Dick watched as the young man who had been his sole focus for several hellish days stepped into the chest of a giant AI. The doors closed behind him. It was barely a blink between one moment and the next, and then rock shattered around them, the sound barrier crashing as it was blasted apart, and Duo was gone.
He'd said he would come back. Hadn't he? That had been an awfully final goodbye, whatever he'd said before. Dick stared up at the sky, unaware of hands that curled into impotent fists around armored gloves. Unaware of a chest that rose and fell beneath a hidden breastplate. Unaware of the weight of weapons secreted around his person.
Aware only of the uselessness of it all, as the sky remained clear and no AI came back into sight.