A Bit of Everything

DC: The Last Titan

Dick watched Angel go through the motions. She seemed incapable of sitting still and a deep tension saturated all her movements. Whenever you tried to have a conversation with her there was a distractedness to her answers. There seemed no fight in her either. She was unfazed by anything anyone said in an attempt to get a rise or smile or laugh. Dick didn't know what to do. Usually, he could do something to help, even if it was just making them laugh.

She'd been brought here by Mr Mxyzptlk and Batmite. In response to Clark's question 'Why don't you help people for a change'. Bruce had answered that it wasn't in their nature and the 5th dimension Imps had taken it as a challenge, saving Angel from a world set for self-destruct. Angel had been spending her weekends in the Thompkins Clinic. Leslie had put her on reception as well as inventory and she claimed Angel became someone different at the clinic. But Dick was worried. It had been eight months and save for those moments she was utterly distracted, Angel wasn't getting any better and Dick, not for the first time, wondered if Bruce should have put more thought into taking Angel in.

Everything hit the ceiling that morning, Dick had stayed the night after patrol. He'd walked into the kitchen to find Damien with what looked like a torn magazine cover but before Dick could even give it a second thought Angel had stormed in. Seeing the paper she'd zeroed in on Damien her face no longer blank it would appear that Damian had succeeded in getting an emotion out of her

"Give it back," she'd said it was little more than a snarl.

Now looking at the cover, Dick could see an illustration of his family, all dressed in their costumes. In it in silver pen were the words. To 'Agent A'. The one who keeps us all in one piece. Thank you for everything and I hope this will be a welcome addition to your collection. Happy birthday. Claire. Richard found himself frowning at the cover. He didn't know she could draw, and the dedication made out to Alfred by a Claire he'd never met placed him on edge.

"Are you a spy?" Damien had asked with a glare, before scoffing. "No, you're too incompetent for that."

"Give it back," she'd repeated. "It's not yours, It's mine. Why were you even going through my stuff?"

Timothy had walked at that moment and Damien allowed him to snatch the page away from him. His face betrayed the suspicion and distrust that the page brought. He'd joined in the integration and Dick hadn't stopped it. It hadn't taken long for Angel to abandon the quest for the page and disappear back up the stairs. Her face resigned, but despite the emotion, it unsettled something in Dick. It was as if he were witnessing someone standing on the side of a building, looking down and ready to jump.

Retrieving the page, after a scuffle with Damien, Dick walked up the stairs and knocked on her door. "Are you alright they didn't mean anything by it. Just- it's a bit strange. We weren't expecting it that's all." Angel didn't respond she just stared at the roof she wasn't crying and she was so still that part of Dick was tempted to go check if she still had a pulse. Then suddenly she began to talk slowly, almost emotionlessly, tripping over words and stumbling over the order.

"We called ourselves the Titans after... well after the team of teenagers who would save the world. We were going to change the world. All of us had parents or parental figures who were in the resistance, but we were tired of being messengers, tired of feeling useless. We practically told them to get on board or get out of the way. We took code names after our favourite heroes or someone else dubbed us. We were no older than 14. I was 11. Declan, Walt, Claire, Zara, Lillian and myself. The six of us founded the Titans and we began small.

Declan could code anything, and, with Walt's help, he built computers machines and gadgets that made everything a little easier. We called him Mr terrific, technically he named himself. Sure, not the name of a true Titan but we never cared about that.

Walt's favourite was Beast Boy. We objected to that one, I don't even remember why. He made animal noises for six months until we gave in. He wasn't ever the social butterfly, but boy could he make you laugh, he played the idiot for that reason.

Zara was Wonder Girl, she could pin you to a wall before you knew what she was doing. Not that she would mind you she was the oldest. She did her best to keep us safe, I suppose, in the best way she knew how.

Lillian was wild she was out of control most of the time. A loose cannon and I couldn't save her when she made that foolish- We called her Cyclone.

Claire was the heart of the team, much like you are for your brothers and family. She was the only one who didn't choose her name. We held on to those stories of superhumans with everything we had. As if they could stop our world from burning, as if they could save us. We ended up calling her Nightwing.

I was never capable of- I couldn't keep up with the others and I didn't like hurting people. I used to just bring a first aid kit and used to do the recovery missions. I'd always like Dr. Midnite. He had that clinic. He helped people. And someone took a dig at me when my glasses were smashed once, I see well enough about them, but I quipped that they wouldn't ask Dr Midnite that question. It stuck.

Then one night everything went wrong I was 13, we'd added to our little group in the past years. There was Mick, Impulse they named him. Rhianna was Raven, Locky they called Arsenal. Penny, Laura, Jordan, Dan... none of them made it out. We-we were ambushed. Two years in and we'd gotten cocky.

I shut down after that I would just go through the motions, patch people up, bring sandwiches. The problem was everything began to fall apart. No one would stand up to Zara. No one really could. But for whatever reason, it was me two years her junior and I was the one who had the stubbornness to match hers. It was six months after the incident and something was eating Zara, she became more and more reckless, more brutal. She... I don't know, I snapped, just before she went out again. Scared the branch commander. The mute suddenly blew up at the head honcho. I was nearly certain I destroyed whatever friendship I had with her.

Claire changed my code name after that and I told her this was the Titans and not the Bat-family you've got the wrong team. Claire just laughed and asked who started the Titans.

'You did,' I told her. 'Remember you were trying to escape Marcie's shadow, part of the reason we named you Nightwing in the first place.'

'But there was no Nightwing without Alfred,' she'd told me, 'Wayne couldn't have held a family together. So you weren't my Butler but last time I checked it was you I came to when Marcie lost sight of me in her mission. It was you who stood beside me, and helped Marcie remember me. But always from where you hid in everyone else is shadow, the undervalued ace in the hole. You convinced Marcie we needed to do this for us. To prove to ourselves that we could stand on our own 2 feet and that it was better to do it as a team. And it was you who can stand up to Zara when no one else would. Sure, I'll tell her she's wrong but only you can stand toe to toe with her and win. So, Angel, you're our man behind the scenes, the true reason we're all standing here. Your Agent A.'

We eventually got our own base, and I'd make sure the practical and medical running at the place was taken care of. I was just going to have a break following a mass rescue operation, I'd been in the medical wing for almost 8 hours when those Imps appeared, and I-I was so tired I didn't recognise them. They're barely in the stories at all. And I ended up here. I knew who you all were that first moment in the watchtower. I knew if anyone found the comics had jeopardised everything, so I burnt them, but I kept Claire's dedication page. It was the last gift she ever gave me I couldn't just throw it all away."

Dick looked at the girl from where he'd leant on the desk. Her face was blank, but her eyes held all the emotions it refused to convey. Her body was shaking with the effort it had taken to tell her story. Not knowing what to say, how to respond to such a tale, one in which his world, his team had served as the inspiration for a group of teenagers who watched their world burn, had inspired a girl in another world. Dick moved to sit beside her.

"Can I give you a hug?" he asked her as he put an arm around her shoulder. She didn't answer but leaned into him, almost a dead weight. She shook and, though she'd remained silent as he held her like that, he felt the tears as they drenched his shirt.

There were no more nightmares after that.