A/N: As always, thanks to Momma Michaels and Erin Meier for the beta-ering!

“Catcher”

Chapter Three B: Dead Ghost Still Walking

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“You’re being unreasonable.”

“I’m just saying—”

“You’re never just saying.”

“Maybe I would if you wouldn’t keep cutting me off,” Roy grumbled as he meandered next to Wally. “I’m just saying that if Green Arrow took on Flash, all G.A. would have to do is turn on a lamp.”

“And all Aquaman would have to do is crush the puny land lovers,” Garth interjected, taking a sample from the Chinese restaurant.

Wally stole the entire plate, leaving the man to do a double-take at his now empty hand. “You sound like a pirate.”

“Please,” Donna scoffed. “Boys and their macho attitudes. Diana is a princess as well as a warrior. She does not need super strength to outwit either one of your mentors.”

“And the Flash could run circles around her.”

“Uh, not with the power of Hermes on her side.”

Dick rolled his eyes as he felt another pound in his head. This was what was important? God, there were so many more imperative issues to be discussing—like just what the hell Dusan was doing here, let alone how it was possible. With his hands stuffed in his pocket, he hid his shaking and glanced about the food court. No long, flowing white hair stuck out amongst the crowd, but he didn’t take a sigh of relief. It just meant he was either hallucinating or being watched. Both scenarios unnerved him.

“Okay, Dick, settle this, will you?” Wally said, screeching to a stop at Dick’s side. “Who would win? Diana or Barry? C’mon. You know you totally want to say ‘Barry.’”

“Uh-huh.” Roy wrapped an arm about Dick’s neck. “Don’t try to influence the judge. And it’s Ollie anyway.”

Dick never even made eye contact as he glanced about the mall. “My father has an entire league of trained killers at his beck and call. Your mentors would not even know they were being hunted until they were dead.”

That, of course, won him a few blank stares before Roy reclaimed his arm. “Uh, Richard al Ghul? We want Dick Grayson back. He’s so much cooler.”

“I agree.”

The new, lighter voice jerked Dick out of his mindset. Suddenly, the last three years or the fact that he was being stalked by a ghost didn’t matter. Now that she was here, all was right with the world.

Dick pivoted on his heel to look up. “Bar—” And his eyes fell to the woman in the wheelchair. “—bara?”

Barbara Gordon’s red ponytail had a life of its own as she cocked her head to the side to regard him with a sassy smirk. Her glasses gave way to her vibrant emerald eyes, while her turtleneck held her in the wrong—or right—places. Her jeans were tighter than should have been legally allowed, but since he was used to seeing her in tights, he hardly noticed.

She was beautiful, radiant. The years, if at all possible, made her even more astounding. His breath caught in his throat as he continued to stare at her before his eyes drifted down to the chair. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight of her legs confided to its contents, the once world-class gymnast bound to the wheelchair.

Batgirl…in a wheelchair.

“What’s the matter, short pants?’ she asked with a loving smirk. “Bat got your tongue?”

“What happened, Babs?” he murmured ten minutes later once he found his voice again.

Donna had taken the other Titans away while Garth and Roy fought over where to eat—Saladworks or Long John Silvers, leaving Barbara and Dick alone to catch up. When they found an empty seat, Dick sunk into it while Barbara went for food and stared to a space for what seemed like forever, his hotdog forsaken on his plate.

Barbara squirted some ketchup on hers. “Life happened, kiddo.”

He narrowed his eyes, knowing subconsciously his glare mimicked Batman’s. “Specifics?”

“What is it with you Batboys and your demands? Seriously? And it’s not all about me, y’know. What about you? Where have you been off gallivanting?”

Dick crossed his arms on the table and looked away. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Funny, that’s what your big, scary partner said.”

“He’s not my partner anymore.”

“No, maybe not, but he is still something to you,” she smiled and shoved the edge of her dog into her mouth. “And he’s worried.”

“Batman doesn’t get worried.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Her flippant tone drew his eyes back to her, and she leaned forward to whisper, “He’s freakin’ scared.”

Dick snorted and finally picked up his hotdog. “Please. Bruce—”

“—couldn’t find you, Dick. As far as he was concerned, you could have been dead. The only hope he clung was he never found a body.” She straightened her glasses and stole his hotdog from his hands. “He figured if someone was going to kill you, they would have wanted him to find your moldy carcass.”

“Thanks for the love, Babs.”

She bit into his hotdog. “I’m all heart, Short Pants, but really, think about it.”

“I have thought about it.” He scowled. “I’m tired of thinking about it, about Ra’s, about everything.”

“Dick—”

“It’s not like I wanted this to happen, you know.”

“Oh, and I did?” she pierced.

Dick brought his head back. His eyes softened, and a cord within his chest broke. “No,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean that.”

A soft, smooth hand cupped his before clutching his hand. “I know. It’s okay.”

“No, no it’s not. Maybe…” He closed his eyes and wished with all his heart when he opened them again, she would be standing. “Maybe if I would have been there, whatever happened wouldn’t have, and you would—”

He felt the hand coming toward him but couldn’t raise a hand to prevent the sharp sting across his cheek.

“Don’t you say that! Don’t you ever say that!” Barbara shrieked. “What happened was not your fault.”

“Then maybe Bruce wouldn’t have been preoccupied—”

“Bruce wasn’t there.”

“But maybe—”

“I opened my damn door!” She shook his shoulders until he met her watery eyes again. “The Joker came after me because I’m the police commissioner’s daughter, not because I was—who I was.”

Her arms quivered as she retracted them and held herself like she was cold, and he did the same.

“And my father blames himself,” she continued lowly as her cheeks flushed and the tears trickled from her reddened eyes. “And Batman. He feels if the Joker would have been stopped sooner, then this—” She patted her left wheel. “—this wouldn’t have happened.”

Dick didn’t want to know, yet the words somehow found a way through his lips. “That’s why the Bat Signal doesn’t light the sky.”

Barbara nodded. “Bruce wasn’t even in Gotham at the time.”

Dick paused. “…What?”

“Yes, that’s why Dad was so mad. He believes he trusted Batman with his city, and at the time of her greatest need, Batman let her down.” Barbara’s trembling hands tore off sections of her napkin. “He didn’t, though. After all he did for Gotham, you’d think she would have supported him in his time of greatest need.”

Dick didn’t want to meet her eyes, didn’t want to see the pain reflecting within them, and the question he feared to know the answer to, he now needed.

“Where was—”

“Dick…” Barbara wiped the tears from her eyes. “Batman hadn’t been seen in Gotham for over three years. The first time he returned was a little over two months ago.”

When Dick returned.

The tears curved his cheeks, and he came about the table to grab her.

He wasn’t strong enough, he knew now. If he had broken away from Ra’s, if he would have found a way to get home, to get to Gotham and—and…

He even returned to Ra’s once.

He collapsed to the ground and buried his face in her stomach. “I’m sorry,” he wept over and over, “I’m so sorry…”

As strongly as Dick clutched her, Barbara clutched him back and ran a hand through his raven locks. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I’m sorry…”

He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, holding her to him and begging for her forgiveness before she grabbed his chin and raised it.

“Go to them.”

He blinked at her.

“You’re not apologizing just to me,” Barbara said weakly, urging him off his knees. His legs refused to hold him, though. “You haven’t seen them since you’ve come back, have you? Go to them. Tell them what you refuse to tell Bruce and me.”

*^*^*

There wasn’t much that scared Dick Grayson anymore. A fear of wooden-talking puppets was still one of them. Spiders were another, but he had learned to suppress those and use them for strength.

There was no suppressing this one.

He had dreaded this since his father gave him this mission. He had been avoiding it, making excuses to Alfred when he first offered to take him. Dick didn’t want to come, didn’t want to face them. Even more so than Bruce, they would be disappointed. Bruce had teetered on the edge for so long; he, at least, could sympathize (maybe).

Mary and John Grayson had no point of reference.

As Dick navigated his way through the gravestones, he gulped. There was no way to turn it into strength and use against his enemy, for this time, there was no enemy—other than himself.

Dick slowed to a halt before a certain forsaken and unkempt grave. The natural elements had pounded the granite over the last few years, weathering the edges and lightening the rock. Vines choked its torso, while crinkled, brown leaves littered its base. Pulling his jacket closer about his body, he knelt before the stone and brushed back the vines with his warm hand. His fingers ran over the cold name, the surname that had been stripped of him three years ago.

“Hi Mom, Dad…” He sucked in a shivering breath. “I’m sorry it’s been so long…”

Too long.

“I’m sorry…about everything…”

Barbara broke the dam, and now, as he bowed his head, the tears flowed like rivers through the crevasses of his face.

“There is no excuse, is there? I try to tell myself I had to do what I had to do to survive.” He leaned his forehead against the stone wording, pushing his bangs up. “And I didn’t want to—I went for his shoulder. I never dreamed—I never wanted—God, I never thought it would be like this. When you…died, I never thought I’d be Batman’s partner, and I never thought I’d be…” His eyes snapped shut, and he shook his head. “I never wanted that. I never wanted any of this. Why does it have to be this way?”

He choked back the sobs. “I know what you’re thinking. I can change this, but I can’t. No matter what I do, I can never be redeemed. Bruce says he knows, but he can’t. He can’t even begin to fathom what I’ve done, and—and I couldn’t face him if he ever did.

“I guess I just have to realize the past is gone. You’re gone, and soon, I will be, too.” He leaned back on his haunches but never did his fingers leave the stone. “Soon, this will all be over, and finally, we’ll be together again.”

“The Master does not tolerate failure, disobedience even less.”

The cold voice froze Dick in his position, as the hair upon the back of his neck stood on end. Numb, he didn’t feel anything but the lightheadedness attacking his being and the sudden punch that stole the wind from his lungs, leaving a dull burning sensation eating away at his soul. Wide-eyed, he stared over his shoulder at the towering figure standing behind him, casting a shadow across his body in the moonlight. Long, glistening white hair dove down from the man’s head, while the shadows of the night bore deep into crevasses of the aged man’s face. A black trench coat dusted against the blades of grass and eventually fell to them, revealing the white fighting suit.

“…Dusan?” Dick muttered as his trembling eyes searched the familiar man’s face. “It’s—It’s not possible…”

“Come now, boy. Haven’t you learned?” The man took a step forward, his hands forming fists as he neared. “Nothing is impossible.”

*^*^*

Roy kicked a stone with the tip of his sneaker and avoided looking at the rows of gravestones. Death wasn’t something he took lightly, even though it happened in his life enough for him to be familiar with it.

His mother. His father. Brave Bow.

Dick.

Rubbing his forearm absently, Roy closed his eyes and could practically feel the fear coursing through his veins again when he awoke in the JLA infirmary after the attack, Ollie’s weight and warmth against his side where the man sat. With a thick, terse voice, Ollie bit out that Dick was missing, and the Teen Titans would be no more. His guardian left less than a minute later, and the first thing Roy did was roll over and call Dick’s cell phone, only to hear that the number had been disconnected.

Less than twenty-four hours later and already, his best friend’s life was being erased.

His own life eventually became erased.

God, he needed a jolt right now.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Roy averted his eyes from the wooded area to Wally’s foot against the ground.

“Dude, does he have to take so long?” Wally complained.

“Dude, do you have to do that?” Roy retorted.

“Hey, I’d stop if he’d come out. He’s been in there for, like, ever.”

Garth sighed. “We have to give him time. He hasn’t seen his parents in three years. He probably has a lot to tell them.”

“And a lot to tell us, but you don’t hear him singing,” Roy grumbled.

“Because he is not ready,” Donna eased. “He will be...” She looked longingly toward the cemetery. “I hope.”

“Where is he!”

Roy jerked at the sudden cry, and he whirled toward the harsh voice, only to see no one. Then, before his eyes, the air darkened, shifted, and a green man in black shorts, a cape, and a black X across his chest stood before the four teens.

“Where is he?” Martian Manhunter demanded again.

Wally zipped in front of the alien and thumbed at the path leading to the graves. His voice trembled as if blurting a wrongdoing to an angered uncle. “H—He’s in there, visiting his parents.”

“And you let him go unaccompanied?”

The incredulity of the alien’s voice plucked a cord within Roy, and with clenched fists, he stepped forward. “Hey, we thought he’d want some privacy. Where’s the harm in that?”

“Pray we don’t find out,” Manhunter snapped as he took flight.

*^*^*

The metallic liquid rolling over his tongue wasn’t anything new to Dick, especially when the pain had been administered from White Ghost. The man, despite his elder exterior, kicked harder, punched fiercer, and pushed Dick to a sweat faster than any opponent the teen had faced prior, including the Batman. Though Dick knew the Batman could surely defeat White Ghost, never had Bruce fought Dick with hatred.

Hissing, Dick rolled with the blow to his cheek and managed to stay on his feet. White Ghost advanced still, kicking, punching, and backhanding. Dick finally caught the elbow aimed at his ear and avoided the knockout, but White Ghost retaliated with a knee to Dick’s stomach.

“What’s the matter, boy? Have you seen a ghost?”

Dick felt the blood dribble down his chin, but he focused his attention on the next attack, his mind reeling, his heart throbbing with the agony of the memories. He managed to catch White Ghost’s ankle between his wrists, despite his kneeling position, and he kicked upward to grant himself some distance.

It could never be enough, though. White Ghost didn’t heed—physically or emotionally. “Is there a reason you are holding back? I know you can do better than this. Something tearing at your heart?”

“You can’t be here!” Dick swore as he flipped, allowed his momentum to carry him, and using the trunk of a tree for force. He shot forward. “I—I know you—you—!”

Dick grunted as he finally accepted a kick with his forearm and attacked back with his own knee. White Ghost blocked the attack and hit Dick off balance with a backhand to the cheek.

“You should know better, Richard,” White Ghost condemned as he sauntered forward, his long hair wisping in the gentle breeze. “Master does not tolerate disobedience. He loathes downright defiance.”

Even though his cheek still smarted, Dick dropped his hand from his face and pushed to his feet. “I wasn’t defying him. I just wanted to see my parents.”

“There is no past other than your time with Master. All other events are irrelevant.”

“The past defines who we are. The present defines who will be, and the future is—”

“The future is for you to obey without question, without hesitation, and with conviction.”

Dick averted his eyes and glanced behind him at a particular gravestone. “You—and Ra’s—can separate me from Bruce, beat me, change my name, and play tricks with my mind, but you cannot change who I was. You cannot take my memories from me.”

“Yet there is one memory you wish I could, don’t you?” White Ghost now stood just before Dick, his towering presence casting a shadow over the boy in the moonlight. “The master takes everything, Richard. You should have learned at least that by now.”

He struck almost faster than Dick could block, and the boy gave ground as pain and metal stabbed his shoulder. “I’m a slow learner.”

“Then it would do you best to break that bad habit.”

The shock settled in immediately as he saw the hilt of a dagger sticking out of his skin.

The attack itself didn’t bother him as much as the hilt—black with whirls of gold and a blue crystal on the top. He’d held it twice, covering in blood—his own and another’s—the night he drowned in the world of Ra’s al Ghul.

“Familiar?” White Ghost taunted. “It should be. You sunk it into me once.”

Dick stumbled backwards, knowledge instilled in him by Batman reeling in his mind. The blood wasn’t as severe as it should have been if White Ghost nicked an artery, but if he pulled it out—

Dick grunted as the uppercut caught him in the chin, and before the boy could respond, the older man fell to the ground and kicked out Dick’s legs. Falling backwards, Dick grunted as his head smacked into something hard, and a cool surface touched his lower back where his T-shirt had raised. He knew the feeling upon his once warm skin.

His parents’ gravestone. He was lying against his parents’ gravestone.

His head pounded something fierce, but he still heard the metal scratching metal. He still managed to squint through narrowed eyes at White Ghost, who aimed a gun at Dick. He still managed to push off the ground, roll, and stop on his knees just in time to see the barrage of shots—and the gravestone marking the Graysons’ burial spot to crumble to dust.

He couldn’t move when White Ghost turned the weapon upon him.

“Tonight, Richard, you will learn your place—unworthy of Ra’s al Ghul’s legacy.”

Dick bowed his head. At least now, he wouldn’t have to face Bruce. In that sense, he could find some peace.

As he heard the click, a force knocked him to a ground, and the weight of a bigger being pressed him into the blades of grass, the dagger further into his arm. By the time the weight and the pain lessened, the momentary shock wore off, and Dick raised his head to see a green figure positioned before him, creating an effective barrier between him and White Ghost.

Martin Manhunter was more than a barrier, though. He was a lethal force if need be.

“This boy is under the protection of the Justice League,” Manhunter decreed. “No harm shall come to him.”

“Harm has already come to him,” White Ghost retorted as his hand dipped into his pocket. “But my mission is done. You will have no more provocations on my behalf.”

A soft hand slipped under Dick’s armpit and helped to lift him into a kneeling position. Donna held him close to her and smiled gently, as Roy, Wally, and Garth stood around him like secret service agents to the president.

“And just what is your mission?”

White Ghost pulled out a bottle of a seemingly clear substance and smirked. “I am just a reminder for Richard to do what he’s told—or else.”

He broke the top of the bottle off with the top of a gravestone as he flipped open a lighter. Martian Manhunter flew forward, but the fire erupted in a towering blaze that made a wall between White Ghost and Martian Manhunter, allowing the older man to flee.

Wally started to lunge, but Dick reacted before thinking, snatching the speedster’s wrist. “Let him go.”

“What? You can’t be serious—”

Dick shook his head. “Even if you did catch him, you wouldn’t be able to defeat him.”

He ignored the demoralized look on Wally’s face, and he hadn’t meant to hurt Wally’s feelings. It was a fact, nothing more. White Ghost had trained for hundreds of years, and Dick couldn’t hold a lighter to White Ghost, let alone a candle. Wally would have no chance.

Pushing off of Donna, Dick haggardly rose to his feet and wiped the blood dripping from his chin. “It was you at the mall, wasn’t it?”

As Garth coaxed some water out of a spigot, Martian Manhunter came forward to clasp Dick’s good shoulder. “Batman knew Ra’s would have someone following you, and he feared what would happen once you were with your friends and without League supervision.”

“Hey, we—”

One glare by the furious red eyes of the alien silenced Roy. “You left him alone, vulnerable to an attack you should have seen coming.”

Dick let out a short sigh. It wasn’t Roy’s fault, and he wanted to step in on his friend’s behalf. It was his. As the once leader of the Teen Titans, he should have known that someone would have been after him, but at the moment, his entire being was held captive by the horrific sight of his parents’ gravestone.

Small pieces of stone still crumbled off what remained at the base—the dates of his parents’ births and their deaths.

Martian Manhunter’s gentle voice wafted into his ears. “We need to get you some place safe. I’m…I’m sorry, but this isn’t it. Not anymore.”

Dick pushed off the hand and approached his parents’ stone, his knees buckling under the burden placed upon his shoulders. He somehow managed to reach out. His fingers danced across the pieces, and he raised his head to the heavens, the tears glistening upon his cheeks.

There was nothing to say. Ra’s had stolen everything from him, even the most scared of keepsakes, but nothing, nothing could ever erase them from his memories.

Just like nothing could erase Bruce.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured before a strong hand fell upon his good shoulder, coaxing him to his feet.

*^*^*

Dick hissed as the needle depressed in his bicep, hurting more so than usual. “What was that?” he asked.

Batman brought down the gun and stored it on the tray table where he kept the gauze and antiseptic. “Tetanus shot.”

“Leslie gave me one before I became Robin.”

“You’re sixteen now. You needed a booster.”

Dick ignored the fact that those shots were given out only once every ten years, but fighting with Batman just got one nowhere.

With his shoulder thickly bandaged, Dick watched as Batman concentrated on the cuts and scrapes, wiping antiseptic on band-aids. They worked in complete silence, even though the same could not be said about the Justice League and Teen Titans. The twenty-or-so members crammed into the infirmary, where Dick sat on a bed with his feet dangling over the side. Batman stood in front, meticulously working through each wound.

“So,” Wally started, “just who was that guy, and why was he after you?”

Of course, most of that was spurted with super speed, but Dick understood the main idea. With a heavy sigh, he found Batman’s boots to be just fascinating and didn’t move his attention from them. “His name is White Ghost. He’s….He’s Ra’s al Ghul’s son.”

“Whoa…what?” Ollie snapped, shaking his hands out in front of him. “I thought you were supposed to be—”

“I’m his heir. There’s a difference.” His hoarsened voice lightened with a shake of his head. “I, uh, I don’t know the whole story, and I don’t really care. White Ghost was a product of a union meant to bring Ra’s more power or land or something. When he was born an albino, he was unworthy of the union and the title of ‘son,’ but Ra’s kept him as a servant.”

Roy snickered, “I bet he just loved you.”

“White Ghost was…” Dick sighed, even as Batman put a band-aid over his nose. Did he even have a cut there? “…the one Ra’s made responsible for my conversion to his side.”

“Wait,” Garth interjected. “The man who hates you probably more than anyone else was the one who was supposed to convince you to join his own father as his heir?”
Dick’s eyes slid shut. “…Yes.”

“How’d he do that?” Wally spurted.

“Wally!” Barry chastised.

Dick hardly heard the shout as he subconsciously grabbed the cape Bruce lent him. As the snap of whip caused him to flinch, the words slipped over his lips. “I killed him.”

To Be Continued…