Grayson #5

Issue Details

Synopsis

EVERYONE DIES AT DAWN Helena Bertinelli is struggling to pilot a damaged aircraft while her passengers, Dick Grayson and the vigilante Midnighter, attempt to safely deliver a baby in the back. Their plane had been hit by an E.M.P. fired by an A.R.G.U.S. aircraft, and though their plane is going down fast, Helena manages to land it - if somewhat roughly - on a sand dune in the dessert. Unfortunately, the mother dies giving birth, and the agents are left with a newborn baby in the Saudi desert, hundreds of miles from the nearest town. They have few supplies, and Midnighter insists that they have no chance of survival. Dick, however, refuses to let the baby die, and begins walking.   After two days of walking, Midnighter warns that they won't survive if they continue like this. He reminds, though, that they could easily survive if they used the metahuman heart that beats in the baby's chest to sustain them. In the meantime, he points out that he can see who they are now, as the EMP took out Spyral's Hypnos, that obscure its agents' identities. Now that he knows who Dick is, he knows how to beat him, and take the child, if he must. Helena pulls a knife on him to silence him.   The next day, Midnighter comments to Dick that Helena is still injured from the crash. By the fourth day, she collapses, and Midnighter warns that she won't make it to the end of the fifth. Dick rushes to her side and attempts to give her water, but she refuses it, reminding it's for the baby. Using the shirt from his back, Dick builds Helena a makeshift tent with some supplies, and continues his walk, promising to come back for her. Grumpily, Midnighter reminds that Dick's efforts to protect this child are wasted, because Spyral is just going to kill her to get the heart anyway. Angrily, Dick slaps him across the face, commenting that he's slowing them down.   For the next three days, Dick continues to walk, and Midnighter tries to convince him to fight him for possession of the child, though by the seventh day, he's too exhausted to keep going. He drops to his knees and calls out that if he can't make this journey with powers, it makes no sense that Dick can do it. Leaving a canteen of water behind for Midnighter, Dick comments that his motivation is the girl, and continues walking.   To keep him going, Dick begins telling the baby the story of a dream he once had, where he lived on another world and a tree had attacked Batman. He rescued his mentor, but the trees gave chase. Then he and Batman needed to trick a purple monster into falling into a ditch, but they couldn't make it budge, so Dick taunted it until it chased him, and fell. Dick tries to keep telling his story, but by the end of the ninth day, he can't keep coherent, and begins to lose consciousness.   On the tenth day, a lone truck spots Dick lying in the sand with the baby in his arms and its driver helps them into the back. He and his wife had been hoping for a child for a long time, and here was one, at long last.   Within the next week, Mr. Minos has debriefed Helena and Dick, and exchanged Midnighter to Stormwatch for Agent 19. The baby, though - and its heart - were not recovered, according to Dick's report. He claimed she had been lost in the crash, despite having left her with the couple who saved them both.