It had been a normal patrol, a quiet night in Gotham which was rare. But she was enjoying it. Until she landed on a roof that was apparently rotten and waiting for something to land on it so it could collapse. Crashing down and landing ever-so-gracefully on her back, Dinah looked around at the old, dilapidated attic. No one had been up here in years, as she could tell from the thick layers of dust over all of the equipment. Getting up, she wandered over to look at what looked like an old chemistry set all still set up on the table. It wasn’t the usual meth lab gear, that she would have recognized right away. This. This was something more serious. She walked carefully around, checking for traps before she put her foot down on a new plank of wood. The whole place felt soft and ready to collapse around her with each step and she was just about to leave when she spotted old canisters stacked against the wall. She couldn’t just leave everything here for some criminal to find without knowing what was in them.

Slowly, she stalked over, filtering her lenses, trying to get a better look at what the canisters said. There were words, but they were covered in the dust so she gently wiped one of the sides down. She sighed. Nothing but the basic warning of contents under pressure. She looked back toward the lab table, spotting a notebook and wandered back over to it. One look at the page and she knew what was in those canisters.

Jonathan Crane’s lab notes were rather meticulous in the beginning. She could see his trial and error written down with such a precise hand, such care. But there were someone else’s notes in the margins. Notes about what additives did what with which mixture and how much of each. Dinah’s head whipped around, realizing someone had tried to recreate and maybe even improve upon the Scarecrow’s work. And the stuff in the canisters must be what was left over of their early attempts. That stuff was lethal. She was going to need help getting rid of it.

While reading over more of the notes, the lines started to blur and melt together just before she saw a spider crawling along the page. Dinah froze and looked at her hands, turning them over slowly. They were covered in dust. But the dust, upon closer inspection, was yellow. The canisters had been yellow and had thrown her off. And she had kicked up all that dust falling in and moving around. Looking around, everything was covered in it, like there had been an accident. And that’s why no one had been in here in awhile. She was really starting to rethink her costume design on days like these. Full face masks seemed to look better and better all the time.

Sinking to the floor, Dinah tried not to freak out as the world spun out from under her. Spiders started to crawl up and down her arms and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore the sensation pricking at her skin. She pulled out her comm and tried to call for help, but the whole thing turned into a giant, hairy spider in her hand and she freaked out, throwing it across the room. Way to go, Grayson. Now how are you gonna call for backup?

Opening her eyes, Dinah muffled a scream with her fist, looking into the black, beady, lifeless eyes of her childhood nightmare. She hadn't thought of him in years, but he was always lurking in her head, always there on a bad trip or drunken binge. She took a breath, telling herself he wasn't real, that his long, spindly fingers weren't going to pick out her eyeballs and use them like puppets.

“Phone…” a little indicator light blinked in the corner of her vision before scurrying away on eight little legs. She let out a small gasp before getting her voice back. “Call Herald.”

She heard the ringing begin as it dialed out, the sound warping into a laugh. Flinching away from the sound and away from her boogeyman, she didn't see the indicator confirm it was calling Red Hood.

“It's not real. It's not real.” she told herself as she got to her feet and tried to make it to the door. The handle wouldn't budge, rusted shut after all these years.

Diiiiiinaaaah she felt more than heard her name being whispered as his long finger dragged itself up her spine. She struck backwards blindly, trying to get the sensation to stop.

“You're not real!!”

The Red Hood had just finished brokering another deal with his contact. Mr. Locke was helping him move materials and pieces of his plan into Gotham. A few more weeks and he'd be ready to move. He had a little newfound capital to invest thanks to the paychecks of one Scarlet Speedster. Owen had helped save the Titans along side a mercenary group he put together and was paid rather handsomely for it. He'd helped save some kids and got some more funds to invest in the plan. His brother's healthcare had been paid up for the time being, and he'd put enough money away to cover it for now. So, the plan took center stage.

The phone rang in his mask HUD. Normally, he wouldn't take it but it was Dinah Gray's number and Owen was fairly sure he would never hear from her again. He looked over to Locke. "A moment Mr. Locke. I have an important call coming in."

The other man gave a clipped response with a German accent. "Ja, just don't make me wait too long. Time is money."

Red Hood shook his head. "You'll be paid for your time. Same as usual." He tapped a button on his glove to answer the call. "John Wayne, go ahead." The line was filled with Dinah's panicked voice. She either called on purpose to get his help or accidentally dialed him. Either way, he was concerned. Owen looked over to Locke as he began triangulating the call on his laptop. "Make it a standard order. Draw from the usual accounts. Take a bonus for yourself as well. Call it 15%. I need to go. I have an emergency."

Locke nodded as Red Hood climbed out the window and fired his grapnel. The map on his HUD was showing that it was narrowing down the lock on her. Luckily, for him, she left the line open. He came closer to the signal, noticing that it was an abandoned building. Not for the first time tonight, Owen wondered if he was going into a trap. Another scream and he decided that he didn't care. Red Hood fired a grapnel directly at the side of the building and hit the retract button. He went flying towards a boarded up window and crashed through it.

After doing a momentary check, he saw Nightwing flailing about, screaming at things. But why would Nightwing have Dinah's... Oh, he was a world class idiot. Pieces started connecting rather rapidly in his brain. Owen looked around and saw that the place was some kind of chemistry lab. Dinah had been exposed to something. He pulled off his helmet and mask. Jason had said something about this before. Fear Toxin. Scarecrow. He reached into his belt and grabbed an anti-toxin.

He blocked a flailing arm. Then another. Time to try diplomacy. That was always his strong suit. Sure. "Dinah, it's John. I came here to save you. You've been exposed to Crane's fear toxin. I need to give you an antidote. Can you stop fighting me and let me come close?"

Dinah had called up on every bit of willpower she had not to devolve into an incoherent mess. The horrible sense of vertigo she had was making her feel sick. She forced herself to breathe evenly so she didn't hyperventilate, but it was hard. Panic and fear had flooded her system and was trying to override all of her instincts.

She clung to the wall next to the door, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to use her other senses to guide her. It was futile. Keeping her eyes closed made the vertigo worse and she could feel the thing lurking, hovering just in front of her, whispering her name. At the sound of an explosion, which she wasn't sure was exactly what it sounded like, her eyes opened and a fresh wave of panic went through her. A monster stood in the middle of the room, which seemed to be melting. Probably because his head was on fire and he was coming straight for her.

She swung wildly at him and yelled as he seemed to take off his head. He got closer and his voice was garbled and screeching but she heard a few things that caught her attention; John and antidote.

“JJ?” she fought the urge to run away or strike out. “Did…did dad send you?” she hoped she wasn't just rambling to another hallucination, that there was someone actually there to help her. And if there was someone there….

“The dust…don't touch-”

Dinah…Diiiinaaah

Dinah froze as her blood ran cold. She looked beyond the man with no head and saw her mother standing there. All Dinah could do was stare as she rushed forward, right through Mr. Headless and jammed her hand hand into Dinah’s chest. Then there was a sharp pain as she began to squeeze her heart.

“Ah! ...AH! MOM PLEASE-AH!”

I don't think you need this anymore Didi, you never use it anyway. Why don't you just give it to me? You know I deserve it more. What have you done for the world to deserve it? I gave my life you ungrateful child!

Dinah clutched at her chest trying to pull the hand out but she couldn't get a grip on anything. She slumped against the wall behind her and slid to the floor, unable to stand any longer. Her chest felt like it was in a vize and even breathing was becoming difficult. Some part of her mind knew her heart was just beating too fast and there wasn't actually her mom's hand in her chest, trying to kill her. But that part was small and quiet, unable to reason with the rest of her. She looked up, beyond her mother having a small moment of clarity this close to death.

“I heard antidote…now would be good.”

Their was a ringing sound in Owen's head, as a blow connected solidly with his face. He'd let one of her flailing blows slip through. Then the swinging stopped and Dinah called him JJ and asked if her father had sent him. It caused his heart to ache as Owen saw her in this wide eyed, animalistic mode. Her comment about the dust, resonated with him though. Hood looked around and saw that the dust covered every surface. And his heart went cold. His eyes locked on the helmet on the ground. The helmet with the air filter. The same helmet that he just removed.

It was too late now. He'd inhaled enough of it. Owen had a second vial, but priorities were just that. Dinah charged him and Owen barely managed to sidestep, before she fell down and screamed for her mother. Owen rushed to her side and she said something with the clarity that only the dying and the truly helpless could say. Owen leaned in and injected her with the anti-toxin. He leaned in and pulled her close, grabbing for the helmet.

"Shhh... It's okay, Dinah. It's Owen. I came back for you. I'll keep you safe."

He slipped the helmet over her head, gently. The air filters would keep her from being exposed to more until the anti-toxin could do its work. Flashes started happening around him. Blurry shapes. Owen scoffed and reached into his belt, pulling another vial out and slamming it into his leg, injecting himself. The formula had been changed some how. He knew this anti-toxin wouldn't be as effective on this stuff. If he could get Dinah back to his base, he could give her another dose to help her. He just had to keep it together long enough. He was the acceptable casualty here. Not her.

Owen slipped the domino mask back on and slipped an arm under her. "Come on, Songbird. Time to get going. If we stay here, one or both of us is going to die. You're too pretty for that." He hefted Dinah to her feet and moved for the stairs. He'd steal a car or something. The plan would have to do. It was the best he could come up with. It would work. Owen would make sure of it or die trying.

Dinah felt the grip on her heart lessen and breathing become easier, even as she weakly struggled away from the talking head being put on top of hers. It felt confined and suffocating but it smelled familiar, so she didn't try and take it off. It was taking most of her effort to just breathe again. It was becoming slightly easier to rationalize what she saw or what she felt; that there wasn't actually a boa constrictor trying to hold her but a person. But a name, his name, shot through her head like a pinball in a machine, lighting up long forgotten memories that were so fuzzy and hazed out she wasn't sure they were real. But the name stuck, and ricocheted around in her head like she'd hit the multiball.

"...Owen..." she let out, in between labored breaths. The name felt strange to say after so long but she knew it felt right. The walls were still melting and her skin felt like it was absolutely littered with spiders and their tiny little legs crawling all over her, but she found an anchor point. Something to grab onto. The name; a pull toward her memories instead of all this mess. She slipped an arm over his shoulders even as the room spun out beneath her, she forced herself to hold. She would not go down to fear.

"Right...we are just too pretty for god to let us die." Once they hit the stairwell, she started to freak out again. The whole thing looked like the inside of an airplane fuselage and every step was more turbulence. She stumbled a bit before slapping her hand on the wall for balance and holding onto him as they walked.

"No...nonononono. It's not real. We're not in a plane...we're...walking...somewhere." Her foot reached out slowly, testing the next step, Dinah trying to override the effects with what her other senses were telling her. There was solid material under her feet, there was a handrail next to her and it seemed rather narrow. Stairs. Had to be stairs. So she'd take them. One step at a time.

Voices assaulted Owen from all sides. Even with the anti-toxin, Red Hood was still breathing in the dust. He was glad Dinah was wearing the helmet now. He heard his brother and his parents telling him how he failed them. Owen shook it away. "Yeah, yeah. I'm a failure. Got it. Knew that. You can berate me later. I've got shit to do now." He brought the anger up. Let it loose from that well he kept it in and used it to armor himself. He just needed to protect himself a bit longer. Just to get Dinah out.

Dinah breathed his name. It snapped Owen back for a second. Old memories came rushing to surface. They only made him angrier. "Damn right, we are." The walls were starting to melt. That wasn't good. The antidote was working, but it wasn't going to be pleasant. They turned a corner and he saw his parents there as zombies. Owen let out a pained gasp and jumped. He threw a batarang into the shadows and heard it connect with the wall and nothing else. He pushed the shock down with anger fueled by his emotions. It was just a hallucination. That was all he had to remind himself. There would be plenty of time to have a break down later. Red Hood just had to keep pushing.

"No, not a plane. Just a hallway. We're going down the stairs now. Turn at the zombies." They started down the stairs. Dinah was struggling to get down them, but Owen managed to support her. As they neared the bottom, Owen saw the door, boarded and chained up. Normally, he would have tried to be subtle. There wasn't time for subtle. He drew a batarang out and pressed the button, activating the charge. It was a clumsy throw, but it stuck in the wood. If he were in his right mind, he wouldn't have risked explosives in the building, but honestly, he'd let the place burn if it went up. The things upstairs needed to go.

The sound bafflers in the helmet should protect Dinah, but he still pulled her close and said, "Fire in the hole." There was a muted explosion as the wooden board shattered. Owen kicked the rest of it out and got them out onto the sidewalk. He saw an older pick up truck next to them and smashed out the window with his elbow. He attempted to help Dinah slide in to the passenger seat and then started hot wiring it.

Owen's vision was starting to swim. He only had to make it a few blocks. He reached over and grabbed Dinah's leg, giving it a squeeze. "Hey, stay with me, huh? One of us has to make it out of this. It should probably be the better looking of the two." The truck lurched into motion. He kept it going for about two blocks before the road started to get fuzzy. He closed his eyes and started breathing deeply for a moment, while the light was red. They were clearer upon opening them.

Then he heard Will's voice. "Just give it up, big brother. You're just going to fail her like you did everyone else."

Red Hood gritted his teeth. "Yeah. It's me. That's a given. It's just not going to be today." The truck came to a stop in front of his building. He'd dispose of it later. There just wasn't time now. Owen struggled out of the driver seat and helped Dinah out. He hobbled up the steps and punched a code into a hidden key pad. The door, disguised as another boarded up door, slid back and to the side, allowing them entry.

As Owen stumbled into the room with Dinah, he noticed the zombies were back again. "If you two are just going to stand there, you could at least do something. Tell me to go to the Dagobah system or something." He helped Dinah onto the bed, before fumbling through his things for the last vial of anti-toxin. It was strong and a relative unknown, but one vial left between the two of them? There was no second guess. He gave Dinah another shot of it, in the hopes of helping her clean it out of her system. Then he helped her out of the helmet and took her mask off for her. He'd manage on his own. He'd either get through it or he wouldn't. The empty vial clattered on the floor. He curled up next to her in the bed. It was going to be a long night.

Dinah kept looking over at the man who was helping her down the stairs, yes, they were stairs. They had to be stairs, and she kept getting glimpses of a real person there, underneath all the nightmare. But she would blink and it was gone. She didn't see the zombies he mentioned, but she assumed he could see better than she could at the moment. He threw something at the emergency exit door and pulled her in close. She hung onto him as he said the international phrase for stuff is gonna blow up, and tried not to freak out when it did, in fact explode.

There was a loud rushing sound as wind flew out the new hole in the side of the plane. Someone was pulling her toward it and she struggled not to go. She wasn't going to jump out of a damn plane. It's not real, Dinah! She stopped struggling just in time to see the door she was going through was not a hole in the side of the plane, just a busted door. "Not a plane, yes, you're right." She let herself be put into the passenger seat of a truck, not even batting an eye at the obvious felony. She grabbed his hand as he patted her leg, looking over at him and blinking a few times. She was definitely still hallucinating. She could swear Red Hood was driving the truck.

"You're not real. You're another hallucination.” she she choked out a laugh, half mad. Then he smile fell as she looked forward again. "Oh god...I'm dead aren't I? Or in a coma. Has to be a coma. Death wouldn't be this uncomfortable. I'm still on the floor in that stupid house, my call didn't get out and I'm gonna die any moment now. Tomorrow's headline is gonna be a doozy ‘Rockstar found dead in an abandoned house dressed as superhero’. The press will have a fucking field day.” Dinah continued to ramble on and on just to ignore the other talking heads that were trying to get her attention; former band mates, producers she used to work with and had fired, and the loudest, her former manager.

You're too fat, Dinah

No one wants to listen to a fat rock star

Smile once and awhile. You need to look pretty

Take these pills, you don't need to eat today

“Shut up, shut up! Shut the fuck up I don't have to listen to you anymore!” she punched the dashboard of the car, her first going right through the talking, taunting head.

You're a hack and you'll never get anywhere in this business. They don't like you, your powers will just force them to like you. Everything you do is a lie! 

"SHUT UP!" she clamped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, taking a breath and expelling it through her nose. She counted to 3 and did it again before opening her eyes, noticing they had parked and and she was haing the worst sense of deja vu ever. She gaped at Owen as he opened the door, still a scruffy 18 year old like she last saw him. She just continued to stare at him as they both stumbled inside. She felt like a teenager again, drunk or high on something, breaking into some abandoned building. She crashed into something soft and watched him dig around for something before coming back at her with a needle.

"No...no more drugs...we did that already...I'm clean..." She weakly batted at his hand as he gave her the shot before pulling of the helmet on her head and her mask. As he curled up next to her, Dinah reached out for him, putting her hand on his face, trying to determine if he was a hallucination. He had to be. She hadn't seen him in 8 years. And he still looked the same.

“You're not really here...You disappeared. I checked.” she said soberly, remembering the frantic checks at all the shelters and dreading trips to the morgues. “You literally fell off the face of the earth."

Red Hood's hand squeezed Dinah's. "No, not a hallucination. You called me. I think you meant to call John, but dialed me instead. Besides, you're wearing far more clothing than most rockstars. So, even if that was remotely true, which it isn't, they probably wouldn't say anything other than saying you had fetish for spandex and leather."

After getting her inside and laying down, Owen just whispered in Dinah's ear. "Shh. It's just more antidote. It'll help you get this fear toxin out of your system." Owen's vision started to swim. He reached up and pulled his own domino mask off and tossed it aside, leaning against Dinah and inhaling the scent of her shampoo. The voices were coming back again. But he wouldn't give into them. Not again. He'd already done it once.

The touch of Dinah's hand felt like magic. He leaned into it and snuggled against it. "I had to. I was bad for you. You needed to help, and I was just in the way and a mess. I would have only helped to drag you down." His lips touched her cheek. "I got some help too. From an unlikely source, but there were conditions. Terms, I had to follow." He could see Jason's shadow out of the corner of his eye. The voice telling him that he wasn't good enough.

Owen looked over to the shadow. "I know I wasn't good enough. That's why I left. Damnit. I know. I wouldn't have been a good Red Robin or a decent Red Hood." He paused. It was only a hallucination. "Damnit. I think I got a bigger dose than you, songbird. I'm a little messed up still."

Somewhere between inhaling and exhaling, Dinah's world began to clear. The haze that surrounded her thoughts melted away and the voices, all telling her she was a fraud, all died away. Between one blink and the next, Owen, her Owen, disappeared, leaving her with a familiar face. John. The biggest pain in her ass in awhile. And yet...looking at him, she could see all the years of anger and hate and frustration and guilt, but he still had the same sad blue eyes. It was then that she knew. On some subconscious level she had known since she first laid eyes on him, but had simply refused to believe it.

"Oh, Owen you idiot..." She let out in a small gasp, a ghost of a smile tugging at her lips. As soon as she said them, the words solidified in her mind that yes, this was him. He hadn't simply disappeared like so many other street kids. He started talking about getting help and terms he had to follow and her mind connected the dots. He was trained, that much she knew. His style was familiar to her, and she could take a wild stab at just who had giving him "terms" and she was going to have to strangle her Uncle Jay. But she could do that later. Owen seemed to be suffering from the fear toxin as well.

Tearing her eyes away from him for a moment, but refusing to take her hand away, she looked around. This had to be his little hide away. She had called him, she was pretty sure on accident, and he had saved her. Now it was her turn. She spotted the discarded anti-toxin on the floor and frowned, looking at the open drawer, empty of another. "Of course you don't have another one..." she said mostly to herself as she came back to look at him. There were so many emotions flooding through her at that moment as her body got rid of the last of the toxins, and she couldn't reign them all in. She wanted to yell at him, punch him, shake him, hold him, kiss him senseless. But he was looking behind her at someone. Someone not there. She grabbed his face with both of her hands and made him look at her.

"Owen....Owen look at me. Hear my voice. Don't listen to anything else. I'm real. Ok? And you're going to listen to me you asshole because I have shit to say to you." Emotions made the words feel like syrup in her mouth, and it was a chore to get her lips to form the words she wanted to say. But she took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. "Thank you. Do you hear me? Thank. You. I don't care if you weren't good enough or what the f*ck ever. You were what I needed right then. You saved me. I hadn't been allowed to grieve, to express myself. My asshole of a producer wanted me to finish my album come hell or high water, dead mom or not. And when you met me...I...was a hot mess. But you let me just be angry and emotional and express things I had to bottle up inside. It may have not been the healthiest ways to do it, but it helped me. You helped me. And even though, when you just disappeared I was a mess, but I was still better than when you found me."

Sights and sounds swirled around him. The toxin still burned in Owen's veins but not as badly. The anti-toxin was slowly working, but his exposure had been higher. He chided himself mentally for not having more anti-toxin. But that was okay. Owen would make the same choice over and over. Dinah would always get the extra anti-toxin. Every time.

Dinah looked like she did when they were kids. She called him an idiot and was looking around for more of the antidote. He spoke softly. "No more. Used it all. Went to the best candidate. Be okay in a few hours." The he felt Dinah's hands on his face, making him focus and shut out the other horrors that he saw. Her voice pulled Owen back. It drowned out the horrible sounds and sights for a few minutes.

The words that followed hit him like a punch to the gut, but they were all the things that he needed to hear. He had never really imagined that he'd had much of a positive impact on Dinah. If Owen was being honest, he was fairly sure he never had much of a positive impact on anyone. Granted, he'd done some favors for Aaron and Mallory. Even helped the Titans out once or twice. But, Owen was a criminal by trade and fairly sure that his obituary was going to be the most positive thing that anyone in the city could claim.

The scope of his vision started to narrow and his head became lighter. Owen tried to speak only managing a few lines of speech. "I'm sorry. Never...never meant to leave you. Didn't want to fail you like I failed them. I..." And then everything went black and Owen trailed off as he fell into the dark void of unconsciousness. His body finally going into recharge mode to help burn out the toxins in his blood stream.

His words started to slur as he tried to apologize and Dinah knew Owen wasn't doing so good. But he was still focusing on her which was good, it was what she wanted. She needed him to live so she could yell at him later. Maybe. Her mind changed several times a second on what she wanted to do, because she was still feeling shock at him being alive all this time.

When his eyes started to roll back in his head, she panicked, just a little bit, trying to keep him awake. "Owen...no...no hey! Stay with me. Owen!" She lay him down and checked for his pulse anxiously, relieved to find it steady and strong. She let out a shaky sigh and dropped her head on his chest. She listened to his heart beat a few more times. He was real and this wasn't so extended hallucination.

"You f*cking asshole," she muttered. "You disappeared and came back and didn't even say hi. But I'm not even mad about that. No, I get that part. Mostly I'm just mad at myself I didn't recognize you back in California." she sighed and sat up, undoing the fastenings on the top part of her costume and tossing it on the floor, leaving her with just a tank top and the bottom half as she pulled off her boots. Then she looked at Owen and his gear and wondered if it was like the rest of the batclan; booby trapped to shit. She decided to take a chance, knowing that falling asleep in gear is super uncomfortable.

She worked his jacket off without incident, smirking at it. This one looked a little beat up, but it had survived their latest encounter pretty much unscathed. The rest of the stuff was harder; lots of false starts as she thought she tripped some sort of trap. Pretty soon though, she had a pile on the floor of both his and her gear and the exhaustion set in.

Owen had been pretty quiet the whole time, and she'd check to make sure his heart rate wasn't going crazy every once and again. But he started to make distressing noises and she figured the last of the toxin was putting up one last fight. She crawled to the head of the bed and leaned back against the wall, guiding his head into her lap as she started to hum, trying to dispell any lingering nightmares he had. "Desperado" came out softly as she ran her fingers through his hair. Her eyelids began to droop and her head dropped down as she fell asleep herself.

As Owen surrendered to the darkness, he felt like he was falling down a dark hole. The voices followed along like old friends, spouting their acid and venom. Images fluttered by the shooting and the explosion, his parents voices, Will's voice. The last things he'd said to them all. It was never enough. It would never be enough. The last vision. Closing his mother's eyes after he pulled Will from the wreckage. This was his own personal hell. The last things he saw when he fell asleep and the first thing he saw when he awoke.

Maybe this was it. The few good things he'd done as of late wouldn't make up for any of his actions. Maybe this was death. He'd just be doomed to replay that day over and over. But then there was a soft sound. It felt like fresh linens felt on a bed. Owen relaxed and let the pictures drift away. Everything faded away for a few minutes. The screams and the sirens quieted. The old voices left and took their venom and acid words with them. There was nothing but a pleasant humming and a smell. Citrus and jasmine. Shampoo. Dinah's shampoo.

Then the darkness was lit by different pictures. Pictures of a time when Owen was young and angry, but these pictures contrasted with the others. They were of brief happy times. Times spent with Dinah before Jason asked him to leave her be and let her get the help she needed. He clung to those vivid visions now, like a drowning man gasping for breath. The visions faded as his eyes fluttered open. The light of dawn, was washing the shadows clean from the room. Owen looked up at the sleeping Dinah, leaning against the wall by his bed. At some point in the night, she'd stripped him of his gear and took off her own. Owen rolled off her and tried coaxing her into a lying position, so they could snuggle up.

There would be time enough for consequences later. He closed his eyes and fell back asleep.

Awoken only mildly from her slumber, Dinah lay down, grumbling slightly as she had to move to do it. She was barely aware of any of it, normally coming to wakefulness in an instant if she wasn't in her own bed. But she had been so exhausted and drained, her body would not come awake. She also felt safe enough to not need to be alert. Even more so as she felt a presence envelope her, warm and inviting. And also rather familiar. She snuggled closer to it before drifting back off.

"You don't remember me do you?" she heard Owen chuckle behind her as he finished fiddling with the blankets. They had parked on a rooftop to watch the meteor shower and get drunk, bundled up in a bunch of blankets wrapped around them both. A small pile of empties was already forming next to them. Dinah leaned back into him and smiled lazily, bringing her hand up out of the blankets to poke him in the cheek.

"You...Don't think I could forget yoouu..." she laughed, resting her head on his shoulder. "You or your pretty face." she stuck her hand back in the blankets and his arms settled around her waist as he laughed again. She could feel it, the subtle shaking that came with the sound and it made her smile.

"I'll take that as a no then."

"Don't believe you. I'd remember." Dinah pouted, pulling out a bottle and taking a long draw before secreting it back under the blankets.

"Obviously you don't. But that's ok. You were pretty intent on writing in that notebook of yours and ignoring everyone else." He snuggled closer, resting his chin on her shoulder before nipping at her ear. Dinah giggled before sighing, nodding her head.

"Ah, songwriting mode. Yes. I wouldn't notice the end of the world if I was doing that." Her head swam just a little, but it wasn't an unpleasant sensation. The cold wasn't bothering her much either, with all the whiskey in her system, she couldn't really feel her hands and arms anyway. This, she felt, was the first time she had thought it possible that she could smile again after her mom. It was so simple and calm up above the city. She never wanted to leave.

Dinah could feel the sun trying to invade her eyes. It hurt, like one of her worst hang overs, the sensation making her groan and turn away from the source. She just wanted to go back to sleep. It was nice there. But her body was being stubborn, saying she should be awake now, and doing things. But the bed was warm and so was her companion. She pulled the blanket over her head and mumbled to the sun to go away.

Then her eyes opened as she remembered she was not at home. She was nowhere near home. She looked at Owen, watching him sleep for a few moments. He looked much more like she remembered him now, without all his guards up. And she wanted nothing more, at the moment, to stay where she was. But she knew she probably had a very worried dad wondering where she was. Sighing, she sat up on the edge of the bed and looked around. It was going to be very interesting trying to explain any of this. Though, hopefully she could avoid saying anything about it at all. She really did not want a lecture.

For a moment, she figured she'd just disappear while he slept, like she had done to so many before. Then she knew she couldn't do that after last night. They hadn't slept together, but they had been naked and vulnerable. He had saved her life, almost at the cost of his own. She at least owed him breakfast.

Grabbing her pillow off the bed, she hit him with it. "Hey...wake up. I don't want to set off any booby traps you might have."

"You can't do this. I'm going to go see her."

"The hell you are. I forbid you to go see my niece." Jason stepped in front of Owen. "And if you think you're going to get past me, you've got another thing coming, kid."

"You can't stop me from seeing her. She needs me." The fact that Owen needed her didn't come out of his mouth. He didn't want to admit it. His body ached for her now, on top of the hangover.

"She needs a rehab and to clean up. She needs to get her act together. So do you for that matter." The man known as Red Hood looked Owen in the eye and clenched his fists. Patience wasn't his strong suit.

"Old man, you don't have the right..." Owen found himself being slammed against a wall, the older man's hands grabbing his bunched shirt between them.

"The right? You lost any rights when the two of you ended up in jail, high as kites. You want to waste your life? Fine. Get the hell out then. Otherwise, you could work with me and try to turn yourself into someone worthy of her. Someone deserving of it."

"And if I don't?" A defiant tone appeared.

"I will kill you if anything happens to her. Just so we're clear."

"Then it looks like I've made my choice, haven't I?"



The pillow hit Owen in the face, snapping him awake. The dream... Well, it was a memory. It was set right after he saw Dinah for the last time. Until last night anyway, when the puzzle pieces put themselves back together. He rolled over, groaning and saw her sitting there. Dinah was the last person Owen expected to see in his bed. He expected that she'd be gone by now, anyway. Owen didn't manage to activate any of the countermeasures last night. The place wasn't trapped at the moment. His head pounded.

"Shhh... Not so loud. I feel like I took an asteroid to the head. Or six." He paused, clearing his throat and trying not to slur the words. "I didn't activate anything. You're fine. You're not a prisoner here. I just took you where I knew you'd be safe. You're free to leave any time you want." His voice was weak and wavered a little. Owen didn't want Dinah thinking she was trapped in this place. "If you want to go... I get it. I think I'm just going to stay here in bed for a bit. I'm not feeling like my usual perky self."

"Well, I got the plates off that interplanetary truck for you." Dinah stayed on the edge of the bed, the temptation to just lie back down getting stronger by the moment. Everything was already such a mess though, so complicated and jumbled, she knew she should at least try and think logically about the whole situation, if only to figure out how to keep all of this from interfering with the rest of her life. But she couldn't bring herself to completely abandon him. She'd left many a guy sleeping in the bed but she couldn't stand up. No, he still had a pull on her. Even after all these years.

She bowed her head, letting her hair cover her face, peeking at him through the strands and hiding her small, appreciative smile at his concern. She quickly tamped it down, trying to get a firm grip on her feelings that seemed to be like sand slipping through her fingers. "No. Up. Get up. Take it from someone who's had way too many hang overs, you need to eat something greasy and bad for you and drink some coffee." She made a compromise with herself, knowing what he was now, and how he had bee, to at least figure out what had happened to him. Out of mere curiosity, she lied to herself. She swung her legs back up onto the bed and simply sat next to him.

"C'mon. I know a good hole in the wall. The spoon stands straight up in the coffee. That aughta put some perk back in your person. I'm just going to need to borrow some pants."