(shorter chapter)
Somewhere Over the Pacific -
Most of the plane was asleep.
Basil had the autopilot engaged and was watching TV with Silver
Suguro sat at the front in his own private area and he heard Ivy before he saw her as she settled into the seat beside him without asking, which was how she did most things
Suguro ignored her at first and kept looking out the window.
"It feels strange," he said. "Being on the way there."
"Japan?" she asked
"Gotham is your home," Ivy said.
She pulled her feet up onto the seat, making herself comfortable as they sat quietly for a moment, the engine noise filling the space between them.
"Is it about your mother?" Ivy asked.
Suguro didn't answer.
"Are you planning to see her while we're there?"
"The Shie Hassaikai is why we're here but-"
A pause.
"She mentioned her students are doing internships in Osaka i dont know if that means shes also there I dont really understand what a hero internship is," he said.
Ivy smiled slowly, looking back at the window. She didn't push it further, which was sometimes more effective than pushing.
"If you decide you want to see her," she said after a while, "I'll come."
She leaned her head briefly against his shoulder.
Then the intercom clicked.
Basil's voice came through the cabin speakers
"Everyone should probably be awake for this."
The screens throughout the cabin flickered on.
The footage was aerial, shot from a news helicopter, showing a small town somewhere outside Gotham's limits that was having a terrible night. Several blocks burning, streets cratered, most of the town was wiped off the map
At the center of it, Stars and Stripes…
fighting Bane.
The cabin went quiet.
She moved through the destruction running her Quirk at full capacity, but Bane didn't back down and kept fighting, his Escalating Rage Quirk doing exactly what it did in sustained combat, his strength climbing with each exchange until the impacts between them were registering as seismic events shaking the earth beneath them. A gas station became a fireball in the background and what apartment buildings were left crumbled under the quakes.
"He got greedy," Cameron said,
"He took too long getting back to Gotham…"
"He was always going to push too far," Roman said. "That's Bane, the ambition isn't the problem but sometimes he seems to not have clear direction or a plan"
"Stars and Stripes never enters Gotham," Langstrom said through the cabin comm from back at the base, patched into the same feed. "Guess she took the fight to Bane since he was outside the city."
Suguro watched the footage without speaking.
He'd concluded months ago that the American government was keeping Stars and Stripes away from Gotham deliberately. The pattern was too consistent to be a coincidence, a hero of her capability deployed everywhere except the one city that most needed her. Someone in Washington was making those decisions and enforcing them carefully.
On screen, the fight reached its conclusion in a way no one in the cabin had been expecting.
Batman came from nowhere managing to use some sort of electrical device to capture and incapacitate Bane after he went over his limit.
The cabin absorbed this in silence.
"Batman and Stars and Stripes," Cameron said eventually. "Working together."
"Apparently," Roman said.
"That's the first time I've seen that," Langstrom said through the comm.
"Probably the last," Suguro said.
"Trust me"
The next couple of hours of coverage showed the aftermath, the same footage cycling with increasing commentary layered over it.
Then the militia news started coming in.
It began as scattered reports, an attack on civilian infrastructure in Philadelphia, then Boston, then more incidents along the coast between them. Bane's militia, apparently responding to their leader's capture with mass strikes on civilian targets across three states, it was a escalating massacre.
The groups demand was that Bane will not be sent out of Gotham
And then, several hours in, the announcement that sent a visible reaction through everyone in the plane.
"We're receiving confirmation that Bane has been transferred to Arkham Asylum in Gotham City."
"Arkham not a federal facility?" the other anchor sounded confused
The White House - Secure Briefing Room - Simultaneous
The door opened with enough force that it barely remained on its hinges.
Stars and Stripes moved through the room like the fight was still happening, cape settling as she stopped at the head of the table and looked at the assembled officials with an expression that had moved well past frustrated.
President Richard Ashford maintained the sympathetic expression he'd spent decades perfecting. "Cathleen—"
"Arkham," she said. "You sent him to Arkham."
"He's a Gotham villain," Ashford said. "His organization, his criminal history, his operations, all of it tied to Gotham. The transfer places him within the jurisdiction—"
"Batman and I caught him in New York," she said. "Outside Gotham. In New York state, you should have sent him anywhere else you have to know Arkham's a revolving door!"
The Governor of New York cleared his throat from his seat. "The state of New York does not want someone like Bane within its borders. The incident alone caused significant damage to three municipalities"
"I will cover the damage personally." She said it with the flatness of someone who had the resources to mean it and was past caring about the politics of the offer. "That's not the issue."
Senator Morrison from Massachusetts leaned forward. "The militia attacks on our cities, on Boston, stopped when Bane was transferred to Arkham. All that matters to me is that our citizens are safe tonight."
"Because you bowed to terror" Stars and Stripes said. "You sent the message that attacking civilians will get you what you want."
"What we did," Vice President Margaret Booker said carefully, "was find the fastest solution to an active civilian emergency, which is what the people we represent needed from us. The alternative was what, exactly? Keeping Bane in federal custody while his militia continued attacking and the death total rises astronomically?"
"The alternative is not rewarding terrorism and fear..." Stars and Stripes put both hands flat on the table. "And it's not sending one of the world's most dangerous criminals to a facility with a documented history of not being able to hold its existing population."
Ashford leaned forward, his voice taking on a harder quality. "Cathleen, you were not authorized to be operating near Gotham's borders, in the first place"
"I stopped the villain, I caught Bane, that's what heroes are supposed to do." she said with conviction being inspired to do this after seeing All Might's final battle.
"Your presence near Gotham created exactly the kind of escalation we've been trying to avoid."
Stars and Stripes looked at him. At Booker. At the senators. At the screens in the corner still cycling through damage footage from the militia attacks and the fight.
"You're telling me," she said quietly, "that we shouldn't have stopped him."
"He is a Gotham problem and should be left to be dealt with in Gotham. Are we done here?"
She was quiet for a long moment.
Then she left.
The door didn't survive how hard she slammed it, shattering into pieces.
Approaching Osaka - Kansai International Airport - Private Terminal
Japan came into view as they descended, the coast coming up green and cities were organized and clean in ways that Gotham's never was.
Silver was back in the co-pilot seat with the headset on, watching the approach with the focused attention she brought to things she was doing for the first time and intended to do correctly.
The radio crackled, the controller's voice came through in Japanese, professional and faintly surprised. A private long-range aircraft from a private high profile American registration requesting landing at the private terminal, no advance filing in the system.
Silver explained and lied in Japanese.
Basil glanced at her from the pilot seat. Said nothing.
The controller directed them to the private terminal's secondary runway, used for unscheduled arrivals the airport preferred to keep separate from regular operations.
"Cleared for approach," Silver said, switching back to English.
The plane banked, Japan spreading below them, Osaka visible in the distance, the runway lights of Kansai International coming up through the morning light.
Suguro sat at the window and watched Japan come up to meet them.