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Chapter Text

History books record turning points as if they were inevitabilities, yet history itself is never inevitable. It is fragile, vulnerable to the smallest cracks, the faintest changes of circumstance, the narrowest turns of chance. In August of 1991, one such turn reshaped the world.

In the world that might have been, the coup by communist hardliners against Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded. The crumbling Soviet state collapsed fully under the weight of its contradictions, and the Cold War ended with the triumphant rise of a unipolar West. That is the story we know.

But here? In this world? That coup failed.

The State Committee on the State of Emergency underestimated not only Gorbachev’s resolve but the will of the people. In Moscow, protesters did not disperse when tanks rolled into the streets; they stood their ground, arms linked in the thousands, surrounding the Russian White House. They stood there in the rain and the cold for three nights as generals wavered, as divisions hesitated to fire, and as the coup leaders faltered in the face of a defiance they had never anticipated.

In this world, Boris Yeltsin never ascended to the presidency of a post-Soviet Russia. Instead, Gorbachev returned from his Crimean isolation not as a weakened man, but as a leader who had survived a direct attempt to strangle reform in its crib. That survival changed him. Glasnost and perestroika were not abandoned. They were sharpened.

The Union did not dissolve. It reconstituted itself. Though the Soviet Republics of the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia did break away and gain independence; most of the remaining Soviet Republics (including Russia) remained.

In 1992, the ”New Union Treaty” was signed and ratified by the remaining Soviet Republics and by 1993, the Soviet Union was transformed from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the new Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics. Gorbachev was popularly elected as the first President of the new, more modern Union. A union that was still Soviet, still proud, but now federalized, modernized, and reformed. The hammer and sickle gave way to a new banner; the red star behind a royal blue banner with a red stripe below.

The hammer and sickle were replaced in the state emblem by an “All-Union Star”, a union of states bound together not by ideology, but by sovereignty.

The world shuddered.

History would continue similarly as in our world. Germany would go on and be reunified under the Federal Republic of the West, but rather than being a completely westernized state, it served as a bridge state; the former communist government of East Germany giving way during reunification but allowing the new unified federal government to retain its ties to Moscow as its new eastern states opened its markets westward. As in our world, this new re-unified Germany would go on to become one of the founding members of the European Union alongside France, the United Kingdom, and other Western Allies in Western Europe.

The Koreas, North and South, scarred by decades of division, began their own reconciliation under pressure from both Washington and Moscow. The ruling dynasty of the North was granted refuge in China as the two Koreas unified into the United Republic of Korea, a fragile unity forming in the shadow of greater powers. China itself would have its own peaceful conclusion as the Republic of China would officially break away and declare independence, becoming the new Republic of Taiwan; those in the mainland being coerced recognize the new state with pressure from Washington and Moscow in exchange for the mainland’s further re-integration in the world stage.

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia would share a similar fate. Unlike in our world, Yugoslav President Marshal Josip Broz Tito was able to establish formal protocols and guidelines for succession in the event of his demise as well as established reforms to the Yugoslav Government in preparation for a post-Tito era.. Come his death in 1980, the new succession laws and reforms came into effect and Yugoslavia was saved from fragmentation, collapse, and spared from the horrors of the Yugoslav Wars.

In 1995, Yugoslavia would officially drop the “Socialist" title from the country's official name, reforming into the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The League of Communists of Yugoslavia would be similarly reformed into the Yugoslav Social Democracy League.

Across the globe, lines on maps that had once split nations east and west blurred, smoothed, or vanished entirely.

The Cold War ended, but there was no victor.

There was balance.

By the dawn of the new millennium, the US and the new USSR stood not as enemies but as cordial near-peer competitors, two pillars of a world order defined less by walls than by a tense, enduring equilibrium.

There was no single superpower, no illusion of history’s end. There was only competition, shadowed by memory and sharpened by a new world order.

And in this balance, something else emerged.

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The rise of the extraordinary had begun quietly. Whispers of metahumans, once confined to the realm of myth and conspiracy, grew louder in a world no longer tethered to the binary of capitalist or communist triumph. Heroes, true, undeniable heroes, entered the fray.

Superman revealed himself in Metropolis some time in 2000, a being not of this Earth who nevertheless called it home. His emergence forced both Washington and Moscow to consider the scale of their arms and ambitions. If one man could fly faster than a jet and shrug off a nuclear blast, what good were arsenals of missiles or divisions of tanks?

Batman followed, the myth of Gotham’s dark knight hardening into a presence neither city nor nation could deny. In time, others joined them: Wonder Woman, herald of a hidden Amazon nation; Aquaman, King of Atlantis; and the Green Lanterns, emissaries of a galactic peace-keeping corps.

The Justice League was born, not of ideology, but of necessity. No nation could ignore the threat of alien invasion, rogue gods, or world-ending catastrophes. In this world of new global superpowers, the League was the only entity both sides trusted enough to stand between humanity and extinction.

But trust is not the same as faith.

For the Soviet Union of this new world, they believed the League as a Western-dominated entity, a tool of Washington cloaked in altruism to further its desires. For the United States, the League was a potential fifth column, its secrets too opaque, its allegiances too uncertain. The rivalry of nations bled into the shadow of the heroes, fueling suspicions even as the world cheered their victories.

It was in this crucible that the younger generation emerged.

Robin (the first Robin). Kid Flash. Aqualad. Miss Martian. Artemis. Superboy. Under the League’s guidance, the covert team was formed; a strike force of the protégé heroes who could act where their mentors could not. In covert halls and hidden bases, the Team fought battles unseen by the public eye; Cadmus experiments, alien infiltrations, and conspiracies too dangerous for the headlines.

Their victories were countless. But so were their losses.

The shadows grew darker as the years passed. Ra’s al Ghul. Vandal Savage. Lex Luthor. Each villain found fertile ground in a world already divided, exploiting the newfound peace and sowing distrust between East and West to conceal their own agendas.

And in the cracks of this uneasy world order, the tragedies struck.

Jason Todd, the second Robin, slain and resurrected as the Red Hood. Dick Grayson, the first Robin, shedding his mantle to become Nightwing, struggling under the weight of leadership. The betrayal of Aqualad, the attempted manipulation of Blue Beetle, the Light’s reach into every corner of their lives.

And finally, the climax that should have been the end, an invasion from a force originating from the far reaches of the galaxy, the Reach; and the subsequent death of Wally West.

Except, in this world, it was not the end.

Here, Kid Flash survived. Torn from the timestream, battered but alive, he returned to find a Team fractured, a League compromised, and a world still teetering on the knife’s edge of East and West. His survival was a spark of hope, proof that fate could be defied.

But fate is stubborn.

History bends, but it does not break. In the shadows of Moscow and the silence of Siberia, forces older than the League, and as cruel as the Light, were already moving their pieces into place. 

Their designs were patient, meticulous. For while the League saved the world from gods and aliens, and the Team from conspiracies and tyrants, there were threats neither expected; threats born not from beyond the stars, but from the darkest impulses of mankind itself.

The world thought the Cold War ended. It had not. It had only evolved.

And in the frozen wastes of the new century, an idea slept.

The idea of a “super soldier” capable of going toe-to-toe with superpowered aliens,  gods, and mythical creatures from beyond.

A soldier born from the struggles of human science.

A soldier who would awaken not as a hero, but as a weapon.

Chapter Text

[January 2017 - 6 Months After the Reach’s Invasion]

[Saturday, January 21 | 23:50]

[Somewhere in Central Siberia, Russian Soviet Republic, Soviet Union]

The Siberian night was a living thing.

It pressed in on them with an almost suffocating weight, the snow swirling sideways in the howling wind, stinging every inch of exposed skin.

The temperature was lethal, dropping below negative forty degrees celsius, but it wasn’t the cold that made the young heroes uneasy.

It was the silence that came with it, broken only by the crunch of boots on ice and the low hum of their stealth transport cloaked in the cloud cover above.

“Remind me again why the League couldn’t handle this?”, the Red Hood muttered through his comm, his voice edged with disdain. His red helmet glowed faintly in the moonlight, the white lenses narrowing as he scanned the tundra, “Feels like they’re just sending us out here to freeze our asses off.”

“Because the League is under political scrutiny after the Reach’s invasion.”, Aqualad’s voice replied, calm and steady, cutting through the wind like the edge of a blade, “They cannot be seen violating Soviet sovereignty so openly. This mission requires subtlety.”

Red Hood scoffed, “Subtlety? That’s what you call dropping us into the middle of Siberia to raid a suspected smuggler black site?”

Nightwing crouched ahead of them on a snow-crusted ridge, his domino mask glowing faintly blue with the overlay of his holographic display, “Jason, subtle is relative. The League needs plausible deniability, meaning this is our job. And last I checked, you signed on for this.”

“Correction.”, Red Hood said as he chambered rounds in his suppressed pistols, “I signed on because Bruce guilt-tripped me, and because you wouldn’t shut up about giving this whole ‘Team’ thing another chance.”

Robin landed lightly in the snow beside him, cape pulled tight around his shoulders against the wind. He looked younger in the arctic gear, his hood up, the sharp lines of Robin’s mask catching the moonlight, “If you don’t want to be here, Jason, no one’s forcing you.”

Red Hood tilted his helmet toward the third Boy Wonder, “Relax, Replacement. Just making conversation.”

“Quiet.”, Aqualad warned. He gestured with a clenched fist, and the Team dropped lower against the snow.

Ahead of them, the shape of a mountain rose, its face scarred by a man-made entryway—steel doors half-buried beneath snowdrifts, dim light spilling from security floodlamps.

Nightwing studied the entry through his goggles, the blue light of his HUD flickering, “That’s it. Entrance to the bunker. Thermal scans show about thirty guards, heavy weapons. And something deeper underground, possible life signs in containment.”

“Meta-humans.”, Robin breathed.

Nightwing nodded, “That’s the intel. Trafficked, experimented on, sold to the highest bidder. Standard operating procedure for these black sites.”

Red Hood flexed his grip on his pistols, “Then let’s not waste time.”

Nightwing glanced at him, “We do this clean. Quiet. No unnecessary casualties.”

Red Hood didn’t respond, but the scoff that hissed over the comm said enough.

The four of them ghosted down the ridge, snow masking their approach. Nightwing led point, his escrima sticks glinting faintly under the aurora that rippled across the night sky. Aqualad followed, water bearers strapped to his back, his silent presence grounding the group. Robin moved with precise, practiced agility, every step calculated; and Red Hood? Red Hood stalked like a predator, his movements efficient, lethal, as if the tundra itself feared him.

Two guards flanked the door. They barely had time to adjust their rifles before Nightwing’s escrima stick cracked against one man’s jaw, sending him sprawling unconscious. Robin lunged at the other, a sweep of his bo-staff knocking the weapon free before he delivered a precise strike to the solar plexus, dropping him into the snow.

Red Hood moved past both before their bodies had even hit the ground, stepping over them with a muttered, “Cute.”

Aqualad caught his arm before he could reach for the door, “Wait. Nightwing?”

Nightwing knelt, fingers flying across his wrist console. The steel doors hissed as their locks disengaged, overridden by his algorithms, “We’re in. Keep it quiet inside. The last thing we want is an alarm triggering reinforcements.”

Red Hood gave him a look through the helmet, “And if quiet fails?”

“Then we improvise.”, was all Nightwing replied.

The doors slid open with a groan. Cold, stale air rushed out to meet them. Inside, the bunker was a maze of concrete corridors, lit by harsh fluorescent lights that buzzed against the silence. The stench of oil, sweat, and something acrid hung heavy in the air.

They moved in formation, Nightwing at the front, Aqualad covering the rear. Robin’s eyes darted to every shadow, every camera, recording and processing. Red Hood walked loose and casual, but his fingers twitched over his triggers, hungry for release.

They passed rooms lined with cages. Inside, gaunt figures pressed against the bars. Men, women, some barely older than Robin. Their eyes were hollow, their bodies marked with burns, bruises, and restraints that hummed with suppressor technology.

Robin’s jaw tightened, “Meta-humans.”

Nightwing placed a hand on his shoulder, “We’ll free them. First, secure the facility.”

Red Hood’s voice was flat, “They’ve been tortured. Sold like weapons. And you still want to play it by the book?”

Nightwing shot him a sharp look, “We’re not here to execute people. We’re here to save them.”

Red Hood tilted his head, his voice dropping an octave, “Yeah. Tell that to the bastards who built this place.”

Aqualad’s voice intervened like a wall of calm, “Both of you. Focus. Our mission is not vengeance. It is justice.”

Nightwing drew a steadying breath, “Aqualad’s right. We’ll finish the job. Quietly.”

For a moment, silence hung over the comms as they pushed deeper into the bunker.

The hum of machinery grew louder. Somewhere below, a generator thrummed, pumping life into the concrete beast. They passed more guards on patrol, each one dispatched with surgical precision.

Nightwing moved like a ghost, dropping them with strikes that left no trace. Robin followed his lead, methodical and precise. Aqualad incapacitated with silent efficiency, every motion measured.

Red Hood’s methods, though… They were not as subtle. His suppressed pistols whispered in the corridors, each shot finding a kneecap, a shoulder, an arm. Bodies slumped into corners, alive but broken, groaning softly in the silence.

Robin glanced at him more than once, unease plain in his young eyes. Red Hood ignored it.

At the heart of the bunker, they reached a reinforced blast door. Nightwing’s scanners pulsed, feeding him data, “This is it. The main holding cells. Whatever else they’ve been hiding, it’s in here.”

Red Hood stepped forward, placing a shaped charge against the steel, “We can argue methods all night, but this is the fastest way in.”

Nightwing’s hand shot out, grabbing his wrist, “No. We do this my way.”

Red Hood stared at him, tension thick in the corridor.,“And if your way gets those kids killed?”

Nightwing’s voice was steel, “Then their blood is on me. Not you.”

For a long moment, Red Hood didn’t move.

Then, slowly, he stepped back, “Fine. Your call, Golden Boy. Just don’t expect me to clean up the mess.”

Nightwing turned back to the console, his fingers flying across the screen. The locks disengaged one by one, a hiss of pressure releasing as the blast door creaked open.

Beyond it, rows of cells lined the walls, each one holding terrified, broken figures. Eyes widened as the heroes stepped through the door. Hope flickered where there had been none.

Robin exhaled softly, “We found them.”

Aqualad raised his comm, “Alpha to Beta. We have confirmed hostages. Stand by for extraction.”

But even as he spoke, alarms began to wail, red lights flashing across the chamber.

Red Hood’s pistols were already in his hands, “So much for quiet.”

Nightwing’s jaw clenched, “Then we adapt. Move!”

And the bunker came alive around them.

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[Sunday - January 22, 2017 | 00:35]

[Central Siberia, Russian Soviet Republic, Soviet Union]

The klaxons screamed like wounded animals, echoing through the steel corridors. Red light strobed in time with the sirens, painting the bunker in jagged shadows. For a heartbeat, everyone froze, the trafficked meta-humans staring wide-eyed from their cells, the Team registering the sudden shift from stealth to chaos.

Then Nightwing barked, “Go, go, go!”, and the room erupted into motion.

Robin was already at the control console, fingers flying across unfamiliar Cyrillic keyboards, bypassing one failsafe after another, “They rigged it for a full lockdown! Hold me ten seconds!”

“Don’t have ten!”, Red Hood growled. He leveled his pistols at the magnetic locks and fired. The suppressors hissed, sparks flying as bullets tore into steel. The first cell’s lock ruptured, the door swinging wide. A girl no older than sixteen stumbled out, her arms wrapped in dampening cuffs sparking at the seams.

Aqualad caught her gently before she collapsed, “Easy, you are safe now.”

The other cells opened in rapid succession; some from Robins’s frantic hacking, others from Red Hood’s brutal improvisation. Survivors poured into the chamber, dozens of them, some too weak to walk, others trembling with power suppressed for too long. Their eyes darted to the young heroes like half-starved animals unsure if salvation was real.

Nightwing moved among them, his voice steady, his presence grounding, “You’re free. Stay close to us, follow our lead. We’re getting you out.”

Gunfire ripped through the chamber entrance. Mercenaries in heavy winter armor stormed in, rifles blazing. Red Hood didn’t hesitate, his pistols barked back in reply, each shot precise, deliberate. One merc dropped with a ruined knee, another spun screaming as a bullet shattered his shoulder.

Robin swept his bo-staff into a guard’s chest, slamming him into the wall before disarming him with a clean strike, “Nightwing—! There’s too many!”

“I see them!”, Nightwing vaulted high, flipping over the advancing squad. His escrima sticks crackled blue as he landed behind them, slamming them into the backs of necks and spines. Bodies fell one by one, shocked unconscious before they hit the floor.

Aqualad surged forward like a tidal wave, his water bearers in a blur. Each sweep disarmed, disabled, neutralized, his discipline and strength holding the line between the mercenaries and the huddled victims.

The chamber shook violently, dust raining from the ceiling. Somewhere deep below, a muffled boom echoed, there were secondary charges detonating.

Robin’s eyes went wide, “They’re rigging the whole place to blow!”

“Of course they are!”, Red Hood muttered, firing two more shots before slamming fresh magazines into his pistols, “Can’t have witnesses.”

Nightwing’s voice cut through the chaos, “Then we move! Evac routes now!”

Robin’s HUD flickered, pulling from the bunker’s schematics, “There’s a cargo elevator two floors up! It leads to a loading bay near the surface.”

“Perfect.”, Nightwing said, he scanned the terrified metas, calculating the odds, the time, the numbers.

He forced his voice to stay steady, “We form a perimeter! Red Hood, Aqualad, you’re our front line! Robin, rear guard. Keep them moving!”

Red Hood smirked faintly behind his helmet, “Now you’re talking my language!”

The march began.

They herded the captives into the corridor, Red Hood and Aqualad cutting a swath ahead, Nightwing keeping the flow steady, Robin holding off stragglers from behind. Gunfire rattled, grenades clattered, screams echoed through the concrete halls, but the Team pressed forward, step by step.

One boy, maybe twelve, tripped in the crush of bodies. Red Hood caught him by the arm, pulling him upright. The boy flinched at the cold steel of the Hood’s grip. Red Hood paused, looking at the wide, terrified eyes staring up at him.

He sighed and shoved the boy gently toward Nightwing, “Stick with him, kid. He’ll keep you alive.”

The corridor shook again, harder this time. Ceiling panels collapsed, spraying sparks. Concrete split with a groan like something alive.

“We are running out of time!”, Aqualad called.

They reached the cargo elevator, its steel doors looming ahead. Robin’s bo-staff snapped out, striking the control panel, forcing the system to life. The doors slid open, and the metas poured inside, cramming shoulder to shoulder. Nightwing counted them rapidly, jaw tight. Too many, not enough space.

“Load them, get them topside!”, Nightwing barked.

Robin’s eyes darted to him, “What about you?”

Nightwing shoved him lightly into the elevator, “I’ll be right behind you.”

The doors slid shut, leaving only Nightwing, Red Hood, and Aqualad in the collapsing corridor.

Red Hood’s voice was sharp, “You’d better not be pulling that noble self-sacrifice crap again, Dick.”

Nightwing didn’t answer. He was already moving, sprinting down the hall toward a secondary stairwell.

His comm crackled with orders, “Kaldur, get them out. Jason, cover him! That’s an order!”

Red Hood cursed, his grip tightening on his pistols, “Damn it, Grayson—”

Another explosion tore through the bunker. The floor buckled beneath them, concrete splitting, rebar screaming. Flames licked down the hallway.

Nightwing turned once, eyes meeting Red Hood’s behind the white glow of his helmet, “Get them home! That’s all that matters!”

And then the stairwell collapsed around him.

Red Hood lunged forward, but Aqualad’s hand clamped on his arm like iron, “No! We cannot follow! If we stay, all are lost!”

Red Hood’s breath hissed ragged in his helmet, fury barely contained. But even he knew Kaldur was right. With a strangled curse, he pulled back, retreating toward the service corridors as the bunker roared its death throes around them.

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…

The elevator doors opened to the surface, and the frigid night rushed in. Snow whipped across the loading bay, mixing with smoke and fire belching from hidden vents. The freed metas stumbled into the storm, coughing, crying, some collapsing into the snow with relief.

Robin was the first out, scanning the horizon for threats. His eyes darted to the empty spaces around him, “Where’s Nightwing? Where’s Dick?”

Red Hood stormed out after him, weapons still in hand, fury in every line of his body, “He stayed behind.”

Robin froze, “No. No, he wouldn’t—”

Aqualad emerged last, his water bearers buried in the snow from the collapse, his expression unreadable but his silence damning.

Behind them, the earth rumbled. The mountain face shuddered, collapsing inward. The bunker folded into itself like a dying beast, explosions ripping through the snowpack, smoke and flame belching skyward.

The roar of destruction drowned even the wind, shaking the ground beneath their feet.

The young metas screamed as the world seemed to fall apart behind them.

Robin stared at the avalanche of snow and stone, his face pale, “He… he’s still in there…”

Red Hood’s fists clenched, his pistols trembling in his grip. He wanted to dive back in, to tear through rubble until his hands bled, to drag Nightwing out himself. But the ruins burned before them, buried under tons of rock and fire.

Aqualad placed a hand on Robin’s shoulder, grounding him, “We cannot reach him. Not now. We must see the rescued to safety.”

Robin shook his head violently, “We can’t just leave him!”

Red Hood’s voice cracked like a whip, venom and grief mingling, “He gave us the order, kid. You follow it. Or his sacrifice means nothing!”

Robin’s breath came in sharp, pained gasps, but he nodded, barely. His hands shook as he pulled his cape tighter around himself, as if to shield against the truth.

Aqualad raised his comm, his voice steady though his chest felt like stone, “This is Alpha. Extraction complete. We are en route to Alaska with the survivors… Nightwing did not make it out.”

The silence on the other end of the comm was heavy.

Red Hood turned away from the flames, his helmet hiding his expression. He whispered, too soft for the comm to pick up, “Damn you, Grayson… You better not be dead.”

The snow swallowed the ruins, the storm carrying away the smoke. The mountain was silent again, a grave of steel and ice.

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[Sunday - January 21, 2017 | 07:00 (Alaskan Time)]

[Justice League Forward Base, Alaska, United States]

The Bioship’s cabin was silent except for the labored breathing of the rescued metas. Some were wrapped in emergency blankets, others strapped to gurneys as League medics administered stabilizers and oxygen. They were safe, but the air was suffocating.

No one spoke. Not Jason, who sat hunched in the co-pilot’s seat, pistols stripped and reassembled over and over in his lap like a nervous tic. Not Tim, whose hands shook as he clutched a datapad, staring blankly at diagnostic readouts he wasn’t really reading. Not Kaldur, who stood silent sentinel by the rear hatch, gaze fixed outward into the howling blizzard as though the snow might carry answers.

The chair where Nightwing should have been, sat empty.

When the Bioship touched down at the Justice League’s Arctic Alaskan outpost, an isolated fortress of steel and reinforced glass jutting from the tundra, League personnel rushed to receive the survivors. Lanterns and League medics swept the freed metas away, comforting words mingling with the sound of snow crunching under boots.

Still, the silence clung to the Team.

Jason ripped his helmet off, revealing his domino mask underneath as his breath steamed in the sub-zero air.

His jaw was clenched, his eyes bloodshot, but his voice was hard, “Where’s Batman?”

“On mission.”, a League medic answered cautiously, “He’ll be briefed as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, he’d better be.”, Jason muttered darkly, shoving past.

Tim lingered near the hatch, cape wrapped tight around his shoulders. He wanted to help the medics, wanted to follow protocol, wanted anything but to stand in the weight of Nightwing’s absence.

His voice came out small, cracking despite himself, “We… We need to tell them. The League. That—”

Kaldur’s hand landed gently on his shoulder, “Not yet. First, we ensure the rescued are secured. Then… Then we return for him.”

Jason’s head snapped around, eyes blazing, “Return for what? You saw it! He’s under a mountain of rock and fire! No one’s walking away from that.”

Tim’s voice rose, unsteady, “You don’t know that! You didn’t see him die! Until I see a body, I’m not giving up!”

Jason’s nostrils flared, his hands balling into fists at his sides. For a second, it looked like he might lash out, vent the fire boiling inside.

But he turned away, pacing into the snow instead, his voice low and venomous, “You think I want him dead, kid? He’s my brother too! If there’s even a chance, I’ll be the first one digging through that rubble! But don’t delude yourself, odds are, we’re hauling out a corpse.”

Tim’s chest heaved, his cape whipping in the icy wind. He wanted to argue, to scream, to deny. Instead, he whispered through gritted teeth, “He’s not dead! He can’t be.”

Kaldur’s gaze shifted between them, his calm masking the storm inside. He said nothing. He couldn’t, not when his heart felt like it had been carved out and left buried under the Siberian snow.

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[Sunday - January 22, 2017 | 07:00 (Siberian Time)]

[Central Siberia, Russian Soviet Republic, Soviet Union]

They returned at dawn.

The Arctic night had stretched long, but when they crossed back over the tundra, the first gray light bled across the horizon.

Snow still fell, blanketing the ruins of the bunker in an icy shroud. 

Where once there had been steel corridors and hidden laboratories, now there was only a jagged scar in the mountainside, smoke still curling faintly from the frozen wreck.

The Bioship hovered low, its engines rumbling against the silence.

Jason was the first down the ramp, boots crunching into snow, his rifle slung across his back. He swept his gaze over the wreckage with a soldier’s eye, calculating, hunting. The heat signatures were faint, burnt-out fires buried deep, no human life detectable.

Tim landed beside him, cape snapping in the wind. He pulled up a holo-interface from his gauntlet, scanning the terrain, “There’s… Nothing. The schematics are gone, heat signatures are cold. But…”

He frowned, squinting, “There’s no body.”

Jason’s lip curled, “What, you expected him gift-wrapped on the surface?”

Tim’s glare snapped to him, sharp, “I expected something. A reading. A trace. Anything.”

Jason looked away, frustration etched into every line of him.

Kaldur descended last, water bearers ready in hand, moving with quiet purpose. He waded through the snow to a mound of collapsed concrete, kneeling low. He pressed a palm to the ice, closing his eyes as though listening.

When he opened them, his voice was low, “The charges detonated inward. The facility was designed to collapse upon itself, erasing evidence.”

Tim’s voice trembled, “So he’s just… Gone?”

Jason kicked at a slab of twisted steel, sending it skidding across the ice. His laugh was harsh, bitter, “That’s what they do. No witnesses. No survivors. They buried him with the evidence.”

But Kaldur shook his head, his eyes narrowing, “No. Look closely.”

They did. Jason crouched low, Tim’s holo-scanner sweeping over the wreckage. The snow bore no sign of blood. No body, no remains. Even the rubble nearest the stairwell where Nightwing had vanished showed something odd, the debris shifted, patterns inconsistent with a man being crushed.

Faint dragmarks in the tundra, that kind that you wouldn’t notice unless you were paying attention. Marks that led away from the collapse point, barely visible under fresh snowfall. Boot prints, and not theirs, circled the area. Professional. Methodical. Someone had been here after the explosion, searching, extracting

Tim’s pulse quickened, “He got out.”

Jason’s eyes flicked to him, sharp, “Or someone pulled him out.”

The words hit heavier than the wind. The possibility lingered like smoke. If Nightwing had survived the collapse, then someone had him. And in Siberia, under the nose of the Soviet machine? That someone couldn’t be trusted.

Tim’s voice was urgent, “We have to keep searching! Expand the grid, call in League assets, run every thermal scan possible—”

Jason cut him off, his tone brutal, “Tim. Use your head. Whoever took him knew exactly what they were doing. We’re hours too late. You really think they’re gonna leave footprints in the snow for us to follow?”

Tim’s voice broke, “I’m not giving up on him!”

Jason finally snapped, his voice booming across the ruins, “Neither am I! But stop pretending this is a rescue mission! If he’s alive, they’ve got him. And if they’ve got him, we’re in deeper shit than you can imagine!”

The wind howled, filling the silence that followed.

Kaldur straightened, sheathing his water bearers.

His gaze swept the horizon, cold determination hardening his features, “Whether he is alive or not, we cannot linger here. The League must be informed. This operation has cost us dearly.”

Tim turned away, fists trembling. He couldn’t look at either of them. His breath misted in the air, each exhale ragged, raw.

Jason holstered his pistol, his voice dropping low, almost to himself, “Wherever you are, Dick… Hold on. Don’t let them break you.”

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…

The flight back to the Watchtower was heavier than the first.

The survivors slept fitfully in their bunks, unaware of the shadow hanging over their rescuers. 

Tim sat rigid in his seat, his cowl pulled down to hide the wet streaks on his face. Jason leaned back, arms crossed, staring at the ceiling as though daring it to answer him. Kaldur sat apart, eyes closed, silent in his grief.

The comm crackled with League command, a calm, professional voice requesting status.

Kaldur answered, his voice even despite the pain twisting inside, “Mission accomplished. Survivors secure. But Nightwing…” 

He paused before continuing.

“Nightwing did not return with us.”

There was silence on the other end.

Then Batman’s voice, sharp and cold, “Repeat that.”

Kaldur’s chest tightened, but his voice did not waver, “Nightwing was lost in the collapse. We found no remains. He is missing in action.”

Jason’s jaw tightened, his grip white-knuckled against the armrest.

Tim bit down on his lip, whispering words no comm could catch, “We’ll find you. I swear it.”

…

…

…

Unbeknownst to them, in the frozen wasteland half a world away, buried in the dark heart of the Siberian tundra, chains rattled as an unconscious Nightwing was restrained in a cold, dark cell…

Chapter Text

[Sunday - January 22, 2017 | 12:00]

[High Earth Orbit, The Justice League Watchtower]

The Watchtower’s debriefing chamber was colder than the void outside its windows.

The Team filed in silently, boots heavy on polished steel floors, the weight of Siberia still clinging to their shoulders.

Jason marched at the front, helmet clipped to his belt, every step sharp with restrained fury. Tim trailed close behind, face half-hidden beneath his hood, his cowl hiding the exhaustion and grief etched into every line. Kaldur walked at their side, posture upright, but his eyes were clouded as if part of him was still buried under the snow.

The chamber was full. The League had assembled, Superman with his arms folded like marble statues, Wonder Woman seated regal and unreadable, Hal Jordan leaning back with arms crossed but jaw tight, Shazam fidgeting with nervous energy. Even J’onn stood at the back, unreadable eyes scanning the young heroes as they entered.

But every gaze in the room inevitably gravitated to one man.

Batman.

He stood near the holo-display at the head of the room, cape pooled at his boots. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t breathe louder than a whisper. But the silence around him was thick, magnetic, suffocating.

The Team took their places before the gathered titans of the League.

Jason stood with his arms crossed defiantly, his glare daring anyone to speak first. Tim set his jaw and braced himself against the table, refusing to crumble under the pressure. Kaldur was the one who finally spoke, his voice steady even as it scraped against the grief in his chest.

“The mission was partially successful.”, the Atlantean began, his words deliberate, “The meta-human captives were recovered and delivered safely to the Arctic outpost for care. They are stable, though many require long-term attention.”

Superman gave a slow nod, voice even, “And the facility itself?”

“Destroyed.”, Kaldur replied, “It was designed to collapse inward, a self-erasing structure. All data and personnel lost.”

The words hung there like smoke. A successful mission, on paper. But everyone in the room knew the missing piece.

Batman’s cowl tilted just slightly, eyes narrowing.

His voice was low and grave, “And Nightwing?”

Jason barked out a bitter laugh, sharp and ugly in the sterile chamber, “Oh, he’s just fine, B. We left him under a few thousand tons of concrete and frozen rock. Perfectly fine.”

“Jason—”, Tim started, but Jason cut him off, voice rising.

“Don’t ‘Jason’ me. You saw it. We all saw it! He ordered us out! Stayed behind! And then the whole damn thing came down on him! He’s gone.”

The words hit like physical blows. Shazam shifted uncomfortably, glancing at Superman, who kept his gaze forward. Wonder Woman’s hands tightened around her chair’s armrest, knuckles pale.

Tim slammed a fist into the table, the sound echoing through the chamber.

His voice cracked, high with grief but hard with defiance, “No! He’s not gone! We never found a body! We scanned every inch of that site. There’s no trace of him.”

Jason wheeled on him, his fury sparking, “Because there was nothing left to find!”

“Enough.”

The word was a blade, cutting through the rising storm. Batman’s voice carried no volume, no anger, just command. Both boys fell silent, their rage smoldering in the space between them.

All eyes turned to him.

Batman stood motionless, the weight of the League’s collective gaze pressing against him. Inside, a storm raged built from a father’s panic, a mentor’s fury, a soldier’s need for control. Outside, he betrayed nothing.

“Nightwing is missing in action.”, he said finally, each word precise, clipped, “Until we recover evidence to the contrary, his status is not to be listed as KIA.”

Hal raised a brow, leaning forward, “Bruce… You know the odds. If he survived the collapse, he’s still buried under a mountain. If he didn’t—”

“He is not KIA.”, Batman’s tone sharpened like steel dragged across stone, “The League will coordinate a full-scale search of the area as covertly as possible in order to not garner any unwanted attention. Satellite sweeps, reconnaissance, ground teams. If there is any trace—any trace at all—we will find it.”

Martian Manhunter’s calm voice broke in, soft but deliberate, “And if there is none?”

Batman’s jaw tightened. His silence said everything.

The chamber fell quiet again. The weight of the declaration settled over them all; MIA, not KIA. A difference of words, but to those who knew him best, it was more than protocol. It was a refusal. A lifeline. A denial carved into stone.

Jason muttered under his breath, too low for most but not for Tim beside him, “Denial doesn’t bring him back.”

Tim shot him a look, anger warring with grief. But Batman didn’t flinch, didn’t respond.

Instead, he turned to Kaldur, “Until further notice, you are the sole field leader of the Team. Maintain readiness. This search takes priority above all else.”

Kaldur inclined his head, the only outward sign of the storm beneath his calm, “Understood.”

Superman leaned forward, voice steady, “Bruce, we’ll help in any way we can. The League stands behind you.”

Batman didn’t acknowledge it. His eyes were already on the holo-display, data feeds flickering across it; schematics of the Siberian landscape, heat maps, League orbital scans already in progress. His world had narrowed to a single point, finding the boy he refused to lose.

The debrief ended in silence.

The League dispersed slowly, voices hushed, steps heavy. Jason stormed out first, fists clenched at his sides. Tim lingered a moment longer, glancing back at Batman, hoping for something, a word, a look, anything. But Bruce’s gaze was locked on the screens, unblinking.

Kaldur placed a hand on Tim’s shoulder before guiding him out.

And Batman stayed behind. Alone in the chamber, alone with the cold light of data feeds and the endless silence of space.

His hands curled into fists beneath the table. For a moment, just a moment, the mask cracked. His chest hitched, breath caught, something raw scraping against the inside of his ribs.

Then it was gone.

The Dark Knight stood, cape sweeping as he turned away, “Computer.”, he rasped, voice lower than a whisper, “Pull all surveillance feeds from Siberian sector fourteen. Cross-reference with Soviet surveillance. Flag all anomalies.”

The computer beeped compliance.

Batman stared at the stars through the chamber window, his reflection fractured across the glass. His mind was a battlefield, but his words came cold and certain.

“I will find you, Dick.”

…

…

…

…

…

[Tuesday - January 24, 2017 | 10:50]

[New York City, New York, United States]

New York City was alive with noise.

Car horns, subway rumbles, the chatter of pedestrians, the bite of cold January wind funneling through glass canyons of skyscrapers. For a few blocks in Greenwich Village, though, the world slowed. A little café sat tucked on the corner of a narrow street, its windows fogged from the warmth inside.

Artemis leaned back in her chair by the window, fingers wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee. Across from her, M’gann stirred her tea absently, her eyes downcast though she tried to wear a smile. Raquel slid into the booth with practiced ease, scarf tugged loose around her shoulders, ordering a hot chocolate with a grin.

And then there was Zatanna.

She had arrived late, wind whipping through her long black coat, a velvet scarf framing her face. 

The warmth of the café softened her sharp edges, but there was no mistaking the fire in her blue eyes.

She greeted them warmly, but there was tension under her smile.

"Sorry I'm late.", Zatanna said, unwinding her scarf, "Just got back from Prague this morning. The tour ran long, and I've been dodging calls all week just trying to get some peace."

“It’s been too long.”, the magician continued, sliding into the seat beside Raquel, “Feels like the only time we see each other these days is League meetings or the occasional magical disaster.”

Artemis smirked faintly, “You say that like magical disasters aren’t a monthly thing.”

“Weekly.”, Raquel teased.

That got a laugh, even from M’gann. For a moment, it felt almost normal, like the early days of the Team when they’d steal moments between chaos to just be kids.

But normal never lasted.

They ordered food, pastries, sandwiches, and another round of drinks. For a while, the conversation drifted to safe topics. Raquel's son, her work with the Team. Artemis mentioned Wally's latest speedster mishap. M'gann talked about her and Conner finally finding an apartment together.

Zatanna shared stories from her European tour from the venues, the crowds, the exhaustion of performing night after night.

"Honestly, it's been nice to just focus on the stage magic for a while. No demons, no world-ending crises. Just cards and doves and people who think it's all tricks.", Zatanna shared.

"Must be nice.", Artemis said with a small smile.

But the ease didn't last. Zatanna noticed the way M'gann's smile didn't quite reach her eyes, the way Artemis kept glancing at her coffee like she was searching for words at the bottom of the cup.

“So.”, Zatanna said eventually, leaning forward, hands folded, “How’s everyone been holding up? How’s the Team?”

The question hung in the air like a loaded gun.

Artemis froze, her mug halfway to her lips. M’gann’s smile faltered, her eyes flicking nervously toward Artemis. Even Raquel picked up on it, her grin fading into a questioning frown.

Zatanna’s brow furrowed, “What?”

M’gann opened her mouth, closed it again. She glanced at Artemis, silently pleading. Artemis shook her head slightly, but Zatanna didn’t miss it.

Her eyes narrowed, “What aren’t you guys telling me?”

Artemis sighed, setting her mug down with deliberate care. Her shoulders sagged as though the weight of Siberia had fallen on her, too, “Zee… It’s complicated.”

Zatanna’s voice sharpened, “Then uncomplicate it.”

M’gann flinched. Raquel sat straighter, her gaze darting between them, “What’s going on?”

Artemis met Zatanna’s eyes, and for a heartbeat, she tried to hold the line.

Tried to lie, to delay, to soften the blow.

But Zatanna’s glare cut through her like a blade.

So she broke.

“Nightwing’s missing.”, Artemis said quietly, “Kaldur and Tim told us that he didn’t make it out of the last mission in Siberia.”

The words landed like a punch to the gut.

Zatanna stared, her mouth parting slightly, “What do you mean… Missing?”

M’gann reached out gently, her voice soft, “They searched, Zee. After the debrief in the Watchtower, the whole Team did too. And now the League. He was—”

“No.”, Zatanna’s voice snapped like a whip.

Heads turned in the café, startled, but she didn’t care, “No, that doesn’t make sense. He’s Dick! He’s Nightwing! He’s—he doesn’t just vanish!”

Artemis’s jaw tightened, “Zee—”

“Don’t.”, Zatanna stood abruptly, her chair scraping loud against the floor.

Her heart hammered in her chest, her hands shaking as though her magic was clawing to the surface, “You should’ve told me the second it happened. You should’ve—!”

Her breath hitched, fury and grief twisting her voice, “He’s alive. I know he is.”

The others tried to reach her, but she was already striding toward the door, coat swirling behind her like a shadow. The bell over the café door rang violently as she shoved it open.

Raquel blinked, stunned, “What the hell just happened?”

M’gann exhaled shakily, “She’s probably going to find him.”

Artemis closed her eyes, guilt heavy in her chest, “No. She’s going to Gotham.”

…

…

…

…

…

[Tuesday - January 24, 2017 | 14:30]

[Wayne Manor - Gotham City, New Jersey, United States]

Wayne Manor loomed against the gray Gotham skyline, an ancient fortress of stone and memory.

The great double doors swung open not to the measured calm of Alfred’s greeting, but to the fury of a storm given flesh.

Zatanna shoved past the threshold, her boots striking hard against the marble floor. Her coat fell from her shoulders in a flutter of black velvet as her voice rang through the halls.

“BRUCE!”

Her magic trembled on her lips, her pulse roaring in her ears.

Alfred appeared in the hallway, startled but composed as ever, a silver tray in his hand, “Miss Zatara—”

“Where is he?”, she snapped, her eyes blazing, “Where’s Bruce?”

A figure emerged at the end of the corridor. Not Bruce. Tim.

His face was pale, his posture tense, but he moved toward her cautiously, like someone approaching a wounded animal, “Zee—please. You need to calm down.”

“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down!”, Her voice cracked, grief bleeding through the fury, “You were supposed to have his back. All of you! How could you let this happen?”

Tim's voice was quiet, "We've been searching, Zee. Every database, every satellite feed, every intelligence network. There's nothing. It's like he just... vanished."

"Then search harder.", Zatanna countered, her voice cracking.

Tim flinched, words catching in his throat. He wanted to explain more, to tell her more about the collapse, the search, the impossible choices. But none of it mattered.

None of it would undo what was lost.

Then another presence filled the hall, heavier than gravity.

Bruce stepped into view.

He didn’t speak right away. He never did. He just stood there, his tired eyes shadowing his face, the silence around him more oppressive than a shout.

Zatanna’s hands trembled, her fury straining against heartbreak, “Where is he, Bruce?”

His voice was low, rough stone ground against itself, “Missing.”

“Bullshit!”, Her fists clenched, her eyes shining with unshed tears, “You’re Batman for fuck’s sake! You don’t lose people! Not him!”

Bruce’s jaw tightened, “I’m searching. Every satellite, every contact, every lead. If he’s out there, I’ll find him.”

Zatanna’s breath caught a sob threatening to break free.

But before she could collapse under it, Alfred’s voice broke through, steady and warm.

“Miss Zatara.”, he said gently, stepping forward.

His gaze was kind, but unflinching, “Master Dick is many things. Reckless, stubborn, and maddening beyond measure. But he is also strong. Stronger than you think. If anyone can survive this… It is him.”

Zatanna’s chest heaved, her tears spilling at last.

She let Alfred’s words anchor her, let them steady her storm.

She nodded faintly, choking out a whisper, “He has to be.”

Bruce said nothing, his silence sharper than any vow.

…

…

…

But far away, in the frozen heart of the cold, desolate wastes of the Soviet Union, Nightwing’s body convulsed.

…

…

…

…

…

[Year: 2017]

[Somewhere in Central Siberia, Russian Soviet Republic, Soviet Union]

Chains rattled as electricity ripped through him, arcs of blue lighting the concrete chamber.

His screams echoed off stone, raw and ragged until his throat gave out.

His mask was gone, his hair matted with sweat and blood.

A Soviet officer watched impassively, arms folded behind his back. His uniform was pristine, his expression cold.

At his side, a subordinate awaited orders, eyes flicking nervously toward the suffering man.

“Inform Comrade Major Knyazev.”, the officer said calmly in his native tongue , almost bored, “And Mr. Wilson. The subject will be ready for conditioning soon.”

“Da, comrade.”, The subordinate also answered in Russian, snapping a salute as he hurried off, boots echoing in the chamber.

The officer lingered a moment longer, watching the broken man chained to the wall. His lips curled faintly, a cruel echo of satisfaction.

“America’s golden son.”, he murmured in Russian, “Soon to be ours.”

Chapter Text

The years that followed Nightwing’s disappearance were marked by silence.

At first, there was great urgency. 

Search parties launched across Siberia, satellites scouring the tundra, League operatives sweeping every possible lead.

Batman worked without pause, his cape dragging across frozen landscapes as he dug through collapsed bunkers with his bare hands.

Superman scanned glaciers for heat signatures until his ears rang from the feedback.

Zatanna conjured spells that strained her voice raw, demanding the universe give her some sign of him.

She tried scrying, summoning, even tethering on the edge of forbidden necromancy. Anything that might pierce the veil. But every spell came back empty, the magic finding nothing but void where Dick Grayson should have been.

But days turned into weeks, and weeks into months.

As the year came to a close, the truth settled in like frostbite, most of the League had stopped believing.

Nightwing was gone.

On the Watchtower, the subject became taboo.

Conner would shut down whenever his name was spoken. Wally, though furious at the world’s cruelty, buried it under quips until even he stopped joking. Kaldur, steadfast as always, carried the mantle of leadership with a heavy, unspoken grief. Artemis cried only once, on one free day while Wally was away, before steeling herself into silence.

But not everyone surrendered to despair.

Tim Drake refused to let go. The third Robin turned investigation into obsession, cataloging every piece of intel, every grainy rumor. His desk became a war map; red string, faded photographs, coordinates, mission reports all leading nowhere.

Barbara Gordon split herself between two missions. By night, she was Batgirl, fighting alongside Bruce, Tim, and Jason. But in the quiet hours between patrols, she combed through intelligence feeds, hacking foreign networks for any whisper of Dick. She never told anyone that she still kept her comms synced to Nightwing's frequency, even though it had gone dark years ago.

Zatanna never stopped looking either, but her methods were different. She didn’t drown herself in intel or endless missions. She relied on faith. A gut instinct rooted in magic and in her emotions; he’s alive.

She told herself that if Dick Grayson had survived a lifetime of pain, of shadows and fire and impossible choices, then no Siberian tomb could claim him. The world called it denial. She called it the truth.

And then there was Batman.

Bruce Wayne never declared his ward dead. Not to the League. Not to the Team. Not to himself. 

In public, he declared that Dick Grayson had gone missing after a terrorist attack while on a humanitarian mission in the Middle East. Even so, his grief showed in subtler ways. His silences stretched longer. His nights grew darker. Missions became harsher, his expectations sharper. Bringing Jason Todd back into the fold was a projection of that.

Jason’s resurrection had been its own storm. Once the Red Hood, Gotham’s most dangerous rogue vigilante, now, by Batman’s insistence, something more. At first, neither the Team nor the League trusted him. His return was raw, bloody. He still wore his anger like a second skin, his guns holstered but never far from reach.

At least, everyone but Nightwing.

Dick was there when Jason made his first moves years after his resurrection. He was with Bruce when they apprehended the three henchmen that tried to steal Amazo from Black Mask and deliver it to the Red Hood.

Dick was surprised, yes, when he found out about the Red Hood’s true identity, but he didn’t dwell on it.

Dick was just happy to have his brother back.

When Batman re-introduced Jason to the Team as the Red Hood, only Dick welcomed him with open arms.

Bruce had brokered the terms for his return to the Team, Jason would operate within the Bat Family again, provided he followed the rules in the field. No unnecessary killing. No reckless vendettas. In return, Jason found a place, uneasy at first, then steadier as the months rolled on.

With the Team, it was different. Old wounds ran deep. Conner hated him on sight, still remembering the chaos Jason once wrought.

M’gann was cautious but hopeful. Artemis didn’t flinch from putting him in his place. Aqualad was willing to take him on provided that he became a Team player. Wally expressed both confusion, and joy when he returned, better than the new recruits to the Team at least.

Slowly though, Jason proved himself. Mission after mission, he stayed when it counted. He fought alongside them, bled with them, even saved them more than once; he sought to claim his rightful place especially when Dick was behind him every step of the way.

But now, the man he looked up to as an older brother was now gone.

By 2019, the Red Hood was no longer an outcast. He was a soldier in their war, a reminder of how far they’d all fallen, but also how far they’d come.

The Team itself had grown and shifted. New blood brought fresh energy; Bart’s reckless optimism, Jaime’s reluctant responsibility, Cassie’s drive to live up to Wonder Woman’s name. Arsenal, Beast Boy, Lagoon Boy, they gave the Team reach, strength, and a new sense of purpose.

They needed it, too. The trafficking crisis only worsened in Nightwing’s absence, and every mission felt like a war against shadows that never seemed to end.

But for the originals; for Kaldur, Wally, Artemis, Conner, M’gann, every victory felt incomplete. 

Their leader, their brother, the one who’d held them together, was still missing. His absence echoed in every debrief, every quiet moment between missions, every empty chair around the briefing table.

By 2020 - 2021, the League and the world had moved on. Heroes were stretched thin across galaxies, governments were uneasy, the balance of power between East and West was fragile. To most, Nightwing was a ghost, a name whispered in memorial halls, another casualty in a long war for justice.

But to Bruce. To Tim. To Jason. To Barbara. And most of all, to Zatanna…

Dick Grayson was not dead.

Somewhere, in the silence between heartbeats, they could all feel it.

He was out there.

Waiting.

And sooner or later, the world would see him again…

…

…

…

…

…

The Watchtower’s briefing room felt colder than space itself.

Dozens of holographic files flickered in the air, projections of faces, mission reports, crisis maps that stretched from Metropolis to Moscow.

The hum of the system filled the silence as the Team gathered.

For once, there was no chatter, no banter.

They could feel it, something was about to change.

At the head of the room stood Batman. Cowl lowered, cape draped like a shroud, he pressed a gloved hand against the table controls. Files closed in rapid succession until only two maps remained; one marked by a string of trafficking busts across Eastern Europe, the other a map of Washington and Berlin, each glowing with urgent red markers.

“You’ve grown too large to operate as a single unit.”, Batman said, voice clipped and even, “The League has concluded that division is necessary.”

The words landed heavy.

Conner’s arms folded across his chest, jaw tightening.

Wally’s brow furrowed, confusion sparking.

Artemis shifted her weight, eyes narrowing as if bracing for a blow.

The younger members, Bart, Jaime, Cassie, glanced at each other, unsure whether to feel proud or anxious.

Batman continued without pause, “Effective immediately, you’ll be operating as two distinct teams. A covert unit and a primary strike force.”

Holograms shifted, separating into two neat clusters.

“The covert team remains under the leadership of Aqualad.”, Batman said, eyes flicking briefly to Kaldur, “Members will include Kid Flash, Miss Martian, Superboy, Tigress. You’ll continue League intelligence assignments requiring discretion. You will also have recurring support from Robin, Batgirl, and Red Hood.”

Jason leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, smirking faintly under the red of his helmet. Tim, seated beside Barbara, kept his face carefully neutral, though his hands tightened on the table.

“This Team will remain the League’s scalpel, operating in places and conditions where the League otherwise publicly can’t.”, Batman finished.

“Which makes us what?”, Bart piped up from the back, grinning despite the tension, “The hammer?”

“Correct.”, Batman said without missing a beat.

A second cluster of holograms flared to life: Wonder Girl, Impulse, Blue Beetle, Lagoon Boy, Arsenal, Beast Boy.

“Wonder Girl will lead the new primary strike team. Your assignments will focus on meta-human trafficking busts and public operations. Your role is visibility, response, and power projection. You will be the line between the League and organized meta-human crime.”

Wally's hand unconsciously moved toward the empty seat between him and Artemis, the seat that had always been Dick's during briefings. Conner's jaw clenched so tight it ached. M'gann reached for Conner's hand under the table.

Cassie straightened at the announcement, pride and shock warring on her face. She looked around the table, her teammates giving her small nods and encouraging smiles. Bart gave her a thumbs-up, winking.

But for the originals, the weight of the division cut deeper.

“This isn’t about trust.”, Kaldur said evenly, though his voice carried an undertone of quiet steel, “It is about necessity.”

“Feels a lot like being split up because we couldn’t handle things.”, Wally muttered under his breath, not quite softly enough.

“Your missions have expanded.”, Batman replied, his gaze sweeping across the table, “Your responsibilities have multiplied. This division will allow both units to focus and succeed.”

M’gann’s eyes lowered, “It just feels like we’re… moving further and further apart.”

No one said it aloud, but they were all thinking the same thing, they’d already lost one leader. One brother. And now Batman was carving them into separate halves.

The briefing shifted again, a new image flashing onto the screen.

The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, draped in the banners of the European Union and the red-blue-and-gold of the Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics.

“For the covert Team, this is your next assignment.”, Batman’s tone grew sharper, colder, as if each syllable cut the air, “In seventy-two hours, Berlin will host the first joint EU–USSR summit in nearly a decade after a wave of escalated tensions in the mid-2010’s. Intelligence suggests a credible threat to one or more heads of state. An assassination attempt would destabilize Europe and derail peace negotiations.”

A murmur rippled through the younger members.

“Who’s behind it?”, Conner asked, his voice low.

Batman keyed the controls. A new file opened, grainy black-and-white photographs of blurred figures, fragmented eyewitness accounts, half-whispered rumors pulled from intelligence channels.

A phantom.

The face never clear. The profile always different. A killer who appeared, struck with surgical precision, then vanished into the night.

“Sources underground call him the Winter Soldier.”, Batman said, “No confirmed identity. No allegiance. No trace.”

Jason leaned forward now, interest sparking in his voice, “So what? You’re sending us to go ghost hunting?”

Barbara shot him a glare, but said nothing.

Tim frowned, studying the reports with narrowed eyes, “Or the perfect weapon. You don’t cover your tracks this well unless someone wants you to vanish.”

Batman let the words hang in the air before delivering their orders.

“The covert unit will deploy to Berlin. Your assignment is to protect the summit and neutralize the threat. If possible…”, his gaze shifted, lingering just slightly on Jason before sweeping back across the Team, “…Capture the Winter Soldier alive.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

A phantom assassin.

A divided Team.

A mission that could fracture peace across two continents.

And beneath it all, the unspoken thought.

Nightwing would’ve known what to do…

…

…

…

…

…

[January 2021 - 4 Years After Nightwing’s Disappearance]

[Thursday, January 14 | 23:50]

[The Watchtower]

Berlin in winter was always grey.

Even under the floodlights that turned night into day, the city seemed painted in shadow.

Rows of steel barricades lined the avenues near the Brandenburg Gate, armored vehicles positioned at intersections, police drones circling overhead.

Snipers dotted rooftops while League operatives, disguised in plain clothes, walked the crowds.

The summit was three days away, but already the tension was palpable.

The European Union delegation was scheduled to meet their Soviet counterparts in a conference designed to thaw decades of distrust.

One spark, or one gunshot, would undo it all.

Inside the Watchtower, the briefing room was thick with unease.

The covert unit sat clustered at one end of the table, the originals side by side again; unlike the one earlier, this briefing was more specific.

Kaldur at the head, quiet but focused; Conner leaning back in his chair, arms crossed; M’gann hovering beside him, fingers fidgeting at the hem of her sleeve; Artemis, sharp-eyed and restless; Wally, leg bouncing under the table, impatience radiating off him.

Behind them stood Barbara, Tim, and Jason; support, backup, and, in Jason’s case, a wildcard no one quite trusted yet.

The second Team had been dismissed, leaving the first Team for their new mission briefing.

On the screen before them flickered a mosaic of surveillance images. None of them clear. Each was an outline, a blur, a phantom caught at the edge of a camera lens.

A man stepping off a train in Budapest.

A figure crossing a rooftop in Warsaw.

A shadow slipping through Belgrade alleys.

“The Winter Soldier.”, Batman said, his voice a low growl.

The name drew silence.

M’gann swallowed, “So… He’s an assassin?”

“Not just an assassin.”, Barbara corrected.

She tapped the controls, highlighting the scattered incidents, “Heads of state. Military officers. Scientists. Anyone who matters. Kills with precision, vanishes without a trace.”

“Always in and out.”, Tim added, his tone thoughtful, “Like clockwork. No mistakes. No hesitation.”

Jason smirked from where he leaned against the wall, arms crossed, “Sounds familiar. You sure you’re not just describing me?”

Artemis shot him a glare, “Not funny, Jason.”

Batman ignored the exchange, continuing, “There is no confirmed identity. No fingerprints. No DNA. No trail. Whoever he is, he’s a ghost.”

“And ghosts.”, Kaldur said gravely, “Are dangerous to chase.”

Tim pulled up a final image, a grainy one, taken from a body-cam feed during a failed extraction op in Warsaw.

A flash of silver crossed the screen, a left arm glinting metal in the dim light, shattering a rifle in a single swipe before the footage cut to static.

The room froze.

“A metal arm?”, Conner muttered, frowning.

“Woah, cool!”, Wally gazed in amazement.

The rest of the Team gave him knowing looks.

“What?”, Wally shrugged, “Say what you want about the guy but you gotta admit, a metal arm is dope!”

Everyone present collectively rolled their eyes, but M'gann smiled despite herself. It was so... Normal. So Wally. For just a second, it felt like the old days.

Then the moment passed, and the weight settled back over them.

“Cybernetic.”, Tim continued, “Advanced. Beyond anything on the black market.”

Jason whistled low, “Well, that’s new.”

Batman’s cowl dipped, his silence more telling than any words, “The League has suspicions of Soviet involvement. Unofficial. Unconfirmed. But the summit makes this more than a rumor. If the Winter Soldier strikes in Berlin, the consequences will be catastrophic.”

“So we stop him.”, Wally remarked again, forcing a grin that didn’t reach his eyes, “Easy day at the office, right?”

No one laughed.

Instead, the weight of the assignment settled on their shoulders. Protecting world leaders from a phantom killer. Capturing an assassin who left no trace. It wasn’t just another mission. It was a powder keg waiting for a match.

Artemis leaned forward, voice sharp, “And our orders?”

“Protect the summit at all costs.”, Batman replied, “Your priority is safeguarding both delegations. If the Winter Soldier appears, engage with caution. He is highly skilled, highly lethal. Capture alive if possible. If not—neutralize the threat.”

The words hung in the air.

Capture if possible. If not… No one missed the implication.

Kaldur gave a slow nod, taking the order with the calm authority that had kept them together since Nightwing’s disappearance, “Understood.”

But in the silence that followed, each of them thought of him; the one who wasn’t there.

The leader who should’ve been giving the order.

The friend who would’ve known how to cut through the fog.

Nightwing would’ve had a plan.

Nightwing would’ve known what to do.

Instead, they were facing a phantom with no face, no past, and no mercy…

…

…

…

…

…

Somewhere, deep in the frozen corridors of the Soviet Union, a man in chains stirred at the sound of distant boots.

His hair long, his face scarred, his eyes dulled by years of pain.

Electricity hummed in the walls, a cruel rhythm.

He didn’t know his name.

He didn’t remember the faces that haunted the edges of his dreams.

But the chains that bound him rattled.

And when the officer whispered his orders—conditioning, control, obedience—the man raised his head just enough for the light to catch his eyes.

Cold.

Empty.

Unyielding.

The Winter Soldier was ready…

Chapter Text

[Friday, January 15, 2021 | 00:45]

[Low Earth Orbit]

The hum of the Bioship filled the silence.

No one spoke, not at first.

The Arctic-blue glow of the instrument panels painted the Team in muted shades as they cut across the night sky toward Berlin.

The stakes felt heavier than usual, even for veterans like them.

They weren’t just heading into another mission, they were stepping into the kind of shadow war that the League itself had barely managed to keep under wraps.

Robin stood near the front, bracing himself against the slight sway of the ship.

He had hoped that Barbara would come with them on this mission, but Bruce ordered her to stay behind, Batman still needed help in Gotham and the second Team needed a supervisor as they began their first independent mission.

Shaking his thoughts, his voice broke the silence, measured but edged with tension, “Let’s go over this one more time.”

A holo-projection flickered to life in the center aisle, displaying a grainy image. A tall man in a tactical jacket, domino mask, and a face half-obscured by a black mask. The only detail that stood out was the glint of a cybernetic arm in one blurred frame.

Underground sources had dubbed him the Winter Soldier.

“Officially, he doesn’t exist.”, Tim continued, “Unofficially, he’s responsible for over two hundred confirmed kills in the last three years.”

Artemis whistled low under her breath, “Holy shit. That’s… What? Nearly a kill every week?”

Tim’s jaw tightened, “And those are just the ones we’ve been able to connect to him. World leaders, CEOs, military brass, diplomats, every death looks like an accident, a random tragedy, or an act of terrorism. But dig deeper, and there’s always a pattern. Always him.”

A flick of his fingers, and the holo shifted to the Union Jack, overlaid with a newspaper headline.

“Prime Minister Killed in Car Crash – Nation in Mourning.”

“London. 2017. The motorcade of British Prime Minister Lord Michael William Jones was struck by what appeared to be a runaway truck. Security footage later revealed the driver had been dead for hours. Whoever controlled that vehicle walked away without a trace. Witness accounts—buried in classified files—spoke of a figure on a nearby rooftop, with a flash of silver at his side.”

Conner’s frown deepened, “That was him?”

“Everything points to it.”, Tim confirmed.

The holo flickered again, shifting to an image of Seoul, images of collapsed concrete and emergency workers clawing through rubble.

“2019. The Korean President, Park Gyun-Seol was killed when a government building suddenly imploded during an address. The official story? Structural failure. Unofficially? Survivors described a man with a mask and an arm made of metal. They said he fired once. And then the building fell.”

The air grew heavier.

Jason leaned back in his seat, arms crossed, “So, let me get this straight. Our boogeyman is an assassin who can topple buildings, disappear into thin air, and rack up two hundred bodies without leaving a paper trail? Sounds like every paranoid government’s wet dream.”

He smirked, though it didn’t reach his eyes, “Question is, why the fuck hasn’t anyone stopped him yet?”

“Because he doesn’t miss.”, Tim said flatly, “He’s a ghost. He strikes, vanishes, and no one ever gets close. Even League surveillance has never captured a clear image. Until now, he’s just been whispers and obituaries.”

“Whispers can kill too.”, Artemis muttered.

Kaldur folded his hands over his chest, his voice calm but firm, “Speculation is of little use. We must prepare for the possibility that this assassin is real. If he intends to strike in Berlin, our mission is clear. Prevent further loss of life and protect the summit at all costs.”

The projection shifted again, showing the map of Berlin with red-highlighted zones; the Bundestag, the Federal Chancellery building, and the Brandenburg Gate.

“Security’s already airtight.”, Tim explained, “The Germans have built layered defenses; Bundeswehr patrols, checkpoints, armoured convoys. But the fact they discreetly asked for League help means they don’t believe it’s enough. The German Chancellor will be there alongside EU and Soviet delegates. If the Winter Soldier makes a move, it’ll be catastrophic.”

M’gann’s voice was soft but troubled, “Do we even know what he looks like without the mask? Who he is?”

Tim hesitated. His silence was answer enough.

“No records. No fingerprints. No DNA. Every attempt to track him through conventional intelligence has led nowhere. Whoever he is, he’s been erased from the system.”

Jason scoffed again, but this time it was darker, “Convenient. That kind of vanishing act doesn’t happen unless somebody powerful wants it that way. Governments. Black-ops programs. League of Shadows. You name it.”

The thought hung in the air. More than one pair of eyes flicked toward Kaldur, who shut it down with a shake of his head.

“No assumptions.”, Kaldur said firmly, “We deal in evidence, not rumor.”

Still, M’gann picked up the unease in the room.

There was something about this mission that felt too close, too dangerous.

For once, even Superboy’s stoicism seemed strained; his fists clenched and unclenched in his lap as though he was daring the phantom assassin to try them.

The hum of the Bioship deepened as it began its descent. The silence returned, broken only by the sound of Jason idly checking the magazine on his sidearm.

Finally, Kaldur spoke again, “This Winter Soldier has taken many lives. He will not take more if we can prevent it. We will face him as we have faced all threats, together.”

For a moment, that reminder was enough. The Team had fought gods, tyrants, and alien armadas. They had saved the world more times than history books would ever admit. But even so… None of them said out loud what they were all thinking.

This time felt different.

…

…

…

…

…

[Friday, January 15, 2021 | 02:00]

[Berlin, Brandenburg, Germany]

Berlin at night glittered beneath a shroud of cloud and frost.

From above, the city seemed calm, a sprawl of golden streetlamps and narrow rivers of traffic, but the mood inside the Bioship was anything but serene.

Every one of them felt the weight of what awaited below.

The ship cut silently through the clouds, cloaked in camouflage, until it dipped low over the outskirts of the city.

Waiting on the tarmac of a secure Bundeswehr airfield was a convoy of armored transports, engines rumbling, headlights off.

As soon as the Bioship touched down, the rear hatch hissed open.

Cold air swept in, biting their faces as boots hit asphalt. German soldiers in full tactical gear moved with precision, rifles at the ready but pointed down. Their insignias caught the faint blue lights of the ship, the German tri-colour of black, red, and gold.

A tall Bundeswehr officer stepped forward, his posture rigid, his accent clipped, “Willkommen nach Deutschland, heroes. We are honoured to have you here.”

Aqualad stepped forward, nodding and extending a hand, “Thank you, we are honoured to be here.”

The officer nodded, shaking Aqualad’s hand, “We have our orders. You will come with us under discreet escort. No names, no faces. This operation is streng geheim.”

Aqualad inclined his head respectfully, “Of course.”

…

…

…

The Team boarded the transports in silence. The doors slammed shut, the locks clanking heavy as the convoy rolled out of the airfield and into the sleeping city.

Through the narrow slits of the armored windows, Tigress caught glimpses of Berlin; monuments lit against the night, faint graffiti on concrete walls, the quiet hum of a city unaware that history was about to teeter on the edge.

Red Hood sat opposite her, his helmet in his lap, tapping his fingers against the metal absently. 

“You feel that?”, he muttered.

“What?”, she asked.

“The air. Like we’re driving straight into a funeral.”

Nobody corrected him.

Robin, seated near the front, reviewed a secure tablet, his eyes flicking over blueprints of the Chancellery. Miss Martian sat beside him, her brows furrowed, gently reaching out with her mind; not invasive, just brushing against the atmosphere. Her lips pressed tight.

“Everyone’s tense.”, she whispered.

“They should be.”, Red Hood replied, “We’re hunting a ghost.”

The convoy cut through darkened streets, then veered toward the government quarter.

Barriers rose as German soldiers waved them through checkpoint after checkpoint.

Armored vehicles and heavy machine guns lined the approaches, their presence stark against the quiet façades of Berlin’s historic heart.

When the transports finally stopped, the Team stepped out into the shadow of a massive glass-and-concrete complex, the Federal Chancellery, heart of the German government.

The building loomed, sleek and modern, its great central arch lit faintly by security floodlights.

They were ushered quickly through side entrances, past multiple rings of security. No cameras, no journalists, no civilians. To the public, the Chancellery slept. But inside, it thrummed with quiet urgency with guards at every corner, encrypted radios chattering, layers of protection woven tight.

…

…

…

At last, they were led into a private chamber on the upper floors. The walls were white, stark, and soundproofed. A long polished table stood at the center, its surface bare save for a single German flag at its edge, right beside it was the banner of the European Union.

Waiting there was the Chancellor of Germany herself, a woman in her early fifties, steel-gray hair cropped short, her blue suit crisp.

She carried herself with an authority honed by years of politics, but her eyes softened just slightly as she regarded the young heroes.

“Thank you for coming.”, she said in careful English, though her voice carried the cadence of her homeland, “Entschuldigung, I do not believe I have introduced myself to you properly.”

She stepped forward, meeting the heroes as she extended her hand, “I am Adelheid Meyer, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.”

Aqualad stepped to meet her gaze, shaking her hand as he tilted his head in a slight bow, “I am Aqualad, we are here on behalf of the Justice League.”

Chancellor Meyer nodded, “We are honoured to have you with us.”

Aqualad reciprocated, “The honour is ours.”

With pleasantries aside, the Team had settled in to discuss with the German Chancellor the specifics of their assignment.

“I know this is… Irregular.”, she began, “But we are grateful that the Justice League has accepted our request and sent you here.”

Aqualad answered, his presence calm and formal, “Your Excellency, we are more than honored to be of assistance. The League has charged us with ensuring the safety of this summit. We will do everything within our power to prevent harm to you and your guests.”

The Chancellor nodded slowly, her gaze passing over each of them; the Atlantean leader, the archer, the Martian, the clone of Krypton, and the Bat’s protégés.

For just a moment, her expression softened, as though she recognized how young they were compared to the burden they carried.

“We have heard word of the possibility of an attempt at the Summit.”, she continued, “Rest assured, we have taken every liberty to secure the event the best we can. Our soldiers, our intelligence, our barriers… All are prepared.”

She paused, folding her hands before her, “But my confidence in our safety is greater now with you here.”

Those words carried weight.

Germany had its own heroes, its own protectors. But none had the reach, the history, the myth of this Team. For the Chancellor to admit that their presence tipped the balance, that meant something.

Aqualad once again bowed his head in respect, “We thank you for your trust. For the sake of peace, we will not fail.”

Her eyes sharpened, “Please, for all our sakes, see to it that you don’t.”

Red Hood leaned back slightly, smirking behind his helmet, “Friendly lady.”, he muttered under his breath.

“Quiet.”, Tigress hissed.

Robin gave the Chancellor a polite nod, “If we many, Your Excellency, we’ll require access to the summit perimeter, rooftops, service tunnels, and any potential infiltration points. We’ll also need cooperation from your military and security forces. If the Winter Soldier does make a move, we have to be positioned to intercept.”

At the mention of the assassin’s name, a flicker crossed the Chancellor’s face.

Fear? Irritation? Maybe both.

“The Winter Soldier.”, she said, almost spitting the title as she gazed out the massive window of the conference room, “A phantom. Our intelligence agency and my advisors tell me he is real. That his shadow has touched London, Seoul, and many others. But we do not negotiate with ghosts. If he does come, he will find Germany ready.”

“Ghosts don’t care if you’re ready, Madam Chancellor.”, Red Hood muttered again, louder this time.

The Chancellor’s gaze snapped to him, cold and cutting, “And who are you, masked one?”

Red Hood tilted his head, “Red Hood, Your Excellency. Think of me as your insurance policy.”

Her lips pressed tight, but she did not respond.

Aqualad quickly smoothed the tension, speaking over the silence, “We will coordinate with your security teams discreetly. The fewer who know of our presence, the better. Surprise will be our advantage.”

The Chancellor gave a sharp nod, “Then we are in agreement. Come Monday, the summit begins. And the world will watch Berlin. You will remain unseen, but ready.”

She stepped back, signaling the meeting was over.

Guards appeared, escorting them toward their quarters within the Chancellery; spartan rooms, bare walls, secure communications.

As they were shown in, Tigress sat on the edge of her bed and finally exhaled, “Well. No pressure, right? Just protecting the free world from a super-assassin.”

Red Hood chuckled, unholstering one of his pistols to check the chamber, “Relax. If he shows, I’ll put two in his chest and one in his head. Problem solved.”

Robin shot him a sharp look, “It’s not that simple. If we can take him alive, we do. We need to know who he is, who he works for, and why he’s targeting world leaders. Dead men tell no tales, after all.”

Red Hood smirked, loading the clip with a snap, “Maybe. But corpses don’t pull triggers either.”

The clash hung between them. But before it could spark further, Aqualad’s voice cut through, calm but commanding.

“Enough. Save your strength. The days ahead will test us all.”

The Team settled into uneasy silence, each lost in thought.

Outside the glass walls, Berlin’s skyline glittered in the dark, unaware of the storm approaching.

And somewhere, in the shadows beyond the lights, the Winter Soldier was waiting…

…

…

…

…

…

[Sunday, January 17, 2021 | 01:05]

[Berlin, Brandenburg, Germany]

The hours until dawn bled away quickly.

The Team split into pairs, each taking a sector of the city around the Bundestag and Chancellery.

If the Winter Soldier was going to strike, he’d need a vantage point, a gap in security, or a way to infiltrate. Their job was to make sure none existed.

The streets were quiet, and eerily so.

Berlin had never quite shed the scars of division; even now, after decades of unity, there were cracks visible to the careful eye.

Closed shops along narrow cobblestones. The chill bite of winter air swirling around statues that had stood since the Cold War. A city that remembered too much, hiding its memories in plain sight.

..

…

…

On the rooftops, Artemis adjusted her scope.

She crouched on the ledge of an old stone building overlooking the Chancellery grounds. Her breath misted in the air as she scanned through the crosshairs, checking sightlines, angles of attack.

“Sniper perches here, here, and there.”, she muttered into the mind link M’gann set up earlier, tagging the positions with her HUD, “If I were him, those are the shots I’d take.”

Wally’s voice crackled back, light and easy but carrying an edge, “Good thing you’re not him. Otherwise we’d be in trouble.”

Artemis smirked faintly, though her eyes stayed on the scope, “Funny. Remind me why you’re down on street level freezing your butt off?”

“Because I’m the fastest distraction money can’t buy.”, Wally replied, zipping across the block to test response times from the German patrols.

Sirens flared once, then died. He reappeared in a blur at the base of her building, “See? If he shows up, I draw his fire, you put an arrow in him. Easy.”

Artemis shook her head, but didn’t argue. That was Wally, always reducing the impossible to simple math, even when the odds were a nightmare.

…

…

…

Below the tunnels of Berlin’s underground, M’gann phased through concrete walls like a wraith.

Her Martian senses extended outward, sweeping through service tunnels beneath the city, searching for explosives, infiltration teams, or anything out of place.

Conner shadowed her, boots crunching through gravel, his eyes glowing faintly in the dim light, “Anything?”

“Nothing yet.”, she said softly, “But the fear here is thick. Even without reading minds, you can feel it. Everyone knows something could happen. They’re just… Hoping it doesn’t.”

Conner frowned, resting a hand on the steel wall beside him, “Hope doesn’t stop bullets.”

M’gann looked at him, her eyes sad, “Neither does cynicism.”

…

…

…

Jason, meanwhile, took a different approach.

He was digging.

Berlin had an underworld, and if anyone could sniff out whispers, it was him.

He pulled his hood low and slipped into a smoke-filled bar near Alexanderplatz, the kind of place where mercenaries and smugglers took their drinks in silence.

He didn’t ask questions directly, he just listened. To the way voices lowered when someone mentioned the summit. To the brief flashes of fear when the word Gespenst (“ghost”) surfaced. The Winter Soldier was real to them. Too real.

One drunk merc spat on the floor and muttered, his voice in a slurred, drunken German, “Man with a metal arm! Shoots without sound. Leaves no tracks. You don’t see him until you’re already dead.”

Jason clenched his jaw but kept silent.

Later, as he stepped back into the cold night, speaking into the mind link, “Intel checks out. Locals are terrified. They say he’s a phantom, metal arm, silent as a shadow. If he’s in Berlin, we’ll never spot him before he makes a move.”

Tim’s voice came back steady, controlled, “Then we make sure he doesn’t get the chance.”

…

…

…

At the surveillance nest back the Federal Chancellery building; Tim was holed up with Kaldur observing the Team’s progress, monitoring chatter, and surveying the vast expanse of Berlin’s metropolitan CCTV system accompanied by security officers from the German Federal Intelligence Service.

They oversaw feeds from Bundeswehr military drones, security checkpoints, and their own discreet sensors planted across key streets.

Tim’s fingers never stopped moving, swiping between angles, calculating entry points and timeframes.

Kaldur, calm as ever, stood beside him, arms folded, “Your mind is racing.”, he observed quietly.

Tim didn’t look up, “It has to. He’s too efficient to leave a trail. The only way to catch him is to be everywhere he might be.”

“Even Batman cannot be everywhere.”, Kaldur said gently.

Tim’s lips pressed thin, “Then we’ll have to do better.”

Kaldur let the quiet settle before speaking again, "He would be proud of you, Tim. Of all of you."

Tim's hands stilled on the keyboard. He didn't need to ask who Kaldur meant.

"Yeah.", Tim said softly, "He would, hopefully."

…

…

…

The Team rotated, regrouped, redeployed.

Hours passed, and the city remained still.

Too still.

Then Jason’s voice broke over the mind link, tight and urgent, “Movement. Eastern end of Spree River, west of the Großer Müggelsee lake. Someone’s tailing us.”

“Wow, I didn’t know you were good in German, Jay.”, Wally spoke through the link.

Jason scoffed, “Shut up, Wally.”

The Team snapped to attention as they converged on the coordinated. 

Artemis adjusted her scope, M’gann and Conner rose through the tunnels, Tim and Kaldur activated drone sweeps.

Jason was already on the move, sprinting through an alley lit only by flickering lamps.

His boots splashed through shallow puddles as he caught a glimpse.

Just a shadow at the far end, tall, broad-shouldered, moving with predatory grace. Then a streetlamp caught the figure for a split second, and Jason's blood ran cold.

Metal. Left arm. Glinting silver even in the dim light.

No mistaking it.

“I got eyes on ‘em.”, Jason hissed.

He raised his pistol, fired two shots. Both rounds sparked off brick as the figure vanished around a corner.

“Don’t pursue alone!”, Kaldur ordered.

Jason ignored him, tearing after the shadow, as he rounded the corner.

Empty.

Only silence, and the echo of boots fading away.

He cursed under his breath, making his way to a rooftop to scan the area.

The area was less dense compared to the city centre, where the city faded as it met the woods of the Großer Müggelsee lake.

Still, he found nothing.

Artemis’s voice cut in, sharp, “What did you see?”

Jason’s jaw clenched, “An arm. Left arm. Metal. I know what I saw.”

For a moment, silence hung heavy across the comms.

Then Tim spoke, voice colder than usual, “The Winter Soldier, he’s here.”

The figure moved with unnatural efficiency, no wasted motion, no hesitation. Professional. Military. Jason had seen enough killers to recognize one on sight.

And something about the way he moved...

Jason shook off the thought. Now wasn't the time.

…

…

…

They searched the streets for another hour, but the shadow had evaporated, leaving only whispers and Jason’s shaken certainty.

By the time the Team regrouped in their quarters, Berlin was starting to wake, the pale glow of dawn creeping across the skyline.

None of them said it aloud, but they all felt it.

The ghost was here.

And tomorrow, at the summit, he would strike…

Chapter Text

(4 Years Ago…)

[Year: 2017]

[Siberia, Russian Soviet Republic, Soviet Union]

The cell was small, metallic, and reeked of iron and disinfectant.

The walls sweated condensation in the bitter cold, while a single lightbulb buzzed overhead, casting a sickly yellow glow.

Shackles pinned him upright to the chair, his wrists bound behind, his ankles bolted to the floor, his chest strapped tight to iron.

His mask had been ripped away days ago. His uniform burned in pieces. Now there was only his face, swollen, bruised, pale against the dark bruising that bloomed across his jawline.

Dick Grayson, Nightwing, had lost count of the days.

He knew only of cycles: lights flicked on, men in uniforms entered, pain followed. Lights flicked off, silence and darkness consumed him.

Over and over again.

His head swam with dehydration, his muscles screamed with strain, but still he clenched his teeth and spat blood when they demanded words.

Tonight was different.

Bootsteps echoed in the corridor. A heavier stride than the usual grunts. The door hissed open and in walked an officer in his mid-forties, square jaw, close-cropped hair gone grey at the temples.

His uniform bore the insignia of the Soviet Armed Forces, but there was something colder in his eyes than a soldier’s duty.

Two soldiers wheeled in a cart; syringes, clamps, a battery rig wired with electrodes.

The smell of ozone lingered in the air.

“Richard Grayson.”, the officer said in a flat voice, clinical, his Russian accent thick in the air, “You should feel honored. Not many Americans are given a second life. Fewer still survive the process.”

Dick rasped, his throat raw, “You’ll get nothing out of me.”

The officer tilted his head, lips curling in faint amusement, “It is not about what you give. It is about what we take.”

A nod, and the soldiers moved.

Electrodes bit into his chest, his temples, the inside of his arms.

Wires coiled like snakes around his bare skin.

The officer began to circle him. Slowly. Methodically. Each step punctuated with words that meant nothing at first, syllables heavy and deliberate.

“Желание.” (Longing)

 A pause.

“Ржавый.” (Rusted)

The current surged. Dick’s body convulsed, back arching against the restraints as the electricity tore through his nerves. His scream rattled the walls.

“Семнадцать.” (Seventeen)

The shock ceased. He collapsed forward, gasping, muscles twitching uncontrollably.

“Рассвет.” (Daybreak)

Another jolt. This one longer. He felt his teeth crack against the bite of his own jaw, tasted blood flooding his tongue.

The officer leaned close, voice steady, cold, “You will learn these words. You will live by them. They are the key to your rebirth.”

“Go… To… Hell…”, Dick spat between ragged breaths.

The officer struck him across the face, knuckles splitting his lip. A casual blow, like one would deliver to livestock. He resumed the circling, voice calm, precise.

“Печь“ (Furnace)

Another shock, this time harsher. Dick screamed again, head jerking so violently his vision swam black.

“Девять“ (Nine)

 A pause, letting him slump. Letting him breathe just enough.

“Доброкачественные“ (Benign)

 Shock. Every nerve in his body is on fire. His chest heaved, his body trembled uncontrollably.

The officer leaned closer, whispering now, “You think you resist. But resistance is weakness. Soon, you will understand strength. Soon, you will comply.”

“Never.”, Dick rasped.

His throat burned.

His voice cracked.

But he forced the word out anyway, “Never.”

The officer’s smile was razor-thin.

“Возвращение на родину“ (Homecoming)

This time the shock didn’t stop immediately.

It held, unrelenting, a white-hot river of agony that fried thought, seared muscle, and hollowed the mind.

Dick’s scream grew hoarse, breaking, until there was nothing left but a choked, animal wail.

His body shook violently in the chair, eyes rolling back.

When the current finally ceased, he sagged in the restraints.

Drool and blood streaked his chin. His chest rose and fell in shallow gasps.

““Один.” (One)”, the officer murmured, continuing the litany.

“Грузовой вагон.” (Freight car)

No shock this time. Only silence.

The words lingered in the stale air.

The officer crouched to meet his eyes, “Say it.”

Dick coughed, blood dribbling from his mouth.

He glared, defiance still burning behind swollen lids, “Fuck off.”, he whispered again.

The officer’s smirk faltered into something colder. He stood, gave a curt nod.

The soldiers moved forward. One jabbed a syringe into Dick’s neck, flooding him with something icy that burned like fire in his veins. His thoughts blurred, fog smothering the edges of his will.

The officer resumed his walk again, his voice relentless.

“Желание.” (Longing)

“Ржавый.” (Rusted)

“Семнадцать.” (Seventeen)

“Рассвет.” (Daybreak)

“Печь“ (Furnace)

“Девять“ (Nine)

“Доброкачественные“ (Benign)

“Возвращение на родину“ (Homecoming)

“Один.” (One)

“Грузовой вагон.” (Freight car)

Over and over again.

The shocks.

The fog.

The pain.

Hours blurred into eternity. His screams grew weaker. His resistance faltered.

At some point, he didn’t know when, his lips stopped forming defiance.

His jaw trembled, breath shuddered, and the words spilled out of him.

Words hollow and broken, in Russian.

“Готов подчиняться.” (Ready to comply.)

The officer froze, then smiled slowly. Satisfied.

He turned to his subordinate, “Inform Comrade Major Knyazev and Mr. Wilson. The reconditioning is a success. The subject is ready for programming.”

The restraints released with a metallic clank. Dick slumped forward, unconscious, breath shallow. A broken thing waiting to be remade.

The light above flickered once.

Then, like a whisper, it went out…

…

…

…

…

…

(Present Day…)

[Friday, January 22, 2021 | 13:05]

[Berlin, Brandenburg, Germany]

[EU - USSR Summit | Day 5]

The German sky was a slate of grey.

Clouds hung heavy over the Federal Chancellery, their bellies threatening rain.

The building stood like a fortress of glass and steel in the heart of Berlin’s government quarter, bristling with discreet but overwhelming security. Snipers lined rooftops. Barricades had been erected blocks away.

The air hummed with tension, the kind that came before history was written in ink or in blood.

Inside, the grand atrium had been transformed into a hall of ceremony.

Flags lined the marble walls, the dark reds, blues, and golds of the reformed Soviet Union; the deep blue and ring of stars of the European Union; the black-red-gold tri-colour of a unified Germany.

A hundred delegates filled the rows: prime ministers, chancellors, commissioners, diplomats, members of the European Council, members of the European Parliament, and aides.

Only permitted broadcasters from the world’s major news outlets were allowed inside, yet even with the controlled media presence the room felt suffocated by the weight of eyes unseen, history itself bearing witness.

At the front stood two long tables, draped in cloth, pens waiting like weapons.

On one side: the Soviet delegation led by Soviet Premier Leonid Volkov, flanked by stoic generals in polished medals.

On the other: the European Union’s Commission President Emma Schneider, the German Chancellor Adelheid Meyer, the leaders of France, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the whole of Europe’s fractured unity gathered under one roof.

It was now the fifth day of the summit.

The past four days consisted of speeches, negotiations, and carefully rehearsed compromises had led to this moment. The renewal of the “Peace, Prosperity, and Friendship Accords” between the EU and the USSR. Thirty years ago, such a phrase would have been unthinkable. Now it was a necessity.

But beneath the speeches and signatures, paranoia thrived.

Everyone knew the cost if this failed. Everyone knew the enemies who wanted it to.

That was why the Team was there.

High above, cloaked by shadow, Tigress crouched against a rafter, bow drawn but hidden, her sharp eyes scanning every exit.

Kid Flash paced impatiently in the wings, vibrating with nervous energy.

Superboy stood stiff as stone near the main stage, a silent wall of muscle in civilian black.

Miss Martian lingered near the back of the room, her eyes glowing faint green every few seconds as she brushed against thoughts, searching for anomalies.

Robin sat cross-legged in the gallery overhead, a tablet glowing in his hands. He flicked through schematics, security routes, and watchlists. He spoke through Miss Martian’s mind link.

“All clear on infrared.”, he whispered, “No weapons unaccounted for. At least, none that aren’t already supposed to be here.”

Aqualad, stationed near the central dais as if he were a member of security detail, “Maintain vigilance. This is the final day, which makes it the most dangerous.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”, Tigress muttered under her breath.

Red Hood leaned against a pillar at the far side of the atrium, arms crossed, helmet reflecting the fractured light. He had said little the entire operation. His presence alone was enough; the silent enforcer, brutal if required. Aqualad had insisted they keep him on a leash. Nobody was entirely sure if that was possible.

The ceremony began.

German Chancellor Adelheid Meyer, despite her age, stood with poise and grace as any seasoned statesperson would.

She adjusted the collar of her shirt and blazer, and stepped up to the podium; her voice reverberated through the chamber, deep and deliberate.

“Today, we renew the promise of peace. Not merely between Germany and the Soviet Union. Not merely between Western Europe and the East. But between peoples who, for too long, were divided by walls, by wars, by fear. This treaty is not a guarantee of perfection. It is a guarantee of effort. And in that effort, we find strength.”

Polite applause followed. Cameras clicked in the hands of the official press. The Soviet Premier nodded gravely, his expression unreadable.

Kid Flash spoke nervously in through the mind link, “Seriously, are we sure the Chancellor lady is not about to choke on her own speech? Because I’m getting goosebumps just listening.”

“Focus.”, Aqualad ordered, calm but firm.

Robin’s voice broke in, softer, sharper, “Hold on. Something’s… off. I’m picking up chatter on an encrypted band. Bundeswehr, but it’s piggybacking. That’s not standard.”

“Where?”, Aqualad asked.

“North wing entrance. Signal’s bouncing but it’s close.”

Miss Martian’s eyes flared. Her face tightened. ”I feel it too. Minds moving where they shouldn’t be.”

Then, it happened.

The explosion tore through the north wall like a thunderclap.

Fire and concrete erupted in a storm of dust and shrapnel, the sound so deafening it drowned out the Chancellor’s words mid-sentence.

Screams filled the hall as delegates scrambled.

Security forces lunged forward, shields raised and weapons drawn.

Figures poured through the smoke; masked men, armored, rifles spitting fire. The assassins moved with military precision, cutting through guards with ruthless efficiency. The Team responded instantly.

“Move!”, Aqualad roared. His water-bearers whirled into hardened shields, intercepting bullets in sprays of steam.

...

...

...

The Team responded instantly.

Superboy charged, smashing into the first wave with bone-breaking force, sending two mercenaries flying into a marble pillar.

Tigress' arrows split the smoke, each finding its mark with lethal speed, dropping rifles before they could fire.

Kid Flash became a blur of red and yellow, disarming men faster than they could blink, bodies collapsing in his wake.

Above, Robin leapt from the gallery, hurling flashbangs that burst into brilliant white, disorienting the attackers.

And then the room grew colder.

Through the dust and fire, a figure stepped forward. His movements precise, almost mechanical. A mask covered his face, his eyes hidden behind a second mask, a domino mask.

His arm gleamed, the metal arm of rumours, wrapped in advanced plating as the armor hummed faintly with hidden servos.

A black tactical suit stretched across his frame, lean, but still muscular and powerful.

The Winter Soldier.

The assassins fanned out around him, but his presence commanded the room. He moved with a calmness that was terrifying; not rushing, not wasting motion, every step a predator's certainty. His eyes, cold and distant, scanned the chamber until they landed on the German Chancellor.

Aqualad saw it instantly, “It is him! Engage him, now!”

The Team lunged.

Kid Flash blurred forward, a streak of yellow and red aiming to sweep the Soldier's legs.

“I'm fast”, Kid Flash thought, “Faster than any human has a right to be. He can't—”

The Soldier moved.

Not faster than Kid Flash. But smarter. He didn't try to match the speedster's velocity. He predicted the trajectory, stepped aside at the last possible second, and his arm lashed out in a brutal clothesline.

Kid Flashran face-first into metal moving at just the right angle, at just the right time. The impact nearly snapped him in half. He hit the ground hard, gasping, ribs screaming, vision swimming.

“The hell?”, Kid Flash thought through the pain, stunned, “Has he fought speedsters before?”

Superboy roared and charged.

The impact when they collided shook the floor. For a moment, they were matched, Kryptonian strength against, whatever this man was made of and brutal conditioning. Superboy drove him back three steps, four, his fists hammering against the Soldier's guard.

But the Soldier didn't fight like a brawler. He fought like someone who'd studied how to kill Kryptonians.

A precise strike to a nerve cluster made Superboy's left arm go numb. A knee to the solar plexus doubled him over. And then the metal fist came down like a hammer, slamming Conner face-first into the marble floor.

Superboy tried to push himself up, dazed. “My strength... How? It’s like he knows exactly where to hit.”

Tigress' arrows came next, a rapid volley aimed at joints, gaps in armor, anywhere flesh showed.

One arrow sparked off his metal arm. The second he deflected with a twist of his wrist. The third grazed his shoulder, drawing blood. The fourth embedded in his thigh.

He pulled it out without flinching and kept coming.

He's not even slowing down, Artemis realized, her hands already knocking another arrow. Pain doesn't register.

She switched targets, aiming for his knees, but he caught her next shot midair and snapped the shaft in two. She barely ducked his counterstrike as a boot split the air where her head had been, the wind from the kick ruffling her hair.

Miss Martian launched a psychic assault, eyes blazing green-white.

“Let me in. Let me stop him. Let me—”

She hit a wall.

No, not a wall. A void.

His mind wasn't just shielded, it was empty. No thoughts, no emotions, no personality. Just purpose and conditioning and cold, mechanical obedience. It was the most terrifying thing she'd ever touched, like staring into a black hole where a person should be.

The psychic backlash hit her like a physical blow. She recoiled, clutching her temples, gasping.

Then his head snapped toward her, and for a heartbeat their eyes met.

Empty. Utterly empty.

Miss Martian stumbled back, terror flooding through her.

Robin's bo staff cracked across the Soldier's back with enough force to drop a normal human.

The Soldier spun, impossibly fast, caught the staff mid-swing, and yanked Tim forward. His hand closed around Robin's throat, lifting him off the ground, and slammed him against the wall so hard the plaster cracked and spiderwebbed.

Robin’s vision went dark at the edges, his hands clawing uselessly at the metal arm.

Then gunfire split the air.

Red Hood stepped from the shadows, both pistols leveled. No warning. No banter. Just bullets.

The Soldier moved—fast—but not fast enough to dodge them all. One round clipped his shoulder armor, cracking the plating. Another grazed his neck, leaving a thin line of red. A third sparked off his metal arm.

Red Hood advanced, firing methodically, professionally, driving him back step by step.

"Not so tough when someone shoots back at you, huh?"

The Soldier released Robin, who collapsed gasping to the floor.

For half a second, Red Hood thought he had the advantage.

Then the Soldier moved.

Red Hood barely registered it, one moment the Winter Soldier was ten feet away, the next his metal fist was driving into Jason's stomach, lifting him off his feet. The air rushed out of his lungs in an agonized gasp. His pistols clattered to the floor.

Before he could recover, the Soldier's human hand caught him by the throat and threw him. Jason crashed through a decorative pillar, stone and plaster raining down around him.

“Jesus Christ.”, Red Hood thought, tasting blood, “He fights like…”

He couldn't finish the thought. The world was spinning too much.

Aqualad surged forward, water-bearers hardening into twin blades as he intercepted the Soldier's advance.

"Fall back!", he commanded, even as he lunged himself.

The Winter Soldier met him blade for metal arm, sparks flying as Atlantean magic clashed against Soviet engineering. Aqualad's strikes were disciplined, precise, honed by years of training under Aquaman himself.

But the Soldier matched him. Parried. Countered.

His technique, Aqualad thought, analyzing even as he fought. Military close-quarters combat, but refined. Adapted. Like he's been trained specifically to fight metahumans, to counter our advantages.

The Soldier's metal arm caught one of Kaldur's water-blades and crushed it, the hardened water shattering like glass. Before Kaldur could reform it, a brutal knee strike to his already-bruised ribs sent him stumbling.

It didn’t look like it, the fight had lasted less than ten minutes, but it felt much longer than that.

The Team was down.

Battered. Bleeding. Scattered across the chamber like broken toys.

And the Winter Soldier stood in the center of it all, barely winded, blood trickling from minor wounds that he didn't even seem to notice.

He turned toward the podium.

Towards the Chancellor.

The German security detail formed a desperate wall around her, weapons raised, shouting commands in German.

The Soldier didn't slow.

He moved through them like death given form. One guard's arm broke with an audible crack. Another crumpled unconscious from a precise strike to the temple. A third fired point-blank, the Soldier twisted, the bullet grazing his armor, and drove his metal fist through the man's chest plate, denting it inward and sending him flying.

The Chancellor stood frozen, her composure finally cracking, eyes wide as she realized that all the security in the world meant nothing against this.

The Soldier raised his pistol.

"NO!", Robin screamed from where he'd collapsed, throwing a birdarang with the last of his strength.

It struck the Soldier's wrist—

Too late.

The gun fired.

Chancellor Adelheid Meyer's eyes went wide with shock. Her hand moved toward her chest, almost curious, as blood began to spread across her blue suit like spilled wine.

She swayed.

Fell.

She hit the marble floor with a sound that echoed through the suddenly silent chamber.

For one suspended heartbeat, the world seemed to stop.

Then the room erupted into chaos.

…

…

…

…

…

The German Chancellor's body lay still, the pool of blood spreading beneath her growing larger with each passing second.

Her aides screamed. Security rushed forward. Delegates surged to their feet in panic, shouting, scrambling for exits.

The Winter Soldier stood over the fallen leader for the briefest of moments.

He didn't celebrate.

He didn't sneer.

He didn't even hesitate.

He simply turned, his masks hiding everything, his eyes flat and lifeless, before retreating into the smoke like a phantom.

His mercenaries covered his exit, rifles spitting fire toward the Team.

Tigress scrambled to her feet, ignoring the pain in her ribs, and fired arrow after arrow into the retreating assassins.

"No!", her voice cracked with fury and desperation.

One merc dropped. Another stumbled. But the Winter Soldier was already gone, swallowed by smoke and chaos.

Superboy clawed his way up from the broken marble, fury and shame burning in his eyes.

He lunged forward, but Aqualad's hand seized his arm.

"Superboy! Stand down!"

"We can still catch him!", Superboy roared, blood trickling from his nose.

"We failed already.", Red Hood growled, dragging himself up from the rubble, his voice low, bitter, "The Chancellor's dead. And that fucker's already gone."

Miss Martian scanned desperately with her telepathy, searching for the Soldier's cold, empty mind.

Nothing. He really was gone.

In less than ten minutes, she thought, horror washing over her, he appeared, caused chaos, defeated all of us, assassinated the German Chancellor, and vanished without a trace.

Aqualad's gaze fell to the floor, to the body of Chancellor Meyer surrounded by her weeping aides.

"The damage is done."

Miss Martian moved, knelt beside the Chancellor, pressing glowing hands to her chest, desperately trying to slow the bleeding. Her telepathic voice rang in all their minds, frantic, panicked.

“Stay with me, stay with us, please—”

But there was no mind to reach. No thoughts to touch.

Only silence.

Robin's hands trembled as he checked for a pulse. He didn't need to. He knew. He looked up at Miss Martian, his face pale beneath his mask, his voice breaking.

"She's gone, M'gann. She's gone."

The weight of it crashed down like a tidal wave.

The leader of Germany. One of the most influential leaders of the European Union. The woman who would have symbolized a new era of peace.

Dead at their feet.

Killed not in shadows, but in the heart of Berlin, in her homeland's own capital, in front of the world's most powerful figures.

And they had failed to stop it.

Alarms blared. Security forces swarmed the chamber, weapons drawn, shoving delegates toward secure exits. The Soviet Premier was rushed out under heavy guard, his face carved from stone, unreadable. European leaders scrambled, some shouting accusations, others silent with shock.

The Team pressed together in the chaos, bruised, bloody, shaken to their cores.

"This wasn't supposed to happen.", Tigress hissed, her voice breaking, "We had one job—"

"We tried!", Kid Flash snapped back, though his voice was shaky, hollow, defensive, "We took down half those mercs—"

"And the one that mattered still got away!", Tigress snarled.

"Enough!", Aqualad raised his hand, his voice sharp, commanding despite the despair weighing on every word, "We must extract now. Debrief later. This place is no longer secure."

Red Hood's helmet tilted toward the Chancellor's body, toward the pool of blood still spreading across the pristine marble floor.

His voice was flat, empty.

"Doesn't matter where we run. We can only hope to god that World War III hasn't started by the time we get outside."

…

…

…

Outside, the streets of Berlin were fire and sirens.

Riot police struggled to contain panicked crowds, while Bundeswehr convoys roared through the streets, sirens wailing.

Rumors spread faster than fact: the German Chancellor was dead. The Soviets were behind it. The Americans knew. The EU was betrayed.

The Team slipped through the chaos under heavy Bundewehr escort, armored transports rushing them away from the Chancellery.

Through the narrow windows, they could see protesters gathering, their numbers swelling by the minute, their voices rising into a roar.

"Verräter! Krieg! Frieden ist tot!" (Traitors! War! Peace is dead!)

Signs were already being raised. Fires were being lit. The city was coming apart at the seams.

Robin sat slumped in the back of the transport, his mask cracked down one side, his voice small.

"Batman's not going to forgive us for this."

Miss Martian, pale and shaken, her hands still trembling from trying to save a woman already dead, whispered:

"We don't need Batman to forgive us. We need the world to."

No one answered.

Because they all knew the world wouldn't.

…

…

…

…

…

[Saturday, January 23, 2021 | 06:30]

[High Earth Orbit, The Watchtower]

Hours later, the Watchtower was filled with voices raised in fury.

The League had gathered in an emergency session, their holographic table flickering with grim faces and grimmer news.

Superman's jaw was set in steel. Wonder Woman's hands gripped the table so hard the metal groaned. Aquaman's voice thundered like the sea itself.

"The German Chancellor is dead.", he said, fury and grief bleeding together in every syllable, "Assassinated under our watch. The world will not forgive us."

"It wasn't us.", Green Lantern John Stewart countered, his tone sharp but defensive, "It was the assassin. This… 'Winter Soldier'."

"Tell that to the EU Parliament.", Hawkman spat, his wings rustling with agitation, "They'll demand someone hang for this. And it won't be the ghost we can't catch."

"If the Soviets are involved, they will deny everything.", Black Canary added, her arms crossed, her expression dark, "They'll call him a rogue actor, disavow any connection. But they'll benefit most from this collapse. The timing would be too perfect."

At the far end of the table, Batman sat in silence, the cowl hiding everything.

But those who knew him best could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his gloved hands were clenched into fists beneath the table, the storm raging behind his eyes.

"Bruce.", Wonder Woman pressed, her voice uncharacteristically soft, almost gentle, "You knew something like this was possible. You warned us about this assassin. Did you… Did you know more than you told us?"

Batman didn't answer immediately. His gloved hands folded together, knuckles white beneath the kevlar. Finally, his voice emerged, low, controlled, but carrying an edge of something darker beneath.

"I suspected the pattern.", he admitted, "High-profile targets. Precision kills. A ghost no one could track. The Team was briefed and informed about all of this before their deployment. But I did not anticipate an attack in broad daylight with the entire world watching. Not like this."

"That's not good enough!", Superman slammed a fist on the table, the shockwave rattling coffee cups and data pads across its surface, "A world leader is dead because we weren't prepared! Do you understand what this means? Europe will blame the Soviets. The Soviets will blame Europe. And when the war starts, and it will start if we don't stop this, it will be our failure that lit the match!"

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Even the hum of the Watchtower's systems seemed muted, as if the station itself was holding its breath.

Batman's gaze lowered, his voice quieter than before but no less certain.

"I will find him. Whoever this Winter Soldier is, wherever he's hiding, whoever's controlling him… I'll find him."

But the weight in his tone betrayed something else.

Not just resolve.

Something personal.

Something that made Wonder Woman's eyes narrow with concern as Superman's expression shift from anger to worry.

…

…

…

…

…

[Saturday, January 23, 2021 | 22:00]

[Central Siberia, Russian Soviet Republic, Soviet Union]

The scene shifted.

A dim chamber. Concrete walls, dripping pipes, the smell of cold metal and older blood. Shackles clanked against iron as a figure stirred in the darkness, his face obscured by shadow.

The door opened, harsh fluorescent light spilling across the floor.

A soldier stepped in, rifle slung across his back, his breath misting in the frigid air. Behind him came the officer from years ago, his uniform still pristine, his expression still cold, still merciless.

"The conditioning held.", he said in Russian, his voice carrying the satisfaction of a craftsman admiring his work, "The subject remains stable and under control. The kill, as with all the others, was executed flawlessly."

The soldier nodded sharply, "Orders, comrade?"

"Inform Comrade Major Knyazev.", the officer's lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile, "And Mr. Wilson. The Winter Soldier is ready for his next assignment."

The officer's eyes lingered on the chained figure in the darkness.

"And he will not fail."

The figure in the chains didn't move. Didn't speak. Barely seemed to breathe.

In the corner of his cell, beyond the reach of the dim light, lay objects he no longer recognized, a domino mask, blue and black, the colors faded. Escrima sticks, their grips worn smooth from years of use, now gathering dust.

The officer kept them as trophies—symbols of what had been taken from the Free World and remade into something to serve their purpose.

Something useful.

Something obedient.

But the man in chains felt nothing when his empty eyes passed over them.

They were relics of someone else's life.

Of the life of someone who no longer existed.

Chapter Text

[Saturday, January 23, 2021 | 06:30]

[High Earth Orbit, The Watchtower]

The Bioship's landing struts made contact with the Watchtower's hangar deck with barely a whisper, but the sound might as well have been a death knell.

One by one, they emerged.

Aqualad first, spine straight as a spear despite exhaustion carving lines into his features.

Tigress followed, limping slightly, jaw set against pain she refused to acknowledge.

Miss Martian floated down the ramp, her usual grace replaced by something hollow, mechanical.

Superboy's boots struck metal with enough force to leave dents, fists still clenched white at his sides.

Kid Flash stumbled out last of the core team, his trademark grin nowhere to be found.

Robin and Red Hood descended together but apart, the younger keeping distance from the elder's simmering rage.

Their uniforms told the story their mouths wouldn't. Scorch marks. Torn fabric. Arterial spray patterns dried to rust-brown. The acrid stench of Berlin's burning streets clung to them like a second skin, smoke, cordite, and something worse. Something that smelled like failure.

The Watchtower's central hub stretched before them, all sleek chrome and seamless glass, humanity's monument to hope floating in the void. But the holoscreens lining the walls had transformed the cathedral of heroism into a gallery of horrors.

Every channel.

Every feed.

Every broadcast.

The same story.

"GERMAN CHANCELLOR ASSASSINATED AT PEACE SUMMIT"

"BERLIN BURNS - THOUSANDS PROTEST IN STREETS"

"THE WORLD ASKS: WHO IS THE WINTER SOLDIER?"

Footage looped endlessly: the Chancellery's north wall exploding inward in a bloom of orange fire. Delegates screaming. Security forces crumpling like paper. And there, at the center of the maelstrom, a figure in black moving with the cold precision of a scalpel through flesh.

The Winter Soldier.

Artemis's arrow striking his thigh, the shaft protruding from muscle as he kept advancing without breaking stride. Superboy's haymaker connecting with his jaw in a spray of saliva and blood, yet the Soldier's head simply snapping back before returning to center, empty eyes refocusing. M'gann's psychic assault washing over him like water off stone.

And then the Chancellor, her hand moving to her chest with an almost curious expression as crimson bloomed across blue fabric. Her knees buckling. The marble floor rising to meet her.

The Team's boots echoed through the corridor leading to the conference chamber. None of them looked at the screens. They'd lived it once. They didn't need the world's replay.

The conference chamber doors hissed open.

The Justice League stood waiting in a semicircle around the holographic table, Earth rotating slowly in the center like an indictment. Batman at the apex, cape pooled around his boots like a congealed shadow. Superman to his right, arms folded across the S-shield, jaw carved from Kansas granite. Wonder Woman on his left, hands resting on her belt but close, too close, to her lasso.

Green Lantern John Stewart's ring pulsed faint emerald. Flash tapped his fingers against his thigh at super-speed, a hummingbird's heartbeat translated to nervous energy. Black Canary stood behind them, leather jacket zipped high despite the Watchtower's climate control. Even Aquaman had materialized from whatever deep-ocean crisis usually occupied his time, his expression as cold and merciless as the Marianas Trench.

The full weight of Earth's protectors.

All eyes on seven bloodied children who'd failed to protect a single woman.

"Report."

Batman's voice didn't rise. Didn't need to. The single word landed like an axe blade, cleaving the silence.

Kaldur stepped forward. His shoulders squared, hands clasped at the small of his back, parade rest, the posture drilled into him by Aquaman, by Black Manta before betrayal, by every moment of leadership thrust upon him when Nightwing vanished four years ago.

His voice emerged steady. Calm. Empty.

"The summit proceeded according to schedule for four days. Security was multi-layered with the Bundeswehr perimeter, Federal Intelligence Service surveillance, our own reconnaissance and positioning. We maintained overwatch throughout the signing ceremony."

He paused. Swallowed. Continued.

"At 1305 local time on January twenty-second, an explosive breached the north wall of the Federal Chancellery's main hall. Armed combatants entered, twenty-three confirmed hostiles with military-grade equipment and training. We engaged immediately."

On the holotable, security footage materialized. Tigress's arrows finding throats. Superboy throwing mercs through load-bearing columns. Kid Flash disarming entire squads in eyeblinks.

"We neutralized hostile forces within four minutes.", Kaldur's jaw tightened, "But the primary threat was... Unprecedented."

The footage shifted. Smoke parting like a curtain. The Winter Soldier stepping through, unhurried, inevitable.

"The individual designated as the Winter Soldier engaged the Team directly. His capabilities exceeded all intelligence estimates. Enhanced strength rivaling Superboy. Combat proficiency surpassing League training standards. Apparent immunity to telepathic intrusion."

M'gann flinched at that, arms wrapping tighter around herself.

"We attempted containment through coordinated assault. All attempts failed. The Winter Soldier achieved his objective despite our intervention."

Kaldur's voice finally cracked, just slightly.

"German Chancellor Adelheid Meyer was killed by a single gunshot wound to the chest. She died at the scene. The Winter Soldier exfiltrated successfully. The peace accords were signed, but..."

He trailed off. What was there to say?

But the paper was signed in blood? But we watched her die? But seven of us couldn't stop one man?

"The mission failed.", The words tasted like ashes, "We failed."

The silence that crashed down was absolute.

Superman's hands tightened into fists so hard his knuckles cracked like gunshots. Wonder Woman's eyes closed briefly, lips moving in what might have been a prayer to Athena or Ares, impossible to tell which goddess seemed more appropriate. Flash stopped moving entirely, which somehow felt worse than his usual manic energy.

And Batman?

Batman stood motionless as a tombstone, cowl hiding everything except the thin line of his mouth, pressed so tight it had gone white.

The holoscreens filled the silence with humanity's verdict:

"LEAGUE PROTÉGÉS PRESENT BUT UNABLE TO PREVENT ASSASSINATION"

"YOUNG SUPERHERO TEAM OVERPOWERED BY SINGLE ASSAILANT"

"CAN ANYONE STOP THE WINTER SOLDIER?"

Hal Jordan's fist slammed into the conference table hard enough to leave a green-glowing imprint, "Damn it! We were supposed to show unity! Strength! The whole point of sending the Team was subtle intervention without the Cold War optics!"

"It worked too well.", Black Canary said bitterly, "The Team was so subtle the world now thinks they’re useless."

"Dinah.", Flash started.

"She's right.", Wonder Woman's voice cut like her own blade, "The world does not see heroes who tried. They see children who failed. And more importantly..."

Her gaze swept the assembled Team, not unkind but unsparing, "They see a dead woman who died under League protection."

Conner's shoulders hunched, rage and shame warring across his face.

"We underestimated the threat.", Superman said, and there was steel in his voice now, the Kansas farm boy buried under the weight of godhood, "That's on us. The League's intelligence classified the Winter Soldier as a highly skilled assassin. Not..."

He gestured at the frozen image of the Soldier catching Superboy's punch, redirecting two hundred twenty pounds of Kryptonian clone like a training dummy, "Not this."

"Then we make it right.", Green Arrow proposed, "League-wide manhunt. Every asset, every ally. We find this bastard and we bring him in."

"Or put him down.", Aquaman added coldly, "Three heads of government in four years. The British Prime Minister. The Korean President. And now, the German Chancellor. He is not an assassin. He is an instrument of destabilization. Someone wants the world to burn, and they have found their match."

Batman finally moved. Just slightly. A tilt of his cowl toward the holoscreens where the Winter Soldier's masked face stared back.

"The League will issue a formal statement.", His voice was granite scraping against granite, "As of this moment, the Winter Soldier is Priority Alpha. All other operations are secondary. No stone unturned. No lead ignored. No sanctuary respected."

He paused.

"He will be found."

The words carried weight beyond their meaning. Not a promise. A prophecy.

But the Team heard something else underneath, something personal. Something that made even Wonder Woman glance at Batman with concern creasing her brow.

"Bruce...", she started softly.

"The Team performed to the best of their ability against the given odds.", Batman's interruption was sharp, dismissive of comfort, "This is not their failure. It is a failure of intelligence. Of preparation. Of understanding what we were truly facing."

His gaze swept across them; Kaldur standing at attention despite dead-man-walking eyes. Artemis bleeding through her uniform. Wally vibrating but not from speed, but from suppressed sobs. M'gann's green skin gone pale as paper. Conner radiating enough fury to crack the deck plates.

"You did what you could.”, Batman said.

But every word was a lie, and they all knew it.

Conner’s voice emerged as a growl, "Didn't feel like it."

Batman's cowl dipped in acknowledgment, "Then you will learn. You will adapt. And the next time—"

"There won't be a next time.", Wally's voice cracked halfway through, breaking on the words like waves on rocks, "He's gone. He got what he wanted. The Chancellor's dead and he's... He's just gone."

The holoscreens shifted again. Live feed from Berlin, tens of thousands gathering at the Brandenburg Gate, candles transforming the plaza into a sea of flickering light. Signs in German, English, Russian held by men, women, and children of all ages.

"NIE WIEDER KRIEG" (Never Again War)

"FRIEDEN ODER FEUER" (Peace or Fire)

"WER BESCHÜTZT UNS?" (Who Protects Us?)

The camera panned across faces, old women weeping, young men shouting, children clutching their parents' hands with the universal expression of fear too large for small bodies to contain.

A new chyron scrolled beneath the broadcasts:

"CHANCELLOR MEYER'S STATE FUNERAL ANNOUNCED FOR JANUARY 26TH"

"PERIOD OF MOURNING DECLARED ACROSS EUROPEAN UNION"

"GERMAN PRESIDENT TO EMERGENCY BUNDESTAG SESSION: CALLS FOR INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION"

Flash rubbed his temples, "It's already spiraling. Three days from now, every major power is going to be in Berlin for that funeral. World leaders, diplomats, the works. That's a powder keg waiting for a match."

"Then we ensure there is no spark.", Wonder Woman stated firmly, "Batman, Superman, and myself will represent the League. Full security protocols."

Batman's nod was curt, "Agreed. The rest of the League will maintain global watch. If the Winter Soldier surfaces anywhere, I want to know immediately."

He turned to the Team.

"You are to stand down pending debriefing and psychological evaluation. Rest. Regroup. Await further orders."

It should have felt like mercy, permission to step back, to process, to heal.

Instead, it felt like dismissal.

Like they were too broken to trust.

Kaldur's jaw tightened but he nodded, "Understood."

The Team filed out in silence. Not the comfortable quiet of soldiers who'd fought together, bled together, won together. The hollow silence of survivors walking away from a mass grave.

The doors hissed shut behind them.

Only the League remained, surrounding the holotable where Earth continued its slow rotation. The news feeds kept cycling: Berlin burning, protesters clashing with police, political analysts dissecting the assassination frame by frame.

Superman was the first to speak, "Bruce. That was a good speech. But you and I both know that wasn't the full truth."

Batman didn't respond.

"You recognized something.", Wonder Woman pressed, "In the footage. In his movements. What aren't you telling us?"

For a long moment, Batman said nothing. His cape shifted as he adjusted his stance, a tell so small only those who'd fought beside him for years would catch it.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter. Harder.

"I'm telling you that three world leaders are dead. That an assassin with no identity, no history, and no weaknesses just embarrassed the League's best covert operatives in front of the entire world."

His hands flattened against the holotable, fingers splayed wide, "And I'm telling you that whoever created the Winter Soldier did so with intimate knowledge of how to counter metahuman threats specifically."

Hal leaned forward, "You think this is targeted? Against the League?"

"I think.", Batman said slowly, "That the Winter Soldier fights like someone who's studied us. Our tactics. Our capabilities. Our weaknesses."

His cowl turned toward the frozen image of the Soldier mid-strike, metal arm gleaming, "And I think whoever controls him has resources that rival anything on our watch lists."

"League of Shadows?", Black Canary suggested.

"Cadmus?", Flash added.

"The Light?", Aquaman's lip curled.

"Maybe all of them.", Batman straightened, "Which is why I need to access everything; CIA, MI6, KGB, Mossad, every intelligence service's deep archives. If the Winter Soldier exists, someone, somewhere, knows his face."

Superman's eyes narrowed, "Bruce... Are you sure you're approaching this objectively?"

The question hung in the air like a grenade with its pin pulled.

Batman's silence stretched too long.

"I'm approaching this.", he finally said, "As the only member of this League who understands what it means when an enemy appears from nowhere and knows exactly how to kill us."

He turned and walked toward the exit, cape billowing.

"I'll be in the planning room. Forward any new intelligence immediately."

The doors closed behind him with a pneumatic hiss.

Wonder Woman and Superman exchanged a glance that spoke volumes.

"He's hiding something", Diana said quietly.

"It’s Bruce. He's always hiding something.", Clark replied. But his voice carried concern, not dismissal, "The question is whether it'll help us... Or destroys him."

…

…

…

The Team didn't make it far.

They'd intended to disperse, to find their quarters, their corners, their private spaces to nurse wounds both physical and otherwise. But gravity pulled them toward the commissary instead, some unspoken agreement that being alone right now would be worse than being together.

The room was empty at this hour, the early morning shift not yet arrived. Floor-to-ceiling windows displayed Earth rotating below, clouds swirling over continents in oblivious beauty. Normally, the view inspired awe. Today it felt like mockery, the world kept spinning while they'd failed to save a single piece of it.

Artemis dropped into a chair first, wincing as her ribs protested. She'd refused medical attention in the hangar, waved off Red Tornado's scanners with a snarl. Now, she regretted it. Every breath felt like knives.

Wally materialized beside her with two steaming mugs, moving at human speed for once. Coffee for her. Hot chocolate for himself, because even now, even after everything, he couldn't shake the kid who'd rather have cocoa than caffeine.

"Here." He set hers down gently.

She just stared at it as she raised an eyebrow towards him.

"I know.", he sat anyway, cradling his own mug like it might anchor him, "Too much caffeine, but if you don't hold something, you're going to put your fist through the wall, and the League's already got enough repair bills from Conner."

Across the room, Superboy stood at the window, forehead pressed against the glass. His reflection stared back, disheveled hair, split lip, uniform torn across the shoulder where the Winter Soldier's metal fist had caught him. Behind him, M'gann hovered uncertainly, hands raised halfway like she wanted to touch him but didn't know if she was allowed anymore.

Their relationship had its fragile moments since their breakup and getting back together again years ago. Moments like this made the fractures visible.

"Conner.", she tried softly, "Please talk to me."

"About what?", his voice was flat. Dead, "About how I hit him hard enough to crack a bank vault, and he just... got back up? About how I'm supposed to be strong, M'gann, and I couldn't even—"

His fist slammed into the window. The reinforced plex didn't crack, but the frame groaned. M'gann flinched.

"It wasn't your strength that failed.", Kaldur's voice cut through the tension like a blade through water—calm, steady, infuriatingly composed.

He stood in the doorway, having followed them from the briefing, "The Winter Soldier was prepared specifically to counter opponents like you. Like all of us."

"Then what good are we?", Conner whirled, for a moment, he wished he had heat vision like the real Superman, "What's the point of being a 'weapon' if I can't even protect one person?"

Kaldur met his gaze without flinching, "We are not weapons, my friend. We are people. And people fail sometimes."

"People.", Conner laughed, bitter and ugly, "Yeah. Tell that to Chancellor Meyer's family and the rest of Germany."

The name landed like a physical blow.

Artemis's hands tightened around her mug until the ceramic creaked. Wally's leg started bouncing again, faster, that nervous energy seeking any outlet. M'gann's eyes welled with tears she'd been holding back since Berlin.

Tim entered quietly, followed by Jason. The younger Robin moved toward the window, pulling up a holo-display from his gauntlet without asking permission. Footage from Berlin materialized—not the news coverage, but raw security feeds. Every angle. Every moment.

"Robin.", Kaldur warned, "Is that really necessary?"

"Yes.", Tim's voice was sharp, clinical, "We need to understand what happened. Not feel sorry for ourselves. We need to understand it."

He gestured, and the footage advanced to the moment the Winter Soldier entered. Enhanced, slowed down, every movement tracked by trajectory lines and impact calculations Tim had already begun processing.

"Watch.", Tim pointed, "Kid Flash comes in at Mach 2. But the Soldier doesn't try to track him. He predicts the attack vector and positions himself exactly where Wally will be."

The footage showed it in painful clarity, Wally's blur, the Soldier's arm rising at precisely the right microsecond, the devastating clothesline.

Wally looked away, "I don't need a replay, man."

"Yes, you do.", Tim was relentless, "Because you're beating yourself up thinking you weren't fast enough. But speed wasn't the problem. He knew how speedsters move. He's fought them before."

"That's impossible.", Artemis said, "Flash is the fastest man alive. If someone had fought him and won, we'd know about it."

"Maybe not the Flash.", Jason spoke up from where he leaned against the wall, arms crossed, "But speedsters aren't exactly rare anymore. Impulse. Inertia. Trajectory. Maybe someone's been collecting data."

Tim nodded, advancing the footage, "Superboy. Watch."

The clip showed Conner's charge, the impact that should have ended the fight. Instead, the Soldier absorbed it, redirected, struck back with surgical precision at nerve clusters and pressure points.

"He knows Kryptonian physiology.", Tim said, "Not just general anatomy, specific vulnerabilities. Solar plexus strike to disrupt the solar energy absorption cells. Pressure point at the brachial plexus to temporarily paralyze. These aren't lucky hits. This is training."

Conner's jaw worked, "Training against what? Superman?"

"Or clones.", Tim's eyes flicked to him, "Cadmus has made more than one. Project Match. Project Krypton. The Genomorph variants. If someone had access to Cadmus research..."

The implications hung heavy.

M'gann wrapped her arms tighter around herself, "My turn?"

Tim hesitated, then advanced to her psychic assault. The footage showed her eyes blazing green-white, head tilted back in concentration. Then the recoil; her stumbling, gasping, clutching her temples.

"I've never felt anything like that.", she whispered, "It wasn't just mental shields. It was... Emptiness. Like staring into a black hole where a person should be. No thoughts. No emotions. Just... Nothing. And underneath..."

She trailed off, shuddering.

"Underneath?", Kaldur pressed gently.

"Pain.", Her voice cracked, "So much pain. Layers and layers of it, compressed into something that doesn't feel like pain anymore. Like it had been there so long it became the foundation everything else was built on."

The room fell silent except for the footage still playing, the Soldier throwing Robin through a wall, dodging Artemis's arrows, catching Kaldur's water-bearers and shattering them like glass.

Jason pushed off the wall, "So what are we saying? That someone built a super-soldier specifically designed to kill metahumans?"

"Not just kill.", Tim closed the footage, and the commissary lights seemed dimmer without its glow, "Assassinate. There's a difference. Killers are blunt instruments. Assassins are scalpels. And the Winter Soldier is the sharpest blade I've ever seen."

"Great pep talk, Tim.", Wally's sarcasm was brittle, "Really feeling better now."

"I'm not trying to make you feel better!", Tim's composure cracked, voice rising, "I'm trying to make you understand! We didn't fail because we weren't good enough. We failed because we were up against something purpose-built to counter us! And if we don't figure out who built him and why, then next time—"

"There won't be a next time.", Artemis cut in, "He got what he wanted. The Chancellor's dead."

"You think that's it?", Jason laughed, dark and humorless, "You think whoever's pulling his strings is satisfied with one dead politician?"

Tim pulled up another display, the list of assassinations attributed to the Winter Soldier over the past four years: British Prime Minister Lord Michael William Jones; Korean President Park Gyun-Seol; and now, German Chancellor Adelheid Meyer.

"Three heads of state and/or government.", Tim said, "Three major powers, the UK, Korea, Germany. All killed during moments of diplomatic significance. This isn't random violence. This is systematic destabilization."

Kaldur moved closer, studying the names, "A pattern."

"Maybe.", Tim's fingers flew across the holographic interface, "If it is a pattern and it holds, then he's not done. Someone wants the world off-balance. Someone wants nations questioning their alliances, their security, their ability to protect their own leaders."

"Someone wants war.", M'gann said quietly.

The word settled over them like fallout.

Artemis set her mug down with deliberate care, "Then we find him first."

"We?", Conner turned from the window, "Batman stood us down. We're benched."

"Fuck that.", Jason's voice was flat, "Since when do we sit on the sidelines while bodies pile up?"

"Since we got our asses handed to us and proved we can't handle it.", Wally snapped back, "Face it, Jay. We were outclassed."

"This time.", Jason pushed off the wall, stalking forward, "Next time we'll be ready."

"There won't be a next—", Artemis started.

"Stop saying that!", Jason's hands slammed onto the table, making the mugs jump, "You think the League's going to catch him? Batman's been hunting him for fucking years with every resource on the planet and came up empty! The Winter Soldier is a ghost, and ghosts don't leave trails for detectives to follow!"

"Then what do you suggest?", Kaldur's voice remained calm, but there was steel underneath, "We disobey direct orders and go rogue? Become vigilantes hunting our own mission?"

"If that's what it takes—"

"That is not what it takes!", Kaldur's composure finally cracked, voice rising, "We are a Team. We operate within League protocols. We do not—"

"Dick wouldn't have waited for orders."

The name dropped like a bomb.

Everyone froze.

Jason's eyes were hidden behind his helmet, but his voice carried something raw, jagged, "You all know it's true. Nightwing would've been three steps ahead of this. Would've figured out the pattern before Berlin even happened. Would've had contingencies and backup plans and—"

"But he's not here!", Wally shouted, lurching to his feet, "He's been gone for four years, Jason! And we can't keep—we can't just—"

His voice broke completely. He sagged back into his chair, head in his hands.

Artemis reached for him, but her hand hovered, uncertain. They'd been together for years now, but grief made strangers of everyone.

M'gann floated closer to the table, voice small, "Dick would want us to work together. To support each other. Not tear ourselves apart."

"Dick's dead.", Jason's words were brutal. Final.

"We don't know that.", Tim said quietly, "MIA isn't KIA."

"It's been four years, Tim. Four years without a single sign. No body means hope in fairy tales. In the real world, it just means we never found the corpse."

Tim's hands balled into fists, "Batman never stopped looking."

"Yeah, and how's that working out?", Jason's helmet tilted toward the window, toward Earth below, "He's so obsessed with a ghost that he missed the real threat right in front of us. The Winter Soldier was operating for three years, racking up bodies, and we only just started taking him seriously. Because Batman was too busy chasing a dead kid instead of protecting the living."

"That's enough.", Kaldur's voice cracked like a whip.

But Tim was already standing, chair scraping back, "Take it back."

"Why? It's true."

"I said take it back!"

Tim lunged. Not with any real intent to fight, just desperate need to make Jason stop, stop saying it, stop making it real.

Jason caught his wrist easily. For a moment they stood frozen; third Robin and second, separated by grief and anger and the ghost of the first.

"He's gone, Tim.", Jason said, quieter now. Almost gentle, "And we're still here. We have to deal with that."

Tim wrenched his arm free, stumbling back. When he spoke, his voice was thick, "You don't get to decide when we give up on him."

He turned and walked out, footsteps echoing in the sudden silence.

Artemis exhaled slowly, "Well. That went well."

Jason shoved his helmet back on with more force than necessary, "I'll check on him."

"No.", Kaldur's hand landed on his shoulder, "You will give him space. And you will remember that we are not enemies, regardless of how we grieve differently."

Jason jerked away from the touch but didn't follow Tim.

M'gann had drifted to the window, staring out at Earth with tears finally spilling free, "We're falling apart."

"No.", Kaldur moved to stand beside her, "We are grieving. There is a difference."

"Is there?", Conner's voice was hollow, "Because it feels the same from here."

On the holoscreens mounted in the commissary's corner, the news continued its relentless cycle:

"BERLIN MOURNS: THOUSANDS GATHER AT BRANDENBURG GATE"

"EU PARLIAMENT CALLS EMERGENCY SESSION"

"SOVIET UNION DENIES INVOLVEMENT IN ASSASSINATION"

And beneath it all, looping endlessly: grainy footage of the Winter Soldier walking through smoke, masked and implacable, while seven young heroes lay broken in his wake.

Wally finally broke the silence, "What do we do now?"

Kaldur turned from the window. His eyes were tired, bone-deep exhaustion that had nothing to do with physical combat and everything to do with carrying the weight of leadership for four years without the one person who'd taught him how.

"Now?", He straightened his shoulders, found that core of Atlantean discipline that had kept him standing through every nightmare, "Now we rest. We heal. And when the League calls, we answer. Because that is what Dick would have done."

"That's what Dick did do", Artemis said quietly, "And it got him killed."

No one had an answer for that.

…

…

…

…

…

[Saturday, January 23, 2021 | 22:35]

[The Batcave - Gotham City, New Jersey, United States]

The Batcave breathed.

Not literally, though the steady drip of mineral-rich water from limestone stalactites and the distant echo of the subterranean river created the illusion of respiration. But the Cave had always possessed a presence, a weight that pressed against the shoulders of anyone who descended into its depths. Tonight that pressure felt suffocating.

Banks of monitors lined the walls in tiered rows, each screen glowing with data streams, satellite feeds, intercepted communications, and news broadcasts from every corner of the globe. The primary holographic display dominated the center of the workspace, projecting a three-dimensional wireframe of Earth with red markers blossoming like infection sites; Berlin, London, Seoul, and dozens of smaller incidents that might or might not connect to the Winter Soldier.

Tim Drake sat hunched at the main console, spine curved into a question mark, fingers dancing across three keyboards simultaneously. His domino mask was gone, revealing dark circles under eyes that hadn't seen real sleep in forty-eight hours. Empty energy drink cans formed a small mountain beside his left elbow. His Robin uniform was still torn across the shoulder, dried blood crusting the edges of the tear, but he'd ignored Alfred's increasingly pointed suggestions about medical attention.

There wasn't time.

To his right, Barbara Gordon worked at a secondary console, still in full Batgirl uniform minus the cowl. The purple and gold caught the blue glow of the monitors, making her look like some modern oracle presiding over streams of data. Her cape was pushed back over her shoulders, utility belt unbuckled and hanging loose for comfort during the long hours. Her red hair was tied back in a severe ponytail that had started neat six hours ago but now had strands escaping to frame her face.

Her fingers moved with mechanical precision, opening files, cross-referencing databases, building link analyses faster than most people could read. Every few minutes she'd pause to roll her shoulders, work out the knots forming between her shoulder blades, then dive back in.

Jason Todd stood apart from both of them, leaning against the Cave wall near the trophy cases. His Red Hood helmet rested on a nearby workbench, leaving his face exposed; sharp angles, a white streak through his hair from the Lazarus Pit, a scar bisecting his jawline from a knife fight in Crime Alley three years ago. He'd stripped down to a black tank top, his arms crossed over his chest, revealing the latticework of old scars that mapped a violent history across his skin.

His eyes were locked on the main holographic display, specifically on the frozen frame of the Winter Soldier mid-strike, metal arm gleaming as it drove into Conner's solar plexus.

He'd been staring at it for twenty minutes.

"Rewind it again.", Jason said quietly.

Tim didn't look up from his work, "You've watched it eleven times."

"Then this'll be twelve."

Barbara's fingers paused on her keyboard. She glanced at Jason, then at Tim, calculation visible in her expression, "Jason. Staring at it won't change what happened."

"Not trying to change it.", Jason's voice was flat, controlled in that way that meant he was barely holding something back, "That's what you said we needed to do, right?"

Tim rolled his eyes, “Fine.”

"I want to know how.", Jason pushed off the wall, stalking closer to the holographic display. "We know that that's not just training. That's not even enhanced training. That's something else."

The hologram shifted, the Winter Soldier's attack sequence playing out in slow motion. Barbara abandoned her terminal to join them, cape swirling as she moved to stand between the two men, physical mediator to their mounting tension.

"There.", Jason pointed as the Soldier deflected Kid Flash's approach, "He moves before Wally gets there. Not as a reaction, as an anticipation. Like he knew exactly where the speedster would be before Wally even chose the trajectory."

“Wally and I already discussed this.”, Tim shook his head.

Barbara nodded slowly, some of the edge leaving his voice as the analyst in him engaged. "Predictive modeling. Advanced combat algorithms, maybe AI-assisted. Or..."

"Or he's fought speedsters before.", Tim finished. "We’ve talked about this in the Watchtower. Possibly could’ve fought speedsters multiple times, enough to internalize the patterns."

"Flash would know if someone had gone toe-to-toe with him and survived.", Barbara countered.

"Would he?", Jason's eyes never left the hologram, "How many fights has Flash been in over the years? How many criminals has he put down so fast he barely remembers their faces? You're assuming whoever trained this guy used the originals as sparring partners. What if they used something else?"

"Like what?" Tim asked.

"Like… Data.", the realization dawned as Barbara pulled up a secondary display, her fingers flying across a virtual keyboard, "Combat footage. Satellite surveillance. Every public battle the League's ever fought. Hell, every public battle any speedster's ever fought."

She gestured, and a cascade of video files materialized—news coverage, cell phone footage, security cameras, "It's all out there. Anyone with the resources and the patience could build a comprehensive database."

"Well, that is a lot of resources.", Tim said, "And a lot of patience."

"Yeah.", Jason's jaw clenched, "It is."

The hologram advanced. Superboy's charge, the impact that should have ended the fight. Instead, the Soldier absorbed it, redirected it, struck back with surgical precision.

"Pause there.", Barbara leaned closer, analyzing the strike point. "Solar plexus strike. We know it's a Kryptonian vulnerability, but how would he have that knowledge?"

"Stolen from Cadmus research.", Tim muttered, "Has to be. Other than that, classified League intel."

"Or Cadmus leaked intel.", Jason's voice was dark, "They've had security breaches before. Plus with Lex? Who knows what else Cadmus is hiding? Who's to say someone didn't walk out with a full copy of their clone research?"

Tim pulled up another window, lines of code and classified documents streaming past, "I've been trying to dig into Cadmus's servers all day. They've upgraded security since the last breach; new military-grade firewalls, continuous cycling encryption. It's taking time."

"How much time?", Barbara asked.

"Hours. Maybe days.", Tim rubbed his eyes, "And that's assuming I can get in at all without triggering their intrusion detection. If they catch me poking around, they'll lock down completely and we'll get nothing."

"Then we need another angle.", Barbara crossed her arms, thinking, "How about the metal arm? That level of cybernetics isn't standard black market tech. The design is different from the arm Arsenal got from Lex. It's not something we can just pull off and put on that easily, the integration alone would require extensive surgery, neural mapping, probably months of physical therapy to achieve that level of control."

Jason nodded slowly, "So we're also looking for someone with access to cutting-edge prosthetics research. And not the kind advertised in medical journals."

"Military applications.", Tim said, already pulling up new search parameters, "Defense contractors. Black-site research labs. Maybe even Soviet programs, maybe they were experimenting with cybernetic enhancement back during the Cold War."

"Soviet Union.", Barbara's eyes narrowed, "The Winter Soldier. Russian-themed codename, operates in Eastern Europe more than anywhere else, and just happened to assassinate world leaders right when East-West tensions were stabilizing."

"You think the Soviet government is behind this?", Tim sounded skeptical.

"I think someone wants us to think they are.", Barbara pulled up a map, marking the assassination locations, "London, Seoul, Berlin. Three major powers, three different continents. But the pattern isn't geographic, it's political. Every target was pushing for increased cooperation between East and West. British PM Lord Jones was negotiating new trade agreements between the EU and the Soviet Union. Korean President Park is credited as the architect of unification during his time as the South’s Foreign Minister. Chancellor Meyer literally just signed a peace treaty when she died."

The implications settled over them like ash.

"Someone wants to bring the Cold War back.", Jason said quietly.

"Or they want the world so destabilized that war becomes inevitable.", Tim's hands stilled on the keyboard, "Create enough chaos, enough fear, enough mistrust... Eventually people stop looking for peace and start preparing for conflict."

Barbara turned back to her console, "Which means the Winter Soldier isn't working alone. This level of coordination, the intelligence gathering, the political timing. There's an organization behind this. Maybe multiple organizations."

"The Light.", Jason said immediately, "Has to be. This is exactly their playbook; destabilize, manipulate, profit from the chaos."

"Maybe.", Tim didn't sound convinced, "But the Light usually operates through proxies and front companies. And given how the failed Reach invasion worked out? I doubt they would be locking in on something as public as this."

"League of Shadows, then?", Barbara suggested.

"Ra's al Ghul would’ve claimed responsibility by now.", Jason shook his head, "He's a terrorist, not a spy. He wants the world to know his hand was behind it."

Tim pulled up another file, the complete dossier on the Winter Soldier, everything the League had compiled over four years. It was shockingly thin. Grainy photographs. Unconfirmed sightings. Body counts attributed through circumstantial evidence. No fingerprints. No DNA. No verified recordings of his voice.

"A ghost.", Tim muttered, "Completely off-grid. No digital footprint, no paper trail, nothing. It's like he didn't exist before three years ago."

"Everyone exists before they become an assassin.", Barbara said, "Cheshire, Sportsmaster, Deadshot, Bloodsport, Deathstroke; he had to come from somewhere. Had parents, maybe siblings. Went to school, had a life, made choices that led him here."

"Or he didn't.", Jason's voice had gone cold, "Or someone took all that away and built something new out of what was left."

They both looked at him.

Jason gestured at the frozen image of the Winter Soldier, "You're both looking at this like he's a person who became a weapon. What if it's the other way around? What if someone took a person, broke them down completely, and rebuilt them as a weapon from the ground up?"

"Brainwashing?", Tim said slowly, “It’s possible.”

"Not just brainwashing. Complete reconditioning. Wipe the personality, implant new programming, train the body until muscle memory replaces conscious thought.", Jason's hand unconsciously moved to his own chest, to the scars hidden under his shirt, mementos from his own death and resurrection, "I've seen what people can survive. What they can be molded into if someone's cruel enough and patient enough."

Barbara's expression softened slightly, "Jason..."

"I'm not talking about me.", But his voice lacked conviction, "I'm saying that if someone wanted to create the perfect assassin, they wouldn't recruit one. They'd make one. Take someone with the right physical capabilities, the right baseline training, and then systematically destroy everything that made them human until only the killer remains."

The Cave fell silent except for the omnipresent hum of electronics and the distant drip of water.

Tim stared at the Winter Soldier's frozen face, half-obscured by masks, "That's... That's horrifying."

"That's effective.", Jason corrected, "No moral hesitation, no psychological breakdown, no risk of defection. Just point him at a target and pull the trigger."

Barbara had gone pale, "If that's true, if someone really did do that to him, then he's not just a criminal. He's also a victim."

"He could be both.", Jason's voice was hard. "But we can’t be sure at the moment. All I know is that when we find him, that's not going to make pulling the trigger any easier."

"We're not killing him.", Tim said immediately, "Batman's orders were clear, capture if possible."

"Batman's not here.", Jason's eyes locked on Tim, "And when the time comes, when it's between the Winter Soldier putting a bullet in someone's head or you putting one in his, you better hope you can make that choice fast enough."

"There's always another way—"

"There isn't.", Jason cut him off, "Not with him. We saw how he moved, Tim. He's not going to surrender. He's not going to hesitate. And if we hesitate, we're dead."

"Boys.", Barbara's voice cracked like a whip, "Enough. We're not making strategic decisions at midnight while running on caffeine and trauma. Focus on the investigation."

Tim opened his mouth to argue, then closed it.

He turned back to his console, "Fine. I'm running deep searches on all known cybernetics research programs, government and private sector. Cross-referencing with locations that might have the security and isolation needed for this kind of project."

"I'll dig into the assassination patterns.", Barbara said, "If there's a bigger target list, maybe we can predict the next strike."

"And I'll—", Jason grabbed his helmet, pulling it on. The voice modulator gave his words a mechanical edge, "—check the streets. Gotham's underworld hears things before our satellites do. If there's chatter about the Winter Soldier, someone ought to know something."

"Jason, it's almost midnight.", Tim said without looking up.

"Perfect time for the criminal element.", Jason headed toward the vehicle bay. "I'll be back before dawn."

He vanished into the shadows, boots echoing across stone.

Barbara waited until the roar of the motorcycle faded completely before speaking, "He's not okay."

"None of us are.", Tim's fingers never stopped moving, "But at least he's being more optimistic and productive now, for his standards at least."

"Tim.", Barbara rolled her chair closer, placing a hand on his arm, "When's the last time you slept?"

"Berlin."

"That was yesterday."

"Then yesterday.", He tried to pull away but she held firm.

"You're going to burn out."

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine. None of us are.", Her voice softened, "Dick wouldn't want you destroying yourself over this."

Tim's hands froze on the keyboard. For a long moment he just stared at the screen, jaw working.

"Dick's not here.", he finally said, voice rough, "Hasn't been for years. And maybe... Maybe Jason's right. Maybe we should have moved on by now."

"You don't believe that."

"I don't know what I believe anymore.", Tim slumped back in his chair, suddenly looking at every one of his nineteen years, "We failed, Babs. We had one job—protect the Chancellor—and we failed. She's dead because we weren't good enough."

"You were up against something unprecedented—"

"That's an excuse, not a reason.", Tim pulled off his cowl completely, running both hands through sweat-damp hair, "Dick would have found a way. He always found a way."

"Dick also had years more experience than you do now."

"He was younger than me when he became Nightwing."

"And he had Batman.", Barbara's hand squeezed his arm, "He had Bruce right there, every step, teaching him, guiding him. You've been figuring most of this out on your own while Bruce..." She trailed off.

"While Bruce obsesses over a ghost.", Tim finished bitterly, "Yeah. I noticed."

Barbara's expression tightened. She'd noticed too. They all had. The way Batman threw himself into impossible cases, chased leads that went nowhere, spent hours in the Cave staring at old footage of Nightwing's missions as if the answer to his disappearance might materialize through sheer force of will.

"He loved him.", Barbara said quietly, "Loves him. Dick was his first; his first partner, his first success. Losing him broke something in Bruce that I don't think can be fixed."

"We've all lost him.", Tim's voice cracked, "But we're still here. Still fighting. Still trying to save people. Bruce is so focused on the one person he couldn't save that he's missing all the people he still can."

The accusation hung in the air, heavy and damning.

Barbara had no answer for it.

Because Tim was right.

Chapter Text

[Thursday, February 4, 2021 | 19:30]

[Wayne Manor - Gotham City, New Jersey, United States]

Wayne Manor glittered like a jewel against Gotham's perpetual gloom.

Floodlights bathed the limestone façade in warm gold, transforming the gothic architecture into something almost welcoming.

The circular driveway was choked with luxury vehicles, Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Maseratis, each depositing Gotham's elite onto red carpet that had been rolled across cobblestones older than the city itself.

Security was visible but discreet. Men in dark suits with earpieces flanked the entrance, their eyes constantly scanning. More lingered near the gardens, the garage, the service entrances. To the casual observer, they were standard protection for a high-profile event.

To anyone paying closer attention, the coordination, the positioning, the way their hands never strayed far from concealed weapons, this was trained precision masquerading as civilian security.

Inside, the Manor's grand ballroom had been transformed.

Crystal chandeliers cast prismatic light across polished marble floors.

Round tables draped in white linen surrounded a central dance floor, each centerpiece a careful arrangement of white lilies and blue forget-me-nots, Dick's favorite colors, though few guests would know that detail.

A string quartet occupied one corner, filling the space with Vivaldi. Servers in crisp uniforms circulated with champagne and hors d'oeuvres, moving like practiced dancers through the growing crowd.

The guests themselves were Gotham's who's who: old money families whose names adorned buildings downtown, new tech moguls trying to buy legitimacy, philanthropists and socialites and politicians who smiled with too many teeth.

They came because Bruce Wayne asked, because the cause was sympathetic, and because an invitation to Wayne Manor carried social currency that couldn't be bought.

But mostly, they came to be seen.

Near the ballroom's entrance, Barbara Gordon stood in a floor-length emerald gown that caught the light when she moved.

Her red hair was swept up in an elegant twist, diamond earrings, borrowed from a Wayne family vault, glittering at her ears. She looked every inch the Gotham socialite, daughter of the Police Commissioner, comfortable in these circles.

Her smile never quite reached her eyes.

"Another year.", Tim Drake murmured beside her, tugging uncomfortably at his bow tie.

His tuxedo was perfectly tailored, Alfred's work, but he wore it like armor he hadn't quite broken in yet. At nineteen, he still felt like an imposter at these events, a kid playing dress-up among adults who'd been born into this world.

"Another year.", Barbara agreed quietly, accepting a champagne flute from a passing server but not drinking. Her eyes tracked the room with the trained awareness of someone who'd spent too many nights patrolling rooftops. Exits. Sightlines. Potential threats hidden behind Prada and Armani.

Old habits.

Jason Todd leaned against the wall behind them, his own tuxedo somehow managing to look vaguely threatening despite Alfred's best efforts.

He'd refused the bow tie entirely, leaving his collar open just enough to broadcast his contempt for the whole affair. His hands were shoved in his pockets, white streak visible in his slicked-back hair, scar on his jaw a reminder that he'd never fully belong in spaces like this.

He didn't care. He'd stopped trying to fit into Bruce's world years ago.

"How long do we have to stay looking like this?", Jason's voice was low, bored.

"Until Bruce finishes his speech.", Barbara replied without looking at him, "Then we can rotate out. Someone needs to maintain appearances."

"Dick would've hated this.", Tim said suddenly, then winced, "I mean—he would've. The fake smiles, the empty conversations, people treating tragedy like a networking opportunity."

"He would've.", Barbara agreed, "But he also would've understood why we do it."

"Would he?", Jason's tone was sharp, "Or are we just telling ourselves that to feel better about playing dress-up while the Winter Soldier's still out there?"

The name landed like a stone in still water.

Tim's jaw tightened. Barbara's fingers tensed around her champagne flute. Neither responded, because what could they say?

Two weeks since Berlin.

Two weeks of investigation leading nowhere.

Two weeks of watching news coverage dissect their failure frame by frame while the Winter Soldier vanished like smoke.

And here they were, in evening wear, pretending everything was fine.

"She's here.", Barbara said suddenly, nodding toward the entrance.

Zatanna Zatara made an entrance the way other people breathed, naturally, inevitably, and commanded every eye in the room without trying.

She wore black. Not the conservative black of mourning, but something that managed to be both elegant and dangerous. A dress that seemed to shift between fabric and shadow depending on the light, cut to emphasize her performer's figure, slit up one thigh high enough to hint at the fishnets beneath. Her dark hair fell in waves past her shoulders, and her makeup was theatrical, dark lips, smoky eyes that looked like they'd seen things these socialites couldn't imagine.

She looked like she'd stepped out of a stage show and directly into Gotham's upper crust without bothering to change.

More than one head turned. More than one conversation faltered.

Zatanna ignored them all, scanning the room with barely concealed discomfort until her eyes found Barbara.

Relief flickered across her face; brief, but visible.

"You came.", Barbara said as Zatanna approached, warmth entering her voice for the first time that evening.

"You insisted.", Zatanna replied, accepting a champagne flute and immediately draining half of it, "Something about 'Dick would have wanted me here.'"

"He would have."

"Dick would've wanted a lot of things.", Zatanna's fingers tightened around the glass, "Doesn't mean I'm good at this. The—"

She gestured vaguely at the room, the crowd, the performance of normalcy, "—all of this."

"You perform for thousands of people.", Tim pointed out.

"That's different. That's magic. That's a show with a beginning, middle, and end. This is just...", Zatanna's nose wrinkled, "Small talk about market trends and vacation homes while pretending we're not all thinking about the empty chair at the table."

Jason's lips twitched into something almost resembling a smile, "I have to admit, I have a better understanding on Dick’s tastes in women now."

"You barely know her.", Tim said.

"I know. But she's honest. That's rare in rooms like this."

Barbara touched Zatanna's arm gently, "Come on. Bruce is about to start. We should be visible when he does."

They moved through the crowd, four figures who didn't quite fit despite their elegant costumes. Barbara with her watchful eyes. Tim with his uncomfortable posture. Jason with his barely suppressed hostility. And Zatanna with her performer's mask that couldn't quite hide the grief underneath.

The guests parted around them like water around stones.

At the front of the room, Bruce Wayne stood on a small raised platform, microphone in hand.

He wore his tuxedo the way he wore everything, with absolute confidence. Every line perfect, every detail calculated. To the crowd, he was Brucie Wayne, billionaire playboy philanthropist, charming and untouchable.

Only those who knew him well could see the tightness around his eyes. The way his smile never touched them. The careful control in every gesture.

"Ladies and gentlemen.", Bruce's voice carried effortlessly across the ballroom, warm and welcoming, "Thank you all for being here tonight. Your generosity and support mean more than I can adequately express."

Polite applause rippled through the crowd.

"Four years ago.", Bruce continued, his voice sobering, "My ward, my son in all but name, Dick Grayson, went missing during a humanitarian mission in the Middle East. He was there representing the Wayne Foundation, bringing medical supplies and educational resources to regions devastated by conflict."

The room had gone silent.

Everyone knew the story. It had been front-page news when it happened the young philanthropist who worked as a police officer for the Blüdhaven PD as a day job, tragically was lost in a terrorist attack. His body never recovered. Another casualty of a violent world.

"Dick believed in helping people.", Bruce said, "Not because it was easy, or safe, or profitable. But because it was right. Because he'd been given opportunities that others never had, and he felt the need to extend, to share that privilege to those who needed it most."

Tim felt his throat tighten. Beside him, Barbara's hand found his, squeezing briefly.

"The Richard J. Grayson Foundation was established to continue that work.", Bruce continued, "To ensure that his vision, his belief in human dignity, in education, in the power of compassion, lives on. In the past four years, our generous donations have funded schools in refugee camps, mobile medical clinics in conflict zones, and scholarship programs for displaced youth. Dick would be proud of what we've accomplished in his name."

Bruce paused, and for just a moment, the mask slipped. Just a fraction. Just enough for those who knew him to see the pain underneath.

"I can only wish that he was here to see it.", Bruce sighed.

Everyone in the room felt the air go a few degrees colder as Bruce continued, "And that's a loss we all carry. Not just me, not just his friends and family, but everyone who knew him. Everyone whose life he touched. Dick had a gift for making people feel seen, heard, valued. The world is darker without him in it."

Zatanna's hand tightened around her champagne flute hard enough that Barbara worried it might shatter.

"So tonight.", Bruce raised his glass, "I ask you to join me in honoring not just his memory, but his legacy. To Dick Grayson—missing, but never forgotten. May we all strive to be half as good as he was."

"To Dick!", the crowd echoed, raising their glasses.

The quartet resumed playing. Conversations started again. The moment passed, folded back into the comfortable rhythm of a high-society fundraiser.

But for the four standing together near the back, the weight remained.

"That was—", Zatanna started, then stopped, blinking rapidly, "Excuse me."

She turned and headed toward the balcony doors, needing air, needing space, needing anywhere but here.

Barbara started to follow, but Tim touched her arm, "Let her be. She needs a minute."

"We all need a minute.", Jason muttered.

"Come on.", Barbara nodded toward a quieter corner, away from the thickest press of bodies, "Let's get out of the spotlight for a bit."

…

…

…

They found refuge near one of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Manor's grounds. 

Outside, Gotham's skyline glittered in the distance, a forest of light and shadow.

For a moment, none of them spoke.

Then Tim broke the silence.

"Remember that time Dick convinced us to have a water balloon fight in the Bat Cave?"

Barbara blinked, "What?"

"We were supposed to be training.", Tim continued, a small smile forming, "Batman was off-world with the League. Dick was in charge. And instead of running drills, he decided we needed 'team bonding’.”

"Team bonding.", Jason scoffed, but there was something warm in his tone, "Is that what we called it? He hit me in the face with a water balloon so hard I saw stars."

"You retaliated by dumping an entire bucket on his head.", Barbara reminded him.

"Fuck yeah I did.", Jason's smile was real now, unguarded, "The man had it coming."

"Alfred was furious.", Tim said, "The Bat Cave was flooded. We got water on the Batcomputer. Dick tried to take the blame, but we all confessed. Said it was a team decision."

"Bruce grounded us for a week.", Barbara added, "Made us clean every inch of the Cave with toothbrushes."

"All worth it though.", Jason said, "Dick made everything better. Even punishment. He'd crack jokes while we were scrubbing, do impressions of Batman's voice, turn the whole thing into another game."

Tim's smile faded slightly, "I never thanked him for that. For making it easier to be Robin. For showing me it didn't have to be all darkness and trauma and—"

He gestured vaguely, "—brooding."

"He knew.", Barbara said softly, "Dick always knew."

"Did he?", Jason's voice had gone quiet, "Because honestly, I spent years after my resurrection trying to kill both him and Bruce. Trying to hurt them, trying to make him feel a fraction of what I felt. And when I finally came back, when Bruce forced me to play nice with the Team, Dick just..." 

He shook his head, "He welcomed me. No conditions. No hesitation. Just opened his arms like I'd never left, like I'd never tried to put a bullet in his head."

"That was Dick, alright.", Tim said, “I still remember that face Conner made when Batman brought the Red Hood to the Cave.”

“Really.”, a light laugh from Barbara, “Genuinely surprised Jay got out unscathed that day from all the looks the Team gave him.”

"Yeah.", Jason's jaw worked, "That’s our Dickie Boy."

The balcony doors opened, and Zatanna slipped back inside, makeup slightly smudged around her eyes but otherwise composed.

"Sorry.", she said, rejoining them, "I needed some air after that speech."

"Not a problem, Zee. By all means.", Barbara agreed.

Zatanna was quiet for a moment, taking her time at the company of Bruce Wayne’s wards until

"If you guys wouldn’t mind.”, she began, “Can you tell me something about him? Something I don't know, or that he didn’t really share much with me? Something that isn't..."

She waved vaguely, "Nightwing stories or mission reports. Something human. Something only about the real Dick."

The three exchanged glances.

“Shit.”, Jason muttered, “You just missed it, we were talking about the time he made us do a water balloon fight in the Bat Cave.”

"He cooked like shit.", Tim said suddenly, "Like, dangerously bad. Bruce banned him from the Manor kitchen after he somehow managed to set cereal on fire."

Zatanna's lips twitched upwards, raising an eye brow in the process, "How do you set cereal on fire?"

"We still don't know.", Barbara said, "Alfred tried to teach him basic skills. Dick would just smile and promise to pay attention, then immediately space out thinking about patrol routes or case files."

“I mean honestly.”, Tim continued, “He made good food if he genuinely tried, like that time when we were crashing in Wally’s place and we couldn’t order take out ‘cause of a blizzard. Maybe Alfred did get to him and he was just too lazy to keep up appearances.”

"He'd eat at Bat Burger three times a day if we let him.", Jason added, "Wasn't about the food. He just liked being around people. Liked the noise, the chaos, the feeling of being part of something normal."

"He'd buy extra meals.", Tim continued, warming to the memories, "Leave them on benches for homeless people, pretend he'd accidentally ordered too much. Never wanted credit for it. Just wanted to help."

"He had terrible taste in movies.", Barbara said, "Action schlock, the worse the better. He'd make us watch them during Team nights after Kaldur went deep undercover with the Light, and you and Raquel got inducted into the League. He’d provide running commentary about how unrealistic the stunts were, then immediately suggest trying them during training."

"Usually worked too.", Jason muttered, "Dick could convince you to do the stupidest things and make you feel like a genius for doing them."

Zatanna listened, absorbing each detail like pieces of a mosaic.

She'd known Dick, she had loved him, in the complicated way young heroes loved each other between crises and close calls.

But this Dick, the one who burned cereal and bought food for strangers and watched terrible movies, felt both familiar and strange.

She'd known him as Robin, she fell in love with him back when he was Robin. With her mother long gone and her father sacrificing himself to be Nabu’s new vessel, Dick was the only one who was there for her.

During the nights when she couldn't sleep because she kept thinking about her father or her late mother, it didn't matter how late it was in the night, how tired he was from patrol or a mission, he would always arrive at her door with a bucket of ice cream in tow the second they ended the call.

She was there when he grew up to be his own hero, when he finally stepped away from the Bat’s shadow

When he became Nightwing.

Now, she was learning more about the man under the mask, more about the Dick Grayson she came to love.

"I know he really would've wanted you here." Barbara said again, gentler this time.

Jason chuckled, a smirk growing on his lips, “Please, if Dick was here, we wouldn’t hear from either him or Zatanna for the rest of the night.”

Zatanna could feel the heat rise from her cheeks.

Barbara shook her head, trying to hiding her laugh, "Well, at least we’re here. All of us. Together. Remembering him."

"Even though it hurts?", Zatanna's voice was small.

"Especially because it hurts.", Tim replied, "Dick always did say that grief was the price of love. If it didn't hurt, it would mean we didn't care."

"He'd also tell us to stop being so maudlin and go enjoy the party.", Jason added, "Probably would've spiked the punch by now."

That startled a laugh out of Zatanna, "He wouldn't."

"He absolutely would.", Barbara confirmed, "Did it at a League gala once, I think you weren’t there since you were on tour at the time. Superman got tipsy and a drunk Batman is way different from a drunk Bruce. It was legendary."

“Fuck!”, Jason cursed, “And I wasn’t there to see it? God damn!”

Tim shot a look at him, “Well, you were dead back then so…”

They stood together in their quiet corner, four people bound by absence, sharing memories like prayers to someone who might not be listening but deserved to be remembered anyway.

The party continued around them.

Guests mingled, drank, danced, conducted business disguised as charity. Bruce worked the room with practiced ease, shaking hands, accepting condolences, playing the role of grieving guardian while his eyes constantly tracked exits and scanning for threats.

The quartet played something softer now. The lights dimmed slightly as the evening aged.

And outside, beyond the Manor's walls and security perimeter, Gotham breathed in darkness.

Somewhere in that darkness, something moved.

Something that had been given a name, a target, and a purpose.

The Winter Soldier was coming.

…

…

…

…

…

The explosion came without warning.

One moment, the ballroom was filled with the gentle strains of Vivaldi and the murmur of polite conversation. The next, the world became fire and noise and screaming.

The blast originated from the Manor's east wing. The old servants' entrance that had been sealed off for the event. The shockwave rolled through the building like a physical thing, rattling chandeliers, cracking windows, sending champagne flutes tumbling from tables to shatter across marble floors.

The music stopped. The lights flickered.

Then came the gunfire.

Not the scattered, panicked shots of amateurs.

Disciplined.

Controlled.

Three-round bursts that spoke of military training, each aimed to herd rather than kill. Not yet.

The ballroom descended into chaos.

Guests screamed, scrambling toward exits that suddenly seemed too far away.

Women in evening gowns stumbled on heels not designed for running. Men in tuxedos shoved past each other with the thin veneer of civility stripped away by pure survival instinct. Tables overturned, spilling flowers and silverware. The string quartet abandoned their instruments and fled.

Wayne Manor's security detail moved immediately, weapons drawn, forming a protective cordon around Bruce Wayne even as their training warred with reality, this wasn't supposed to happen. 

Not here.

Not at Wayne Manor.

But it was happening.

Through the smoke billowing from the destroyed entrance came figures in tactical gear. Black fatigues, body armor, assault rifles held with professional competence. They moved in formation, covering angles, controlling space, driving the panicked crowd like cattle toward the ballroom's main exits.

Six men. Seven. Eight.

And behind them, emerging from smoke like death given form, walked the Winter Soldier.

He was exactly as the footage from Berlin had shown and just as how Tim and Jason remembered him as.

Tall, broad-shouldered, moving with mechanical precision. The domino mask concealed his eyes, the lower face mask his features. His left arm gleamed silver even in the dimmed lighting, servos whirring softly with each movement. He wore black tactical gear that absorbed light, made him seem more shadow than substance.

In his right hand, a pistol hung loose and ready.

His head turned, scanning the chaos with cold, methodical efficiency.

Searching.

Near the windows, Barbara's hand shot out, grabbing Tim's arm hard enough to bruise, "Move. Now."

"Bruce—", Tim started.

"Has security. We need to—", Barbara's eyes found Jason across the room, and found Zatanna frozen near the balcony doors.

Her voice dropped to a hiss, "Suits. Now."

They moved.

Not running, running would draw attention. But with purpose, using the panicked crowd as cover, slipping toward the service corridors that honeycombed through the Manor's walls like capillaries. The passages Bruce had shown them years ago. The routes Dick had memorized and taught them.

Always have an exit. Always have a plan.

Dick's voice, even now, guiding them.

Barbara caught Jason first, grabbing his elbow as he instinctively moved toward the threat, "Not yet.", she breathed, "Suits first. Protocol."

His jaw clenched, but he nodded. Turned. Followed.

Zatanna was harder. She stood rooted near the balcony, staring at the Winter Soldier with something that looked like recognition even though that was impossible. Her hands had begun to glow faint purple, magic gathering at her fingertips.

Barbara materialized at her side, "Zee. Not here. Too many civilians."

"He's here.", Zatanna whispered, "He's actually here. Bruce—"

"Will be fine until we're ready.", Barbara's voice was steel, "But we need to move. Now."

Magic flickered out. Zatanna's training, years of it, finally overriding the shock. She nodded once and let Barbara guide her toward the service entrance Tim and Jason had already disappeared through.

Behind them, the Winter Soldier continued his advance.

Bruce Wayne stood his ground even as security tried to move him toward safety. His expression was shocked, afraid, perfectly pitched for a civilian caught in crisis. But his eyes were calculating, tracking the attackers' movements, counting weapons, assessing threats.

"Mr. Wayne, we need to evacuate you immediately—"

"What about my guests?", Bruce's voice carried across the ballroom, loud enough to be heard over the chaos. Playing his part, "We can't just leave them—"

"Sir, you're the target—"

The words hung in the air for one suspended moment.

Then the Winter Soldier's pistol rose, aimed directly at Bruce Wayne's chest.

No hesitation.

No proclamation.

Just the cold mechanical action of bringing a weapon to bear.

Bruce dove behind an overturned table as the shot cracked through the ballroom. The bullet punched through mahogany where his heart had been a second before. His security detail returned fire, muzzle flashes strobing in the dimness.

The Winter Soldier didn't flinch. Bullets sparked off his metal arm as he raised it in a defensive posture, each impact absorbed by whatever alloy composed it. His pistol fired twice more, precise, economical. Two security guards went down clutching shattered kneecaps.

Not lethal.

Not yet.

But the message was clear: stay down.

Bruce used the chaos to slip away, moving with a grace that would've seemed impossible for a civilian billionaire. He reached the corridor where his family had vanished moments before, cape already materializing from the hidden compartment in the wall panel.

By the time he emerged back into the ballroom sixty seconds later, ‘Brucie’ Wayne was gone.

Batman had arrived.

…

…

…

…

…

[Thursday, February 4, 2021 | 19:30]

[Wayne Manor - Gotham City, New Jersey, United States]

The service corridor was narrow, dim, lined with pipes and electrical conduits. Barbara's heels echoed against concrete as they ran, but she didn't slow. Around one corner, then another, following the mental map she'd memorized years ago.

The safe room was disguised as a maintenance closet, reinforced walls, biometric lock, and most importantly, emergency equipment.

Suits, weapons, comms gear. Everything they needed.

Barbara's palm slapped against the scanner. The lock disengaged with a pneumatic hiss.

Inside, they moved with practiced efficiency born from hundreds of training sessions. No words necessary. Each knew their role.

Tim stripped out of his tuxedo jacket, popping buttons rather than wasting time on careful removal.

The Robin suit was folded in its case, cape and cowl ready. He suited up in under ninety seconds, muscle memory taking over even as his mind raced ahead, calculating threats, planning tactics, already three moves ahead.

Jason was faster. He'd never fully integrated into the formal hero protocol, never needed the ceremony of transformation. His Red Hood gear went on like armor, each piece snapping into place with brutal efficiency. Helmet last, sealing with a hiss of pressurized air. The voice modulator activated, turning his voice into something mechanical and cold.

"How many?", he demanded.

"Eight hostiles confirmed, plus the Soldier.", Barbara was already in her Batgirl suit, cape billowing as she checked her grapple gun, "Tactical formation, professional discipline. The usual schtick."

"Mercenaries.", Tim said, donning his domino mask, "League of Shadows?"

"Does it matter?", Jason chambered rounds into his pistols, "They came into our fucking house for Christ’s sake!"

Zatanna stood apart, still in her gown, magic crackling around her hands in nervous arcs, "I can end this. One spell. Put them all to sleep—"

"Too many civilians in the blast radius.", Barbara cut her off, "If you hit any bystanders with sleep magic in this panic, they could get trampled. We need precision, not power."

"Then what do you want me to do?", Frustration bled through Zatanna's voice, "Stand around looking pretty? I don’t know if you noticed but I wasn’t drilled by Batman to know what to do when something like this goes down."

"Evacuation and crowd control.", Tim was already moving toward the exit, "Get the civilians out. Shield them if gunfire gets too close. We need—"

"I can help more than that. You need me in the fight.", Zatanna snapped, "I'm not some rookie who needs to be kept safe—"

"No one said you were.", Barbara's voice was firm but not unkind, "You’re Zatanna Zatara, member of the Justice League. Don’t worry, we never forgot. But this isn't about who's the strongest, Zee. It's about who's best positioned for each task. Those people out there are terrified. They need someone who can protect them while we handle the Winter Soldier."

For a moment, Zatanna looked like she might argue further. Then her jaw set, magic flaring brighter, "Okay. But if Bruce goes down—"

"He won't.", Jason's voice carried absolute certainty. "Batman doesn't go down. Not in his own god damned house."

They moved.

…

…

…

…

…

The ballroom had transformed into a war zone.

Smoke hung thick in the air, mixing with the acrid bite of gunpowder. Overturned tables formed improvised barricades. Shattered glass crunched underfoot. The beautiful space that had hosted hundreds of Gotham's elite now looked like the aftermath of a siege.

Most of the guests had fled through the main exits, stampeding out into the Manor's grounds in blind panic. But some remained, trapped behind the gunmen's formation, huddled behind furniture, or too paralyzed by fear to move.

The mercenaries had established a perimeter, weapons trained on the remaining civilians. Controlling the space. Waiting.

The Winter Soldier stood at the center of it all, head tilted slightly as if listening for something. His pistol remained ready but not raised. Patient. Mechanical.

Then Batman dropped from the shadows of the upper gallery.

No warning.

No dramatic entrance.

Just sudden, explosive violence.

He hit the nearest mercenary like a meteor, boots driving the man face-first into marble hard enough to crack the stone. Before the body finished falling, Batman was already moving, his cape swirling, batarangs flying to disarm another hostile, armored fist breaking a third man's jaw.

Three down in as many seconds.

The Winter Soldier's head snapped toward the movement. His pistol rose.

But Robin was already there, bo-staff cracking across the Winter Soldier's wrist hard enough to deflect the shot. The bullet went wide, punching into a chandelier. Crystal exploded in a shower of glittering fragments.

"Civilians first!", Robin shouted, already moving to engage another mercenary, "Get them out!"

Batgirl materialized among the trapped guests, cape billowing. "This way! Move, move, move!" 

Her voice carried command, years of training projecting authority even through fear. She herded them toward a service exit, grapple gun in one hand, batarangs in the other, ready to defend if necessary.

Zatanna appeared at the ballroom's main entrance, magic flaring around her like purple fire. The fleeing guests flinched back, but she raised her hands, her voice ringing out clear and strong.

“Dleihs meht morf mrah!”, 

Translucent barriers materialized around clusters of civilians, not solid walls, but cushioning force fields that would absorb stray bullets, soften falls, and protect from debris. Not an offensive spell. Purely protective.

"Keep moving!," she called, "Follow Batgirl! Don't stop until you're outside!"

The guests fled past her, some crying, others silent with shock. She maintained the barriers, sweat beading on her forehead from the concentration required to sustain multiple shields simultaneously.

And in the center of the ballroom, Batman faced the Winter Soldier.

They stood metres apart, eyes locked.

Batman's white lenses versus the Soldier's emotionless stare behind his masks.

The mercenaries had been scattered, disarmed, subdued. The civilians were evacuating.

This was what mattered.

The core of the mission.

One assassin.

One target.

Batman spoke, voice gravelly, commanding, "Stand down. Bruce Wayne is gone and there's no escape. GCPD is three minutes out. You failed."

The Winter Soldier didn't respond.

He didn't move.

He just stared with that terrible emptiness.

Then, like a switch being flipped, he attacked.

…

…

…

The Soldier moved faster than something his size should be capable of, muscle and metal working in perfect synchronization. No wasted motion. No unnecessary flourish. Pure, efficient violence.

His metal fist drove toward Batman's head like a piston.

Batman slipped the punch by millimetres, cape swirling as he countered with an elbow strike toward the Soldier's temple. The Soldier's human hand caught it mid-strike, redirected, and drove his knee toward Batman's solar plexus.

Batman twisted, took the impact on his armored side, used the momentum to create distance. They separated, circled.

"Why are you here?", Batman demanded. "Who sent you?"

No response. Just that cold, mechanical stare.

The Soldier attacked again, a combination that would've overwhelmed most opponents. Left jab, right cross, metal arm sweeping low to take out Batman's legs. Each strike powerful enough to shatter bone, fast enough to blur.

Batman blocked, parried, deflected. His armor absorbed what he couldn't avoid, trauma plates distributing impact. But even through the protection, he felt it, the superhuman strength behind each blow, the relentless pressure.

This wasn't human. At least, not entirely.

They crashed through an overturned table, wood splintering. Batman's fist found the Winter Soldier's ribs, once, twice, three times. Hits that should've cracked bone, disrupted breathing, created openings.

The Soldier's expression never changed. He barely seemed to register pain.

"Red Hood!", Batman's voice cracked across the comms, "Backup!"

The Red Hood had finished with his mercenary, the man unconscious and zip-tied. He spun toward the central fight, pistols already up.

"Lethal or non-lethal?", he called.

"Your choice!", Batman grunted, blocking another metal-fisted strike that sent shockwaves up his arms, "Just slow him down!"

Red Hood took aim with his pistols and fired, shooting rubber bullets; not lethal but still devastating at close range. Each shot aimed with perfect precision: shoulder, thigh, hip. Center mass avoided to prevent killing.

The Soldier twisted, his metal arm raising to shield his head. The rubber rounds sparked off the alloy, deflecting. But some found flesh, his human shoulder, his exposed neck. Each impact would've dropped a normal person.

The Soldier barely staggered.

He pivoted toward Red Hood, evaluating the new threat with mechanical efficiency. His pistol rose.

Jason dove behind a pillar as shots chewed through marble, "Fuck! He won’t quit!"

Batman used the distraction to close distance, driving his knee into the Soldier's back. The impact drove him forward three steps. Batman followed with an elbow to the base of his skull, a strike designed to disrupt neural function and cause disorientation.

The Soldier's head snapped forward. For half a second, he seemed stunned.

Then his metal arm swept backward in a brutal reverse strike that Batman barely ducked under. The fist punched through a wooden pillar where his head had been, sending splinters flying.

"Robin!", Batman called, "Shock staff! Now!"

Robin was already moving, bo-staff humming with electrical charge. He came in low, targeting the Soldier's legs, trying to disrupt muscular control to create paralysis.

The staff connected with the Soldier's thigh.

Electricity arced across his body, blue-white lightning dancing over tactical gear. Most people would've collapsed, muscles seizing, nervous system overloading.

The Soldier grunted, the first sound they'd ever heard from him.

His metal hand shot out, catching the staff mid-strike. Current flowed into the cybernetic limb, harmlessly grounded. With contemptuous ease, he ripped the weapon from Robin's grip and hurled it across the room.

Then his boot came up, driving into Robin's chest.

Robin flew backwards, hitting the ground hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. His vision swam, ribs screaming.

"ROBIN!", Batgirl’s voice, sharp with fear.

The Winter Soldier turned back to the Dark Knight, unhurried, inevitable.

His pistol rose again.

Batman's hand moved faster, batarang spinning through the air, striking the gun, sending it clattering across the floor.

The Soldier paused.

Looked at his empty hand.

Then back at Batman.

For the first time, something flickered behind those dead eyes. Not quite recognition. But calculation.

"Who are you?!", Batman growled, stepping closer, "Why are you here?!”

The distant wail of sirens cut through the air, GCPD responding to the chaos, emergency services mobilizing, Gotham's machinery grinding into action.

Three minutes had dwindled down to one.

The Soldier's head tilted, listening.

Processing.

The mission parameters had changed.

His hand moved to his belt, pulling smoke grenades. He threw them in a wide arc, one, two, three. They detonated simultaneously, thick gray smoke billowing to fill the ballroom in seconds.

"No!", Batman lunged forward, cape spreading to shield against the obscuring cloud. "Robin, Batgirl—seal the exits! Don't let him—"

But the Winter Soldier was already moving. Not toward the exits. Toward the windows.

His metal fist punched through reinforced glass like it was tissue paper. Cold night air rushed in, carrying the smoke away in swirling eddies.

By the time the cloud cleared enough to see, the Winter Soldier was gone, vanished into Gotham's darkness as sirens grew louder, red and blue lights painting the Manor's facade in harsh colors.

Batman stood among the wreckage of his home, chest heaving, fists clenched.

He'd been so close.

"Everyone, status check.", he commanded, his voice tight.

"I'm okay.", Robin wheezed, pushing himself up, "Bruised ribs, nothing broken."

"Same here.", Barbara reported, helping him stand, "Civilians are clear. No casualties reported."

"All good here, B.", Jason growled, emerging from cover, "But that son of a bitch got away."

Outside, Zatanna lowered her hands, the protective barriers dissolving. Her face was pale, makeup streaked with sweat, "Bruce—Batman. Are you..."

"I'm fine.", But his voice carried none of its usual certainty.

The Winter Soldier had been here.

In his home.

Where his family lived.

Right during Dick's memorial.

And Bruce had failed to stop him.

Chapter Text

[Saturday, February 6, 2021 | 18:00]

[Low Earth Orbit, The Watchtower]

The Watchtower's main briefing chamber was packed.

Every seat filled, every monitor active, every hero present carrying the weight of a world teetering on the edge.

Batman stood at the head of the room, his cape pooled around his boots like a shadow given form. Behind him, holographic displays flickered with images that had dominated global news for weeks: the German Chancellor's bloodstained podium in Berlin, the shattered ballrooms of Wayne Manor, grainy security footage of a masked figure with a gleaming metal arm.

The Winter Soldier.

Three major attacks in less than a month. Four world leaders dead in a span of three years with the recent one being just barely a few weeks ago. One billionaire philanthropist was nearly assassinated in his own city.

And the League, for all its power, had failed to stop him.

Superman sat with his arms folded, jaw tight, the weight of Kryptonian strength doing nothing to ease the frustration carved into his features. Wonder Woman stood beside him, regal and composed, but her knuckles were white against the edge of the table. Martian Manhunter's red eyes glowed faintly as he observed the room, reading the tension in the air without needing to touch a single mind.

Green Lantern John Stewart leaned back in his chair, ring flickering green against his dark skin. Flash drummed his fingers against the table, the only outward sign of his impatience. Aquaman's expression was stony, unreadable. Black Canary, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Red Tornado, Captain Marvel, Icon, Doctor Fate, and others filled the remaining seats, all eyes fixed forward.

The Team occupied the row behind the League. Aqualad sat upright, hands folded, his calm exterior masking the storm within. Superboy's fists rested on his knees, clenched so tight his knuckles had gone pale. Miss Martian sat beside him, her green skin almost translucent under the harsh lights, eyes downcast. Tigress leaned forward, elbows on her knees, jaw set. Kid Flash sat still for once, his usual energy dampened by the gravity of the situation.

Robin and Batgirl flanked the far end, their expressions unreadable behind their masks. Red Hood stood apart, leaning against the wall near the exit, arms crossed, helmet hiding whatever thoughts churned behind that crimson visor.

And near the back, almost as if she didn't want to be seen, sat Zatanna Zatara.

She'd changed out of the elegant black dress from the Wayne Manor fundraiser, trading it for her usual stage outfit, the reverse tuxedo, top hat, and fishnets that felt more like armor than the evening gown ever had.

Her fingers twisted absently at the hem of her jacket, a nervous habit she'd developed over the past four years. She wasn't looking at the screens. She'd already seen enough.

Batman's voice cut through the heavy silence like a blade.

"As we’ve established. Over two weeks ago, the Winter Soldier assassinated German Chancellor Adelheid Meyer during the EU-USSR summit in Berlin.", his tone was flat, clinical, but there was an edge to it that those who knew him best could detect. Frustration. Anger barely contained beneath iron discipline.

He gestured, and the holograms shifted. The image of Chancellor Meyer's lifeless body flickered into view, blood pooling across marble floors. Several of the younger heroes flinched. Zatanna's jaw tightened, but she didn't look away.

"Two days ago.", Batman continued, "He attacked the Richard J. Grayson Foundation Fundraiser in Gotham. His intended target was Bruce Wayne. The attack was brazen, public, and executed with precision. Casualties were minimal only because of immediate intervention."

The hologram shifted again. Footage from Wayne Manor and news reports of the aftermath played in silence, mercenaries storming through smoke and fire, the Winter Soldier moving through the chaos like a machine, his metal arm catching light as he closed in on Bruce Wayne.

Superman's voice rumbled low, "Do we have any idea why he's targeting Bruce Wayne specifically?"

Batman's cowl tilted slightly, "Unknown. Wayne Enterprises has no direct ties to any government or global organization. The only connection I could surmise was the proximity to power. Bruce Wayne is visible, influential, and his death would send shockwaves through the US economy and affect other economic elites."

"Or.", Green Arrow interjected, leaning forward, "Someone wants to send you a message."

The room fell silent at that. Everyone knew the unspoken truth: Bruce Wayne and Batman were the same man. An attack on one was an attack on the other.

Batman didn't respond to the implication. Instead, he brought up a new series of files. Faces, names, dates.

"This is a list of all the most high-profile assassinations conducted by the Winter Soldier in the three years since he became active.”, he continued, “Confirmed kills include the British Prime Minister in 2017, the President of the United Republic of Korea in 2019, and now the German Chancellor. In addition, there are over two hundred suspected assassinations of military officials, scientists, diplomats, and corporate executives across multiple nations within the same time period."

Wonder Woman's voice was measured but sharp, "And yet, we have no identity. No origin. No trail."

"None at the moment.", Batman confirmed, "Every record has been scrubbed. No fingerprints, no DNA, no records. He's a ghost. Robin, Red Hood, Batgirl, and I have spent countless hours combing through all the databases we could find. Some occasional leads but oftentimes leading to dead ends."

Flash leaned forward, his usual levity absent, "So what's the play? We can't just wait for him to strike again."

"We won't.", Batman said, "League intelligence is monitoring all potential targets. High-value individuals in positions of political or economic power. If he moves, we'll know."

Aqualad's voice cut in from the Team's row, calm but firm, "And the Team?"

Batman's gaze shifted to him, "On standby. If he strikes, you deploy immediately. Your mission is protection first, capture second. If you encounter the Winter Soldier again, do not engage alone. Contain him and call for reinforcements, if the situation deems it necessary."

Superboy's fists tightened. His voice was low, edged with barely restrained anger, "We’ve already fought him once in Berlin and you fought him in Gotham. And in both instances, he walked away. Are we supposed to just... Let that happen again?"

Batman's tone didn't shift, "You're supposed to stay alive. The Winter Soldier is not a typical combatant. We now know that he's been trained to kill metahumans. Every encounter you've had with him has proven that."

The weight of that statement settled over the room like a shroud.

Tigress spoke next, her voice tight, "Then what do we do? Just wait for him to rack up more bodies?"

"No.", Batman's voice hardened, "We find out who's pulling his strings. And we cut them."

The briefing continued, but the atmosphere had shifted. Strategies were discussed, contingencies planned, communication protocols reinforced. But beneath it all, a single truth loomed large. 

They were hunting a phantom.

And so far, the phantom was winning.

…

…

…

The Watchtower's Memorial Garden existed in a strange state of contradiction.

It was a place of silence aboard a station that hummed with constant activity. A garden of life floating in the vacuum of death. A sanctuary of remembrance built by people who refused to forget, even when forgetting would be easier.

The space occupied an entire section of the station's outer ring, where massive transparent aluminum viewports offered an unobstructed view of Earth rotating below. The planet turned with serene indifference, blues and whites and browns swirling in patterns that had repeated for billions of years before heroes existed and would continue long after the last cape fell.

Inside, carefully cultivated plants from across the globe and beyond created lush scenery of green.

Martian crystal flowers that sang in frequencies just below human hearing. Atlantean kelp growing in specialized hydroponic columns. Thanagarian flame blossoms that burned with cold fire.

Even a small cutting from a Kryptonian sunstone tree, one of the last remnants of a dead world, its crystalline leaves refracting light into rainbow patterns.

But it wasn't the exotic flora that drew visitors.

It was the memorials.

Holographic projections rose from elegant pedestals scattered throughout the garden, each one a frozen moment of life.

Heroes who had fallen. Allies who had sacrificed. Friends who would never come home.

Some of the holograms showed figures in costume, captured mid-flight or mid-battle, forever young and strong. Others displayed civilian identities, reminding those who remained that beneath the masks had been real people with real lives.

Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle, frozen in his workshop with a welding torch and that irrepressible grin.

Tula, Aquagirl, suspended in water with her smile soft and her eyes kind.

Jason Todd, the second Robin, though his hologram had been removed retroactively after his resurrection.

And at the far end of the garden, where sunlight from the viewports created a natural spotlight, stood the newest addition.

Richard John “Dick” Grayson.

Nightwing.

The hologram showed him in costume, captured in that instant between motion and stillness that had defined his entire life.

Mid-flip, arms spread like wings, the blue and black of his suit gleaming, his domino mask unable to hide the joy that always lived in his eyes when he flew. One hand extended toward the viewer as if inviting them to join him, to leap into the void with the absolute certainty that he would catch them.

Below the projection, a small plaque bore simple words:

NIGHTWING
RICHARD "DICK" GRAYSON
"THE LEAP IS NEVER AS FAR AS IT LOOKS"
DECEMBER 1, 1996
MISSING IN ACTION - JANUARY 22, 2017

Not "Killed in Action".

Not "Fallen".

Just "Missing".

Because Batman had never allowed the word "dead" to be projected.

Zatanna Zatara stood before the memorial with her arms wrapped around herself, as if trying to hold together pieces that kept threatening to fall apart.

The attack two nights ago had left her rattled in ways she couldn't quite articulate. Seeing the Winter Soldier in person, watching him move through the Manor like death incarnate, feeling the cold emptiness where a person should have been…

It had reopened wounds she'd thought were scarred over.

"Hey.", she said softly to the hologram, her voice barely above a whisper in the garden's silence. "It's me. I know you probably can't hear this, wherever you are. If you're even... If you're still..."

She stopped, swallowed hard, and started again.

"The League had another briefing today. Batman thinks whoever's controlling the Winter Soldier is escalating. First Berlin, then Gotham, and now intel suggests he might be targeting other world figures next. Like someone's trying to destabilize the world or start World War III by picking them off one by one."

Her fingers twisted in the fabric of her jacket.

"And I keep thinking that you would know what to do. You always knew what to do. Even when the rest of us were panicking or arguing or falling apart, you'd find that thread, that one detail everyone else missed, and you'd pull it until everything unraveled in the right direction."

The hologram continued its eternal flip.

Forever joyful, forever young, forever gone.

"Tim's trying. He really is. But he's drowning under the weight of it all. Sometimes, he’s doing that thing where he slips and tries to be you instead of being himself. Jason's barely holding his anger together—I think he wants to put a bullet in the Winter Soldier almost as much as he wants to save him. And Bruce..."

Zatanna's voice cracked.

"Bruce won't admit it, but I think part of him died in that bunker with you. He keeps searching, keeps hoping, but every year that passes, every lead that goes nowhere, I can see him hollowing out. Like he's becoming a ghost hunting a ghost."

She reached out toward the hologram, her hand passing through light and photons, touching nothing.

"I miss you.", she whispered, and the words carried four years of accumulated grief, "I miss your terrible jokes and your awful taste in movies. I miss the way you'd show up at my apartment at three in the morning with takeout and that stupid smile, like breaking and entering was just another Tuesday. I miss how you made everything feel possible, even when the world was ending."

Tears traced mascara-stained lines down her cheeks.

"We had plans, remember? After you got back from that mission, we were going to—"

Her breath hitched, "It doesn't matter now. You didn't come back. And I've been trying to move forward, trying to live my life, but how am I supposed to do that when every time I close my eyes I see your face? When every mission makes me think 'Dick would handle this better', when every victory feels empty because you're not here to celebrate it?"

The hologram flickered slightly, just a brief disruption in the projection system, but for a heartbeat, it looked like Dick was reaching specifically toward her.

"I need you.", Zatanna said, and the admission felt like tearing open her chest, "Not just me. Everyone needs you. The Team is falling apart. The world is falling apart. And this Winter Soldier, Dick, he's—"

She stopped, because how could she explain the terrible recognition she'd felt during the Gotham attack? The way something in the Soldier's movements had seemed almost familiar, like a song she'd heard once in a dream? It was impossible. Insane. Dick was gone, and the Winter Soldier was just another monster wearing a man's shape.

Wasn't he?

"Zee?"

The voice was gentle, respectful, but it still made Zatanna jump. She spun, hastily wiping at her eyes, magic sparking defensively at her fingertips before she recognized the speakers.

Four women stood at the garden's entrance, their body language carefully non-threatening.

M'gann floated a few inches off the ground, her green skin almost luminous in the garden's filtered sunlight. She wore her usual red and blue uniform, but her expression carried a sadness that seemed to age her beyond her years. Despite being Martian, despite her alien heritage, her face in this moment looked heartbreakingly human.

Beside her, Raquel stood with one hand resting on her belt, the other hanging loose and relaxed. Her purple and white costume was pristine, but her eyes carried the weariness of someone who'd fought too many battles lately.

Artemis leaned against one of the garden's support pillars. Her Tigress uniform an inheritance from her mother, designed to be practical, for function over flash, and her blonde hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her face was carefully neutral, but Zatanna had known her long enough to see the grief underneath.

And Barbara stood slightly apart from the others, still in costume from whatever patrol or training session had occupied her morning. Her cowl was pushed back, revealing red hair and an expression of gentle concern. Of all of them, Barbara looked the most composed, but that was the Bat Family way, bury the pain deep and keep moving forward.

"We didn't mean to intrude, Zee.", Barbara said softly, "But you've been here for almost an hour. We thought... We wanted to check on you."

Zatanna turned back to the hologram, not quite ready to face them, "I'm fine guys, really."

"No, you're not.", Artemis said, not unkindly, "None of us are. But you don't have to pretend for us, Zee."

"We all loved him.", M'gann added, floating closer. Her voice carried harmonics that didn't quite exist in human speech, a Martian quality that made her words feel like they resonated in the soul rather than just the ears, "He was a great friend. We all miss him. You don't have to carry that alone."

"I know.", Zatanna said, but her voice was thick, "It's just... Some days are harder than others. And after Gotham, after seeing that thing, that Winter Soldier up close..."

She shook her head, "It brought everything back."

Raquel moved to stand beside her, close enough to be supportive but not so close as to crowd, "The attack shook all of us. Wally was vibrating so hard after the debriefing that I thought he was going to phase through the floor. And I don't mean his speed, I mean actual fear."

"Jason wanted to go hunt the Soldier down immediately after you left the Manor.", Barbara added, "Bruce had to physically stop him from taking the Batmobile. Said if the Soldier wanted to target the family, fine, but they'd do it on his terms, not theirs."

"Conner punched a hole in the Cave's training room when he heard the news.", M'gann said quietly, "Kept hitting the reinforced walls until his knuckles were sore. He wouldn't let me near him for hours. Said he couldn't protect anyone, couldn't even protect his friend Tim in his own home, so what good was he?"

The shared admissions created a strange kind of comfort, the knowledge that everyone was breaking in their own way, that Zatanna wasn't alone in her fracturing.

"How do you guys do it?", Zatanna asked, finally turning to face them. Her makeup was ruined, mascara streaking her face, but she didn't care anymore, "How do you keep going when everything feels impossible? My mom, my dad, Dick? When the world keeps taking and taking and never giving anything back?"

Artemis's expression softened, "You want the honest answer or the hero answer?"

"Honest."

"We don't.", Artemis said simply, "We just... Survive. Day by day. Mission by mission. We get up because staying down isn't an option. We fight because not fighting means letting them win. And we remember the people we've lost because forgetting would dishonor everything they were."

"But it hurts.", M'gann said, and her voice carried centuries of Martian philosophy about grief and loss, "It's supposed to hurt. Pain is how we know we loved something. How we know it mattered. If losing Dick didn't hurt, it would mean he didn't change us. And he changed all of us."

Barbara stepped closer, her hand finding Zatanna's shoulder, "He loved you, you know. He really did. You all know I've known Dick since we were eleven, I’ve watched him date half of Gotham's eligible population and a fair number of the superhero community. But the way he looked at you? That was different. That was real."

Zatanna's breath caught, "Don't. Please don't."

"Why not?", Barbara's grip tightened, grounding, "Because it hurts more to remember the good parts? Zee, the good parts are what make it worth remembering at all. Dick wouldn't want you drowning in grief. He'd want you to remember the joy too."

"I can't—", Zatanna started, but Rocket cut her off.

"Yes, you can girl. You're Zatanna fucking Zatara. You've fought lords of Chaos like Klarion, demons, and dark gods. You've stood toe-to-toe with threats that would make normal people piss and shit themselves. You're one of the strongest people I know, magically and otherwise. This doesn't break you. It bends you, sure, but it doesn't break you."

"It feels like breaking.", Zatanna whispered.

"I know.", Artemis said, and her voice carried the weight of her own losses.

What Zatanna was feeling, it was what she felt when they thought Wally died.

But Wally? Wally came back.

Dick on the other hand…

"Believe me, I know. But you're still standing. You're still here. That counts for something."

M'gann floated closer, her presence carrying that strange Martian warmth that was both physical and psychic. Not intrusive, she would never invade someone's mind without permission anymore, but comforting, like a blanket made of understanding.

"We need you, Zee.", M'gann said gently, "Not just for your magic, though gods know we need that too. But for you. For the person who refuses to give up even when giving up would be easier. The person who stands in front of this memorial and talks to someone who might not be able to hear her, just because the alternative is silence."

"The Winter Soldier is escalating.", Barbara said, shifting topics with the practiced ease of someone trained by Batman to compartmentalize, "Bats thinks that Moscow might be a possible next target, however unlikely it might be. The Soviet President. If he succeeds, if another world leader dies..."

"World War III.", Zatanna finished, "Yeah. Batman made that pretty clear in the briefing."

"The Team's on stand by.", Artemis said, "Kaldur's putting together the roster now. Whatever our next assignment might be. We'll essentially be going in blind, with a target we couldn't stop in Berlin or Gotham."

"Against an assassin who took down the Team plus two of Batman's protégés in Berlin, and fought Batman himself to a standstill in his own damn house.", Rocket added, "Not exactly great odds."

Zatanna looked back at the hologram one more time. Dick, frozen mid-flip, eternally joyful, eternally unreachable.

“What would you do?”, she asked him silently, “If you were here, what would you tell me?”

And somehow, she could almost hear his voice, that particular blend of confidence and warmth that had defined him.

“I'd tell you to stop asking what I would do and start trusting what you can do. You're amazing, Zee. You always have been. Now get out there and prove it.”

She took a deep breath, pulling herself together with visible effort. When she spoke again, her voice was steadier.

"I'm coming with you."

The four women exchanged glances.

"Zee, you don't have to.", M'gann started.

"Yes, I do.", Zatanna interrupted. Her hands curled into fists, purple magic crackling around her knuckles, "I've been sitting on the sidelines of this for too long. Playing support, doing crowd control, staying 'safe' while everyone else risks their lives. The Winter Soldier is targeting people who matter. People who are trying to make the world better. And if there's even a chance I can stop him, even a chance I can prevent another Berlin..."

She trailed off, then continued with renewed conviction.

"Dick would never sit on the sidelines. He'd be first through the door, first into the fight, first to put himself between danger and innocent people. I can't bring him back. I can't change what happened four years ago. But I can honor what he stood for. I can be the hero he believed I could be."

Barbara smiled slightly, "That's the Zatanna we know. Though Bruce is going to have opinions about League members volunteering for Team missions."

"Bruce can deal with it.", Zatanna said, and for the first time in days, she felt something other than grief. Purpose. Direction. A reason to stand up straight, "If Raq can volunteer for missions from time to time, then so can I."

Rocket grinned, "Damn right, sis! Plus, having someone who can rewrite reality with backwards Latin is never a bad tactical asset."

"Just don't expect me to pull off miracles.", Zatanna warned, "Magic has rules. Physics has loopholes. And the Winter Soldier seems specifically designed to counter metahuman abilities."

"Then we adapt.", Artemis said, "That's what we do. Well, at least tried to. But that's what the Team has always done. We're not the Justice League's power-hitters. We're the ones who win through strategy, teamwork, and sheer stubborn refusal to quit."

"Speaking of which.", Barbara checked her comm unit, "We should get to the briefing room. Kaldur wanted everyone assembled in twenty minutes. Something about intel from Moscow coming in and the window for deployment becoming narrow."

The five women started toward the garden's exit, but Zatanna paused at the threshold, looking back one more time.

The hologram of Dick Grayson continued its eternal flip, hand extended, smile bright, eyes full of life that no longer existed anywhere but in memory and light.

"I'm going to stop him.", Zatanna whispered, too quiet for the others to hear, "The Winter Soldier. Whoever he is, whoever's controlling him, I'm going to stop him from hurting anyone else. And maybe... Maybe that will make up for not being able to save you."

The hologram flickered again, just a technical glitch, just the station's power grid cycling, but for a moment, it almost looked like Dick was smiling specifically at her.

“You've got this, Zee. You always did.”

She turned and followed the others out, leaving the memorial garden to its eternal silence and its impossible parade of frozen moments.

Behind her, Earth continued to turn, indifferent and beautiful.

And somewhere in that turning world, in the frozen heart of a nation that had never quite escaped its Cold War ghosts, the Winter Soldier prepared for his next mission.

Unaware that this time, when he struck, he would be facing someone who fought not just with power, but with the accumulated grief and love of four years spent missing a man who might never come home.

…

…

…

The Watchtower's main conference chamber was designed to accommodate gods.

Literally.

The room stretched fifty meters across, its ceiling arching high enough that Superman could float at full height without ducking. The walls were reinforced titanium-ceramic composite capable of withstanding direct hits from Apokoliptian weapons. The conference table itself, a massive oval of tempered glass and steel, could seat thirty comfortably, with holographic interfaces built into each position.

Today, it felt claustrophobic.

The Justice League occupied one side of the table, their presence filling the space with the weight of living legends.

Superman sat at the head, his blue and red uniform somehow making him look both approachable and impossibly powerful. Wonder Woman was to his right, her armor gleaming, her face carved from marble and determination. Batman stood rather than sat, cape pooled around his boots, cowl hiding everything except the grim line of his mouth.

Martian Manhunter hovered at the far end, his red eyes distant as he monitored global telepathic networks. Green Lantern John Stewart leaned back in his chair, ring pulsing faintly on his finger, his Marine Corps discipline visible in every line of his posture. Flash drummed his fingers against the table at super-speed, a nervous tic he'd never quite conquered.

Black Canary stood near the viewport, arms crossed, her leather jacket at odds with the formal setting but perfectly suited to her personality.

And scattered throughout were others: Aquaman, Hawkwoman with her mace resting against her chair. Doctor Fate, the lord of Order who now uses Giovanni Zatara’s body as a new physical vessel. Captain Marvel glancing around the table nervously, and even Captain Atom had been pulled from his usual military liaisons.

The other side of the table held the Team.

They looked painfully young compared to the League, despite being young adults themselves with years of experience that should have aged them beyond their years.

Aqualad sat with perfect Atlantean posture, his water-bearers resting on the table before him like a formal declaration. At twenty-four, he'd grown into his leadership role, but the weight of it was visible in the tightness around his eyes. His black and blue uniform was pristine, but his hands bore fresh scars from the events in Berlin.

Beside him, Tigress had abandoned her mask for the briefing, her blonde hair pulled back, her green eyes sharp and assessing. She'd taken Dick's disappearance hard, had briefly retired from hero work entirely before Wally convinced her to return. Now she sat coiled like a spring, ready to launch into action or argument depending on what the moment required.

Kid Flash vibrated in his seat, though whether from his speed force connection or nervous energy was impossible to tell. His red and yellow uniform seemed almost too bright in the room's serious atmosphere. At twenty-three, he should have grown out of his teenage impulsiveness, but grief had a way of preserving certain characteristics.

He'd nearly lost himself in the time stream during the Reach invasion, had experienced subjective years of isolation in the blink of an eye. Coming back to find Dick gone had broken something in him that still hadn't fully healed.

Miss Martian sat perfectly still, her hands folded on the table, her telepathic presence a gentle hum at the edge of everyone's consciousness. She'd offered to establish a mind-link for the briefing, she always offered, but Batman had declined as he always did for formal League meetings. Too much risk of information leaking to the wrong minds.

Superboy took up more physical space than anyone else at the table despite not being the tallest. His black t-shirt with the red S-shield strained across shoulders that had only gotten broader over the years. He'd grown into his Kryptonian heritage, though he'd never quite achieved Superman's impossible perfection. His jaw was clenched tight enough to crack diamonds, and his hands rested on the table in fists.

And now, entering from the memorial garden, came five more.

Zatanna swept in first, her stage outfit drawing eyes despite, or because of, its theatrical nature. She'd fixed her makeup on the walk over, reapplied her lipstick with the precision of someone armoring themselves for battle. Her top hat was tilted at a jaunty angle that contradicted the steel in her eyes.

Batgirl followed, her cowl back in place now, all business. She moved to stand near Batman, close enough to be associated but far enough to maintain her own space. The Bat Family dynamics were complicated, and public meetings only made them more so.

Rocket came next, her purple and white uniform a splash of color, her expression carrying the particular confidence of someone who'd learned to manipulate kinetic energy at the molecular level. Having served her time in the Team and inducted to the Justice League alongside Zatanna all those years ago, she'd earned her rightful place through sheer competence.

Robin slipped in quietly, taking a position near the holographic displays rather than at the table. At nineteen, he was still the youngest person in the room with significant field experience, and he carried the weight of that with visible discomfort. His red and black uniform was perfectly maintained, but his hands kept moving to his utility belt, checking and rechecking equipment that definitely didn't need checking.

Red Hood was last, and he made his entrance a statement. He didn't sit. Didn't join the table. Just leaned against the wall near the exit, arms crossed, helmet on, body language screaming that he was here under protest and could leave at any moment. His leather jacket creaked as he shifted, and the guns at his hips were visible and deliberate.

The room settled into uncomfortable silence as everyone found their positions.

Superman cleared his throat, and the sound carried more authority than a shout.

"We apologize for recalling you all here so soon after the recent meeting had just ended, still, thank you all for reconvening on short notice.", he began, his voice carrying that particular Kansas warmth that made even dire situations feel manageable, "I know many of you were looking forward to downtime but unfortunately, there have been recent developments the past few hours and the situation has escalated."

He gestured, and the holographic displays activated, filling the air above the table with images and data streams.

"Our orbital surveillance detected unusual activity at the Kremlin in Moscow.", The hologram zoomed in, showing the distinctive red walls and golden domes of the Soviet seat of power, "Multiple explosions in the outer courtyards, followed by gunfire. We’ve been told that KGB units and Red Army forces responded immediately, but initial reports suggest they're facing a coordinated assault."

"The Winter Soldier.", Kid Flash said, not a question.

Superman nodded grimly, "Intel from our contacts in the Soviet intelligence community—and yes, they're actually talking to us for once—confirms that the attack pattern matches our target. Precision strikes. Professional execution. And a singular objective."

The hologram shifted, showing a formal portrait of a man in his late fifties; strong jaw, iron-gray hair, eyes that had seen the Soviet Union die and resurrect itself. He wore a suit rather than a military uniform, but his bearing screamed former KGB.

"Alexander Nikolaevich Makarov.", Batman said, his voice cutting through the room like a blade, "Current President of the Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics. Former KGB director appointed to replace Vladimir Kryuchkov after the failed August Coup of 1991. One of the architects of the New Union Treaty, close confidant and advisor to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. And, if our intelligence is correct, the Winter Soldier's next target."

Artemis leaned forward, studying the portrait, "Why him? I thought we suspected the Soviets. Why the hell would they kill their own President? We get targeting other world leaders to destabilize international relations, but there's got to be a pattern. The German Chancellor was pushing EU-Soviet cooperation. Makarov is..."

"The Soviet Union's face of modern reform.", Martian Manhunter said, his voice carrying harmonics that didn't exist in human speech, "Since taking office three years ago, President Makarov has prioritized opening the Soviet Union to international cooperation. Trade agreements with the West. Cultural exchanges. Even allowing limited League operations on Soviet soil when the threat is sufficiently severe."

"Which makes him a target for anyone who wants the Cold War to heat back up.", Green Lantern John Stewart added, "Kill the reformers, empower the hardliners, maybe even get the old communists back in power, and watch all the dominoes fall."

“And maybe. Maybe the Winter Soldier isn't operating under orders from the Kremlin like we suspected.", Green Arrow reasoned.

The room went silent.

If the Soviets aren't the one pulling the strings, then who is?

"But who benefits?", M'gann asked, "If the Soviets aren't the one commanding the Winter Soldier, and the Soviet Union and the West return to hostilities, who wins?"

"Arms dealers, for starters.", Jason said from his position against the wall, his voice modulator making him sound mechanical, "Defense contractors. Anyone with stock in the military-industrial complex. War is profitable, peace is expensive, and many people with shared interests can make bank if this ever goes nuclear."

"The Light.", Conner growled, "It has to be. This is exactly their playbook. Create chaos, profit from the fallout, consolidate power while everyone else is busy bleeding."

Batman's cowl tilted in acknowledgment, "A possibility. We've seen no direct evidence linking them to the Winter Soldier, but the circumstantial connections are compelling. The Light has always operated through proxies and shell organizations. And they have the resources to fund an operation of this scale."

"League of Shadows?", Aqualad suggested.

"Also possible.", Wonder Woman said, "Ra's al Ghul has always advocated for global destabilization as a path to his vision of 'cleansing' humanity. Assassination of world leaders would fit his methodology."

"Or it could be someone new.", Doctor Fate said quietly, Zatara’s Italian accent blurring with the voice of Nabu from the helmet, making his words sound more ominous, "Someone we haven't yet identified. Someone with resources and reach the same to that or even rivaling the Light or the Shadows, but who's managed to stay completely off our radar."

The hologram shifted again, this time showing tactical layouts of the Kremlin complex. Multiple buildings, courtyards, security checkpoints, all rendered in precise three-dimensional detail.

"Regardless of who's behind this.", Superman continued, "Our immediate priority is protecting President Makarov. If he dies, especially if he dies during a League operation on Soviet soil, the political fallout will be catastrophic."

"We can’t disregard the possibility of hardliners seizing power within hours.", Batman said, "Though the Soviet Union has democratized and modernized greatly since the collapse of communism. It's almost certain that military mobilization will follow should the Soviet President die. Though the signing of the friendship and cooperation treaty between the European Union and the Soviet Union was a success, tensions remain high after the assassination of Chancellor Meyer. We're looking at a potential hot war scenario within weeks."

The weight of that hung in the air.

World War III.

Not as hyperbole. As actual possibility.

Captain Marvel spoke up from his seat, "So what's the play? Full League deployment? Show of force?"

"Negative.", Batman cut him off immediately, "The Soviet government has agreed to allow a limited intervention. They view the League as too provocative, too much like Western interference. But the Team..."

His gaze swept across the younger heroes, "The Team can act ahead as our covert force. A special operations group. Discreet, and would give both the League and the Soviets ample reasons for plausible deniability."

"So we're going in essentially alone?", Tigress said, "Again? Against an opponent who kicked our asses in Berlin and fought Batman to a standstill in Gotham?"

"You won't be alone.", Rocket said, "I'm coming with you."

"As am I.", Zatanna added.

Batman's cowl turned toward them, "This is a Team operation. League members—"

"Can volunteer for Team missions with approval from League leadership.", Zatanna interrupted, her voice carrying enough edge to cut, "Which I'm requesting. Right now. In front of everyone."

Superman and Wonder Woman exchanged glances, and so did the rest of the League. Some silent communication passed between them, as they debated quietly on Zatanna’s request.

The Team eyed her with concern, especially Tigress, Miss Martian, and Batgirl.

After a long minute, nods went around the table.

"Your request is approved.", Superman said finally, "Both of you. The Team will need every advantage against this threat."

"Thank you.", Zatanna said, sighing a breath of relief as she inclined her head.

Batman looked like he wanted to argue, but even he couldn't override the League’s majority decision. Instead, he turned back to the holographic display.

"Your mission parameters are clear.", he said, "Deploy to Moscow. Coordinate with Soviet security forces. Establish a defensive perimeter around President Makarov. And when the Winter Soldier appears, because he will appear, you engage to capture, not kill."

"Honestly, B, can’t we just fucking kill him already?", Jason spoke bluntly, his words and profanity earning gasps from the rest of the League members present, "He's a clear and present danger. He's murdered world leaders. Put a bullet in his head and end the threat."

"We will not kill him since we don’t know who he works for.", Batman replied, his voice hard, "Whoever hired or created the Winter Soldier has intelligence on League operations, Team capabilities, and metahuman weaknesses that shouldn't exist outside our secured databases. And they might even have the means to make more of him.”

The League and the Team grew silent, they could barely scrape by with just one of him. But an army of Winter Soldiers? That's a thought they can't imagine, an army of unstoppable assassins laying havoc to the world.

“A dead asset tells us nothing.", Batman finished.

"Also because we're heroes.", Kid Flash added, his voice carrying more bite than usual, "We don't execute people, Jay. That's kind of our whole thing."

Jason's helmet tilted, "And how'd that work out for us in Berlin?"

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

"Enough.", Kaldur's voice carried unexpected authority, "We are not having this debate again. The mission is capture if possible, neutralize if necessary. Those are our orders, and we will follow them."

There he stood, a leader who'd earned his position through blood and loss.

"We haven’t a moment to lose.", Kaldur continued, "Robin, I need you monitoring our communications with Moscow, establishing secure channels, and pulling everything you can from Soviet news sources. The official reports are sanitized, I want to know what the street is saying."

Robin nodded, already pulling up his tablet, "On it."

"Miss Martian, Superboy.", Kaldur continued, "I want you coordinating with the Bioship. We need to get to the Kremlin as soon as possible.”

"Understood.", Miss Martian acknowledged.

Superboy  just grunted, which from him counted as enthusiasm.

"Tigress, Kid Flash.", Kaldur turned to them, "Equipment check and emergency exfil planning. I want redundancies on top of redundancies. We’re going into hostile territory, should we fail, it’s more than certain that the Soviets would perceive us as enemies."

"Got it.", Tigress answered.

"Don’t have to tell me twice!", Wally added.

"Rocket, Zatanna.", Kaldur's gaze settled on them, "You have my thanks for volunteering for this Team mission, but in doing so, you two would be under Team protocols. That means you follow orders, you coordinate through the chain of command, and you don't go off-script no matter how powerful your abilities. Understood?"

Both women nodded.

"And Red Hood, Batgirl.", Kaldur turned to the Bat Family members, "With Robin being our ears, I want you two on overwatch. If we can't establish secure positions on-site, I need you providing intel and support from mobile positions. That means eyes on every approach, every escape route, every—"

"We know how to do our jobs, Kaldur.", Jason interrupted, "Question is, are you going to let us do them, or are you going to tie our hands?"

The challenge hung in the air.

Kaldur met it head-on, "You work well amongst yourselves in Gotham, our priority is no different, target protection. If the Winter Soldier appears, and you have a clean shot that will end the threat without killing him, you take it. But if you put a bullet in his head because you're angry or scared or looking for revenge, I will personally drag you back to the Watchtower and let Batman decide your punishment. Are we clear?"

Red Hood stared at him through the helmet's lenses.

Then he laughed, short and sharp, "Crystal. Don't worry, Kaldur. I'm a professional. Bats has me on the ‘no killing’ leash for the time being."

"That's what worries me.", Aqualad replied.

But he moved on, addressing the room at large, "You know your assignments. Check your gear, review your roles, and be ready to deploy as soon as the Bioship is ready. Robin will have the tactical briefing sent to you as soon as he’s done. Study it. Know it. Because when we hit Moscow, we're not going to have time for questions."

He paused, his gaze sweeping across the Team, then up to the League members watching them.

"I know we failed in Berlin.", Aqualad said, and admitting it cost him visibly, "I know the German Chancellor died on our watch. I know we weren't prepared for what the Winter Soldier brought to that fight. But we will be prepared now. We know what we're facing. We know the stakes. And this time..."

His jaw set, water-bearers humming faintly with contained power.

"This time, we shall not fail."

The conviction in his voice was absolute.

For a moment, the weight that had been pressing on the Team since Berlin lifted slightly. Not gone, never gone, but manageable.

They could do this.

They had to do this.

Superman stood, and the movement drew every eye. "The League has faith in you.", he said, and somehow coming from him, it didn't sound like empty platitude. It sounded like the truth. 

"You've faced impossible odds before and prevailed. This is no different. Go to Moscow. Protect President Makarov. And come home safe."

Wonder Woman rose as well, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword, "And know that if the situation deteriorates, the League will be there. So long as you did your best, let us deal with the politics and diplomacy."

Her gaze scanned the room, studying both members of the Justice League and the Team before adding, “But for all our sakes, and for the sake of the world, do not fail.”

Batman remained silent, but his cowl inclined fractionally. From him, that was practically a speech.

"Dismissed.", was all he said.

The Team filed out in small groups, some heading to the armory, others to their quarters, a few toward the Bioship's hangar bay. The League remained behind, undoubtedly to discuss contingencies and worst-case scenarios.

Zatanna turned and headed for the hangar, eyeing  Nabu one more time before leaving the conference chamber with the League's heavy hitters.

As she walked, her hands curled into fists, purple magic crackling around her knuckles.

Moscow.

The Kremlin.

The Winter Soldier.

This time, she wouldn't be relegated to crowd control and evacuation.

This time, she would be in the fight.

And if that familiar feeling returned, if she found the answer to the question that had been haunting her since Gotham...

Well.

She'd deal with that when it happened.

One crisis at a time.

That's what Dick would have said.

“One crisis at a time, Zee. You've got this.”

She could almost hear his voice, warm and confident and impossible.

And despite everything, despite four years of loss, despite the upcoming battle, despite the weight of the world pressing down on all of them, she smiled.

Because he was right.

She did have this.

Chapter Text

[Sunday, February 7, 2021 | 21:02 (Moscow Time)]

[Russian Airspace, Russian Soviet Republic, Soviet Union]

The Bioship cut through the clouds like a blade through silk.

Inside, the cabin was thick with tension. The soft blue glow of the organic ship's interior pulsed gently, but the light did nothing to ease the weight pressing down on the ten heroes strapped into their seats.

Aqualad sat at the front, eyes fixed on the holographic display projecting their approach vector. His hands rested calmly on his knees, but his jaw was set, his mind already running through contingencies, backup plans, and worst-case scenarios. Leadership in moments like these was a mantle he'd learned to carry, but it never got lighter.

Beside him, Superboy stared straight ahead, fists clenched against his thighs. His blue eyes burned with barely contained anger, the memory of Berlin still fresh, still raw. He'd been thrown aside like he was nothing. The Winter Soldier had made him feel weak, and that was something Conner Kent did not tolerate.

Miss Martian sat next to him, her green hand resting gently on his arm. She could feel the storm raging inside him, the frustration and fury coiling tighter with every passing second. She squeezed lightly, a silent reminder, “Stay focused. Stay with us.”

Superboy exhaled slowly but didn't relax.

Across from them, Kid Flash bounced his leg in a rapid staccato rhythm, the only outward sign of his nerves. His mask hid his eyes, but his mouth was pressed into a thin line. Wally West was fast, faster than almost anyone on Earth, but speed hadn't mattered in Berlin. The Winter Soldier had caught him mid-stride once, and the memory of that impact still ached in his ribs.

Tigress sat beside him, bow resting across her lap, her fingers absently checking the tension on the string. Artemis Crock didn't scare easily, but there was something about the Winter Soldier that set her teeth on edge. The way he moved, the way he fought, it was clinical, efficient, and utterly devoid of hesitation. He wasn't a person. He was a weapon, and weapons didn't miss.

Rocket leaned back in her seat, arms crossed, her kinetic force belt glowing faintly at her waist. Raquel Ervin had seen her share of fights, but this was different. The stakes were higher than usual, and the enemy was unlike anything she'd faced before. Still, she kept her expression calm, steady. Someone had to.

Near the middle of the cabin, the Bat Family occupied their own row.

Robin sat with his tablet balanced on his knees, fingers flying across the holographic interface. Code scrolled past at dizzying speed as he prepared infiltration protocols, backdoors into Soviet systems, contingency hacks for every scenario Batman had drilled into him. At nineteen, Tim Drake had become one of the world's premier cyber-infiltration specialists. Tonight, he'd need every bit of that skill.

His domino mask was pushed back slightly, hiding the dark circles under his eyes. He hadn't slept well since the Gotham attack. None of them had.

Beside him, Batgirl methodically checked her gear with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd done this a thousand times. Grapple gun: loaded and tested. Batarangs: counted and sharpened. Smoke pellets: fresh batch. Comm unit: encrypted and synced. Her red hair was tied back in a severe bun beneath her cowl, and her green eyes were sharp, focused.

Barbara Gordon had learned from the best. She knew that preparation was the difference between success and body bags.

And at the end of the row, Red Hood sat with his helmet on, arms crossed, twin pistols holstered at his hips. Unlike the others, he wasn't preparing. He was waiting. Jason Todd had always been comfortable in the space between action and violence, that moment of coiled tension before everything went to hell.

His helmet's white lenses reflected the cabin's blue glow, making him look more machine than man. Beneath the kevlar and armor, his jaw was set, his breathing controlled. He'd fought the Winter Soldier both in Berlin and Gotham, had seen firsthand how the assassin moved, how he thought.

He knew what was coming. And part of him welcomed it.

“Let's see if you bleed, you son of a bitch.”

And near the rear of the cabin, almost as if she didn't want to be seen, sat Zatanna Zatara.

She'd changed out of her stage outfit, trading the reverse tuxedo for something more practical: black tactical pants, a dark blue jacket with subtle arcane sigils stitched into the lining, combat boots that still managed to look stylish. Her top hat was gone, replaced by her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. She looked less like a stage magician and more like a battle mage.

Her hands were folded tightly in her lap, knuckles white. Her jaw was set, her blue eyes fixed on the floor, but her mind was elsewhere. She kept seeing the hologram in the memorial garden, Dick's face frozen in that eternal smile, forever young, forever gone.

The Winter Soldier had nearly killed Bruce. Had killed Chancellor Meyer. And was now trying to kill the Soviet President.

And somewhere, deep in her gut, there was a gnawing feeling she couldn't shake. A sense that something about all of this was wrong in a way she couldn't articulate.

She clenched her fists tighter and forced the thought away. Now wasn't the time.

Aqualad's voice broke the silence, calm and measured.

"We are approaching Moscow. ETA three minutes."

Miss Martian's telepathic voice filled their minds, gentle but firm, “Mind link established. I'll keep us connected during the mission.”

One by one, their minds joined the psychic network. Thoughts didn't bleed through unless spoken intentionally, but the presence of each other was there, a comforting anchor in the chaos to come.

Robin, Batgirl, and Red Hood joined the link as well, though Jason's mental presence felt harder, more guarded than the others. Old trauma from his death and resurrection had left scars on his psyche that even M'gann's gentle touch couldn't fully smooth over.

“Remember.”, Aqualad's mental voice was steady, commanding, “Our priority is the Soviet President's safety. We engage the Winter Soldier only if necessary. If we can contain him, we do. If we cannot, we extract and regroup.”

“And if he tries to run again?”, Superboy's mental voice was a growl.

“Then we stop him.”, Aqualad replied firmly, “But we do not pursue recklessly. We have seen what he is capable of. Do not underestimate him.”

“Especially you, Superboy.”, Robin added quietly, “He's taken you down. He knows how you fight. He can use your anger against you. You need to adapt.”

Superboy's mental presence flared with irritation, but he didn't argue. Robin was right, and they all knew it.

“Robin, Batgirl, Red Hood.”, Aqualad continued, “You three will establish overwatch positions once we're inside the Kremlin. Robin, your priority is intelligence gathering and system infiltration. Batgirl, tactical coordination and emergency extraction planning. Red Hood, long-range fire support if the situation deteriorates.

“Understood.”, Robin and Batgirl responded in unison.

Red Hood's response came a beat later, “I’ll have to borrow a rifle from the troops on the ground, assuming they’ll even let me borrow one. But okay, I'll play sniper. If he gets close to any of you again, I'm putting him down.”

“Non-lethal.”, Aqualad said sharply.

“Yeah, yeah.”, Red Hood replied, and his mental tone made it clear the discussion was over.

Zatanna's mental voice cut in, soft but strained. “What about me?”

“You're with me at the front.”, Aqualad said, “When we make contact with Soviet forces, I'll speak as Team leader. You'll represent the League. Between us, we establish legitimacy and hopefully cooperation.”

“And when we fight him?”, Zatanna asked.

“You do what you do best.”, Aqualad replied, “Rewrite reality until he stops moving.”

Zatanna's hands clenched tighter in her lap, “My magic didn't stop him in Gotham. Barely slowed him down.”

“Then we make sure he doesn't have time to break free.”, Rocket interjected, “You bind him, I'll hit him with enough kinetic force to put him through a wall. Between magic and physics, something's gotta stick.

“He fights like he knows what we're going to do before we do it.”, Kid Flash muttered, “Like he's studied us. How do we counter that?”

“By being unpredictable.”, Tigress said, “By adapting mid-fight. By not giving him time to think.”

“He doesn't think.”, Miss Martian's mental voice was troubled, carrying echoes of her psychic encounter in Berlin, “That's what made him so terrifying. When I touched his mind, there was... Nothing. Like a void forced into the shape of a person.”

The mental link went quiet at that.

Robin's analytical voice broke the silence, “Then he's been conditioned. Brainwashed. His personality suppressed or erased entirely, leaving only combat programming and mission directives.”

“That's horrifying.”, Miss Martian whispered.

“That's effective.”, Red Hood corrected coldly, “No hesitation. No mercy. No psychological weaknesses to exploit. Whoever hired him or made him knew exactly what they were doing.”

“Which means whoever hired or made him is our real enemy.”, Batgirl added, “The Winter Soldier is a weapon. We need to find who's pulling the trigger.”

“One crisis at a time.”, Aqualad said firmly, “First, we protect the Soviet President. Then we worry about the bigger picture.”

The Bioship began its descent, dropping through the cloud cover. The sprawl of Moscow came into view: a vast city of gold-domed cathedrals; apartment blocks from the eras of the old communist regime under Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev; and gleaming modern skyscrapers. The Moscow River cut through the heart of it, glittering under the setting sun like molten silver.

And at the center, rising like a crown of red brick and gold spires, stood the Kremlin.

Even from this distance, they could see the smoke.

A plume of black billowed from one of the towers, thick and oily against the pale winter sky. Emergency vehicles swarmed the perimeter, their lights flashing red and blue. Military convoys were moving in, soldiers establishing checkpoints, barricades going up around Red Square.

"Jesus.", Kid Flash muttered aloud, breaking the mental link for a moment, " It Looks like a war zone."

Tigress leaned forward, eyes narrowing, "He's already inside."

Aqualad's fingers flew across the console, pulling up thermal scans and local communications, "The explosion occurred half an hour ago. Soviet security has locked down the Kremlin, but they have not confirmed the President's location."

“Which means he's either in a bunker, or he's being moved.”, Miss Martian thought.

“Or he's already dead.”, Superboy added grimly.

“He's not dead.”, Zatanna's mental voice was hard, certain. “Not yet. The Winter Soldier wouldn't blow the place up if his target was already gone. He's still hunting.”

Rocket glanced at her mentally, “You sound pretty sure about that.”

“I am.”, Zatanna replied. “He doesn't leave loose ends. If the President were dead, we'd already know.”

Robin looked up from his tablet, his mental voice carrying a note of urgency, “I'm picking up chatter on encrypted Soviet military channels. Sounds like they've engaged him twice already in Red Square. Heavy casualties. He's moving towards the Grand Kremlin Palace.”

“Then that's where we go.”, Aqualad said.

The Bioship descended rapidly, cloaked from radar and visual detection as it approached the Kremlin's airspace. Below, the chaos intensified. Soldiers in winter camouflage scrambled across the grounds, officers barking orders, helicopters circling overhead with searchlights cutting through the smoke.

Aqualad stood, moving to the rear hatch, "We land on the north side, away from the main gates. Miss Martian, keep us cloaked until we're on the ground. Once we're out, Zatanna and I will make contact with Soviet command. The rest of you, stay close and be ready to move."

The Team rose as one, weapons checked, powers primed, minds focused.

Robin secured his tablet to his utility belt. Batgirl pulled her cowl fully into place. Red Hood chambered rounds into his pistols with practiced efficiency, rubber bullets in the left gun, live rounds in the right. Just in case.

The Bioship touched down in a narrow courtyard between two of the Kremlin's outer walls, hidden from the main commotion. The hatch opened, and cold Moscow air rushed in, sharp and biting, carrying the smell of smoke and gunpowder.

They stepped out onto ancient cobblestones, the weight of history pressing down around them.

The Kremlin had stood for centuries, a symbol of Russian power and resilience. A fortress that had survived invasions, revolutions, wars.

And now, somewhere within its walls, a ghost was hunting.

Ten heroes stood in the shadows of those ancient walls, each carrying their own fears, their own doubts, their own reasons for being there.

But they stood together.

And together, they would face whatever waited in the darkness ahead.

Aqualad's voice was quiet but firm, "Move out."

They disappeared into the Kremlin's labyrinthine corridors, swallowed by shadow and smoke.

And somewhere ahead, the Winter Soldier continued his hunt.

…

…

…

…

…

[Sunday, February 7, 2021 | 21:20]

[The Kremlin - Moscow, Russian Soviet Republic, Soviet Union]

The courtyard was chaos contained.

Soviet soldiers in heavy winter gear moved with disciplined precision, rifles at the ready, eyes scanning every shadow. Officers shouted orders in rapid Russian, coordinating defensive positions, securing exit routes, establishing a perimeter around the main administrative building.

Red Army troops in distinctive insignia stood shoulder to shoulder with KGB operatives in dark-coloured field uniforms and overcoats, their expressions hard, their hands never far from their sidearms. This wasn't just an attack on a building. This was an attack on the heart of Soviet power, and every man and woman present knew the stakes.

The Team moved swiftly through the courtyard, Miss Martian's camouflage keeping them hidden from sight. They slipped past soldiers, ducked under scanning drones, navigated between armored vehicles that had been hastily positioned as mobile barriers.

Aqualad raised a hand, signaling a halt just short of the command post that had been erected near the entrance of the Senate Building within the Kremlin walls. Military-grade comm equipment, portable holographic displays, and a cluster of high-ranking officers surrounded by an even tighter ring of security.

“Miss Martian, drop the camouflage on Zatanna and myself only.”, Aqualad projected through the mind-link, “The rest of you, remain hidden. Robin, Batgirl, Red Hood, begin identifying overwatch positions. Do not reveal yourselves unless absolutely necessary.”

“Copy that.”, Robin responded, his mental voice already distant as he focused on tactical assessment.

“Got three good vantage points.”, Red Hood added, “Senate Building roof, that bell tower to the east, and the administrative building's fourth floor. I'll take the bell tower, it’s got the best sightlines.”

“I'll coordinate from the administrative building.”, Batgirl said, “Central position, quick access to multiple entry points.

“Then I'm on the Senate roof.”, Robin confirmed, “Close to their command post means close to their network infrastructure. I can tap in if needed.”

“Do it quietly and undetected.”, Aqualad warned.

“Always.”, Robin replied, and there was the faintest hint of a smirk in his mental tone.

The Martian camouflage shimmered and fell away from Aqualad and Zatanna, leaving them visible while the rest remained hidden.

Immediately, a dozen rifles swung toward them.

Shouts erupted in Russian. Soldiers closed ranks, tanks took aim with their barrels forming a wall of steel and firepower between the two heroes and the command post. An officer stepped forward, his hand on the pistol at his hip, his voice barking a sharp command.

"Стой! Кто вы?!" (Stop! Who are you?!)

Aqualad raised his hands slowly, palms open, his voice calm and clear. He spoke fluent Russian but with his heavy Atlantean accent, each word carefully chosen, a skill acquired during his time with Aquaman navigating international waters and diplomatic missions.

"Мы здесь, чтобы помочь. Мы из Лиги Справедливости." (We are here to help. We are from the Justice League.)

The officer's eyes narrowed. He didn't lower his weapon.

Zatanna stood beside Aqualad, hands visible and unthreatening, but her posture carried quiet confidence. Magic didn't need gestures to be dangerous, and everyone in intelligence knew that. She spoke in English, her voice steady.

"The Justice League was notified of the attack an hour ago. We deployed immediately. Your President is in danger, and we're here to make sure he survives the night."

Another figure pushed through the soldiers; a woman in her early forties, sharp-featured, with short blonde hair and cold gray eyes. She wore a KGB uniform, her rank insignia marking her as a senior officer, a Major at least. Her gaze swept over Aqualad and Zatanna with the kind of scrutiny that came from years of intelligence work, years of separating truth from deception.

She spoke in English, her accent thick but precise, "We agreed to allowing limited interventions by your League, but not at this time."

Aqualad met her gaze evenly, unflinching, "And yet we were sent here. To help you and save your President from imminent danger."

The woman's lip curled slightly, a microexpression of disdain, "We’re very aware of the events in Berlin. The German Chancellor is dead."

The words hit like a physical blow.

“Don't react.”, Aqualad projected to the hidden Team, “Stay calm.”

But through the mind-link, they could all feel it; Superboy's surge of anger, Kid Flash's flash of guilt, Miss Martian's ripple of grief. Even the Bat Family, trained to compartmentalize, felt the accusation land.

Aqualad didn't flinch. His voice remained steady, carrying the weight of authority and acceptance of responsibility.

"Yes.", he said quietly, "She is. And we carry that failure with us every day. But we are here now, and we will not allow the same to happen to your President."

The KGB officer studied him for a long moment, her gray eyes searching for weakness, for hesitation, for any sign that these were children playing at heroics rather than warriors who understood the stakes.

Zatanna stepped forward slightly, drawing the officer's attention, "I am Zatanna Zatara. Member of the Justice League. Homo Magi sorceress. And I give you my word, on my father's name, on every oath I've ever sworn, that we will do everything in our power to protect President Makarov tonight."

The invocation of her father's name carried weight. Giovanni Zatara was known internationally, his reputation as both hero and magician preceding him before he gave up his life to be the new host of Doctor Fate. Among intelligence circles, oaths sworn on family names were taken seriously, especially by those who understood the old ways.

The KGB officer's expression didn't soften, but something shifted in her eyes. Calculation. Weighing risks against potential benefits.

She turned to the soldiers and barked an order in Russian, "Опустите оружие. Но держите их под наблюдением." (Lower your weapons. But keep them under surveillance.)

The rifles lowered incrementally, though the tension remained as thick as Moscow’s winter air.

The officer looked back at Aqualad, "I am Major Yelena Morozova, KGB Special Operations. You will follow my orders. You will not interfere with Soviet security operations. You will not access classified systems or restricted areas without explicit permission. And if you cause an international incident, the consequences will fall on the Justice League and your governments. Is that understood?"

Aqualad inclined his head with appropriate deference, "Understood, Major Morozova."

Zatanna added, "We're not here to play politics. We're here to stop an assassin."

Major Morozova's lips thinned, "An assassin who has already killed platoons of our brave troops and wounded dozens more in the past twenty minutes. He moves through our defenses like they are not there. Our best Spetsnaz operators cannot touch him."

"We've fought him before.", Zatanna said, "In Berlin. In Gotham. We know what he's capable of."

"Then you know you will likely fail again.", The Major's words were brutal, but her tone wasn't mocking, it was the cold assessment of someone who'd seen too much combat to believe in miracles.

"Maybe.", Aqualad acknowledged, "But we will try regardless. Where is the President now?"

Major Morozova gestured sharply toward the Senate Building, "Our latest report informed us that he's being moved to the emergency bunker beneath the Grand Kremlin Palace. We have secured the route, but the assassin is still inside. Our forces have engaged him twice more after the initial skirmishes in Red Square. Both times, he has broken through with minimal effort."

From his concealed position, Superboy's mental voice rumbled with barely restrained aggression, “Then let us handle him.”

“Not yet.”, Aqualad cautioned, “Maintain position.”

Major Morozova pulled up a tactical tablet, showing a schematic of the Kremlin's lower levels overlaid with real-time troop positions and sensor data. A red dot pulsed on the screen, moving slowly through the corridors like a predator stalking prey.

"Our sensors detected him here.", she said, pointing to the display, "Near the main power junction. He attempted to cut primary power but our engineering team managed to reroute through the secondary generators. He is now moving toward the bunker access corridor."

“Which means he knows where the President is.”, Robin's mental voice was analytical, already processing implications, “Either he has internal maps, or someone's feeding him intel.”

“A traitor in Soviet ranks?”, Batgirl suggested.

“Or he hacked their systems before we even got here.”, Robin countered, “I’m not seeing any active data breaches right now, but that doesn't mean there weren't earlier ones.”

Zatanna's eyes widened slightly, though she kept her expression neutral for Major Morozova's benefit, “If he cuts the power again, this whole place goes dark. We'll be fighting blind.”

“Not all of us.”, Superboy thought grimly, “I can see in the dark just fine.”

“So can I.”, Miss Martian added.

“Great.”, Kid Flash's mental tone was dry, “The rest of us will just stumble around and hope for the best.”

“I can generate light if needed.”, Rocket interjected, “Won't be much, but it's something.”

“I can maintain continuous illumination spells.”, Zatanna thought, “But it'll drain my reserves faster.”

Aqualad turned to Major Morozova, "We will engage him. Your forces should secure the President and hold position at the bunker entrance. Do not pursue the Winter Soldier, he's designed to counter conventional military tactics."

The Major hesitated, pride warring with pragmatism. She'd lost many soldiers already. How many more would die trying to stop something that might not be stoppable?

"You are confident you can succeed where my men have failed?", her tone carried skepticism, but also a desperate hope she was trying to hide.

"We have advantages your soldiers don't.", Aqualad said carefully, "Metahuman abilities. Experience fighting unconventional threats. And we've studied his patterns from previous encounters."

"And yet you failed in Berlin.", the Major reminded him coldly.

"We failed to save Chancellor Meyer, yes.", Aqualad acknowledged, "But the signing of the treaty was accomplished, and we prevented greater casualties. We contained the threat and forced his retreat. Tonight, we'll do the same, but better."

Major Morozova studied him for a long moment, then nodded curtly, "Very well. But understand this, Atlantean, if the President dies while you are engaged with the assassin, I will personally ensure that every intelligence service in the world knows the Justice League's failure. Your reputation will not survive another dead world leader."

The threat was clear, calculated, and entirely sincere.

"Then we will not fail.", Aqualad said simply.

Major Morozova barked orders at her subordinates. Soldiers began repositioning, tightening the perimeter around the bunker entrance, establishing fallback positions. The woman was a professional, she might not trust the League, but she was smart enough to use every asset available.

She turned back to Aqualad and Zatanna, "The corridor to the lower levels is through the Senate Building, third door on the left past the main hall. Security code is 7-4-9-3-Charlie-Mike. My men will not shoot you if you use that code. Anyone else attempting entry will be eliminated."

“Robin, did you catch that?”, Aqualad projected.

“Got it.”, Robin confirmed, “Also intercepted their tactical frequency. I can monitor Soviet troop movements in real time.”

“Good. Keep us informed of any changes.”

Aqualad bowed slightly to Major Morozova, "We will coordinate with your forces. If we can capture him alive—"

"If you can capture him, do so.", the Major interrupted, "But if the choice is between his life and the President's, there is no choice. Kill him if you must. The Soviet Union will not object."

The words hung in the air, a permission slip for lethal force that the League rarely received from foreign governments.

“Hear that, Jason?”, Batgirl's mental tone was warning, “Don't get any ideas.”

“Who, me?”, Red Hood's mental voice carried a mock innocence, “I'm a professional. I only kill people when specifically authorized by the B-man.”

“Jason.”, Aqualad's thought was sharp.

“Relax, Kaldur. I'll play nice. For now.”

Zatanna spoke up, addressing the Major, "One more thing. Do you have any intelligence on how he's moving through your defenses so easily? Any patterns or—"

An explosion rocked the courtyard.

Not close, but close enough. Somewhere deep within the Kremlin's interior, orange light flashed through windows, followed by the unmistakable rattle of automatic gunfire.

Major Morozova's radio crackled to life, voices shouting urgently in Russian. Her face went pale.

"Что?! Повторите!" (What?! Repeat!)

More shouting, the sound of gunfire clear even through the radio's distortion.

The Major's jaw tightened. She looked at Aqualad and Zatanna, and for the first time, genuine fear showed in her eyes.

"He has breached the lower corridors. He is fifteen minutes from the bunker.", She grabbed Aqualad's arm, her grip iron-hard, "Stop him! Whatever it takes! Stop him now!"

Aqualad nodded once, "Miss Martian. Drop camouflage. All teams, move out."

The Martian camouflage dissolved like morning mist.

Suddenly, the courtyard was filled with heroes: Superboy, massive and imposing, the S-shield on his chest catching firelight. Miss Martian hovering beside him, her green skin almost luminous. Kid Flash vibrating with barely contained speed. Tigress with bow drawn. Rocket with kinetic energy crackling around her fists.

And on the rooftops, three shadows melted out of darkness.

Robin crouched on the Senate Building's edge, cape billowing. Batgirl stood atop the administrative building, silhouetted against smoke. And Red Hood settled into position in the bell tower, rifle already shouldered, scope tracking movement through windows.

The Soviet soldiers startled, weapons rising instinctively before Major Morozova barked at them to stand down.

She stared at the assembled heroes, at the raw power and determination radiating from them, and for a moment, hope flickered across her features.

"Go!", she said simply, "Save our President!"

Aqualad turned to his Team, his voice carrying across the courtyard and through the mind-link simultaneously.

"Move fast. Move smart. And remember, he's beaten us before. This time, we won't give him that chance."

“For Dick.”, Zatanna thought, and the words rippled through the mind-link like a prayer.

“For everyone the Winter Soldier killed.”, Tigress added.

“For everyone the Winter Soldier will kill if we fail.”, Miss Martian finished.

They moved as one, flowing into the Kremlin like a tide of purpose and determination.

Behind them, Major Morozova watched them go, her radio clutched tight in her hand.

And she did something she hadn't done since childhood, hadn't done since before the KGB trained faith out of her.

She prayed.

…

…

…

…

…

[Sunday, February 7, 2021 | 21:35]

[The Grand Kremlin Palace, Moscow, Russian Soviet Republic, Soviet Union]

The Kremlin's interior was a study in contrasts.

Grand hallways stretched before them, lined with red carpet and gilded portraits of Soviet leaders past and present; from the times of the October Revolution over a century ago up to the leaders of the modern day. Chandeliers hung from vaulted ceilings, their crystal facets catching firelight from sconces that had burned for centuries. Marble floors reflected everything in muted perfection, a palace built to project power and permanence.

But the grandeur was marred by fresh violence.

Bullet holes pockmarked walls where priceless paintings had hung. Scorch marks blackened doorways. Shattered glass crunched underfoot, remnants of display cases housing historical artifacts now scattered like forgotten dreams. The acrid smell of smoke and gunpowder hung heavy, mixing with something copper-sharp that spoke of spilled blood.

They passed a group of soldiers tending to their wounded. One man clutched his arm, blood seeping through makeshift bandages, his face pale with shock. Another sat slumped against the wall, his rifle discarded, staring at nothing with eyes that had seen something they couldn't process.

“So many hurt already…”, Miss Martian's mental voice carried aching sympathy.

“Focus.”, Aqualad reminded her gently but firmly, “We cannot save those already fallen. But we can prevent more from joining them.”

The Team moved in tactical formation through the labyrinthine corridors. Aqualad at point, water-bearers manifested and ready. Superboy and Miss Martian flanking. Tigress and Kid Flash covering the rear with Rocket between them. Zatanna in the center, hands loose at her sides, ready to cast at a moment's notice.

“Robin, Batgirl, Red Hood.”, Aqualad projected, “Status?”

“In position.”, Robin responded from the Senate Building roof. His fingers flew across his tablet, lines of code cascading as he burrowed into the Kremlin's security network, “I'm tapped into their surveillance system. Most cameras in the lower levels are down—looks like he disabled them systematically. But I'm getting thermal readings through their HVAC sensors.”

“How many hostiles?”, Batgirl asked from her vantage point atop the administrative building. She'd spread out her portable tactical display, tracking both Team positions and Soviet troop movements in real-time.

“One.”, Robin said, and the simplicity of that answer was somehow more terrifying than if he'd said a dozen, “Moving through the sub-level three corridor toward bunker access. He's not rushing. Just... Walking. Like he knows exactly where he's going and nothing can stop him.”

“And Soviet troops?”, Aqualad asked.

“Pulling back to defensive positions around the bunker entrance.”, Batgirl reported, “Major Morozova is consolidating her forces. Smart move, trying to stop him in the corridors just gets people killed.”

“Speaking of that hot, blonde Russian lady. I secured a rifle from one of her guys, with *minimal* persuasion. And I've got sightlines on three different entry points.”, Red Hood added from the bell tower.

He ignored Batgirl’s groans from the mind link about his comment on Major Morozova.

His rifle's scope tracked through windows, cataloging approach vectors and fallback routes, “If he comes up for air, I'll see him. But if he stays underground…”

“Then we go to him.”, Aqualad finished.

They descended a staircase, moving deeper into the Kremlin's bowels. The air grew colder, the walls narrower. This was the old part of the structure, the fortress that had stood for centuries, built to withstand sieges and invasions, its foundations sunk deep into Moscow's bedrock.

Medieval stonework gave way to communist-era concrete. The elegant grandeur of the upper levels was replaced by utilitarian functionality, bare bulbs in wire cages, exposed pipes, floors that echoed with every footstep.

This was the Kremlin's skeleton, the infrastructure that kept the palace alive.

And somewhere ahead, death was walking through it.

They reached a reinforced steel door flanked by two Red Army soldiers who looked barely old enough to shave. Their uniforms were too clean, their grips on their rifles too tight. Fresh conscripts, probably, thrown into a situation way above their pay grade.

One of them straightened as the Team approached, his voice cracking slightly as he challenged them in Russian, "Стоп! Идентифицируйте себя!" (Stop! Identify yourselves!)

Aqualad held up his hand, speaking the security code Major Morozova had provided, "Seven-four-nine-three-Charlie-Mike. We are from the Justice League. We have authorization."

The soldier's eyes widened as he took in Superboy's S-shield, Zatanna's arcane energy crackling faintly around her hands, the impossible green skin of Miss Martian. He fumbled with the door's security panel, input the override code with shaking fingers.

The steel door hissed open, revealing a long corridor lit by harsh fluorescent lights that buzzed and flickered irregularly, signs of power fluctuations from earlier sabotage attempts.

"Go.", the soldier said in heavily accented English, "President is... That way. Down. Bunker is end of hall."

"Thank you.", Aqualad said. Then, more gently, "Stay here. Guard this door. Let no one through except us or any of Major Morozova's troops."

The soldier nodded gratefully, clearly relieved he wouldn't have to follow them into whatever hell waited below.

The Team entered the corridor. The door sealed shut behind them with a heavy clang that echoed like a tomb closing.

Aqualad's mental voice was crisp, commanding, “Robin, what's our tactical situation?”

“You're on sub-level two.”, Robin replied, his mental tone distant as he processed multiple data streams simultaneously, “The bunker entrance is two more levels down and approximately two hundred metres east. Sensors show the Winter Soldier on sub-level three, moving parallel to your position. If you both maintain current speed, you'll intersect near the main power junction in approximately... Four minutes.”

“Four minutes.”, Tigress echoed, “Not much time to prepare.”

“Then we don't waste it.”, Superboy growled.

They moved faster now, the Team's training taking over. Each member knew their role, had drilled it thousands of times. They flowed through the corridor like water finding its path, silent except for the whisper of boots on concrete and the occasional crackle of energy from Rocket's kinetic belt.

“Batgirl.”, Aqualad continued, “Coordinate with Major Morozova. I want her forces ready to evacuate the President the moment we engage. If this goes wrong—”

“It won't.”, Zatanna interrupted, her mental voice harder than usual, “We don't get to fail again.

“Agreed.”, Aqualad said, “But if it does, the President's survival is paramount. Barbara, make sure Morozova understands that.”

“On it.”, Batgirl confirmed.

Her voice shifted to verbal as she activated her encrypted comm channel to the Soviet forces, "Major Morozova, this is Batgirl. Team is four minutes from intercept. Recommend you begin evacuation protocols immediately."

The Major's response crackled back, tense but controlled, "Understood. We are moving the President to the secondary bunker now. But we cannot seal the doors until we are certain the assassin is contained. If he breaks through your line..."

“He won't.”, Superboy projected with absolute conviction, and the mental link carried the weight of his determination like a physical force.

They descended another staircase, the temperature dropping noticeably. Their breath misted in the air now, the Kremlin's heating system struggling to combat the Moscow winter seeping through ancient stone.

Robin's voice cut in again, urgent, “Contact in ninety seconds. He just turned down the corridor that intersects with yours. Kaldur, you're going to meet him at the T-junction ahead.”

“Everyone ready.”, Aqualad commanded, “Spread out. Do not cluster. If he uses explosives again—”

The lights went out.

Complete, absolute darkness swallowed them whole.

For a heartbeat, there was nothing but the sound of breathing, the faint rustle of fabric, the hum of electronics dying as backup power failed to engage.

“He cut the power.”, Robin's mental voice was tight with frustration, “Main junction just went offline. Backup systems are... Shit, they're not responding. He didn't just cut the power, he sabotaged the failsafes.”

“I've got eyes.”, Superboy said immediately, his Kryptonian vision piercing the darkness, “Everybody stay still. I'll guide us.”

“I can see as well.”, Miss Martian added, her Martian eyes adapting instantly, “Conner's right. Don't move yet.”

“Robin.”, Batgirl's voice was sharp, professional, “Can you restore power remotely?”

“Working on it.”, Robin muttered, and through the mind-link they could feel his concentration fracturing across multiple tasks, “But their system architecture is ancient. Brezhnev-era designs from the 70’s mixed with modern upgrades. It's like trying to hotwire a car while someone's actively driving it in the opposite direction.”

“How long to power?”, Aqualad asked.

“Two minutes. Maybe three.”

“We don't have three minutes.”, Kid Flash said, his voice tight.

Zatanna's hands began to glow, soft blue light radiating from her palms like captured starlight. 

"Thgil.", she whispered, and the illumination expanded, pushing back the darkness in a twenty-foot radius around them.

The corridor revealed itself in her magical glow, bare concrete walls, exposed pipes, and directly ahead, the T-junction Robin had mentioned.

And at the far end of that junction, walking toward them with mechanical precision, was the Winter Soldier.

He moved through the darkness like he was born to it, each step deliberate, measured. The domino mask concealed his eyes, the face mask his features, but his body language spoke volumes, this was his element, his terrain, his hunt.

His metal arm gleamed in Zatanna's light, servos whirring softly. In his right hand, a pistol. In his left, a combat knife.

For one frozen moment, they stared at each other across thirty feet of corridor.

The Team.

The Soldier.

Predator and prey, though which was which remained unclear.

“Red Hood.”, Aqualad projected, his mental voice calm despite the adrenaline flooding his system, “Do you have a shot?”

From the bell tower, Red Hood's mental presence was frustrated, angry, “Negative. Y’all are too deep underground. I've got nothing.”

“Then it's on us.”, Tigress said, arrow already nocked.

“Remember the plan.”, Aqualad reminded them, “Zatanna binds. Rocket hits. Superboy contains. The rest of us support and adapt. Do not—I repeat, do not—engage him one-on-one. We fight as a team or we don't fight at all.”

“Understood.”, came the chorus of responses.

Aqualad's water-bearers solidified into twin blades, hardened water gleaming in Zatanna's magical light. His voice rang out, echoing in the corridor, carrying the weight of Atlantean authority.

"Stand down. There is no escape. Surrender, and you will be taken into custody unharmed."

The Winter Soldier's response was to raise his pistol and fire.

The muzzle flash lit the corridor for a fraction of a second, bright enough to leave afterimages. The bullet flew true, aimed directly at Aqualad's center mass.

Superboy was faster.

He blurred forward, his body intercepting the bullet. It sparked off his chest with a sharp *ping*, ricocheting harmlessly into the ceiling.

And the fight began.

“Now!”, Aqualad commanded.

Zatanna's voice rang out in reverse, ancient power bleeding through every syllable, "DNIB MIH!"

Purple-white light exploded from her hands, arcane chains materializing in the air and wrapping around the Winter Soldier like luminous serpents. They coiled around his arms, his legs, his torso, magical bonds that would hold a rampaging demon, that had once contained a lord of Chaos.

The Soldier froze, muscles straining against invisible restraints.

“I've got him!”, Zatanna projected, but her mental voice was already strained, “But I can't hold—”

Rocket didn't wait. Her kinetic field flared brilliant purple as she launched herself forward, fist drawn back, every ounce of her power focused into a single devastating strike.

Her fist connected with the Soldier's chest.

The impact should have launched him through the wall, should have shattered ribs, collapsed lungs, ended the fight before it truly began.

Instead, the Soldier absorbed it.

His boots skidded back a metre, concrete cracking under the force, but he stayed upright. Stayed functional. And slowly, impossibly, he began to move against Zatanna's binding spell.

First his fingers. Then his wrist. Then his entire arm.

“No.”, Zatanna's mental voice carried disbelief, “That's not possible. Nothing human should be able to—”

The Winter Soldier broke free.

The magical chains shattered like glass, purple light exploding outward in a wave of dissipating energy. Zatanna gasped, the backlash hitting her like a physical blow, and she stumbled.

The Soldier moved.

He closed the distance to Rocket before she could react, his metal arm sweeping in an arc. She threw up a kinetic barrier, purple energy flaring—

The metal fist punched through it.

Rocket's eyes widened in shock as momentum and mass overwhelmed her defenses. The Soldier's made contact with her shoulder, and she went down hard, her kinetic belt sparking erratically.

Kid Flash blurred in from the left, a streak of yellow and red aiming for the Soldier's legs. If he could just knock him off balance for one second—

The Soldier's head snapped toward him, tracking the speedster's trajectory with inhuman precision. His pistol rose, fired twice in rapid succession.

The first bullet missed. Kid Flash was already adjusting, already moving—

The second bullet didn't.

It caught him in the thigh, spinning him mid-stride. Kid Flash hit the ground and rolled, momentum carrying him into the wall. Pain exploded through his leg, white-hot and all-consuming.

“WALLY!”, Tigress' mental scream was edged with panic.

But her body moved on instinct, training overriding emotion. She was already firing, arrow after arrow, each one aimed with deadly precision.

The Winter Soldier didn't dodge. He deflected.

His metal arm moved in controlled arcs, each motion calculated to intercept her shots at optimal angles. Arrows sparked off reinforced alloy, splintering, falling uselessly to the ground.

And then he was moving toward her.

Tigress backpedaled, firing faster, aiming for joints, for gaps in armor, for anything that might slow him down. But he kept coming, relentless, inevitable.

Miss Martian threw herself between them, her eyes blazing white with psychic power.

“STOP!”

The telepathic assault hit the Winter Soldier like a freight train, or should have. M'gann poured everything into it, every technique she'd learned from her uncle, from Black Canary, from years of training. She tried to overwhelm his mind, to shut down his motor functions, to force him into unconsciousness.

The Soldier froze for half a second.

Then he broke through.

M'gann's psychic hold shattered, the backlash hitting her even harder than it had in Berlin. She cried out, clutching her head, her telepathic link to the Team flickering dangerously.

“M'gann!”, Superboy's roar was both mental and physical, rage overwhelming tactical thinking.

He charged, faster than before, angrier than before. His fist drove toward the Soldier's face with enough force to crater concrete.

The Soldier caught it.

His metal hand closed around Superboy's fist, servos whining with the strain of containing Kryptonian strength. For a moment, they stood locked together, muscle against machine, raw power against engineered precision.

Then the Soldier twisted.

He used Superboy's own momentum against him, redirecting the clone's charge into a throw that sent Conner crashing through the corridor wall. Concrete exploded, rebar screaming as it tore free.

Aqualad lunged, water-bearers flashing in deadly arcs. He'd studied the footage from Berlin and Gotham, had analyzed every movement, every counter. He knew what was coming.

And still it wasn't enough.

The Soldier parried his first strike with the combat knife, blocked the second with his metal arm, and drove his boot into Aqualad's knee. The Atlantean's leg buckled, and the Soldier's elbow came down on the back of his neck.

Aqualad hit the ground hard, vision swimming, water-bearers dissolving into mist.

In less than ninety seconds, the Winter Soldier had dismantled them.

Zatanna was on her knees, magic reserves depleted. Rocket clutched her injured shoulder, kinetic belt damaged. Kid Flash pressed a hand to his bleeding thigh, trying to slow the blood loss.

Miss Martian held her head, telepathic abilities temporarily overwhelmed. Superboy was pulling himself out of a Conner-shaped hole in the wall. Aqualad struggled to stand on an injured knee.

And the Winter Soldier stood in the center of it all, barely winded, assessing his next move with cold mechanical efficiency.

From their overwatch positions, the Bat Family could only watch in mounting horror through the limited camera feeds Robin had managed to restore.

“No.”, Robin whispered, disbelief bleeding through his mental voice, “No, this can't be happening again.”

“We need to get down there!”, Batgirl said urgently, “Now!”

“We're three levels up and two buildings away.”, Red Hood snarled, “By the time we reach them, it'll be over.”

“Then we make it not over.”, Robin's voice hardened, “Barbara, reroute through the western access tunnel. Jason, collapse your position and move to ground level. I'm going dark for thirty seconds—I'm going to do something very fucking stupid.”

“Robin, what—”, Aqualad started.

But Robin had already disconnected from the mind-link, his full attention focused on the Kremlin's security systems.

In the corridor, the Winter Soldier retrieved a small device from his tactical vest. His thumb hovered over the trigger.

“Detonator!”, Tigress realized, her mental voice hoarse, “He's got demolition charges!”

“Everybody DOWN!”, Aqualad commanded.

The Winter Soldier pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

For one confused second, everyone froze.

The Team, the Soldier, even Zatanna who'd been preparing one last desperate spell.

Then, the lights came back on.

Every fluorescent bulb in the corridor blazed to life simultaneously, turning darkness into searing brightness. The sudden illumination was blinding after minutes of shadow, enough to make even enhanced eyes flinch.

And through the newly restored security speakers, Robin's voice echoed with grim satisfaction:

"Sorry to disappoint you, but your explosives just got defused. Remotely. Turns out your demolition tech uses the same wireless protocols as the Soviets’ security systems. Who knew?"

The Winter Soldier's head tilted slightly as he turned his gaze towards the speakers, the first sign of anything resembling surprise or confusion they'd seen from him.

“Now!”, Aqualad projected, seizing the moment, “While he's distracted! Zatanna!”

Zatanna raised trembling hands, pulling on reserves she didn't know she had. Her voice cracked but held power, "PEELS!"

Sleep magic washed over the Winter Soldier like a wave, drowning his nervous system in forced unconsciousness. His knees buckled, just slightly, just enough.

Superboy hit him from behind.

This time, with the Soldier off-balance and briefly disoriented, the tackle worked. They crashed to the ground, Superboy's arms locking around the Soldier's torso in a grip that had once bent steel.

“I've got him!”, Superboy projected desperately, “I've got—”

The Winter Soldier's metal elbow drove backward into Superboy's already-bruised ribs. Once. Twice. Three times. Each impact delivered with mechanical precision to the same damaged spot.

Superboy's grip loosened.

The Soldier twisted free, his metal hand finding pressure points behind Superboy's jaw. Kryptonian invulnerability or not, nerves were nerves, and the Soldier knew exactly which ones to hit.

Superboy's arms went numb. The Soldier stood, driving his boot into Conner's face hard enough to bounce the clone's head off concrete.

And just like that, it was over.

The Team lay scattered across the corridor, battered and broken. The Winter Soldier stood among them, breathing steady, expression hidden behind masks.

He'd won.

Again.

His mission was clear.

The bunker was ahead.

The President was waiting.

He started walking.

Zatanna, on her hands and knees, raised one shaking hand. Magic flickered around her fingers, weak, dying, but still there. Her voice was barely a whisper, but it carried desperation and power in equal measure.

"POTS."

The Soldier's left boot froze mid-step, held in place by the last dregs of her magic.

It wasn't much. It wouldn't hold him for more than seconds.

But seconds was all they needed.

Batgirl and Red Hood burst through a side access door, moving in perfect synchronization. Barbara's grapple line wrapped around the Soldier's legs while Jason's rubber bullets hammered his center mass, forcing him back a step.

Robin dropped from a ventilation shaft overhead, electric shock staff already crackling. He landed on the Soldier's shoulders, drove the staff against his neck, sent voltage coursing through muscle and cybernetics.

The Winter Soldier grunted, the first sound of pain they'd heard from him, and reached up with his metal hand.

He ripped Robin off his shoulders and hurled him at the wall.

But the distraction was enough. Superboy was back on his feet, ribs screaming, but still moving. He charged one more time, pure Kryptonian stubbornness refusing to quit.

This time, he didn't try to match the Soldier's technique.

He just tackled him through the floor.

Concrete exploded as two hundred twenty pounds of Kryptonian clone drove the Winter Soldier down through weakened infrastructure into sub-level four. They crashed through ceiling, through floor, landing in a tangle of debris and dust and broken stone.

Superboy raised his fist, ready to end this.

But the Winter Soldier's metal fist struck first, catching Superboy’s temple in a blow calculated to disrupt even enhanced physiology.

Superboy's eyes rolled back. He collapsed, finally unconscious.

The Winter Soldier pushed himself to his feet, covered in dust and debris but still functional. He looked up at the hole in the ceiling, at the Team members starting to move again despite their injuries.

His mission parameters were clear.

Target: President of the Soviet Union.

Status: Accessible.

Opposition: Neutralized.

He should continue, his objective within reach.

But something had changed. These weren't normal opponents. They kept getting back up.

They kept adapting. They kept interfering.

Threat Assessment: Elevated.

Mission Completion: Uncertain.

Threat to Self: Certain.

Judgement: Preserve Asset.

The Soldier reached into his vest and pulled out smoke grenades. Not the demolition charges, the one known as Robin had sabotaged those. But simple smoke.

Low-tech. Reliable.

He threw them in a wide arc and they detonated simultaneously, thick gray-white smoke billowing through both levels of corridor.

“NO!”, Aqualad projected, dragging himself forward on his injured knee, “Don't let him—”

But the Winter Soldier was already moving.

Not forward toward the bunker.

Not toward his target.

He was retreating.

Through the smoke, through a service tunnel, through infrastructure only he seemed to know existed. Moving fast, moving silent, moving away.

By the time the smoke cleared, he was gone.

The Team lay among the wreckage, battered and bleeding but alive.

They'd survived.

But survival wasn't the same as victory.

And deep in the Kremlin's bunker, President Makarov’s aides huddled behind reinforced steel, surrounded by guards who had just witnessed the impossible through the surveillance cameras.

Ten heroes, some of the world's best, had been beaten by one man.

And if not for a Robin’s hacking skills and pure dumb luck, he'd be dead right now.

The weight of that realization settled over everyone like Moscow's winter cold.

“Status report.”, Aqualad projected weakly, his mental voice threadbare, “Everyone sound off.”

One by one, the responses came. Injured. Exhausted. But alive.

All of them.

This time, they'd all made it out.

But as Major Morozova's voice crackled over the radio, confirming the President's safety, no one felt victorious.

They'd stopped the assassination.

They'd saved the President.

But they'd lost the battle.

The Winter Soldier had escaped.

Again.

…

…

…

…

…

[Sunday, February 7, 2021 | 22:35]

[The Kremlin - Moscow, Russian Soviet Republic, Soviet Union]

The medical teams arrived within minutes of the Winter Soldier's escape.

Soviet medics moved in with practiced efficiency through the shattered corridors, their equipment clattering against debris-strewn floors. Stretchers were deployed, IV lines established, vital signs checked with the kind of calm professionalism that came from treating battlefield casualties.

Kid Flash was first priority, the bullet wound in his thigh was serious, though mercifully it had missed the femoral artery. A medic applied pressure, speaking rapid Russian to his colleagues as they prepped for emergency transport. Wally's face was pale, sweat beading on his forehead despite the Moscow cold, but he waved off concerns with characteristic bravado that fooled no one.

"Just a scratch.", he muttered through gritted teeth, though his mental voice through M'gann's link told a different story: “Hurts like hell. Don't tell Artemis how bad it actually is.”

“Too late.”, Tigress projected back, her mental presence sharp with barely controlled fear as she knelt beside him, her hand finding his. “You're going to the med bay the second we get back to the Watchtower. No arguments.”

Superboy refused a stretcher, pulling himself upright despite the medics' protests. He had bruised ribs, at least three, maybe four, and his face was already swelling from where the Soldier's boot had made contact. But Kryptonian physiology was already knitting bone, already fighting off the worst of the damage. He'd be functional in hours, fully healed in days.

That didn't make it hurt less now.

Miss Martian hovered beside him, her telepathic presence a soothing balm even as her own head throbbed from psychic backlash. She'd pushed too hard, tried to overwhelm a mind specifically conditioned to resist exactly that kind of assault. The migraine would last for hours, possibly days, but she'd survive.

They'd all survive.

This time.

Aqualad accepted help from a medic, his injured knee already swelling beneath his uniform. The Atlantean's healing factor would handle it eventually, but for now, walking was agony. He leaned on a portable crutch, his water-bearers dissolved, his expression carefully neutral even as frustration and shame roiled beneath the surface.

Two fights. Two failures.

How many more before they got it right?

Rocket sat against the wall, her kinetic belt sparking intermittently as Soviet technicians tried to assess the damage. Her shoulder throbbed where the Winter Soldier's metal fist had broken through her defenses, and she cradled it gently, testing range of motion with careful movements.

"Belt's fried.", she said aloud, her voice tight with pain and frustration, "Gonna need a full rebuild. Maybe an upgrade while we're at it, since apparently the current model can't stop a guy with a fancy arm."

Zatanna slumped nearby, her back against cold concrete, her hands trembling in her lap. Magic exhaustion was different from physical fatigue, it burned from the inside out, left your soul feeling hollowed and raw. She'd pushed past her limits tonight, spent reserves she shouldn't have touched, and now she was paying the price.

Her vision swam. Her fingers twitched with phantom sparks of purple energy that flickered and died. Every breath felt like it took conscious effort.

“I failed.”, she thought, too tired to even project it through the mind-link, “My magic should have held him. Should have bound him. Should have been enough. But it wasn't. I wasn't.”

The Bat Family emerged from the access tunnels looking no better. Robin's cape was torn, his domino mask cracked down one side from where he'd been thrown into the wall. Batgirl moved with a slight limp, she'd twisted her ankle during the descent, adrenaline masking it until now. 

And Red Hood's helmet bore fresh dents, souvenirs from flying debris when Superboy had crashed through the floor above his position.

They gathered near the rest of the Team, a collection of battered heroes trying to look less defeated than they felt.

Major Morozova approached through the wreckage, her expression unreadable. Behind her came a contingent of Red Army officers and KGB agents, their faces ranging from impressed to skeptical to outright hostile. And at the center of that protective formation, supported by two medics and moving with obvious pain, was President Alexander Nikolaevich Makarov.

The Soviet President looked older than his fifty-seven years. His formal suit was rumpled, dust-covered. His iron-gray hair, usually perfectly styled, was disheveled. Blood stained his shirt collar, a minor injury from falling debris during the explosions, but enough to make him look vulnerable in a way world leaders rarely allowed themselves to appear.

But his eyes were sharp, clear, and deeply grateful.

The Team tried to stand at attention, tried to look like the heroes they were supposed to be rather than the broken children they felt like. Aqualad straightened despite his injured knee, drawing on every ounce of Atlantean discipline. Superboy squared his shoulders, ignoring cracked ribs. Miss Martian wiped blood from her nose and floated upright.

They'd failed to capture the Winter Soldier.

But they'd succeeded in their primary mission: the President was alive.

President Makarov stepped forward, waving off his security detail's protests. When he spoke, his English was accented but clear, his voice carrying the authority of someone who'd survived the KGB, the collapse and reformation of the Soviet Union, and now an assassination attempt.

"You have my deepest gratitude.", he said, and there was genuine emotion beneath the formal words, "I watched your battle from the active security feeds from the bunker. I saw you fight for my life against an enemy who should have killed you all. And I saw you refuse to yield even when defeat seemed certain."

He paused, his gaze moving across each young face.

"Many leaders speak of sacrifice, of duty, of laying down one's life for others. Few ever truly face that choice. You faced it tonight. And you chose to stand between death and a man you've never met, from a nation that is not your own, knowing the cost might be your lives."

Kaldur's voice was hoarse but steady, "It is what we do, Your Excellency. We could do nothing less."

"Perhaps.", President Makarov replied, "But that does not diminish what you have done. The Soviet Union owes you a debt that can never be fully repaid."

He turned to Major Morozova, "See that they receive full medical treatment. Anything they require. And prepare a statement for the press—the truth. That the Justice League saved my life tonight."

The Major stiffened slightly, "Comrade President, sir, the political implications—"

"Are my concern, not yours, Comrade Major.", President Makarov interrupted, not unkindly, "The world will know that when we needed help, heroes answered. East and West united against a common threat. That is the story I want told."

He looked back at the Team, "I understand you must return to your base. But know this: should you ever need the Soviet Union's assistance, you need only ask. You have earned that right tonight."

The President offered his hand to Aqualad.

Aqualad took it, the handshake firm despite exhaustion and injury, "We hope that the next time we meet, it would be under better circumstances, Your Excellency."

A ghost of a smile crossed President Makarov's weathered face, "As do I, young Atlantean. As do I."

Medics stepped forward then, insisting the President needed immediate transport to a secure medical facility. He allowed himself to be led away, though he glanced back once at the assembled heroes with an expression that mixed respect, concern, and something that might have been fatherly worry.

When he was gone, Major Morozova's professional mask slipped slightly. She looked at the Team, really looked at them, and saw what the cameras and the official reports wouldn't: children barely out of their teens, bleeding and broken, who'd just been beaten senseless trying to save a man they didn't know.

"You did well.", she said quietly, "Better than I expected after Berlin. The President lives. That is what matters."

"The Winter Soldier escaped.", Tigress said, her voice carrying self-recrimination, "He's still out there."

"Yes.", Morozova acknowledged, "But he failed his mission. That is also what matters. An assassin who cannot complete his assignments is a flawed weapon. And flawed weapons are eventually discarded."

She pulled a small data chip from her pocket and handed it to Aqualad, "Security footage from tonight's engagement. All we could recover after the cameras were reactivated. All including angles your League does not have. Perhaps your analysts will see something we missed. And perhaps you will learn how to stop him next time."

Aqualad accepted the chip with a nod of gratitude, "Thank you, Major."

"Do not thank me yet.", she replied, "Next time he comes, it may be your leaders he hunts. Your cities he burns. Your people he kills. This is not over, Atlantean. This is just the beginning."

With that ominous assessment, she turned and began barking orders in Russian, coordinating the cleanup, the investigation, and the endless bureaucratic machinery that followed any crisis.

The Team was left alone in the shattered corridor, medical personnel still tending to their wounds, but no longer the center of attention.

Robin limped over to Aqualad, his voice low enough that only the Team could hear through the mind-link, “While the fighting was happening, I took the liberty of accessing their database. Full penetration. I've got everything, personnel files, security protocols, architectural schematics, classified intelligence reports. Uploading it all to the Batcomputer when we get back.”

Aqualad’s mental presence carried warning, “That was risky. If they discover the breach—”

“They won't.”, Robin interrupted confidently, “I buried my tracks under the chaos of the Winter Soldier's own hacking attempts. As far as their cyber security knows, any anomalies came from him, not from me.”

“What did you find?”, Zatanna asked, her mental voice weak but curious.

“Haven't had time to analyze yet.”, Robin admitted, “I'll need time to decrypt and cross-reference, but at least now we have new leads to work with.”

“Upload everything when we're secure.”, Kaldur ordered, “And brief Batman immediately. If the Soviets have intelligence on his origins—”

“Then maybe we can finally get ahead of this.”, Batgirl finished.

The Soviet medics finished their work, declaring Kid Flash stable enough for transport but insisting he needed proper surgical attention within hours. The rest of the Team was cleared to travel, though with strong recommendations for rest and recovery.

"Can you fly us home?", Aqualad asked Miss Martian quietly.

M'gann nodded, though her face was still pale, "The Bioship is fine. And I'm functional enough to pilot. It'll be slower than usual, but we'll make it."

"Then let's go home.", Superboy said, and his mental voice carried exhaustion that went beyond physical injury, "Before something else tries to kill us tonight."

They made their way out of the Kremlin's depths, through corridors still filled with soldiers and investigators, past rooms where forensic teams were already documenting the destruction. The ancient fortress had weathered another attack, had survived another attempt to break it.

But the scars remained.

Always, the scars remained.

…

…

…

The Bioship's interior was quiet except for the soft hum of organic engines and the occasional groan of pain from injured passengers.

Kid Flash lay on a medical berth, properly bandaged now, an IV drip feeding him fluids and antibiotics. His accelerated metabolism was already fighting the infection risk, but the bullet had done significant damage. He'd be limping for days, possibly weeks. For a speedster, that might as well be a lifetime.

Tigress sat beside him, her hand in his, saying nothing because there was nothing to say. They'd both survived. That was enough. That had to be enough.

Superboy stared out the viewport at clouds sliding past in the darkness. His reflection stared back, split lip, black eye, bruises already fading from purple to yellow-green as Kryptonian healing did its work. Behind that reflection, the real Conner saw something else. 

Failure. Again.

The Winter Soldier had beaten him. Again.

Made him feel weak. Again.

“How am I supposed to protect anyone.”, he thought, not projecting it, keeping the thought locked deep where even M'gann couldn't accidentally overhear, “If I can't even stop one man?”

Miss Martian floated near the pilot's interface, her consciousness merged with the Bioship's, guiding them home through the night. Her telepathic presence still throbbed with the migraine aftermath, but she pushed through it because someone had to fly and she was the only one who could.

“You did well.”, the Bioship's consciousness murmured to her in feelings rather than words, a gentle reassurance from a being who'd been with her since childhood.

“We lost.”, M'gann replied silently.

“You survived and succeeded on your primary mission.”, the Bioship corrected, “That is victory in of itself”.

Zatanna had claimed a corner seat, curled up with her arms around her knees, staring at nothing. Magic exhaustion left her feeling transparent, like if someone looked at her too hard they'd see right through to the hollow space where her power usually lived.

She kept replaying the fight in her mind, analyzing every spell, every incantation, trying to figure out where she'd gone wrong. Her binding should have held him. Should have. The spell was perfect, the execution flawless. So why—

“Because he was made to fight people like us.”, a traitorous voice whispered in her mind, “Made to counter magic, resist telepathy, match Kryptonian strength. Made specifically to kill heroes.”

She closed her eyes against tears she refused to shed.

Robin sat apart from the others, tablet balanced on his knees, fingers flying across holographic interfaces. Data from the Soviet database scrolled past in endless streams, personnel files, mission reports, classified documents stamped with warnings in Cyrillic. He'd been scanning for hours now, cross-referencing, connecting dots, building a picture.

And the picture was terrifying.

“Project Winter.”

References dating back years. Mentions of "the Asset". Successful "reconditioning". Something about Siberia. Another reference to "enhanced capabilities exceeding projections".

But no names. No faces. Just redacted file after redacted file.

Whoever the Winter Soldier had been before, that person had been erased so thoroughly that even the Soviets' own records couldn't say for certain.

"Find anything?", Batgirl asked quietly, settling into the seat beside him.

"Maybe.", Robin said, not looking up, "There's a pattern. References to Siberian facilities, to League of Shadows involvement, even something called a ‘Cadmus Project collaboration’—"

"Cadmus?", Batgirl’s voice sharpened, "I thought they've dialed down the human experiments?"

"Apparently not, but yeah, this has Cadmus records on it. But the records are fragmented, like someone deliberately destroyed evidence and these are just... Echoes. Pieces that survived the purge."

"We need to tell Bruce."

"I know." Robin finally looked up, and his eyes behind the domino mask were haunted, "Babs, what if we can't stop him? What if he's just... Too good at what he does?"

Batgirl’s hand found his shoulder, squeezed firmly, "Then we get better. We learn. We find his weakness, because everyone has one. Even weapons have weak points."

"Dick would know what to do.", Robin whispered.

The name hung in the air between them, heavy with years of grief.

"Yeah.", Batgirl agreed softly, "He would. But Dick's not here. So we have to figure it out ourselves. That's what he'd tell us to do anyway."

Across the cabin, Red Hood sat cleaning his guns with methodical precision. Disassemble. Check each part. Reassemble. The ritual was meditative, gave his hands something to do while his mind churned through the night's events.

He'd failed. Again.

He hadn't reached them in time. He hadn't made a difference except as last-minute backup when the real fight was already lost.

“Just like always.”, a bitter voice in his head whispered, “Second Robin. Second rate. Second best. The one who died and came back wrong.”

He shoved the thought away viciously and focused on his guns.

At least guns made sense. Guns didn't lie.

Point, shoot, target falls.

Simple. Clean. Unlike everything else in his life.

Aqualad sat at the front of the cabin, water-bearers manifested in his hands, holding the familiar weapons even though there was nothing to fight. The weight was comforting. Grounding.

He was the leader. The one they looked to for answers, for strategy, for hope.

And he'd led them to defeat. Twice now. Berlin. Moscow. Two failures. Two times the enemy had beaten them senseless and escaped.

“How many more times before they lose faith in you?”

“How many more times before someone dies under your command?”

The water-bearers trembled slightly in his grip, ripples disturbing their perfect surface.

Rocket had her eyes closed, but she wasn't sleeping. Just thinking. Processing. Her shoulder ached despite the painkillers the Soviet medics had given her. Her kinetic belt was ruined. And for what? They hadn't even slowed the Winter Soldier down. Barely scratched him.

She'd volunteered for this mission. Told herself she could help. Told herself she was ready for the big leagues.

But the League didn't lose this badly. The League didn't get beat down by a single opponent. The League was Superman and Wonder Woman and Batman, people who won because they were legends.

The Team was just... Kids playing at heroics.

And tonight had proven it.

The silence stretched on, each hero lost in their own thoughts, their own recriminations, their own pain. No one wanted to be the first to speak. No one wanted to voice what they were all thinking.

Finally, it was Zatanna who broke the quiet, her voice rough and small.

"We can't keep doing this."

Everyone's attention snapped to her.

She straightened in her seat, meeting their eyes one by one, "We can't keep fighting him the same way and expecting different results. First in Berlin, now in Moscow, and still the same thing. He knows how we fight. Knows how to counter us. If we go up against him again without changing something fundamental, we're going to lose. Again."

"So what do you suggest, Zee?", Tigress asked, not hostile, just tired.

"I don't know.", Zatanna admitted, "But someone needs to figure it out. Because next time, maybe the President doesn't survive. Maybe one of us doesn't survive. Maybe—"

She stopped, unable to finish the thought.

"She's right.", Superboy said, his voice a low rumble, "We tried adapting to him but he's already adapted to us. We need change. Fight different. Think different. Something's gotta give."

"Easier said than done.", Robin muttered, "He's got tactical analysis capabilities that rival Batman's. He predicts our moves before we make them. How do you be unpredictable against someone who's already calculated every possibility?"

"You do something impossible.", Red Hood said, not looking up from his guns, "Something so god damned stupid, so reckless, so contrary to training that even he can't predict it."

"That's not strategy, that's suicide.", Batgirl countered.

"Sometimes there's not much difference."

Aqualad's voice cut through the debate, carrying command despite exhaustion, "We will persevere. We will train. We will find a way. But tonight, we did our job. The President lives. That is what matters."

"Is it?", Superboy challenged, "How many people does he have to almost kill before we stop him permanently?"

"As many as it takes.", Kaldur replied firmly, "Because the alternative is giving up. And that is not who we are."

The conviction in his voice steadied something in the cabin. Not enough to heal the wounds, physical or otherwise, but enough to remind them why they kept fighting even when fighting seemed futile.

They were heroes.

And heroes didn't quit.

The Bioship cut through the night sky, carrying its cargo of battered warriors home. Below them, the world turned in oblivious sleep, unaware of how close it had come to losing another leader, to sliding another step closer to war.

Miss Martian's telepathic presence brushed against each of them gently, not invasive, just... present. A reminder they weren't alone. A comfort in the darkness.

“We'll figure it out.”, she projected softly, “Together. We always do.”

No one responded, but no one needed to.

The connection was enough.

…

…

…

…

…

[Monday, February 8, 2021 | 01:00]

[High Earth Orbit, The Watchtower]

The debriefing chamber felt colder than usual.

Or maybe that was just the weight of failure settling over everything like frost.

The Team assembled before the Justice League once more, looking worse for wear despite medical treatment and hours of rest. Kid Flash stood with a cane, his leg in a support brace. Superboy's face still bore fading bruises. Zatanna had dark circles under her eyes that spoke of magical exhaustion. Rocket's arm was in a sling.

They looked like they'd been through a war.

In a way, they had.

The League regarded them with expressions ranging from concern (Superman) to clinical assessment (Batman) to barely concealed fury (Wonder Woman, though not directed at them). The holoscreens behind the assembled heroes flickered with news footage, and this time, the story was different.

"SOVIET PRESIDENT SURVIVES ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT"

"YOUNG LEAGUE HEROES SAVE MAKAROV IN KREMLIN BATTLE"

"GOTHAM, MOSCOW, WINTER SOLDIER FAILS SECOND MAJOR TARGET"

The coverage was almost universally positive. President Makarov had made good on his promise, the Soviet Union's official statement praised the Team's bravery, called them heroes, and emphasized the cooperation between East and West. The political win was significant.

But everyone in the room knew the truth beneath the headlines.

"Report.", Batman said, and the single word carried the weight of expectation and judgment.

Aqualad stepped forward, wincing slightly as weight settled on his injured knee. His voice was steady, professional, the voice of someone delivering bad news they'd had time to process.

"Mission objective accomplished. Soviet President Alexander Makarov survived the assassination attempt with minor injuries. He is currently in stable condition at an undisclosed Soviet medical facility under heavy guard. Soviet casualties include 4 platoons, 80 to 200, dead; an estimated 500 wounded; all military and security personnel. No civilian casualties."

He paused, jaw tightening.

"The Winter Soldier escaped during the confusion. We were unable to apprehend or neutralize him."