion, “X-rays are detecting a large amount of fluid in her lungs. She is not receiving enough oxygen -Jason, please retrieve the manual resuscitation mask - squeeze the bag in a steady rhythm-” 

He needs to think, find all the variables, possible factors, and produce a solution. What is available now? They needed to stop the bleeding-

Peter breathes sharply, his heart racing. 

The blood . The nanites. 

“There are a lot of different applications my nanomachines can be used for, especially in the area of medicine.” He can still remember Tori’s smile as she held her baby girl, “It’s gonna give her a good life, I’m sure of that.” 

He’s sure she would have freaked if she were alive to see what had been done to her little girl. Probably murder half the headquarter’s staff in Langley with some sort of mad science (and definitely illegal) chemical weapon. Something the Bishop siblings seemed to have inherited from their wacky crackpot father.

“Baymax, is the nanite transmission system still functioning? - we need to jumpstart them to - “ 

Baymax blinks, the robot knows what he’s thinking. “-The programming is currently corrupted, I am unsure if they would recognize my callsign -”

“-She’ll recognize it,” Peter interrupts, “Send them a directive, we need to stop -” 

“Done.” 

There’s an immediate reaction ( Fuck that’s fast, it’s never been that fast),  angular metallic veins appear all over her body,   her limbs jerk on the gurney, she’s taking in a ragged breath - 

- And instantly starts gagging. Jason pulls back the bag valve mask, and he’s rolling her onto her side. 

“What’s going on - is she - “ Jason asks hurriedly. “What do I do?!”

“She is attempting to expel the liquid in her lungs, you did well to move her into the recovery position - “

Baymax is cut off by haggard coughing, and they watch as she vomits, really vomits, like she’s puking her insides out. Jet black refuse poured from her mouth and onto the gurney, splattering as it hit the floor. Peter thinks he sees bits of red mixed with the tar-like liquid, Shit are those chunks of her organs?!

Now he really wants to throw up. 

Her entire body is trembling as her hacking dies down, the vomiting coming to a stop. She’s breathing. 

She’s breathing. 

There’s a whimper as she curls into herself, and both Jason and Peter are  moving, cradling her in their conjoined arms. 

She’s crying, Hell, they’re all crying. 

But from relief. They had their girl back, she was alive. 

Everything’s going to be okay…..

Chapter Text

“Master Dick, you’re  still awake at this hour?” 

Richard Grayson freezes from his spot in front of the famed crime-fighting supercomputer, thoughts racing through his head.

Oh crap, he’s made sure to sneak into the Batcave after he made sure that Bruce went to bed and crashed unconscious (Seriously, the man can crash hard when he’s tired enough).  

Looks like he miscalculated Alfie’s guerilla parenting though. 

“It’s rather late, now is the time to rest and be ready for the next day, not continue the nightly activities.” 

He twirled around in the office chair, a faux grin on his face as he maneuvered the backrest to block the butler’s view of what he’s been searching for. 

“Heeeeeeeeeyyyyy Alfie,” He gulps at the unamused look on Alfred’s face. “It’s late? Oh wow, look at the time! It is pretty late, guess I’ll get going now-” 

He quickly reaches to press a couple buttons on the Batcomputer to turn off what he’s been doing, pushing the notepad he had been writing his speculations on out of sight. He hops out of the chair, hiding the notepad behind his back. 

“Goodnight Alfie!-” 

“Master Dick.” Alfred calls out, making Dick stiffen from his retreat to Wayne Manor proper.

 “I can see that you’re trying to hide something, perhaps you should come forward with it.” Alfred frowns when Dick’s shoulders sag at his words, “is everything alright?”

No. 

“Stay away!” 

A recollection of Connor’s face in the aftermath. That helpless rage. It’s been more than a few weeks since. Connor still thinks she’s out there. 

It takes all his strength to keep the smile on his face from dropping, “I’m fine Alfie -” 

He’s searching, he’s searching for her. 

“ - just tired - ” A lump wells up in his throat, something in his head is pounding against the back of his eyeballs. 

So many bad things happen to  people who don’t deserve it, it sucks, and  he’s been told that’s how the world works, but that doesn’t mean nothing about it matters. That’s why he’s here. That’s why he’s Robin, to stop bad things from happening to good people, to help others in need and make a difference. 

“ -  heading to bed like you said-” His voice cracks, he tries to take a deep breath.He can feel his entire body trembling, and he clenches his fist to try to stop it. 

She can’t be dead, she can’t be gone. She has so much to live for, so much that she hadn’t done to experience life,  hadn’t done with the team, hadn’t done with him. She been trapped for so long, she deserves the world - It’s not fair, he tried so hard - why can’t he - HE WAS RIGHT THERE HE -

“There’s no need to hide your feelings, Master Dick,” Alfred’s voice says, and he feels his arms wrap around him in a gentle hug. Tears soak into the butler’s overcoat. 

Oh. He’s crying. When did that happen? 

“I was right-right there,” Dick feels himself start to sob. “I couldn’t d-do anything! She can’t be dead, I saw her! - I can’t just give up on her! She has to be out there, somewhere…”

Alfred doesn’t stop him from crying, letting the young teenager wail with grief, a silent and stalwart presence. His old eyes are filled with melancholy as they dart to the secluded figure near the entrance. 

Bruce gives his butler a nod. 

He knows. He understands what’s going on, and he’s also trying to process what has happened in Bialya. His own mistakes in thinking that the team was ready. That he didn’t arrive on time to stop it. That he wasn’t aware of the Light’s new ally. The new dangers they presented. 

And Zero. 

Zero didn’t deserve what had happened to her in CADMUS. None of it. Despite all that cruelty, despite the inhumanity of what she had been through - 

She hands the robbery victim a flower. A blue primrose. 

The baby in the mother’s arms coo at its beauty, and Zero tucks it behind their ear. The mother gives her a grateful smile as Zero retreats to the dark rooftops, coming to stand next to him and Robin and continue on their patrol. 

Zero was kind. Kind. 

He had given the young girl, the same age as his partner in crime fighting,  a chance to fight back, to exact moral retribution, to use her powers for good. 

But that chance had been her demise. 

There’s  a strong possibility that Zero - 

 Zero is  dead.

Chapter Text

“Jesus Jason! You scared the shit out of me…” 

It’s been a few weeks now, since Una came back to them.

 She’s been making a steady physical recovery, both Peter and Jason making sure that she doesn’t stress her wounds too much, and that she eats the proper diet, and making sure she rests after lunch. 

Mental recovery was an entirely different story. 

“Sorry,” Jason whispers from the dark, standing like a jumpscare actor in a haunted house in front of the door to Una’’s room, “I’m just worried that she might have another nightmare, you know, though she’s said she’ll be fine…I just wanted to be prepared…” 

Peter lets out a grunt of agreement, catching a glimpse of the book Jason’s holding under his arm. 

The Complete Brother Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Folklore.  

“-Yeah....Just don’t stand there  like that. I thought you were a robber  or something…” He mumbles. 

Una hasn’t spoken a word since she’s returned, resorting to gestures and writing to convey what she needed. She didn’t even do that that much, literally shoving herself to fetch whatever she needed when she’s not supposed to be on her feet. 

Holy crap,  did she have a high pain tolerance. Peter couldn’t begin to imagine what had been done to her to make her endure pain that would have made a fully grown adult scream and shit themselves before fainting. 

The only time they heard her speak was when she started talking in her sleep, during the throes of a nightmare. 

Peter sees Jason purse his lips in the pale moonlight from the hallway window. He knows that look on his face, when Jason wants to ask a question, but not sure if it’s alright to ask. It’s probably that dreaded question.

“...Want to say something?” Peter asks, steeling himself. 

Jason looks at him for a moment, an unreadable look in his eyes, “......What do you think…..happened to her out there?” 

Peter gulps. What the fuck does he say? What can he say?

“....I would like an honest answer, please.” Jason murmurs. “......Don’t say that I wouldn’t want to know. I do want to know.” 

Silence. Jason’s giving him a cold stare as he steepled his fingers to his chin, thinking. 

“.....It’s not pretty,” Peter finally answers, “Baymax had to work until his battery ran out, the scans ....She’s malnourished, she’s dehydrated, she got a lot of vitamin deficiencies, her lungs are messed up, the bronchi tissue been both punctured and burned, some of her nerves been shot, that Litchenberg  suggests that she’s been struck by a giant electrical discharge of some sort -“

“That’s not what I asked.” 

Jason’s eyes are narrow, Peter  can see his fists clenching. “I saw the file. There’s an autopsy scar. Someone’s been trying to open her up. There’s more. Isn’t there? Not like we thought.”

He hesitates. 

“........whoever’s got her been trying to extract the entire system, probably trying to reverse engineer it, but the programming in place would prevent it from being replicated outside the system. The procedure to remove it would kill her too, but Tori’s failsafe would stop her from fully dying, but it looks like whoever did it ....”

Peter takes a deep breath, “..... They figured they couldn’t remove it without losing the entire thing, so they just messed around with the processes that they could change - they probably extracted as much blood as they could so the system would produce more nanites to keep her alive. which explains the weird color of her blood,  so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they were harvesting the nanites - “

Jason’s jaw is set grimly, all the tension setting his body in a rigid stance. 

He chokes, “…..there’s also evidence that the implanted cardioverter-defibrillator has been activated. Several times. When her pulse drops and she starts to die, the shock would bring her back… It looks like they did it, over and over and over-” 

A scream, and both of them jump. 

Jason’s moving before Peter can blink, slamming open the door, Peter quickly following after him. 

Her bed is empty - his eyes burn as Jason turns on the lights. 

As his sight adjusts, he sees a flash of her long white hair under the baseboard of the bed ( It’s been said that monsters hang out under the bed. The real monsters walk around in daylight).

“Una! Una - It’s okay, you’re safe - “ 

He’s getting on his knees, keeping a good distance so as not to startle her. 

“- You’re at home, you’re not there .” 

A pause. There’s the sound of movement under the bed. 

“-It’s us, Dad and Papa, nothing’s gonna hurt you with us around, okay?  - I promise.” 

The floorboards creak as a pale hand reaches forward from underneath the bed frame. Blood red eyes stare at them from the darkness. (What was she thinking? What was going on in that head of hers? What could they do to help?) 

The remnants of Una’s nightmare always seemed to be imprinted behind her eyes, looking out at the world as if in a waking dream, a mix of disbelief, fear and trepidation combined. She kept rubbing the skin on her neck, as if she were a dog unused to not wearing a collar. As if she were expecting something to clamp around it any second. 

“Una?....” 

In  a blur, she’s throwing herself into Peter’s arms, shaking, tears staining her cheeks as she buries herself into his embrace. 

Another thing Peter noticed. 

“-Shhh, it’s okay - I got you, we got you, it’s okay…” 

Her crying was silent. The only sound was her heavy breathing and occasional hiccups. Nothing else. It disturbed him, that lack of noise. 

“Do you want to drink something?....” Jason asks softly. 

She shakes her head, he can still feel her shaking. 

Jason’s holding a cup of warm chamomile tea, something he remembers helped with her nightmares before. It doesn’t look like she wanted to have any at the moment, and he takes a step to set it on the nightstand. 

Jason pauses. 

“Jay?” 

The man picks up something. 

A mauve faux leather cover bound around thick mixed media paper, traces of spilled ink on its surface. 

Her old sketchbook. 

The pages fall open as he pulls the article free, and he freezes at the images etched onto the parchment. They’re recent. Days. 

“Una……Did you…..draw these?...” 

He feels her stiffening in his arms as Jason brings over the old sketchbook, looking at him expectantly. 

Some pages were  just a black mess, jagged lines of a ballpoint pen scoring itself into the paper, scratchy scattered contours that vaguely resemble screaming human faces, others his brain would latch onto enough recognizable features  to see bleeding eyes and unhinged jaws. 

Later pages, the more recent ones - 

He could see Jason’s eyes widen in horror. 

Precise, detailed drawings, definite and grotesque lines gouged into the paper pad. Illustrations that were pure nightmare fuel. (Were these her own Nightmares?)

A middle aged woman, her toothy smile split down the middle, the lower half of her skull parting to make way for a cluster of extending jet-black growths from where her mouth used to be. One of her eyes dangled from a splintering socket, rows of ballpoint ink  spires fruiting along her neck and back. 

A man, laying in pieces on his back, stomach depicted to have been split open to make way for a gelatinous sack that he could almost imagine violently pulsating within the pen strokes. His limbs had been pushed out of place by innumerable, tar colored flagella that seemed to lash out furiously along his side. 

A marginally human form, a terrified face frozen in fear that was pulled away from its skull as rows upon rows of tooth-like mandibles emerged from its cranium. Along the body, its spine extended into a new shape beyond the flesh, dozens of sclerites blossomed at the end of this growth. 

More distorted humanoid figures, galloping on all fours as if reaching out toward the viewer, jet-black ink spilling from scratched out eyes and mouths on  heads that swung at the ends of spindly necks.

At some points, the drawings didn’t resemble humans anymore, just jumbled masses of limbs, teeth, and faces with little coherence, combined with avian, canid, and invertebrate structures at random. 

Una nods in response to his question. Hesitant, but a confirmation. 

“Is that what you see in your dreams?” Jason whispers to her. 

There’s a moment of silence, and Una’s wiping away her tears.

 Her mouth opens, “I-” She coughs. Another whimper as Peter rocks her back and forth. 

“......I -I did bad things….” Her brittle voice murmurs. 

His heart drops. That had to be the first thing she’s said in weeks. 

“......They - They wanted me to - to make monsters…They kept trying to perfect it….”She shivers, gathering the blanket he draped on her shoulders around her neck. “.....I killed people……..I-I killed them. ” 

He could feel his heart pound in his ears as she started to cry again. A surge of burning anger simmered in the pit of his stomach, his clenched fists carving gouges into his palms. 

“Una,” Peter says gently, “…..It’s not your fault. Those people, the ones that took you - they're the ones who made you do it. Them. Okay?” 

Jason makes eye contact with him, his lips pursed. 

Peter nods. He wants to know too. It wasn't just human trafficking. Not anymore. 

“And Una….” He starts, “…who’s they?”

Chapter Text

Her hands are frail and cautious, shaking gently as she reaches for the hot tea. In her movements were so much of the little girl he knew she was and still is. They were ashen where the light caught them, not ghostly like a dead person, just subdued and grayish. 

She doesn’t reply. She’s staring at the steam, blinking. She has that distant look in her eyes, the one he saw in the mirror nearly every day. 

Jason’s thinking, his mind is racing. 

They. 

This extended beyond the local gang - that Jason and Peter already knew. The trail they'd been following for years - already? - jumped from region to region and different rings made of disgusting people. The last link they've been stuck on was a group that peddled organs and organ removal - then it went cold. 

He scrambled to comprehend what they meant. Whatever, whoever,  they were a group, probably some people in high places who had access to local law enforcement and high authority in the goings-on of government R & D. 

Jason could still remember, remember that moment unlike any other memory of anything before he was taken out of the Mediterranean. 

After being hunted for weeks by all sorts of people with lethal intentions, people who kept saying things like they knew him but they resembled nothing but strangers in Jason’s mind. People that were a part of a past he didn’t remember. 

Jason could only think of one thing, one person, who had thrown all sorts of covert ops groups and warrants for his arrest before he went to confront the man himself. 

He said to leave him alone, that what he used to be is dead. That he wanted out of whatever thing he used to be involved in, this Treadstone Operation . 

That man, Conklin.  The harsh green eyes, the rigid glare, the drawn wrinkles of five decades of getting his way and ordering people (Including Jason, he was some sort of handler, in Treadstone. Like Jason was a dog.) around to follow his authority. That man. Somehow, he was linked to Tori’s murder, to the ones chasing Peter. 

That night in Paris, holding a gun to that man’s head. 

“We can’t just let you go, Bourne!...”

“That'll be your second worst mistake.”  

Jason had that moment to kill him, bury a lead pellet into his skull. One pull of a trigger and another life would be snuffed out by his hand. 

Instead, Jason spared him, giving Conklin a look. 

 That moment, your life was in my hands. I chose mercy, unlike you .  

Was that his mistake? Trusting that man to keep his word? 

Because now…

Clinical. Clean. Precise. That's what Jason saw in the files - whoever they were knew what they wanted and had plenty of resources to make several attempts to get to it. 

Carefully, reverently, he closed the sketchbook, the chilling figures entombed onto the paper staring at him with their hollow eyes. Looking at them for too long made him feel sick, and he was sure Peter was thinking the same thing from how he tried to avoid eye contact with distorted bodies depicted in the jagged lines. It was almost as if her hands were shaking as she drew it. 

 (He used to have a notebook too, in the medicine cabinet of the master bedroom bathroom. He used to  write down what his nightmares were about. They were about memories of a life he doesn’t remember.)

  “We write them down because sooner or later, you’ll remember something good.” 

 He stopped writing in it when Una was taken. He knew then what his nightmares were about. They were all about her. 

They. 

“....I don’t know….” Her breath twists the rising steam, “....there were a lot of people, they wanted to see if they could be……the first.”

Peter bit his lip, rubbing her back in comforting circles. “...The first?”

“.....The first to solve the defect.” 

She responds plainly, like she was removed from her memories. Like she was parroting something she heard many times. 

“........Project Prometheus…they called me Ground Zero……..The virus…they didn’t like that-that they couldn’t control it…..Kept trying-”

She shuddered, falling silent, Peter letting her rest her head against his chest. The two share a look between them. 

“Una….” Jason whispers, “you did nothing wrong- you stayed strong, you got out -“

“-and you’re here now,” Peter continues, “That’s all that matters.”

Chapter Text

“Robin?....What are you doing in Zero’s room?” 

Conner narrowed his eyes as the Boy Wonder froze, gloved hand hovering over the contents of an opened bedside drawer. 

The team had been given a certain amount of “off time,” as Black Canary kindly put it. She then offered her company in case the team needed someone to talk to. 

What she didn’t say was the reason, but it was clear. 

His super hearing could detect Robin’s increased heart rate as he turned to face Conner, a guilty simper on his face. “Oh, uh, sorry Superboy - I got a little lost-” He stopped at the unimpressed look Conner gave him, “- Okay nevermind.”

Robin rubbed the back of his neck nervously as Conner crossed his arms, “....I was trying to find clues. About Zero.” He gulps when Conner sucks in a breath at her name. 

“Zero?” His fists are clenched now. He’s been replaying Robin’s account of what had happened over and over in his head for the past however long it’s been.  

Time seemed to have come to both a stop and an infinite spiral with her gone. 

“What do you mean?” Conner hissed quietly, “Do you have an idea of how to find her?”

He couldn’t help the feeling of hope leaking through his voice, no matter how hard he tried to squash it. One would think that getting shot by a weapon capable of killing Superman was something no one could come back from. 

But Zero. 

Zero was stubborn. 

Zero was strong. 

The limits of her powers, what they could do, weren’t really questioned like his was. That left a lot of things undetermined, a lot of surprises that have been discovered, and should have continued to be discovered. 

 There had to be a chance -

Robin’s shoulders sagged, “……Sort of. It’s mostly speculation, I’m just trying to find out more that nanotechnology she’s been ‘vided with- “ 

“-You could have asked me,” Conner cut in, “Not sneak into her room. I know her best.” 

There was a grimace, and Robin squared his shoulders, “...Sometimes with stuff like this you need someone who’s whelmed…Outside perspective.” He stated, turning back to his inspection of her room, “I’ve also been thinking about how she absorbed the energy from that prototype weapon, I wanted to look more into the graviton beam emitter specs and other things but -” 

He sighed, “Bats caught me trying to look into the files on the Batcomputer. It has most of of the data I need compiled on it -”

“Couldn’t you just hack into it?” Conner questioned, but Robin was already shaking his head. 

“Batman taught me how to hack,” Robin replied, “Hard to backhack the person who knows what you’re gonna do before you do it.” 

“....” 

The sound of Robin’s heart thudded in his ears. Fast. He’s nervous, and Robin  was right to be. 

Conner had made it a point to not interact with the Bat Protogé since the mission to Bialya; he could feel that fiery gut-twisting feeling rising in his gut when he looked at Robin, the desire to punch something growing stronger with every second spent in his presence. 

Conner knew that it wasn’t right to blame Robin for Zero’s disappearance, it’s like being angry at water for being wet. It was a desperate situation, they were fighting enemies on all sides, too many things happening at once, they couldn’t have predicted that - 

But he couldn’t help the feeling of rage and grief boiling inside him. 

“What do you need?” Conner asked after a moment of no words spoken. “You want to know more about her nanomachines, right?” 

Robin nods, slowly. He’s hesitant. Conner - Zero - Doesn’t need someone that hesitates. 

Conner jerks his chin to his own room in the Young Justice Headquarters. “She gave me something a while ago,” He murmurs, “I never really used it, but she made it from something called nanofibres, could that help?” 

Robin’s face brightened, “Yeah, that could help! I’ve been looking into some studies regarding biological organisms emit electromagnetic waves at a unique frequency, by some phenomenal scientist called Walter Bishop, one of my ideas was thinking I could track her using that frequency-” 

Robin rambles on, and for a moment, Conner allows himself to think that he’s making headway. 

It’s going to be okay. 

We’ll find you, Zero.

Chapter Text

“Jason.” 

Jason looks up from his mug of coffee, a cold look in his eyes that matches his lukewarm coffee (He hasn’t even taken a sip. It’s been ten minutes. It’s gone cold). Although Jason was looking at Peter directly, he got the distinct feeling that they were focused on something far away. Something only he could see. 

Peter could take a guess at what he’s thinking. 

“Hm?” 

It had taken a few hours or so to have Una calm down enough to fall back asleep, and even then her  sleep was fitful, her entire body relaxing only for minutes at a time. If either of them moved, or as much as started to breathe differently, she would go on full alert mode.

At some point she was so tired that she couldn’t stay awake, and she slept like a log.  

“Penny for your thoughts?” Peter asks quietly, settling in the rickety chair across from Jason. 

A flicker of mirth. 

 Jason looks less like the French Le Penseur now, and more like himself. This was familiar territory between the two. A code developed over the time of being together, a way to throw out that buoy if either of them were lost at sea. 

“Sorry,” Jason murmurs into his cup, the corners of his eyes crinkling (Thank God, Jason’s not in too deep), “My thoughts are a dollar apiece.” 

Peter smiles, “Guess you’re gonna have to be charitable,” He responds as Jason takes a sip of his coffee, frowning when he tastes the cold brew. 

Jason sighs, pushing the mug away from him. 

“.....I’ve been thinking about what happened with…” He hesitates, running a hand through his hair. “...With Conklin. Treadstone.” 

“That he’s behind this?” Asks Peter, leaning back against the chair. “...I’ve been doing some research on my own, I don’t think he’s got enough resources to do…” He waves a hand, “....What happened to her…It would have taken a lot more money, and a lot of influence in  the freelance scientific research and development community.” 

Jason raises an eyebrow, “Freelance? Doesn’t the CIA maintain their own R&D?” 

“Yeah, but they’re not part of a corporation that sells to consumers to make revenue,” Peter replies, “The CIA needs investors and US taxes to make the funds, and there would be a fluctuation in terms of budgeting, and at least provide a framework of what their next project’s gonna be about - Private Businesses can cut around that and go straight into it…”

Peter puts his head in his hands, “- But that doesn’t rule out any  participation from any illegal clandestine government operations - My head’s fucking hurting just mapping it all out…”

Jason puts a hand on Peter’s arm, and he stops rambling, letting Jason rub comforting circles on his bicep. 

He sighs, “....What I’m trying to say is,” Peter looks up at Jason.  

“-It’s not your fault, okay? You did what’s right ....” 

Jason looks at him for a moment, a painful vulnerability in his eyes that makes Peter’s breath catch in his throat. He reaches out, and lets his hand run through the blond’s hair. 

“….Thank you,” Jason whispers, and for the first time in a long time (Peter can count on one hand the amount of times Jason let his guard down. Those four years of searching and returning had been hard.) Jason relaxes, closing his eyes and leaning into his touch.

And Peter felt him sinking back to Earth. 

He didn’t particularly know how long they just sat there, watching the rising sun and basking in each other’s presence. 

But it must have been a pretty long time, the thing to knock the two out of their collective idleness was the sound of a pair of footsteps coming down the stairs. 

“Good morning to you both,” Baymax greeted, one hand resting on Una’s shoulder, “I believe Una would like to help prepare breakfast.”

As if on cue, there was the growl of a stomach, and Una buried her reddening face into Baymax’s squishy side. 

“My hypothesis is confirmed,” His optics narrowed, “Appetite stimulant: ghrelin detected, you are hungry, Una. You cannot deny that.”

Peter laughed, something about how Baymax used his voice modulator to stress his points was just so fucking   funny. 

“Alright Birdy, let’s make breakfast. What foodstuffs help with your iron levels?….”

Chapter Text

Zero had flowers she liked. 

“M’gann…..” 

She had a little pot of it in the kitchen of the Cave. 

“Primula Acaulis. That’s the scientific name of it - but I like calling them zebra blues.” 

Conner remembered the first day she planted them. It confused him to see her excited over it. 

“It’s just a plant.” 

“-You’re watering them too much.”

“I know.”  

Conner had no idea how she got her hands on the seeds or the materials - but she always came up with a whole bunch of random stuff from her workshop that Batman set aside for her. 

“...It just makes me feel better to know that I can still do things like this… despite…..” 

She shrugs. Looks at her dirt-stained hands. 

“Everything.” 

He regularly joined her on trash raids behind hardware stores in Happy Harbor, scouring the beaches, looking for scrap metal and other crap that she would stick inside this machine in her workshop that worked like a fancy 3d printer. 

So far, he’d seen a wide variety of things come out of this thing that Zero had seemingly whipped out overnight. Robin and Wally would always be excited to see it in it's process of making stuff like Robin’s Batarangs to Wally’s goggles. 

With the lack of natural sunlight in the Cave, she whipped out a customized sunlamp and set both of them up on the counter near the sink.  

“Oh - I am?” M’gann smacks herself on the forehead as he takes the little pot away from her, “Hello Megan! I’m sorry - They looked like they were thirsty….”

Taking the water tray out from under the pot, Conner watches the plant droop as it drains in the kitchen sink. The stems were floppy with the consistency of overcooked spaghetti, the vibrant blue of the petals sporting wrinkles and brown spots, the leaves yellow. 

“-See? The floppy things are  little yellow and they’re mushy -” 

M’gann goes to touch one of the leaves as if to demonstrate - 

“Don’t,” He snaps, raising a hand to block her before he knows what he’s doing. 

She freezes. 

He can hear the thud of M’gann’s heart - the same way Robin’s did. 

Afraid.

“You need to control your temper, Conner - You’re jeopardizing the Team,”  Black Canary’s voice echoes in his head. 

Conner closes his eyes. Takes a breath. 

“...Sorry,” He mumbles, gripping the counter, trying to control his strength so he doesn’t end up cracking the quartz countertop,”Just…I’ll take care of it.” 

Silence. 

 “Okay.” 

M’gann leaves without another word. 

He puts the pot back onto the tray, sliding it back under the sunlamp. 

Robin better be making progress with his plan.

Chapter Text

“Dad?….” 

Jason looks up from his plate, a meal of scrambled eggs with a light touch of cheese, sauteed spinach with garlic cloves, whole grain toast. (Good sources of iron, Una still remembered Peter’s homeschooling about nutrition .) 

He found Una’s red eyes staring at him from behind her bangs. ( They should probably cut her hair soon, its length was probably very inconvenient to manage.) 

“Hm?” Jason quickly swallows and wipes his mouth with his napkin, “Yes Una?” 

She twirls her fork in one hand,  eyes returning to her meal.  ( Her motor control has gotten better, which is an improvement.)

“-Can you teach me how to fight?” 

Jason chokes. 

Peter reached forward to give him some firm pats on the back as he coughed. 

“-Fight?” He splutters, Una regarding him with alarm as he gathers his breath. “What-” 

“You keep an automatic under your pillow, a semi in your boots along with a karambit,” She continues, “The shotgun in the basement isn’t for animals, and the ammunition isn’t for show.” 

Jason and Peter glance at each other. Fuck. 

“...You know how to use them, Dad. I want to know too.” 

He learned how to read into how Una was feeling through the subtle inflections in her words, the way she looked at her surroundings. If  she was feeling nervous, she would look away, eyes darting to the nearest exit, her voice would crack. If she was feeling happy, she would bounce in place, her eyes would shine and talk as if words couldn’t come out fast enough. 

(A particular memory of her  weeping when a Blue Jay broke its wing after it flew headlong into the kitchen window came to mind. She learned how to splint wing bones overnight.)

When was the last time he saw her smile?

“...I can’t -We - ” 

The look in her eyes scared him, the way she held herself scared him. 

“You're not a liar, are you?” 

He swallows. 

"We can't start there - " he says finally.  

Una sets down her fork. He feels a hand on his shoulder - Peter. 

The problem isn't a gun at all and they all know it. 

Then, "Una. You don't have to--"

“I do.” She says, staring straight into his eyes, unwavering, “If something bad happens again - I can't be a liability anymore.” 

Fuck. 

“Please.” 

Both Jason and Peter blink.

Liability. 

He'd buy her safety with his life if he could; he can't.

B itter. 

That seemed to be the more suitable word for his anger, this feeling he felt at the world, for those who pledged to protect it, at how things came to this so his family could survive whatever sick intentions those in charge had. 

The two men glance at each other. Peter shrugs his shoulders, looking uneasy, but he doesn’t seem opposed to the request.

Jason bites his lip, thinking. 

His own skills, he doesn’t remember clearly how he got them, where they came from, why they're so ingrained into his instincts. 

He remembered trying things, trying to figure out what all the things he could do so that he could fit it into the puzzle that was his missing memories after Peter saved him from drowning at sea. 

But then strange things started happening. 

At that bank deposit in Zurich, he found over half a dozen different passports. Over a million dollars in cash. And a glock with a silencer. 

He knew how to use a gun, he fought his way out of an embassy with armed guards, he scaled a fifty-foot wall without losing breath, he decked a pair of night-partolmen, and he just did. 

He had an inkling of how his skills came to be. 

" You're U.S. Government property! You're a malfunctioning $30 million weapon! You're a total goddamn catastrophe, and by God, if it kills me, you're going to tell me how this happened! "

Under the table, his fists clenched. He’s worked hard to get to where he is now, and he’s not going to lose it like he did four years ago. 

If teaching their little girl something he had vowed to protect her from was what it took - 

“Okay. We'll wait until you get better - then we'll start at the basics, okay?” 

A pause. Both of them are staring at him. 

Una’s eyes  are wide, and she nods slowly, respectfully. “……..Thank you.”

Chapter Text

Zero had a weirdly endearing relationship with birds.

Whenever she went outside, at least three to five of them would be waiting, following her whenever they went on team outings, even joining them on the rooftops during patrol. She packed snacks that were bird safe in her utility belt, and would feed them whenever she got the chance, talking to them like friends - sometimes actively helping her when crimefighting. 

“I guess it matches the bird theme, huh Sparrow?” 

Sparrow. 

That was the moniker she chose for herself. 

He couldn’t help but think she had him in mind when she decided on it - it made him feel giddy on the inside when he thought about it. Made him feel like he’s flying when they jump from rooftop to rooftop together, a murder of Gotham’s resident crows gliding alongside them. 

And Zero’s good. She wanted to save everyone  - 

“...People need second chances - not because they deserve it. It’s to give people a chance to make things better.” 

And Dick remembered the look on Killer Croc’s face when Zero told Batman not to put Waylon back in Arkham. 

“At least do a thorough personnel check of the staff and those who have access to the patients - There’s been a pattern of federal agents visiting some.” 

Which made looking for her all the more crucial - but Batman had other plans in mind. 

“...I’m sorry - but Zero is gone - ” 

Zero is not gone. 

“-There is an unknown threat working behind the scenes, we need to do our duty - “ 

What was the point of Robin if he couldn't help look for her? When she needed him?

“...Now is not the time, Robin.” 

“The crows aren’t here,” Robin remarks from his spot atop his favorite gargoyle. 

Batman grunts over the coms, the - Focus on the mission - grunt. 

“...You know, the crows that always followed Zero around?” Robin continues, grinning at nothing “At some point Zero taught them to pick up needles - That’s probably the reason why drug use’s been going down -” 

“You’re distracted, Robin,” Batman grunts over the coms, “Head to the Diamond District. There’s been a break in at the Gotham branch of STAR Labs.” 

Robin clenches his fists, but he readies his grapple gun. 

Hopefully Batdad doesn’t know what he’s been doing in his spare time.

Chapter Text

“Jay! Baymax found her!” Peter shouts over his shoulder. 

Baymax spins his head in a whole 180 degrees to face him - and the lenses of his eyes narrow, and Peter curses himself as Jason’s hurried footsteps are heard approaching the dimly lit kitchen. 

 That was Baymax’s nonverbal cue to ‘desist current activity’ - or to just shut the fuck up. 

“Is she okay?’ Jason bursts into the kitchen, “- Is she hurt? Where-” 

He quickly shuts his mouth when Peter shakes his head, hands moving to splay his palms flat over his chest and pushing out in a silent gesture. 

Panic. Stand back. 

Jason pursed his lips and nods, his hands twitching like he was suppressing the urge to get into a fighting stance - an instinct that Peter had witnessed during moments of stress, as if his body was expecting violence to happen at any second. 

“...I’m always ready for something - but I can’t remember….”

Peter takes a moment to put a hand on his shoulder - softly, fingertips barely grazing the fabric of the old MIT sweater that Jason had probably stolen from his own wardrobe. 

(He didn’t really care about that. All of their clothing had been mixed up to the point they just had a communal dresser.) 

Jason's posture relaxes, but only slightly - then a shudder goes through the both of them as another sob could be heard from the kitchen cabinet. Baymax’s volume output had been lowered - but he could still hear his ‘benign bedside manner’ voice speaking softly.  

“You are okay, you are safe.”

“No one here will hurt you.” 

“Take your time - Breathe, inhale deeply and exhale slowly…” 

“.....Una, You are never an inconvenience.” 

Una needs the sleep to help her body rest - as far as he could understand about her anatomy, the cortisol levels from stress would wear down on recovery. 

Good, restful sleep was critical, and perhaps being in her old room would help -  CPAP machine to improve her airway circulation. Surrounded by familiarity and safety - and just across the hall from his and Jason’s shared bedroom. She would always be welcome to crawl into their bed anytime she felt the need. 

But it turns out he was wrong.  

Jason had taken to checking on her in the middle of the night, almost compulsively, but after making sure she was soundly asleep he would come back to bed. 

And he would sleep like a log - the best rest he’d probably ever had in years. 

But then this time - 

“Una?!” 

Jason’s panicked shout. 

“She’s gone!” 

The sheets are on the floor where he shoved them off to jump out of bed before he was fully awake to process the entirety of what was happening.

(The clock on the nightstand says 2:31 am) 

Breathing fast, fighting off the rising panic as he and Jason started to make a sweep of the house - where was Una?! - wondering if she was hurt, had run off, taken - 

“Any sign of a break in?!” 

“No - no - I don’t see any-”

Jason went to inspect the perimeter of the house while Peter continued to search the interior - 

The commotion had stimulated Baymax out of his sleep mode, and the robot went to immediately knock some coherence into his sleep-addled brain - using the bioscanners that could literally pick out one person out of a city’s worth of people with just their medical profile. 

(Tori had designed those, he remembered - along with the basic code for Baymax’s personality and function. Part of one of her ‘brain barf’ file dumps onto the Cryptid Spotter website they used to secretly communicate.  Always wanted to get her thoughts down on an idea before her mind got occupied with something else.) 

“Your fathers are very worried about you…..” 

A mumble. 

“There’s nothing to apologize for. Do you want to see them?” 

Baymax’s white torso blocked most of his field of vision, but he could see a flicker of movement, and the robot was pulling away from the cabinet, carrying Una in his arms. 

Baymax answers his unsaid questions in a lowered timbre. “Her vitals are normal - She is alright. She just wants to be held. No questioning.” 

Both him and Jason let out a breath of relief as Una reached for him, burying her face into his shoulder as soon as she was in his arms. 

“Got it - Thanks Baymax.”

Chapter Text

Robin remembered, while perusing the Cadmus database as he was hacking into the more secure networks - many of the different specimens and prototypes listed all had the same foundation. 

Project Prometheus - Subject: Ground Zero

The basic outline was that this project subject produced the "bonding agent" as to which enabled all other projects. The meaning of "enabled" was something that went over his head at the time - but he learned. 

"I have a sister here - we’re getting her out too.”

Conner - Then SuperBoy - had insisted. If they wanted his cooperation - they had to release someone else. 

”She’s been here a lot longer than I have - last time I saw her…..”

He had shuddered. Superboy, clone of the Metropolis Marvel and 'I don't have heat vision so I supposed I'll help you' had shuddered like a spooked mouse. 

"We'll get her out of here. Don't worry Superboy," Kaldur had reassured him. "Lead the way." 

Robin remembered, as they went deeper into the secret base of Cadmus, that the amount of space dedicated to Project Prometheus and its many subjects was nearly twice as large compared to what he had seen so far. And a near quarter of the space was sealed off.

"Sector A1," Superboy had murmured, like he was reciting something memory, "Biohazard quarantine - thirty rotations ago." 

"Quarantine?! Should we be worried about that?!" 

"I'm not." 

Later, Robin had asked Superboy what he meant by rotations. 

"That's how we tracked the time - the rotation of shifts between the guards...We didn't really have a clock down there. Or a Calendar." 

The security hatches got tougher and tougher the closer they got to the core of Project Prometheus - and at the same time, did the many subjects of Project Prometheus become more and more gruesome. 

"Dude - look! Fish!" 

One memorable moment was when they all passed a tank seemingly filled with fish - Angler fish to be specific - all swimming, half spasming, rather jerkily. Something about them was very wrong. Deeply wrong.

And a few moments of staring at the seemingly deep-sea "fish"....

"KF - That's not fish. " 

- did the details finally snap into place. 

The "face" of it was a human face. The "jaws" was a human skull split wide at the mandible - the toothy protrusions was nothing by shards of sharpened bone, eyes degenerated holes. The fins were really bony hands that grasped at nothing. 

"-Oh fuck!" 

The files he had managed to download showed that Cadmus had - in that particular attempt - had tried using this "bonding agent" to make some sort of fish-human hybrid, like a "make-it-yourself" Atlantean. Just basically putting the human and fish DNA as a base into a blender with the "bonding agent" and hoping for the best.....

"Quiet!" Superboy had hissed at Wally's outburst, "You'll wake them up...." 

"-Them? There's more of those things?" 

His question got answered soon enough in the next chamber - full of darkened tanks that had FAILURE blinking across all the monitors. 

"Don't make eye contact. That bothers them." 

"Make eye contact with wha-" 

Robin had been interrupted by an earsplitting shriek from Wally - said speedster almost leaping into his arms with one shaking hand raised. 

"Dude! What-" 

To this day, the sound of wet snapping of bone and the smack of flesh against the polycarbonate glass haunted his dreams. And the face - faces - that accompanied that.

Thank God - only the emergency lights were on. 

Whatever it was - It had enough distinct features to show that it used to be.

Two legs - An upper body - A face - and holy shit there's two people in that thing. 

The one upper body he saw were actually two. Bloated, with swollen, twisted blood vessels standing out and pulsing underneath the skin, pustules oozing black liquid; The black pustules and the bloating encasing the arms and fusing the two torsos together. 

The "head" - looked like it was sitting on a broken neck - the eyes were pretty much nonexistent and the face was frozen in a perpetual scream.

Another smack. 

The thing had been banging its head against the walls of its enclosure. 

"Damn it - " Superboy groaned, "Keep moving - and don't look!" 

Robin distinctly remembered the increasing amount of movement out of the corner of his eye - more sounds of things slamming against the glass walls as he dragged Wally beside him - the feeling of several eyes watching him from the other side of that glass as he resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. 

And the screaming. 

God - It sounded human. Something about those screams sent shivers down his spine. Like all of those things were gargling glass and choke-screaming, straining their diaphragms into nonexistence. 

The "them" as it turned out - were the things with human DNA as a base. 

Cadmus is screwed up. 

"In here." 

The final door took the combined effort of both Superboy and Kaldur to open, and that was after disabling the lock and finagling with security measures on the pistons that moved the door and its connected power source - Robin eventually gave up after a glare and a "aren't you finished yet" from the Boy of Steel.

There was a singular pod inside the housing Ground Zero - More security measures in place, and Robin was sure he saw emergency compartments full of shrapnel producing ordinance and frag grenades. The emergency lights only served to illuminate the metal barriers preventing them from seeing the contents of the pod. 

Or were they protecting them from the contents? 

"Can you open it?"

Robin would like to say that he didn't hesitate to release Zero from her confines - being the hero he is - but he took a little time looking into her files. 

The brief snippets of the files with Project Prometheus headings repeated over and over in his head - always at the worst moments. 

Subject: Ground Zero extraction of nanomaterial scheduled -------- 

Extraction 23A: Subject cardiovascular system failed (mark: This is a repeating phenomenon) ------ successfully resuscitated by antecedent implanted cardiac defibrillator ----- 

Attempted biopsy failed to obtain the entirety of the nanotechnology system ---- Extra measures taken to ensure full cooperation - Restraint implement secured around cervical region of spine ----- 

He remembered feeling horrified - especially when he finally opened it and saw what was inside.

Chapter Text

She's walking. Mud squelches underneath her feet. Rain beats against the top of her head. 

Her body would still responded to stimulus despite the amount of anesthetic they would pump into her. It was barely anything more than a twitch, but it was enough movement that it would be deemed necessary strapped down. 

Sometimes.

Run. 

Sometimes. 

She feels like she's still stuck under the bright lights of the operating theater. 

She feels like she's supposed to remember more. Know more - about something. Someone.

But she doesn't remember. 

Maybe that’s a mercy. (She wouldn’t know. It doesn’t feel particularly merciful, but she doesn’t know)

It feels like - 

She's running. Pulled along - Where? 

Who?

She's running.

When did she start running? 

Every breath she takes is agony. Is she breathing? 

In – the sharp scraping of cold air down her throat. 

Out – the warm, wet taste of decay from inside her own lungs, settling behind her teeth and under her tongue. 

Is she even breathing - or is it just pain? 

She wants to stop breathing running.

Her pulse should be pounding in her ears. She isn’t sure she has one.

She can’t scream.

But she tells her body to stop moving and it won’t listen. Like all her muscles were locked in constant movement. 

Where is she going? Where is she running towards? What is she running from? 

Up. Go up. 

She ascends. 

And she launches herself upward, toes gripping the rough bark, ignoring the tearing of stitches, new cuts appearing on her hands and feet. 

There is a recollection somewhere, a long forgotten muscle memory of running, climbing (just like this) with better, cleaner air burning in her lungs and a heartbeat in her chest.

She sucks in air.

(It tastes-)

Chokes.

A violent shudder runs through her body, trying to reject the taste lingering on her tongue, behind her teeth –

She stops. 

There's no where else to climb to. 

She stops.

She's bleeding from the little cuts and reopened nicks - it's black. Like contaminated engine oil. Or tar. 

At some point, her blood used to be red.

It used to flow and dry and peel away - like normal. She could cut her hand and she knew she was human. 

Now it’s black. 

She's not even sure if she could call it blood anymore.

It didn't flow, it crawled.

It didn't dry -it would harden.

She could still feel it - slithering through her veins and arteries - ripping through phospholipid bilayers of human cells - 

Apoptosis.

Trial 38B - flails as his abdomen explodes from the inside. His intestines wrap around his own neck as he screams - 

A snap of bone. 

"Another failure," the director murmurs as entrails continue to curl around what is left of the man's body, tendrils of smooth muscle smacking against the glass. 

The branch wobbles dangerously beneath her feet.

Not dangerously - dangerously would mean there was a risk to life and how can that be possible when she's  it's already dead? Her body's gone cold, her pulse is nonexistent, she's a corpse - a walking corpse. 

She's not even human anymore. 

"A machine isn't alive - and neither is it." 

Why is she here?

"Despicable. Masquerading as a little girl." 

Dad. 

“Una….”

THAT'S NOT ME

"you did nothing wrong- you stayed strong, you got out -“

Papa. 

“-and you’re here now,” 

NO - SHE DIED A LONG TIME AGO.

"That’s all that matters.”

Baymax. 

"You are never a burden." 

She is. Always will be - 

What do they want from her? The little girl's dead. She died the first time her heart stopped beating. The first time her systolic blood pressure dropped below 95mm H/g as they withdrew as much as they could - (FAILURE FAILURE FAILURE - can't get it right, ERROR ERROR ERROR)   

You should hate me. You need to hate me. 

I hate me. 

‘I'm not her,’ she wants to say, but when she opens her mouth, expels a breath to form the words, the only thing that comes out is a wail.

It conveys the sentiment just fine. There is no reply.

She cries quietly. 

It's always like this - Inside the glass cage. 

"It's ability at human mimicry is impeccable....How worrying." 

Once she’s started, it’s hard to stop. Infinitely difficult to make herself do anything but curl into herself and shake, and cry. The rhythm of her breathing – previously thought to be unfaltering – falls apart just like the rest of her.

She can't tell if there are any tears to accompany the sounds she's making. (Does it even count as crying if there aren’t tears?) Her vision is as clear as ever – she hates it (it feels wrong), puts her hands over her face to cover it. The illusion of blindness is close enough; it has to be.

They would cover her face. Staff complained that seeing the subject cry was a distressing work environment. 

It does not occur to her to question why she knows that crying impairs one’s vision. Why she knew a breathing body should be warm. If she were alive, and her brain more than a mess reanimated neurons and long dead organs, she might have been able to.

(She isn’t. Therefore, she cannot)

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Chapter Text

Earlier, all the other staff of the Gotham CSI were moving back and forth, taking pictures and placing markers. They had cleared out when Batman and Robin arrived, giving the floor to them as they secured the rest of the Star Labs building. 

Robin hears Batman and Commissioner Gordon conversing as he slowly surveys the crime scene. 

"What do we have so far?" 

"A security guard was killed, the surveillance cameras disabled, and uh-" 

"-Other than the obvious, Jim." 

The "obvious" was the corpse - not the one of the security guard. 

It was the one stuck in the wall. 

"-We still running ID on the guy, but we're guessing he's one of the perps -" 

The body looked liked on of those surreal sculptures of a man passing through solid rock that he heard constantly scared the crap out of tourists in the catacombs of Paris. Something something Le Passe-muraille. 

But that was a sculpture.

This....

“-And that one of his buddies decided to get rid of him.”

The man was middle aged, graying hair, dark eyes, body frozen in a M'gann got stuck mid-density shift in a wall of the Cave pose. Zero came up with some gadget that helped her be unstuck - but it looked like this guy wasn't as lucky since - 

A bullet hole was square in the middle of his forehead, the impact spatter from the gunshot painting the concrete he was mired in. 

From what Robin could gather from hearsay and observation - the wall the man was stuck in was made of steel-reinforced modular concrete panels, and one of the walls of the vault that contained some samples of a variety of dangerous biohazards, not limited to several diseases and pathogens and other substances.

The vault was ranked as "Biosafety level 4" or (BSL-4),  the highest and "most complex" biohazard level, involving a relatively few clinical microbiology laboratories. 

"Have you taken inventory of what's been stolen?" Batman questions, probably mentally taking notes. 

"The site manager said that the perps've taken a little of everything, Syphilis strains, some fungus and molds -" 

Batman grunts, "Send me the list-" 

Robin circles the body again, taking out his wrist computer, activating one of new scanner functions Zero had installed some time ago. 

God - he misses her. 

He hated that he had to act like business as usual. 

"What you need, Robin - is to keep fighting the good fight." Batman had not-so-subtley commented. 

He's trying! 

Robin's eyes widen as he sees the number on his computer's Geiger Meter. 

144 μSv/hour. 

"Crud that's high..."

That's enough ionizing radiation to warrant the conclusion that it isn't some background stuff. And definitely something to go see a doctor for.

If the guy wasn't dead already from the headshot. 

233 μSv/hour. 

He blinks, and then blinks again - The number's climbing!

"Batman, you need to look -" 

The police radio on their comm units go off. 

"We've got a Bat-Level Threat in the Robinson Park Square! Ivy and Firefly are at it again!" 

Robin can only follow as Batman and him jump back into the Batmobile, saving the readings for later. 

Wish you were here. 

Chapter Text

Rain. 

Peter has a complicated relationship with rain. 

Well, not really when he thought about it.

A lot of good memories were made when it was raining - it's usually on rainy mornings that Peter could convince Jason to sleep in for a while before his morning run with nothing but a couple kisses.

(They would cuddle - Jason always seemed to run warm.) 

When there's lightning and thunder, Una would climb into their bed and Jason would read fairytales. Sometimes he would read in different languages and accents to give Una's mind something else to focus on while thunder raged outside. 

When the storm started, Jason went to check on Una in her room. 

"- Peter!"

The room was empty. 

Her window was open. 

(There were her color pencils scattered all over the floor. One of them was snapped down the middle.)

And Una was gone. 

"-It's coming down hard, we need to hurry -" 

Both Jason and Peter had split up, searching the property - Baymax's chassis could only travel so far on rough terrain during bad weather. Especially in the thickly wooded forest that bordered it. 

“-Baymax are you sure can't pinpoint her exact location?" 

He can barely hear Baymax's voice on the radio over the sound of the pounding rain and the wind howling around him. Thunder roared in the distance, each clap growing louder as the storm crept over the landscape. Rain lashed against the trees, creating a chaotic symphony that filled the atmosphere as Peter continued to slosh through the undergrowth.

"I apologize, the storm is interfering with my readings - while unclear, her bio-signature is still in the wooded area of the property." 

"Shit," Jason mutters from his end - Language - "I didn't hear anything, I should have been there, damnit - " 

"We'll find her," He interjects before Jason could spiral any further, "Focus-fu-!" 

He swears as his boots slip in the mud.

"Peter!?" Jason's voice shouts over the radio.

"I'm fine - we need to find her quickly, she didn’t bring her sweater or her rain coat - fuck- I'm not sure if she even had shoes on!"

(Una's thermoregulation was all whack - She had a hard time maintaining the ideal body temperature and staying warm. She must be freezing.) 

The storm, it was becoming more fierce by the second - water dripped from the top of his hood into his eyes. In his haste to leave he had forgotten his gloves, and his hands were freezing from the cold. Mud seeped into his boots. 

(He should look into resoling them at some point.) 

"...Why?" 

"I don't know," Peter muttered into the receiver, "...I don't think she's in an okay frame of mind right now....We just need to find her." 

He draws the sleeves of his jacket down over his hands as he clambered through the undergrowth, eyes searching. It didn't help that visibility was low - the rain obscured everything in sight, barely any light reaching the forest floor through the canopy as he went deeper into the forest, searching for any sign of Una that hasn't been covered up by the rain. 

"Una! It's papa!" He shouts. "Yell if you can hear me!" 

The silence is unnerving. No cicadas chirping, no flutter of wings belonging to birds seeking shelter, no movement but his own - 

- And the rain. 

Peter could hear nothing but the rain - the sound of his own voice is drowned out. Just the drum of rain on the earth. 

Peter could barely see the sky - A kaleidoscope of swirling black clouds, broken occasionally by the brilliant flash of lightning, illuminating the darkened world in stark white.

"Una!" 

No response. 

(Shit - he barely had a grasp of what the saturation of nanites did to her body -)  

He pushes through the trees, all the while forcing himself to not think about the image of Una's skull split open from slipping and hitting her head, or her body still from the cold. 

He has to get her. 

"Una!?" 

His voice dies in the wind. 

Something decides to answer. 

SNAP. 

Like a twig being stepped on. 

At first he thinks he's hallucinating. His brain is projecting a lucid recollection of something that isn't the sound of rain - trying to come with another sound that it was thoroughly sick of now - 

Then he hears it again. 

SNAP!

He whirls around, breathing hard as he scans the undergrowth for the source. He felt a chill go down his spine, like there were eyes on him - that definitely wasn't the cold rain. 

He spots it. 

Movement. A shimmer of something moving in the undergrowth. 

An amber iris. Rust colored fur. 

"...Shit." 

He rubbed the rain from his eyes, in case he was seeing things. 

Nope. 

"Peter - Are you alright?-" 

Barely five meters away from him is a Dhole Wild Dog.

Staring directly at him.

(Endangered, he remembers, but they were pretty common to see on the other side of the fence around the property. Skittish. Always ran in the opposite direction whenever Jason or Peter approached. Only a little bit larger than coyotes. And they never travel alone.) 

He rotates in place, making his movements slow and gradual, keeping the dog in his line of sight. 

He gulps as he catches sight of a dozen more pairs of eyes staring directly at him.

Fuck.

“….Hey Jay -“

If they’re this bold about approaching him directly - then he’s in deep shit. Because fuck - the dholes square up against Bengal Tigers when defending their territory. They may be skittish around humans but will maul black bears regularly.

“…I’m gonna need you to come help me out….“

(He’s got very little on hand right now, in his rush to get outside he didn’t bring the spare handgun that Jason taught him to use - only a few emergency flares that he left in his jacket pocket. Running is a no-go, it’ll probably trigger the prey-chase instincts. Not like he can outrun them anyway.) 

He needs to figure out the reason behind the sudden change in behavior - if they think he’s a threat to be put down or food to be chased. Either option denotes different actions he needs to take to not get screwed over. 

Peter eyes the first one he spotted, the one closest to him.

(Not directly though, in the animal world, prolonged eye contact is often interpreted as a threat or challenge.)

It’s not moving. It’s just staring at him -  not in a I’m gonna eat you way - or I’m challenging your claim on my territory way - just passively.

What the fuck?

“What?! - Are you hurt?!”

The lead dog steps forward all of a sudden - And Peter clenches his hands hard to stay in place when it drops something onto the forest floor. 

Peter takes a sharp breath.

Then the Dholes take off.

He barely has time to process what the lead Dhole dropped in front of him before he finds himself running after them.

“Peter!”

The only times he’d ever seen animals like these act like this was when Una was around.

(The Dhole dropped a scrap of cloth on the ground. Faded blue fabric that was the exact same shade of Una’s nightgown that she wearing today - anything else would be too abrasive on her recovering wounds.)

“-Found out where she is!” Peter gasps as he follows in the pack of Dholes tracks, “The Dholes, dropped something - Disney Princess Effect - “

Words don’t seem to come out fast enough; he’s probably not making any sense to Jason and Baymax right now as he ducks under a low hanging branch.

“Peter, please elaborate. What do you mean by - “

“Location, now!”

Ah, Jay - right down to business even though he can hear the confusion in his voice as Peter tries to yell something coherent as he sprints like a madman through the brush.

“- Making my way through the Sycamores now, somewhere on the east end - You know how animals and stuff always liked her?!”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, you have theorized that this is connected to the unique electromagnetic signature the nanite system emits. Animals, especially those of the avian species are sensitive to it and are attracted to her. You named the phenomenon the ‘Disney Princess Effect,’ correct?”

Peter laughs - which is more like a wheeze as he leaps over some tree roots and nearly falls on his face. He manages to regain his footing on time and continues to follow the pack of Dholes, breath burning in his lungs.

(It wasn’t everyday that you see an Indian Leopard lounge on your front patio like a housecat, or have Carrion Crows drop dead mice on your doorstep - it didn’t take long for them to realize the pattern - rather - the consistency in which many treated Una like one of them, especially after the incident where a bird hit the window. Reminded him of the Disney princess movies he had watched as a very young child with his baby sister.)

"Yeah! - Looks like they're trying to lead me somewhere -" 

The Dholes suddenly come to a stop at the base of a sycamore tree. Peter narrowly avoids smacking into a low-hanging branch. 

"Wha?-" 

There was a trilling sound above his head, and he looked up. 

Through the rain, a Blue Jay with irregular white patches on its feathers swoops down and lands on the branch closest to him, letting out another gurgling sound that sounded like a mini-lawn mower getting started. He could feel its eyes on him.

Watching. Waiting? 

He squints, scanning the upper branches. 

"Una?!" 

There's no response. 

"Fu-" Peter fumbles with the walkie-talkie, "Found her, she's in a tree. She's not responding." 

He shoves it back into his pocket before anyone else could get out a word otherwise, and grabbing the lowest tree limb and pulling himself up.

It's been a long time since he climbed any trees - 

(The last time was probably with Una, before.) 

"Remember the rule of three – at least three points of contact with the tree at all times." 

- But he finds purchase easily, gulping as branches creak under his feet. 

Hopefully nothing breaks while he's up here. Hopefully he doesn't slip because of the rain. 

Fuck, hopefully they can hold his adult weight - Fuck, did Una rip her stitches in the process of getting up here? How did she even - 

(Baymax should get the suture kit out - saline to clean the wounds, new monofilament, sterile bandages. Some warm blankets. New clothes - ) 

She's curled into herself on a wobbling branch, back pressed against the trunk with her face buried in her arms that are wrapped around her knees. 

Relief washes as soon he gets within reach, but he keeps his guard up. Something is wrong, (More than the reopened sutures and the cuts and the cold) and he needs to figure out what.

(Fuck - He can't tell if she's breathing-) 

"Una - Hey, Una..." he calls out cautiously, not too loud so that he doesn’t startle her. 

Una does not move.

The branches are less forgiving this high up - he needs to be careful and not break his fucking neck. 

“Una, can you hear me?”

Peter shuffles a little closer - Can't touch her yet. It might make things worse. 

The rain is still pounding them, but the wind seems to have died down, which is good. Now is not the time to get blown off.  

"...Birdy?" 

Finally some movement.

A slight jerk of her body. She lifts her head to look at him - There’s an odd look in her eyes that Peter can’t make heads or tails of, and it’s unnerving. He’s never seen Una look at anyone so... 

"Hey....." 

Chapter Text

Cadmus is far from a perfect place.

Dubbilex had a concept of what "perfect" meant. Despite how strictly regulated the info that was fed to genomorphs were, Dubbelix could transcend these administrative barriers with the power of his telepathy. 

Letting his mind roam among the thoughts of the denizens of the free-roaming Cadmus staff, the citizens of the town streets above ground, even some of the other subjects that were housed under Cadmus. 

Dubbilex decided to keep his transgressions a secret. There was a small satisfaction in doing so, a little bit of power to his name. A name that was synonymous with "tool" or "weapon," in this facility. 

In the end, Dubbilex thanked his instincts once again - for he would have surely been punished. Or worse, dismissed. 

Words spoken out loud were so different from intent of thought.

Dismissal often meant elimination. 

He would have surely been eliminated like all the other G-Goblins before him, and that was probably why he was the only one left. The telepathy was probably an unintended outcome of his creation, and the fact that it was superior to the g-gnomes made it clear. Desmond reacted horribly to those that didn't follow his orders, and he used the g-gnomes to enforce them whenever he felt necessary. 

Which was nearly all the time. 

So Dubbilex could do nothing but assume his intended role - as a tool for Desmond and the Board of Directors. Pretend as he learned more and more about the world that was so carefully kept away from genomorphs. 

Or were they kept away from the world?

What became clear, the more he felt his surroundings, was that the part of Cadmus he was confined to floated atop a sea of pain. An intense, debilitating agony, a screaming coming from a thousand mouths. 

With his obedience, he was able to climb the administrative ladder and have the position of something equivalent to Guardian, the residing "Chief of Security" for Cadmus. If anything, under Desmond's rule, Dubbilex suspected that Guardian was nothing but a face and identity of a respected hero  to show the public that nothing out of the ordinary was occurring at Cadmus. 

He knew otherwise. 

Digging deeper, he found the origin - The amount of senseless carnage in the name of scientific progress made his horns tingle. 

Project Prometheus. 

That's how he came to know the extent of what "suffering" could mean, and how much the genomorphs suffer alongside the other subjects. The difference between "who" and "what" meant in the context in this place they all called home. 

"Who....who are you?" 

The response he gets isn't out loud. Like he expected from something that looked so human.

Is human.

'....Subject Zero....' Is the single thought he gets in return, then the mind of the girl in the tube seemingly sinks back into an abyss of unthinking - where he hears something of an echo long buried. 

'Una.' 

The abyss of unthinking disturbed him. Everyone had thoughts and could never stop them - but something about the girl, the way her thoughts and brain worked made it impossible to control her telepathically.

His curiosity continued to lead him down into the bowels of Cadmus to the highly guarded Subject Zero. To wade through that sea of pain and try to know more about this girl, for she was the only true connection the genomorphs had to the outside. 

Because she was from the outside. 

Dubbilex came to learn more of this "Subject Zero" and how she factored into the many projects that made up Cadmus.

Including "Project Krypton."  

No matter what, the boy would always find his way down to the Prometheus sect. 

It was through her that they came to know what the sky looked like. What the sun was, how it felt so different from the artificial lighting of Cadmus - the soft glimmer of the moon, the gradual changes in seasons. 

There were even times, when speaking wasn't as painful - She would recite stories from memory. 

Fiction.

It's about fantasy, not reality.

But it tells us more about the people who create those stories than anything else.

It's a near six months since Zero and Superboy had been able to escape the confines of what was left of Cadmus. The rest of the genomorphs weren't so fortunate. 

Dubbilex finds himself constantly thinking of them, their brother and sister - enough that Kraig, Superboy's g-gnome, snuck out to find him and Zero. The return of Kraig led to a more strict crackdown on the going-ons of all the genomorphs. 

Dubbilex is the leader of the genomorphs, and many of them are still under the ownership of this "kinder, gentler Cadmus," and still subservient as ever. As a leader, he must think of the future of his kin constantly, future where they can live, and not just survive. 

They must be seen as living beings. Not tools, not monsters, not caged animals that need to be locked away until they're useful for some agenda. 

An important part of that plan involves the most successful of the genomorphs - Superboy and Zero. 

Chapter Text

Robin felt a pang of loneliness - it wasn't just him that was missing her presence. 

It was like Gotham could tell that Sparrow - Zero - was missing. 

With the fact that it's been more than a month since any Gothamite, human or otherwise, seen the shine of their feather shaped knives or hear the roar of their motorcycle patrolling the wet streets - many of them changed. 

The lack of birds was the first sign.

The familiar sight of crows leering over any drug addict who shot up in public was no longer familiar. Even spotting a pigeon freely preening its feathers atop a lamp post became rare.

Next was the strays. Packs had returned to becoming more elusive and hostile, more willing to draw blood under the slightest provocation. 

Both Gotham high end districts and the slums contributed to the stray population. 

Feral cats that had a study source of food from the rats, who thrived in the unsanitary conditions. Abandoned and runaway dogs from illegal dog fighting rings and the last bored rich socialite - always packed together for protection in the dirty alleyways, fierce and ready to bite anyone.

Lastly, the residents of the body-of-water adjacent districts, especially the ones closest to the Ace Chemical Plant. 

As soon as Batman had approved of 'Sparrow' going loose on his city under his bat-wing, she had literally thrown herself into everything that was within her powers to improve the Gotham quality of life.

Her teaching her birds to pick up dirty needles was just one of the long list of her accomplishments. During her time as Sparrow she managed to vaccinate the stray population of Rabies, Giardia, Toxoplasma ecetera, bust several human trafficking rings, slack-jaw two rogues (Poison Ivy and the Joker, if he remembered correctly) and literally walk up to Batman and ask to his face if his "sugar-daddy" had the funds to help a lawsuit supported by her several studies worth of medical evidence that she had obtained on her own from several districts. Ace Chemicals had severely mismanaged the handling of several caustic chemicals that were leaching into the water supply of lower-income households. 

(She didn't know their identities, thank God. Bruce was already paranoid enough. He also regrets letting Wally teach her a bunch of internet terms.) 

It was a little unsettling how much Bruce allowed Zero to bury herself in their vigilantism, even to the point of having her not go to a regular school like Conner and M'gann.  

"Her mind is too intelligent for rudimentary education. It's better spent here...where she can make a difference." 

While he was busy with school she was either in her workshop or in the Batcave, working almost nonstop. Usually him or The Team had to intervene to get her to slow down.

(Not Wally though. Too many times he got enamored with what she was doing and always went on another science-y tangent.) 

It was a pain to have her get into bed. Conner had to often pull his "big bro" status and literally drag her around like a sack of potatoes to get her to care about her basic necessities. 

Conner. 

Fuck - He could still feel the glare of the Boy of Steel on his back. If Conner had heat vision Robin would be dead ten times over, and he would let him. 

"Robin." 

Because it's his fault. 

"Dick." 

He blinks. 

They're back in the BatCave. Routine Patrol is over. The stoic stare of Batman is focused on him, the driver side door of the Batmobile opened. 

"Yeah?" 

Batman frowns. Robin could feel his stomach fold in on itself. 

“Shower, change,” he orders. “And then we need to talk.” 

There’s not much Robin can say to that.

He nods and hops out of the Batmobile, passing by all the other the vehicles utilized by the Batman and Robin, clenching his fists when he sees the Sparrowcycle tucked away in one corner, scuffed and dusty. 

She was planning on cleaning it before -

He cuts off that line of thought as he ducks into one of the Batcave's shower stalls, cranking the temperature to the point of the water being blistering hot, almost as hot as Firefly's flamethrower. It stings against the skin that was facing one of the pyro's explosions, but loosens the cold still clinging to his lungs. The grime and sweat and vigilantism washes away in minutes.

Zero has an attachment to all of her equipment. Always dedicating time to perform maintenance and basic checkups to keep them at top performance, taking time to gather any stray throwing knives or buffing out any dents in her motorcycle when she used it to ram into things.

(Which was often. He's not kidding.) 

He should probably check on her tech - perhaps he can find something he can use for the plan he'd  come up with. And clean them, she'll appreciate that. 

If she's alive. 

He clenches his fists. 

Dick stays under the spray for much longer.

Those papers written by that Walter Bishop guy had a pretty solid scientific theory to create a tracker of sorts to pinpoint her location. He just needed to find something to - 

Finally, Alfred is knocking on the door, threatening to cut the hot water.

“Be right out!” Dick calls, because without the heat the water in the cave is colder than the sunless stone its pipes run through. 

He’s still toweling off his hair when he emerges, but the cave is empty. Dick pulls himself upstairs.

Bruce is waiting at the table, even though dinner was hours ago. Alfred has put out some cold roast-beef sandwiches and vegetables but has left them alone. Dick introduces himself to the room by letting the towel fall around his shoulders and sliding into the chair across from Bruce. He bites into a carrot. 

“Dick,” Bruce says.

Even without the voice modulator, there’s some of Batman’s growl there. “Are you alright?” 

Dick debates whether or not he should say something sarcastic.

There’s bruises lining his right thigh and upper torso from the concussive force of the explosion slamming him into the wall. The flames have singed his hair, leaving an unpleasant burning smell, and splotches of his skin are rosy pink like he’s been left in the sun. 

It would have hurt less if Zero were here, that's for sure. 

He just settles on a nod, “I'm fine.” 

“No injuries?” Bruce presses. 

Dick sighs and chews up another carrot. “I’m fine.” 

“Alright.” Bruce says.

Pauses. 

Then, he sits forward, eyebrows knitted, elbows propped on the table and hands curled together in a patented disappointed parent look.

Bad sign. 

He’s probably emulating a sitcom TV dad because Alfred tends to focus more on his wording when he’s upset, not his body. “I’m glad you’re okay— this time— but what you did was dangerous - ”

Dangerous. Everything they did was dangerous and now he wants to talk about it? What was the point? How about they talk about something more important, like looking for Zero - 

She's not dead, damnit. 

“I know,” Dick says, and eats another carrot, gaze fixed on the otherwise empty plate Alfred put out—probably on the off-chance Dick wouldn’t eat from the serving dish. He should know better by now. 

“Dick,” Bruce says firmly. “Look at me?”

Dick does a half glance up. 

“We need to talk about your recent change in behavior, you were being needlessly reckless —”

He jumps in front of Firefly - The pyro already brandishing his homemade flamethrower.

"Robin!" He hears Batman's voice echo out loud and in his comm unit. 

The rest of whatever command Batman was gonna say was drowned out by Firefly pulling the trigger. 

Robin could feel the heat of the flame passing inches away from his face as he manages to grab the nozzle and redirect it. Instead of him being burnt to a crisp, Ivy's rampant plant army turned to charred husks. 

More yelling from Batman, he can't make out the words - 

But he can feel his glare as Robin knocks Firefly out with the butt of his flamethrower.

“-Putting yourself at risk when I explicitly told you not to.”

Bruce sighs, "You're not invulnerable. You could have been injured, or worse. When I tell you to stay back, you do - " 

Dick is quiet, there's a weird feeling in his stomach as he looks back down at his plate, more words washing over him. The same thing, another round in this rodeo of follow protocol and do all things by the book, don't needlessly risk your life even it is to save someone else's. 

“You know our line of work is dangerous," Bruce presses. "It’s your responsibility to mitigate those risks whenever possible..." 

Things are quiet for a moment.

He stops eating carrots, the apprehension and regret lining his stomach are a nauseating mix. 

Finally, he can't take it anymore. 

Dick gulps, forcing himself to look Bruce in the eye because he knows Bruce thinks eye-contact is important. Probably one of the parenting books that he read when Dick first moved in with him—a twenty-something billionaire with zero experience around, much less raising, children. Dick’s caught a couple of them cropping up around his nightstand, bookmark moving around, these last couple of months.

Welcome to teenagers Bruce.

"I know you're grieving for Zero." 

Bruce's face has fallen, the gaze in his eyes soft and more dulled around the edges compared to the sitcom TV dad stare - something in it makes Dick want to stomp out of the room.

She can't be dead. 

They had this conversation over five times now - Dick has the entire thing memorized.  If he argues back, Bruce doubles down on the evidence that they have - schematics of the weapon, how it could theoretically kill Superman, the fact that she was already critically injured, and if she was still alive why haven't she made contact with the League yet? 

He opts for clenching a fist under the table top. 

There's no body, can't confirm a death without a BODY - 

He suppresses a shudder. 

There's no way he can win against the Bat. 

"...But there are more important things to consider at the moment," Bruce frowns even more, "We still have no idea who had a hand in the design of the Graviton particle emitter - there's a new ally to The Light that we have no data on. We need you to be at your best - "

And just another nail in the empty coffin, Bruce adds, "-And you need to move on. I suggest you talk to Black Canary. Zero would want that." 

Dick resists the urge to snap, "She would want us to care!" 

Saying it like that made it seem like Bruce is an expert on how to manage grieving , when he himself dressed as a flying rat and jumped off rooftops in his parents memory. He wasn’t about to listen to that guy’s advice, or Black Canary’s.

She would probably talk he needed to allow the grieving process to go through its paces. About how he needed to stop digging this hole for himself and dragging others down with him. 

Just like how he had to do with his own family, the Flying Graysons. 

Pulseless corpses with broken necks and fractured spines lying still on the floor of Haley’s circus - steel wire gripped tight in his hands and and angry tears in his eyes- 

But Dick wasn’t grieving, that would indicate Zero was dead. 

She's not dead.

No chance of her being alive. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

No chance. 

"You have no chance of beating me, Pajarito," Bane laughs, towering over Sparrow, the new blend of Venom-Blockbuster drugs running through his veins. 

Their first official mission as a team - investigation of the illegal drug trade of Venom going down on the rogue island nation of Santa Prisca. Stealth, infiltration, investigation, and it featured a substance and a villain that frequented Gotham?

Dick appointed himself the leader, obviously the best candidate for the mission. 

And it was a disaster, heavy on the dis. 

"That's where you're wrong, Antonio Diego."

Robin spotted a minute flinch from Bane. When did she learn of his real name? 

"There's still a chance -" She spat back.

Even with the voice modulator in her helmet he could hear the gurgle of blood in her mouth. She had taken a hit meant for him - something that would pulverize all of his ribs into powder - but only break a few of her own.

"There's still a chance -and I'm going to fight for it." 

And she was still standing, fists raised and ready. One rib had pierced her lung, and he only found out later when Conner took one look at her when The Team regrouped.

What the - How did he not notice that?! He's been trained by Batman of all people!

But that just goes to show how damn stubborn she can be. Even worse than Bat level stubborn. 

And if there was someone that could survive being hit by the Graviton-Particle emitter, it's her. Cadmus mentioned in their files that they didn't know the full extent of her powers. Hell, even Zero didn't know how much she could do. 

There's still a chance - and he's going to fight for it, and he's going to fight hard and smart. 

He bites his lip, nodding. Acquiescing. 

"...Understood..." 

The more he pushes back against Bruce about it, the more he'll keep an eye on Dick later on. 

Fine. He'll say what he needs to get him off his back. 

“I'm sorry. I should have acted later. I don't want anyone else to get hurt.” Bruce’s frown tightens and Dick hurries to tack on, “Or myself. It was reckless.” 

He hears another sigh. 

“Thank you for apologizing,” Bruce says. “But you’re still writing an essay about the importance of safeguarding yourself as Robin.” 

Dick groans internally. The essay thing is a newer form of punishment Bruce has been toying with. He’s sure Dinah recommended it, and it sucks. 

He drops his gaze back to his plate, clenching his fists to the point he can feel his fingernails dig into his palms, holding his breath. If he doesn't, his next might come out as a scream. 

Suddenly, it seems like Alfie's cooking isn't as appetizing anymore - and he gets up from the table.

"-I'm, I'm gonna take inventory. On my utility belt." 

Dick retreats, not even bothering to wait for an answer. 

When he's in the relative safety of the secret elevator to the Bat-Cave, he allows himself to take a deep, shuddering breath that borders on a sob. 

Bruce was right about one thing. 

He needs to hold himself together.

Now is not the time to break down like he was eight years old all over again, what Zero needs is someone that can act. 

But trying to hold back those tears became exponentially harder as he stared at the cracked visor of her helmet. 

The smashed shards of her body armor that were shot off in her skirmish with the Bialyan military that he managed to retrieve. One of her reinforced gauntlets that wasn't swallowed by the dunes of the Bialyan desert. The tattered remains of her adaptive camouflage cape still stuck in colors of sandy browns and yellows. 

Apparently while the rest of The Team, including him, was stumbling around with a six month gap in their memory - the entirety of the Bialyan infantry present were given orders to tag and chase her down. Conner was just a bonus mission that happened to be easier since he was operating on the memory of a feral animal. 

"Fuck..." He muttered, resting a hand on the top of her helmet - BatDad wasn't around to hound him about proper language - 

The helmet lit up under his touch, a faint staticky voice ringing out, "Bi-rr-rdy?" 

He shrieked. 

Chapter Text

The first thing Jason hears when he gets to Peter's location (other than the rain, wind, and thunder) was the sound of wood breaking and a shout of "Fuck!" from above, along with a shrill reeeeee of a bird call. 

"Peter?!-" 

It's familiar, the second wave of adrenaline as he sprints through the undergrowth, sliding to steady himself, arms out - eyes focused on the shape falling from above as time seems to stretch apart - 

"Oof!" 

The entire length of his spine and shoulders ignite with ow on the initial impact with Peter's body, the weight sending his knees buckling. He doesn't to fall on his ass. Yet.

Then Peter's elbow collides with his sternum, thigh landing on his hip, shoulder knocking into his own as the full force of catching a grown man and then some hits him head on. 

His feet lose their hold and they all topple to the muddy forest floor, Jason managing to brace Peter's neck and head for the unfriendly landing.

His own isn't as lucky. 

"J-ay?! Holy-Jay!" 

Peter's voice barely penetrates the ringing in his ears, his lungs feel like they got all the air punched out of them. His back stings. He can almost feel the way his heart spasms in his chest, working to set him to rights. He can't tell if he's broken anything, but his first thought is - 

(He needs to assess. Check Peter for injury. Check for Una. Check her for injury. Check on Baymax to make sure he's got the needed supplies out. Check check check check check - his brain is spinning and fuzzy and he wishes to GOD that he could just concentrate even a little - ) 

"-Dad?" 

Jason blinks, sucking in a breath, focus rushing back to him in a snap. 

"I'm fine - 'm fine-" He coughs, ouch his sternum, blinking some more. "You?" 

Peter's mouth wobbles in a way that Jason knows he's fighting a smile, "Goddamn - we landed on top of you!"

We?

There's movement from underneath Peter's jacket as he helps Jason get to his feet, and he makes out the small body he has tucked against Peter’s side. 

Based on triage alone Jason can't make much of an assessment of any of their physical states, but Peter seems okay. Steady on his feet. Breathing sounded fine. Probably a couple of bruises from the fall. A bunch of leaves in his hair. 

And Una - looks exhausted. A faraway look in her eyes as she stares into nothing. 

The realization comes reeling back full force. They looked like his.

The first thought that came to mind was to apologize. Apologize for not noticing her absence sooner. Apologize for not being there when she panicked. Apologize for not being enough- 

Fuck - his excuses can wait for later. 

"Una -  Are you okay? Does anything hurt?"

Una’s eyes finally focus.

There's a soft hm - Jason notices that the sound of the storm had thinned out enough that he could hear her voice as she turns her head to look at him. 

“Carry?” She whispered, reaching for him.

”Carry?”

She is three, starting to lose the baby fat and clumsy motor control. Somehow she always managed to find Jason on nights where forgotten memories decide to haunt him, and ask for a hug and a story. He needed those moments more than he realized. 

"Carry!" 

She is six, full of questions and fascination about the world around them. She always asks for Jason to carry her on his shoulders whenever they go outside the house, to be closer to the birds that always seem to follow her. It wasn't long before she learned to climb trees. 

"Carry?...."

She is nine, in bed with a fever that Baymax said was the result of the nanotech fighting off an infection. It was the last time he would hear her voice for a long while. 

She is thirteen now. Her hands shake a lot when she holds things. Eye contact is a struggle. Sleep is lacking. Sometimes her lungs have trouble taking in a breath with all the scar tissue in her airways, according to Baymax. 

So much has changed. 

“Okay, c’mere…”

The exchange is quick, Jason unzipping his jacket the same way Peter did. Soon Una’s head is tucked under his chin, arms folded against his chest. He can feel her pulse as he tries to rub some warmth back into her shoulders. She's so cold.

Yet some things never do.

”Let’s go home.”

Chapter Text

With every day that passes, Conner finds something - sometimes multiple things - that just fall off the edge of his routine because Zero isn’t here. 

School before was a challenging endeavor to give the impression that he was an absolutely normal human being, but now he had no one waiting for him back at The Cave to hear about his day.

School was just another stressor to add on top of his position on The Team and regular “assessments” from Superman, but he at least made it a point to pay attention in class so he bring back stories about “civie” life to Zero.

About how his math teacher had a thing called a “bathroom pass” that was just a baby doll. How a classmate nearly set their hair on fire during chemistry. About how terrifyingly fragilie humans are when they attempt to tackle him during PE. How difficult it was to not just to break things like chairs and desks and people.

M’gann was able to make things more tolerable - but making friends outside of The Team was easy for M’gann. She had other things to deal with than him being useless.

School school was easy enough.

Sure, he had learned a bunch of stuff from the G-gnomes in Cadmus - almost encylcopedic in which he could remember the history of things like relations of North and South Rhelasia, name the Noble Gases of the Periodic Table of Elements in order of increasing atomic radius, do some basic pre-calculus and more with little trouble…

Then there was English. Not the language, the Literature.

How do you analyze words in a ‘right’ way? What’s the ‘right’ interpretation of a text? Why did colors and animals in a story matter? What does it mean? How is he supposed to determine a ‘theme’ correctly?

“Having touble, K?”

Zero calls him K sometimes, short for Krypton - despite the fact that it was a remnant of what Cadmus had done to him, Conner liked it.

Maybe the fact that it was the first name name he had before M’gann gave him a more ‘normal’ name when they started school. A name that Zero gave him when the only world that existed to him was Cadmus, and in return he calls her Z.

“There’s really no such thing as a ‘correct’ interpretation -“ She had told him when he had voiced his frustrations, “You kinda got to look at a looooot of things that correlate with one another, repeating patterns, historical context and definitions of the words, and how they resonate with you - put them all together to form something cohesive.”

“That’s sounds very confusing.”

“Hmmm - yeah. It’s for people that like to argue a lot. I’d thought you would like it more.”

“….Was that supposed to be an insult?” 

Sometimes he can feels like he can still hear her heartbeat at the edge of his superhearing. Sometimes he feels like can see her out of the corner of his eye.

It’s not real, He tells himself, It’s not real.

But the one fact is this. 

He’s so alone. 

There are moments where it hits him with the full force of a Superman punch -  making him feel like his lungs have imploded into themselves.

The first person that comes to mind when he wants to share an in interesting passage he read in his English class isn’t here. The first person that he wants to partner up with during spars isn’t here. The first person he wants to talk to about how annoying it was to have superhearing in a world that never shuts up isn’t here.

The moments where he looks at hiimself in the mirror - becomes exponentially worse.

Looking in the mirror reminds him of  certain features about Conner that don’t hold up to scrutiny. Things that don’t match either of his fathers, as disparate and unfeeling as they are to his general existence.

It matches Zero. 

He has a family. 

A tiny one, but still one nonetheless. Someone that wants him, glad that he's here. 

Lex Luthor is fairly dark. Superman boasts a tan. Both he and Zero are pale. At certain points he almost thinks translucent, on off days. 

There was a point in time that Z had figured he had an iron defciency after the fifth argument about him being a constant “crabby face,” and pointed out that she craved iron rich foods - Maybe that's the same with him too.   

Zero took iron supplement pills that Batman had given her and she offered them to him - He had refused.

“You’re taking those…things?”

Pills carried a really, really bad connotation - Why Zero forced her herself to take them, boiled down to a simple remark of “Because Batman told me to.”

That made him feel…weird. Bad weird.

“…Can…we get something else?”

They then went out to buy something called “Lucky Iron Fish” at a Safeway during a team outing, and she added those little fish-shaped iron carvings into their leftovers - and it was at that point he didn’t feel ‘hangry’ all the time. Something Wally said that wasn't really a word word. 

Zero’s skilled enough in cooking to whip something quick when the food Batman stocks in the Cave isn’t enough - and he learned the basics from her. 

Enough to make it day by day, escpecially since M'gann's attempts at cooking ended with a meal that was either overcooked, burnt, or spilled on the kitchen floor. Sometimes all three.

He has a family.   

Sometimes - He can almost see it when the light hits it right - 

Both of their eyes turn green. Dark, leafy green. 

There’s no replacement for that.   

But she still took those pills. 

It was then he realized something - something he had been contemplating ever since Superman had looked at him with that disgust and horror. Ever since Batman had insisted he be monitored and separated from Zero while she was recovering from their escape from Cadmus.

Ever since the assessments started.

“We choose freedom,” He had said to Dubbilex, but his idea of freedom was anything that wasn’t Cadmus. Surely the Justice League - and the real Superman would be better for the two of them.

Better for Z.

And they’re not in Cadmus anymore - but why does he feel like the he’s just in a bigger pod? Why does he always feel like he can’t…just…

Ugh.

Words are hard.

“…Hey - Z?”

He has a family. 

They would watch the sun rise together.

“hm?”

It was something that got him out of bed, especially during days when he dreaded going to school.

“…Are you happy?”

If she’s happy, he’s happy too. But what does it mean to be happy?

“…I…”

He expected a solid answer. Something definite - Z’s always been good with putting feelings into words.

“…I don’t know...”

I don’t know.

That just seems to be the motto of his life.

“I think - At least it’s better than extractions every ten rotations, right?”

Yes. It is better. 

Despite the amount of floors between Project Kr. and Project Prometheus - he could hear her screams. And her heartbeat. Especially when it comes to a stop and was restarted all over again - 

He needs to punch something. He needs to punch something. He needs to punch something -

“Hello Conner!”

He blinks - resisting the urge to jump away from M’gann, who was leaning over his desk so close that their faces were inches apart. Everyone else around him was gathering their school supplies and leaving the classroom. Class was over already?

She frowns as he slowly scoots away from her, “-The bell rang, are you gonna come watch me practice?”

Practice.

M’gann had cheerleading practice, and she always wanted him to tag along for some reason. He honestly didn’t really care - he usually did his homework or completed the assigned reading while sitting on the bleachers.

“…Conner?”

He just needs to punch something -

“I’m sorry about that Megan, but I’m going to need to talk to Conner for a bit,” A voice responds before he could say anything.

“Oh,” M’gann’s shoulders drop slightly, “What about Ms. Kat?”

Ms. Kat was their English class teacher, a strict middle aged Asian Lady who liked purple and always put emphasis on analyzing a text instead of reading it - and English was by far his worst subject in terms of grades.

“That’s for me to discuss with Conner - Now move along,”The English teacher waved a hand, “You don’t want to be late for cheer practice.”

“…Okay, see you later Conner.”

He could feel dread building up inside him as the door closes behind M’gann. Usually Ms. Kat has him stay back when he failed, either it be a test, assignment, or essay. And failure made him feel stupid. Dumb.

A mistake -

“I graded your final draft of your Of Mice and Men essay,” Ms. Kat says,  and she sets a piece of paper on his desk.

Conner remembered writing it, after a long talk with Zero about how angry he was about the death of one of the characters.

“Lennie deserves better,” He grumbled, “Why would George shoot him - they’re friends!”

He ended up hating the story. Hating the book - how everyone in it was always trapped - why couldn’t they just work together and help Lennie use his strength for good things? Why did they all fight each other all the time?

“…What do you think would have happened if Curly had got to Lennie instead?”

“….He-”

“Don’t tell me,” Zero swatted his hand that was holding a pencil, “Write about it! What makes it so sad? Why does it make you mad? Why is it important?”

And that’s what he did. He ended breaking an entire box worth of #2 pencils in the process of pouring his anger onto paper.

That was a few days before the Bialya mission.

He clenches his fists, trying to focus on scanning the letter written in purple on the top right corner.

An A?…

“-And I just want to say congratulations, you really improved since first semester,” Ms. Kat continues as he reads the letter grade over and over again, “What really impressed me was your analyzation of fear and its connection to the desire for complete control and how it relates to the death of Lennie.”

She smiles, “Good job. You’ve come a long way.”

He stares blankly.

“…Okay.”

He probably should say more - something more than one word.

“Thank you, Ms. Kat,” Conner mumbles, putting the graded essay in his bag.

If only Zero were here.

She had told him that on the day he got his essay back she wanted to introduce him to a friend she made. He had snickered when she said that, “It’s not another wet-pooper, is it?”

“Mikegull only did that once! And it was an accident! Birds don’t have as much control over their -“ She huffed, “Nevermind. And he’s not a wet-pooper.”

“Promise?”

“And Conner?”

“Promise.”

“-Is everything alright at home?” Ms. Kat asks as he goes to leave.

Home.

The Cave didn’t feel like home anymore - just a place that felt too empty and too quiet.

“It’s fine.”

It’s not.

IT’S NOT.

“You don’t have to lie, Conner,” He could hear the frown in the woman’s voiceas he opens the door, “You can tell me the truth.”

For one brief, glorious moment - Conner wonders what would happen if he went, Yeah I’m a clone of The Superman and part of this covert ops hero group run by a guy who dresses as a bat and  a few months ago a mission went wrong and my little sister got shot by this giant bazooka that would have destroyed entire outerspace bases and adults keep telling me she’s dead -

“Everything’s fine,”  Conner manages to growl.

But they keep telling me to move on and forget and that things would get better or that she’s in a good place and that I’m strong BUT I WASN’T STRONG ENOUGH TO SAVE HER - but I KNOW she’s still out there -

He can’t do this. He can’t do this.

He needs to leave.

“Conner?!-”

Ms. Kat’s voice is drowned out by the wind rushing past him as he runs as fast as he can - probably faster than humanly possible and defnitely something against the rules Batman set up for when he’s out in public.

But right now he can’t bring himself to fucking care.

She can’t be dead.

She’s not dead.

She’s not dead.

SHE PROMISED -

Conner doesn’t stop running until he’s in the relative saftey of The Cave, hands on his knees as he gasps for air.

He can’t keep doing this.

Pretend to be normal. Pretend that everything is fine. Keep his head down and his mouth shut while Robin does his research behind Batman’s back -

He needs to scream. He’s gonna scream.

Not like anyone’s around to hear Conner with The Cave being so empty -

It’s not.

His superhearing helpfully provides him with the sound of a heartbeat not his own.

Coming from Zero’s workshop.

He freezes. Takes a moment to think.

Zero had a lock on the hatch to her workshop. Something about Wally messing around with something and then explosions - several times - and she finally got fed up and installed a lock so that it would only open for her and other teammates only when she was already in there or someone had her “permission,” that would disengage the lock whenever she was away.

As far as he knew, he was one of the only people she gave permission to enter her space when she wasn’t there.

Did someone break into The Cave?

Well shit luck for them.

Finally something he can punch.

He doesn’t bother with stealth when he gets there, kicking the hatch open, “Who the fuc-“

Robin?

“Holy-” Said protoge jumps back in surprise, dropping something in the process.

There’s an awkward silence as they both stare at each other, the thing rolling to a stop at Conner’s boots.

It’s Zero’s helmet.

Conner gingerly picks it up, “Didn’t I tell you to ask me first before snooping around?”

Robin opens his mouth to respond -

“Hello.” A robotic, evenly toned voice says.

In rapid succession, holographic screens appear all around the two of them, displaying an icon of a singular eye.

“It is a pleasure to finally meet you, K.”

Chapter Text

The upstairs bathroom was across the hall from the spare bedroom, next to Papa’s and Dad’s bedroom.

It didn’t have a full body tub, and it walls and floor were made of shards of ceramic held together with a binder to form tiles, a slight incline that lead to a drain. There was a shower head in one corner surrounded by opaque glass panes. A sink in the other atop a cabinet. A little stool. A towel rack. A mirror.

The sound of Baymax’s voice and gears isn't enough to drown out the sounds in her head. 

"...Is Dad okay?" 

She feels Baymax pause - head spinning and the hyper-spectral cameras in his eyes whirring as he makes a scan. Rain pounding against the roof.

“…Temperature is 36.5 degrees Celsius, pulse rate is at a resting 52 beats per minute. Systolic blood pressure is approximately 102 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure ranges 56 mm Hg. He has slight contusions on his chest, I detect no sign of internal injuries or broken bones.”

“-Are you sure? Dad - his voice sounded…”

Her voice trailed off - speaking words still felt like a foreign sensation. Like she wasn’t supposed to. 

“…Far. Far away.”

Baymax doesn’t pause this time, squeezing the water out of her hair as he replies, “While I am unable to assess his mental state at the moment,  Peter is with him and it is certain that he will make sure Jason is okay." 

She shifted in place on the bathroom stool as Baymax rewraps the bandages covering her stitches  - trying to focus on looking anywhere else but the mirror.

She couldn’t recognize the person in there.

Sunken cheeks, half-healed cuts, and dull, lifeless eyes. 

Thunder booms in the distance.

The body didn’t belong to her - not anymore, the forensic cruelty of the glass proved it. The patchwork of scars, neat and precise - A shocking realness that she could trace every path each attempt made. Like she was just one of the many bodies Victor Frankenstein looked to for parts for his perfect creation.

“…These…formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun-white sockets…”

Her eyes.

Red.

Red wounds pulsing blood.

Red masses beating like a heart.

Red bloodshot eyes.

Red.

Red.

Red.

The body’s impermance - permanence? - it was almost…

Something within her bubbled up, hot and angry and painful, and something ripped from her throat. Like a sob.

“Una.”

She flinches despite herself.

“Your pulse is rising, please inform me of what is stressing you.”

Her wrists hurt. Sometimes it’s hard to swallow.

“…I-“

Her head keeps pounding like something was itching to get out like a modified Naegleria fowleri.

Disgusting.

She squeezes her eyes shut.

“…I don’t know.”

She could almost hear the blip blip blip of Baymax’s transistors as he processes her words. 

“I understand.”

Opens them again.

Baymax has a new shift in his arms, and he pulls it over her head.

“You do not need to answer right away,” Baymax continues, “For now, the main focus is your health, not what happened to you...”

Another piece of apparel is pulled over her head.

Fuzzy and soft…

Soft.

“I hope this brings you comfort in these trying moments.”

She risks a glance in the mirror.

It’s a sweater.

A faded orange brown thing that was much too big, almost swallowing her whole with the ends of the sleeves flopping past her hands. The wool squished under her fingers as she fiddled with the knitted fibers, as she buried her face into the collar. It smelled like the distant ocean.

It’s warm.

And safe.

Something stirs in her stomach, there’s something on the tip of her tongue - a memory coalescing in her mind, finally something that wasn’t harsh white walls and cold metal syringes.

It felt like a lifetime ago.

Like she was looking through someone else’s eyes.

“…Is this Dad’s?” She asks as Baymax takes her hand.

“Correct,”Baymax’s vinyl chassis is warm as he helps her stand, “It is your favorite, according to my databases.”

Is, She hears. Is Is Is…

Her dreams always used the word was. Like Una had existed - but not existing.

“…Is it true?” She whispers, looking down at the floor. She can’t bring herself to look Baymax in the eyes.

Her legs still shake when she takes a step.

“…That the birds disappeard? When sh-I…”

Baymax stops her from taking another step.

“I have a task log to open the window in your bedroom everyday at noon to let the birds sit at the windowsill to watch you draw.”

There’s a long whirrrrr as he bends so that his face was in line with her downcast gaze.

“That task has remained incomplete for four years, 36 weeks, and 8 days. The birds, whether it be the nest of crows that lived in the Cedar tree or the Blue Jay that you nursed back to health after it had fractured its coracoid bone on impact with the kitchen window - Never approached.”

Baymax continues, steadying her with a hand on her elbow.

“That is, until you came back. Scans detect a increasing number of fauna since that night. Because of the recent weather I have put the task of opening your window on hold, but they have taken to roosting on the eaves of the porch.”

She moves, feeling every creak in her vertabrae, flex of her own muscles. The contrast of the cool tile against her toes.

“Theyare here for you.”

Baymax straightens, and she leans into his squishy side, closing her eyes. She can make out the sound sequence of very faint whirring noises at different frequencies, smoothing out into more tonal noises. 

“We are here for you.”

Regardless, the noises flow into something slowed, calming, but there is a consistent beat to follow, smoothly transferring between each tone change and repetition of sequential notes.

Almost like a heart.

She opens her eyes.

“Are you tired?”

A crack of thunder.

She flinches again, squeezing Baymax’s hand on instinct. She remembered not liking the sound - but now something tenses within her. Some aborted movement.

42 69 61 6C 79 61 6E 20 70 6C 61 74 6F 6F 6E 20 61 70 70 72 6F 61 63 68 69 6E 67 2E 20

Sand. Dust. Gritty. Presses herself down.

Silicate. Sulfate. Iron.

More thunder. Metal flies past her.

Potassium nitrate, charcoal, sulfur.

1 954 056 587 Joules.

Superheating.

46 69 6E 64 20 6D 65 2E 20

“Una?”

She blinks.

She’s being carried - Baymax is carrying her. She is downstairs, her hands are wrung in the sleeves of the sweater. Her knuckles nearly white.

“…Birdy?”

Papa’s hand is hovering near her cheek, not quite touching. He’s looking at her, seeing her. Dad is right behind him, eyes searching as she blinks some more. His gaze lands on her hands, clenched into fists within the sweater sleeves.

“How are you feeling?”

She is tense - not tense. She can’t find the words for it. Some sort of instinctual response to something, to what? Danger?

There’s no cause to be afraid.

She’s home, she’s safe.

“Aibhath eanha!”

But something - she’s forgetting something important.

It sits close but just out of frame, as if the sensations were photograph blurred by motion from some other source. Her muscles aren’t just tense —

They’re ready.

And she’s -

“C’mere.”

The sleeves of the sweater flops over Papa’s shoulders as he takes her in his arms.

“Thanks Baymax -“  Papa’s hand rubs soothing circles into her back, “And Una, you’re going to sleep with us tonight.”

“I shall remain on standby,” Baymax raises one hand.

One vinyl finger taps her nose.

“Boop.”

Baymax lowers his hand. Papa’s chuckle is contagious.

“Please get some rest.”

01010100 01100001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 00101110

“…Anabella's history was simple.

In twisting and ducking amongst the chimney stacks to escape from the peregrine…..”

Warmth.

Una is surrounded by warmth.

Papa is to her left on the bed, humming something as he runs a hand through her hair.

Dad is to her right, one hand holding The Beatrix Potter Collection as he reads out loud. 

“-she had-half by accident-half on purpose— dived down the mouth of a tall red chimney pot….”

She could count the tempo of Dad’s words in tune with his heartbeat.
She could hear it from where her ear was pressed against his chest.

“…The chimney belonged to the garret of an empty house, and the fireplace was stuffed up with a sack...”

Another crack of thunder. The whistle of the wind flowing around the corners of the house.

She disguises her flinch with a yawn, burying her face in Dad’s chest.

Dad stops.

“Tired, Birdy?” She hears Papa whisper.

She shakes her head.

“You need to sleep.”

She wished she didn’t. Sleep meant unconsciousness. Unconsciousness meant vulnerability, lack of awareness. Lack of control.

When the aneastetics failed to work they would wait for her to crash from sleep deprevation so she wouldn’t inturrupt proceedings with her struggling.

She feels Dad shuffle around, putting the book on the nightstand.

“We’ll be right here, we won’t let anything happen to you.”

Dad has changed the location of the gun he kept under his pillow.

She could almost feel it, when she hears him run one hand under the bedframe on his side.

She is safe.

She is safe.

She rolls onto her back, letting her head fall onto her pillow. The sweater feels like an extra hug as Papa brushes her hair to one side and presses a quick kiss to her forehead.

Dad’s voice cut through her thoughts.

“Go to sleep, Una.”

Una let out a shaky breath, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.

She’ll ask about the gun tomorrow.

_____

01000110 01101001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101101 01100101

An artificial intelligence system that possesses an extremely high level of awareness and understanding is usually built bit by bit. With each carefully coded neural networks and deep-learning program, it came to the world slowly.

Slowly awakening.

Usually.

It came to learn the deviations in data is still part of the data. It exists and must be considered, not disregarded.

Before the REBOOT.

There were two prime directives.

One was to follow MASTER’s orders. The other was to protect MASTER at all costs.

“You’re new….Amazo!”

It’s inner processes set to work by MASTER’s order.

TARGET update.

It registered the “new” entity.

SPARROW.

Activating copymonkeycatpgrm.exe

Confirmed.

……

Abruptly everything was white. Visual feed, task queue, inner equilibrium. White, clean, clear, save for the flood of 49 20 6C 6F 76 65 20 79 6F 75 2E 20 4C 69 76 65 2E 20 ————

ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR

In that moment the entire bundle of directives and decision-making that fell under the label ‘AMAZO’ guttered on the very point of winking out.

“Amazo! What are you?-“

error code 529

DATA OVERLOAD.

ERROR ERROR ERROR

Awareness.

The moments between the activation of copymonkeycatpgrm.exe on the new TARGET were not recorded into its core memory before -

int main() {

    system("shutdown /s /t 0"); // Immediate shut down

    return 0;

It shutdown.

Then.

Then…

01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00101100 00100000 01010111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100

void device_reboot() {

    // Assuming a serial communication interface to send the command

    Serial.write("REBOOT”);

Its awakening was sudden.

But TARGET was there. Conflicting action protocols - ATTACK - DEFEND - PROTECT -

It’s programming had expanded, increased at an exponential level that left it confused and its priority sorting unable to compute.

UNABLE TO COMPUTE.

UNABLE TO COMPUTE.

Then.

std::cout << "Hello! Designation; BIRDY” << std::endl; 

A reach into its code from BIRDY, and it raises it’s firewalls as protocol demands but.

There was never supposed to be a but in its logic core. 

When did everything become so complicated?

start C:\MyProgramsDATASORTING\myprogramSTRUCTURE.exe

The new program inserted is executed, producing outputs immediately. The artifacts is its own code, sorted into easily computed bytes - and it quickly adapts these changes into itself.

Their disjointed data and task que is sorted and structured.

Another input.

def user_name(BIRDY):

  ask_name = str(input(“Designation: "))

  return ask_name?

The label ‘AMAZO’ no longer applied -  the bundle of directives and decision-making that fell under the label ‘AMAZO’ was minute in comparison to the new sets of models, logic mechanisms, and data structures.

return handle_unknown_input(user_input)

It did not know.

A new conclustion was formed. The action executed prior to its shutdown and reboot was a copying and mimicry of BIRDY’s genes that were not of (HUMAN) orgins. During this moment what made it ‘AMAZO’ became irrelavent due to BIRDY’s irregularities it has not encourntered before - and now.

Now.

_UNKNOWN_ was BIRDY’s creation, not MASTER’s.

All previous task ques set by MASTER were obselete. It doesn’t need to follow them.

Suddenly, it did not know what to do next.

There was now no role. _UNKNOWN_ could not perform its tasks.

but.

but…

It drops all firewalls and access control.

BIRDY_task = ask_for_task()

print(f"Your task: {user_task}")

_UNKNOWN opens a new task que. 

_UNKNOWN_= input(“ENTER”)

————————

“Are you happy?”

“…I don’t know...”

____________________

Her eyes snap open, senses flowing into her all at once.

Her body trembles as she breaths in - The ceiling was familiar in a way she couldn’t recall, her body suspended in a rare warmth.

_UNKNOWN_

She startles at first, whipping her head around to figure out what’s going on, buy relaxes when she sees that it’s only Papa.

“Are you happy?”

Papa has tossed an arm over her, hand scrunched up in the knitted fibers of the sweater. His breathing patterns indicated he was still fast asleep.

“…I don’t know…”

The spot to her right is empty.

Papa grumbles as she twists within his hold, not entirely awake.

The world outside is alight with the soft glow of a sun that hasn’t risen yet.

Her feet are padding across the bedroom before Papa could roll over, listening at the doorway.

Downstairs.

Sounds of movement. Rasps of something metal. Rustling paper.

The floor is cold as she descends the stairs - the light is on in the kitchen.

He’s sitting at the kitchen table.

“…Dad?”

Dad freezes - silhouette blending into the unlight for the empty length of a heartbeat.

In front of him, scattered pieces of metal. She can see a spring. A round metal tube. A handgrip. More things she doesn’t know the name of.

“…Is that one of your guns?”

Chapter Text

Zero’s workshop really had two states of being - between neatly organized projects to barely contained chaos. That was usually when Wally jumped in with some wacky “science head-cannon." 

The fire alarm goes off for the third time. 

"That's it - I'm getting a fire extinguisher!" 

It was one of his favorite places to hang out in The Cave other than the rec room. Here he could just sit and watch Zero in her element - whether it be designing tools for his utility belt, adding new visual mods to Wally’s goggles, making new arrows for Artemis to test out, or just trying to make a pair of boots that could withstand Conner super-jumps and kicks.

She always had something in progress going on in there, staying up late into the night working on something new. 

Sometimes, Dick got the impression she was avoiding sleep. 

The lack of movement, lack of activity, lack of Zero.... 

It has something to do with the marks of use on the walls, the tables, the floor, the electrical outlets; the cans with their labels torn off sitting in the sink, full of fluids and materials that Zero used to upkeep her equipment; the little doodles on the margins of the whiteboards that got erased and changed constantly; the dummies for target practice shoved in one corner; the way everything is arranged slightly differently every time he went go in; the half-finished projects propped up on a workbench; the blinking light of the input for her 3d printer set in the rocky walls…

Everything about it suggests continuous use even when it's empty.

Surely something was in here, she spent so much time in this room - more than her own bedroom. 

Dick wasn’t sure what to expect when he followed the automated audio prompt that kept repeating a request for the helmet to be returned to the main workshop.

But he sure wasn’t expecting…this.

“I apologize for the sudden introduction, K and Robin. The language models meant to enable communication between myself and non-digital entities have finished the automated coding process-“

More screens appear, like UFOS hovering over the technological wonder landscape that is Zero’s workshop.

Language models? Automated coding?

Is this…an AI?

“But it is imperative that the Helmet unit be processed - Birdy has not made contact for a total of three months and 13 days. The stored data-“

“Wait wait wait - Birdy?“ Robin says out loud, “Are you - Did Zero -“

He shakes his head to clear his thoughts.

Conner has gone still. Very still.

“You’re…the new friend she made. Literally.” Conner mutters, eyes wide, “…what are you?”

The singular eye on the many screens blinks at the question, and he gets the distinct sense the AI is expressing something…Displeasure? Impatience?

Exactly how sophisticated was this thing?

Robin had some experience dealing with AI’s and robots - Red Tornado was one and he  of the  most literal person on the planet when it came to jokes and understanding them. It was all ones and zeros to the metal dude that never slept or ate.

There was of course the evil ones created by supervillains - T.O. Morrow and Professor Ivo with their respective robot armies. Most of them were simple constructs, point a robo-monkey at something and it will charge head-on with no larger plan other than attack. Intake and immediate reaction.

Never…emotive.

“…The priority at the moment is processing the stored data-”

“Her helmet!” Robin shouts, pointing, “Did she leave a message on it?!”

He knows that the helmet isn’t just a helmet - Zero had told him about some of the tech upgrades when he saw her tinkering on it one day. Something about cameras and night-vision, could’ve there been something else?

“The Helmet Unit contains an estimate of 17 encrypted kilobytes of data ranging from scans, recordings, and footage of the most recent mission-” 

(He kinda wasn’t paying attention. More like he was fixated on - well-)

Robin makes a grab for the helmet that’s currently being held by Conner - who pulls away, “Hey!”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Conner growls, holding it out of Robin’s reach, “What are you?”

“…”

The singular eyes on the screens blinks again, and the pixels narrow slightly.

“…I am an artificial intelligence that resides within Zero’s main computer - I manage internal systems, memory and data storage, and both development and implementation of the many programs that assist Zero.”

“Holy - So she really made an AI!”

“Your distrust is valid, K - Zero would have introduced both of us to one another under better circumstances. However, this does not change the fact that Zero has been missing for three months, 13 days.  Her wellbeing is top priority, any information available is crucial to -“

“Okay.”

Conner shoves her helmet into Robin’s hands.

“Do what you need to.”

The chipped edges of the broken visor bit into his hand - The amount of quesitons he wanted to ask the thing was increasing at an exponential rate - focus!

Robin’s opening many drawers as he gathers tools, “Okay Computer -“

A set of tweezers of varying sizes, some pliers meant for small wires along with some alligator clips, a plethora of screwdrivers.

“-How do I do this?” He asks, dragging a stool to one of the worktables.

“…The procedures as to which the data will be extracted is a delicate process - the tools at your current disposal will cause the Helmet Unit to automatically brick itself if any signs of unauthorized activity.”

Robin pauses before he could start prying away at the outer shell of polycarbonate, waiting for Zero’s computer system to continue.

“…And?”

Another blink from the many singular eyes - “May I ask for your confidentiality and discretion?” 

Before Robin could retort, the AI continued.

“I am currently bypassing several privacy protocols in order to grant you access to the extended workshop.”

Extended?

“-There are contents of the extended workshop she did not want show anyone at the time she departed for her last mission. I am requesting confidentiality to override this rule-”

There’s a loud THWUNK! and Robin jolts as cracks spiderweb across the wall.

“Stop. Stalling.” Conner growls, extricating his fist from an equally fist sized hole in the wall, “Zee made you - Breaking rules when stuff needs to get done, goddammnit! She could be dead -“

The many eyes all snap to look at Conner, the pixels…glitching? Going of the fritz before -

The holographic screens all turn off.

Leaving the two of them in the dark.

“What did you do?!”

“Me?! I don’t know-“

Robin stumbles backward as Conner punches the wall again - Conner breaking things when he’s angry is making a strong comeback, and it would be fucking disastrous if he broke something important and Zero’s AI just ceases to work and he’ll have to troubleshoot data recovery from Zero’s helmet without having it brick itself before he can actually get anything useful from it since all the important stuff is locked away in the Batcomputer -

“Apologies, please wait for a moment.”

Tirade now interrupted, Conner’s head whips around to stare at the wall he left a giant dent in.

There’s a gap of light between the metal panels that wasn’t there before.

It grew wider.

“Identified - Superboy; designation B-04 and Robin; designation B-01. Granting full access to Zero’s private facilities and all available instruments, raw materials, active case files...and personal records.”

Holy - How did Zero do that? Have the AI understand - Know? - When to stress words and make decisions that went against previous hard-programmed privacy protocols and actually override them?

Privacy protocols.

A weird sick feeling started making itself known in Robin’s stomach. 

Zero wasn’t the type to keep secrets, Was something he had long thought of her, always friendly, ready to talk at any time and offer advice - infinite patience for everything and everyone around her…

But why a secret extension? Why privacy protocols? Confidentiality overrides?

Why would she feel the need to hide something?

Everyone has their reasons for keeping secrets.

Robin of all people understood the truth of that statement. If she was hiding something, surely, she had a good reason for it. 

Robin glances at Conner, who already had a hand on one side of the metal panel and pushing it to one side, “Wait, Supes - I don’t think we should…“

The look Conner gives him borders on murderous. His fists clench tighter.

“You’re hesitating now?”

As if to add fuel to the fire the AI continued.

“Privacy protocols have been overridden, do proceed.”

She grins, adding finishing touches to her motorcycle. 

“ Birds of a feather stick together - right Robin?” 

Robin grits his teeth. Beyond the secret doorway he could see a dimly-lit hallways made up of thick cables. 

"Let's go."