By the time Nathan Barrett Neal had stumbled through the French doors of the Neal Family Manor, his mind was far from the tact he’d had all but drilled into him over the years by his mentor, friend, and de facto father. His throat and lungs stung, burning with the raw heat of soot and exertion, and his ears carried a steady ring that seemed to work almost subcoinsously away at his nerves already shot from a day of being overwhelmed. 

He could hardly recall how he’d gotten there, his trek through the streets of Kingsport all but unnoticed amidst the chaos of a city that had reeled, and yet knew it had avoided the worst. 

Avoided the worst. The words felt foreign, meaningless in his mind.

Lives had been lost. 

Despite the best efforts of the cities few costumed protectors, people had died, and bombs had gone off. They had come together and fought with everything they had, himself, even his costumed ‘siblings’ of sorts, each who’d left the very mantle he wore behind long ago. Eclipse, his brother…technically - driven to violence for a reason Nathan was unsure of, and his adoptive father - Anthony had never shared. 

Catspaw, the former villainess, a fact he struggled to reconcile with his suspicions towards the woman Darkstar had seemed to trust, even love, perhaps. It seemed even Tracy, the girl who’d been the first to ever fight alongside Anthony - alongside DarkStar as the costumed Kid Rocket, before swearing off costumed life for good had returned to action with reports of a costumed woman bearing her resemblance engaging members of the Troupe during the attack. 

Look what it cost.

It would likely be days before they had casualty figures. People mourned, made frantic calls to family, leaving pleading messages where unanswered. Others simply seemed to roam, moving in the same fugue he felt trapped by. He could recognize their expressions - he reflected beneath the mask, one of loss, so sudden and violent, that even the sort of merciful sadness necessary to shed a tear had yet to set in. 

He blinked as though it might do away with the strange, underwater sensation that had gripped him from the minute he’d heard the reports of his death - Darkstar's death. 

The house was dark and in the blackness, felt unfamiliar. The silence was parted only by the faint blare of a television, from the kitchen, he recognized - its flickering glow visible through the doorway. His eyes run along the walls of the hall, various portraits of faces that seemed less than familiar from times that felt all too distant staring back. A younger Tracy, face beaming with an optimism he didn’t recognize, in the earliest rendition of the very costume he now wore. Beside it sat one of Clay, the second, a telltale scowl frozen on his face, red and white baseball bat lifted as though in a threat to the cameraman. He was in the third, his face displaying a sort of optimism that felt unimaginable now. 

Behind him, each of them was DarkStar. Their stories had all been different, though similar, and he’d been there for each - guiding, and practically raising them where their parents either failed or weren’t around for the job. 

He leaned his weight against one of the antique tables sat in the entryway, less due to injury and more from exhaustion that seemed to fill his every limb with the settling realization.

“Shereen!” he called into the blackness.

The sound of footsteps was immediate, a shadow stretching over the threshold of the doorway between the kitchen and hall, backlit in the electronic light. Lady Shereen appeared over the precipice, silhouetted by light. 

She had been the closest thing to a mother he’d known, and damn good at the role - having raised Anthony after the death of his parents, into the man who would go on to don the mask and write his name amidst the near demi-gods of The Sovereign.

She looked…older than she had even that morning. Deep lines revealing themselves in her dark skin, hair pulled back in a loose, frizzy ponytail, and eyes puffy. It was as though the news had done away with the confidence and prim properness she so often embodied, revealing the age.

“Oh, oh, Nathan,” he could hear the emotions present in her wavering voice before he could see them, her hands finding a place at either side of her face as she approached, before flicking on one of the lamps in the foyer. 

Something in it broke him, finally. A sob, silent at first, then heavy and baleful, wracked his body with a shudder that had nothing to do with cold, as though the dam that had held his emotions in check had finally cracked.

She crossed the distance with a surprising speed, eyes welling up further at the sight, pulling him into a hug. 

He cried, for the first time in a long time, the realization of which stirred in him an uneasy sort of shame that quickly gave way to a distant curiosity that felt foreign amidst the grief. He was embarrassed because he knew he of all people shouldn’t cry. He was a superhero. Anthony had had him standing toe to toe with literal costumed maniacs before all of his adult teeth were in. There were rules for this sort of thing, in his mind. 

He pulled himself away from the woman, a small part of himself hating it, but hating how weak it made him feel. His eyes roamed the familiar rooms around him, a growing curiosity about why he’d even felt the need to return forming in his mind. He shouldn’t be here, he realized. He should be with him, with the…

He couldn’t do it - he couldn’t conceptualize Anthony Neal, DarkStar, the most dynamic, inspiring human he’d ever known as just a…a body now. He had seen so many, in their line of work. Corpses - people who didn’t seem to be people anymore, just cold, graying shells that had at one time held life and personality, and all of those unknown things that define humanity, gone - replaced by glazed eyes staring into oblivion. 

That’s him. The thought left a searing pain in his chest, and he fought against the knot in his throat threatening a barrage of fresh tears. 

That’s him, somewhere on a cold slab of metal and I’m here. Crying. 

He reached out, taking his mask from Lady Shereen’s hand, prompting her tears to fall with a renewed vigor as he placed it back firmly over his face, pulling up the balaclava that attached the rest of his suit. 

“Detective Murphy said he’ll hold the…hold the body for us,” he started, trying his best to force some of that authority and gravel into his voice which had seemed to come more naturally to Darkstar than his natural speaking voice. 

“But he - he shouldn’t be in some…city morgue. He should come home. They can do…whatever they have to with him tomorrow,” he said, fighting with all he could muster to keep his voice steady.

“But tonight, he comes home.”

Lady Shereen nodded, wiping at her eyes with the backs of her hands and pursing her lips as though to steel herself.

“Of course,” she breathed, voice hitching, “Of course. Anthony…your father, he had arrangements for this sort of thing. All of the…details will be taken care of.”

Nathan noticed how she’d avoided the word funeral, and he was thankful for it. He didn’t feel as though this mask of confidence could survive another blow - not now. 

He nodded. 

“Good.” it was all he could manage.

“The team…they’ll be reaching out I’m sure. Anthony was every bit the face of The Sovereign that The Savior is. I’ve no doubt they’ll be wanting to pay their respects and…” she sighed, leaving the other potential meaning of the call unspoken. 

They would wait, surely, for decency's sake if nothing else. But there was no denying how integral Darkstar had been to the team that held the distinction as the world's greatest collection of heroes, and even less doubt as to the void his death was going to leave. A void that Nathan could only imagine he might be expected to fill.

It had thrilled him once. The idea of stepping into his mentor's shoes, claiming the five-pointed cape, and standing amongst the ‘World's Greatest Champions’. However, in all of those daydreams, Anthony had been there - somewhere watching, cheering him on after riding off into the sunset.  

Now? It felt almost…tainted.

“If they call, you know how to reach me,” was all he offered, “I’m gonna go see that he’s brought home and then,” he sighed, running his hands over his masked face. 

“I’m gonna get back to the city, things are still hectic.”

The woman nodded her response, and Nathan couldn’t help but feel that something in his words seemed to deepen her sadness. 

. . .

“You’re gonna be sick to death of apologies pretty soon, but I can’t let that stop me here, kid. I’m sorry. This city lost a damn good one. And it ain’t like we’ve got many of them to spare.”

Detective Murphy placed a large hand on Nathan’s - Kid Rocket’s, now that he was back in the mask- shoulder, a face that Kid Rocket often doubted had ever known a smile, turned into a genuine look of sadness.

 His eyes gleamed as he spoke, and the realization took Kid Rocket aback. Murphy had worked for the Kingsport PD for longer than Nathan had been alive and had seen things that would break most. In all that time, he had never seen him cry, or come close to expressing the ability, anyway.

“Thank you,” the response felt…wrong, there was nothing about this situation for which he was thankful, but he knew it was what the adults said in times like this - and that was what he was going to have to be.

“He was.” 

That much felt right, at least.

Murphy nodded, an expression that would have brought Nathan a laugh any other time, for how much he was convinced the man resembled a seal - with his bushy mustache unaccompanied by any other facial hair, and crown of gray hair steadily fading back to reveal a scalp which seemed to reflect the glare of the street light of the room.

Laughter seemed far away now.

“So, where do you want us to take him?” Murphy spoke, the discomfort clear in his tone, unusual for a man who’d grown so acquainted with death.

“You. It has to be you,” Nathan answered.

Murphy nodded his understanding. The man had been an officer for a long time and in all that time, had somehow completed the nearly insurmountable task of gaining Darkstar's trust. After a particularly close call, and in need of medical aid and transport back to the Planetarium, he’d been forced to reveal his identity, bringing him into the select club that knew local philanthropist and heir to his family fortune, Anthony Neal was the Darkstar of Kingsport. The old cop had kept the secret for almost a decade to the very day.

He lay on the table between them, a slab of metal extended from the place that had been housing his body. He still wore the suit, the black star at the center of his chest stained dark brown with aging blood, and a tear in the fabric across his throat…where the Dancer had landed his killing blow, a kick with the concealed blade within his shoes, sending the hero plummeting almost eleven stories into the icy waters below. It was all Nathan could do to avoid looking at it - him directly, even beneath the mask he could see the effect from the force of the fall, bones shifted and shattered in places that gave the ocne familiar face a starkly unfamiliar affect.

It seemed every second required more and greater strength from Nathan, the very act of holding himself in the room feeling every bit the fight that he’d had earlier that day with countless maniacs of the Troupe.

“I’ll have him over before 1. Gonna wrap things up here and let the boys upstairs know. They’ll, uh, they’ll stay out of it if they know it’s mask business, and that it’s - it’s him.” Murphy says.

“He’s saved more than a few asses up there, we owe that.”

He seems to consider for a moment, before adding, “Did you want some time to you know, say goodbyes?”

Every part of Nathan’s being tells him he should say yes.

“No,” he breathed, “No I - tomorrow there will be people who will come and…do all of the stuff. People he trusted, ya know, for the identity and everything. I’ll - I can do it then.”

Murphy nodded, clapping him once more on the shoulder. His face darkened momentarily before he sighed, eyes narrowing at some distant thought before meeting Nathan’s behind the mask.

“The asshole…he’s not getting out again. He’s going to pay this time. This is -” he trails off, “He’ll pay.”

The reminder of the man who’d struck the killing blow, the masked lunatic known only as The Dancer, set Nathan’s blood to boiling. He didn’t believe it. Despite what they all wanted, Fox Island seemed a rotating door for its worst patrons.

He offered a half-nod, before turning and raising one of the blades from his waistband, pointing and clicking at one of the nearby buildings. Its blade shot forward with a whirring hiss before fixing itself into the building's facade, and with another click, he’s rappelled forward. 

In those brief moments, before he catches himself on the building, while the wind seems to take hold of him, Nathan Neal, the boy known as Kid Rocket, feels as though he’s falling.