Avoiding Past And Future

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November 23

Robin felt his heart sink to the floor when the green illumination of Phantom's shield was swallowed by fire and debris. He held his breath, fearing the moment his arm would start blearing with alerts again, telling him and all around his brother was dying again. His eyes tracked where Phantom and Garfield were shot through the air, feet moving before his brain registered the ground beneath him. His one and only focus being the pale blue ball of the Skulker-shield crashing towards the ground.

The impact came hard, dust puffing up around the crater they landed in. Robin braces himself from the rush of air before making his way down there. Garfield was out cold, cuts and bruises littering his body, but not as badly as Phantom.

Green trickled from his nose as he tried to orient himself. Tapping on the mask-view, Robin checked his eyes for any worrying injuries. With one pupil blown further than the other, he knew they had to get inside asap. He could feel dirt trickle down as KF slid down the crater wall, M'gann lowering down too after taking out the planes. Carefully M'gann lifted Garfield off of Phantom, struggling slightly as the Skulker-shield flickered in and out of existence.

Searching around his belt, Robin finally managed to find the now-inconvenient device. Leave it up to ghost tech to survive an explosion and be relatively unharmed. Shutting it down completely, he checked for any broken or dislocated bones before daring to move Phantom. With Kid's help, they managed to help him get his feet somewhat steady under him.

With KF leading the trek up, Conner stood atop the ridge with his hand reached out. Pulling himself closer to the clone, Robin finally managed to get far enough up as well to reach Conner's other hand. Sharing a look between clone and leader, Robin gave the go ahead for Conner to simply carry Phantom inside.

Marie stood watching, her own injured child nestled in her arms. "I told you there'd be consequences." Tears kept at bay spilling out in her tone as she glared at the supposed heroes before her.

Robin couldn't force himself to look away even if he wanted to. Garfield's limp body, Phantom's wriggling self-right next to him, forever edged into his memory. The blame for their injuries laying on his shoulders once more as another reason against him leading a team piled up.

Refusing to let his mind wander when there were more pressing matters at hand, he turned to Marie and Conner. "Let's get them inside." It wasn't an order, more so a plead to get the both of them medical care instead of wasting time outside. The Quraci heat already wasn't the best for Phantom, now with new injuries on top of the existing ones, the cooler inside air would already help him a lot.

Just as hoped, the fidgety ghost stilled more once inside the building. Pupils still failing to respond properly, Robin fished out one of Phantom's pills from his utility belt. For now it, and an ice pack to get his fire-bitten temp down would do enough. Gar was in a much more critical state being less sturdy than their resident ghost. Handing the meds over to the clone, Robin entrusted Conner knew what to do. Checking over Phantom one last time, he tore himself away from his brother before he followed Marie to Garfield's bedroom.

Conner and M'gann stayed in the living room with Phantom, making sure no secondary attack was coming their way while they were busy caring for Garfield. The pressure of caring for the human child coming before doting on Phantom, as harsh as it sounded. Kid ran a perimeter around the sanctuary, making sure no foot soldiers were creeping in while they distracted with the aircraft.

Robin tried to keep his eyes locked in front of him, the trail of blood trickling behind Marie doing nothing for him beyond breaking his focus. Going through all the steps Alfred had drilled into him, he helped Marie hook Gar up. Cleaning out superficial cuts, he let her handle the bigger ones. It felt wrong, but the tediousness of pulling splinters and sterilizing the sites helped him calm his rallying thoughts. The rhythmic beating of the heart monitor stilling some of the noise in his mind.