Panic flared back in his chest like embers at the realization of how close he sat to oblivion. His hand moved to his belt almost by instinct. He raised the grappling-blade out, hand wavering as his vision blurred and head swam with a pulsing ache.

“Nah, you’re not getting away, kiddo. Just let go, you’re tired, I know it,” he breathed, eyes locking with Nathans from behind his mask wide and glaring with a look that spoke to something broken beneath the surface.

He fought with his free hand to no avail, the tendril-like length of arm coiling tighter until he was wondered whether his head might pop free of his neck before the lack of oxygen got him. The world was going dark, and he knew that if he fell into the slumber he could feel drawing him into its depths, he would never awaken. 

“Just let go, it’ll be just like going to to sl -”

The click of the blade cut Boa off, and the hissing whistle of its point was shot forth, followed by a wet sort of pop that made Nathan’s stomach turn. His eyes widened.

The release of pressure was immediate as Boa’s arms uncoiled, sliding free with such speed it almost twisted free Kid Rocket’s balaclava as one hand immediately shot for his own neck. Even beneath the glove, Nathan could see the blood pooling, and something in him went cold.

Boa opened his mouth to speak, and a look passed over his face- confusion, pleading - all of which made Nathan feel a sudden…empathy for the man who’d moments before meant to take his life.

“N - no.” He breathed, hurrying to villain's side as he fell to a knee. 

He hadn’t wanted to die, but standing before the man who might be bleeding out by his hand, Nathan realized even more how little he’d been prepared to kill. 

“Please, I - I didn’t -” Nathan tried, but words failed as Boa reached a hand out to him - a silent plea - arm stretching slowly before faltering and slapping across the pavement uselessly.

He’d been trained for this, he knew what to do with knife wounds but panic seized him. A man was dying, and he was responsible.

Nathan rose, gripping Boa by one arm and lifting him with a groan, every bone in his chest crying out against the added weight. 

“Come on, we have to get you to the hospital we -”

BANG

The sound was unmistakable as it filled the alley, a gunshot, a big one. Kid Rocket hardly had the time to process it before he felt the spray of something warm and wet, and felt Boa slump in his arms before collapsing entirely. Most of his head was gone, a mess of gore and viscera that made Nathan want to lose his lunch if he’d had any.

He steeled himself despite every fiber of his being screaming for rest, scanning ahead for the culprit - though he already had an idea.

From across the street, a man rose from a laying position, in his hand a military rifle of some sort nearly as tall as Kid Rocket was. 

He wore a black mask with goggles, dark points that shifted at the center with white glasses rims, and a trench coat that stretched well past his knees, hood raised. At the center of a filthy red shirt, sat an emblem, a black moon over a white sun.

Eclipse. Nathan recognized him instantly as he approached.

“You - you killed him…” he breathed, staring down at the corpse of Boa, blooding pooling amidst what was left of his head, one arm at his side at an unusual angle, the other stretching an impossible length as it twisted beneath him

His stomach turned, a strange cocktail of emotions flooding him at the sight, and the appearance of the familiar vigilante.

He’d almost killed a man tonight. He’d tried to save him, and despite it all he had still ended up dead. It was wrong…it wasn’t how things were supposed to go, how Darkstar would’ve done things. 

There had been too much death in the past day, and it had been the farthest thing from his intention to cause another, event that of someone as deranged as Boa had been. 

It was a defeat, and more than that it had been his fault. If he’d been better none of it would have happened. If he’d been like Darkstar, Boa would’ve been defeated handily, and restrained for law enforcement. He’d be worse for wear, but alive, despite it all. Instead, Nathan had panicked, and in doing so he’d made a mistake that might have haunted him for the rest of his life. 

It seemed yet another reminder of Darkstar’s absence, and evidence for his own inability to fill the gap left behind.

His hands balled into quaking fists, a tremor working its way through him as he swallowed hard and painfully against the lump in his throat.

“You fucking killed him. That’s not - we’re not supposed to - you killed him.” 

The man with the rifle cocked his head just slightly, a faint chuckle ruffling the fabric as he kicked at one of Boa’s shoulders with the toe of his boot.

“Well, it appears I have,” he muttered, leaning over to pull a glove free from Boa’s stretched arm. 

He gave it a once over, before sliding it into one of the pouches on his own belt, zipping it shut.

He’s collecting a trophy. Nathan realized, and it felt him with a burning sort of anger that he knew was likely stoked by remnants of those embers his near suffocation had smothered.

“Well, it appears I have, little brother.”

“We’re not brothers, not anymore,” he spat the words, though he hated how much it stung to say.

“You stopped being family to any of us when gave up being Kid Rocket and decided to become…” he gestured at Eclipse, staring into the black and white goggles which created an almost alien effect further driving home just how…different the man was. 

“This.” The word came small, and yet carried a faint hint of disgust and disappointment that made the other man straighten, cracking his neck silently. 

“And what would this be, little brother?” he asked, even through the nasal hiss of his voice the question carried with it an edge and a hint of emotion Nathan struggled to read.

“What exactly am I now?”

Nathan bit down hard, arms tremoring in a way he hated for how weak it made him feel - how out of control of his emotions. 

“A murderer.”

He chuckled again, as though it was all a joke that a dead man lay between them, and it made the boys blood boil.

“Well, I suppose I can’t argue with that,” he gestured once more to Boa, 

“But you aren’t,”

Nathan opened his mouth to argue but found no words, the truth of the statement making him feel cold as he recalled the expression on Boa’s face when his blade had pierced his neck. He could make out the splatters of blood across the white areas of his costume, and a chill gripped him. Would he have been able to get the man help in time to save him? He didn’t want to think about it, though some part of him had already known the answer, and it made things feel all the more complicated. He wasn’t grateful for what Eclipse had done, but…

He shook his head, trying his best to shake his mind free of the thoughts. The man seemed to take it for a response. 

“You’re welcome.”

The sound of approaching movement, four footsteps by the sound of it moving in strange rhythm caught both of their attention and Nathan turned to see Catspaw entering the alley. Her hood was raised, dirt, blood, and some dark liquid clinging to her costume in several places as she barrelled towards them, head lowered. 

The light caught the left side of her goggles, reflecting off of them with an effect that, paired with the raised hood with ears on either side made her appear momentarily more feline than woman.

She came to a skidding stop beside him, her attention on Boa first, then immediately move to Eclipse as she rose to a crouch.

Eclipse shifted momentarily, his hand instinctually moving to one side hovering over one of the twin handguns holstered at either side of his hip.

His gaze seemed to shift between the two, the white around the edges thinning as the dark center expanded - the man taking stock of the pair.

Nathan could see that Catspaw was ready, prepared to respond at a moments notice if Eclipse moved in a way she deemed threatening. He stepped closer to the man, his brother in some ways, mindful of the growing pool of blood beneath them as he put himself between them. There would be no more bloodshed tonight.

“What do you want, Clay?” he asked, the name almost an insult as he spat it from beneath his balaclava. 

Eclipse - Clay stiffened, hand still hovering over the gun though his attention was on Kid Rocket now.

“Well, last I checked, Nathan, the Lower End has been my territory for what - five years now?” Eclipse retorted, spitting Kid Rocket’s name back at him with a mock venom.

“What I want to know is why you two are here knowing damn well I’ve got this place under control,” he spoke, before gazing past the pair, “And why he isn’t.”

Nathan stiffened at that, that chasm he’d felt from the moment news of Darkstar’s death had reached him threatning to swallow him from within once more.

“You know why.” Was all he could manage.

Eclipse sucked in a breath, muttering an expletive as his hand dropped away from the weapon.

“So it’s true then? Fuck. Saw the video but I didn’t believe it. I mean the old bastard he’s - he’s too tough for…” he seemed to search Nathan’s face for some answer, one he wouldn’t have found even below the mask, and trailed off, shaking his head violently.

“He really let that tap-dancing prick off him, huh?” there was no malice in the question, nothing but a genuine disbelief, and yet it made Nathan’s blood run like hot oil.

Despite it all, he knew he was in no condition for a fight, and Clay wasn’t the sort to take such a strike lightly. Beyond that, he recognized something more in the question, a kindred sort of ache which he knew Clay would hate more than he had.

“Watch your tongue, Eclipse, or I promise you will lose it,” Catspaw hissed from behind, rising to her full height with one hand of claws extended, teeth bared in an expression of such barely restrained rage that it almost made Nathan’s stomach turn.

“Better, and deader motherfuckers have tried kitty-cat. You’ll run through all nine of those lives real-”

“Stop!” Nathan shouted, lowering his balaclava to prevent its muffling effect, raising both arms to keep the two at a distance, stopping both in their tracks as they’d made to advance on one another.

“Just fucking…stop!” he glared between them, fighting hard against the sudden lump in his throat.

“Our dad is dead, Clay. Darkstar is dead. We’re not doing this,” he spoke, and his voice had fallend into something close to whisper before he was done. 

“Not now."

There was a tense moment before Clay took a step back, arms folding as though it were the only way keep them from a weapon. Catspaw did the same, “retracting” her claws as she muttered an apology.

“He wasn’t our dad, kid.” There was something in the words as Clay spoke, pity, that filled Nathan with a cold sort of rage unlike than anything he’d said that night.

“How can you say that?” he asked, his voice devoid of anything but a lingering disgust. 

“He took us all in, turned us into fucking heroes, and - and he died for this city…how can you still say that shit?” He took a step closer to Eclipse, voice raising, hardly aware of Boa’s corpse as he stepped over it.

“You’re that mad that he stripped you of the Kid Rocket title? Is that it? Newsflash: Kid Rocket and Darkstar DON’T FUCKING KILL PEOPLE!” He knew he was beside himself, and yet cared little in the moment, a days worth of anger finding release. 

Eclipse sighed, head shaking as though exasperated at some obvious fact Nathan was missing.

“You never answered my first question, but seeing her with you, I get it. I know why you’re here,”

His hands raised to the edges of his mask at his neck, and despite his anger Nathan found himself hesitant, stepping back.

“You think you’re gonna follow in his footsteps, right? Uphold the legacy?” he sang the last part with a mocking lilt, “Cause he’s our ‘father’, right? He raised us when our parents were too fucked up or dead to do it.”

“Except we weren’t his fuckin kids, were we?” his voice raised as the mask did, almost a shout.

“We were child soldiers.”

As it slid free, Nathan gasped despite himself, and he could hear Catspaw mutter something. Clay's face was familiar beneath, pale with wild red hair and blazing blue eyes that felt piercing, but his nose…it was all but gone, a skewed pit in at the center of his face from which one nostril remained, twisting the surrounding features in scar tissue and raising his upper lip into something of a permanent snarl. 

“And I don’t hate him because he was abandoned me, I hate him because he limited me - limited all of us. I hate him because he was a bad general, and we all bear the scars.”