The streets below seemed to gaze up at them with unspoken expectation. He gripped the handle of his grappling blade in one hand, holding the cord in another - the point was fixed firmly into the building above as he gazed past the head of his stone perch.

He sat along one of the stone gargoyles carved along the sides of the massive Carter Building, the city's second tallest skyscraper, and what he and Anthony had always believed to be the best view of the city. 

Stretching out before them was Main Plaza, an area best described as one massive billboard of sparkling screens as far as the eye could see that usually displayed some sports game, pouty model, or brand. This time, however, all seemed fixed to the news, only a few advertisements visible on any of the displays as sparse crowds gathered. It seemed that even the unceasing stream of marketing that had come to characterize what had once been the city's beating heart had paused, along with the world, in mourning.

The image of Darkstar was everywhere, the hooded mask and the five-pointed cape which so often appeared to be a star from above.

He was thankful for his mask, at a time like this. Catspaw stood a mere 7 feet away, perched upon a gargoyle of her own, sat with one leg hanging off, her head turned to observe the largest of the massive screens. Still, he didn’t want her to see the emotion on his face. Enough had happened for one night to make him feel weak. Enough doubt had already been sewn.

“Do you think he’s right?” he called before he was sure he’d even meant to ask the question voice hardly a whisper.

“Who?” she turned to face him, a gust catching the hood of her costume and tossing it free, leaving only her goggles to obscure her features as she watched him with a look that seemed to search for something.

“Cl - Eclipse,” he muttered, “All that stuff he said…I almost died tonight, almost killed someone, and if he hadn’t…”

His voice trailed off. 

“Do you think I’m in over my head?”

He bit down hard against his lip as though hoping the pain might serve to stave off some of the emotion in his voice, a lost cause, he knew.

Catspaw seemed to regard him for a moment, her head lolling back as if to take in the thought, goggles catching the moonlight.

“No, you’re -” she began, her voice measured and obvious care in her choice of words that made Nathan rankle for reasons he couldn’t quite understand. 

“Don’t lie,” he interrupted, and in the command was only a sort of resigned sadness that gave her pause.

“Please don’t. I’m - I’m not dumb.”

That seemed to stir something in her, and the woman rose, seemingly hardly aware of the fact that a single misstep might send her falling thousands of feet onto unrelenting concrete. 

“You’re right,” she conceded, and in the voice he could feel something genuine. 

It frightened him for reasons he couldn’t yet discern.

“You may be in over your head, but,” she hissed the word as though to halt any thought he could have on the matter before considering whatever came after.

“So was he. We all are, I think. Everyone but the gold Boy Scout from Grand City who puts on a costume and decides to take on the world - we’re all in over our heads to a certain extent. Darkstar knew that better than anyone. Taught it better, too.”

She smirked, her gaze turning up and into the moonlight which cast her smile in a phantom glow, as she stretched her arms out into the air above. 

“He was the first to hand me a true, uncompromising loss, you know that?” 

Nathan shook his head, though he wasn’t surprised to hear it. He’d known the two had had a long history, starting long before he’d assumed the role of Kid Rocket, and it seemed obvious that even someone as skilled as Catspaw would’ve been no match for Darkstar in his heyday. 

“It’s true. ‘The Balmoral Jewel Heist of ‘04 - would’ve been one of my bigger scores then. It was this massive diamond from some royalty for Scotland or Ireland or some such place,” Nathan leaned back, allowing the cord to support more of his weight and pressing his back against the building as he listened, finding a genuine interest in this rare glimpse into Catspaw, and the life she’d led before. He found a little more of the suspicion he’d felt not so long ago chipping away, as it had slowly over the time they’d spent.

“I never heard,” he started, and in his chest, he could feel the twist of emotion, the joy of hearing old stories about Darkstar’s exploits paired with this new grief at the realization that it was all he would have left of his mentor now - stories.

“I know the basics. You were a thief, one of the best, and you two fought a lot before…” he trailed off, unsure of quite how to quantify the unusual relationship.

Catspaw smirked, and Nathan found that he was growing to like the woman. Despite her past, which had always seemed good cause for suspicion, Nathan realized he enjoyed her company, her presence doing much to stave off the grief he knew was waiting to accost him when all was said and done.

“I’d had my eyes on it from the moment word had reached me of its impending arrival in Kingsport,” she continued, leaning back absentmindedly across the cement face of the building. 

“You see I had something of a network of folks who’d slip me little tips on possible jobs for the hope I’d share a cut. I was good in my day, no, I was the best actually. World's greatest cat burglar,” she flexed her fingers and smirked, the glow of those claws glistening on her face as she manifested and then did away with them in an instant.

“But Anthony,” she shrugged,  “He might have been the best. He’d had his eyes on me for some time, little did I know. We’d crossed paths once or twice, and he was formidable, but nothing I thought I couldn’t handle if forced to. Little did I know the whole thing was a front, on his part. He’d paid to have the jewel brought into the city, and I had taken the bait.”

“The prey became the predator.” Nathan offered, prompting a low chuckle from the woman genuine humor in the expression.

“Indeed,” she laughed, “Like a mouse to cheese. He’d built a decent profile on me, studying my…exploits, and by the time we truly began our little rivalry he’d all but deduced my identity. We fought, and I gave him time but,” another shrug, 

“He won. Left me tied to a phone pole via one of those grappling blades of yours,” she motioned to the wire Kid Rocket held firm.

“And despite the fact that I wanted to rip the eyes from his skull, I couldn’t deny, I was intrigued. And the rest, well, it was history.” 

He smiled despite all he still felt beneath the surface, the expression feeling foreign on his face after a day in which he was certain he’d done nothing of the sort. He knew the gist of the rest from what vagaries Anthony had shared. The rivalry between them would go on until it morphed into something else, something different, and before long their fights had gone from blood-curdling to an almost strange form of flirtation between the two. 

“Why are you telling me this? I - I appreciate it but,” his eyes traveled out across the city below, the vague shapes of people and cars like ants moving below screens that stretched hundreds of feet tall, each depicting the image of the man whose legacy he was unsure he could uphold.

“I still don’t know if I’m cut out for this, ma’am,” he muttered, “All of these people…look at them. Look what he meant to them, what he was. I don’t think I can live up to that. Eclipse was right I - I almost died tonight to Boa, of all people. I just...”

The wailing of a siren below grew to fill the silence as she seemed to consider his words, and Nathan stared out at Main Plaza, at the growing crowd of observers who seemed to be milling about for no reason other than watching the screens memorializing the loss their hero.

“We didn’t have enough time.” Nathan breathed, his voice cracking with the final word despite his efforts, the sound setting the dam he’d constructed against the flood of emotions within him to cracking.

“I’m not ready.”

He’d hardly heard the woman move, only catching the flash of movement out of his periphery as Catspaw sprang, crossing the distance between them in an instant despite the sheer drop a misstep would’ve caused. His arm moved to block his face instinctively, as he struggled to stifle the urge to sniff despite his running nose, reaching to ensure the balaclava was fixed tight over his face as she landed beside him. 

He glanced up at her, and to his shock found that that her own cheeks were wet with moisture reflecting the lights of the city in the trails they had left. She reached up, pulling her goggles back until they sat atop her head, and he could see her eyes glisten, as she placed a hand on his shoulder, firm yet soft.

“No,” she cooed, “You didn’t, nor did we, I think. And no you aren’t - yet.” Nathan could feel one gloved hand move beneath his chin, raising his face until his eyes met hers.

“But we have the time we got, and with it we must make sure that his memory - his legacy lives on. I may not be Darkstar, but I will make sure everything I learned from him, you learn. You won’t be alone again, Nathan. Not in this.”

He fell into her arms, chest shaking and shoulders rolling as he sobbed, something in her words robbing him of the resolve he’d needed to hold together, and in those moments as the two shared their grief, he realized that a bond had foraged in the flames of their mutual loss and the shared responsibility, and a silent agreement to look after on another while their shared world crumbled.

They remained there for a time, washed beneath the light of screens which displayed the years of heroism that had led them both to that moment, the promise of what the future held lingering overhead like some potential guillotine. 

 . . .

Nathan tugged uselessly at his collar, feeling no less restricted by the effort as he cleared his throat hard. For all the years spent in costume, the addition of a standard suit and tie made it foreign to him, constricting him and deepening his sense of claustrophobia despite his being outside, hemmed in on either side by so many mourning faces. The rows of seats around him were occupied by more well-wishers than he’d anticipated, though it was the first in particular that seemed to add the greatest to his already shot nerves - its seats occupied by six unmistakable figures who’d watched his every word as he’d spoken, delivering a eulogy that had left his nerves shot as he’d left the stage. 

The remaining members of The Sovereign sat front and center - with rows to either side of theirs stretching back for a few yards - just a few feet in front of the small stage upon which the casket displaying their team member stood.

Dathak ‘the Undying’ sat on a chair fit only for someone of his immense size, one of the three unmasked, his hulking form casting a shadow over Nathan. To the boy's right was Flashbang, the suit which seemed almost a part of her skin a dull black in contrast with its usual blue and white motif, her helmet a similar shade beside the gray visor which obscured much of her face. Beside her was Lord Valor, his expression drawn into a tight grimace behind the glow of his goggles, twin displays gleaming purple. His quiver rested on the ground at his feet, the bow folded and affixed to one of the gauntlets he bore.

“Professor” Kraken, as he’d been dubbed, sat dead center and it took all Nathan’s focus to avoid staring at the man turned something else…his skin was gray and inhuman, and in place of any human sort of head was something akin to the body of an octopus, bulbous with a myriad of tentacles that extended forth - two eyes that were vaguely human in appearance concealed beneath heavy metal goggles. 

There was no sign of Clay, which he’d found unsurprising yet, upsetting all the same, yet past the looming figures of The Sovereign on the other end of the row sat Tracy, older than the girl he’d seen in the images, but undoubedtly her. 

She watched him, every so often her eyes catching his, though most often lingering on the casket with an expression he could only define as quizzical, almost expectant. Something in her expression caught Nathan’s attention, though there was little time for questioning it.

A silence fell over the small crowd, and Nathan could feel the reason as much as he could see it, a strange sort of sensation that rolled over him as a golden glow bathed those in the first row. The Savior took his place behind the podium, hovering just above the surface, the wood creaking beneath the effect of his ability as the man many deemed the world’s greatest hero prepared to say his farewell.