The sedan's tires screamed as Wildcat whipped the car under the Stadium's overhang while gunfire chased them into shadow and rounds sparked off the support pillars until they got out of view.
Barbara pressed herself against the backseat, heart hammering in rhythm with the helicopter's beating blade up above. They weren't safe, not yet, but even a moment of respite from the thoughts of being torn apart was much appreciated.
She hadn't properly caught her breath and stilled her when she heard the wet tearing of flesh coming from the passenger seat.
Barb turned, and paled as she saw Jacques's fingers buried knuckle-deep in his shoulder, digging for the bullet lodged inside while blood ran down his arm in rivulets, dripping onto the carpet. "You doin' alright, kid?"
"Peachy."
Finally, the round came free, held between bloody fingers.
She puked a bit in her mouth as Jacques examined it like he was checking produce at a market, then conjured a Fireball in his palm… Ghostly flames shaped like shrieking skulls with elongated fangs that cast his face in sharp relief.
From her angle, he looked nothing like a hero and everything like a Demon freshly Summoned from the Abyss… Worse still, expetiences told her he would probably wear that comparison like a badge of honor.
Barbara had spent the last hour watching his Shades brutalize criminals. She'd seen them break bones as easily they did breaking minds and spirits, leaving grown men sobbing in the street.
She'd been furious, and wanted nothing more than to lecture him about it all night, about heroism! About doing the right things the right way!
Now, looking at the blood coating his hands and the way his fingers trembled against his shoulder, all of it suddenly died in her throat.
"How are you doing that?" Barbara asked.
"Magic." He dropped the molten slag and pressed his hand against his shoulder where more blood was seeping through.
"What can I do to help?"
Jacques went still, then slowly turned to look at her.
Barbara watched his eyes linger on hers through the crack on his helmet, before travelling down from her eyes to the side of her throat. Instinctively, her hand moved to cover her neck, suddenly hyperaware of the pulses beneath her skin.
"I need blood. Mind donating any?"
She looked at him, then glanced at her mentor who was watching them through the rearview mirror. "She'll not be doing that."
"Ah, go figure."
Barbara couldn't decide if she was grateful he had backed off so quickly, or ashamed that she'd expected him to insist. "At least tell me I can use the door as a frisbee."
"Say what now? Absolutely no—"
Ted hadn't even finished the protest when the sedan's door buckled with a shriek of twisting metal.
"Too late."
"Hey! You don't do that to another man's ride!"
"Or wife," Jacques snickered. "But if you want that fucking helicopter off our backs… And please, don't act like you didn't hotwire this shit off the sidewalks."
"Be that as it may—"
Deadpanning as her mentor and sort-of friend bickered like they had all day, Barbara slumped in her seat. "Men..."
"Zip it, Catgirl."
"The name's a work-in-progress!"
"So's the costume, looks like."
"… That's mean. You're mean."
"I'm a Demon. Kinda comes with the territory." With that, he leaned out of the gaping hole where the door used to be, holding said door in his uninjured arm, clearly just waiting for the helicopter to show itself. "Ted?"
"Yeah... Just so you know, you're paying for that."
"Pft, it's not my money anyway."
"If you miss, I swear to God..."
Barbara closed her eyes and prayed as the sedan swerved right.
She could hold her own in a streetfight, but against a helicopter equipped with a machine gun spitting 4000 rounds per minute, she was just as fragile as any civilian… What happened next was out of her hands.
In the darkness, she felt bullets punch through the sedan's roof.
Bullets that were far too close for comfort even though she'd flattened herself against the seat.
Next came a grunt, Jacques' by the sound of it, then the sound of something flat cutting through the air, followed by a loud shriek of metal.
Barbara opened her eyes in time to watch the helicopter crash through the Stadium's roof, its rotor blade gorging apart the ground inches from their vehicle.
"Strike."
"Th-The people on the helicopter..."
"If they die, they die."
"How can you say that?! Those are people! Those are lives!"
Jacques looked at her, one eye open and one closed, then snorted. "Aren't we people? Are ours not lives? You think they'd have stopped shooting before we were full of holes? Don't be naive, Ms. Gordon."
"B-But!"
"What do you think this is?" Jacques gestured.
Built on the city's outskirts, the Stadium offered an unobstructed view of Gotham. Barbara followed his hand and felt the words catch in her throat. Gotham had never been pretty, not to her. Not to anyone.
It was too dark.
It was too dreary, but it had been theirs, and it had been standing. The city spread before them, meanwhile, was drowning in flames, and what little semblance of functionality had long been consumed, leaving only smoldering ruins. "This isn't crime. Not anymore. This is war. It's full-scale terrorism and thus must be met with the appropriate response… If not to avenge the dead, then to deter the living."
"Bu-But!" Barbara glanced at her mentor, but Ted remained eerily silent, almost as if he tacitly agreed with Jacques' assessment. "Kid's right, Barb. At this point, it's us or them… I'm choosing us."
Defeated, Barbara slumped in her seat as she recalled her encounter four days ago.
While tracking down the kingpins with Ted in an effort to end this nightmare, she'd been distracted and exhausted and taken a bat to her rib. Ted was busy with over a dozen thugs at the time and she would've been used as leverage against him if they hadn't shown up.
They being James Heller and the others under him.
She remembered how she'd felt watching them shoot those men.
She also remembered her attitude toward Resistance afterward, even after they brought her and Ted to their safehouse and nursed the both of them back to health.
They'd told her the same thing back then, though they'd phrased it differently.
Heller even told her he'd bowed to and envied criminals all his life and wanted to stand tall for once, even if only for a few days.
She'd always thought civilians had no business playing judge.
Hypocritical, considering her nighttime activities, but Barbara believed in systems, in laws.
Except those laws weren't protecting anyone, were they? Not the ones who mattered, at least. The guilty got to walk free with enough money while the innocent bled. Even Barbara had to admit the number of times Batman had dragged supervillains in only for them to walk free on bail weeks, if not days later was absurd! That, or the time people like Joker or Scarecrow or any of the hundreds psychos in Gotham got off scott free on grounds of insanity.
And where was the system now that Gotham needed it the most?
Barbara couldn't say, so she simply closed her eyes, hoping sleep would come fast, but right as the last of her consciousness began to blur, something crashed into their rear.
Both she and Jacques lurched forward, then glared daggers at the black SUV tailing them. 'Seriously?' How cliché could these people get? "I'll take care of thi—"
"You stay put!" Both Jacques and Ted shouted, dropping low as rounds tore through what was left of the back window.
"Then you two better think of something fast."
Barbara watched Jacques dig through his utility belt and retrieve a—"Spray?"
"Not just any spray." He flashed grin through the cracked visor and added. "Explosive spray."
Dotting each piece he peeled from the sedan with blue gel that immediately expanded and hardened despite Ted's protests, Jacques tossed each chunk beneath the SUVs, which had grown from one to four while they'd been bickering. Then he deflated in his seat like he'd just been through hell and back, blowing the wheels out from under them without even checking.
"You're not even gonna watch?"
"Cool guys don't look at explosions."
"Urgh… Men."
Rolling his eyes at her offhanded remark, Jacques asked, "Can you guys drop me at this address. I need to restock."
Barbara didn't recognize the address, but he seemed adamant about it.
"You're injured."
"'Tis but a scratch."
Her eyes darted to the fist-sized hole in his shoulder, words of caution already on the tip of her tongue, only to wilt. "It's... It's healing?"
Already?!
It was frankly gruesome, but Barbara found herself fascinated by the stitching flesh as she wondered what it must feel like to be a Meta, then imagined all the good she could do with powers like that.
"Are you immortal?" She couldn't help but ask.
"I've pushed my regeneration before, but I haven't tried the head or heart, or dismemberment. Those are unknowns."
"What do you mean you've 'pushed it'?!"
"Exactly what you're thinking."
Never mind her; even Ted seemed utterly horrified by the revelation, fingers clenched tight around the steering wheel.
"Is that what 'he' made you do?"
"What? No. I need to know my limits if I'm going to be effective in the field. I heal fast anyway."
He flexed his regenerating shoulder, testing the range of motion like the bullet hole didn't exist.
"Pretty sure I can't die from conventional means. If you think this is bad, you should see the training Batman puts himself through to suppress sleep, and the guy doesn't even have a healing factor. He does have Tibetan monk technique, though.
Those fucking monks."
The more Jacques tried to explain, the worse it got… Barbara Gordon had seen a lot of concerning things in Gotham, but a teenager calmly discussing his own vivisection might just top the list. Speechless, Barbara just stared. No wonder he'd laughed at her offer to help all those months ago. Next to him and Batman, her training sessions and competition medals probably looked like child's play.
"A-Are you okay?"
"Just a bit delirious from blood loss. It'll go away soon."
Neither knew what to say to that, so they just stopped, expecting—nay, hoping the rest of the trip to be relatively peaceful, or as peaceful as it could be in a lawless Gotham.
And it was! Until the slumbering Demon suddenly grunted and howled as the scent of burning flesh filled the cabin and cross-shaped burns began to spread across his skin. "Jacques?"
Barbara seized his arm, hauling him back before he could fall through the gaping hole where the door used to be.
"Ted, I think something's wrong with him!"
Before he could answer, black blood sprayed from the backseat and hit the windshield.
"I noticed. There's an underground clinic nearby."
"He's got cross-shaped burns, Ted! What's a doctor supposed to do?"
"Apply salves over the kid's burns for one. It's either that, or the local church which I'm positive will only make it worse… Unless you want to try feeding him your blood?"
"…"
Barbara looked at her palm, then brushed strands of red from her face while prying his helmet off. Jacques claimed he'd 'tested' his healing factor, but she had no desire to find out if he could suffocate in his own vomit.
Laying him sideways across her lap so he wouldn't choke, she brushed aside the matted hair plastered to his head, nearly vomiting herself when her fingers grazed the burnt skin. She didn't know Jacques very well.
In fact, it could be argued she didn't know him at all. She'd thought he saw this as a game, given his theatrical behavior, but this didn't look like a game. Neither did the cross-shaped burns covering his skin that showed no signs of healing.
Fearfully, Barbara reached under his nose, heart stilling when she felt no air coming in or out. "T-Ted? H-H-He's not breathing."
"I-I don't understand... He was fine moments ago." Against her better judgment, Barbara started shaking him, but the more she did, the more terrified she became. "Jacques? Jacques?! Please wake up!"
Barbara begged, pleaded, her shaking turning his head toward her, and she immediately wished it hadn't. Where three eyes should've been, there was only a gaping hole weeping black mud down the side of his face. When did this happen? How did it happen?! And how did she not notice anything?!!
"Ted! Ted, I don't know what to do! He's not breathing and he's bleeding a lot!"
"Barb, remember what I taught you. Deep breath. You're gonna be no help to anyone panicking." Closing her eyes, Barbara took a deep breath, only to gag when she realized the burnt scent wasn't just burnt skin, but his flesh actively boiling beneath the cross-shaped brands.
If there was any silver lining to the entire ordeal, it was that the disgust had overwhelmed her fear and cleared her head long enough to think.
"You feelin' okay?"
Barbara nodded, even though all she really wanted was to puke her guts out at the dark, sticky substance on her gloves.
"Good, check his heartbeat. Now—"
She scarcely remembered what she did afterward, mechanically following Ted's instructions in a trance… It was jacques' heartbeat that snapped her back to reality. His pathetically weak, irregular heartbeat which made her wonder if the organ had forgotten how to properly function.
"I... I think I feel heartbeats."
Although she couldn't be sure.
It might just be her own racing pulse echoing through her fingers.
"I feel heartbeats." She repeated, though part of her wondered if she was lying to herself because the alternative—that he'd died in her arms was too terrifying to accept.
"That's good. Check his mouth if there's anything blocking his airway. If there is, remove it. If there isn't, gently blow into his mouth and keep it up." Ted glanced out the window, then yanked the wheel left. "We're close. Barb, when we get there, you sneak him in. I'll draw their attention. There's a coat in the back. Wrap him in it and change out of your suit."
She mutely agreed, then absentmindly asked.
"They?"
"It's an underground clinic. It's inside an old apartment complex with all kinds of people. Most are not good to begin with."
He muttered, swerving around debris and shrieking thugs alike as he gunned it through an alleyway.
"Imagine what it looks like now."
The sedan hadn't fully stopped before Ted started barking, his voice tight. "Look for the fuse box in a basement. There's hidden door nearby. Tell 'im Ted sent you. Go. Now!"
Barb shoved open the ruined door, hauling Jacques's limp, burning body on her back as she dived into the overgrown bushes lining the walkway where the branches scratched at her face and the thin coat she'd thrown on over he and herself.
She scanned for a basement entrance while dragging Jacques toward the side of the complex.
The building had clearly been ransacked, its old, flimsy lobby doors laying neatly with the pile of garbage strewn across the cracked tile.
Yet, the expected gauntlet of thugs wasn't there. Barbara idly noted a few loiterers huddled around a trash-can fire fifty yards away, but they paid her no mind, and so she responded in kind, her mind focused entirely on scanning the building's foundation until she found a set of concrete stairs leading down into darkness.
Every time she watched a horror movie, Barbara had often wondered why the characters always entered the sketchiest places.
The irony wasn't lost on her as she descended, gagging on the subterranean scent of mold and dirty water while dragging Jacques along. It definitely didn't help that the person she was trying to save had admitted he was a Demon more than once!
"I can't believe I'm doing this. Don't you make this pointless, Jacques… Don't you dare die."
Thankfully, the bank of fuse boxes was just ahead, one of them spitting faint blue sparks in the dark. Her gloved fingers, still tacky with black blood, felt frantically along the concrete seams beside it until her hand finally caught on a recessed latch just as Ted had said.
Before she could pull the latch, the hidden door ground open on its own, revealing a tall, muscular man under the dim light.
He looked as old as Ted, probably in his late fifties, holding himself with the same strength and dignity her mentor did.
His hair was cropped short and platinum-gray, his face carved from weathered granite and defined by deep lines and old scars.
He wore practical, dark scrubs, but what immediately hooked Barbara's gaze were his eyes, which were a piercing, fanatical blue that burned with an intensity completely out of place in this setting.
Then his gaze dropped from her face to the burden in her arms.
"You've come for treatment, child?"
Barbara swallowed, her eyes snagging on his bicep, which looked as thick as her waist.
There were very few people Barbara Gordon truly feared. First was the boy in her arms whom she now pitied more than feared. Then there was Ted the night she saw her take a baseball bat to the chest. And now, there was this man…
He and his gaze that effortlessly pinned her in place.
A gaze that within which a fanatical madness swirled. She was nearly back up the stairs when he said something that instantly halved her suspicion. "Did Theodore send you?"
"You know Ted?"
"He and I exchanged blows more than once in our youth."
The smile he gave her was cold, but carried the barest trace of nostalgia, the kind usually reserved for old rivals who'd earned respect through violence rather than words. Judging by the scars on his bicep, that probably wasn't far from the truth.
"Did he come with you?"
"Teacher's distracting the thugs outside."
She said, ignoring the butterflies in her stomach. Her teacher was a force of nature, but he was also a man pushing sixty, currently drawing an army of thugs away by himself. The thought of his age finally catching up to him, of him being overwhelmed and killed was more distracting than Barbara cared to admit.
She forced her focus back to the mountain of a man in front of her.
Ted was tough; Jacques was dying.
"Can you help him?" Her hands fumbled with the coat, pulling it back to expose Jacques's battered form still weeping black fluid onto her clothes and his. "Can you fix this?"
The man's fanatical eyes lingered on the boiling, cross-shaped brands, his expression utterly unreadable. As the silence strangled the little hope she had left, he suddenly nodded. "I'll tend to this one." Then his gaze flicked over her and toward the stairs she'd just descended from. "Go help him."
Barbara looked at Jacques' face, at the stairs where the distant sounds of fighting were already fading, then back at the boy again. "Please," Finally, she said said, voice cracking slightly as she turned the Imp to the doctor. "Please take care of him."
"I will."
"Thank you, Mr...?"
"Jean-Paul Ludovic Valley."
He replied, taking the fully-armored boy with an ease that belied his age, but not his stature.
"You can call me Jean."
In her hastiness, she never questioned why the supposed 'clinic' was utterly silent, why she saw no other patients, or heard no moans of the injured… She never even questioned why Jean-Paul was waiting at that door as if he had known she was coming! It wouldn't even occur to her until Ted himself mentioned it.
How terrible it'd have been if Jean-Paul had meant him ill! How terrible indeed.
"But God demonstrates his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
● Alt-Title—Romans 5:8