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Chapter Text

"Your Highness..."

Komand'r pushed away the Tamaranean who had approached her with a gesture of anger. The wound in her shoulder had reopened, colouring her robe crimson, but she showed no sign of discomfort or pain. She couldn't do it.

There were eyes everywhere, waiting. She had to show herself stronger, untouchable, even when she was dirty with her blood.

In a harsh voice, she said, "I'm fine, there's no need to worry, Xalo’r."

"But..."

"I'm fine," she repeated, her eyes shining briefly, and Xalo’r took a few steps back. Komand'r rejoiced internally, pleased to be able to still arouse terror in her subordinates.

For the moment, a treacherous voice reminded her, and the brief complacency gave way to anger. Without deigning Xalo’r to glance, she left him in the corridor, heading for the communications room.

The pain in her shoulder came back with a vengeance, a stark reminder of her injury. Each step sent jolts of agony shooting through her body, but she gritted her teeth and marched on, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps. The metallic scent of blood filled her nostrils, mingling with the stale, recycled air of the Garla ship. The fabric of her robe stuck to her skin, warm and wet, a constant, unwelcome reminder of her vulnerability.

Komand'r should not be vulnerable. Haggar's experiments were supposed to make her invincible. Stronger. More durable. More powerful.

So why was she bleeding?

Is it not clear? No matter how much you damn your soul, you will never be enough. There will always be someone more powerful than you, just like your sister...

She took small breaths to control her temper and not start firing beams everywhere, further damaging the ship. As if the disastrous expedition to Earth had not already put it to the test.

When she finally got to the communication room, she was relieved to find no one, and not surprised: there were few people available, and most were busy with repairs.

This left her the possibility of doing what she had to do without witnesses and prying ears.

"Let's get it over with..." she murmured to herself, sitting down to start the call that so distressed her.

The answer was not long in coming. In front of her, a hologram of an elderly General Galra was projected, looking at her, annoyed, "Queen Komand'r. I was waiting for the report of the mission to Earth."

Why didn't you call sooner? , was the implied question, What else have you failed?

Sendak never failed to remind her of her shortcomings in over forty years of working with the Empire, an attitude shared by the witch of Zarkon, always so attentive to her experiments, who looked at Komand'r and wondered why X'hal had cursed her with the other sister and not with the one she wanted.

Komand'r looked at the hologram, a carefully neutral expression as she said, "There was an unexpected reaction, general. The Earth was prepared and there were losses..."

"I don't want any excuses," the general cut short, his tone harsh, his body line revealing all his discontent and barely restrained anger, "Your inability has cost us indispensable resources for this war."

"What resources? The one with almost no army anymore is me," she thought, but wisely she did not voice her thoughts and kept them to herself. When you depended on the mercy of invading aliens, you learned when to speak and when to bite your tongue and endure.

Despite what the general would have you believe, the Galra Empire could not afford to deploy forces to an insignificant planet, not when it had to quell rebellions from the subject planets and face the power vacuum after the death of Emperor Zarkon, with uncertainty as to who should take his place.

All the highest-ranking generals looked at each other in a tralice, convinced that one of them would, with a coup de main, seize power and kill his rivals. It hadn't happened yet, but it was only a matter of time, and Komand'r wasn't betting on Sendak's success.

Sending allies – a nicer way of saying slaves – was the best option to save resources now more precious than ever.

And she knew well what her role was, and she had to take orders and obey.

You are a disgrace to Tamaran, Komand'r. You will lead us to ruin.

She hated remembering her father. She hated even more to think that he was right.

Tamaran no longer existed; the survivors were either soldiers or slaves of the Galra, while she was a puppet queen who kept her title only thanks to the Haggar and the Galra, but she herself knew how fragile that support was, and how unstable her throne was.

"If you want the Earth so badly, you're going to need so much more," she said in a measured tone, "As I said, the Earth is protected."

"According to Haggar, after Darkseid's attack, most of those protections fell," the general noted coldly, taking care not to remember how the Empire did not take advantage of the opportunity because it too had suffered damage from Darkseid's forces, and it had taken years to recover. "And yet, you failed anyway."

"On Earth they have reorganised," the queen defended herself, "There are other protectors. They are strong. They are determined. They destroyed the ships you gave me, eliminated my army. Moroever, they have the support of the Green Lantern Corps."

"How much can a decimated corp make?" Sendak mocked. "Even in the past, they were never a threat. Zarkon crushed dozens of them throughout his reign."

"A handful of Green Lanterns is nothing, that's true," Komand'r was forced to agree. After seeing the Green Lantern Corps at its peak, she had no particular esteem for them.  "But an alliance between them it could be a risk for all of us."

"Are you suggesting that wretched earthlings can go against the Galra Empire?"

She almost wanted to laugh in his face for the offended tone used. Instead, with a carefully neutral expression, she replied, "The paladins were earthlings, weren't they? What's the difference?"

She saw him quiver, "Voltron's Lions are an ancient power, superior to anything else in the galaxy."

The Red Lion is powerful, my daughter. It's a greater power than you can hope to handle.

Her hands began to shake. It was hard to hide it. "They were an ancient power. The paladins are dead, and the Lions have disappeared with them.“

The general made an angry cry, "No, they aren't They reappeared, inexplicably. And it looks like they're heading for Earth."

They must have had second-hand news about Galra's plan to invade the planet. The fact that they didn't know about the failure of the invasion said a lot about both how the Empire handled information and propaganda, and where the paladins' priorities were.

It was logical that they would give priority to their home planet and not to the others who needed to be liberated. It was a weakness to be exploited much earlier, and she wondered if the reticence to invade the planet earlier was due to an error of judgment on Zarkon's part – very likely, if the rumors of his attempts to recover the Black Lion were true – or a serious underestimation of the paladins. Which could also be the case.

"They will find powerful allies waiting for them," she said with little interest, "We are just lucky that the earthlings will not attack us sooner. They won't dare, not when I have a hostage."

A hostage who was quite seriously injured, but this Sendak didn't need to know. And neither did the Justice League, if she didn't want them to try to attack her or the Galras.

She hoped that the doctors would give priority to the hostage. Negotiations over a corpse were useless. 

"That's an advantage to use," Sendak agreed for once, "But we can't allow paladins to reach Earth. And as much as I would prefer to do it personally, circumstances prevent me from doing so. You will take care of it, Queen Komand'r."

This surprised the tamarean, "Is there no one else who can take care of it? At the moment, I don't think I can..."

"Of course you can take care of it," the man cut short. If it had been anyone else, disrespecting a queen in this way would have cost their head. But she wasn't a real queen, was she? Hers was just a title, nothing real, as well as her power over her people. "Despite your many failures, you are still one of the greatest assets of the Empire, thanks to Haggar. Prove your usefulness, and capture the paladins. “

"This is..."

"Remember the consequences of disobeying orders," he reminded her coldly, "Don't let us down again."

With that, he cut off communication, leaving Komand'r alone, silent. She ran a hand over her face, holding back a hysterical giggle with difficulty, the stench of blood filling her nostrils.

"Remember the consequences of disobeying orders," she repeated, in her best imitation of the arrogant general. Then her expression became harsh, "As if it were possible to forget Haggar's care."

She slammed her hand on the console. It was a mistake. 

"Damn," she hissed. Maybe she will have to give in and get checked. Much later. When no other observers are hovering nearby, and she can afford a moment of weakness that she will make sure no one will ever know.

Damian floundered. He saw blurred. The world around him swam in a sea of indistinct shapes and colours, like a watercolour painting left out in the rain. He heard murmurs—voices, distant and muffled. They were discussing something important, something he couldn't quite grasp.

"The organs are failing!"

"He's losing too much blood."

"We have to stabilise it! The queen said..."

He lost track of what they were saying.  His eyes struggled to focus, but the effort was futile. His head was a foggy mess, a pounding pattern of pain that made his thoughts crawl like ants through molasses. Damian's body felt like it was on fire, every nerve ending a live wire dancing in agony. He gritted his teeth, willing the world to come into focus, but it remained stubbornly out of reach. The sounds around him grew louder, more insistent, yet no clearer. It was as if he were underwater, trying to hear a conversation happening above the surface.

"Last time it was faster," he thought indolently, as he felt his whole body spasms.

Dying was an unseemly affair, but in his line of work, it was common. He knew it was always a possibility. Men better than him had died, and they had not returned. Damian had done it twice, and some days he wondered why.

Why him and not father? Why him and not Richard?

If Waller was right and Earth needed Batman, why was he the one who came back and not them?

The questions danced in Damian's mind, taunting him as the world faded to black, the heart that struggled desperately not to give in.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The sound of his heart echoed through his ears, a frantic rhythm that seemed to fill the vast emptiness around him. It was a stark contrast to the chaotic cacophony of the medical bay, a solitary beat that grew increasingly weaker. The thumps grew closer together, a race against the ticking clock of his life, each pulse a declaration of his body's refusal to let go.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The world outside his pain-filled haze grew quieter, the voices dimming to whispers. The pressure in his chest mounted, a crescendo that threatened to shatter the fragile cage of his ribs. His heart was fighting,  refusing to fall in the face of defeat. Damian's mind floated on the precipice of consciousness, a silent observer to his body's desperate struggle.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The beats grew more distant, as if his heart was slowly retreating into the shadows of his soul. The fiery pain ebbed and flowed like the tides, each wave crashing against his sanity. He could feel himself slipping away, the cold embrace of oblivion beckoning him into its peaceful abyss.

Thump. Thump. Thump...

And then, there was only silence.

When Damian opened his eyes again, there was no cold embrace of death, but rather the warm, comforting light of the Wayne Manor's living room. It was a sight that brought a peculiar mix of relief and confusion. He took a deep, ragged breath and felt the soft fabric of a couch beneath him. The air was tinged with the faint scent of leather and the distant aroma of Alfred's cooking, a beacon of comfort in a sea of chaos.

Damian sat up with a start, his head spinning.  He heard whispers and echoes that he was sure were calling him.

Rise...Damian Al-Ghoul ...rise...rise...

"I wouldn't listen to them if I were you. It's not the call you should answer," a painfully familiar voice said. The whispers stopped suddenly, and Damian looked ahead. A man was standing by the fireplace, the flickering light casting dancing shadows on the walls, and Damian knew him.

"Richard," he said, his voice breaking, feeling as small and helpless as a child again, like the first time they had met. 

The man turned around and smiled at him, "Hey, little D. We haven't seen each other for a while. “

"Twenty years," he replied, his voice breaking. "Or ten, if you count the time I died. Too long, if you want my opinion, Richard."

"Too little, if you want mine," the other replied, beckoning him to come closer, "I would have hoped you would have reached eighty years of age, surrounded by animals and without having to worry about having to save the world."

"It's not in the Wayne tradition," Damian said, approaching cautiously. He didn't know if it was a hallucination due to the lack of oxygen in his brain or if he was really with Grayson after so long, but all gods be damned if he didn't take advantage of it. "I missed you, Richard."

"I missed you too, baby bird," the man said, ruffling his hair and struggling because Damian was so much taller than him, "No more baby now, huh? God, look at you. You're taller than me. Probably bigger than Jason."

"Unfortunately, Todd has remained superior to me in that aspect, despite abandoning his life as a vigilante."

"Really? Is he happy now?"

"He is," Damian confirmed, "Living away from Gotham has been good for him, as has the company of the Amazon."

"Did he and Artemis get together in the end? And did it last?"

The surprised tone was not so much disbelief at their brother's abilities as at the fact that life did not torment them all, making them unhappy at every possible opportunity.

"Yes, it lasted. They are together even though there is no marriage bond between them, and they have had two daughters. The eldest name is Rachel..."

He did not need to say in honour of whom the girl had been named, almost fourteen years old and with all the pride of her parents.

"And the others?" Grayson pressed, and Damian was happy to reply, "Drake and the clone married and have formed a family together, Cassandra and Brown had adopted another child after Crystal. Thomas, after a series of problems related to his powers and his biological father, has finally managed to build a stable relationship."

"None of the others hung up their mantle?"

Faced with his silence, Grayson sighed, "I had to imagine it. Sacrificial idiots, all of them."

"Earth needs heroes, Richard."

"I know, I know, little D. Why does it have to be you, though?"

It was a sensible question. Apart from a few of them, the others were not born with the weight of a legacy on their shoulders, nor with powers that were to be used for anything, preferably not to attempt world domination.

"We didn't choose it," he replied, inspired by what he had heard from the new Wonder Girl, "The circumstances didn't help. But once we're in it, we can't just not do something. I think that's the feeling felt by Drake and the others."

Grayson looked at him, "And you, little D? I remember you didn't want to be Robin anymore. You wanted to be a doctor."

"I have become one," he said, proud of his achievement. Pride that was immediately extinguished when he had to add, "Unfortunately, I don't practice, except when I help Dr. Thompkins in her clinic. I don't have time, and having a secret identity is not ideal with hospital shifts."

"Oh, little D. I'm sorry..."

He made a quick gesture with his hand, "Don't mind. I have taken up my legacy."

"You didn't want to do it, though. You wanted a normal life."

"I wasn't born to be normal," he would once say with the haughtiness instilled in him by his mother and grandfather. He was a prince, he was a superior being, he was someone to be feared, because the world would be his. Now he said it with resignation, aware of the cost of a birth like his, "I had to do it. The situation with Waller was just the last push I needed to take on the role."

"Has she tried to create a clone army of heroes again? It's amazing how, even after Brother Blood's spell, certain things don't change," Grayson tried to joke, but his tone lacked any hint of sarcasm.

"She created a clone of father. A defective teenage clone. He... He didn't survive," it still hurt him to say, thinking about how, if he had only been faster, he could have saved him. He had not succeeded, just as he had not been able to stop Waller in time. There had been others. Other experiments, other kids born only to satisfy Amanda Waller's megalomania.

"It wasn't your fault," Grayson grabbed his arm to reassure him, but Damian made a resigned expression, "Wasn't it? You would have saved him, Richard."

His brother squeezed tighter, and it was a strong, reassuring grip. He said, "Damian, I wasn't infallible. I haven't been able to save many people either. Hell, not even Superman could save everyone."

He opened his mouth to reply when Alfred entered the hall, carrying a tray of biscuits. When Damian saw him, he felt his eyes tingle.

"Pennyworth..."

"Young master," the butler greeted him, "I'm glad to see you again, though I would have hoped it would take longer. It's been too little time since the last time."

"I don't remember," Damian replied, feeling a lump in his throat. "I remember my first death, but the second..."

"Don't force yourself to remember," was another voice speaking. He felt his knees weak when he saw his father appear behind Pennyworth, the legend he had tried to live up to, and to whom he always felt compared, "Your mind is trying to protect you. The resurrection was complicated."

He clenched his fists, "I know. I was told that it took time. My soul was lost."

"It wasn't lost. It was hurt. You've had to endure so much, son. You just wanted to rest," father's voice was grave as he said it, and Damian couldn't help staring at him, impressing in his mind the details and similarities to the man he had barely known, "I'm sorry you still can't get the rest you want."

He frowned, "What does that mean? I am here with you. It's over."

"No, little D," Grayson turned to him, "It's not over yet. Bruce is right, there's still a lot to do."

He was afraid of hearing such a thing. Almost resigned, he said, "Earth is in danger, and the Justice League needs me..."

"No," his brother interrupted, surprising him, "You still have so much to do, Damian. You have devoted yourself completely to fighting crime, helping others, forgetting that you have a life beyond the cowl. The others are happy, but you?"

"I am... satisfied," the words came difficult to him, because deep down he knew it was not true. He saw the lives of his siblings, how, despite everything, they had settled into a sort of normality. They had moved on, while he was blocked. It was true, there wasn't much for him beyond the cowl, but as had already been clearly said, there was a need for Batman, not Damian Wayne. 

"You know, for a professional liar, one can read it in your face when you tell a lie," Grayson tried to be cheerful as he said it, but his eyes were veiled and sad.

He was feeling pity for Damian, and it was almost unbearable to see.

 "What your brother means,"  father interjected, before Damian began a philosophical disquisition on the nature of lying, "It's obvious that you've given up so much to be Batman. And you didn't live entirely. “

"Many haven't," he retorted, and instinctively his gaze fell on Richard, who, of course, noticed immediately, "Damian, I lived. I was also Dick Grayson, not just Nightwing and then Batman. I made my mistakes,  I loved, I had a family..."

"Why then should I live and you shouldn't? Why should I come back when your child hasn't even had a chance to live?" he asked, not understanding the total illogic of it all.  

Richard was about to answer, but no words came out of his mouth. Damian turned, and the faces of his father and Pennyworth were white masks.

The relatives in the room vibrated, starting to crumble, sending white flashes out of the ripples.

He felt Richard's hands grab him tightly on the biceps and force him to turn towards him. Half of his brother's face was gone.

"Listen to me, Damian. There's no time, you're about to go back. You won't be in a good situation, but I know that you will get out of it one way or another. I have so many things I would like to tell you, but I have to limit myself. First, give Jon a chance..."

"Have you gone crazy? That vile alien does not deserve ..."

"Second," Grayson didn't give him a chance to list his rightful grievances against the alien, his face was turning white faster and faster, "You're a detective, little D. Look. Who is missing in this room now?"

"What..."

"Who is missing, Damian?" he repeated, and before Damian could understand the answer, his face disappeared, and the whole room was swallowed up by the light, forcing him to return to the other side.

Damian's mind dwelt on his brother's last words as life claimed him with arrogance.

Who is missing?

"The paladins have been successfully captured, Queen Komand'r," a soldier told her, after Komand'r sent a message to the Justice League that can be summed up in the always effective formula: attack us, and your friend will die.

The Kryptonian had not reacted well and had promised her a very graphic death, and she believed him. She had a wound that was still bleeding thanks to him. But not even the Kryptonian would have been foolish enough to attack her, risking the life of his beloved.

She had gained precious time, which she intended to take full advantage of, using it for the mission that Sendak had assigned her. A mission that her soldiers had already completed while she was busy.

Komand'r didn't expect it would be so easy. To be honest, she expected more from those who were proving to be a thorn in the side of Sendak and the Empire, not that they would be surprised as amateurs.

It had been an unexpected stroke of luck for her, and Komand'r won't complain, nor will she wonder if, perhaps, there was a chance for her to overthrow the Galra and save her people, if those were the Empire's most formidable enemy.

She won't give in to temptation, not again, but the thought was so sweet, so...

“… besides, there is a half-Tamaranean between them..."

"What did you say?" she asked, realising that the soldier had continued to speak while she was lost in her thoughts (daydreams barely touched, the song of freedom that was heard, but she could not give in, she could not, she could not...)

The soldier pursed his lips but repeated, "Based on the scans we took when they arrived, one of the paladins is a half-Tamaranean. What should we do with the traitor?"

She was about to answer nothing. After all, the Galra would soon take care of the paladins. But she felt a feeling of unease. 

A half-human, half-Tamaranean paladin. It could not be possible: that day, the Galra took everyone, killing those who opposed, and leaving those too sick to be useful to perish. There was no way anyone could have reached Earth. And the only hybrid she knew of had died with his mother. 

"Your Highness?" the soldier repeated, waiting for orders. 

Komand'r should leave the matter to the Galra. She had done her part. But there was a Tamaranean hybrid on board that shouldn't exist, and twenty years had passed, and if he was the right age, it would have meant that in the end, it was always her sister who had to have the last word.

She needed to see the half-breed herself. She needed a DNA test.

If he turned out to be who she feared, there was only one thing Komand'r should do.

Kill him. 

Coming back to life and being thrown into a cell without too much ceremony, was at the time a 4 in his experience of resurrections.

Drake would have added something shrewd on Not Funny, I wouldn't do it again, but Damian was beyond such baseness.

Although he felt inclined to leave himself in certain comments, his mind was not fully functioning.

Damn drugs. The aliens were right to give him some, since he was perfectly capable of escaping from there even without any device, even in a currently altered state like his.

He only needed a minute. Maybe a few more. But he had a plan. A plan that he intended to implement at the right time.

And when he heard voices outside his cell, he knew the time had come.

“… there might still be someone here..."

“… we have to reach out to others..."

“… I know, I know... Quiznack, I'm not stupid..."

Damian would attack his captors, take whatever weapon he could use, and get out of there. Grayson was right to say that he would get away with it one way or another.

He would not have waited for help (help that would not have arrived, he would not have come, it was useless to rely on someone who had made it clear what he thought of Damian and the disgust he felt towards him.)

When the cell door opened, Damian froze. It was not a Galra or Tamaranean soldier who looked at him, but Grayson. Even wearing a helmet, Damian couldn't go wrong. He would recognise that face anywhere.

"I'm hallucinating now," Damian muttered to himself, as the boy stared at him, uncertainly, "Mhm, pretty sure I'm not a hallucination."

"That's what a hallucination would say, Richard," he said, knowing he sounded petulant. Whatever the Galra had given him to keep him quiet, it was stronger than many of the drugs he had become accustomed to during his training with the  League of Assassins.

It was only for this reason that he risked falling forward. Fortunately for him, he was promptly grabbed by the boy. It was a strong, solid grip, and not a hallucination.

Damian looked up, meeting eyes that reminded him of a dead man, and the other said, "You confused me with another person. My name is not Richard. It's Lance."

Chapter Text

Escaping had been a real challenge. Lance will admit that the idea of a secret passage was nonsense, but it was either talking nonsense or panicking.

And the situation was utter panic: with no weapons, no technology, Allura with a concussion and unable to do his magic jumbo manjo, and Keith's wolf, who couldn't teleport them all out.

It was not ideal, in short.

They had been lucky that Acxa was on that same ship, looking for Lotor. A suspicious fortune, but no one had asked for further explanations, and since they had not been followed, it was likely that Acxa was sincere.

Still, after Lotor, they certainly could not trust the first former enemy who declared himself on their side without a minimum of critical sense.

(And no, he didn't say it just because Keith trusted her without ifs and buts, and he would have wanted that trust for himself. It wasn't like that at all.)

Now, if they trusted Lotor's former general, who had probably helped a fair share of his war crimes, why couldn't they do the same with the human that Lance had found locked in a cell on the ship?

A guy who, among other things, weighed a mess and Lance had had to drag practically alone to safety, while Pidge yelled at him how irresponsible he was and tried to cover his back.

They were all saved, weren't they? It had gone well, and they had also saved another person.

Too bad that, now that they were safe on this moon at a safe distance from their enemies, Keith did not hesitate for a moment to show how unhappy he was with his choice.

"I can't believe how stupid you were," the paladin said, staring at Lance in a burning rage, "I gave you an order. You slowed down, put Pidge at risk and brought a stranger we know nothing about!"

Lance didn't look away. "I knew what I was doing. It was not an impulsive decision."

In reality, it had been, because he had decided to see in the other cells for an unidentified feeling he was feeling, but in the end, he had been right!

What, Keith could act on instinct, and he couldn't?

The others pretended to be busy with something else, but it was clear that they were enjoying the show that the two of them were offering.

"Did you know what you were doing? Looking at random is not knowing what you are doing!"

"I was right, though!" Lance insisted, as he saw Allura close to their new friend out of the corner of his eye and trying as best she could to heal him, "There was someone else!"

"We don't even know who he is! He could be a spy!"

"Like her?" he asked, pointing to Acxa, who was near Krolia and Keith's wolf.

Keith growled, "It's different."

"Yes, in fact, she only tried to kill us a dozen times when she worked for Lotor! And if he were alive, she would still work for him!" Lance blurted out, seeing the other bite his lip.

"But she's not," Keith insisted, "She decided to ally with us. What do we know about this man?"

"For one thing, he's a human, and if the Galra brought war to Earth, then he was captured during a battle."

"Why didn't they kill him? Or why didn't they send him to the Arena? Or to Haggar? Why was he on that ship? Didn't you ask yourself?" the paladin's questions sounded more derisive than anything else, as if to tell him you are so stupid that you didn't even think of such simple things, and now you got us into trouble.

Yes, Lance admitted that he hadn't asked himself all those questions, but they were in a hurry and there was little time to decide. He wouldn't have been good about himself if he had left someone to die.

You know, it's a matter of having a damn conscience.

He opened his mouth to answer, but someone was faster than him, "Blackmail."

They both turned to the stranger, who now looked much more lucid than before, and looked at them with an intensity that was almost reminiscent of Iverson. There was no doubt that this was a man with military training, and above all, he was used to commanding.

"Blackmail? Who were they supposed to blackmail?" Keith asked, his voice full of scepticism. It didn't escape Lance that his hands were going towards his knife, and he was one step away from using it.

The real question is who he would have lashed out against first. 

"My group, to avoid an attack on Queen Komand'r when she has suffered heavy losses and is not immediately able to employ new forces."

"Your group? Are you working for the Garrison? And who is Komand'r?" Keith pressed him, and it seemed that he had decided to be the bad cop in this impromptu interrogation.

His performance did not impress the man at all, who simply raised an eyebrow, "You have been in space for five years and you don't know who your enemies are? You are fighting blindly with deficient leadership.''

It was a very bad thing to say, and he saw Keith turn red with rage.

But before he could try to stab the other and ruin Allura's work, Lance interjected, "Five years? What does it mean? We haven't been in space that long. At most, two years, but..."

The man looked at him with sincere pity, without any trace of mockery, "I'm sorry to tell you that it's been five years since you left Earth. I thought it was the same for you, but something must have happened that..."

He didn't hear the rest of the sentence; Lance's ears were ringing. Five years had passed. Silvio was now in middle school, and perhaps Luis had married Carmen, if they didn't break up again. He had missed his parents' thirtieth wedding anniversary party, and his mom... God, his mom will be worse again because of him.

These were all things he had already thought about before, of course. But it was one thing to be barely two years, with the possibility that Samuel Holt would contact their families to let them know they were alive. And another was five fucking years and not knowing if Mr. Holt had contacted them, what had happened, how the war on Earth was progressing.

They knew nothing, and this terrified him.

"Wait a minute," Pidge's voice came through loud and crystalline, shaking him out of his thoughts, "Do you know us?"

"Your Lions have given away your identity," was the man's sarcastic remark, "Samuel Holt has described our possible allies to us in every possible detail."

So Mr. Holt had managed to get to Earth! It was wonderful news, their families had not been totally in the dark.

Too bad three years passed without knowing if you were alive or dead, a part of his mind reminded him, and Lance had to fight very hard not to be overwhelmed by that thought.

"So you work for the Garrison," Keith interjected, and it was likely that the information made him hate the other more. "Why would they use you to blackmail the Garrison? Who are you?"

"I blew up my ship and eliminated Komand'r's fleet. Only I should have died, that's why you didn't find anyone else. And as for who I am, I..." he hesitated, a slight tremor in his shoulders, and then looked at Lance. It was a second, but he had not imagined it. He took a trembling breath and replied, "My name is Damian Grayson."

"Damian Grayson? You don't have a Damian Grayson face," Pidge retorted, though it was less controversial than Keith's. Perhaps the mention of the fact that she knew her father had made her wary hand towards him. 

"It doesn't matter what face he has. Who is Komand'r?" Keith asked again. 

"Queen of Tamaran, Haggar's ally and her least successful experiment," Damian replied promptly, and Allura put a hand to her mouth, distraught, "Given the current state of the Empire, it's no surprise that she was sent."

"What are you talking about?" Krolia finally intervened, and Damian said, "The death of Zarkon's presumptive heir has left a power vacuum, just as you seem to have encouraged several planets to rebel. This led the remaining generals not to disperse their forces, and to rely on Komand'r."

"You're very knowledgeable," Keith looked at him suspiciously, and the other just snorted, "I know how to do my job well."

Unlike you, it was understood, but Keith wasn't stupid, and he understood it very well.

He growled, "I don't believe a single thing you said."

"You can try to kill me, but I don't recommend it. I'd break your neck," Damian said nonchalantly, and it was chilling. Damn cool, but also chilling.

How he was so confident when it looked like he had just returned from Hell and back was beyond Lance.

"I want to see you try," and Keith was ready to move from words to deeds, but Lance and Hunk got in the way.

"Man, calm down. Don't provoke him," Hunk tried to be kind, but that angered Keith more. "Don't provoke him? He just threatened me!"

"Yes, and you were no different," Lance added, earning a scowl from Keith, "Look, we can waste time interrogating Damian here instead of going home and finding out what was going on, or we calm down, get ready to leave, and don't try to kill anyone."

"That's the most idiotic thing you..."

"The red paladin is right," Krolia interjected, and the whole fight suddenly left Keith's body, "There's no point in wasting time now, not with Earth needing you."

"He could be a spy."

"Keith, a spy would not voluntarily reveal so much, especially such sensitive information. There's a chance that his story is true, and that the Red Paladin saved one of your allies."

"If it makes you feel better," Lance said a little later, "He'll travel with me, so if he tries to kill someone, he'll kill me first, and it won't be much of a harm."

He meant it as a joke (mostly), but Keith took it seriously, "If you're willing to do it, I won't stop you. But if something happens, it will also be your responsibility."

"Responsible Lance? We're screwed," Pidge muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear. Yes, even by the former general, by a confused Altean and by a member of the Blade as well as the mother of their leader. He felt himself blushing and hurried back to Red to do things, not to think about the complete humiliation he was feeling.

It wasn't until much later, when they finally left the moon, and Lance had a new guest aboard the Red Lion, that the paladin realised something.

Damian hadn't said he worked for the Garrison.

Damian had made several impulsive decisions in his life. The first was trying to kill Timothy when he wasn't yet clear about his family's rules, and that living with his father wasn't the same as living in the League. The second was to kidnap Superman's son to test the hybrid's capabilities.

The third... the list could be long, and Damian had grown old enough to recognise that he wasn't always perfect.

Deciding not to tell the whole truth to the paladins of Voltron was one of those impulsive decisions that could have consequences in the future.

To be honest, given the permanent effects of Brother Blood's spell, he wasn't even sure if they would believe him, nor that they could know who the Titans and the Justice League were. So, omitting details at the time was the best course of action.

It was true that he knew Samuel Holt and his son, too.

It was true what he had said about the present situation of the Galra Empire.

It was only the reason why he knew these things that wasn't what the paladins believed.

Not saying his real name was also a precautionary measure, since he was aware that Damian Wayne, as the last heir to the Waynes, was a well-known name even outside Gotham, and he did not want to answer questions such as ''what is a billionaire doing trying to save the world?''

Less justifiable was to use the alias Damian Grayson. He didn't know what kind of madness had possessed him to do it.

No, it was a lie. He knew it very well. It was because of the red paladin.

Damian believed he was suffering from hallucinations while in the cell. It wouldn't be the first time, after all.

It was not hallucinations.

The red paladin's face undeniably reminded him of Richard's. It was not a vague resemblance that could be dismissed as a coincidence.

At the time, Damian was sharing a ship with what could be considered a younger version of Richard Grayson.

"Age isn't right," the hero thought, watching the paladin as he piloted, "Of course, I have to consider the factor that the paladins disappeared for three years, probably due to a time rift, and the discrepancy would be explainable. Still, he is human, raised on Earth, in Cuba... in a family that has already attracted the attention of the Garrison once. They may have tried a second time, after the success with Veronica McClain, despite the precarious health conditions of their test subject... The possibility is there, and it is much more credible that his son survived... although I would prefer it, despite the illogic, to the umpteenth violation made to the detriment of my family...''

However, Richard asked him who was missing in that sort of afterlife, with all the family who Damian had lost. 

Thinking back, the answer seemed obvious, but at the same time, impossible.

Damian didn't have enough evidence to formulate a reasonable hypothesis, but he wanted, for once in his life, giving in to hope -  something he didn't even think he had anymore -  and belive that his brother's legacy was not lost forever.

There were burned corpses lying in front of Komand'r, while her hands were still warm. All eyes were on her now.

"This," she said, pointing to the corpses on the ground, "Is the punishment for failures. You were fooled by the ease with which the paladins got caught, and you didn't think it was a trick to free the prisoner!"

It had to be like this. No one was so inept as to be captured in such a grotesque way. It had been a trap, and they were the fools who had fallen for it!

Now it all made more sense!

The Justice League must have been able to contact the paladins for support in recovering their captured leader, and what better way to save a prisoner than to pretend to be at the mercy of the enemy?

Well done, paladins. Really, well done.

Now they had no hostage to leverage, they had failed their mission, and worst of all, the half-Tamaranean was free.

Free, in contact with the Justice League, and maybe it was her son, who somehow survived, someone who wasn't supposed to exist, obliterated with a planet that should have survived if just for once her people just trusted her...

The king's bedroom smelled of death.

The scent hung in the air, thick and oppressive, a silent witness to the end of an era. Komand'r stood at the edge of the grand chamber, her eyes scanning the once majestic space now marred by the chaos of battle. The curtains, once a vibrant shade of blue that matched the planet's skies, were torn and stained with the crimson of blood. The ornate tapestries, woven with the history of their people, lay shredded on the cold stone floor. The bed, a symbol of power and lineage, had been desecrated by the violence that had taken place upon it.

Her father, Myand'r, lay still on the dishevelled bed, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. His once robust body, adorned with the finest armor and weapons of the Tamaranian elite, was now a mere shadow of its former glory. His skin was pale, a stark contrast to the vibrant red that painted his surroundings. His eyes, once gleaming with the fiery determination that had led them to victory, were now glazed with the emptiness of defeat.

"So, you're back at last, daughter," the king gasped, looking at his eldest daughter with sheer and fierce hatred.

"I promised you," Komand'r said coldly, wearing the crown Haggar had given her. No emotion shone through her tone, yet inside she felt small and vulnerable like the child she had been.

Her father always had this effect on her.

"You have betrayed your people," the king continued, evident that breathing was increasingly difficult for him, "You had your planet poisoned. You have killed your mother."

"She got in the way," she answered, a slight tremor in her voice, "She made her choice."

"She chose to save an innocent. All this... all this is madness."

"You don't understand. What does Koriand'r's bastard matter? It's just two lives. Two lives for the salvation of the planet."

Her father laughed, "Is this what you tell yourself to convince that you are not a murderer? I do it for the salvation of Tamaran.  Since when do you care about Tamaran?"

She had always cared about her planet. She loved Tamaran. It was her home. How could she not love it? So many years away had only sharpened her desire to return, and to stay there this time, forever. She'd made difficult decisions to get what she wanted, but it would be worth it.

She had to believe, even in the face of the consequences of her choices: her dying father, and part of the population similarly reduced.

"What's different from the agreement you made when we were children?" she retorted. "You, too, to save our planet, have enslaved the blood of your blood!"

The man closed his eyes, wrinkles suddenly more apparent, "There isn't a day I don't regret that decision."

"You saved everyone, father. You did what was necessary," Komand'r insisted, and he exhaled a trembling laugh, "What was necessary? Yes, I did. But the Galra have treated us like slaves, they have disfigured our planet in search of quintessence, they have made you queen, forcing me and your mother to live prisoners in our own palace. I paid the price for my decisions... and so will you.''

"It will be different this time. Haggar..."

"You're a fool to believe the witch's words," Myand'r interrupted, opening his eyes, shiny with unshed tears. Tears for his daughter or his planet? "What value do the promises of a monster have? She's using you to get to her real goal, and you, fool, are allowing her to do so.''

Komand'r clenched her fists, "I'm a fool, but I'll do anything to prevent Tamaran from ending up like Altea."

"Komand'r... You have condemned us to a fate worse than that of Altea."

"I didn't!"

" Didn't you? Look at me! Grayscale disease is a cruel plague that deprives sufferers of the closeness of those dear to them, making them die in loneliness and pain."

"Haggar knows the cure!" she insisted," I can be with you without risking contagion. She made me immune. Nobody else has to die, father. Haggar..."

She didn't finish the sentence. A druid entered the room without knocking and approached the young woman. He whispered in her ear, "Haggar wants to see you."

Komand'r merely nodded.

"I have to go."

Myand'r laughed without joy, "Your mistress has called you, and you like a good selfor go to her. Look at you, Komand'r. You are a slave, condemned to the same fate as your sister. At least she broke her chains. When will you do it?"

"Nonsense," she said, and left the room without deigning to look at him.

That was her last conversation with her father.

Her face felt moist. Komand'r touched it and realised she was crying. She wiped her eyes quickly. It was not the time to think about the past. She couldn't change what she had done. Now his goal was another.

"What are you still doing here?" she barked, enjoying the sight of terror in the faces of her subordinates. "Enter the coordinates of the nearest planet. We have to find the paladins!"

Kaltenecker was happily eating her hay while Lance stroked her head. He had gotten several derisive looks for saving the cow, of all things, but Lance didn't care.

He was happy to be able to bring her to Earth and make her meet all the animals on the farm.

Well, if there was still a farm to go back to. He didn't even know what state they would find Earth in when they returned, and if there had been any other attacks after Queen Komand'r's.

The thought of his home made Lance's hand, still resting on Kaltenecker's forehead, start to shake. His breath grew shallower, and his heart felt like it was trying to escape his chest. He stood up quickly, the world around him seeming to shrink as if viewed through the narrow lens of a camera.

The sounds of the Red Lion grew louder, the whirring of the engines and the beeping of the control panels turning into a cacophony that echoed through his skull.

He tried to take deep breaths, to calm himself, but each inhale felt like a mouthful of sand, and his chest tightened like a vice.

There is nothing left to go back to; you have disappointed even your family. It's obvious that this is the case, you continue to disappoint everyone, you are nothing more than a placeholder, and when Shiro returns, you will be the one who has to leave, and you know why, you know...

"You're treating her well," the comment came suddenly, startling him.

He had forgotten that he was not exactly alone. Damian had been silent until then, and Lance had tried to fill the silence with useless chatter before, but it had been awkward.

It was almost like travelling with Shiro and making pathetic attempts to impress his hero, without achieving the desired effect.

(Shiro who no one knew if he was alive or dead, replaced for months by a clone. A clone that Keith had killed himself, and it was no surprise that he was so short-tempered. Lance certainly would not be well after killing something with the face of one of his brothers. )

"Oh, thank you... It's not that hard, actually," he scoffed, scratching his head nervously, and saw Damian stiffen. Was something hurting him?

"Taking care of something is always difficult," the man said with a gravity that was a bit exaggerated for a cow, but there was so much unpack behind it that Lance knew there was no need to make jokes. "You had time to prepare all this hay before the destruction of your... Castle of the Lions, right? Samuel Holt called your base that."

"I'd prepared it before," he admitted with a chuckle, "We've already ended up in corrupted wormholes, kidnapped, and other shit, and I didn't want to risk starving her."

"It was a very smart choice."

Lance blushed. He loved compliments, he lived to receive them. It had been a while since he was told he was smart, and honestly, he didn't know how to react.

"I... it was just common sense, I like to be prepared and..."

 "Me too," Damian told him. "It's a family thing. No one likes to be surprised. It's a behaviour taken by our father, even if not everyone is biologically related to him."

"Have you been adopted?"

"No, but my siblings are. I am the only blood son."

Lance made a perfect o with his mouth, "You must have been a surprise child, then."

The smile Damian gave was strange, "You can also say so. I was not a pleasant surprise for everyone. The only one who accepted me immediately was Richard, he..."

His voice died abruptly, and it was Lance who continued, "Richard? You called me that before."

"The concussion caused me to make a mistake of person for which I apologise again," the man tilted his head slightly as he said it, while grimacing in pain, and Lance was quick to say, "No problem. I'm sure your brother can't wait to see you again, and you can tell him how you mistook a random guy for him."

"I doubt it. He... he has been dead for a long time."

Lance's face fell, "Ah, I'm sorry. I didn't want to..."

"Don't worry," Damian's tone was polite but firm, "Like I said, it's been years. I'm fine now." 

It wasn't true, even Lance could tell that, and he wasn't always the most attentive person. He could understand, though. One never fully recovers from the pain of loss.

Lance swallowed, "I lost a brother, too. Not that I can compare the two things, I've never met mine, but it was quite tough for everyone. Mom never recovered from his death.''

And I put her through the same thing again.

Guilt swept over him like a tide. His mother was the best woman in the world, who had already suffered something unimaginable, who had a beautiful laugh, but there were days when she simply switched off.

Luis told him that in those days it was better to leave her alone, because she needed to be by herself and cry.

"She's better than before. But she needs to stay alone."

Damian coughed, "You want to... do you want to talk to me about them?"

"What?"

"Your family, if you want," he clarified, and it was painfully embarrassing to see him try to make conversation, though he didn't feel like it, and Lance found it very sweet.

"I'd love to, but if I start, I'll end up making you want to cut off your ears," he joked, but Damian looked at him seriously and intently. "No, I want to listen. I'm interested.''

Maybe he should be more suspicious. His teammates didn't care to hear the silly stories about Lance's family either (Hunk already knew them all, Allura would be sad, Pidge had better things to do, and Keith... well, Keith was Keith, clear wasn't it?), and it could be a way to have information to use against him.

However, although socially inept, Damian was sincere, and Lance really wanted to be able to talk to someone without being told to shut up.

He gave Kaltenecker one last caress and sat down opposite Damian. The autopilot could stay for a while longer.

"So, let's start with my siblings. There are five of us. I'm the youngest, then there's Marco, Luis, Veronica and Rachel..."

The paladins had chosen a planet to stop on to rest, and now they were intent on getting ready to spend the night.

Their base camp was rather improvised and narrow-minded, but since they followed the orders of someone who had only a semblance of an idea of what he was doing, it won't hold him against the poor organisation.

For now.

Damian stood near the Red Lion, watching everything like a hawk. He had collected useful information, even if he already knew many things.

Lance had been lavish with details, revealing a lot, without realising it. He shouldn't have done it so easily, even with him, but he seemed like a good judge of character, and that partly calmed Damian's anxiety about him.

The boy was not naïve (not too much), he was confident but with limits, as evidenced by his caution towards the Galra woman, and from what he understood, he was the only one with enough brains to do it.

How those teens had come this far without suffering defeat was beyond his comprehension.

"Hey, are you okay?" the green paladin, Katherine Holt, passed by, her arms full of junk, behind her the yellow paladin, who instead held what looked like a cauldron. "Do you need Allura?"

"I'm fine," he replied, and it wasn't a lie; his parameters were pretty good for someone back from the dead. "I was thinking."

"Lance is already driving you crazy, huh?" the girl joked, and he didn't like her derisive tone at all. "He tends to have that effect on people. It was like that at Garrison, too."

"Have you known him for a long time?" he asked, putting his annoyance aside for the sake of his little inquiry.

"We used to go to the Garrison together," Katherine replied, "but Hunk has known him here for much longer; they are childhood friends. That makes you realise what kind of guy Hunk is."

There it was again, the derision, the nagging sense of superiority that revealed her belief that she was better than others for her intellect.

Professor Holt praised his daughter's genius, and Matthew Holt also added It's normal for people to dislike Katie right away, she tends to be very blunt.''

He understood what Matthew meant.  Damian was once like that.

"I guess you were at his house then," he said, turning to Hunk, and there was something in his look that must have startled the boy. Mhm, he was too easily frightened. A weak point to use against paladins if they ever have the misfortune to cross paths with the Sinestro Corps.

"I've been a guest at his house in the summer sometimes," the yellow paladin replied quickly, and Damian muttered to himself.

Strangers would immediately notice when there was something strange or out of place in a house. They also tended to be naturally curious about businesses that did not concern them.

"Were there many photos?"

The question took the paladin by surprise, "Photos?"

"The Red Paladin's family is very big, right? There must be pictures of all of them," at least, Timothy had explained to him that it was what normal families did, not the austere portraits of Wayne Manor (although there were photos of the whole family in his father's office), or the Al Ghouls' mausoleum.

"Indeed, it is," the yellow paladin admitted, never losing his confused air as he spoke, "Photos of uncles, cousins, his brothers..."

"And his?"

"Of course, there were his too! Like, his first day of school, when he won the scholarship for the Garrison..."

"And older photos?" Damian pressed him.

"What do you mean?"

"He is talking about embarrassing pictures of Lance as a baby," Katherine interjected, unasked, "You know, the kind of things that you would never let anyone see but that your parents proudly show everyone."

The yellow paladin thought about it, "Now that I think about it... I don't think I've seen photos of baby Lance. Those of others yes, and maybe there are, but... damn, I can't help but think about it now, Pidge!"

"Hey, don't blame me! He was the one who started talking about it!" the girl blurted out, but the other now had a horrified expression, "Yes, but now I can't help but think of an adorable baby Lance who is being photographed while taking a bath!"

"Why would you think of such a thing?!"

"I don't know!"

Damian did not follow that useless exchange. His mind was working on that information. There were no baby photos. As for Jon's father.

There were those of others, but not those of Lance. Why not? Were they stored somewhere else? His parents, still shaken by the death of a son at such a tender age, did not feel like making it for their youngest child?

It would make sense, of course, but there was also the possibility that those photos simply did not exist.

And if they didn't exist, it was because the child had come to them in another way; Kal El was a toddler when he arrived on Earth.

How long would a pod from Tamaran to Earth take? It was a long shot, but one Damian couldn’t help but think about.

"Anyway," Katherine quickly changed the subject, diverting him from his reflections, "Why all this interest in photos? Of Lance, of all people!"

"I was curious, Katherine. That's all."

The girl grimaced, "No one has called me like that for a long time. I prefer Katie, or Pidge these days."

"Katherine," Damian said again, if only for the sake of annoying her, "I want to learn more about the group of defenders of the Universe."

"What, so you can use the information against us?" the red paladin spoke, approaching them with his wolf next to him. The animal was cautious, but he knew how to recognise dangers better than his master, and he recognised nothing in Damian to worry about.

Katherine rolled her eyes. "Stop being so paranoid. They are just photos. I'm sure the Galras care about baby Lance's photos!"

"Still, these are all too personal questions," the black paladin said defensively, and perhaps he wasn't as incompetent as Damian had thought. He was not impressed in the slightest, though.

"I had an interesting conversation with the Red Paladin, and I was curious about his circumstances. I apologise if the questions sounded inappropriate."

"Did you hear, Keith? It's not a strange strategy to attack us all, calm down your pants."

"If Lance's family were attacked, how would you feel?" the black paladin almost growled, and she stopped smiling.

Mhm, interesting. Damian had the impression that he didn't care about his teammate. Nevertheless...

"This is ... do you think that the Galra could..."

"Yes, Hunk. I think our enemies are more than capable of taking information about us to hurt us," Kogane retorted, squinting his eyes. He recognised that expression, the boy wanted to fight. Well, Damian was waiting for nothing more than to give him the fight he wanted so much.

"If you're worried about this, then you shouldn't be travelling with an ex-enemy," Damian lazily remarked, and the black paladin clenched his fists, "Unlike Lance, I'm not foolish enough to trust the first one who passes by!"

"The Red Paladin is not a fool," he couldn't help but retort, "He knows people, and he understands them. Don't belittle the talents of others because you don't have them."

"Sure, we've seen how well it went with Nyma," Katherine muttered, "Keith is right not to trust him, Lance is pretty silly."

"Guys, you're exaggerating, really..."

"The only thing Lance can do that is useful is shoot the things that could kill us. I don't trust him not to let us fall into a trap just because he was stupid enough to trust someone like you."

He froze. He remembered a similar quarrel, years before, with someone who should have known him better...

Damian, you are a murderer. You were born to kill, and no matter how much you try to clean yourself up and be a hero, it doesn't matter! You are a monster, and there is a special place in Hell for you...

How short-sighted and obtuse could that Kogane be? A leader should lead his group, not criticise them mercilessly, and above all, not stand above them.

Richard would never have done that. Richard had led a group of misfits and outcasts and turned them into heroes. What could Kogane say he did? He was bringing everyone back to Earth, but he lacked the charisma, the heart that would make him a leader worthy of the name.

Kogane was not up to his role. Shirogane may have been, but he had disappeared, and now they had to settle for that shoddy excuse of a substitute.   

"You are very bold to say this... Lance."

He paused, realising that Lance was there. And he had heard them.

The others turned around, and for a moment it seemed that the black paladin felt guilty, but as it had arrived, that moment passed, and his face returned to being a mask of coldness.

Lance's eyes, on the other hand, were empty, but Damian knew that expression; he had already seen it too many times in the mirror not to know it, and he felt his chest tighten.

"Hunk, I found some wood, " the red paladin's voice was fragile as he spoke, but it was clear, giving away no clue as to how he felt. "Romelle said she wanted to cook something she learned from her mother. Would you like to help her?"

"Um... Yes," the boy said, and he immediately broke free, joining his friend and going away with him.

Damian noticed the black paladin's body, unsure between two impulses, between following them and staying in his position. In the end, pride got the better of him. He gave one last look full of hatred towards Damian ((tsk, he had been raised by Ra's Al Ghoul. You had to put in more effort if you wanted to intimidate him), and he went off to do whatever anyone like himself did to make himself useful.

He and Katherine stayed, and the green paladin whistled, "Well, that was bad. At least Lance didn't take it."

"You're wrong. The red paladin is hurt right now. Kogane should apologise."

Katherine snorted, "Lance hurt? That guy is made of rubber. Also, it's not as if Keith isn't right. I trust Lance to keep me safe in battle. The rest? Not so much. ‘’

Damian gave her an icy look. "I thought you'd be able to relate."

"Why?"

"Even your only utility is to provide technology for your team."

He had left her taken aback, to the point that he saw her open and close her mouth intermittently. Damian didn't care if he upset her, and decided to go see what Lance and the yellow paladin were doing.

Damian didn't know it at the time, but that conversation had not gone unnoticed by someone powerful and very bored. And who now wanted to play.

Chapter Text

Lance didn't go to sleep in a good mood.

He had tried not to show it, but Keith's words ("The only useful thing Lance can do is shoot what could kill us. I don't trust that he won't let me fall into a trap just because he was stupid enough to trust someone like you.")  had shaken him more than he would have liked to admit.

It was true, Lance tended to trust people too much. That's how he was; he liked to be friendly. However, he was able to recognize assholes, see with Lotor, a case in which he was right but no one had listened to him.

Damian wasn't a bad guy. Sure, he was a weird guy, but Keith was like that, too.

Lance didn't know much about him to judge him, but the other looked fucking sad, and Lance didn't think he was a bad guy.

Too bad their intrepid leader didn't think the same way, and Lance couldn't help but think that maybe Keith was right to have doubts, since Lance had made so many mistakes, and now they couldn't afford to make any more missteps.

It was normal to doubt; Lance didn't give much to the team. He understood it, and it was fine.

It didn't hurt any less, though.

It was therefore no surprise that he struggled to fall asleep. His mind had decided to torture him and loop everything that was wrong with him, how useless he was, a fallback, and that Keith was right, grow up Lance, don't you see what you're up to?

More surprising, however, was being able to fall asleep, after who knows how long, and find himself immediately afterwards in a kind of low-cost television studio, unable to move and with the rest of the team in the same conditions.

"Okay, this is different from usual," he found himself admitting. He was no stranger to nightmares: you couldn't fight an intergalactic war that had lasted for ten thousand years without ending up having nightmares. It was impossible.

Usually, there was a lot more death and blood, though

"Isn't this the time to joke," Keith, next to him, growled, "Can you use your bayard?"

"I doubt that in dreams we can use weapons and... Ouch! Pidge!" he snapped, turning to the green paladin.

The girl didn't look sorry at all. "Well, that was it or waiting for you to realise that this isn't a nightmare, and we don't have the luxury of wasting time. All of this is real!"

"What the..."

"Welcome to my show, paladins!"

A very large floating alien, the green, fat, ugly version of Watto from Star Wars, appeared in front of them, brightly dressed and rather ridiculous.

"I'm Bob, and I'm the presenter!"

"Presenter of what?" Pidge asked, as the alien got closer to her, too much for Lance's comfort, that he wanted to stand between them, but his damn legs wouldn't cooperate.

"Garfle Host Warfle Snick, of course! It's the most watched game show in the Universe! Even in the Galra Empire!"

"So you are an ally of the Galra?" Lance asked, hoping to divert the alien's attention from Pidge.

He succeeded. Bob turned to him and saw a sinister glimmer cross his gaze.

"I'm no ally of anyone, little bird. I am, as some might say, a freelancer."

"Little bird?" he heard Keith repeat with the same confusion that Lance was feeling. Was it a flirt? Had a slimy alien just flirted with him?

First thing, how disgusting. Second, he hoped Allura didn't feel that way when Lance flirted with her. He wasn't that slimy.

Bob chuckled, "Don't be jealous, black paladin. His mother called him that. Isn't that cute?"

Lance didn't remember it, but there were so many things his mother did when he was little that he didn't remember, and he assumed that calling him little bird as a nickname was one of those things.

 "It was cute," Allura interjected, conciliatory, as Bob's smile widened, "Was it a cute nickname or his destiny? Who knows?"

"Dude, what are you talking about?"

"I am very clear, red paladin. It's not my fault that you don't know things," Bob said, as he shook his head as if to say tsk these guys are so silly, I can't believe I'm wasting my time with them.

Then he clicked his tongue, "No more pleasantries! Let's get the games started!"

"Games? We did not agree to participate!" Pidge screamed at the top of his lungs, while a recorded laugh rang out in the studio.

Bob's grin made him sick to his stomach. "Oh, green paladin. It's kinda cute that you think you have a choice here."

Quiet was a state that Damian was hardly used to. 

It wasn't because of his training with the League of Assassins, but concrete experience: there were no quiet nights in Gotham, only apparent calm before some escape from Arkham or the Joker's new terrorist project.

Sometimes, in his moments of weakness, he wondered if it wouldn't have been better to kill that damn clown.

But then he thought about how much he would disappoint – and agree with the alien – and he couldn't even tolerate the thought.

That's why, while the paladins slept, he was still awake, watching the extinguished embers of the fire. Damian was waiting for something to happen: the arrival of Komand'r, the attack of the Galra, the Sinestro Corps, just to give a few examples. 

The Universe was full of enemies who would harm them, and the paladins had gone to sleep without any worries: no one remained on guard, no one to watch over the Lions. 

It wasn't even the whole team's fault, but rather the wicked management of their so-called leader.

Matthew Holt had told him what kind of guy that Keith Kogane was, and Damian's assessment had not improved after their discussion: that man was too impulsive, uncooperative, stubborn, aggressive, and, above all, not suitable to lead a team. 

(It did not escape him that many would say the same things about him, but wisely he decided not to dwell on it.)

Kogane was quick to point out other people's faults, but he was not organised when necessary.

Frankly, how this team got to that point, was beyond Damian.

"You should rest," he heard someone say. It was the other Altean who traveled with them, the princess's counselor. 

Damian didn't raise his head, "I'm not tired."

"Mhm, and yet, dear boy, your expression says otherwise," the alien said, sitting down next to him. "If you want to show us something, this is not the right way."

"I don't have to feel anything. If the black paladin is unable to recognize his allies, it's not my fault," he growled, perhaps too vehemently.

The Altean was not too upset, "Keith has resumed a difficult role, for which he was not fully prepared. And given what everyone has been through recently, his paranoia is understandable."

"His is not paranoia. If it were, he would be on guard while the others sleep. He would prepare an itinerary to evade Galra controls. He wouldn't show distrust of the wrong people," he remarked, and he didn't even need to specify who they had better not trust.

The Altean seemed intelligent and endowed with common sense, just like Pennyworth, and the comparison made his heart clench, a pain that never completely healed.

Damian couldn't look at the man. He would have expected to see someone else, and he had already had enough with the red paladin.

"You're an experienced soldier," the counsellor finally said, and Damian shrugged, "It's just common sense. I don't see much of it here. This team is not cohesive."

The other sighed, "Yes, I was afraid you'd notice. The damage of the clone is evident."

"If it only took one clone to make paladins like that, then it means they weren't a good team before," Damian couldn't help but notice, and heard the man next to him wince.

The Titans had faced betrayals and conflicts a step above a simple a clone infiltrated us and made us fight. They had even managed to reunite with a spell that had altered reality, making some of them enemies, with trust issues to deal with and hurt feelings, but they managed to work together and defeat Brother Blood.

Like a real team. 

(Like a family, because they were Richard’s family. This was bitter to admit, but Damian always knew who his brother loved.)

Could these paladins defeat the Galra Empire when they were so disunited? He knew the answer, and he didn't like it.

The alien did not share his opinion, "None of them were prepared when they arrived at the Castle, nor did they have any idea what they would have to face. They have taken on a heavy task, and they are doing their best. Yes, the team has problems. But they can overcome them. I believe in them."

Trusting someone was not enough. If there was no basis to support it, that trust was useless. 

"I would have thought that, with your experience, your judgment would be..." he paused when he noticed a familiar shadow looming above them.

The shadow of a Galra ship.

"We need to wake up the paladins," he ordered the old councillor, "We have to leave."

“I am going to wake up the princess,” the Altean said, rising immediately and going towards the princess. Damian did the same, going to where the red paladin was sleeping.
The boy slept peacefully, unaware of the Galra one step away from them. Damian stood looking at him for a split second too long, before putting his hand on his shoulder and shaking him.

"Lance, we have to go. The Galra are here."

There was no reaction. Damian shook harder, "Lance, we can't waste time. We have to leave..."

"Something is wrong!" heard the Altean say. He turned around, and saw that the alien was kneeling next to his protégé, apprehension evident from every inch of his body. "He doesn't wake up! And his eyes..."

Immediately, Damian checked Lance's eyes and raised his eyelids with little grace. He swallowed an expletive, seeing that his pupils were absent, leaving only a milky white to return his gaze.

 
He didn’t lose control.

He turned to the Altean, "See if the others are in the same condition.  If that is the case, we will move them to a safe place."

"We don't have time!" the other man snapped, as the ship soared into the sky in all its gloomy glory. It was a matter of minutes before they noticed them, and the panic was at its least at that juncture.

He didn't panic. A lesson he had never forgotten from his mother was that if you have your back to the wall, that's when you have to start fighting harder. 

Damian had always been an excellent student.

He clenched his fists, "Don't be afraid. I'll take care of it."

"I admire your courage, Mr. Grayson, but how do you plan to fight against an entire Galra ship?" 

Before Damian could answer, a roar caught their attention. 

It was the Red Lion.

The Altean looked at the majestic robot with a mix of concern and hope.

"I believe she wants to communicate with us," the old man murmured. "She wants to fight, but with her paladin in this state..."

"I already told you. I will fight. If the Red Lion permits me, I will do it with her."

The alien sighed, "But Mr. Grayson, the Lions are bound to their Paladins. The bond is sacred, and the Red Lion will not acknowledge you as such without Lance."

Damian nodded, "I don't doubt that. But if the Red Lion has activated, it means that it wants me to pilot it."

He saw the councillor's uncertain expression and continued, "I don't want to steal anything from Lance, and I respect his connection to the Red Lion. But I think the Lion has also understood that these are exceptional circumstances."

The Altean sighed, defeated, "Then we hope you really know how to fight, Mr. Grayson. The lives of the paladins are in your hands."

"I know," was all Damian said. There was no time for delay: he approached the Red Lion, who opened her huge mouth, and entered inside.

The cockpit was surprisingly roomy, almost comfortable. The controls were more complex than any vehicle he had ever driven, but he was not one to be daunted by technology. He had once piloted a ship with nothing but a tablet. This was child's play in comparison.

Damian took a deep breath and reached out to grasp the controls. The power thrummed beneath his fingertips, but it was not for him to claim. It was to borrow, to safeguard. With a silent promise to return the Red Lion to his rightful pilot, he initiated the startup sequence.

The cockpit lights flared to life, and the engines roared like a dragon awakening from its slumber.

The Red Lion, with Damian at the helm, soared into the sky, a fiery streak against the inky blackness of night.

The Galra ship hovered ominously, a silent sentinel of impending doom. The moment he was airborne, Damian knew that the element of surprise was on their side. He had to strike fast and decisively. He targeted the ship’s engines, aiming to disable them without causing an explosion that would threaten the unconscious paladins.

The Red Lion responded to his commands with a grace that belied her size. He felt the power surge through his body, a bond forming between them, one of necessity rather than destiny. With a roar that echoed across the sky, they lunged towards the enemy ship. The ship loomed closer.

His first shot was true, striking the ship's engines with a precision that would make even Todd proud. The explosion was muffled, a sign that he had managed to damage them without causing a catastrophic failure. But instead of the expected barrage of fire in retaliation, the ship's bay doors slid open, and a familiar figure appeared.

Damian's grip tightened on the controls as he recognised the regal silhouette of the Tamaranean queen, her royal crest gleaming in the moonlight. His eyes narrowed. This was a complication he had not anticipated. The Red Lion seemed to sense his tension and pulsed with a gentle reassurance beneath him.

"How lucky to find the paladins here," the queen said, the expression too reminiscent of his grandfather's when he was dealing with Drake, "The goddess is on my side."

He doubted that the goddess of Taraman was on the side of the one who had contributed to the destruction of her planet, but wisely, Damian didn't speak.

Komand'r thought she was facing a paladin. She didn't know it was him.

A plan began to form in his mind, "I must get her away from here, and give the Altean time to hide the paladins. I will serve as a diversion."

He saw no faults, not even his putting himself, again, in active danger. But the life of a vigilante had taught him that there were times when sacrifices had to be made, and this was one of them. He couldn't let Komand'r see Lance. He was sure that she would recognise that face, and he feared her reaction.

Even if Lance weren't who he thought he was, Komand'r wouldn't have cared, not with that face, not when she hated the man who had once taken away her throne.

The Red Lion roared in defiance as Damian launched into a daring assault. He targeted the spaceship’s weak points, firing off a barrage of laser blasts while simultaneously dodging the incoming fire. The spaceship groaned and shuddered, but remained stubbornly in the sky. The Tamarean weren’t easily deterred.

“You think you can defeat me?” taunted the queen, her voice echoing through the cockpit speakers. "You are alone! I have the powers Haggar gave me! I'm granting you an honourable surrender. Surrender, and I won't burn you all alive!"

Damian gritted his teeth, the insult rolling off his shoulders as he focused on the battle ahead.

The Red Lion and the spaceship danced in a deadly ballet, each trying to outmaneuver the other. Damian's hands flew over the controls with a skill that would make any pilot green with envy. The spaceship's lasers and missiles were no match for the Red Lion's speed and agility. He dodged and weaved, leaving a trail of smoke and destruction in their wake.

The queen's spaceship took hit after hit, its shields flickering like a candle in the wind. With a final, desperate move, Damian sent the Red Lion spiralling towards the spaceship's bridge, aiming to take out the command center. The impact was tremendous, causing the spaceship to list to one side.

"You fool," the queen's voice hissed over the comms, "If you want a fight, I'll offer you a fight that won't leave a piece of you behind."

Komand'r ordered her spacehip to retreat, and she took off in a personal fight. She stepped out alone, dark energy surrounding her, and flew in front of the Red Lion.

Years ago, Damian had studied his family's enemies in depth. Komand'r was among them, given the relationship between Richard and the queen's sister. She was a broken woman, full of envy, who, unlike the rest of her race, could not fly. Haggar had cured her at last.

He tightened the controls. It was the right time. Damian ran away.

The Red Lion's engines screamed as he pushed her to the limits, the ground a blur beneath them. He knew he had to get as far away from there. The paladins had to be safe, even if it meant facing the wrath of the queen alone.

He could feel the lion's power waning, the strain of the battle taking its toll. Yet, the queen pursued them relentlessly, a dark spectre in the sky.

The Red Lion's speed was unmatched, but so was Komand'r's determination. Every time he thought he had lost her, she would reappear, her eyes gleaming with malice. It was as if she had an uncanny sense of where they were heading, a predator on the hunt for her prey.

"I have to keep her away from the paladins," was all Damian thought, while sweat beaded his forehead and he felt pangs in his sternum, "I won't allow her to hurt that boy."

In a a place surrounded by shadows, where the air was still and screams could be heard in the background, a hooded figure with a white mantle watched the scenes projected by the mirror fragments in front of them.

On one hand, they watched the Red Lion's hot pursuit. Damian Wayne, the heir to the Batman cowl, was good, but he wasn't the Lion's true pilot, and his body and the strain of piloting would soon give out.

On the other side, Garfle Host Warfle Snick, where the paladins were stuck, forced to play.

And Bob loved to torture his competitors. Especially when he knew their weaknesses.

"Who's the dumbest on Team Voltron?"

They looked away.

Bob's games were cruel, and the paladins risked ending up prisoners forever of that sadist. 

"That's not how it's supposed to be," the figure said, a warm, feminine voice, sweet but scratchy, like she didn't use her voice for a ling time. "They shouldn't be like this."

She couldn't stand by and watch: the fate of the Universe depended on the paladins of Voltron, even if they did not yet know how much.

They were the key to stopping the darkness that was coming.

"I see no other solution," she said, as sand ran down her right hand, " I had to intervene."

Komand'r flew as if she had something to prove. Ever since Haggar had cured her of her illness, giving her back the gift of her people, every time she was in the air, she felt she had to prove that she deserved it.

She knew she wasn't as strong, fast and resilient as other Tamaranean.

She had her powers, sure, but she was still an anomaly.  Any Tamaranean would have understood, at first glance, that flying did not come naturally to her, and the pariah label would never have gone away from her.

"This is not the time to feel sorry for myself," she thought, clenching her fists angrily, chasing the Red Lion, "I have to capture the red paladin and then the others."

She wanted to use her starbolts to weaken the Lion, but she couldn't take the risk of destroying the lion.  Sendak wanted the Lions in good condition, and the paladins alive for the very public execution he was organising to give a demonstration to the rebels. 

Also, there was the fact that this was the Red Lion, and she couldn't bear the idea of damaging her, not when the Lion could have been hers...

Don't be silly, Komand'r. The Red Lion is not yours...

"Shut up!"

Our family has protected her for generations, and she let herself be piloted...

"Stop!"

… only by those she considered worthy, and you are not...

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" she yelled, trying to silence that voice, increasing her speed. She would prove him wrong. She would prove it to everyone! 

She had no idea what her face looked like at the time, and frankly, she didn't care. The only thing she thought about was the Red Lion.

"I can do it... I can do it... I can..."

Suddenly, a flash of white light blinded her, forcing her to cover her face with her arm. When the light disappeared, and she was able to open her eyes again, Komand'r found herself on the other side of the planet, and the Red Lion disappeared from view.

"No... It can't be... no!"

She had never been good at dealing with defeats, and her fury left an indelible mark on the destruction she wreaked all around her.

When Damian saw the light, he feared another attack. He wasn't so optimistic as to believe that one of the Titans had managed to get there by some unexpected miracle, and he was now ready to have to fight against another opponent.
It was not so. 

When he opened his eyes, there was no sign of Queen Komand'r, and judging by the Red Lion's systems, her ship was not anywhere either. 
Damian was alone. 

"So luck sometimes remembers me too," he muttered to himself, as the pain came back to him. Too much effort for someone who has returned from death so recently. 

The Red Lion vibrated, trying to give him strength.

Damian took a trembling breath, "Yes, don't be afraid... I won't die before I take you back to your paladin."

Turning back was an extraordinarily quiet affair, but despite the apparent calm, Damian remained on alert. He was not one who believed in miracles, and was just waiting for whoever had caused that sudden flash of light to decide to show up.

It didn't happen, but his paranoia didn't subside. Something was moving in the shadows, helping him, but not taking credit for the help. There could be many reasons, but he couldn't help but think that, whoever it was, it wasn't showing up because it shouldn't have done it.

"I would rule out the intervention of one of the Guardians ... they make the Green Lanterns do everything... it can't even have been one of the Lanterns, they don't just make enemies disappear, their powers don't work like that... also, wrong color, so who..."

His stream of thoughts was interrupted by a new wave of grief. He doubled over the controls, while the Red Lion roared to keep him from losing consciousness.

"You're good... You are very loyal..." Damian was able to say, and those words alone were a terrible effort for him. 

Arriving at the paladins' camp was a relief. The Red Lion landed with all the grace she was capable of and opened the door to let him out.

Damian scrambled out, and part of him was relieved to see that Lance was awake. 

He gasped, "I don't know where the Tamaraneans are now, but we can't waste time on..."

He couldn't say anything else. His vision blurred, and he fell forward. He heard voices shouting his name, but he was too tired to care. Someone grabbed him before he fell face to the ground, and it seemed to be embraced by Richard again, those first times he had to be used to being touched without anyone wanting to hurt him or for training. 

"Mhm... this... It's like... I remembered it..." he mumbled. Then, he finally fell into unconsciousness.

Chapter Text

"Damage report," Komand'r ordered upon her return to the spaceship. The rest of the crew looked at her motionless. She knew she was offering a show to remember: the proud queen, so tall and untouchable, back completely distorted, her black hair in disorder and frizzy, her dazed, crazy face.

She didn't care. The Red Lion was so close, and she had lost her.

Why does it surprise you, Komand'r? The Red Lion is not in your destiny, it never has been...

"Report of damages," she repeated aloud, mostly to silence the voice in her mind, "Don't make me repeat it. I don't like to do that."

Finally, someone answered, "The engines are mostly useless, your highness. We don't know how long it will take to get them back up and running."

She suppressed a laugh. As if they had the resources to repair the engines. They should contact Sendak and ask for reinforcements, but it would take time (and probably not even arrive), and she couldn't afford to lose any more.

She had to capture the paladins. She had to find out who the half-Tamaranean was and kill him.

She had to try to pilot the Red Lion and be chosen.

"What's the next planet the paladins could stay on?" she asked.

"We're not sure..."

"Check," she ordered, "Let me know as soon as possible. Converge all resources on repairs, leave no stone unturned. Malor, scour the planet for natives and see if you can find something of interest. Don't let me down."

Malor nodded, not daring to say a word. At least someone knew how to stay in his place. Too bad the same could not be said for everyone.

She heard someone whisper, "I had heard of the Red Lion, but I didn't believe it was that powerful... what a pity that it is not yet in our hands."

"It would have been useless. The Queen never managed to fly it, and her last pilot was..."

Without even turning around, Komand'r fired a starbolt at the unwary idiot who had spoken. Soon after, a familiar smell of burnt flesh surrounded her.

"Clean up," she said, without any inflection in her voice, running a hand through her hair. "And then, go back to the repairs. We won't be stranded on this damn planet."

They all obeyed without making a sound.

Timothy looked at the cake, frowning. It was chocolate and cream, with a conspicuous 18bis writing in red.

He looked up, and turned to Todd, "18bis, Jason? Really?"

The other guy gave a shit-eating smile as he arranged presents on the table, "Hey, it's not every day that you turn eighteen again. It's an event to celebrate."

"You just like to slam in my face that you're still the age you were before Brother Blood's spell," Timothy muttered, contrite. Damian didn't understand his displeasure: it was thanks to him that the Titans had reunited and defeated Brother Blood. A few years less was an acceptable sacrifice, not to mention that the clone was back, and he was willing to stay.

"Who, me? Of course not! Why should I brag about a spell that erased me, and then I got back with my much younger siblings? It's not strange at all," the man chuckled, passing him by and ruffling his hair. "Speaking of strange things, how long will it take for Kon to arrive?"

"He and Kara are busy with Luthor's latest gimmick, but by tonight, he should be able to come."

Todd gave a mischievous smile, "Oh, in that case, would you rather we leave you at your private party, and pretend no one is screaming?"

"You're a bastard!" Timothy blurted out, blushing bright red. Todd laughed harder, "If I didn't know, I'd think you didn't go beyond second base. Which I wouldn't believe even if I saw it."

"I won't talk about my sex life with you!"

"No one wants to hear about your sex life Timmy," Brown at that moment entered, with Cassandra behind her holding their daughter, "Also, watch your damn language. There are children here."

"Hypocrite," Timothy said, but without animosity. Instead, he smiled and went to hug her, "How is my favourite niece?"

"She eats like a champ and stays up all night," Brow laughed, returning the hug forcefully, and the height difference between the two was frankly comical. "She's already a baby bat."

"She takes after me," Cassandra said proudly, teasing the child's cheek, who giggled contentedly at her mother's attention.

Turning around, Stephanie looked at them with total, disgusting love. Few were given second chances, and she had been lucky to have both the girl she loved and the child she had given up before the universe was rewritten. 

Damian wasn't jealous, not at all.

"Where are the others?" the blonde asked, turning to Tim.

"His boyfriend is asking for years of child support arrears," Todd chimed in, "Luthor continues to be a deadbeat yet after a whole ass reality changer."

"No surprises. And the others?"

Timothy was quick to reply, "Alfred is finishing with the final preparations for the party, and he is increasing the security of the Manor. You know how he is about these things. Duke is upstairs after his patrol, with a headache that is killing him. Bart is with Wally and the children, they're coming soon, Cassie is with her mother, and they're flying together, the others are completing a mission for Young Justice."

"And Dick?"

Todd grinned, "Big Bird is busy with his new love nest."

"Jason, lousy. Young ears here, remember?"

"Hey, it's not my fault that our beloved older brother is all in jujube broth now that he and Kory have decided to try again," Todd said with a half-smile, somewhere between affection and teasing. "He asked her to come and live with him."

"Here? In Gotham?" Brown looked like a bucket of ice water had fallen on her. "Doesn't Kory get her powers from the sun? Wouldn't living here be suicide?"

"She isn't a plant, and there's enough sun in Gotham for her!"

"He knows from experience," Todd laughed, making Timothy blush. Brown laughed too, "God, I can't wait to see Kon, without the risk of having to fight against a secular evil cult. How is he? Considered, well..."

"Considering that he was dead for almost ten years?" the boy finished, and she nodded, "Not bad, also because he remembers almost nothing. He is disoriented because this world is different from his own, but he also does not have the trauma of death to complicate everything."

"I confirm, that stuff sucks. I almost envy him. When I came back to life, I was more of a zombie than a real guy."

"Why are you talking about zombies at a birthday party?" Richard's voice interrupted the conversation, slightly fatigued.

He walked in with her arms laden with presents, with the alien behind him smiling indulgently, and Damian would never say it out loud, but there was a certain brightness about her that made her prettier.

Todd was the first to move on to Richard, "What the hell, Dick. Why all this stuff?"

"We have to celebrate, right? Last time, Timmy didn't have a party."

Timothy grimaced at the mention, and not just at the childish nickname. They all knew how that particular birthday had gone, and the not exactly good relations between them and Timothy at the time. Timothy had travelled for years in search of something impossible, and when he returned, he had brought trouble with him.

"I tried to tell him I could bring them, but he insisted," the Princess of Tamaran told the girls, stroking Brown's child's head.

After placing all the presents in a corner of the living room, Richard exclaimed, "What kind of boyfriend would I be if I had you do everything right now? And in your condition!"

"Then it's true that the Titans had a bad time last week," Todd said, frowning, looking at Richard as if he were to blame for a possible defection from the team. The thought for Damian was simply ridiculous.

It wasn't Richard's fault that he gave orders and wasn't listened to. They had to complain about their inability, certainly not blame Richard.

Instead of being justifiably offended by his questioned honour, Richard laughed heartily and went close to the alien. The princess bent down to kiss his forehead, and then they turned to everyone present, "For once, we are not here to give bad news. Tim, there's a very special gift for you."

"Just one?" Timothy asked, looking toward the pile of presents Richard had brought.

If possible, Richard's smile grew wider, "Oh, yes. It is not among those. To be honest, it will take nine months before it arrives, but I'm sure you'll be very happy."

The news immediately silenced everyone, who looked at the couple with varying degrees of shock and disbelief. It lasted a few seconds. Then Todd blurted out, "Fuck, Kory, you got caught by this clown!"

"Hey!"

"Sorry, Kory, he's stupid," Brown said with a big smile, "So Crystal will have a little cousin to play with, huh? And before Tim tries to become a baby daddy with cloning!"

"Why does everyone think I'd do something like that?" Timothy asked, sounding unhappy.

"Because we know you, weirdo," Todd grinned, being elbowed by Timothy, but still not looking the least bit sorry.

"Duke will kill you for not waiting for him before dropping this bomb. And I don't want to imagine Alfred when he finds out he's going to be a great-grandfather again," Timothy then turned to his older brother, "Donna will be the godmother, right?"

"Of course," the princess nodded, as if there was no question to be asked, and honestly, who better than Donna Troy could be godmother to the baby of two of the people she considered as siblings?

"I call dibs to be the godfather," Todd raised his hand, "I'm Kory's favourite among you losers."

"Fuck, no. It will be me! It's thanks to me that they got back together!" Timothy protested, earning a snort from Todd.

"First, you steal Robin from me, replacement, and now this? You have made yourself a powerful enemy!"

"You were dead! I didn't steal anything from you!"

"But now I'm very much alive!"

"Boys, boys, you all know that if there is to be a godfather, it will be me," Brown said proudly, receiving looks of pure venom from the other two.

"Are you serious, Steph? You're a girl!"

"Do you want to bet that I'm more of a man than you?"

"Now we don't want to know how you fuck our sister..."

"Jason!"

It was chaos, completely out of control, and Richard ran a hand over his face, muttering a "This is my circus and these are my monkeys."

Then, he turned to Damian, "And you? Don't you want to be the godfather?"

"We both know I wouldn't be a positive influence," he tried to say nonchalantly, but something in his face must have worried his brother. "Also, I think it's a given that West will fill the role."

Richard put his hand on his shoulder, "Hey, don't say that. You are Robin, the boy wonder. You're going to be a great influence."

"Superman doesn't think so."

Richard sighed, "Even Superman can make mistakes. Jon was angry, and he didn't mean what he said."

"You don't know. You weren't there."

"Oh, but we had a good talk, Jon and I," judging by the chill in his brother's eyes, so rare to see outside Batman's cowl, it must not have been a good quarter of an hour for Jonathan Kent. Good. "I'm sure he'll understand sooner or later."

"It doesn't change that no one in their right mind would entrust their child's life to a former murderer."

"Then it is fortunate that we are not sane," the princess said, her eyes shining a deep green, "Dick entrust you with his life every night, Damian. I would be happy to do the same with my child."

Damian gasped, "You can't be serious. And West?"

"We are damn serious," Richard agreed, "It's not a final decision, and we know the competition will be fierce. But think about it. You would be a good godfather."

Damian coughed, "I don't know what to say...but if you will chose me as a godfather, I swear on my honour that I will protect your heir, Richard, with my life. I won't allow any harm to be done to them, and I will give my life for them."

Richard's expression crumpled, "Dami, I don't ask you for that."

"Then what would you want?" he asked, slight confusion in his voice.

"Love them," the other said simply, "Comfort them if I can't, make them laugh. Always let them know how much they are loved and that they are special, and have their back. “

Damian felt the warmth in his chest again at that open recognition, and swallowed, "I'll do it. You don't have to worry.  I'll keep them safe."

Richard smiled, "I never doubted it, little D. And you shouldn't either..."

The sudden heat of another body near his woke him up. Kaltenecker had stood near his cot, and it seemed that she was trying to bring him comfort.

Often Bat-Cow did it too, after a particularly harsh patrol, and Damian was too tired to get up, not even if forced by others.

They were inside the Red Lion, perhaps already departed and a good distance from Komand'r and his ship. She hoped they were, and that woman still didn't have a chance to look at the face of the real red paladin.

His body felt heavy, as if after a massive dosage of painkillers, and his head was spinning. He tried to get up, but his body betrayed him, and he fell heavily to the ground.

Kaltenecker bellowed, and in a moment, the red paladin was close to him, "Gee, why did you get up? Allura said you had to rest!"

"I'm fine," he said through gritted teeth, his head heavy and feeling all numb, "You should fly your Lion, don't worry about me."

The paladin frowned (and Damian had to look away, because it was so familiar and it hurt) "I put Red on automatic mode as soon as I heard the mess back here. If you bleed again, Allura will kill me. You have no idea how long it took her to stop bleeding. She was talking about possible internal bleeding, and she did the best she could, but she was already exhausted after what we had to go through..."

"What do you mean?" Damian couldn't help but ask, and he felt the paladin stiffen, "Does that have to do with why we couldn't wake you up?"

"Yes, we can say so... wait, I'm calling Allura to tell her you've woken up and..."

The boy walked away, and Damian suddenly felt colder, despite Kaltenecker's efforts to the contrary.

He should have insisted.

 It was important to know what had blocked all five paladins and what to do in case he reappeared. They could not afford another incident like this.

This time, they were lucky because the Red Lion had allowed Damian to fly it out of necessity. But who said Damian wouldn't get involved next time?

There were so many reasons why he should interrogate the paladin and extort every last detail, but he froze.

Although briefly, she had noticed that the boy's eyes were red, a sign that he was crying or had just finished crying.

Whatever happened had been traumatic for him, and he would rather repress anything than face it.

Damian hated how familiar that reaction sounded to him.

"We'll talk about it later," Damian thought to himself, "As soon as he has processed the emotional impact. It's just a matter of being patient. Richard would approve."

(Of course, he could have asked some of the other paladins later, or Coran, because he was sure such a thing would be talked about again, given the gravity, but Damian didn't care about the other paladins, and at least he couldn't hide from himself that it wasn't finding out who the threat was that mattered most to him.)

Komand'r's patience was running out. Two days had passed, stranded on the planet and with no sign of the return of the team she had sent to scour for spare parts for the spaceship, and the most paranoid part of her envisaged scenarios one worse than the other.

They took advantage of it to escape. They're hiding somewhere, those damned ones.

They can't leave the planet, only I can resist open space; no one is that strong, and now everyone in the Universe fears the Tamaraneans and wouldn't dream of helping them. Of course, they could resort to violence, and it would still make sense, I would have to go with them, but then who would make sure that those who remained would not commit mutiny and do the same?

I am surrounded by cowards and traitors...

"Your Highness," a Tamaranean woman approached her cautiously, noticing the black energy that was surrounding her, "There's a call coming."

"By whom?"

Sweet X'hal, if it was Sendak who wanted to reproach her for her failures, she didn't know how she would react. Unfortunately, killing the man was not possible for many, too many reasons.

But oh, how she would have liked it.

The woman swallowed, "It looks like it's the Justice League. Do you want to answer?"

She frowned. Did the Justice League want to hold her back for the success of their mission?

 Did they want to offer her a surrender?

It was absurd even to think about it.

There was no reason for them to contact her, not when the paladins had successfully fulfilled their mission. Perhaps the Kryptonian wanted to threaten her if she ever tried to get her hands on the human again, making him pay a hundred times more.

Or... no, it was ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous... but, let's say that the Justice League didn't know that the paladins were back, and that they genuinely believed that the human was still their hostage...

The door to the command centre slammed open, and the Tamaranean woman jumped in surprise.

"Your Highness, Malor and his team have returned," a soldier reported, eyes wide with excitement, "They're... they're with some of the indigenous aliens."

Komand'r felt a wave of relief wash over her. The tension in the room was palpable, the black energy around her dissipating slightly. She nodded curtly, not bothering to hide her annoyance at being interrupted, "Very well, I'll meet them in the hangar. And as for the Justice League call... reject it. We don't have time for them. "

The woman looked at her, puzzlement etched on her features, but she nodded and retreated.

Komand'r herself was not happy with her choice, but she had a ship to repair as soon as possible, and she had no time to lose.

Perhaps, when she is very far from that planet, she will allow herself to reflect and try to contact the Justice League, just to understand what their game is.

If it were as absurd, she hypothesised, she would have a joker in her hand too precious not to exploit.

"It would be too good to be true, and I'm not known for being lucky. It would be absurd, illogical, nonsensical, and... the possibility is there though..."

She was tormented by that fixed worm that did not want to let her go, and the need for knowledge grew little by little.

However, any thoughts about the Justice League were shelved as soon as she met the group of natives and found out how long it would take for the spaceship to be repaired.

"How long?" Komand'r screamed, angry.

The one who must have been the chief, a fat, bearded, yellow-skinned dwarf with six eyes divided across his face, repeated, "As I have already told the others, it may take two to four weeks, depending on the repairs. We have to assess the damage, see how much it would cost..."

Komand'r's eyes narrowed, and the black energy around her grew denser. She knew she didn't have the luxury of time, and the thought of being stuck here for so long was unbearable. Her fists clenched, and she took a step closer to the alien, "Two to four weeks is not an option."

The dwarf raised his chin haughtily and said, "Well, I'm sorry to point it out, but you don't have much choice. You..."

The sentence remained unfinished as a sudden burst of fiery energy shot from Komand'r's hand. It struck one of the aliens standing at the back of the group, reducing him to ash in a heartbeat. His scream was piercing, a sound that seemed to echo in the vastness of the hangar until it was abruptly cut off. The room fell silent, the only sound now the faint crackling of the starbolt's aftermath. The natives' expressions shifted from bewilderment to abject terror.

"I will wait five days," she said coldly, her eyes burning with intensity, "And no more. If my ship isn't ready to leave by then, I will start killing each of you. Slowly. And I will make sure you understand the cost of your failure. And when I reach you," she pointed at the yellow-skinned dwarf, "I will make your last moments a symphony of pain that will make this," she waved at the smoldering remains of the alien, "seem like a gentle caress. Do you understand?"

The chief's bravado vanished like smoke in the wind. His eyes grew wide, and his six pupils dilated as he took in the smell of burned flesh that lingered in the air. He said frantically, "Five days? We can't...it's just impossible..."

"Then, make it possible," she said, coldly, "Otherwise, you know what the price of your failure will be."

The chief opened his mouth to protest, but the whispers behind him made him desist. He clenched his stubby fists, and lowering his head in surrender, said through clenched teeth, "We'll try to make it possible."

"And I'll see to it that I give you the incentive you need to work at your best," the queen said, as black energy coated her hand.

The shiver of fear she saw not only in the natives but also in her people was a good feeling.

Finding a space market during their travel to Earth turned out to be an unexpected fortune. There was a need to refuel, and to stop at least for a few hours to catch our breath.

Escaping the Galra—and now other Galra allies, the Tamaraneans, which neither Allura nor Coran wanted to talk about, but which they seemed to know quite well —was a strain on everyone's nerves, and the anxiety didn't help the overall mood.

The princess had thought it expedient, and no one had thought of contradicting her.

Why should they? She wasn't the dumbest member of the team. She was useful.

Ah, little bird. It looks like we're going to have to put you in a cage soon.

Hunk's hand landed on Lance's shoulder with a gentle pat, breaking through the latter's introspection.

"You alright, buddy?" Hunk's voice was a comforting rumble that echoed through the bustling space market. The neon lights above flickered, casting an array of colors on their faces that didn't quite mask the concern etched in the creases of his forehead.

The space market was a chaotic symphony of alien sounds and smells. The air was thick with the scent of exotic spices and engine grease. Stalls lined the corridors, selling everything from rare space artifacts to questionable food items that wriggled and sizzled on makeshift grills. Beings of all shapes and sizes bustled around them, haggling over prices in a cacophony of languages, their eyes darting from wares to the sky, always vigilant for any signs of trouble. It was a place where the desperate and the curious came to mingle, and where the scent of adventure was as palpable as the dust that clung to their boots.

Lance looked up, his eyes snapping out of their daze to focus on Hunk's broad form. He nodded, a forced smile tugging at his lips.

"Yeah, I'm good," he said, though his voice was thinner than the truth.

"Are you sure? You seem...a bit off. You have practically not spoken these days!"

Well, Hunk, he wanted to tell him, What should I talk about? It's clear that no one wants to acknowledge what happened with Bob, and there's also the whole issue of another one piloting the Red Lion while I was knocked out. I'd like to know if you really think that I'm stupid and that maybe I should retire once we get back to Earth. The team needs better and, let's face it, I suck.

It would be a wonderful conversation, he was sure, and it wouldn't be taken seriously this time either, because, after all, Lance was just an annoying little bird.

It wasn't that the others cared if he was okay, Hunk was just too good.

Before he could say anything, Pidge's sarcastic sneer arrived, "Of course he's fine. His pride is just a little hurt, that's all."

For a moment, he feared (hoped) that Pidge had figured out what was going through his mind.

He was soon disappointed, "Red was piloted by someone else. Of course he is offended."

"Well...you had to admit, it's strange that the Red Lion let someone else pilot her..." Hunk said, trying to be gentle.

Pidge rolled her eyes,"Look, it's not like it's personal. Someone had to fill in, and the only other person who could do it was Damian. It's not rocket science."

"Not Krolia? Or Acxa? Or Romelle?"

"Hunk, come on. It's obvious why they couldn't fly Red Lion. In short, Keith's mom wasn't even chosen by Blue, and Blue likes everyone! She isn't picky!"

Anyone can fly the Blue Lion.

The sentence was like a stab in the chest for Lance, who felt his mouth dry, as if he had swallowed sand.

The green paladin added, "Come on, don't make a big deal out of it like Keith. He was unbearable."

"Did Keith talk with you about it?" Lance asked, having complex feelings about it.

"He first annoyed Allura, then me, saying that it must be some super secret plan to steal the Lions from us, starting with Red. I bet he would have said the same thing to Hunk as well and... well, not to you."

"Why not? I'm his right-hand man!" he blurted out, offended, and perhaps wanting to remember what was the role that, in theory, he should have played within the team.

"There's no point in talking about his conspiracy theories while traveling with the guy who might be a spy. Which I doubt he is, but Damian is damn weird," she added quickly, squinting her eyes, "He asked a lot of questions about you. Why he is interested is a mystery. It's not that there's anything to discover, and if he really has to be curious about someone, it should be with Allura or someone important."

The message was loud and clear: you are not important Lance, why do you delude yourself? You don't count for anything and we would be happy if you finally realized it.

Hunk stammered, understanding the full impact of Pidge's sentence, more than she (perhaps) had understood.

But the green paladin already had the attention elsewhere, "Hey, Hunk. They are selling computer components there! There might be something useful for us!"

Hunk tried to stop her, but by now Pidge was already running towards his designated destination, and the yellow paladin only sighed and followed her without further opposition.

He did not turn around. Perhaps he assumed that Lance would follow them. Maybe he didn't care if the other had done it or not.

Lance ran a hand over his face, "Quiznack, that sucks..."

"I wouldn't do it."

Lance almost jumped out of his skin at the sudden voice. He whipped around, heart racing, and found Damian standing right behind him, his arms casually crossed over his chest. How had he gotten there so silently? The man was as large as a house—surely, he couldn't have just snuck up on him like that.

"Don't worry, paladin," Damian said, his voice as smooth as the black leather of his jacket. "I wouldn't steal the Red Lion from you. It's rightfully yours."

Lance's jaw clenched, "Thanks, but I'm not worried about that."

It was a lie, of course. The thought of someone else piloting his lion, especially someone who was not even part of the team, gnawed at him like a persistent toothache.

It meant that he was really just a replacement, waiting for a better option. Only he had never been Keith's placeholder. If that had been the case, perhaps it would have been bearable. No, Red was probably waiting for someone else, and she only let Lance pilot her now because Damian wasn't in top shape and she still needed someone to take her to Earth.

Lance was a second (third? fourth? he had lost count) pick and at that point it shouldn't even come as a surprise.

Damian narrowed his eyes, "I'm not going to steal the Red Lion from you. The black paladin is wrong."

"Keith tends to be paranoid..." he muttered, while Damian snorted. He continued, "I'm glad Red let herself be piloted by you, you got us out of a big mess..."

"You don't have to force yourself, you know."

"What?"

"You don't have to lie to preserve my feelings," Damian clarified, "You're upset, and it's obvious."

Lance raised an eyebrow, "How would you know that?"

Damian shrugged, "It's written all over your body language. The way you clench your fists, the tightness around your mouth when you smile. It's like you're trying to convince yourself that everything's fine when it's not."

Lance stared at him, incredulous, "You can read all that just by looking at me?"

Damian's lips curved into a smirk, "You're not the only one who's observant around here."

Lance thinned his lips, "You're wrong. I'm not particularly observant. Or smart, for that matter."

Oh, little bird, you're cute, but you lack brains.

Damian raised an eyebrow, "Who told you? This is nonsense."

"Ah, just my whole team and the almighty alien god who blocked us in his quiz show..."

Now it was Damian's turn to look at him, bewildered. Lance swallowed. He had talked too much. He opted for a diversionary maneuver, "Anyway, I should see if there is any food for my cow, you never know, there might be some accident..."

Damian, however, was not fooled, "Almighty alien god? Who are you talking about?"

"Just a guy who liked to make fun of us and put us in ridiculous situations. He won't be a problem anymore, so don't worry,” he said hastily, and at least, that was what he hoped for. Coran had said that Bob only tested possible heroes once, so he should never show up again...

"You can't be sure," the man said, the steel evident in his eyes, "The inhabitants of the fifth dimension have a habit of continuing to torment their victims with constant pranks until they are beaten or bored."

"Fifth dimension?" Lance repeated, blinking, "What is the fifth dimension?"

Damian hesitated. It was evident that he had regretted speaking, and now he was torn between explaining and finding something else to say. However, there was no need for him to find a gimmick.

With a suddenness that left Lance's heart racing, the lights of the space market flickered and died. The bustling noises of commerce and conversation were swallowed by an eerie silence, leaving only the echoes to bounce off the walls. Panic began to rise in his throat as darkness enveloped them like a living entity, only to be replaced by a solitary beam of light that shone down directly onto where they were standing.

The ground trembled beneath their feet, a deep rumble that grew louder and more intense with each passing second. The once-familiar corridor of the market began to shift and change around them. Walls morphed into a series of jagged, twisting paths that stretched out into the distance, forming a labyrinth of shadowy alleys and dead ends. The smells of exotic spices and engine oil were overpowered by the stench of something ancient and unwelcoming.

Lance's heart hammered in his chest, a sudden jolt of fear racing through his veins.

"What the...?" he managed to croak out, his voice barely audible in the unsettling quiet.

Damian's eyes never left the light. "This is his doing," he murmured, his voice tight with tension.

"Wait, do you think this is Bob's work?" the red paladin almost squeaked,  "It can't be him!  Coran said he tests possible heroes once, to see if they're destined for greatness."

"What the Altean knows is probably just a cleaned-up, more comfortable version of the real story," Damian retorted in a guarded tone, while trying not to let his concern show, "Stay close to me, Lance. The game is not over until we force him."

"You can't be serious," he snapped, but seeing Damian's expression, he felt cold chills, "Quiznack, you're damn serious."

"I'm always serious," the young man said with a nod, "  Sooner or later, the being will show up to make fun of us and explain his game. In the meantime, we will have to..."

"Don't fucking say it, don't say it..."

"Start going into the labyrinth and wait for it."

Lance moaned, "God, I hate to be right! Okay, let's go in, but it is not certain that Bob will show up! We could be stranded with no way out!"

Damian looked at him with what seemed like admiration, "You're right, great critical thinking, Lance."

"Um, look, it's nothing special, just... we cannot risk ..."

A white arrow lit up in front of them, and below it an enigmatic phrase.

"Welcome, heroes," they said, "Where shadows dance and truths are found, tread lightly through the maze of fate unwound. Seek what was lost, and you shall find the truth you crave, for the heart is blind."

Damian had stiffened at some point, and Lance asked him, "Hey, are you okay? You look a little pale."

"I'm fine. Only... It seemed like a very personal joke to me."

"Why?"

Damian didn't answer, "The game has begun. We have to enter the labyrinth. I go ahead. You cover my back."

"I should go on, not you. Dude, you're in bad shape, I can't..."

"You are important," Damian was adamant about it, "I can also die here, but not you. You must get out."

Lance looked at him with his mouth open. Damian was wrong. Lance wasn't important. Lance was the seventh wheel, the least useful paladin, the one everyone would have gladly done without. The least he could do was protect Damian, who was practically inert and wounded.

But they would have come to nothing by arguing. The only thing to do was to bluff.

"All right, big man," he said, pulling out his bayard, "Lead the way."

 "I don't understand you," Krolia said, looking at her son after he had reduced a poor shop owner to tears. 

"It's not difficult, this idiot thought he could fool me by selling spoiled food..."

"That's not what I meant," the Galra interrupted, as the alien, trembling, handed over the bags with the uncontaminated and non-animal-eaten food. "We've been on that space whale for two years, Keith. You told me about your team. Thought... Well, to be honest, I didn't expect this."

Keith made an unhappy expression, "Look, mom, it's hard. We're all just recovering from the loss of the castle and the clone story. We're not giving our best."

"I wasn't referring to that."

"No?" he asked, surprised. "So what were you talking about?"

"The red paladin. Lance."

Keith's body stiffened at the mention of the boy. Very slowly, in a cold voice, he asked, "What does Lance have to do with it?"

"I don't understand. We have often seen him in your visions in the Quantum Abyss. I was expecting... that you would be kinder to him."

Keith raised an eyebrow, "Kinder?"

"It was clear that he was important. And yet, you continue to be very harsh on him, and to treat him below what he deserves."

"You don't know what he deserves..."

"Why, do you?" Krolia asked back. "Keith, you're tougher on him than the other paladins. You listen to the princess, and it's clear why, but you barely talk to your red paladin, who is Voltron's right-hand man. The boy is not stupid; you shouldn't ignore him."

"You don't know him," the black paladin grunted, "Lance is too good, mom. He trusts too much, he's too kind, he's a foolish optimist and..."

"These are not defects. These are the things that make a man good."

Keith clenched his fist. "In war, good men die."

" And you don't want him to die."

"Of course not! I don't want anyone to die!"

"But you aren't so harsh with others, too," the woman pointed it out to him," You don't worry about the green paladin in the same way, although the girl is equally silly when it comes to people. Your concern is for Lance."

Krolia saw him blush slightly, "That's not it..."

She smiled, "It's all very sweet, Keith, but you have to consider how Lance feels after..."

The lights suddenly stopped. They raised their heads when bright white screens lit up above them, and the face of an alien appeared on them.

"Welcome, humans and aliens!" he exclaimed, almost singing, "Here is the special episode of my Garfle Host Warfle Snick!"

"It can't be..." Keith muttered, full of horror, as the alien continued to speak, "Today's challenge will be set in the Dark Labyrinth, and the challengers are an exceptional couple! The Red Paladin of Voltron and the Dark Knight of Gotham!"

His face disappeared; in its place, Lance and the human who travelled with him were inside a ghostly labyrinth that seemed to have come out of the design of one of Haggar's laboratories.

Krolia didn't fail to notice how Keith was watching the scene with anger, his body rigid, ready to launch an attack against an invisible enemy at any moment.

"It doesn't work like that, boy. You can't always protect those you love," she thought sadly, as the alien's voice croaked, "Will our heroes be able to find the way out of the Dark Labyrinth? Who or what will they meet? And above all, who will try to enter to save them? You will find out all this only by looking..."

Keith didn't listen to the end. He turned around, leaving the bags of food behind.

Krolia followed him, "What do you want to do?"

"I will find the entrance to the labyrinth."

"What if you can't?" she asked again, as more white screens opened above them.

"Then I'll find where Bob is hiding and force him to let Lance out," he replied, without any hesitation in his voice. She knew what his priorities were, and it didn't escape her that he hadn't made any mention of the other person stuck in the maze with the red paladin.

Oh, her stupid, stupid son. 

Chapter Text

"It's not fair, though! I wanted to play!" the brat complained for the umpteenth time, and Bob had to use all the little patience at his disposal not to strangle him and send him back to their dimension.

"I've already told you I've got unfinished business, Bat-Mite," he hissed through gritted teeth, as the screen projected the red paladin and Batman, as they delved into his labyrinth.

The end of his first game had been unsatisfactory and cut short rather abruptly. There was still so much to do, so much drama to cause between the Red Paladin and the Black Paladin – the Black Paladin who had the potential to be a hero, true, but in terms of charisma to hold his team together, he left a lot to be desired! But oh, how many repressed emotions were inside him! – and instead, that woman had interrupted everything, forcing him to send the paladins back and destroying his television studio.

Do you know how many years it takes to create a convincing television studio? And how much to find the right participants?

He couldn't allow his work to go to waste, not when he wasn't yet satisfied. So, he was forced to ask for help.

Bat-Mite pouted, "I don't care about your loose ends! I want to play too!"

"You owe me, I helped you not get eliminated by that first freak with the cowl, do you remember?"

"Mhm..."

"I also stopped Mister Mxyzptlk from sending you to who knows what dimension when he found out that you were helping Superman out of spite."

"Well, when you put it like that..."

"So, you can't steal the show from me! You owe me several times, and it's time to collect one."

Bat-Mite was silent for a while, and Bob was able to lull himself into the illusion that he had won. Whether the little guy wants to stay or not, it will be his business.

The bliss was short-lived, however, and Bat-Mite began, "Okay, I'll have to wait a long time to play. But what if I give you a hand?"

Bob narrowed his eyes at him, "What do you mean?"

"You know the paladins, but I know Batman well! Both the old one and the new one! I know everything! His enemies, his fears, his traumas... we could put one of these things in your Labyrinth and see how it goes."

He was quick to dismiss the idea as stupid; however, he refrained. The Labyrinth was more of a game against the red paladin, and Bob had created it for the boy.

However, if he wanted to get to the big final revelation, he needed something impactful, emotionally upsetting. He'll have to make changes, and Bat-Mite could help him.

What a terrible thing to have to rely on someone like that!

He lazily rested his hand on his cheek, "All right, brat. Let's collaborate! Who knows what will come out of it."

"Yes! You'll see, it's going to be fun! You won't regret it! Don't make things too easy, otherwise I'll be bored more!"  Bat-Mite cheered, his arms raised high in victory.

"Believe me, it wasn't my intention."

"Hurrah!"

Bob grimaced.

Already watching him fly across the room was making him bitterly regret his decisions.

"Still no response from Blackfire?" Jonathan Kent asked the girl sitting in front of the computer.

"None," she replied, her voice tight with tension. The spaceship's console lights cast a stark contrast on her young, determined face.  "It's like she's deliberately ghosting us."

Jonathan clenched his fists, "What game is she playing? There's no point in not answering, unless..."

Unless the hostage was no longer alive and the Queen of Tamaran could not take the risk of letting it be known by them.

Jonathan's heart sank. The room grew heavier with each silent moment that ticked by, the weight of his guilt pressing down on him like a thick, oppressive fog. He had promised himself that what had happened years ago with Bane would never happen again.

And yet here he was, possibly too late again. The console beeped in the background, a stark reminder of the cold, unforgiving reality that waited for them outside the cockpit. The room's sterility seemed to mirror the emptiness in his chest, as if the very air had been siphoned out, leaving him hollow and inadequate.

It was then that the door to the cockpit slid open with a hiss, and Jason Todd stepped in, his Hood suit, without the mask, casting a shadow across the floor.

" Is there any news?"  Jason asked, his brow furrowed in a contemplative expression. The half–Kryptonian stiffened: he always felt a great discomfort when he had to interact with Damian's family, and Jason was one of those he feared the most. The man, however, had been nothing but professional and courteous, and he felt he had to reciprocate, but Jonathan could never quite relax.

Jonathan looked up from the console, his gaze lingering on the man's physique for a brief moment.

Despite being over four decades old, Jason Todd moved with the grace and agility of someone half his age. The Hood suit hugged his toned form, emphasising the muscles that had been honed through years of rigorous training. There was something about him that reminded Jonathan of Bruce Wayne, a sense of resilience and a steely determination etched into every line of his body. It was an eerie resemblance that went beyond the mere donning of the crimson and black costume.

"No, uncle, " Robin said, "Queen Komand’r doesn't consider us poor plebs worthy of her time."

Jason's eyes flashed with a dark fire at the mention of Blackfire's name, "It's definitely in her playbook to keep us guessing."

He leaned against the cockpit wall, his arms crossed over his broad chest. "She is a sadistic bitch with a lot of daddy issues. And it's something, since I'm the one who says it. She will keep us on our toes until she thinks it is time to bargain."

"So don't you think he is..."

"Damian is alive," Jason said with a confidence that Jon would have liked to have too, "Maybe he's not in top shape now, but it's in Komand'r's interest to keep him alive."

"You saw the explosion, too. What if there was nothing the queen's doctors could do? We don't know..."

Jonathan's words were abruptly interrupted by a high-pitched beep from the console. A notification popped up on the screen, demanding their immediate attention. Robin's eyes lit up with hope as she called out, "Uncle Jay, we've got something! It's coordinates!"

"What?"  the half-Kryptonian asked, approaching the console. Robin was right. Those were coordinated. And there was more.

There was also a message.

Here you will find Batman, along with the paladins of Voltron. They need help.

"This stink of a trap," Jason was the first to say, "Robin, can you trace the source of the message?"

"I've already tried, uncle. There is nothing. The message appeared literally out of nowhere."

Jason thinned his lips, "Check again. If you keep not finding anything..."

"Then we'll have to head where the coordinates tell us," Robin said quickly, and Jason snorted, "No, little girl. We cannot be hasty. We don't know who sent it or why. "

"But it's a chance we have to take!" Robin's voice was filled with a mix of excitement and anger. "We can't just ignore it."

"We won't. We just had to be cautious," Jason tried to say, while Jonathan quietly attempted to leave the room. But Jason noticed, "Don't even try, you."

"Come on, Jason. Damian needs help. If Komand'r has been there until now..."

"We're going to save my brother, but we're not going to put you in some kryptonite prison. First, we make sure it's not a trap, then we'll go where these coordinates take us."

"We can't waste time," Jonathan reminded him.

"Look," Robin interrupted, "We can send a reconnaissance party, and if things go wrong, we'll get them out of there right away."

"Well, I like this plan," Jonathan said, pointing with a finger to Robin, "You got your brains out of your mother."

"Which one?"

Jason exhaled, exasperated, "I'm not in the mood for gay jokes about moms. Robin, recheck the source of the message. Then..."

"Then we will go where the coordinates tell us?"  Jonathan and Robin asked in unison.

"And then we'll go there," Jason conceded through gritted teeth, "Robin, you're going to stay here with Arsenal and Impulse. I, Wonder Girl, Green Lantern and Superman are going to go and check."

"So you think Damian is there!" Jonathan exclaimed, "That's why you want me to join the group, too!"

"I do it because I know you'd follow us anyway, asshole. I see that face, and I won't run the risk of surprises. "

"We could have left Green Lantern at the controls and let me come," Robin pouted.

Jason gave a half-smile, "Believe me, little girl, it would have been impossible for him to stay here when his family is in danger, as well as for Wonder Girl. We would have ended up with no one on the spaceship, and totally in shit."

"Well, when you put it like that..."

"Work on that message, Robin. If the queen deigns to contact us, ignore her and don't send her passive-aggressive messages."

The girl made an absolutely wicked expression, "Not even a single you can kiss my ass cheeks, her majesty?"

"Especially not that. Let's not give her a reason to look for us first, eh?"

"Phew, killjoy," she muttered, "Of course, uncle Dami had a shameless luck. He managed to escape from the Tamaraneans and find the missing paladins. How many chances were there?"

"Robin, we don't even know if it's true," Jason reminded her, trying to be nice.

Robin shrugged, "I'm just saying that, if that were the case, it's an absurd series of coincidences!"

"Yes... coincidences..." Jonathan murmured to himself. "If someone is helping us..."

"We should know why, and more importantly, who," Jason finished the sentence for him, "I don't want to be anyone's pawn."

It was a feeling that Jonathan fully shared.

The first ones Keith found were Pidge and Hunk, outside an electronic junk shop. The expressions of both were of pure shock as they looked at the screens, Lance and Damian inside a labyrinth without having any idea what the exit was.

At the feet of the paladins, the components they had bought at the shop were lying on the ground: Hunk must have dropped them as soon as he saw what was on the screens.

The first to notice him was Pidge.

"What the hell is going on?" the girl asked, pointing to the large screens above them. "Coran didn't say that asshole would show up again!"

"I have no idea," Keith reluctantly admitted, "But we need to find the Labyrinth and free Lance."

"We don't even know if he's in this dimension!" Hunk exclaimed, gesticulating, "As far as we know, Bob has taken them to some alternate dimension!"

"You said who will try to enter to save them?" Keith recalled the grim expression, "There has to be a chance to do it, if only to make more of a show."

"Then it means that we are also in the game," Pidge pointed out, "Do you think Bob will make things easy for us?"

The first answer, on the tip of the tongue, was no. Keith instead said, "It doesn't matter. We'll take Lance back. We have to find Allura."

He heard a snort and turned around. His mother was giggling.

Keith looked at her askance, "What's funny, mom?"

"Oh, it's just sweet your concern for him," she chuckled, and if that alone wasn't out-of-character behaviour, the all-white eyes were a big clue since her mother wasn't herself, "Even though I find it as uninteresting as poor, sweet Lance doesn't even know it. What a hypocrite you are, black paladin. "

"Bob," he growled, drawing his sword and standing between Pidge and Hunk and his mother, "Let her go."

"Nope," she hummed, getting on his nerves, "My partner and I agree that it would be too boring to let you try to save the red paladin if there isn't at least someone to try to stop you."

"Partner?" Keith repeated, while behind him, Hunk exhaled, "God, there's another one!"

"Yes, let's say that we find ourselves collaborating for exceptional circumstances ... anyway, that's not the point," she said, slamming her hands together, "Like I said, a show is not exciting if everything is fine! There must be unforeseen events!"

"If you think I'm not going to fight my mother, you don't know me," Keith hissed. Krolia would be very disappointed in him if he went easy on her just because she was his mother.

The smile she gave was chilling. "How cute that you think I want to use only her!"

"What..."

Around them, slowly, other people began to arrive: shopkeepers, customers, people passing through who had come to the space market and who now found themselves part of the alien version of Dawn of the Living Dead.

"Keith," Pidge called him out, "We can't deal with them all. We have to find Allura."

"Not before Bob tells us where the labyrinth is."

The grin widened, "Oh, dear. What fun would there be if I already gave you all the answers now?"

Keith was ready to attack, but Hunk grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and they ran away. The black paladin shouted, "Leave me, Hunk! Leave me!"

"You're mad!" cried Pidge, who was running beside him. "You would have been killed!"

"We missed our chance to find out where Lance is!"

"And if we stayed, Bob would have killed us!" retorts the green paladin, "We wouldn't help Lance if we died!"

He wanted to yell at her, tell her that she didn't know anything, but Hunk intervened, "We also have to help Allura. She is alone. And we don't know where she is!"

"So shut up and don't be an asshole!" yelled Pidge, ducking down to avoid being hit by something that came to her side. Soon after, the mysterious object exploded, almost involving them.

"Oh, fuck!  This is playing dirty!" Pidge complained, and Hunk retorted, "What made you believe Bob like practising fair play?!"

Other objects were thrown at them: some were harmless, such as gummy food or shoes (who was the genie throwing shoes, he wanted to know), while others were rudimentary bombs and knives.

Hunk was grazed on the cheek, which began to bleed slightly, while Keith plotted an alien who had come towards them armed with a frying pan and a ladle.

"We can't go on like this," Pidge gasped, "We have to hide."

"Where?" shouted Hunk, "They are coming at us everywhere!"

"Let me think about it..."

"Well, hurry up, Pidge," Keith growled, avoiding another attack, "Because we're about to be surrounded!"

The girl looked at him with hatred, but before she could open her mouth to say anything, a black shadow in the shape of a bird materialised in front of them, causing Hunk to moan, "Where the hell does this come from?"

Keith didn't care where it came from. He was ready to fight. However, the bird thing did not attack them. On the contrary, it paved the way for them on the part of their pursuers, and went on.

"Guys, don't take me for crazy... but I guess it wants us to follow it," Hunk said.

It seemed like a trick by Bob to make them let their guard down.

But at that point, what choice did they have?

"Then let's follow it," Keith ordered, hoping he hadn't just condemned them all.

When she stopped at the space mall to refuel and find someone to take a look at her spaceship's communication systems, Kara expected the usual: idiots hitting on her, bounty hunters trying to catch her, pirates or other criminals who were too stupid to recognise her and trying to rob her.

Her expectations were not disappointed when, while she was drinking an energo in peace (the taste was too sweet, it was not at all close to what she remembered of her early adolescence on Krypton), a Galra woman sat next to her.

"An energo for me, please."

The corners of Kara's mouth tugged upward into a smile, and she couldn't help but make a comment. "Energo, huh? Not a typical choice around here."

The woman looked at her, a spark of curiosity in her eyes, and took a sip of the neon-blue beverage that the bartender had brought.

"It's an acquired taste," the Galra woman said, her voice low and smooth as the liquid slid down her throat. "Not everybody could handle it."

Kara snorted, "This one here doesn't quite live up to the original. It can be good for kids."

"Thankfully, I'm not a little girl, I can handle everything."

Kara sneered. It wasn't real flirting, she suspected the other was either out of shape or just not the type to do it usually, but it was at least funny.

"Do you?" Kara asked playfully. "What is someone like you doing here? You don't seem like the type to have fun."

"Until a few cycles ago, I didn't even think I was the kind of betrayal, and yet, here I am."

Oh, this was something Kara wanted to hear: "Are you tired of fighting an endless ten-thousand-year war?"

"Something like that," the woman replied, looking at the half-empty glass, "I leapt into the void, and I don't even know why."

"Maybe you felt it was the right thing."

"Maybe," she agreed. "Or, without my... well, without my previous boss, I no longer saw the reason to fight for Zarkon's cause."

Honestly, this didn't come as a surprise to Kara either. The Empire wasn't doing well, and yes, the paladins were gone, but the Coalition remained, and it didn't intend to give up, not after it had a taste of hope.

"Did you work for one of the generals of the Empire?"

"Not really. I was one of the generals of..."

She paused, dropping the glass suddenly. Kara was about to ask her if she was okay when she felt a painful twinge in her head.

It was as if someone had suddenly cranked up the volume in the bar, but it wasn’t just the noise. It was like she had been submerged in a sea of whispers that grew louder and louder until they were all she could hear. The room swam around her, and she realised that she had lost control over her own body. The smells of the bar – the stale sweat, the burning fuel, the sickly sweet energo – grew overpowering. She could feel the sticky floor beneath her as she stumbled.

The voice grew clearer, more insistent. It was a male voice, deep and seductive. "Give in, Kara. It’s so much easier this way. You don’t have to fight anymore."

But she fought. Her mind felt thick and sluggish, like she'd had one too many drinks, but she clung to her consciousness with fierce determination. The whispers grew into a cacophony, a symphony of temptation and doubt, but she wouldn't let it consume her.

When she felt herself again, she was outside the bar, the cold space air bitting at her skin. She took a deep breath and tried to focus on the scene in front of her. The giant luminous screens that had suddenly appeared were not part of the usual space mall decor. They floated in the air, displaying images of a sort of labyrinth, and two people in it.

Kara swore she knew at least one of them.

"Rao, Damian," she murmured, surprised to see him there. The latest news she had had about the baby bat had not been at all reassuring.

Seeing him alive, even if in that situation, was a relief. And his companion in misfortune had something familiar.

However, her attention was captured by something else. Excited, angry voices.

Someone needed her.

"I'm sorry for Lotor."

Romelle said it suddenly, her tone genuinely sorry, her hands twisting, her gaze everywhere, except on Allura.

The shop owner's stall was a glittering array of crystals, colors more vivid than any she had ever seen. The crystals sparkled in the artificial light of the marketplace, throwing rainbows on the cobblestone floor. The alien vendor, a creature with a tough, leathery skin and piercing yellow eyes, had been speaking in a smooth, honeyed voice, but now he was red in the face, his voice rising in protest against Coran's accusations to sell junk.

Coran stood firm, a finger jabbing the air for emphasis as he spoke. His eyes were sharp, his voice cutting through the market's din like a knife through fabric.

"You don't have to be sorry," Allura reassured her, turning to the other Altean, "If it hadn't been for you, we would never have known what kind of person he was. Thank you, if anything."

It was the kind of conversation she dreaded. Coran had tried to talk about how she felt after losing the castle and the betrayal, but she had always interrupted before he could go any further, reassuring him ''I'm fine, there's no need to worry, not when there's so much to do."

And it was true, up to a certain point. Allura was fine. She had lost what was left of her past and had been heartbroken, but she had no time to feel sorry for herself.

She had to keep moving.

"But you felt something for him. They told me."

She pursed her lips. It had been Pidge or Hunk, probably. They were the most talkative about personal matters, and Pidge was very vocal when it came to expressing opinions about other people's emotions. She usually reserved those opinions about Lance, but apparently, she wasn't spared either.

It seemed right to her: she had made a serious error of judgment and now she was paying the consequences.

"It was just a crush, as the paladins call it," Allura said, her voice a mix of regret and defensiveness. "Earthlings have a saying for it, I believe. It's what you feel when you're young and inexperienced. I was wrong to trust him."

The silence that followed was heavier than the market's usual bustle.

"But what of the red paladin?" Romelle spoke up, her voice quieter than the surrounding din.

"What about Lance?"

"The green paladin said he has feelings for you. He seems very sweet, doesn't he? He would be perfect to forget the pain that Lotor made you feel."

Allura felt a sudden shift in the air, a thickness that settled over her like a heavy blanket. The glittering crystals around them seemed to dim, their vibrant hues fading into the shadows of doubt and discomfort that grew in her heart. The bustling sounds of the marketplace grew distant, muffled as if heard through a wall.

"Romelle," she began, her voice measured and careful, "I appreciate your concern, but it seems unfair to me to use Lance's feelings in such a way. He deserves more than to be a band-aid for my emotional wounds."

The Altean girl's eyes widened, a hint of surprise flitting across her features. "But if you feel something for him too..."

Allura took a deep breath, the weight of her words heavy on her chest. "Romelle, it's not about what others might want or expect. It's about what's right for us, for Lance and me. I can't just give him a chance because it would make a good story. Emotions don't work that way."

Romelle seemed to become upset,"But then the viewers won't have their triangles!  So it’s boring!”

"What did you say?" she asked, confused, but immediately her gaze thinned, and she put a good distance between her and Romelle.

"Who are you?" she hissed, taut as a swexk rope.

The blonde ran a hand through her hair. The chatter had stopped.

"Bah, I had hoped to put you in the right frame of mind, but it went badly. Nothing increases the problems like two charismatic characters arguing with each other!"

Allura then drew her bayard and pointed it at Romelle, "You haven't answered me yet. Who are you?"

White eyes met hers, "I feel offended, princess. We have already met in my fantastic show. Have you forgotten me yet?”

Allura shuddered, "Bob?"

The other smiled mischievously, " Hello, princess.”

"Let her go!"

"As I also said to the black paladin, no, I won't," she grinned amused, a totally out of place expression on Romelle's gentle face, "Do you think I'll stand by while you try to save Lance? And what about my game? No, I want emotions! I want pathos! And I would have liked romantic tension as well, to tease the viewers, but I think I'll have to settle for that with Voltron's intrepid leader."

"Lance? What did you do to him?"

Allura's heart was racing like it had wings. Her grip on her bayard was so tight her knuckles had gone white. She could feel her breaths coming in short, sharp bursts, her chest tight with anxiety.

"Look outside," Romelle urged, her voice a strange mix of glee and arrogance.

Allura turned, her eyes scanning the marketplace. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw screens appearing, floating in the air. On each of them, she could see Lance and Damian Grayson, navigating through a disquieting labyrinth.

Damian walked forward, looking over his shoulder to make sure Lance was following him. There was fierce protectiveness in his gaze, the kind she often saw in Coran towards her, and that had made her feel safe leaving that man with Lance, despite what Keith said.

"This isn't right," Allura murmured, watching the screens flicker to life. "We won your game. You let us go."

"The show wasn't finished yet!" Romelle said, angry," And now, my dear princess, we're going live for a very special episode, just for my favourite character!"

"Why Damian? He isn't a paladin! He wasn’t  with us last time!"

Romelle seemed bored, "Phew, but so many questions! You should worry more about what's going on around you, princess."

Before Allura could react, she felt a firm grip on her neck, and the world shifted. She was yanked backward, and the grip tightened. It was Coran, his eyes a dead, white emptiness, his voice no longer his own.

"You see, princess,"  Coran's usual gentle tone was so out of place at the time, a real slap in the face for the princess, "It's all about the drama. Nothing brings people closer together like a good, old-fashioned struggle. What better family reunion?"

Allura felt her heart drop into her stomach, and she had to fight the urge to retch. With a sudden burst of strength fueled by desperation, she twisted in Coran's grip, her elbow connecting with his ribs with a satisfying crunch. He grunted, the grip loosening, and she took the opportunity to spin around and break free, her bayard glinting in the light as it swung in an arc.

"Coran, fight it!" she shouted, her eyes wide with terror and hope as she saw the flicker of the real Coran in his gaze. But the white emptiness took over again, his hand shooting out to grab her once more.

With a swift twist and a kick to his shin, Allura managed to break free from his grasp. The bayard's blade sang through the air as she spun around, the force of her motion knocking over a display of crystals. They shattered on the floor, the sound echoing through the suddenly silent marketplace.

Her eyes searched for an escape, but the exit was blocked by a throng of people, all moving in unison, their expressions eerily vacant.

At the head of one of the groups was Acxa, an unpleasant smile on her face that was not her at all, but all Bob's.

"Face reality, princess," Bob said through Acxa, "You'll have to fight and kill innocents to get out of here, or succumb and become the bait to force the other paladins to do what I want."

She pursed her lips. Bob had put her with her back to the wall, faced with an impossible choice.

Allura knew what she had to do. It didn't make the decision easy, though.

"I know you're a god, Bob. But wherever you are, I'll make you pay for it,' and it was a promise she intended to keep, on the honor of Altea and her father.

Acxa made a vague gesture with her hand, "Words, princess. Just words. How do you plan to do it when I'm everywhere and nowhere? When..."

She was interrupted by a sudden gust of wind, and within seconds, most of those present were on the ground, unconscious.

Acxa didn't even have time to say anything when she was grabbed by the throat by a tall, broad-shouldered blonde humanoid woman in a dark blue suit and a lowered red hooded cloak.

"You... You shouldn't...  be here..." Acxa floundered, trying to break free from the grip on his neck but failing. The woman unceremoniously threw her to the other side of the shop, as if she weighed nothing.

Then she turned, and Allura stiffened, on alert. The blonde woman put her hands forward, reassuringly, "I won't hurt you. My name is Kara Zor-E. You're one of Voltron's paladins, right?"

"Yes, I am Princess Allura of Altea, paladin of the Blue Lion," she replied, not letting her guard down.

"You've been missing for three years," Kara said, continuing to hold a relaxed stance, as if not to scare the girl.

"Yes, I heard it too," Allura said, warily, "Why aren't you under Bob's control?"

"Believe me, I'm having a big headache right now, but I can hold on," Kara then gave a half-smile, "Bob? Does he call himself that? It's absurdly normal."

"He isn’t normal. He is a god."

"Ah, I wouldn't be so sure. All this," she said, pointing around her, "I know this chaos. He looks more like a fifth-dimensional imp who is getting bored."

"Fifth dimension?" the princess repeated, confused.

The woman scratched her head, "Ah, first time with one of those nuisances? How can I explain it..."

Other people were coming outside, and Allura couldn't stay, "I can't waste time. I have to find my friends."

But before she came out, Kara came up to her, and graciously took her arm, "I'll help you. Flying is faster."

"Flying? How..." 

The phrase died in her throat as she and Kara flew away from the store, and Allura clung to the woman as if her life depended on it.

Bob wanted to break something. He looked sideways at Bat-Mite, "A Kryptonian! How could you not notice a Kryptonian!"

"How can it be my fault?" the little being asked, offended. "Aren't you the one who boasts of knowing everything? And aren't you the one who's controlling the minds of all those people?"

"You know it doesn't work on Kryptonians! I'm not as obsessed with them as Mister Mxyzptlk!"

"So the problem is yours, not mine! You are the one who is a subcategory of..."

The little being was hit in the face by a punch from Bob, more stung by pride than anything else.

"Ouch! Why did you do it?!" Bat-Mite blurted out, his cheek swollen and red.

"You know why," he said, pointing his finger at him, "Don't call me that. My powers are..."

"Your powers are a farce! It's technology, not magic! And some modifications in the laboratory that you made yourself! You are like me, but you have called yourself a god and..."

He hit him again, impatient. There will come a point where, due to his swollen face, Bat-Mite will not even be able to speak, and he didn't mind it at all!

The presence of the Kryptonian was unexpected, of course, but she could work with that. He tapped his chin thoughtfully.

What could he send against a Kryptonian to waste time?

Bat-Mite blurted out, "Don't think about paladins! Those two have been walking around for a long time doing nothing! Have you forgotten about them yet?"

"I haven't forgotten them!" he smiled, ferally, while a lively melody began to spread around them, accompanied by the background of tambourines and cymbals, "Everything is ready. Have a little patience, and you will see what I have prepared!"

The first sign that things were starting to get ugly was the music that began to spread between the ghostly walls of the labyrinth.

Damian froze, and it did not escape Lance how he rested his hand on his right side, and the slight limp so as not to put the weight where he felt pain.

"This is..." Lance began.

"Circus music," the other finished, thinning his lips.

Lance looked at him curiously, "Don't you like the circus?"

"I find this so-called god to have a sick sense of humour," the man said through gritted teeth, "If he thinks he's funny, he's wrong. He is making me angry."

Lance wanted to ask why something, at the time, harmless, made him angry, but the question died in his throat when he saw another blank writing appear in front of them, etched in the very fabric of the air. The words swirled and twisted, like they were alive.

"Another riddle," Damian murmured, "Where the other birds die, the robin puts on wings and the story begins." He looked at Lance with a mix of wariness and resignation. "Remember, none of this is real."

Lance frowned, "That's what I've come to. Why are you telling me?"

Damian, however, didn't answer; he continued walking.

A few meters ahead, the labyrinth suddenly opened up, revealing a bizarrely vibrant square filled with the cacophony of a circus. The stark contrast with the eerie silence of the maze was jolting. The once-dim lights grew brighter, and the smells of popcorn and cotton candy filled the air. Above, there was a vast canvas of stars, and a single spotlight beamed down from the heavens, illuminating a large, hand-painted sign that swung back and forth in the unseen wind. It read 'Haly's Circus'.

Damian was biting his lip so hard that it was a surprise that he wasn't starting to bleed.

"Do you know this Haly's Circus well?"

"Not personally," Damian replied very reluctantly, "I've heard many stories about it from Richard."

"Was your brother a circus lover?"

Damian hesitated, "Actually, before he was adopted by my father, he and his parents were circus acrobats. They..."

He was interrupted by someone who bumped into him. Damian looked down and saw a child of about three years old, with messy black hair, tiny and eyes as blue as sapphires.

The kid looked at him and smiled with a toothless smile, and Lance found him kinda cute.

Sure, there was a chance that the child was a monster sent by Bob, ready to eat them instead, but other than that, the kid was cute.

"Someone has done his research..." Damian said through clenched teeth, just as a blonde woman came up to them, "Timothy! Don't leave us!"

Without making any mention of the fact that she had noticed them, the woman took the kid by the hand, and Lance saw them walk away. The kid made a gesture of greeting towards them before looking forward again.

"We have to follow them," Damian said suddenly, surprising him.

"Those two? Why?" Lance couldn't help but ask.

"They will take us where we need to go," he answered, and, without waiting for Lance to ask any more questions, he followed mother and son.

The crowd grew denser, a mix of acrobats, clowns, and animal trainers all moving with a disturbing synchrony that made Lance feel like a leaf in a river. He cursed under his breath as he pushed his way through, trying to keep Damian's retreating form in view. The people around him were silent, their eyes fixed straight ahead, their movements mechanical. They didn't acknowledge him, but their bodies swayed and parted just enough to allow him to pass without touching them. He felt like he was in a dream, except the smells were too real - the animal musk, the sugary sweetness of the treats, and the faint scent of sawdust underneath it all.

Lance followed Damian out of the circus tent into an open area where the ground was a patchwork of colored fabric. The music grew louder, the calliope's laughter echoing through the night. The woman with the sapphire-eyed child was there, speaking to a couple in flamboyant costumes.

"Timothy, darling," she cooed, "You mustn't be scared. This is what we've been waiting for, remember? They are the Flying Grayson."

The child, however, continued to hide behind his mother, and the woman sighed, "I apologise, it's his first time at the circus. He was so excited. I don't know what's taking him now."

"Don't worry," the other woman reassured her, "The circus tends to have this effect on young children. But I'm sure our Dickie will be able to calm him down."

Lance frowned. What kind of name was Dickie?

The owner of the name appeared at that moment, running alongside him and Damian: he was a nine-year-old boy, slender, a mop of black curls and amber skin. He wore a red leotard and green stockings like his parents, but while they looked like professional acrobats, he gave the impression of being some kind of mischievous pixie.

Damian had the expression of someone who had just been stabbed, so much so that Lance had to ask him, "Hey, if they are your parents..."

"No," Damian's response was quick, "They're not."

"I heard she called them Flying Grayson..."

"They're not my parents," he said once more, with some finality. Then, with a tense expression, he asked, "Have you never heard of them?"

There was a certain weight to that question, which Lance did not fully understand. Hesitantly, he asked, "Are they famous? But to be honest, I can't say that their names are familiar to me."

Damian closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. Lance wanted to ask why it was a big deal.

Too bad that the clowns who suddenly surrounded them had other plans.

Bob was a circus fan. Seriously, it was. As a versatile one-man show performer, he excelled in various types of shows, including the circus.

He had therefore combined the useful with the delightful, bringing those two to a place so full of family history, and above all, having the opportunity to wear his red lion-tamer suit!

It fit him divinely, and it had been centuries since he had worn it.

Bat – Mite appeared next to him, "Do you want to move? We don't have all day."

'We have all the time in the world, you fool without faith,”  he answered. "I am the master here."

Bat-Mite rolled his eyes, but he ignored him. He turned around and smiled to see the red paladin already in position, up high, in place of the acrobats. What a joy it will be to see him fly like his grandparents!

Bob adjusted his hat and smiled at his audience. It was time to go on stage.

"Ladies and gentlemen, young and old, I welcome you to Haly's Circus! This is a special night! We will witness the unique, unrepeatable show of the youngest of the Flying Graysons! Give a nice applause of encouragement!"

Chapter Text

Damian's head was throbbing, the lights were so strong that it hurt his eyes.

He widened his eyes once, twice, three times, before he fully regained consciousness. When he did, he was sitting in the stands in the front row, surrounded by people and with his hands and feet blocked.

He squirmed, "Damn... I can't move."

Usually, he would have no problem facing opponents so far below him. Unfortunately, the being who had imprisoned them could manipulate everything at will, and Damian had been overpowered. 

He growled in anger, and heard a laugh at his side.  Bob flew close to him, "You should enjoy the show, Batman. It's not every day that you're in the front row for a good old origin story."

"Where's the red paladin?"

"See for yourself," he said, pointing up to where the trapezes were. Lance was there, as groggy as Damian, and clinging to the pole so as not to fall.

He felt himself boiling with anger.

"I'll make you pay," he hissed, "I'll cut off your head, you unclean being..."

He was interrupted by a gag that suddenly appeared to cover his mouth. Bob looked him down on him, "It's not polite to talk like that to your guest! And to say that I even gave you the best seat!"

The lights dimmed, and the crowd grew quiet as the sound of an orchestra filled the air. The music grew louder, more dramatic. The Flying Graysons took to the air, their graceful acrobatics leaving the audience in awe. The colours of their costumes flashed as they spun, twirled, and somersaulted through the air, defying gravity. Damian watched, his eyes narrowed in concentration, his mind racing to find a way out of his current predicament.

Soon, Bob will force the red paladin to imitate the Flying Graysons, and Damian knew the story; it was etched in his mind. There was only one ending, and he wouldn't allow it to happen again.

Damian felt the urgency building within him, his body straining against the unyielding bonds. He had to protect the paladin, even if it meant fighting his way out of this trap.

"You know," Bob began, his voice echoing through the arena, "Lance here is quite the natural. Flying, you see, is in his blood."

Damian's eyes widened. That being hadn't just understood what Damian believed, had he? Yet, all that drama, the circus, the Graysons, Richard as a child, the show, seemed to lead to a single, logical conclusion...

But, it could also have been a cruel game against him.  Bob seemed perfectly capable of doing it.

He clenched his fists. The desire to grab that being by the throat until it suffocated was strong. Damian will have to use it to be able to free himself. And when he succeeds, he will make that damn being pay for everything.

The bird thing had brought them to their lions. Great, excellent, really. Too bad it hadn't also taken steps to stop their pursuers.

Oh, and it was suddenly gone.

"Oh, come on!" Pidge complained, "Is that all?!"

"I said it was a bad idea, I said it..." Hunk was scrambling, pulling out his bayard.

Keith's mind was racing fast, looking for a strategy. Unfortunately for him, the only thing he could think about was attack first and think later.

"Guys, listen up!" Keith bellowed over the growing rumble of the crowd. "Get in your Lions now!"

Pidge looked at him as if he was crazy, "Would this be your plan? Get killed?!"

"No! I'll buy you time..."

"Gain time? Do you think that... damn it..." the girl cursed, narrowly avoiding being grabbed and kicking a guy in the face, "We should find a way to free these people from Bob's control, and if we can't, at least not get chased like in a horror movie!"

"I know!" Keith exclaimed, chasing away another alien who had gotten too close.

"Allura may have already been taken! Maybe she's in the maze too! And we don't even know where Bob took Lance and Damian, we…”

"I know! Damn it, I know!" Keith yelled at her, and some of Galra's traits must have emerged, judging by Pidge's reaction, "We need time to think! And we don't have any! So, get into your lions and leave it to me!"

Pidge grimaced, and surely would have continued to protest if Hunk hadn't grabbed her by the arm and dragged her towards the lions.

Keith didn't have time to sigh with relief when he was attacked en masse. He managed to repel the attack, but made a mistake.

He looked up at the screens.

"That bastard..." he exhaled, seeing Lance stuck on a platform in what looked like a circus show, while Bob introduced him.

Bob would have killed the red paladin just for fun, and Keith was there watching, unable to do anything.

"Keith! Watch out!" Hunk yelled at him, just in time to avoid being stabbed.

Keith had been fighting valiantly, but the sheer number of enemies was overwhelming. He parried, dodged, and counterattacked, but the tide of aliens under Bob's control was relentless.

He could feel the sweat running down his back, the weight of his sword feeling heavier with each passing second. The stench of burning metal and ozone filled the air as he sliced through the alien technology, but there were just too many of them. His breath grew ragged and his arms started to ache from the effort.

Then, a sudden force yanked the blade from his grasp, sending it skittering across the floor. The world slowed down as Keith looked down at his empty hands, a cold, sinking feeling creeping into his chest. He heard the clatter of metal and the roar of the alien crowd, and his eyes darted to the screens above. For a moment, he seemed to meet Lance's gaze, but it was only a deception of his mind.

As Keith braced himself for the inevitable onslaught, a faint hum grew louder, and a shimmering green barrier erupted around him. The aliens, thrown off by the sudden obstruction, stumbled back, giving him a moment's reprieve. 

"See, Veronica? This is what I call a fucking cool entrance!" Keith heard a familiar voice speak.

"Matt?! What the hell?!" Pidge screamed, and well, Keith shared her reaction.

Matt Holt was here. And he was flying.

He hovered in the air, his eyes glowing with an emerald light, a fiery aura surrounding his body.

Matt Holt had always been a bit of a show-off, but now he had the power to back it up. His suit was as if someone had painted him with glowing, liquid jade. It clung to him like a second skin, leaving his head uncovered. The material looked organic and alive, moving and pulsing with power. The suit had no clear seams or boundaries; it just flowed over his body, like it was a part of him. On his chest, a symbol shimmered brightly, casting an eerie green glow across their faces.

Matt was not alone: there was also a girl with him, wearing a matte black bodysuit made of nylon spandex, with silver details in metallic spandex. She had epaulettes on the sides of iron, a belt with the symbol of a star, and a shield and a sword behind her.

But she wasn't looking at Keith. She was looking at the screens with her eyes half-closed. And she looked furious.

"What's going on with my brother?" she asked, her voice dripping with venom.

There Keith's mind clicked. Veronica. As like Veronica McClain, one of Lance's older sisters.

"Brother? Hold on... are you Lance's sister? What are you doing here? Why do you fly? Matt, what the hell happened to you?"

Pidge's questions were all legitimate. The last time he checked, humans couldn't fly, and Matt wasn't a glorified green night light.

"Ah, let's start right away with the difficult questions... good news, I'm a Green Lantern! Bad news, the Garrison sucks..."

"Green Lantern? What is a Green Lantern?" Hunk interjected, and Matt scratched his head, "Somehow, I'm not surprised you don't know. Kyle told me that the Green Lanter Corp was almost extinct, so, of course, you haven't heard of it until now... oh, hi. A friendly face."

Their gaze followed Matt's where a blonde woman and Allura were descending. The woman looked fierce, a blur of red and blue, her eyes burning with a fierce determination. Allura was looked a little worse for the wear, but other than that, it didn't look like any injuries.

"Wonder Girl, Green Lantern," Kara greeted, her eyes widening a little. "What a surprise. Are you two here alone?"

"More or less," Veronica said with a tight smile, her eyes not leaving the screens. "We had to split up from Hood and Superman to scout the place without attracting too much attention. It was supposed to be a simple rescue mission, but it seems we've stumbled upon the main event."

"Wait... rescue mission?" Allura asked, confused as the rest of them, while the woman landed her next to Pidge and Hunk.

"Our spaceship received suspicious coordinates, and it was likely that we were going to be trapped," Matt replied, and then nodded to the screens, "It seems that Hood's paranoia paid off in the end. This place is a mess."

"Yes, most of the people here are controlled by an imp from the fifth dimension..."

"Mr. Mxyzptlk?!" Matt blurted out, looking completely horrified by whoever the hell this Mr. Mxyzptlk was.

The blonde woman shook her head, "No, this one calls himself Bob. He tried to control me too, and for a while he succeeded, but I resisted."

"So it shouldn't work out on me and Veronica," Matt mused aloud, "Good to know, we won't have to be afraid of killing each other."

"It could be a problem for Hood, but I'm sure he can keep control. Otherwise, I will have to knock him out. It will be like when we were young."

"I thought that with all the bat stuff, he might have trained to be immune..."

Keith was no longer following them. He didn't care. There was too much meat to cook, too many unanswered questions, but his main concern remained one.

"I don't care about any of this!" he snapped, and pointed to the screens, "How are we going to bring him back? Do you know this or do we have to stay here and watch him get killed?!"

"I agree with him. How do we do it?" Veronica agreed, looking at the woman and expecting her to come up with a solution.

She was not disappointed, "Probably the paladin is in some pocket dimension created ad hoc by Bob. We'll need some material for a portal, then someone who can find the exact dimension..."

"I can do it!" Pidge exclaimed. "I’m damn good with technology.”

"Great! Wonder Girl, come with me. We have to find Hood and Superman, along with what we need for the portal. Green Lantern, stay with the paladins, and hold this crowd until we return."

"No prob."

Veronica was more hesitant to listen, but the woman flew up to her, putting a hand on her shoulder, "It's going to be okay. He is strong. And he is not alone."

"It's not that he's very useful right now."

"If there's one thing I've learned, it's to never bet against bats. None of them. You'll see, they'll make it."

At that point, Veronica sighed, and the two flew away. Chaos broke out.

"Matt! – Pidge yelled to get his brother's attention – How are you doing... this."

The girl gestured first to her brother then to the shield erected between them and a crowd of mind-controlled aliens.

"Ah, I told you, I'm a Green Lantern. And that involves cool accessories like the ring... don't kid me, but it's called the power ring, and every now and then I have to recharge it... Don't make that face, it's damn cool! I can create anything I want until..."

"Guys," Hunk interrupted, his expression completely terrified, "He's going to jump."

All eyes were on the screens.  Time passed in slow motion as Lance tightened his trapeze, and without any damn preparation, he threw himself into the void.

Lance wasn’t an acrobat.

Just as he was not a genius, an engineer, a half-Galra with impressive fighting skills, the last exponent of his kind or a leader.

He was the comic sidekick, barely useful to cover the shoulders during missions.

"I'm going to die," he thought, watching the performance of the Flying Graysons, real acrobats (or how real people Bob made to appear) and knowing that he'd never be able to do anything like this, "I'm going to fall, I'm going to look like an idiot and I'm going to die. What a beautiful heroic death for the Red Paladin!"

Let's be serious, he never expected to come out alive from this story of the millennial intergalactic war. Quiznack, had been close to death all too often, most recently with that mission to Omega Shield where he protected Allura from the explosion.

He had risked it, but apart from a little confusion and damaged Red, he had not been injured. He had been lucky.

But luck had turned its back on him here, and Lance will die to amuse an asshole god in search of a good show.

"You can do it," a little voice said, and he almost had a stroke. Dickie was on the platform with him, "You can fly too. It's in your blood."

It wasn’t true. Keith had it in his blood, and in fact he was the best pilot of their generation, and if he had been expelled, it was because Iverson could not tolerate all those questions about Kerberos and Shiro.

Lance was mediocre. A cargo pilot who was promoted only because Kogane had made too many mistakes, see that you don't make them too.

He was not meant to be promoted.

He was not meant to be a fighter pilot. He was a substitute at the Garrison, and still was among the paladins.

"Look at mami and tati," Dickie insisted, "Do as they do. Mami won't let you fall. “

Lance pursed his lips, and thought, "Your mother won't drop you, but, likely, she won't think twice about accidentally slipping me. Incidents happen, and there's not even a damn safety net here..."

Bob suddenly appeared, with a toothy grin and a satisfied expression, "What are you waiting for, paladin? It's your turn to fly."

With a dramatic flourish, he pushed Lance off the edge of the platform. Time froze as Lance felt his heart in his throat. The ground rushed towards him, a canvas of doom painted in stark reality. Panic set in, his mind racing with the futile thought of all the things he could've done differently. But his body had other plans.

Dickie's words echoed in his mind, a distant rallying cry amidst the chaos. "You can do it!" The words grew louder, pushing through the fog of fear that threatened to consume him. The wind whipped past his face, his eyes squeezed shut in a silent scream. And then, a firm grip clamped down on his arm.

Lance felt himself being pulled upwards, the ground receding as his heart thundered in his chest. He opened his eyes to find Dickie's mom,holding onto him with surprising strength. The crowd below had erupted into gasps and cheers. The circus music played on, the beat syncing with his racing pulse.

The woman smiled to him ,"You are doing great, swetie. Don't think about anything else but what we're doing. "

"No other thoughts,  got it..."

Lance had no time to say more, the world around him spinning as the woman swung him through the air, his body moving almost instinctively to keep up with her. The crowd's applause grew more distant as he focused on the feeling of the wind against his skin and the tension of the rope in his palms. He tried to clear his mind as she'd suggested, to just be in the moment, to let go of the fear and doubt.

The rhythmic swings grew more daring as they continued the performance, Lance's body stretching and curling around the trapeze in ways he never thought possible. He even managed a few twists and somersaults, his movements awkward yet surprisingly effective. His heart hammered in his chest, a mix of terror and exhilaration pumping through his veins. He could feel the burn in his muscles and the sweat gathering on his forehead, but somehow, he kept going.

The crowd had become a blur of colors and sounds, their cheers and gasps a backdrop to the symphony of the wind and the creaking ropes. And then, it changed. A discordant note entered the melody, a sound that made his blood run cold. The trapeze rope began to fray.

"Oh, quiznack!"

There was not even time to shout a warning. The rope broke, and he and the woman fell into the void.

"Mom!"

Lance acted on impulse, and embraced the woman: he would not do anything to save her, but most of the damage would be suffered by him. 

It was a gesture dictated by pure instinct, even if he knew that everyone there was just Bob's puppets, even if he knew it was a game of the god. He couldn't bear the thought of letting someone die.

He expected the pain of the impact. The sound of broken bones, the blood, the laughter of the audience.

None of this happened. Instead, Lance and the woman landed in the middle of the arena as if they had glided gently along a ribbon, and the circus audience erupted in thunderous applause.

Lance untied the embrace, looking confused around him, while the woman put her hand on his shoulder, "Dickie was right. It's in your blood."

"Uhm, thanks, but, honestly, I have no idea how I did it…”  

At that moment, Bob stood between Lance and the audience, "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your presence. Unfortunately, the show ends here, but I'm sure our acrobat will enjoy the next leg of his tour!"

The paladin became agitated, "Oh, you can't be serious, you damn..."

A trapdoor opened under his feet, and Lance, for the second time in a very short time, found himself falling.

Bob then turned his attention to Damian. He smiled, "Don't worry. I haven't forgotten about you. I have plans, Batman. You'll be my next star,  just…”

Bat-Mite suddenly appeared, and whispered something in Bob's ear.

Bob blurted out, "The Justice League?! How?!"

Bat-Mite sulked, and replied by whispering something to him again, making the other's face frown, "Mhm... they could meddle before my show ends... I'll try to invent something... “

“I could do something!”

“No!  You are just a prompter! This is my show, and I don't tolerate meddling!" he blurted out, his eyes lit up red.

Bat-Mite backed away, annoyed, and retorted annoyed, "You said that we would collaborate!”

“Only on my own terms! Remember where you belong!”

Bat - Mild tongue at him, and then he disappeared.

Bob assumed an expression that would have easily made him pass for a parent exasperated by the umpteenth mischief of his son, “That brat will drive me crazy… it also made me lose the thread of the conversation!...what was I saying... Ah, yes. Now, Batman, it's your turn to be the damsel in distress!"

Kara heard Jason and Jon's heartbeats. She knew where they were.  She also knew they were fine, and a little waiting wouldn't kill them.

They needed the materials for the portal, and it didn't seem such a bad idea to borrow what they needed. Not that anyone will be offended, it was for a good cause.

But she froze when she saw the screens and Bob's sick show. It was the same for Wonder Girl, although the reasons were different.

Flying Grayson.

That being had really used the Graysons' only show in Gotham to make fun of Damian – she didn't doubt, at the time, that the reason had to be that – while forcing him to attend.

Whatever the test, the paladin was doomed to fail. It was a sick game, one of those that damn elf would like so much.

She was not surprised when the rope broke. The real surprise was when, while he fell, the paladin, for a few moments, stood still in mid-air, and flew.  

"Rao..." she whispered, as she saw the boy land on the ground, seeming to have no idea what had just happened,  feeling guilty because only in that moment, while the screen lingered on the paladin's face a little longer , her mind finally clicked on why the boy had seemed familiar to her.

"Superwoman," Wonder Girl shook her out of thought, urgency and anger in her voice, "We have to hurry. Where do we find the stuff we need?"

"Ah, yes... follow me..."

"He did it..." Hunk was almost on the verge of crying, hugging Pidge and Allura, who were also in the same condition, "Lance did it! “

Keith also felt as if some of the tension had eased, but he couldn't rejoice like the others. How could he?

He had seen Lance try to protect a puppet of Bob from falling, as if she were real. He was risking his life unnecessarily, just because he was too tender, too good.

Keith had  told his mother: good men died in war. 

That war had already taken too much away from him. He wouldn't let him do the same to Lance. If he has to be tougher with him, so be it.

Lance will hate him, but it was for his own good. One day, he will understand.

But to get there, he had to survive, and he certainly wouldn't have survived if he had continued to do shit like that.

"Oh, damn it... Veronica will be furious... a third time..."

Keith turned to Matt, "What are you saying?"

"Well... you have seen too... How long have Lance been doing it?"

He frowned, "Being a sacrificial idiot? From the beginning. He acted as a shield for Coran..."

"I didn't mean that," Matt interrupted, "Since he... You know... did you see..."

His confusion increased, "See what?"

"Really? Have none of you noticed? Not even you, Katie?"

The girl turned to her brother, confusion clear, and Matt snorted, "Heavens, you're all so oblivious... yes, you too, Katie..."

"No!"

Hunk's scream could have passed as a protest against what Matt was saying. But as soon as they looked at all the screens, they understood the reason for his anguish: Lance had just been swallowed by a trapdoor, and no one had any idea where he would take him.

"This guy may be a bastard without morals, but you have to admit that he has style..." Matt muttered, only to be looked at badly by all the paladins. "Sorry, not the right time."

"How long will it take to Kara to return?" Allura asked anxiously, and Matt did some quick calculations, "Ah, barring unforeseen events... five minutes."

Pidge snorted, "Five minutes? Are you kidding? It's not possible. You know how much stuff it takes."

"And I also know how fast Veronica and Superwoman are. Five minutes, a maximum of ten. “

Pidge snorted, "Green Lantern, Wonder Girl, Superwoman... Have you ended up in a group of superheroes?"

Matt scoffed, chuckling, "Ah, yeah…kinda?”

She looked at him with her mouth open, "Wait, is that so? Are you a superhero?"

"The correct definition would be protector of the 3600 sectors of the galaxy..."

"3600 what?!"

“… but as Kyle said, superhero is also fine, previous Lanterns have collaborated with several heroes and..."

"Brake for a moment," Pidge interrupted, "Are there any superheroes on Earth? Like... I don't know... Iron Man or Hulk or..."

"Oh no... they are much better than fictional characters," he replied, with a grin, "In three years I have seen things... wow, I thought space was crazy, but Earth, guys... Earth is much worse!"

"You didn't tell me there were these superheroes on Earth," Allura said, turning to Hunk.

 "Well, it's hard to know about the existence of something when you don't remember it... but this is a very, very long story, and we should wait until Lance and Mr. Wayne are out of danger for..."

"Who?" Pidge blurted out, and Matt looked at her like she had two heads, "The guy stuck there with Lance? Tall, dark, absolutely terrifying and could tear you apart with a finger? I'm serious, I saw him do it and..."

"That liar," Keith said through gritted teeth, "I knew he was hiding something! He lied to us, saying his name was Damian Grayson... that fucking ..."

"Grayson? Ah, it's not surprising that he used that name..." Matt muttered, "Actually, he could break all my bones for revealing his secret identity, he's really fucking paranoid, so if you really have to confront him about his lie, don't tell him I told you, huh?"

Pidge mocked him, "What, are you afraid of a normal dude?  With these... superpowers?"

It was evident that it was difficult for her to pronounce the word out loud without feeling ridiculous, and honestly, the thought that there were heroes, whom for some reason no one remembered, seemed absurd even to him.

There wasn't much room to judge, however, when you were in space fighting a ten-thousand-year war against aliens that until recently you didn't even know existed.

At that point, the suspension of disbelief was the minimum. They just had to shrug their shoulders and move on.

Matt looked at her seriously, "Katie, when I said that guy is terrifying, I wasn't exaggerating. He would beat Shiro without even breaking a sweat. Shiro, Katie. He knows all my weaknesses and knows how to use them against me."

"So he's dangerous," Keith said to himself, "With Lance, he was faking to be helpless. And that idiot believed him!”

"He wasn't pretending," Allura interjected, "Mr. Grayson... or whatever his real name is... he's really hurt and still recovering."

" This doesn’t surprise me! He blew himself up with a spaceship to stop the Tamaraneans invasion! No one thought he had survived! Then Queen Komand'r contacted us and..."

"So you went back to collaborate with Garrison without problems?" Pidge asked, and with some trepidation, as they still had no idea what kind of reception they would find when they returned to Earth.

"Did he tell you that?" Matt asked instead, his eyes half-closed. Pidge opened her mouth to answer, but Hunk was quicker, "Actually, he didn't really confirm it to us. It was just the most logical thing based on what he had told us."

"Holy shit. He tested you and you've failed spectacularly," Matt groaned, "The mother of all ear-pulls awaits you. I'm sorry for you."

"Why? He lied," Keith growled, angry. He had lied to Lance, manipulating him into revealing personal things, and Lance, stupid, sweet, idiotic, had fallen for it.

Matt shook his head, "Yes, but if he didn't tell you everything, it's because he didn't think you were up to it or to study you. I don't know, I don't pretend to understand his mind. If I tried, I would risk ending up in the treatment of Dr. Quinzel and I really don't want to."

"Sounds like you're talking about Iverson," Pidge said, half joking, half serious.

The other, however, pursed his lips, "Mr. Wayne is a whole other level than Iverson. Iverson... Well, little sister, I knew he was a piece of shit, but I didn't imagine how evil he really was. “

"It's not a surprise. I've been saying this for years," Keith revealed, receiving a snort in response, "Yes, for what he did to Shiro. But boy, Iverson  has done worse. Stuff on the level of Haggar."

Everyone shuddered. Each of them, in one way or another, was familiar with the witch's experiments, and they knew that if anyone came close to that, they could only be a fucking monster.

 "I know I'll regret asking for it. But what did Iverson do to..."

"Guys!" Hunk called them back, "Here we go! Lance is... I don't know how to say it, except that he's alive... but he is alone... and in a ghostly mansion..."

"Alone? Because... oh..." Matt paused, seeming to recognize the place where Lance had ended up, "It's Wayne Manor... “

Another meaningless riddle appeared, that Keith didn't even read everything, but that said something about blood and past sins. Honestly, he found them stupid and ridiculous, just like Bob's games.

Matt, on the other hand, was muttering softly, lost in thought, and the barrier began to shake.

"Wayne Manor... it could be about the Bane's incident..."

"Matt..." Pidge called him back, but he made no sign of hearing her.

"If so, Lance should... damn, I don't think he could do it, not even against a fake version of Bane... even if we don't know the accuracy of Bob's copies compared to the originals..."

"Matt! The barrier!"

"Oh, shit," he cursed, just in time to keep the barrier from giving way. On the other side, the crowd hadn't dispersed. Instead, they remained there, still as statues, waiting. Keith didn't want to know what they were waiting for, "Sorry, it happens sometimes. Kyle explained to me that you have to stay focused, but every now and then... you know how my mind works, Katie..."

"So you can keep using your ring as long as you stay focused?" the green paladin asked, the voice of someone who was completely in scientific mode. Keith could imagine that, if she could, she would get the ring from Matt to have it analyzed.

"Exactly! And it depends a lot on my imagination and my willpower!" Matt exclaimed, proud.

Pidge raised an eyebrow, "Willpower? What if you don't have any?"

"Then you aren’t choose as a Green Lantern. Only those with a strong will can bear the ring," the boy explained, while keeping the barrier intact.

"Chosen by whom?" Keith in turn asked.

"Well... at first, you were selected by the Guardians of OA, but they were exterminated by..."

"By the Galras?" Allura intervened, but Matt shook his head, "By a human named Hal Jordan. It’s another long story. Suffice it to say that Jordan is one of the reason the Green Lantern Corps is not doing well, along with the constant threat of the Galra Empire. It's hard to find new members when so much of the universe lives in fear, and Haggar tried to steal the power of the rings. “

“Where did you find yours?” Pidge asked.

Matt's face darkened,” I found mine during a rebel operation in a Galra prison... We didn't find many people alive, and there was this woman… her name was Jessica Cruz, she was dying. She had managed to keep her ring out of the hands of the Galra and Haggar, and begged me to bring it back to Earth. I would have done it, but we found ourselves surrounded, in numerical difficulty... It was an absurd situation, really. But I didn't think for a moment of giving in... And well, that made me worthy. Thanks to my new powers, I was able to save myself and my companions, and return to base. When Kyle found me... Um... let's say that at first he wasn't very happy, Jessica and he were friends, and I was a thief for him... he probably would have taken my ring away if the war against the Sinestro Corps..."

A long, loud screech spread through the air, deafening those present. 

Among the crowd, Keith noticed some active sound boxes, from which that infernal noise was coming.

So, it was that what they all were waiting.

The screech grew louder and louder, a crescendo of noise that sent shivers down the spines of the strongest and the weakest alike. It was as if a million nails were being dragged across a million chalkboards, the sound of sound so overwhelming it seemed to distort time itself. The world around them grew hazy and indistinct, colors fading into a uniform gray as the very air trembled with the vibrations.

"I hope you enjoy my surprise, paladins!" Bob spoke through one of the shopkeepers, "Who watches a moment of pathos without a worthy musical accompaniment?"

"You want to fry our brains!" Pidge shouted, trying to be heard over the noise.

"Of course not, green paladin! You will be fine! I'm not sure I can say the same thing about Green Lantern, though! These sound boxes are on a special frequency just for him! If for you the noise is annoying, for him it is simply hellish!"

She turned pale and turned to her brother: Matt's hands were shaking, and a trickle of blood began to come out of his ears. 

"Damn...he wants to feed you to the angry mob so bad," he tried to joke, but his voice wasn't convincing. Pidge put her hands on his arm.

" You said Veronica and Superwoman would be here soon, right? Hang in there a little longer. Do some Jedi mind tricks..."

"There are no Jedi mind tricks," Matt gasped in response, " I'm pretty sure Jedi don't exist!"

"You just told me you get powers from a space ring, humor me!" she snapped back, "Stay focused with some ninja tricks or... I don't know... Focus on something very strongly, and hold on to that thought! Just for five minutes, Matt. You can do it."

Matt closed his eyes, and clenched both fists. Keith had no doubt that for their safety, his sister's safety, he would give his all and more.

And maybe he imagined it, but he swore he heard Matt whisper something to himself, like a prayer.

"I can do it...Shiro would, so I can..."

Slowly, Lance regained consciousness. He was lying face down on a marble floor, which appeared to be quite expensive.

When he struggled to sit down, the paladin observed his surroundings.

The entrance hall stretched before him like a cavernous maw, swallowing what little light there was. The once-grand chandeliers now hung low and lifeless, their crystals shattered and dusty, casting eerie shadows across the cold marble floor. The walls were a dull grey, marred by water stains and peeling wallpaper, whispering tales of neglect and decay.

The place looked abandoned for years, and it was depressing as hell.

He barely got up and staggered, while in front of him, Bob's new riddle appeared

The dark knight's fate lies in your hand,

A path of blood you must withstand,

Face past sins, leave pain behind,

Or leave this place, in the darkness, forever blind.

"Damn, more cryptic than the others. First Bob made us end up in a maze... unless I'm still in the maze... then the circus and now this...quiznack…I need to focus…dark knight’s fate… I guess the dark knight is Damian... and I have to find him if I want to leave this place... but how..."

The answer was not long in coming: the walls began to cry blood profusely, collecting on the floor to form a purple trail that led towards her goal.

He held back a retching, "Disgusting. This is a horror movie!"

Unfortunately for him, he had no choice. He had to follow the trail of blood and hope it would lead him to Damian and not to a room full of hungry zombies.

He stepped into the corridor, and the walls closed in around him. The grand hallway had been transformed into a narrow, claustrophobic space, lined with paintings that seemed to watch him with haunting eyes. The portraits were all of people he didn’t know, dressed in fancy, old-fashioned clothes that probably cost more than he’d ever see in his life. As he stumbled down the corridor, the blood grew thicker, sticking to his boots and leaving a disturbing sucking sound with every step he took.

Suddenly, a flicker of movement caught his eye. He looked to his left and saw a photograph of a married couple. They were young, beautiful, and radiated happiness. The man had his arm around the woman, and she leaned into his embrace, her eyes shining with love and warmth.

There was an inscription underneath, which Lance read aloud, "Thomas and Martha Wayne... I can't read the date... quiznack!"

The painting morphed before Lance's horrified gaze: in an alley lay their bodies, their lifeless forms twisted in a macabre embrace. The woman’s face was a grotesque mask of crimson, her eyes wide with shock and pain, while the man had a hand clutching at his chest. A child, a tiny figure in the background, was kneeling in the sticky pool of their blood, face obscured by shadow.

Then, the child raised his head and looked straight at Lance, eyes as blue as ice shining in the dark.

He opened his mouth and screamed, a sound so piercing and haunting it seemed to shake the very foundation of the manor. It was a sound of pure agony and despair, one that Lance felt deep in his soul.

As if in response, the other paintings began to stir. The subjects of the paintings stepped out of their frames, their gray, lifeless forms moving with a jerky, unnatural grace. Their eyes were cold and empty, like the vacant stare of a doll. Lance's hand trembled as he reached for his sword, his heart pounding in his chest like a wild beast desperate to break free.

The child emerged from the painting, his tiny form stained crimson and trembling. His eyes bore into Lance's soul, filled with a rage so intense it seemed to set the very air around him aflame. The woman followed, her jaw hanging at an impossible angle, revealing a grisly mess of bone and viscera that was once a part of her husband. The man stumbled after her, his body a patchwork of shadows and blood. His hand, still reaching for his heart, was attached to the woman by a thin, pulsing thread of gore.

"Who ordered The Walking Dead?" he muttered to himself, his heartbeat erratic. He quickly assessed the situation: his opponents were too many, potentially invulnerable and stronger than him.

If they had caught him, at the very least, they would have taken his eyes, condemning him to darkness forever.

So, Lance decided to do something Keith would never do: he ran away.

The screams grew louder, echoing through the manor's corridors like a chorus of the damned. The very walls seemed to vibrate with the anguished cries, but Lance didn't dare to look back.

He focused on the crimson trail, which grew erratic as if it were trying to mislead him. Sometimes it would thicken, only to abruptly thin out and split into several streams. The air grew colder, and the scent of iron filled his nostrils, a grim reminder of the path he was on.

Finally, the path led him to a mahogany door, standing tall and ominous, with ornate carvings that twisted and curled like thorny vines. A single drop of blood fell from the frame, plinking onto the floor to mingle with the pool already forming around his feet. The door was closed, a heavy, antique lock keeping it firmly in place.

Lance’s heart raced as he heard the unmistakable sound of the painted figures closing in, their footsteps as silent as death itself. He turned to face them, his hand tight around the hilt of his sword. Their eyes were now the only source of light in the dim corridor, glowing with an unnatural, malevolent energy.

"The door seems locked," he reasoned to himself, feeling his mouth dry, "Either this is a dead end, or Damian is on the other side... and I won't know until I try to open it first!"

He had no illusions about his physical abilities. He wasn't as imposing as Shiro or Hunk, and they, too, would have struggled. But if he hadn't tried, the alternative would have been to defer to the mercy of those zombies, and, urgh, no, thank you very much.

"Make it or break it..."

Lance kicked the door with all the strength he had left in his legs. It opened wide, almost going off its hinges.

He didn’t bother to check if the room was safe before stumbling in, slamming it shut and bolting it with trembling hands. The thick wood felt like the only protection he had from the horrors outside.

Breathing heavily, Lance took stock of his new refuge: it was a study, classically styled. The room was dominated by a vast mahogany desk littered with scrolls and ancient tomes, their pages yellowed with age and secrets. Above the desk, a large, dusty window looked out onto the moonlit garden, which was eerily still. The curtains billowed slightly, hinting at a breeze that seemed to carry whispers of the outside world. The walls were lined with bookshelves that stretched to the high ceiling, filled with books that looked like they hadn’t been touched in centuries. The scent of old leather and parchment filled the room, mingling with the metallic scent of blood that followed him in from the hallway.

There was a column pendulum clock in the corner near the desk, and it looked unused for some time.

Lance noticed a reddish armchair and, without wasting time, grabbed an armrest and dragged it, placing it in front of the door. He heard the sound of several fists from outside, and wondered how long the door would last before those outside could get in.

"I need more... what can I put ... Ah, the desk!"

Lance wasted no time and approached the desk, his eyes darting around the room for any more signs of something useful. He noticed a set of framed photos above the desk, the glass reflecting the flickering moonlight from the window. The images were too obscured to make out from where he was, but instinctively, he knew he didn't want them falling and turning into another horror scene.

He cautiously extended his arm, his sword arm still, and gently touched the topmost frame. The cold glass sended a shiver down his spine, and he took a deep breath, willing his trembling fingers to hold steady. The frame feelt surprisingly heavy, like it's been holding more than just memories for a very long time. He decides to take them down one by one, placing them face down on the desk to prevent any sudden surprises.

As he put down the first one, the sound of the others rattling in their places makes him freeze. It's as if they're impatient for their own fate to be revealed. The tension in the air was palpable, thick like the scent of rain before a storm. The photos fell on the desk,  in such a position that he could observe them.

The first frame showed a girl with Asian features, her eyes sparkling with joy, dressed in a ballerina tutu. She was caught mid-spin, a wreath of flowers on her head, the stage lights reflecting off her tutu like a swarm of stars. The sight was so wholesome and pure, it was like a slap in the face after the grimness of the hallway.

The second frame contained a black boy and a blonde girl, laughing together as they played mini-golf under a clear blue sky. The joy captured in that moment was so real it could have been a postcard. The third was even more peculiar: a boy, probably around twelve, sat on a velvet sofa, a Christmas tree laden with ornaments standing proudly beside him. He was absorbed in a book, looking so peaceful and content, as if the world outside didn't exist.

The fourth frame was what truly stole Lance’s breath away. A young boy, with the same intense gaze as the one from the alley, was surrounded by animals. His eyes, however, were filled with a gentle curiosity, and a hint of mischief played on his lips. It seemed Damian.

The fifth and sixth frames were of a young man dressed in a gymnast's uniform. The expression on the young man face was a peculiar blend of seriousness and jest, as if it was about to perform a routine that could either be breathtakingly amazing or end in a spectacular fail. Lance couldn't help but stare, feeling a peculiar kinship with the oddball in the photo.

He ran his fingers over the boy's photo, his black hair looking as dark as ink. He, too, had blue eyes, a shade reminiscent of the sea of Varadero Beach, eyes that looked like Lance's.

His attention was caught by the sound of blood flowing.

He turned around and noticed a pool of blood widening at the base of the large column pendulum clock.

Lance put the photo aside and approached.

He reached out and tentatively placed his fingers on the cold metal hands of the clock, willing them to move. With a silent prayer to any deity that might be listening, he pushed. To his amazement, the hands shifted slightly, emitting a faint creak as they protested against the dust that had gathered on their ancient gears.

Encouraged, Lance pushed harder, his eyes locked on the pool of blood beneath it. The hands began to turn more freely, ticking off the minutes with a rhythm that seemed almost alive. He watched as the hands aligned with the number six and twelve, the blood beneath pooling into a perfect circle around the base.

Suddenly, the clock chimed once, the sound echoing through the room like a funeral bell. The floor beneath the desk began to shift, and Lance stumbled backward, his eyes wide with shock. A section of the floor rose, revealing a hidden compartment filled with dust and cobwebs. The creatures outside had almost broken through the door, their shadows dancing grotesquely on the walls.

Lance took a deep breath and lunged for the opening, rolling inside just as the door gave way with a deafening crack. The creatures spilled into the room, their cold, vacant eyes searching for him. But he was gone, concealed by the darkness of the secret compartment. The door slammed shut above him, cutting off the light and leaving him in a tomb-like silence, save for the slow, methodical ticking of the clock.

Damian looked around, his expression carefully neutral. The cave had been reconstructed well, in all too specific details.

Was Bob using his memories, or was someone helping him? It was hard to say. 

He raised his voice, "I don't like to be here waiting. If you want to play, introduce yourself."

Provoking a being of unknown power was never a good idea, but Damian had never been patient.  However, it was not Bob who showed up. It was someone worse.

"You never learn, huh?"

He stiffened. Out of the darkness, the slender figure of Jonathan Kent emerged, grey skin, eyes as red as rubies, a mocking smile that made him want to take it away instantly. 

"Kent," he hissed, full of contempt. 

It wasn't the real one, of course, but oh, he quivered at the mere sight of him. Anger, a dragon that never slept, began to pinch his sternum, along with another familiar sensation that he refused to acknowledge. 

"What, don't you want to hug an old friend?" the fake mocked him, coming closer.

"Even if you were him, you're not my friend," Damian growled, coming face-to-face with that distorted version of Jonathan. 

"Are you sure? Because I distinctly remember that you entered my room at night..."

"Shut up..."

“… to go and fight crime, getting us into trouble with our parents. Well, with my father, Batman wasn't exactly your father, was he? Yours preferred to die rather than have anything to do with you."

He clenched his fist, "Father sacrificed himself to save the world. I don't tolerate such disrespect. And Richard was an excellent substitute."

"He wasn't the real thing. You never had a father. Your mother lied to you for years, telling you that your father would adore you. She told you that you were special, you were loved. And when you arrived in Gotham, what did he do? He dumped you to Alfred at the first opportunity."

"Killer Croc was on the loose, and he had to take care of it," he said, showing no fear. "I was able to get by on my own."

"But not to kill your supposed rival, is it? It makes sense that Tim hated you for years. He had to work to be loved by your father, and then you come to demand something that had to be earned..."

It was a game, he had to remember. The purpose was to ridicule him and exploit his weaknesses, to amuse Bob and whoever his audience was.

He would not have given in, he would not have given him any satisfaction...

“… It's no surprise that he left you to die when he had the chance. You're an evil little thing, Damian, a cancer to be eradicated. You are not capable of doing good; all you do is take, steal and destroy with those bloody hands of yours. You are a monster like, those like you should stay dead..."

Damian hit him. He felt no pain in doing so, and it was quite satisfying, although Jonathan did not move a step. 

The copy chuckled, "What do you think you're doing? I'm much stronger than you."

"The alien is. You are nothing."

The other's smile, if possible, grew wider, reminding him of the Joker's grin, "Oh, Damian. We both know that, between the two, who is nothing, is you."

Chapter Text

The silence was punctuated by the sound of Lance's footsteps. The paladin kept his hand resting on the wall, trying not to roll down the steps like an idiot, and hoping not to get smeared with blood.

God only knew when he would have a chance to clean himself up, and he did not intend to go to his blood-stained mother, even if it was not his own.

Of course, assuming that she wanted to see him after what he had put her through...

"Urgh, this is not the time for depressing thoughts," he thought to himself, risking jumping a step but promptly regaining his balance, "I don't want Bob to use them against me for one of his games."

He had seen first-hand how powerful Bob was, already with the quiz show. But wasn't all that – the labyrinth, the circus, the spooky, haunted house – just for him and Damian a little too elaborate?

Were the others stuck there too? It seemed more logical than picking on the most incompetent of the team and a normal civilian (although he suspected Damian wasn't normal, he couldn't be, otherwise he couldn't have pilot Red so easily). 

"There has to be a way to know for sure.  I can't go around in circles, run away, solve riddles, and not know if there are other players.  What could I do? I should just hope that Pidge finds a way... "

Lance finally reached the end of the stairs, and his eyes were wounded by the sudden light.
As the brightness grew tolerable, he took in his surroundings. He had ended up in a vast and high-ceilinged place, with rocky walls that curved inwards, giving it the distinct feel of a cave. The smell of dust and earth mingled with the faint scent of ozone.

In a left corner stood a colossal dinosaur, frozen in a battle pose, lights gleaming off its chrome scales. To his right, a giant coin, at least twenty feet in diameter, spun slowly on an axis, casting shadows across the floor like a twisted sundial. And directly ahead, a monstrous computer setup hummed quietly, screens flickering with old-fashioned mug shots, with photos of alleged criminals and under the inscription Arkham Asylum.

The floor was checkered, a stark contrast to the organic chaos of the walls, without any trace of blood.

As Lance stepped into the room, his eyes were drawn to the corner where several glass cases stood in a row. Inside each case was a sort of costume, of different sizes; the most disturbing was the giant furry bat with the bat symbol in yellow in the centre. It was almost as ugly to look at as the female version in purple and black. It was a blow to the eye.
He passed in front of the display cases without paying particular attention, until he stopped in front of one that contained a midnight blue costume with two escrima sticks on the sides, and the stylized symbol of a bird in the center, colored blue that reminded him of the Blue Lion.

Lance saw his face reflected in the glass for a few moments, before a bat slammed into the glass and fell at his feet.

Lance lowered his head, the animal still seemed alive, though confused. Immediately, another arrived, who passed by him and went against the wall.

More arrived, and Lance turned to realize that there were hundreds of them, little red eyes staring at him and wanting him.

"Oh, quiznack..."

Lance ran away, pulling out his bayard and using it in his rifle form. He fired, but there were too many of them, and he risked being overwhelmed. 

The paladin felt a drop of sweat running down his neck, his mind racing frantically about how to deal with those little things without getting killed.

"I can't kill them all by myself... Every time I shoot, it seems like more are coming... it's like that Hydra stuff..."
A loud, sharp metallic noise interrupted his train of thought.  The sound grew louder, turning into a cacophony of screams and clanging, echoing through the cavernous chamber.
"If you believe... that this is enough... you damn...”

He recognized the voice. It was Damian. He was here, and he needed help.

Problem: the noises came from the other side. To reach Damian, Lance would have first to overcome a barrier of bats.
He shot, trying to advance, but the bats attacked him en masse, and the paladin had to retreat. He stumbled, falling on his back to the ground.

"Urgh... I hope no one is seeing this..." he groaned, running a hand over his face. He sat down and looked cautiously around. There were weapons stored there, hanging on the walls.

Bows, spears, pistols, rifles... and a very badass flamethrower. 

Lance got up immediately, and went close to the flamethrower. He had an idea. Maybe it was stupid, but at least he will make a damn impression.

He put down the bayard, and took the flamethrower. He pointed it at the bats, and smiled like a madman, "Hot delivery has arrived, bitches!"

The space mall looked like a battlefield, with abandoned shops and dozens of aliens walking like robots, rigidly and without their own will, while bright screens conveyed the idea of a show by a psychopath with too much time on his hands and boredom, where Damian and one of the paladins were the protagonists. 

And Jason had a headache. 

It was not a negligible detail, nor a return to action effect after so many years of hanging up the cowl for a semi-normal life. 

He recognised the signs of an attempt at mind control, and as a blow to his pride to admit it, maintaining control was difficult. 

He assumed that Artemis was right and was a bit out of practice, but he would never admit it to her. 

"Are you okay?" Jonathan asked, looking at him apprehensively. 

Jason dismissed his concern with a hasty wave of his hand, "I'm fine, kiddo. Contact Wonder Girl and ask her..." 

He paused. It wasn't seeing the previous Wayne Manor that struck him. It was something else:  at that moment, on the screens, the paladin's face appeared in the foreground, and Jason’s heart sank.

"Sweet Rao," Jonathan exhaled.  

Jason was betting that the Kryptonian was seeing the ghost of Dick Grayson, and he wouldn't be wrong.
 It was the same for Jason.

But Jason didn't only see his brother. He also saw his best friend...

The nursery was in chaos. Because of Jason. And a little bit of Kory too, but mostly of Jason. 

"What the fuck is it?!" he blurted out, surrounded by the pieces of a cradle that didn't want to go into their place.

 Jason stared at the mess around him, his brow furrowed in frustration. The nursery had been a collaborative effort between him and Kory, but it seemed that the universe had decided to throw a wrench in their plans. The crib, a sleek, modern design with curved bars and a white finish that they'd picked out together, lay in pieces. It was like a puzzle that hadn't come with instructions, and he'd been trying to assemble it for the better part of an hour. The screwdriver in his hand felt heavier with each failed attempt, the metallic scent of its metal mixing with the faint smell of fresh paint that lingered in the air. 
The next time Dick asks him for a favor, he'll send him directly to Hell!  

Help Kory, it will be simple, the asshole had said.

I wish I could do it, but there was a situation with the Justice League and I can't. You want to help as a good future uncle, don't you?

That lazy bastard was just as incapable of putting on a fucking cradle and had seen fit to give up the mange to him.

And Jason had fallen for it!

If, after this, he is not the godfather, heads will jump!

"Are you following the instructions?" Kory asked where she was sitting from, a plate of garlic knots made especially for her by Alfred. The princess didn't even like garlic, but pregnancy cravings were a mystery, and she didn't want anything else for a few weeks. 

"I'm following the damn instructions," he complained with a growl, "I know twelve languages, and there aren't any of them up here!"

"Maybe we should call the store back and ask for an exchange..."

"Damn, no!" Jason exclaimed firmly, "This is the crib you have chosen and this one I will assemble!"

She chuckled heartily, "I forgot how stubborn the men in this family were."

"As if you weren't!" he protested.  

He was well aware of his friend's stubbornness. After all, his return to semi-sanity was also thanks to that stubbornness. 

"Touché," Kory agreed, and then looked around, his green eyes bright and full of wonder, "Sometimes, I feel like I'm dreaming, or I'm trapped in some illusion of Black Mercy that I never want to get out of. I wouldn't be able to recover if there was to be an awakening."

"You have proof in front of you that is reality," Jason grunted showing her the pieces of the cradle, "In a perfect world created by  Black Mercy, I would have already assembled this damn thing!"

"Oh, I sound so silly right now. But after Haggar’s experiments, I knew that the possibilities for me to be a mother were almost non-existent," her voice dripped venom as she pronounced that cursed name, a hatred that not even a change of reality could erase, "I had made peace with the fact that I would not have children of my own. It hurt, but maybe it was X'hal's will that my bloodline won’t continue. I thought the goddess was sparing me from being like my parents."

Jason couldn't help but grimace. There was no fucking way Kory would become a failure like the rulers of Tamaran. She wasn't the type. 

Fuck, she had helped Roy with Lian, and the teenager had not grown up badly at all, small dimensional hitches and momentary erasures from existence aside. 

 "Instead, they're here," Kory continued, running a hand over her baby bump, "I'm feeling them growing, day by day, and it's... I don't even know how to describe it. I don't know if it's a side effect of Raven's magic or not, but it's a gift that I will always protect. If Haggar were to try to put even a single finger on them..."

"Dick would break her neck before she can get close to you or the baby," Jason said without even hesitation. Dick was an idiot, too attached to Bruce's rules and constantly under pressure for a role he had chosen and built himself, but Jason knew his brother. Hell will freeze the day Dick Grayson allows someone to harm his family and can live long enough to brag about it. Ra's Al Ghoul was fucking terrified of him and didn't try to get close to Tim or Damian when he knew Dick could step in and kick his ass, "Moreover, this baby will have a whole team of superheroes around them ready to unleash pandemonium for them, several uncles and aunts who are not exactly sane and with questionable moral,  and me. The worst of the worst, the black sheep of a fucked up family. Haggar won't have a damn chance to do to them what she did to you."

“I know,” the princess said, her green eyes veiled with an emotion which he knew well, so many times he had seen it in his reflection. "I also know, however, that there are limits that Dick would not cross.. But you would. You and I know that, sometimes, you have to deal with an enemy permanently. Which I fear Dick could not do, despite everything."

"I doubt that. You know what he's willing to do for you."

"Yes, but I also know his limits. Don't forget all the disagreements we've had over the years about our different approaches to justice. I don't want to risk it. For that, I need you."

At that point, Jason stopped pretending that he was still trying to assemble the crib. All his attention was on Kory, "What do you need?"

"If one day Haggar or my sister were to put not only my child but the Earth in danger, and for one reason or another Dick or I couldn't deal with them, please, Jason. Make sure they can no longer threaten our family."

"I will," he promised, not surprising that he also included Komand'r in her request, not after all the failed attempts to sororicide and annihilate Earth, technically on behalf of the Galra, in practice to destroy her sister's new home, "If you want, I ask Roy a favour and..."

Kory hummed, "Hmm, tempting, but no, Jason. I didn't tell you this to give you a job. “
"Kory, why wait? Haggar and Komand'r have been a thorn in your and the Titans' side for years. Our lives are not easy, the possibility of being unprepared is always there, to hell with what Bruce thought! “ Jason reasoned, "Killing them now  would be a much-appreciated gift for the baby, and Dick wouldn't dare criticize me since I did it for you. If anything, he would be very jealous because he didn't think of it before. Just a word, Kory, and tomorrow I'll leave with Roy for space. One less aunt won't make a difference, the baby will have enough. One less threat, on the other hand, will make all the difference in this world. Come on, I know you want it."

Kory would have said yes. Jason knew it, he knew her all too well. She was an impulsive hothead, and perhaps it was the hormones that had made her talk first, combined with anxieties more or less common to a future mother (come on, who didn't fear a psychopathic sister and a genocidal witch?), making her ask something that she knew Jason would do immediately, to hell wait for something to happen. 
He had already seen enough shit to know that sometimes you had to act before others had a chance to hit you.

At that moment, however, Dick entered the nursery, without cape and cowl, and only the black suit, a conflicting expression on his face.

Jason knew before he opened his mouth that the shit was going to fall down.

"Dick? What happened?" 

"Kory," he said, as gently as possible, "At the Watchover, we received a message from Queen Luand'r of Tamaran. She asked about you."

"Wow, after only thirty years... or fifteen? Damn altered chronology..."

"What did my mother want?" Kory asked, ignoring Jason. 

Dick hesitated, and the princess pressed him, "If the Galra are invading my planet again, I have a right to know, Dick. What did the queen want?"

"The king... your father... he's dying, Kory. The queen said that his last wish, before reuniting with his ancestors, was to see his precious golden girl again..."

The punch in the face brought him back to reality. Jason moved his jaw, making sure he didn't have anything broken.

He was on the ground, tied by Wonder Girl's lasso of truth, his back against the wall of one of the stores. Jonathan was holding Kara, while the latter held her bloody side and had blood in her hair. 

Judging by the destruction around, it must have been a hell of a fight. Too bad he missed it. 

Wonder Girl seemed about to hit him again, but he stopped her, "Time out. I'm already tied up like a salami. I can't do any shit."

Kara exhaled, "This is Hood now."

"Are we sure?" Wonder Girl asked, with a murderous look, "Another punch wouldn't hurt, so as not to take any risk."

Jonathan and Kara approached, and the blonde said, "100% sure. His eyes are back to normal."

He grimaced, "The bastard got me, huh? Fuck, I got distracted for a moment..."

"Yes, how did you come to your senses? If just a little physical pain had been enough, Kara would have had to free others under Bob's control by now," Wonder Girl said, her face crumpled with disgust as she spoke of the being of the fifth dimension who had arranged all this. Honestly, he had had to deal with a good deal of madmen to understand her reaction.

"I think it's thanks to the lasso. It brought the real me, or some other bullshit, back to the surface."

Wonder Girl's eyes widened in amazement, "Can the lasso do it?"

"It's magic, ask Zatanna or Wonder Woman directly," Jason moaned, then asked Jonathan, "What exactly happened?"

"You attacked me shortly after seeing the paladin on the screens," the half-Kryptonian explained, "I tried not to hurt you, since you were mind-controlled... but then you extracted the kryptonite..."

"By the way, why the hell did you bring it?" Kara croaked, playing pissed. She had never liked to be cornered, much less by him.

"It never hurts to be prepared for any eventuality," he replied, trying to shrug his shoulders but moaning from the pain in his shoulder. It was probably broken. "Where is it now?"

"I threw it away," Wonder Girl candidly admitted, "Far from here."

"Crap, do you know how expensive it is to have kryptonite?" 

"Sorry, next time I'll kindly ask you to put it back, and please don't kill us," the girl said sarcastically and well, there was a reason she was one of his favourites, "You even stabbed Superwoman before I could disarm you!"

"Oh, it looks just like the good old days, huh, Kara?"

The scowl the blonde gave him could have killed him again, " This is not the time to joke, Hood. We've wasted time, and Green Lantern is alone to protect the paladins!"

"So only one of the paladins was involved in the game?" he wanted to ascertain. He was still not sure who specifically Bob wanted to torture, but he still felt the unpleasant sensation he had felt before at the sight of the boy's face. 

If it had been hard for him, he dared not imagine what Damian was going through being with the paladin.
"Yes, my little brother," Wonder Girl said, a mixture of pride and concern, "He's doing well, but after the zombies and the killer bats..."

"Wait, is the paladin your brother?" he asked, anger starting to creep into him. Tim had given him a quick summary of the Garrison case when he explained how the new Titans had been formed. 

He knew how Wonder Girl and some of the other members had been created. If Warren, the real mastermind behind the Garrison's experiments, had done what he thought with their DNA, as soon as they returned to Earth, Jason would go to visit her and let her taste the power of All Blades. It didn't matter that the woman wasn't a magical threat. That bitch was one of the incarnations of evil.

Seeing her burn in Hell will not be enough to appease him, but it will be satisfying. 

She looked at him angrily, "If you want to say shit to me like that bastard, too..."

"What did he say?"

The girl hesitated, "It's not important."

"I have to judge that," he snapped, harsher than he meant, "What did he tell you? Will you tell me, or should I ask the two super-powered aliens here?"

Kara's disapproval increased. Thankfully she didn't get a chance to tell him to cut it off with his bullshit, since Wonder Girl, clearly disgruntled, replied, "He said it was admirable how much I was going out of my way for someone who wasn't even related to me, and that it was a shame, really a shame that you couldn't save your real brother. Lance is my brother, who cares if we are not biologically related or..."

"Wait... Is he adopted?" Jason interrupted her suddenly, leaning forward. If the boy was not the result of a genetic experiment, if his appearance was just a coincidence or not, the need to know was urgent. 

You know it can't be a coincidence, a voice whispered to him, unpleasantly similar to Bruce's. What did I teach you, Jason? Observe and reason. The proof is circumstantial, but you also know that in our world, nothing is a mere coincidence. 

Wonder Girl frowned, "Kinda…But what does it matter?! He's my brother, period. Now, if you don't have any more unnecessary questions to ask, we have some material to bring to the other and a portal to build. I'm tired of seeing what else that bastard wants to invent. The game must end."

Jason had more questions to ask, but Wonder Girl was right. It was time to put an end to Bob's show.

The stench of burnt flesh still filled Lance's nostrils, twisting his stomach. Burning all those bats had been a nightmare, but he had made it, and now the way was clear.

The only flaw, he had to abandon the flamethrower, now unusable. It was too much to expect that he could use it again – in video games there was a similar mechanism, like in Resident Evil – but it was so damn cool!
Lance proceeded with caution. As he approached the source of the noise, the room opened up into a vast, cavernous area. High above, a shaft of natural light pierced the darkness, illuminating a series of stalagmites that jabbed menacingly towards the ceiling. The light fell in a column onto a large rocky plateau, creating an eerie glow that painted everything in stark relief.

And there he was, Damian, standing in the center, his fists clenched, knuckles raw and stained with blood. His face was not in good shape, and it looked like someone who had taken him, and badly too.
Damian had a crazy expression, dazed eyes, curled lips. Lance wasn't sure if he was dealing with someone who was still sane or not, but he couldn't waste time. They had to find the exit. 

"Damian," he called, "You don't know what I went through to find you. Can you get up..."

The man gave no sign of hearing him. Lance then approached him, trying to be as less threatening as possible, as if he were dealing with a wild beast.

"Damian? You've probably seen a lot of shit too, but it's over. Now we really have to get out of here."

Damian finally raised his head. He stared at him, but Lance wasn't sure if he was really seeing him.

But before Lance tries to call Damian's name again, he hears someone clapping with shuffling slowness. The sound echoes around the cavern, mocking, as if coming from every direction at once. He spun around, the bayard at the ready, expecting to find some other twisted creature of Bob's creation.

A man dressed in a suit and a huge S on his chest, with a cape, appeared near the wall in front of them. His skin was the color of ash, his hair a dull gray, and even the fabric of his suit had lost all pigment, leaving him a monochrome figure in the dim light. The only color was in his eyes, two piercing red orbs that bore into Lance's soul.

"I doubt you can do much, paladin," he laughed, a mocking grin on his face, "He's not in a position to run away now."

"Did you reduce him like that?" he asked, clutching his bayard.

The man shrugged, "Let's say I had a little help from him."

"What?"

He floated up to them, the reflected light bringing out the gray complexion, "I'm not invincible, unfortunately. And not even as strong  as the original. On this, Damian was right. What he didn't know is the true source of my power..."

"It's pain..." Lance guessed, remembering the riddle that had greeted him upon his arrival at these spooky place, "Leave pain behind, it was referring to you."

The man chuckled, "Oh, you're not really stupid! You're right. If Damian wants to leave, he will have to leave the past and the pain behind. But I know very well that he will never make it. He tried to fight me, and that's the result. I have become stronger, and he is like that now."

"It would be too much to even know how to deal with you, huh?"

"How do you deal with pain, paladin?" he asked in turn, and Lance pursed his lips. 

The truth was that he didn't do it. He buried everything deeply, pretended to be fine, and made some stupid jokes. It was easy like that. 
After a while, he also forgot that he was faking . 

"You don't," the man continued, circling around him, making Lance's neck hairs stand on end, "Of course not. You are so similar that it is pathetic that he still has doubts. “

"Doubts about what?"

He just laughed, "Not now, paladin. The big revelation always comes in the finale. Of course, if one gets to that part."

Lance's patience was wearing thin. The stranger's smugness was like nails on a chalkboard. But before he could say anything, three figures emerged from the shadows.

The first was a girl, barely into her teens, dressed in a punk ensemble with short, messy hair sticking out in every direction.

Her clothes were tattered and stained, the color of the ash that seemed to cover everything in this nightmare place. Her eyes, were a chilling red that matched the blood smeared across her cheek.

The second figure was a man dressed as a bat, with the suit Lance saw before. The suit looked like it had been through hell and back, the cape hanging in tatters behind him.

The third was a woman with exotic features and long loose hair, dressed in a qipao that clung to her slender frame, the color a stark contrast to the rest of the bleak scene. Her eyes too were red, piercing through the dimness like twin rubies.

"What, have the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future come to visit us?" he ionized with contempt, while the woman replied, "Oh, you would like to. Dickens' ghosts went away when they had finished their task. We, on the other hand, will never leave..."

“… We'll always be a part of him, in his mind, forever," the girl added with a grin, "Even on the off chance that he leaves here, we'll follow him."

"We are his scars, the wounds that keep bleeding, the pain he clung to even if he didn't want to," the man dressed as a bat continued his voice gravely, like that of a general who expected to be obeyed.

"You're not real," Lance said through gritted teeth, "You have no real power over him."

"You're wrong," the first man hummed, "We have as much power as we get from him. And that's a lot. You have no idea how much pain rots inside him, wearing down the little sanity he has left."

"Which in itself isn't much," the punk girl said conspiratorially, "Not that one can be sane, doing what he does every night."

"And lying constantly, even to the few allies," the man in a bat suit continued, looking grave. "You don't really know who he is, paladin."

"But we know! He is a prince, born to rule the world," the woman said, with a mad, dreamy look. Then she clenched her fist, annoyed, as if something had bothered her.

"He is my legacy, my heir to fight evil, a refined weapon to fight my enemies," the man declaimed, reminding him of Iverson when he welcomed new students and blabbed about the nobler purposes to which humanity was called. 

"He's a brat who was fun to play with, until I got bored and gave priority to work," the punk girl revealed, tilting her head like a bird.

Finally, the man with the s on his chest, "He is a monster, a murderer who wants to pretend to be a hero, with a lot of blood on his hands, even if he tries to pretend that it is not there. He is not special, not as he thinks he is. As much as he boasts, the truth is that he is nothing, and he is much better dead than..."

He was interrupted by a gunshot. Lance had shot at him, hitting him in the chest. The man appeared unbothered by the thing, just arching an eyebrow, "Why are you angry? It's the truth. “

"Why do you defend him?" asked the other man. "You don't know anything about him. You don't know who he is."

The punk girl added, "You don't even know what he did!"

"I know you've said a lot of nonsense!" Lance exclaimed, heated, his eyes shining as his anger increased, "All these things, how many did he have a choice in? You're his mother, right? You raised him to be a sort of prince, he didn't choose it. And you, who talk about legacy and weapons, what right do you have? Damian is a person, not a weapon to be used until he is no longer useful. And yes, I don't know what he did in the past, nor who he killed, but he pilot the Red Lion, and she is a very good judge of character! Red would never choose an inadequate pilot!"

"Still, you're her pilot," the punk girl teased him, and Lance decided to ignore her. He continued, "As you said, I don't know who Damian is, I don't know his past, what he did or who you all are. What I know it’s that he has a future, one in which you will not be..."

The man with the s on his chest flew close to him, stopping a short distance from Lance's face. His red eyes shone like hellfire, "You didn't pay attention, paladin. We told you: we are part of him. I know you desperately want to be a hero, but you can't save him. He will be your umpteenth failure..."

He reached out to grab Lance's face, but he couldn't touch him. Damian blocked him, squeezing his wrist.

"Don't touch him,Kent,” he growled, low, dangerous, reminding him of an animal cornered but still willing to fight. 

The man, Jonathan, blinked, surprised. Then he smiled, "Protective, huh? It's because Lance here looks like him, isn't it? Or because you finally understood..."

"All of you are my past, my pain," Damian interrupted, stepping forward, protecting Lance from him, "You are my business, not anyone else's. I will not let it influence others and hurt them. Do you understand?"

It was at that moment that something incredible happened: Lance heard the sound of something squeaking behind them, and turned around. A gloomy-looking door had appeared on the wall, which did not show what was on the other side, only darkness. But it was their way out of there, and Lance wasn't going to spend another minute there.

He shot Jonathan in the head, pulling him away from Damian, and yelled, "There's an exit! Let's go!"

Lance ran to the door, but when he turned, Damian hadn't followed him. He was still, as if he didn't know what to do. 

Jonathan laughed, rubbing his jaw, "Nice try, paladin. But it is useless. He is stuck here, with us. Forever."

“He will never be more than he was born to be,” the woman said, her ruby eyes shining, “This is his place.”

"He will be with us forever..."

Lance shot the punk girl in the stomach, silencing her. She didn't seem to be hurt, but she had a rather offended expression. Well, he too was tired of the imitation of the twins from The Shining. 

He stood next to Damian, "I don't have a clue what you've been through, but it looks like a lot of crap. But here's the thing: the past can't hurt you anymore..."

"Wrong. The past hurts you, paladin, because..."
Lance shot him again, hoping that this time Jonathan would keep his mouth shut. He was looking to pull a Shiro here, guys. It wasn't easy. 

“…it can't hurt you anymore, but you can stop fighting it and learn something. You don't have to suffer forever. You can improve, and move forward."

"Do you think it's possible?" Damian's question had been asked in such a small, broken voice that Lance felt pity for him. If he had been told several times that he was born only to do evil, that he was broken, bad, a monster, in the end he must have at least believed it a little, and it was not fair. 

He remembered what Keith was like when he found out that he was part Galra, and the absolute idiot he had been. Then, he had made a mess. 

He had the opportunity to do better.

"I guess it's not what you've been through that defines who you are, but what you choose to do next," was his response, as he clutched his bayard, "You want to be... well, everything they said?"

A pause. Time seemed to have stopped. Damian clenched his fists, trying to hold back the tremors. 

Then, with a sigh, he said, "No."

Lance smiled, "Then let's get out of here."

Damian finally motioned to move. Jonathan flew towards them to stop them, "You don't decide when it's over. You..."

Lance was ready to shoot him again. But Damian was faster: he hit him in the face with a fist so hard that he fell to the ground. 

Damian looked at him with contempt as he lay on the floor, "I told you, Kent. You won't  touch him. “

Lance swallowed. It was one of the toughest things I'd ever seen someone do. Damian caught up with him, and asked, "Hey, do you want me to shoot him again?"

"There is no need. I want to leave," he grunted, involuntarily revealing all the fatigue, physical and emotional, he felt.

Lance said no more. He understood  perfectly, "Then, let's go."
They ran to the door, without looking back. Once they passed by, it closed behind them, leaving them in the darkness.

 Lance thought he heard screaming, but it was for a moment. The screams immediately dispersed, replaced by a sudden, profound silence.

The darkness was absolute. He couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face, and for a moment, he felt like he was floating in an endless void. 

But then, blue lights began to flicker around them, like the glow of distant stars in the night sky. They grew brighter and closer until they were surrounded by a soft, pulsing aura. As his eyes adjusted, Lance realised they were in a tunnel, the walls lined with ancient, rune-covered stones. The lights grew in intensity until he could see Damian's weary but determined face.  

He was looking at him carefully, as if he were studying him, and under that gaze, Lance immediately felt nervous. 

"How are you? Do you need a minute before you start walking again?" he asked, trying not to think about the intensity of the way Damian was looking at him.

"Aren't you angry?" Damian instead asked him. He seemed to be unable to stand, his legs wobbling under him, and his breathing was labored.

Lance realised that the man should have been seen by Allura as soon as possible, and that every minute lost there could be fatal to him.

  "Of course I'm angry! This whole thing is absurd, Bob is a bully and..."

"I didn't mean that. Aren't you angry at me?" 

Lance blinked, surprised, "Why should I be mad at you?"

Damian grimaced, "Don't feign ignorance. You're not stupid. You've heard them before. Those shoddy copies. Even if it was unpleasant, they told the truth. You don't know who I am."

The paladin scratched nervously behind his neck, "Look, I'm sorry for what they put you through..."

"Are you sorry?" Damian repeated, incredulous. "I hid the truth from you. The black paladin was right. I wasn't sincere."

Lance studied Damian's expression, the lines of pain etched deeply into his face, the way his eyes searched his own as if looking for something to cling to. It was clear that admitting Keith had been right was like swallowing a mouthful of nails for him.

"You're not the first one we meet who doesn't tell us everything," he said, remembering Lotor for a moment, but quickly discarding it. It was not a fair comparison. "Quiznack, many of our allies lied to us before, or they tried to kill us. Keith should tell you how it went the first time we met the Blade of Marmora."

"You can't tell me you don't care."

"Don't get me wrong, I care," he wasn't an idiot, despite what Pidge often and loudly claimed, but he understood Damian’s reason, "I had already figured out that you were different…and that you didn't really work for the Garrison."

Damian looked at him in amazement, "How?"

"When we met, you never said explicitly to work with Iverson. You made us believe it. It was easier than explaining your whole thing. Which, come to think of it, must be quite a mess."

Damian's gaze remained fixed on him, a storm of emotions playing across his features. Lance could see the surprise, the wariness, and something else, something he couldn't quite pinpoint. 

It seemed pride. Which was absurd. Why should Damian be proud of Lance? It had to be his imagination.

"A mess is a way of saying that, paladin," Damian said after a few moments, "You're right though, it was easier to make you believe I was working with the Garrison. It was a simple explanation, which involved few questions. Telling you who I was, what I was, would have required a lot from you, and I doubt you would have believed me without thinking that I was making up stories or going crazy."

" I guess you're some sort of superhero."

He meant  it as a joke. Sure, the suits he'd seen wouldn't have been out of tune in one of his nephew's comics, and there were a couple of things the copies had said that sounded like the origin story of either a psychotic super villain or a hero with a martyr complex, but it was really too absurd, and...

"You are right," Damian said, looking at him with disarming seriousness.

"What?"

"I know it's hard for you to believe. But this is the truth, " Damian continued, with a solemnity that would not have been out of place for a nobleman or a general, "I'm a vigilante, and I work under the name of...Batman."

The way he'd pronounced his alias suggested a higher purpose, something bigger than either of them (which was absurd considering that Lance was a literal paladin of Voltron, whose job was to protect the Universe.)

However, Lance thought of a guy dressed as a giant bat fighting crime, like in a cartoon he'd seen as a kid, and his lip started to tremble.

He couldn't help himself: he started laughing. 

Chapter Text

There were cracks on Matt's barrier. The man was giving his all, down to the last drop of his power, but his hands were shaking and rivulets of blood were running down his ears.

The green barrier flickered erratically, revealing glimpses of the horrors beyond. The once solid barricade was now a series of jagged lines, stretching and contorting like a canvas torn by invisible claws.

Pidge was on the verge of panicking.

Five minutes, Matt had said earlier.

It would only take five, at most ten minutes before the return of Veronica McClain and the woman called Superwoman.

Almost an hour had passed, and there was no trace of them.

"Allura, do something!" Pidge yelled at the princess, looking at her pleadingly.

But before Allura could say anything, Matt said, "No, do nothing, princess. I have to stay focused..."

"She won't do anything to deconcentrate you! Don't be stubborn, Matt!"

Matt, however, did not answer. He was gritting his teeth, trying to stay focused, despite the noise of the speakers and the pressure of the approaching crowd.

"Tic Tac Paladins," Bob teased, speaking through Keith's mother, "Green Lantern here won't last long, and you have done virtually nothing but run away. When it gives in, because oh yes that's going to happen, what are you going to do? Will you run away again? It seems that you only know how to do that."

Pidge looked at Krolia furiously and was about to throw herself at her when Keith stopped her.

"Leave me," she hissed furiously.

"If you do, you'll have twenty more people on you," Keith reminded her, "Don't let yourself be provoked."

"So what, should I let Bob kill my brother?" the girl protested, looking at him with such hatred that it reminded him of the early days when they had become paladins and she was unfriendly with everyone.

"No, but..."

"Do you have a plan? Because we have to destroy those damn things, or Matt won't hold out any longer."

"You won't do it!" Matt protested, pursing his lips, "Have you seen how many people there are? Unless someone here has super strength or whatever, you won't risk getting ... kill..."

Matt was on his edge. Pidge was ready to throw herself into a crowd maneuvered by Bob to save her brother, and Hunk would immediately follow her to cover her back.

“There is no other way. I…”

Keith’s words were cut off by a sudden, deafening roar that seemed to come from everywhere at once. The sound boxes exploded into a shower of sparks before disintegrating into a cloud of smoke.

The crowd stumbled back, the shockwave knocking many to the ground. For a moment, there was silence, a stark contrast to the noise that had filled the air only seconds before. Then, as the smoke began to clear, it revealed the extent of the destruction: the ground was littered with the dazed and injured.

 "It seems that we arrived in time. Good job, Superman. “

The paladin raised his head: above them, there were four people. In addition to Superwoman, who had a wound on her side that was bleeding pretty badly, and Veronica McClain, there was also a young man with wavy and somewhat long black hair who wore a suit similar to Superwoman's but darker, eyes light red, and who held a man in his forties by the arm, massive build, red domino mask, obvious bruise on his chin and traces of blood on his face not entirely clean.

Strangely, at that moment, the Red Lion began to emanate signals of pure hostility towards that man, as he was a menace. And that made Keith very, very cautious.

After they landed next to them, Pidge was the first to ask, "Why did it take you so long?"

"We had to deal first with an assassination attempt," Veronica said with all the tranquillity in this world, as she dropped a pile of materials on the ground that none of them alone could carry. Allura was already taking care of the wound on the blonde woman's side, "We would have hurried earlier if Hood hadn't had kryptonite."

"The what?"

"In my defence," said the man with the red hood, "That bastard of a goblin tried to mind control me."

"How do you manage to be lucid again then? Or are you faking it?" Pidge asked, narrowing his eyes cautiously, analysing him.

"Credit to Wonder Girl, but we'll explain everything later, when we don't have a zombie mob ready to jump on us," the man, Hood, said. He turned to Matt, "Green Lantern, how much longer can you hold?"

It took Matt a good minute before he answered, "I can hold on a little longer..."

"Bullshit, kiddo. Your brain is almost coming out of your ears. How much longer can you hold out?"

Pidge looked at his brother with extreme apprehension, and Matt shrugged his shoulders, aware. He muttered, "I'm not sure..."

"Just what I thought," Hood said, irritated, "You have to break down the barrier, Green Lantern, you can't go on like this."

"But we will be attacked immediately..."

"We can  handle them."

Keith then intervened, "Are you crazy? Have you seen how many there are?"

Hood turned to him, completely unbothered,  “And you are?”

“I’m the black paladin, and…”

"So, you are their leader, right?”

“Yeah, so…”

But he didn’t finish, Hood had already moved on to something else, "Superman, Wonder Girl, with me. The rest of you stay here to take care of the portal. Superwoman, as soon as you recover, help them with the heavy lifting..."

"You can't give us orders," Keith interrupted, irritated by the man's attitude, "We're not your team."

But before Keith could say more, Hood turned to him, a ghost of a smile playing on his bruised lips. The man looked at Keith for a second, really looked at him, and then his eyes widened. For a brief moment, Keith saw something in Hood's gaze that reminded him of Lance – the cocky self-assurance, the way his eyes gleamed with mischief even in the face of danger. It was absurd, and yet there it was, a flicker of familiarity amidst the chaos.

"This is not the time to compete to see who has the biggest dick," Hood said bluntly, "I know what I'm doing, and if we want to save my brother and your friend, we have to try to work together. Did you understand?"

Keith bit the inside of his cheek. As much as he hated it, he knew Hood was right. Lance's salvation took precedence.

"Okay, Mr. Grayson, we'll do as you say," he said, enjoying the shocked look Jason made when he called him by that name.

"What did you call me?"

"Your brother said his name was Damian Grayson when the paladins found him," Matt provided as an explanation, and how he still managed to talk, he was beyond Keith, "I think... he wanted to test them..."

"Of course he did," Hood muttered, "God, he's just like his father... and of course he chose to say his name was  Damian Grayson..."

“What’s the deal with Grayson?” he asked. It was the second time someone had reacted that way to hearing that name, and Keith was sure it mattered.

Keith’s question hung in the air, unanswered, as Hood turned his attention back to the chaos around them. The man was a whirlwind of motion, barking orders with the confidence of someone who’d seen wars and won.

"Green Lantern, at my signal, remove the barrier. Wonder Girl, get your lasso ready, Superman..."

Superman wasn't listening, his eyes never leaving the screen, where, with Lance and Damian, there was also a younger and more evil version of him.

"Oh..." the man barely exhaled, his eyes shining and his lip trembling.

Hood had to say again, "Superman, we don't have time to unpack anything of this. We have a situation right at hand."

"But I... you saw who's with Damian..."

"You can't do anything about that," Hood said, pointing to the screens with his right hand, "It's over now, you have to live with it. What we need now is to allow the paladins to build the portal to save them. Do you understand?"

Superman pursed his lips, and reluctantly nodded.

Hood stared at him for a few moments, looking for some trace of hesitation, but finding none, he nodded in satisfaction.

He then turned to the barrier, not at all intimidated by what was on the other side.

"Green Lantern....now."

Matt nodded, his eyes squeezed shut as he mentally released his grip on the barrier. The green light flickered and died away, leaving a gaping hole in reality that sucked in the last vestiges of the barrier with a sound like a vacuum seal breaking.

As the barrier disappeared, Pidge saw her brother crumble to his knees, his eyes rolling back in his head. She rushed forward, catching him in her arms just as he lost consciousness.

"Damn it, Matt! Don't try to die on me, you idiot! What will I tell dad when we meet again, that you wanted to be a hero and you let yourself be killed by a C-list cosmic deity? Right now that you're a super hero? At least you should punch God himself in the face before kicking the bucket!"

Matt seemed to smile faintly, getting tighter to his sister's chest.

Meanwhile, the horde began to attack. Hood craned his neck, "Let's see if I still know how to do it. Wonder Girl...Superman…let’s go.”

It was suicide. There were too many for just three people.          

"I can't stand by and watch, I have to fight and allow others to find a safe place..."

There was no need for any stupid self-sacrificial move. Hood and the others had everything under control.

Veronica and Hood launched into the fray, their movements swift and precise. It was like watching a dance of destruction, each strike and counter-strike a perfectly choreographed routine that had been practiced a thousand times before. Hood's fists were a blur as he took down several of the mind-controlled attackers with a series of punches and kicks that seemed to come from nowhere. Veronica, for her part, used her lasso with deadly accuracy, ensnaring any who got too close and flinging them away with the ease of someone swatting flies. Veronica's lasso was a whirlwind of gold, wrapping around limbs and torsos, lifting enemies off their feet and sending them crashing into each other.

Superman was so fast that following him with his eyes was practically impossible. Each blow sent several attackers flying through the air, their bodies landing like ragdolls thrown by a giant child. 

"We have great cover," Superwoman said, smiling gratefully at Allura as she completed healing her, "We shouldn't have any problems."

"Like they can't attack us from behind," Keith grumbled, almost preparing for it to happen.

Superwoman laughed, "I'm here. I wouldn't worry too much."

"You're pretty confident," Pidge remarked, grimacing.

"Obviously. I can do everything he does, and even better," she said, pointing to Superman, as he fended off aliens by simply blowing.

What the hell.

"I've seen her in action; she's very strong," Allura confirmed, focused on her work, "I had heard of the Kryptonians, but I didn't know you had these powers."

"Ten thousand years ago, Krypto still existe,d and no one knew about the effects of the yellow sun on my people, not even the Galra," Superwoman said almost nonchalantly, causing Allura to hesitate for a moment, "I suppose it was better that way, they let us die rather than make us slaves like the Tamaraneans."

"The Galra also destroyed your home planet?” Hunk asked, using all the delicacy he was capable of.

" No, Kyrpton was destroyed by a combination of geological instability, a nuclear explosion caused by intensive mining, and the Destroyer," the blonde woman explained, “When it became clear that the planet was in a desperate situation, the Council sent a request for help, which was ignored. My planet had not the quintessence that the Galra were interested in, and it was a dying world that required far too many resources to be saved. Therefore, they just decided to let us die and enjoy the show.”

"Not very smart to ask for help from an evil and aggressive Empire," Pidge commented through gritted teeth, and before Hunk or Allura scolded her, Superwoman gave a sad smile, "When you're on the verge of destruction, even making a deal with the Devil seems like a good idea."

The woman gestured to Allura, as if to tell her to stop, "I'm fine, we can get to work."

Allura tried to protest, "But your wound..."

"It's little more than a scratch now," Superwoman reassured her, and Keith would almost have believed her if it hadn't been for her paleness. "Let's build this portal and get Damian away before Jon does something reckless. And believe me, no one here wants to see my nephew out of his mind.”

"Yes, you're doing just fine on your own," Bat-Mite floated in front of him, yawning, "Apart from the Justice League’s intervention, you've lost control over Hood and the Red Paladin and Batman have outgrown the clones."

"At least it was interesting to see," Bob muttered to himself. He was tired, unfortunately dividing energy on two fronts was not easy, and Bat-Mite was mischievous for a bit of wounded pride.

It didn't matter.

Damian Wayne at that point must have guessed the truth – he was still the son of the greatest detective on Earth – the clues were right there! He had put them on purpose, he couldn't miss them!

Everything was now ready for the final scene.

He had to manage the direction well, wait for the right moment, intervene and zac. The twist.

Ah, pathos! The heartbreak, the questions, the emotions!

Yes, it's going to be great!

"You make things too complicated!" Bat-Mite moaned, rolling his eyes.

"You don't understand anything about art! You are an ignorant barbarian!"

"I know a lot about fun, unlike you!" he retorted, almost an accusation that Bob did not take too well.  He tried to hit him, but Bat-Mite disappeared, not without first mouthing him like the brat he was. 

He pursed his lips. He had no time for the whims of that brat. His mother scene was approaching, and he won't let it be ruined!

In his hand, a coin appeared, and he smiled to himself. For a grand finale, a special guest was needed, after all.

Hood dodged a punch and kicked two aliens out. He couldn't hold back a smile. He wasn't as out of shape as he feared.

"Wonder Girl," he called out, dodging a laser beam from a gun, "Keep those fuckers away from the paladins. Superman, clear the path. We can't let them get overwhelmed."

Veronica nodded, her eyes never leaving the battle. She sprinted forward, her legs moving in a blur as she dodged and weaved through the crowd. Her lasso sang through the air, wrapping around a creature that looked like an octopus. With a flick of her wrist, she sent it hurtling into a group of its comrades, taking them down like bowling pins.

Superman's heat vision sliced through the enemy like a hot knife through butter. The smell of burning flesh and scorched metal filled the air as he systematically disarmed and incapacitated the attackers.

In the chaos, Hood was about to take down another opponent when he froze. The sound of a laugh echoed through the room, and it came from the screens. The red paladin, Veronica's little brother, was laughing. How could he laugh after all that shit? Maybe it was his defence mechanism.

The point was that the laugh reminded him of another: when he heard the paladin laugh, he thought he heard Kory laughing again.

A shadow loomed over him. Hood ducked instinctively, and a second later, he heard a thunderous crash. Looking up, he saw Superman had just taken a hit for him, not even flinching as an alien's fist bounced off his invulnerable chest. The alien staggered back, dumbstruck by the sheer power of the alien before it.

Superman's eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared, and Hood knew what was coming next. The man of steel inhaled deeply, and his chest expanded. The air grew thick with pressure, and then, with a sudden exhale, Superman blew a gust of super-breath that sent the alien sprawling to the ground, a look of utter shock plastered on its alien face.

"You heard it too, didn't you?" Superman asked, and Hood was almost tempted to tell him that it was obvious, he wasn't deaf, but the next sentence silenced him, "Damian told him he is Batman."

"Fuck..."

"Maybe you think he's... You know... he looks a lot like Dick..."

Superman's reticence was almost adorable if he didn't know why he was so afraid to say out loud what they both thought.

He made a mocking cry, "Damian knows as well as I do that it is impossible."

Did it matter, though? For Damian, who had never had time to deal with the loss of Dick like the rest of them, who had gone from one trauma to another, without really having a chance to recover, the possibility that something of their brother still existed could be something to hold onto, even without evidence.

"But is it?" Superman insisted, grabbing an alien who wanted to attack them by the throat and lifting him to mid-air, "No one knows what happened on Tamaran. No one knows how they died. Or if they are dead."

Hood took a trembling breath, "They're dead."

"Hood..."

"Tim and his loser husband spent years looking for what was left of Dick and the others. They never found anything. In so many years, don't you think they would have stumbled upon something? At least one track on problematic land prisoners? Even my brother had to stop and admit that there was nothing to find. He who spent years travelling the world, finding a way to bring Bruce back. If Tim has surrendered..."

A mocking giggle caught their attention. The alien (or rather, the asshole who was manipulating everyone) was mocking them, "If that's what you think, you'll love the final surprise!"

"What final surprise?" Superman asked, his eyes turning red.

The alien rolled his eyes, "What kind of surprise would it be if I told you everything now? I don't like spoilers! But do you know what I like? Family traditions. "

"You bastard rat…”

"Hey, it's not my fault that you're stupid. You have eyes, don't you?" the smile he made was all teeth and with a malice that made Hood want to punch him until he tore it from his face. "The real question is how. Is he the real one? Or is he a clone? Who is the red paladin?  To find out, you have to keep watching..."

Impatient, Superman threw the alien away with a decisive gesture, as if he were throwing out the trash. He felt a little guilty, since it was not the poor guy's fault; he was not the one who had made fun of them. On the other hand, it made you feel much better.

"Rao, how I hate the imps of the fifth dimension," Superman exhaled, and Hood found himself in full agreement with him, the anxiety building up in his chest at the thought of the surprise Bob was preparing.

Damian stared at the paladin in bewilderment while he was laughing. It was not the reaction he expected.

Usually, people trembled when they heard the name Batman. It commanded respect. They knew what it meant. No one ever laughed.

Not even the Joker.

Still, the boy was laughing, and Damian was speechless.

"You... Why are you laughing? Do you think I'm lying?" he asked, perplexity evident on his face.

Lance paused to resume breathing, wiping away a tear he had missed, "I'm sorry, I swear... I believe you. I guess you tend to get less skeptical when you're fighting an alien Empire light years away from home. But man, Batman? Really?"

"It's a scary name," she said defensively, "Father wanted something that would strike fear into Gotham's criminals, a symbol of justice."

"Did your father dress up as a giant bat and beat criminals? Like Adam West?" his eyes widened, "Was the guy from before your father?!"

He didn't know how to answer that question, because honestly, he wasn't sure either. For all he knew, under the cowl, there could be Richard.

He chose to focus on something else, "Adam West?"

Lance immediately began to explain, "Adam West was an actor from the 60s who played a vigilante who dressed up as a bat to hunt down criminals, under the name of Man-Bat. When I was a child I used to see him with my sisters on my grandfather's old television. It was funny, also because Man-Bat's enemies were idiots, just like him."

"Father wasn’t an idiot, but a warrior who was highly trained in all the arts of combat and who had pushed himself to the limits of the human body," Damian said defensively, personally offended by the existence of such a TV series.

The lights around them began to pulse rhythmically, as if setting a beat for them to follow. They started walking, following the pattern of the lights. The ground was cold and damp under their boots, echoing every step they took. Lance was a little behind Damian, and as they walked, he called out to him, "Hey, I didn't mean to offend you or your dad. Batman is... Um... pretty cool as a name. The vampire thing is also damn cool. Is this why you are so irritable? Haven't eaten in a long time?"

Damian stopped in his tracks, looking back at him with a mix of amusement and annoyance, "Vampire? I am not a vampire. The name comes from the creature that terrified father as a child. It was a symbol that would make the criminals fear the shadows."

"Oh," Lance nodded, still grinning, "So, no fangs or turning into a bat?"

"No."

"No powers at all?"

"No, Lance."

"So, let me get this straight," Lance said, his grin fading, "A regular, no powers, human guy decided to clean up the crime of his city by doing his own justice, dressed as a giant bat?"

"Father was hardly a man who could be defined as a regular human being," Damian replied, recalling all the praise he heard during his childhood from his grandfather and his mother. "He was an expert in hand-to-hand combat, he had studied with the best masters in the world..."

"And he was filthy rich too, right?" Lance interrupted him with a raised eyebrow, "If the cave we were was like your super-secret base, all that stuff costs money, and I don't think a high school teacher can afford that."

Damian curled his lips slightly, "My father was a billionaire, yes. He was the CEO of Wayne Enterprises."

Lance's eyes widened.  He didn't know anything about the previous CEO, but he had heard a lot about the current one, "Wait, so your brother is..."

"Timothy Jackson Drake Wayne, “Damian pronounced the name with recruiting respect, due to a person who had proved to be more than worthy of being part of his family.

"God, Iverson was furious when WE refused to fund the Garrison," Lance recalled, his face lit bluish by the lights close to him, "There had been this gala where all the big shots were, including Shiro. Hunk and I couldn't even get close, but we knew that Iverson was putting on a show for private investors and wanted to make a good impression. Your brother has completely devastated him."

"I know," Damian said, his voice echoing slightly in the vastness of the tunnel. "Timothy had made it clear that he didn't want to have anything to do with the Garrison, and Iverson was too much like Lex Luthor for his comfort."

"Lex Luthor? The guy who tried to become president but made such a big mess that he had to retire?"

Damian smiled with some satisfaction, "Yes, him. He's also my brother's father-in-law, not that Timothy's husband appreciates the connection. Luthor is an extremely irritating man.”

Lance chuckled, "No surprise your brother eviscerated him verbally.  No one saw Iverson for weeks after the gala. He never left his office."

He stopped giggling as he remembered the extra exercises Iverson gave to cadets as soon as he returned from his self-imposed exile, and the week of tests and trials that almost made Hunk cry and were hard to keep up with.

Even Keith had shortcomings, even serious ones, but no one thought of giving a shit, not when all his practical tests were excellent.

Unlike those of Lance, mediocre on all and McClain, how do you plan to become a fighter pilot if you continue like this?

They continued to walk, the blue lights guiding their path through the damp corridor. The silence was broken by Lance's voice, " Why did your father become...Batman? No offence, but with all the money the Waynes have, it doesn't seem like he needed to cosplay at night and risk his life."

Damian paused, his gaze drifting to the distant lights before he spoke, "Father was eight when he watched his parents die, shot down by a mugger in an alley. That night, something broke inside him. He made a promise to himself to become something that could never be broken again. So, he trained, studied, and learned from the best masters around the world. He became more than just a man, more than anyone ever knew was possible."

"He became Batman," Lance understood, and Damian nodded, and continued, "It became something larger than life. And for a while, he worked alone. Until he met Richard."

"I'm starting to realize that it's not a good story here either."

"No. That evening, father was not a patrol. He was at the circus, to consolidate his public image. He... the show was going well, but suddenly, the acrobats' ropes broke, and the Fliying Graysons fell to their deaths."

Lance felt a shiver run down his spine.  Bob had used him to relive that night, for his macabre fun.

"The child... Dickie... it was him, wasn't it? Richard."

Damian nodded, "Yes, it was him. He was also eight years old when his parents died, and father... he recognized in Richard the same tragedy that he experienced. He didn't even think too much about it, and decided to adopt him."

Lance couldn't help but whistle, "Wow, talk about an extreme adoption process. Most people just check the kid's grades and health report if they are worried about them."

"Father was rightly worried about him, as the CPS in Gotham doesn't do its job well if it doesn't try to cover up the mafia or human trafficking."

"Jesus..."

Damian continued, "Also, father wanted to protect him from the true responsible of the Graysons' deaths. The fall had not been an accident, but a deliberate act of sabotage. And Richard knew it. The thought that his parents' killer was still free tormented him. So, despite my father's judgment, he went out at night, looking for that man. When his father realized that he would not be able to stop him, he allowed him to go out at night with him. Thus, Robin, Batman's partner, was born."

"Wait, wait," Lance said, his voice shaking slightly, "Your dad let a traumatised kid go out at night to fight crime with him, because he couldn't keep him from looking for his parents' killer?

The literal billionaire with a villa with enough security to prevent anyone from entering? Are you serious?"

Damian's expression was unreadable, but his voice remained calm and even, "Richard was not a normal child, Lance. He was driven by anger and loss. And Father knew that if he didn't channel it, he could become a weapon in the wrong hands."

"He wasn't a weapon. He was a child! A traumatised one who needed therapy, not to become a vigilante!"

Damian's eyes narrowed, "You don't understand. The choice was Richard's. He was as determined as father was, maybe more. He knew the risks, and he accepted them."

"But he was just a kid," Lance said, his voice tight with emotion. "He shouldn't have had to make that choice."

"You're right," Damian conceded, "He shouldn't have had to. But that's the world we live in, Lance. Sometimes we don't get to choose our battles. They choose us."

"Bullshit," Lance shot back, his voice echoing off the ancient stone walls, "Your dad was the adult. It was his job to protect him, not make him a sidekick!"

Damian's expression hardened, but he didn't respond immediately. They walked for a few moments in the tense silence, the only sound the rhythmic echo of their boots against the damp ground. Then he spoke, his voice measured, "Father knew that Richard would never rest until he had found the man who killed his parents. He gave him a choice: to act alone, driven by anger and vengeance, or to channel that anger into something positive. Under his wing, Richard had a purpose, a mission to fight for."

"At eight, your brother's only purpose should have been to go to school or get into trouble, not to fight crime," Lance repeated, he never seemed to say it enough.

Damian snorted, "Father was very attentive in the early days. It didn't allow Richard to engage in fights with the most dangerous criminals, like the Joker, Bane..."

"Wait, does Gotham also have, like, super villains? All without powers?"

"Not all of them. In addition to meta-humans like Poison Ivy, the city has also attracted magical users of a certain level..."

"Metahumans? Magic users?" the paladin asked, feeling more and more confused. "All this in one city?"

"No, not in just one city."

The words hung in the air like a heavy fog, thick with implication and leaving Lance utterly bewildered. He stumbled over his thoughts, trying to grasp the sheer scale of what Damian was telling him.

"So, wait," Lance said, his mind racing, "You're saying there are other people with... extraordinary abilities? Metahumans are, like, the X-Men?"

"Something like that, " Damian nodded, his eyes still fixed on the pulsing lights ahead, "But more varied. Some of them have extraordinary abilities, others have incredible tech, and some, like me, are just exceptionally trained. And yes, father often collaborated with them."

Lance took this in, his mind racing with images of caped crusaders and high-flying heroes from his childhood comics, "But if there are people like that here, why don't we know about them? They all work only at night or..."

"No, they operate more often during the day. I prefer to patrol at night. I was trained like that."

Lance made a sorry expression when he heard the mention of training, wondering when exactly Damian had started, how young he was.

"Then I don't understand. If superheroes exist, " and if Pidge were there, she would have laughed so much, but what other word could he have used? He was in the company of the emo and less technological version of Iron Man! "If they exist, why is it not talked about on television? Journalists would throw themselves headlong into such stories, and I doubt that there is ever collateral damage, especially when it comes to... metahumans, right?"

Damian's eyes darkened, and he looked at Lance with an intensity that made him feel like he was being dissected, "Once, the knowledge of heroes was commonplace, and my father was not the only one. There were teams, leagues of them, known to the public. They operated in broad daylight, and the world knew of their existence. They were revered, feared, and sometimes vilified."

"I'm sorry to break it to you, but I've never heard of Batman before... or a team of superheroes in the real world."

As a child, before seeing an interview with Shiro, Lance dreamed of being a hero like Captain America (not Man-Bat, that guy was an idiot, although in the end he himself had become a big idiot growing up).

 If he had seen real heroes on TV, with cool powers or gadget, it would have been a real torment for everyone at home.

He would obsess over buying merchandise and filling his and Veronica's room with junk, and he would be so disappointed to find out that he didn't have the powers or money to join a super group, and he would fall back on the second best thing, the Garrison.

"You couldn't."

"Why not? You said that the existence of heroes was common knowledge, didn't you? There must be something left, even on the internet, even if it was of very poor quality and with a lot of people who would have said it was everything fake."

"Twenty years ago, there was a man," Damian began, his eyes distant, "His name was Brother Blood. He cast a spell that rewrote reality itself after kidnapping one of Richard's allies, Raven. His goal was to reshape the world in his image, a world where fear and darkness reigned supreme. He managed to turn most of the heroes into his mindless servants, and those who remained free were hunted, vilified, and ultimately defeated."

"I guess in the end the good guys won, since we don't live under this guy's dictatorship. But how?"

Damian hesitated, "I don't know all the details. Because of Blood's spell, I didn't exist."

"Huh?"

"In the reality created by Brother Blood, I didn't exist, my father had died, and Richard had taken Batman's cowl. And he was good, despite the spell," he added, with a melancholy smile, but which said how proud he was of his brother.

"Ok, ok... I'm getting a headache, but I think I'm more or less understanding... so your brother alone defeated this Brother Blood?"

Damian shook his head, "No, he didn't do it alone. Richard and Timothy managed to reunite Richard's team, making them remember the truth. It wasn't easy, but they managed to organise a rebellion against Brother Blood and won. And the battle, they sent him to a place where no one can escape from."

"I guess it wasn't a prison..."

"No, it would have been too light a punishment. Brother Blood is in Hell, and so far he hasn't found a way to escape."

Lance gasped, "Is it a possibility?!"

Damian made a gesture, as if not to worry, "Twenty years have passed, and it's still there. Only recently the Blood Church risked returning, but the problem was managed."

"Great... the good guys won, the bad guys were punished... So why haven't things gone back to the way they were before the spell?"

Damian took a deep breath, "Because when the spell was broken, and reality began to reshape itself, Richard and Timothy had to make a choice. In the world Brother Blood created, some of their friends who had died in the real world were still alive. If everything had gone back to the way it was before, they would have died again. Timothy could not accept it. So Richard decided to converge the two realities, the old and the new, with the result of the current one, a world that does not remember the Justice League, the Titans, anything about heroes and villains. It took a lot of work, but Richard managed to refound the Justice League. The Earth needed it.”

Lance muttered to himself. Titans and Justice League were pretty darn cool names for hero teams, almost better than Defenders or Avengers. He said, "So that's why no one knows...”

“Unfortunately, there are beings who remember. Gods, beings of the fifth dimension, very powerful magic users, artificial intelligences that have escaped the control of their creator..."

Lance grimaced, "I really don't want to know of…whatever you are talking about. Although I now understand why it seems like Bob knows so much.”

“Mhm.”

 “Have you  guys ever thought about going public again and letting people know what you're protecting them from? Vigilantism is cool, don't get me wrong, but I would like to know if the aliens are about to invade me and if there is someone who can stop them."

"Richard was thinking about it," Damian confessed, "But given the unreliability of the various governments on Earth and how they tried to control the Justice League or tried to arrest Superman for being an alien, they preferred to keep a low profile as much as possible."

"Is there a guy who calls himself Superman? And is he an alien?!" he blurted out, and wow, as soon as Keith hears it... if he wants to hear about it, even if he should have a minimum of interest in those who were protecting the Earth at the moment. In all this, what was Garrison doing? Apart from throwing mud on all of them and continuing as if it were nothing.

Um, he'll have to ask Damian if he knew anything about it.

Damian shrugged, "Earth has long been a refuge for those fleeing their planet. It's the case of the original Superman, Princess Koriand'r..."

His voice died out suddenly.  Lance asked, "Hey, are you okay?"

Damian nodded, "Yeah, just... I didn't expect to tell anyone all of that."

"Well, understandable, given the whole history of the spell change reality and..."

"No, you don't understand," the vigilante interrupted him, "I don't trust anyone, and I didn't think I'd tell this story to anyone, ever. You... you're different."

Lance looked at him, puzzled, not knowing how to react.

"I... wow... dude, it’s…uhm..."

He was saved from having to try to complete a sentence with complete sense when they came to a dead end. The road was abruptly interrupted.

In front of them was a wall, ancient and covered with moss, and yet... modern. It was like a canvas painted by a mad artist with a penchant for the avant-garde. The stones looked like they had been there for millennia, but the blue lights that danced over them were something straight out of a sci-fi flick. And there, in the centre of the wall, was a phrase that stood out, written in the same pulsing, electric blue script: "Congratulations, you've reached the end. But wait, there's more! The grand finale awaits with a boom!"

Underneath, almost like a signature, there was also Bob's smiling face, winking at him.

"What, no rhymes this time?" Lance muttered to himself, torn between the relief that this hell was about to end and the anxiety of what the grand finale entailed.

Damian's eyes widened, and his instincts kicked in as he spotted the bomb. It was a sleek, black device, nestled into the wall like a tumor. The countdown display on its side ticked down with an eerie glow, a silent countdown to their doom. There were only a few seconds left.

"Lance, get down!" he roared, throwing himself at the paladin, pushing him to the ground and covering him with his own body when the bomb exploded.

The world went white, and then there was only the ringing in their ears. Damian felt the force of the blast throw them backwards, his body feeling like it was made of rubber.

They hit the ground, and for a moment, everything went black. Lance's vision swam with stars, and he felt his consciousness fading like a candle in the wind.

Through the smoke and dust, a figure emerged, a man with a coin flipping deftly through his fingers. Lance squinted, trying to focus, but his vision was blurry. The man approached with a casual stride, seemingly unfazed by the explosion's aftermath. Lance's mind raced, trying to understand who this could be, his thoughts jumbled like a dropped bag of marbles.

His efforts were in vain: a few moments later, he slipped into unconsciousness.

They had almost the situation under control when the explosion occurred. Superman immediately turned to the screens, his breath taking off his throat, seeing Damian shield the paladin with his body.

Hood had to grab him by the shoulder and pin him in place to prevent him from doing stupid things, like destroying screens and depriving them of their only way of having any idea what the hell was going on.

"Stay calm," he said, "Superwoman and the paladins are taking care of the portal."

"He... have you seen how... he threw himself to protect him... he didn't even hesitate..." Superman stammered, incoherent, torn between the need to do something and stay there and wait. And he also saw the anger that boiled under his gaze. Bob's hours were numbered, but he didn't know it yet. 

Of course, Damian had not hesitated. Just as he had not hesitated to tell the truth, or at least a part of it, to an extremely confused teenager who had no idea what privilege he was having at that moment.

And he had smiled. Hood couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his brother smile, even before he died.  Damian had seemed to him again the boy he had been, and not the most depressed version of his father. 

(Not that he could blame him, not after all the shit he'd been through. It was a miracle to everyone that he wasn't like Jason was when he came back from the dead.) 

As the smoke from the explosion began to clear, Hood felt his veins throbbing as he recognised the man emerging from it.

And Hood remembered one particular phrase that Bob had said. 

But do you know what I like? Family traditions.

"That is..."

"Yeah, Superman," Hood said, his mouth dry, "That's Two-Face."

Chapter Text

Keith wasn't a scientist. His grades at Garrison were average, he had a good general smattering, but he was not the type to spend hours in the laboratory.

That was more field than Pidge and Hunk.

But even he was able to say that building a portal with pieces taken at random in a space mall and giving it whatever was in that rather dubious-looking box as an energy generator, in about half an hour or so, should not have been possible.

"Having superspeed has its advantages," Pidge muttered with mild envy, helping Superwoman with the last few pieces.

The portal grew before them, a swirling vortex of light and shadow, shimmering with an eerie glow that danced along the edges. It was a wild, unpredictable beast of a contraption, pieced together from the discarded tech of a dozen different alien species. The air around it crackled with energy, a faint smell of ozone hinting at the power it contained.

He wasn't active yet, but a part of Keith couldn't help but be nervous at the thought of anything that could go wrong.

Superwoman shrugged, "Years of experience fighting Luthor also helps. Once he locked my cousin in one of these pocket dimensions. It was a mess."

"Yes, by the way..." Hunk began with some reticence, "It's not that I want to criticize or anything, but... is what Damian said true?"

"Which part?" the woman asked, as if it wasn't clear what Hunk was talking about. Keith felt a headache just thinking about a reality that had been there before and had apparently been erased.

Oh, and don't start it with the Batman thing, god.

"Everything, actually. "

"Yes, it's all true," Superwoman replied with apparent randomness, "Even though Damian gave the very summary version, considering their situation and... well, I didn't even think he would say that much."

"What, is because of the secret identity rule?" Pidge asked sarcastically, which Superwoman didn't catch, "No, because Damian would rather stab himself than be so honest with anyone except..."

She paused, pursing her lips. Pidge pressed her, "Except?"

"Except for his brother, but he's been dead for a long time."

"Is this brother called Richard?" the green paladin asked, and the blonde woman widened her eyes, "How do you know?"

"When we found him, he was pretty out of his mind," Pidge said, "He passed out in Lance's arms and called him Richard. And later, he was always staring at Lance, asking questions... I don't even think Lance noticed, but it was creepy!"

"That's the effect he has on a lot of people," the Kryptonian said in a breath, while Keith muttered, "Yeah, who knows why... And you all said I was paranoid to say he was hiding something!"

"But not because he worked with the Galras, but for... all this other stuff," Pidge frowned, "Although I don't understand how it was possible to merge two realities and have this result..."

"There are powers far greater than your comprehension, green paladin, than you can imagine," everyone turned around, only to see Slav, who had literally appeared out of nowhere, or had been there forever and no one had noticed anything, as he knelt on the ground and made imaginary drawings with his finger, "Ah, also... The chances of success of finding the pocket dimension are 30%, if you wanted to know."

"Slav?!" was the unanimous cry in front of that sudden appearance.

Honestly, with all that was going on, everyone had more or less forgotten about him: Slav had remained at the bottom of the Black Lion, barely interacting with Keith or Krolia, and refusing to leave the lion for the 25% chance of being attacked in his sleep or ending up suffocated by native species.

Keith was more likely to be the one to strangle him in irritation, understanding all too much how Shiro had felt when dealing with the alien.

But since Slav was, technically, one of their own, Keith had to suppress his instincts and not give in to temptation.

He doubted Pidge would be able to do the same, "30% success rate? Only 30%?!"

Slav was unperturbed, "It's because you're very smart, that's why I'm optimistic."

"Optimistic? You little..."

Hunk stood between the two, "You don't want to hurt him, he's probably controlled by Bob too."

"He isn’t," Superwoman said, at the same time as Slav's "I'm not."

"How do you know?" Keith resolves himself to the Kryptonian, but it was Slav who replied, "Obviously the tricks of that low being don't work on me! My mind is the most advanced there is, I see everything, I see every possibility, every variable, there is nothing that can contain me or..."

Keith interrupted him, "Low being? Bob?"

"He's a god," Hunk added, receiving an annoyed snort from Slav, "Bob is not a god! He comes from the fifth dimension!"

"Fifth dimension? What the hell is it?" Pidge said, irritated.

"It's a dimension of pure imagination should, by its very definition, be indefinable, at least to people in lower dimensions," Superwoman briefly explained, "One of them gave my cousin a lot of trouble, just because he found it interesting. Or because he was envious. No one ever really understood what the hell was his deal, whether he was simply evil or pathologically obsessed. Since he continues to cause problems, he is more likely to be a sadistic bastard."

"A dimension of pure imagination cannot exist. It's not possible!" Pidge blurted out.

"You have proof that it exist," Slav pointed out, pointing to one of the screens above them, "It’s from where Bob comes from."

"So these beings are also immortal?" Hunk asked, and well, Keith, for personal reasons, was also interested to know.

"Hmm, it depends on what concept you have of mortality and immortality..."

"The question is very simple: can we kill him or not?" Keith cut it short, without any desire to tolerate any speech, philosophical or scientific.

"You? I doubt it. Maybe the princess... she has a 60% chance, but since she doesn't have a real teacher, I have to reduce the chances to..."

He was interrupted by the roar of an explosion. Keith felt as if all the blood in his body had frozen.

A bomb had exploded. A bomb had exploded and Lance was right in front of the explosion. 

Keith remembered little, only him yelling No and someone holding him, his eyes turned yellow with anger.

He didn't care where Bob came from. He didn't care if he was a god or a fifth-dimensional imp.

He will destroy that bastard.

"Calm down," Hunk mumbled at him, "I know it's hard, but if we want to help Lance, you have to calm down!"

"Not that he have to worry," Slav said with extreme nonchalance, which angered Keith more, "There's only a 1% chance that explosion will hurt the red paladin."

“1%? Are you serious?" Pidge retorted at him, with extreme skepticism.

"Of course I am! As long as we are in reality where he is not human, otherwise ..."

"He is human!" Keith yelled at him.

Slav blinked, "I'm 99.9% sure that in this reality, the red paladin is not human. There are always margins of error, but they are infinitesimal."

"Infinitesimal?! I'm half Galra! And I was the former red paladin! You're confusing us and..."

"I'm not doing that," the alien interrupted, snorting annoyed, "I never said he's half-galra. You should really learn to listen, black paladin. They would also improve your leadership qualities by at least 15%!"

It was that. He was about to kill Slav. And he would have done it, to hell with Hunk, if Hood hadn't appeared as a bad omen, growling, "Is the portal ready?"

Hood looked a little shabby, despite having fought aliens until a few minutes before.

Speaking of the crowd manipulated by Bob: Veronica McClain and Superman were taking care of the last ones still standing, without any apparent effort.

Keith felt a hint of discomfort, but decided to put it aside for later. The priorities now were others.

Even with the Red Lion showing clear displeasure whenever Hood was close.

"It is," Superwoman shows him, "We just need the right data to find the dimension where they are..."

"Data that you won't find," Slav interrupted her again, "The chances are 16%."

"You said it was 30% earlier!" Pidge yelled at him, and Slav just looked irritated, "I said you have a 30% chance of finding the right coordinates for the pocket dimension, but if anyone else tries, the chances go down a lot..."

"Who the hell is this idiot, and why hasn't anyone punched him yet?" Hood asks, and Superwoman sighs, "Hood, he's not possessed. He's just very irritating."

"He’s not even of any help. We have to find the pocket dimension, now. “

"I understand that you are worried about your brother..."

"Kara, that bastard imp is using Two-Face," after he said that, the blonde woman gasped, putting her hand to her mouth, "Do I have to remind you last time how it went when Batman was captured by Two-Face and Robin was with him?"

"Rao..."

"What happened the last time this guy caught Batman?" Pidge asked, and Hood gave a bitter grin, "Let's just say there's a high chance that either of them will be shot in the head or tortured with a crowbar."

"Fuck..."

"Yeah, fuck. So, if you don't want to see live how one of Gotham's rogues works, you better find the pocket dimension. Immediately."

Pidge didn't need to be told twice. She immediately got to work with near the portal, eyes full of an emotion that Keith had rarely seen in her: fear.

 Lance felt his head spin. He saw everything blurred, he struggled to focus. He tried to move, but found that he was stuck, his hands tied behind his back, while he was stuck in an old chair that had seen better days.

He closed his eyes, trying to make up his mind, and gather his last memories.

Then, it hit him: the end of the tunnel, the riddle, the explosion... quiznack, Damian!

 "Damian? Damian!"

"I'm here...I'm fine..."

Lance's eyes snapped open at the sound of Damian's strained voice. His vision slowly sharpened, and he took in the scene before him. They were in a sort of warehouse:it was vast and cavernous, the floor a checkerboard of shadow and dusty sunlight that streamed through the grimy windows. The air had the smell of rust and decay, and the distant echo of his own cries bounced off the corroded metal walls. Directly in front of him, he saw Damian, the man's face a mask of pain. Blood trailed down from a gash on his forehead, staining his shirt a stark red against the grimy grey of the chair's fabric.

 "You and I have a different concept of fine," Lance croaked, trying to move his chair to get closer, but to little avail. It felt like being glued to the floor, "Hey, does your superhero training also include how to break free from ropes?"

Damian was about to answer when a sound of footsteps alerted them both.

In a moment that seemed to stretch like elastic, a figure emerged from the shadows, the clack of their shoes echoing through the empty space. A man with part of his face horribly disfigured stepped into the light, and the sight was as chilling as Lance had ever imagined. He wore a white shirt with the top buttons undone, revealing a patch of unshaven skin. His hair was a chaotic mess of greasy strands that hung over his furrowed brow. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, and his eyes, one a piercing blue, the other a murky brown, danced with a mix of amusement and malice as they took in the two captives.

The left half of his face was a portrait of a nightmare.

It was as if a painter had tried to capture the essence of hell and splattered it onto canvas, only to realize that the colors of fire and brimstone weren't enough. So, they had reached for something more, something that burned deeper. Acid had etched its way through skin and muscle, leaving a grotesque map of destruction in its wake. The eye on that side was a mere slit, the lid fused shut, leaving a marble of scar tissue that gleamed in the dim light. The nose was a collapsed bridge, the nostril on the left side a gaping hole that fluttered with each of his uneven breaths. The mouth was a twisted smile, frozen in a rictus grin, one corner pulled up by a scar that looked like a drunken seamstress had stitched it. The skin was a patchwork quilt of red and pink, shiny and tight in some places, ragged and puckered in others.

"Gross," Lance muttered upon seeing him, while Damian remained perfectly still, perhaps trying to make some ninja moves to free himself from the ropes.

The man grinned at them, "Well, if that doesn't make me feel younger. In my day, I often tied up your father in places like this."

Maybe it was a thing of having part of his face literally melting, but Lance would have sworn he was staring with one eye at Damian and one eye at him.

"Father always managed to free himself from your pathetic traps," Damian replied, making the man laugh, "Oh, he didn't always succeed. As much as Bruce liked to be prepared all the time, I was no different. And his adorable little bird was aware of it. Tell me, did your brother ever tell you how he stopped being Robin?"

"Richard didn't like to talk about it," Damian replied dryly, and the guy's grin widened, "Of course not. Still, it would serve as a cautionary tale for all you other birds, especially dear Jason. He wasn't as lucky, was he? Batman didn't get in time for him."

The anger on Damian's face was clear as crystal, but his voice remained calm, "What do you want, Two-Face?"

Two-Face's grin grew wider, as if the tension in the room was a delicious cocktail that he was sipping on, "Ah, straight to the point. I'll admire that. But, alas, I do enjoy a little banter before we get down to business. You see, I have a client who is quite interested in some information you can give me."

"Client, mhm? So, this is the route Bob chose..." he heard Damian mutter, then to Two-Face he said, "If it's information you want, I'll be enough for you. Let the boy go."

Two-Face's laughter echoed around the warehouse, a sound like a hyena's cackle. "Oh, I'm not letting your little friend go anywhere, baby bat. He's the sweetest bait to get you chirping."

He reached into his coat pocket, and the cold metal of a gun glinted in the light. Lance felt his heart hammer in his chest, the room suddenly spinning again. Two-Face pointed the weapon at him, the barrel feeling like it was the size of a cannon. "I need you both for this little chat."

"What kind of game do you want to play, you..."

"No no," Two-Face moved the index finger of his free hand, as he pressed the pistol against Lance's forehead, "Careful with your words. There is only one bullet here. Don't let me waste it."

Damian was silent, clearly discontented, attentive eyes of those who were mentally elaborating a strategy to free themselves and kick some ass. He hoped he would be able to come up with a plan quickly, before Two-Face decided to use the only bullet from his gun.

Seeing Damian's apparent yielding, Two-Face said, "Well, now that we've all calmed down, how about telling me about the previous pilot of the Red Lion, baby bat?"

"Now the odds are 25%... no, 22%... with a high possibility of decreasing in the next ..."

"Can you shut up for five minutes?!" Pidge yelled at him, a drop of sweat running down her forehead.

The tension could be cut with a knife. It didn't help that Superman and Wonder Girl, after dealing with the last aliens controlled by Bob, had joined them, and Keith could see how they were both trying to control themselves so as not to do something extremely stupid.

Slav didn't hint at taking a step back, "I'm just warning you so you don't waste your time and avoid a very possible disappointment."

"If you really want to help, then tell me how to find the pocket dimension!" Pidge blurted out, showing him his mini computer, but Slav widened his eyes, and replied with a simple, "No."

"No? NO?! Which side are you on, you piece of..."

"I'm your ally, green paladin," the alien interrupted, "But if I intervene, the chances of him coming forward drop by 2%, and it's essential that he steps in and does his part."

"What the hell does that mean?!"

Slav, however, didn't answer, and began to rattle off a series of data that no one cared about and that were absolutely useless in that situation, and that were making Pidge lose concentration.

"This is getting ridiculous," Veronica McClain at that point took her lasso and wrapped Slav around like a salami, and with a firm tug pulled him away from Pidge, "Keep working. I'm not anxious to see my brother tortured."

"Brother is not the correct term, considering the lack of a biological link suitable for..."

Veronica punched Slav in the face, finally silencing him. The expression on her face at that moment was simply murderous.

"What was he talking about?" Hunk dared to ask, perhaps counting on the fact that he had known Lance and the McClains for years, so perhaps the girl would not tear him apart for asking a question.

"Nothing important," she cut short, even if it was clear that she was tense.

"It didn't seem nothing..." Keith started, but he was interrupted by the roar of the Red Lion. Hood had gotten too close to her and the lion didn't like it.

"What did you do?" Keith asked, and whether allied or not, if one of them had attempted anything strange with one of the lions, and with Lance's lion especially, he would have no mercy.

Although Hood was probably much stronger than him.

"Nothing, kiddo. She's still mad at me after more than thirty years," Hood replied with a shrug, "The girl here has a good memory."

"Wait, have you met the Red Lion yet? Were there other paladins before the change of reality?" he asked, the more than legitimate question.

If a guy with delusions of omnipotence had erased the memory and existence of heroes, he might have also done it with possible paladins, then getting them into trouble years later.

Part of him already knew that he should not have been chosen, and if Hood had confirmed his hypothesis, he would have known for sure that he was there for a big cosmic mistake with which he had to deal until the end of the war.

"No," was Hood's curt reply, without hesitation, without any trace that he was lying, but Keith pressed, "So how does the Red Lion know you?"

" I tried to destroy her."

"What?!"

"I was seventeen and I was an idiot," Hood dismissed him with a vague wave of his hand, "I thought it would be like putting a bomb under the Batmobile... and before you laugh, yes, it's really its name... but I hadn't taken into account that the Red Lion is sentient and extremely susceptible...”

"Why did you try to destroy the Red Lion?"

"I was angry," Hood started to talk, scratching the back of his neck, " I wasn't exactly clear-headed at the time, and it just took me too long to figure everything out and...look, it's a very long story, maybe I'll tell you about it later."

Later was out of the question. Hood couldn't admit something like that and then think there wouldn't be any questions.

Keith was about to press the man to get the answers he wanted, when his gaze shifted to the screens and he saw Two-Face pointing a gun at Lance's head, and grinning, "Well, now that we've all calmed down, how about telling me about the previous pilot of the Red Lion, baby bat?"

Damn.

Keith yelled at Pidge, "Hurry up!"

"Do you think I'm not already doing my best?" the girl blurted out,"If I make even an infinitesimal mistake, I could cause a nuclear reaction and destroy everything! Do you want the dimensions to collapse? Do you want this?!"

"No, but I don't want that Two-Face shoot Lance to get information about me... or whatever twisted thing Bob wants to do for his show..."

“It's not about you, black paladin," Superman said, looking grave, staring up at the screens, " The point of Bob's game is another. It was always another…“

"He literally said..."

"He said he wanted to know about the previous pilot of the Red Lion," Hood interjected, his body a single nerve ending, ready to snap at any moment, "Not paladin, pilot. There is a difference. And he asked Damian  for a very specific reason.”

" What reason? What the heck should Damian know? Even so, before Lance, I piloted Red! And before me, King Alfor..."

"No."

The denial took him by surprise. He looked on without understanding, while Hood continued, "The last pilot of the Red Lion before you paladins was Dick Grayson. My older brother."

The heartbeat noise grew louder, filling the air with a rhythmic thump that seemed to pulse in time with Lance's racing thoughts. He had no idea what Two-Face was referring to, but the expression that Damian made was a clear sign that the man understood what the other meant.

"Wait, what do you mean by pilot of the Red Lion?" Lance blurted out, his voice high-pitched and filled with confusion. "Why do you ask him? Do you want so much to shoot me?"

Two-Face chuckled darkly, the sound sending a shiver down Lance's spine, "Ah, not so much, kid. My client doesn't want your death. He wants something else."

"My humiliation?"

"A good story," Two Faces said, then he turned to Damian, "It shouldn't be difficult for you. After all, your dear brother has told you some good old stories of his youth, right? Or perhaps you've pieced it together from the pieces you collected from the Titans and your other brothers. Especially Tim. He has always been the most informed, a real detective. Your father's pride."

Damian clenched his jaw, "I don't know what you want..."

Two-Face's good eye gleamed with amusement as he flipped the magazine out of his gun with a dramatic flourish, showcasing its emptiness before snapping it back in. "Come now, baby bat, don't play coy with me. You know what I want to know. But let's start in small steps, shall we? Where did he find the Red Lion?"

Damian didn’t answer.

Lance swallowed. The gun was a constant presence against his forehead, cold and unforgiving, a silent reminder of the power Two-Face held. The pressure was intense, as if the barrel was pushing through his skin, reaching into the very core of his being.

He didn't understand what Bob was playing now. He had had difficulty until then in following the logic of his games, but now he saw none.

It seemed just another test to have fun at his expense. What could be better than a crazy comic book version of the Russian roulotte?

Damian's voice came suddenly, "Tamaran."

Two-Face smiled, while Lance looked at him in amazement, and Damian continued to speak, "The previous Red Lion pilot found her on Tamaran during the rebellion of the planet. The Galra had not been able to take her away."

"See, wasn't that hard?" Two-Face grunted, while Lance frowned, "Wait, what's this story? What are you talking about?"

The disfigured villain turned his head slightly to Lance, his good eye narrowing, "Silence, boy. This is a conversation for the grown-ups."

The pressure of the gun on Lance's forehead grew more intense, a silent warning that he had better keep his mouth shut.

Two-Face turned back to Damian, his grin twisting further into a sadistic smirk, "See what happens when you don't share your little secrets, baby bat? You should have said that you already knew the Red Lion, even if not very well. When you arrived, he had already practically given up piloting her, didn't he?"

"He who?" Lance should have asked, barely holding back. Damian thinned his lip, "For strategic reasons, the Red Lion had been moved to the Watchtower, a place considered safer for her than ..."

"Safer than where, baby bat? Come on, don't be shy. You're doing well."

"Safer than... the Titans Tower..." he clenched his jaw, angry, "I don't know what exactly you want to get to with these questions, but..."

Two-Face wouldn't let him continue, "Who was the Red Lion pilot?"

"Richard," Damian said in a breath, almost a whisper that Two-Face heard very well.

"Batman's precious firstborn was also the first non-Tamarean to pilot the Red Lion! Come on, tell the story. The paladin will be very interested."

Damian's gaze never left Two-Face's as he spoke, his voice tight with anger, "Richard told me the story. He and his team went to Tamaran to rescue a team member.  She had been kidnapped at the behest of Haggar, who intended to continue the experiments she had begun on her. They faced insurmountable odds, but Richard, he... he had a way of inspiring people, making them believe also the impossible. Tamaran had been under the control of the Galra for years, with its rulers reduced to mere hostages. The population had either lost hope or had accepted its fate of slavery, but then Richard awakened the Red Lion and was seen as a sign. It was time to free Tamaran…”

"Yes, very nice, of course... But your brother wasn't interested in liberating the planet. I'm right, am I not? His main reason was more selfish. He was there for his girlfriend... what was her name..."

"Koriand'r," Damian hissed the name letter by letter, "You're wasting your time, get to the point..."

"That's my point, baby bat. My client wants this information. He wants to know how heroic poor Richard was... and how tragic..." the parting expression was so false that a soap opera actor could have asked him which lemon he had bitten to look so crumpled. "No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't save the people he loved. He couldn't save his parents, Bruce, Roy, Terra, Rachel... nor did Koriand'r. He was a total failure..."

Damian tried to lunge forward, but the ropes prevented him from moving and headbutting Two-Face, which the man absolutely deserved.

Two-Face chuckled, "Ah, I forgot. For you, Richard was perfect. He couldn't make mistakes. Have you ever thought of how much pressure you put on him, with your expectations? Not only did he have to fill a role he didn't want, but he also had to parent you. And because of you, because of the cowl, he had to give up Koriand'r... to the love of his life... How does this make you feel? How do you feel knowing that you were one of the reasons for your brother's unhappiness?"

Damian's expression was a canvas of sorrow, each brushstroke of pain etched deeper by Two-Face's words. His eyes searched the ground, the weight of the accusation too much to meet the man's gaze.

"It's not fair," Lance interjected, his voice rising in anger, "You're just twisting things! Richard made his choices, and he didn't do it because of Damian! He did it because it was right! He..."

Two-Face's grin faltered, his one good eye flashing with annoyance.

"You talk too much, little bird," Two-Face sneered, cocking the hammer back. Lance felt his heart stop as the trigger was pulled.

Click.

The sound of the hammer striking home on an empty chamber echoed through the warehouse. For a heart-stopping moment, Lance felt the cold embrace of fear wrap around him, squeezing the breath from his lungs. But there was no explosion, no searing pain.

He blinked, looking up at Two-Face in disbelief. The villain's grin had returned, a sadistic twist of his lips that made Lance's stomach churn.

"How lucky," he grinned, and continued, "Now, baby bat... The change of reality has been fortunate. It took some of the weight off Richard's shoulders. And it gave him the chance to start over with Koriand'r. It seems like a happy ending... But we are not here for this, are we? What happened to him?"

Damian hissed, "I don't know."

"Oh, come on. Don't be difficult, you..."

"I. DON’T. KNOW!" Damian growled, his green eyes shining with anger and pain.

"Richard and Koriand'r left for Tamaran with some of the Titans; it would only take a few months. The time for her to be able to say goodbye to her father. They never came back and... no one knows what happened..."

"Except for one certainty: they are dead," Two-Face tilted his head slightly. "How much did it torment you not to know, baby bat? How many times have you imagined how things would have been different if you had gone with them, too? A good man is dead, while you are still here. How can that be right?"

"It's not," Damian said through gritted teeth, and gosh, this was definitely not the time for self-hatred, not when there was someone who deserved much more than the slander!

Two-Face, however, continued, ignoring Lance, “Yes, it's not... just as it is not fair that his child died with its parents... even if... It didn't go that way."

Damian's head shot up at those words, his eyes widening in shock.

"What did you say?" he demanded, his voice a low growl that seemed to resonate with the very air around them. For a moment, Damian looked at Lance directly, then he looked away, as he was scared of something. Two-Face's grin grew even wider, if that was possible.

"Oh, baby bat, don't act surprised," Two-Face said, his voice a serpent's hiss, "You know it's true. Richard's child survived. And you know where he is."

Damian's eyes snapped back to Two-Face, "That's not possible. You're lying."

"Am I?" Two-Face cocked his head, the half-melted side of his face seeming to pull even more in his skewed smile, "You already had your suspicions, even if you were too afraid to hope. Hope is a bad thing, especially for those like you. A silent worm that has begun to gnaw at you, and make you wonder maybe it's like that, maybe for once something good has happened. But you can't believe it, you refuse to see even the truth when you have it in front of your eyes."

"Shut up," Damian screamed, angry, "Your client wants to sell lies. It is absolutely not possible for the child to be alive. Koriand'r was barely at the beginning of the second quarter when she left for Tamaran. It was too early."

"You said it yourself: you don't know anything about what happened on Tamaran. You don't even know how long it took them to return to sweet Koriand'r's homeworld... enough to allow her, miraculously, to give birth..."

"The times don't coincide; it is not logically possible..."

Two-Face snorted, "Logic, possibility... You have your suspicions, baby bat. Say them out loud. You want to do it, we both know that. Tell. You say where and who you think Richard's child is. Say it!"

Damian's mind was racing with the implications of what Two-Face was suggesting. His chest felt tight, and his breathing was shallow. It couldn't be true, could it?

But Two-Face's grin grew wider, "Well, if you won't talk, then maybe I'll just have to start asking the questions with a more... persuasive approach."

The hammer clicked back again, and this time, Lance could see the bullet in the chamber, glinting in the dim light. The air grew thick with anticipation, and he braced himself for the end.

But it never came.

The sound of the hammer striking the chamber echoed through the room, but the explosion Lance expected didn't follow. Instead, there was a metallic click, and the gun hovered in Two-Face's hand, a silent question. Lance felt the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding rush out of him as he looked down to his chest, expecting to see a crimson bloom.

But there was nothing.

Lance felt the cold metal retreat from his forehead, and when he looked up, Two-Face was smiling wider than ever. The bullet had fallen to the ground, bouncing off the concrete floor with a harmless clink.

"Well, well, well," Two-Face said, his tone a mix of surprise and amusement, "It seems we have the answer we wanted now, right?"

With that, Two-Face took a step back, his smile fading into something more akin to a smug smirk. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver coin, flipping it into the air with a dramatic flair. The coin spun, glinting in the light, and Lance felt his stomach drop as it started to descend. The air was thick with anticipation, the room holding its collective breath.

And then, in the blink of an eye, Two-Face was gone. The coin clattered to the floor, rolling away into the shadows as a figure stepped out from behind the dusty crates.

Someone was applauding, slowly, almost shuffling. Lance and Damian were free; nothing kept them tied to the chairs anymore.

With a slowness worthy of a theatrical entrance, Bob emerged from the shadows, his expression extremely satisfied.

He smiled like a bird of prey at Damian, "If you still have doubts after this, Batman, maybe it's a good thing that the greatest detective in the world is your brother. Poor deductive skills here, mhm?"

Damian didn't wait a second longer; he lunged at him, but Bob vanished, reappearing a few seconds later next to Lance.  The paladin didn't have the time to react: Bob grabs his face and shoulder, and turns him to Damian. 

"Look at him," Bob said, his grip firm but not painful, "You know it from the first moment, from the moment you saw these eyes. What did you call him when you met? Help me remember... ah yes, you called him Richard."

"I was on drugs, I didn't know what I was saying..."

"No, Batman. You knew. You can look for as many excuses as you want, but you already knew it. How could you not? You looked at him, and you saw a ghost. And all those questions you started asking, your little investigations... chasing a suspect when the truth was already so clear, and..."

He didn't continue. It was difficult to do this when you were hit by a giant hammer in the style of cartoons and were crushed to the ground.

"That's enough!" a chubby little boy blurted out, dressed in a much less gloomy version of Batman's costume. "You're dragging it out too long! You were about to start another monologue, after the whole thing with Two-Face, funny, huh, but that's enough! Just say directly, hey, paladin, you're Dick Grayson's son and you are half-alien, with a crazy aunt who wants to kill you! Don't waste any more time just for the sake of narrative timing! Which then I don't even know what it means..."

"Wait..." Lance coughed, feeling his heart tighten and pound, "What did you just say?"

Chapter Text

Pidge heard a frantic discussion in the background, but she couldn't understand what they were talking about or care.

Her concentration was all on the calculations she was making. Just one mistake, and it was over. Not only for Lance, but also for all of them.

Finding such a specific pocket dimension was like looking for a needle in a haystack, except that you did it using an unstable uranium battery and risked making everything implode.

Superwoman (ridiculous name, but they had ended up working with real superheroes, and in the comics almost no one had a sensible name; as long as there wasn't someone calling themselves Nomad or Sentry, otherwise there would be problems there) had said that Lex Luthor used to create pocket dimensions to imprison people.

He was as brilliant as he was crazy, and nothing else could be expected from the billionaire whose election campaign had been centered on a program whose central point was to protect human beings.

What humans had to be protected from, Luthor himself had not explained, except confusedly and with too many incomprehensible babbles, and it had been among the reasons, together with the discovery of several unclear activities of his, for his retirement.

Although perhaps Luthor's were not entirely delusions, since, apparently, there were human metas (wasn't it easier to call them mutants or was it afraid that Marvel would require copyright for the use of the name?), which for a paranoid and obsessed guy like Lex Luthor were worse than a plague.

Did he perhaps have a vague memory of what he had been before and was considered crazy?

 Of course, believing that there was an entire reality prior to theirs was a rather difficult morsel to swallow, let alone having to explain it to others. Damian had been quite brave to tell Lance – but then, with Lance it was always easy to talk, wasn't it? – knowing the risks and implications.

She wouldn't have believed it if Matt hadn't presented himself as a green neon lamp and created things with the power of a ring.

Being skeptical in the face of that was a bit more difficult, and...

Shit, her mind was wandering again. She had to concentrate.

She passed the back of her hand over her forehead. She was sure she was one step away from the solution, but something was missing, and she didn't understand what it was!

"There are all the possible variables... so why can't I establish..."

A sudden, deafening crack echoed through the air. Not the static pop of interference, but the sharp, final report of a gunshot. Pidge’s head snapped up, blood draining from her face, her fingers freezing mid-calculation. The cold dread that washed over her was instant, paralyzing.

On screen, Two-Face grinned — a grin that would haunt her nightmares for weeks, if not months — as he pointed the gun at Lance's temple.

There was no bullet. Lance had been incredibly lucky, for now.

But luck could not go on indefinitely, and if she did not act now, Lance would die because of her.

Pidge pursed her lips. She had almost everything. The variables were there, as were the risks, but she had to be confident.

Lance's life depended on it.

She activated the portal.

"Hey, if the bombshell news or heart-to-heart is over, it's time to get moving and kick Bob's ass!"

In an ideal world, where everything went as they should, that would have been the end: the paladins would have gone through the portal, found Lance and Damian, defeated the villain and left the pocket dimension behind them, preferably, with Bob inside to rot forever.

Unfortunately, they were not in an ideal world.

The portal began to show signs of instability seconds after Pidge had spoken.

It shimmered violently, its edges curling inward like burning paper. Pidge's eyes widened. "No, no, no—" she muttered, full of panick. She could see the energy readings spiking erratically on her monitor, the uranium battery's core temperature soaring into the red. Her mind raced through every variable: had she miscalculated the dimensional coordinates? Overlooked a harmonic frequency?

Superwoman moved before anyone else could react. A streak of red and blue blurred in front of Pidge, her hand slamming down onto the console with precise, inhuman force. Circuits sparked and the uranium battery’s whine cut off mid-scream. The portal flickered once, twice, then collapsed in on itself with a sound like a dying breath. Silence crashed over the room, thick and suffocating. Pidge stared at the scorch marks on her keyboard, her knuckles white where they gripped the edge of her workstation. The air smelled of ozone and failure.

"I told you, " Slav spoke at that moment, voice mixed and not completely lucid because of the fist of Lance's sister, "The probabilities..."

"To hell with the odds!" Keith barked, furious, his Galra traits showing up, and he looked like he was on the verge of totally losing control, "Do something."

"Not now."

"Not now?! Do you want the next shot to have the bullet?"

Slav narrowed his eyes, "Even if it were, the red paladin would be fine. “

"No one is fine with a bullet in the head!"

"No human being," Slav corrected him, "As I said, the red paladin isn’t human. Try to be attentive and listen, for a change. This is also true for you, green paladin."

"You..."

Pidge didn't finish the sentence. The sharp crack of Two-Face's pistol cut through the tension like a knife. She flinched, eyes snapping to the monitor.

But the bullet didn't tear through Lance's skull. It didn't even graze him. Instead, the slug hit his temple with a dull thunk  and dropped harmlessly to the concrete floor of the warehouse, rolling like a spent coin. Lance blinked, shocked, as they were.

"He is..." she heard Veronica say, interrupting herself in the middle of the sentence.

"Was it all an illusion?" Hunk asked, as Two-Face disappeared from the scene as if he were any extra, "Was there ever any real risk? Was it all part of the game?"

"Oh no, it wasn't all an illusion," Slav said, extremely serious, "But the imp knows what he's doing, and he designed his games specifically for the red paladin. He knew very well that he would not get hurt, because he is..."

"He's half-Tamaranean," Hood finished, and Pidge didn't understand why he seemed so shaken, he didn't even know Lance, who cared if he was, apparently, part alien?

Realisation caught her like a wave. Lance wasn’t human.

"It can't fucking be," Pidge blurted out, not knowing whether to scream or laugh, because Lance wasn't human and they didn't know, damn, "We can't not have noticed a second time that one of us wasn't human!”

"His parents are humans…they are, aren't they?"  Hunk asked, turning to Veronica, who snorted, "Of course our parents are human!"

"Then how..."

"Start asking the right questions, yellow paladin," Slav interjected, "You asked if her parents were human. And they are, even with their exceptionality..."

"How do you know..."

He didn't let Veronica finish, "But you have to ask if the red paladin's parents were both human! That's the question you had to ask!"

"But it's the same thing! They are siblings, of course..."

“They aren’t," it was Superman who spoke, earthly and as if he was seeing a ghost, "Wonder Girl early admitted it. He was adopted."

The veins on Veronica's forehead swelled, "Do you need to talk about it right now?"

"Believe me, Wonderl Girl. This is the time to talk about it," Hood said, gloomily, and Pidge wanted to fill him with questions, ask him how he knew Lance was half Tamaranean, why he had that expression, why why why!

Keith’s Galra-purple eyes flicked from Veronica to the monitor where Lance stared at the bullet on the floor, dazed, his usual bravado replaced by raw confusion. Keith’s voice came out low, dangerous, “Did Lance know?”

 “No,” Veronica whispered, the word cracking. “Mom and dad planned to tell him after the graduation."

"How could you hide it from him?!"

"When should we have told him, huh?" the girl growled in response, not at all scared of Keith and well, why would she? She was certainly able to stand up to him, "At six years old, before starting elementary school? Before he went to the Garrison? When he was just a child? Do you think it would have been good for him to have known earlier? What would have changed? Nothing, because the only important thing is that he is ours, he always has been. “

Keith was about to reply, when Hunk said, his eyes wide open, "Damian suspected something. That's why he asked all those questions about the photos... and on his family... he already had some suspicions..."

"Why would he suspect it? And why did he have to care?" Pidge asked, unable to understand all Damian's obsession with Lance, of all of them. She would have understood if he had asked questions about Keith, but Lance?

The boy was an open book, he was never silent about himself! It had been all too easy to get him to talk, there had not even been a need to force him and...

Except there were things he didn't know either.

Except that Lance didn't know that his family had been hiding this from him for years, and he didn't have the slightest idea.

Hunk was also asking himself the same questions, except that he had concluded long before she did.

He looked at Hood, then at Lance on the monitor, then back at Hood again. The pieces clicked into place with terrifying clarity.  Hunk’s voice was barely a whisper, almost lost in the hum of the damaged equipment. "Your brother's girlfriend was an alien, wasn’t she? Damian said she was Tamaranean. And if Damian looks at Lance as if he sees someone else, it's because... Oh, oh Quiznack..."

"What's the matter? Hunk, what's the matter?" Pidge pressed, because she hated not understanding, and Hunk seemed to be on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.

Hunk didn’t answer. But while Bob was sliming with Lance and Keith growled, a little being dressed in a bat suit suddenly popped out, giving Bob a hammer on the head.

Crap, it was cool. Why hadn't he done it before?

But it was what he said afterwards that answered all her questions.

"You're dragging it out too long! You were about to start another monologue, after the whole thing with Two-Face, funny, huh, but that's enough! Just say directly, hey, paladin, you're Dick Grayson's son and you are half-alien, with a crazy aunt who wants to kill you! Don't waste any more time just for the sake of narrative timing! Which then I don't even know what it means..."

"It took him longer than expected to appear," Slav commented with absolute indifference, ignoring Superwoman's gasps, Superman's shining eyes, Veronica's tension, and Hood's utter immobility. "Oh well, Bat-Mite was supposed to make an appearance; we had to have some patience. He will bring them back to this dimension…90% sure. Now,  since the paladin is safe, could you untie me, please? My arms are starting to hurt."

"Have you been waiting for this?!" Pidge asked, dumbfounded, as her brain was starting to pull all the pieces together and oh, man, Damian Wayne was Lance's freaking uncle.

"Of course, it had to happen…98%..."

"Couldn't you have done something before?" Hunk asked, a bit angry.

"No, yellow paladin. The red paladin had to hear it."

"It's not fair!” Pidge protested, “ To know it that way..."

Slav tilted his head, "How else could he have known?"

"I don't know! Any other way!"

"There was no better way," Slav said, his chin up and looking haughty, "There was no gentler or less traumatic way, either. One way or another, he should have known. It's essential, for a good 99,9999%, for him to pilot the Red Lion better and accept who he is."

"Why?" Keith's voice reminded her of the roar of a storm, waiting to pour in and unleash.

"For the same reason that you, black paladin, had to go away and find out more about yourself," Slav replied, and it didn't make sense, except that Keith's expression said he understood, and Pidge hated that kind of expression.

"It's not fair," she muttered, because okay, Lance was an idiot, but he didn't deserve to find out something so huge like this, and it was all Bob's fault.

"Oh, green paladin. You don't even know half, “Slav said gravely, then squirmed, "Now, could you untie me? Please? Hey, do you want to listen to me?”

The little being was staring at Lance with wide eyes, his expression full of wonder, as if meeting Lance was an incredible thing.

Lance had always wanted to cause that kind of reaction, but because of something he had done, or because he was a paladin, protector of the Universe and pilot of the Red Lion, and had just saved aliens.

That was why he wanted to be looked at like that.

At the time, he just felt uncomfortable, although to be honest, it wasn't just because of the way the other person was looking at him.

"Er... Thank you for helping us, but I am not the son of..."

He didn't even have time to finish speaking when the little creature rushed in front of him and grabbed his face from both sides.

Lance was starting to get tired of all these interdimensional beings playing with his face as if it were some kind of stress ball.

"Holy Batman!" exclaimed the little man, squeezing his cheeks hard, "You look a lot like him! You have your father's eyes and... The chin and nose is pretty similar but... Oh, the ears! You got them from your mother! And then..."

Lance pushed him away, "What are you talking about? My father doesn't have blue eyes! His eyes are brown!"

"Oh no, they were really blue," the other insisted, treating him like a fool, and okay he wasn't the brightest on the team, but he must know what color his father's eyes were, right? " Same color as your grandfather's, but warmer, with a spark of mischief and charm. That's why they worked so well! They compensated for each other and..."

"Bat-Mite," Damian's voice was dark, a promise of retributive violence to come, "Are you behind all this?"

"Er... Not quite? I may have collaborated..."

"Define collaboration."

"Hey, I didn't design all this! I'm more direct, you know!"

"Do you two know each other?" asked Lance, noticing the exchange between them.

Damian grunted, "Bat-Mite is more of a nuisance than a supervillain, a fifth dimensional imp. And unfortunately for all of us, he's a fan of my dad."

"Usually, it’s not a bad thing."

"In this case, it is," Damian retorted coldly, casting a contemptuous glance at Bat-Mite, "He idolized my father, that's why he dresses like that. Although he visited him on numerous occasions, he did so to stage absurd situations so that he could see his hero in action, and he left as soon as he realized that father was not at all amused by his silly tricks."

"Hey! Your father really appreciated my fantastic plans, like the time I made a bet with Mr. Mxyzptlk and..."

"I know the story," Damian cut short, irritated, "Did you make a bet this time too? You wanted to play with Batman's heir so you could ..."

"No."

The curt answer seemed to amaze Damian, while Bat-Mite, chin up, said, "I'm not here for you. Don't get me wrong, you were a good Robin, but you're not my hero. Your father was. I also had fun with your brother. You're a good substitute, but... It's not the same!"

Damian stood still, seemingly untouched by what Bat-Mite had said. Maybe he had just learned to handle other people's disappointment better than Lance, "So why are you here?"

"Isn't it obvious? For him!" he exclaimed, pointing to Lance, who pointed with a finger, confused. The fifth dimensional being continued, "I usually ignore Bob, he's such an idiot! But as soon as he told me who he was, I couldn't resist coming and taking a look!"

"Are you also a fan of the paladins of Voltron?"

Bat-Mite chuckled as if Lance had made a very funny joke, "No, silly. You're good eh, but nothing special. But Batman and Robin... they were the real big deal! The original Dynamic Duo! Batman has become a great hero thanks to Robin! Of course I wanted to see what Dick Grayson's son was like!"

Lance opened his mouth. He closed it again. He swallowed, feeling his mouth dry.

"My father's name is Silvio McClain," he finally managed to say, "You made a mistake, man."

Bat-Mite shook his head, stubbornly, "No, it's not like that! You are the son of Dick Grayson! I'm sure of it..."

The sentence remained halfway because Bat-Mite was struck by an electric shock. Bob had recovered, and he was furious.

"You, you damn brat!" she shouted, not at all threatening, a high-pitched screech of a middle-aged movie diva, "How dare you! It was the moment of maximum emotional tension! He was about to say it himself! And you ruined everything!"

"I didn't ruin anything!" Bat-Mite blurted out, still half-toasted, "You were dragging your feet! You would have done a monologue and it would have lasted for at least an hour! Another hour I would not have been able to stand it!"

"Oh poor you! How difficult it must be to have a little patience!" Bob screamed, giving him another electric shock.

"I had tons of patience!" Bat-Mite yelled at him, narrowly avoiding being hit, "This whole staging was a joke! You're a clown! I gave you my technology, you useless and weak..."

Bob turned red with rage and lunged at him, but Bat-Mite was fast, and escaped him. She mocked him, "What, don't you like to hear the truth? You are not a god, even if you like to pretend to be! You're an idiot with cheap powers who needed me to make this happen!"

"I am a god!"

"Just because you call yourself god and have powers, doesn't mean you're god, loser!" Bat-Mite scolded him, and then did a pirouette and slammed Bob face to the ground.

Okay, the little guy was saying crazy things and it was irritating, but he was putting Bob in his place, and that was great.

Bob obviously didn't agree, "Do you know how much work I put into this? To design my own labyrinth? To create the various levels of the Labyrinth? After all that work, the clever ester-eggs... like the name of the labyrinth itself... you ruined everything!"

Bat-Mite rolled his lively eyes, "I told you the story of Batman! You got the material you needed from me! If it weren't for me, you would have had to create another dream sequence... Oh no, you couldn't, because she destroyed your stupid TV studio and also the technology that made you bully all those people!"

"You don't understand art! Tragedy is the highest form of art! Seeing the pain, the avoidable end... you can't understand greatness!"

"Of course I can understand it! I met Batman, you plebeian! It is you who..."

He avoided another lightning strike, but unfortunately, it was Lance who was struck, who found himself lying on the floor, a burning smell in his nostrils and his shoulder hurting like hell.

"Lance!" Damian was immediately close to him, and helped him to sit up.

Lance looked at his shoulder. The armor had been blown off, leaving a gaping wound that bubbled and hissed with an unnatural light. The edges of the wound were jagged, like broken glass, and every breath sent waves of pain radiating down his arm and up his neck. It wasn't just the sharp, tearing agony of torn muscle and skin; it felt deeper, as if the energy had burrowed into his bone, leaving a cold, hollow ache that pulsed with each heartbeat. He could taste ozone and something metallic, like blood but wrong, thick on his back of his tongue.

Bat-Mite looked at him, then turned to Bob, "Look what you've done! You could have killed him!"

"Tsk, of course not. The boy is half-Tamarean. He won't die!"

"I'm not half-Tamarean! I'm human! And I'm not the son of Dick Grayson... I'm a human, I'm from Cuba, I flew the Blue Lion first and then the Red Lion..."

He was interrupted by the sound of laughter. Bob was laughing so hard that he could hold his stomach. Lance clenched his jaw, quivering inwardly with rage, barely restrained

"You're really an idiot! And to say that it's all there! Bat-Mite even told you! But there's nothing you can do, you're too stupid to grasp even the most obvious suggestions!"

"Well, he had a point here..." Bat-Mite muttered, crossing his arms over his chest, looking extremely annoyed.

Lance opened his mouth to yell at Bat-Mite, when Bob stopped laughing, and with eyes shining as steel, said, "If you don't believe me, ask your friend. Ask Damian who he thinks you are. You see that he will answer you. He has understood it, even if he is afraid to say it out loud. Good things rarely happen to him."

Lance grimaced, "It's all nonsense. Tell him, too, Damian."

Damian remained silent. His jaw tightened, eyes fixed on the cracked floor tiles. That familiar, stoic mask slipped just enough to reveal something raw beneath—a flicker of guilt, sharp and undeniable. He didn't meet Lance's gaze, didn't offer the quick, cutting denial Lance expected. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, broken only by the sizzle of Lance's wound.

Lance felt a cold dread seep into his bones, sharper than the pain in his shoulder. "Damian?" His voice cracked. "Tell him he's full of it."

 When Damian still said nothing, Lance scrambled backward on his good arm, putting a few feet of distance between them. The movement tore a gasp from him, but the sting of betrayal burned hotter than the wound.

Damian finally looked up, his expression stripped bare. "I... suspected," he admitted, the words low and rough.

"Since when?"

"For some time..."

"At least since you saved him," Bob interjected, too cheerful for his own good, "Oh, impossible to go wrong. Not with the face you have, paladin. But he was careful not to tell you."

Lance ignored him, and asked Damian, "Is that why you were so nice to me? The reason was that you think I was the son of... “

“The son of Richard Grayson, “ Bob said with a smile, “The first Robin. “

Lance felt a wave of shivers, and let out a sharp, bitter laugh that scraped his throat raw, "So that's it? You were... shopping for a replacement? And you got stuck with the bargain-bin version?"

There was a ghost that was always present in almost every conversation he had with Damian. It was Richard, the older brother too good to be true. The dead hero who perished with his girlfriend and an entire planet.

The previous Red Lion pilot.

 He had suspected that Damian was kinder to him because of his resemblance to his older brother, but that the other even believed that he was Richard’s son... that he would cling to him because he wanted Richard back and he didn't give a damn about Lance... but, again, why was he surprised?

He should've seen it: he was never good enough for Voltron, never measuring up to Shiro or Keith, and now this? A consolation prize for a dead man Damian actually loved.

Bob drifted closer, his voice a poisonous syrup, "Oh, don't look so wounded, paladin. Did you truly think you mattered? Remember our precedent game? How the green paladin scoffed at everything you said? Called you the stupid one of the team? And the others agreed! Her esteem for you was measured in eye-rolls."

Lance flinched, the memory sharp in his mind, so as the quote who is the dumbest on the team?

No one had hesitated to point to him. No one.

Bob leaned in, relentless. "And Keith? The guy you looked up to? The whole history of the rivalry, just childish stuff to get attention. And you did! But now Keith is too mature for someone like you! No wonder the only reason he voted for you is because he didn't want to be stuck with you for eternity! You're so annoying! You are not like your father at all! He was a real hero! An inspiration for many others, intelligent, strong... everything you are not! It's lucky that he's dead, because if he saw you, he'd be so disappointed... And he'd think, hey, did I really die for this failure?"

"Stop," Lance said, shaking. He didn't want to listen to him anymore, he wanted him to be silent, he wanted everything to end. He wanted to go back to...

Go back to who?

The others would only be irritated that he came back: Keith would reproach him that he was right, that Damian was a liar, that he had hidden a lot of things from him and that Lance was foolish, stupid to trust and he would be right.

And Red Lion wasn't exactly the best to offer comfort, Coran would try, but nothing would change, Lance would still feel like crap and everything would be too much and he wouldn't even have a moment for himself, because who cared if he was okay?

He didn't really take it for nothing, did he? He was too foolish to do it.

But Bob continued, "Maybe he'd take pity on you and let you run around and be stupid, and he'd be so embarrassed! Of all the things you could take from your silly mother, you had to inherit her stupidity! And the only one he should have blamed was himself, because he chose a beautiful alien woman over a good terrestrial girl, perhaps a little bland, but smarter than Tamaranean's himbo..."

Lance surged to his feet, ignoring the agony in his shoulder. "Shut up!" he roared, voice cracking with fury. "You're lying! My parents are Silvio and Maria McClain! From Varadero! They raised me, they love me! I might be stupid, but I'm not falling for your tricks!"

He spat the words, defiance a shield against the icy dread pooling in his gut.

Bob floated closer, eyes gleaming with cruel delight.

 "Oh, little bird," he purred, "Your parents are fake. Super fake! They lied to you all your life! They know how to do only that. And Maria, dear sweet Maria, she don't fit in so much, are you? She..."

Lance snapped. A raw, guttural scream tore from his throat—"SHUT UP!"—as he flung his uninjured hand forward. Not a conscious thought, pure instinct. A searing bolt of brilliant blue energy, crackling like cosmic lightning, erupted from his palm. It slammed into Bob's chest with a thunderous crack, sending the self-proclaimed god staggering backward in a shower of sparks.

Bob clutched his scorched chest, eyes wide with genuine shock. Then, a slow, grating chuckle bubbled up.

"Oh, now you can't deny it anymore, can you?" he rasped, smoke curling from his singed robes. He gestured weakly at the fading blue energy still crackling around Lance's trembling fist. "That little tantrum? Pure Tamaranean starburst.”

Lance stared at his own hand, his breath hitched, sharp and shallow, each gasp feeling like glass shards in his lungs. The world tilted, Damian’s stony face and Bat-Mite’s gaping mouth blurring into smears of color.

He heard a voice in his mind they all enjoyed making fun of you, deceiving you, teasing you, humiliating you…

The words hammered against his skull, each syllable a fresh wave of icy terror. He was drowning, the floor dissolving beneath him, replaced by the crushing void of betrayal. His chest tightened, a vise squeezing the air from him, heart pounding a frantic, erratic drumbeat against his ribs. He was going to shatter.

It’s enough. It’s time to make them pay.

Then, the world turned red. Not the angry crimson of blood, but a deep, pulsing scarlet that flooded the warehouse like spilled ink, swallowing every shadow. It poured from the jagged hole in the ceiling, thick and heavy, carrying the scent of ozone and distant, burning stars. Bob’s triumphant sneer faltered, replaced by genuine shock as he shielded his eyes. Even Damian recoiled, a flicker of something like dread crossing his features. The oppressive light throbbed, vibrating the very air, making the exposed rebar in the walls hum like plucked wires.

From the center of this crimson tide, a voice boomed. It wasn’t loud; it was deep, resonating in Lance’s bones more than his ears, ancient and implacable as grinding tectonic plates.

"Lance McClain."

The name echoed, stripping away the chaos, silencing Bob’s taunts and Bat-Mite’s frantic squeak.

"Rage burns brightest in the wounded heart. The Red Lantern Corps have chosen you."

"What's this story?"

Veronica McClain was icy as she asked, looking at the paladins with half-closed eyes, surrounded by what could only be defined as a murderous aura. Her patience was already running out watching Bat-Mite play – because that was what he was doing, he was playing with Bob – and not do what he had to do and bring Lance and Damian back.

She was now on the edge after hearing how Bob made fun of Lance, and she wanted to know how much truth there was in the poison the imp was spitting.

Hunk closed in on himself, not looking at her face. But she was looking at him, relentlessly, "So? Is that asshole talking bullshit or is it true?"

"It's true," Keith replied, supporting the girl's gaze, "That was the most logical answer."

"The most logical answer?" Veronica repeated, incredulously, "If some bitch ask me who is the dumbest on my team, I answer that no one is! This is the most logical answer."

"But he is... in short, he is not a genius like me or Hunk, he is rather silly..." Pidge tried to say, receiving a snort in response from Veronica, "Yes, genius... Meanwhile, you couldn't find the coordinates for the pocket dimension. Maybe you should try to be less know-it-all with others and not put yourself on a pedestal."

The green paladin blushed with shame, and before she could retort, Keith said, "Pidge is a genius. Lance is not. Bob asked us who was the smartest and then the dumbest, it's just normal..."

"Normal? Is it normal to say that your friend is stupid? Who tells you that you are better? Do you think you're smart, Kogane? You? The one who was admitted to the Garrison by the recommendation of Takeshi Shirogane?" Veronica asked, her voice dripping with venom that stinged like so many small quills, "Lance got a scholarship to get into the Garrison. Do you know what that means? He has committed himself to studying as much as possible, in his second language, since English is not his native language, if any of you have ever forgotten it."

"Iverson let me in because he recognized that I was a very good pilot..."

"No, he let you in because you were recommended and probably because he thought you were a metahuman," Veronica revealed unexpectedly, "Because that's what Iverson did, in agreement with Amanda Waller. The Garrison was used by both of them to recruit metahumans to experiment on... in addition to everything else."

“Everything else?" Hunk asked, but she ignored him. Still looking at Keith, she said, "Don't give yourself so many lone hero airs, we already have Batman. You're not that special, Kogane. So get your head out of your ass, Mr I don't want to be stuck for eternity here with Lance, and acknowledge that you did absolute shit to him!"

"As if he were taking it out ..." Pidge muttered, and the other girl replied annoyed, "Are you serious? If one of your supposed friends called you an idiot, would you let it go?"

Pidge grimaced, "We're talking about Lance, come on. You know how your brother is, he doesn't get upset about things like that. He also has such a big ego that he probably didn't even care."

Veronica looked at her with a murderous look, "Just because I know my brother I know that you hurt him, because he is not an idiot. Just because he jokes and likes to be a buffoon, doesn't mean you can treat him like his feelings don't matter."

"I hate how familiar this sounds to me," Hood said, his body tense, especially since Bob had insulted Dick's ex-girlfriend. No one thought about what he had said, too caught up in the discussion in progress.

"Okay, Lance is not an idiot. What do you want me to tell you? We were hostage to a god... false god apparently... and we had to play along. It was a game, and we behaved accordingly. If Lance were smart, he'd understand and..."

"Oh no," Slav said, interrupting Pidge, and it wasn't a good sign when he was the worried one, "There was only a 3% chance that it would happen!"

"What's going on?" Hunk asked, alarmed.

Slav, however, did not answer, he thrashed more, "Untie me! I can help with the portal! Hurry up! If you don't let me go, the paladin will become a Red Lantern!"

"Red Lantern? What..."

A strong red light almost blinded them: on the screen, in front of Lance, a red ring had appeared floating in mid-air, surrounded by a fiery red aura.

Hood exhaled, "Fuck... Wonder Girl, free the pain in the ass. We have little time."

"I thought it was a good thing to be a Lantern," Pidge said, and Superwoman shook her head, "Being a Green Lantern is a good thing. But being chosen by a red ring? It isn't. The Red Lanterns are consumed with their rage, and few can create anything with their rings. “

The news was like a cold shower for everyone.

"Keith is always angry! No ring ever appeared!" Pidge blurted out and well, he wanted to be offended, but she was right. There had been times when he had been damn angry, and if it was a requirement to become a Red Lantern, then why had the ring never appeared before?

Superwoman shook her head, "It's not just anger. It is also pain, pushed to the point of total breakdown... I know what it means, because I was also influenced by the red ring after I have been through a lot of shit... it seems that the last few days have been quite intense for him."

"You're using an understatement," Veronica retorted as she untied Slav, "And thank goodness he didn't take it at all, right?!"

"It's not our fault! You saw what Bob did! He continued to torment Lance until..."

"Haven't you heard Superwoman? He is in a total breakdown! How do you think he got there? How long have you guys been dismissing his feelings? Or have you ignored how he felt because hey, he's the dumb one, his reactions are overreacting? You're all in the middle of a huge mess, but tell me, Katie, have you ever worried about how Lance was doing, or have you just assumed he was doing better because he cracked jokes every now and then?"

Pidge was silent, her expression contrite, full of guilt. Keith understood her, but unlike the girl, he could not allow us the luxury of giving in to it.

He turned to Superwoman, "You broke free, right? How did you do it?"

“I'm not quite sure,” the woman admitted, “I nearly died from taking off my ring, and if it hadn't been for my healing factor, it probably would have killed me.”

The alarm painted on his face, "Wait, it means that..."

"It means that there is at least a 50% chance that the paladin will become a bloodthirsty monster without any restraint because he is controlled by the power of the ring, and a 70% chance that, even if he manages to take off the ring, he will die!" Slav exclaimed, excitedly as he staggered to the portal, "We can't allow that!"

Veronica pursed her lips in a thin line. She said nothing.  She didn't scream. She did not cry. But she looked at the paladins as if she held them accountable.

And a part of Keith agreed with her.

At that point, a ring that suddenly appeared and glittered in front of you was not a good sign.

Nor was Bob, of all people, who was in a cold sweat and said, "This was not planned! It shouldn't have happened!"

"Oh yes, push a person to the breaking point and you'll see that he won't get even a little angry!" Bat-Mite teased him, with Bob trying to hit him and failed miserably.

Their bickering resumed, but Lance paid no attention.

His attention was all towards the ring. It was talking to him.

You're tired of always being the seventh wheel, of being laughed at, and of being humiliated. Embrace your anger, become a member of the Red Lantern Corps.

He didn't even know what the Red Lantern Corps was, but he didn't care.

He only felt a great anger inside him, an anger that had been brewing about him for so long that he did not remember when it had begun.

Maybe since he saw the professors praising Keith when he didn't even do half of what he did, but he was still better.

Maybe when he tried to get Keith's attention, but he didn't even look at him, nor Lance was important enough to be remembered

Perhaps after failure after failure, despite his efforts, he was never enough.

No, he didn't know when his anger had begun.

Lance knew it was there, even if he ignored it, swallowed it with difficulty and hid it behind smiles and jokes.

He tried to hide his anger because it would have been useless for him to get angry without acting.

What was the point of getting angry if the cause of his problems was his own incompetence?

But now... Now he wanted to leave it free.

Lance reached for the ring, but Damian grabbed his wrist.

"Don't do that," the young man said, frowning, "You're going to kill yourself."

He doesn't care about you. He never cared. You are nothing to him, except the shoddy version that the Universe left him in his brother's place. Show him who you are, Lance. 

With a strength he didn't know where it came from, Lance pushed Damian several feet away from him, causing the other to crash into one of the warehouse columns.

The ring came toward Lance, leaning against his chest. Lance saw red. Slowly, his armor began to be surrounded by red light, transforming into something else.

His mind was incapable of thinking of anything other than demand the respect that is due to you.

The ring slid onto Lance's finger, cold metal biting into his skin before erupting into a searing heat that raced up his arm. A torrent of crimson energy exploded outward, engulfing him. His  armor didn't melt—it transformed.

 Sleek black plates warped and flowed, reforging themselves into jagged, obsidian-like segments edged with vicious points. A blazing red symbol—a stylized, roaring beast's head—manifested on his chest, pulsing with inner fire. His helmet dissolved, replaced by a swirling corona of raw, scarlet light that framed his face like a furious halo, his eyes now glowing pits of molten rage.

Bob stumbled backward, tripping over discarded equipment. "Well, little bird listen—!"

His voice cracked. Lance didn't hear words. He heard the mocking laughter in the cafeteria, the dismissive shrugs after failed simulations, the whispered "Seventh wheel" that always seemed to follow him. The ring thrummed, translating that buried humiliation into pure, destructive intent. Lance raised his fist. A colossal, whip-like tendril of solidified rage-energy lashed out—not a beam, but a living, roaring thing shaped like a dragon's tail. It slammed into Bob's midsection with a sickening crunch of breaking ribs and the sizzle of scorched fabric. Bob flew backward like discarded trash, crashing through the wall of the warehouse.

Bat-Mite shrieked, a high-pitched sound lost beneath the roar of Lance's own fury. The crimson energy pulsed hotter, demanding more. Lance pivoted, the jagged points of his new armour scraping the deck, ready to unleash another torrential strike on the crumpled form. The air shimmered with heat haze, distorting the wreckage. His glowing eyes locked onto Bob’s twitching body.

A sharp, unnatural hiss sliced through the chaos—like pressurised steam escaping a ruptured pipe. Behind Lance, reality tore open. A swirling vortex of blues and purples bloomed against the warehouse wall, edges crackling with unstable energy. Lance barely registered it, his fist already drawn back, the dragon-tail construct coiling tighter.

"LANCE!" Keith's voice ripped through the roar of the crimson energy, raw and desperate. It wasn't a command; it was a jagged plea, laced with something Lance had never heard directed at him before—genuine terror. The sound pierced the red haze, a single, discordant note in the symphony of rage.

Lance froze, fist trembling mid-air. The dragon-tail construct flickered violently.

The ring hissed its poisonous logic.

Why stop? He humiliated you. He deserves so much worse!

 Lance hesitated, his molten gaze snapping towards the source. Keith stood framed in the jagged tear in reality, face pale, eyes wide with a horror that wasn't just for Bob's crumpled form. Behind him, blurred figures shifted— Pidge, Hunk, a blond woman—but Lance’s mind couldn't process them. Only Keith registered. Only that look on Keith's face, stripping away the usual stoicism, leaving pure, unguarded dread.

"This is the time to tell him this is not you, I know you are not like this?" Pidge tried to say, and her tone bothered him.

She wasn't taking Lance seriously even now.

She never does, the ring reminded him. She doesn't see you as a threat. She looks at you as if you were not a paladin too. Well, it's time to change things.

He forgot Bob. Now he had another goal.

With the ring, he created a giant hand that was about to fall on Pidge, but Keith moved it before it crushed.

He hated how fast he was.

(He hated that part of him was happy that Keith had managed to save Pidge in time.)

Pidge now looked at him wide-eyed, distraught, and finally, finally looked at him.

(He never wanted her to be afraid of him, just to take him seriously.)

"Lance," Keith said, drawing his sword, but without attacking him, "I don't want to hurt you."

What a knight in shining armor. How much he wanted to be a hero, and how good he was, damn.

Lance growled, "For that, it's too late."

He created a construct with a machine gun ring that fired all its shots at paladins, especially Keith. He didn't care who got hit and who didn't, he wanted to... Wanted...

"Lance!" Keith's voice called him back, demanding his attention, "Sorry! Is this what you want to hear? We're sorry for saying you were an idiot, and for the game show... but now..."

Useless excuses that he doesn't even think about. Foolish to think that anger can be extinguished like this.

Lance did not let him finish: he surrounded him with two huge hands, grabbing him and crushing him.

The sword fell to the ground, and Lance clutched until he heard something creak.

He would have continued to squeeze if it weren't for another voice he heard, "Lance, stop."

Lance froze, the construct disappeared, and Keith fell to the ground. Lance turned his head, his eyes wide open.

"Veronica?"

Chapter Text

"Veronica?"

Lance's voice was so fragile as he said his sister's name. He looked at the girl in disbelief, as if he didn't know if it was real or yet another trick by Bob.

He almost looked like a kid at the time, and not a full of rage powerhouse.

Veronica smiled sweetly, "Hey, little brother. You've grown up."

"Are you real?" he asked, his voice broken with an indefinite emotion.

"The last time I checked, yes, I'm real," was the girl's response, as she took a few steps toward him. Lance tried to do the same, but froze, retreating instead.

Veronica didn't seem to notice, "This stupid game is over. Let's go."

"I..."

Lance's face curled up, and he put his hand over his mouth. The red ring lit up more brightly, its red rays coloring the boy's face in a way that unpleasantly resembled blood.

Then, he began to laugh. It was a harsh, grating sound, completely unlike his usual cheerful chuckle. It was the laugh of someone who had been pushed too far. "Over?" he spat out, the word dripping with sarcasm. "It's only over when Bob is dead."

Veronica flinched at the venom in his voice but held her ground. "I understand your anger, Lance, I do. But Bob is immortal. You know that." Her tone was pleading, desperate to cut through his rage. "Please, just come with me. We can find a way to help you."

Lance’s laughter cut off abruptly, replaced by a chilling stillness. "Immortal?" he echoed, the red light pulsing brighter across his cheekbones. "Then I’ll find a way to unmake him. Tear him apart molecule by molecule if I have to." His eyes, wide and fever-bright, locked onto hers. "You think I care about impossible?"

"I think you are not a murderer, Lance," Veronica said, with a much softer tone, "He's not worth it, Lance. Slav says he can keep the portal open for a short time. If it closes, we will all remain closed here. It's not what you want."

"You don't know what I want. You don't even know who I am," he spat, his red eyes burning like living flames, "Who am I, Veronica?"

The question amazed the girl, "Lance, what kind of question is that..."

"Answer me!"

Lance's shout tore through the air as the red ring flared violently. Crimson lightning erupted from the band, arcing across the warehouse ceiling in jagged forks. One bolt slammed down toward Keith. Hunk lunged, tackling Keith sideways as the energy scorched the concrete where he'd stood, leaving a smoking crater.

Veronica flinched from the blast but didn't retreat. Her voice sliced through the crackling aftermath, clear and raw. "You're Lance McClain! My reckless, stubborn, fiercely protective little brother who sneaks extra cookies and sings off-key in the shower! The one who tried to bring injured animals into the house and then adopt them!"

Lance's chest heaved, the ring's crimson glow pulsing erratically. He stared at her, his expression crumbling beneath the rage.

"Then tell me," he choked out, the demand cracking into a plea, "Tell me Bob lied. Say it was all lies."

Veronica pursed her lips in a thin line. She looked away, ashamed. The lasso hanging from her belt gave off a faint glow, almost mocking her.

Lance growled, halfway between command and prayer, "Tell me!"

"I'm sorry, Lance... I don't know if he told the truth about your biological parents... but it is true that..."

He wouldn't let her continue: he attacked her, the wild energy coming out of the ring.  Veronica managed to dodge in time, flying away.

"Lance, wait..."

"No!" he growled, the red energy surrounding him, creating a wall between himself and the others, "I don't want to listen to anyone anymore! I don't want anyone else to have fun at my expense anymore! No jokes about oh, poor Lance, it's not his fault, he's just stupid, no more let's not worry about him, he's just a buffoon! I want to..."

His voice died for a moment, and Veronica stepped forward, narrowly avoiding a red lightning. Lance's breathing was uneven, his shoulders trembled. You couldn't tell if he was holding back from screaming or crying.

"I understand how you feel right now..."

"Bullshit," the boy replied angrily, but Veronica continued, "No, that's it. Look at me, I'm wearing a Halloween costume and I have superpowers. I've been to Hell, Lance, and let me tell you, it sucked. I'm a damn science experiment gone out of control. So yes, I understand how you feel. “

"Do you even know what it feels like to be replaced for someone else?"

Veronica flinched as if physically struck. Lance's voice wasn't shouting anymore; it was a low, ragged scrape against the silence, each word dripping with years of buried acid. "Every damn time at the Garrison. Every time with the Red Lion, or with the others, because I'm not good enough. And Damian..." His breath hitched, the red energy flickering wildly around him. "I thought he actually liked me. But no. He just needed a stand-in for his dead brother! No one cares about me at all, I..."

"Yes."

 Lance froze mid-breath, the crimson energy around him stuttering as if shocked.

Veronica looked at him with understanding, "The reason I exist is to replace someone else, and when I didn't immediately show signs of having powers, they discarded me, as if I were a broken thing. They didn't consider me important enough. “

Now Veronica was face to face with her brother. If she had wanted, she could have given him a caress.

She couldn't.

She continued, "You're not a substitute for anyone, Lance. You are you. And that's your real strength. You must not be anyone else but yourself."

"That's not enough!" the boy yelled at her, clasping his hands into fists, "Be myself? What kind of garbage quote is it? It's because I’m just me that I’m never enough! Not even Hunk can stand my bullshit anymore! I annoy everyone, damn it! Keith couldn't even think of a nice thing to say about me! And you think the problem isn't me?!"

"The way I see it, you don't have good friends," Veronica told him, her voice hard, looking at Keith and Hunk from the side. Hunk couldn't stand his gaze. He drew attention back to Lance, "You're not the problem, you know? It's not you. I'm sorry you felt that way, and that I wasn't there. But now, I'm here, Lance. I’m here. And I will never let you go. We are a team, remember?”

And for a moment, Lance's eyes seemed to turn blue again. The anger seemed to be appeased. But it was a moment.

His eyes turned red again, and he yelled, "No!"

He backed away, bringing both hands to his ears. Veronica reached out a hand to him, but Lance growled, "No, stop... don't come near me."

"Lance, I can..."

"Don't take another step!" he yelled at her, shaking the floor beneath him, "I don't want to kill you!"

"You won't," Veronica asserted confidently, "I know you won't. Listen..."

Lance never heard her finish. He spun with unnatural speed, the red ring flaring as his hand shot out. His fingers clamped around Pidge's throat, lifting her off her feet before she could bring her bayard to bear. Her tech gauntlet sparked uselessly against his crimson energy field.

"Predictable," Lance snarled, squeezing until Pidge choked, her glasses askew as she clawed at his wrist. "Of course you'd try sneaking up on me. Everyone thinks I'm too stupid to notice!"

Veronica lunged forward, the lasso glowing fiercely in her grip.

"Lance. Let her go. Please," she said, her voice cracking with desperation. Lance merely tightened his grip, Pidge's face purpling. He didn't even look at Veronica. 

"Tell me, do you think I wouldn't kill her?" he asked with apparent innocence, as if the matter didn’t affect him in the least.

"You don't want to do that," Veronica answered, but without turning to his sister, Lance said, "I don't know if I don't want to."

Lance's fingers dug deeper into Pidge's throat, her choked gasps echoing in the sudden silence. Veronica lunged, the lasso whipping forward—but Lance flicked his free hand. Crimson energy coalesced into three razor-tipped arrows mid-air. They shot toward Veronica with impossible speed. She twisted, avoiding two, but the third slammed into her shoulder. Pain exploded, hot and sharp, yet relief flooded her—not a vital hit. She staggered back, clutching the wound as blood seeped through her fingers.

Before Keith could move, a blur of blue and red intercepted Lance. Superwoman slammed into him like a comet, wrenching his arm away from Pidge. The girl crumpled to the concrete, coughing violently as air flooded her lungs. Kara’s voice cut through the chaos, calm but commanding.

"Wonder Girl, get Damian out of here. " Veronica hesitated, eyes locked on Lance’s snarling face, but Kara’s gaze was steel. "I will take care of him now."

"Superwoman, please...he is my brother..."

"We tried to do as you wanted. Now, it's my turn."

"What, do you think you could win easily because I'm weak?" Lance asked, angry.

The blonde woman said, "No, I know I can win because I know what it's like to be a Red Lantern. And if you don't want to listen to her, then we have to put you down."

" I want to see you try," he said venomously. Superwoman didn’t need to be asked any longer to fight.

Hood had warned them: either they convinced Lance to follow them  by hook, or they would have to fight him until he was harmless.

Veronica had been absolutely clear that no one would hurt her brother, declaring that she would take care of it.

Well, Veronica had tried, but Lance was too angry, the ring too powerful (a ring that fed on its owner's anger, like a parasite, an anger none of them had ever noticed).

 Pidge had to intervene.

She didn't anticipate that Lance would notice her. Nor the way he would look at her.

(She knew Lance cared about her. She knew it. But seeing the lack of any sign of affection in him had been destabilizing. Incredible how much the things taken for granted then make you feel their  lack.)

Pidge was gasping for air, while Hunk ran a gentle hand over her shoulders, "Take a little breath, you can do it..."

"You should leave," Veronica McClain said atonally, Pidge raised her head to look at her in disbelief, "Coming here was a mistake."

"We are... we are his team..." Pidge tried to mumble, and hell, Allura would have been damn useful at that moment. But they couldn't all get through the already unstable portal, and Matt needed her more.

"But you're not his friends," the chill with which the girl said it could rival the cold of the open space.

"God... Lance is just angry... but we..."

"You what? Haven't you left it behind? Didn't you make fun of him instead of being close to him? Didn't you put him aside as soon as someone more interesting and good at being a nerd came along?"

The latter was a hit at Hunk, who took the blow and lowered his head.

It was clear that Veronica wanted to say something else, but she restrained herself. Instead, ahe said, "Hunk, bring her back. You've already done enough."

"He was going crazy!" Pidge protested, because she had seen how Lance had reacted to Veronica, and he certainly hadn't calmed down.

"But he wouldn't hurt me," the other replied, and Pidge was clever, she understood the subtext perfectly.

He wouldn't have done anything to me, not like it happened to you.

The worst thing was that he couldn't replicate anything. Veronica was right. Even Veronica wasn’t hurt until Pidge’s intervention.

Veronica went to pick up Damian, followed by Keith (guilt or sense of duty? Who knows ), while Pidge pursed her lips.

"She's exaggerating," the girl muttered, wiping away a tear, "We're friends, aren't we, Hunk?"

Hunk, however, looked rather sad, and didn’t answer. She tapped him in the chest, and repeated, "Hunk... The three of us are friends, aren't we?"

The yellow paladin took a trembling breath, "To tell you the truth, I don't think we were really good friends with him..."

"What? Hunk..."

She coughed again, her throat was killing her, and Hunk must have seen something on her neck that worried him as he picked her up like a sack of potatoes, ignoring her protests to go back, the mission wasn't over, Lance was still there, God, Hunk, stop, stop, stop...

He didn't listen to her, and they were on the other side again.

Superwoman's fist collided with the red shield created by the red ring once, twice, three times. On the third time, she tore it to pieces, and Lance jumped backwards, the adrenaline rushing to a thousand times.

He wasn’t a fighting fan. He had never been. It wasn't instinctive like Keith (Keith so good at everything, the best driver of his generation, the best, the best always, for Iverson, for Shiro, for the Red Lion...)

But now, all his senses were on alert, the blood seemed to be boiling inside him and flowing like hot lava. It burned like hell, it hurt, but all he could think about was fighting.

Kill her.  Show her who you are.

He didn't know who that woman was. He didn't understand why he should kill her. But at that point, did it matter?

Lance roared, the sound raw and guttural, as crimson energy surged from his ring. It coalesced into a monstrous, jagged spear—a twisted, hateful thing that screamed through the air toward Superwoman's heart. She didn't flinch. With inhuman speed, she sidestepped, the spear embedding itself deep into the warehouse wall behind her, molten concrete dripping like wax. "Is that all?" Lance spat, his voice cracking with fury. "Am I just a joke to you?"

The blond woman met his burning gaze, her own eyes steady.

"I know the ring's poison," she said, her voice low and resonant. "It twists your pain into rage until you can't tell friend from foe. I've worn it. I've bled from it."

She shifted her stance, fists clenched. "That's why I don't underestimate you. You're dangerous. But this? This isn't you."

"You didn't know me."

"But I knew your biological parents.”

Lance froze mid-swing, crimson energy crackling inches from Superwoman's face. His breath hitched—a choked, ragged sound. The warehouse air thickened with the scent of ozone and blood.

The ring's voice slithered through his mind like oil, cold and precise.

Look at her eyes. She sees a failure. Weakness. She expected Dick Grayson's son, not you.

The words sank claws into his fractured pride. The name echoed like a taunt in the hollow spaces of his rage.

The ring’s whisper was  fire against his fevered thoughts.

For her, you are cheap copy of the real deal. Show her who you are.

Lance’s snarl ripped from his throat as he abandoned the spear. Crimson energy surged anew, forming jagged claws around his fists. He lunged, a blur of red fury, slashing wildly at Superwoman’s torso. She blocked each strike with forearms like tempered steel, the impacts ringing out like hammer blows. Concrete cracked beneath their feet as she pushed him back, her expression unreadable.

“I’m not my father,” he said, proceeding to hit her with hundreds of arrows , his ears ringing, while the voice of the ring incited him.

Superwoman walked as if the arrows were nothing, and seized his hand, her fingers closing like a vise around his wrist. The raw power radiating from his fist trembled against her grip. Her eyes locked onto his, piercing through the haze of crimson rage. "I know you aren’t," she stated, her voice low, resonant, cutting through the ring’s poisonous whispers.  

Before he could wrench free, her other fist snapped forward. It wasn't a killing blow, but it carried the weight of inevitability. The impact slammed into his solar plexus like a freight train, driving the air from his lungs in a harsh gasp. He stumbled backward, the crimson claws flickering and dissolving as pain momentarily overwhelmed the ring's fury-fueled adrenaline. His vision swam, the warehouse tilting violently.

Don’t’ stop. Fight back.

And Lance did it.

It is said that the greater the anger of a Red Lantern, the greater the power that its ring will give it.

At that moment, Lance was a real monster.

Damian watched helplessly as the boy went wild, and part of his mind thought, "This is my fault."

It wasn't a rational thought, but the ring had appeared when Lance realized how much Damian had hidden from him, and perhaps, if only he had told him about his suspicions first...

The awareness of having put his son at risk was unbearable, and made him feel the weight of yet another promise that he had failed to keep.

"Not necessarily he would have believed you," Bat-Me told him, appearing next to him like the annoying fly he was, "How do you say to someone hey, do you know that maybe we are related?"

"You can't know."

"I remind you that I come from a dimension of infinite possibilities," the brat said proudly, "Of course I can know. There was no way you could tell him before and he would believe you!"

"If I had done that, Bob wouldn't have used it against him. The truth broke him..."

Bat-Mite rolled his eyes, "That scoundrel would have found a way. He likes to play with his victims. You saw how he treated you in the cave, didn't you? More drama for him. He loves tragedies... By the way, where is he?"

He looked around, until he looked very annoyed when he saw Bob lying on the ground in a large hole and still breathing.

Damian had the same disappointment, but he didn't show it like the little being.

"You helped him with his plan..."

"Hey, I just wanted to meet Dick Grayson's son," Bat-Mite defended himself, "I told him a few things, then he decided what to do."

"You gave him your technology," Damian accused him, "His powers have increased because of you. He would not have caused as much damage in his own strength."

"If he only had his powers, you'd both fall asleep and end up in some standard nightmare scenario. Boring," Bat-Mite wrinkled his nose as he said, "Thankfully, it wasn't like that. He told me that a woman in white put a spoke in his wheels, and that he couldn't stand not finishing things. I would have left it to cook in its broth, but..."

"Wait. Did you say, woman in white?"

"Yep, no idea who... oh, hey, you're the new Wonder Girl!" Bat-Mite exclaimed, seeing Wonder Girl and the black paladin flying towards them, "Nice costume! Did Donna Troy give it to you? She's like, your mentor or..."

The girl seemed ready to kill him, "Batman, what do I do with him?"

"He's more annoying than anything," Damian said, trying to get up, his head spinning, "Besides, I doubt you can do him any harm without him running away into his dimension."

Wonder Girl nodded stiffly, and started to approach, slapping the black paladin's hand when he tried to help her, "I can do it on my own."

"You're still bleeding."

"I'll get well quickly," she retorted pointedly, "What, does it come naturally to you to patronize McClains?"

It seemed as if a train had run over the boy, and Damian enjoyed his expression.

"That wasn't what I meant."

"And what did you mean, mhm?" she pressed him, irritated, "You should have gone with those other two. You can't do anything but make the situation worse."

“You are his sister,” the paladin said,” I could not leave you alone.”

"It doesn't seem like you had a hard time doing that with him."

"It wasn't," Damian confirmed, being looked at venomously, "Rather, your regret is pretty useless now. All your distrust and your bad treatment led to this."

"And what about you?" the paladin said in turn. "You who hid from us who you were, Mr. Wayne, and tried to get close to him only for your own interests!"

Damian wasn't surprised that he knew his name at that point. By now, his secret identity must have been revealed, perhaps by Bob himself, perhaps in some other way, but at that moment, it was not his main concern. He hated how close to home that accusation was, but he had not been trained to back down in the face of anything, not even in the face of leaders barely able to manage their team, "I had suspicions about his identity, but I was aware of the improbability that it was true. I preferred to deal with Lance because he is one of the few capable people on this team and with a potential that if he stays with you, risks not being exploited."

"What, and would this potential be better exploited with you?"

"I don't know," he admitted, though the idea of having him as Robin had crossed his mind, very selfishly, forgetting that there was already another Robin, even though he hadn't chosen her. But, again, no Robin had really been chosen, they had taken the mantle or, in Richard's case, they had created it themselves, "But it would be better than having to hear his so-called leader say that he doesn't trust him, or that his concerns are mocked by the green paladin. It's rather significant that you allowed her to continue her disparaging attitude, and did nothing to correct her. Your leadership skills are, at best, poor."

The paladin blushed with rage. Before he could reply, Bat-Mite whistled, "Wow, severe, but fair. I'm sorry kid, but he's Batman. He knows what he's talking about."

"You're the one who helped Bob," the boy blurted out, and Bat-Mite didn't even think to deny it, "Yes, but I wouldn't have made all this mess! My plans are much better organized!"

"That's not true," Damian said, and Bat-Mite pouted, "You're only saying that because I've never involved you before! But it's not my fault! I liked your father better!"

"You've made it clear many times," Damian replied coldly, and the brat shrugged, "Besides, you should thank me. I was the one who sent the coordinates to the Justice League as soon as I realized they were nearby."

"Was it you?" Wonder Girl asked, amazed, "Why?"

"Because what better team up than Batman and Superman can there be?" Bat-Mite said, ignoring Damian's reaction to hearing that Superman was also there, and continuing, "Also, I loved the idea of bothering Bob, in some way... even if he then used my speakers against Green Lantern. I'm a little sorry for him, but at least he's not dead!"

"You really..."

"Were you the one who helped us and get us to the Lions?" the paladin intervened, receiving Bat-Mite's confused look in response, "What are you talking about?"

"You weren't the great... bird thing... that helped us?"

"If it had ever been me, I would have sent a bat," Bat-Me said, raising his chin haughtily, "Besides, why should I help you paladins? It's not like you're who knows what."

"We are the defenders of the Universe," the paladin said, making Bat-Mite giggling, amused, "You are not the only ones. The Green Lanterns are already there! And the heroes of the Justice League! You might learn something from them! Like, how to realize that someone is one step away from a nervous breakdown. They're all used to dealing with their members who suddenly become criminals, like Hal Jordan."

Bat-Mite paused to think for a moment, then added, "Maybe it's better not to talk about him, he's not really a good example. He killed all his friends and exterminated the Green Lantern body. Dick Grayson's son would never do that. Maybe.”

"Lance," the paladin retorted to Bat-Mite, "Not Dick Grayson's son. His name is Lance."

"But he is his son! He should be proud of it! And you too would have so much to learn from Dick Grayson, since he was your predecessor! He was a great leader! And... and... he was great! It's a shame that Lance will never get to know him! “

This last part affected both Damian and the black paladin, although for different reasons. Bat-Mite nodded to himself, convinced of what he was saying, "Yes, a great pity... but then, Bob has always liked tragedies so much. They attract him! He told me something about the fact that Lance's story was perfect in all respects, and that the presence of Batman would be an addition suited to his tastes. It doesn't hurt that your life is also quite depressing... how are you and Nika?"

"It's none of your business," Damian retorted, and Bat-Mite shook his head, "Not good, eh? I should have imagined it. But don't make that face! There's always Superman..."

Bat-Mite was lucky that Wonder Girl was the first to interrupt him, otherwise Damian would hit him so hard that he sent him back to his dimension, "We don't care about any of this. We have to leave."

Bat-Me tilted his head, "Already? Don't you want to see the end of the fight?"

"We won't leave without Lance," the black paladin declared, being watched by Wonder Girl, "Can't you do something?"

"Who, me? Ah, nice joke!" Bat-Mild exclaimed, almost laughing, "The fury of a Red Lantern cannot be easily contained! And I can't take his ring off without risking killing him. Although..."

"Although?" the paladin pressed him.

"He could have a much faster recovery, given his mother," the brat mused aloud, "To the point where he could rebuild his blood system from scratch? Mhm, I don't know, we could risk it..."

"No," the boy interrupted him, "I don't mean to risk his life. There must be another way."

"To get rid of the ring? Good luck! Either you find a Blue Lantern, to cure him so his heart doesn't burst, or you throw him into the sun."

"We can't throw a human being into the sun!"

Bat-Mite raised an eyebrow at the paladin, "Exactly. He is not human. He doesn't have the stamina of a Kryptonian, but..."

"These are all impractical," Damian said contrite, while Bat-Mite raised both hands in surrender, "Hey, I'm trying to help, really! But no one wants to risk it! What's the fun in it?"

"Is it all fun and good stories for you?" the black paladin accused him.

Bat-Mite was about to answer, when a roar distracted him. They all turned around. Lance got up from the ground, wiping the blood that came out of his nose with the back of his hand.

"You're definitely a half-Tamaranean," Superwoman said, and she wasn’t untouched by the fight, "Surrender. You can't beat me."

The red light around Lance became brighter, "Shall we bet?"

Veronica's voice crackled as she said," If he keeps pushing her like this, Superwoman will kill him. She's holding back, but not for long."

Hearing this, Kogane's body reacted before his mind registered the action: before anyone could react, he sprinted forward, placing himself squarely between Lance and Superwoman. The heat radiating from Lance's ring scorched his uniform, and Superwoman's glare could have melted steel.

"What are you doing?! " Superwoman roared, her voice echoing across the battlefield like thunder. "I told you to leave!"

"You're not my boss," he shot back, his voice tight but unwavering. He didn't glance at Superwoman; his eyes stayed locked on Lance, whose crimson-ringed hand trembled violently. The air crackled with unstable energy.

"Lance," the paladin said softly, shifting his stance to face him fully. "Look at me. We have to go now. The portal's closing."

He gestured toward the shimmering tear in reality behind them, already shrinking like a dying star. Lance's gaze flickered—confusion warring with fury—but he didn't move.

Then the Cuban said, "So eager to give me orders, squad leader?"

"I'm anxious to bring you back."

"To yell at myself in front of the others?" he asked, the red light around him growing, "To tell me how useless and foolish I have been again? To tell me you were right? Not bother, Keith. I already know."

The paladin didn't flinch as Lance raised his ring hand, the crimson energy gathering into a sharp, jagged point. The heat intensified, warping the air between them. For a heartbeat, Lance's eyes flickered—a flash of something beneath the rage. His hand trembled violently.

"You think this fixes anything?" Kogane's voice was low, urgent, cutting through the ring's angry hum. "Running? Burning it all down? That's what I would do. But you aren't me."

"And that's the problem, Keith. It was always that."

Lance's ring flared violently, crimson energy coalescing into a roaring dragon construct—all scales and molten rage. It lunged at the black paladin, jaws wide enough to swallow him whole. Superwoman moved instantly, but before her fingers could snatch Keith away, the dragon dissolved into shimmering ash. Gone.

Confusion rippled across the battlefield. Lance staggered, the ring's corrosive power visibly eating at him now—red veins spiderwebbing across his skin, smoke curling from his uniform seams. His breathing hitched, ragged and wet. Then, through clenched teeth, he forced out a single, guttural word.

 "No."

Don't stop. He is in front of you, he is helpless. Kill him.

The ring thundered, imperious as a tyrant, demanding as Iverson when he demanded excellent results (results that a mediocre person like Lance could never have achieved. He was always set up to fail, wasn't he?)

And Lance, for a terrible moment, was tempted to listen.

Why shouldn't he? There was no reason to hold back. Keith was an enemy. The enemies had to be eliminated.

It was that simple.

And yet, he froze.

The ring screamed inside his skull, a jagged blade scraping bone.

End him! He deserves it!

 Fury surged hot and thick, promising sweet release. Didn't Keith say he didn't want to be stuck with Lance for eternity?

Lance would have satisfied him by eliminating him. Keith will no longer have to bear Lance’s mere precence.  

Crushing this throat would be justice served cold. But his muscles locked, refusing the command. Something deeper than anger coiled tight in his chest, a cold, heavy stone anchoring him in place. It felt like betrayal.

The ring sensed his hesitation, its voice turning silky, poisonous.

Kill them all. Every single one.

 The command unfolded like a dark map in his mind, showing him Veronica standing beside Damian, her expression terrified.

Not her. Never Veronica.

The ring hissed, amused.

She is not your real sister. It’s a lie. All your life is a lie.

The words landed like hammer blows. For a dizzying second, the truth of it washed over him – Veronica wasn't his sister by birth. The bond felt thin, fragile, meaningless. Why protect a lie?

"Hey, why that long face?" his sister asked him when she found him broadening on the couch, while on television Takeshi Shirogane was talking about the new mission funded by the Garrison Academy.

"Nothing," Lance muttered, clutching his knees. Veronica sat down next to him, "Is that your crush?"

"I don't have a crush on Captain Shirogane!" the boy protested, his cheeks red, "He's fantastic! Did you know that he was the first to go to Mars? And to take a round trip to Pluto? And he's only twenty!"

"Oh, my mistake. It's just hero worship, not a crush at all," she teased, "All those posters in our room don't mean anything."

"They are there to inspire me!"

"Inspire you to become a hunk?"

"Nope, to become a star explorer!" he exclaimed, but shortly after, his expression crumpled, "Forget it. It's stupid."

Veronica's expression softened, "Hey, why would that be stupid? Just because grandpa  worked at Garrison doesn't mean it's stupid. “

"I'll never be able to go to the Garrison."

"Why not?"

"Come on, don't treat me like a child," said the literal eleven-year-old who still believed in aliens and Santa Claus, but not in the Tooth Fairy, because obviously that had to be a made-up story, duh,, "Going to the Garrison costs a lot of money."

And they couldn't afford it. There was no need to say it out loud. They knew it.

Managing a farm wasn’t easy, and yes, Marco helped, but they were a very large family, with many people to think about, and many expenses. Garrison certainly did not return, and Lance had made peace with the knowledge that he would have to limit himself to looking at the stars only at night from his window, living with a sense of lack that he did not understand.

He missed space. He missed it a lot.

"So what?"

Lance looked at her, surprised. Veronica shrugged, as if there was no problem whatsoever, "I heard you can get in with a scholarship. You have brains, and you have a dream. Try."

"Me? But... I don't know, I don't think I can do it... And then, to get the scholarship I will take some exams, and they  will all be in english. I don't know english that well."

"What's the problem? Studies. You have the skills to do it. The really stupid thing would be not even trying."

"And if I fail?" he asked, with the air of someone who feared the end of the world.

"Then it will be a failure, but at least you will have tried. Do you want to live with regret because you haven't tried at least once? There are so many idiots who succeed in life. Why shouldn't someone as smart as my little brother be able to do it for once?"

And Lance looked at it as one looks at someone who took a star for you and gave it to you, with a goal in mind and all the determination of a child to get it.

It was just normal for Veronica to ruin the moment, "So, for those posters..."

"God, Veronica. THOSE WERE JUST FOR INSPIRATION!"

"Lance," Veronica's voice called to him like a prayer, with the same explosive faith that he heard it, no matter what.

That faith wasn’t a lie. Her love for him wasn’t a lie. They were a family, to hell with Bob.

And Lance would have liked to apologize for hurting her and for making her worry. The words, however, didn’t come out of him.

The ring returned to torment him, its voice a venomous serpent coiling around his thoughts.

She’s nothing but a fraud! Kill her!

 It poured gasoline onto the smoldering embers of his anger, stoking the flames until they roared.

But Lance dug his heels in. He didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want to hurt anyone anymore.

The ring’s voice sharpened into a shriek, vibrating through his skull.

Kill them. Kill them all.

 It hammered against his resolve, demanding surrender. Nearby, a low murmur cut through the psychic noise – Superwoman’s strained voice answering someone unseen.

 "He’s fighting it... struggling to maintain control. It’s... difficult." Another voice, calm and analytical, replied, "That struggle is a good sign. It means he  can control the power of the red ring."

Lance barely registered them. His gaze snapped between Keith’s terrified face and Veronica’s tear-streaked one. The ring pulsed, flooding him with images: Veronica’s mocking grin as she teased him about Captain Shirogane posters, Keith’s dismissive sneer during training simulations.

They deserve pain. Give it to them.

The urge to lash out was a physical pressure, hot and suffocating. But beneath the fury, a deeper terror seized him. He remembered the sickening crunch of bone, the effortless surge of power that had shattered Bob’s defenses. He remembered what it had been like to squeeze Keith until he could breathe, how he had squeezed Pidge's neck without feeling anything.

It had felt good. Too good. Too easy. That terrified him more than any enemy. He didn't want this power.

"Stop," Lance choked out, the word raw against the ring’s psychic shriek. He wasn't talking to Keith or Veronica. He was talking to the crimson band fused to his finger.

The ring responded with a fresh wave of corrosive rage, images twisting: Keith abandoning him, Pidge laughing as he failed, teasing his hopeless feelings, telling him that he should be realistic, what would a princess ever see in someone like him?

Destroy them.

Lance gritted his teeth.

His gaze locked onto the ring itself. The thought crystallized, sharp and desperate: “I had to get it off.”

 Before the ring could flood him with another torrent of hate, Lance acted. Ignoring the agony screaming up his arm, ignoring Keith’s gasp and Veronica’s cry of "Lance, NO!", he grabbed the crimson band with his free hand. His fingers dug into the impossibly hard, cold metal, slick with sweat and his own blood. He pulled. Hard.

Pain exploded. It wasn't just resistance; it felt like tearing tendons, like peeling skin fused to metal, like digging fingernails deep into his own veins and ripping.

The ring fought back, searing his flesh with psychic fire, flooding his mind with visions of  Keith turning away, Lotor smiling triumphant with Allura, Pidge, Hunk and their special bonding activities that he wasn't smart enough to share, the crushing loneliness of be alone in a space castle without a thing that he could say it was only his.

 Lance roared against the torment, a raw, guttural sound ripped from his throat. He pulled harder, muscles straining, tendons screaming, his entire world narrowing to the burning point where metal met flesh. He pulled through the pain, fueled not by rage, but by a terrified, desperate need to be free.

With a sickening, wet pop that echoed in the sudden silence, the ring tore loose. It clattered onto the metal floor, a harmless-seeming band of crimson metal.

The agonizing fire vanished instantly, replaced by a profound, chilling emptiness. Simultaneously, the brutal Red Lantern uniform dissolved into wisps of crimson smoke, leaving Lance standing in his torn, bloodied armor.

 He gasped, staggering back, clutching his mangled finger. Blood streamed freely where the ring had fused, the flesh raw and weeping. The absence of the ring's constant psychic scream was deafening, leaving only the frantic pounding of his own heart and the ragged rasp of his breath.

He felt relieved. He no longer felt any pain. And he smiled, but Keith and the others were looking at him in terror. 

"They must still be afraid of me," he thought, numb, and tired, so tired.

Lance tried to speak, to tell Veronica it was okay now, he won’t hurt her.

 But instead of words, a thick, metallic stream of blood bubbled past his lips and spilled down his chin. He blinked, confused. Why was he bleeding? He looked down at his hands, his chest, his legs. He was drenched. Not just splattered, but utterly soaked in crimson, the fabric of his armor dark and slick. It wasn't Bob's blood. It was his own. He couldn't pinpoint the source; it seemed to seep from everywhere and nowhere. A profound weariness settled into his bones, heavier than the ring's rage ever was. He didn't understand where it was coming from. He didn't understand much at all anymore, except the overwhelming desire to just... stop.

Veronica's choked sob cut through the haze. Her hands flew to her mouth, eyes wide with horrified realization as she saw the sheer volume staining him.

"Lance!" she gasped, the name tearing from her throat. He tried to offer a weak, reassuring smile, but it twisted into a grimace as another wave of pain, dull and deep, rolled through him. The world tilted slightly, the harsh lights of the command deck blurring at the edges. He heard Damian's voice, sharp and clinical, slicing through the rising panic. "He's hemorrhaging internally. Severe shock. He..."

Lance didn't hear the rest. The weariness won. His knees buckled, the strength leaching from his bones like water from sand. He crumpled forward, a puppet with its strings severed. The impact against the cold metal floor was distant, muffled, a dull thud swallowed by the roaring silence filling his own head. Veronica screamed his name again, the sound echoing strangely as darkness crept in from the periphery of his vision.

It was at that moment that he understood. He was dying.

Somehow, the thought didn't bother him as it should have.

“Lance!”

Veronica screamed her brother's name while crying, a cry that would have been an understatement to call heartbreaking.

She ignored everything else, to run close to the body... Keith gasped, realizing that Lance at that moment was already...

"I'm here, Lance. I'm here," Veronica said, holding him against her chest, heedless of the blood staining her everywhere.

His body was limp, cold. Blood seeped from his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. It pooled beneath him, spreading across the deck plates. His skin was ghostly pale, almost translucent. The mangled finger where the ring had been torn away was a ruin of flesh and bone. Veronica pressed her hands desperately against his chest, but the blood kept flowing. It soaked through her clothes, warm and sticky. She could feel his shallow breaths growing weaker, each one a struggle.

Keith stared, frozen. Superwoman's warning echoed in his mind: The ring replaces the circulatory system. Removing it destroys the heart.

Lance had ripped it off. For them. For Veronica. Even for Keith. The realisation hit Keith like a physical blow. Despite all the anger, all the righteous grudge, Lance had done it for him, too, and Keith didn't know how to feel.

Veronica rocked Lance's limp form, whispering frantic pleas into his blood-matted hair. "Don't you dare leave me, Lance! Stay with me!" Her voice cracked, raw with terror. Damian knelt beside them, in worse shape than Veronica. He looked like he had lost something important again.

Keith watched Damian's trembling hands hover uselessly over Lance's chest.

The man's expression wasn't grief for Lance —it was the hollow devastation of a man seeing his brother's reflection shatter. Damian saw only Dick's echo in the bloodied face, another piece of his shattered world lost. Keith's own fury ignited, a white-hot spike aimed at Damian's selfish blindness. He opened his mouth, a harsh accusation forming, when Superwoman talked, "He isn't dead yet."

"Do you think I don't know?!" Veronica screamed at her, her eyes red and tears leaving trails on her dirty face, "His heart is about to stop, I can't... I can't do anything..."

"He won't die."

"What? But you said..."

"Oh, how nice," Bat-Mite interjected, flying past Lance's body with all the tranquillity of a child in the face of violent death, curious and lively, "He really seems to have a regenerating factor, mhm?"

"His circulatory system is rebuilding right now," Superwoman said, staring at Lance on the ground. "It shouldn't be possible, but it's happening. I see it."

"Do you see it? How?" Keith asked, unable to hide the shred of hope he was feeling.

"Duh, she has X-ray vision," Bat-Mite replied as if it were a simple thing. Keith raised an eyebrow. How many powers did Kryptonians have exactly? Nevermind. The important thing now was something else: "Is his circulatory system recomposing itself? Really?"

Superwoman nodded, "I wanted to check why his heart didn't immediately stop beating as I expected. I wanted to believe that maybe..."

"Maybe his Tamaranean part prevailed over his human genes," Damian concluded to her, a flat expression as he spoke, "Koriand'r didn't possess a strong regenerative factor. She wasn’t totally indestructible."

"Well, it's not like the Tamaranean genes are the only ones at play here," Bat-Mite commented, flying in front of Damian, "You can say he's not very human, but very alien."

"So we can save him?" Veronica cut it short, without any desire to hear digressions from an avid fan stalker from another dimension.

Superwoman hesitates a second too long. Bat-Me replied for him, "Oh, well... He is very weak, and he would need a good boost of energy to speed up his recovery a little!  But Superwoman here knows a lot more than I do, doesn't she?"

The blonde woman breathed tiredly, "Rao, you're worse than Mxyzptlk."

Bat-Mite made an offended sound, "I'm so much cuter than that idiot!"

"You're irritating, that's what you are."

"Hey, you're the one with experience with the Tamaraneans, you shouldn't be ashamed!"

"What is he talking about?" Keith asked, as Superwoman ran a hand through her hair, "I don't know how you know about Ryand'r..."

"Of course I know! My otp is Batgirl x Supergirl! He was in the middle!"

“… but it literally happened in another reality," the Kryptonian continued, ignoring Bat Mite's ramblings, "We don't even know if it could work now, too."

"It doesn't cost anything to try, right?" Bat-Mite shrugged, and impatiently, Keith repeated, "What are you talking about?"

"Tamaraneans are very tactile," Damian explained as if he were a professor of alien biology, "Their species evolved so that they could exchange information and languages through touch, specifically, the act of kissing..."

"Wait, you're telling me that..."

"Superwoman should kiss your friend," Bat-Mite announced, "This is to allow for energy exchange, and there is very high compatibility, since both Kryptonians and Tamaraneans have cells powered by solar energy!"

Keith felt his head spin. For a part of him, it made sense, after all, he had seen even stranger things. But thinking of Lance as a half-alien, when he had always been the one who had anchored him to his humanity, sounded foreign and wrong.

It didn't help the gut feeling he had at the thought of a stranger kissing Lance while he was unconscious.

"What if it doesn't work?"

"It should work," Bat-Mite insisted, "The Tamaraneans absorb the energy of the sun, and the Krytponians are full of it! This way, his body won't buckle just because it's too weak for accelerated healing! Magnificent, isn't it?"

"Are the Tamaraneans only able to absorb solar energy?" the paladin inquired.

"His mother didn't," Damian revealed, "Because of the experiments she underwent in her youth, she was able to absorb other energy to power her powers."

Keith grimaced contemplatively. So it was energy. The quintessence was energy. Maybe not really solar energy, but in any case, Lance, in theory, should have been able to absorb someone else's quintessence by kissing him.

And oh, maybe he had an idea.

"I'll do it," he said, feeling his heart beat like a drum in his chest, fully understanding the implications of what he was about to do, "I'll give my quintessence to Lance."