"You have to start out learning to believe the little lies to believe the big ones."

[matchmadeinhell]

They had to try their best to do this thing incognito. After all, the plan was get in, get the shard, get out, and while several of them were total unknowns in this world, three of them ran the risk of being recognized by some of the resident superheroes and supervillains since they were from a similar dimension and had equivalents here.

Nightwing, not so much since he usually wore a mask, but Cassie and Kon didn't wear masks as part of their costumes, and Kon especially wore a very familiar face. He was younger than Kal but still approaching adulthood now and that meant his cloney resemblance to the current de facto ruler of the world was pretty uncanny now.

That was why Kon was in disguise. He was wearing his usual jeans, black long-sleeved shirt, black boots, and black gloves. But he had a dumpy, shapeless, brown jacket over top of it all, a blue baseball cap, and a pair of dorky, large-framed glasses. Fortunately, spring was only just starting in this world and hadn't quite chased away the chill of winter so they could all bundle up with clothes that made them look innocuous.

The magical door had appeared in an alley, against a nondescript wall. As soon as they were all through and had closed it behind then, Kon peered around a corner to see if he could recognize where they were by the city's night-time skyline.

"Looks like Gotham." A pause. "It's hardly recognizable, though. I've never seen Gotham this clean."

He squinted instinctually, trying to peer around some more with his X-ray vision and found it working in full when he usually struggled with it back in the Guardians' universe. He held up his hand and poured on the teke, creating a field around it.

"My powers seem to be stronger here for some reason. The ones that are limited in the Guardians' universe are back, like my teke. You guys feeling the same? Most of us are superheroes or equivalents in our worlds. Being in a superhero universe might be amping up our powers or something. Maybe making the belief stronger."

It all ran on narratives, right? Stories? This was a story superheroes were supposed to be in.

Comments

[matchmadeinhell]

"He could've ripped you in half like a kid tearing through tissue paper while opening his presents on Christmas morning," Kon interrupted. "That's what normal people are to people like us. Walking, talking, wet paper towels." He added, animatedly, "And not even the Brawny paper towels, the cheap store-brand kid. Every day, every single second, we have to hold back, to the point it just turns into an unconscious thing. When we're punching people through walls, we're holding back. When we're lifting up buildings, we're holding back. When we're punching villains like Doomsday so hard the shockwaves break every window in the street? We're holding back."

So far, even with all the death and murder and senseless rage killings, his restraint had been impeccable. That was one thing Kon had realized while reading the comics. That's why several people sitting at the table were still alive. That's why the resistance had lived to get away more than once. Superman was too rage-happy, too willing to kill, and that was why some people died in each clash. But he also hesitated, held back - and that was why some of them always got away.

"We're talking about breaking into his fortress and freeing his prisoners. Convincing his parents to turn against him and taking them away from him in a situation he'll just mentally chalk up to kidnapping. Bringing in allies he thought were off the board. And you and your team are teaming up with absolute strangers from another dimension that he has no emotional connection to, like, at all, to try to drop ten tons of superheroic bricks on his head."

He leaned forward.

"His completely delusional brain is going to see that as an act of war, and he's going to see a bunch of us as evil, otherdimensional intruders from another world that aren't worth sparing. He's going to stop holding back. And so are the other Leaguers - because that's just him. He's not even the only one we have to worry about."

He pointed at Bats.

"You can't plan for everything. Even if everything goes perfectly, there's still like a 95% chance this is going to end with all of our heads crushed like grapes or heatvision lobotomies. If we don't have a backup, if we don't have some kind of big, red button to push in case it all goes to hell - a situation a bunch of us -" he gestured to himself, Catwoman, Harley, the ones the Spectre would likely target "- would already be dying in before the Spectre could get to us anyway - then...well, it's just your whole world, and, you know, the entire universe at stake, right? We're only going against a team of superpowered psychopaths led by a guy who can literally break a planet with one punch. Small potatoes, I guess."

[willbeyourhope]

"...well, this went from ludicrous to incredibly heavy in the span of a few minutes," Haruto says, mostly to himself. He sighs faintly, reaching out to poke the bear Harley presented him with in the nose, tipping it over. "It's not an ideal solution for sure, but probably worth keeping on the backburner, for the good of the multiverse," he says with a rather dire tone. He was obviously uncomfortable with it, but the more Supes got hyped up, well...

[mark_in_the_sands]

"We're not here because we've accepted your authority, Batman," Cassie said coldly. "We're here because you're holding the multiverse hostage. You don't want our help, fine; give us the shard and we'll go."

No, at this point they wouldn't go, but apparently Batman needed to be reminded what brought them to this table.

"In case you weren't listening to Nightwing because you'd already gotten what you'd wanted, "We don't do as you order us. We have a say in the tactics and in the planning. And that means all of us"."

She leveled a glare at Batman. "So unless you have input that isn't a feet-stompy tantrum, I repeat my previous suggestion that you shut up and let the grown-ups talk."

[have_mustache_will_travel]

Harley groaned rubbing the back of her head even though Kon hadn't really hit her that hard.

"Well when you put it like that you make that big red button sound pretty tempting. Even more then usual for me. And we all know how much I love big red buttons."

But Harley wasn't smiling for once, because she may have hyped up the Specter before but she wasn't so addled in the head that she didn't know just who was going to have to answer for the big crime that had started all of this.

Joker may have carried it out but Harley had helped.

And while Joker was dead, Harley had spent almost every moment since then on the run ducking Superman and his goon squad. It had cost her the lives of two people who had gone out of their way to help her.

And so if it came down to it, she'd release the spirit of justice herself just to put a stop to something she'd helped start.

And what a punchline would that be? Not being killed by Joker or any of the other criminals they'd dealt with over the years. Not even death by the American Justice System. Death by guilt. Her mother would be so approving.

She couldn't help but smirk when Cassie piled on to help put their "Fearless leader" in his place.

"Call me crazy, but I'm with them." She jerked a thumb towards the teens surprising probably no one.

[morescaredofyou]

"I'm not," Peter said, almost surprising himself when he spoke up. "Because when you guys are talking about the nuclear option, you're talking about killing him, right? And not just him. Everyone else in this universe that this Specter decides is guilty. You know we have someone like that in my world, called the Punisher. He's not the embodiment of godly wrath or anything - he's just a guy - but he does the exact same thing. And you know what? He's a murderer. A crazy, sick murderer, who thinks that he's justified, just because the people he kills are criminals."

Peter looked around, his fingers clenched together tightly. They were probably all going to hate him, now. They'd all been a unified front in front of the psycho Bat guy, and now Peter was breaking ranks. But he couldn't just say nothing.

"Is that really what we're planning here? That it's okay for us to cause the deaths of who knows how many people? That as long as we save the multiverse, it doesn't matter what he do in the process?"

[willbeyourhope]

"I don't think anyone is saying it's okay," Haruto pipes up. "I know I'm not. I'd rather not do it at all, and if there's a chance of being able to do this without losing any more lives, I'll fight tooth and nail for it to happen--" He glances up and around, expression solemn and serious. "And I don't think I'm the only one who would."

"There's a reason Kon's calling it an absolute, last-ditch plan."

[goddamnwingman]

Dick managed a thin smile for Peter. "If you think for a moment that even thinking of this option is an easy thing for us, you're very much mistaken." He nodded to Batman. "And I know you don't like him, but the fact that Batman hasn't had any stronger objections to the idea than reminding us that some of our heads will be on the line says a lot." Because Dick knew Bruce and, when the idea had come up, he'd expected him to jump straight in and remind everybody that they don't kill. That it wasn't an option at all.

The fact that he hadn't told Dick exactly how tired this man who was so like his own father was.

"However," he continued, "Kon is right. We don't have a lot of options. Kal is stronger and faster than all of us put together. Wonder Woman is stronger and faster than any of us except Kon and Cassie. Hal's powers are limited only by his own imagination...and frankly, we should be glad it's him and not Kyle because Hal's never had much of an imagination." Kyle as the Yellow Lantern in this scenario was not something that Dick wanted to think about in the LEAST. "Even getting all the help that we're talking about, asking the Kents to try to talk Kal down, getting some of his people back on side? We are going in severely outnumbered and overpowered. All the power pills in the world are not going to change that. And short of finding a way to shove Kal though a red star and seeing if there's a Green Lantern Corps to call to take him into custody, the fact of the matter is that we need to be prepared to do something should we fall in the fight. And freeing the Spectre kills far fewer people than letting Kal go free would.

"What I'd really prefer is some option that would allow us to depower Kal and allow us to arrest him. And keep him depowered.." He made a motion to the area around them, more meant to encompass the entire world. "This world has only known a dictator for over three years now. A man who is more powerful than them, who has used that power to basically scare everybody into submission to where they're afraid to step a toe out of line because that makes you a criminal and we know what this Superman does to criminals. I want to see him brought to justice for that. All of them brought to justice. And not the Spectre's brand of justice, either. Human justice." He paused and let out a sharp breath. "Which may well still mean that he dies, but if that happens, then at least it will be by jury. This world has lived in fear long enough. I want to be able to remind them of what heroes really can be."

[matchmadeinhell]

"The Spectre isn't some crackpot that runs around killing people and not caring if it destabilizes countries."

Kon knew who the Punisher was. He'd messed up Mexico but good by killing a lot of the cartel leaders and some corrupt government officials without thought for the consequences, and Luthor already seemed to have plans to take advantage of that back home.

"He's sort of like...a natural force of nature in our world. A scary one, but something that's always been there. And if we deliver these people to the police, half of 'em are probably going to wind up getting the death penalty anyway."

Kon slumped back in his chair.

"But like I said, nuclear option. Last ditch. Nightwing's right that we need to try to find some way of depowering him first. And we do have something for that."

Kon reached into one of the little pouches at his belt and pulled out a little lead box about the size of a jewelry box, and placed it in the middle of the table, leaning back and crossing his arms.

"Is that -?" Batman started to ask.

"Yeah, it is. One of Kuk's people gave it to someone that ambushed us on another mission like this to another world. Don't open that when I'm around unless you want to get puked on." Kon shrugged. "Kryptonite doesn't hurt a Kryptonian unless it's from the same universe so it won't work as is, but that's all the more reason that it might be useful. Messing with it to see if it can be worked into something that takes his powers away permanently won't waste anything since it's already useless right now. The worst that can happen is it stays useless. There's a bunch of different types of kryptonite and it has all different effects. Maybe that can be used to make a type of it that gets rid of his powers permanently."

[goddamnwingman]

"Right. So, if nobody else has anything else to add?"

Dick paused a moment, looking around before starting to type again. "All right, then. Kon and Cassie, you'll head to Kansas to talk to the Kents. Be careful, though. I'd be very surprised if there isn't some sort of watch on them." If the Superman here wasn't a complete idiot, of course.

"Haruto and Peter, you'll go with Zatanna to talk to Timothy Hunter, leaving Danny to come with me to talk to Blue Beetle. We all have our comms, so we should be able to keep in touch just fine. If there's trouble, radio and we'll get there as soon as we can."

Dick kept typing. "Once we're back, we'll sort out searching for the Spear and getting the Titans out of the Phantom Zone. While we're gone, though, I'd like those who are staying here to research different types of Kryptonite, their effects and how they might be created. When we get back, I'd like Peter and Danny to work with you guys on how to get it to happen." He raised his head, giving Batman a very definite 'look'. Because he knew who was likely going to be in charge of that part of things. "We're only going to get one shot at the takedown, so don't rush things. We don't have all the time in the world, but we need to do this right."

With that, he stood up. "Be careful, everybody. And good luck."

The Reyes House, El Paso, Texas - Nightwing and Danny

[el_paso_cast]

Batman had given them an address in El Paso, Texas to visit, advising them to show up plainclothes and to make sure they weren't seen in costume anywhere in the area.

He told Nightwing to show Jaime and his family his Titans communicator to prove he was who he said he was, as Jaime had been an auxiliary member of the team.

That was about it.

What wasn't said spoke volumes. Batman clearly seemed troubled when telling them to go ask for his help - and maybe even a little guilty.

So it was with barely information at all that Danny and Nightwing approached a little house in an El Paso neighborhood with a tidy little lawn, and a girl in pigtails playing with barbies out in the front yard. She started to stare at them suspiciously as they made their approach.

Tim Hunter's Pocket Dimension - Haruto and Peter

[holydefendersbatman]

When Zatanna teleported them to Tim Hunter's pocket dimension, the teleportation got a little sluggish towards the end, as if the magic was taking a peek at who she was bringing along with her. Still, it let them through, apparently deciding that if they were guests of Zatanna, they were okay to let in.

It was very mundane, the little pocket dimension they were in, but perhaps that was to be expected given how much of Tim Hunter's life had been ruined by the extraordinary. It was just a run down part of London, outside some housing estates. Faceless people milled through the streets. They were, quite literally, faceless, just blurred figures meant to fill out the serene little picture of mundanity, to maintain the illusion that it was real.

Tim, a bespectacled boy of seventeen, was skateboarding in a skate park a short distance away. Even though he was doing an activity that was, ostensibly, meant to be fun, his expression was blank and distant, as if he wasn't entirely in the present.

"Let me talk to him first, so he doesn't just kick us all out before you even have a chance to speak to him."

With that, Zatanna went off to signal him down and have a little chat. Tim stopped skateboarding to talk to her, his gaze brightening slightly when he saw she was there, but the moment she made the fact she'd brought visitors clear was very obvious.

...because the metal railings he was standing near suddenly reared up in the air like snakes, animated by his anger. She held out her hands in a placating way and seemed to calm him down, gesturing off at Peter and Haruto a few times before waving them over. The railings went back to being railings again.

While he waited, Tim slumped down to sit at the edge of a ramp.

The Kent Farm - Superboy and Wonder Girl

[matchmadeinhell]

They were quite some distance away, hiding behind a grain silo as they scoped out the Kent farm. Kon was checking it out, his eyes glowing a faint blue as he used his X-ray vision.

"I'm not seeing any security. No cameras, no traps, no alarms, nothing." And he'd been very well trained for that now. Sneaking, breaking into places he shouldn't, disabling security systems. "That's...bad."

He shook his head, X-ray vision turning off. "That doesn't mean they're not protected, that means he's so secure on his rep scaring anyone off he doesn't think they need anything else. All they need to do is yell." He tapped his ears. "It's sort of an unconscious thing. We're always half-listening for certain voices. That's all the security they need. Just a yell and he'll show up and tear whoever's threatening them apart."

That meant all it would take is a yell to bring him down on their heads.

"We have to play this carefully, keep them from getting spooked. He's not going to be listening in on normal conversation, it's too hard when you're far away, but if they raise their voices at all..."

They had to keep them calm through all of this.

Re: The Kent Farm - Superboy and Wonder Girl

[mark_in_the_sands]

"They might not shout if it's you," Cassie pointed out, keeping an eye on the horizon for any incoming attacks. Short of the Flash, Wonder Woman, or Superman, she could at least give Kon warning. "Well, maybe in surprise and delight, if they're not in on the not-dead-just-in-the-Phantom-Zone treatment. Do you see them?"

Whether the Kents were apart at the moment or in a room together would change the way they approached the situation.

Re: The Reyes House, El Paso, Texas - Nightwing and Danny

[daddyphantom]

"Hi, you must be Jaime's sister. My name's Danny, and this is Dick." Danny said, crouching down to get closer to her level, and thumbing over to Nightwing as an introduction.

"Could you tell your parents and your brother that a pair of stupidly optimistic people are here to talk to them, and that they're free to tell us to go jump in a piranha-filled lake if they don't like what we have to say?"

First order of business was to get the girl inside so it didn't inadvertently look like they were using her as a bargaining chip. Danny knew how violently people could react if they even suspected someone was threatening their family. All he needed to know that was to look at himself.

[goddamnwingman]

The suggestion that they go in civvies wasn't exactly something that Dick needed to be told. But he did have his uniform with him, which meant he had his Titans communicator as well as the communicators that Brainy had developed.

Of course, the fact that Batman was pretty much throwing them into this BLIND was NOT lost on him, either. And the guilt...well, Dick wasn't certain what to expect, other than he wasn't going to like it.

Dick snorted at the introduction, shaking his head. "Well. You're not wrong." This was probably very stupidly optimistic. Reaching in his pocket, he offered her the Titans comm. "You can give that to him. At least he'll have something to throw at us if we're meant to go jump in a lake."

[el_paso_cast]

Milagro Reyes took the communicator from Nightwing's hand and looked at it. She knew what it was. Jaime had let him play with his one time and she "accidentally" hit the button and got to talk to the pretty lady on the Teen Titans with the star powers.

"He's not going to want to talk to you. He blasted Batman out through the window the time he came. But I'll go tell him and my parents you're here."

Well, that explained a few things. Or, at least, made the levels of tension clear.

Milagro ran inside the house. Faintly, from the inside, they could hear, "Moooom there's some dumb super-people at the door, tell them to take a hike."

[el_paso_cast]

Almost immediately after - frighteningly fast after, in fact - a woman in nursing scrubs appeared at the front down, storming out into the yard, the Titans communicator in her hand.

"Who are you?" She waved her hands. "You know what? Never mind, I don't care who you are. He doesn't want to talk to you, he doesn't want to see you - you - you terrible people. He's not going to be your cannon fodder. And if Batman sent you, you can tell him to -"

Annnd she broke off into rapidfire Spanish, talking about unpleasant things and exactly where Batman could shove them.

While she did that, her husband walked out through the door behind her, his expression stern but less wildly angry.

[daddyphantom]

Danny put his hands out in a nonthreatening gesture.

"Trust me ma'am, if I'd understood anything after "you can tell him to", I'd pass it on. I'm not any happier with him than you are."

Sure, Danny knew there were extenuating circumstances for why Batman was acting the way he was, but that didn't mean he had to like how they were being treated.

"Look, I know how you feel. If it was my kids I would've punched me in the face by now. But we just want to talk. We're not going to make him fight."

[goddamnwingman]

A lot of rapid fire Spanish that had Dick wincing. Because, unlike Danny, Spanish was one of those languages he was very, very fluent in.

Dick coughed, clearing his throat. "My name's Dick Grayson. This is Danny Fenton." He wasn't really clear on how many people knew Dick Grayson was dead in this world. Giving his name might make things difficult. More difficult. Then again, he wasn't real clear on a lot of things in this world. "I'll be certain to pass it on, but until then, we really do need to talk to Jaime, Mrs. Reyes. Just for a few moments." He looked her seriously in the face. "Your son will know who I am, ma'am. He'd know that, given everything, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important."

There was going to be a reckoning when they got back to the Bat Base. Because Dick hated being sent into things blind.

[el_paso_cast]

"Bianca," said Alberto calmly, a gentle hand on her elbow. "This isn't our choice, whether or not he listens to them. And that's a Titans communicator."

He nodded toward Nightwing.

"You know how he was about the Titans. They were his friends. It's up to him - if he says no, then they are going to leave." Because he would make them. "But...I think something is going on here that he might want to know about. Let me go ask him if he wants to talk to them or not."

[el_paso_cast]

She had noticed the name but after what had happened to Jaime, the whole family hadn't really kept track of things, other than knowing Bruce Wayne was Batman.

Bianca bristled, then calmed down slightly at her husband's words.

"Fine. But the second he wants you to leave, you are going to leave. Or this time, I'll be the one tossing you through a window."

She meant it.

[el_paso_cast]

Alberto walked inside, leaning heavily on his cane, as if the stress of the situation was making him ache more than usual, and after a few minutes inside the house, he came to the door again.

"He says you can come in." Alberto emphasized, "For now."

When they came into the house, they were met by even more glares and stares. Jaime's friends Brenda and Paco, who also lived in the house, were staring coldly from where they sat on the couch. Brenda's arms were crossed in front of her, and Paco looked like his arms would've been crossed too if he hadn't been busy playing with the three-year-old that sat next to him.

Paco leaned down to the girl's level and pointed at Nightwing and Danny.

"See those people, Alina? We don't like those people. If they come near you, you should throw up on them."

The girl giggled.

npc tag

[beetlebutt]

Jaime was sitting at the counter of an island between the dining room and the kitchen, the view of most of his body and the kitchen blocked by the counter. The right side of his face was scarred, a nasty line that ran from his chin to his hairline from a wound that seemed to have only just barely avoided ruining his eye. Bianca sat next to Jaime at the island and Alberto pulled out a chair at the dining room table and turn it around to sit on it, leaning on his cane. The sound of a scribbling pencil cut through the tense silence. Jaime looked like he was possibly doing homework. Without looking up from it, he gestured with the pencil at some chairs in the dining room near his father. "Sit. And talk fast." He glanced up at Nightwing and pointed at him with the pencil, narrowing his eyes. "And also explain how you're alive. You're supposed to be dead." He paused as if listening to something. "Never mind, Scarab says you have magic and alternate dimension-ey particles on you. So I guess you're an alternate version and you're...some guy, I don't know who you are. Great, Batman's giving my secret ID out to total strangers. Pendejo." He shook his head, looking disgusted. "What do you want? I have calculus homework."

[matchmadeinhell]

"They're in the kitchen, drinking coffee and -"

He listened.

"- having a conversation about what to do about Kal. We have good timing." The corner of his mouth quirked. "Pa just said he wants to try to get a super pill so he won't break his hand slapping him upside the head."

His expression grew wistful.

"God, I miss him. It'll be nice to see him again, even if it's a different him. Ma, too."

He hadn't seen his version of Ma in ages and he couldn't even check up on her to see if she was okay without risk of giving away Kal's secret identity and putting her in danger.

He drew in a deep breath.

"C'mon, let's just go to the front door," said Kon, taking to the air. "That'll spook them the least."

[mark_in_the_sands]

Cassie chuckled. "Smart man," she said, snaking a hand out to give Kon's a squeeze. It wouldn't be the same as having his Ma and Pa back, but they'd still be happy to see him. After going a few rounds with the Bat-asshole, Kon needed that.

And this couldn't be as awkward for her as the time they'd caught her trying to sneak out after sex in the barn. Deadlier, maybe, but definitely less awkward.

She let Kon take the lead toward the door, still hand in hand, and kept her eyes on the horizon.