Brothers To The Bitter End

23

Tim rolled his eyes as he whipped out his bo staff. Talking before thinking had gotten them in trouble more than once. And yet, he still allowed Jay to do the talking. "Great rolling, Jaybird. Now we have to fight the Justice League."

Jason opened his mouth to retort, but was cut off by a vent grate being kicked out of the ceiling. It hit Batman directly on the head.

"Score!" Wally hollered, jumping up from the floor.

A small kid with short black hair and dangerous green eyes leaped from the ceiling and landed in a crouch on the ground. Considering the ceiling was a good forty feet from the ground, it was quite the feat.

"'Bout time you losers showed up," Damian spat. His eyes were a little red and swollen, but neither his brothers nor Wally were brave enough to point that out.

"Who are you?" Superman asked.

Damian glared at them. "Ask Batman," he turned back to his brothers. "We need to go,"

"Why? We're about to kick some League booty!" Jason hissed.

"Because Gray is missing! They took him somewhere, and we need to find him!"

Jason opened his mouth to ask another question when a large, black dog burst into the room and launched himself at Damian. Green Lantern screamed, "Someone save him!"

Damian screeched in delight. "Titus!" Titus began enthusiastically licking his pet's face.

"He's eating his face off!" Green Lantern fainted.

Jason snorted. "I can see this one isn't any more intelligent than the last one. Last ones? How many Green Lanterns have there been?"

Wonder Woman pointed an accusing finger at the boy and his dog. "Someone please explain to me who these people . . . and dog are."

"That's the current Robin and his dog Titus," a tired voice from the doorway replied. Jason whipped around and saw a bloodied and battered Dick being supported by Roy and Artemis.

"Artemis?" Kaldur asked in confusion. "What are you doing?"

"Righting your wrong. Tell me, Kaldur, did you really order Di . . . Nightwing's torture?"

Kaldur blanched. "What? No, of course not. Is that what he told you?"

Jason, who had immediately replaced Artemis in supporting Dick, glowered at Kaldur. He opened his mouth to speak, but a new voice cut them off. "Actually, Kal didn't order Nightwing's torture," a blonde haired girl in a dark purple uniform walked in, followed by a completely black encloaked person. Between the two of them, they dragged a large, whitish creature behind them. "As a matter of fact, we have it on good authority that the JLA had no idea they were here at all!"

"Spoiler! Black Bat!" Tim was thrilled to see his sister and girlfriend, even if it was unexpected.

"Hey, Red," Stephanie winked at him flirtatiously. Tim blushed furiously, and he could almost see Cass rolling her eyes under the cowl.

"Who are they?" Superman asked, frowning.

"Hey, Supes. I see you haven't changed much." Stephanie grinned. "And we're here to right a wrong. Seems that some of your aliens are loose and causing trouble. You're welcome for rounding them up."

"What?" The entire JLA chorused.

"She's right," a bald, green skinned girl floated into the room. "It seems that some rogue Martians joined the League of Assassins. They kidnapped Conner and me, and then pulled Nightwing and Robin up here. They posed as Kaldur, Conner, and I to order the torture of this young man."

Batman, who had finally awoken from unconsciousness, frowned. "But how did they get in?"

M'ggan shrugged. "We're still trying to figure that out."

Jason glowered at M'ggan. "How do we know that you're not the rogue Martians?"

"And why would you two team up with a Leaguer?" Tim added suspiciously.

"We didn't," Stephanie snorted. "Technically we're 'under arrest.' Fortunately for us, we are the ones dragging the Martian which is the only reason we aren't in cuffs!"

"But how do we know that you're real? And there were at least three Martians. Where are the other two?" Tim frowned.

"Conner and some green elephant are putting the other two in cells. Martian lady here is making sure we don't make a break for it,"

"Back to the question about you being the real Spoiler and Black Bat . . ." Jason redirected the conversation.

All of a sudden a knife hurled past Tim's face, heading straight for Black Bat's skull. In an almost off handed motion Black Bat grabbed the knife by the blade, which was mere centimeters from hitting her right eye, and threw it back towards Damian who, naturally, had be the one to throw it. Damian neatly sidestepped the blade but was unable to avoid the heavy Martian body with whom Spoiler smacked him.

"Yeah, it's them," Damian wheezed from underneath the Martian's prone body.

Jason cracked up and almost dropped Dick as a result. Stephanie looked abominably pleased with herself. Tim just looked shocked like he couldn't quite understand what had just happened.

The JLA looked on in horror. "What did that prove?" Green Lantern asked.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Roy spat. This was the first he has spoken since entering the room. "Fortunately, we aren't bound to tell you,"

A few of the leaguers opened their mouths to retort, but Batman cut them off. "He's right, they're not. However, the question still remains, how do you think you're going to get off the station?"

"Like this," Dick lifted his bruised, bloody face and stared right into Bruce's eyes. "Porniți siguranța defecțiunii." (Initiate the protective fail safe).

The League all jumped as gas began pouring out through the vents. It took several minutes for the fog to clear, but by that time, Dick, Jason, Tim, Wally, and everyone else had disappeared. The martian Stephanie had flung at Damian was zip-tied to on of the pipes on the wall.

"Great," Bruce muttered. "Just great."
********
"The good news is that no serious damage has been done," Alfred told the worried group of adults and kids waiting downstairs. "However, he is going to have to wait at least a week if not more to do any kind of activity."

"Activity like what?" Jason asked.

"Running, jumping, walking long distances, walking distances any longer than to the bathroom, speaking very much, basically anything more strenuous than breathing."

"Great. Who's going to go work?" Damian tried to cover his worry with harsh words.

"I will," Jason said with a sigh. Everyone looked at him with shocked expressions. So far, the twenty year old man had never wanted to work at anything. He dabbled at being a vigilante, but other than that there was nothing he was interested in.

"And what are you going to do?" Tim asked, frowning.

"I'll figure something out." Jason sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Don't sweat it. It'll be fine."