Soundtrack: A Day Without Rain, Enya CD.

The doorbell’s buzzing rousted the tired group. "BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT" Kon groaned from his position sprawled on the couch. Rolling over he floated to his feet. He was lucky. He was the ONLY member of the team not covered in dust. Well, the only non-gaseous member of the team. Secret was, as always, impeccably clean. But then again, HQ looked better than it ever had. The others made various sounds of protest and rose to their feet, dusting themselves off as best they could. Darkness followed the others to the front door to let the JLA in. Whooo-boy.

The JLA took in the slightly dusty group with the spotless HQ and mentally grinned. Most of them anyway. Batman didn’t. After the exchange of greetings and plesantries their eyes soon fixated on the young man standing to one side with a pair of huge black wings. It really was quite startling how similar he and Robin were. "Care to explain yourself, young man?" Superman asked.

Th-thump. Right. Explain yourself. I don’t even know how exactly I got here, let alone how to explain it. Darkness thought. So, he gave the only rational explaination he could. He gave them the same story he gave Young Justice. Batman looked at him a little harder (he could feel the rest of YJ shrinking back form the force of that stare), and Superman looked curious.

After he finished, Batman made a sudden command. "Robin, when you return to Gotham tonight, bring him." Robin nodded, a little curious, but agreeing. "Do you think that’s wise?" Wonder Woman asked. Batman turned to glare at her, but Darkness intervened. "No, it’s alright G—" he paused for a tiny second. That wasn’t the name for her in this universe. His thoughts raced till he grasped the right name. "Wonder Woman. I’d like to see how my Gotham is different from this universe’s." After a second, Wonder Woman nodded, and he could see an almost there gleam of approval from Batman. "Do you have any leads on how to get home yet?" Superman asked. "No, sir. I haven’t really had time to check things out." Superman nodded. "We’ll see what we can do about it." "Thank you." Darkness replied.

Soon after, the JLA left. The group again collapsed in the living room. "Hey Anita…I’ve been wondering…" Cassie said. "What?" Anita replied. "What did you mean, ‘Don’t forget about dinner,’ When Lobo left?" There was a pause as the group’s eyes shifted to Anita. She sat up and thought for a moment. "Well… Daddy wanted to get to know him better, so he invited him to dinner tonight." Silence. "Your father," Kon began, incredously , "the A.P.E.S. agent, want’s to get to know LOBO better?! He probably knows his whole record front to back, even before the was, er, shrunk, and her wants to get to know him?" Anita shrugged. "Yeah. It’s a dad thing." "Wait, Anita. You mean the ‘getting to know’ thing that your parents do when you’re going out with somebody?" Cassie asked. Anita nodded. Cassie’s mouth fell open, then she grinned. It took the others a moment longer to grasp what was going on. Their feelings were rather aptly summed up by Kon’s statement: "You, Lobo…. Couple?!?!" Wide eyed stares fixed on Anita. "Yeah. Who’da thunk?" Anita grinned. "Speaking of which, I should get home soon for dinner. Bart, mind giving me a ride home?" Bart, being fairly openminded on the whole lobo thing, agreed, and he ran Anita home on his way back to Alabama. Cassie said she had homework to do that if she didn’t do soon, her Mom would kill her. Kon was just dazed. They both flew off, leaving Secret, Darkness, and Robin.

"Let’s get this over with." Robin said. Darkness nodded and shifted his cape back to wings. He turned to Secret and smiled. "I’ll see you later. I’ll probably stay here for awhile." Secret smiled shyly back. "See you later." He and Robin left in the Redbird, and headed towards Gotham.

Darkness sat perched on the edge of a roof, watching the people below from the shadows. It was different from HIS Gotham. His Gotham was… well, there wasn’t the flight paths, no-one in the air overhead. The people seemed LESS downtrodden, perhaps because there were no seraphim in this universe. He knew Robin had gone to message Batman about their arrival. He missed home, to be perfectly honest.

A slightly muffled scream came from the alley. Running over to that side of the building, Darkness looked down to see a woman being attacked by a group of men. Loosing a small sigh, and shifting his wings out, he jumped,using his wings to slow him some. He hit the ground right smack in the middle of the group, falling into a crouch and turning the wings back to his cape. The thugs panicked for a moment, then, realizing he was much smaller than them moved to attack. Robin sprang up and with a quick set of moves, finished one off. Another grabbed him from behind and squeezed. Darkness’s ribs screamed in protest. They WERE still hurting, after all. Suddenly, the man dropped to the ground. A black blur was moving among the gang, taking them out with amazing precision.

The gang was down, the woman had run away, shouting something about how a dark angel had saved her, and Darkness was left facing his rescurer. She was dressed in a costume similar to Batman’s, cowl, cape, Bat-insignia in yellow on her chest. Her mask covered her entire face, and she stood with the grace an poise of either a dancer or a superb martial artist. Batgirl. Smiling, Darkness gave her a warrior’s salute and bow. She returned the gesture. "So. You know Batgirl?" Deep, dark, spooky voice. Batman. "I know MY universe’s Batgirl." Darkness turned to face the Bat. "In my universe she’s a good friend."

It was true. Cass, as he called her, was like his sister. At first it had been a simple arrangement. She taught him hand-to-hand, he taught her words. But they became closer, she pulled him out of scrapes, he pulled her out of incredibly reckless situations. It was much like the relationship Robin and Nightwing shared in this universe. Darkness had never managed to get along with Nightwing very well. Oh well.

Batgirl looked at Darkness funny. "What?" he asked. "Wings?" she asked, gesturing slightly with her hands. He smiled. "Oh. I’ve hidden them." Batgirl nodded. "The roof" came Batman’s command. Almost in unison, they shot their lines upward and scaled to the roof.

Darkness spent the better part of that night talking with the Clan. How he got to be Darkness, how things went in his Gotham, mostly shop stuff. By the time they finished he was getting quite tired. Fun-fun. Now he had to get back to HQ. Robin offered him a ride, but Darkness declined. "You’ve got school. I don’t. Don’t worry about it, I know how to get back." He grinned at his counterpart and backed away from the others to give himself room for his wings. Batgirl tapped him on the shoulder. "Wings?" she asked slightly hopefully. He nodded, and shifted his cape to his wings. He stretched one out to Batgirl and she brushed it with her fingers. "Soft. Pretty." Was her reply with a smile to him. "Thanks." He moved to the edge of the building and let himself fall off, using the momentum to get him airborne. He was tired already, he wasn’t going to strain himself by working at a standing takeoff.

Moving higher into the air, on level with the 80 story buildings, he let himself be carried by the exuberance of flight. He let out a shout and barrel-rolled before looking up at the stars and fixing where he needed to go.

Darkness touched down by the pool, hot and slightly sweaty from the exertion, despite the cool air at such a high altitude. Moving quickly to the locker room, he stripped down after finding a pair of swimming trunks in one of the lockers. Heading back out to the pool, he didn’t notice a smoky outline at the patio doors. He lept into the air and dived into the pool, using his wings to propell himself forward under the water. Reaching the surface again he wiped the water out of his eyes and notices Secret standing nearby.

He fought the urge to blush. To cover it up, he dove under the surface and swam to the edge of the pool nearest Secret. He rested his arms on the edge, letting his body float in the pool. "Hi, Secret." She sat on the ground in front of him and smiled. "Hi. You can call me Suzy." He nodded. "Okay Suzy." He watched her for a minute, she looked like she wanted to ask him something. She’s pretty. Woah. Hold on there Romeo. "Something on your mind, Suzy?" he asked her, trying to de-rail his current train of thought. "Uhmn.. Well… I was wondering, uh…Well, how do you get your wings to change?" Ah-ha. So that’s it. "It’s a mind trick. Like, mind over matter." He watched her a second longer as she seemed to struggle with whether to ask him more or not. Goregeous blue eyes. "Would you like for me to teach you?" he asked her with a sort of gentle smile. Her face lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. "Yes, please!" He nodded and attempted to pull himself out of the pool, only to discover, oh YEAH, my ribs are broken. "oof!" He flopped back down onto the side of the pool, his arms still on the ledge. Secret changed. Her form shifted until it was easy to pick him up, and she solidified just long enough to get him out of the water before she was smoke again. Darkness blinked at her a moment. "Wow. That’s… handy." She shrugged. "I can only be solid for a few moments, I’ve been working hard at keeping myself solid, but it takes a lot of my concentration." "I see. That’s why you want to know how I shift my wings, to see if it could help you. Well, we’ll see." Darkness sat up opposite Secret. He was glad it was a mostly warm night, he wings could get a chance to dry out before he went inside. "Give me your hand." She extended her hand to him and he took it in one his. "Now make it solid." She complied and her hand became solid, and Darkness covered it with his other hand. "Concentrate on how it feels in your head to make it solid. Fix it in your mind" Her eyes closed and she nodded. "Got it?" She nodded again. "Good. Smoke again." Her hand reverted back to how it originally was. "Now, call up that feeling in your mind." He smiled as her hand went solid again. "Open your eyes." She opened them, and he held up her now solid hand. Her eyes widened, and she stared at the hand, touching it with her other hand. "That’s… amazing! I’m not concentrating on it at all!" "You just revert it back with the same way you did before." He grinned at her. "That’s how I change my wings. With a little practice you could solidify your entire body." Her smile could have lit up half of Gotham. Darkness forced himself to let go of her soft, slightly cool, hand. There will be NO falling in love here, boy! You’re finding a way home soon, remember?

Suddenly, his exaustion hit him like several tons of bricks thrown by Superman. "I’m sorry Suzy, but I’m really tired. Is there a spare bed here?" She nodded and made her hand smoke again. "Yes. Follow me." Darkness rose slowly to his feet and followed her to the room after making a quick stop in the locker room to pick up his costume. He fell into bed with a sigh and slept like a log.

He spent the next few days looking for a way home, until finally he hit on a likely place. There was a gothic clothing and magic shop in Metropolis that was rumored to sell real magic supplies and spells. Worth a look anyway. YJ piled into the Supercycle, except for Lobo being off doing something, god knows what, and Anita. who was doing something with her dad, and headed off to the shop in question. They had opted for their working clothes, instead of their civilian clothes, to better make an impression on the shop keeper.

They walked inside to be faced with a very gothic shop. The shop keeper came out of the back room, and the group spun to face her. He was tall, thin, and pale, dressed in a black brocade waistcoat, a puffy-sleeved white shirt with a cravat, and black slacks. His dark-brown hair was long, pulled into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. "Can I help you?" he asked. They stared. He screamed Anne Rice vampire, from his posture, to the fact that he was incredibly attractive. Darkness stepped forward, and as he did the man’s eyes widened. "We were wondering if you could help us." The man startled them all when he looked right at Darkness and said, "You want a Gateway." Darkness nodded. "Right. I need to get home." The man smiled and gestured at the others. "Make your goodbyes then, I’ll ready the Gateway."

He went back to the back room without another word, leaving them alone. Goodbyes were standard, until he reached Secret. She smiled up at him and extended her solid hand to him. He reached out and took it, giving it a small shake. "I’ll try to come back some time, so work at it more." Beautiful. Go, go now. "See you later."

The man re-appeared in the doorway. "Coming, sir?" Darkness turned and nodded. "See you later Young Justice." They waved at him as he dissapeaed into the back room.

The back room was dark, and on one wall was a swirling, stacicy vortex. "The Gateway?" he asked. The man nodded. "There is one Gotham. Perhaps you should check it out. Estoceria." "I think I will," Darkness replied and stepped through.

~End Chapter 7~

~~End Darkness 1~~

Author’s notes:

Wow! Looong chapter. 5 pages. Well, Darkness gets a break for awhile while I write for english a bit. But don’t you worry, I’ll be picking him up again as soon as this paper is finished.

The shop owner is a cameo from my boyfriend. ^^v Ah well.

Disclaimer: I own the story, Darkness, etc, DC owns YJ, Supes and Bats, the Bat-Clan, etc.

Thanks!!

(BloodFromStone: Ha-ha! I finished it!)