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lusilly · 7 years

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streets of gotham: secret origins

finally a complete introductory fic for the Streets of Gotham 2 team: Colin Wilkes (Abuse), Ellen Nayar (Ember), Nell Little (Spoiler), Jordan Joyce (Jabberwock), and Niloufar Ghorbani (Seraph). (lucas comes later lmao)

Since Jordan’s got the most complicated backstory, xe has xyr own intro fic you can read here. The SoG2 team is featured heavily in Fiat iusticia and in Wheel in the Sky.

This fic was an exercise in Mark Waid’s advice on how plot is nothing more than setting upon which to hang emotion.........and that was Tough lmao. extremely unsatisfied with the ending. Relies heavily on story from Batman: The Black Mirror. Damian is about 16 here. My fav part of this is damian beating the shit out of a joker stan. Enjoy!

NAME: Damian Wayne ALIAS: Robin DATE OF BIRTH: 5 September 1996 (approximate) BLOOD TYPE: O- (Full Medical History) EMERGENCY CONTACT: BW, DG AFFILIATIONS: Teen Titans, Team Ember EVAL: [File Encrypted] NOTES: |Robin| Eval needs to be de-encrypted. Any information contained therein cannot possibly be worse than not knowing |Nightwing| Yeah thats kind of a dick move B. Lol |Batman| Notes are to be relevant to the file in question not a space for airing personal grievances |Red Hood| Im airing my personal grievances here just to spite you. You suck |Batman| If this continues I will remove editing privileges for all of you |Red Hood| You still suck Editing on NOTES is locked

----

Damian got up early; patrol had ended before two AM last night, the city quiet and still in the early winter lull. A cold snap had settled across Gotham this past week, creeping in from the bay. Though it did not snow, the clear skies brought the temperature to well below freezing, which led to slow nights on patrol. The heat of summer pushed people outside relentlessly. The cold, on the other hand, made criminals lethargic and cautious, preferring to stay inside with their families.

So Damian rolled out of bed around nine in the morning, the sunlight shining into his window through blinds he had forgotten to draw last night. The first thing he did was take his phone from its perch on his bedside table and scroll through any new notifications. Both Iris and Lian had texted him. He responded to Iris’s but not Lian’s, then went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Not ten minutes later he was in the drawing room downstairs, where Titus slept before the great brick fireplace, which was empty.

Damian patted his dog on the stomach, whistling through his teeth. “Come on,” he said, getting down on his knees and drumming his hands on Titus’s sturdy body. The dog lit up with energy, reaching up to lick Damian’s face, tail wagging furiously as he got to his feet. Damian scratched him behind his ears. “You ready for a run, boy? Come on, let’s get some exercise.”

Alfred appeared, hot coffee in hand. “Good morning, Damian,” he said. “Taking the dog for a walk?”

“Yes,” answered Damian, glancing around. “He’s been indoors too much lately because of the cold, he needs to stretch his legs.”

“You too?”

Damian offered Alfred a little grin. “Me too,” he agreed. “It’s slow out there.”

“And here I thought that was a good thing.”

“It is.” Titus bounded across the room excitedly, chasing his tail, ready for a walk. He started to paw at Damian’s leg, and Damian only held up one hand to indicate Stop. “Down. One moment, alright?” To Alfred, he asked, “Do you know what time my father got home last night?”

Alfred gave sort of a shrug. “Not long after you.”

“Oh,” said Damian. “When he wakes up will you tell him I’m heading to school later today? I’ve got an exam at three.”

Alfred made a face of enthusiastic pride. “Your first university exam,” he said, sounding impressed. “In which subject, may I ask?”

“Multivariable calculus,” Damian answered, kneeling down to rub Titus’s big head. “It’s simple stuff. A pre-req for applied math.”

“Not finance?”

Damian flashed that grin at Alfred once more. “I’m just testing out my options,” he said. “I have time.”

“Indeed you do,” agreed Alfred, with an approving nod. “In any case, good luck and I shall inform your father as soon as he wakes. Which,” he glanced at the grandfather clock in the hallway, and took a disapproving sip of coffee, “should be quite soon. He’s quite worse than you, isn’t he?”u

Damian opened the French doors to the back garden. With a wave to Alfred, he said, “We’ll be back,” and he whistled for Titus to follow him, then took off jogging past the flowerbeds. Coffee in hand, Alfred watched him go.

The morning was brisk, but Damian felt warm and alive underneath the early wintertime sun. Taking it slow, he scrolled through his phone, searching for an appropriate playlist, then tucked earbuds into his ears and his the phone itself into a holder at his bicep. Whistling once more at Titus, he took a wide berth around his vegetable garden, knowing that Titus was prone to digging around in it sometimes, upsetting his crops. From there he stayed close to the tree line, heading out across the Manor grounds. The route he liked to take eventually led to a field and a set of rolling hills littered with public paths; he preferred, however, to take a less intuitive path, slightly different every time and designed to get the most out of the slope of the hills.

Damian took great joy in his morning runs with Titus: it was productive and refreshing and outside, instead of careful training in the facilities under the Manor, which, though state-of-the-art, could feel a little claustrophobic. It was good, he thought, to get out of the house for a little while, out from under his father’s watchful eye. This was the same reason why he’d been spending so much time with the Titans lately.

Cutting through the edge of the woods, where the trees were sparse, Damian suddenly realized that Titus wasn’t following him anymore. When he glanced around, Titus was nowhere to be seen. He came to a stop and turned around, tugging his earbuds out.

It was mostly quiet, except for the wind shuddering the tree branches. Damian whistled. “Titus!” There was no response. Muttering an oath under his breath, Damian jogged back down the path he’d just cut. “Titus!” he called again, searching between the trees on either side of him. “Titus, come!”

His heart jumped as he heard suddenly a piteous whining, as if Titus were afraid of something, cowering in fear; with a little more urgency he headed into the woods, following the source of the sound. “Titus!”

Off the beaten path, obscured by some low underbrush, the scene Damian found jolted his stomach, making him feel immediately sick before his well-practiced professional instinct took over. “Titus,” he hissed, approaching the dog, who laid whining beside the ugly sight. Grabbing Titus’s collar, he tugged the dog away, retreating to a nearby tree. Titus whined as Damian took out his phone, but Damian just said, “Sit. Titus, sit,” and the dog did so, albeit reluctantly.

In Wayne Manor, Bruce Wayne’s personal cell phone, which sat neatly in a charging device by his bed, started to ring.

Bruce, raised his head groggily from the mess of sheets and limbs in which he typically slept. Narrowing his eyes at the screen of the phone, which displayed an close-up selfie of Damian’s annoyed face that Dick had assigned to his civilian contact, Bruce started at it for a moment before reaching out and plucking it off the charger.

“Damian?” he said, masterfully masking his confusion.

“Father,” replied Damian shortly, heading back to the path by the edge of the woods. “Did I wake you?”

“I – where are you?”

“A few miles away from home, almost at Brentwood. I took Titus for a run.” This was not unusual, but it was unusual for Damian to call home halfway through. Unsure what was happening, Bruce began, “Is…everything all right?”

“I found a body,” he said bluntly.

Bruce’s eyebrows shot up. “You what?”

“Well, Titus found it, really. It was sort of tucked off the main path, we never would’ve seen it had I not decided to loop around past the Kai estate. A boy,” Damian informed his father automatically, pausing to bark, “Titus, come,” before continuing, “maybe my age or slightly older. Wearing a Brentwood uniform.”

“Signs of assault?”

“No,” answered Damian. “Dead for a few hours now at the very least, but I can’t determine COD. Suppose we’ll have to wait for the coroner’s report.”

Sitting up in bed, calm and alert, Bruce began, “All right. Bring anything you’ve gathered back here and we can look into it tonight. Good work so far but for now the best thing to do would be to call the police-”

Damian interrupted him. “I already did,” he said. “Father, I’m sorry, I think you may be misunderstanding me? I wasn’t actually calling about the body, I’m calling to ask if you can come pick me up.”

Bruce blinked in surprise. “What?” he asked. “Why?”

“Because I already called the police and they’ll be here any minute, and I’ll have to act all traumatized because of the dead body, and anyway you know I don’t like civilian encounters with police without you.”

This more or less made sense, but it wasn’t what Bruce had meant. “What do you mean you aren’t calling about the body?”

“Oh,” said Damian, as if he hadn’t even thought of this. “Well. It’s by Brentwood.”

Again, Bruce did not immediately understand. “So?”

Almost apologetically, Damian said, “A five mile radius beyond campus limits…isn’t your jurisdiction, Father.”

It hit Bruce then with the force of a freight train: he, like a goddamn amateur idiot, had ceded actual turf to Damian’s pet side team made up of Gotham natives and sometimes headed by Damian’s closest friend in the city, Colin Wilkes, who boarded at Brentwood Academy on a Wayne Enterprises scholarship. The agreement itself had been a bit of a farce meant to keep the team out of trouble, given the specific area the Batman had permitted the team as their responsibility was located in the richest neighborhood in Bristol County, slightly outside Gotham city limits. He had not imagined that any terrible crime might go down five miles away from a wealthy private school, but in retrospect, of course it would.

“Damian,” said Bruce matter-of-factly. “I appreciate your loyalty to your friends,” he didn’t want to legitimize it by saying your team, and besides the Titans were more Damian’s team in any case, “but even you need to admit, this is out of their league.”

“This is one dead body,” answered Damian skeptically. “If that’s out of their league, they shouldn’t be doing this at all.”

“Well, perhaps that’s a fair point-”

“No,” said Damian shortly. “It’s not. You wouldn’t have given Ember her uniform if you really believed that.”

This was true enough, but frankly Bruce thought Ember was the only member of that team capable of joining the fight, and ideally he’d absorb her into the Batfamily at large before she got too committed to her own team. But this was not a conversation he wanted to have over the phone, so he shoved the sheets off the bed and said, “Don’t move for now, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Will you hurry, please?” Damian asked, sounding bored and slightly annoyed. “I hate calling the cops.”

Getting out of bed, Bruce reminded him, “You should be used to it, it’s half of what we do on patrol.”

“Yes,” muttered Damian, hearing the distant wail of sirens. “But I’m not exactly in uniform at the moment, am I?”

Feeling a little awkward at the reminder of the constant presence of race in Damian’s life which Bruce could never really fully grasp, Bruce assured his son that he would be there very soon. As soon as he hung up Damian sent him a pin dropped into a map at his location.

Bruce arrived not long after the police; a detective was talking to Damian, taking down notes. Titus got anxious around people he didn’t know, so Damian had his fingers hooked around his collar, keeping him close. The detective – a rookie who Bruce didn’t recognize on sight – had a few questions for Bruce, then patted Damian’s shoulder reassuringly. Taking Bruce aside, he recommended considering having Damian speak to a professional about the trauma of the sight he’d just witnessed, and Bruce nodded in what he hoped looked like naïve paternal concern.

Damian coaxed Titus in the backseat of the car, then got in himself. Titus hung his big head in between the two front seats, panting from exertion and excitement.

On the ride back to the Manor, Damian mercilessly mocked the police. “Now, this is so traumatizing, but you’ve been awfully brave – for Christ’s sake, it’s like none of them have ever seen a dead body before.”

“Well,” said Bruce fairly, “most sixteen-year-olds haven’t, Damian.”

“It’s not as if it was violent,” Damian pointed out. “There wasn’t even any blood or anything.”

“Which is…curious,” said Bruce thoughtfully. “No external evidence of foul play. Suicide?” Phone in hand, Damian replied, “I already sent photos to Colin, he should be able to identify him and pull his school records. We’ll check for a history of depression or mental illness, but my gut tells me a Brentwood student wouldn’t stagger into the woods to kill himself unless it was going to be uglier than that.”

Bruce nodded; this made sense. “Could’ve been an accident. Alcohol poisoning, or an overdose.”

“I’m leaning towards overdose personally,” answered Damian, texting something on his phone. “Colin’s files should have any record of drug activity at the school. I’ll meet up with him and the others tonight and we’ll get started.”

There was an awkward sort of pause. Bruce began, “You know, if you or the rest of the team ever require any help-”

As the car came to a stop in the Wayne Manor garage, Damian shook his head, interrupting his father. “You’re micromanaging,” he pointed out. “I told you, they’re never going to get better if you keep stepping in and taking over their investigations.”

“I understand that,” replied Bruce, turning the car off. “I’m merely remarking upon the fact that they lack experience, and therefore could benefit from guidance.”

“Namely, me,” said Damian, watching his father. “I’m their guidance.” He waited for a moment, eyes on Bruce, as if expecting confirmation. Little tink-tink-tink sounds came from the car’s engine as it cooled. “Right?”

Bruce began, “You already have a team-”

“You have, like, four teams,” Damian countered. “Not to mention whatever secret society you’re funding this week.”

“A murder is serious business.”

“You don’t even know if it’s murder yet.”

“If it were-”

“-then you still wouldn’t be in any position to take this from them. Just,” Titus stuck his head forward again, whining, and Damian reached out to scratch his face. “Unclench, alright?” Damian asked his father. “I can handle this.” Bruce didn’t reply to this, so Damian got out of the car and opened the door for Titus, who happily jumped out and followed him back into the house.

Later that day, Damian drove to Princeton for his first college exam. He finished early, and called Colin on the drive home.

---

NAME: Colin Wilkes ALIAS: “Abuse” DATE OF BIRTH: 9 December 1996 BLOOD TYPE: AB+ (Full Medical History) EMERGENCY CONTACT: Jane Brown LSW, Caseworker AFFILIATIONS: Team Ember EVAL: Behavioral history of paranoia and violence in multiple foster homes, though likely a result of instability in childhood rather than pathological root. Experimentation by SCARECROW led to increased physical abilities through transformation which includes augmented strength (no evidence senses are affected) as well as moderate invulnerability. Venom appears to have had long-lasting effects on body chemistry despite its degradation.

Decent field skills complemented by extreme strength. Only cleared for patrol if transformed. hand-to-hand and weapons training negligible. Defense training and development of damage-resistant uniform necessary to compensate for tendency to take fire. Precision training vital for development of fine offensive skills.

NOTES: |Robin| Consistent attitude improvements since enrollment at Brentwood. Some instability with transformations likely due to a mental block, have seen improvement past 2-3 months

---

“You’ve got to get a permanent HQ,” said Damian, in full Robin uniform, standing before a laptop computer in an empty Brentwood Academy classroom.

“This is good though,” Colin insisted. “This way we’re close to the action, right?”

“Well,” Damian replied, trying not to hurt Colin’s feelings. “Yes, though it really isn’t worth the lack of security or tech resources. Batman operates almost solely out of the Cave, and you know that’s a bit removed from the city.”

Colin said, “I don’t have a house to stick a secret lair underneath, though.”

“I mean, yes,” Damian admitted, nodding. “But the point stands. Besides, most of your team has trouble getting all the way out here. Spoiler’s bike can only hold two people.”

“That works fine anyway, Jordan doesn’t need a ride.”

With a long-suffering inhalation, Damian gently corrected, “Jabberwock, Abuse. Jabberwock. We use codenames in the field.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Colin, clicking through some files on the computer. “My bad. Anyway.” He gestured towards the screen. “This is what I got so far.”

“Aren’t we going to wait for the others?”

“Oh, should we?”

“Ideally, yes, we should. But if you’ve any sensitive information to share with me first,” he gestured at the screen, “by all means.”

Colin hesitated for a moment, watching Damian. Then he began, “Well, you know how I was kind of sort of maybe dating Ethan a while ago? So it turns out-”

“Abuse,” interrupted Damian loudly, holding up a hand. “I don’t mean – I meant sensitive information related to the case. You can call me and update me on your social life any time, so let’s try to avoid it while in uniform, yes?”

A little hurt, Colin replied, “This is related to the case. The dead kid is Joey Fremont, OK, and his roommate is on the wrestling team with Ethan, and so a while ago Ethan asked me to go to one of the wrestling team parties after the meet, and I didn’t go ‘cause he was being weird cagey about us and I could tell he wanted to go as ‘friends’ and it was annoying because like I asked him out and everything so it’s not like he didn’t actually have like feelings-”

Softly, Damian reminded him, “The point, please.”

“OK, OK, so – Ethan heard from Joey’s roommate that he was dealing in some shady shit.”

A frown creased Damian’s brow. “Define ‘shady shit.’”

“Dealing,” Colin emphasized, as if that had made it obvious. “Like, drugs.” This seemed a little far-fetched. “Joseph Fremont, seventeen-year-old trust fund baby, was a drug-dealer?”

“Yeah. Some shady stuff.”

There it was again, shady, Colin’s favorite ambiguous descriptor. Damian felt a migraine coming on. “We’re still waiting on the tox report,” Damian told him. “But it’ll be easier if we know what to look for. Do you know what he was dealing?”

“Drugs,” said Colin.

“What kind of drugs? Cocaine? Heroin?”

“What the fuck, you think I know? I didn’t buy any shit from him.”

This was going to be harder than Damian thought. “Do you know anyone who did buy it?” he asked. “Maybe Ethan, or someone else on the wrestling team?” Offended, Colin told him, “Bitch, Ethan isn’t a fucking junkie.”

“Right, since you have impeccable taste in guys.”

“Wow,” said Colin, even more insulted. “That’s fucking rude.”

Damian was saved from trying to apologize for his completely correct and true reading of Colin’s limited dating history by a knock on the window. “Cavalry’s here,” he said, heading to open the window.

Ember and Spoiler slipped into the room. “We weren’t sure if we were supposed to use the door,” Spoiler explained. “We thought there might be cameras and stuff.”

“Abuse disabled them,” Damian said. “And we’re far enough from the center of campus that security doesn’t patrol here.”

“Oh, cool,” said Nell. She waved behind Damian. “Hey Colin.”

Before Damian could correct her, Colin impressed him by chiming in. “Abuse,” he said, grinning at her. “Only codenames.”

“Oh, shit, sorry!”

“It’s OK,” murmured Damian, going back to the laptop. “Is Jabberwock coming?”

“I haven’t heard from her,” answered Ellen, shrugging. “But I imagine if she was, she’d be picking up, um,” she gave a pointed pause, “you-know-who on her way over.”

“Who?” asked Damian.

“Voldemort,” said Nell, giggling.

He looked around at Colin, expecting an answer. Colin made a beckoning gesture with one finger, and Damian went over to him and leaned in. “Niloufar,” he whispered.

Damian pulled away, frowning. “Niloufar?” he echoed.

Colin took great pleasure in going, “Shh! Codenames only!”

“I don’t know who that is,” said Damian honestly. “Do they have a codename?”

“Not yet,” answered Nell, taking a seat on one of the desks. “She said she liked Angel or something, I think.”

“No, it wasn’t Angel,” Ellen said thoughtfully. “It was something Muslim I think. I can’t remember right now.”

Damian hesitated for a moment, then said to Ellen, “Whether or not Jabberwock brings her, can you send me her information later? We’ll do a background check.”

Ellen watched him for a moment, but beneath the scarlet mask her expression was indecipherable. “I can relay it to Oracle, if that’s what you mean.”

It wasn’t exactly, but it would do. He nodded. “Now. Let’s get to business. Abuse, would you brief your teammates on the case?”

Quickly, Colin got back to business. He did a decent job, though Damian interjected a few times with details that seem to have slipped Colin’s mind. Nell, in her caped eggplant-colored Spoiler costume, sat on one of the desks, whereas Ellen, her crimson-and-black uniform, took a seat, leaning forward over the desk thoughtfully. Her body language was tight and measured, inscrutable. When his mind wandered Damian found his gaze occasionally drawn to her, though it wasn’t really in attraction so much as curiosity. He still wondered exactly what she had done to prove herself to his father, who trusted her far beyond any other member of this burgeoning team.

The specifics of the case were this: Joseph Fremont, seventeen years old, white male, five-foot-eight inches, approximately a hundred and ninety pounds, had according to his roommate never made it back to his bedroom on the night of November the thirtieth, and had the following morning been discovered dead one-point-eight miles away from campus. They were still waiting on the physical evidence, but Robin had called them all together tonight so they could hit the ground running. Colin’s revelation that Joseph Fremont might have been dealing was kind of disappointing to Damian, as it suggested that the kid might’ve just been sampling the product and accidentally overdosed. Not that he wished a murder had occurred or anything, but a good old-fashioned mystery would’ve been perfect training for the young team.

When Colin told Ellen and Nell about the drugs, sparing them the details about how he knew, Ellen spoke up. “If he was dealing and there were no external signs of a struggle, don’t you think he probably just OD’d?” “Perhaps,” said Damian, chiming in from his spot in the shadows behind Colin. “But we have to consider all the possibilities.”

“What if his tox results come back positive for a shitload of heroin?” asked Nell.

“Then we’ll rule it an overdose,” Damian told her, feeling like he was talking to a bunch of infants, “unless we find evidence that suggests otherwise.”

“But what if it’s an actual murder but someone just like coerced him into taking a shitload of heroin so he died?”

“That’s why we look into anyone who might have motive,” said Damian. “Even if this looks cut-and-dried on the surface, if there’s someone who would benefit from Joseph Fremont’s death, then we tug on that string. Tug hard enough, and something always unravels.”

“The Fremonts are Wall Street money,” Ellen commented offhandedly. “I’m sure a lot of people would have motivation to target their family.”

“Right,” said Damian. “Ember, you look into potential suspects. Colin, dig into the drug connection. Maybe something went awry with his supplier.”

Nell asked, “What can I do?”

“Stay plugged in to our contact in the coroner’s office,” Damian told her. “We need to know what killed Joseph Fremont. Until we have that, there’s only so much we can do.”

“So you’re saying all we can do now is wait.”

“No,” said Damian coolly, turning to Ellen. That blank red mask was starting to bother him, making it impossible to read her. “I’m saying you can look into potential suspects so we can get ahead of the game.”

She watched him for a moment. “So you do think it’s a murder, though?”

“I think it’s suspicious that our victim wound up two miles away from campus, in the middle of the woods,” Damian told her. “And I find it unlikely that no one knows any specifics about what occurred. Our job is to apply pressure until the cracks become evident, and then plug the leaks when we find them.”

Ellen ran her hands down her long braid. “I think that’s a mixed metaphor,” she said.

It wasn’t, though it admittedly was kind of clumsy. He ignored this comment, turning instead to Abuse. “I’ll find somewhere more secure to use as headquarters. In the meantime, collect your research. Remember to keep it all under secure encryption using the tech I gave you.”

Nell raised her hand. Damian looked at her, then did a double take, then Ellen reached out and pulled her wrist downwards. “You don’t have to raise your hand,” Ellen told her.

“Oh,” said Nell. “OK, sorry, but sidenote, are we allowed to use the computers you gave us for like, other things?”

“They’re yours,” said Damian. “Use them for whatever you need. All of your encrypted files go to a drive that Batman and I can access, but other than that you can do what you want with it.” “OK, cool,” said Nell. “I was just asking because I use it for homework.”

Colin threw his arm around Damian’s shoulders, hanging onto his neck. Poking him in the ribs, he told Nell, “Just ask Robin for another separate homework computer, that’s what I did.”

Though Nell’s eyes lit up, Ellen spoke before she could. Leaning back in her seat, she said smoothly, “I’m sure Robin doesn’t have the time to play sugar daddy to all of us, Abuse.”

“No,” agreed Damian. “Fortunately Batman plays the part very well for you, doesn’t he, Ember?” There was a silence so deep they could hear a pin drop. Damian felt belligerent and annoyed, and didn’t immediately regret the comment. He knew the grants and the scholarships and the job offers that had been extended to Ellen Nayar, and he didn’t think she had any right to sound so dismissive of his family’s generosity.

Though Damian could not Ellen’s gaze behind her mask, she turned her head away from him first, indicative of breaking first.

When she and Nell left, Ellen did not say a farewell to Robin.

---

NAME: Danielle Little ALIAS: Spoiler DATE OF BIRTH: 29 June 1997 BLOOD TYPE: O+ (Full Medical History) EMERGENCY CONTACT: Rhonda Holmes Little, Mother (Contact) AFFILIATIONS: Batgirl (Formerly), Team Ember EVAL: Promising but untrained. Investigative instincts are excellent, but more practice is necessary. Very young and inexperienced, though a strong devotion to local community and neighborhoods is a good foundation for future efforts. Potentially a place for her in the Batman Inc. hierarchy whether as an official agent or otherwise.

---

As dusk arrived the next night, Bruce sat in front of the computer in the Cave as Damian worked on some complex tech designs at the workstation below the computer hub. There was a comfortable quiet apart from the usual whir of machinery and fluttering wings of the bats in the eaves. All at once, the silence was broken by a gentle beeping notification coming from both the computer and Damian’s phone.

Not a moment later, Damian was skipping the stairs two at a time, practically sprinting to the locker room area where his uniform was kept. “Oracle,” said Bruce, hitting a button on the panel before him, “get Jim on the line.” Damian emerged, in full uniform except for his mask though his cap was only half fastened and his boots weren’t laced yet, while Bruce was still on the line with Commissioner Gordon. “I’ll look into it personally,” he was saying. “I’ll be in touch.”

Bruce closed the line and turned around in his seat to look at Damian, who stood there defiantly. He pointed at Bruce with one accusatory finger, then began, “You promised-”

Stoically, Bruce replied, “This could be very dangerous, Damian, and it would be irresponsible to let a bunch of inexperienced teenagers deal with something of this magnitude.”

“You promised,” repeated Damian stubbornly. “You told me this would be our jurisdiction, and that you would allow us freedom to pursue this mission on our own time.”

“Us?” echoed Bruce mildly. “So as soon as the mission interests you, it becomes us rather than them?”

Rolling his eyes, Damian headed down to the garage below, where his motorcycle was kept. Raising his voice to be heard, he called, “I’m their leader, so-”

“Ember’s their leader.”

Damian stopped on the staircase, then went back up so he could look at his father. ��I’m their leader,” he said again, offended.

Bruce shook his head. “This team is designed to be closer to the ground than we are. You don’t have their experience when it comes to the city itself.”

“I patrol the city every single night,” Damian protested. “I know it just fine.”

“That may very well be true, but you still don’t have their urban expertise.”

“Urb-?” Damian broke off suspiciously, watching his father. Then he leaned against the rail of the stairs slightly and asked, “Is this a race thing?”

Bruce glanced around at him, an eyebrow raised. “A what thing?”

“Are you being,” he paused, didn’t know what else to call it, so went with, “…racist?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Urban is just one of those dog whistle words that means people of color,” explained Damian; he was taking a sociology class at Princeton, and he’d just read a chapter of a book about this. “And since this team is mostly that, you emphasizing that their street smarts and inner city experience feels almost as if…” he trailed off, feeling suddenly uncertain under his father’s gaze. “I’m just saying,” he said, unwilling to admit his doubt. “You may want to…think about the way you talk about them, is all.”

Bruce watched his son, surprised. Despite the fact that Damian’s words weren’t exactly flattering, he felt an odd stirring of pride. He nodded. “Alright,” he said. “I will.”

There was an awkward sort of pause, and then Damian headed once more down the stairs. Though it was just barely dark outside, he took his motorcycle to the hidden entrance to the Bunker, where he did some minor rearrangements and set up what basically amounted to parental controls on the computers. Satisfied, he alerted the entire team that they would be meeting beneath Wayne Tower tonight.

This time, Jordan and Niloufar were there first. “Ms. Ghorbani,” he said, holding out his hand to the girl in the headscarf, “a pleasure to meet you.”

Niloufar shook his hand warily. “We’ve met before,” she told him shortly. “One time you and Batman saved a school bus I was in from tipping off a bridge.”

When in uniform, Damian got comments like that all the time. Though a school bus falling off a bridge was far more memorable than most of the everyday encounters he had with citizens of Gotham, it still didn’t ring a bell. “That sounds like us,” he told her, with a killer smile. She just watched him suspiciously.

Jordan, who had been using her powers of flight constantly since they manifested, floated near the low ceiling of the Bunker. “I don’t like it in here,” she said. “Feels cramped.”

“It’s merely temporary, Jabberwock,” Damian informed her, heading to the computer. “It’s not an ideal location for your team, but I needed some place with the technical capabilities to fill you in completely on the status of your mission.”

“Our mission?” Jordan echoed. “You mean the dead kid from Brentwood?”

Damian nodded, typing something into the computer. “Joseph Fremont.”

Niloufar asked, “Is this about the results from the tox report?”

The file on the computer unopened, Damian stopped and turned around to face her. “What do you know about the tox report?” he asked her.

“I’ve heard things,” she said shortly.

He eyed her, then began, “How do you-?” but before he could finish, the doors to the garage opened and Ellen arrived with Nell and Colin.

“Hey,” said Nell breathlessly, her laptop underneath her arm. “I might have to leave early, I have a lot of homework to do.”

“That’s fine,” Damian said, looking past Niloufar and Jordan at her. “There’ve been some new developments in the case and I just need to make sure we’re all on the same page about it.”

“Hey,” said Jordan, floating upside-down, her ponytail hanging down from the back of her head, “I have a question.”

Suppressing a roll of his eyes, Damian looked at her. “Yes?”

“This kid OD’d, right?”

“Yes,” repeated Damian, “and I’m about to get into the specifics of what exactly he-”

“But like. Why should we care about him?”

The silence that followed this comment deepened considerably, broken only by the hum and whir of the high tech machinery surrounding them. “Jabberwock,” he said, “if you have to ask that question, then maybe you shouldn’t be here.”

Before Damian had even finished this sentence, Jordan was shaking her head. “No,” she said. “I mean like, specifically him. There’s a dozen cases of this same thing every day on my block, and no one’s investigating that shit.”

Damian explained, “This death occurred in your team’s jurisdiction-” but Ellen interrupted him.

“She has a point,” she said, glancing at Damian. “It does seem a little biased that we suddenly care about an overdose as soon as it happens to a rich white kid. And I have wondered before why Batman decided we don’t get jurisdiction,” she framed it in air quotes, “over our own neighborhoods, especially because Jordan’s right, this kind of thing happens all the time in the city.”

“OK,” said Damian, trying very hard to exercise patience, “well. When one of your neighbors overdoses on recreationally-developed Joker Venom, then perhaps we can look into that.”

A frisson of excitement went through the Bunker, eyebrows raising in surprise. “Joker Venom?” echoed Colin, sounding almost delighted. “Joey got offed by the Joker?”

“No,” said Ellen, a slight frown on her face. When she watched Damian as intently as she was doing now, he could almost tune out the scar, imagine exactly what she might look like without it. “Robin said – recreationally-developed? You think this kid was using Joker Venom to get high?”

Damian nodded. “It gets worse.”

Seated at one of the specimen analysis desks, her laptop computer already open, Nell asked, “How could it get worse than the Joker?”

Damian pulled something up on the computer screen. “A few years ago – back with the previous Batman – there was a case that involved a drug called diaxamene which was reverse-engineered to attack the part of the brain which controls emotion, blunting the ability to feel empathy.”

“Turn them into sociopaths,” Jordan said, sounding almost impressed.

“Psychopaths,” Damian corrected. “But, yes. Essentially.”

“Diaxamene,” echoed Niloufar, her gaze far away behind her thick glasses. “That sounds familiar. Didn’t it have something to do with a baby formula recall?”

Clearly surprised that Niloufar knew this, Damian stopped short and looked around at her. “Yes,” he said, nodding. “The perp claimed to have dosed baby formula, though no evidence could confirm this. There was a recall just in case, though, which led to a shortage.”

“Yeah, I remember,” said Niloufar, nodding. At Damian’s curious look, she finally added, “My younger brother was a baby at the time. I remember formula got really expensive.”

Without replying to this, Damian nodded, then looked at her for a moment longer.

Then he returned to the computer screen. “It looks like small amounts of Joker Venom were added to the reverse-engineered diaxamene. Because Joker Venom produces effects similar to psychopathy before resulting in death, diluting it with the diaxamene can reproduce the same feeling while decreasing its lethality.”

“He still died, though,” Nell pointed out.

Damian nodded. “It’s called an overdose for a reason, Spoiler.”

“Oh,” she said. “Right.”

“The modified diaxamene is a pharmaceutical, though,” said Niloufar, considering this. “It’s supposed to function long-term, not for a temporary high.”

“Exactly,” said Damian. “For a young person like Joseph Fremont, the mild Joker Venom would have a slight narcotic effect while the diaxamene, if he even knew it was part of the drug, would be – nothing more than a placebo. At first.”

Ellen nodded. “So what his death tells us,” she began, “is that this drug is on the market. That people are using it, and the more they use it, the more psychopathic they become.”

“Yes,” said Damian, feeling an odd rush of pride at how quickly the team put this together. “That’s the real problem here. Someone’s pulling the same stunt as the baby formula plan, but aging up their demographic.”

“Why not cut it with coke?” asked Jordan, seriously. “Or dope or something?”

“’Cause it’s Joker Venom,” Ellen said, looking over at her as if this were obvious. “It has sex appeal.”

Nell giggled, and Colin asked, “What about the Joker says sex appeal to you?”

“Ember’s right,” said Damian, shutting the others up. “How many of you have seen firsthand some result of the Joker’s crimes?”

Everyone except for Niloufar raised their hand without hesitation, but Niloufar eventually followed suit, making a noncommittal kinda sorta gesture with her hand.

“Joseph Fremont never lived in the city,” Damian continued. “If you live in the wealthy suburbs your whole life, the Joker is something of a myth, and as a result anything with some proximity to him has a certain thrill to it – like forbidden fruit. It’s the perfect new drug to introduce to a privileged private school like Brentwood.”

“Plus rich white boys are already a little psychopathic,” Jordan added.

Damian decided to give her that one. “And that.”

Despite this, Ellen didn’t seem fully satisfied. “But no one bothers to do a full tox report on a bum who OD’d in an alley in Midtown,” she pointed out. “This drug could be way more rampant than we thought.”

Considering this, Damian answered, “True, but we haven’t seen the resultant wave of crime or violence you’d expect from that.” “That’s assuming the drug has been out there for long enough. And Gotham streets are always full of crime and violence. How would you be able to tell the difference?” He shook his head. “There’s no difference on patrol.”

“You haven’t been on patrol all that often lately, though,” Colin said fairly, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “You’ve been with your other team a lot.”

Inwardly, Damian cursed Colin’s lack of filter. Ellen’s eyebrow cocked, but it was Nell who asked, “What other team?”

Jordan grinned at him. “Are you cheating on us, Robin?”

“It’s the Teen Titans,” he said stoically. “Yes, I am frequently away with them. But Batman and Oracle keep a careful record of nightly criminal activity, which has not shown any major spikes lately.”

“What’s Superboy like?” asked Jordan, legs crossed, sitting in air. “Just like a mini Superman?”

Chris was in fact very dissimilar to his adoptive father, so Damian replied, with a hint of annoyance, “No, actually. Now if we can get back to business-”

“What about Arsenal?” asked Nell, from her computer. “She seems cool.”

With a knowing grin, Colin added, “Not as cool as Impulse, huh, Robin?” Damian shot him a dirty look. “Let’s try to focus, shall we?”

“Ohh,” said Nell, laughing. “Wait, Robin, is she your girlfriend?”

For fuck’s sake. As he opened his mouth to shut this down for good, Ellen mercifully came to his rescue. “Come on,” she said, sounding sympathetic. “Don’t tease him, Spoiler, that’s mean.”

Which, naturally, set his blood boiling again. “Ember, please,” he told her. “It’s fine. Now. Back to the case?”

She gave him a wry, enigmatic smile, but nodded all the same, gesturing for him to continue.

His face felt warm, and he felt stupid for allowing himself to feel even the slightest bit self-conscious. “Some excellent thinking happened tonight, team, so thank you for that. Now that we all know where we stand, it’s time to get serious about this case.”

Doubtfully, Colin asked, “We weren’t serious until just now?”

“I mean we have a lead,” said Damian quickly. “That’s all. Niloufar, Jabberwock, I want you two looking into other recent overdose cases throughout the city, see if we’re missing something.”

“Seraph,” said Niloufar.

Damian blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Seraph,” repeated Niloufar. “That’s my codename. I mean, it was Hafaza, but then we figured that was a little harder for people to remember and the key to a good codename is its memorability, right? Like, branding.” She paused, a little awkward. “So. Seraph.”

He watched her for a moment, then nodded. “Alright. Seraph, then. Usually the codename is accompanied by a uniform, though.”

Apologetically, she admitted, “I’m probably not…super useful in the field.” At Damian’s expressions, she explained, “I failed P.E. last year.”

Damian only had the vaguest notion what P.E. was, but he waved it aside. “Fine,” he said. “If you do need a uniform, Batman and I can help. Abuse,” he said, turning to Colin. “Have you dug up anything else at Brentwood?”

Colin shook his head. “Not really? I think Joey’s roommate was clean, actually. He wasn’t dealing anything hard, just weed. I lit up with him the other day and he told me everything. He’s kind of fucked up over it actually, it’s kind of sad.”

“Great,” said Damian. “Generally I would request that you try to avoid partaking in illicit substances, but otherwise, sure.”

“Robin,” said Jordan, with a grin. “C’mon. It’s just weed.”

“OK,” said Damian, ignoring this. “Keep pushing, Abuse. If you need backup, call me.”

“Or me,” offered Niloufar. When Damian glanced at her, she added, “I go to Brentwood too. So I can help with that.”

This was a relief; Colin was competent enough in the field, but his investigative work was still spotty. Damian had been considering an undercover mission in Brentwood himself to get the intel they needed, but if Niloufar also attended the school then she might be able to bolster Colin’s mission. “Perfect,” he said. “Seraph, you get double duty – work with both Jabberwock and Abuse.”

Niloufar practically glowed at the extra responsibility.

“Ember, Spoiler, you’re going to be investigating the Joker connection,” he continued. “Ember, I understand you have some familiarity with Arkham? This is your chance to demonstrate that. Meanwhile, I’ll-”

Just then, he realized Nell’s hand was up in the air again.

“Spoiler,” he said tiredly. “I’ve told you this a dozen times, you don’t need to raise your hand to ask permission to speak.” “Oh,” she said, lowering her arm. “Sorry! I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“It’s fine,” Damian told her, waving this away. “What is it?”

“Would it be possible for me to sit this one out? I’m failing geometry.”

Damian blinked at her. “You’re failing what?” he asked.

“Geometry,” she repeated. “Tenth grade math.”

Damian, who had mastered geometry when he was seven, felt suddenly and abruptly out of his depth. “Oh,” he said. “Yes, of course. That’s fine. All of you, never hesitate to tell me if you feel like you’re taking on too much. It’s fine. Civilian responsibilities come first.”

There was an awkward sort of pause.

Then he restarted, “Ember, I suppose that means I’ll be with you. We’ll also look at the previous case regarding diaxamene, but I’ll need a few days to round up my resources on that. I’ll contact you when I’m ready.”

“Fine,” said Ellen. “Anything else you need to update us on?”

Thoughtfully, Damian looked back at the screen. “No, I don’t think so. We’re dealing with a high tech trafficking ring by the docks again so if any of you find any unfamiliar weaponry or anything let me or Oracle know. Oh,” he said, turning around to face them again. “And I suppose I should warn you about something.”

They all leaned in a little, as if intrigued by the hint of danger.

Almost regretfully, Damian informed them all, “Batman is likely going to try and edge in on this case. He takes everything involving the Joker very personally, so I can almost guarantee he’ll try to take over. At the very least he’ll try to insert himself in an observational role.”

“That’s not so bad,” countered Jordan. “Batman’s welcome to observationally roll me whenever he likes.” Colin laughed, obviously in agreement.

Damian tried to keep his expression level. “My point is,” he restarted, “this is your mission and you all can take care of it perfectly well without his help. Don’t let him take this one from you.” He paused, looking around at them. “So. We’re all clear?”

“Super clear,” agreed Colin. “I’m gonna head back to school and get a jump on this.”

“Hold on,” said Niloufar, her gaze swiveling around towards him. “That’s not fair, I don’t board at school so I won’t be able to help out until tomorrow.”

“Um, I just said get a jump on it,” Colin pointed out. “I didn’t say I’d solve absolutely everything so you don’t have anything to do.”

“Abuse is right,” added Damian. “He can probably get a lot more done after hours than you can during classroom time. I’m sure he’ll fill you in on any developments in the morning.”

Niloufar shot a glare towards Colin, but he shrugged and relented. “Yeah, for sure.”

“We’ll get started, then,” said Jordan. “If we find anything out we’ll ping you or share it on the vigilante cloud or whatever.”

“Thank you,” said Damian, as Jordan and Niloufar began to leave. “Good luck.”

After them Colin headed out to return to Brentwood and Ellen, the only one of the team cleared for patrol on her own, also took off. Damian went over to where Nell still worked on her laptop. “If you need a tutor,” he said, peering over her shoulder, “I’m happy to help.”

“You kind of already are,” she told him distractedly, focused on her work.

He raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

Glancing at him, she explained, “I’m going to the Neon Knights center in my neighborhood for tutoring, so it’s cool. I guess I meant your family’s already helping out.”

Damian stared at her for a moment. Though he knew rationally that the entire team had enough information at this point to deduce Batman’s identity and therefore his own, it was still a new and unfamiliar feeling, like danger. It set him on edge, despite the fact that they never would have let Nell or the others into the game in the first place if they didn’t trust them enough to be discreet.

“Sure,” he said, straightening up. “Though I shouldn’t have to remind you not to talk like that when we’re in uniform.”

This seemed to confuse her, as she finally took pause to glance up at him. “But…nobody’s here.” “I know, but it’s a matter of developing a habit. If the mask is on,” he pointed to his face, “then I’m Robin. Only Robin. Do you understand me?”

She nodded. “I got you.”

“Good.” He hesitated, then added, “If you’d like you can stay here to do your work. I can program everything to shut down and lock up after you leave.” This too drew her gaze away from the computer. She looked at Damian with big eyes, surprised and a little touched. “Wow,” she said. “For real? That would be super great.”

“OK.” He shrugged, feeling a slight twinge of self-consciousness he normally only felt around Iris. He tried to push that out of his mind. “It’s no problem. And again, let me know if you need help.”

“Yeah,” she said, beaming at him. “I will.”

---

NAME: Jordan Aguilar Joyce ALIAS: Wonder Girl / Jabberwock DATE OF BIRTH: 17 March 1995 BLOOD TYPE: B+ (Full Medical History) EMERGENCY CONTACT: Maya Aguilar, Sister (Contact) AFFILIATIONS: Wonder Woman, Team Ember EVAL: Flight, augmented senses and strength from Themysciran heritage. Will follow-up with Diana. Deeply resistant to authority, but loyal to team. Need to develop discipline before regular patrol is instated.

---

“So Abuse and Seraph managed to get a lead on the Brentwood supplier – turns out a few of the older boys had been recruited by someone called the Dealer.”

“Not very creative,” replied Ellen through her commlink, peering down at the city from the corner of a tall roof.

“Yes,” answered Damian, “particularly because we dealt with someone using that name a few years ago, around the same time as the diaxamene case. In fact, the man who reverse-engineered the diaxamene actually bought outdated Joker Venom from the Dealer.”

“Oh,” said Ellen, a little taken aback. “Then – that should sort of blow the case open, right? It’s the same guy.”

“Impossible,” said Damian grimly. “The man in question has been locked up in a mental facility for years.”

“In Arkham?”

“No. I believe it’s somewhere in Chicago, far away from here. Besides, the version of the Joker Venom found in this new drug isn’t old or decayed at all, it’s very new, something we haven’t quite seen before, impossible to build up a resistance to. Enough of it would probably poison even the Joker himself.”

“If our guy can reverse-engineer a prescription drug, I’m sure he could figure out how to update Joker Venom. And if he’s not at Arkham why are we even going there in the first place?”

“Because,” Damian answered shortly, “sometimes you have to play with vermin to sniff out a rat.” This was cryptic and annoying, and beneath her mask Ellen rolled her eyes. “OK. I can meet you there in an hour if-”

“No need,” he said, just as the sleek and quiet hum of an energy-efficient stealth motorcycle came buzzing down the alley beneath the building on which Ellen stood. Robin stopped the bike, got off, and waved at her.

She let out a sigh, then made her way down on the fire escape, jumping the last few feet. “How did you know where I was?” she asked, as he got back onto the motorcycle.

“The tracer Batman put in your suit,” he answered; when she gave him a look, refusing to get on the bike with him, he grinned a little and added, “I’m kidding. But only a little. When you’re on a direct line, Oracle can pinpoint your location. If you toggled a private line or turned off your commlink, we’d lose you.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” muttered Ellen, finally relenting and climbing onto the back of the motorcycle, behind him. She sat further back than was entirely necessary.

They went most of the way in relative silence. They’d worked enough together – Damian had spent enough time training with her – that it wasn’t particularly awkward, but there was an odd degree of discomfort that neither of them were used to. When they made it to Arkham, stowing the bike in the woods behind it, Damian asked, “That reminds me, when are you going to get a motorbike of your own? You can’t rely on rides from Spoiler and Abuse and me forever.”

“I don’t have my license,” she explained. She wanted to add, And I can’t afford one, but she knew that he would offer and insist and that would be unfortunate.

“Oh,” said Damian, as if this hadn’t occurred to him. “Well. You don’t really need one, in our line of work.” “Thanks,” she said, though her smile was not visible beneath her mask. “But I’m already toeing the line as is. I’d prefer to break as few laws as possible.”

“She says,” he added, grinning slightly as they headed towards Gotham, “as we break into a private mental facility in order to interrogate a patient.”

“He’s a criminal,” she replied smoothly. “Not a patient.”

Damian shrugged. “They all are.”

This wasn’t true, and Ellen wanted to fight him on it, but this wasn’t the time or the place. With the help of Robin’s gadgets and expertise, making it into Arkham was easier than it had ever been for Ellen – he did it with such nonchalance and finesse that it seemed positively casual for him. That sort of annoyed her.

They made it to the Wayne Ward, which is where the most dangerous criminals were held, cut off from the rest of the world by thick steel doors. Somewhere in one of the cages, someone sang a children’s song. “Little Bunny Foo-Foo, hopping through the forest…”

Another inmate moaned, “Shut the fuck up.”

Damian brought her to an unmarked cell that looked no different from any of the others, and put his hand on the door, behind which the Joker still sang. “Scooping up the field mice and boppin’ them on the head…”

Quietly, he asked, “You ready?” She nodded, but didn’t speak. Looking away from her, he punched a series of numbers into the keypad by the door, and it slid open.

He gestured for her to enter, and she did. He followed behind her, and the steel door clanged behind them.

A pale man in an Arkham uniform sat cross-legged facing the wall across from them. “Down came the good fairy, and she said…”

“Joker,” said Damian.

The Joker’s head lolled back on his shoulders, his dirty green hair hanging down from his scalp. He did not look around.

“Ah,” he began, his voice sickly sweet. “It’s my second-favorite little birdie. You’d be third favorite,” he said, almost reasonably, “but the dead one came back, and that’s no fun.”

“Joker,” repeated Damian. “What do you know about a new version of your Venom?”

Though he still did not turn around, the Joker made an unpleasant sound in the back of his throat, as if displeased. “None of that faker stuff. I’m no street corner dealer, little Robbie! I only have big plans, big shows, big-” he threw out both arms theatrically; in his left, he held a crowbar stained with blood, “-drama.”

Without hesitating, Damian moved forward and grabbed hold of the crowbar, kicking in the Joker’s elbow as he did so. As Damian inspected it, the Joker started to laugh, then collapsed and rolled around on the floor so he was facing the door.

“Where’d you get this?” asked Damian stoically, raising the crowbar.

“Beirut,” answered the Joker.

Damian shook the crowbar. “Whose blood is this?”

“Yours,” answered the Joker. “Robin’s. Doesn’t matter which one, best not to get attached,” he looked past Damian, as if addressed Ellen directly, “they’re just gonna break your heart and move on. They always do.”

Uncertainly, Ellen glanced at Damian, who only stared at the Joker.

He raised the crowbar, and hit the Joker across the face with it. Again, the Joker laughed. “What do you mean that fake stuff?” asked Damian. “So you know someone’s dealing.”

“Everyone’s always dealing,” Joker answered, with a shrug. “You know, dealing, coping, the human condition.” “How do you know about the drugs?”

The Joker lunged suddenly, throwing himself at Damian, grabbing hold of the crowbar tightly. Ellen instinctively moved to help, but Damian dodged, gripping the crowbar tightly and wrenching him away so that the Joker lost his balance and fell, half laying on the ground, still clutching the crowbar. He laughed and laughed.

“The drugs?” he screeched, ecstatic. “You mean the Xanax? Oh, no, you mean the painkillers? Or are you talking about the meth, because that was what really made her spiral, huh? Just took a little while to get there, step by prescription step, and then all of the sudden bam!” His laughter turned higher, more frantic. He held up one hand in the gesture of a gun and pointed it right at Ellen’s face. “Right in the kisser!”

Horrified, Ellen stared at him, frozen. It took Damian a moment to realize what was going on, and then he kicked the Joker square in the chest, sending him reeling back to the floor. “I miss Divya!” he called, as Damian, turned around returned to the door, taking Ellen’s wrist in his hand as he did so. “She was so much fun! Good stories! She missed you bad you know, she missed her beautiful son, her beautiful little-”

A name came out of Joker’s mouth that Damian didn’t know, but he could guess what it was. “Come on,” he murmured to Ellen, who said nothing, her face obscured and made unreadable by her mask. As the Joker laughed and laughed and laughed, Damian led Ellen out of the Joker’s cell, ensured the door was closed tight, and they retreated out of Arkham. After a while Ellen pulled her hand away from Damian’s. He said nothing until they were outside.

In the darkness, he turned to her heavily.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have brought you in there.”

“No,” said Ellen, shaking her head. “It’s fine. I had to meet him eventually.”

“I don’t know how he knew that about you.”

“It’s fine,” repeated Ellen, with a little more urgency. She tried to smile at him from underneath the mask, but obviously he couldn’t see it.

Damian watched her cautiously for a moment longer, then suddenly jerked his head around, obviously hearing something at his commlink. Then his gaze lengthened past Ellen, behind her, and under his breath he muttered, “For fuck’s sake-”

Despite the fact that Batman, from behind Ellen, should not have been able to hear this, he growled, “Language, Robin,” and Damian resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

Ellen turned around uncertainly; she had only very infrequently been in the presence of both Batman and Robin, and didn’t really have the hang of their dynamic yet.

Batman stood impassively before them both, watching them. “Are you here to talk to the Joker?” he asked, as if reserving judgment.

“We already did,” Damian told him. “He didn’t have anything useful to say.”

Thinking this was underselling the encounter a little, Ellen added, “He seemed to know a version of his Venom was being used on the streets,” Damian gave her an urgent look, like betrayal, so she continued, “but Robin’s right. He didn’t sound like he was involved in or even really approved of its production.”

Batman gestured at the crowbar in Damian’s hand. “What’s that?”

“A crowbar,” answered Damian.

Batman only watched him.

Damian held it up. “A man known as the Dealer tried to auction off an item just like this a few years ago,” he said, almost defiantly. “Nightwing brought it home, but he never entered it into evidence. He just got rid of it.”

“Why?” asked Batman.

“So you wouldn’t find out,” said Damian, “for obvious reasons.”

Ellen wasn’t sure what that obvious reason was, but she just glanced in between Robin and Batman, sensing the tension there.

Stubbornly, Damian continued, “The Joker was a red herring last time and I believe it’s the same thing this time around. We should be focusing our efforts elsewhere.”

“Hn.” Batman headed past them, towards Arkham. “I’ll talk to the Joker.”

As Batman passed, Robin reached out and physically took hold of his arm. “No,” he said. “You won’t.”

Batman twisted around to look back at Damian, and there was a moment of deadly, pin-drop silence.

“It’s my case,” insisted Damian.

Batman glanced up at Ellen. “It’s her case.”

Beneath her mask, Ellen’s eyebrows shot up. Reluctantly, Damian let go of Batman and turned to her. “Fine,” he said. “Ember. What do you think? Do you want a second opinion on the Joker, or do you think we should be able to proceed on our own from here?”

There was no expression on Batman’s face, but then again Ellen didn’t think there was ever really any discernible expression on Batman’s face. Once more she glanced in between Batman and Robin, before finally admitting, “I…think we should be OK.” To Batman, she said, “I’ve studied your case files and I don’t really think this fits the Joker’s M.O. Right now selling drugs to rich kids sounds a lot more like this Dealer character, or maybe, um, what’s his face, that guy who poisoned the diaxamene.”

Damian winced slightly when she said this and she suddenly feared she’d said too much; maybe there was something he’d been trying to keep from Batman. Though she didn’t really think that was all that smart – Robin’s pride be damned, this was about solving the case, not who got the glory of figuring it out.

Batman watched her for a moment, then nodded. “I expect a mission report,” he said.

“Of course,” responded Damian sourly.

Without looking around, Batman added, “I meant from Ember.”

Damian looked almost ready to blow a gasket, but he kept his mouth shut and nodded. Batman lingered for a moment longer, then swept away.

There was an awkward sort of pause. Damian turned and headed back to where the motorcycle was stowed in the woods. “C’mon,” he said.

She followed him, secretly a little pleased at this indication of Batman’s trust but also not wanting to push Damian at all. It was a weird place to be, staying quiet for fear of hurting Robin’s feelings – but then again, he was only a kid, at least a couple years younger than her. There was no need to be cruel.

A minute or so after he revved the bike and they started heading back towards the city, he asked, “Are you hungry?” His words came through clearly on her commlink, and yet she was still certain she had misheard. “Um. Sure?”

“I know a place,” he continued, taking a sharp left. “Up by Amusement Mile.”

Amusement Mile meant carnival food of some sort probably, which was fine by Ellen. Late at night as it was, the boardwalk was still all lit up neon, but Damian avoided that, heading instead for the less touristy area. There was a little shop – not much more than a booth – where he ordered falafel. Ellen got a kabob. The woman working there spoke warmly with Damian in a language Ellen didn’t know, but eventually she picked up that the woman was refusing to accept payment when Damian tried to pass it over the counter to her. He just grinned and stuffed a twenty dollar bill into the tip jar, and the woman laughed.

They sat together on the rail of the pier, which was already closed for the night. She lifted her mask to eat, then took it off completely, leaving only a domino mask around her eyes.

“Hey,” she said, nudging him a little. “Are you OK?”

He looked around at her, confused. “What? Why?”

“Your dad was kind of harsh on you. He didn’t really need to be, I know you have more experience at this than I do.” For a moment he said nothing, just watching her. Then he looked back down at his falafel wrap. “You shouldn’t refer to him as my father when we’re in the field,” he said. “Things like that are supposed to stay in a civilian context only.”

“Mmm, be careful about that. Everybody knows Robin is either Batman’s son or something a whole lot less wholesome, so I really think you should take what you can get.”

She smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back, only looked at his wrap unhappily.

When he didn’t reply, she too looked down at her food, picking at it. She hadn’t been that hungry, but would’ve felt stupid turning down free food.

Softly, she asked, “How do you think he knew all that about me?”

Damian glanced at her. “Who?” he asked. “The Joker?” She nodded, and he considered this for a moment. “He knows everything about everyone. Don’t take it personally. He knows how to get under everyone’s skin, we’ve all been there.”

“He knew my…” she trailed off. “He knew my mother’s name.” He gave a shrug. “She was in Arkham, right?”

“Yeah, but – not in the Wayne Ward. Not with him.”

“No?” asked Damian, with mild interest. “What was she in for, then?”

Glowering, Ellen muttered, “As if Batman doesn’t have a file with all the sordid details.”

“He doesn’t,” answered Damian. “Or at least not one I have access to.”

For a while, so long that Damian didn’t think she was going to answer, Ellen said nothing. Then, her eyes fixed out across the black water of the ocean, waves lit by moonlight, she said, “She…was transferred. For the Wayne Enterprises drug rehabilitation program.”

“Ah,” said Damian, nodding. “Yes. I understand that whole project was – a massive PR disaster.”

“You could call it that,” Ellen agreed. “It’s what happens when rich people throw money at problems and expect results. At any cost.”

“We didn’t know it was going to go as badly as it did.”

“I know.”

“Arkham’s always been a mess. We really did want to reform it into something good. Something productive.”

“I mean, it was productive,” said Ellen, her voice sharp. “Lobotomizing addicts did help them kick the habit, it just also had the unfortunate side effect of, well, I mean, lobotomizing them.”

There was a short silence. Damian asked, “Is she alright?”

“Kind of,” answered Ellen shortly. “She’ll be in assisted living for the rest of her life.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Probably not even your fault. She OD’d a couple times before, so she wasn’t in great shape to begin with.”

“This can’t be an easy case for you.”

“Why?” she asked, looking at him. “Because it has to do with drugs?” He returned her gaze, then gave a little shrug.

“If I couldn’t handle an overdose now and then, Batman wouldn’t have given me the mask.”

“Why did he?”

Ellen leaned forward slightly, setting aside her food and holding the blank scarlet mask in her hands. She shook her head. “When you figure that out,” she said wryly, glancing at him, “let me know?”

When they finished their food and headed back to Damian’s motorcycle, Ellen nudged him again. “Hey,” she said. “Thanks for not asking.”

He didn’t know what she meant. “Not asking what?”

She gestured across her face, at the diagonal scar there. “If this was what she was in for.”

Damian had of course assumed this, but he had been pointedly trying to ignore the scar at all costs since he met Ellen, so he’d avoided saying it outright. For some reason the scar across her face reminded him of his own hidden scar down the length of his back. How he got that was a sensitive story, and he didn’t imagine Ellen’s was any less sensitive.

He took her back into the city, and they parted ways for patrol.

---

NAME: Ellen Nayar ALIAS: Ember DATE OF BIRTH: 26 August 1993 BLOOD TYPE: A+ (Relevant Medical History) EMERGENCY CONTACT: Kiran Kaur Nayar, Grandmother AFFILIATIONS: Green Arrow II (Former), Team Ember EVAL: Mastery of basic defensive techniques at a young age provides a solid foundation for future training. Has a tendency to fall back on defense when cornered, relying on tools to compensate. Capable of much more but struggling to balance training as well as other civilian commitments; requires more investment both in and out of uniform. Significant pain tolerance. Easily identifiable due to the scar and also hair/body type, any uniform designs must compensate.

Strong field skills, hand-to-hand improving and introduction of nonlethal weapons going well. An apparent preference for the staff though she lacks martial arts training in that area. Sharp mind and eye for puzzles. Potential for leadership role assuming increased confidence in her abilities. Imperative to firm up her loyalties or risk alienation. Family history of addiction.

NOTES: |Robin| Hand to hand is fine but she needs to work on weapons and tech. Uniform needs an upgrade, face mask restricts breathing |Red Hood| She smokes

---

“I have good news,” said Oracle, on the screen, “and bad news.”

“Good news first,” said Nell, at the same time Damian said, “What’s the bad news?”

They looked at each other, and then Damian gestured for Nell to continue. She beamed at him and asked, “Good news?”

“We got a lead on our guy,” said Oracle, a big globular green head taking up the screen in lieu of her real face. “The one who reverse-engineered the diaxamene.”

Ellen sat up a little straighter, alert. “I thought he was in some mental facility somewhere.”

“Yeah,” continued Oracle. “That’s the bad news. I, uh – had a friend in Chicago drop by to see him.”

“Oh?” interrupted Damian, with a tone that sounded unlike him. It was half intrigued, half snide. “Interesting. What kind of friend?”

“Just a friend,” she said snippily.

Damian just made a face, but didn’t protest. Ellen glanced at him, wondering what that was about. “What’d he have to say?”

“That’s just it,” Oracle told them. “It wasn’t our guy, just some decoy checked in under his name.”

“A decoy?” asked Niloufar, a frown on her face. “For how long?”

“Presumably since he checked in,” said Oracle darkly. “Which means James has been out this entire time, no doubt plotting his next step for years.”

At the name, Damian lifted his head slightly, as if surprised she would use it. He leaned against the wall of the Bunker, a little away from the others, his arms crossed over his chest. “James?” asked Colin. “Is that his name?”

“Yeah,” sighed Oracle. “OK, confession time, you guys.” The green icon which represented Oracle disappeared from the screen, replaced with blackness and then suddenly a crystal clear image, as if a window to another room. An older woman with ginger hair and glasses on sat before them, computer glare lighting her up.

She waved at them. “Some of you have met me,” she said, “but I guess it’s time to make this official. My name’s Barbara, but I’m still O in the field, OK?”

Nell and Niloufar looked a little starstruck; even Colin seemed impressed. “OK,” said Jordan, glancing with what may have been a tinge of jealousy over at Niloufar. “What does that have to do with our case?”

With a look that was tight and worried, almost apologetic, Babs continued, “The guy we’re looking for – his name is James Gordon, Jr. His dad is Commissioner Jim Gordon of the GCPD.”

Everyone’s eyebrows raised in surprise, except for Damian. He watched as Jordan asked, “Gordon? The cop?”

“Commissioner,” Damian corrected, echoing Babs.

“Didn’t he retire?” asked Ellen, glancing around at Damian, who shook his head.

“He was on leave a few years ago, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” continued Barbara, nodding. “He took some time off after what happened with James the first time. I mean,” she paused, adding, “first is relative, but – anyway. Here’s where it gets personal. Jim Gordon is my dad.”

In a little bit of awe, Nell asked, “So this guy is your brother?”

Making a face, Babs said, “Kind of.”

“Kind of?” echoed Jordan derisively. “How can it be kind of-?”

Abruptly, Damian noticed Niloufar; she kept glancing in between him and the screen suspiciously, as if she was just putting something together. “What?” he barked at her.

Again, her gaze flickered in between him and Barbara. “You’re Robin,” she said, then pointed at the screen, “she’s Oracle. Aren’t you two…?” she trailed off. “Does that mean Commission Gordon is your…dad…too?”

Damian just stared at her for a moment, arms still crossed over his chest. Then he pointed at the screen, and asked doubtfully, “Do I look like I’m related to her?”

“You could have different moms,” offered Nell helpfully.

Rolling her eyes, Jordan said, “Come on, Nilou, everybody knows Robin’s dad is-”

Both Damian and Babs said, “Jabberwock,” and even Ellen added a scolding, “Jordan.”

At these reprimands, she threw her hands up in surrender. “Nevermind.”

“OK, so,” said Nell, turning back to the computer screen. “If we’re pretty sure it’s this James guy, then we at least know where to start, right? When was the last time time he was in Gotham, and did he have any favorite haunts? We can start there.”

A little taken aback by Nell’s sudden professionalism, Damian snapped his gaze away from her and back to Babs. “Spoiler is right,” he said. “We’ll dig into all the leads we have on James Gordon Jr.”

“This is the guy who poisoned the baby formula, right?” asked Ellen doubtfully, glancing around at the group of them. Returning her gaze to Babs on the screen, she added, “Of course you know more about him than I do, Oracle, but somehow that kind of crazy complicated scheme just doesn’t seem to fit the M.O. here. Why would he downgrade to selling to rich kids?”

“Actually,” piped up Niloufar, “we went through a couple overdose cases in the city over the past few months and came up with three positive reports for the same Joker Venom-diaxamene hybrid that was found in Joseph Fremont’s body.”

“We?” echoed Damian sharply, watching her.

Instead of shrinking under his gaze, as Damian had expected, Niloufar turned to look directly at him, straightening up slightly. “Me and Jor- Jabberwock.”

Damian watched her for a moment, then his eyes flickered over to Jordan, who nodded.

“So it’s not just Brentwood,” said Ellen.

“But it’s still a valid point,” said Babs, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “James is more psychological than that. I don’t really see him getting off on handing out drugs like some kind of common pusher.”

“You think he’s working with someone,” said Damian.

It was Colin who spoke up then, from where he was leaning against one of the specimen analysis tables. “The Dealer,” he said earnestly. They all paused and looked around at him, and he returned their gazes, nodding slightly. “It’s gotta be this Dealer guy,” he continued, “the one who’s been selling to the older kids at Brentwood? That’s his partner.”

Babs considered this, twisting her lips thoughtfully. “That would make sense,” she admitted. “James can’t exactly hang around the schoolyard, but he could manipulate someone younger into working for him. He manufactures, the Dealer distributes.”

“Then that makes things a lot easier,” said Nell. “If this Dealer guy’s younger, then he’s more inexperienced, which means he’s more likely to slip up.”

“Exactly,” said Babs, nodding. “I think the important part now is to split up-”

Behind everyone, Damian cleared his throat loudly.

When the others looked around, he seemed a little apologetic. But on the screen, Babs hesitated for a moment before letting out a short sigh. “It’s your team’s case,” she admitted. “This is really important, you guys. Batman’s really taking a leap of faith by trusting you with this one.”

“They’ve earned it,” said Damian, in protest.

“Yeah, but.” Babs shrugged, her empty hands turned upwards. “This is Batman we’re talking about. It took him about ten years to even start trusting me.”

“Well,” said Jordan shortly, shooting a slightly too-friendly grin up at Babs, “all that means is that Batman’s one stupid motherfucker.” “OK,” said Damian loudly, moving forwardly to the computer. “Thank you, Oracle. Send anything you’ve got our way, we’ll get ahead on this.”

Before she said anything else, something else seemed to occur to Oracle, and she said, “Oh, one more thing. Which one of you keeps saving your math homework to the encrypted file database?”

There was a beat of pause as Damian turned to glance around at his team. Nell was staring up at the screen with her mouth in a little ‘o’ shape; Ellen nudged her. “That – might be me,” she squeaked, obviously humiliated. “I’m sorry! Robin said we could use the computers he gave us for homework!”

Damian tried not to roll his eyes as Babs explained, “You absolutely can, but you don’t need to put it in the encrypted file drive. Just leave it on your desktop or something so it doesn’t get uploaded to our databases.”

Mortified, Nell nodded. “Sorry,” she said, again.

“It’s fine,” Babs told her. “Anyway, I’m here if you guys need anything. Keep me updated.”

“We will,” promised Damian, and then the screen before them went blank. In the white glow of the Bunker, he turned around to face them all. “Jabberwock, Abuse, Spoiler,” he began, with no hesitation, “you three need to fan out, comb the city for James Gordon Jr. He’s got to be hiding somewhere. Take a look at the information Oracle sent, and then head out. This is our top priority for the time being. Ember,” he added, turning to her, “you’re with me.”

Snidely, Jordan muttered, “Wow, what a surprise.”

Glancing at her then back at Ember, he explained, “We need to figure out who this Dealer person is. If he’s dealing in Gotham, then it can’t hurt to check in with Red Hood.”

Already, Ellen was shaking her head. “Hood doesn’t let his people deal to kids,” she told Damian. “If the Dealer’s been selling to Brentwood students-”

“Based on Seraph’s intel, he’s been dealing on the streets as well. Anyway, I’m not saying Red Hood will know who the Dealer is, just that he may be able to point us in the direction of any suspicious activity lately.”

Ellen considered this, then nodded. “Is he in town?”

Damian nodded. Earlier that week the entire family had gathered to celebrate the final night of Hanukkah; Bruce wasn’t particularly religious, but as he grew older he started to take every opportunity he could to gather everyone under one roof. This had been the first Hanukkah celebration at the Manor Jason had attended since before his death. He had spent most of the night messing around with Damian and Cass, more or less refusing to talk to Bruce directly. All things considered, it went well.

Anyway, Damian knew that Jason was still in Gotham because he’d been in a group chat with him, Cass, and Stephanie since. Steph, offended that she hadn’t been invited, had been alternatively demanding all the details and simultaneously assuring them she wouldn’t even have gone anyway.

Instructing the others to review Oracle’s information then spread out across the city, he made contact with Jason before riding out into the dark streets with Ellen on his motorcycle behind him. “Hey,” she said, her commlink transmitting her voice clearly into Damian’s ear despite the rushing wind, “what’s your deal with Red Hood?” He didn’t answer right away. “What do you mean?”

“He’s, like. One of you guys, right?”

“Oh,” said Damian, taking a sharp right turn that nearly scraped the side of their legs against the street. He had thought she was speaking emotionally, as if she could detect faint strains of annoyance he thought he’d gotten past. But Ellen knew his identity and that of his father, so he wasn’t shy about admitting relation. “He’s my brother,” he told her, his voice a whisper in her ear. They entered the old block of Midtown, edging into Red Hood territory. “Adopted brother, actually, not that it really matters.”

Ellen knew vaguely of Damian Wayne’s adopted brother, but she hadn’t realized he and Red Hood were one and the same. “Damn,” she said. “The papers would have a field day if they realized the founder of Neon Knights was a drug lord on the side.”

This took Damian by surprise; he glanced back at her, confused, and then realization dawned on his face. With a laugh, he slowed the motorcycle, drawing close to their destination. “No, not that brother. Red Hood is older than him.”

After a beat of hesitation, Ellen asked, “I thought the other guy was Nightwing?”

“He is,” sighed Damian, pulling the motorcycle to a stop in a tight alleyway. Getting off, he explained, “Not very many people know this, but I actually have four siblings. Three brothers and a sister.”

“Oh, shit,” said Ellen, impressed. She too got up, slipping off the bike. “And I thought you were an only child.”

“In fairness,” he said, shooting a grin her way, “I do act like one sometimes.”

There was a loud thump before them, and a red helmet shone in the darkness as Jason Todd descended from the fire escape above. “Sometimes?” he echoed, teasing. “More like all the damn time.” He jerked his thumb at Damian and to Ellen, he said, “Kid’s insufferable.”

While Ellen gave Jason an uncertain smile, Damian got straight to business. “You heard about our case?” he asked, his voice low.

Jay gave a shrug, shaking his head slightly. “Rumors, mostly. I heard some evil assclown is selling Joker Venom pills to kids.”

Damian nodded. “We’ve pursuing all the leads we’ve got, but we’re trying to pinpoint a distributor. What do you know?”

“Nothing, really,” admitted Jay. “Nobody on my payroll goes anywhere near kids, definitely not all the way out to the suburbs. Besides, I have kind of a,” he paused, and though Ellen could not see his face behind the helmet, she imagined she could hear him smiling, “thing when it comes to the Joker, so most of my people know not to touch that shit with a ten-foot pole. Sorry,” he said, and he sounded genuinely apologetic. “Wish I could help more.”

“It’s fine,” murmured Damian thoughtfully, taking this in. “Have you caught anyone selling to kids lately? Maybe this is someone you dismissed?”

But Jason was already shaking his head. “Nope,” he said. “My reputation is pretty well-known by now, Robin. People don’t usually try and test me.”

Glancing in between the two heroes, Ellen moved slightly forward. “Is there anyone who left your operation lately, maybe for unrelated reasons? I don’t think a street pusher goes straight to working for a supervillain, if you know what I mean – it’d make sense if our guy had some exposure to you and yours before he ever made it to where he is now.”

Jason considered this for a moment.

And then he let out a very small groan. Though the helmet obscured his expression, Damian’s pulse quickened, sensing and impending revelation. “Yeah,” said Jay, nodding ruefully. “Now that you mention it, yeah. There was this one kid – I didn’t exactly, like, kick him out, ‘cause he never really did anything wrong, but he was just…” he paused for a moment, as if searching for the word, “…creepy. Not like, in a big-bad-supervillain anyway, but he was just kind of a creep. A lot of the women who worked around him had…complaints. He never did anything,” he added mildly, “but they just got weird vibes from him. Women’s intuition, huh?” Ellen heard the grin in his voice, and imagined he may even have winked her direction.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“Yeah,” answered Jay, his voice turning serious once more. “This guy – his name’s Scott Morrison, he’s maybe your age, Ember. But I caught him following me around on patrol a few times. Not following,” he continued, qualifying himself, “but – showing up in suspicious places. Like he memorized my route, which is weird enough, but then he’d start asking if I ran into any of the Big Bads. He asked me about Joker maybe once before I put my fist through his front teeth.”

Disappointed, there was a reprimand in his voice when Damian began, “Hood-”

But Jay just laughed and held up his hands. “Wasn’t that bad, li’l wing, just scared him a little. Anyway, haven’t seen him since then.” Damian nodded, but before he could say anything Jay added, “OH! I almost forgot – there was this one time, super fuckin’ weird, I kind of tuned it out.”

At this, Damian and Ellen exchanged looks. “What happened?” she asked.

“OK,” he began, leaning in slightly and lowering his voice. “Now this is super weird, and don’t tell your old man, Robin, ‘cause it’s the kind of thing he’d whoop any of our asses for – but one time, I got, you know,” he mimed gunshots with both hands, “beat up, a little, and I was bleeding all over the place try’na find somewhere to hang out and lick my wounds, and I swear to you this guy – I caught him, like, on his hands and knees on the ground following me with a fucking sponge in his hands.”

Both Damian and Ellen stared at him. “A sponge?” Ellen echoed, with a hint of disbelief.

“Yeah,” said Jay, nodding his head. “A fucking sponge. Blood is literally dripping off of my body, and he’s on the ground sponging it up. It was like, the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.”

More heatedly than Ellen really thought was necessary, Damian demanded, “And you just let him take it? Why didn’t you tell Batman about this?”

“Because,” answered Jay, rolling his head in a way that suggested he was also rolling his eyes, “no motherfucker’s dumb enough to try and clone me. You and your dad-” he broke off, glancing at Ellen, then corrected, “-I mean, the Big Man, sure, but me? Nobody gives a shit.”

“It’s protocol,” said Damian stubbornly, but Jason shook his head.

“Believe me, this guy wasn’t smart enough for anything like that. He was just fucking creepy.”

There was a suspicious pause, and then Damian asked, “When did this happen?”

“Like, maybe a month ago? But he quit working for me before that, maybe half a year or so.”

Ellen glanced at Damian. “That fits,” she murmured. “Our first recorded overdose was almost four months ago. That leaves time for recruiting and initial distribution.”

“Right,” said Damian, with a nod. The expression on his face was still severe. “Hood, we’ll need all the info you can get us on this Scott Morrison character.”

“He used to have a place over in Midtown,” Jay said. “I think it was a motel or something, nothing permanent. Riverview, or something?”

“Riverview,” repeated Ellen, with an urgent look towards Damian. “That was on Oracle’s list.”

With a nod, Damian touched the commlink at his ear. “Thanks,” he said to Red Hood, and then into his comm he said, “Spoiler, come in.”

Returning to Damian’s bike, they headed back through the city. By the time they reached Riverview Boarding House, Spoiler was waiting for them in Room 7. “I talked to the owner,” she said, as Ellen and Damian entered the room. “Somebody’s kept up-to-date on payments, but he hasn’t seen anybody come in or out for a couple weeks now.”

“Probably since we started investigating,” said Ellen, as Damian moved forward to search the room. “He knew we were on to him and wasn’t about to get caught with his pants down.”

“Robin,” said Nell, watching him search the walls for hidden compartments. He glanced around at her, and she jerked her head towards a door in the wall. “The closet.”

For a moment he did not move, only stared at her. And then he turned to the rickety wooden door, and he opened it.

Peering in behind him, Ellen made a face. “Gross,” she said.

Damian said nothing, taking in the sight before them: a veritable shrine to the Joker, littered with newspaper clippings and amateur art and low-res photos printed from the internet. In the center, there was a small Robin action figure, the kind of thing sold at tourist traps in Gotham. The plastic Robin’s limbs and his head were all removed from his body.

Gravely, Damian said, “He’s a Joker fan.”

“That explains why he’s working with JGJ,” offered Nell, from behind them. When both Ellen and Damian glanced back at her, she clarified, “Uh, James-Gordon-Junior. He needed a snappier name.”

Looking back at Damian, Ellen said thoughtfully, “It does explain the connection. Gordon used the lure of Joker Venom to recruit Morrison as his Dealer.”

Still staring at the shrine, Damian’s brown skin had gone wan with disgust, and his lips were pressed tightly together. “I don’t understand these people,” he said lowly, then he stood up, getting to his feet. “The Joker is responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of people. He’s a criminal. He’s not funny, he’s not interesting, and I don’t understand people who find him compelling.”

“Yeah,” agreed Nell sympathetically. “I mean, the guy’s basically a terrorist.”

Ellen caught the brief flicker of emotion across Damian’s face, a momentary tell that betrayed how much Damian disliked that word. Still; Ellen didn’t think Nell was wrong. “This is good, though,” said Ellen, to Damian. “It means we can bait him.”

Damian paused, then, very slowly, he turned around to look at Ellen.

----

“No,” said Bruce, shaking his head.

“It’s an hour, tops,” Damian insisted, leaning against the computer’s control panel in the Cave. “The entire team will be on top of him the whole time. It’ll be fine.”

“No,” repeated Bruce, shaking his head. “You are not removing the Joker from Arkham custody for any amount of time. He is in solitary confinement for a reason, he’s too dangerous-”

“A hour,” Damian repeated, practically begging his father. “Tightly contained and surveilled. It’s the easiest way to smoke out the Dealer.”

“The easiest is not always the wisest,” said Bruce shortly, “and I will not permit you to play games with a dangerous criminal. He always has a plan, and he’s bested you before.”

“But the entire team-”

“My answer is final,” Bruce told his son. “Harleen is out on parole, perhaps she may be of some help.”

As if disgusted by this suggestion, Damian began, “I’m not retraumatizing Doctor Quinzel on the off chance that she completes Scott Morrison’s Joker fantasy. Most Joker-philes like him think she’s a meaningless distraction anyway.”

“I’m afraid I cannot allow the alternative, Damian. It’s too dangerous.”

“We’re so close.”

“Then find another way.” Bruce’s voice was not unkind as he said, “I believe in you, and I believe in your team. But this mission has already exposed you and Ember to that monster enough. It isn’t going to happen again.”

For a moment, there was silence in the cave except for the constant whirr of machinery and the far-off drip of slowly-forming stalactites. There was a profound tension between father and son, thick enough to slice; Damian was once more angry that his father was blocking the team’s ventures, and yet Bruce would not budge. There was no compromise here.

On the specimen analysis table, unceremoniously contained in a plastic box, the crowbar remained. Bruce had not been sure what to do it, and so as he ran his tests he had kept it there in full view for all to see. Mercifully, Jason had not ventured into the Cave the last time he was here.

A part of Damian wanted to tell Bruce about Scott Morrison, known Joker fanboy, on his hands and knees, sponging up blood. He wanted to tell him that he’d dug up records that someone fitting Scott Morrison had made a clandestine visit to the Joker’s cell in Arkham, presumably leaving him with a gift. He wanted his father to know that the crowbar was a complete plant, and if the crust of bloodstains on its curved end matched Jason Todd’s, it wasn’t because this was the weapon that had been used to kill him.

But Damian was still a sixteen year old, and he was still petty. Perhaps Bruce was being especially strict because of this painful reminder of his own failure at the Joker’s hands, but Damian was just spiteful enough to keep this small knowledge from his father anyway, let him simmer in his own guilt and shame.

“Fine,” Damian said curtly. “Then any further deaths due to this Dealer character are on your conscience, Father.”

Later, he updated Ellen on the situation via commlink while on patrol. She sounded somber. “So that’s it, then?” she sighed. “That plan is out.”

“Hm? Oh, no,” said Damian, leaping from one rooftop to another, his boots absorbing most of the shock of impact. “We’re still going to do it. We just need to keep it a secret from Batman.”

“What?”

He fiddled at his commlink. “Ember, can you hear me? I said we need to keep it as secret from Batman.”

“No, I heard you, I just – that’s impossible.”

“Not impossible,” he corrected, “merely difficult for the inexperienced. Luckily you have me, and I happen to be extremely adept at keeping secrets from Batman. You have to learn that kind of thing,” he told her, offhandedly, “when you live in a house with him.”

“Breaking the Joker out of Arkham is a little different than sneaking out to meet your girlfriend, Robin.”

Without hesitation, Damian said coolly, “That’s not what I meant.” It had been, actually, almost exactly what he meant. “All I’m saying is that I know him well enough to anticipate where he’ll be watching. We do this quickly and effectively, and it’ll be over before he knows it.”

“That’s…optimistic.”

“I have been told I have a very glass-half-full demeanor, yes.”

Ellen laughed, and despite himself Damian caught himself grinning. “If you say so. When’s it going down?”

Good question. Damian considered this, standing above a stone gargoyle, scanning the cold city streets below him. “The longer we wait, the more drugs the Dealer gets out on the streets.”

“Fair enough. What’s the plan?”

“Meet the others at the Bunker. I’ll explain everything there.”

When all was said and done, it did take a little more time than Damian had anticipated. The first phase was dependent on the speed and inertia of rumor, which was spread both throughout Brentwood via Colin and Niloufar and throughout the rest of drug-dealing Gotham by Jason and a select few on his payroll. The rumor spoke of an anniversary: the birth of the Joker, or the rebirth, rather, when a man was swallowed by acid and spat back out as something else. It was a trap, designed to target the biggest Joker fanboy who frequented those circles, who, of course, naturally knew the apocryphal location of that fateful warehouse.

All they needed was one night. It had to work perfectly, smooth as silk, precise as clockwork; but Damian had faith in his team. Well. Ember’s team.

Ellen herself was stationed at the warehouse, staking it out. Colin and Nell were off on the other side of the city, waiting for their cue; Niloufar was spearheading operations out of the Bunker, and Jordan was with Damian, her speed, strength, and flight, a necessary part of his plan.

Hidden inside the bowels of Arkham Asylum, Jordan hovering slightly above him, Damian watched the seconds tick by on his mask’s lens display. For a minute or so, there was nothing but tense silence.

And then Damian touched the commlink at his ear. “Abuse, Spoiler,” he said, “you’re good to go. Seraph, how are we on security?” “All disabled and looped,” came Niloufar’s voice, without hesitation.

“Perfect,” he replied. “Ember, Jabberwock’s on her way.” He nodded towards Jordan, then took the lead, expertly navigating through the high-ceilinged halls of Arkham, avoiding guards.

In his cell, the Joker was still singing. “Little Bunny Foo-Foo, hoppin’ through the forest…”

Disabling the door’s security, Damian gestured for Jordan to take over. “Go.”

She did so, wrapping her arms roughly underneath the Joker’s shoulders and heaving him up and out, shooting back the way she and Damian came, disappearing into the night. The Joker’s fading laughter echoed in Damian’s ears as he locked and secured the door once more, then slipped away, hoping no one would notice Joker’s sudden silence.

As Damian headed back out to where his motorbike was stowed, he checked the open channel; the shit had, to put it delicately, apparently hit the fan, and Batman was barking orders at other Gotham heroes following an incident on the other side of the city, which meant he was far away from Arkham and from the docks where their plan was about to go down.

It took him almost twenty minutes to make it to the warehouse. Leaving his bike some ways away, as he approached the empty, abandoned building he was certain he could hear that faint, familiar laughter. Their trap was lain.

He found Ellen and Jordan in the rafters, high above the walkways which crisscrossed above vats which were now mostly empty. Jordan had dropped the Joker in one which had a foot or two of (probably?) nontoxic sludge at the bottom, and his laughter was so manic and so loud that its reverberations started to hurt Damian’s ears. He activated the dampeners in his commlink, relying on his teammates’ comms to hear them.

“Nice work,” he told them both. “Abuse and Spoiler gave us an hour, tops. After that Batman resumes his normal patrol around the city, but we caught him as far away as we could, so it should be at least another hour after that before he realizes there’s anything amiss.”

Though Ellen’s face was obscured, the sound of her voice betrayed her concern. “So Morrison better show up in the next two hours.”

“He will,” said Damian, watching the dark and empty walkways below them. “He won’t be able to resist the lure of legend, and there’s no way he’ll stay away once he hears that.”

“No kidding,” muttered Jordan, following his gaze.

“That’s still leaving an awful lot to chance,” Ellen added, sounding uncertain. “The timeline seems kind of arbitrary, and I’m still not completely sure why we needed the Joker himself for this anyway? Seems to me we could’ve just used, I don’t know, a recording of his voice or something-”

“Ember, please,” said Damian shortly, waving away her concerns. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, OK,” she replied, maybe a little insulted. “I don’t doubt that, Robin, but I’m pretty sure Batman said that this isn’t your team, it’s mine, and part of me is starting to think the only reason you wanted to go get Joker in the first place was because your dad told you not to-”

But before Ellen could continue or Damian, suddenly livid, could open his mouth to defend himself, Niloufar’s voice echoed in all of their ears. “Someone’s approaching the warehouse,” she told them, via commlink. “Good luck, you guys.”

They didn’t reply, because at that moment they heard the big sheet metal door to the warehouse creak open. All at once, the Joker’s laughter suddenly stopped.

Scott Morrison was not at all what Damian had been expecting. He was somewhere in his twenties, tall, slim, good-looking. His blond hair was gathered into a topknot, and he wore wide-brimmed glasses which appeared to have no magnifying effect on his eyes, and so therefore were probably only worn for the aesthetic appeal. Both he and Ellen shifted uncomfortably at the same time, perhaps coming to the simultaneous conclusion of, Oh no, he’s hot.

“Hello?” he called into the vast warehouse, which Damian thought was a pretty stupid move. He went to the stairs which led to the walkways above the giant but now-empty vats, climbing them slowly, cautiously, peering around. “Joker? Mister J?” he called, which caused Damian to cringe slightly and Jordan to whisper, “Yikes.”

Morrison continued, making his way across steel catwalk, his hands on the railing on either side. “I heard you laughing,” he called. “Are you here? Joker?”

A low, sickly chuckle emanated from one of the vats. Morrison’s eyes went wide behind his fake glasses, and he darted across the walkway, leaning over the railing.

The Joker leered up at him. His voice was low and frightening, like a purr in the back of his throat. “Who’s asking?”

“Oh, shit,” said Morrison, in obvious excitement. “Holy fuck, OK, oh my God, Mister Joker, woah. Hold on,” he said.

Morrison dug into his pocket, and Jordan muttered, “Oh, Christ,” as he took out a phone and literally posed for a selfie.

“Oh my God, Mister Joker, big fan,” said Morrison, once he’d taken the picture. “Like, holy shit, I can’t believe this is actually happening-”

Ellen gently nudged Jordan. “Go,” she whispered, but then Damian held out his arm.

“Wait,” he said.

In disbelief, Ellen blinked at him. “We have him,” she whispered angrily at him, “he’s right there, if we don’t move now then the Joker could tip him off to this whole operation-”

But Damian was already shaking his head. “Wait,” he said again.

This infuriated Ellen. Jordan just gave her an apologetic look and a shrug. Knowing Robin was the most experienced vigilante between the three of them, she forced herself into silence.

In the vat, up to mid-calf in a thick yellowy-gray sludge, the Joker just stared up at Morrison, unimpressed. “Big fan, huh?” he echoed. “What era?”

Morrison stared down at him. “Uh, what was that?”

“What era?” repeated the Joker, sounding as petulant as a child. “Nicholson, Ledger, Leto? Who was your favorite?”

“Um,” said Morrison uncertainly, “uh, no, sir, I think you misunderstand me, I’m just saying that like, you know, out of Batman’s whole rogues gallery, out of, you know, out of everything in Gotham that makes up the soul of this place – I mean, you’re it, man! Your presence is stamped into the very fabric of Gotham City! You’re everything!”

There was a silence. The Joker stared up at him. “Not very funny, are you?” he asked, his lip jutting out in a pout.

“What – I mean, no one’s as funny as the Clown Prince of Crime! But, like, I do have some stand-up material, if you like, want to hear?” He paused anxiously, then began, “OK, so, like, here’s one – why does Batman’s sidekick keep getting younger and younger?”

Sounding bored, the Joker drawled, “’Cause the older ones keep dying.”

“No,” said Morrison, “but – that’s funny too. No, it’s ‘cause – ‘cause he’s Robin the cradle. Get it? Like robbing?”

There was a long, tense silence. And then the Joker let out a chuckle. “Hey, kid,” he called up, “that is pretty funny.”

Beside her, Ellen could feel Damian tense, his entire body coiled tightly. He was aching to jump into action, she could tell. She didn’t entirely understand why he hadn’t already.

“Hey, kid!” Joker called once more. “Why don’t you come on down here, and tell me a couple more of those funny jokes you got there?”

A flash of uncertainty crossed Morrison’s face. “Oh, I – I don’t know-”

“Aw, come on,” said the Joker, kicking around at the sludge under his feet. “Hey, wanna hear another one? What did Batman say to Robin before they got in the Batmobile?”

Jordan leaned over and whispered, “I know this one!”

“Get in the car, Robin,” said Joker, and then he wheezed with laughter, breathless in his own hilarity. A grin spread across Morrison’s face. Once more he dug into his pocket for something, then pulled out a plastic baggie full of pills. He snagged three or four out of the bag, and stuffed them into his mouth, swallowing them down.

Then he climbed up on the railing, and he jumped down into the vat below.

He hit the bottom with a sickening crunch, and let out a yelp of pain. “Got him,” muttered Damian, but once more he stopped Jordan from moving. “Wait.”

The Joker stalked towards Morrison, who misinterpreted this as intent to help him up. “No!” he barked. “No, no, no! This is good! Pain is good, it’s freeing, like chaos of the mind!” He let out a loud, manicured laugh, as if it were something he practiced in the mirror. “See, Joker, man, I get it! I get you, the big joke behind everything, the ultimate gag! Laugh in the face of an indifferent universe! It doesn’t matter anyway, so why not try to burn as many bridges as you can on your way out, right? We all die in the end!”

“That’s not very funny,” said the Joker.

“It’s all funny!” insisted Morrison, as the Joker slowly neared him, like a shark stalking his prey. “That’s the point! It isn’t real! It doesn’t matter! That’s what makes the joke so damn funny-”

The Joker grabbed Morrison’s topknot; his wide grin, usually so gleeful, was downturned into a comical frown. Though the slimy sludge at the bottom of the vat was only about a foot high, he shoved his face into it, sticking a knee on Morrison’s back to keep him down. Morrison started to struggle wildly, his shouts unintelligible as the ugly goo slipped into his mouth and nose.

“It’s like babies in bathwater,” the Joker said, cocking his head, watching Morrison struggle. “Never understood it! You leave the kiddies alone for two minutes and suddenly they’re floatin’ on their bellies like a bunch of goldfish. How do they drown in that!” He let out a guffawing, belly-deep laugh, which sent a chill down Ellen’s spine. Pushing Morrison’s face deeper into the sludge beneath him, he roared, “It’s not that deep!”

At that, Ellen disregarded her orders and moved. She leapt onto the steel walkway, sprinted down towards the vat, and jumped in, her feet landing squarely on Joker’s shoulders, knocking him off his feet. As Morrison lifted his face and gasped for breath, the Joker turned around to see her, and his face lit up. He laughed maniacally, gleeful.

“Look who’s back!” he screeched. “How nice! How soon! Tell me, how’s Mama?”

Ellen drew her fist back to throw a punch, but in a split second, the Joker had disappeared; she glanced up to see Jordan spiriting him away, presumably back to his cold cell in Arkham. There was a squelching thump behind her, and she turned around to see Robin glaring at her. As Morrison coughed, Damian said, “I had it under control.”

Pointing towards the pathetic figure on his hands and knees, Ellen said, “Joker was going to kill him.”

“He was going to scare him,” replied Damian pointedly. “Nothing like a healthy dose of trauma to cure you off your obsession with a criminal like the Joker.”

Still wracked with coughs, Morrison’s head swiveled towards Damian, sludge dripping down his face. “S’not a – criminal – he’s an – artist-”

Damian turned around, looking only mildly interested. He kicked at Morrison’s torso with his boot, and the man toppled over. “The eight-year-olds finger-painting at Neon Knight Centers are artists,” he told him. “The Joker’s just a two-bit con man who somehow stumbled into mythologization.”

Gasping for breath, Morrison refused this. “He’s the – beating heart – of Gotham City! He’s Batman’s binary star! He defines the Batman!”

Damian grabbed the man’s collar and swung a leg over his head so his feet stood on either side of him. His gloved fist connected solidly with the front of Morrison’s face. “He’s not that interesting,” Damian said shortly.

“Where would Batman be without the Clown Prince of Crime?”

Again, Damian punched him. “In better mental health than he is right now, that’s for sure.”

“Who would he be? He’s the Batman’s greatest match! His greatest foil! The only other man he’ll ever truly understand!”

His fist connected for a third time with Morrison’s face, and Damian looked over his shoulder to address Ellen. “People use that one a lot,” he said, sounding genuinely perplexed. “It really says something concerning about how people interpret empathy and intimacy in male relationships.”

Once more Morrison attempted that terrible, overly-practiced laugh, and Damian turned around again to hit him in the face again. It was then that Ellen moved forward, placing a hand on Damian’s shoulder. “As satisfying as this may be,” she told him, sympathetically, “we’re here to get information out of him, remember? We need to know about Gordon.”

“Gordon?” echoed Morrison; there was incredulity in his voice, even through the blood running out of his mouth. “J-James Gordon?”

“That’s the one,” said Ellen, turning to him. “Junior, that is. Is he the one who’s been supplying you with the modified diaxamene?”

“Diaxamene?” he repeated, but Ellen was already digging through his pockets for that plastic baggie full of pills, which she quickly found and removed. “I don’t know what the fuck diaxa-what is, that shit’s diluted Joker Venom!”

“Yes, we know,” said Damian shortly, clearly still irritated. “You’re the one they call the Dealer, aren’t you?”

“I – I don’t know, man, James just said to tell people that!”

“James,” said Ellen, seizing hold of this. “He’s your supplier, isn’t he?” His whole body trembling, he tried to nod, but it came out looking more like a seizure. Spittle gathered at the corner of his mouth, and his skin was quickly draining its color, turning pale. Quickly Damian pulled open one eyelid, inspecting his pupils. Tightening his grip on Morrison’s collar, Damian asked, “How many pills have you taken tonight?” Morrison started to shake violently, his eyes rolling back into his head, and through his teeth, Damian snarled, “No!” Removing one hand from Morrison’s collar, Damian flipped open a compartment on his utility belt, popped the cap off a tiny syringe, and plunged it into Morrison’s neck.

“Anti-Venom?” asked Ellen. Damian nodded as Morrison’s shaking subsided, and he grew limp in Damian’s grip. “Robin,” she said, lowering her voice. “You can OD on diaxamene too if you take enough of it. The Anti-Venom may not work.”

“Maybe not,” grunted Damian, “but it’ll give us more time.” He shook Morrison bodily by the collar, and the man’s head lolled on his neck, his eyes blinking out of sync. “Scott Morrison,” he barked, “we know you’re the Dealer, and we know you’re working with James Gordon, Junior. Listen to me. Tell me where he is, and I’ll do my best to save your sorry life. If you have nothing to give me, then I will leave you here, and you will die alone in a warehouse where no one will find your body for weeks, if not months, and you’ll go to your grave knowing that Joker himself thinks you’re not fucking funny. Now,” he said, his voice calm and collected. “Where is James Gordon Junior?”

Something was catching in Morrison’s throat, making it impossible to reply; Ellen had a suspicion that it was vomit, his stomach protesting against all the poison he’d swallowed. Incapable or unwilling to form words, he merely lifted his hands, and he pointed out of the windows which lined the walls, just below the ceiling.

Damian paused, then he twisted around, following the direction of Morrison’s finger. Ellen did as well, but she didn’t understand: all that was visible out of the window was the night sky, stars faded above the lights of the city, and the shooting spire of the tallest building in Gotham City – Wayne Tower.

Grabbing Morrison’s hair, Ellen hissed, “Is this a game to you?” but Damian had already let him go, shooting his grappling hook out onto the walkway above.

He touched the commlink at his ear. “Seraph!” he called wildly. “Seraph, come in!”

Something dropped into Ellen’s stomach as she understood. Following Damian, she sent out a 911 call with Morrison’s location and status, then quickly followed Damian onto his bike. Niloufar had never responded to Damian’s call, and when he tried Jordan, he heard nothing from her either.

As they raced through Gotham, Ellen asked, “You think Gordon knows about the Bunker?”

“Maybe,” murmured Damian. “I know he knows about my family, and he knew about Batman back when we were based out of the Bunker. It’s a tease, Ember, don’t you get it? The diaxamene, the Joker Venom, the dead child so close to the Manor? He’s been playing us this whole time.”

“How?” asked Ellen, confused. “What do you mean?”

The bike shot into the secret entrance to the Bunker, and Damian was off of it immediately, sprinting into the main computer hub. “Seraph!” he called, looking around wildly, but there was no one there. “Seraph!”

Before them, the computer screen glowed a blank white. Something blared on both Damian and Ellen’s comms, Batman sending out an emergency signal for something going down at Arkham. “Jabberwock,” said Ellen to Damian, fear tight in her voice. “Something’s gone wrong-”

For a moment, Damian did nothing. On either side of him, he squeezed his fists tightly, gloves still stained red with Scott Morrison’s blood.

Then he turned to Ellen and said, “We can’t leave. Gordon’s here.”

“Where?”

Damian gestured for her to follow him, then took her through a set of doors she’d never seen open; he peeled his mask off his face, then lowered his eye down to a retina display. It blinked green, and an elevator opened. He held out one hand as if to say to her, After you.

“Where are we going?” she asked, unmoving.

He shrugged, then stepped into the elevator first. “The Penthouse,” he said shortly. “It’s where Nightwing and I lived back when he was Batman. If I’m right, it’s where Gordon’s set up camp.”

In disbelief, she finally boarded the elevator with him. “And how is it possible that none of your fancy security features ever picked up on anything up there?”

“I don’t know,” said Damian shortly, pressing his mask back onto his face. The elevator moved so rapidly with such sudden force that Ellen almost stumbled. “But it’s stupidly obvious – where’s the one place we would never look? Right under our noses, of course.”

Ellen glanced up at the ceiling of the elevator. “Or – above our noses, I guess,” she mumbled.

They emerged in a hallway; Damian jogged to the door and took off his glove, pressing his thumb against a scanner, and then he said aloud, “Voice recognition, Damian Wayne,” and the lock of the door let out a little click.

Lowly, Ellen asked, “If your security’s so tight, how’d he get through?” but Damian ignored her, pressing his gloved hand against the door and pushing.

The Penthouse was dark, but a light was on down the hallway, coming from the kitchen. When Ellen and Damian entered, a voice called, “In here!”

With a wary glance at each other, they followed the source of the voice. Turning the corner into the big modern kitchen, they found James Gordon Jr. sitting at the counter, glasses on his face, a spoon tucked into a pot of yogurt.

“Hi,” he said, waving at them. “Hey, it’s nice to finally meet you, Damian.” To Ellen he said, “I don’t know who you are,” then continued, “Nice digs, huh? Dick could’ve decorated more probably, but personally I like it.”

“Where is Seraph?” asked Damian, his voice flat.

“If you mean the girl downstairs,” James answered, scooping up a spoonful of yogurt, “she left a while ago. Probably to help her friend with the Joker.” Blandly, he looked at Damian. “Really nice of you to break him out and everything for me, Damian. I didn’t even have to lift a finger.”

“You’re done, Gordon,” Damian told him. “Your operation is shut down.”

“What operation?” asked James, looking mildly interested.

“The drugs.”

“I don’t have any drugs,” said James, innocently.

Damian stared at him, his expression stony and unreadable.

“Go ahead, search the place,” James continued. “Not a lot around here except some personal mementos. Sorry for squatting, but, hey, life’s tough when everyone thinks you’re a psychopathic murderer, right, Damian?”

Color dropped out of Damian’s cheeks, then suddenly rushed back in, flushing his brown skin. Sensing they had to take control of this situation, Ellen stepped up. “We’ve got you, Gordon,” she said simply. “We got the Dealer, too. We know what you’ve been putting out on the streets.”

“I haven’t been putting anything on the streets,” James said smoothly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Feeling a surge of anger, she suddenly sympathized with Damian’s fury. “Scott Morrison-”

“-OD’d,” said James flatly. “Right?”

Damian and Ellen exchanged a look. For all they knew, Morrison had died before the paramedics reached him.

“Scott Morrison was a crazy man with a Joker fetish,” James said, with a shrug. He ate a spoonful of yogurt. “Nothing to do with me.”

“The diaxamene-”

For the first time, a hunt of frustration entered his voice. “Any idiot could’ve gotten ahold of that. Haven’t you heard, Miss Nayar? Prescription pills are all the rage nowadays. Oh,” he added, picking up a remote from behind him, pointing it at the television on the wall. “Would you look at that.” A Breaking News broadcast played, informing viewers that a potential catastrophe at Arkham Asylum had narrowly been avoided, and the Joker, who had mysteriously vanished from his cell, was back in custody.

James smiled at Damian and Ellen.

“All according to plan,” he said.

Damian’s eyes were glued to the screen, slightly in shock as the news showed shaky video footage of a slim figure shooting into the sky, holding someone else in their arms. It was obviously Jordan, and it looked like she was carrying Niloufar, who had covered her face with her headscarf against the cameras. Despite himself and the absurdity of the situation, he somehow found himself taken by surprise that they had managed to solve the situation on their own, without his help.

James Gordon Jr. did not fight back. He did not protest; when the police came, they arrested him, but found no evidence of wrongdoings in the Penthouse except, obviously, trespassing. Later, into his commlink, Oracle informed Damian that they were holding her brother temporarily, but they may not have enough solid evidence to put him away.

Meanwhile, Ellen got a quick status report from the other members of the team, then checked on Scott Morrison. He was alive, but comatose.

As the late nighttime hours began to bleed into the impossibly early morning, Damian and Ellen sat on the rooftop of a building, their legs hanging down over the side.

“I know – technically – we won,” said Ellen, peering down at the city streets below them. “So why does it still feel like we got played?”

“It usually feels like that,” Damian told her dully, without looking around at her. “Especially with filth like the Joker and Gordon, Junior. It always feels like there’s something we missed.”

“We didn’t need to take the Joker out of custody.”

“No,” agreed Damian. “I…suppose I just hate it when people think the Joker is bigger than he is. He’s a lowlife criminal. I wanted Morrison to understand that.”

“I think that’s the problem,” said Ellen, glancing around at him. “It…strikes me that you really can’t take these things personally in this business.”

Damian didn’t answer for a moment. Then, slowly, he got to his feet. “I understand that,” he announced, with some finality. “But…I don’t think it’s right to remove your own feelings out of these kinds of situations. I think that’s how you end up like Batman.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“It’s the worst thing,” he told her, his gaze flickering over to her. “A terrible option. The bad ending.”

“I don’t know,” she challenged, with a shrug. “He took care of this city for a long time before you came along. Maybe he knows something you don’t.”

This obviously troubled Damian. He bade her farewell, and then he made his way back to Wayne Manor, arriving in the Cave just as the very first edges of dawn began to break. His father was already there, seated in his throne before the computer, as always. Damian noticed the crowbar was gone from its place on the specimen table.

He removed his mask on his way up from the garage, passing his father at the computer and heading in the direction of the stairs that led up to the house above. Before he reached them, though, he paused, and he turned around.

“Father,” he said.

Bruce moved only slightly, glancing over his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he admitted, like pulling teeth.

For a moment, nothing happened. And then Bruce turned back to the computer, his fingers clacking away on the keyboard. “What are you apologizing for?” he asked. “You won.”

“The Joker-”

“Is back in Arkham.”

“But I-”

“Maybe you made mistakes, Robin,” said Bruce, still facing the screen, “but your team was there for you, and they took care of it. I was impressed with Jabberwock and Seraph in particular tonight. Jabberwock should do very well on patrol, though I believe Seraph would benefit from a more permanent headquarters.” On the screen, Bruce flipped through a series of safehouses he’d long kept on reserve. “The Haven, perhaps?”

Damian gaped at his father. “Headquarters?” he asked. “Patrol? You mean to say – this is it? You really trust them?”

“I trust you,” said Bruce, “and I trust Ember. That’s got to be enough for now.”

Still, Damian felt discontent. “Father,” he began, “I still think – if we had just-”

“Ifs and should haves are poison, Damian,” said Bruce, without looking around. “You won. Red Hood and some of his contents are working on getting Gordon’s drug off the streets, but without a supplier, it should dry up on its own.”

“And Gordon?”

“From what I hear of him, he’s no criminal mastermind. He just likes toying with people. If he can, his father will put him away.”

“His father,” echoed Damian, trying to ignore the obvious parallels suddenly rearing his mind. “I imagine you might be feeling some…empathy, for his situation.”

“None at all, Damian. None at all.”

Damian rolled his eyes, then turned to head up into the Manor, taking the stairs two at a time.

----

NAME: Niloufar Ghorbani ALIAS: N/A / Seraph DATE OF BIRTH: 16 October 1996 BLOOD TYPE: O+ (Full Medical History) EMERGENCY CONTACT: Nazanin & Mahmoud Ghorbani, Parents (Contact) AFFILIATIONS: Team Ember EVAL: Observe for further development of metahuman abilities

#sog2 #earth 28 #damian wayne #colin wilkes #nell little #ellen nayar #bruce wayne #jason makes a cameo!!!!!#also i hated writing the joker #and this fic officially makes jewish!waynes canon #i'll fix some shit in here before i upload it to ao3 but i just had to power thru it and get it Finished #oh babs is also there

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lusilly · 7 years

Text

teenaged athena

title from Cold Calls (War Music, Continued)

i have finally fucking finished jordan aguilar (sometimes called jordan joyce) aka jabberwock’s Origin Story. jordan is here portrayed as a trans girl but will eventually figure out xe is nonbinary and switch from she/her to xe/xyr pronouns. you can read a ton more about xyr in wheel in the sky.

long story short, xe is the child of athena. when athena shows up like HEY lol there was a prophecy u can be wonder girl now if you want, jordan is like, what the fuck? you abandoned me when i was a baby and now u want me on ur side? Lol ok. athena in this fic is largely inspired by how she was in grucka’s run

also, an encouraging thing to all writers: i started this fic in 2014, wrote a wee bit more in 2015, and am now finally finishing it in 2017. it can be done

March was coming to an end, and although the snow had completely disappeared from Gotham streets, a cold wind still blew in from across the water, chilling the city streets.

There was something eerily quiet about this time of year; not yet blooming with the life of spring, nor lazy with the heat of the summer or early fall, but without the gentle, icy kindness of snow – the end of winter could freeze a body overnight, but provided no relief for the harsh, dangerous edges of the urban landscape. This was, so Jordan had been told, a cape’s favorite time of year. Too cold for crime, too clear, the air too fresh and sharp. A wave of vague disgust washed over Jordan, hanging above the city, crouched on the edge of a sloping roof. Without the snow, people always thought they could manage outside for a night, if they didn’t have anywhere to go. The tail end of wintertime found the city quiet with crime, but all the same lined with bodies in the alleys and silent backstreets.

A voice crackled to life in Jordan’s ear, and she flinched slightly, grimacing. On the line, someone said her name. “Jordan. Where are you? We’re on a schedule and-”

She plucked the tiny machine from her ear, held it in front of her between her thumb and forefinger. She closed her eyes.

The second she began to focus, a flood of sound crashed into her: she heard Niloufar’s voice, from the commlink clear as day, even though she held it before her. She also heard the cars speeding on the streets below her, and the trucks honking as they crossed the bridges out of the city; she heard the TV in the apartment below her, and in the building across from her, she heard a couples’ spat, two people arguing in a tone that caused an ache in her beating heart. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, and she heard a gentle buzzing she was unfamiliar with, something that normal human ears could not pick up, and she could hear dogs barking, people weeping, the bangs of pots and pans and a cat screeching somewhere in the distance, and her head shook, reverberating with sound as she heard Niloufar’s voice not only from the commlink before her, but faintly and far away, from their base underground.

Jordan listened to Niloufar’s voice and her voice alone. She concentrated on that one sound, edging out the people and animals and noises of the city, until all she could hear was Niloufar’s irritated, impatient voice, filling her ears and head.

She squeezed her thumb and forefinger together, crushing the tiny machine. She dropped the remnants into the street before her.

“You shouldn’t do that.” Jordan did not immediately reply. When it became clear he would say no more, she turned slightly and asked, a challenge in her voice: “Why? You can’t afford to replace them?”

Robin’s expression did not flicker. “Your teammate was trying to contact you.”

“I can hear her without it.”

“But you can’t respond.”

She bristled slightly, but said nothing.

Robin followed her gaze, staring out at the city. His hood was drawn up over his head, obscuring his face in shadows. “Batman doesn’t want you out here.”

“I don’t care what Batman wants.”

“Fine,” said Robin coolly. “But this is his city, and even if you don’t care, there are consequences for ignoring his wishes.”

“I’d like to see him try,” muttered Jordan. “I bet he couldn’t touch me.”

Dryly, Robin asked, “Do you?”

Wordlessly, Jordan looked at Robin, then she stood up. She put one foot out beyond the edge of the roof and stepped out into the sky. Slowly, she hovered in the air before Robin, glaring at him. “Batman couldn’t touch me,” she repeated. “He may think Gotham belongs to him, but the guy’s only human, after all.”

“How do you know that?” asked Robin, unfazed by her flight.

“I’ve seen him,” answered Jordan steadily. “I’ve seen his DNA. I can see-” she stopped abruptly, narrowing her eyes, focusing her vision, staring at Robin’s shadowy face. Softly, she said, “I can see everything.”

There was a silence between them. And then, still unmoved, Robin continued, “Batman doesn’t want to fight you. We just need to learn more about your abilities before we allow you to-”

“You don’t allow me to do anything.”

“Yes, we do,” said Robin bluntly. “You don’t think Batman could stop you from working here? Fine, maybe not. I’m sure Superman could.”

Jordan watched Robin, and for the first time, a hint of uncertainty crossed her face. “You’re gonna call Superman,” she asked doubtfully, “on a teenager?”

“A teenager with flight, augmented strength and senses, and superspeed? Absolutely.”

“What’s he gonna do? Wave kryptonite in my face?”

“No,” said Robin patiently. “If that worked, Batman would’ve done it already.”

“Then what-?”

“Your other option,” said Robin, “is to come to our headquarters and let us test you. But you’d have to be unconscious for that. And it could be painful.”

Jordan narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “I’m not some guinea pig,” she said, and there was something like a threat in her voice. “You don’t get to do that shit to me. I don’t know why this is happening, it’s not like you can punish me for something I didn’t even want.”

“That’s our point,” said Robin, and there was no trace of aggression or disdain in his voice anymore. “Don’t you want to know what’s happening to you? And why? You could have powers far beyond those you’re consciously aware of. Jordan – Ms. Aguilar – believe me when I say, we don’t want to take anything away from you. We want to help you. We want you on our side.”

At first, Jordan still hesitated, hovering before him, although the anger had all but melted off her face, leaving a slight hint of fear, but no indignity. Unlike anything else Robin had said, this seemed to get to her, digging at her deep inside, and finally, she nodded, just barely.

“Jabberwock,” she said.

Robin blinked, watching her. He noticed, for the first time, that she was hanging slightly above him, and he had to look up to see her face.

“That’s my codename,” she said. “Jabberwock. Like the-”

“Poem. ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves.” He paused, then added, “Carroll fan?”

“Not really,” replied Jordan. “But it was better than Azathoth. Or-”

“Cthulhu. Appropriate. And impressive. I was under the impression your entire team was uncultured and uninspired.”

Jordan smiled, but it was more like she was bearing her teeth towards him. “If you ever talk about my friends like that again,” she said, “I’ll rip out your spleen.” The moonlight lit up half of his face, and he looked uncertain. She shrugged, her grin wide and stiff. “Talk shit, get hit, Robin.”

With a certain degree of uncharacteristic awkwardness, Robin lowered his hood, and then he said, “Superman will be here tomorrow night. Will you be able to find us?”

“Yeah,” said Jordan. “You aren’t gonna strap me down and cut me open, are you?”

“No,” answered Robin. “Superman has slightly more finesse than that.”

“Good,” said Jordan. Holding up her arm, she explained, “’Cause I’m pretty sure not even diamonds could cut through this shit.”

Robin bowed his head in a half-nod. Jordan watched him.

Then she said, “See you then, kiddo,” and with a glinting flash, she disappeared.

----

“You’ve got a visual?” asked Niloufar.

“Yep! They’re across from me. Superman can probably see me – I mean, probably hear me too, right? Oh, man, that’ll be kind of awkward, if they ask why you came with-”

“This is Batman we’re dealing with, Spoiler,” interrupted another voice. “He’d be disappointed if we weren’t all here.”

“Well, we’re not all here,” said Spoiler pointedly. “Colin and Lucas-”

“Nell!” said Ellen, sounding upset. “Codenames!”

“Sorry!” replied Nell. “I keep forgetting!”

“Ember, you can see them too?” Niloufar asked.

“Perfectly,” Ellen replied. “I’m a minute or so away, if you need backup.”

“Thanks, Ellen,” said Niloufar. She glanced at Jordan, who was staring straight ahead, unseeing. Niloufar glanced down at the controls, then turned off the feed, so Ellen and Nell could not hear them. She watched Jordan for a second, then, quietly, she asked, “Are you ready?”

“No,” replied Jordan, without hesitation, although she did not shift her steady gaze. “Dammit. No.”

She didn’t say any more for a moment, but Niloufar did not push her, only watched her silently.

With a frustrated, contained sigh, Jordan pulled her hair out of her face, tying it loosely at the nape of her neck. Then she pulled the tie off, shaking her long, dark hair back into her face, running her fingers through it. Niloufar reached out, her fingernails tickling along Jordan’s wrist, then taking her hand.

Jordan pulled her hand away. “This is crazy,” she said, under her breath. “This is Superman.”

“So?” asked Niloufar. “You’re practically Superwoman, Jordan. I bet you could hold your own against him, if you needed to.”

Jordan’s eyes flashed slightly, glancing at Niloufar. “Do you think I’ll need to?”

“No,” said Niloufar firmly. “Of course not. You just said it yourself – this is Superman. He’s not going to hurt you.”

Drumming her fingers against her side, Jordan nodded. “We should’ve brought Lucas, huh?”

“No,” said Niloufar. “We’re fine.”

“But if things go downhill.”

“They won’t.”

“But-”

“Jordan, they won’t.”

“I know!” said Jordan loudly, without looking at the other woman. “God dammit, Niloufar, I know nothing’s gonna go wrong and I won’t have to run or anything, but.” She stopped abruptly. Lowering her voice, she continued, “I just need a way out. Just in case.”

Niloufar watched her carefully, concern on her face, then said, “Ellen just said she’s a minute away. She’s due north of you, the roof on the corner of Kane. The rooftop. Nell’s the opposite direction, street-level. I’ll be here. If you need to, you can always go up. Race Superman into space.” A small smile appeared on her face. “That would be a sight to see.”

Pointedly, Jordan said, “We don’t even know if I could breathe in space.”

“Well,” replied Niloufar reasonably, “you certainly couldn’t breathe, so I think the question becomes whether or not you need to breathe at all.”

There was a short pause. Jordan looked down at Niloufar with her dark, oily black eyes, then leaned down, pressing her lips to Niloufar’s. Quietly, she asked, “Come with me?”

Niloufar blinked. “With you?”

The self-consciousness in Jordan’s eyes, the way she was searching for something on Niloufar’s face, was so foreign that Niloufar felt it like a physical blow, and she was breathless for a moment, then reached out, brushed her fingers along Jordan’s shoulders.

“Yes,” said Niloufar. “OK, yes.” She smiled at Jordan. “Let’s not make them wait any longer, then.”

A moment later, Jordan alit on the rooftop before three men; holding Niloufar bridal-style, she lowered her to the ground, glanced at her, then at the men. Superman stood beside Batman, both huge and intimidating, but Superman markedly more huge and markedly less intimidating, with his bright colors, blue eyes that seemed to shine even in the darkness, and the curl in the center of his forehead. Batman hovered slightly behind him, just as dark and brooding as usual. Robin stood beside them; when Jordan appeared, he stepped forward.

“Jabberwock,” he said, “this is Superman.”

“Yeah,” said Jordan, instantly, “I could tell.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss,” said Superman; his voice seemed inexplicably loud, although he spoke in a low, rumbling tone. His eyes flickered noticeably towards Niloufar, and Jordan spoke.

“This is – Seraph,” she said.

“Hafaza,” corrected Niloufar. At Jordan’s withering look, she added, “Although, I mean, Seraph is OK too.”

Superman nodded, and then began, “Thank you for meeting with us. I’m always pleased to meet a young person dedicating their special gifts to the cause. This shouldn’t take long.”

“What exactly is this?” asked Jordan cautiously. “I’m not gonna be some lab experiment.”

“What?” asked Superman, blinking. “No! This is nothing like that. Didn’t Batman tell you-” he glanced over at Batman, who didn’t move. Looking back to Jordan, he continued kindly, “I’m here because I’m always interested to meet young people with powers such as yours, and because Batman wants to know – as I’m sure you do as well – how you got these powers.”

Her eyes lit up slightly. “Do you know?”

“No,” answered Superman. “My initial impression – that you might be somehow Kryptonian – seems incorrect.”

“Yeah,” said Jordan. “I knew that. I’m not an alien.”

“No,” agreed Superman. “You certainly are not. I would say you are very much a part of this Earth.”

Jordan watched him. “What does that mean?”

“I think,” said Superman, “I’ll let the expert explain.” He glanced up into the sky, a wide smile spreading across his face. “Just in time.”

Behind her, Jordan heard Niloufar let out a slight gasp; she also heard Nell echo the gasp, adding an emphatic, “Holy shit!” which only those with super-hearing could have heard. Her heart heavy, anxiety knotting in her stomach, slowly, Jordan turned around.

The woman’s landing on the roof was far more graceful than Jordan’s had been. Every minute movement seemed elegant and deliberate, and she was all but glowing with power. After a split second, Jordan realized she was gaping, and shut her mouth, self-consciousness washing over her.

“My apologies,” said Wonder Woman, striding across the rooftop. “I would have been here earlier, but there was an emergency in New York.” Jordan was frozen, unable to even think of anything to say. When Wonder Woman approached her, she had to pull her eyes away, her body tensing, anticipating the woman’s penetrating gaze. Silently, she tried to shrink, make herself invisible, something, because she could not bear to see the look on Wonder Woman’s face.

“Miss Aguilar,” said Wonder Woman kindly. “May I call you Jordan? Or would you prefer your codename?”

Jordan glanced up at the woman. Her eyes were a piercing gray, different from Superman’s light, shining gaze – her eyes were deep, like the oceans, like they went on forever. And they were focused solely on Jordan’s own. She did not glance up and down Jordan’s body, she had no suspicion nor judgment on her face, just a simple, open invitation. She offered her hand.

Slowly, Jordan took her hand. “Jordan is OK,” she said, her voice far stronger than she felt.

“It is a great honor to meet you, Jordan,” said Wonder Woman. She shifted her hand up Jordan’s arm, to encircle her forearm. “For my people,” she said, “this is our greeting. To indicate that we are unarmed, and thus come in friendship and peace.” She peered into Jordan’s apprehensive eyes. “As I do for you.”

“For me?” repeated Jordan. She glanced back at Robin, who hardly moved, except for a barely imperceptible nod. Looking once again at Wonder Woman, she said, “Look, I don’t know what this is about, but – I thought you were just gonna, I don’t know, tell me I have a metagene, or something-”

“That’s the thing, Miss Aguilar,” said Superman. “You don’t.”

Jordan stared at all of them, then looked back at Wonder Woman. Her heart seemed to go still in her chest. Wonder Woman did not look away, but only watched her with the most wise, serene expression on her face. Jordan asked her, voice hushed, “What am I?”

“You,” said Wonder Woman gently, pride shining in her eyes, “are a princess.”

-----

“Oh, wow,” said Nell. “Wow, wow, wow. What do I even pack? Do you think they’ll have clothes for us there?”

“I’m sure they do,” answered Niloufar matter-of-factly. “They’re practically ancient Greeks. I doubt they’ll want us wearing modern-day clothes.”

“Great,” said Jordan, her voice a little sigh. “Togas.”

“Actually,” said Nell, going through her cabinets. “I think they’re chitons, in Greece.”

“She’s right,” added Niloufar. “I’ve heard about the libraries on Themyscira. Serious scholars go there for hands-on research about ancient customs. I’m sure things aren’t exactly historically accurate, considering Themyscira is more, you know, kind of fantastical, than ancient times really were-”

“How do you know that?” murmured Jordan. “Maybe everybody was super-strong and could fly, back in the good old days.”

“The Amazons can’t even do that, though,” Niloufar pointed out. “That’s just Wonder Woman.”

“And me,” said Jordan.

Niloufar nodded. “Yes. And you.”

Nell chattered on happily, zipping up her backpack. Jordan and Niloufar met one another’s gaze and did not look away, sharing something silently; Ellen saw this, and chose to say nothing, gently acknowledging Nell’s excitement.

Ellen left soon after that; Jordan offered to walk her home, but she declined. They knew she preferred the solitary darkness of the night, the city air clearing her head, the streetlights and stars lighting up her way home. And they knew, of course, that Ellen could take care of herself.

Jordan’s apartment was in the same building as Nell’s, so it was late by the time she and Niloufar left. Although they offered to stay until Nell’s mother got home – on weekends she worked nights – Nell insisted that they go home and sleep. It would be a big day tomorrow.

Niloufar walked Jordan up to her apartment, holding hands. They stopped outside the door like something out of a teen movie, fingers intertwining, holding their hands up together. Niloufar looked into the other girl’s dark, expressionless eyes.

“Are you OK?” she asked.

“I’ll live,” replied Jordan lowly. “It would take more than a little anxiety to kill me, that’s for sure.”

Niloufar stared into her eyes searchingly, hungrily. “This is it,” she said quietly. “This is the answer to who you are. To why you’re who you are. This is everything.”

Jordan let go of Niloufar’s hands, pulling away slightly. She almost laughed. “I don’t think this’ll give me all the answers,” she said. “Probably just give me more questions. Like, what the fuck is an Amazon doing in Gotham City in the first place.” She laughed, and Niloufar joined her. “But. You know. We’ll see.”

There was a silence. Niloufar leaned up, onto her tip-toes, and gently pressed her lips against Jordan’s. Then she pulled back and said, “I can stay with you tonight, if you want.”

“No. That’s OK. I’m gonna spend some time with Maya, I guess.”

“That’s probably a good idea.”

There was silence. Niloufar reached up and pushed a long strand of hair out of Jordan’s eyes. Jordan took her hand, closing her eyes gently, pressing the other girl’s hand to her lips. Niloufar just watched Jordan silently, vulnerability she was unused to in her eyes.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Jordan, letting go of Niloufar’s hand.

“Are you excited?” asked Niloufar.

Jordan shrugged. “I would be,” she said, “if I weren’t so fucking terrified.” She grinned easily at Niloufar, then took out her keys, unlocking the door. “’Night, Niloufar.”

“Goodnight, Jordan.”

Jordan slipped into the small apartment, Niloufar returning to the street, where her motorcycle was parked. It was dark in the apartment, and Jordan tried to move silently towards her bedroom. Then a light flickered on, and Maya came into the room, holding the baby in her arms.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Q’s not asleep yet.”

The baby squirmed in her arms slightly, her tiny hands reaching up towards her mother’s face. Jordan didn’t say anything, watching her sister warily.

Maya nodded towards the couch before the small TV. “Can we talk?”

“Yeah,” said Jordan, but she didn’t move.

With a nearly inaudible sigh, Maya moved to sit down, crossing her legs, the baby in her lap, leaning against her stomach. Jordan watched her sister for a moment, then reluctantly moved to the couch as well, sitting beside her. The baby gurgled slightly, looking around at Jordan, who smiled at her. She reached her hands out, scooting closer to Maya to allow the baby to wrap her little hands around one of Jordan’s fingers.

She cooed at the baby, making a funny face. And then, without looking up, she asked, “Did you know?”

Maya held the baby’s tiny body, and let out a little noise, in between a sigh and a groan. “Did I know?” she repeated, sounding tired. “I don’t know. Maybe. I knew something. I mean, Jordan.” She let out a little, harsh laugh. “There was a lot to ‘know’ about you, kiddo.”

“I mean, about this. You know I mean about this.”

“Yeah, I do,” said Maya. “But…I don’t know what to tell you. No, I didn’t know you were, like, Wonder Woman’s little sister. I didn’t know that.”

“I’m not,” said Jordan. “She just said that I’m one of them. I’m not, like, literally related to her.” Maya didn’t say anything. Her eyes were still on the baby, even as Jordan glanced up to look at her. When Maya did not return her gaze, Jordan looked back to the baby again, who resisted slightly against her mother’s touch; Maya gently scooped her up and handed her to Jordan, who held her, rocking the child gently. Quietly, she asked, “Did you know my mother?”

Maya shook her head. “No,” she said, leaning against the back of the couch. “I didn’t know her at all. I think I might’ve seen her once in my whole life.” She was silent. She watched Jordan playing with the little baby. Then she said, “Dad wasn’t expecting you.” A pause. “Mom even less so.”

“I know that,” said Jordan, annoyance flashing on her face, although it was mixed with something like shame. “I’ve lived in this place eighteen years and you don’t think I know that?”

There was silence.

Then Maya said, quietly, “You were a tough kid, when you were growing up.”

“I know that too.”

The baby made a little sound, as if trying to laugh. Maya watched the child’s face, the corners of her lips just barely turned down. She said, “That didn’t matter, though. It didn’t matter whose kid you were. Mom and Dad loved you. And you’re still my sister. My sister. When Q gets old enough, she’s gonna start calling you Auntie Jordan. How cute is that gonna be?”

Jordan smiled bitterly, playing with the child.

“What I can’t understand,” Maya continued, “is who would have possibly left you.”

“Oh, great,” said Jordan, pretending to roll her eyes. “Cue the whole Now that I’m a mother speech.”

“No,” said Maya, an odd expression of distress and disturbance flickering across her features. “Kind of, I guess, but.” She paused abruptly, then began again: “There are a lot of reasons why a woman wouldn’t be able to take care of her baby. I get that. Of course I do.” She paused, as if thinking about her words. “But what I don’t get is why a woman who’s – why a woman like you, with what you can do – would have to give up a child. What’s crime and hunger and poverty to someone like you?”

“I don’t know,” said Jordan. “Those always seemed pretty important in my life.”

Maya hesitated, there. “I mean, someone like-”

“I know what you mean,” said Jordan, glancing at her sister. “And, look. Wonder Woman thinks that stuff’s pretty important too, you know. She spends her whole life trying to help people.”

“Yeah, OK,” said Maya fairly, “but I really don’t think Wonder Woman’s ever had to hold three jobs to pay rent. Or spent a night on the streets.”

There was a short little silence. Jordan said, “She’s still a good person.”

“She’s a great person. I didn’t say she wasn’t. She’ll be a good mentor for you.”

“You could come and meet her.”

Maya didn’t say anything. The baby opened her mouth wide, looking around at Jordan. Then Maya said, “I don’t really want to. She’s cool, but…Paradise Island is far away from home, in a lot of different ways.”

Slowly, the child’s face turned from an open-mouthed smile into a frown, and immediately Maya leaned forward, taking the baby from Jordan’s hands.

“Now,” she said, “if you could get me in with Batman. That I might do.” She stood up. “Lemme put her to bed.”

“Batman?” called Jordan from the couch, as Maya went into her room, rocked the crying baby, then laid her down. After a few minutes, she came back out, very softly closing the door behind her. She went back to the couch, leaning in towards Jordan, lowering her voice.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice low. “Batman I would do.”

Amusement edging into her voice, Jordan said, “You’ve seen Batman before.” “Sure, I’ve seen him,” said Maya, shrugging. “You know, he’s helped me out a coupla times. But I’ve never met the guy. You know?”

There was a silence. Then Jordan said, “I could probably do that.”

Maya laughed, but quietly, not to disturb the baby.

“I mean, if Robin would help me out. I know him better.”

“Oh, Jordan,” said Maya, standing up, letting out a little breath, then reaching down to pat the top of her sister’s head affectionately. “You have said a lot of things in the past couple years that I never could’ve expected.” She smiled slightly, shaking her head. “But that? Kinda takes the cake.”

She left, heading to the room where the baby slept. “G’night. I’ll be up to say bye, probably.”

“If you’re not?”

“Then let me sleep. Get some rest. You need to be top of your game tomorrow.”

“Right. ‘Night.”

Maya disappeared into the room, flicking the light of the room off as she did so, and Jordan was left there alone. In the darkness, she could hear the baby’s gentle snores, as well as Maya’s movements in the other room. She heard her pad across the carpet to where the baby slept. The sound of a kiss, Maya’s lips on her daughter’s forehead. Even in the blackness of the apartment, Jordan could see nearly perfectly, which was always disconcerting. It was never quite dark anymore, not unless she closed her eyes. And then – if she forgot – then all the noises of the night would flood into her ears. She had powers, yes. But she did not know how to use them. She hardly knew how to control them.

Jordan went to her room, collapsing in her bed, searching for silence, and finding sound and noise where there should have been nothing.

-----

It turned out (Nell was disappointed to know) that the invisible jet is only invisible sometimes, and so they boarded it with no problem. Troia, tall and strong and wondrous in her glorious beauty, assured them that the ride would not be long. Jordan didn’t mind. Her stomach was in knots, roiling deep in her belly.

Her sister had seen her off in the morning. “Bye-bye, Jordan!” she had said, waving the baby’s little hand. “Say bye-bye to Aunt Jordan, Q!”

Q didn’t talk yet, but Jordan had kissed the baby goodbye, and then she’d promised Maya she’d be back safely in a day or two, and then she had gone. And now she was on a jet with Donna Troy – Wonder Woman, it seemed, had other duties – and she was stunned and honored and at the same time she really, really, really didn’t want to be there.

Another Amazon had come with Troia to pick them up; Niloufar was talking to her excitedly, asking her all kinds of questions about the island, trying to learn some ancient Greek, the native language on Themyscira. Nell and Ellen listened in earnest. Jordan had wandered away, peering out at the sky disappearing behind them. She was in the front part of the main cabin, where, at the front, Donna Troy was steering the jet. She seemed to be on the line with someone.

“I don’t think it’s likely,” she said, easily controlling the jet simultaneously, “but you should remind him to keep an eye on them. Maybe stay in Gotham for a while.” A pause. “Yes, but I don’t think it’ll take that long. Kara was different. She was a special case.”

A little, tinkling laugh.

“Yeah, you could say that.” Jordan took an uncertain step backwards, to leave Donna to her conversation; but the woman glanced behind her, then said, “I’ll let you know when I do. I have to go.” And then she took something out of her ear and called, “Jordan? Would you like to join me?”

Jordan’s stomach clenched slightly. “Uh, I didn’t want to interrupt or anything-”

Donna laughed again, that beautiful, perfect laugh which instantly made Jordan feel a little less scared. “You aren’t. I could drive this thing with my eyes closed.” She glanced back at Jordan, with clear blue eyes. “And, to be honest, I was looking for a way out of that conversation anyway.”

Jordan hesitated for a second, then moved forward, taking a tentative seat next to Troia. “Who were you talking to?” She did not answer right away, as if considering the question. And then Donna answered, “Nightwing. He’s in Gotham right now. Have you ever worked with him?”

“No,” answered Jordan. “We don’t really work with anyone outside of Robin.”

“Ah,” said Donna. “And how is he?”

“Annoying,” replied Jordan. “But he gets shit done, so.”

Donna actually laughed at that, heartier and more sincere than her earlier laughs. Less for Jordan’s benefit, and more out of real amusement. “A very valuable trait,” she said. “Nightwing insists he’s a good kid.”

“He is, I guess.”

“That’s good.”

There was a short silence. They both stared out at the vast expanse of sky before them.

Jordan said, “I’m not going to fit in right.”

Donna glanced at Jordan. “What do you mean?” she asked. “On Themyscira?”

Jordan nodded, miserably.

“A lot of us think that a lot of the time, and we’re usually wrong.” When Jordan didn’t reply to this, Donna continued, “The Amazons – my sisters – are better than you give them credit for. They’re not going to hurt you, not with their weapons or their words or anything. You are our sister now, and they will all respect that.”

Jordan looked away. Then she began, “I didn’t mean…”

She trailed off. Donna waited patiently.

Beginning again, Jordan said, “I don’t mean that they’ll make me feel unwelcome. Wonder Woman, you know, she came and got me. Personally. So they’re bound to like me, or something, I guess. But.” She hesitated, glancing at Jordan. “I don’t know. I don’t care what other people are like. But. I feel it sometimes, inside myself. Like I don’t belong. Like I’m not really there.”

Donna listened to this all, but she did not look away from the sky before her. “Like you’re not there?”

“Yeah,” answered Jordan. “Like not me. Somebody else, in my head, but…” she trailed off. Quietly, she said, “I don’t always feel like me.”

There was an aching in Donna’s heart for this girl. She could almost feel the sweet softness of her soul, and yet she was boxed in with ragged edges and sharp corners she’d set up a long time ago, to prevent herself from being hurt by other people. Jordan was anxious, and viscerally afraid, and there was so little Donna could do to alleviate her fear. Jordan did not trust easily.

“Jordan,” said Donna, simple kindness laid out in her voice, “there isn’t anything I can do about that part of you. But you should know that there is no reason for shame or for fear or embarrassment, where you’re going. When I say that you are our sister, I mean it in a very sacred, very ancient way.” She glanced at Jordan finally, flashing her a sincere smile. “We have a bond now, you and I. Inextricable. And it is built from love and compassion, not some poison loyalty we’ll use against you. We – Themyscira – the Amazons – we should not be a ball and chain for you. I hope that when you get there, you see that the only thing we want for you is to realize yourself in the fullest way imaginable.”

“Realize myself?”

“And I don’t mean just your powers. Although we will teach you how to wield your gifts, I also hope we can help you find yourself.”

There was a pause. Jordan watched Donna. “What does that mean?” she asked. “Find myself. You mean on the island?”

“Well,” said Donna fairly, “maybe. Maybe far beyond the island.”

She looked at Jordan, who was still staring at her questioningly.

“You can’t be who you were meant to be,” continued Donna firmly, “you cannot fulfill the destiny that was written for you long ago…if you don’t know who you are.”

She smiled at Jordan kindly.

“On Themyscira,” she said, “I hope, if nothing else, you find a place of belonging, of identity. I hope that we can provide that for you, in whatever shape or form you need.” She chuckled slightly. “I know you come from Gotham,” said Donna, “so this might be a foreign concept to you, but we are a society founded on the laws of friendship, empathy, and mutual trust.”

“Yeah,” said Jordan. “And fighting and being warriors and general badassery.”

Donna’s laugh was loud, then. “And that too,” she admitted. “But all that is tied up with love, as well. We are fierce, this much is true. But more often than not, we’re being fiercely protective of our sisters.” She paused. She glanced at Jordan, who was now staring blankly forward, out at the sky. “Of you, now.”

There was a long quiet. Donna fell into it comfortably, watching over the ship.

And then Jordan said, quickly, “Wonder Woman knows, right?”

Donna glanced at her. “Knows what?”

“You know,” said Jordan, sounding uncomfortable. “About me. I mean, she picked me anyway, right?”

“I don’t think Diana picked you. You were already chosen.”

“Yeah, OK, but, um, Miss Troy-”

“Call me Donna.”

“OK. I mean. You know, right?”

Donna said, “I know you feel like you have a lot to prove-”

“I wasn’t always a girl,” said Jordan, bluntly. “You know that’s what I’m talking about. It’s gonna drive me crazy if everyone pretends they don’t know.” She fell silent. Then, quieter, she repeated, “I wasn’t always how I am now. I don’t even… Sometimes I’m not even sure…”

For a long moment, Donna considered this. And then, slowly, she began to speak: “Yes, Jordan. I knew that. And so does Diana. But – if I may say so – while you may not have always felt a woman complete…” her eyes slid across to rest on Jordan for just a moment, to take in the fear on the girl’s face, the wide vulnerability in her eyes, “…you have always been a woman, where it really matters.”

The younger girl’s head dropped slightly. “That’s easy to say,” she murmured.

“Yes,” said Donna. “It is. But – as I’ve said – I can’t do anything to ease this for you. You will go on your own journey of discovery, and you will define yourself in your own terms. This is something many women struggle with, and we sisters try to help each other through it. You have been doing it on your own for years.”

Jordan said nothing.

“I hope that Themyscira will be a place for you to find security and peace,” she said. “That’s what it’s always been for me, and I don’t quite belong there either. You’ll do well there. Just give it a chance.”

Still, silence.

Donna reached up and flipped a few switches, fiddled with some dials. “We’re almost there,” she said. “Go tell everyone to settle down, we’ll be landing in ten minutes.”

Jordan didn’t move for a second, then she stood up. “OK,” she said. “Donna…thanks.”

Donna nodded, only glancing at Jordan. “Anytime.”

Landing was less intimidating than Jordan had thought. There were only a few Amazons in their reception party, led by Diana. Around them, on the landing bay, women scrambled around, wearing little, their bodies tall and strong and muscled and perfect, managing the equipment. It was extremely intimidating for Jordan, who felt suddenly like a specimen under a microscope, as if everyone was glancing at her when she wasn’t looking, sizing her up. Even if no one was actually doing this, it didn’t feel right. It made Jordan self-conscious and uncomfortable.

Diana welcomed the four of them – Jordan, Niloufar, Ellen, and Nell – and then showed them to their rooms. The rest of the island’s women seemed to disperse, returning to whatever it was they were doing. There seemed to be very little urgency: women gathered in the halls to speak to one another, made their way to sparring and training sessions, carried on making food, tending to the forge. The busiest part of the main palace, where they were led, seemed to be the entrance to the library, thrown open and inviting.

Nighttime begun to leach the light from the sky. After Niloufar and the others fell asleep and the island became quiet, Jordan stepped outside their quarters. She looked up at the sky above them, where every single star shone with a brightness Jordan had never seen, which was indiscernible in Gotham City. The Milky Way gently made its path across the inky black sky, unobscured by smog or cloud cover. Without noticing it, Jordan’s feet lifted off the ground and she rose into the air in the grace of flight.

“Jordan,” called a voice from the ground.

Caught by surprise, Jordan tumbled a little in air, losing her balance and flipping around so she hung upside-down before the person who stood waiting for her on the ground. “Oh,” said Jordan, as Donna Troy smiled up at her. “Hi.”

“Hi,” said Donna, with a little wave. “Someone’s here who wants to see you.”

Jordan righted herself, then alit back on the ground. Cautiously, she asked, “Am I in trouble?”

Instantly, Donna shook her head. “Not at all. It’s just that you look like you’re having trouble sleeping, and she got here early.”

Still suspicious, Jordan asked, “Who got here?”

Donna pointed towards the center of the island. “Pallas Athene,” she said.

Jordan stared at her. “Pallas who?”

“Athene,” repeated Donna. “The goddess. She’s in the keep.”

“The what now?”

“The temple keep,” said Donna, with no hint of impatience. “She’s waiting for you.”

Finding herself a little speechless, Jordan spluttered, “Waiting for me? Why’s she waiting for me?”

Donna only watched Jordan. In the dark night, her gray eyes seemed see-through and spooky. “Jordan,” she began, her voice level, “…that’s why you’re here.”

She took flight after that. Jordan followed her, a little slower and less steady, as they headed towards the highest part of the island, where a beautiful marble and gold building faced the east, as if in anticipation of the rising sun. Donna landed on the edge of the cliff, then headed towards the temple doors, where Diana waited.

Uncertainly, Jordan followed Donna. “What’s going on?” she asked Diana, unable to mask the fear in her voice.

For a moment, Wonder Woman regarded Jordan thoughtfully.

Then she said, “The goddess has requested your presence, Jordan Aguilar. If I’m not mistaken, she has something to tell you.”

“What is it?” Diana shook her head. “It is not my place to divulge a secret that belongs to a god.” “You’re Wonder Woman,” Jordan said, convincingly. “Who cares what the gods say?” With a generous smile, Diana reached out and placed a hand on Jordan’s shoulder. “Athena,” she began, “and the other gods, have granted me my gifts, Jordan. If I am beholden to any laws, it is theirs. You, on the other hand.” Her grip at Jordan’s shoulder tightened slightly, as if indicating urgency. Her smile flattened slightly, became tighter. “You are not.”

Jordan didn’t understand what this meant, but Diana had already removed her hand. She removed something from her belt.

“Take this,” she said, holding out the Lasso of Truth towards Jordan. “Not for the goddess, but for you. I know that it can sometimes be difficult to find our own truth, to examine our own feelings and admit what we truly want, both to ourselves and to others. I hope that the lasso will make that easier on you.”

Now Jordan was scared. “What’s happening?” she asked, refusing to take the lasso. Diana reached out and took her hand, gently placing the lasso in her grip. “What could like, the goddess of wisdom and war and whatever want with me?”

From behind her, Donna spoke. “You aren’t an Amazon, Jordan.”

Jordan turned around, confused. “What?” she asked. Her stomach felt sick. “Then – what am I?”

The doors to the temple swung open. In their wake they revealed a woman, framed in light bright as day spilling out from the temple behind her. Pallas Athena was dressed in a pantsuit, her hair cropped into a neat pixie cut.

“A god,” said Athena, simply.

She offered her hand to Jordan. Donna and Diana both watched Jordan, not the goddess at the temple doors. Glancing between the two of them, Jordan held tightly onto the lasso with both hands. She offered neither of hers to Athena.

Athena shrugged. “Come,” she said, beckoning inwards. She turned and headed into the temple. Nervously, Jordan glanced at Donna, who nodded encouragingly. It took her a few moments, but she managed to pull herself together enough to move forward. Clutching the lasso, she entered the temple.

Inside it appeared to open up into an exterior courtyard, though sunlight lit up the courtyard above blue skies. Jordan knew this was impossible: it was the middle of the night. Cautiously, curiously, she moved forward. Behind her, the doors of the temple swung close.

Athena headed confidently towards a fountain in the middle of the courtyard. Slowly, Jordan started to follow her. She pointed up at the sky. “Why is it daytime?” she asked, raising her voice slightly as Athena’s back was turned towards her.

The goddess glanced around. “It’s always daytime in the temple of the gods,” she said simply. “Themyscira has been blessed by many gods. This was that of my brother, Apollo. Eternal sunlight.” When she reached the fountain, she stopped and turned around, smiling at Jordan. “His twin sister didn’t think it was such a hot idea, but she gave the Amazons many other gifts. I think he felt he had to keep up.”

Jordan stood awkwardly by the edge of the courtyard. Athena took a seat on the side of the fountain, then patted the stone beside her. “Come. Sit with me.”

“Why?” asked Jordan bluntly.

“Because,” answered Athena smoothly, without skipping a beat, “there is something you need to know.”

“I don’t want to play a game,” Jordan told her, feeling a strange surge of confidence. In her hands, the lasso grew warm. “Don’t make me wait. If there’s something you gotta tell me, tell me first. Then I decide if I want to sit with you.”

Athena gave Jordan a small smile. She gestured at the water of the fountain. “It’s a visual,” she said.

“I’m not even gonna glance in your fucking wishing well before you tell me why I’m here.”

From the back of her throat, Athena made a small, approving sound. “Pugnacious,” she said. “Quick to quarrel. I see you take after your mother, Jordan.”

Jordan’s pulse quickened. She took a step forward. “You know who she is?” she asked, her brow knit. “Is she on the island?” That smile never flickered. Athena nodded.

There was a beat of silence, and then Jordan strode forward, lasso in hand. When she reached the fountain Athena held out her hands, and Jordan wrapped the lasso around the goddess’s wrists. “Tell me,” Jordan demanded, her eyes hard. “Who is my mother?”

Athena watched her. Those steely gray eyes pierced her heart.

“I am,” she said.

For a moment, nothing happened. It was as if all things big and small went silent across the world, as if the island froze in time for a moment as Jordan’s heart stopped and then restarted, as if the even the sky above grew suddenly cold, leaving Jordan feeling like her blood was made of ice.

She pulled the lasso away from Athena’s wrists.

“I don’t understand,” she began bluntly, and Athena gestured once more to the stone beside her.

“Please,” said Athena. “Sit with me. I’ll explain everything.” “Everything?”

She bowed her head in a nod. “Everything. I promise you, Jordan.” There was a pause. Jordan didn’t move. “Let’s start from the beginning. Yes?”

Though Jordan did not answer, Athena turned to the fountain.

“A long time ago,” she said simply, “there lived a woman with the most unfortunate gift of Sight. Men kept her in temples, fed her offerings. They worshipped and feared her words.” The reflection in the water of the fountain stirred slightly, something appearing like shining glitter from its depths. Despite herself, Jordan leaned forward, craning her neck to see it. The shadowy figure of a woman appeared there.

Athena watched Jordan. Gesturing with one hand at the water, she said, “The Oracle.”

“Oracle?” echoed Jordan, glancing at Athena. She considered this, then made a face. “I know Oracle,” she said. She pointed at the reflection in the water. “And that’s no Oracle.”

A slight smile tugged on the corners of Athena’s lips. “Of course. I’m happy to see the tradition continues, albeit in whatever shape is necessary for a changing world. But the Oracle of my age used to make prophecies, Jordan. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. That’s what this all is about.” She watched Jordan, who still held the lasso tightly, peering down at the water. “One of her prophecies was about you.”

Jordan looked at the goddess. “Are you serious?” “Very much so,” Athena answered. “As it happens, you take after me that way. A thousand thousand years ago, there was a prophecy about my birth, too. The Oracle told my father that after I was born, another child would be born after me. She told him that this child would be more powerful than he was, and would one day overthrow him to rule Olympus.” She gave Jordan a wry grin. “She was a bit off, though. In time, with my champion’s help, I came to rule Olympus in his stead.” The grin faded slightly, replaced with steely nothingness. “Though the prophecy of the second child remains.”

“You just said I was your daughter,” Jordan pointed out, “not your sister.”

“In my family tree, one can be both,” Athena told her shortly. When Jordan looked alarmed, she reassured her, “But don’t worry. To the other gods of Olympus I am known as Athena Parthenos, the Virgin.”

Skeptically, Jordan said, “I thought Artemis was supposed to be the virgin goddess.” Athena’s eyebrows raised approvingly. “Ah,” she said, crossing her legs. “So you know more about your heritage than I thought.” “Not really,” responded Jordan, with some belligerence. “I skimmed through Wikipedia a little but that’s it.”

Waving this away with one hand, Athena continued, “A lot of us were virgin goddesses back then. It was a convenient way for our worshippers to think of us, because otherwise we became mothers or harpies or whores. My sister and I didn’t have much choice in the matter. But it was only a title,” she added, leaning in slightly. “Not necessarily true in practice, as evidenced by your existence.”

Jordan looked away from the fountain, back up at Athena. There was a frown on her face. “Why my dad?” she asked.

It looked for a moment like Athena was not going to answer this question. And then she shook her head, looking finally away from Jordan’s face.

“I don’t know,” said Athena honestly. “If I wanted to, I could tell you that the stories told of a man with jet-black hair from beyond the southern reaches who was fated to bring me joy and grant me with a child. But that would place too much stock in fate I think. The truth is that I hardly knew your father, Jordan. I don’t think that’s so bad.”

“It’s not,” Jordan said stonily. “But forgetting to stick around to raise the kid you popped out kind of is.”

In the silence that followed this, an owl hooted. It flew to Athena’s shoulder, but she shooed it away.

“Half-bloods cannot live in Olympus,” she told Jordan shortly. “I had no other option.”

“That’s bullshit,” said Jordan, rolling her eyes and shouldering the lasso. “But OK.”

“I want you to hear the prophecy,” Athena said, with some urgency, like a plea. “Just listen to what it says. Then we can talk.”

“Were we not already talking?” asked Jordan doubtfully. “Is that not what we’re doing right now?”

Ignoring this, Athena turned back to the fountain. She trailed the tips of her fingers along the surface of the water, and a woman’s figure appeared once more, shadowy and indistinct. From nowhere and everywhere at once, a voice came rising up, as if whispering directly into Jordan’s ear, resounding in her head of its own accord.

A girl-child arrives underneath the summer sun, begot of a mortal man and the Virgin Goddess… The aegis-inheritor comes crowned with a wreath of spears and armor gifted by the gods, a hero to inherit Olympus, a daughter of the Amazons and of the goddess herself, forged in fire, tempered by the flames… And the daughter will serve her liege as champion as no champion has served before, and be rewarded with every honor the gods can bestow… A girl-child arrived underneath the summer sun, begot of a mortal man…

As the figure in the fountain began to repeat her prophecy, Athena once more trailed her fingers across the water. The sight dissipated. Athena watched her daughter.

“That girl-child,” she said, “is you.” Jordan stared at Athena, trying to take all of that in. And the daughter will serve her liege as champion…

“You didn’t even know I was a girl-child,” said Jordan.

Athena didn’t deny this. “Not until recently, no.”

“You just, like. Lost track of me in the meantime, is that it?” “I have lived millennia, Jordan,” Athena told her, sounding almost bored. “Forgive me if I had duties which outweighed watching a baby grow up.”

Jordan realized she was clenching her teeth. She thought about Q, her sister’s baby, about how she was probably sleeping soundly somewhere in Gotham right now. Suddenly, Jordan missed her terribly.

“That’s bullshit,” said Jordan simply.

This did not immediately appear to faze Athena. “Is it?” “You didn’t want me,” continued Jordan, hot anger gathering in her belly, “until you realized that I might be the stupid kid from your stupid prophecy. Until I realized I might be able to help you out in whatever you’re trying to do here. I don’t know what the fuck you need a champion for and I don’t know why the fuck your old ones weren’t good enough, but you can bet I’m not going to get down on my knees and thank you for whatever honors you try bestowing on me just ‘cause you suddenly realized you wanted me. No,” she said firmly, clutching the lasso tightly. Gently, it glowed. “You left me with my dad and didn’t give a shit until today. I don’t care what that stupid prophecy says. I’m not your daughter, and I’m not your champion. I’m not your anything.”

There was a long, painful pause.

Athena nodded. “Your resentment and your pain is fair,” she said coolly, as if Jordan hadn’t just basically told her to go fuck herself. “I have no objection to that. I have no excuses to give you, because it is as it seems. I didn’t realize how important you were until I saw how the prophecy was already being fulfilled. Jordan, my last champion was Princess Diana, your Wonder Woman. Even she did not possess all the gifts you have.”

“No,” said Jordan again, resolute. “I don’t give a shit.”

“I’m not asking you to immediately pledge your fealty to me,” Athena continued, pleading. She reached out and took hold of Jordan’s hands, but Jordan pulled them away. “What I want to do for you, now, is to give you the opportunity to serve a higher purpose. To honor your true calling. I do not know if you ever met my sister, Cassandra Sandsmark, daughter of Zeus-”

“Nope,” said Jordan, arms crossed.

“Well, she was once known as Wonder Girl. She no longer holds that title.” Athena watched Jordan. “It’s no Olympus,” she told her, sympathetically, “but I would like to offer you Themyscira, if you’ll accept. Come train with the Amazons, your sisters. They will teach you everything they know. They’ll make you the greatest warrior this world has ever seen. You could be so strong, daughter,” said Athena urgently. She stood, reaching out to take Jordan’s shoulders. Jordan was almost taller than she was. “So brave. So wise. Let me teach you.”

“Don’t touch me,” Jordan said, jerking herself away from Athena’s touch. “When you thought I was a boy you were happy to abandon me and never look back. You aren’t allowed to start caring for me the second I start being what you wanted.”

“Jordan-”

“No,” repeated Jordan. She took a few steps back, then shook her head. “I shouldn’t have even fucking come here to begin with,” she said aloud, to no one in particular. “But I guess Niloufar liked the fucking library. So.”

Jordan turned away from a goddess, and she headed straight back to the doors of the temples. Though they groaned when she opened them, open they did, and she found Donna and Diana waiting for her on the other side. “Jordan,” said Donna immediately, in surprise. “How – did it go?”

The doors swung shut behind her, plunging them back into moonlight. Uncertain how to answer this, Jordan took the lasso off her shoulder and handed it back to Diana.

Eventually, glancing between the two women, she admitted: “Not great.”

Donna looked slightly stricken, but Diana just gave a little laugh. “It’s all right,” she said, to both Jordan and Donna. “I could describe plenty of encounters with Athena similarly. She may be the Goddess of Wisdom, but she can be a bit thick sometimes.” Jordan gave an uncomfortable smile.

It was Donna who asked. “Alright,” she began. “Well, Jordan. I understand the goddess had a kind of proposition for you. And as the original bearer of that name, the first Wonder Girl, I’d like to have the honor to pass down the legacy-”

“Oh,” said Jordan. “I’m not doing that.”

There was an awkward pause. Donna glanced at Diana, who asked kindly, “Not doing what?”

“Wonder Girl,” answered Jordan, glancing around as if unsure why this was a big deal. “I kind of don’t like the name. Really gendered, you know? I think I’m gonna stick with Jabberwock.”

Though both women seemed ever so slightly taken aback, Diana recovered first. “Of course,” she said. “It suits you. Should you desire any training, we are completely at your service.”

“Honestly?” said Jordan, making a face. “I think I want to go home. I’m kind of pissed off by this whole thing and it’d be great to just kind of go and see my sister and her baby right now.”

Donna blinked. “Now?”

Jordan shrugged. “I guess in the morning is OK.”

Again, there was a short silence where Donna and Diana exchanged glances. And then Diana rose gracefully into the air. “Certainly,” she said, hovering above the cliff side. “We will return you and your friends home to Gotham when morning comes, unless you decide otherwise.”

“Thanks,” said Jordan.

Donna reached out, gently placing a hand on her arm. “Do you need anything?” she asked. “Do you want to talk?”

Jordan, too, rose into the air. “No thanks,” she said. “I’ll be OK. It’ll buff out.” She lifted up to Diana’s side, then punched her in the shoulder. “Hey, thanks for everything,” she said. “This may have sucked, but it’s good to finally know. Right?”

Then she flashed a winning grin at both Donna and Diana, and she headed back across the island towards her quarters.

------

When they took off in the morning, Niloufar was not happy. “You’re welcome to visit the island whenever,” Diana told her, piloting the jet. “That goes for all of you. Allow it to be your second home.”

Even Ellen peered wistfully out the windows as the plane lifted into the air, but Jordan didn’t regret it. She wanted to be far from this place and far from that dumb prophecy and from the smiling woman she now knew to be her mother.

Disembarking in Gotham – Batman had provided a landing dock somewhere slightly outside of Gotham – Diana took Jordan aside before she let her go off with the others.

She removed something from her forehead, and held it out to Jordan.

“I want you to have this,” she said, quietly.

Brow knit in confusion, Jordan looked up at Diana. “What?” she asked. “No. I can’t take that.”

“Yes,” answered Diana patiently. “You can.”

“Why would I?” asked Jordan skeptically. Behind them, the others talked and laughed, curiously relieved to be back home. “I told Athena I didn’t want to be a part of your whole thing. I don’t need Wonder Woman’s tiara.”

“It’s not a tiara,” said Diana.

“Yeah, it is,” replied Jordan bluntly, pointing at the thing. “I’m looking at it right now, that shit’s a tiara.”

Still, Diana held it out, but gave a conciliatory nod of her head. “Tiara it may be,” she admitted, “but it’s forged from Athena’s aegis. That means it belongs to you, aegis-inheritor.”

Jordan wasn’t even sure she really knew what an aegis was, but all she could do was hold up her hand, refusing it. “No,” she said again. “I don’t want her aegis thingy. I don’t want to owe her anything, not even kooky magical protection.”

“It’s not her aegis thingy,” Diana told Jordan plainly. “It’s mine. The gods granted me with it years ago. I want you to have it.”

Jordan stared at her. “Me?” she asked doubtfully. “I just totally rejected your whole thing. I’m not exactly a Wonder-fan. I’m sure a lot of people would lose their shit about that aegis, but – like, it’s OK. Keep it.”

Diana’s hand did not move. “You’re not taking it because you don’t want it, Jordan,” she said. “You’re taking it because you don’t think you deserve it.”

For a full half a minute, Jordan stared at Diana’s face.

And then she snatched the tiara out of her hand. She placed it askew on the top of her head then stood up straight, displaying it proudly.

“Fuck off, Wonder Woman,” she said, though it was with little venom in her voice. “Nobody tells me what I think I deserve except for me.”

She turned and stalked away, back towards Niloufar and the others, leaving a little smile tugging at the corners of Diana’s lips.

#jordan joyce #sog2 #wonder woman #donna troy #niloufar ghorbani #ellen nayar #nell little #damian wayne #those last 3 are more like cameos but Yeah here u go #earth 28

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