Okay, we're back, with the Cliff's Notes version of how Love and Other Headaches was meant to conclude. People were asking why the Bats were important – hopefully by the end of this, you'll have the answer.

Remember, these are effectively just notes – please forgive any tense changes or other issues I didn't catch on the second pass.

We left Stephanie Brown caught by the bad guys after accidentally setting off a citywide gang war, trying to prove herself to Batman. Her captor turns out to be Black Mask, who's disappointed at getting what he considers one of the B-list heroes, but figures she might be useful nonetheless. Steph manages to hold out despite being tortured, never letting on that she knows the real identities of Batman and Red Robin, much less any of the other Titans. After one particularly vicious encounter with a power drill, she realizes no one can find her, and rescues herself, breaking her own wrist to slip the cuffs. She staggers out of abandoned building in which she was held, and manages to cross paths with Huntress, who's doing her best to control the riots Steph touched off. Helena takes her to Dr. Leslie Thompkins, the Bats' physician, and Steph is in grave condition. Before she falls unconscious, Doc Leslie learns enough from her to know the gang war is her fault – and that she did it all because of Bruce using her to get Tim back into the fold.

This earns Batman a right royal ass-chewing from one of the few people whose opinion he respects, and Leslie tells him the girl may not live. Even if she does, Doc Leslie is taking her off the Bat and Bird rosters; they've all done enough harm, and not enough good. When Steph never shows back up in Gotham after the gangs are settled down, and neither does Leslie, the Bats realize that Steph is out of the country, healing and learning other ways of being a hero.

Meanwhile, Jason Kent was headed to Metropolis, despite having no powers, because his father and sister were fighting a kryptonite-based villain. He quickly finds out that despite being powerless, kryptonite still works on him – and that suddenly doesn't matter, because in the chaos Metallo caused, Kala gets herself hurt trying to protect Dad and the civilians. No permanent damage, but she gets knocked out while flying at rooftop level, and Kal-El is too off-balance from kryptonite exposure to catch her.

The sudden rush of adrenaline triggers Jason's powers coming back online. Kal-El and Zatanna were planning to arrange a controlled, fake disaster to try to trigger this, since they'd decided his lack of powers was mostly psychosomatic. Seeing his twin in danger brings out the best and worst in Jason, though, and he saves her – then clobbers Metallo unconscious despite the kryptonite. Turns out his body has been quietly 'charging' the powers the entire time he's been without them.

That explanation, after the fact, leads Jason to a lot of soul-searching. On some level somewhere, he had begun to doubt himself as a hero. The pressure of leadership was getting to be too much, and Titans business had started taking over his daily life as well while he dated Cassie Sandsmark. For a little while, Jason just wanted an escape, and the normal humanity of farmboy Kent was exactly what he needed.

Having faced his issues, though, he puts the cape back on and returns to Titans Tower to resume his role as Superboy. Only his new determination to live at least a halfway normal life causes friction between him and Cassie. It doesn't help that Rose Wilson returns to the Titans after finishing her business with Red Hood. They've taken down a child trafficking ring, but somewhere along the way Rose got locked into some serious self-hatred, and she shows back up to the Titans determined to make them kill her … or do it herself, if they're too chicken. Tim, Jason, and Cassie all have to hold her back, and while she doesn't quite break down and admit what's wrong, they all have theories.

Tim thinks it's Red Hood's influence, Jay Todd being a notorious loose cannon who put him in the hospital to announce his own return from the grave. Jason thinks it's her father, who's always had too much of a hold over her. Cassie thinks it's Rose herself, that maybe the blood on her hands is tearing her apart, and it's always been Cassie that Rose targets for her snark. The two get into it, very vocally, and it ends with Rose on lockdown.

Jason disagrees with the way Cassie handles the whole situation. Tim, unfortunately, agrees with Cassie that Rose needs to be kept under strict surveillance and not allowed the third or fourth chance that Jason would give her. They won't turn her over to the League or the authorities, because Titans take care of their own, and Jason argues that they ought to find the girl a freakin' therapist instead of the DIY mental health care that works so well for everyone in the caped crowd. The argument between the three of them is fairly ugly, but they care too much for each other to make any unforgivable mistakes.

That, coupled with Jason's recent ambivalence about the hero business and his desire to have a life other than the cape – in Kansas of all places – leads to him and Cassie taking a trial break from dating. It turns out to be beneficial to their working relationship and the friendship they had before, and they've already both decided to end it when the Titans drop into the League's medical center and bump into the new biochem student on board, designing her own xenobiology course. Cassie meets the new girl first and immediately strikes up a friendship with her. Jason, of course, knows Elise Thorne from high school, and she and Cassie both laugh at him when they realize how they both know Superboy. There will be no love triangles amongst people who strive all the time to be their best selves, and who in two cases are trying to fill some very impressive Super- and Wonder-boots.

Meanwhile on Kala's side of things, the band is signed and working at an insane pace to hammer out their first album. Morgan finally admits he's not going to leave and return to teaching, instead staying to play guitar alongside Robb on bass and Ned on drums. Sebast also plays guitar when he's not matching his vocals to Kala's. Kala has to fight with the label to keep their sound the way they want it, not just spit out whatever catchy hook the executives think will sell the most albums. This results in the label not wanting to promote the album heavily, but social media helps, and the band – now called KLK after Kala's initials, something she resisting but the boys thought was funny – commits to doing a truly exhaustive tour schedule to get themselves out there. It's just Kala, Sebast, and the boys in an RV that's seen better days, with a driver and a tour manager.

Said manager turns out to be an industry veteran named Marlene, who has dealt with plenty of edgy rockstars, and who possesses sangfroid enough to yawn at their worst antics. She brooks absolutely no bullshit from them, however, since she's the person who makes most of the food and lodging decisions, and they'd best not try her.

She also happens to be an attractive woman, with whom Sebast jokingly flirts just to see what kind of manager they have to deal with. Too uptight wouldn't work with this band, after all. Marlene shoots back that he's been on her gaydar since before he pulled into the parking lot, so she knows he has no interest in her. That piques his interest and he introduces Kala as his pinch hitter, which makes her groan and smack him. As far as she's concerned, this tour is all business – but living in extremely close quarters for a long period of time with a bunch of artistic personalities is an emotional pressure cooker.

Six months later, she's bringing Marlene home to Thanksgiving dinner, without warning her own twin brother that she's dating a woman. Jason gets over it fairly quickly, nobody else cares, although Kristin – now thirteen – is quite surprised. And oddly bemused at her own mother's lack of reaction, but Lana makes a point of telling Kala that she's known Tobie and Maggie far too long to be scandalized. The family is more concerned by Marlene's Jewish ethnicity, which Kala did at least tell them, and even then they only needed to figure out how to make sure dinner was kosher.

It isn't a stunt date, though Marlene chews her out for the bit about not telling her brother, and they continue dating even though they have to hide it from the label. Tour managers aren't supposed to get that personal. The boys in the band keep mum, although Sebast is annoyed that Kala isn't by his side all the time. That said, he has finally embarked on a relationship of his own, with the band's web designer, Javier.

While Kala's relationship can only exist when the band is on the road, Sebast's suffers from travel. At first, he and Javier are disgustingly cute, and Kala is amazed that Sebast the eternal romance butterfly has finally settled on one man. But things get ugly when they're on tour, especially since the label heavily promotes the closeness of Kala and Sebast's friendship. Sex sells, after all, and the idea of two super-hot twentysomething Goth singers as a couple fuels some extra tickets and album sales. Late in their year of touring, with a couple songs on the Billboard list and every free moment spent working on songs for the second album, it all breaks down when Javier accuses Sebast of sleeping with Kala. Sebast, who has been faithful and passing up all those attractive groupies for Javier's sake, loses his shit entirely. He curses Javier out for being an insecure little bitch, and throws his phone out the window of the tour bus while they're on the highway doing seventy.

It makes Kala feel guilty because she still has a crush on him. She thought he was gorgeous when they met, but he made it clear from the first sentence that he's not into girls. (Literally his first remark, when sitting down next to her and Elise on the first day of class, was to say, "So, ladies, do you like a handsome boy with a sexy accent?" And when they both laughed at his audacity, he added, "So do I. Nice to know we have something in common. I'm Sebast. Mucho gusto.") Although some of his behavior around her has made other people question just how gay he really is, to date Sebast has never really even wondered about girls. He's kissed Kala, sure, but she's his platonic lifemate. Also his beard, since his family is still in denial about his homosexuality, and they keep pestering him to make an honest woman of her. He and Kala just roll their eyes. Sebast's brother Mikey knows, but he doesn't care. The parents refuse to even think too hard about it.

One night shortly after the breakup between Sebast and Javier, after selling out a large auditorium and hearing that their contract is renewed and the label will promote them properly – while still giving them the creative control they demand – KLK goes out on the town to celebrate. Everyone gets very drunk, ending with Sebast and Kala in their hotel room finishing off a bottle of flavored vodka while Morgan, Ned, and Robb try to pick up groupies. Sebast isn't interested for once, and Marlene's babysitting the bunch of them so no one does anything stupid enough to end up in the newspaper. Or jail.

Sebast and Kala have shared a room and a bed for most of their time together as a band; it's no surprise they fall into bed together. That something actually happens this time, is a huge surprise to both of them. Kala wakes up the next morning feeling guilty both for cheating on Marlene – though their relationship is by definition rather nebulous, since they have to keep it secret from the fans and the label – and for 'taking advantage' of Sebast. She always wakes up first, powered by the sun, and decides to act like nothing happened. She doesn't want to lose Sebast as her friend. They've been planning to buy a house in Metropolis with the advance on the new contract, and why not buy it together? Their friendship has outlasted either of their romances.

And now Kala thinks she's finally endangered that, so she just pretends like it never happened, gets coffee and makes fun of Sebast's hair sticking up. She playfully accuses him of not being able to hold his liquor and makes light of everything.

Sebast, meanwhile, was surprised to realize that a) he's even capable of having sex with a girl and b) hey, that wasn't half bad. But he knows Kala better than most people, and he can see the brittle edge to her cheer. Because of that, he assumes that the previous night's activities have seriously Fucked Up their relationship, so he decides to also pretend nothing ever happened. It's easier not to think about it, anyway, since doing so would force him to question the identity he built in defiance of his parents' expectations. At least in the coming days he realizes to his relief that no, he's not suddenly attracted to women. Most of them are quite pretty but no more sexy to him than a nice flower arrangement. Only Kala complicates things, and that's probably just because the two of them are so damn close. She's his best friend, after all.

While all this messy relationship stuff is going on with Kala and Sebast, Jason and Elise have gotten back together. Elise has finally agreed to work for the League, though she still gives Oracle the stink-eye on occasion for unethical tactics in recruiting her. Barbara Gordon, who is as ruthless as the Bat who trained her, just shrugs. For Jason and Elise, the third time is the charm, and when he asks her to marry him, she says yes.

This occasions a lot of excitement in the family, as everyone wants to plan an Epic Wedding for the two. Lois tries to be the voice of reason, but Richard, Clark, and Lana are into the idea, as are Elise's parents, who still don't quite get why everyone in Jason's family has so many in-jokes and possibly secrets. Elise's mother in particular has Ideas about what constitutes a proper wedding, and runs up against Lois frequently in planning meetings. There's also the sheer logistics involved; Jason has a large extended family who all want to be present.

In the middle of Elise's mother's insistence that she must wear her grandmother's wedding gown, and no, L. Lang cannot alter it to something more modern, that would be sacrilege, she mutters to Jason that they should just elope. It sounds like a good idea to him, so with a little help from Kala and Cassie to fly them there and be their witnesses, the two elope to Lake Tahoe and are married in front of the judge the same day. Cassie, who is quite good friends with Elise at that point, jokes about how the Blur and Wonder Girl are enablers for this relationship and marriage.

Cue the outrage on Elise's parents' parts, but the Lane-Kents and Whites understand, and there's some teasing about Jason getting this from Lois and how she and Clark are a bad influence. The two come home after a two-week honeymoon to face the music and find that other people are good at last-minute surprises, too. They may not have had a big fancy wedding, but there is a great big party for both families in the Centennial Hotel, complete with cake and toasts and dancing. And Elise's grandmother's dress, on display under glass.

The kids might get their way about the wedding, but the families have to have some way to honor the occasion. Also, cake.

There's also stuff happening with the Titans during this time. Donna Troy is back on active duty as Troia, since Cassie took over as Wonder Girl. She's carefully decided to start dating again, and is seeing Kyle Rayner, the second Green Lantern. They run across Red Hood, who is avoiding Gotham but also not leaving quite so many bodies on the ground these days. He's chasing one of the same leads they are on the West Coast, and the three decide to work together – mostly because Jay Todd has information he won't share unless they work with him. And he doesn't particularly want either of their help, anyway, but admits their powers are useful.

It's a very uneasy truce, not helped by the fact that most of the caped community is now calling him Jay instead of Jason, thanks to the Super-kid out there having the same damn name. Dick Grayson has always called him Jay, but Dick gives everyone nicknames; he's the reason Barbara Gordon is called Babs. Donna tells him to get the hell over it, they'll call him Jason if that's what he wants, but he's being a pain about it. That alleviates a little of the tension because it harks back to his work with the Titans when he was Robin, and had an epic crush on Donna. Still does, and he hasn't missed how possessive Kyle is, but Jay just rolls his eyes at them. There are more important things in this world than who's dating who, and their current case leads to a hint of a major crisis aimed at this whole world.

It's mostly just whispers about Ray Palmer, the mostly-retired hero known as the Atom, and how his shrinking powers are needed to prevent an apocalypse. Only in the course of investigating it, Donna, Kyle, and Jay discover that the search is a red herring. There's actually a plot to kidnap Ray, and they were inadvertently used to locate him. The three discover that Darkseid is trying to manipulate events in their dimension so as to bring about a crisis that will wipe most of the heroes off the map entirely. The three get pulled into several alternate universes, including one in which Batman killed Joker and every other supervillain after Jay's death, and one in which Donna turned evil after the death of her husband and child.

We never intended to cover that moment by moment, just the lead up and then the disappearance of the three. They would return months later, all three refusing to speak of what happened or where they went or what they saw there. Kyle and Donna are no longer dating on their return; to every Titan's shock, she and Jay are now an item. A very contentious item, to be sure, and we planned to cover at least one argument between them. They've seen worlds that seem better than theirs, and worlds that are much worse, but it's been made very clear that crossing worlds is a major taboo, one that can get you killed. So their world is the one they have to stay in, with all its imperfections.

One of their arguments concerns the Blur, who doesn't exist in any of the worlds they've been to. Jay doesn't know much about that one, except that she's linked to their Superboy, who is different from other worlds' Superboys. Donna resents the fact that they've met at least one Supergirl, who is so vastly different from the Blur, and that clues Jay in to who the Blur might be.

He also knows by then that Donna really cannot stand wildcards, and their trip through the multiverse – and confrontation with her evil counterpart – drove her to the brink of sanity. Their relationship was going to fracture along the lines of what Donna wants being something Jay can never be, at least in his own estimation: normal, sane, and good. Ironically she fell in love with him because he was the steady rock in a sea of madness during the multiverse trip to keep Apokolips from coming to their world. Unfortunately the reason why he could handle that madness is because he's a little bit fractured already, and capable of throwing caution to the wind and rolling with whatever the world decides to hit him with. Back in their own world, his secrecy – he does not talk about where he's been or how he survived or who trained him – and his violence toward criminals are not tolerable to Donna.

At the same time, Donna herself isn't exactly what Jay was looking for, but then, Jay himself doesn't know what he's looking for. His dance card is pretty messed up, after all. His relationship with Talia ended when he learned she was keeping a file on him and possibly using him for some ulterior motive; he almost decided to kill her for that, but since she brought him back using the Lazarus pit, he decided to let her live. His casual relationship with Rose Wilson ended abruptly when she walked out on him after realizing she was starting to develop feelings for him, and he did eventually figure out that's why she left. The fact that Rose once had a crush on Dick and made a serious play for Tim just means she's a little too Robin-obsessed, and Jay figures it's for the best that she cut things off before it got awkward.

And now with Donna, she's someone who is unequivocally good and yet the things she seems to want are so alien to him as to be incomprehensible. In Jay's own mind he thinks of it as picket fences and minivans, and for a kid who grew up in the Bowery, that's a candy-floss dream, not a reality. Not for him. Hell, the closest thing to normal Jay has ever known was being Bruce Wayne's ward and Batman's sidekick, and what does that say about a guy, anyway?

By the end of Love and Other Headaches, it was going to become clear that Kala was being drawn into the hero community whether she wants to or not, unable to ignore her brother in peril. Even while touring, she keeps a domino mask hidden on her person, and by the close of their second year of touring the band KLK is reasonably well-known and successful. Kala and Sebast did also buy a house together, even though they only live in it about four months of the year. She's starting to find fame rather frustrating – it's glorious to be on stage with thousands of fans screaming her name, and it feels like answering her calling when she's in the studio pouring her heart and soul into a song. But the crazy touring schedule, the necessity of keeping her relationship with Marlene under wraps, and the continued closeness with Sebast – now made awkward by having slept with him that once – are all conspiring to drive her nuts. Getting photographed at the coffee shop by paparazzi doesn't help, either. She's beginning to realize that swooping in to save the day as the Blur is the same kind of calling, just as glorious as singing, but without some of the drama that fame brings. Not that she'd quit, or give up the little family the band has become.

Jason and Elise are married and living in the Kent farmhouse, telecommuting for their classes. Wayne Enterprises funds the building, in secret, of an underground lab on the property, accessed through the hidden storage area under the old barn where Clark's space ship was once stored. The League knows, thanks to the Lanterns, that there are many more alien races out there, with different biology and technology, and someone needs to be researching all that. Elise Thorne – she keeps her maiden name, which doesn't bother Jason – will someday be Dr. M. Elise Thorne, head of xenobiology at the fledgling lab. It's effectively the League's answer to Cadmus and S.T.A.R., a research facility primarily allied to them. By the end of the series, they're still arguing over what to call it.

Part of Elise's job is the care and feeding of superheroes, so she networks with Emil Hamilton of S.T.A.R. Labs, and Dr. Leslie Thompkins in Gotham. Doc Leslie mostly treats humans, but she knows a few things about caped psychology that make her an invaluable mentor to Elise. Dr. Thompkins is back in the States, but her recent protege Spoiler is still off the radar. We'll see more of Stephanie Brown after the next fic, and her perspective will be very needed.

And Jay Todd, after splitting from Donna Troy, decides to go home. Gotham has pulled on him like a lodestone all this time, and despite having been all over this world and a few others, it's still the only place that feels like home. That means dealing with the Bat-family again, so he gears himself up for conflict. Red Hood doesn't play by anyone's rules, and damned if he'll let Bruce's self-righteousness keep him out of his own city.

That's all we planned to reveal before the opening of Into the Shadows, which is the story of how and why Kala went to Gotham to take Uncle Bruce up on his long-ago offer to train her. It does not go the way she, or anyone else, plans.