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Chapter Text

Day 1: Darcy

Darcy Lewis was not faint of heart. Or, that’s what Thor said anyway. She kinda doubted it with her current situation. She woke up in a pool of green water and immediately started screaming, then choked on the slime that was running into her eyes, her nose, and her mouth.

Her skin felt like it was on fire. Not to mention her eyes. Everything felt like it was melting. Like acid coated her from head-to-toe. And yeah, that’s probably what was going on. Good grief.

Her fingers clawed for purchase around her, digging in dirt walls. The dirt crumbled under her fingers and she lost her grip, slipping back into the green liquid. Her throat burned too much to scream. She tried again, lunging a little harder now that she had an idea of where the edge of the pit was. Her whole body burned at the effort, and the irrational part of her brain noticed with some hysteria that she was naked.

Lovely. Tony wouldn’t let this die easily. She had better prepare for the jokes while she had the time.

Muscles screaming where her throat didn’t have the gumption to thanks to the slime, Darcy was finally able to pull herself out of the pit and roll tiredly on the ground. She laid there for goodness knows how long, her chest heaving with effort and her skin continuing to burn. She rolled onto her stomach, then onto her knees, vomit roiling up and out of her throat, taking the majority of the green substance with it. She coughed, gagged, then coughed again.

Her breath coming in heavy pants, she sat back on her haunches and used her hands to shove as much of the substance off of her body as she could. It sluiced off her in large globs, withering the grass it landed on.

“Gross,” she croaked, her throat aching. She looked around her. “Where am I?”

She was not on Earth. Well, she was. But that’s where it got complicated. It was Earth. Just not…her earth.

This earth didn’t have the Avengers. Heroes, yes, Avengers no.

What was more, this earth had completely different cities. Like, massive different cities. And, as her rotten luck would have it, she was in the one in New Jersey. Goth-ham or something. At least she wasn’t naked in Goth-whatever, though. Aptly named, the city was filled with Gothic style buildings. And the gargoyles. Ugh.

And what was worse? She had no idea how she ended up here. Her last memory was of helping Jane with an equation in the lab. Nothing out of the ordinary, she did that everyday. Except something had obviously happened if she was…well, here.

At least she wasn’t naked anymore. She had the uneasy feeling that if she were, she would have been hauled off by unsavory characters in mere seconds. As it was, she had to use the skills Natasha taught her more than once to ward off unwanted advances. Thank God people just hung their laundry outside for everyone to see. And that it was pitch black when she escaped the death trap of a slime pit. Though now she was thinking maybe it would have been safer to be naked in broad daylight instead. The streets were much much more dangerous at night from what she was seeing. She thanked her lucky stars again that Natasha had taught her a few things on how to handle herself in dangerous situations. She would be toast otherwise.

Even with what Natasha had taught her, some of the goons roaming the streets were well-trained and nastier for it. She’d be shocked if she lasted the night. And even more shocked if her feet didn’t get infected seeing as she still had no shoes. While people may have hung laundry out to dry, shoes were a very different story. Her feet were shredded and Goth-town had some serious sewage and drainage issues. Probably because the rain just kept coming down on her with no sign of letting up.

She felt like throwing up again just thinking about what she was stepping in as she made her way stealthily down the street. But hey, at least she hadn’t been murdered yet. That was a miracle in and of itself, and she’d already choked on some nasty slime early today, so what was walking through some compared to that?

It had been a good several hours of walking aimlessly through the city, looking for shelter, when she finally stumbled upon a place that might actually be of some help to her. Or she thought, anyway.

The GCPD turned out to be of zero help. She tried to explain that she had no idea where she was and that she needed help, but the lady at the desk just rolled her eyes and said, “So does everybody else, lady. Try the shelters.”

Like hell, Darcy thought, outraged. She knew all too well what big city shelters were like thanks to volunteer work with the good ol’ Captain America himself, and she had no desire to find herself in one without at least 250 pounds of beefcake and her taser with her.

“Can I at least have a map of the city?” Darcy countered quickly, scowling at the woman. “Please?”

The woman sighed, dug around her desk, and then slid Darcy a pamphlet. “Now leave.” She sent a judgemental look at Darcy’s feet. “Shoes are required in the building, ma’am. Leave.”

Darcy flashed her an angry glare, her thank-you dying on her lips.

She was moving back towards the entrance when a group of individuals shoved their way into the building. GCPD cops made up most of the crowd, but there were two other individuals. They wore masks on their faces and they had…capes? No, only one had a cape. The other just left his butt uncovered to be ogled by anybody. Huh.

Annnnnnd she had said that out loud, judging by the raised eyebrow she got from the man without the cape. Eh, what did she care?

Darcy quickly sized the two up. One was in all black, with a cowl covering most of his face, at least down to mid-cheek and tip of his nose. And were those…were those ears? What was he? A cat? A demon? Or…she caught the symbol on his chest. Oh. Bat. This must be the Bat she heard whispers of on the street. Well, he couldn’t be too terrible, seeing as all the nasty goons she’s had to deal with so far are terrified the Bat would find them and dole out vengeance. The way they said that word–vengeance–had become a point of humor for Darcy after she dealt with them. She knew a superhero schtick when she saw one. How could she not, with who she worked with?

The other individual’s mask–a darker blue, she noted–only covered their eyes. And, of course, he did not have a cape. He did have a utility belt, same as the Bat, and both were wearing some type of body armor. Kevlar, maybe.

They were vigilantes, then. But more on the side of the law, judging how they seemed to be working with the GCPD. Screw them, then, if they were working with these heartless creatures.

The Bat narrowed his eyes at her, staring at her forehead. Darcy blinked at him. “Uh…can I help you?”

“Your hair,” he said. And wow, that was a gravelly voice. What did this guy do for a living? Scream all day? “Is it bleached?”

“Okay, first off, rude. Should never ask a lady that,” Darcy tutted. “Also, not that I know of. Why?”

He stared harder, and Darcy shook her head. “Whatever. I got to go. Uh, maybe drop something in the complaint box for me about how awful these cops are at welcoming people to the city. I have some serious beef with the lady at the front desk.”

“People need to leave Gotham, not be welcomed to it.” The one in the blue mask spoke up.

Darcy scowled. “Yeah, well, it was the closest city I woke up to. Deal with it.” She turned on her heel.

“Wait–”

“Nope. You’re rude, I’m even madder than I was coming in, and now I’m leaving. Bye.” She flipped them off and kept walking. God, what was wrong with her? Even if she was stressed about this situation, she was normally much nicer to people.

With their eyes on her still, she stomped out of the police headquarters. Which maybe wasn’t the best idea considering her feet hurt like hell.

Batman watched her with narrowed eyes. He knew Nightwing had the same thought in his mind.

She had a streak of white hair at her temple. Right around, coincidentally, the time they were looking into rumors of another Lazarus pit.

The commissioner calling them snapped them out of their thoughts. Scowling, they followed him back for a debrief.

Chapter Text

Day 1: Darcy

What the hell had been Bat’s hang up with her hair? No matter, she had to find somewhere to lay low for the night. Think, Darcy, think. 

She looked at the pamphlet the lady at the GCPD had given her. It was a pretty decent map of the city, all things considered. But what concerned Darcy more was the pamphlet didn’t even say “Welcome to Gotham” but instead said “Occupational Hazards of GCPD Employees.” Inside was packed with information of Gotham city “rogues” and what areas they tended to favor when they escaped Arkham. 

Lovely. She squinted at the map. She was, at least, in Old Gotham and not Crime Alley or the Bowery. Her luck granted her that much. Still, the streets were far from safe and she shuddered to imagine how much worse they were in those areas.

“Parkour,” Darcy whispered with a quiet laugh to herself, spotting a ladder hanging down just enough for her to manage getting a foot up if she jumped off the wall to grab it. She trailed closer, looking up the ladder to see what she was working with.

It wasn’t much, but it was safer than sleeping in the alleys. The roof of the building hung over the fire escape by about six inches, and she noticed she could pull the ladder up a little… She would have to be very careful, because everything looked so rusted and she may not be strong enough to haul the ladder up. Hmmm. Well, no harm in trying. 

She tucked her stolen shirt into her pants–both were far too big on her, but she was doing the best she could with the hand she was dealt–then tucked the map of Gotham into her shirt. Gritting her teeth, she went for it. Except she pushed off the wall way too hard and grabbed the ladder far above her intended target. Darcy blinked, then scrambled up the ladder.

Rust flaked off the rungs, sticking to her sweating hands. The rain made the climb all the more difficult, but she finally made it to the top of the escape. Now, she had to pull the ladder up behind her. With a groan, Darcy realized she would have to partially climb down the ladder in order to pull the ladder up. She was really tempted to just leave it, but her internal monologue said “Excuse you, I choose life.”

The ladder freaking broke on her. She clung to the rungs, her hair wet and matted to her face, and began to cry. Great. Now, she was stuck on the fire escape. Delightful. She climbed slowly up the ladder, her heart aching inside her chest.

Curling underneath the scant half foot of roof the building afforded, Darcy shivered into a restless sleep. She woke up screaming.

_________

Day 2: Darcy

This sucked. Gotham sucked. Everything sucked.

Darcy rubbed a hand over her face tiredly. There had to be somewhere she could go for resources. Every place she tried today either slammed the door in her face or threw her out. It was getting old and fast . She needed to find something to eat and drink. And then another safe place to sleep. 

Her ankle thrummed with pain at the reminder of having to jump from the fire escape’s ladder to the ground. Stupid broken ladder. She was pretty sure she had sprained her ankle, and her feet were already in terrible shape thanks to walking around the city barefoot.

She found herself staring up at a large ionic-style building ten blocks away from the GCPD. The Gotham City Public Library was a monstrosity of white brick and looked exactly like the kind of building that would kick Darcy out if she tried to step foot in the building. Sighing, she decided to try it anyway. It was a public library, after all. Which meant, hey, it was open to the public.

She was not, surprisingly, kicked out. She was, however, waved over by a sweet-faced librarian in a wheelchair who was eyeing Darcy’s hair with a raised eyebrow. 

Good grief, what was with people staring at her hair lately? Granted, she hadn’t gotten the chance to look in any mirrors lately, but still. She would think people would pay more attention to the fact she was walking around barefoot in Gotham than her hair.

“Is the dyed look coming back?” the librarian asked smoothly, giving Darcy a small smile. Darcy stared at her carefully. The librarian’s expression was open and friendly, but something made Darcy uneasy about the question.

“Yeah,” Darcy replied, the lie slipping out easily. She shoved her hands into her too big pockets. “Should have waited though. Didn’t know I would end up on the streets the night after. Could have used the money for something else.”

The woman nodded. “Ah. I see. Would you come with me for a minute?”

Still uneasy but deciding what the heck, Darcy followed the woman towards the back of the library. 

The woman gave her shoes, and Darcy may have teared up a little bit. She also handed her a heavy backpack, which Darcy prayed had at least some toiletries and a little food, if not some extra clothes. Specifically socks and underwear. 

Swallowing thickly, Darcy looked at the woman. “Why are you helping me?”

The woman appeared to think for a moment before she shrugged. “A little birdie told me you might come by.”

Darcy stared at her. “A little…what?”

The woman smiled. “Sorry. You aren’t from here, are you?”

Darcy blew out a long breath. “Is it that noticeable?”

The librarian laughed softly. “A little, but I think you’ll be okay. You seem like a smart woman.”

Uncomfortable now, Darcy breathed a little more shallow and shuffled her feet. “Uh. Okay. Thank you. I…I appreciate the help.”

The librarian nodded. “Anytime. I do mean that. Please, come back. The library closes at nine o’clock every night, but I’m here a little later if you need me. Just press the call button on the back door and request “Gordon.”” 

“Okay. Thanks. Uh, can you point me in the direction of the ladies’ room?”

“Walk to the first set of shelves you see on the left. Then walk all the way to the back of the room. You’ll see a small alcove there that’s an entrance to the bathrooms.”

“Thanks.” Darcy held the backpack tightly in her fist as she walked away, afraid she would get it dirty if she slung it on her shoulders. 

____________

She found the restrooms and decided to go through the bag before she tried to look in the mirror at herself. She almost cried in relief when she saw the unopened pack of socks and a pack of underwear at the top of the bag’s contents. Sitting on the floor–not as gross now that she had trudged through the disgusting streets of Gotham–Darcy dug through the bag. She found some toiletries–toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, deodorant–two shirts and a pair of jeans, a belt, and a few other odds and ends. There was a box of granola bars, a few cans of soup with the easy-open pop-lids, and a reusable plastic water bottle.

Darcy took a deep breath in and let it out, feeling more than a little relieved at the help of the librarian. 

Getting a whiff of herself in the enclosed area, she decided that was probably best to go ahead and clean up while she had the opportunity. Her heart sank as she finally got the chance to look in the mirror for the first time since she showed up in this place last night. She looked awful . 

Darcy grudgingly admitted that she looked like a crazy person. She had dark purple bags underneath her eyes, her skin was dirty from roaming the streets–don’t even get her started on her feet and legs–and she was pale and shaky looking. Scratch that, she was pale and shaky feeling . And her eyes screamed "I am crazy." So much that Darcy herself was a little taken aback by the emotions she saw there. Simultaneously like a deer in the headlights and a feral dog who was cornered. A combination of don't hurt me and I will rip you to shreds. And were her eyes freaking green?? Weren't they blue last time she checked?

She chalked it up to anxiety at her changing appearance, but Darcy felt off in ways beyond the change. She stared at her hair. Two white streaks had likewise made an appearance, starting at her temple and falling at her shoulders. Considering she had leapt realities, physical changes were not too far out of the realm of reality, were they? Realm of reality. Hahahaha. What a wise-crack. This wasn’t even her realm of reality. She had no idea what was possible here. She looked the same for the most part, but then there were these subtle changes... Maybe she was an alternate version of herself?

She shook her head and lifted one of the two streaks of white hair with a finger, staring at it with an unidentifiable emotion. Shaking herself out of it, Darcy grabbed and wet a few paper towels to begin cleaning herself up. Washing her hair in the sink had been interesting, but what put her most off kilter was when she hoisted one foot at a time into one of the three sinks in the room. 

She got some very weird looks from one of the library’s patrons when they came into the restroom, but considering there were three sinks, they gave her a wide berth and kept their mouths shut. Thank goodness for small mercies, Darcy thought as she continued to wash Gotham streets off of her calves and feet.

After she felt a little cleaner–she wouldn’t feel completely clean until she had a nice, long shower–Darcy stepped into a stall and changed clothes. There was something odd about the clothes though, and Darcy didn’t recognize what had put her on alert until her gut clenched uncomfortably when the jeans slid on perfectly. 

“Not cool,” she whispered, trying to calm her panic. 

What had the librarian said? That a little birdie said she might show up? Darcy’s heartbeat raced. What was that supposed to mean? That she was being followed? That someone knew she was displaced? Someone obviously had a photo of her somewhere for them to guess her clothing size so well. Uncannily well, even if they had a photo. 

Darcy hurried to finish dressing. Despite the shoes Gordon gave her not being broken in, they felt like heaven to Darcy. Especially when she realized how well they supported her swollen ankle. She only started crying after she pulled the socks on and her feet began to warm and lose their chill. She quickly shoved down her frazzled emotions, making a list of what she needed to do. First things first, look more carefully at the contents of the bag. 

Uncapping the shampoo, she scowled at the tiny device in the lid. A bug. Darcy scowled and crushed it. Nat would be proud. She would be even prouder, Darcy noted, knowing she recognized the bug was too obvious to be the only one in the bag. Darcy knew there was more in the bag, and she dug through everything with renewed vigor until she found and crushed three more. She would do an even deeper search later, when she found a safer place. What kind of library wasn’t safe ? She scowled. Damn Gotham. Even New York’s libraries were safer than this in the bad neighborhoods. The niceness of structure was just a cover for heaven knows what. 

For good measure, Darcy ran the bugs under some water to further short out the circuits. Her free hand clenched the sink tightly, and she withdrew her hand quickly when the heavy porcelain cracked, spider webbing out and then partially crumbling. Water spilled out onto the floor. 

Darcy stared at the sink, then at her hand, then back at the sink. Her heartbeat picked up speed again.

“What is going on with me?” she whispered in confusion. She recalled a conversation she had had with Peter Parker about his realization he had powers, but Darcy hadn’t been bitten by any radioactive spiders. No, a small voice said in her mind, you only drowned in what might have been a radioactive sludge pit . Not to mention traveled between worlds. You think that won’t have consequences?

She shuddered at the idea as water continued to drip out of the broken sink and onto the floor. Was this why she had been able to jump higher than she anticipated on the fire escape? Hell, was this why the fire escape broke? She had just thought it was rusted and therefore a little more delicate, but now… Ugh, yet another thing for Darcy to deal with. 

She shut the water off quickly, drying her hands. She shoved some paper towels into the backpack. What could it hurt? They might come in handy later on. 

She glared at the sink again, angry at herself. Now she really had to leave. 

“Okay, Darcy,” she muttered to herself. “WWND? What would Nat do? Disappear, obviously, but I’m not the best at that. Gotta try anyway.”

Staying under the radar was going to be even more difficult– and dangerous–if she kept breaking things by accident. She made a note to dig into Gotham’s attitude towards enhanced individuals whenever she found a place she could access a computer and wifi. A different library, maybe. She certainly wasn’t going to use this library’s computer lab now that she suspected she was being followed. They would surely look at her computer history and–

Darcy paused, an idea blossoming. With a grin, she decided she would stop by the computers. Squeezing a little more of the moisture out of her hair before she left the bathroom, Darcy exited and followed the signs leading to the technology department. She had to be fast. But, she thought with a smirk, she was a millennial, after all. Technology was like breathing for her.

_________

Darcy thanked her lucky stars that the Internet was a thing in this reality. She signed a paper under the alias Natalie Rushman –a nod, of course, to the woman who was her inspiration behind this–and sat at a computer. Pulling out her pamphlet from the GCPD as a reference, Darcy quickly began typing in a series of confusing searches to throw whoever was on her tail off.

Metropolis University

Star City Internships for English Majors

Rent Rates in Metropolis

Two Room Apartments in Metropolis

How to Work a Crowd as a Pair

How Much is Cab Fare to Metropolis?

How much is Bus Fare to Metropolis?

She typed in a few other searches, making sure to navigate through several of the links the search pulled up. Grinning, Darcy wiped her search history–well aware that they would pull it up again if they were serious about finding her–and left the computer lab.

__________

The Gordon woman was waiting for her near the front. Darcy grimaced, thinking she should have found a side exit. One step forward, two steps back. 

“Before you go, do you want to set up a library card? It’ll take two minutes, tops.” Gordon was giving her a smile.

Darcy pretended to hesitate, then shook her head. “No. Better not. I have to get back home.”

The words were full of loaded meaning, and Darcy rocked from one foot to the other awkwardly. 

Gordon looked at her, squinting her eyes a little bit. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. But I’ll think about it.”

The librarian nodded, still giving Darcy that look that made unease stir in her gut. “I would love to see you back.”

Darcy gave her a tight smile, anger fizzling in her stomach as she walked out.

“Come again!” Gordon called, waving after her. 

Darcy had no intention of returning.

Chapter Text

Day 1: The Bats - A Rewind for Perspective

Tim scowled at the Batcomputer. For all its handiness, its current shortcoming was its inability to accommodate his facial recognition search. While Bruce and Dick were in the debrief with the commissioner, Bruce had him hack the police department’s security cameras and begin a scan of the woman’s face.

It had been over twelve hours and nothing surfaced. No social media profiles, no DMV profiles, nothing. It was infuriating. Tim held his large thermos of coffee and huffed, turning to look at the room’s other two occupants. “I don’t know, man, it’s like she’s a ghost.”

Damian snorted. “Please. In this digital age? There’s no such thing. You’re simply an imbecile.”

Tim glowered at him, then snapped at Jason to quiet down.

“Make me, replacement,” Jason popped back, rumbling the bag of chips loudly–this time on purpose–as he sought for a well-seasoned Dorito. 

Tim groaned, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t get it. How is there nothing on this woman?”

“Father said she looked homeless.” Damian glanced at the photo again, turning his nose up. “I would agree with him. She looks like a street whore.”

“Damian, unless you have something useful to add to this conversation, shut up,” Tim grumbled. He clicked a few more possible databases where the woman’s profile might be found. The camera angles weren’t the best, which made his job all the more difficult. 

“She’s not a whore,” Jason hummed as he threw a chip into his mouth, looking at the picture for himself. He swallowed, then said, “I would have met her already if she was.”

“Right. Because you’re a crime lord and a whore yourself,” Damian scoffed.

Jason rolled his eyes. “Retired crime lord. And hey, Bruce is more of a playboy than I ever was. But I know she isn’t because I make sure everyone who works the street corners and brothels are there willingly.” At Tim’s warning glower, Jason shut his mouth. He sometimes forgot the Demon child was only twelve. “But, if she is homeless, that might explain why she isn’t in any databases. Think about it. You live on the streets long enough, you definitely don’t have a car. So why get a license? Or even a permit?”

“She would still probably need an ID, Jason.”

“Well, maybe she didn’t think she did.” Jason leaned forward and stared a little closer at the photo. It was a little blurry and in black and white–and really, could the GCPD not afford quality CCTV cams that had color on Bruce’s generous donations–but something still caught his eye.

“Did he say why he wanted you to look into her?” Jason asked, tilting his head. 

Tim frowned. “No, not really. Only that he thought she was a key to an important case.”

“Huh. Look at her hair.”

Tim zoomed in on the image, worry deepening his frown as he saw the contrast of dark gray and near white. “Oh shit. Is that…”

“If it’s the case I’m thinking of, then yeah. I bet if we could actually see this in color, we’d find her eyes are green.”

Damian shoved Jason over so he could see better. “Hmph. Who would waste a pit’s power on this woman?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Back to the useful portion of this conversation. She does look homeless.”

Tim glared. “Yes, Jason, we’ve only established that six times already.”

Jason shrugged. “I’m just saying. How long do you think she’s going to walk around Gotham barefoot?”

“I don’t know,” Tim frowned, “For as long as it takes her to find shoes, I guess.”

“And where do people go to find help for these things?”

Understanding dawned on Tim’s face. “Shelters.”

Jason snapped his fingers. “Bingo.”

Tim thought quickly. “Shelters, and other public spaces like libraries. Shelter can be found in the subway, though I doubt she’s there because it’s more dangerous for a woman. For that matter, so are shelters.”

Jason grinned at him. “Good logic, replacement. How hard would it be for you to set up a system for the CCTV cams to run facial recognition in as many shelters, libraries, and sub stations in Gotham as possible?”

Tim frowned, running through a few possible schematics that might work.  “Well, it would take me a day or two, but I could do it. I wouldn’t be able to actually run the facial recognition through the CCTV cameras–it would have to come here and be filtered through. Which means even if we do get a hit, it won’t be immediate. At best, we’d figure out where she is 30 minutes too late. Worst case scenario? Hours.”

Jason nodded. “Get on it anyway. I’ll fill Bruce in.”

“Right. I’m going to finish the last few seconds of this footage first.”

“Whatever.” Jason thought carefully, still watching the video over Tim’s shoulder. “I’ll make contact with the more common shelters and libraries and have my people watch for her. She obviously lives on the streets. I’ll pack a few bags and leave them with instructions to give them to her if she does come in.”

Damian nodded. “And we’ll have Oracle bug them.”

“You know, Demon Child, that may be the brightest thing you’ve said all day.” Jason reached out to ruffle his hair, dodging the knife Damian swished towards him. “One day, spawn of Satan, I will ruffle your hair and you will like it.”

Damian spat curses at him before he was distracted when Tim began snickering. 

“Oh man, you guys. I am framing this beauty.” Tim zoomed in on the frozen frame. “Look at this.”

“Got a crush?” Damian scoffed. “Only you would fall in love with a woman of the streets.” He looked over Tim’s shoulder and scowled. “Of course she’s brazen enough to be rude to Father.”

Jason glanced at the screen and started to cackle. 

In the frame, the Bat’s and Nightwing’s silhouettes were evident in the foreground, and walking away from them was the mystery woman, flipping them off behind her back as she stalked away in her bare feet.

“Hey, wanna place a bet?” he asked, a grin building. 

Tim raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“First one to find her gets to name Damian’s next pet.”

Damian scowled. “Not on your life , Todd . ”

“Then you better find her first.” Cackling, Jason dodged another knife. 

Day 2: Darcy

Darcy was not an idiot. She knew she had a track record of being impulsive–she didn’t always think things through–but she also had her doctorate in astrophysics. Not to mention a bachelor’s in political science. And she could hack like nobody’s business. 

So, she was impulsive. But Darcy Lewis was smart . It’s why Jane begrudgingly took on a poli-sci intern (the only applicant story was bullshit and Darcy knew that), why SHIELD tried to recruit her, why she went for her doctorate, why SWORD did recruit her, and why Tony tolerated her presence in the lab and hired her after two days.

She was Darcy Lewis: certified scientist-wrangler, hacker, astrophysicist, and all-around BAMF. 

And because of this, Darcy knew she had to find new resources ASAP. After stopping at a second library, she found another set of bugs and two trackers that she crushed, too. She wasn’t willing to tear up the shoes– yet –but she had found another small pellet lodged in the tongue of one shoe, and another underneath the insert and above the sole. Sue her, but her feet were sensitive as hell, especially after they were so cut up by Gotham’s street trash.

Four trackers. She crushed three of them, but she didn’t pull the tracker between the insert and the sole from the shoe–she had plans for that one. If she could figure out how to carry it out, anyway. Otherwise, she was screwed and would be walking around barefoot again. 

Squaring her shoulders, she marched into the restaurant she stood in front of and looked around for somebody who looked the slightest bit inviting. No luck. Every one had on a bitch face. 

Rolling her eyes, she approached the first table that was not by a wall or in a corner. People who sat in the middle of a room were less leery of people approaching them, she thought. 

“Do you know of any 24-hour gyms in the area?” she politely asked the two well-dressed men at the table. 

The first man looked at Darcy like she was crazy. “Lady, no one goes out after ten o’clock, and that’s being generously late. A 24-hour gym is useless in Gotham.”

The second one nodded, looking Darcy up and down with a raised eyebrow. “You won’t find a cheap membership in this area, either. Everything on the cheaper side won’t be found in this part of Gotham. Your best bet is East Gotham.”

Darcy made a face. “You mean towards Crime Alley and the Bowery?”

The first man coughed. “Hell no.” He pounded his chest a little bit, and Darcy was leery to find that his wheeze had what sounded like haunting echoes of crazed laughter. “Damn it. I thought I was through with the gas symptoms. Anyway. No, don’t go that far. Try Gotham Proper, the upper side. There’s a university there.”

She nodded in understanding. “Right. College students aren’t going to pay out the nose for a gym membership.”

“Exactly. Rates will be lower there. But, there is a women's gym not far from here called the Cat’s Cradle . It’s a little pricey, but my wife goes there and loves it. Something about a nice support network. She goes on about the owner all the time.”

“Right. Thanks.”

Darcy hesitated, afraid if she asked another question her stay would be even more unwelcome. But they were nice enough to talk to her this long, so another question wouldn’t hurt. 

“Um, can you tell me if there are any labs hiring around here?”

The men blinked at her.

“Uh…”

The second man sighed. “S.T.A.R. labs in the City Hall district might be looking for some assistants. I heard they got attacked last week. Employment ads always go up after that. And then there is Queen Industries in the Financial District.” He frowned. “But be careful. Both companies are closer to the Gotham docks than I’m comfortable with. It’s dangerous.”

“From what I’ve seen, all of Gotham is dangerous,” Darcy sighed.

“Well, so long as you’ve figured that out, you’ll be a little better off.” The second man lifted his coffee cup to his lips. “Our waitress is getting antsy with you standing there. You may want to leave before she causes problems.”

Darcy glanced up at the waitress, who was glowering at her. “Right. Thank you.”

Gotham wasn't the best place in the world. But, maybe, there were still a few decent people in this hellhole.

Day 2: The Bats

“Your gal broke my sink ,” Oracle’s voice came through the comms, dry humor coating her tone. “ And not a cheap sink.”

Batman sighed. “I’ll make sure someone takes care of it.”

“ Uh huh. Also, she crushed my bugs. ”

“I’ll take care of that, too,” the Bat grumbled. 

That she broke the sink was another check in the box of whether or not the rumors of another pit were true. That, or she had uncanny similarities to when Jason came out of the pit. Enhanced strength, bright green eyes, and the white hair at her temples all pointed to a common factor. Hopefully, the madness was something that passed her over–she was frazzled and on edge when he first met her, but that could be chalked up to the circumstances she found herself in. Or, at least, he hoped. If the madness hadn’t hit yet, then they were on an even shorter timeline.

Nightwing’s expression was incredulous. “What do you mean, she crushed your bugs?”

“ She crushed them. And ran them under water. Then, she found the rest and crushed them, too. Including most of my trackers. All I have on her now is a single tracker. How she didn’t find that too, I have no idea. Her sweep was very professional. But putting the pellet in between the shoe’s sole and insert paid off, even if it was a pain to dig out a little bit of the material so it didn’t raise any flags. Whoever this woman is, she’s not a civilian.”

“Where is she now?” 

“Looks like she’s still in Old Gotham. Near 67th Avenue and South Memorial. Also, I sent you the web search history I found. It’s worth looking into if you can’t track her down.”

“I’ll check into it. Red Robin is in the process of rigging a facial recognition system to find her. He should finish that at some point tomorrow, so we’ll have more at our disposal to work with.”

“And you didn’t think to ask me for help? ” 

Batman sighed. “You can’t stay at the library 24/7. This way, the system can be running constantly.”

“If you say so . I’m faster than Red Robin, though .”

Nightwing snorted. “I’d love to see you say that to his face.”

“And have my systems infected by a virus? No thanks.”

Nightwing grinned widely. “Okay. Be that way, then. Come on, let’s get to 67th and South Memorial before she moves too far.”

Chapter Text

Day 2: The Bats

Much to the Bat’s frustration, she wasn’t there.

“Your tracker is buggy,” Nightwing said blithely. “See, this is why he doesn’t ask for your help.”

“ It’s not buggy, it’s still pinging from nearby ,” Oracle responded dryly. “ It’s showing that she’s inside the Wildflowers boutique.”

“Stake out!” Red Robin flipped. “Sweet!”

“ The tracker is moving again. She just came out.”

“I don’t see her.”

“ Look harder.”

“There are twenty five women on the street, five that came from the boutique’s general area, and none of them are her.”

“That can’t be right. Narrow it down more. She’s in front of the nightclub now. She’s going in.”

Nightwing scowled. “Uh-huh, yeah. It’s one of the same women who came from the boutique. It’s not our quarry.”

“ Check anyway . She may be more meta than we think .”

Red Robin, Batman, and Nightwing all stared at one another before Nightwing sighed. “Fine. I’ll do it. But I’m not wearing a stupid stuffy suit. I’m wearing civvy clothes and pretending I’m antisocial.”

“Just channel your inner Batman,” Red Robin smirked. “That should do it.”

“Yeah, no, O. She’s not in here.” Dick was glad that he wore a passable civilian outfit underneath his suit tonight. He was in jeans and a hoodie–not quite a clubbing outfit, but definitely nothing that would raise eyebrows.

“That can’t be right!” Oracle’s frustrated voice came through his earpiece. “ Hang on, I’m hacking the CCTV footage.”

Dick hummed Rasputin to himself while he waited for Oracle to hack the cameras, grinning when he heard her mutter curses at him. 

“Okay. The tracker, with the footage…looks like she’s near the bar.”

Dick walked to the bar, ordered a whiskey, and looked around. “What side?”

“Left. Do you see the woman from the boutique?”

“Yeah.”

“Go talk to her. If she seems nervous, we may have our gal.”

Dick was walking over when a man beat him to it, kissing the woman gently on her cheek before sitting beside her. He blinked. “Uh…O?”

“ I see it .” Dick could hear her frown. “ I don’t understand.”

“Well, I’m not getting into that."

“ Her internet searches implied that she may have a partner. But she was searching for two rooms, which doesn’t really make sense.”

“I’m going to go with my gut and say that this isn’t our woman.”

“ Ask her about her shoes.”

Dick groaned. “O.”

“ Just do it. Mention your girlfriend was looking for some and you want to know where she got them.”

Dick sighed. “Alright. But if I get punched, it’s your fault.” He walked slowly over to the left side of the bar, debating on whether or not he should play the waiting game. Sighing, he waved the bartender over. “Put the next round for everyone at the bar on my tab.”

The bartender raised an eyebrow, then glanced at the ID Dick held up, his eyes widening. “Of course.”

Dick rolled his eyes. The influence of the Wayne name was still alive and well, apparently, even for the adopted children who maintained their last names. 

“Thanks,” the man with the woman grinned at him. He held out his hand for Dick to shake, and they exchanged small talk for a few minutes. When the woman began to look bored, Dick nodded at her.

“My girlfriend wanted to know where you got your shoes. She got called into work, otherwise she would have asked you herself. But she really liked them.”

“ You’re getting sloppy. That sucked,” Oracle hummed. Dick internally rolled his eyes. He thought he was doing pretty well, all things considered. 

The woman scowled. “ I didn’t get them anywhere. Some bitch swapped shoes with me while I was changing at Zumba class. I lost my favorite pair of tennis shoes.”

Dick blinked. “Oh. When did that happen?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure. Sometime this afternoon.”

“Ah. Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”

She shrugged. “It’s Gotham. If that’s the worst thing to happen to me this week, I’ll be fine.”

Dick nodded, lost in thought. Shaking his head, he slid his sleek black Wayne Banking card to the bartender, and then handed the couple a $50. “To replace your shoes. If you want to drop those off at the front desk in Wayne Tower, I’ll give you another $50.”

The woman grinned. “For your girlfriend?”

He scratched the back of neck awkwardly. “Yeah. She doesn’t mind second-hand things if it’s something she really wants.”

"I'll drop them by on my way home from work tomorrow. Or my husband will."

"Thanks. She'll be excited." Dick nodded at the couple, stood up, and then walked out of the club, speaking to Oracle as he exited. “Dead end. Inform the others.”

Day 3: The Bats

Back at the manor the next morning, the bats discussed the current case.

“Either the chic has some serious street smarts, or this isn’t a civilian,” Jason threw his two cents into the conversation, twirling a pistol around his fingers.

“That better not be loaded,” Duke huffed at him. 

“The safety is on,” Jason replied easily, stretching out his legs on the table.

“They wouldn’t waste a pit on a civilian,” Damian noted.

“You’re assuming the League of Assassins is involved,” Tim frowned. “It may be a naturally occurring phenomenon this time.”

“And we were only now made aware of it? This close to Gotham?” Damian scowled at him. “Not possible. We would hear something.”

“Well, we’re hearing something now. The rumors only started a few days ago. And she said Gotham was the closest city she woke up to when we first encountered her.” Dick chewed his steak thoughtfully. “It could have happened recently.”

“I think it did,” Bruce put in, staring at Jason with narrowed eyes. “Would you please stop twirling a loaded weapon at the dinner table?”

The Crime Alley native spun the weapon faster until Duke snatched it from him and set it carefully on the table. 

Tim sipped from his coffee mug. “She’s freakishly smart. I think our search will be harder than we thought. If she doesn’t want to be found, chances are she won’t be. Did Babs not find the dance studio the woman lost her shoes in?”

Bruce shook his head. “No. She didn’t start the trackers until she got to her computer last night.”

“That was stupid,” Jason muttered. “We could have pinpointed a last location if she had. Remind me to give Babs hell next time I’m on the comms. Hey, where’s Steph and Cass?”

“They’re looking further into the search history Barbara found at the library, as well as rigging up a system to pinpoint similar searches made in the area.  Stephanie also mentioned they had some school work to catch up on.” Bruce gave Tim and Duke a long stare. “I don’t want you guys getting so sucked into this that your grades suffer. If that happens, I’m pulling you from the case.”

“And I will be the one who finds her,” Jason grinned, wiggling his eyebrows.

Bruce wondered why Damian began hissing and spitting at the second Robin, then decided to leave it. It was probably better that he didn’t know. 

Day 2: A Rewind for Darcy’s Perspective

Darcy found herself at another public library. One of her last, she knew, so she had to get a lot done in the limited time she had. She had already set a trend whoever was in charge of the tracker in her shoe would no doubt notice, document, and attempt to address. That was fine, so long as she planned for that. 

Sitting at a computer, she opened the settings and clicked Wi-Fi. She grinned to herself when she saw the multiple available networks. Like, really, who left their personal hotspot on and open to just anyone? Multiple people, apparently, even in Gotham. Darcy clicked on a hotspot network and began working towards masking her VPN and scrambling the IP address. Setting the address for somewhere in Bludhaven, Darcy looked up several key words reminiscent of her first search at the Gotham Public Library, hoping this would be enough to start the search for her in a different area of Gotham once she ditched the tennis shoes. After finishing that–it took about ten minutes–Darcy rescrambled the IP address and started looking for a bank account to hack into. 

It wasn’t the ideal idea, but Darcy figured that if anyone knew she had been dropped into an alternate reality, they would have a little bit more mercy on her. Maybe. She would definitely make it up to these people as soon as she could. 

Go for Old Money , Darcy, she thought to herself. They wouldn’t be as hurt by her hacking, and they would also be less likely to notice. A quick google search revealed five families well-known in Gotham: Elliots, Waynes, Crownes, Kanes, and Cobblepots. 

Darcy checked the time, relaxing a little. No one was here for her. Not yet, anyway. She had a little more time, maybe. Now, for the difficult part. Darcy looked at the Wayne and Kane estates, but then decided to go with her gut feeling and skip them. Cobblepot, too, gave her bad vibes, and so she settled for the Elliots and Crownes. 

Their bank accounts held several millions each, and Darcy breathed a little easier knowing she could swipe a little more if she needed to. Hacking into the bank’s mainframe, Darcy added herself as a recipient. Then, she withdrew a large chuck of money–to her, anyway–from each account. She had to be careful not to trigger any alarms, circumventing the notification system with her breath held. After that, she transferred the money through several accounts from across the country, and then back into another bank account located in Gotham–this one owned by the Wayne Banking System. She made sure to cover her tracks as well as she could, but she did leave a message just in case.

Deposit Memo: Stop looking for me. 

Then, she hacked into the Cat’s Cradle gym’s servers and put herself in the system as a member under the alias Toni Morgan. Satisfied with herself, she started working towards building an identity for herself, giving herself a 30 minute time limit. Less, if she could just nail down the basics. She could always fill in more gaps later, but for right now she had to work on at least getting an ID or birth certificate so she could withdraw money from the bank account she set up, not to mention getting a debit card. It’d be nearly as sketchy as the fake ID she made Thor, but that held SHIELD up for all of ten minutes (or so Coulson told her when he tried to recruit her), so maybe it would be okay for a quick trip to a bank teller. 

Natalie Rushman was too obvious a name now that she had used it at the library, though it wouldn’t hurt to set up an out of town account with that name to knock her tail off even more. Darcy made a mental note to look into that later. 

She ended up going with Dalia Lanes, her mouth ticking up. She could keep her initials just fine, and ask people to call her Dee to lessen her chances of slipping up. Smart. Rigging the computer to crash–it would reboot, eventually, but it would take a computer nerd to do it–she went to the printer. Copies were a quarter per five papers, but Darcy managed to coax a high school kid into giving her a quarter in exchange for help on a really difficult math problem. 

She pulled her papers off of the printer and grinned. The ID was on paper, of course, but she had a cover story ready to roll and would make sure she put herself into the right records before she went to the DMV to get a new ID made. Making sure, of course, that a different face was on the records so they didn’t flag her. That would be tricky–she’d have to have the program running while the ID was being made without alerting the person making her ID. 

Shaking her head, Darcy scrapped that idea as she realized it would be easier to find a place to make a better fake ID and put false records into the DMV afterwards. New plan. Awesome.

Leaving the library, Darcy made her way to the Cat’s Cradle, walking confidently up to the front desk.

“Hi!” she said cheerily to the person at the front desk 

“Hello. How can I help you today?”

“I, uh, kinda got mugged yesterday and had my wallet lifted off of me? It had my gym card in it, so I was wondering–” 

“Not the first time,” the lady said with a long suffering sigh. “At least you made it out alive and for the most part unharmed. We’ve had some members not be so lucky. ” 

The implication made Darcy’s throat close and she felt anger bubbling in her stomach. Not every woman had Natasha’s training or the equivalent, but they should in this city. Darcy was lucky nothing had happened to her yet–and that was only thanks to Natasha’s training. She listened to the woman as she continued speaking.

“But Selina is trying to bring those numbers down with a self-defense course. Give me your name and I’ll look you up in the system, dear.”

“Toni Morgan,” Darcy rattled off, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I haven’t been here often. I was sick for a little while, and stopped coming. But I’m back now.”

“Good to see you back, then. Here you go. Do you have your locker combination memorized?”

“Thank you,” Darcy breathed in relief. “And yes, I do. I’ll go put my stuff in there now. Thank you again.”

She walked towards the section of the gym labeled “Showers,” slipping inside. The showers were busy, women coming in to shower the gym sweat off and others going out after taking their time in the shower. Darcy went back and forth on whether or not to take a shower, then let her better judgment die a cold death as she said screw it, I feel gross . 

After several long minutes, she slipped into an open shower, thankful the gym provided towels. She was tempted to take one with her, but she wasn’t willing to push her luck.

Undressing, Darcy stepped under the hot, steamy water. She wished she had flip flops to wear in the shower because ugh but it also wasn’t as big of a deal to her now that she walked through the slums barefoot. 

Standing under the shower head, she relaxed slightly and, as much as she wanted to have a good cry, kept her emotions at bay. She had to stay focused, at least until she found a better place to have this tsunami of a breakdown. 

She stayed in the shower until her skin was red and steaming, then she toweled off and dressed quickly. Stepping out into the locker room, Darcy looked around the room and spied out a few items she would swipe quietly and quickly if she could. Glancing around for witnesses–most of the women were chatting, immersed in their conversations–she began picking up what she could without being noticed. Spotting a pair of shoes that looked about her size, Darcy carefully made her way over to the belongings on the bench and swapped her tennis shoes with the other woman’s. Putting her new shoes on–and mentally apologizing to the poor woman who was going to find herself with a different pair of shoes–Darcy slipped away. 

Her next stop was the bank where she had made the fake account. She pulled the same backstory as she had at the gym, presenting her counterfeit birth certificate and her ID the DMV had printed off for her only that morning. Thankfully, this type of thing was very common in Gotham and the teller was a bored and spacey teenage girl who was drooling over a magazine that Darcy noted had Bruce Wayne and Richard Grayson-Wayne on the cover. Interesting. 

She received a shiny new debit card with Dalia Lanes’s name embossed on the plastic. She then withdrew a large sum of money from her account and left the bank. Mentally, she updated her mental to-do list. 

Build ID

Hack Bank Accounts

Shower

Get Rid of Tracker

Find More Food

Fill Water Bottle/Find a Clean Water Source

Find a Safe Shelter

Find a Computer

Fill in Holes in ID

Find a Job

Get Back Home

She had seven things left on her to-do list. She could do this.

She had to do this. 

She had to survive until Jane found her.

Chapter Text

Day 5: Darcy

Darcy found that with a little money to wave in people’s faces, finding shelter was easier. She found a tiny one room apartment in the City Hall district that she could rent on a monthly basis for $500 dollars, which shocked her for a moment before she realized, after talking to the tired woman–a single mother–who lived across the hall in apartment 315, that rent was lower lately due to the rogues’ frequent appearances in the neighborhood. She decided to find a different apartment as soon as she could, and to research more thoroughly the rogues that plagued Gotham once she was able to find the right computer set-up. 

Still, though, it worked just fine for her needs and was like paradise on earth after she had had to spend another several nights finding a safe place to hunker down in Gotham’s streets. There were a few close calls with some men who got way too close for Darcy’s liking–a woman, too, who tried to mug her–and she had no desire to spend another night fending off people who saw her as an easy target. The safest place had been those of heights, and she had been more careful with fire escape ladders after her first experience.

Her gut churned as she realized, not for the first time, that she should not be able to jump as high as she had been jumping to reach the ladders. Her ankle, too, had most certainly been badly sprained after she hopped down from the first escape and twisted it funny. However, after a day, her ankle had healed. Not to mention she broke a sink. She couldn’t ignore what was happening to her forever, but she could damn well put it off until she could have her meltdown in private about everything that had happened to her. 

It had been five days since she had woken up choking in the green pit, and while she would love to leave Gotham, she was also afraid to move too far away in case Jane came to find her. 

Shaking her head to bring herself back to the present moment, Darcy hid a portion of her cash as well as she could in the room–now that she had a place to keep some of it, she wasn’t going to walk around town with that much on her. She wasn’t stupid.

Dressing in her original shabby clothes so she wouldn’t be assumed well-off and attacked on the streets, Darcy left her new apartment with a shorter to-do list and a plan to accomplish a few more things. She had decided not to shower right when she got into the apartment, but to wait until she got back. If she were clean, it might draw more attention to her if she was clean but dressed in dirty clothes. 

For now, her current goals were to find food, a filtering system for the tap water–because like hell was she going to trust the water supply in Gotham to be untainted. Her future Google searches would prove she was right to withhold trust–and a computer of some sorts so she could work on the other parts of her list.

Darcy’s first stop was at the bodega on the corner of her street.

“Can’t pay, don’t waste my day!” the cashier behind the counter called out boredly. 

Darcy snorted. The slogan fit Gotham–she knew all too well what it was like to come to this city and not be able to find any help because you didn’t have any money. She was one of the lucky ones–able to hack her way into a few resources to put her in a better place. She regretted having to steal money to do it–she swore to repay what she took with interest once she was able to bring some money in–but she would still be on the streets and possibly worse if she didn’t have the skills she had.

She grabbed a few items–mostly canned food, a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and some bottled waters. At the last minute, she grabbed some plastic forks. There wasn’t a can opener, but some of the cans were the independent pop-open lids, so a can opener could wait a little longer. She would find that and a water filter on her next venture out.

She paid the cashier, not making small talk except to ask where a good pawnshop was in the neighborhood. Where there were high rates of crime, there were almost always pawn shops nearby. 

After she carried the food back to her apartment, she re-emerged onto the street and headed down the block in the direction the cashier had told her about. She found the hole in the wall pawn shop and slipped inside. 

Finding a laptop wasn’t an issue. Darcy found a cheaper model that she could outfit with the right security for around $150. She also found a few cheap cell phones, though who she would call she didn’t exactly know right now. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have a few burner phones that wouldn’t be traceable back to her because A, she didn’t exist in this universe, and B, she paid cash for them. She also tracked down a small metal cot that she could easily carry back to her new apartment and made a mental note to find a thrift store where she could buy some necessities like blankets, clothes, and cooking ware.

She grumbled to herself as she realized two more pressing matters she needed to take care of before dark: setting up a WiFi source in her apartment and finding a box of hair dye. She was thinking about going blonde, or maybe even bright red to throw people off her trail. Her hair had, after all, attracted the attention of the vigilantes and the librarian. The librarian who had, Darcy thought with a scowl, infested her resources with bugs and trackers and sent her on the run in a city she was so unfamiliar with. As much as the saying went that you shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you, Darcy was damn well going to bite that hand if she ever saw it again.

As she was following an associate towards the checkout–she assumed they didn’t appreciate her carrying a backpack into the store and suspected she would steal something–she spotted a glass case with a few weapons. Mostly pepper spray, but also a slingshot, a few small firearms, and a light blue taser. 

Darcy stopped, then called the worker’s attention to the case. “How much? For the taser, I mean.”

“Oh. Uh…” The associate walked up, unlocked the case, and checked the tag. “$20?”

“I’ll take it.”

“Whatever. But store policy states that I have to hold it for you and walk you out of the store before I hand it over.”

Darcy shrugged. “That’s fine. Do you have any more charges for it?”

“A few, I think. I’ll see.”

She left the store with a laptop, a few burner phones, a small cot, a taser, and a large smile on her face. Look out Gotham, Darcy Lewis was on the loose. 

Seeing the storm clouds rolling in, which would cut down on the daylight hours Darcy had available, she decided to head back to her apartment and try to venture out again tomorrow. 

She wasn’t bothered on her way back to her apartment, which she was thankful for. She had on her bitch face and channeled her inner murderous Bucky Barnes strut (he taught her the walk in exchange for lessons on social media) when she walked back, so maybe that was a contributing factor.

Darcy didn’t struggle hauling the cot up the three flights of stairs to her apartment, which worried her a little bit but she shrugged it off to deal with later. She plugged in the laptop to charge, set up her cot, and arranged her scant belongings in an organized fashion. There weren’t any blankets or pillows yet, but she could fix that tomorrow when she went shopping again. The cot was the best place she had slept in the past five days, so really, how could she complain when she was no longer huddling somewhere in a God awful alley, drenched in Gotham rain?

She made a peanut butter sandwich, unwilling to eat cold food from a can when she could save that for tomorrow night, when she would hopefully have a few pieces of cookware picked up from a thrift store.

There wasn’t much she could do now, aside from sleep and think about her next steps. She was about to sit on the cot when she had a sudden thought and smiled to herself. Standing to her feet, Darcy stepped out of her apartment and across the hall, debating for a minute on which door to knock on. She chose the apartment with the single mother, since she had already met her earlier. 

She heard kids crying behind the door, and, hesitantly, she tapped on the door jamb. Not a pounding knock, but a knock loud enough to get someone’s attention. A tired woman, with a small baby on her hip, opened the door. 

“Can I help you?” she asked, not rude, just exhausted.

Darcy smiled widely at her. “Hi. I didn’t introduce myself earlier. I’m Dalia, I just moved across the hall. I was wondering if you have WiFi? I’m new to the city, and I don’t know what internet provider to call for this area. And since I don’t have internet, I can’t look it up.”

The woman frowned at her, and Darcy hurried to continue. “I’m willing to pay you for using it, if you have it. And, since I’m not planning on staying in Gotham for very long, I’ll even continue paying you if I can keep using your WiFi instead of having a service provider come out and set mine up. I’m willing to pay half of the bill?”

The woman leaned against the doorway. “I–Alright. But you have to pay me up front–no waiting for the end of the month. You pay at the same time your rent is due.”

Darcy nodded. “Alright. Deal.”

The woman disappeared into her apartment and returned after a brief two minutes, handing Darcy a slip of paper with the WiFi code. Darcy handed her a twenty dollar bill.

She noticed the woman had several other children, judging by the sounds of an argument coming from further inside the apartment. Darcy hesitated, then added, “Also, I know you don’t know me very well, but if you ever need any help with anything, please let me know.” 

The woman nodded tiredly. “Thank you. Could you–” The woman’s speech halted, as if she just remembered she was talking to a stranger in Gotham.

Darcy’s lips turned up into a soft, understanding smile. “If you want some help with those kiddos, I’d be more than happy to pop over and help you. I’ll even make sure to stay in the same room with you if that makes you feel better.” She held a pinky out. “Pinky promise I’m not a serial killer or anything.”

The woman gave a tired chuckle and waved her inside. “If you were, I doubt you’d be here in this part of Gotham. It’s too close to where a few of the bats patrol for you to get away with anything. Come on in. I’m Emilia.”

Darcy nodded. “Nice to meet you, Emilia. Now, tell me what I can do.”

“Could you just entertain the kids? If the screaming would stop, I could think clearly.”

Darcy grinned and nodded with enthusiasm. “Yes! I love that job. I can wrangle the worst of them.” Her experience was mostly with Jane, Tony, and Bruce, but they were scarily close to toddlers sometimes. 

She gathered the kids–there were three of them, all under the age of six–and captured their attention by animatedly telling them how she met and tazed Thor, the god of thunder. She wasn’t too worried about relating the tale seeing as this wasn’t her world and they would take it exactly how she meant for them to take it–as a tall tale. As she gestured widely and told them about saving the animals from the shelter when the Destroyer attacked, Emilia was stirring a pot on the stove, a smile on her face as she listened in amusement to the story.

Despite having access to WiFi now, Darcy was content to sit in Emilia's apartment and entertain the children. Although she had had a few interactions with decent people in Gotham, these were the first children. And for now, they were untainted by the gloom and darkness of the city. She relished in it. 

When Darcy returned to her apartment that night, she showered and dressed in clean clothes. She then found her laptop and typed in the WiFi password Emilia gave her, beginning the process of setting up firewalls to protect herself. She made sure to cover her tracks very well, and once that was done, she began filling in a few holes in her identity. 

She built up a few profiles, such as a Link’d-In account to begin a job search. She also set up a bank account under the name of Natalie Rushman, setting the IP address to ping from the Bludhaven borough, adding more to the false trail she had started in the last library she visited. She also did some research on Gotham, searching first for nearby thrift stores and a drugstore where she could buy a few things.

She looked more into the vigilantes of Gotham, her stomach churning as she read a Reddit thread commenting on Batman's distaste for enhanced people--they called them "metas" here--and his warning to them to stay out of Gotham. The more she read, the more her stomach hurt. It wasn't her fault these changes were happening to her. She wanted her old body back, thank you very much. She realized, uncomfortably, that it was anger bubbling in her stomach. Ever since she arrived here, it felt like she could never get away from anger. She held it at bay in most cases, but at times--such as when she was approached by men will ill-intentions her first few nights on the streets--the anger was almost like blinding pain whiting out her vision. Now, her head throbbed with it as she stared at the rumors Reddit users posted about Batman and his group. Well, that put Batman out of being a source she could turn to for help. She wouldn't dare approach him now. If anything, she planned to stay far away from him. 

She finally shut down the computer, and laid on the cot, staring at the ceiling of her apartment. Her eyes burned with exhaustion, but she stayed blinking at the ceiling, tears beginning to well in her eyes. Alone, finally in a safe shelter where she could lock the door behind her and not worry so much about her safety, Darcy Lewis began to cry. 

She cried from sheer exhaustion and the hurricane of emotions she had held at bay the past few days. All the fear of this situation she found herself in, the tsunami of anger burning in her belly, all the anxiety of not knowing where she would sleep or what she would eat from one day to the next, and all the trepidation and hopelessness of not knowing if she would ever make it home. Not to mention the added stress of having to avoid Batman and keep her changing physiology even more of a secret than she originally intended to. 

She cried about what had happened the past few days. About waking up choking and naked in a pit she almost drowned in. About having to find clothes, food, water, and shelter with no money, no name, and no knowledge in this new reality. About fearing for her safety every moment she was on the streets in Gotham. And about someone trying to track her movements after she was so new to the city.

She wasn’t a fool. She knew it had something to do with her mysterious appearance in this world and the emergence of her new abilities. The vigilantes were hung up on her hair as much as the librarian, who had tried to bug and track her every move. With the emergence of her new abilities came physical changes in her hair and eyes. Enough to alarm others. And the only way for that to have happened was for someone else to have experienced the same thing as Darcy. Unlike that person, however, Darcy had no intention of being caught if she could help it. No, thank you, she was fine staying away from that brand of crazy.

Even though she was safe, she wasn’t safe . How could she be, when she was still figuring out the nuances of this world? 

Her heroes were not present. And she didn’t know if she could trust the present heroes, especially those in Gotham.

Her chest hurt, knowing she was so far from Jane. She hoped Jane was being well-taken care of in her absence, and that her friend was already in the process of trying to find her. The idea that Jane was unable to figure out what had happened–or even that Darcy had entered some place where time was different and no time had passed in her world since she disappeared–filled her with a raw, brutal ache.

Come find me, Jane , she thought, and hurry. I’m not sure who’s after me, but I doubt it’s anyone good with their methods.

Shivering, Darcy Lewis wept to herself long after she had fallen asleep.

Chapter Text

Day 13: The Bats

“I have a hit!” Tim crowed excitedly, running partway down the stairs before he hopped on the mahogany railing and slid down the rest of the way. He ran into the study. “I have a hit!”

Cass and Stephanie looked up from their place on the rug, where they were studying for their biology final. Dick was sitting at the desk working on something for Wayne Industries, but he sat back in the desk chair when Tim came into the room on two wheels. 

“ Did you use Barbara’s software ?” Cass signed to Tim.

Tim was so excited, he didn’t care to admit that Barbara’s system was the one that had picked up the clue of where their missing Lazarus Pit victim was.

“Yeah! I have the other software set up to run facial recognition from CCTV footage from shelters, libraries, and even the subway, but it hasn’t picked anything up yet. But this! The internet searches are very close, and after some digging I think I found another clue!”

“Where?” Stephanie shuffled her papers around boredly, putting them back in the original order. 

“Bludhaven. There’s a close series of internet searches, and then I did some more digging and found that the Bludhaven Bank recently got a new member whose name is Natalie Rushman .”

Dick hummed. “That was one of the names on the library sign-in sheet, right?”

“Right.” Tim was bouncing. “I’m going to go looking for her tonight.”

“I’m coming with you.”

Tim scowled. “Why?”

Dick raised an eyebrow. “I live in Bludhaven. My other day job is to patrol the streets with the police force there. Remember?”

“Righttt. But if we both find her at the same time, then I get the credit.”

Dick scoffed. “We share the credit.”

“Do you really want to fight me over naming Damian’s next pet?”

The first Robin snorted. “You’re assuming that we find her in Bludhaven.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Stephanie stood up from the rug, offering Cass her hand to help her up. “If that’s where that internet search was pinging from?”

“She’s smart,” Dick shrugged. “If she wants to stay hidden, she’ll stay hidden.”

“That’s why we’re going looking ,” Tim huffed. “Because she doesn’t want to be found?”

“You’re the one who said it’d be harder to find her than we thought,” Dick reminded him. “I’ll let the others know what you found. They can keep their eyes open, too.”

Tim didn't mention that he'd found a message on the bank account through deposit memos. Though, maybe he should, he mused. The message "Stop looking for me"  was an indication she knew they were still searching. 

Day 19: The Bats

They did not, in fact, find her in Bludhaven. Not that night, nor any night after that. And they had looked for nearly a week–for six days, they patrolled Bludhaven. Tim had even hacked into CCTV cameras near the areas with the most foot traffic, but they didn’t find anything. There were a few purchases made by Natalie Rushman in Bludhaven, but the store owners were tightlipped about who had made the purchases and all the CCTV footage was “miraculously” missing around the time the purchases were made. 

“How?” Duke groaned. “I thought you said you found her in Bludhaven.”

“We found indications she was in Bludhaven,” Tim said defensively, ignoring Dick’s smug I told you so expression.

Bruce shook his head. “She would know that’s too obvious. And since we can’t see the footage, we’re not even sure if it’s the same person making these purchases.”

“ Tt .” Damian tsked. “What did I say, Drake? Imbecile .”

Tim threw his empty mug at Damian, who ducked and smirked at him. Damian still wrinkled his nose every time the woman was mentioned, but he did have some grudging respect for her intellect, especially since it was a source of frustration for his brothers. It was amusing to see Tim’s hair stick up at odd angles because he kept running his hands through it. 

“Boys,” Bruce said sternly. Alfred sent them a strong glare behind Bruce’s back, effectively reining in the two young men. 

“Sorry.” Tim rubbed his neck. “It’s been a long week.”

Bruce sighed. “I understand. We’ll find her, but it may be that she has to be the one to come forward.”

“Or we find a trail of destruction and death,” Jason finally spoke up, moodily fiddling with the zipper of his leather jacket. “You remember what I was like after the Pit, Bruce.”

The other bats quieted down, sending serious glances amongst themselves as Bruce and Jason had a silent conversation.

“I haven’t heard of anything,” Bruce said finally, voice quiet and subdued. “But that’s not to say there hasn’t been something I’ve missed. I’m putting you in charge of that, Jason, so long as you think you can handle it. If it hits too close to home…”

“I can handle it,” Jason replied, voice rough. “I know what to look for. If I find her, I can approach her and offer my help.”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t make contact. At least not until we figure out more about her.”

“And let her slip away again?” Jason shook his head. “Not on your life. When I find her, I’m going to make contact and try to bring her here.”

“She won’t react well to that,” Steph spoke up, taking a sip of water. “Don’t force her into anything."

“That’s why I said I would try to bring her here,” Jason grumbled. “The worst thing you can do is force someone with pit madness to come with you.”

Damian grumbled to himself about how he would make her come with him when he found her. He ignored his father’s disappointed glance, choosing to shoot Tim another lofty look. 

Dick ignored them both. “What do we do now, then?”

Bruce sighed. “Her internet searches also indicated she may be traveling to Metropolis. I’ll call up Clark tomorrow and explain what’s going on. He can keep his eyes open there. She also searched for Star City, but I’ll see if there’s any evidence of her movement in Metropolis before we try to venture that far. Considering what we’ve seen so far–or lack thereof–I doubt we can trust the internet searches. They lead to too many dead ends.”

Day 6: A Rewind for Darcy’s Perspective

Darcy slept in the next morning, exhausted from everything that had happened over the past few days. When she woke up, she smoothed her hair out as best she could–another thing she needed to add to the list was a hairbrush–put on her shoes, and grabbed her taser, backpack, and some of the cash before heading out the door, locking the apartment securely behind her. 

Darcy’s current shopping list included: hairbrush, hair dye, hair ties, cooking ware, a blanket and pillow, laundry detergent, clothespins, clothesline, water filtration system, notebook, pens. Darcy decided to make a stop at a drugstore for the hair-related products, then head towards one of the thrift stores she found online last night, where she would hopefully find more of what she was looking for. 

The old Darcy would have been huffing and puffing after walking the three blocks to the nearest drugstore, but this Darcy didn’t even feel winded. That was a perk, but ugh, she was definitely an enhanced now.

She let herself be proud for how far she had come since first coming to Gotham–she had already memorized the first six blocks surrounding her apartment since she had come to the area several days ago. That was before she found the apartment, but the knowledge still came in handy as she roamed Gotham. Maybe she wasn’t doing as well as one of the Avengers would have done in her place, but she still thought she was doing better than a normal civilian would have if they were transported to another reality. 

When she got into the drugstore, Darcy looked for the hair dye and then stood in front of the shelf for several minutes, debating on what color she should go for. Keeping her hair brown or even black would be too easy, and she couldn’t exactly leave it like it was because the two streaks of white were very distinguishable and definitely a marker for whoever was looking for her. 

“Red or blonde?” she muttered to herself. Then, she shrugged, grabbing a box of dark auburn hair dye. Might as well emulate Nat in more ways than one.

She grabbed a hairbrush similar to the one she had back home, and then a few packs of sturdy looking hair ties–she saw that they were marketed towards thick hair, but she would see for herself if they could hold back her thick and curly hair. Darcy faltered when she realized that dyeing her hair would damage her curls. Possibly beyond saving. She turned back to the hair dye and searched for an option marketed more towards curly hair. There was a selection on the bottom row, but to Darcy’s relief, there were options for curly hair. She breathed a little easier. It might still be a disaster–with her luck, it would be–but it would probably be less of a disaster than if she had used the dye not made with her hair type in mind. 

Seeing an emergency sewing kit on an end cap, Darcy hesitated, then picked it up to carry it to the register with her other items. Along the same train of thought, she also grabbed a well-equipped first-aid kit. She couldn’t exactly go to any of the doctors in the area for treatment. She didn’t have a social security number yet, and she also didn’t want anyone to test her and see that she was different. She didn’t need her advanced healing to raise any eyebrows.

The last few things Darcy grabbed was a college ruled notebook, a pack of ink pens, a gallon of clean water and a Brita pitcher with filters. Then she checked out and headed back to her apartment. It would be better, albeit more inconvenient time-wise, if she went home to drop her new items off and dye her hair. The longer she was out in public with this hair, the higher the chances she would be spotted and caught.

When she got back to her apartment, Darcy was again thankful one perk of coming here seemed to be that she wasn’t as out of breath as she would have been after walking so many blocks. 

“Nice look,” Emilia smirked when she opened her apartment door. “Got tired of the highlights?”

“Something like that,” Darcy smiled, tucking the now red hair behind her ear. “I was going to ask you if you had any recommendations for thrift stores nearby? I have to pick up something to actually cook food in. I’m lucky the apartment has kitchen appliances, but it doesn’t have anything else I can use in the pursuit of culinary arts.”

“There are a few around that normally have good stock.” Emilia glanced over her shoulder so she could see out the window of her apartment. “But you shouldn’t go out now. It’s nearly dark. With the Rogues making more appearances lately…I like my new neighbor. I don’t want to deal with another one so soon.”

Darcy sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. Peanut butter sandwiches it is. Thanks, Emilia.”

“Dalia, wait.” Emilia looked nervous for a moment. “I’ll trade you some of the meatloaf I’m making tonight for another story? The kids were talking about last night all day. I–I may have promised them I would invite you back if they behaved.”

Darcy blinked at her, then chuckled. “Of course. I’ll, uh, be over in a minute. I need to make sure my cold stuff is put away.”

Darcy didn’t have any cold stuff, but she did want to put some water in the new Brita filter and stick it in the fridge so she wouldn’t have to drink the bottled water. She wanted to save her sealed water for any emergencies that may come along. 

After she filled the pitcher up, Darcy returned to Emilia’s apartment to entertain the kids. She convinced them, much to her secret glee, that she required a “payment” for a story–which was that they help her clean the apartment for their mom. Penny, the oldest at six, wrinkled her nose like she had caught onto Darcy’s scheme, but she wisely buttoned her lip and encouraged her younger siblings–Dan, who was 4, and Emmie, who was 2–to help so they could hear a story.

This time, Darcy told them about the great purple grape villain who snapped half the world out of existence with his sparkly glove, and about the brave group of heroes who brought everyone back.

Darcy realized as she recounted the tale that she was doing more than just helping Emilia. She was also helping herself–processing the still fresh and traumatic past as she presented the harrowing but intriguing tale to the kids.

Damn, that was screwed up. These kids were babies, not therapists. She made a mental note to find a professional who could help her eventually. Heaven knows she needed one after everything that had happened to her after Thor fell from the sky.

She glanced around the tiny apartment. Emilia had a king sized mattress where she and all the kids slept. For the “living room,” there was a ratty couch, a stained gray rug, and a small side table. The kids were clothed in hand-me-down clothes, and Emmie complained about cold feet because she didn’t have socks to wear. Darcy didn’t exactly feel comfortable eating Emilia’s food, knowing that the kids needed it more than she did. Emilia insisted, however, and Darcy found out the hard way arguing with the woman was like tapping a willow and 

When the idea hit her, Darcy’s smile was so wide that Emilia looked at her uneasily, as if knowing that the woman had a plan involving her. 

“Emilia…” Darcy began. “How would you like to help me by helping yourself?”

Emilia had the distinct feeling that she would regret this conversation.

Day 9: Emilia and Darcy

Emilia was hesitant to help her at first, but she pleaded over the course of several days for her help. 

“You’re crazy, Dalia,” Emilia muttered, pushing the debit card back to her. “I can’t spend your money.”

Darcy sighed. “Okay, so technically, it’s not my money . It’s my ex-husband’s. And he’s an a-hole and abusive, so.” She crossed her arms. “If you use my card in Bludhaven, he’ll think I’m there instead of coming to City Hall to find me. It’ll throw him off the scent perfectly.”

Yes, Darcy felt a little bad about having to lie to Emilia, but what else was she going to tell her? That she was an alien who didn’t exist in this reality, that she was on the run from someone whose identity she still didn’t know, that she hacked some really important people’s accounts just to survive, and that she’s pretty sure she was now a meta? Yeah, fat chance. The cover story was pretty close to what was actually going on for the most part, and it was as much for Emilia’s safety as it was for Darcy’s that the woman didn’t know her recent past. 

Emilia was still uneasy, and Darcy sighed. “I’ll hack the security footage and delete any indication you were ever there.”

Her new friend blinked at her. “You’ll what?”

Darcy winced. “I, uh, can hack with the best of them? How do you think I was able to get out from under my ex?”

Emilia let out a sound of frustration before she gave in. “Fine. But you promise you’ll keep a close eye on my babies while I'm out?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Darcy swore, following her statement with the appropriate motions. “I will bite off the heads of anybody who attempts to harm them. And then I'll taze them. Twice.”

And she would, and by the angry glint in Dalia’s eyes, Emilia knew this. The mother was a little uneasy with the constant flicker of that emotion in her new neighbor’s eyes, but Dalia never took her anger out on her kids. She was always so gentle, always trying to get them to laugh, and Emilia had seen her babies happier than they had been since their father… She swallowed. She could trust Dalia with her kids. She trusted her motherly instinct when it said that they would be safe with her. Trustworthy babysitters were few and far between for Emilia, and Dalia was a godsend with her help every evening in exchange for a meal or two.

And the kids really needed new shoes and clothes. They needed so much, and she couldn’t give it to them with the scarce hours she was able to spend away from them at work. She could barely put food on the table. Emilia sighed. She didn’t like the idea of Dalia hacking and erasing the data from cameras, but she did feel a little safer knowing she wouldn’t be seen on any cameras. But all the way in Bludhaven? It was a good thing Dalia was paying for this excursion.

Day 15: Emilia

It turned into multiple excursions, but with her babies’ feet warmer than they had been in months, and with Penny’s sweet face when she was able to get her baby girl a baby doll as a late sixth birthday present, Emilia couldn’t feel any bitterness. 

And, to her surprise, she didn’t feel like she owed anything to Dalia. The now bright red-headed woman made sure she didn’t feel the need to be indebted. She refused to hear anything of Emilia paying her back, refused to let her feel terrible for spending money not hers, and refused to let Emilia guilt her into eating with them every night as some form of payment.

The girl instead, much to Emilia’s frustration, showed up to their apartment with food of her own sometimes, always coincidentally around the time Emilia’s stock was running low and her next paycheck wasn’t in yet. Oh well. She wasn’t going to complain that fate seemed to finally favor her. Especially not when Dalia was a gem of a find in Gotham of all places. Emilia wanted nothing more than to leave the city, but here Dalia was moving to the city. 

Well, she had only been here for almost two weeks. It wasn’t too late for Dalia to change her mind. Though, selfishly, Emilia dreaded to hear the news she would be leaving. Emelia knew she would, eventually. Gotham didn’t just brush over people with Dalia’s sweetness and cheery outlook–it devoured them.

Chapter Text

Day 20: Darcy

After the first several times out of her apartment before she sent Emilia out with the Rushman card, Darcy ventured out a total of two times over the course of the next two weeks. She wasn’t willing to push her luck too far–a gut feeling warned her to stay put right where she was as much as she could. 

On the first trip out, which occurred on her ninth day in Gotham, Darcy made the trip count, venturing out to a decent thrift store Emilia had recommended. She found some passable cooking ware–pans, utensils, a baking sheet, etcetera–and then a blanket and a pillow that didn’t look too shabby or smell of piss, which she counted as a win. She stopped at a store and picked up more food–including some more bottled water and nonperishables–some laundry detergent, some all-purpose cleaner, a few washcloths and a scrubby, dish soap, and some clothespins and a clothesline.She also picked up some conditioner for her hair–ever since she dyed it, it was much drier than usual and had to be more heavily conditioned.

On her second (and, for now, her last) trip out, Darcy not only stopped and withdrew more cash, but she brought back as much nonperishable food as she could, along with some dairy she kept in the fridge after she thoroughly cleaned it out with her new cleaner, hot water, and a washcloth. She wanted to have a good stock on hand for two reasons: one, so she didn’t have to leave the apartment anymore than necessary, and two, just in case she couldn’t leave the apartment. 

That was five days ago, on her fifteenth day in Gotham. She hadn’t left the building since then, going over to Emilia’s apartment to help with the kids so she wouldn’t go stir-crazy as fast, and so Emilia could go out and spend money in Bludhaven. 

Now, though, it was getting dark outside and Darcy’s skin was itching like crazy. She tried to get rid of the sensation by walking circles around the walls of her apartment, but it didn’t work.

With a groan, Darcy grabbed her taser, put on her shoes, and went for a walk against her better judgment.

She should have grabbed a rain jacket on one of her trips out, Darcy thought as exited her building only to find it was pouring rain. At least it wasn’t freezing outside, though. That was something that had worked out for Darcy’s benefit when she first appeared in this place–it wasn’t winter, but early summer. The month of June, in fact, which was almost already over. 

Shivering, Darcy walked silently down her street, observing her surroundings carefully. She didn’t feel like wasting a taser charge tonight.

She was tired. Drained. And so… angry. It was like the feeling never left her, but had instead burrowed itself into her bones, gnawing hungrily at any energy she had until it was utterly sapped from her. 

She really needed a good night's sleep, Darcy thought, rubbing her arm in a useless attempt to stave off the chill. Her dreams hadn’t been of the delightful kind lately–far from it, actually. Nightmares plagued her constantly. After her first night sleeping in the apartment, there wasn’t a night yet where she didn’t wake up with a scream in her throat. Maybe it was because now that she had a place to safely sleep, her brain wasn’t occupied with the same panicked mode it had been stuck in while she had been sleeping on the streets. 

Darcy dreamed of the pit where she woke up–of choking on the green liquid that seared her skin. She dreamed she was drowning, unable to escape, her grip continually slipping from the walls she tried so hard to climb out of.

Those dreams were disturbing and, Darcy was sure, a hint at some developing PTSD. Especially when, after one of the dreams, Darcy struggled to hold off a panic attack when water ran up her nose in the shower when she was bent over to wash her hair. 

More disturbing than those dreams, however, were the dreams Darcy was having of the world she left behind. A dark feeling of hopelessness swept through her whenever she briefly entertained the possibility that maybe it was a memory.

That’s why she was out here tonight, walking around Gotham in the dark like a fool. What did it say, she wondered, that she was willing to face the danger outside than face her own thoughts in the safety of her apartment?

She walked a couple of blocks away from her apartment, ignoring the gnawing feeling in her stomach that maybe she shouldn’t be wandering off so far, especially when the sun was down and night had fallen on Gotham. However, when she saw the sky light up with the Bat Signal, Darcy turned around and ran back to her apartment. There was no need to tempt fate. Not tonight. 

Day 21: Darcy

Darcy decided the next morning that she was done sitting on her ass. It had been three weeks since she first landed in Gotham, and since Jane hadn’t come to find her yet, she was going to ensure the rest of her time spent in this reality was more comfortable and not a walking nightmare.

During the time she had spent inside the apartment, she had not been idle. When she wasn’t helping Emilia with the kids, Darcy had spent several hours a day not only hacking into the CCTV cams to erase Emilia like she had promised, but also poring over more research on Gotham’s history, current state, and its famed vigilantes. 

It was interesting, to be certain. The history itself was intricate, and many sources did not agree with one another as so much of the city’s history was destroyed in a massive earthquake nearly a decade ago. The history of the vigilantes, however, was still fresh on witnesses’ minds, and so she found multiple forums, articles, and news stories chock full of the bats and their actions. 

In both cases, however, the timeline seemed screwy to Darcy, and she tried to account for the missing number of years before she realized with a start that this reality was set little more than a decade before her own. Whereas she had left her world in 2023, this world was still stuck in 2012. Huh. Interesting. And, perhaps, a reason to panic. What if Jane searched for her in this reality’s 2023 instead of 2012?

She wrinkled her nose. This brought up an interesting conundrum–exactly how old was Darcy in this reality? Her actual age was pretty confusing already since she had been blipped out by Thanos in 2018 when she was 22. Also, how did her enhancement affect her age? Because, Darcy realized with a frown, she looked closer to her teens than her twenties. That was an uncomfortable thought.

She had already gone through the “I act far older than I look” gauntlet when she first interned with Jane. Jane had taken her on not only because she was intelligent–but also because Darcy was really young. Sixteen, freshly emancipated, and a baby-faced college student who already had multiple college classes under her belt thanks to dual-enrollment. She remembered very well how Jane was frustrated that Darcy’s advisor even entertained the idea of sending her out as an intern, muttering to herself about her pervy colleagues who wouldn’t think twice about having to attend a stupid ethics conference again because they were reported by students for sexual harassment. 

The issue of her youthful appearance brought up an entirely new issue for Darcy: even if she could hack into some school’s records and put herself down as having earned a degree or even a doctorate, who would believe her? She could always play it off like she was some kind of intelligent genius child–she had, so she knew how–but did she really want that when she was trying to fly under the radar?

Darcy scowled to herself as she began a job search. Maybe there would be a paid internship offered somewhere that she could complete? Or maybe a lab tech where she didn’t have to have a very extensive background in the field yet? 

She remembered the two men in the cafe she went to had mentioned a recent Rogue attack at some labs in the same district she was currently living in. Didn’t they say that new hires were sought after whenever there was an attack?

Maybe she should start there.

Day 22: Darcy

There were a few labs Darcy decided to look into. STAR labs, LexCorp, and Wayne Industries all piqued her interest. After a little digging, however, she ditched the LexCorp idea. Too many similar markers to Oscorp, in her opinion. Not to mention the owner, Lex Luthor, looked like a supervillain. Then again, maybe Darcy shouldn’t base so much of her opinion off of her prior experiences with those from her world. Also, maybe it wouldn’t be very much of a problem working for LexCorp, seeing that the building in Gotham was a small extension compared to the main branch in Metropolis. 

STAR labs were hiring, but seeing as they were experiencing a Rogue attack every week this month and Darcy didn’t exactly have the means right now for medical care were she in an accident–not to mention her desire to stay alive until she was found by someone from her world–she decided to look more into Wayne Industries first before considering STAR labs as her first option. 

While she hadn’t hacked the Wayne’s because she had a bad feeling about taking their money (Darcy had learned long ago to trust her gut on these things), she didn’t have a bad feeling about looking into job opportunities at Wayne Industries. It was a good company to work under from everything she saw–almost this reality’s version of Tony, though Tony would deny it until his dying day and swear up and down he was one of a kind and even better than Bruce Wayne. She wouldn’t feel terrible about working underneath Wayne with the way he ran his business.

He seemed a bit of an airhead in the interviews Darcy watched, but there was a raw type of intelligence in his eyes that Darcy recognized easily from her time with Steve and Bucky, who pretended ignorance in insolence. The tactic was blatant–act naive for so many interviews and people believe it and quit asking you so many questions that require you to reveal so much of yourself. 

Richard Grayson had a similar tactic to his adoptive father, and Darcy stared at him for several seconds, trying to figure out why he seemed so familiar to her. She shook her head and continued her search. 

Darcy’s lips quirked as she read more into Wayne’s. Bruce definitely fit the bill of billionaire, playboy, and philanthropist. Not to mention he had a tower, a mansion just outside the city, and had a main industry focused on defense innovations instead of weapons. And his parents were murdered, leaving him as an orphan with a butler as a guardian? Now where had she heard all of that before? All he would need is a hero gig and he would be just like—

Her fingers froze above the keyboard. No. Surely not. He couldn’t–right?

Darcy didn’t know much about Gotham. But with how similar some things were to her own world…Hmmm. What if Bruce Wayne was the alternate reality of Tony Stark? She decided to do a little more digging, turning to internet conspiracy forums and seeing what other people thought. 

She jot down what she knew starting out:

1. Bruce Wayne is a billionaire, playboy, and philanthropist. 

2. Appears to be a Dumbass–but is an Intelligent™ Dumbass.

3. Is extremely rich and could afford to be a superhero if he wanted to.

There were a few quite ludicrous claims. Like the one that said Batman and Bruce Wayne were lovers. Or the one that said Lex Luthor was Batman. There were a few that said Bruce Wayne couldn’t be Batman because Wayne was a coward who ran and hid every time there was a major Rogue attack. 

Darcy rolled her eyes and added to the list 4. Bruce Wayne is conveniently gone whenever the Rogues appear. 

When she got to really digging, she found that multiple times the Wayne Foundation paid for the damages caused by the nighttime interactions of Batman and the Rogues. Add that as point number five. What was more interesting, however, is the correlations of the Robins. Darcy made two timelines when she began to see it, one for Bruce Wayne and the other for Batman.

Bruce Wayne:

1996: Richard Grayson is adopted by Bruce Wayne.

2002: Richard Grayson moves out of state to attend university. 

2002: Jason Todd is adopted by Bruce Wayne. (12)

2005: Jason Todd dies in a tragic accident. 

2006: Tim Drake appears in public with Bruce Wayne.

2011: Damian Wayne, the biological son of Bruce Wayne, makes an appearance. 

Batman:

1996: Robin appears beside Batman.

2002: Robin disappears.

2005: A new, younger Robin is killed by the Joker. Crime Alley residents riot in the streets in protest. 

2006: A New Robin appears.

2011: Another younger Robin appears and Red Robin–who is said to sound like the third Robin–appears. 

Darcy updated her list of things pointing towards the connection between the Waynes and Batman. 

1. Bruce Wayne is a billionaire, playboy, and philanthropist.

2. Appears to be a Dumbass--but is an Intelligent™ Dumbass.

3. Is extremely rich and could afford to be a superhero if he wanted to.

4. Bruce Wayne is conveniently gone whenever the Rogues appear.

5. The Wayne Foundation pays for multiple damages whenever there is an altercation between Rogues and Bats. 

6. The correlation between the Wayne wards and Batman’s Robins exists.

She compared a picture of Bruce Wayne and Batman and her lip twitched with mirth as she added to the list:

7. The butts match . 

Not that she could brag, but this was how she figured out half of the Avengers identities when she met the people behind the masks. Yes sir, Darcy was a master at butt matching. And it just so happened that Bruce Wayne had a booty matching Batman’s. From what she could tell with the cape, anyway. 

She had seen Nightwing’s butt, too, she remembered. It was definitely Richard Grayson’s. She remembered making a comment out loud that he didn’t have a cape on to cover it. With some amusement, she realized that Batman did have a cape. Maybe–she started laughing quietly–maybe that was why he wore the cape. Citizens couldn’t claim the butts matched if they couldn’t see it very well, now could they?

There was still a niggling doubt in Darcy’s mind, so she pulled back up the few taped interviews she had found and watched them carefully, listening to Wayne and Grayson’s voices. She listed another two points on her list of observations.

8. Voice match is very close–too much for a simple coincidence.

9. Grayson’s mask is shit.

How the hell had no one picked up on their identities already? Especially with Nightwing’s mask only covering his eyes? There was little doubt in Darcy’s mind that Nightwing was Richard Grayson after she looked again, more closely, at the man’s profile in the interviews. It didn't take much critical thinking to quickly research and realize Timothy Drake was Red Robin and Damian Wayne was Robin. Signal, Red Hood, Batgirl, and Black Bat were harder because their masks actually covered their faces, but she had little doubt that they were part of the Wayne entourage. 

Darcy sat back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. And to think, this had all started because she was on a job search. Well, Wayne Industries was out. She definitely didn’t want to run into Batman when she was a meta and he apparently showed animosity towards metas. 

She could certainly try, though, to fly under the radar…Hide in plain sight, maybe? 

And if Wayne did find out she was enhanced? Well, he seemed like a decent guy. And she hadn’t done anything wrong–well, aside from hacking a few bank accounts, but surely he would understand why–so why would he be a threat to her? If the accounts of Batman and Wayne were true, he might even be able to help her find out who was tracking her and help her make sure they didn’t find her. Maybe he would even be able to help her find her way home, though that seemed to be a very big stretch. 

Darcy sighed. Wayne Industries it was. She just hoped she wasn’t making a mistake. 

Day 25: Darcy

Darcy was able to score an interview for a job at Wayne Industries. It was a lower level position in one of the R & D labs, something that wouldn’t draw too much attention to herself and would let her fly under the radar for a little while. It required a bachelor’s degree in a related field ( biology, chemistry, physics, etcetera), but that was easily taken care of by hacking into Culver’s database and inputting herself as a graduated student. 

Maybe it was bad luck to use the college as her background story, but Darcy knew enough about the programs offered at the college to support her background if someone asked her a question. She looked at the college’s website to make sure it did exist in this reality, and while it was still there in Virginia, the staff was very different. Which, she thought, made sense considering this alternate reality. 

That may be an issue, but putting down Gotham University was just asking for trouble. Just to be on the safe side, she made a few brief notes on the staff she would have had classes with based on the degree she would put herself into the system as having. 

She hacked the college’s database first, inputting herself as a graduated student. She then made sure she had a suitable outfit to wear to the interview, making another trip to the thrift store to make the purchase. She scored a light gray business suit and a pair of dressy flats that only pinched a tad, much to her delight, and she chanced another five dollars to buy a straightening iron. 

Makeup wasn’t something she had right now, as it was rather low on her list of necessities, but Emilia was kind enough to lend her what she had available for the interview. Her last touch was a pair of ruby red glasses. Her vision was perfect ever since she landed here, but Darcy missed the glasses she had before coming to this world. 

Standing in front of the apartment’s tiny bathroom, Darcy looked like a completely different person. Her hair was red and straight instead of dark and curly, and she was dressed very business-like, wearing her glasses like they were an everyday part of her face (they were, before, and she had had a hard time adjusting to their absence on her face). Good. Maybe her appearance was altered enough that whoever was looking for her wouldn’t recognize her. She could only hope, because really, what could Darcy do when she didn’t even know who it was trying to track her?

Darcy grabbed her taser and some cash for bus fare, leaving her apartment to walk to the bus that would take her the closest Wayne Industries in Old Gotham. Public transport sucked, but it definitely beat walking ten miles to an interview.

Wayne Industries was a popular company to work for, but Darcy had no idea how competitive it could be.  When she had entered the room, she was met with at least twelve other people staring at her.

Her stomach was tied in knots every time someone left the room with the supervising interviewer. They either left or they sat back down. A process of elimination, then. She was the second to last candidate to be interviewed. By this time, there were only three other people left in the waiting room with her. 

The interviewer, Mr. Lucius Fox, was an interesting man. He had gray hair and glasses, was dressed in a suit, and carried himself with the air of a man who knew what he was doing and knew what he wanted. 

Darcy had to take a deep breath when she realized this was an alternate version of Pepper Friggin’ Potts.

She could handle this. She just had to pretend she was talking to Pepper. Or maybe she needed to channel her inner Pepper. Okay. Breathe, Darcy.

Mr. Lucious called her name–her alias, anyway–and she stood to her feet, squaring her shoulders as she approached him.

“Miss Morgan, is it?” he asked, extending his hand.

“Yes,” Darcy smiled, putting her hand delicately into his grip and giving him a firm handshake. She had to be careful, she knew, not to grip his hand too firmly. It would raise eyebrows. 

“Lucius Fox. Pleased to meet you. Step this way, please, and we’ll begin the interview.”

He took her to a board room, and motioned for her to sit across from him at the large mahogany table. There was another person in the room, sitting at the opposite end of the table. He was young–nearly twelve from the looks of it–with dark hair and intelligent eyes. 

“Don’t mind Mr. Damian,” Lucius pulled out his chair and sat down. “He’s sitting in today per his father’s request.”

“Yes, Father insists I am well-educated in the family business,” the boy spoke boredly, his tone snooty. “Pretend I’m not here. I certainly wish I wasn’t. This is far beneath me.”

Darcy’s stomach plummeted.

Shit.

Chapter Text

Day 25: Darcy

This had been such a bad idea, Darcy thought, struggling not to hyperventilate. Mr. Fox didn’t think it odd Darcy was suddenly much more nervous. In fact, he didn’t mention it at all and continued with the interview. A test, then. 

He asked her a few surface level questions–how she heard of the job, why she wanted to work for Wayne Industries, and what some of her strengths and weaknesses were. Then he put a piece of paper in front of her. 

Darcy blinked up at him.

“Solve these equations, please. And answer what questions you can.”

They didn’t give her a pen. Shrugging, Darcy pulled one out of her pocket and began to scan the paper. She noted that Damian Wayne watched the action with interest, then caught her eye and scowled at her. Darcy made a face back at him, and his shocked expression made her chuckle quietly under her breath. 

Lucius looked like he was smothering a grin when he quietly reprimanded her with a “ Miss Morgan.”

Right. She wasn’t here to waste his time. She started with the questions, quickly jotting down what answers she knew and making educated guesses on the ones she wasn’t sure of. The questions–ten total–ranged from chemistry to physics and biology. Darcy had to guess on two of them.

The equations–20 total–were easier for her. Math, it appeared, was the language of science across universes , plural. She recognized several of the equations from her work with Jane–completing those equations was a breeze and she did it by memory–no need to work the problem out on the paper.

Day 25: Damian

Damian was bored out of his mind. He had already sat through ten interviews today–six of them ended in disaster, with most candidates unable to complete even the first few equations on the paper Lucius gave them. Really, how could they be so incompetent and yet still bold enough to attempt vying for the position Wayne Industries? 

The five who could not complete the task set before them were immediately dismissed. Damian verbally eviscerated the first three candidates for their incompetence, sending them running from the room in tears, much to Lucius’s disproval. 

The fourth candidate was able to get through most of the paper, but he was a rather bland choice to Damian. Balding pate, blue button up shirt, khaki pants, and a monotone tone that matched his expression. Very plain. Not the type of person Damian would hire. 

The fifth and sixth candidates were nearly as bad as the first three, and they were among those that Damian immediately dismissed. 

There were six more individuals to interview, and Damian was beginning to grow frustrated that Father insisted this was how he needed to spend his day. Out of candidates seven through ten, only one was fit to advance to the next step of the interview process. He didn't engage the unfit individuals in a dressing down only because he was exhausted of doing such already. It wasn’t his fault his father’s company had terrible taste in choosing candidates–why should he make it his problem to inform these imbeciles of how unfit they were for the job? 

There were two more possible options, and Damian was at this time extremely bored. He would much rather be working on the Lazarus pit case than doing this mundane task, but no, Father had insisted he begin to explore the business side of Wayne Industries, starting with Lucius Fox’s daily responsibilities. 

The eleventh individual came in, and Damian noticed how nervous she was when Lucius pointed out that he was sitting in the meeting at Father’s request. 

“Yes, Father insists I am well-educated in the family business,” he said, lifting his chin. He wanted her to know that he didn’t find her worth his time. “Pretend I’m not here. I certainly wish I wasn’t. This is far beneath me.”

She swallowed, and Lucius began the interview. Her answers to Fox’s questions were similar to all the others. Nothing too outlandish or unique, just things like I heard about the job through some colleagues, I want to work with Wayne Industries because they are doing wonderful things for Gotham, my strengths are…

When Lucius put the paper in front of her and told her to begin solving the equations and answering the questions, Damian watched carefully. This was the part of the interview he was most interested in. Lucius’s method was to hand the individual a questionnaire but no pen or pencil to see what they would do. Some would sit in silence, afraid to speak up. Others would boldly demand a pen, while some would ask politely and timidly for something to write with. Others, still, would pull out a pen of their own. 

The little experiment said a lot about someone: were they bold, timid, willing to ask questions, or self-reliant and prepared? The pen test wasn’t always a good measure, but in this case Lucius used the test frequently to get a feel for his candidates. This woman–Toni Morgan–pulled her own ink pen out and began working far more quickly than the other candidates. 

Damian’s expression was one of interest, until she glanced up and caught his expression. He had to scowl at her, to show her that he was the superior being. She made a rude face at him, and Damian couldn’t help it when his mouth dropped. Did she know who his father was? He could have her forcefully removed from the building, and she had the audacity to make a face at him?

He huffed to himself, pulled out his notepad, and began to sketch. She wasn’t worth his wasted effort. He decided to ignore her for the remaining time she was in the boardroom. 

Before he was fully absorbed in his ignoring scheme, however, Damian noticed that the woman started with the questions and not the equations. Hmph, so she didn’t know how to do them either, like so many of the other candidates. Were they all just stupid?

The room was quiet, only the sounds of Damian’s pencil and the woman’s pen echoing in the room. 

“Thank you, Miss Morgan,” Fox said suddenly, and Damian continued to sketch, his disinterest in the conversation evident. Another candidate who didn’t fit the bill. Lovely. 

“Yes, thank you for proving that you are a waste of time and space,” Damian sniffed. “A word of advice, Miss Morgan. Next time you try to apply for a position, make sure you have at least a basic understanding of the requirements. It’s a poor decision to enter a situation so woefully unprepared, and it reflects quite badly on your character as an applicant to be so bold as to waste our time with your inability to answer the simplest questions.”

Damian was annoyed to find that the woman did not seem put out in the slightest by his speech intended to humiliate her. Instead, she had a look of what was nearer to…was that glee? It disappeared quickly, replaced with an annoying mixture of anger, amusement, and…condescension? This woman was looking at him with a patronizing smile?  

“And a word of advice to you, Mr. Wayne,” Morgan began softly, wearing a carefully blank expression now, “Make sure you have all of the facts before you draw such bold assumptions.”

She left the room, and Damian frowned to himself as Fox left him alone to follow her. When the man returned, he brought the last candidate back, and found this applicant could not solve the equations either. He sent her out, and turned to look at Damian. 

“She solved the zeta-tube equation.”

Damian’s interest was quickly caught by Fox’s statement. “She did what?”

“The zeta-tube equation.” Lucius held up the paper. “She solved it.”

Damian blinked. “The woman who just left?”

“No, the one before her.” Lucius’s lip twitched. “The one who gave you a taste of your own sour expressions.”

Damian scowled. “There is no way she solved it.”

Lucius shrugged. “Look for yourself, if you are so certain of that.”

The youngest Wayne made a face. “I am not a mathematician, Fox.”

“Oh? But I thought you called them the simplest questions .”

Damian’s face reddened. “I–”

“You are not a mathematician, yes, I know.” Damian wanted to wipe the smug look off of Lucius’s face. “But that young woman clearly is. Look for yourself. The equation is correct. And these other equations. She didn’t even have to work them out. She just jotted down the answers on the paper.”

“She must have cheated, then. None of the other candidates did so well.”

Lucius shrugged. “I received the finished file from our staff this morning and printed it off this morning. While it’s possible she cheated, it isn’t probable.”

“I insist you run a full background check.”

Lucius raised an eyebrow. “Then I insist you do it yourself, if you are displeased with the extensive background check required to even acquire an interview appointment.”

Damian huffed, and Lucius knew he had won the argument by the boy’s displeased expression: Damian didn’t think the lab tech was worth his time. That, or he wanted nothing more to do with the woman after she embarrassed him in front of someone else and hurt his pride. 

The young boy stood to his feet. “Right. Well, then, if you’re willing to hire such a rude lab technician, be my guest. But it won’t reflect well on your character.”

“Just because she refused to be cowed by you does not make her rude,” Lucius acknowledged as he swept out of the room, leaving a spluttering Damian behind him.

Day 26: The Bats

“Damian is in a foul mood,” Dick noted as the boy in question flung open the manor’s doors and stormed upstairs. 

“Yeah, well, what else is new?” Duke asked, kicking his feet up on the coffee table. Tim sat next to him. The three were in Bruce’s office. Duke was completing his school work, Dick was working on a few things for Wayne Industries, and Tim was searching diligently for another lead on the Lazarus pit case. 

“What’s up with the knucklehead?” Jason asked from the door, walking into the room. “He’s pissed. More than usual, anyway.”

Dick gave Duke an “I told you so” look. 

“He had to sit in with Lucius on some meetings. B wants him to get a feel for the company he'll inherit one day,” Dick said, typing up an email to one of WI’s executive members. “He left irritated, but he came back like that.”

“Huh. Anybody want to ask him why?”

“Not on your life ,” Tim muttered, scribbling out a math problem. 

“Hmph. Fine, I’ll face the Demon Brat. But if I get shanked, my ghost will haunt you all,” Jason smirked. 

“Nothing new, Jaybird. You forget I’ve already dealt with that,” Dick joked. He then fell silent and serious. “Have you found anything to indicate someone on a murderous rampage?”

Jason sighed. “No. Nothing. It’s a little worrying, to be honest. I would rather find this girl and keep her out of trouble than find her waist deep in it. The pit…it’s far from a joyride. It’s like being burned alive and drowning at the same time. Not to mention the insanity that comes with it. And the meta abilities…those aren’t easy to adjust to, either.”

“We’ll find her.”

“It’s been almost a month, Dick.”

“So? We’ll find her.”

Jason shook his head. “I hope you’re right. Maybe she’ll be a lucky one–an outlier. Maybe the pit madness never got to her, and that’s why we haven’t found her yet. I–I still would like to bring her in, though. She’s going to need the help. I know firsthand what it’s like.” He shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “I’m going to talk to baby bird. I’ll be back.”

Bruce met Jason in the door, and they carefully stepped around each other. Jason gave an awkward salute and took off for the stairs. 

Bruce held up a rumpled poster-sized print-off of grainy camera footage. “Okay. Who put this on the ceiling above my bed? In the cave, I can understand. But this is too far. There’s one in my shower .”

“Must have been the little bird ,” Tim cackled, mimicking the pose of the woman in the poster, his hand held in the air with only his middle finger extended. 

Bruce sighed. “Tim, stop flipping me off.”

Tim turned a somersault in response and laughed as Bruce tried to swat him with the rolled up poster. 

Jason found Damian angrily painting in his room. A reverse Bob Ross, this was the exact opposite of a calming painting tutorial. 

“Hey, dude,” Jason called out, slipping into the room.

Damian’s shoulders tensed. “What do you want, Todd?”

“To talk.” Jason came to stand behind him, tilting his head as he watched Damian angrily add a large red smear of paint onto the canvas. “You uh, got a new color obsession?”

“No,” Damian said stonily. He didn’t volunteer an explanation of the color, and Jason didn’t prod.

“Do you, uh, wanna talk about it?’

“No.”

“Uh-huh.” Jason sat on Damian’s bed and began to bounce up and down. He gave it thirty seconds before the kid snapped. 

“Unless you have something relevant to the case, I suggest you desist from your foolish actions and exit my quarters,” Damian spat out. 

Ah, so it was about the case.

“I haven’t heard or seen any indications of pit madness,” Jason said unhelpfully. “But Tim did find a message in the deposit memos from that account she has with the Bludhaven Bank. Stop looking for me .”

“ Tt . She knows we’re still looking.”

“Did you doubt she would?”

“No. She’s intelligent, of course she wouldn’t be so easily dissuaded.”

Jason was quiet for a long moment, sensing something else had happened. “Dame, be straight with me. What happened? I mean, yeah, you’re a bottle of rage on a good day, but you seem legitimately upset?”

“Since when do you attempt to address the shallowness of the human psyche?” Damian asked, rinsing out his brush in a cup of nearby water. “What is it Stephanie says? Getting into the feels ? Very unlike you, Todd. I would have expected such behavior from Cassandra or Dick. Not you.”

“Damian.”

Damian ignored him as he mixed a few drops of dark purple into the red to make the primary color a deep ruby. He dabbed it onto the canvas and Jason watched curiously as an outline of ruby red feminine glasses appeared. 

“Someone pissed you off, then. A woman?”

The paintbrush stilled on the canvas. “I made a mistake,” Damian said stiffly.

“That happens,” Jason smirked.

Damian shook his head. “No. It was in front of Lucius .”

“So?”

“And an intelligent woman .”

“Oh boy, here we go,” Jason rolled his eyes. “Listen, bud, you’ve got to get used to embarrassing yourself in front of girls. It happens. Especially in this family. Did I ever tell you about the time when–”

“I accused her of being stupid. And she got this patronizing smirk on her face. I hate being patronized.”

“So you accused her of being stupid when she’s intelligent? How did that happen?”

Damian scowled. “I collected the wrong data. I assumed she skipped the equations because she answered the questions first and she finished in what I thought was too little time. I was wrong. She completed the equations faster by far than the other applicants, and she solved the zeta-tube equation.”

“That–okay, wow. She did what ? That equation had all of us stumped for weeks.”

“Well, she solved it in seconds. It was supposed to be the stumping question–the one no applicant could solve. Supposedly, it was a test to see how well they could problem solve to get as far as they could with it. But she surpassed the expectations.”

“And you called her stupid.”

“Yes. Because I made an assumption before focusing on the present case instead of proving my hypothesis.”

Jason snorted. “I thought you were supposed to be observing Lucius’s methods today.”

“I did. They were boring. She was the second to last applicant. I had already learned what I needed to learn with the first two applicants.”

“Apparently not if you messed up that bad with the second to last one.”

Damian angrily brushed at the canvas in response. Jason snickered, then ruffled Damian’s hair, ducking to avoid the katana that came flying at his head. “Do yourself a favor, kiddo. Take a break from this case.”

“No,” Damian sniffed. “I refuse to give any of the others the satisfaction of naming my next pet. I will find her first.”

Jason shook his head. “Whatever. I don’t care. Just–take it a little easier on yourself, my dude. Don’t beat yourself up over everything. It’s a waste of your energy and weighs your mind down. You have to be sharp to solve this case, right? So don’t waste your mental energy on this. Forget the woman. Who cares if you made a fool of yourself? You learned something from it.”

He left Damian to continue painting, recognizing full well that the way he phrased his last statement would cause Damian to take it to heart. 

Damian did forget the woman, choosing not to dwell on the interaction. If it did, he would be unfocused on his goal of finding the Lazarus pit victim. And he couldn’t lose sight of that goal, not when it would give him a leg up on the others in Father’s eyes. 

Day 40: Darcy

Darcy had left Wayne Industries after her interview with the expectation that she not only gave up her chance at the job, but that she was henceforth banned from ever entering another Wayne property after she mouthed off to the little Wayne brat. 

She really thought herself better than that, than stooping to his level and picking a fight. But the way he had accused her of being a waste of time and space…it pricked at Darcy’s pride and at her past as a foster child. It made her angry , and she had found a spiteful type of glee in giving him a piece of her own advice before she left the room with what poise she could manage maintaining. It wasn’t unlike Darcy to be angry when someone said something of the nature Damian Wayne had spat at her, but it was unlike her to react like she had. 

Merciful days, she had to get control of her emotions. This… anger had to be part of her newly appeared enhancements. There was no other explanation. And it wasn’t like Darcy didn’t know other people who dealt with extreme anger issues when they went through an enhancement process. *Cough* BANNER *Cough*. 

It was almost comical, this situation. So much for flying under the radar. At least, however, Damian Wayne had no idea who she was aside from an overly bold applicant. She would prefer to keep it that way, though this screw up might undo everything she has worked towards so far.

She was shell-shocked two days after the interview when Mr. Fox called and offered her the job. 

She scrambled for something to say, and ended up with, “But I thought that after what happened–”

“The incident with Mr. Damian was more amusing than anything, Miss Morgan,” Mr. Fox told her, chuckling. “ I look for applicants who don’t bend to his will. He’s twelve. An intelligent young man, but still a child prone to tantrums. Those I hire have to have backbones of steel. You’ve shown yourself to have one .”

“Ah. Okay. When do I start?”

She started the next Monday, which had been her one month anniversary of arriving in Gotham. She didn’t work directly with Mr. Fox, but she did run into him in the hallways twice as she ran errands. She had several supervisors over her between her and Mr. Fox, so technically he was her boss and he was the one who hired her, but she saw very little of him in the labs. 

Her responsibilities starting out were easy–she had to transfer notes from the white boards to paper, and then transfer paper notes to digital files. They also gave her errands to run between lab floors and, after finding out she made coffee strong enough to knock Superman over, put her in charge of the coffee machine. 

Aside from being a gopher, Darcy did very little in the way of math or science. At least as far as actually solving equations or putting her knowledge to use. She did label and store a few samples, record results of tests, and recalibrate equipment after each use. It was a start, she guessed. And there was certainly no reason to draw attention to herself with her knowledge when really she was only supposed to have a recently graduated undergraduate student’s understanding of what was happening in the labs. Certainly not a Ph.D. or a doctorate. 

It had already been ten days since she was hired, and Darcy was a little in awe of how quickly the time went by now that she actually had a job. 

There was one thing, however, that having a job did not help. Darcy had assumed that working again would help with her sleepless nights. She was very wrong. She was still wired after work and helping Emilia with the kids. She was also hungrier at meal times, which worried her. 

Increased strength, decreased sleep, enhanced healing, increased hunger. Her metabolism was closer to Steve and Bucky’s now, she thought, and it worried her because damn it, she needed to be eating more. But she couldn’t afford to right now, not until she had her first paycheck anyway. She could afford a normal amount of food–nothing more. And for now, that was okay. But she needed a more long term plan. 

Even with that knowledge, however, Darcy still had a very present problem that needed to be addressed: she couldn’t sleep. And if she did sleep, she woke up screaming, feeling like she was drowning in burning acid or like she was being pulled apart into mere atoms. Sometimes it was both. She knew what the first dream was from–how could she forget, when she woke up naked in a pit of slime that felt like it was eating her skin? The second dream…

Darcy had shivered uncontrollably on her cot after having that dream the last time. It started in the labs, her last place of memory before she woke up in Gotham. She was at the giant white board with Jane, mapping out equations for the Rosen-Einstein Bridge, when it was like everything began to dissolve around her.

In the dream, it wasn’t like when Thano’s snapped. If it were possible, this was worse . So much worse. It was like instead of dissolving in seconds, everything was melting . She heard Jane screaming, crying out for help. There were others, too, a cacophony of people in agony and letting out animalistic cries as they burbled into nothingness with their surroundings. And then she woke up. And refused to sleep again. 

Which is why she ended up here. The Cat’s Cradle gym. 

Maybe it was sloppy, going back to the gym where she ditched the tracker. She tried not to think about it too hard. It was sloppy. But she was exhausted, and she didn’t want to create an entire new identity just to go to a different gym when she already had a card for this gym.

The woman at the front desk gave her a wide smile, and Darcy made sure this time to look at the name plaque on the desk. Cindy . 

“Hi, Miss Cindy,” Darcy said tiredly. She slid the woman her gym card.

“Toni Morgan,” Cindy hummed as she took the card and passed it back. “I remember you dear. Did you have another bad spell? I haven’t seen you around in a while.”

Darcy sighed. “Yeah, it’s been rough lately. I started a new job, so it’s been a little crazy. I haven’t been sleeping very well, so I thought maybe working out would help.”

“I hear it does, dearie. You’re free to go back to the gym.”

Darcy nodded. “Thank you. Uh, Miss Cindy, do you mind letting me know if anyone asks for me? I don’t…I don’t really want anyone to know I–”

Cindy held up her hand. “Say less. Selina, the owner, is very firm about that policy. This gym is a safe haven, and we make our patrons safety our top priority. It’s a point of pride that we have the highest safety score of any gym in Gotham.”

Darcy’s relief must have shown on her face. “Thank you.”

“Anytime. And Toni? If someone is bothering you, dear, I insist you tell Selina. She’ll help you take care of it.”

Darcy shook her head. “No, I can handle it. Thank you.”

She slipped back into the gym, feeling a little better about splurging on a set of gym clothes this afternoon now that she was actually putting them to use.

Much to her frustration, she struggled to break a sweat, even during the most intense parts of her workout. She spent an hour in the gym, and when she walked back towards the entrance, Cindy flagged her down.

“Hey,” Darcy said, pretending to be a little out of breath and wiping her brow at fake sweat. “What’s wrong, Miss Cindy?”

“Oh, nothing, dear. I just wanted to introduce you to somebody.” Cindy gestured towards the individual standing by her desk.

“Selina Kyle. I’m the owner,” the woman said smoothly, holding out her hand for Darcy to shake. She was lithe, dressed in a black shirt and hot pink leggings. She was very toned, and although her body language was relaxed, Darcy could tell she was very aware of her surroundings and could kick some ass if she needed to. 

Darcy swallowed as she shook the offered hand firmly. “Toni Morgan. It’s nice to meet you.”

“A pleasure to meet you as well.” Selina tilted her head. “How do you like the gym?”

“It’s very nice,” Darcy murmured, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Very well-kept and your staff is wonderful,” she said, winking at Cindy. 

Cindy smirked, then turned to Selina. “I want her in your classes, Selina.”

Selina raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Is that right?”

Cindy nodded eagerly. “She would benefit from them, I think.”

Selina looked at Darcy. “They’re free. Every Wednesday night, east wing of the gym, Zumba classroom. We start at 6:00 sharp. Be there.”

Darcy blinked. “A-alright. Do I–do I need to bring anything?”

“Wear your street clothes. If I teach you how to fight, it needs to be in the clothes you’re used to wearing. You can begin wearing gym clothes after the first five courses.”

Darcy nodded. “That seems like common sense. I can do that.”

“Excellent. Have a good night, Morgan. I’ll see you around.”

Selina walked away, and her gait was so similar to Natasha’s Darcy’s heart panged with the familiarity. When she turned to look at Cindy, the woman had a smug look on her face that made Darcy laugh.

“She’ll take care of you, dear. Now, run home before it gets too dark outside. I expect to see you back frequently.”

“Yes ma’am,” Darcy saluted, walking out of the gym. 

Chapter Text

Day 50: Selina

Selina Kyle was well aware of Batman’s current case and his building frustration that he was unable to find the Lazarus Pit or the woman who had taken a dip into it. When said woman had conveniently wandered into the Cat’s Cradle to ditch Oracle’s shoddy tracking job she called a pair of shoes, Selina would have never noticed her presence had it not been for a complaint about stolen items in the locker room. She took such complaints very seriously, and after carefully watching the security footage, she noticed that Batman’s quarry had wandered into her gym. Just as she was telling Ivy she was bored, too. 

Cindy told her the woman’s name was Toni Morgan, and rattled off what she knew of the woman. It wasn’t much, but it was a little more than what Bruce had been able to tell her. She told Cindy to call her if and when Morgan came back to the gym–she wanted to meet her in person and speak with her.

“You should put her in your self-defense classes,” Cindy offered, staring at her computer as she processed some documents. 

“Why’s that?” Selina asked, curious. 

“That girl has a scared look about her. I don’t believe she was mugged at all.”

Cindy had astute observation skills–it’s why Selina was inclined to hire her. So, she was willing to let the woman say her piece.

“Oh really?” Selina leaned a hip against the front desk, putting her arms on the higher portion of the desk and staring down at her employee with feigned indifference.

Cindy nodded. “She has a scared look in her eyes. It wasn’t from being mugged. And she hadn’t showered in a while, though it’s rude of me to point that out. I think she’s on the run from an abusive ex.”

“I’ll look into it. Thank you, Cindy.”

Selina called Bruce the day she discovered the woman had entered her gym and asked if he would take her to dinner, fully intending to tell him what she had found. He turned her down and told her he was “too busy” for dinner right now. She tried again the next two nights, but no luck.

He was in one of those rare moods that Selina was not inclined to deal with, and so she didn’t. Serves him right, too, she thought. She told him to solve the case and then call her when he was ready to take their relationship seriously again.

Dick and Stephanie called after a week had passed to make sure she was okay, worried they hadn’t seen her around in a while.

“ And you’re sure you’re okay?”

“ I’m fine, Dick. When your father gets his head out of his ass, I’ll be back at the mansion. Stop by the gym when you can, though, Steph. I want your help with something.”

“ Oh yeah? Sweet!”

Dick muttered to himself that Selina never invited him to the gym, and Selina chuckled when she heard Stephanie smack him through the phone.

“It’s an all-women’s gym, dipshit. Unless you want to dress in drag–”

“Don’t give him any ideas, Steph. You remember the Discowing suit.”

“ Ah, yes, the Dark Days,” Stephanie droned.

“The Discowing suit was awesome and you know it .”

“Keep telling yourself that, Dick,” Selina laughed. “I’ve got to go. But we’ll keep in touch, alright?”

When Cindy had called her to tell her that Morgan had come back to the gym–this time with red hair and ruby glasses–Selina had immediately pulled up her contacts to call Bruce. But, she hesitated. Then, she put the phone down and smirked. No, she would solve as much of this case on her own as she could. Then she would call Bruce.

After Morgan left the gym after she met the young woman, Selina followed her home on the rooftops, careful not to be seen. She tracked the woman the following day and the day after, finding out where the bus took her every morning and where the woman worked. 

She found it very amusing that Bruce’s most recent puzzle had managed to slip right out from under his nose. She found it even more amusing that the woman managed to stay right under his nose and still not be found. What was most amusing? The fact that she was working at Wayne Industries and the man still had no idea. Hmph. Serves him right for spending too much time as the Bat and neglecting his other duties.

She wondered if the woman knew about Bruce’s nightly activities like she did–how quaintly coincidental, that she chose WE to work for when Batman was searching for her–and a quick in and out reconnaissance of the woman’s apartment while she was at work revealed through the contents of a notebook that she did know. Or, at the very least, suspected. She had to agree with the woman–Grayson’s mask was shit. So were Tim’s and Damian’s, for that matter. 

Selina wondered, too, if the woman knew who she was. But after some careful observation, Selina found that that was not the case. A coincidence, then, that the woman had come to her gym. Still, however, it was an uncomfortable coincidence, and Selina made note to watch the woman carefully and dig a little more into her background. She followed her home several nights in a row, observing with curiosity how she was not approached on the streets 

Toni Morgan–or Dalia Lanes, another alias Selina found in the woman’s apartment–showed up to her self-defense class the following Wednesday ten minutes before class started. Selina went ahead and gave her a series of stretches to warm-up, and she watched out of the corner of her eye as the woman completed the tasks with practiced ease–though, she noted, she was a little stiff, so she must have fallen out of the habit. Interesting. 

The girl also knew how to take a fall. Curiouser and curiouser. 

As the first night of class went on, Selina drew the conclusion that the girl had a decent amount of training, though she tried (very poorly) to hide it from Selina’s sharp eyes. It wasn’t enough to put her on par with the Bats, but she was equipped to handle herself on the streets and it was just enough out of the ordinary for Selina to notice. 

She decided to continue to observe the girl and keep her mouth shut. 

Morgan came to the gym every night that week and in the two weeks after, and every night Selina watched the cameras to find that the weights on the machines were maxed out. So definitely the woman the Bats were looking for. 

Selina continued to follow the girl home every night over the course of the next month, and thus she found herself, much to her unabashed delight, witnessing Jason Todd making a fool of himself. 

Day 67: Jason

Jason stared down at the woman who was definitely not Poison Ivy. Shit, shit, shit . He had tackled a civilian. Which, now that his head was on a little straighter, was probably a good thing because Ivy would have had his ass in a second if he pulled this on her. She had to be taken down at a distance, not tackled. He would never hear the end of this from Dick and Bruce if they had witnessed it. He could look forward to several looooong and stressful training sessions if that were the case. Hopefully they were further out than he expected them to be. 

He was snapped back to the present when the woman bucked him off of her and executed a maneuver that had his head spinning. At any other time, having a woman’s thighs around his face would be desirable, but was she choking him with her thighs? What was this, some twisted version of one of his fantasies? Did someone build a personal hell just for him?

Jason spluttered, both from surprise and from his closing windpipe. He struggled underneath her for a minute before he was able to get the upper hand, flipping so that she was underneath him and he was able to yank her thighs out from around his neck. He pinned her down, panting hard underneath his mask. She continued to struggle, and Jason growled as he tried to keep the upper hand. She was good.

“Hang on!” he barked. “Good grief, would you let me explain? I thought you were a Rogue.”

“ You are the Rogue,” she snapped, bucking him off of her a second time and scrambling to her feet. He was impressed-–Jason was 15 pounds heavier than Bruce, who was built like a brick wall and weighed 210. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, straddling me like that? Rude.”

She brushed her clothes off angrily as Jason sat back on his haunches and stared at her.

“Says the girl who had her thighs around my face seconds ago.”

"Ha,” she scoffed. “You tackled me first. And I hope you enjoyed it, because I’m sure it’s the only time that’s ever happened for you or will again, you–you knave. ”

Jason blinked. “Huh. That’s an archaic term.” The insult hit him, then, and he spluttered a terrible comeback of how it definitely was not the first nor would it be the last time that had happened to him. 

The woman snarled at him and turned on her heel. He hopped up quickly, reaching out and grabbing her arm. “Hey, wait.” He stared at her face, trying to place it. When it clicked, Jason cackled in glee. “I win the bet. Awesome.”

He knew exactly who this woman was now. The Lazarus Pit had certainly done wonders for her physique–it was little wonder she had been able to buck him off, with her enhanced strength. Not that that would help his case if the others heard about this.

Her glare dripped with anger, and Jason held up his hands. “Whoa, murder lady. I just want to talk.”

“You’re a bat and more than that, you’re Red Hood ,” she spat. “I’m not talking to you about anything.”

Ouch. Fair. 

Jason crossed his arms and leaned against the brick wall, trying to look as unthreatening as possible. “You woke up in the pit, didn’t you? Choking on that vile green shit?”

She froze. “What?”

He continued. “Your hair is red now, but it wasn’t before, was it? You had dark hair with a white stripe on either side. You’ve noticed you heal faster, you recover your breath quicker, and you’re stronger than before.”

“What’s your point?” she snapped, seeing no use in denying it.

He shrugged. “I was in that same position 5 years ago.”

She stared at him, looking like she wished she could remove the mask and see the hair for herself. He made a split decision and took off the mask, trusting his identity would still be concealed by the red and white domino mask he had on underneath the exterior. He tucked his helmet against his hip with his arm, using free hand to run through his hair, shaking out the white streaks in particular. 

“See?” She looked ready to bolt when he spoke again. “Can I just offer you a suggestion? How do you feel about hiring yourself out? You look like you’re in need of the cash. An enhanced metabolism is expensive, and your body will eat you alive if you don’t feed it.”

He touched her arm, and a flip switched.

Day 67: Darcy

“I’m not that desperate,” Darcy said sourly, shoving him away. “Keep your mitts off of me.”

Red Hood looked at her, and she was extremely discomforted by the fact that she couldn’t see his eyes or facial expressions well even without the exterior red hood. 

“Look, I’m just trying to help.” 

“I don’t want your help,” she snapped. “Especially not when your idea of help is pimping myself out. Hard pass.”

Darcy was having a really bad night. On her way home from the defense class, she had already had to deal with two aggressive men cat-calling her (she wasted a taser charge on one of them, dammit) and then the Bat signal was thrown up in the sky and she really needed to get home before the Rogues got her. They were like the boogeyman, only real. And she did not need to get caught up in that mess, thank you very much. She had already seen the news on the Joker’s most recent chaos–slime sprayed from a sprinkler that made people go insane when they came into skin to skin contact with it. 

“Whoa, hang on a second. That’s not what I meant. You obviously have some kind of training. I’m just saying, people in Gotham are always looking for someone who has even a little more training than usual.”

Darcy arched an eyebrow. “What, like Rogues?”

He shrugged. “I don’t encourage that, no.”

Darcy narrowed her eyes at him. “Aren’t you considered a Rogue?”

“Nah. I don’t have any superpowers.”

“Neither does Riddler,” she countered. “What are you implying then?”

“Why don’t you work for me?”

“Ha. When hell freezes over.”

“There’s worse people you could be working for.” He tilted his head as she turned and began to walk away. “I can keep you out from under the Bat’s radar.”

She froze, her muscles locking up. She looked over her shoulder. “What do you know about me and the Bat?”

“I know he’s looking for you. And that you don’t want to be found.”

Darcy narrowed her eyes at him, then nodded sharply to the red bat symbol across his chest. “You’re one of them. I can’t trust you. We established this already.”

He tilted his head. “But that’s exactly why you can. I’m in the know. I can keep you out of sight, warn you when they’re getting too close. It’s perfect.”

“It’s flawed,” she spit. “Like hell am I going to get deeper involved with any bats than I have to. I’ve seen that schtick before, and it ended with me in Gotham. Not a good time. I may as well end up dead if I try that shit again.”

Day 67: Jason

“Think about it. Here.” He tossed her a notecard. “That’s to one of my burner phones. If you need anything, call me.”

She scowled at him, but he counted it as a victory when she stuck the card in her pocket instead of shredding it to pieces and throwing it down. 

He gave her a sharp nod, then he turned and vanished into the night. In reality, he just climbed up on a rooftop and followed her as she went home. He followed her to the apartment building in the City Hall district and stood there quietly for several minutes, seeing if she re-emerged. 

“Jason, you’re an idiot,” someone murmured quietly from behind him. 

He jumped in his position on the roof and turned around. “Damn it, Selina,” he hissed. “What are you doing?”

“I saw that.”

Jason rubbed his neck nervously. “Saw what?”

She gave him an unimpressed glare. “You thought an innocent citizen was Ivy.”

He winced. “Uh, well, about that–”

“I know who she is.”

Jason’s eyes widened. “Since when?”

“Since she came back into my gym,” she said wryly. “Bruce has been ignoring me lately, so I didn’t see any reason to tell him.”

He stared at her and then let out an explosion of curses. “We’ve been working on this case for two months , Cat. And you couldn’t find the time to tell anyone you found her?”

She shrugged. “Hard to find the time when others don’t do the same. She’s dangerous, but not a threat, Jason. She seems to be adjusting well, from all that I’ve seen.”

“No signs of the madness?” he asked quietly. 

“Aside from a few anger issues, nothing. She works Monday through Friday, spends six days of the week helping a single mother watch her children in the evening, and Wednesday nights she spends with me. I’ve seen her snap at a few people, and she has that look in her eyes just like you did, but it isn’t so extreme. She has it under control. She definitely does not need the Bats sticking their noses in her life right now. Keep them out of it.”

“Just watch her,” he murmured. “I can keep them out of it only so long as she doesn’t hurt anyone.”

“See that you do.”

Jason threw her a dirty look and grappled away from her to another roof.

Chapter Text

Day 56: A Rewind for Darcy’s Perspective

Her first class with Selina Kyle went smoothly. Too smoothly, Darcy later realized, for the woman to let her fly under the radar like Darcy had hoped. 

Idiot, idiot, IDIOT , Darcy’s mind whispered to her as she walked home the night after the first class. She should have known immediately after Selina had put her through some more difficult stretches that she was in dangerous waters. The woman had been watching her too close to not have some hidden purpose behind the warmup. 

She had been more careful after noticing Selina’s eyes on her–she moved through the movements Selina was teaching the class with feigned clumsiness, recalling the first several times Natasha had taken her under her wing for some self-defense. 

Muscle memory was a bitch, Darcy decided as, mentally reviewing the night as she trudged home, she realized with dawning horror that she had taken her falls too well, using tactics Natasha had drilled into her. Oh god, she was so stupid. She had pretended to be new to everything else, but she had forgotten that. It wasn’t like she would have gotten hurt had she fallen improperly–the training room floors were covered with a thick matting to prevent injuries.

When she got back to her apartment, she locked the doors and laid on her cot, staring up at the ceiling of the apartment. 

Should she go ahead and cut her losses? Leave Gotham and go search for another place to stay until Jane could come find her? IF Jane came to find her? 

It had been nearly two months since she had found herself in this reality, and there were so far no signs that anyone from her world was looking for her. She tried not to think about it too hard. The idea that no one was coming and that she would be stuck in this reality like this forever–on the run with no solid identity and an inability to keep any long term friends due to her meta status and the danger that came with it–was too terrible to think about. 

Should she chance leaving? Would Jane even be able to find her in Gotham, populated by millions of people? Especially seeing as she wasn’t going by Darcy Lewis, but by aliases everywhere she went?

Darcy shivered. She didn’t want to leave, as much as she knew she needed to soon. It would mean leaving Emilia and her sweet little ones, who had made it a ritual at this point to have Darcy over every evening for a story and to share dinner. Darcy was sure she contributed half of the food at this point–leaving would mean crippling Emilia after Darcy had made her somewhat dependent on her good graces. Recognizing that sucked. She had tried to help Emilia, but would only cause her more pain in the long run.

Maybe she could set up a plan to continue supporting Emilia in some ways? Like ensuring she had plenty of funds to get on her feet, find a babysitter, and feed her family? Maybe that would work. Darcy made a few mental notes on getting that plan started as soon as she could. Her heart ached to think about leaving one of the only friends she had made in Gotham. 

The kids seemed to sense it, that she would be leaving soon, and Emilia kept sending her funny looks. Darcy knew she was more reserved than she had been, but she didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until little four-year old Dan climbed in her lap crying, asking her why she didn’t like him anymore. Darcy’s breath had caught in her throat, and she soothed the small child with kisses, hugs, and promises that she would always be his friend. 

Penny scooted up to sit beside her, shyly holding the baby doll she had gotten for her birthday. 

“Tell us about Bucky again, please?” the girl asked quietly.

“Just Bucky?” Darcy teased in amusement. 

Penny blushed. “Steve can be in it, too. But Bucky’s my favorite.”

Darcy didn’t blame the girl. Barnes was a favorite of Darcy’s too, and she guessed that had bled a little too much into her stories. She really regretted not asking him out, but hey, no use crying over spilled milk. At least she didn’t have the worry of leaving behind and missing a sweetheart, right?

She held Dan and Penny close to her and told them a short story of how Bucky Barnes and Jacques Dernier tricked Captain America and the other Howling Commandos into believing that Dernier only spoke French. She had heard the story from the horse’s mouth itself, and she found it funny every time she recalled Bucky telling the story for the first time and Steve’s open mouth because he had only realized he had been duped as Bucky told the story to the other Avengers.

Emilia tucked the kids in bed after the story was over and waved at Darcy to follow her into the hallway.

“You’re leaving,” she commented quietly. Her eyes bore into Darcy. “Why?”

Darcy’s throat felt like it was closing. “I–it’s not safe for me to stay in one place, Em.”

Emilia sighed. “I was afraid you would say that. I understand, Dalia.”

Darcy’s eyes filled. “I–”

Emilia shook her head, silencing her. “What spooked you?”

“I–I think someone recognized me. She watched me a little too closely today.”

Emilia’s head tilted. “At work or the gym?”

“The gym.”

“Hmmm. Did you feel unsafe? What did your gut tell you?”

“No?” Darcy paused. “To be careful?”

“Okay. Do you have any other gut feelings?”

“No. Other than the fact that someone is watching me. But–it’s not exactly threatening, I don’t think?”

Emilia looked thoughtful for a long moment before she asked, “Are you talking about Selina?”

Darcy blinked at her. “How did you–”

Emilia had a mirthless smile. “She helps troubled women, Dalia. I went to the gym regularly before I met my husband and had the babies. And after he died, I went a few more times.” Emilia’s face scrunched up. “I didn’t exactly come from the best background. Crime Alley was far from safe, and even in my own home I wasn’t safe from my dad or his friends.”

Darcy hadn’t known that. That Emilia had a troubled past, yes. That it had been sexual abuse? No. Her skin prickled with anger that anyone had dared lay a hand on Emilia, but she pushed the anger aside to deal with later. 

“And Selina helped you?”

“I was one of her first students.” There was something in Emilia’s eyes that gave Darcy the distinct impression she was missing something. “She’s a good woman, Dalia, but be careful and trust your gut. Not everything is as it seems. But,” Here Emilia smiled. “I think you’ll be okay to stay here a little longer. But trust your gut if it is telling you to move. I’d rather you be safe than sorry.”

Darcy hesitated, then nodded. “Alright. I–I’ll stay. For a little while longer, anyway.”

“Good.” Emilia gave her a comforting hug. “I’m counting on it.”

Darcy melted into the hug and tried–failed–not to cry. 

Day 60: A Second Darcy Rewind

Her work was going very well, at least. She had been eased into a few more difficult duties–such as running a few tests on her own, inputting more complex data into spreadsheets, and even solving some equations for experiments–and Darcy loved every minute of it.

Fox checked in on her at least once a week, observing her complete her tasks with quiet patience and interest. He gave her a few more equations to solve her fifth week at work, and Darcy worked through the paper quickly, freezing when she hit the last problem. It was the same equation she had worked through in the interview with Mr. Fox and Damian Wayne that day, but now she recognized with a sinking feeling in her stomach just what the equation was for. 

She quickly erased her answer, capped her pen, and set it down on the table with a jarring clatter. Fox looked up curiously, and Darcy shoved her chair away from the table with a loud screech , scrambling to her feet.

“This is for an Einstein-Rosen bridge,” she bit out. “How do you have this?"

“You’re fairly advanced for someone who should only have a Bachelor’s degree,” he said humorously, leaning back in his chair like he hadn’t revealed to Darcy that Wayne Enterprises had access to an equation that would rip apart time and space if not used correctly. 

“Mr. Fox, you do realize that this is an equation for a wormhole ,” Darcy stressed. “How does Wayne Enterprises have access to this?”

“We’ve worked closely with the Justice League for some time, Ms. Morgan. They have access to technology never seen before on Earth.”

Darcy swallowed. Okay, so that was another parallel between her universe and this one. And that was another check in the box of is Bruce Wayne Batman?

“Let me guess, the heroes use some kind of equipment to zap themselves to wherever they need to be?”
“You would guess correctly.”

“Hmm, convenient. And they do realize that an unstable transportation system will lead to the implosion of the universe, correct?”

Fox’s eyes sparkled. “They do.”

Darcy hesitated, then asked, “...Is their transportation system stable?”

“Yes, but it could be better. That, my dear Ms. Morgan, is where you will come in.”

“Oh hell no.”

He grinned at her. “I believe you mean oh hell yes.”

Day 67: A Final Rewind for Darcy’s Perspective

Lucius Fox was going to kill her, Darcy decided. He, no doubt about it, had it out for her. Big time. 

“Mr. Fox–”

“Miss Morgan.”

“I don’t think you understand, sir. I am little more than a paid intern.”

“Our paid interns couldn’t solve the equations you did. For that matter, neither could half of our scientists, and they’re among the top in their fields.”

Darcy groaned. “I think you’re missing the point. I get this wrong? Poof. Gotham is gone. And possibly the universe, for that matter. Vanished. Vamoose. Sucked into a wormhole.”

“Then get it right.”

“Sir, the problem is that–”

Fox set his briefcase on the lab counter with a thud. “The way I see it, Miss Morgan, is that if you mess this up then it’s suddenly neither of our problems, you see?”

“I see, but the problem is that you don’t see.” Darcy ran her hands through her hair stressfully. “I’m not qualified to do this!”

He gave her an unimpressed look. “Now, I find myself actually doubting you, Miss Morgan.” He gave her shoulder a light pat. “I’m sure you’ll do brilliant. I’ll ensure you have a hefty pay raise if you succeed. Good luck.”

And with that, he left her to her own devices in a lab on the uppermost floor of Wayne Tower with a strange device and an intricate set of plans. 

It was only eight a.m. and already she was regretting waking up this morning. Working on this device couldn’t possibly end well for her, even if she was successful in further stabilizing the device. If she failed, she could possibly take the rest of Gotham with her. Her reality or not, she couldn’t doom that many people. If she succeeded, she was creeping much further onto the radar of some very prestigious and powerful people she had no desire to be examined by. 

Damn Lucius Fox.

Darcy was mentally and emotionally exhausted when she dragged herself into Selina’s Wednesday night class. 

“You look like shit, Morgan.”

Darcy gave Stephanie Brown an unimpressed look. “Work sucked today.”

Stephanie snorted. “Tell me about it. I had to deal with my co-workers until one in the morning last night. They’re awful. Always bickering about dumb things–you’d think they were kids or something.”

Darcy thought back to Fox and the mischievous glint in his eyes when he had led her up to the upper lab. “You can say that again.”

The two women quietened down when Selina walked in the room and began class. Stephanie kept making funny faces at Darcy, trying to get her to crack, but Darcy was resolute in her quest to not piss Selina off tonight. Selina wrote the warm-up and team exercises up on the giant whiteboard hanging at the front of the room, and Darcy and Stephanie paired off to work their way through the session.

She had met Stephanie three weeks ago during her second class with Selina–they were paired together by Selina for the team exercises as Stephanie was one of the more advanced students. She was blonde, slimmer than Darcy but around the same height. 

And she gave Darcy hell every week since she had started coming to Wednesday night classes, but in a good way. The woman’s dry humor reminded her of Bucky and Sam’s banter, she thought with a sad smile. 

She asked a lot of personal questions, too, which Darcy didn’t find odd because Stephanie chattered constantly. Darcy was vague with her answers, content to let the woman talk as Selina put the class through their paces. She wasn’t too relaxed, though, noting with curiosity that Selina and Stephanie seemed close. Too close for Darcy to be comfortable answering too many personal questions. 

Stephanie round-house kicked her in the face, bringing Darcy back to the present with a snap as a leg met her jaw with a loud crack. Her reaction was quick, and Stephanie found herself staring up at Darcy from the mats, blinking as she tried to figure out what happened. 

“Damn,” she croaked, sitting up and rubbing her back. Darcy was still in a defensive position, her eyes glassy and her chest heaving with pants. “Uh, Morgan? You good?” Stephanie waved a hand in front of Darcy. “Hey. Snap out of it. Morgan. ”

“Ladies, are we alright over here?” 

Stephanie glanced at Darcy, then at Selina. “I’m not sure. She zoned out, I accidentally kicked her in the jaw, she KO’ed me, and now we’re here.” She winced, rubbing her sore tailbone. “Which reminds me, again, ouch.”

Selina looked at Darcy and frowned. “Hey. Morgan.”

No response. Selina approached her cautiously, wrapped an arm carefully around her shoulders, and jerked her head for Stephanie to follow them. She led Darcy over to the bench, sat her down, and had Stephanie sit down beside her. 

It took Darcy another several minutes before her breathing evened out and her eyes were clearer. 

“Hey, you okay, kid?” Selina asked, crouching down to get on eye level with Darcy.

“Yeah,” she said shakily. “Stephanie, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Stephanie hummed with a grin. “I have a bit of a bruised tailbone, but hey, what’s that between friends?”

Darcy huffed out a laugh, but there wasn’t any mirth in it. 

“Really, Toni, I’m okay.”

Selina exchanged a meaningful look with Stephanie over Darcy’s head. “Alright. I’m benching you for the night, though. Both of you. Cool your heads. Pay attention to the lesson, but for now take the night off.”

Darcy opened her mouth to argue, but shut it quickly and gave a tense nod. “Alright. I’m sorry.”

“We’ll work on it,” Selina promised softly before moving back to stand in front of the class, clapping her hands to draw the attention away from Darcy and Stephanie and back to the lesson at hand.

Darcy blew out a long breath. When Stephanie’s leg had met with her jaw, it was like she was suddenly back in the time where she was with Jane fighting off the Dark Elves. Except her muscle memory kicked in, and, well…

It was okay. She would be okay. 

But, as if Selina wasn’t already watching her closely, she had certainly blown her cover as an untrained student. There was no way anyone would believe she didn’t have at least some training after the stunt she had just pulled, however much it was an accident. Not to mention that if anyone went back and watched the cameras, she was screwed. She shouldn’t have been able to overtake Stephanie like she had–by all accounts, Stephanie should be the stronger of the two, and the angle Darcy had taken her down at was all wrong if she wanted to use the argument that she had had good leverage over the other woman. 

Add that to the continual list of things she had messed up so far. 

As if her day couldn’t have gotten any worse, Darcy found herself heading home with an active Bat signal shining above the Gotham skyline. She wasted a taser charge on a man who got way too close to her, and dammit, she had just had a run-in with Red Hood, one of the Bats. 

She slammed the door to her apartment shut, leaning against it and breathing heavily. Oh god, she was in way over her head. At work, at her apartment, in Selina’s class, and now on the streets of Gotham. 

She had known someone was looking for her, but she hadn’t known it was Batman . Darcy could thank Red Hood for revealing that lovely piece of missing information. She was very much screwed . Batman hated metas. And here she was, running around in his city, very much a meta . 

And she was working for him. Well, for Bruce Wayne, but considering that was the alter ego it was the same thing. Oh god. He had to know that she was working for him. He was the so-called “Great Detective” of Gotham. That’s why Fox was isolating her and spending more time with her–she could likely expect a personal visit from the Bat himself in the near future. 

“I’m going to lose my mind up in here, up in here,” Darcy muttered to herself, kicking off her shoes before she trudged across the apartment and crashed onto her cot. “This reality sucks .”

What should she do? Quit at Wayne Industries? It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was enough to feed her–which took much more lately. As loathe as she was to admit it, Red Hood had been right about that, at least. Her now enhanced metabolism was very expensive to feed, and she barely earned enough to cover her bills as it was. She made do for right now, but there would be a certain point where she would be unable to continue doing what she had been doing. Barely scraping by would eventually not cut it, she knew, and her body would start to cannibalize itself in an attempt to provide her with the nutrients she needed. 

Not that any of that was common knowledge–she had heard a first hand account from Bucky Barnes on what it was like to live on the run with little food. Thank goodness she had listened to his explanations of his past experiences. 

So, quitting Wayne Enterprises wasn’t an option until she found another job. She dreaded having to begin a new search, but did she really have an option at the moment? She could always hack someone’s bank account again, but the last time she did that had left her very guilt-ridden and she had put most of her money from her first paycheck back into the accounts she had hacked.

Sighing, Darcy resolved to spend the week searching for a new job. And preparing herself to speak to Lucius Fox about quitting when he had just given her such an extremely important project. Too bad she had a complex about letting people down. Stupid people pleaser tendencies.

Chapter Text

Day 75: Jason

Jason was stuck between a rock and a hard place, it felt like. On one hand, he had promised Selina that he would keep the Bats out of the woman’s business so long as she didn’t begin to show signs of any pit madness. But, on the other hand, if he told the others that he had found their missing gal, he would win the bet and get to name Damian’s next pet.

While it was fun to see the others building frustration at being unable to find the latest Lazarus Pit victim–Bruce had finally reached out to his contacts in Star City after Clark hadn’t found anything in Metropolis–they were beginning to drive Jason a little bit insane with their hyper-focus on this case. Well, mostly Tim, Dick, Damian, and Bruce were driving him into the deep end. Stephanie and Cass had gone back to normal nearly a week ago–which only aroused his suspicion when Stephanie started spending a lot of time at the Cat’s Cradle. 

When he realized that, he relaxed a bit knowing someone else in the family knew where the girl was. If he was taken out of the equation, at least there would be someone else who could see the case to its conclusion. Though he really hoped that wasn’t the case, he was just a pessimist. A pessimist who thought the woman was a Grade A badass. And hot? Like, wow, total package. Except she had taken a dip in the crazy green Kool-Aid just like he had, and was that really the best idea, to have a crush on a woman who was probably the same brand of crazy as himself? No. It wasn’t.

He began investigating the woman for himself, steering clear from Selina, who always followed the woman home herself every night. 

Her name was Dalia Lanes, and she lived on the third floor of a run-down complex in the City Hall district. She left for work early every morning–and wasn’t her place of employment just a dandy surprise and a kick in the teeth waiting to happen to Bruce and Company–got back in the late afternoon, and then spent most of her evenings not in her own apartment, but in the apartment across the hall. He found that odd, but then he realized with some surprise that she was helping a single mother with her three little ones. 

Jason’s mind was set more at ease when he found out the woman was Emilia–one of Selina’s first students and–not so coincidentally as he had been the one to introduce the two–an old acquaintance of his from his life in Crime Alley. 

The woman was a she-lion when it came to protecting those she loved, and he knew Dalia would not be within a mile radius of the kids if Emilia thought for a second that her children were endangered by the meta’s presence. If she knew Dalia was a meta, that is. The young woman hid her powers very well, but they were there. Increased metabolism–she ate a lot –increased strength, increased agility, and accelerated healing. All things Jason himself experienced after the pits. 

So far, the pit madness didn’t seem to terribly affect Dalia. Perhaps she didn’t have as troubled of a past as he did–that was certainly a factor. Or perhaps she was naturally more of a gentle and meek spirit than Jason ever was. Though he found it difficult to believe she didn’t have any fierceness within her whenever she beat the shit out of some thugs who tried to gang bang a woman near Dalia’s apartment. That may have been an indication of the pit madness digging its talons into her, but then again, who wouldn’t beat the shit of gang bangers if they had the ability to?

He realized now how much she had been holding back when she had been tackled by him that night he mistook her for Ivy. Selina’s training was really kicking in.

“You know, you don’t make friends by beating everyone up,” he called, dropping down behind her. 

She ignored him, didn’t even jump, giving one of the gang members another good kick in the balls while he was down. Jason winced. 

“Okay, fair, they deserve that.”

“Next time, I’ll castrate them ,” she hissed. “If I had a knife, I’d do it now.”

Shrugging, Jason tossed her a dagger. “Go nuts. Or go for the nuts. I don’t care. Just don’t kill them. If you kill them, I have to call B.”

She blinked at him, then narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “This feels like a trap. Also, thanks for being creepy. I really appreciate a dude in a red helmet and with a robotic voice pestering me.” 

Under her breath, he heard her mutter something about, “ Now who does that remind me of?”

“Are you actually going to castrate them?” he asked curiously.

“Are you supposed to be encouraging violence?” she shot back. “No. But next time? Hell yeah. I am keeping this dagger, by the way. It’s sick ”

Damian wouldn’t be happy, Jason thought to himself. He had “borrowed” it from the Demon Spawn last time he had pissed Jason off. But Jason was willing to lose it for the sake of a pretty woman. Not that he would admit that to any of his family. And it wasn’t like Damian would ever know, right? Ugh.

“The victim called the cops before she left,” Dalia muttered. “Their response time is shit, but they’ll still be here in a few minutes. I need to leave.”

“I’ll walk you home.”

She scoffed. “Yeah, no thanks. I don’t need any of the Rogues or Bats breathing down my neck because Red Hood escorted me home. Hard pass, my dude, hard pass. Also, do you not see these dudes on the ground? I don’t think I need as much protection as you think.”

He sighed. “I’ll follow you on the rooftops anyway. Also, you know I’m keeping the other bats off your ass right now, right? I gave them a false lead to Bludhaven, since you already indicated that that’s where you were.”

Her steps faltered, and she gave him a long stare for a minute, as if she was trying to figure him out. Then, she turned and continued to walk, electing to ignore him as he grappled to the rooftops and kept pace with her from above.

She refused to look anywhere in his direction on her trek back to her apartment, and it was only when she got to the doorstop of the complex that she turned around, yelled a very clear four-letter obscenity with matching gestures, and then went into the building.

He chuckled and then left the area to finish his patrol for the night. Really, though, what had he expected? A thank you? Nah. Not when she saw him as part of the problem. Maybe it wouldn’t always be that way. Maybe, Jason thought, he could change her mind.

Day 75: Darcy

He was infuriating, Darcy thought as she slammed her apartment door shut. Even though he had followed her on the rooftops and stayed mostly out of sight, she was ever paranoid that he would bring down the other Bats and/or the Rogues on her head. And, consequently worse, on Emilia and her children’s heads. Darcy couldn’t have that. She would be content not to see Red Hood ever again for the rest of her days, please and thank you.

Why did he have to be so damn hot though? Like, really, could he not have been so ripped? He was a very distracting person being all muscly and all, Darcy knew, and she blamed that as the reason why he was able to pin her underneath him a second time nearly a week ago when he mistook her for Poison Ivy.

She hadn’t even seen his face yet. And really, that was a good deterrent. If she couldn’t see his face, there was no way she was going to consider a relationship with him. Not that he would consider one with her, either. The idea itself was ludicrous. 

Grumbling, she stripped off her clothes and turned on the small corner shower, standing under the water but being careful not to let it run too much over her face lest she have another panic attack after her first one in the shower a few weeks ago.

She had gotten good at that, at avoiding panic attacks. Or, at the very least, avoiding them in public and letting herself break down once she was back in the semi-safety of her one-room living quarters. After the incident at the gym with Stephanie, she had retreated even further into herself during the classes: she showed up, completed the workout silently, and left just as quietly, refusing to acknowledge Selina’s worried glances her way. She had debated dropping the class altogether, but Selina had put her foot down and threatened to track her down if she dropped out when she brought it up to her instructor. Stephanie, too, had been resolute that Darcy continue the Wednesday night classes.

“I want to introduce you to my brother,” she said with a smirk. “You two have a lot in common. So you can’t leave yet.”

“You sound like you’re trying to convince me to stay forever,” Darcy said with a small chuckle. 

The blonde shrugged. “What can I say? You’re good people, Morgan. Those are hard to find in Gotham.”

“Whatever. But Brown, I don’t think a relationship is a good idea for me right now. I’m not in the right headspace.”

“I can respect that. But I wasn’t trying to set you up with him. God, it’d be armageddon if you two hooked up.”

As she shampooed her hair, Darcy reflected back on the last conversation she had had with Stephanie. A relationship was a bad idea in Gotham, especially since she wasn’t sure when Jane would be coming back for her. Somewhere in the back of her brain, she had resigned herself to the idea that Jane was never going to show up for her. But, with her large heart and resolute habit of looking at the bright side, Darcy still held out hope that she would make it back to her reality. She had to, right? Someone the Avengers knew would be able to rescue her. They had to. She couldn’t be stuck here forever. Not in this God-awful city, never leaving because she was afraid that someone would return for her while she was away. 

Turning off the water, Darcy wrapped a threadbare towel she had found at the thrift store tightly around her body. She dressed quickly, then set up her computer to continue working on her job search and typing up a resignation letter for Mr. Fox. 

Day 80: Darcy

“I refuse.”

“Excuse me?”

Darcy Lewis and Lucius Fox were squaring off, toe to toe, in Fox’s office. 

“What do you mean , Mr. Fox, that you refuse?” Darcy hissed at him. She was a good foot shorter than him, but her spine was rigid with anger, making her appear taller. 

“I mean, Ms. Morgan, that I. Refuse. Your. Offer.”

“It’s not an offer. It’s a resignation,” she snarled.

He looked her dead in the eyes and ripped her letter in half, then stuck it in the paper shredder, not breaking eye contact as he turned the machine on and let it eat Darcy’s letter like the ticket monster at an ancient Chuck-E-Cheese. 

She gasped, affronted.

“Now, Ms. Morgan, about that project you’ve been working on.” Lucius Fox slid a cup of hot chamomile tea over towards her–a habitual drink he noticed she frequently had in the lab. The bastard. He had prepared for this. 

“I could just not show up to work,” Darcy whispered to herself in the elevator. “Just hop out of this elevator, walk out the doors, and move to a completely different city. Or state. Hell, maybe a country. Nobody said I have to stay here.”

“That bad, huh?”

Darcy blinked, glancing over at the sharply dressed young man in the elevator with her. He had a large thermos of coffee in one hand and a briefcase in the other. 

She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I tried to resign. My boss didn’t take it kindly. He…well, he shredded my resignation letter. After ripping it in half. He also may have spit on it. There were no other witnesses to say, though.”

The young man snorted, and Darcy found her lips curling up a little.

“I would offer to help you quit, but Wayne Enterprises needs all the help it can get right now, so alas, I must look out for the company’s best interests,” the man said a little mockingly, tucking his briefcase under his armpit and putting his hand over his heart like the statement truly pained him.

Darcy snorted. “If you only worked in my department, you would understand. I’m having to do these insane equations that–I should not be talking about. My bad. Whoopsie.” She mimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key.

The man blinked. “Insane equations? For, a, uh, JL related project?”

It was Darcy’s turn to blink at him. “Um.”

He quickly held out his hand for her to shake and flashed a badge at her. “Tim Drake, Co-CEO of Wayne Enterprises. I should have led with that, sorry.” He tilted his head at her curiously. “Am I to assume you are the Toni Morgan that Lucius Fox has boasted about and who Damian is hurt got the intelligent drop on him?”

Well shit. Make that three of the bats Darcy had met. What was she? A vigilante magnet? Did she have the same effect in this reality as she did in her own? What rotten luck. She took a calming breath as she shook Drake’s hand and nodded. 

“Yeah, that’s me. You know what project he has me working on, then?”

“I know the project, yeah, just…not exactly how it works. That’s why you were called in. Because I can do code all day, sure, and most science related stuff I can handle. But this type of physics? It’s, uh, alien ? And that’s something I can’t handle. Kudos to you, though, for handling it. You are definitely not allowed to quit, especially with what progress I’ve heard you made on the project.”

Darcy sighed. “Well, I–”

“Non-negotiable,” Drake continued. “I’m writing to HR to up your pay.” He grinned at her. “And if you quit, I’m siccing the Demon Spawn on you. Damian will make your life a living hell if he went through the trouble of getting one-upped by you only for you to quit after a month of working here.”

He toasted her with his tumbler of coffee and slid smoothly from the elevator. “Until we meet again, Ms. Morgan.”

When the elevators closed, Darcy let out a keening sound of frustration. This was a nightmare.

Day 85: Bruce

“What do you mean you found someone to work on the Zeta tubes?” Clark Kent sputtered. “I thought we tried finding someone years ago to work on it and you said no one could figure out the equations.”

“We found somebody,” Bruce said smoothly, sipping his coffee. “She started as a lower-level tech, but she solved the equations like they were child’s arithmetic. And the progress she’s made on the device even now–It’s like she’s already worked closely with a Zeta tube device. She's a marvel, Fox tells me.”

“Have you met her yet?”

“I haven’t, no, but Damian and Fox have both spoken very highly of her.”

Clark raked a hand over his face in frustration. “Bruce, if this woman can do what you say she can, then you need to arrange a meeting face to face with her.”

“Under normal circumstances I would, but with this current case–”

Clark rolled his eyes. “Always the current case. You know, you’ve got to start thinking long-term, Bruce. The cases come and go, but this woman needs to stay with Wayne industries for as long as you can hold her here.”

Bruce sighed. “Alright. I’ll get Tim to look into it as soon as I can. He met her last week, I think. She tried to turn in her resignation letter.”

Clark started to yell at him again for not meeting face to face with the woman sooner. Out of spite, Bruce decided to put it off another week. From what Fox had told him, he had convinced the woman to stay for a little longer. It would be long enough that he could convince her to stay long term with Wayne Enterprises. And if it wasn’t? Eh, he would convince her to return somehow. He was a billionaire, after all. How hard could it be?

Day 92: Darcy

It became a little bit of a game between Darcy and Fox, how creative she could get with her attempts at resignation and how quickly Fox would find the resignation and respond with a similar form of No. :P

A message on the whiteboard that Fox sprayed and erased while maintaining eye contact with Darcy.

A sticky note stuck to his computer. The same sticky note stuck to Darcy’s monitor later. 

A veggie tray arranged in the letters B Y E. Returned with the sliced bell peppers spelling AS IF.

A cookie cake with a resignation notice, followed by a returned cake that said Welcome Back.

Her pay was raised, as Drake had promised, and the amount made Darcy choke a little on her coffee as she read the email. But it didn’t stop her from searching for another job. She put money from her paycheck every week, the majority going towards an emergency fund for when she really did have to quit work. 

She was okay for a little while longer. So long as she stayed under that Bats’ radar and off of the Waynes. She could do that, right? She had only briefly interacted with Tim Drake and Damian Wayne–nothing more past that. And it had been a full month since she had first run into Red Hood. He had said the last time–which was what, two weeks ago?–that he was keeping the Bats off of her tail with false leads? That was nice of him. 

She hadn’t seen him since that night she lifted the dagger from him, which she appreciated, but that didn’t stop her from feeling like eyes were watching her when she walked home at night. On the bright side, she dealt with gang members less instead of more like she had expected–they were scared shitless of Red Hood, apparently. Rumor was that he was over most of the gangs–a controlled crime climate, if you would. 

While she certainly didn’t agree with his methods, they worked and she recognized the gray area of morals he operated within had more pros than cons. He didn’t allow drugs to be sold to kids–nor did he let kids sell drugs for him. The people working the corners weren’t forced into it–they were there of their own free will, which Darcy marveled at after hearing case after case of human trafficking while working with the Avengers. Crime was rampant, but it would always be rampant in a city like Gotham. At least his way, the good guys (morally gray good guys, maybe, but still better than the Rogues) had an inside man. 

She let herself get too comfortable after she realized that the streets were safer for her after her interaction with Red Hood. It wouldn’t be until a week later that she would realize just how comfortable she had gotten. 

Day 99: Darcy

She should have been more on guard. She shouldn’t have been caught up in her thoughts about the Zeta device–or, as she knew it in her universe, the Bifrost/Einstein-Rosenburg bridge. 

She should have seen the man approaching her. Should have wasted another taser charge on him. Should have trusted her gut and went straight home instead of stopping at the store for a few groceries she needed.

She should not have put herself in such a precarious position, comfortable on Gotham’s streets because she hadn’t had many issues lately. She could never be comfortable on the streets. Not in Gotham. This city would devour her if she wasn’t careful. It ate multitudes, engulfed them in a dark gaping mouth where they became nameless and unavenged in their deaths at the hands of criminal Gothamites. 

Except Darcy wasn’t devoured. Not yet.

But she was tainted now.

Because Darcy had just killed a man for touching her. 

She stared down at him, shaking. 

What was wrong with her?

She heard a whoosh from nearby and looked up, startled. 

There was a woman in a skin-tight bodysuit, and for a moment her heart jumped in her chest thinking it was Natasha. Then she saw the cat cowl, and her heart fell. 

“What did he do?” The woman’s voice was sultry and calm. 

“He–” Darcy sobbed. “Oh god, he was going to–”

It wasn’t anything that hadn’t already happened before. She had hurt more than a few men for trying to herd her into dark alleys since she arrived in Gotham. But they had never been so close before. She hadn’t let them get so close. And she had never never killed them. Incapacitated, yes. Exterminated? No.

She had never killed a man, despite all the precarious situations she had been shoved into as an affiliate to some powerful, dangerous people. 

“Hey. I need you to snap out of it,” the woman’s voice was still calm. “It was you or him, alright? But you do need to leave. The bats will be here any minute.”

Darcy’s throat closed. “The bats?”

The woman stared at her carefully. “You and I both know they’ve been looking for you ever since you arrived here.”

“And you haven’t turned me in?” she asked bitterly. “Other people have been glad to.”

“I have interests that lie in different directions to the bats. We’re not exactly on speaking terms.”

“Oh.”

The woman jerked her head to the side. “Go. Now.”

Darcy hesitated, then took off back to her apartment.

As she left, Selina followed her from the rooftops with worried eyes. She was smart, Selina would give her that much. Smart enough that she covered her tracks well and caused the great Detective much frustration with his inability to catch her. 

And, Selina thought fondly, she had evaded the other bats too, save for Red Hood and Spoiler, which was no small matter. Oracle and Red Robin were as frustrated, if not more, as Batman.

Shaking her head, Selina watched Darcy enter her building before she took off silently into the night. Before she left, though, she glanced towards the dark alley on her right and called out, “You’re not as sneaky as you like to think, Hood. Quit stalking her in alleys, creep.”

She laughed when she heard an offended scoff. Todd was curious about Toni. He wouldn’t hurt her, Selena knew. He was probably just interested in how well Toni was taking the effects of the Lazarus Pit. Maybe, she thought, he even wanted to offer her some help in the form of advice and tips. 

Or, she thought wryly, he had the hots for her. She needed to interrogate him when she got the chance, so long as she could do so without raising the bats’ suspicions. Still, he hadn’t turned her pupil in yet, so he had something up his sleeve. She made a mental note to threaten his manhood if he hurt Toni. 

“I told both of you that I would keep B away from her so long as she didn’t kill anyone,” Todd said quietly, stepping out of the shadows.

“Since when has that been your rule of thumb, Red Hood? ” Selina hissed lowly. “This isn’t your hill to die on.”

“Cat–”

“No. She doesn’t know you were in the alley. And you very well could have stepped in and done something instead of letting her handle that on her own.”

“She seemed capable. I didn’t think–”

“It doesn’t matter if you thought she was capable or not. Anytime a woman is in that situation and you can do something, you do something. You of all people should know that. And don’t you dare say this was pit madness. She struggles with it, yes, but any woman in her right mind would be blood thirsty and angry when a man decides he wants to take her against her will. If pit madness were truly your concern, you would have stepped in far before it got close to the situation that just happened.”

"But--"

"Do you not realize how close he was?" Selina seethed. "He had her by the neck at gunpoint, Hood. I don't care if she's been through the hell pit or not, it's hard to come back from a bullet to the brain."

"She got out of it."

"But she had to kill a man. And because you didn't step in, you're part of the issue here." He flinched under the mask as Selina pointed a sharp finger into his chest. “If you dare tell your father about this, I will have your head, Hood. For all anyone knows, you were never here tonight. She never saw you. This stays between us. Am I clear?”

He swallowed. “Perfectly.”

“Excellent. I’m not losing my star pupil to the Bats . And if this were ever to come up? She was perfectly within her right to act in self-defense. You have nothing on her . Especially if it comes out that you didn’t step in. If you're going to stalk her, at least be decent about it and help her when she needs help.”

Selina turned on her heel and stalked off into the dark night. 

Chapter Text

Day 100: Jason

Jason was a dumbass. He was completely knowledgeable about this fact. 

He shouldn’t have even opened his mouth to Selina last night. He hadn’t been planning on letting Toni handle the situation by herself–he had already been working towards stepping in–it took a minute to get from the roof to the ground, dammit, and he couldn’t risk hitting Toni while aiming at the assaulter–when Selina showed up right as Toni killed the man. Which made him look like an asshole standing on the side and just letting Toni be assaulted at gunpoint.

He was definitely an ass for implying to Selina that he was going to get Bruce involved. Jason wasn’t even planning on telling Bruce that he had found the woman and that she had killed someone–Selina was right, it was not his hill to die on. Heaven knows he thought she was well within her right to act in self-defense to keep herself safe in Gotham. It was a comment mostly made as a warning, something to let Selina know that she couldn’t always protect the girl from Bruce if something like that happened again. And that he couldn’t always keep the Bat out of the case, even though he was pretty sure both he and Selina wanted to keep Toni off of the radar as long as possible.

So now he was on the Cat’s bad side. Delightful. At least some of his family–*cough* Stephanie, Dick, and Cass *cough*–were still in Selina’s good graces. Which, unfortunately, meant that he had to get into their good graces now because his information funnel in the shape of Selina was a lost cause now. She was pissed . And with good reason, he grumbled to himself. He was usually more impulsive–so what had stopped him from stepping in immediately? The fact that he didn’t actually want this woman to be intimidated by him? That he didn’t want her to know he had been following her home at night like a creeper?

Ugh. Jason poured himself a shot of whiskey from Bruce’s liquor cabinet and downed it in a gulp.

“Drinking before the a.m. is over again, Todd?” Damian’s voice taunted him from across the room, where the Demon Spawn had just walked into the kitchen.

Todd sighed. “Yeah, well, you know what, twerp? I am. And I have good reason to. If you were old enough, you would have been driven to drinking when you met Toni Morgan, too.”

Damian’s smirk turned feral. “Well, listen, bud , you’ve got to get used to embarrassing yourself in front of girls. It happens. Especially in this family.”

Jason scowled at him, but was secretly amused to hear Damian fire back at him verbatim what he had told the kid several weeks ago when Damian had been the first one to run into Morgan.

“She is very much an enigma, isn’t she?” Damian asked. “Bachelor’s degree, but with a PhD or more understanding of the equations the Zeta tubes require. Fox tells me she’s completed an equation they hadn’t figured out yet–too many factors were missing, but she plugged in the missing pieces like child’s play and stabilized the atoms that were causing so many issues with the device.”

Jason eyed Damian carefully. “Did anything about her strike you as…odd?”

“She’s a scientist,” Damian sniffed. “All of the scientists I’ve had the displeasure of meeting from Wayne Enterprises are odd.”

Well, that answered the question of whether Damian knew about Toni or not. If he had known, he would be rubbing it in Jason’s face.

Jason sighed. “Damian, I gotta tell you something. But you can’t tell Bruce.”

“If it concerns Father, then I shall tell him,” Damian scowled. 

Jason shrugged. “Fine then. Have it your way.” He fixed a mug of coffee while Damian stared at him, poured a splash of rum into his cup, and walked out of the room. Demon Spawn was going to lose his shit when he figured out who Toni really was. But that time was not now. But whose fault was that, really? Jason sipped from the mug, humming Spoonman by Soundgarden and blissfully ignoring Damian calling after him in protest of being left in the dark. 

Day 100: Darcy

Darcy called into work sick the day after the incident. 

“ You’re not quitting on me, are you, Morgan?”

“If I don’t get this mental health day, I am,” Darcy grumbled back into the phone to Fox. “I haven’t even made it out of bed yet, Fox. I’m not coming into work today.”

“ You’ve accrued enough PTO to take a sick day, I suppose. But I want you back, alright?”

“I could just refuse to return, you know.”

“ Yes, but then we’d both be dealing with the Wayne boys, and neither of us want that type of negativity in our lives, right?” Fox’s tone was light and mirthful. “ I already have Drake breathing down my neck in my office as we speak because you weren’t here to drop off the latest reports like we had planned yesterday.” 

There was the sound of muffled protests from Tim Drake in the background, and Fox laughed into the phone. “ Take two days, Morgan. You sound like you need it. I’ll keep the ball rolling on this end. But if you don’t keep me updated, I’m sending Drake and the youngest Wayne to check on you.”

“I promise to check in,” Darcy said stiffly. She didn’t need those two knowing where she lived. 

“ Alright. Well, I’ll be seeing you in a few days, then. Please call if you need any help.”

“I will. Thank you, Mr. Fox.”

She hung up and set her phone down on the nightstand beside her, reaching for her glasses out of force of habit before grumbling to herself that it was her hundredth day in Gotham for goodness sake, and she hadn’t needed her glasses in all this time so why the hell was she still reaching for them?

For normalcy’s sake , her inner monologue contributed, making her scowl. 

Darcy stayed on her cot until noon, only getting up briefly to grab something to nibble on and something to drink. When noon came, she got up, showered quickly, and sat back down on the cot–which was still the only piece of furniture in the room, really. She needed to get a coffee table or something, good grief. A mattress, surely, but that was an expense she didn’t really want to think about–it would imply that she was expecting to stay in Gotham for a longer period of time. 

After that thought, she was spiraling out of control. 

Jane will come. She has to come. Someone will come. Someone has to.

But would they, really? After the dreams she had been having–or were they memories? Surely not—she wasn’t sure anyone would come. How would they know to come, if everything had melted around her like it had in her dreams of the last time she was with Jane?

No. No, they have to come. They have to.

And if they didn’t? If she was stuck in Gotham forever, a meta in a city where Bats and Rogues ruled the night and where she had already murdered a man in her first three months?

Darcy was sucked deeper into her panic. Oh god, what if she was really stuck here? Who would come find her if they thought she had melted away with the others? Did that really happen? Or was that a combination of her removal from her reality and the acid burn-like sensation of the green pit she woke up choking in?

She snatched her phone up and hit a contact she had hesitated to put in.

And, much to her dawning horror as she realized what she was doing, a ringtone sounded off in the hallway outside of her apartment.

Day 100: Jason

When Jason saw the name on caller ID, his heart dropped and he juggled with the bags in his hand to answer the phone.  

“Uh, hello?”

The door to an apartment swung open and a head full of wild hair poked out of the frame, followed by bright green eyes that carried a dark purple underneath them. 

“You’re out in the daylight,” she spoke, her voice cracking. “You.”

“Uh, yeah.” He rubbed his neck uncomfortably, thankful the helmet covered his guilt-ridden expression. “Cat said you had a really bad night. So…uh, here. Not the best idea, but showing up at night seemed worse?”

Selina hadn’t actually said anything to him; he just wanted to make sure she was okay and get a good idea on how her emotional state was. 

He shoved the bags at her, and she held them haphazardly in her hands, unable to get a firm grip. He watched her breathing pick up and took the bags back quickly. “Uh, hey, you okay?”

“No,” she choked out, backing out from the door. She looked pale.

She left the door open, but didn’t speak, so he walked haltingly into the apartment. When she began to hyperventilate, he set the bags down on the floor with a thump! and led her to a seat on the cot.

“Hey, hey, hey. Look, lady, you gotta take a few deep breaths. Okay? In, and out. Okay. Good. Can I get you some water? I’m going to get you some water. Just breathe.”

He went to the kitchen and poured a glass from the water jug in the fridge. At least she had enough sense to buy some kind of filter system–with Gotham, the water supply was always in danger of being poisoned by Scarecrow or another Rouge with similar ill-intentions. Not that a Brita filter would do much, but it would still help some. He noted the stacks of water bottles with approval. Good. She had a plan B.

He brought her back the glass, watching her drink from it before glancing away. He blinked, then, at the bare walls and nearly bare room. “Where’s all your furniture?”

A light cough. “You were right,” she said quietly. “It takes a lot to keep this new metabolism satisfied.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and rocked slowly back and forth. “And the implications of purchasing furniture is that I intend to stay in Gotham. Which I don't.”

He swallowed, about to ask her a question, when she muttered, “At least I know you’re not a vampire bat.”

“Huh?”

Her lips quirked, but her eyes stayed blank. “I didn’t invite you in. But you could still come in. So not a vampire.”

“Ugh. You’re worse than Nightwing,” he grumbled. “I–” 

He was suddenly aware that he hadn’t come into the apartment at her invitation. She had left the door open, but hadn’t verbally invited him inside. Normally, he was bullheaded enough that it wouldn’t matter. But she had had such a close call with a man the night before, and here he was now, in her safe space. Aw man, Selina was really going to skin him now. 

“I’ll leave. My bad. Uh, there’s some stuff in the bags that Cat suggested for you. Have a good–”

“Sit.” She looked ready to curl further into herself. “I–I don’t want to be alone right now.”

Hesitating, he sat carefully on the cot, wincing as it creaked underneath him. “Uh, maybe I should sit on the floor.”

“It’s going to give up the ghost one of these days. It makes no difference with you sitting on it.”

“It really does, actually,” Jason winced. “A 225 pounds of difference.”

She snorted. “With this economy? Yeah, that’s not much.”

He blinked at her.

“I spent a good chunk of time in London,” she said sheepishly. “Uh. Anyway. Um, you said you were in my position five years ago. What–” She swallowed. “What did you do?”

“For which part?” he asked wryly.

She winced. “All of it. But mainly the nightmares. They’re worse this week.”

“I just, ah.” He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I dealt with it the best I could, I guess. I was a little insane for a while. I’m sure you’ve heard about that.”

“The mob bosses’ heads hand delivered in duffel bags, yeah,” she murmured. “There's murmurs of much more I’m sure is true, but there’s little evidence.”

“You uh, seem pretty comfortable despite all that.”

Darcy snorted. “Please. I had tea parties with the Winter Soldier. This is like child’s play.”

He blinked. “The who?”

She seemed to freeze up, then she let out a short breath. “No one important. An old friend.” There was an emphasis on old , a lilt in her voice that let him know there was something about the statement he was understanding. An inside joke. 

They sat quietly for a long minute before Jason sighed. “I ate so much freaking peanut butter.”

“...”

Then, 

“ What ?”

“Peanut butter. My metabolism was nuts–that’s not a pun, I’m not Nightwing–but I was living on the streets for the first few months. I used to eat by the jar. Now I can’t stand the sight of it.” He felt a little nauseous just thinking about it now. “I don’t recommend that. You do need protein, but you can also go for things that are more carb heavy. I’ll bring by some recipe cards for you. Speaking of bringing stuff by.” He hopped to his feet, grabbed a bag, then went to the kitchen. “You got a mug and pot?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Mug is to the upper left of the stove, pot is to the bottom right.”

“Aight. Thanks.”

He took out chamomile tea, a jar of honey, and a lemon, setting everything on the counter. In silence, he made her a cup of tea, and they remained that way until the water was hot enough to steep the tea bag in. He stirred in the honey and squeezed part of the lemon into the mug, bringing it carefully over to her. 

“Here. This should help uh, nerves.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, taking the cup and holding it carefully in her hands. Her eyes were filling with tears, and Jason looked away awkwardly. 

“I wanted to ask you about the pit madness.”

The mug started to tremble slightly in her hand, but she stared ahead. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

He snorted. “The effects the pits have on people aren’t exactly pleasant, as I’m sure you noticed. Benefits include not being dead as hell, but the downfalls are far from ideal.”

“I’m not going to turn into a super buff green monster, right?” she asked, blowing on the tea. “Cause I don’t feel like running around naked after every transformation just because I got a little pissy.”

He blinked at her. “Uh. No, no. Not that I know of. You don’t really transform..the changes aren’t that much different physically. Just enhancements. And…volatile emotions. Anger, especially.”

“I’ve noticed,” she said wryly.

“Well, you haven’t sent any Godfather -ish presents to people, so you’re already doing better than I was at first.”

“My dude, you watched me almost castrate a man. And I–” She shut down quickly, lips pressing into a thin line. “I’m not doing much better.”

He winced. “Uh, yeah, the man last night. Look. That wasn’t exactly your fault. He got what was coming to him.”

“But–”

Bite the bullet, Jason, just bite the bullet.

He sighed. Damn his conscience.

“Bats has this rule, about no killing. I was there last night, trying to get a shot in. But I couldn’t do it without hitting you or killing him. So, I’m glad you killed him. Cat was right–anyone who thinks that’s okay deserves what’s coming to them. So the whole pit madness thing? I don’t know how connected that was.”

She was blinking at him. “Wait, you were there?”

“Uh, yeah. I would have killed him before I let you–God, what he was trying to do. But now I look like an asshole for waiting to get the shot and letting you handle it by yourself. Which, good job by the way. You handled yourself well. Like a BAMF.”

She turned a little red, taking a sip of her tea. “Right. Thanks,” she mumbled, curling into herself. 

He hesitated, then gave her shoulder a quick pat and stood to his feet. “Call me if you need to talk about what happened. Any of it. Those pits are absolute hell to go through, and I’m sorry you had to go through that. And I’m also sorry about last night. Uh, I could have handled that better. If you don't see me again, assume Cat murdered me for being an idiot. She's rightly pissed off.”

She nodded carefully, trying to sort through his rambling. “Alright. Thank you.” Hesitating, she spoke quietly, “The pits are outside of the Gotham City limits. Maybe twelve miles, if I had to guess. I–I tried to find them again. I thought maybe they–maybe they had answers to some questions I had. But they’re gone. You can tell where it was, but it’s certainly not there anymore. Just the evidence of it.”

Jason nodded, and left her to her own devices. But, not before he threw a giant Batman themed TeeTurtle at her. “Here. This–I don’t know what the hell this is. I found it and thought you might like it. Uh. Anyway. Have a good day. I’ll–yeah. Send me a text later. I’ll check up on you again. But if you tell me to back off, I will. Uh. Bye.”

He quickly left the apartment, breathing a little easier once he was out of the apartment and taking the stairs two at a time to the ground floor. God, he was such an idiot. At least he wasn’t an absolute shit show like Bruce–he was determined not to be as emotionally constipated as the eldest Wayne. 

The Spoiled and Undead Sibling Chat: 10:28 PM

Jason:

I need your help. 

Stephanie:

With what? 

Jason:

Time to come clean. I know you know what they don’t know we know.

Stephanie:

…

Jason:

The girl. Dalia Lanes.

Stephanie:

Who?

Jason:

The girl Selina’s had you get all buddy-buddy with at Cat’s Cradle. Lazarus Pit gal. Ya know.

Stephanie:

Wait, there’s two of them?? I thought it was just Toni?!?

Jason:

Shit. There’s another one??

Stephanie:

That’s what I’m saying!

Jason:

Describe her.

Stephanie:

Green eyes, red hair, super curvy and like 5’4? Has whooped my ass a time or two. It was amazing. And low-key terrifying.

Jason:

Oh. Phew. Same person. Damn, I was shook for a second.

Stephanie:

We’re a couple of dumbasses.

Jason:

But we’re the only ones who know that right now.

Stephanie:

What did you need help with?

Jason is typing...

Jason:

She’s got no furniture except for a cot in a piss hole of an apartment. Like, really.
Can you help me track down some pieces for her? Starting with a new mattress.
Gal has curves and bags under her eyes for days.

Stephanie:

Yeah, I can do that. 

Jason:

Great. Thanks, Steph.

Stephanie: 

No sweat. I like Toni. 

Jason:

You mean Dalia.

Stephanie: 

Sure, whatever you say.

Chapter Text

Day 102: Darcy

Darcy called in a third time to work, helping Emilia with the kids during the day and then going to the Cat’s Cradle for Selina’s nightly class. She went far from easy on Darcy tonight, but she was also very gentle all the same, which puzzled Darcy until she heard Selina speak to Stephanie Brown in a low, sultry voice that was all too familiar to her. 

And then she butt-matched Catwoman and Selina–but she would tell Selina later that the gym’s name was a dead giveaway.

She made a high pitched noise. Seriously? Could she not, for once, attract a hero or anti-hero? Was this her own power? Her own curse? 

Selina turned her way at the sound and arched an eyebrow. “Can I help you, Morgan?”

Darcy blinked at her, then shook her head and glanced away nervously. Selina rolled her eyes. “Come to the back, dear. We need to have a long overdue conversation.”

Darcy took a deep breath, cracking a small smile when she saw Stephanie behind Selina giving her a wide grin and two overzealous thumbs up.

“I see you’ve figured it out,” Selina said softly when they were in the back locker room. “You’re a terrible liar, by the way, so you might as well come clean about it.”

Darcy sighed. “Alright. I figured it out.”

“The Bats, too, correct?”

“It’s not like it’s hard,” Darcy muttered. “Not all of them. Just, uh, most of them.”

“They’ve kept it a closely guarded secret for years,” Selina said with a slight warning lilt in her voice.

“And they’ll continue to keep it,” Darcy retorted grumpily. “It’s a PR nightmare when your boss outs himself as a superhero.”

Selina gazed at her curiously. “Oh?”

Darcy’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I would assume, anyway.”

“I see.” Selina hummed. “You train with me. Two months, no trying to hide your prior training. You can dial down the strength factor–please do, in fact, I don’t want another situation like the one with Brown happening again–but aside from that, hold nothing back. Then, you’re going to help me start teaching classes.”

Darcy opened her mouth, then shut it quickly.

Selena smirked. “You will be paid, and you can decide whether you want that as a direct deposit or under the table. It’s up to you.”

Darcy nodded dumbly. “When do I start?”

“We'll start Monday. Be here at 6 a.m. sharp. Oh, and Toni?”

“Yes?”

“You’re going out with me for drinks tonight. I’ll come by and pick you up at 8:00.”

“I don’t have anything to wear.”

“Excuses, excuses. Wear something casual. You don’t want to stand out in Gotham. You want to blend in, love.”

True to her word, Selina picked Darcy up at eight o’clock that night to go out for drinks. 

It wasn’t until they were at the club that Darcy began to panic, hoping that they wouldn’t ask her for proof of ID because she looked so young. She was young, but her ID (fake) would hold up under scrutiny. Still, though, she didn’t want the extra attention.

She was just wearing a casual outfit–some jeans and a t-shirt from a thrift store excursion. Selina, by contrast, looked like she was ready to break some hearts. They skipped the line (much to Darcy’s alarm) and walked into the club through a back door. 

“Selina,” Darcy hissed behind her.

“Shhhh,” the woman responded. “Hush. Don’t draw any attention to yourself. I want you to meet some friends of mine. There’s someone I want you to talk to specifically.”

Darcy was looking around her calmly, but her eyes were wild and gave her fear away. This was the Iceberg Lounge. She had heard enough whispers from her time on Gotham’s streets to know this was a very, very bad idea. 

Gulping, Darcy made a nuisance of herself and nearly clung to Selina as they walked through the club. The bass in the background made her nauseous instead of bouncy like it usually would, and her stomach kept dropping lower and lower as glances and whispers were thrown her way. 

“Aw, hey-a, Kitten. Who’s your new friend? She’s got a babyface. Are you corrupting another youth for nefarious purposes?”

The woman who spoke up had a wide gap-toothed grin and the tips of her pigtails dyed blue and pink. A heavy mallet sat propped up next to her. Darcy swallowed. She recognized her from the pamphlet from the GCPD.

Selina scoffed. “Corrupting? Never.” She waved between Darcy and the woman. “Toni, this is Harley Quinn. Harley, this is Darcy.”

“Nice to meet ya, sugah.” Quinn popped her bubble gum loudly, grinning at Darcy. “So the Cat has another stray, huh?”

Darcy gave a nervous smile. “Uh, I don’t know about that. I’m new to Gotham. Selina has been nice enough to show me some self-defense.”

“See? SEE!” Quinn screeched. “Corrupting and adopting another stray. What did I say? Red! Red, come here! You gotta meet Cat’s newest bauble!”

Darcy shifted, uncomfortable to be called a bauble, but she guessed that’s what she got when she came to a bar with Catwoman–a well known bar where Gotham’s Rogues–those friendly to Penguin at least–frequented. Apparently that included Selina, Harley Quinn, and now, Poison Ivy, who was sizing Darcy up as she walked up to the trio. 

“I see you’ve found another for Bats to pick up,” Ivy hummed with a smirk. “Tell me, sapling, what is your tragic backstory?”

Darcy gave the woman an unimpressed look. “While I appreciate the curiosity, I’m not willing to delve too deep into that.”

Ivy snorted. “Of course. But, love, redheads are a stereotype for a reason. No one goes that red with their hair without at least some instability in their life. Look at me, for example.”

Yeah, you go on benders where you destroy everything in sight with plants and toxins, I know , Darcy thought miserably.

“Were you mimicking Red?” Quinn asked with a little too much glee, bouncing her leg up and down from where she sat on the barstool.

Selina snorted. “Apparently she did a good job of it. Red Hood tackled her thinking she was Ivy.”

Harley cackled, while Ivy gave a borderline bored smirk. “He’s getting sloppy,” the redhead murmured, eyes lighting with mischief. “Maybe we should–”

“No,” Selina said warningly.

“Aw, Cat, you’re no fun since you went and got engaged. Live a little!” Harley threw her arms out, wrapping one around Selina’s shoulders and giving her an excited shake. “Live a lot!”

Selina gave a low chuckle. “I’m waiting for B to get his head out of his ass.”

“Then you’ll be waiting for an eternity,” Quinn said in disappointment. “Speaking of which. Does he know about your kitten?”

“No,” Selina said distastefully. “His head is in his ass.”

“What a tragedy. Predictable, but a tragedy,” Ivy quipped. “So, sapling, tell us a little about yourself.”

Darcy told them the least amount possible, catching Harley’s frequently narrowed eyes and squirming uncomfortably as the woman psychoanalyzed her twice during their conversation. 

Selina interrupted one such moment to gently tell Harley to back off, suggesting to Darcy that she did want her to talk to Harley at some point in the future for the sake of her mental health.

“She won’t rat you out for less than legal activities,” Selina promised with a smile.

Harley nodded exuberantly. “Yes! What she said!” She mimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key. “I encourage them, actually!”

Selina looked ready to face palm, but kept her mouth shut. 

Darcy had a few drinks, but there was no buzz in her system, and she remembered with great distaste that her now revved up metabolism probably meant she could no longer get drunk. Well that sucked. Not that she was one to drink much typically, but this meant a glass of wine after a long day of work wouldn’t be as great of a tool to unwind. 

Lovely. She had to deal with the Sirens sober. 

Selina was very unhappy when Oswald approached her while she was getting another round of drinks for the others. 

“Who’s the girl?” he asked with interest, looking over his shoulder to where Toni was sitting with Harley and Ivy, Harley still talking miles a minute and Ivy smirking at Toni’s overwhelmed and confused expression.

“A young protegee,” Selina answered stiffly. “Don’t involve her in anything. She is off-limits.”

Penguin stared at her. “You are in my club, Cat.”

“And I can easily find another patron,” she said softly with a threatening smile. “So I would suggest keeping that lovely nose of yours out of it. Because with me comes all of your secrets, Cobblepot. So, politely, stay out of it.”

Oswald’s eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening me, Selina?”

“Are you going to find out?” she asked dangerously.

He laughed uproariously. “Ah, I do love these games we play. I want an introduction. After all, if she’s to be in the VIP section of the club, they’ll need to add her to the roster.”

Selina took a calming breath. She wasn’t really in a position to refuse him, not with his goons standing all around the club watching the two with interest.

“Right. Well, come on. But make it quick. She’s skittish.”

Darcy had zero desire to ever return to the Iceberg Lounge, no matter how much she liked Harley and Ivy, despite knowing both of them were part of Gotham’s Rogue gallery–and pretty up there, too. They didn’t bother her. 

Penguin, however, oh man was he ever a pain in her ass even after their brief two minutes of introductions and conversations. And she had met Loki for goodness sake. 

Her distaste was clearly showing because Selina nudged her foot warningly, causing her to plaster on a poor excuse for a pleased smile. As soon as the Penguin was called away on another business matter, however, Darcy deflated and gave Selina an irritated look. 

“I am never coming back,” she muttered. “You can take me to any other place for a night out on the town, but do not bring me back here.”

Selina frowned. “Of course. I respect your choice. Would you like to leave now?”

Darcy nodded. “Yes, please. I want to go home and shower. I don’t like the way he was looking at me.”

“I didn’t either,” Quinn huffed. “You’re not something to gobble up. I’ve seen that look before, and you should run the other way, kiddo.” She scribbled a number on a napkin and handed it to Darcy with no explanation aside from her initials and a smiley face.

Darcy knew without asking that her statement involved the Joker, and without considering who was around Darcy said, “You should leave him.”

If Selina grabbed Darcy and pulled her from the club a little faster after Darcy opened her mouth to give Harley her two cents, Darcy didn’t notice. It wouldn’t be until much later that she realized how much of a mistake the night out had been. 

When Darcy got back to her apartment, Selina followed her up the stairs. “Toni, I’m sorry. I thought it would be a relaxing night. I forgot how unused you are to Gotham still.”

Darcy sighed as she unlocked her apartment. “Your friends are fine. I’ll try to give Harley a call if things get too bad, but I have it handled right now. Penguin, however, can go to hell.”

Selina snorted. “I wholeheartedly agree.”

“I’m sorry I’m a spaz,” she said sheepishly, shoulders hunching in a bit. “I just–yeah.”

Selina set a gentle hand on Darcy’s arm. “Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have taken you into a Rogue infested establishment. That’s on me.” Her nose crinkled. “And I thought Nightwing and Hood had terrible plans.”

Darcy laughed quietly, then opened the door, stopping abruptly when she saw the contents of her apartment. Contents that weren’t there before.

“Oh shit. Uh, hi?” Red Hood waved a hand awkwardly, Spoiler standing beside him with paint all over the mask covering the lower features on her face. Splatters also covered her hood and was smeared around her bright blue eyes, which were uncovered.

She gave Darcy a double thumbs up and bolted for the open window, scrambling outside the building with a whoop, closely followed by Red Hood. 

Selina began to laugh softly. “I see they’ve managed to trick us both. I wondered why Spoiler was so insistent on me taking you out tonight.”

“Can one person I meet please be normal?” Darcy groaned, running a hand over her face. The blue eyes would have been a give away in and of itself, but the double thumbs up was a frequent sign Stephanie threw her way. Of course Stephanie Brown would be Spoiler. She was collecting Bats like Thanos collected the Infinity Stones. 

Selina gave her a small smile and a comforting pat on the shoulder before she slipped out of the apartment and into the night.

Darcy looked around the room and felt a small smile on her lips. The walls were no longer an ugly beige color, but a calming pale blue, and there were a few posters hanging up on one wall. Much to her amusement, there was a poster of Red Hood, Spoiler, and Catwoman. Most amusing, however, was a large poster of her flipping Batman and Nightwing off while walking out of the GCPD. 

“I love it,” she muttered.

There was a small couch and coffee table, a tiny dining room table with two chairs, and a brightly colored chindi rug on the floor next to–wait for it–a full-size bed with a warm quilt and several fluffy pillows. The Batman TeeTurtle was sitting broodily at the forefront of the pillows, scowling at her. 

Darcy had an actual bed in Gotham. Her eyes filled a little as she walked slowly to the bed and sat down, closing her eyes as she sunk comfortably into the mattress.

“Oh man.” She leaned back further until she was laying down on the bed. “This–this is almost worth calling into work a fourth day.”

Day 103: Darcy

She had only been back at work for three hours when Tim Drake decided it was an excellent time to “help” her catch up on her work. Or, rather, to make her life a living hell with his extensive queries on how the Zeta device project was coming along and how the science behind the device worked. 

Darcy rubbed her forehead tiredly. “Mr. Drake, while I appreciate your interest in the project I’m currently working on, I’m going to need a very large cup of coffee with several shots of espresso before I’m ready to deal with another Wayne.”

Drake’s eyes were wide, but he nodded. “Uh, right. I can do that. I’ll be back.”

He brought back two large cups of coffee, and Darcy sighed as she began to explain the science behind the device to Drake. 

“But I’m not the greatest at the actual engineering portion of the project,” she finished her explanation with a sigh. “I’m passable, but my strength lies in the math behind the engineering–not piecing together the invention itself. Thankfully, there are others who can help with that, but they are few and far between thanks to Fox insisting this project stays behind doors as much as possible.”

Drake nodded thoughtfully. “I can understand his insistence, but this would still appear to be more than a one person job?”

Darcy nodded. “It is. That’s why it’s taking me so long to complete: I’m having to learn and relearn multiple subjects in order to finish this project. As soon as I’m finished, I’m leaving.” She held up her hand tiredly as Drake went to argue. “This is a free country, Mr. Drake, and I’ve already turned in my resignation multiple times to Mr. Fox. One day I just…won’t come into work. And, since I’m not under any contracts, I can do so without legal repercussions.”

He sighed. “Alright. Well, then, I hope the project takes you much longer to complete than you anticipated.”

Darcy snorted. “Gee, thanks.”

As smart as Tim Drake was, Darcy would have expected him to discover her identity by now. That he hadn't already was amusing to her, and she was both relieved and mystified. It was surely only a matter of time, though. Maybe when he didn't come to work in a caffeine and lack of sleep induced state she would be discovered. Her experience with other caffeine addicts (*cough* Jane and Tony *cough*) had her itching to wrangle him into a semi-human, but her desire to remain unknown overcame that itch.

Thus, Drake was foggy minded but still a thorn in her side. Plus, there was the fact that he stared more at the device and her equations than her, which was nice. He was certainly better company than Tony, in some ways, though Darcy missed the man more than words could say. Though Tim was politer and easier to get along with, he was certainly a poor replacement for her former bosses. 

It was on her fifth day back at work that Darcy made a very big mistake. Bigger than tasing Thor. Bigger than allowing Selina to take her into the Iceberg Lounge. Bigger, even, than working for SHIELD who later turned out to be HYDRA. Well, maybe that was an exaggeration. But with her already precarious position in this world, it still felt like a very large mistake. 

Her day was already off to a rough start–she was ten minutes late already thanks to last night’s remnants of a Rogue attack causing traffic to back up on her bus route. Then, she spilled her coffee all over her blouse on the elevator ride up to the labs she was assigned. Now, she was calling Fox in a panic because she had just tased their boss. Fox was her boss, but she had tased his boss.

Bruce Wayne was passed out in the middle of her lab, lying in a puddle of his own piss. 

Now wasn’t that just lovely? 

Fox had better accept her resignation this time.

Chapter Text

Day 115: Darcy

Lucius Fox did not, in fact, accept her resignation this time. Instead, he passed her a Spotify code on a keychain. And when Darcy pulled up the code with the app, she wanted to cry in frustration as Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up began to play. 

Oh, how she regretted telling Fox about rickrolling. 

It was far past time for her to go home, but Darcy was sitting at her desk in the lab, head in her hands as she thought back on how sucky that day had been. 

She had tased Bruce Wayne. Batman. And Lucius Fox had all but laughed in her face and hung up when she called to tell him.

“Why are you laughing?” Darcy had cried into the phone, tears streaming down her face. “You asshole. Fox! It’s not funny!”

“Of course not, Morgan,” he said lightly, and she could tell he was humoring her. He started laughing again. “I have the security footage pulled up now.”

Darcy groaned. “Lucius. Now is not the time. I–What if his heart stopped? Or what if he wakes up violent? I’m locked in my lab because the emergency protocols went off and– why are you still laughing?”

“I’m sorry, Morgan.” His tone implied he was very much not sorry. “I’m sending someone up now.”

That someone was no help at all–considering it was Tim Drake, who just stood there silently for a moment, took out his phone and took a picture (Darcy knew he had gotten her panicked face in the frame by his smirk) before standing quietly and staring at Wayne for another long second. 

“Since I know how tasers work on you, I know you can hear me, B,” Tim said gleefully. “And I hope you know I’m sending this to everyone.”

There was the distinct whooshing sound of a text message delivering, followed by a flurry of responses. Tim grinned. “Oh yeah. Payback, baby.” He stuck his phone in his pocket. “Alfred wants to know why he’s bringing you a new suit. He’s going to love this security footage. New poster!”

The poster comment wouldn’t have made sense to Darcy if she didn’t have what she imagined to be a similar poster hanging in her apartment courtesy of Spoiler and Red Hood. Right now, however, she couldn’t find any humor in the situation.

“I’m quitting,” she moaned. “This is the last straw. I’m leaving and never coming back.”

“Cheer up,” Tim said with a grin. “You’re not fired. Bruce can fight me if he tries to fire you. Hell, I would even take Drake Industries over again and hire you to be my PA–our stocks would sky rocket and WE’s would crash. And he knows that, don’t you old man ? It was his fault for spooking you. He came into a locked lab–without announcing himself like Fox and I. Dumb idea. Anyway, I’ll take care of him. Go take a long lunch.” Tim checked his watch. “We should have this cleared up and taken care of by noon. But just go, uh, relax.”

Darcy nodded and left the room quickly, debating on whether or not she should even come back. 

Day 108: Wayne Manor

When their phones simultaneously buzzed, the manor was relatively quiet and Alfred was content with the peace that had fallen on Wayne Manor. 

And then, with one coordinated group text, that peace shattered. 

“She did what?” Duke spluttered. 

“Hell yeah, that’s my girl!” Stephanie had cheered, Cass smiling widely beside her.

Jason was laughing so hard that his face was turning red. Dick was also cackling, but he was sitting on Damian in the floor.

“Damian, you’re not allowed to stab her,” Dick said in a condescending tone, squashing Damian–and his complaints–underneath him. “I know you don’t like her, but this is B’s own damn fault, I’m sure. She doesn’t seem like the type of person to just tase someone. B is already pissed enough for all of us, I’m sure.”

Damian’s protests were heard underneath Dick, but were muffled by the collective groans from the others at the pun. 

Dick started to cackle again when his phone dinged. “Oh man, Lucius just sent me a video. You guys! Come see this!”

Against his better judgment–but much to his amusement–Alfred leaned over to watch the clip as well, shaking his head. His own phone buzzed in his suit pocket, and he sighed, texting back a query as to why Master Wayne would need a new suit. He already knew, of course, but he was entitled to stir the pot himself, he thought. Lucius couldn’t have all the fun, now could he?

As he left the room to retrieve a new suit for Master Wayne, Alfred heard Dick splutter, “Wait, rewind Steph. What do you mean, that’s your girl? ”

Stephanie ran from the room laughing, with Jason and Cass smirking knowingly behind her.

Day 108: Tim Drake and Bruce Wayne

Bruce exited his office in his clean suit that Alfred took a little too much pleasure in delivering, straightening his tie and scowling, much to Tim’s delight.

“I’m glad to know at least one of us is enjoying themselves,” Bruce grumbled. 

“Oh, more than one of us,” Tim hummed. “The others are enjoying the footage of the 200-pound brick wall we call B being dropped like he’s nothing by a 5’2 lab assistant who spooks easily.”

Bruce groaned.

“Yep!” Tim said cheerily, “I’ve already commissioned another poster to add to the collection. Also, here!” He threw a plastic garbage bag at Bruce. “For the pee suit.”

Bruce huffed and left the room, leaving Tim chuckling to himself before he trailed after Bruce into the elevator. He bounced on his toes, unable to wipe the gleeful look from his face.

“So, tell me, B. How did she get the drop on you?”

“I wasn’t expecting her to have a taser,” Bruce grumbled. “I thought security checked for those kinds of things.”

“They do, usually, but since it’s a non-lethal weapon and she’s working on a high-clearance level project, Lucius and I decided to let her keep it on her,” Tim shrugged. “This is, after all, Gotham. The last thing we need is for a last line of defense to be unarmed.”

Bruce looked pained. “She wouldn’t be the last line of defense, Tim.”

The younger man shrugged. “She’s the one always with the machine. It’s a target whether we like it or not, and she is a target with it.”

Bruce sighed. “Damn Clark and his insistence that I talk to her,” he grumbled.

Tim snorted. “Yeah, well, for all of our sakes I think maybe it’s best if you just left the communication between Lucius, myself, and Morgan. Apparently you spook her.”

“I am not spooky.”

“Says the man who dresses up as a bat to strike fear into Gotham’s villains every night,” Tim scoffed. “You’re spooky, Bruce. You forgot to use your loud feet when you walked into a room that is supposed to be locked at all times. Fox and I always announce ourselves but you just materialized behind her with no warning. You’re spooky. Now come on. I'm hungry and tired--there's a Bat-Burger and a large coffee calling my name."

"We're not stopping for fast food," Bruce said sternly. "You've already skipped too many sessions to load up on greasy food."

"I think out of the two of us, I'm the adult who can make the decisions."

"You're eighteen, Tim."

"Yeah, so? You're forty something and just peed your pants. Need I say more?"

Day 115: Back to Darcy

When Fox came into her labs with a steaming cup of chai tea, it was near midnight. 

“Go home, Morgan,” he said. “Mr. Wayne has already gone home. He’s not waiting for you around the corner like the boogeyman.”

She had avoided leaving her lab today after hearing that Wayne was here–even going so far as to avoid drinking anything so she wouldn’t have to pee. Drake had frequently stopped by to check on her, but aside from Drake and Fox, she interacted with little to nobody in the building. Even the security guards at the entrance to the ground floor noticed she was far more subdued. 

After avoiding Wayne multiple times the past week, the stress was getting to her. Her nightmares were far worse now–dreams of Jane’s labs melting, of Jane’s face contorting in pain and because it was boiling before combusting into flames that licked Darcy’s face and made her scream. Not to mention the frequent dreams she had about drowning in green acid that burned her from the inside out. She woke up far too many nights with her throat raw, which was followed by multiple complaints from other tenants and even a visit from her landlord.

So, she quit sleeping as much. 

She was on edge and irate constantly now, to the point where Penny would give her a quick hug and then run somewhere else when she was at Emilia’s. Dan and Emmie wouldn’t even come near her, and Emilia had gently suggested that Darcy take a step back from a few things until she calmed down. Which was code for please stop upsetting my children and take care of yourself first . 

Being irritable with herself, Drake, or Fox Darcy could tolerate. But when it came to the kids? No. 

Training with Selina was going very well, and Darcy was sure that she had enough money saved to tide her over until Selina would begin paying her for helping with classes next week. Even with her increased needs from a boosted metabolism, there would be enough for her and some to help Emilia along for the month. 

With her mind maid up, Darcy lifted her head from her hands and stared at Fox. “I’m quitting.”

He handed her the hot cup with a calm demeanor, ignoring her statement. “Go home, go to bed, and then I’ll see you in the morning.”

Darcy swore. “No, Fox. I’m quitting. The device is done, I stayed late and finished it tonight. I turned in my two week’s notice multiple times, have given you fair warning, and have no contract with Wayne Enterprises and therefore no legal obligations to continue working here.” She slid him an NDA. “I wrote that myself. There’s no loopholes, you can have the paralegal department look it over. I am allowed to bring my studies with me, but none of WE property is coming with me and I am putting myself under contract not to say anything about the project.”

She pushed her office chair away from her desk and stood, stacking some papers together and then tapping them on the desk. “Have a nice evening, Mr. Fox.”

“Morgan, hold on,” Fox said sternly. “You’ve been with this company for nearly three months, and you’ve already done more than some of the employees who have been here for three years. I know from complaints from HR that Drake has attempted to have your salary raised three different times, and Wayne himself tried to find the time to have an audience with you because he’s invested in keeping you at the company.”

Darcy blew out a long breath. “I have no interest in his investment, I don’t want to be noticed, and I don’t want to work here anymore, Mr. Fox. Wayne Enterprises is a wonderful company, and they’ve done wonderful things for Gotham. But I think my path lies elsewhere. Someone else needs me.”

“Now that,” Fox began, “Is some Grade A bullshit.”

Darcy feigned a gasp. “Why, Fox, what language from a distinguished gentleman such as yourself.” She started for the door. “Goodnight, Lucius. We’re done here.”

He glared at her. “Toni Morgan, sit your ass down. We are certainly not done here. I’m not asking you to stay on at Wayne Enterprises. But you’re not going to march out into the streets of Gotham at midnight, either. So, sit down and let me call you a ride.”

They locked glares, caught in a pissing contest before Darcy huffed. “Fine. You can call me a ride. But don’t expect me back tomorrow. I already cleared out my desk.”

Fox shook his head. “If you ever want to come back, give me a call. I’m putting you on furlough until then.” When she went to argue, he held up his hand. “No. This is Gotham, and as far as I know, you don’t have any insurance coverage outside of WE. I’m not firing you, because I hope that you have enough respect for the both of us to come back. And in the mean time, the insurance acts as a safety-net to ensure that if you're hurt out there, you can eventually come back to us. There’s a place open here for you if you want it. Though you damn well believe you’ll work twice as hard for it when you come back. Your ride should be here in twenty minutes.”

He left the room to make the phone call, leaving Darcy feeling both fury and gratitude towards the man. 

Taking a calming breath, she looked around her lab one last time and left the room slowly. She had a job with Selina. It would be fine. 

It had to be fine. 

Chapter Text

Day 116: Darcy

Darcy slept in the next morning, which was a rare occasion. She slept better than she had in months, and when she realized this, she realized just how much the job at Wayne Enterprises was affecting her stress levels. 

But, when you combine the asshole forces of Bruce Wayne and Lucius Fox with her tampering with a device that could wipe Gotham off the map if she got an equation wrong, that was bound to happen. 

She shook her head. No. That was called gaslighting herself. Bruce Wayne had snuck up behind her–and she knew it wasn’t Fox or Tim because the man’s heartbeat and breathing pattern was different and out of place–and she had acted accordingly. Especially because he was Batman, who hated metas and was trying to track her down. Hopefully he wouldn’t look too far into the tasing incident, because if he connected the dots of who she was, she would be absolutely screwed. She had tempted fate enough as it was–quitting was surely in her best interests. 

Darcy pittered around her apartment for a few minutes before she sighed and went to her notebooks, pulling a battered napkin out from one of the binders. She dialed the phone number on the napkin and waited, bouncing on her toes. 

“Hello?”

Darcy’s shoulders tightened, and she consciously tried to relax the tense muscles. “Hey, uh, Harley. It’s me, Toni. Are you…can you talk right now?”

She heard yelling in the background. 

“I can’t talk right now, but soon. I can call you back around 11? That’s when Mister J. is going out on an errand.”

Darcy shivered at the mention of the Joker. “Right. Um, okay. 11 is fine. Thank you.”

She hung up, hoping this wasn’t a bad idea. 

Later, at eleven and true to her word, Harley called her back. 

“How does, uh, patient-doctor confidentiality work with this scenario?” Darcy asked nervously.

“The same as it does normally, Sugah, except if you sue me they won’t be able to pin anything on me. Though if they caught me in the first place, that’d be a problem,” Harley chuckled.

Darcy snorted. “Right. I’m probably going to heavily censor everything anyway.”

“So long as you talk to somebody about it, even if it’s not me, that’s okay.”

Darcy took a deep breath. “Right. Well, I’ve had a very sucky time of it at work and I quit to start working with Selina. And I keep feeling guilty about it.”

“Let’s start there, then,” Harley hummed. “What is it about quitting that makes you feel guilty?”

“Well, see, I was the only one who had the necessary knowledge to complete the project…”

“Toni,” Harley said gently. “They made you uncomfortable and you had to leave. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I didn’t even get to quit, though,” Darcy sniffled. “He just put me on furlough. It was to keep my insurance, but still. It sucked.”

Harley sighed. “As a therapist, I’d say that’s terrible and you should get lawyers involved. But as someone who knows most of Gotham’s Rogues–I am one, after all–the idea of keeping the insurance isn’t a bad one. But ultimately you have to do what you think is best for you.”

“Right.”

“So, you find yourself being a people pleaser, then? How did that start? Is that an adult development or a childhood tendency?”

Darcy hesitated, then softly began to open up to Harley about being passed around in the system from the time she was eight until she was emancipated at sixteen. She didn’t tell her everything–they didn’t have much time–but she told Harley enough. 

“It sounds like you have a tendency to please people to feel needed, and it sounds like your employers took advantage of that.”

Darcy picked at her cuticles nervously. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Helping people out is okay, Toni, but it’s okay to be treated like a person, too. Not accepting your resignation the first time was a red flag, even if it was because you are the only person they could find for the job. That in itself sounds like manipulation.”

Harley had a point. 

Day 118: Selina

“So, I’ve noticed a change in your daily routine,” Selina said casually, ducking a blow. 

Toni winced. “If this is about me giving up a lucrative career at Wayne Enterprises, I really don’t want to hear it.”

Selina shrugged. “You’ll find no judgment here. It’s not for the faint of heart. They run a tight ship.”

“Yeah, well, they don’t exactly treat their “treasured employees” like they’re all that treasured. It doesn’t surprise me that a few of them have turned to the dark side. It’s not so much a tight ship as it is a very sucky ship."

“I’ll add an extra thousand to your check this month if you say that to Bruce Wayne’s face.”

“Nah, I’m hoping to never see Bruce Wayne’s face again, please and thank you,” Toni scowled.

Selina smirked. “Yeah, well, I’m sure he feels the same. You did, after all, tase him.”

Toni’s eyes narrowed. “And how do you know that?”

Selina grinned. “Call it intuition, if you will. Or knowledge of certain nightly activities you and I are both aware of.”

Toni stiffened, then executed a round house kick that Selina ducked. “I forgot you have those connections,” she said sourly. “How did you know I knew?”

Shrugging, Selina parried another hit and grinned when she got a well aimed punch to Toni’s ribs, winding the girl. “I don’t sneak and tell, love. They will never hear that you learned their identities from me. My lips are sealed.”

Toni grumbled a little, tapping out to go sit on the bench. It was their standard form of procedure, when she was feeling a little too on edge to safely spar with someone else. 

Selina was still working with Toni on toning down her strength, but apart from that the girl was an excellent sparring partner. After their first several sessions where Toni didn’t hold back anything but her strength, and after some gentle prodding, Toni finally told Selina what the woman already suspected: that Toni had a good amount of training under her belt, though she was still considered a novice by her trainer’s standards.

“Were they high standards?” Selina had asked dryly. 

Toni smirked when she dodged Selina’s attempt to sweep her leg.. “Unbelievably high. She was pretty fierce–you remind me of her, with your build.”

Selina noticed how the girl’s brow crinkled with bittersweet nostalgia. The past tense reference didn’t go unnoticed either.

“What happened to her?”

“I don’t know,” she muttered. “I don’t know what happened to anyone I used to know. One day they were just...gone.”

“If you need help tracking them down–”

“I’ll come find you,” Toni nodded. “I know how the drill goes.”

Selina nodded. “Right. I have friends in high places who would be able to help.”

Toni shook her head. “No. I don’t want any of them to get involved with the Rogues, no offense to your friends.”

Selina laughed. “I wasn’t talking about the Rogues, Toni.”

Toni’s nose scrunched in distaste. “Oh god, Selina. Do not get the Bats involved in my life, please. I do not need that kind of negativity in my life. Hood and Spoiler are already involved, and I really would rather not deal with more of them.”

Stephanie threw a scowl their way, and Toni rolled her eyes and gave her the bird, making her grin back. 

Today, Stephanie wasn’t present. She sent Selina a text letting her know that she was running damage control at Wayne Manor. Something about Tim and Bruce losing their collective shit. Which reminded Selina, she had something important to ask Toni, and she now had the privilege of privacy to do so.

“I heard through the grapevine that the Waynes are quite upset that you quit.”

“Yeah, well, when they get their heads out of their asses maybe I’ll discuss my grounds,” Toni grit out.

Selina rolled her eyes. “I’m not telling you to go back, Toni. They’re planning on trying to convince you to return, and since you’re not answering their calls, what do you suppose their next step is?”

The color drained from Toni’s face. “Can I file a restraining order?”

“On Gotham’s darlings? I doubt it,” Selina said lightly. “However, I may have a solution.”

“Oh?”

“Hmm. I own an apartment complex not terribly far from the gym. You are welcome to stay in an apartment there, if you would like.” Seeing Toni’s hesitance, she continued, “And you are more than welcome to invite Emilia to come with you. Regardless of whether or not you move in, I will still extend the invitation to her. She’s an old student, but more importantly, an old friend.”

Toni hesitated. “I–I’ll think about it. Thanks for the offer.”

Selina shrugged. “You’re welcome. Feel free to remain where you are, however. They won’t hurt you, though they’re certainly not harmless.”

Toni groaned. “Ugh.”

“Call me if they give you any trouble. Or, you know, use your fancy wrestling moves on them. Though, I don't recommend that approach with Todd. He seemed a little too into it.”

"Gee, thanks for the tip," Darcy grumbled.

Day 119: Darcy

Darcy Lewis was not of the faint of heart. She had survived foster care, she had survived the Destroyer, she had survived the Dark Elves, she had kinda survived the Snap (if you count being brought back by the Avengers), and she had survived jumping from one plane of reality to another.

She had survived drowning in a pit of radioactive green sludge that had given her nasty side effects.

She had survived on the streets of Gotham for nearly a week, alone and unaware of its many dangers.

She had survived an interaction with Red Hood, met Selina Kyle and the other Sirens, and successfully avoided all of the other bats who were currently on the hunt for a meta on the loose in their city.

She was Darcy Friggin’ Lewis, and she was not of the faint of heart.

So, yeah, Darcy decided, she was not faint of heart. And she was not going to let the Waynes bully her . Screw them and their stupid project. She had finished it for goodness sakes, they had no reason to try and convince her to come back to their stupid workforce. She decided right then that if Bruce Wayne showed up on her doorstep, she was going to ask him if his tall tower was compensating for something and then laugh in his face before she slammed the door.

So, when Darcy heard a firm knock on her apartment door that she knew wasn't Emilia's knock, she swung it open with unadulterated anger and an intention to let Bruce Wayne or Lucius Fox have it, she was shocked to find Wayne's children and his butler instead.

“Good evening, Ms. Morgan. Or Lanes, if you prefer. I’m Alfred Pennyworth. I heard from Mr. Timothy that you were treated poorly at the hands of Wayne Enterprises. You have my distinct regrets. Please, accept this in apology.”

Day 119: Stephanie

Okay, so Stephanie had tried really hard at damage control. And yesterday she had succeeded. But she wasn’t perfect. And there were what, almost ten of them?

The day had started out relatively normal. She woke up, drank a cup of coffee, watched the daily ritual of Damian struggling to get out of Dick’s bear hug, and started buttering the scone from the basket Alfred placed on the table. Only for Tim to come storming through the dining room, arguing loudly with Bruce again.  

“If you weren’t such an imbecile–”

"She quit of her own accord, Tim.”

“No, she quit because you’re creepy and apparently Fox has been pushing her way too hard! Did you know she wasn’t even qualified for the engineering of the device? She was amazing at the weird alien equations, but the actual engineering? Shit, Bruce! Fox had her doing the job of a minimum of five other people–on a device that could have imploded at any moment if she had done the slightest thing wrong.”

“It was the Zeta device, it was important to keep it as under wraps as possible.”

“Our employees are important!” Tim screeched. “And she was one of the best that we’ve ever had!” He blew out a frustrated breath. “Forget it. I’m going to go find her and apologize.”

“If you do that, we could be looking at a lawsuit. Tim–”

Tim held his hand up.

“Bruce, if you don’t shut up for once. I’m not worried about a damn lawsuit, and I know you aren’t either. The playboy act is all fine and great, but this woman felt unsafe and quit at our company. Have you forgotten your own motto for the company? “Unprecedented technological advancements and caring for its citizens above all else”? What happened to that?”

Bruce sighed. “My apologies. I didn’t realize how strongly you felt on the matter.”

Tim threw his hands up. “I didn’t realize how much you didn’t feel strongly on the matter. Good grief, no wonder Selina stepped back to take a break from you. You’re so caught up in solving this damn Lazarus Pit case that your civilian life is on its last legs. Look at yourself, B. You’ve missed multiple meetings at WE, you’ve let the love of your life go for what, a little over two months now? And now you’re scaring off your employees and making it seem like their fault when they’re the ones who are overworked and mistreated?”

Damian and Dick had paused in their tussle when Tim had started shouting.

“Wait,” Dick said, “Who quit again?”

“Toni Morgan,” Tim huffed. “And I am going to be mad about it because this is my hill to die on.”

“If you knew Fox was putting so much on her, then why didn’t you step up? That makes you no better than Father,” Damian challenged, scoffing. 

“I did, loser. He said she was handling it and told me to butt out.”

“There’s no way Fox told you to butt out,” Dick snorted.

“He was nicer than that when he said it, but that was the gist.” Tim ran his hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “I didn’t know it was that bad, though.” He shook his head and started for the door. “I’m going to apologize to her.”

Dick frowned. “Wait, who is Toni Morgan?”

“She tased Bruce, keep up,” Jason scoffed. He pushed his chair away from the table and stood to his feet. “I’m coming with you.”

“Sure, why not?” Tim said, mostly to see Bruce’s head explode.

Jason’s statement was followed by a chorus from others who also wanted to come with Tim, and Bruce looked almost like he wanted to come, too, but Alfred politely told him that he should remain at the manor. 

“With all due respect, sir, the young woman was frightened by your presence enough to momentarily incapacitate you. I doubt appearing on her doorstep would be polite. Now, as for you others, we have a few stops to make before we find Ms. Morgan’s residence. We are not showing up empty handed.”

After several stops around town to compile an obscenely large gift basket, they began to make their way to the woman’s apartment. They didn’t question how Jason already knew where to find the woman–Alfred and Duke just assumed that he had already looked into her background. Stephanie and Cass, of course, already knew, and Dick, Damian, and Tim were arguing over who got to sit shotgun on the way back. 

Later, however, they questioned it. And Stephanie took much joy in Jason’s panicked expression.

Chapter Text

Day 119: Darcy and the Bats (Sans Bruce)

Darcy stood in her doorway, frozen. “Um.”

She took in the multiple faces beaming at her from the hallway.

“Hi!” Stephanie chirped, throwing up a hand in greeting. “Sorry to intrude on you. I know you like your space.”

Darcy blinked at her. “Stephanie Brown, what the hell are you doing?”

“Bringing you apology brownies!” Stephanie grinned, gesturing to the large basket Alfred was still holding.

“And why are you bringing me apology brownies?” Darcy asked, trying not to panic. 

“Because Bruce is an idiot, and I am very sorry? And it’s more than brownies, obviously. The basket is huge,” Tim offered nervously, peering over Stephanie’s head to give Darcy a sheepish smile.

“There are…” Darcy counted the people on her doorstep. “...Eight people on my doorstep to deliver a gift basket?”

“...Yes?”

Darcy squinted at Tim. “Why do I have the very distinct feeling that you are behind this, Mr. Drake?”

Tim gulped. “I didn’t know they would all tag along?”

“We watched the video of you tasing Bruce,” Dick piped in, sending her a wide grin. “You’re kind of a legend now, and we wanted to meet you.”

Darcy’s eye twitched. “I see.” She spun around dramatically. “And do I live up to the expectation?”

Jason snorted. “Do you ever.”

Darcy focused on Jason, making him shift uncomfortably in the hallway. He had to know that she knew who he was. The distinct hair style and the white stripe were hard to miss; even if she hadn’t seen him without the helmet on, there was still the knowledge that her own hair did something similar and her conversation with Red Hood about the pits.

What the hell even was her life? She tries to avoid the bats and what happens? She gets seven out of the eight on her doorstep all at once with an apology gift basket? Swallowing, she shut her eyes and gulped before she opened the door wide. “You know what, what the hell? You guys can come in. It’s not like Stephanie and Jason haven’t already been here.”

Stephanie and Jason exchanged wide eyed looks with one another. Yes, Darcy thought smugly, she was just going to expose them like that. They definitely knew that Darcy knew.

“Abort, abort!” Stephanie hissed quietly, looking panicked. Darcy rolled her eyes, ignoring her as the Waynes and Alfred filed in, many of them wearing confused expressions at the comment on prior visits. 

“Now, Timothy,” Darcy said with a scowl as she leaned against the two feet of counter space in the tiny kitchen. “Do I need to explain to you again that I will not be rejoining Wayne Enterprises?”

Tim shook his head quickly. “Uh, no. I am not here to pressure you into coming back at all. Really. I’m just here to–well, to apologize. Because I didn’t help the problem any. I really didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until it was too late. So–I’m sorry.”

Darcy snorted. “Considering you are a raging insomniac who can barely function on a good day, I’ll allow that apology to be accepted. But, dude, what the hell is Fox’s problem?”

Tim winced, but before he could answer Damian beat him to the punch. “Fox is an excellent employee of Wayne Enterprises in some capacities, but I find his communication skills lack development and that he is a rather infuriating person.”

“That is very rich coming from you,” Tim grumbled.

“He’s not wrong though!” Dick added in, shifting his stance.

Alfred gently set the basket on the tiny kitchen table. “I apologize for Fox’s actions. He can be…rather thick-skilled, despite his high IQ. Rest assured that not all employees are like him at Wayne Enterprises. In fact, there are some who are much more tolerable, though I would still recommend you take a lengthy vacation before even considering coming back, if you consider it at all. No one would blame you if you took a permanent leave.”

Darcy’s lip turned up in a small smile. The posh butler reminded her very much of Jarvis. “He’s not necessarily a terrible person, just a terrible boss. He did call a cab for me when I left WE after midnight and let me keep my insurance.”

Tim huffed. “Yeah, but he shredded your resignation and wouldn’t let you quit. It’d have been a different situation if he had tried to address the issues you were struggling with, but he just let them go on. You were doing the work of what, five people at a minimum? With a highly dangerous device?”

“Yes, Fox is a fool,” Damian said coolly, looking around the room before his eyes narrowed on a few ingredients out on the counter. 

It was around this time, too, that Dick and Tim noticed a familiar poster on the wall. Stephanie exchanged a panicked glance with Jason while Tim’s eyes were going from disinterest to shock.

Dick’s eyes, meanwhile, were swinging from the poster on the wall to Darcy, and back again, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. 

Stephanie was sending them both her best glare, and Cass was rapidly signing at Dick to drop it behind her back where the others could not see her. 

Damian noticed then—in addition to the familiar ingredients to a tea Alfred made frequently and Jason favored on the woman’s kitchen counter—a very familiar abomination of a stuffed animal on the full-size bed that he had seen someone carry through Wayne Manor not long ago.

Damian rounded on Jason. “YOU!”

Jason held up his arms to block the little hell beast from attacking him. “Me what?”

“You knew! This whole time, you knew where she was! We’ve been trying to solve this case for months and you just sat there and said nothing! AHHHHH!” He whipped out a katana–and Darcy cursed internally, because where had that even come from–and Darcy snatched his arm and held it up, prying the blade quickly from his hand and passing it to Alfred since the man’s vibe screamed trust me and responsible adult supervision. 

“As much as I find this interaction amusing, if you break anything you are replacing it twice over,” Darcy said in a droll tone. “Mostly because I know you Waynes can afford it.”

Damian was staring at her with wide eyes veering between her and the katana now in Alfred’s grasp, and she grinned down at him. “What? You think I’ve never had to confiscate a katana from a crazy person? You may be Robin, but I’ve got way more experience under my belt when it comes to wrangling superheroes.”

She muttered something under her breath about Deadpool, but everyone was too loud for Damian to catch what it was.

Dick held up his hand. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up. You’re Lazarus Pit lady?”

She blinked. “Is that what it’s called? Why?”

“It brings people back from the dead,” Damian scowled. “Why else?”

Darcy stared at him. “I wasn’t–I wasn’t dead?”

“Do you know that for sure?” he countered, and Darcy felt her stomach sink at the idea. She didn’t know. She didn’t even know how she had ended up here.

Duke timidly held up a hand. “Uh, are we just going to speed past the fact that Damian just ratted out our identities with his katana and violent tendencies?”

Darcy snorted. “Oh honey, I’ve known your identities before I was even in Gotham a month.”

Tim gawped at her. “You–you knew? This whole time?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Before you even had the guts to come to my lab and make a menace of yourself. I have field notes if you want to know how I did it. Also, it’s not hard to put two and two together when I’ve seen Jason’s hair while he was Red Hood.”

Damian gave Jason a disappointed look, but Alfred was eyeing him in thoughtful contemplation, having also noted the tea ingredients in the kitchen. 

Darcy, meanwhile, pulled a chair up to the fridge, climbed on top of the chair, and rummaged around the top of the fridge until she found what she was looking for. She tossed the notebook towards the bats and hopped off the chair.

Stephanie caught the notebook by jumping in front of Tim and Dick. “HA! Yes! Interception, baby!”

While she flipped through the notebook, the others crowded around her, except for Jason and Alfred. 

“Hey!” Dick said when he read the checklist, “My mask isn’t shit!”

“It’s totally shit,” Jason threw back across his shoulder. “Why do you think I wear the helmet?”

Alfred tutted, worry creasing his brow. “This is an…unexpected development.”

"She--she butt-matched Bruce!" Stephanie cackled, bending over with laughter. "Oh my god, Toni!"

"Is that why you made a comment about my ass that night?" Dick asked, turning red as he laughed himself.

Jason was torn between laughing and wanting to know just what Darcy had said about his brother's ass. 

Damian stormed over to Darcy, taking a threatening stance. “You quit Wayne Industries.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I did. Do you have a problem with that?”

He huffed. “You were the only one of the candidates who could solve the Zeta tube equation.”

“Hmmm, yup. And you are the little heathen who smarted off to me without having all the facts.” Darcy tilted her head. “Why?”

Damian’s eyes narrowed at her, his chin jutted up proudly. “I want you to work for me.”

“Nope,” Darcy popped the ‘p’ in the word. “Abso-heckin-not going to happen. I am D-O-N-E with Wayne Enterprises.” 

He frowned at her. “So you will punish me for the sins of my father?” he asked coolly, and Darcy couldn’t help the laugh that came from her at the sentence. 

“No, I just have other job opportunities that I’m pursuing.”

“I see,” Damian hummed. “Would you work for me outside of Wayne Enterprises?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, no. We can discuss that later. I need a long vacation before I even consider it. Right now, I don’t even want to think about having anything to do with the Waynes or your nightly related activities.”

When Jason wiggled his eyebrows, Stephanie smacked him on the back of the head. “No, Todd,” she hissed. “You are not dating my friend. Toni is off limits.”

Darcy laughed. “Steph, is he the brother you said I have so much in common with?”

“Um.” Stephanie sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. “Yes?”

“Thanks for the furnishings, by the way.” Darcy nodded to Jason and Stephanie. “It means a lot.”

Jason had a light blush on his cheeks. “You’re, uh, welcome.”

Dick blinked at his younger brother before his face broke out into a large smile. 

“So, Jason,” Dick grinned, leaning up against the wall under the poster. “Tell me how you met this delightful young lady. Because I know it wasn’t how Tim and Damian met her, considering you haven’t stepped foot in Wayne Enterprises since Riddler knows when.”

Jason spluttered, while Stephanie bounced on her toes in poorly concealed glee, eager to hear the story herself since she had yet to hear the story herself despite her attempts to wheedle it out of Selina and Darcy.

Darcy started to laugh hysterically, cursing when she began to feel the tears welling up in her eyes. “Oh my god. You haven’t told them?”

Jason was making panicked shushing motions, and Darcy couldn’t help but laugh harder. “No, no, let me have this one thing,” she insisted, smacking his hands away from her mouth when he got a little too close. “I will freaking bite you, do not try me,” she hissed, but there was no venom in her voice, only amusement.

“He’d probably like it,” Stephanie taunted, causing Jason to tackle her instead of wasting his energy on Darcy. 

“He did that, basically,” Darcy snorted, gesturing towards where Jason was sitting on Stephanie in her apartment floor. “He thought I was Ivy while I was walking home late.”

“He what?”

“Imbecile.”

“No way!”

“Jason!”

“In my defense, the red hair looked similar! And the curves were–”

“I would be very careful what you say next, Master Todd,” Alfred said warningly, seeing how Darcy was glaring at him, her cheeks flushing red.

Jason’s mouth snapped shut. “Uh, yeah. Right.” There was an awkward pause before Jason yelled, “Hey! I get to name the next pet!” He shouted over the noise of disagreements following his statement. “I found her first!”

“Did not!” Damian yelled. “I met her first!”

“Well, I’m the closest one to her! We spar and everything!”

“I was her boss!”

Darcy banged her head on the wall. Alfred took pity on her, slipping her a card with a phone number on it before firmly herding the Wayne children from her apartment. 

When they protested, Cass rolled her eyes and began to push them out of the apartment with Alfred. “Go,” she said, pushing them harder when they tried to protest.

As they were leaving, Darcy heard Dick ask, “So, are any of us going to tell B about this?”

“Absolutely not,” Damian retorted. “Let him suffer in his ignorance just as we did. He is a detective—he will figure it out.”

Tim snorted. “You’re just trying to get into Morgan’s good graces.”

Damian sniffed. “Well, she’s far more likely to work for me than for the likes of you.”

Their argument continued as they walked down the hall, and Alfred gave Darcy a polite nod, locked her door for her from the inside, and shut it firmly. 

Darcy stared at the door. Then, she stared at the gift basket on the table–it hung a little over the edges of the table, and she doubted she could wrap her arms around it if she tried. 

It was an eyesore. A terrible, hilarious, attempt at an apology and something so like what Tony would have pulled that she buried her head in her hands and cried, the grief welling up inside of her in fresh waves.

If what Damian had implied was true, Darcy had died.

They weren’t coming for her.

Chapter Text

Day 120: Alfred and Jason

When they got back outside the woman’s apartment, Alfred put to rest the argument between Dick, Damian, and Tim over who got to sit shotgun on the way back to the manor. 

“Jason is sitting next to me, thank you. Now, into the car, please.”

Dick gaped at him. “But–but–”

Alfred raised an eyebrow. Dick grumbled as he climbed into the back of the car with the others, complaining about being squished. In response, the butler rolled the partition up, creating protests from the others as well. Alfred pushed a few buttons and music began to play in the back of the car. 

“Now that your siblings are distracted, I believe you and I need to have a conversation, Master Jason.”

Jason shifted uncomfortably in his seat, feeling like he was a young teenager instead of an adult of twenty three. “Do we? I really don’t think we do.”

“I would like to be able to draw my own conclusions of Ms. Morgan before I speak to your father about what was discovered today.”

Jason wanted to shrink in on himself. “Bruce really doesn’t have to know all about this, Pennyworth.”

“I assure you, he does. However, if you can convince me otherwise, I will refrain from speaking with him until a later date. With your identities known, though, I would be more at ease if we had someone keeping an eye on Ms. Morgan instead of having her out and about as a loose cannon. If you think you can handle that, I will trust the job to you. If not, I shall see to it myself. I expect frequent updates. And an explanation, starting now.”

Jason huffed, then slowly began to fill Alfred in on what he knew of Toni Morgan, which, despite following her several times, was apparently not as much as either of them would have liked. 

“And I know she has nightmares,” he said softly after a close-to-lengthy explanation, staring out the windshield and refusing to look at Alfred. 

“Hence the tea, I assume,” Alfred hummed. “How is the pit madness?”

Jason inhaled sharply. “Uh, it’s not terrible? She killed a man, but it was in self-defense.”

Alfred’s eyebrow rose sharply, and Jason wanted to sink through the floorboard. 

“He tried to assault her at knifepoint. And I couldn’t get a good shot in.”

Alfred’s grip on the wheel tightened. “And you let your family go to her apartment uninformed of this? Was that truly the most wise course of action?”

Jason flushed. “She seems to be handling it well.”

“I see.” Alfred sighed. “I will be having words with Mr. Fox in the near future. Also, I would like to personally speak with her more.”

“Alfred–” 

“Master Jason. From what you have told me, this woman is fairly new to Gotham and was taken advantage of by Master Wayne’s company. After being resurrected by the pits, no less. She needs someone in her corner, don’t you think? Someone who isn’t a vigilante?”

Jason blinked. “You want to monitor her?”

“In a way, I suppose, you could say that. But I would like to view it more as bringing her into the fold.”

The younger man’s eyes narrowed. “Shut. Up. No way.” When the butler glanced at him, Jason pointed an accusatory finger. “B got it from you .”

Alfred’s lips twitched. “I have no idea what you are talking about, Master Jason.”

Day 120: Darcy

Darcy left the gift basket alone until it was long after dark and the police sirens began to wail in full force and the patrol lights began to flash through her windows. Unable to control the unease that crept up her spine, she closed the blinds and pulled the curtains shut before sitting down at the table. 

Her head ached painfully with the after effects of a long and hard cry over the implications of her death in her own reality. Wasn’t that just salt in the wounds of everything that had already happened to her?

Get your ass burned by the Destroyer, Darcy. 

Get attacked by Dark Elves, Darcy. 

Get attacked by HYDRA agents, Darcy. 

Get dusted by Thanos, Darcy. 

Get killed in your universe, Darcy. 

Get dipped in radioactive kool-aid and get hunted in Gotham, Darcy.

Get in over your head at Wayne Enterprises, Darcy.

Get involved with vigilantes in this universe too, Darcy.

She snarled and slammed her hand down on the table, wincing when the wood creaked dangerously, a crack appearing in the heavy oak. Damn it. She was doing better toning down her strength, but there were moments like this where it was too much and she did something stupid. 

Shutting off the thoughts running through her mind, she focused on the gift in front of her. She couldn’t afford to dwell on those thoughts tonight. She was already too close to the edge. 

She realized soon after sitting that she would have to stand to empty the basket. Heaving it off of the table and into the floor so she could actually comfortably reach into the container, Darcy knelt on her knees and began to pull out the contents of the basket. The basket was mostly made up of edible goodies–brownies, as expected, but also some fruit, expensive chocolate, herbal teas and gourmet coffee. Inedible goodies also made an appearance, much to Darcy’s surprise and hesitant delight. 

She found a personalized mug that said I tased Bruce Wayne and lived to tell the tale, a USB drive that she would later find out had the security footage of her tasing the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and–perhaps most relevant to what had started the entire episode–a souped-up taser.

A pale blue with gold filigree–that was real gold, she was 98% certain –-the taser was so beautiful it made Darcy shed a tear. A small tear over how damn expensive the thing was. But also because she could grudgingly admit that it was drop dead gorgeous.  

There was a note attached to the stun weapon, and she frowned as she read it. 

Drake gave me a well-deserved piece of his mind. It was a well-earned tongue lashing, and I am deeply regretful that I have driven you away from Wayne Enterprises. Please accept this device as an apology. It’s a souped up version of what you used to knock Wayne on his rear. Thank you for that, by the way–I’m the one who truly deserved that. If you want to come back to WE in the future, please don’t use this on me. Though if you do, I will suffer in silence and you will not hear a complaint from these lips. Because I miss you that much. Drake is driving me crazy. Send help. Please. Damian just came in, too. I am going to die. Come back? :_)

-Lucius

Darcy snorted. “Not on your life, Fox.”

She did miss the old geezer, though. He reminded her very much of how insufferable Nick Fury was, but with far more charm than Nick Fury had in his whole body. And Fox wasn’t all bad. He had let her stay on the insurance–which was a blessing, though she hated having a loose thread at WE–and had called her a cab that night she finally made her point that she wasn’t coming back, paying for it out of his own pocket to make sure she made it safely back home. 

Fox had his faults, and his passion could at times be one of them. When he was so absorbed in making sure the Zeta device was completed and kept secret, he had overlooked the sanity of his staff. Darcy had a hard time giving up that particular grudge–in fact, she would likely hold onto it a little longer. But she could still appreciate the nicer aspects of Fox's character.

The nights he brought her cups of her favorite tea; how he left her a gift card to a bookstore in Gotham after she mentioned missing her favorite copy of Pride and Prejudice, which her mom had read her before Darcy ended up in foster care; how he would haul Drake out of her lab when he was beginning to really get on her nerves.

He was polite, if a little arrogant about his ability to keep Darcy with the company. The only time he was rude, really, had been his refusal to accept her resignation and his less than helpful approach to dealing with the "I tased our boss" situation. He had bad qualities, sure, but Lucius Fox was all in all a good man. And she missed him, despite how he had been an asshole. 

Sighing, she put the contents of the basket away in appropriate places in her tiny kitchen. The USB drive and taser came with her, sitting close by on her nightstand. Curling up on the tiny couch Jason and Stephanie had fit between her nightstand and the refrigerator in the kitchen, Darcy sat in thoughtful contemplation, reflecting again on the implications of a death in her own universe. 

Could she get back, she wondered? She knew Dr. Strange could travel through dimensions. Magic was just science that wasn’t understood, Jane had always said. So surely there was some way back, right? There had to be. 

And Darcy Freaking Lewis was going to be the one to find it.

Day 121: Darcy

The day after the Waynes had made their surprise visit, Darcy received a text from Jason. 

Jason: Alfred wants to talk to you. I told him not to be a pest, but he’s politely asking if he can have your phone number? I don’t know how he knows I have it–man’s a wizard.

Darcy’s thumb hovered over the keyboard, hesitant to type out a reply.

Darcy: If he brings me more brownies, he has a deal.

Jason is typing…

Jason: Alfred says all you have to do is ask.

Darcy: Bet lol. Give him my number and bring me brownies.

Jason: Yes ma’am!

Darcy threw her phone on her bed, grabbed the Batman Tee Turtle–which was a source of rage for the youngest Wayne, apparently–and buried her face into her pillows. 

It would be several days before Alfred would send her a text message. She appreciated the attempt to give her a break. She quickly grew to appreciate Alfred, too. 

Day 125: Bruce

Bruce was suspicious. Tim wasn’t picking fights with him, Cassandra was extremely bubbly, and Damian had even more of a superiority complex when it came to his relationship with Tim. Dick was more absent minded on the Lazarus Pit case, Stephanie was spending a suspicious amount of time with Selina–who hadn’t been to the Manor in weeks, but that was his fault, really–and Jason was missing more evenings than he was present, though that in itself wasn’t unusual.

What was unusual was that Alfred didn’t care that Jason missed dinner several times that week. Instead, the man was baking him brownies. Brownies that Bruce was not allowed to touch, apparently. 

Rude.

When his children quieted down every time he walked into the room, Bruce began to feel a headache coming on.

“Alright, somebody explain,” he sighed one night, after dealing with this for nearly a week.

They all stared up at him with innocent eyes. He turned to Damian. 

“Damian.”

“I certainly do not know what you are referring to, Father,” the boy sniffed, continuing to sharpen his katana. “Do not look to me for answers.”

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. Great. They had Damian in on it. He wasn’t getting any answers except those he could gather himself.

Dick was giving him a knowing look. “Figure things out with Selina before you try to figure this out, B.”

Stephanie snorted as Bruce just stood there in confusion. “He means Selina has the answers you seek, dumbass. Go talk to her and for gosh sakes, fix whatever the hell is wrong between you two first .”

Bruce blinked, then nodded slowly. Alright, he could do that. He had, in fact, meant to already do that, except he had been so distracted by this most recent case that he had allowed Selina to slip through the cracks. 

That simply wouldn’t do. She was one of the few individuals in his life who saw all sides of him–he loved that woman, though he was doing a piss poor job of showing it lately, he thought with a frown. 

Grumbling, Bruce strode from the room with more questions than he started with, ready to romance his cat and beg for her forgiveness. At this point, it wasn’t even really about the case at all.

No, Bruce Wayne had been teetering on the edge of losing Selina Kyle. And his children were not going to stand for it–something Bruce found himself very thankful for. As irritating as they may be, sometimes, they truly did want what was best for him. And if that meant helping him pull his head out of his ass? Well, then he definitely needed their help. He had the feeling it was a little farther up there than usual lately.

That must be remedied.

Chapter Text

Day 124: Darcy

Darcy quickly grew to appreciate Alfred Pennyworth, the one and only legendary butler of Wayne Manor.

He only appeared at her doorstep once since her first encounter with all of the Wayne children–with a fair amount of warning via text because he was raised well and not dragged like the Waynes–and that was only briefly to speak with her for a few minutes and hand her a plate of still warm brownies. That was two days ago, and her conversation with the man was still fresh on her mind. 

“I understand Jason has informed you of my intentions?”

“That you want to speak with me?”

“Hmm. I see. I have had enough of secrecy in my day to day life to warrant being frank with you. I do not trust you, Ms. Morgan. Not yet, at least. But from my brief interactions with you, I find that perhaps, in the future, it may not be out of the realm of reason for me to trust you.”

Darcy raised an eyebrow, not hesitating to peel back the tinfoil from the plate and take a warm brownie. “Oh?”

“Indeed. Until that time, however, I intend to see that the Waynes are protected. Jason is currently in charge of monitoring you. If you make me think for one moment that you are a danger to the family I serve, I assure you that Master Wayne will be immediately informed of who you are and where you are. Even so, I intend to inform him of your presence in Gotham in a month’s time. I hope by that point you are more trusting of the Waynes despite your mistreatment at the company.”

Darcy blinked at him. “Oh my god, you really are Jarvis.” Shaking her head, Darcy nodded. “Noted. I understand. I’ll hopefully be out of Gotham long before you feel the need to say anything to Wayne.”

“I see. Jason will be bringing you brownies more frequently, and bringing me reports of your wellbeing. I expect updates from you as well. If you need anything, please reach out.”

“I will. Thank you.”

Jason had brought her brownies one other time, and he had also brought her a very calorie-dense casserole last night–a dish he frequently ate to keep up with his own rampant metabolism. 

He just stood awkwardly on her doorstep every time he came to drop something off, before Darcy had finally invited him in last night with the insistence that he share some casserole with her, sitting with him on her tiny couch afterward and watching a B-rated movie on the tinier laptop screen. It was a tight fit, because Jason was built like a brick house, but she didn’t mind being a little squished; it had been a constant theme in her prior life when Thor was on-planet. Also, it was Jason. 

Jason didn’t seem to mind either, judging from the light blush coloring the tips of his ears when Darcy had to scoot closer to him to get more comfortable—sitting in the crack of the couch just wasn’t a fun time for her. Sitting next to a Gotham beefcake, however? Count her in. 

Sadly, he left before the movie was even over, cursing Dick for calling him away to patrol. Darcy watched him go, stomping out hints of warmth his presence had kindled.

It wouldn’t do to go catching feelings.

She had seen, after all, what Jane went through dating a superhero. It didn’t look like a fun time to Darcy. Too much anxiety, wondering where they were and if they were okay all the time. Which, granted, the Bats only fought at night except for Signal, but still . That only meant staying up late at night worrying about where Jason was at and if he was okay.

Darcy couldn’t admit to herself that she did that anyway some times.

He was cute and nice, sue her.

Day 126: Darcy

Darcy noticed that Selina was in a very good mood when she showed up to class that night. They had transitioned at the beginning of this week from Darcy training with Selina to Darcy helping Selina train others. Selina put her with the quieter women in the group, encouraging Darcy to try and pull them out of their shells. 

“You seem to understand a little of what they’ve gone through, from what little you’ve told me of your past,” she told Darcy seriously. “Most of these women are products of a failed foster system or are coming out of or still in an abusive relationship. You know the drill.”

Darcy nodded. “Right. Try not to trigger anyone, keep my full strength hidden. Got it.”

Selina smirked. “Exactly. Oh, and Toni? You and I are going to chat after class. You haven’t told me how it went a few days ago–I heard you had visitors.”

Darcy squinted at Selina. “Yeah, well, you haven’t told me about your yesterday either. Because you came in today looking like the cat that ate the canary.”

“More of a bat, really,” Selina hummed, looking smug. Stephanie gagged in the background, and Darcy wrinkled her nose in confusion before the realization hit her like a freight train. 

Oh good heavens. How did she miss that detail?

She could identify the civilian counterparts of Catwoman and the Bats, but miss the glaringly obvious connection between them? Selina had spoken of ‘B’ getting his head out of his ass to the other Sirens only days ago–she was stupid, stupid, stupid. 

Selina was engaged to Bruce Wayne aka Bat-Freaking-Man. 

How did Darcy keep getting screwed? Her instructor was involved with the same man Darcy was trying to avoid. 

Day 126: Selina

“Selina, please for the love of science, tell me you are not engaged to freakin’ Bruce Wayne.”

Selina raised a bored eyebrow. She and Toni were the only ones in the gym now, completing evaluations on their students’ performances. 

“Darling, what do you want me to tell you?”

Toni groaned. “Oh my god, you are. And I missed that detail. How did I miss that?” The girl started pacing back and forth. “Are you going to tell him where I am? You are, aren’t you? You have to. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you in this position. I don’t even want to be in Gotham. Those stupid pits are behind this mess, and I hate what they did to me. They’re not even there anymore, I checked. I thought I could study them and reverse this, but… No luck. I miss my old body. Do you think Batman will understand that being meta isn’t my fault? I mean, Hood is kind of a meta just like I am, and it doesn’t seem to bother him? But is that like a one time thing or…? What does Batman even do to metas? I don’t want to die!”

Selina felt chilled at Toni’s panic. “Toni, Batman doesn’t kill people.”

“But–”

“It’s against his code. He hasn’t killed anyone in years . Everyone in Gotham knows that.” 

Toni blinked at her, eyes wide. “Then what does he do?”

“What do you mean, what does he do?”

“To metas , Selina.”

Selina’s eyebrows rose. “He leaves them be, unless they’re causing trouble. But he doesn’t hurt them for existing , Toni.”

The girl was pacing back and forth. “But–Selina, I killed a man . You were there!”

Selina stood and wrapped an arm tightly around Toni’s shoulders, halting her pacing and getting the girl’s attention. 

“You listen to me, Toni Morgan. Batman is not going to hurt you. You acted in self-defense–it was you or your assaulter, remember? And I’m not going to tell B where you are. Even if we’re not on a break any longer, I’m not going to tell him where you are unless it’s an emergency, okay?”

“What kind of emergency would even constitute that?”

Selina flinched. “Oswald Cobblepot is a vile man who is asking far too many questions about you.”

Toni’s face went pale. “What?”

“I haven’t been back to the Lounge since he asked after you, but some of his men have been sniffing around. I caught one of them earlier tonight, but I dealt with it. Still, be alert.” She hugged the girl to her. “I can’t have you getting hurt so soon after I put all that work into you, right?”

Toni stiffened when Selina’s arms wrapped around her, but then she melted into the hug, and if Selina felt something wet on her shoulder and felt Toni’s shoulders shake a little, she didn’t say anything.

Toni pulled back awkwardly, sniffling. “I’m sorry, I–I just cried all over you like a baby. I–I’m not sure how long it’s been since–well.”

Selina sighed, and gave her another long hug. “It’s alright, Toni. You can hug me anytime you need to. All you have to do is ask.”

Toni was quiet for a long moment before she spoke softly, “My name is Darcy.”

Selina smiled to herself from her place at the girl’s shoulder where Darcy couldn’t see her, relieved at the recognition that Bruce being her fiance didn’t change her relationship with her student. “That’s a beautiful name.”

Day 126: Darcy

Darcy wasn’t exactly sure why she hadn’t already told Selina her real name. Maybe it was because having aliases made it easier to slip into different characters’ skins and take on traits that would help her blend in in Gotham instead of stand out. She was Dalia Lanes, Natalie Rushman, Toni Morgan…

But never Darcy Lewis.

But when she finally cried in front of Selina…

It was like something broke inside of her, and she just needed someone to know her name. 

It wasn’t, after all, like someone could Google her name here and find out everything there was to know about her. She didn’t exist in this reality, technically, so using Darcy Lewis wasn’t out of the picture. 

But there was something about attaching her identity to this world that just… hurt Darcy in an inexpressible way. It made it too permanent. Dalia, Natalie, and Toni’s lives were shallow–made-up and easily uprooted. 

Darcy, though?

No. Darcy latched onto people and places far more easily than she should. It was a weakness better left unexposed in Gotham. 

But it was a weakness that was so much of a core value of her person that eventually, someone would know that she was Darcy. 

Selina wouldn’t abuse that information, Darcy knew. No, the woman would guard it just as she was guarding Darcy’s position from Batman. With care. 

Darcy wouldn’t tell her the rest of her story. Not yet, anyway. But, maybe someday, she could trust Selina with more, with the whole story. 

For now, her name was enough. And Selina seemed to understand that. 

Day 128: Selina

Bruce was wooing her, which Selina found no small amount of humor in. It was hard to believe the same man who knew so well what made her tick had no idea that everyone in his household held the answer to the Lazarus Pits case except him.

And while usually Selina would have been delighted to playfully taunt that knowledge over Bruce until he used his brilliant mind to figure out what she was hinting at, she was playing a very different game than the one she had started. It was time to keep information away from the Bat entirely, not dangle it tantalizingly in his face.

“Are you trying to romance me?” she teased, laying her hand on his chest as he passed her a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

“Maybe,” he said with a smile, closing the door of her apartment behind her. 

“Mmm hmm,” she hummed, pulling him in for a kiss. God, she had missed this bull-headed imbecile.

She pulled away to put the flowers in a vase with a few inches of water and grab her purse, ignoring Bruce’s fallen expression at the broken kiss.

“Oh hush, dear,” she teased. “You can have all the kisses you want later.”

“Oh really?”

“Why don’t you hang around later and find out?” she murmured sultrily. Selina gave him another teasing peck on the lips before she opened the door of her apartment and tugged him outside with her. 

Her phone buzzed while they were en route to the restaurant, and she bit her lip nervously when she saw the alert. She glanced at Bruce, and turned the brightness on her phone down to read the message.

“Everything okay?” he asked, eyes on the road.

“Not sure yet,” she said softly. “I’ll figure it out. It’s nothing to worry about, Bruce.”

“See, you say that, but–” 

Selina laughed softly. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

It was not nothing, but Selina couldn’t exactly tell Bruce that. She sent Stephanie a quick text, then sent one to Jason for good measure. They were the two bats least likely to rat Harley out for whatever the hell the woman was doing at Darcy’s apartment. 

The only explanation Selina had gotten was a text from Harley saying, The Penguin’s grass is ass. Followed by a picture of a goon tied up in Darcy’s apartment. He didn’t look dead by any means, severely injured maybe, but not dead.

Though there was no telling how long that would last, judging by the other part of the photo where a second goon’s neck lay at an unnatural angle.

 Shutting her eyes, Selina took a deep breath and relaxed into the seat. There wasn’t much she could do now anyway aside from calling in Jason and Stephanie for backup. Anything more risked Bruce finding out about Darcy, and that wouldn’t do right now, not when she was finally opening up more to Selina. She had just found out her real name, for goodness sakes!

She just hoped Harley didn’t drag the girl down with her before she could get back to run damage control.

Day 128: Darcy

Darcy had felt eyes on her when she entered her building, and she stayed as far away from the window as she could in her little one room quarters whenever she got to her apartment. She had her taser close by, but when the glass shattered and someone clambered into her apartment, she felt woefully unprepared. The intruder was too close to her too quickly for her to use the taser, leaving her with hand to hand combat. 

The man came at her with a knife, and she ducked his first swing, parrying with a kick to his jaw. The second attempt nicked her forehead–she’s lucky it wasn’t her neck, but she had ducked in time to avoid getting her jugular cut open. Blood dripped into her eyes, and she snarled at the sting and accompanying blurriness.

Using her momentary disability, the man pinned her to the floor, holding a rag over her nose and mouth. 

Screw that noise , Darcy thought, fighting the cloudiness creeping up on her. Being more on the meta side of things had some benefits, she realized, as it took much longer for her to pass out than the average person. 

She tried to tone down her strength, really she did, but then there was another one pinning her down and taunting her and she lost her damn mind . 

Snarling, Darcy reached up and grabbed the first intruder’s neck tightly, and a sickening pop later he slumped on top of her. Rolling out from underneath him quickly, she grabbed the other man and slammed his head into the wall, rattling the pans in the kitchen cabinet. His eyes rolled back and she let him go, scrambling to her feet. 

Her chest ached as she heaved in deep breaths, pushing aside the panic. There was a dead man in her apartment and another one who was at this moment passed out, though she wasn’t sure how long that would last. 

Looking around her apartment, Darcy quickly ripped her sheets and tied the man to the best of her abilities, hoping and praying that the bonds would last until she could get help.

Damn it, she had only been in Gotham for two months and two men were already dead at her hands. Both times had been in self-defense, but it wouldn’t be long until the authorities were breathing down her neck. And the Bats, too. She shivered. The Waynes had been civil, but would that continue if they found out that she had ended the lives of two Gothamites?

Cursing, she quickly left the apartment to go warn Emilia. 

Emilia stared at her, eyes wide as she took in the red and dripping stain on her face. “Dalia. What happened?”

Darcy felt salty tears running down her face, mixing with the blood from the cut on her forehead. “There were two of them. One of them is–well. I reacted the best way I knew how with two attackers. It was too much force, I didn’t–I didn’t know. The other is tied up. But I don’t know what to do with him. I have to figure it out fast, though. My sheets aren’t going to keep him tied up for long.”

Emilia inhaled sharply. “We have to call the police.”

“I can’t,” Darcy whispered. “The Bats–”

Emilia’s eyes widened. “The Bats? You’re scared of the Bats? Gotham’s protectors?”

“Who hate metas and murderers?” Darcy whispered bitterly. “Yeah, those Bats. I’m a meta, Emilia. There’s no ex. If they know I killed someone, it’s game over. I’m done.”

“Shit.” Emilia hesitated, then sighed. “Alright. I know someone we can call to get this mess cleaned up, but…” She looked worried. “I don’t–I don’t think it’s a better idea than just calling the police.”

“Who is it?”

Emilia stepped from one foot to the other, shifting uneasily. “My husband died working for a Rogue.” The admission hurt, Darcy could tell. Emilia’s face was flushed with shame and her eyes were filled with grief. “He owes me a favor.”

Darcy blew out a long breath. “Emilia–”

“I would do it,” Emilia said fiercely. “For you. I would do it.”

“What are you going to do? March up to this man and ask for his help?”

Emilia lifted her chin. “Yes?” It came out sounding uncertain, closer to a question than anything. Seeing Darcy’s face, she huffed. “ Yes. ”

“Who is it?” Darcy asked quietly. “I need to know before I agree to this.”

“The Penguin.”

“Absolutely not ,” Darcy breathed. “No.”

There was absolutely no way she was going to let Emilia call the man who was likely behind the break in. That only painted a target on her friend’s back as well. 

“Darcy–”

She shook her head furiously. “Emilia, no. Have you–have you ever actually met that man? Your husband has been dead for a year–you can’t just walk in and demand—”

“I can.”

“You won’t. Not for me. I’ll figure something else out.” Darcy stared at Emilia. “I’m serious, Emilia. You’re not doing this.”

“But–”

“No. End of story. You have–God, you have babies . They need their mom. You’re not risking them for me. I’ll figure something else out.”

Darcy stepped outside into the hall to think.

Darcy did have another option, three really, but she was loath to call them. She still had Red Hood’s phone number saved. Selina’s, too, but the woman was on her first date in months and she wasn’t willing to ruin that. Even if she wasn’t the biggest fan of Bruce Wayne or his nightly alter ego.

And then there was Harley Quinn’s number in her contacts. 

Despite Hood’s frequent reassurance that he would help her with whatever she needed if he could, Darcy was now well aware of Batman’s modus operandi–a no-kill honor oath. 

She wished that applied to the civilians caught in the cross-fire. Arkham Asylum was a joke, and when she was finally caught by the head of the Bat Family™ they were going to have words about it. 

But she couldn’t call Red Hood, not when this was about killing a man, no matter if it was in self-defense. Because really, how many times was he going to buy that, even if it was the truth? She didn’t think a second time was likely. Her other option wasn’t exactly safe or a smart idea, but she wasn’t letting Emilia contact the Penguin . Darcy had only had a brief interaction with the man, and it was very unpleasant and she almost died, thank you very much. Well, not really, that was being dramatic. But the way he looked at her made Darcy’s spine crawl. 

With a growl, she called Harley.

“Harley Quinn, fresh out of the looney bin! How can I help you?”

“Uh, hi. It’s Toni.”

“Oooo, hi, pumpkin! I almost thought you had forgotten all about me! And I was so sad, too, because we were looking to be such good friends! I–”

“Someone broke into my apartment,” Darcy murmured quietly. “There were two of them, and I’m pretty sure it was Penguin’s men that Selina warned me about.”

Harley’s tone was serious so fast it gave Darcy whiplash. “ Are you okay?”

“Yeah. A little bruised, but I’m fine. But the intruders…well, one of them is dead and the other is tied up as well as I could manage. And I can’t call the police, and certainly not the Bats–”

“Give me your address. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Darcy let out a long breath of relief and rattled off her street and building. “Thank you. I’m in the hallway, but I’m about to be in apartment 315. They’re in apartment 312.”

“I gotchu, Sugah. Stay there, alright? Don’t go outside.”

Harley hung up before Darcy could protest, and she was left with an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach at the warning to stay indoors. She re-entered Emilia’s apartment with a nauseous look on her face, and Emilia didn’t say anything, just poured her a cup of tea and they sat on the couch together while the kids snored in their shared bed. 

They heard a ruckus across the hall, then on the street outside. Several crashes, an angry shout. 

They stayed far away from the windows. 

There was the sound of a few struggles, a scream, then silence. Darcy’s phone beeped, and they jumped at the loud ringtone. Harley had sent her a text.

Come back to your apartment . 

-XOXO  

Darcy gave Emilia a crushing hug, and slipped out into the hall and into her own apartment. When she opened the door, Harley was sitting on her cot, swinging her legs back and forth. She looked like shit, Darcy noticed, and she felt even worse for calling the Rogue up when she had a suspicion of what Quinn was dealing with at home.

“I took care of it, Sugah. Nobody is gonna know.”

Darcy’s eyes filled with tears. “Thank you. I’m so sorry I called out of nowhere–” 

Harley held up a finger and waved it back and forth. “Nope, nada, zilch. I ain’t listening to any of that shit. That’s what friends do, lady. And we’re friends.” Harley’s eyes sparkled knowingly. “You’re here for me in a pinch, and I’m here for you, Pumpkin. Alright?”

Darcy hugged her, and pulled back quickly when Harley winced. “Harley?”

She waved her off. “It ain’t nothing to worry your pretty little head about. Just some bruises from a fight with the Bat.”

Darcy huffed. “When I meet him, I’m going to kick his ass.”

Harley guffawed, her laughter bordering insane. “Call me and I’ll help. You could take him sure as day.”

“He fights in the night,” Darcy said wryly, making Harley laugh harder.

Chapter Text

Day 128: Stephanie

“Jason, we’ve got fish to fry!” Stephanie shouted, storming up the staircase of the manor. “Come on, dumbass! Your lady friend is in trouble and Selina wants us to go and rescue her!”

Jason came flying out of his room. “She’s what??”

“In trouble. Now, come on. We have to go get her. And where’s Alfred? She’ll probably need first aid.”

“Shit, shit, shit. Okay, I’m coming. Alfred!” Jason shouted, tumbling down the stairs in a hurry. 

Stephanie was giving him an unimpressed look, while Alfred was the definition of collected. 

“I already have the car ready to leave, sir,” the butler said smoothly, not breaking eye contact with Jason even as he calmly said, “My boy, you’re not wearing pants.”

Jason looked down and yelped, running back up to his room and returning in his Red Hood suit. Stephanie had taken the opportunity to dress herself similarly as Spoiler, laughing uproariously the entire time at Jason, and then they were off, ignoring Damian’s complaints on not being invited to address the situation.

“What’s the rundown?” Jason asked, loading a few extra mags in the passenger seat of the car. 

“Selina is on a date with Bruce so she can’t slip away. Apparently a few of Penguin’s goons ambushed Toni in her apartment. Selina didn’t say why, but I don’t think it’s out of the realm of reason to believe it’s because of her connection to Selina and whatever it was they had her working on at Wayne Enterprises.”

“Is Toni okay?”

“I’m not sure. Selina just said get there.” Her phone pinged. “Speak of the devil. Apparently Toni is fine, but there’s some casualties and clean up to be done.” Her brow furrowed. “And she is, and I quote, “Minorly injured according to Quinn, who beat you both there.” Huh. Alfred?”

“Stepping on the gas already, Miss Brown.”

Stephanie grinned. “Right. Thanks.” She gave Jason’s shoulder a gentle pat. “Don’t worry, Jason, I’m sure she’s fine.”

Jason grumbled, but his pinched brow was all the evidence of concern the other two individuals in the car needed. 

Day 128: Darcy

Darcy shakily made Harley a cup of tea, desperately needing something to do with her hands. She frowned when she saw Harley’s phone in her hands.

Harley saw her worried look and gave her a cheeky grin. “Don’t worry, honey, I’m just letting Selina know that you’re alright but minorly injured.”

Darcy paled. “Harley, she’s with the Bat.”

Harley snorted. “Eh, Selina knows enough tricks to keep him outta this. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

She stood from her place on the couch, wincing and grabbing her ribs carefully. 

Darcy tilted her head, even more worried that she had gotten Harley involved in something when the woman already had enough going on. 

“It wasn’t Batman who hurt you, was it?” Darcy asked quietly, bringing Harley a mug. 

There was a sharp intake of breath. “That topic is not up for discussion, Sugah. Hate to tell ya.”

Darcy frowned. “I watched my mom go through cycles of abuse. It’s why I got pulled by CPS–one of her boyfriends decided he wanted to hit more than her, got a little too handsy and my teachers noticed the signs. She wouldn’t break up with him, so they pulled me. I was eight years old, Harley, and had to deal with the realization that my mom chose a piece of shit over me.” 

Darcy picked at her nails. “That piece of shit killed her when she tried to leave him to get me back, and I ended up floating around the system until I was emancipated. She gave me up, and with me went her life, too. The Joker isn’t good for you. Use your genius psychologist brain, Harley. You know it on some level, too. If you want to leave him, there are people who would help you. You know that, right?”

“I–I know. But there’s not just me I’m concerned for, Toni. If I leave, people will die.”

The unspoken words hovered between them. If I don’t leave, I will die. 

Harley looked ready to curl into herself, and Darcy decided to drop the topic after giving the woman a gentle pat on the shoulder. She had forgotten the window of her apartment was still wide open, a gaping hole of shattered glass–it was better for such conversations to be had in more private places, away from any prying ears on the street. 

As if reading her mind of having conversations in spaces where others couldn’t hear her, a very pronounced “ What the hell?” echoed from underneath the brick ledge of the window, and then suddenly a head popped up. Red Hood tumbled into the apartment, followed closely by Spoiler. 

A few scant seconds later, a soft knock on the door announced Alfred’s presence.

Darcy wanted to face-palm. So much for keeping the Bats uninvolved. 

Red Hood was standing in front of her, tilting his head this way and that to stare at the cut on her forehead. He lifted his hand up to move her hair away from the cut, but realized what he was doing and dropped it hastily. “Damn, Toni. Go through a meat grinder lately?”

Darcy snorted, then began to cry, then started to laugh, and then she was crying and laughing at the same time all in a few seconds. Spoiler shoved the other vigilante out of the way so she could examine her. “ Move, asshole. She’s still bleeding. Alfred?”

“Right here, Miss,” the man hummed, appearing at her elbow with a first aid kid. He motioned Darcy to follow him from the bed to the small kitchen. The man grabbed a cloth from her kitchen drawer and wet it, washing some of the blood off of her forehead so he could see the cut better. 

“Ow, shit,” Darcy winced, twitching as Alfred gently poked the wound. When he moved the wet rag over it, she hissed. 

“Oh, don’t be a baby, Morgan,” Red Hood huffed. “You’ve already died once, what’s this compared to that?”

“Are you always this much of an a-hole, or does it just come naturally?” she muttered, sighing in relief as Alfred put the rag down in the sink.

“Comes naturally,” Harley piped up from her place on Darcy’s bed, swinging her legs back and forth. Darcy was beginning to think it was a continuous habit.

“What are you doing here, Quinn?” Red Hood asked, leaning his hip against the wall. 

“Having a torrid love affair with Selina’s kitten, Robbie 2.0. Ask smarter questions, come on.”

Red Hood spluttered. “Everything that just came out of your mouth was wrong.”

“Pft, whatever. Did you not see the bodies littered around the apartment, lover boy?”

“Why do you think I’m here?” Red Hood huffed.

“Because Cat called you, loser,” Harley snorted. “Now, your big ass head is blocking butler man’s light. My girl needs stitches, bitches. So move.”

He shifted begrudgingly, while Darcy turned a little green. “Oh god, really?”

Alfred sighed, pulling out suture thread, tweezers, and a needle. “I’m afraid so. It’s not sterile to leave such a wide injury. Not to mention the impact it will have on scarring if it’s not tended properly.”

“Morgan, if you pass out from stitches after snapping a man’s neck, I’m never letting you live it down,” Red Hood teased. Darcy knew he was talking about the first time she killed a man, not what had happened tonight, but she still tensed.  

“You turned green while I was watching “The Miracle of Birth” video yesterday, so shut up,” she deflected. 

“National Geographic is just that– graphic ,” he defended when Spoiler and Harley both gave him unimpressed looks.

Alfred quietly took the opportunity to start stitching the cut at Darcy’s temple, making quick work and reminding her at times to relax the scowl on her face so he could stitch the wound properly. 

After chit-chatting for a minute to give Darcy something else to occupy her mind–and to see Red Hood’s body language get twitchy–Harley gave them a dramatic wave and left the apartment. 

Red Hood blew out a relieved breath. “Thank goodness. I thought she’d never leave.”

“I’m honestly shocked you didn’t try to restrain her as soon as you got here,” Darcy said tiredly, plopping down on her bed and grabbing the tee turtle to hug close to her chest. 

“She took care of a problem for us,” he shrugged, “Turnabout is fair play. There was only one casualty–the other three goons he sent were just traumatized and beaten within an inch of their life. Gordon should be here any minute to pick them up."

Spoiler, who had remained quiet for several minutes, spoke up then. 

“We’ve got a problem,” she said. “Cat wanted Darcy to come stay at her complex where it’s safer, but B is staying the night with her now and she says it’s too risky now. And I’m not bringing her back to the manor–that’s equally stupid. I’m an idiot, but at least I’m not stupid.”

“Well, I’m not leaving her here,” Hood huffed, shifting his weight.

“I’m not leaving Emilia here by herself, either,” Darcy said staunchly. “She’s got three little ones and anyone with eyes in their head who’s been observing me knows they mean the world to me. I’m not leaving her here to be targeted.”

Hood sighed. “Yeah, okay. Fair.” He paced back and forth for a moment before his shoulders loosened. “You can stay in one of my safe houses until Selina’s apartment complex is a better option. Emilia and the kids will come, too. We’ll send someone for this stuff tomorrow.”

Darcy’s nose scrunched, then she nodded. “Right. Okay. Let me go across the hall and talk to her.”

Darcy knocked softly on the door to apartment 315, bouncing nervously on her feet as she softly called, “It’s me, Em. Can I…Can I come in?”

Emilia opened the door slowly, peering out and around Darcy before opening the door and motioning her to come in. 

The woman waited for Darcy to sit on the couch before she crossed her arms and gave her the patented Mom ™ look. “Do I need to lecture you on why it was a bad idea to keep me in the dark of your capabilities?”

Darcy winced. “Uh, not really, considering there are two bats in my apartment currently.”

Emilia’s eyes widened. “ The bats are here ?”

“Spoiler and Red Hood, yeah. They took care of the problem for me.”

“I thought you didn’t want the bats involved!”

“I didn’t. But they’re the chill ones who are not going to rat me out to Batman because they think Harley Quinn killed the dude, so we’re cool.”

Emilia snorted, then rubbed her head tiredly. “We are not *cool*, Dalia. This is–this is so far beyond cool, right now. I’m not–I’m not angry at you for being a meta. I promise. I just–I’m angry you didn’t think you could tell me. And that I had to find out like this? What were you going to do before all this happened? Just disappear eventually without telling me why?”

Darcy’s shoulders drooped, and Emilia frowned, recalling the time she had talked the young woman out of bolting for another hidey hole just because Selina Kyle had gotten a little too close to hitting home.

“You were, weren’t you? You tried to. Oh god. Honey, no.”

Darcy gave a lopsided bitter smile. “Yeah, because I was afraid something like this would happen. I didn’t–I didn’t want to put you in any hazardous situations, Emilia.”

“You know I wouldn’t have judged you if you told me, right?” Emilia said quietly. “That I wouldn’t have turned you in? Or turned my back on you?”

Darcy bit her lip. “I did know that. I just–God, I didn’t want to stress you out anymore or put you in any danger. And damn it, if I didn’t do that already.”

“Ten bucks in the swear jar!” Penny piped up, sitting up in the bed. Darcy jumped, and Emilia raised an unamused eyebrow at her oldest.

“Penny, it’s rude to eavesdrop,” she reprimanded gently. 

Penny pouted. “I can’t help it when we live in one big room, Mama!”

Emilia sighed. “Right. Alright. Do you want to step into the hall, Dalia?”

Darcy shook her head. “Uh, no, that’s fine. I just–uh.” She rubbed the back of her neck nervously. “I wanted to let you know that I’m moving out. They’re taking me to a safe house for the next few nights. I–will you come with me?”

Emilia made a face. “With the bats?”
“Yeah.” Darcy nervously moved from one foot to the other. “You can go meet them, if you like. I’ll send them a text and let them know if you want me to stay with the kids.”

Emilia hesitated, then sighed. “Just tell them to come over here. I’ll grab the bug-out bag.”

“You have a bug-out bag?”

Emilia gave her an unimpressed stare.

“Right. Gotham. Sorry.”

“Do you have a mask underneath the hood?” was the first thing Emilia asked Jason when he entered her apartment. Alfred had since left, but Red Hood and Spoiler had stuck around to meet Emilia and hopefully take them to a safe house. 

“I do.”

“I see. Would you take off the helmet for just a moment?”

Hood hesitated, but slowly undid the latches on the helmet and took off the mask, much to Spoiler and Darcy’s surprise. Emilia’s eyes narrowed, then widened but she quickly erased any evidence of surprise from her face, replacing it with firm indifference. “Humph. Not what I was expecting. You can put it back on.”

Darcy was looking nervously between the two individuals, worry creasing her brow. Her anxiety eased when Emilia turned around and nodded sharply at her. “They’re safe. We’ll go with them.”

Darcy let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. “Okay. Alright. Okay.”

Emilia rolled her eyes. “Stop catastrophizing, Dalia. We’ll be fine. It’s the Bats, for crying out loud. And the cool bats, at that.”

Spoiler made finger guns at them both, and Darcy sighed. This situation was only asking for trouble. 

Chapter Text

Day 128: Emilia

Dalia was silent on the ride to the promised safe house, and Emilia’s lips thinned with worry for her friend. It was just her, her kids, Dalia, and Red Hood in the car. Spoiler had decided to head out on her own, noting that she didn’t want to make Dalia more uncomfortable with her presence.

Emilia had a feeling it was really because Spoiler recognized she was hyping the kids up with her exuberant energy and it was way past their bedtime; Dalia didn't seem uncomfortable in the slightest, if anything she was perfectly at ease with the female Bat. Alfred had gone with her, citing some excuse of taking care of some other pressing matters. 

“Hey,” Emilia whispered, laying a hand gently on her friend’s leg. “Are you okay?”

Dalia’s eyes filled and she shook her head silently, staring at the window, at the floorboard, anywhere but Emilia. 

“You’re asking me if I’m okay? You just had your life upended because your neighbor didn’t stay away when she should have. God, Emilia. This is my fault and you’re just–you’re just sitting there calmly!”

Emilia snorted. “Dalia, sweetie, this is Gotham. I promise it’s not the worst thing that has ever happened to me, or even the strangest. My life isn’t upended–I wanted to get out of that dingy apartment anyway–-too many Rogue attacks nearby for me to raise my kids there, ya know?”

Dalia curled in on herself, and Emilia unbuckled and crawled over to sit next to her in the closest empty seat. Penny scolded her mother, eyes wide that she would break the rules she had drilled into her own children’s head. Emilia soothed her ruffled feathers and settled in next to her friend, leaning her head against her shoulder. 

Emilia didn’t need the comfort so much as she knew Dalia needed the acknowledgement that she still trusted her with her life. The poor girl must have gone through so much–Emilia was determined to get the full story, even if it took years for Dalia to know she could trust her. It would be worth it, Emilia knew–and interesting, seeing the people in Dalia’s circles. Speaking of interesting circles…

Emilia leaned forward to tap their driver on the shoulder. “Hood, I swear that if you don’t slow your tail down in this traffic, my kids will have your soul for breakfast.”

Red Hood looked back at her incredulously–well, as much as he could with his helmet in the way. “I’m sorry, what?”

Penny cackled. “I eat my eggs with the souls of the corrupt every day! Mwahaha!”

Emilia gave her an impressed look, then rolled her eyes. “You’ve been spending too much time with Dalia, I see.”

Dalia coughed. “Hey! Excuse you, I have flair! It’s part of the Dalia Experience!”

Hood mumbled something about an experience and Emilia took the opportunity to kick his seat for it. “Hey, you, hush. Little pitchers have big ears.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Mess around and find out,” she snarked, settling back into her seat. She was going to have a lot of fun confronting Hood when she could get him away from Dalia for a second.

“Why don’t you go take a shower, sweetie?” Emilia said sweetly when they arrived at the safe house. She herded her kids into a bedroom with two beds, putting Dan and Emmie in one bed and putting Penny in the other with the plan to lay down beside her later. Kissing them gently on the heads and promising to return in just a moment, Emilia shut the door to the room and began her campaign on getting Dalia freshened up and into some clean clothes. 

Dalia looked down at herself in disgust and nodded. “Right. Uh, Hood? Where is the–”

“Two doors down on the left,” he pointed. “Towels are in the cabinet next to the sink. Sorry I don’t have any, uh, girly soap. It’s all Old Spice or something.”

Dalia chuckled and grabbed some clothes from her bag to change into. Whenever Emilia heard the water start finally, she turned to Hood with her hands on her hips. 

“You are in so much trouble, Mister.”

He held up his hands placatingly. “Whoa, wait a minute. What did I do?”

“You want to tell me exactly why you faked your death and then returned all these years later?”

The man shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Emilia snorted. “Oh please, Jason Todd. Like you really don’t know.”

The helmet came off. “How the hell did you figure it out?” he asked in resignation, running a hand stressfully through his hair. 

“Oh, don’t look so freaked out. I figured out Selina was Catwoman a week after you introduced me to her. Figuring out you were the second Robin wasn’t hard–especially not when you kept me out of trouble on the streets. Did you forget how many times you kept me from starving? Or when you rescued me from those traffickers by punching Ben Davis in the face to cause a distraction? Not to mention both the second Robin and the Jason I knew corrected my punches the same way. I’d know you anywhere. Also, you got cocky and took your helmet off when I asked you to. You have a distinct jawline, remember?”

Jason’s eyes were wide behind the Domino mask. “And you didn’t say a word to anyone else about me? To none of the people we knew in common?”

“Why would I? It didn’t matter to me–it made sense, if anything.”

Jason shook his head. “God. So when everything happened—”

“I mourned you. Yeah. It sucked.”

Jason sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry. I–I didn’t fake my death. I actually died. And was resuscitated, I guess you could say. It had side effects. Like Dalia’s, actually.”

Emilia stared at him carefully, before she huffed. “So, Dalia died, too. Lovely to know.”

He blinked at her and Emilia snorted. “I met her just before she dyed her hair. Putting two and two together wasn’t hard. A distinct white stripe and what appears to be similar meta abilities? C’mon, Todd, you know I’m scrappier than I look.”

“Yeah, I guess I just forgot,” he muttered, looking a little distraught. “Did Dalia ever, uh, give any hints about what happened to her?”

“Cause of death? No. She doesn’t talk much at all about life before Gotham. All I know is that she was a foster kid until sixteen–and that she has a degree from Culver. But that’s it. If you want more, you can ask her yourself.”

“Right. Okay. Thanks.”

“Just–Don’t hurt her. That’s all I ask. I know accidents happen, but that girl is too precious to be hurt on purpose. Step carefully.”

Jason swallowed. “I will.”

Emilia walked up to him and gave him a quick hug. “Thank you. Dalia needs help, and I don’t know how to give it to her. This is so far out of my wheelhouse.”

Jason sighed, hugging her back before stepping away. “I know what you mean. If she’ll accept the help, then we’ll do as much as we can. But from experience as someone who was going through what she is, space is a necessity if it’s demanded. When people are breathing down your neck 24/7, it’s bad news.”

The door to the bathroom opened, and Dalia padded out wearing a t-shirt and a pair of comfy shorts, her hair wrapped up in a towel on her head. 

Emilia gave Jason a short nod. “I’m going to shower myself. Dalia, keep an ear out for my kiddos?”

“You know it, Mama Bear,” Dalia grinned back, giving her two big thumbs up. “I do so solemnly swear to use my enhanced hearing for the greater good of babysitting.”

Emilia rolled her eyes but left to take a shower. Maybe, despite everything happening right now, the change would be good for all of them. 

Day 128: Darcy and Jason

Darcy was left with Jason after Emilia took off for the shower, lifting a hand to steady the towel wrapped around her curls. Now that most of the Bats were aware of who and where she was, Darcy really wanted to go back to her natural color. She missed the boring brown curls, and she really hoped that dying her hair wouldn’t be counted among the worst mistakes she had made when it came to caring for her hair. 

“Your head looks like it hurts,” Jason said quietly, moving beside her to grab a cup from the cabinet behind her.

Darcy moved her hand to gently feel the edges of the stitches Alfred placed, wincing when her frown pulled the skin uncomfortably. “Yeah, kinda. At least it will heal fast. Not to mention I’m not dead. That’s fun.”

Jason smiled. “Right. Not being dead is fun.”

“Not when it comes to the side effects sometimes,” Darcy grumbled. “I uh, might have broken your bathroom sink’s faucet. I’m sorry–I thought I’d figured out how to tone the extra strength down, but…well.”

“It only broke because I already broke it,” he replied in amusement. “It’s alright.”

Darcy grinned. “Well, that’s good to know.”

“Speaking of toning strength down, Selina mentioned you were working on that with her.”

“Yeah, I’m slowly getting the hang of it. I don’t want to kill anybody when I’m only trying to incapacitate them.”

“Right.” Jason shifted from one foot to the other. “You could always spar with me if you wanted to. Since we’re on a similar level strength and durability wise, you wouldn’t have to hold back. I certainly won’t.”

Darcy looked thoughtful. “I’ll think about it. I’m not sure how we could arrange that safely–we don’t want to draw attention to the gym–but maybe if we could, I wouldn’t mind.”

Internally, she was cringing because how on earth was she supposed to handle sparring with that? She would implode before she could wrestle with him without being distracted.

“Excellent.”

He was scrutinizing her, and Darcy’s cheeks started to warm long before he gently reached out to palm the side of her face and stare at the cut. His fingers gently felt the skin around the wound, checking for warmth that would indicate trouble later. 

The heat from the blush made him frown, and Darcy, uncomfortable with the idea of explaining why she was blushing, instead snarked, “What are you going to do, kiss it better?”

Jason’s eyes sparked, then he smirked, leaning down to gently kiss the bruised skin around the cut. He wasn’t stupid enough to kiss the cut itself–he was sure Alfred would wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and then immediately bring his wrath down upon him. 

Darcy’s eyes fluttered shut, and when she opened them, Jason’s gut tightened at the reflecting fire. She stood on her tiptoes, drawing his head down to meet hers. His lips pressed gently to hers, and Darcy was in heaven. Her hand found the back of his head, tugging his hair, and the kiss deepened. He moved his hand to her waist, and the warmth there made Darcy's toes curl. She sighed in delight, and Jason's lips twitched in amusement before he was kissing her again and--

And, of course, that's when Emilia walked in and immediately balked, walking back out. 

“Oh my god, I am so sorry! I did not–ugh. I’m going to just go back to bed. It is too darn late to be dealing with this.

Darcy listened as the woman’s feet pattered quickly back to the room where her children were sleeping, chuckling when she saw Jason’s expression. “Are you pouting?”

“No!” he said sullenly. “I’m not!”

Darcy started to giggle. “Oh my goodness, you are.”

He scowled at her, causing Darcy to laugh harder, but his frown eased when she pulled him gently down to her, kissing him sweetly for a brief second before she pulled back, patted him on the cheek, and left the room, leaving Jason staring after her with wide eyes, lifting a hand to touch his burning lips.

Day 128: The Iceberg Lounge

In a different area of Gotham that night, a man with a large black eye—and a limp, when he was walking—was shakily relaying a report to his superior, who was stewing in his ornate chair as the explanation continued. 

“You mean to tell me that this lab tech from Wayne Enterprises killed Branted, incapacitated Moores, and then Harley Quinn beat your sorry arse outside the building you didn’t even manage to enter?”

“Y-yes.”

“Hmph. So Quinn is interested, too.”

“Sir, if I–”

“Unless you have a way to knock Quinn out of commission so I can get my hands on the woman, I suggest you shut your trap and leave.”

“I–I heard a conversation, actually. The apartment window was open, and I was leaving as quickly as I could–but–”

The man in the chair raised a bored eyebrow “If it was just woman gossip, I’ll hand you my gun and you can shoot yourself. Save me the trouble.”

The goon’s throat bobbed in terror. “She–she was talking about leaving the Joker.”

He sat forward in shock. “Quinn? Leave the Joker?”

“She’s thinking about it. Or that’s what I heard, anyway.”

“Thank you, Chandless. This is exactly what I need to get Quinn’s nose out of this. You! Get the car ready.”

The Penguin smiled sinisterly as he exited the room, saying over his shoulder to the white-faced goon, “I’ve got an amusing visit to make.”

Chapter Text

Day 129: Darcy

Darcy was kicking herself all night for kissing Jason.

“This isn’t a good idea, Darcy,” she told herself, taking her wet hair out of the towel and combing her fingers through her damp curls. “This is such a bad idea, in fact.”

She had to get back. Maybe not to her world–though, maybe it was possible–but maybe to a universe very near her own. Did she want to return to her old world when she didn’t know what would be waiting for her? The nightmares hinted that no, she did not logically want to, despite her heart aching for Jane and the others she left behind. 

Sighing, she dug through the few things she brought with her to the safe house to find her notebook. Climbing onto the bed, she clicked her pen and began to jot down some notes. 

“It’s big brain time, Darcy,” she whispered to herself. “The Multiverse Theory is obviously real. So, with that in mind…”

Darcy stayed up into the wee hours of the night with a notebook and pen, writing out everything she knew on the theories that could have gotten her to where she was now. Equations covered the front and back of multiple notebook pages, her mind whirring. 

She could build an Einstein-Rosen bridge. What was a Dimension Transporter?

It was a bitch, apparently. Darcy threw her notebook down angrily when the sun began to peek in through the window of the safe house apartment. 

She threw her hair into a bun and trudged from the room to the kitchen when she heard the coffee pot start brewing. 

Jason blinked at her. “Oh hell no. Uh uh. Go back to bed.”

Darcy's eyebrow rose. “What?”

“I’ve dealt with sleepy geniuses who think they’re gods before, and we are not doing this today, thank you. You must take at least a two hour nap before I’ll even consider allowing you half a cup of this blessed liquid.”

Darcy grimaced. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“Why not?”

She crossed her arms and shrugged.

Jason’s expression softened. “Nightmares. Understood. Want to sit on the couch with me, To–” He stopped for a minute, a thought crossing his mind. “Uh, hey, while I’m thinking about it, what do you want me to call you? I noticed Emilia calls you Dalia…”

Darcy winced. “Oh. Right. Um, yeah. Dalia is fine. I’ll tell her about the whole other names thing when she gets a moment with the kids. I–I think she’ll understand. She knows I was on the run.” Darcy pattered behind Jason and muttered to herself, “Am on the run.”

“You don’t have to be.”

Darcy blinked at him. “What?”

“On the run. I mean, the Wayne kids all figured it out. Selina figured it out. B is the only one who hasn’t, but that’s because we’re all little shits, and he deserves to flounder a little bit. It knocks his head down a few sizes.”

Darcy snorted, but she tucked the comment away for further thought later. 

Jason sat on the couch, patting the cushion beside him in invitation. Darcy was quick to curl up, tucking her feet up beside her on the cushion after she sat. 

They sat quietly together for several long moments in awkward silence before Darcy blurted, “I, uh, killed another guy.”

Jason blinked at her. “Uh…when?”

Darcy flushed scarlet. “Shit. I didn’t mean to say that.”

Jason waved a hand. “Eh. You’re wiped. It’s okay. But, uh, when? And, ya know, for reasons, what exactly were the circumstances?"

Darcy groaned. “The one goon that was dead last night? That was me, not Harley. But it was in self-defense–I swear that I didn’t know his neck would break like that. I’m still figuring out strength issues and–and ugh, it made this awful sound and—”

Jason squeezed her calf in an attempt to calm her down and halt her panicked blubbering. 

“Dalia, self-defense is a different story than murdering someone. Those goons that were at your apartment last night? I guarantee that they wouldn’t think twice about blowing your brains out. And that might not have even been the worst of it, considering who they work for. The big ol’ Bat isn’t going to punish you for acting in self-defense. If he did, Selina would have him on the couch for the rest of his life. Not to mention how his kids would react. I know you’ve just met most of them, but half of them–like at least three–were assassins and murderers before he set them straight. Myself included. Why do you think he wanted to find you so badly?”

At Darcy’s confused expression, Jason rolled his eyes. “ Please . I can tell just by looking at you that I’m going to have to beat B back with a stick to keep from trying to adopt you. He remembers very well what I was like when I came out of the Pits. It…wasn’t a good place, to say the least. Though I’m sure you heard the rumors when you were looking into our backgrounds as Bats.”

Darcy swallowed thickly. “The uh, whole mob bosses’ heads delivered to the GCPD in a duffel bag. Yeah, I’m aware that you were uh…kinda off there in the deep end for a little while.”

His laugh was sprinkled with bitterness all too familiar to Darcy.

“To say the least. If he can spare another person what I went through, he will. He’s looking for you because there’s a chance you’re dangerous–but also because with what we’ve dealt with in the past, he knows how to help you.”

“I tased him,” Darcy said sourly. “How much do you think he really wants to know me?

Jason’s eyes lit up with delight. “I actually think that impressed him, in a weird way. I know Tim was elated to add even more posters around the house: he already has the ones where you’re flipping B off plastered wherever he can use command strips or putty and not have Alfred yell at him.”

Darcy groaned. “That’s hilarious and all, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to meet him. I’d rather get this Penguin situation figured out first.”

“It may be a good idea to just bite the bullet, Dalia. That way if something happens, we can get B involved in the case.”

“Right.” Darcy rubbed her forehead tiredly. “Two weeks. I’ll meet him in two weeks.”

Jason’s grin was bright. “Excellent.”

Darcy’s shoulders loosened a little, but then she was hunching in on herself again, her eyes filling with tears. “Jason, I killed a man. Again . ”

He sat up a little straighter. “The first time it happened. Was it that night you first ran into the Cat? Was that the first time you had ever, uh, off’d someone?”

“I’ve been around death,” she said slowly. “But as far as killing someone? I was a scientist, not a hired gun. So, no. Severely injured, yes, but I’ve never killed someone before I came to Gotham.”

“Geez, no wonder you don’t want to sleep.” He pulled her into a firm hug, and Darcy stiffened before she relaxed into it a little bit. He set a hand gently on her hair, and asked softly, “May I?”

She nodded, pulling her hair down from its messy bun and lightly shaking it out. “Let me grab a brush.”

“No need. I have a comb on the table right here. I do this for Cass and Stephanie sometimes, when they have bad nights.”

As Jason combed her hair, Darcy fought hard against the heaviness of her eyelids until Jason spoke again. 

“I promise I’ll wake you up if you start having bad dreams, Dalia.”

She hesitated, but then nodded carefully. “Okay. Just–stay?”

“Whatever you need,” Jason whispered in response.

And, true to his word, Jason was there when she woke up hours later in the afternoon, a book in his hands. Emilia was nearby as well, reading a book of her own, and sweet Penny was attempting to emulate both of them with her own picture book in her hands. The babies, Emilia told her after seeing her worry, were fast asleep for a nap. Darcy had been so exhausted that she had slept through their first few hours of pattering around the apartment.

Truly, however, it was for the best. She had needed a few hours of peaceful rest. And, thanks to Jason’s warm presence nearby, she had gotten it.

Day 128: The Night Prior

When his goon’s head–and just the head, violently detached from his body if the ragged and bleeding edges of the neck were anything to go by–was thrown down the steps of the building, a haunting grimace reminiscent of crazed laughter on his frozen lips, Penguin hummed to himself in delight. 

“I see the news has been met with the expected reaction,” he said pleasantly to the guard accompanying him, who was pale after hearing the Joker’s crazed ranting and subsequent actions against his fellow guard who delivered the news of Harley Quinn’s intentions.

“Oh, don’t look so disturbed, Bonley. Chandless’s life was a…worthy sacrifice to get me what I want. After all, imagine if I had been the one to break the news.” Cobblepot tutted. “No, that simply wouldn’t do, now would it? What good are nefarious plans when you’re dead?”

The goon swallowed nervously. “No good, boss.”

“Right on the nose! Come along, then. Our work here is done.”

If Bonley drove a little faster than normal, well, who could blame him? The Penguin, at least, was a decent mob boss at times. Far from the tales of horror he had heard about those who worked for the Joker.

From what he had witnessed tonight, he had no desire to ever cross paths with the Joker, and he decided to stay as far away from the villain’s men as possible. 

Only the insane worked for the insane, he reasoned. 

Day 129: Darcy 

After waking up from her nap, Darcy reluctantly asked Jason a question. 

“Hey, Hoodie Boy. I need a favor.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. How difficult do you think it would be to access the labs at Wayne Enterprises without Lucius Fox or your father breathing down my neck?”

Jason was quiet for a long moment before he spoke with a mischievous tone. “Well, you know, Replacement and Demon Spawn are really invested in your future as a possible employee of theirs.”

“Yes?”

“So…If it would get you on their good side, I think that they could be convinced to guard you at WE.”

“Huh. You think so?”

“I think so.”

“Cool. Alright, so this is what I need in the meantime…”

Day 130: Tim

“You’re kidding. Oh, no, you’re serious. Oh my gosh, okay.” Tim rubbed his forehead tiredly. He had not had enough coffee to deal with this. “You’re telling me that I need to find a way to get her into Wayne Industries without Fox or Dad catching on?”

Jason grinned. “Bingo, Tiimmy Boy. Have a gold sticker.”

“Condescending ass,” Tim grumbled. “What do I get out of it?”

“Um, I don’t know, an increased chance that she’ll come work for you instead of B?”

Tim raised an unimpressed eyebrow and Jason continued with, “...and bragging rights over Damian that I came to you first?”

Tim snorted, taking a long swill of his espresso. “Bet. Let’s go.”

Jason pumped his fist. “YES! Thanks, pal.”

“Yeah, yeah, I scored you brownie points with your girlfriend. I’ll cash in my favor at a later date.”

“She, uh, isn’t my girlfriend.”

“Might as well be. You’ve had movie dates on the couch and she’s living in your safe house. And she’s a badass. If you don’t marry her, Damian will. Or, worse, Bruce will adopt her and then neither of you have a chance.”

Jason spluttered. “I know we don’t exactly follow the law in some regards, but that’s a big NOPE. Damian is fourteen .”

“And you take forever to get your feelings out. Like, four years probably.”

Jason tripped his brother, cackling madly as he raced away to escape Tim’s wrath. 

Day 135: Tim

Tim had spent all of three days sneaking Toni into Wayne Industries after hours to access her research and he was convinced the woman was not from this world.

She mumbled to herself constantly about star systems being slightly off from what she was used to, about bilgesnipe (whatever those were), and alternative dimensions. 

To say Tim was a little concerned about what his family had gotten caught up in now was an understatement. So, he got another party involved.

“Okay, Clark, hear me out. I really need you to do me a favor.”

“Tim, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’m trying to figure out where Jason’s girlfriend came from, right? There’s no record of her aliases being used prior to Gotham. And there’s no facial recognition popping up from anywhere outside of Gotham. It’s like she was just…dropped from the sky or something?”

Clark raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “You want me to see if she’s an alien, don’t you?”

Tim rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, haha, yeah.”

Clark rolled his eyes. “And your father cannot know because?”

“Who said my father couldn’t know?”

“If you really wanted to figure out if she was an alien, Bruce would have all the tools you’d need.”

Tim swallowed. “Uh. Well, see, he doesn’t really know Jason has a girlfriend? He just thinks that maybe Jason is finally more chill all by himself. Which, ha, tough luck there. But it’s really really really important that Bruce doesn’t find out about her because Jason will actually kill me.”

Clark blinked. “I’m…not sure what to say about that. I don’t feel comfortable–”

“I’ll tell Louis that it wasn’t Jon who broke her favorite mug last year. You know, the one she’s had since she graduated college? The gift from her dead grandmother?”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I soooo would.”

Clark sighed, pushed back his desk chair, and looked at Tim. “Alright, fine. But you owe me a favor.”

Tim nodded gleefully. “YES! Thank you! She should be coming out of Selina’s gym at eight tonight. We should keep a low profile and not dress up in eye-catching costumes. We’ll just…pass her on the street casually?”

Clark’s eye twitched, but he agreed.

Clark was staring at Toni with wide eyes.

“Uh, hey, maybe tone down the intensity?” Tim winced. “She’s got this freaky ability to know when she has eyes on her, so maybe don’t do that ?”

“My god,” Clark whispered.

“What? What is it?”

Clark turned on his heel and began to speed walk quickly in the opposite direction the woman was walking. Tim followed, jogging to keep up. “Clark, whoa. What happened?”

“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life, Tim. It’s like…It’s like she was melted down and then reconstructed.”

Tim blinked. “Huh?”

“It was like she was incinerated and then built back up from charred atoms, Tim. But she’s healed. I’m not sure–what could cause that?”

“She was in the Lazarus pits?”

Clark gave Tim an unimpressed look. “So that’s why you don’t want your dad finding out about her. Jason’s girlfriend is the girl from that case he can’t solve, isn’t she?”

Tim winced. “Uh…if I don’t tell you, then you can say you didn’t know.”

Clark grumbled. “But even with the Lazarus pits, that kind of reconstruction isn’t possible. There’s more than just the pits at work.”

“So I was right! She is an alien!”

“Have you tested her DNA?”

Tim wilted a little bit. “Yeah. Says she’s human. But there’s some weird energy signatures there.”

Clark looked thoughtful. “Hmmm. Send me those results–I’ll try to find a way to get around your father’s nosiness and figure out what’s going on. But Tim?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t keep it from him too long, alright, son? He’s about to drive everyone crazy.”

Tim winced. “Uh, from what Jason was telling me the other day, they’re planning on telling him next week. So, uh, hang in there?”

Clark huffed, adjusting his glasses. “Fine.”

Day 135: Selina

Bruce looked at his lovely fiance, the skin between his eyes tightening at her tense look. They were sitting on the balcony of their room at the manor, sipping the coffee Alfred brought up to them after their late morning in bed. Selina hadn’t slept well–she had tossed and turned into the wee hours of the morning. And now, she was staring out into the gardens, her lips thin and her knuckles holding the mug in her hands far too tightly. 

“What is it, sweetheart?”

“I need to go talk to someone later tonight. Something’s not right.”

“Someone I know?”

Selina gave him an odd smile, but it was pained. “You’ve met, briefly. She is an acquaintance of Harley’s who worked at Wayne Enterprises.”

Bruce’s eyes widened. “But we do extensive background checks!”

Selina snorted. “She’s not a spy, Bruce. Calm down. She met Harley after she started working for your precious company. And she’s not there anymore anyway.”

He nodded, but his eyes were still worried. “What is it? Really?”

Selina blew on her coffee, though it was long since cool enough to drink. She just needed something to distract her so she could say quietly, “I haven’t heard from Harley in a few days.”

Bruce frowned. “I haven’t either. Maybe–”

“Bruce, she texts someone in this family every day of the week. And no one has heard from her.”

“What do you think the other woman knows?”

“I don’t know. But that’s the last I heard of Harley being spotted out somewhere.”

He took the mug out of her hands and set it gently on the small table in front of them, taking the hand with his engagement ring into his own. “Please be careful, Selina. Call for backup if you need it."

Selina gave him a sly smile, though the stress was still evident in the way she held her shoulders. “I’ll be with Jason, love. We’ll be fine.”

Bruce shuddered. “Don’t jinx it.”

Chapter Text

Day 135: Darcy

Darcy knocked gently on Emilia’s door after the kids were laid down for bed. It was late, and she had just gotten back from Wayne Enterprises, Tim managing again to sneak her into the labs without Fox or Bruce noticing. It was a fairly difficult task to sneak her in, but Darcy was more or less getting to the point where she didn’t care if Bruce figured out she was there or not. 

From her conversations with Selina, Alfred, and Jason, she was beginning to realize that the big bad Bat was more concerned that someone was going through what Jason had and that the League of Assassins–kind of like the Ten Rings and the Red Room, from what little she had heard–was somehow involved than he was concerned about Darcy being a meta. 

Which was a relief, honestly, because Darcy wasn’t sure how she was going to be able to slide past the secretary by playing the part of Drake’s overworked PA without Bruce or Fox noticing that suddenly Drake was much more competent at his job.

Darcy fell back into the habit of taking care of over-caffeinated and unrested geniuses who were running billion dollar companies way too easily for someone who was frequently also over-caffeinated and running on fumes herself. Screw you, Tony Stark, for having way too much influence on me , she scolded in her mind. 

But really, it wasn’t like she could just sit back and watch Tim Drake run himself into the ground. The man had bags under his eyes heavier than Thor’s hammer, and he was doing her a favor. 

Damian had wanted to attempt the task, something about trying to get in her good graces so she would work for him one day, but even he had to grudgingly admit that showing a sudden interest in the business when he was so likely to grumble about having to spend time at Wayne Enterprises was a red flag for even the most unobservant person, much less the “World’s Greatest Detective.”

Darcy really hoped the Bat children had given Wayne a terrible fair-winning blue ribbon at some point for earning that moniker. 

Emilia opened the door quietly and slipped out. “Hey, Dal. What’s up?”

Darcy bobbed her head towards the living room, and Emilia nodded. They sat on the couch, Darcy nervously refusing to make eye contact with her friend. 

“Alright, come on, spill,” Emilia coaxed. “Is this about the thing going on between you and Jason?”

Darcy blinked at her. “ What ?”

Emilia rolled her eyes. “Please, I’m not blind. I walked in on you two kissing! There is some chemistry!” Emilia sang, wiggly excitedly in her seat. “Don’t deny it, boo!”

Darcy winced. Her feelings for Jason were the last thing she wanted to talk about right now. They weren’t exactly at an easy point in their friendship currently–after the kiss a few nights ago and spilling her guts the morning after, Darcy had become more and more withdrawn, recognizing that her desire to go home far outweighed her slowly budding feelings for Jason. So, she shut that crap down. And Jason seemed to realize that—she hadn’t seen him in the safe house for several days, though Emilia mentioned that he came in every day while she was at WE to check on them and to bring the kids some kind of goody he had picked up for them.

“That’s…not actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” Darcy said softly. 

“Oh. Well, we’re talking about that later for sure, then. But what’s up?”

“My name is, uh, not really Dalia,” she said shyly, looking at the ceiling. 

“I’m aware,” Emilia said with some humor in her voice. “No one on the run uses their real name. It’s just the one you gave me, so it’s the one I use. I don’t need your real name. Not until you’re ready to give it to me. Plus,” she said teasingly, “If the police come knocking I can claim ignorance of what they’re talking about.”

Darcy gave her a hesitant smile at her crack. “I–I trust you. You were my first friend here. Just–don’t tell anyone else, yet? I–I don’t think I’m ready for everyone to know.”

Emilia smiled softly at her, understanding that it took a lot of trust for her to tell her the truth. “I promise.”

Darcy exhaled. “Thank you. I–picked a name that was close, somewhat. My name is Darcy.”

Emilia grinned. “So I can still call you D? Awesome! ”

Tears filled Darcy’s eyes. How on earth did someone as unlucky as Darcy Lewis manage to get lucky enough to gain a friend like Emilia? And what on earth had the woman been through to be so easily accepting of her? Darcy was morosely curious and simultaneously refusing to entertain the negative ideas of her friend’s past life. They were both, in their own ways, content to have a deep relationship while only scratching the surface of their pasts. 

They chatted about a few things here and there, before Emilia finally got up the courage to ask carefully, “How did you die?”

Darcy looked at her in surprise. “What?”

“Jason said he died and was resurrected with meta capabilities. It’s not hard to put two and two together when your hair was so similar to his, Darcy.” She said the new name carefully, like she was struggling to get used to it. 

Darcy swallowed thickly. “I don’t really like to think about it, Em. Mostly because–well, mostly because I don’t know how I died. There are these flashes that I can’t distinguish between memories or nightmares. Beyond those? I have no idea.”

“So what is your hypothesis, then?”

Darcy stilled, thinking back to the bad dreams that plagued her rest lately. 

“I remember feeling like I was on fire,” she said carefully.

Emilia swallowed at the haunted look in her friend’s eyes. “What happens in the dreams?”

Darcy shivered. “I–everything was burning. Not on fire–but burning. Everything was melting around me. My friend was screaming, crying for someone to come help. Everything was so loud . Everyone was screaming. Dying. And I am, too. And then it feels like I’m being pulled apart, stripped down to the very last cell in my body. Everything dissolves. And then it stops. And starts all over again. And, eventually, I wake up.”

“Gosh, that’s–that’s horrible.”

Darcy deeply appreciated Emilia’s ability to leave it at that when she didn’t have the right words. It was awful, Darcy knew–horribly morbid. 

The more the dreams happened, the clearer they were, and the more Darcy had the uneasy feeling that they were more than dreams. She knew she had died–but the reason as to why had eluded her until she admitted that maybe her dreams were a reality. But even if that were the case, she didn’t know what had happened. And that bothered Darcy. 

Their morose chat was drawn to a swift close when Selina came striding into the apartment, the door banging the wall behind her. She shut it quickly, tucking her lock picks back into hidden pockets quickly.

“What is it?” Darcy asked wearily, seeing the tension in Selina’s shoulders and moving past the surprise at the unexpected appearance.

“Harley’s missing.”

Day 135: Selina

“What do you mean she’s missing?” Darcy exhaled sharply, her eyes wide.

“I was hoping you might know,” Selina said, careful to keep any accusation from her voice. She wasn’t here to accuse Darcy. Far from it–she knew the girl didn’t have anything to do with the disappearance. She was hoping, however, that the girl knew something that could help them.

“When did you hear from her last?'

“Two days after she came to your rescue.” Selina’s face looked drawn. “So five days. She does this sometimes, but it’s becoming less and less usual, and on the third day I check in on her. But she wasn’t at her apartment or Ivy’s, and she wasn’t in any of her other usual haunts either. I can’t find her.”

The door opened again, this time with a key, and Jason came strutting in, posture tense. “Hey, Cat. What did you call me here for?”

“Harley’s missing,” Darcy said, biting her lip. “I haven’t heard from her for a few days, either. But Harley and I don’t talk every day, so I didn’t think it was too odd.”

Jason turned to Selina, frowning. “He’s in Arkham, right?”

Selina inhaled sharply. “I didn’t do more than a cursory check of the security logs. The cameras show he’s in there. I was going to investigate again after I spoke with Dalia.” Addressing said woman, she asked, “Is there anything you can think of from that night that might help? Anything weird or off about Harley’s character? Or did something happen before other help was there?”

Darcy frowned. “I can’t really think of anything.”

“No conversations that might give us a lead?” Selina probed gently. 

“No, none that I can think of. All we talked about was—” Darcy’s speech halted, and her face began to take on a sickly pallor that had Selina’s own emotions tripping in panic. 

“Dalia?” Jason said carefully. “What was said?”

“I–oh. Oh no. This is my fault.”

Selina grabbed her arms to pull her out of her spiraling panic. “Dalia. What do you mean? What is your fault?”

“That night. I didn’t–I didn’t think. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth in the first place, and the window was open, and—”

Emilia turned Darcy’s head towards her. “Hey, hey, hey. Breathe for a second. You’re rambling. No one can help your friend if they can’t figure out what you’re saying.”

Darcy blew out a frazzled breath. “Right. Right.”

Jason hesitated, looking like he wanted to go to Darcy and comfort her…but he didn’t. and Selina frowned at the lack of interaction between the two, but shelved the worry for now. She had other, more pressing, items demanding her attention. Like her missing friend.

“Can you tell me what you said?” Selina asked carefully. “Why did it matter that the window was open?”

The girl looked like she was going to start hyperventilating again. “I can’t remember exactly what was said. But I remember the conversation was centered around her leaving the Joker. She wants to, but she’s afraid of what will happen to other people if she does.”

Selina felt the blood leave her face. Jason’s lips were similarly white with ill nerves. 

He grabbed his helmet, digging through a drawer in the kitchen for extra mags to carry. 

“Jay, sit this one out,” Selina said breathlessly, checking her own inventory of weapons on her person. 

“No.” His voice was cold, carefully filtered of the rage she could see burning behind his bright green irises. “I’m not going to let him take another one, Selina. That’s not happening.”

Selina swallowed. “Your father—”

“Will be called immediately. I’m not going alone. I’m taking Dick and Cass.”

“After what happened a few years ago, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Selina protested, her eyes showing the strain of the situation bearing down on her. 

Jason’s eyes met hers, and then he was shoving his helmet on and leaving the apartment, leaving Darcy alone with Selina. 

The girl looked to her at his abrupt departure, and Selina sighed as she vaguely said, “We all have our demons. Some are just more corporeal than others. And they wear a smiling mask to cover their grotesque forms.”

Selina moved for the door, and Darcy scrambled to her feet to follow her. Selina shook her head. “No. Stay here. Emilia needs you to stay.”

Emilia, who had thus far sat silently on the couch, shook her head, ignoring Selina’s pointed glare. “No. If Darcy needs to go, she should go. I won’t hold her here under the guise of protection. We’ll be fine.”

Selina stared at her, then shook her head. “I’m sending Alfred for you. Be ready to leave within the hour. I’m not easy about leaving you here alone. He’ll bring you somewhere much safer.”

“Uh, Selina? Aren’t you forgetting something? Like, I don’t know, secret identities?” Emilia offered, wincing. 

Selina rolled her eyes. “Please. You’ve known who I am for years, as well as who I’m with as a civilian. You’re not as intelligent as I trained you to be if you haven’t figured out identities. And, since I know that’s not the case, I also know you can be trusted not to shout out identities of vigilantes from the rooftops. I have complete confidence in you, really.”

Darcy filed that information away for later. 

Emilia looked ready to argue, but Selina held up her hand. “This is for the best. Alfred will be delighted to have little feet pattering around again. The kids will learn some responsibility. We can focus on the mission knowing you’re safe. Please, Em.”

Emilia sighed, but nodded. “Alright. I’ll have everything ready. Do you think he could help me carry kids out? I don’t want to wake the youngest ones.”

Day 135: Jason

The security systems at Arkham did show the Joker was still present in his appropriate cell, but Jason’s skin was still crawling. He thanked his lucky stars for the mask over his face, because otherwise Dick would have hauled him out without allowing any arguments if he had seen the stricken look Jason was wearing underneath the metal at seeing his murderer again. 

It was bad enough that Cass, dressed as Black Bat, was already eyeing him warily, reading his body language with her uncanny but oh-so-helpful observational skills that were the main reason for her presence here at Arkham. He tilted his head towards the monitor, and she turned back to it with a deep frown.  

Observing the man, Cass’s eyes widened, and she turned to Dick and signed a flurry of frantic words. 

Dick’s shoulders tensed, and that told Jason all he needed to know.

“I want to talk to him,” Jason snarled. 

“Not happening, Hood,” his brother said firmly. 

“I wasn’t asking.” Jason shoved past Dick, shouldering him out of the way as he strode purposefully to the cell that was supposed to contain the Joker. The guards hesitated, but the longer he stood there, brooding angrily, the more uncomfortable they got until they finally opened the door for him. 

His skin kept crawling, pulsing with the uneasiness of being so close to the man in the cell. He took a deep breath, careful not to let the sound play through his voice modulator, and stepped in front of the man in the straight jacket. 

For Harley.

He stormed out of the cell several minutes later, seething.

“Hood?” Nightwing asked tentatively. Jason had to take a deep breath in, and let it out carefully, shoving down the green mists that were beginning to cloud his vision.

“A very well done imitation,” he ground out angrily. “Which means a very skilled plastic surgeon helped.”

“We need to question possible accomplices, then,” Nightwing said grimly. He trusted Cass’s observations, but Jason sealed the deal for him. 

“Beginning with Dr. Thomas Elliot,” Jason growled. “If it weren’t for Cass, we might not have known anything was off. But not only did he miss the chance to brag again about killing me–which he never does–but he was also missing the scar on his chin Batman left the last time there was an altercation.”

As they walked outside, Cass slipped up beside him for a gentle hug. Jason let his shoulders drop for a brief second before he was straightening rigidly once more. “Call Batman. Everyone needs to be alert. And we need to find Harley.”

Day 135: Darcy

Selina brought Darcy back to her apartment, where Stephanie was sitting on the coach with an anxious look on her face, solemnly giving them both the news that the Joker had pulled the oldest trick in the book back at Arkham. 

Darcy’s eyes flashed dangerously, and Selina was immediately alert as the green flecks glowed brighter and began swallowing the other shades in her eyes.

“Darcy,” she said sharply.

“What?”

“Don’t you dare let the pit madness get a hold of you right now. There is too much at stake for you to throw a supernatural temper tantrum.”

Darcy blinked at her, and some of the madness leached out of her eyes, replaced with tears that she fought against. “I’m sorry. None of this would have happened if I had just kept my mouth shut. I should have realized they were outside listening.”

“This would have happened eventually,” Selina sighed. “We’ve been trying to get Harley out from underneath his thumb for years. Even when he is in Arkham, he manages to abuse and manipulate. It’s difficult. But he’s gone too far this time. She’s always stayed in contact.”

Darcy spotted the laptop on Selina’s coffee table and grinned maniacally. “We’re going to hit him right where it hurts.”

Selina tilted her head warily. “How so?”

“Tim said there was a program they were using to track me down. So, we use that to help us find Harley. But since I’m not an incredible amount of use to the Bats right now? I’m going to bleed him dry like he’s done to this city. Any financial accounts remotely related to the Joker are going to be funneled to an off-shore account in the next hour. 

Selina stared at her.  Stephanie, however, nodded encouragingly and said, “Badass” as she typed up a quick message to Tim to get the software ready. Darcy had eluded Oracle for weeks. Stephanie had little doubt in her mind that the woman could pull off this stunt. 

Chapter Text

Day 142: Tim

“Hey, Tim.” 

He glanced up wearily and saw Dalia at the corner of his desk.

“How did you get in here without Bruce seeing you?” he hissed, standing up and coming around the desk to quickly shut the door and press the button that would frost the glass pane in the door.

She rolled her eyes. “Selina left on a date. I pay attention.”

“That’s dangerous,” Tim sighed. “You could run into Lucius. ”

“Lucius wouldn’t dare get within five feet of me with this souped up bad boy,” she sniffed disdainfully, patting the taser shaped bulge in the side pocket of her dressed up yoga pants. 

Tim pinched the bridge of his nose. “Dalia. Please refrain from tempting fate.”

She snorted. “Ha. As if. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if Lucius saw me, though. It’d be fine. I’d just say I’m visiting you.”

“You’re forgetting your disgust with the toxic workplace he created for you,” Tim said drolly, sitting back down behind his desk.

Dalia shrugged. “I’ve worked worse. Get this, one of my crazier old bosses tried to revive a dead dude to become a brainwashed weapon of mass destruction. Actually, that kinda happened twice, but only one was actually really dead and not legally dead. Big difference. And there was also this crazy lady who controlled minds and created a whole television show about it. I got brainwashed, too, it sucked. I didn’t even get a good part in the show.”

Tim blinked at her rambling.

“What?” she asked casually, sitting on his desk, crossing her legs, and taking a sip directly from Tim’s coffee pot. “Don’t believe me?”

Tim sighed, jotting down a quick note on his laptop under the section of Mysteries of Dalia. It was probably rubbish, but considering what Clark had seen, he wasn’t taking any chances on dismissing it. 

“Really, how did you get in here without alerting anyone? Tam should have buzzed me as soon as you requested to see me.”

She only grinned madly at him. “I was trained by ninjas.”

Tim groaned and reopened his file on her. 

After a few minutes of Dalia reading the titles on his bookshelf and humming to herself, Tim asked sharply, “Dalia, what are you doing?”

She shrugged. “Well, I’m tired of sitting still. I didn’t think it was a good idea to go back to my apartment because it’s definitely being watched. Please don’t ask me how I know because Jason would yell at me for even skirting near it. Selina’s apartment is too quiet with everyone out looking for Harley.”

“And let me guess, you didn’t want to come to the manor?”

She winced. “Yeah. I, um, need Wayne to focus more on finding Harley than finding me. How is that going, by the way? I came to offer my programming expertise.”

Tim nodded. “I could use it. I can only do so much, though Oracle is helping as much as she can. The only leads we've gotten haven't turned anything up.”

“Good. How’s Emilia and the kids?”

“Alfred has been keeping them in the less used hall of the manor,” Tim said with a hint of humor in his voice. “The kids carry on pretty loudly sometimes, but Bruce has been in and out so much the past few days that he just assumes it’s his children causing all the noise. Selina thinks it’s hilarious.”

Tim’s buzzer went off. “ Mr. Drake? Mr. Fox is on his way. He said he needed to take care of something important with you ?”

Tim’s eyes widened, and he cursed the minimalist designs foisted on him as he looked around his office for a quick hiding place. 

Feeling a headache beginning to come on, he whispered, “Quick! Hide under the desk!”

Dalia snorted, but quickly scrambled underneath, her shoulders shaking in barely contained laughter.

“Shut up,” Tim hissed as Lucius walked in.

Tim had an excellent poker face as he talked with Lucius about the latest and greatest things happening in R&D, struggling not to wince as Darcy made a noise of disgust when Lucius brought up bringing another scientist on board to work on the Zeta device. Tim nudged her with his foot in warning.

“Uhhhhh…That’s my stomach. Sorry, I’ve had too much of Alfred’s spinach quiche. Delicious, but I think I’m allergic to dairy.”

Lucius raised an unimpressed eyebrow and said pointedly, “Mr. Drake, I wasn’t born yesterday. I saw Morgan come in here. However, since I value my status as not yet soiling my pants as an elderly man, I don’t see the point in changing that now. Ms. Morgan. You can come out of there now. Please do not tase me”

Dalia’s head popped up and she grimaced at Fox. “Hello, ex-boss.”

His lip twitched in amusement. “Hello, old employee who still shows up. I promise no one has touched your precious lab experiment.”

“They better not ever have that audacity,” Dalia grumbled, standing to her feet and dusting herself off. “Hey, Tim-Tam, you need to let people clean out from under there more often. It’s gross.”

“I’ll add that to my list,” Tim grumbled.

“If I gave you your own lab and made you the boss only under Wayne or Drake—”

“Stuff it, Fox,” Dalia snorted. “If I want to come back, I’d talk to Drake myself. No need to play the middleman and get the credit. I know you’ve missed me terribly and all, but uncool of you.”

Fox grinned at her. “Well, just let me know and I’ll stay a good two floors away from you and your wrath of a taser.”

“I’m taking that as an open invitation not to sneak her in anymore,” Tim grumbled. “Though I don’t know why I was doing that in the first place since you can sneak in alone .”

Dalia shrugged. “Eh. It was easier to trick you into taking care of yourself that way. Also, since I’m still technically an employee, just on leave, I still have access to everything anyway.”

Tim blinked at her, mouth dropping open. She shot finger guns at him and sauntered out.

Lucius let out a low whistle. “No wonder she left. That woman is severely underpaid. I think she deserves at least half of your salary.”

“If it would bring her back,” Tim said wistfully. He shook his head, glancing under his desk to see just how dusty it really was. He paused, bending over to pick up a thumb drive labeled “The Bestest Code Ever.”

“Huh.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure, but I’m sure as hell not plugging it up in here. It might be a virus.”

Lucius snorted. “Please. She would deem a virus cheating and lame . I’ve heard her rants before.”

“You’re lucky more of them weren’t directed at you,” Tim grumbled, tucking the drive safely away in his pocket. 

Lucius winced. “They would be well deserved, I’ll admit. Nothing I can do to get back into her better graces?”

Tim scoffed, not even dignifying that with a response as he slipped out of his office. 

He stopped by the front desk, tapping lightly on the surface. “Hey, Tam. I’m taking a half day.”

“You mean bringing your work home,” she said dryly, giving him a knowing look. “You’re fine, Mr. Drake. I’ll make sure the wheels stay on the bus.”

“Thanks, Tam. You’re a real one,” Tim grinned, heading for the elevator. His smile dropped as the metal doors closed, and he sighed, dragging his hand over his face tiredly. Hopefully whatever coding Dalia had left on the drive would help him track down Harley. 

“Hey, Babs,” Tim said distractedly, eyes scanning code like he was a man dying of thirst and it was a well of water. 

“Hey. What are you doing?”

“I’m looking through some coding someone gave me,” he hummed.

“This wouldn’t happen to be the someone that disappeared off my radar a few weeks ago, would it?” she asked with a long-suffering tone. “And who can seemingly evade all the Bats and erase all camera footage that includes her face?”

Tim turned to look at her sheepishly. “Um, maybe?”

She snorted. “Please, you’re not as sly as you’d like to think. I figured out quite a bit ago that you knew exactly where she was. I’m just cool enough to accept that maybe you guys know what you’re doing, and you have a good reason to keep her away from B. Now, scoot over. I want to see her magic at work.”

Babs rolled up to the computer and Tim rolled his chair to the left so she could take over.

They sat in silence for several long moments before Babs squealed a little and took over typing.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing ?” Tim panicked. 

“Tim, this is incredible . I’m integrating it into the system.”

“WHAT? Bruce is going to kill us! He’s going to kill me! What if it has dangerous coding or something? What if it has a kill program that wipes the computer? Or sends out a mass email exposing our identities?”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “I’m not pulling it from the thumb drive . I’m pulling sections of the code that I like and integrating them. Not going about it willy-nilly–-just getting started on it. Look, see this section? This is how she’s deleting footage. This is like–it’s like a highly intelligent AI, almost. But, with that, there’s this section that does the opposite . I mean, sure, we have a system that can ping for facial recognition, we really focused on that while we were searching for this woman, but this. Oh wow. This will help us search through any camera footage not on a closed network for Harley.”

Tim frowned, trying to look closely at the code while Barbara’s fingers were flying. “Whoa. Wait, go back. Two lines up. Yeah. There . Look, Babs. It’s complimenting my coding from weeks ago.”

“That’s because she used it to jumpstart hers,” Babs hummed, scrolling again and picking up similar areas to Tim’s complicated program. “Wow. She took the program we worked on, figured it out, and then made it work against us with this coding. Wow. Tim, this is amazing. Where is she now? I want to pick her brain. We could really shore up the Cave’s defense with this kind of knowledge. And I thought I was good.”

“You are good, Babs,” Tim comforted with a startled laugh. “There’s no telling who she’s learned all of this from. Her file is incomplete. It’s like–she doesn’t exist anywhere. I can’t find any digital footprint, any hint of physical records, nothing. It’s like she just…materialized. And Clark got spooked when I asked for his help.”

“How so?”

Tim quickly filled her in on the situation with Clark and included a brief mention of the Mysteries of Dalia file he was building.

Barbara nodded along. “Alright. So, we start there, I guess. If she was resurrected by the pits, maybe she’s centuries old or something. Which, gross. But that theory is out of the question because she’s techy. Like, super genius level intelligence. It’s possible, but not probable.”

“Right. She’s super touchy about her background. Everything I’ve gathered so far is in her file. I’ll put it on a drive for you. There’s no way I’m uploading it to the Batcomputer right now. Not until Bruce finds out about her.”

“That’s another thing,” Barbara said, turning to look at him seriously. “I don’t think she is the threat B thinks she is, but I also think that you should fill him in. She needs help, Tim.”

“I know,” he sighed. “We’re trying to get her some. Selina has been a big help, and Jason is looking out for her, too.”

Barbara nodded. “Good. Try to see if we can tell Bruce this week. It’d be for the best if we get it out of the way sooner rather than later.”

Tim sighed. “I know. We’re trying to find Harley first.”

Barbara hummed. “I think, maybe, that it might be best if we bring her in. Not to arrest her or anything, but she could really help with the search.”

He folded his hands under his chin, thinking. “I’ll try to talk to her.”

Tim did not, in fact, talk to Dalia. Because shit hit the fan that night, and whooo boy did it hit hard. On the bright side, however, Bruce now knew about Dalia. On the downside, it didn’t happen like anyone had expected it to. 

The search for Harley continued, but the Joker was quiet. Too quiet. 

They did, however, track down Thomas Elliot–also known as the elusive Hush–using Dalia’s facial recognition program.

The questioning of Elliot, however, turned up little more information. Only that he had created the Joker double last year. He grinned manically as he told Batman this information, well aware of who was behind the cowl and how Joker was going to use the double to make his life miserable. 

Batman was, as one could imagine, very unhappy that such an alliance had been formed. There was no way of knowing if there were other doubles out there, and the idea made everyone’s skin crawl with unease. 

They were all out patrolling tonight, looking for any sign of Joker’s goons, as well as Penguin’s due to the nature of his involvement with Harley’s disappearance. 

So far, the only altercations had been with Condiment King, and that had been over fairly quickly. 

But the night was still young.

Batman’s voice came over the comms gruffly. “ Any idea why the Joker would suddenly decide to target the East End? He was last heavily active in the City Hall district.”

Red Hood’s gut began to go haywire with unease. He held his hand up to his earpiece, making agitated eye contact with Red Robin. “What happened?”

“ Crane is involved,” Oracle’s voice came through. “He paralyzed the water supply in the East End with his signature toxin. But just the East End. Joker swept through the streets afterward with some new concoction we haven’t seen before.”

“When? And how many casualties?” Hood asked carefully. 

“Ten minutes ago. And t hree casualties, all of which were hit with a slime-like substance that was sprayed. The count is low because it’s dark and most people are inside now. City Water released a statement about the water and cut off the supply until they can cleanse the reservoirs,” Oracle sounded nervous. “ This isn’t his usual game. Something is very wrong.”

Those on the comms heard a beep in Oracle’s background. “ Cat? What is it? Yes, hang on. I’ll patch you in. Catwoman is on comms now, guys.”

“ Bruce.”

“ No names in the field.”

“ I’m not–I’m at the gym. I can’t–well, you know.”

“What happened?” Red Hood asked, stomach sinking again. 

“Penguin. He kidnapped one of my members. Brown’s friend.”

Spoiler hissed through her earpiece. “ Bastard.”

“ She came in covered in whatever the hell Joker sprayed the streets with. The water was out and she needed the gym showers. But I don’t have the antidote, because it’s new, and she was going into shock. Penguin held the antidote over my head.” Selina’s voice was strained. “ Bruce, I didn’t know what to do. She was dying.”

“ We’ll find her,” Batman promised. “ Can you send in a photo and name to Oracle?”

“ She has it,” Selina murmured. “ Your Lazarus Pit victim. ”

The silence was deafening before Batman’s voice finally came through the comms again. 

“ We’ll discuss this later. Send any information you can.”

“I will. I’m sending the camera footage now.”

“Selina.” It wasn’t Batman who spoke now, but Bruce Wayne. “We will find her.”

“ Who’s using names in the field now?” Selina lilted teasingly, but her voice was tired. “ Be careful.”

She signed off, and Oracle’s voice took her place. “ I think it’s safe to say that we have three Rogues working together, four if we count the past agreement between Joker and Hush. How does the girl fit, though?”

“I would hazard a guess that Penguin wanted Harley out of the way,” Jason said grimly. “His men overheard Dalia telling Harley to leave the Joker, and she talked about it like she was really considering it this time. It would fit Penguin’s purpose perfectly to knock Harley out of the way, especially after she foiled his last attempt to kidnap Dalia. Now the question becomes what does Penguin want with her ?”

Batman’s voice sounded pained. “ I can assume from your familiarity with the name that Selina never mentioned that you know her, too.”

Red Hood winced behind his mask. “We all do, yeah.”

Red Robin snorted. “Yeah, remember the highly qualified team member that carries a taser?”

Oracle started laughing. “ You mean to tell me the girl who knocked B on his ass because he scared her in her lab is the Lazarus Pit victim?”

“ And the one who was working on the Zeta transport device,” Robin’s voice patched into the conversation grimly. “Penguin wants the Zeta device.”

Chapter Text

Day 142: Darcy

Darcy knew, on some level, that she should not be on the streets of Gotham with the Joker and other villains currently at large. Especially when one of said villains had placed a hit on her and was out to get her like a boogeyman.

She went back to Selina’s for a little while, but then she got antsy again after a few hours of tweaking the program designed to find Harley and searching through the results that had popped up from the search. The last time Harley appeared, she was ducking into an alleyway two nights after she had come to Darcy’s rescue.

She never came out. 

“How did he get to you without you ever coming back out of that alley?” Darcy whispered, staring at the screen of the laptop. Harley had been missing for about twelve days now, and with every day that passed the chances of her being found alive dropped significantly. Darcy hated it. 

“Not over,” she muttered, checking through some slides of footage quickly. “And not through one side and out the other. That leaves…”

She frowned, hacking city records to find blueprint plans that should still be in the system somewhere. She clicked through impatiently. 

“City grid plans, road improvement receipts–I’ve seen the potholes in Gotham, that money definitely went somewhere else–and uh…sewer plans! Bingo!”

She did a search for the street next to the alley, but no results popped up. Darcy frowned. “That’s…odd.” Another search yielded the same lack of results. Searching the street address, Darcy found that it was between Selina’s gym and the apartment she was in. Simple enough. She debated calling Jason–who was the only member of the Bat family she had on speed dial–but settled for typing up a quick text message instead. She hesitated, then sent it before she stepped out of the apartment complex. The little alert underneath the message said her text remained unopened. 

Surely it was okay, though. Jason was just really busy. Also, she wasn't exactly on the most comfortable terms with him. He deserved to be a little put-off by her cold feet. And if anything happened, he would see where she was last. It was just a quick run there and back, to see if there were any manhole covers or similar entry points to the underground system Gotham was notorious for. No big deal, right?

She got the alert on her way to the alley that Scarecrow had compromised the water in the East End, which would be down for an estimated two days until authorities had fixed the issue. Lovely. That meant that everyone in the upper part of the district–east of Grant Park–was cut off from water until Gotham’s officials could take care of the problem with the filtration system. 

Ignoring the uneasy feeling beginning to crawl up her throat, Darcy continued to the alley. The sun was setting, and she began to pick up her pace a little bit. The alley was dark, and she wrinkled her nose at the putrid smell wafting out from the grimy space. 

Walking carefully through the space, Darcy paused and then vomited when she stumbled on the culprit of the stench–a dead body, propped up against the wall. Maggots had already eaten through part of his head, revealing splinters of skull, and flies swarmed around the rest of the blackening, rotting flesh. 

She covered her nose with the fabric of her shirt, backing away from the body only to be hit with the realization that the maggots hadn’t eaten that fast, or eaten through bone. His head had been bashed in by a blunt instrument. That was a caved skull. 

Flipping on her phone’s flashlight, Darcy glanced around the alley quickly, frowning as she noticed a wooden handle sticking out from underneath a garbage back. Grabbing the handle, she yanked the piece out. 

“Well. Obviously I am on the right track,” she whispered, staring at the mallet in her hands. The head of the mallet was coated in dried blood, the signature smiley face grimacing back at her mockingly.

Darcy shivered. 

She found the oversized manhole cover soon after, marked in splattered spray paint with a crude J.

So, she was right in her hunch, then.

Darcy walked quickly out of the alley, sending Jason a quick text with the alley coordinates and stepping onto the streets with the intention of walking to Selina’s gym. She was outside of the gym’s doors when a fire truck came blazing down the street, swerving across the road and breaking all kinds of traffic laws. 

Darcy jumped back when she caught sight of the cackling green-haired maniac in the back of the truck with the hose. She didn’t see the driver, only a glowing stream of neon green sludge arching towards her. She threw her hands up with a yell as the slime hit her, the truck continuing its streak down the near empty streets. 

The sludge ran down her body, and Darcy pushed it away from her eyes quickly, shaking off as much as she could. It was starting to burn her skin, and she hurried into the gym, dripping green behind her. 

God, what was this stuff? She wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. It looked radioactive–it was glowing–and it was thrown at her by a cackling maniacal Joker. That couldn’t be anything good. 

Day 142: Selina

Selena watched Darcy run into the gym, her eyes widening as she took in the girl’s predicament. 

“Darcy! What happened?” she asked sharply. “Showers! Now!”

The girl looked close to crying, especially when she barked at her to get to the showers. “I’m trying, Selena! The showers at my place are shut down thanks to Scarecrow and I’m covered in…God, what is this?”

“Don’t ask, just go! You need to get it off as soon as possible.”

Selena exchanged a worried look with Cindy at the front desk. “Call the paramedics and tell them we need the antidote for the Joker’s latest concoction.”

Cindy nodded. “On it, boss lady.”

Selena looked at the floor where Darcy had trailed the mess into the gym entrance. “And shut the gym down. Clear everyone out the back entrance and make sure the doors are all locked. Go home when you finish that. I don’t want you exposed anymore than you have to be. I’m going to go help Darcy.”

Selena moved back to the showers, anxiety boiling over when she heard Darcy crying in the showers.

“Oh my god,” Selina whispered, running to grab some thick leather gloves from the supply room. She grabbed a few rubber ones as well from the custodian closet, hurrying back into the showers to help Darcy strip down. 

Darcy’s skin was bubbling and turning an ugly mix of yellow and red, and Selina rinsed her off as fast as she could, trying to pull the slime directly off of her body instead of letting it be rinsed down more of her body. 

“Shit. I need to call Bruce,” Selina panicked when the slime was gone but the negative reaction continued. 

She hurriedly helped Darcy get dressed, then brought her with her to the front desk. Darcy started shaking, her eyes darting around the room, and Selina’s hands shook as she tried to dial Bruce. 

“Put the phone down, my dear.”

Selina’s insides froze at the smooth voice. 

“Oswald,” she said slowly, turning around. 

“Put the phone down, Kyle,” Penguin repeated, holding a gun to Darcy’s head. Darcy didn’t look very aware of this at the moment, otherwise Selina knew she would have disarmed Penguin in a heartbeat. 

Selina wasn’t willing to take the risk with Darcy out of the loop right now. She set the phone down carefully. 

“What do you want?” she hissed, eyes narrowed. 

“Simple. I need her.”

“No.”

He grinned slyly at her. “Oh? I don’t think you’re in any position to make demands here, Cat. The way I see it, I hold her life in my hands. Either I get her, or she dies.”

Selina took a deep breath, muscles tensing as she began looking for an opening that wouldn’t get Darcy killed the second she moved.

“Ah, ah, ah.” Penguin adjusted his grip on the gun. “There’s no need to play cat and mouse, Selina. I’m only…borrowing her.”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you where you stand,” Selina growled, eyes flitting from Darcy to Penguin. Darcy was shaking harder now, her skin still turning awful colors. 

“Because, my dear,” Cobblepot began, pulling a vial out of his breast pocket. “This poor thing is having a reaction to the Joker’s latest—a potent neurotoxin. In five minutes, she’ll be beyond saving. Even if you get the antidote on time–which you won’t, because this is a new concoction–you won’t get it to her on time. The brain damage will set in in a few minutes, and then she’ll be a vegetable.”

Selina’s breath caught. “You’re lying.”

He raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Do you really want to find out?” He shook the small vial. “I have the antidote right here. If I take her, she lives. If she stays here? She dies. It’s a simple decision really, Selina.”

She cursed when she noticed he hadn't even brought his goons in with him--they were outside the doors, but they didn't step foot in her gym. 

He knew too well that he held the right cards in this deadly game. 

Selina hated it, but they both knew what her decision would be. 

Day 144: Darcy

Darcy woke up to a stiff neck. That was her first thought.

Her second thought was that her arms and legs were numb.

Her third thought was that the ropes wrapped tightly around her arms and legs were far too itchy for her to stay in this position long.

Her fourth thought was a dawning sense of pain on the parts of her body she could feel, like her face and chest. Shifting as much as she could in the chair she was tied to, Darcy felt tears prick her eyes at not just the resulting burning of her skin, but also the fact that it crackled and cracked as she moved. 

Chemical burn. A few days old, by the feeling of it, and by the fact that she could tell her blood sugar was much lower than usual. Though, maybe that was the revved up metabolism and healing. Drat, was she here for a few days or a few hours? The enhanced abilities made it hard to tell. 

“So, you finally decided to grace us with your presence,” an ostentatious voice called out.

“Well, see, I didn’t receive the invitation,” she croaked out, taking inventory of her sore throat. 

The ache as she spoke made everything click into place, and she realized with a groan that she was in the presence of none other than the esteemed Oswald Cobblepot.

“Alright, get it out of your system,” Darcy sighed, nodding her head in a go on motion. 

The Penguin raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Why, whatever could you mean, dear girl?”

Darcy grimaced. Mind games. Lovely. “What information is it that you want? Obviously you have a reason for bringing me here.”

He smirked at her, a gloved hand rubbing the top of his shiny cane. “What a clever woman you are.”

Darcy bit her tongue hard, waiting him out. She refused to play any of his ridiculous games. 

He frowned at her lack of response, and she counted it as a small victory when he was the next one to speak. “I want the device you were working on at Wayne Enterprises.”

Darcy’s lips quirked up tauntingly. “Oh, you mean the electric fence for birds. Yeah, I told Wayne that wouldn’t be a big hit on the market. Birds just…hit the ground when you electrocute them, you know? It’s not like a dog fence, where the dog is safe on the ground. Birds will fall. Break their wings, stuff like that.”

Her ears rang with the slap that echoed in the small room she was in, and her cheek burned. She was irritated that she couldn’t reach up and rub the tender skin with her hands bound.

“That wasn’t very nice,” she hissed at Penguin, eyes narrowed. 

He delivered a blow with his cane that had Darcy shaking her head and blinking rapidly to clear her blurring vision. 

“You know exactly what device I am talking about,” he scoffed, feathers ruffled. 

“Do I?” Darcy said in a sickeningly sweet voice. “By all means, please inform me as to what you speak of.”

“The transportation device for the Justice League, daft woman,” Penguin barked, banging his cane on the ground. Darcy eyed it warily.

“Oh. That. Yeah, not happening, you big Dickcissel.” His forehead wrinkled, and Darcy scoffed. “Wasted. My intelligence is absolutely wasted here. It’s a bird, dipshit.”

I really needed to learn how to control my mouth , Darcy thought as she spit blood out of her mouth from another smack in the mouth a few seconds later. To her maddened delight, it landed on Penguin’s cheek. He irritably pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood and spittle from his face. 

“Give me a good reason,” he drawled slowly, shaking the cloth square out and showing it back into his pocket, “Why I should not kill you where you sit?”

Darcy bared her teeth in a feral smile. “Because,” she said smoothly. “I am the only one who can build your precious device.”

He harrumphed, staring at her in irritation before a sinister smile curled his lips into a grimace. “Well, I suppose there are worse things than death in this life, my dear.”

He left the room, leaving Darcy wearily eyeing the two goons he left behind as they advanced, lifting rebreathers to their faces as they opened a canister of gas and sealed the doors behind them. 

Darcy realized what was happening too late, still bleary from the earlier blow to her temple. Panicking, she began to pull at her bindings, but it was too late. She stubbornly held her breath until one of the guards punched her in the gut, driving out her breath and forcing her to suck in air.

Her vision began to swim, and the shadows in the room lengthened.

It started with the screams. 

She was in the lab, writing equations on the board to help Jane, when they heard gut-wrenching shouts of pain from outside the room. Exchanging worried looks, Darcy bolted to the door to look outside.

The outside of the lab wobbled, and Darcy backed away from the door as she watched a lab tech melt before her eyes, the mucousy liquid left behind evaporating as well. She cursed, scrambling away as the warping grew closer. That’s when Jane began to scream as well. 

Darcy wasn’t far behind. Her body felt like it was simultaneously being burned and pulled apart at the very seams.

Every nerve ending was a live wire, sparking and burning as her body felt like it was being stripped apart to the very last cell. And then, everything was dissolving around her, warping and melting like she had seen the lab tech do outside. Her own body began to melt before her eyes, and even after them, as the delicate tissues melted in their sockets. 

She screamed until her voice box was gone, a gaping space left from where it was incinerated.

And words, filling her with dread and anguish, pounded through the air around them before the silence fell and the burning stopped.

The universe is not beautiful because it lasts. 

It’s beautiful because it does not. 

I had strings but now I’m free.

I had strings. 

But now I am free.

I am…

Freed.

The voice died out when her brain imploded from the extreme heat and energy pouring through the lab–or, the lack thereof, as it too melted away. 

And then she was burning again, but in a different way. She was drowning in green acid, struggling to breathe, trying to claw her way out of that infernal pit that damned the souls of those who were immersed in its sickly water. Her eyes burned as they reformed, she choked as her respiratory system formed again with the water in her lungs and throat, and she begged for death as she was reconstructed atom by atom from the mangled energy that she had died as. 

“ No, no, no,” she cried, thrashing in the pit waters. “Let me die! Let me die! ” She clawed at her eyes, her throat, her chest, anything to stop the infernal burning that both ate her alive and kept her alive.

It went dark. 

And then the dream started all over again. 

Darcy felt drained when she came to again.

Her brow was wet, droplets of sweat beading on her forehead. Her skin was pale and clammy, and her hair stuck to her neck. Her hands and feet were no longer bound, but she was weak. Too weak to move. 

Penguin swept in looking far too pleased with himself, but she was still too busy trying to stop the room from spinning to notice. Everything was too bright, too loud, too much.

“Well, well, well, what a lovely time you seem to have had,” he grinned. 

Darcy shut her eyes tighter and groaned. “What the hell was that ?” she asked weakly, her head hanging down limply. 

“That, Ms. Morgan, was the famed Fear Toxin of our resident Scarecrow,” he boasted. “It makes victims relive the most traumatic experience of their life.”

Darcy’s eyes snapped up to meet his calculating gaze. “I’m sorry. Relive them?”

He grinned. “Oh, yes, though it adds some flair if the experience is too tame. Really, it’s a remarkable discovery on Crane’s part. It increases secretion by the pituitary gland of a certain hormone, which kickstarts the adrenal glands into releasing adrenaline and causing inhibited thought processes and a strong fear response. Fascinating, I say, though as a woman of science I am sure you understand its interesting nuances as well.”

She shivered at the memories. Because that’s what they were, weren’t they? Memories. 

And that voice…there was something so hauntingly…mechanical? Familiar? She didn’t know. 

Oh god, her universe. Her friends. Her family, that she had built around herself. 

Jane. 

Tony.

Natasha.

Clint.

Thor. 

Steve.

Bruce.

Bucky.

Coulson. 

So many others.

What had happened to them? 

She was dead in her universe and alive in this one because of a fluke. 

Were they as lucky?

Or….as cursed?

“Ms. Morgan,” Penguin snapped, bringing her back to reality. 

“What?” she retorted.

He raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “For someone whose life hangs in the balance, your attitude is fairly…childish, wouldn’t you say?”

Darcy snarled at him when he pulled a device from his pocket and turned it around to show her. It was a live stream of Penny in the gardens of Wayne Manor, carefully plucking roses from thorny bushes and carrying them to her mama and little Emmie with a proud smile. Alfred came out of the backdoor with cookies on a tray, and took one of the roses from the little girl with a smile matching her own, letting her tuck one behind his ear as he bent down to hand Emilia a cookie for the baby. 

Darcy’s stomach sank, and she began to shake as the leftover toxin in her system made another appearance. 

“Ah, yes, I see that my point has been made quite clear.” He slipped the device back into his pocket and smirked at her. “I will have you shown to the labs. Please make a list of supplies you will need.”

Chapter Text

Day 143: Wayne Manor

To the untrained and outside eye, it would appear that Alfred Pennyworth was not aware that he and his current charges were being spied on by an unsavory party. 

However, due to his very trained eye, Alfred was well-aware and on top of addressing the situation. 

Alfred leaned over to give Emilia a cookie and accept the rose from Penny, whispering to the little girl in a serious tone, “Penny, after you walk to the rose bush again and come back, I need you to tell your mother that you need to use the restroom. This is very important. Can you handle this mission?”

Penny blinked at him, but nodded carefully. As she took off, Emilia looked at Alfred questioningly. 

“Not to alarm you, madam,” Alfred said lowly, “but we’re being watched.”

“What?” Emilia asked quietly, her eyes meeting the butler’s worriedly.

“It’s a precarious situation as some villains remain unaware of the family secret yet, but I have alerted the necessary parties. The problem will be resolved momentarily. However, I do believe we would benefit from being inside while the altercation occurs.”

Penny brought back another rose, giving it to her mother with big doe eyes. “Mama, I need to piss.”

Alfred’s lips twitched at Emilia’s pained expression, but knew the woman wouldn’t waste time reprimanding her daughter’s language with the current danger. Penny seemed to know this, too, a mischievous look in her eyes dancing alongside fear. 

Emilia stood up, her heart pounding in her throat as she swung Emmie up onto her hip, her free hand reaching for Dan’s smaller one. They walked at a practiced leisurely pace towards the manor. She kept Penny in front of her, loudly stating, “Well, hurry up! Let’s go to the bathroom so we can have our picnic!”

Alfred, in a rare break of character, did not open the doors for them, but brought up the back. Emilia understood and appreciated his willingness to prevent anyone from getting a clear shot at her or her children. 

When the French doors shut behind her, Emilia shakily walked further into the house with the kids. Taking pity on her, Alfred initiated the appropriate security protocols before leading them all into the inner kitchen of the manor, away from any doors and manners. He shut and locked the doors to the room for another layer of security, though Emilia was pretty confident that whoever was watching them wouldn’t even make it completely onto the lawn before they were dealt with. 

“There’s a staircase in the pantry to the basement, should the worst happen,” Alfred soothed, picking Penny up and setting her on a chair he pulled up next to the counter. He grabbed another chair and put it on the opposite side of himself, repeating the process with Dan. “It’s connected to multiple areas of the house, so we’re not trapped here by any means. Now, young lady and young man, how do you feel about helping me make some cream puffs?”

Emilia sat with Emmie in her lap and tried to relax as Alfred gently began walking her children through the process of the baked treat, but it was difficult knowing that even here, she was being watched. All for being associated with Darcy. 

She hoped her friend was okay. Surely she was safe, with Selina and the others. She had some of the most highly trained individuals within Gotham with her. Surely they would not fail to keep her safe. 

She looked around the kitchen, taking in the decor and trying to establish a sense of calm. 

Although the posh butler gave the impression of immaculate minimalism, Emilia found that his sense of design was quite the opposite. The room was clean, but felt very warm and welcoming all the same. Her eyes first caught on the wooden plaque with a list of names under the golden embossed title Banned . Bruce was the first name, followed by Richard, Timothy , and Stephanie . 

The walls of the kitchen were filled with candid photos of the Wayne family, ranging from a wedding photo of Thomas and Martha Wayne that was pink and brown with age to a scowling Damian’s most recent school picture. 

There were very few photos of Alfred himself, though off to the side in a place of pride sat one black and white photo where he was seated with the Queen of England, drinking tea from a delicate piece of rosebud china. 

Emilia blinked and looked back at the butler, flushing when she caught Alfred’s raised eyebrow at where her attention was drawn. 

“That was shortly after the second World War ended, while I was still in the British Special Forces.”

Sensing that Emilia may need something to get her mind off of the situation outside, Alfred began to tell her some of the anecdotes from his time in the service of Her Majesty. 

Alfred paused in his tales only when Jason’s voice came through the door. “Hey, guys. Situation dealt with. Can I come in?”

Emilia’s eyes drifted to the Banned sign, and at the lack of his name on the sign, she got up from her stool with Emmie in her arms and opened the door for Jason.

He was leaning tiredly against the frame, his helmet in his hands. “They were definitely Penguin’s.”

“What did you do to them?” Emilia asked cautiously.

“Gotham Police have them in custody now.”

“Do you know what they wanted?”

Jason grimaced. “They were filming. Why, I’m not sure yet.”

His eyes met Alfred’s over her head, and Emilia felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that she was being purposefully kept out of the loop.

Alfred held his hands out for small Emmie, who went to him without hesitation, nibbling on the sugar cookie he snuck into her hands. 

Emilia motioned Jason outside of the kitchen, out of the children’s ear shot.  “What happened?”

Jason gave a half-hearted shrug. “It’s nothing.”

Emilia’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not stupid, Jason. You look more haggard than you were yesterday.” Her skin prickled when he didn’t say anything. “Did something happen to Dalia?”

Jason’s lips thinned stubbornly, but at her worried look, his shoulders dropped. “They took her. The last thing I heard from her was a lead about Harley, and then Selina called in a panic because they were ambushed at the gym.”

Emilia covered her mouth. “Oh god. Is there any lead yet?”

“We followed the vehicle they took her in for as long as we could on CCTV cameras, but they blipped out between footage. We’re searching for any appearance Penguin makes, anything that could help us.”

She grabbed Jason into a tight hug. “She’ll be okay. I think she’s capable of more than we give her credit for.”

“We’ll find her,” he muttered into her neck as he felt the tears hit where she buried her face. “I promise, Em, we’ll find her.”

“You better,” she sniffled, pulling back. “Where have you looked?”

“We’ve checked all the typical warehouses, the Lounge. Nothing.”

“And what about Harley?”

Jason sighed. “The lead Dalia sent us was the best lead we’ve had since she went missing.” He explained what was found in the alley–a body, a bloody mallet, and the spray painted manhole cover. “We’ve been searching the sewers for more evidence, but so far, there’s been nothing.”

Emilia’s frown deepened, but her response was cut off by the patriarch of the house stumbling upon them. 

“Jason?” Bruce asked hesitantly, eyes switching between Jason and Emilia. 

“Oh. Hey, B.” Jason kinda gave a half hearted shrug. “This is Emilia. You may remember her from, uh, before. Street kid, you helped her find a safe place to stay after we busted Davis’ trafficking ring.”

“I seem to recall something of the kind.” Bruce extended his hand. “Bruce Wayne. It’s nice to meet you again.”

Emilia took his hand and shook it carefully. “Thank you for all you did for us.”

A loud clatter from the kitchen had Bruce moving around the younger adults and peering into the kitchen. He froze at the sight of tiny flour-covered faces and an ever stoic Alfred picking up a mixing bowl and dusting flour off of said tiny faces, holding a small child on his hip. 

“Hello, Master Bruce,” Alfred smiled, raising an eyebrow as Penny sneezed, stirring up another cloud of flour. “My apologies for the kitchen’s current state. We are making brownies.” Emmie clapped her hands happily from her place at the butler’s side, sending white powder into his already white eyebrows. 

Bruce turned and looked at Jason and Emilia, then back into the kitchen.

“Jason…Do I have grandkids?”

Both Emilia and Jason spluttered in trying to respond.

Tim snorted from behind Bruce, making his presence known. “She knows about the Bat situation. No need to bring dumbass Brucie out, B.” He nodded towards Jason’s hands. “Jay has his helmet in hand , for crying out loud.”

Bruce eyed Emilia, reassessing the young woman who only gave a soft shrug of her shoulders. “Thank you, again. Really, my Penny and I wouldn’t have made it without your generosity that first year. It meant the world.”

Bruce struggled to recall what she was talking about when Alfred came to the rescue. “Of course, my dear. Jason wanted you taken care of, even if he wasn’t around to do it.”

“Damn right I did,” Jason snorted, grabbing Emilia into a tight hug. “Bruce, you better adopt this one, too. She’s all alone in the world except for our little circle. And she knows about the Bats. And grandkids. Need I say more?”

Bruce’s eyes lit up again at the prospect of grandchildren, and Emilia worried for a moment what exactly she had gotten herself into. 

Day 148: Darcy

Darcy thanked her lucky stars that she was once under the tutelage of the one and only Tony Stark. Or, at the very least, one of the multiple versions of Tony that existed throughout the multiverse, since her presence in Gotham indicated that there was such a thing. 

She didn’t want to think too much about universes now, though. Not when she found out her’s was destroyed, and she was all that was left of it. An accidental survivor.

She shook her head, bringing her thoughts back to Tony. The man was a master at teaching her three very important lessons when it came to hostage situations, of which she and Jane had found themselves in far more frequently than she would have liked. The three lessons were these. 

Lesson 1: The Purposeful Wasting of Time

Tony was a master manipulator when it came to making people think he was busy when he was, in reality, just killing time. Afghanistan and the Ten Rings was only one such example.

Darcy had, therefore, learned from the very best. And this situation was no different, because like hell was Darcy Lewis giving Oswald Cobblepot access to a Einstein-Rosen bridge device. She may be an idiot, but at least she wasn’t stupid. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

She needed to waste enough of Penguin’s time for the Big Bad Bat to pick-up on the fact that his manor was being watched. She had to do enough that Penguin thought she was doing something, but take enough time while doing that to make sure Emilia and the kids were safe. She could make it a week, right? 

There was the additional fact that her body was still brutally injured from the acid incident from her capture, meaning she could move much more slowly and not be punished for it. 

Lesson 2: The Purposeful Wasting of Resources

Tony nearly made the Ten Rings go bankrupt in his escape–both from demands for highly valued and precious metals for the Jericho missile they thought he was building and by destroying their weapon stock in the camp he was captured and detained in. 

Darcy had a similar intention. Science was hella expensive, and she fully intended to drain Penguin for all he was worth. Sure, bleeding the Joker dry had been a little easier to do digitally–she cursed herself, in hindsight, for not thinking if that would cause Joker to harm Harley more than he likely already had. Penguin, however, presented more of a challenge because she currently did not have access to his digital accounts, but rather only the list of supplies he had demanded she give him.

She put the most expensive items she could on the list. Where copper wires may have worked, she demanded gold wiring under the guise that it wouldn’t burn out as quickly. Most of the things she demanded and explained were horse shit, but did Penguin know that? No. And was he smart enough to bring on another scientist who would know, or even a henchman who was an avid Google enthusiast? Also no. 

Lesson 3: The Purposeful Creation of Catastrophe

Just like Tony had created the first Iron Man suit and absolutely demolished the Ten Ring’s camp, Darcy also planned to wreak havoc on the Penguin’s base.

See, Einstein-Rosen bridges were, at their very best, unstable. And Darcy Lewis was going to let it blow up in Penguin’s face. After she had everything in place to escape from this dank, nasty concrete hole he had her trapped in.

So, she rolled up her sleeves and got to work. Of course, she had to find a way to make the whole ruse believable without it being obvious that the device was a ticking time bomb. After all, she didn’t want to die in this hellhole. If Penguin did, however…well, she wasn’t a Bat anyway, right? At least Natasha would be proud if she ever got to see the woman again.

Keeping the official plans neatly tucked inside her brain, Darcy began crafting the device with the intention of allowing it to create a somewhat stable wormhole if Penguin asked for a demonstration. However, the creation of the wormhole would set off a series of chain events within the device that would cause it to collapse in on itself within a few hours of the demonstration.

And, if her calculations were correct–and they were–the device would also suck in Penguin’s base with it. All she had to do was set up the demonstration and escape before the implosion happened. Simple, right?

She had been in higher pressure situations. After all, it wasn’t every day that you solved a scientific dilemma involving impressive magical power from the woman who was prophesied to destroy the universe. Gosh, Darcy hoped Wanda was doing okay. Someone needed to check on her. 

In the meantime, Darcy had to come to her own rescue. Or, at the very least, draw enough attention to her prison that she was rescued. The Bats were on the case, right?

Day 152: Selina

It had been ten days since Darcy was taken and twenty-two days since Harley’s disappearance.

Ivy and Selina had scoured as much of Gotham as they could for any sign of either woman, but nothing had shown up. Ivy’s network of plants could only whisper of seeing Harley disappear into the alley where Darcy had found the last lead, but that was as far as their ability to help went.

And Selina was exhausted. They all were. The Bats were running themselves ragged searching for the missing persons, and Jason was taking it especially hard. Which was not surprising to Selina, considering she was certain something was going on between Darcy and Bruce’s son. 

Bruce found her on the balcony of their bedroom, staring out into the cloudy Gotham night. 

He wrapped her in his arms gently, letting her rest her head tiredly against him. They hadn’t yet talked about how Selina had hid Darcy from him, and she had only mentioned a few things that might help them find the girl. 

Now, however, Bruce was offering her, again, comfort she felt that she did not deserve. She never deserved what he gave her. And yet, despite his coolness, the aloofness he often presented to the world–that they both presented to the world–Bruce loved her and gave her everything he could in this life. The least she could do, Selina mused, was to offer an apology.

“I’m sorry,” Selina cried softly into his shoulder. “I should have told you.”

He sighed, wrapping an arm around her. “I remember now that you wanted to, but I didn’t make time for it. This is just as much on me as it is on you.”

“She’s not from Gotham, she doesn’t know how to handle these kinds of villains. God, I should have never taken her to the Lounge. Oswald would have never looked into her, and she would be safe.”

Bruce kissed the top of her head. “She was working on a top secret project, Selina, she would have been a target regardless.”

“But–”

“No, dearest,” Bruce shushed her again. “She wasn’t kidnapped for being your friend. Dick and Jason are weeding out the rat at Wayne Enterprises. Someone knew exactly who she was and what she did.”

Selina buried her head deeper into Bruce’s arm, letting him sway her soothingly from side to side.

Their moment was only interrupted by a thump of a body landing on the balcony, and both turned to see Clark standing there nervously. 

“Clark,” Bruce acknowledged with a nod. “Can I help you?”

Clark shifted nervously. “Actually, I was thinking that I could help you.”

The Kryptonian quickly explained how Tim had gotten his help to check into Dalia, as well as how Clark had access to odd energy signatures Tim had picked up that could be tracked both by him and by a device if they could make a trip to the Watchtower. 

“I didn’t realize until yesterday that the woman had gone missing or I would have been here much sooner,” Clark said apologetically.

“And how, exactly, did Tim keep you from bringing this to me sooner?” Bruce asked sternly.

Clark wilted. “He threatened to tell Louis who broke her favorite coffee mug.”

Selina snorted. “You?”

“Listen, I thought I could warm it up real quick with my heat vision, okay? I didn’t expect the glass to explode!”

Bruce shook his head in exasperation, but Selina was relieved to hear that there may be a better chance of finding her friend now.

“We’ll be in the cave,” Bruce said, kissing her forehead. “Rest for tonight, Selina. You haven’t had a night to sleep in weeks. Go. Rest. We will find her. I promise.”

Selina nodded, but didn’t move from her position on the balcony. Bruce sighed.

“Come on, then.” He tucked her gently underneath his arm and began to lead her out of the room, Clark following close behind. His friend’s confusion when Bruce brought Selina to a room containing three small children and their mother was palpable. Bruce fought his amusement, dragging Clark from the room before he could open his mouth and ask questions. 

When they were in the cave, Bruce finally paused. “Alright, ask away.”

“Did you adopt another four?” Clark spluttered.

Bruce shrugged. “One, actually, but it’s not official and she hasn’t accepted yet.”

“But–but why?”

“Because,” Bruce said patiently. “Grandkids.”

“You already have Mar’i!” Clark harrumphed. 

“Yes, but she needs someone to play with, and I don’t see any of the others stepping up, do you?”

Clark grumbled.

“You’re just jealous Kon isn’t wanting to settle down anytime soon,” Bruce teased, moving to the Bat Computer. “Enough of that, though. Let’s get started on tracking down Selina’s friend.”

Chapter Text

Day 152: The Batcave

“Dividing and conquering may be the best approach on this one,” Clark said, watching Bruce click through files quickly. “You’re already stretched thin.”

Bruce grunted, agreeing begrudgingly. With patrols varying between the usual duties and scouring Gotham for any sign of Dalia or Harley, no one was catching any breaks. 

“What do you propose we do about it?” Bruce asked.

Clark thought carefully. “I’ll take Jason to the Watchtower for the device I mentioned. When I get back, I’ll pull Tim to help me set it up.”

“Why take Jason to the tower, then?”

Clark blinked at him before he shook his head. “Honestly, you Waynes and your emotional inability to communicate with each other.”

“What?”

“Nothing. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not going to say anything. But really, Bruce, you’re called the greatest detective. Be better.” Clark clapped Bruce on the back and left to find Jason and Tim, leaving Bruce frowning thoughtfully in the cave.

Day 153: Red Hood

As much as he had grumbled about being pulled off to the Watchtower when he should have been searching for any sign of Dalia, Red Hood accepted his fate with the knowledge that the device Superman was searching for was a crucial tool in helping find the missing woman. 

He was at least 98% certain that the excuse for his presence—something about he had similar energy radiating off of him because of the time he had spent with Dalia–was complete and utter bullshit, but still, the distraction was appreciated.

He was not, however, expecting to see John Constantine present. Neither was Superman, judging from the surprise on his face, who exchanged glances with Hood and indicated that he should grill Constantine while Supes searched for the device.

Well, maybe that’s not quite what he meant, but Hood wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to chat with somebody else who had excellent taste in booze and didn’t mind unashamedly drinking B’s expensive stash when the window of opportunity was kicked in.

He plopped down beside him and kicked his feet up on the table, ignoring the disproving gaze of a few other heroes filtering in and out of the room.

“Why do you look so pissy?” Red Hood asked Constantine.

The man scowled at him, lighting a cigarette. “You’d be pissed too if someone kept trying to tear a hole in your reality.”

Hood blinked. “Huh. I thought Darkseid had been dealt with already?”

Constantine scoffed. “This isn’t Darkseid. This is some batshit crazy one who keeps trying to reach me about my car’s extended warranty or some shit. Calls himself The Watcher. That’s all I got out of him before I pushed him out.”

“Spooky. When did he start making attempts?”

Constantine raised an eyebrow. “About a month ago. What’s it to you?”

Red Hood frowned underneath his helmet. A month ago…what had happened a month ago?

“Nothing. Have you considered letting him get to the point? Maybe he’s trying to tell you something important.”

“Ha. And you’re an upstanding citizen who pays their taxes.”

Hood huffed. “Yeah, well, legally I’m dead so that’s not a thing I have to do anymore.”

“Bastard,” John muttered, stalking off.  

Hood stared after him, debating on whether or not it was worth following him to ask more about when the attempts had begun. He decided against it when Superman walked back in with a device held carefully in his hands. 

Day 153: Emilia

Emilia was pacing back and forth in one of the sitting rooms when Jason entered and stopped her, catching her arm gently.

“Em. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Have you found anything on Darcy yet? Anything at all?”

“No. Nothing. But we found a device that we’re hoping will help us track her down.”

“Good, good.” She resumed pacing, and Jason watched her worriedly.

“Emilia.”

She spun on her heel and faced him, her face pale and drawn. “I think I know where she is. Well, not exactly. But maybe a general idea.”

Jason blinked at her. “How?”

She leaned against the wall, looking panicked. “You know I was married for a few years, right? And then Danny died.”

“I kinda put that together, yeah.” Jason had lost contact with her after his death, but he had been able to draw a few conclusions after spending time in Emilia’s presence of late.

Emilia’s eyes squeezed shut. “It was a sting gone wrong. Penguin tangled with the Maronis, and it was a big mess. He stepped in front of Penguin, tried to get him out of the way.”

When everything clicked into place for Jason, he felt nauseous. 

Emilia swallowed, tears beginning to spill. “He wasn’t a bad husband. But–but I just can’t reconcile the man I knew with that–with that piece of shit who didn’t let Penguin die.” 

Jason wrapped an arm around the woman in a tight hug. “Oh god, Em. I’m so sorry.”

She sniffled. “It’s not your fault. I was the stupid one. I thought I could change him or something.” She sniffled. “God, I think my mom just came out of my mouth. She said the same thing about my dad. And he was a piece of shit, too."

“Generational trauma, am I right?” Jason threw out, but the humor fell flat. “How does this tie into Dalia?”

Emilia shuddered. “He was the head of Penguin’s security detail. Everyone else was too likely to save their own skins, I think. Oswald took Danny with him everywhere. Even the places where others weren’t allowed to go.”

Jason’s heart stuttered. “You mean–” 

She nodded. “I never trusted Penguin. I tracked every place Danny went. There were a few that were frequented far too often to not be some kind of base or hideout.”

He gawped at her. “How did you even–”

She let out a wet laugh. “I turned on some social media location settings when he was in the shower one night. There are a few apps that constantly update the location even if the app itself isn’t open, and you can change it to where only certain people can see your location. I turned off the notifications for those apps and bam. They faded to the background, and I was able to see where he was.”

“We’ve been searching the Tricorner area of Gotham,” Jason said slowly. 

Emilia nodded. “These areas were closer to the East End and the Bowery. He was very careful not to be seen in those areas.”

Jason frowned. “The Lounge was a diversion tactic. Be seen enough in the same place…”

“People begin to associate you with that area alone.” Emilia nodded. “Try the device in those places, too. Not just the Tricorner district. It’s been too long for me to remember most of the areas. But I can circle a few familiar places on a map.”

Jason nodded. “Let’s go. We need to talk to Tim.”

Emilia hesitated. “The kids–”

Jason looked behind her to see Penny, Emmie, and Dan sitting in front of a tablet, likely watching a cartoon if he had to guess. 

He frowned, then grinned at his luck as the youngest Wayne entered the room with a sour expression. 

“Damian! Perfect! You’re on small child duty for a few minutes! I have to get some vital information to Tim.”

Damian opened his mouth to argue, but Jason was already shoving him towards the couch. “Don’t worry, Dames, they’re like little animals. Just keep them from biting, scratching, and pissing on the floor, and you’ll be fine.”

Jason quickly tugged Emilia from the room, ignoring her own protests at leaving her children with Damian. 

The teenager looked at the three kids on the couch, still immersed in their show and blissfully unaware of what was going on, and grumbled before he called Titus to the room and sat down to make sure the kids didn’t die on his watch. 

He was, after all, the most competent Robin. He could handle a few children. What were they compared to the criminals roaming Gotham’s streets?

Later, when his father came to check on him, Bruce quickly snapped a picture of a scene he found amusing and...well, sweet.

Penny was playing with Damian’s hair as he sat on the floor in front of the couch. Dan was in his son’s lap, watching some sort of animated hero movie while Damian critiqued the characters abilities and skills, and Emmie was curled up next to Titus’s hulking black body, slumbering peacefully while the canine woofed softly at Bruce and wagged his tail. 

When the sound of his father’s footsteps and Titus’s soft alert drew his attention, Damian scowled. “Father. I expect that no one will see that picture.”

Bruce just smiled and left the room, leaving Damian pinned under Dan and frustrated that he could not pursue his father to delete the incriminating photo.

Day 155: Darcy

“Ouch!” Darcy shoved her thumb in her mouth, sucking in a breath through her teeth. She glared at the soldering iron like it had personally insulted her before she pulled her finger from her mouth and grimaced at the burn. 

It wasn’t like it wouldn’t heal quickly, she thought sourly, reaching up to gently feel the scabby skin at her collarbone. She thanked her lucky stars that it was a new concoction of the Joker’s and the villains weren’t really sure what it did. Otherwise, Darcy would be screwed, because there was no way anyone who was touched by that damn slime was supposed to survive. 

As far as she was aware, she was only here because she worked on the Zeta device at Wayne Industries—not because she was now considered a meta thanks to the pits. There was no way in hell that she was going to let them have even more to hold over her head.

So, she considered her options and decided on keeping her head down, pretending she needed goons to help her lift heavy objects in the lab and picking at her scabs at night while she was “sleeping” to create the illusion that she was healing much slower than she really was. 

The only thing Darcy didn’t have to fake was how weak she was getting. Penguin was already limiting her food intake in an attempt to keep her weak, but Darcy needed above average amounts of food on a good day. 

Her body was beginning to cannibalize itself, and Darcy could only watch and work faster as it happened. Her wrists were already too thin, and her injuries were beginning to heal sluggishly instead of at a very rapid pace. 

So far, her use of Tony’s infamous lessons was going very well. She could tell by the way Penguin’s brow pinched when he came to watch her work on some days that he was feeling the financial toll of her expensive scientific venture.

Good. He deserved to be miserable.

She had tacked on another lesson Tony had taught her: use every object and opportunity to your advantage.

Oswald Cobblepot, for all his intelligence, was not familiar with the realm of science, something Darcy used to her full advantage. And if she was smart enough to space some supply demands out across a few days so Penguin didn’t suspect she was building a rudimentary excuse of a communication device…well, that sounded like his problem for not having someone with a scientific background observing her. 

The communication device was finished, waiting for the opportunity to be used. Darcy debated on attempting to make contact with the Bats as soon as she had finished it, but the Einstein-Rosen bridge device was nearly finished. If she could end Penguin’s interference for good? Or even heavily weaken his hold on Gotham? Well, that chance was worth it. She would send a message right before she gave the catalytic demonstration Penguin was demanding she prepare for.

Darcy picked up the soldering iron again when she overheard the guards outside the lab doors discussing Harley. 

She froze, straining to hear what they were saying. 

“I heard…near the Narrows…not Amusement Mile.”

“The boss is crazy for…heard Joker isn’t pleased…seeking medical help…”

“Isn’t that… the Heights?”

“No…basement of the old morgue…Fitting place for her to die…”

Darcy inhaled sharply. 

“Hey! What are you doing? Get back at it!” One of the guards barked at her, and Darcy fumbled with the soldering iron for a brief moment in her hurry to look busy as her mind raced. 

The time of biding her time was over. Darcy had to move. Harley’s life depended on it. 

She waited until they shut the lights off and demanded that she sleep to smuggle the device to her sorry excuse of a cot and blanket in the corner of the room. 

And then, Darcy Lewis sent an S.O.S. message with the information she had gleaned about Harley’s location, along with an identifier she knew the Bats would pick up on. Or, at least, she prayed they would. 

Day 155: Tim

When Tim encountered the signal, he rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. The signal was in Morse code; rudimentary, but it got the job done. And the identifier…he recognized it as a section of code that reappeared frequently where Dalia was concerned. 

“Oh shit,” Tim whispered, decoding the message quickly. He smacked the button that would patch him through to everyone’s comms. 

“Red Robin?” Batman’s voice came through. “Report.”

“This Dalia woman is a damn genius, B.”

“Do you have her location?” Red Hood asked quickly.

Tim’s shoulders dropped slightly. “Not quite. We're narrowing it down with the information Em gave us. It's only a matter of time before we find Penguin. We're much closer, I promise. But I do have something on Harley. B, she was able to broadcast a signal with Morse code. Dalia got us more information.”

“What is it?”

“From what she was able to gather, it looks like Joker is holed up near the Narrows. Sounds like Harley is badly injured, so medical needs to be on standby. Something about the basement of an old morgue.”

“I know where that is,” Batman said grimly. “They shut it down after concerns were raised that the unidentified bodies were being sold as cadavers to Gotham University.”

“That’s…concerning,” Nightwing’s voice cut in.

“I was in college when it happened,” Batman grunted. “No one would talk about anything else for months. It was very macabre.”

“You mean it was a very Gotham thing to happen,” Tim said tiredly. 

Batman grunted before he began to assign duties. “Black Bat, Spoiler, you two are with me. Nightwing, you as well. Harley trusts you more than the others. We’ll run reconnaissance and regroup. Robin, you’re in charge of waiting in the wings with medical. Hood, you’re benched. Go back to the Cave and try to help Red Robin track the signal that was sent out. If we trace that back, we can find our other missing person faster. And call Clark in. We may need his help to pinpoint her location.”

Tim could hear Red Hood’s protests, but he reminded his brother firmly that they wouldn’t be sitting around doing nothing in the Cave: they would be working on finding Dalia.

That seemed to satisfy Hood, though he was still irate and on edge. But, Tim sighed, that was to be expected with anything involving the Joker. He had been a Bat for nearly seven years, but anything involving the Joker sent a cold feeling of dread through him.

This mission was not any different, but Tim couldn’t shake the cold in his bones when he thought about Harley in the clutches of the madman for so long. 

He, like everyone else, was worried about what they might find in the morgue. Would they find a living body? Or a cadaver?

Chapter Text

Hi, guys. I'm so sorry this isn't a chapter. I've got a lot on my plate right now, so finding time to write is pretty difficult. My grandfather is on his death bed right now and there's a lot more not so great things going on. I will get around to writing more soon, I promise, as well as answering all your wonderful, beautiful comments. 

HOWEVER. The reason I really REALLY don't have a lot of time is...

I. 

Am. 

Getting.

Hired.

To.

TEACH. 

And I found out like, uh...two hours ago?

And so I am pulling things together like crazy because A, it's the middle of the school year and my gosh that's intimidating enough, but also B, I have a mere five days to prepare a classroom and all of my materials. So yay! But also oh my gosh I am going to puke. I am so excited, you guys! I get to teach some wonderful kids, and I know they're going to excel if I put in the work--which I plan to! So I'm getting ready to rock n' roll! Buckle up, buttercups! It's getting real! I will be back, but it may take a bit. But I Will. Be. Back! 🙌🏻🙌🏻

Chapter Text

Day 155: The Bats

“Yeah, B, I really don’t like this,” Nightwing was saying, skirting carefully around the roof of a building across from the morgue. “This isn’t his usual MO. It’s too…”

“Quiet?” Robin muttered. He had Dr. Leslie Thompson on speed dial and a first aid kit packed with everything they could potentially need a few blocks away. Far enough away not to alert the Joker, but still close enough for when medical was needed. 

“Well, it’s not too quiet on the inside from what I can tell,” Spoiler’s voice spoke softly. She held her binoculars up to her eyes again. “It looks like he has a whole production going on in there. There are—B, there are cameras.”

Red Robin’s voice patched in from the Cave. “ Guys, we have a big problem. He’s livestreaming this. It’s…oh god.” His voice sounded queasy.

“Where is Hood?” Batman asked sharply.

“ I sent him out,” Red Robin replied shakily. “ Agent A was called.”

One less thing to worry about at the present, then.

“What do you see, Red?” Spoiler asked worriedly.

“Left side of the building from Knox street. Looks like it may be the second or third floor. I’m saying second. Spoiler?”

“Looks like it.”

“ You guys got to get in there. Go. GO NOW,” Red Robin panicked.

“What’s happening?” Robin asked sharply as the sound of grappling hooks, glass shattering, and explosives detonating rang in his ears. “Red Robin, report!”

“ Get Leslie on the phone. Tell her to look at the news. Be ready with that kit, Robin.”

The youngest Bat tensed as he waited for further instruction. A gentle breeze, carrying the signature stagnant scents of Gotham alleyways caught Robin’s cape. Aside from the noise in his earpiece, everything was quiet on his end. It made his stomach twist uneasily, and he stilled completely to absorb his surroundings. 

Rustling caught his attention, and he glanced over to see a lone, dull yellow dandelion shifting in the cracks of the concrete and sprouting more leaves from its stem, which grew far too quickly to be a natural occurrence. 

He swallowed, turning to glance over his shoulder. 

“Red Robin, we have a problem.”

“ What, what is it?”

“Hello, Baby Bird.” The newcomer bared her teeth in a feral smile as vines trailed around her feet and extended towards Robin.

“Ivy.”

Day 155: The Morgue

As soon as Red Robin’s voice told them to move in, the Bats had bolted. It was pandemonium almost instantly as the goons ascended on them as soon as they busted through the windows of the second floor.

Harley was in the center of the room on a cold metal slab, a thin paper gown clinging to her bony limbs. She wasn’t moving. 

“Ah, ah, ah, Batsy!” Joker cackled as Batman beat back several goons. “This isn’t between you and me. No, this is between me and her .” He held a scalpel in his hand, blood dripping off of the blade onto Harley’s pallid face that laid right underneath the Joker’s position.

When Batman lunged towards him, the Joker attempted to stab the tool into Harley’s skull, but Spoiler’s well-timed toss of a batarang knocked him just enough off kilter that he ended up turning the blade on the metal table underneath the captured woman. 

The room was filled with smoke as an explosive detonated, and then seconds later vines began to crawl into the broken windows and across the floors.

“Shit,” Spoiler cursed as the smoke filled her vision and she tripped on a vine. When she looked up to see the smoke dissipating, Joker was gone. “Black Bat! Where is he?”

Black Bat pointed towards the door on their right as she kicked a goon hard in the chest, knocking the wind out of him before she drove a knee into his head and knocked him out cold. She was hot on Spoiler’s heels as the other woman darted in the direction Joker had disappeared in. 

Ivy exploded into the room then, wrapping everything in vines and tearing it apart. Metal screeched as it was rendered into jagged pieces, tables and old morgue slabs flew around the room, and goons gurgled and shouted as they were choked by plants winding around their throats.

“Where. Is. He!” she thundered, eyes blazing.

“That way!” Nightwing directed a little too eagerly, earning a disapproving look from Batman. “Spoiler and Black Bat are following him!”

Ivy took off, leaving Batman and Nightwing to stare at the wreckage of the room left in Ivy’s wake. Harley, however, was unharmed. Around her, soft heather bloomed and vines created a protective barrier from any wreckage that may have flown by. 

Robin stumbled into the room, then, panting. Seeing the wreckage, his shoulders dropped.

Batman set a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You tried. I understand. Help me loosen these from around her. She needs to get to Gotham General as soon as possible. This is beyond what a clinic doctor can help.”

“What is the damage?”

“He’s cut a few inches into her sternum at the top. Any more and she would have bled out in seconds. As it is, we don’t have much time.”

“She’s too thin,” Nightwing said grimly.

“He must have been starving her,” Damian frowned. “She looks like a waif.”

“What was he doing when we came in?” Nightwing asked, quickly pulling out a blade and helping Batman and Robin hack away at vines. Harley’s breathing was shallow, her skin pale and drawn. Nightwing cut faster. 

Ivy may not condone them taking such action, but considering Harley’s life was hanging in the balance, she would just have to make do. 

“ According to the livestream, removing her heart, ” Oracle said. “ Sorry for the late arrival. I got caught up in traffic. There were vines everywhere. The livestream has been disabled.”

Robin grunted in response. He pulled plants away from Harley’s face carefully and stilled. “Father.”

Batman leaned over his shoulder, and Robin heard his sharp intake of breath.

“I’m going to kill him,” Nightwing hissed as he saw Harley’s face. “I’m going to rip out his insides and let Harley’s hyenas eat them while they’re still attached. Bastard .”

Harley’s cheeks had been sliced open from one ear to the other and pulled taut again with little care and sloppy stitches. The haphazard slash created a cruel mockery of the Joker’s own signature sneer.

The Joker had marked her for life.

Day 156: Darcy

Darcy jumped as the door to the lab was flung open, banging into the wall and echoing loudly through the room. 

“Alright, enough funny business!” Penguin snarled, grabbing her by the hair and dragging her to the device across the room. “I know you have it done, now show me!”

Darcy was aware that she was running out of time as soon as she had sent the SOS message for her friend. The Bats would rescue Harley, and Penguin’s scrutiny would turn to her as the vigilantes turned all their focus onto finding her. Part of her, however, still wasn’t expecting him to make demands so soon. 

“It’s not quite finished,” she stuttered. “It’s not stable.”

“You’ll show me what you have!”

Darcy swallowed at the cold metal pressed against the back of her neck. “Alright. Yeesh. Let me get it booted up. But don’t blame me if it swallows the city of Gotham. Especially when it was made on your sorry budget.”

“I spared no expense,” Penguin sniffed. 

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. But you’re no Wayne.”

Penguin nudged the gun against her head. “Get to it, girlie.”

Darcy took a deep breath and began adjusting dials and switches accordingly. 

There was a low humming, like energy crackling in the air. And then, a few sparks before a small wormhole opened up. Penguin eyed it greedily. 

“Where does it lead to?” he asked, squinting into it. 

“Not sure.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Darcy winced. “Uh, well, I haven’t gotten that far. I can’t control where the portal opens.”

She had, of course, but he didn’t need to know that and like hell was she going to give him a wormhole that would take him where he wanted to go.

The wormhole flickered, spluttering, then vanished. 

“Well, then fix it,” Penguin demanded, pounding his cane on the ground. “And stabilize that device. You’re being moved.”

Darcy stared at the machine after Penguin slammed the lab door shut as he exited. 

Great. Hopefully they would leave in the next few hours, otherwise Darcy was about to be a wormhole’s first meal: the destruction sequence had begun. No pressure, right? 

“Time to rescue yourself, Darce,” she whispered.

It was only slightly a bad idea to send yourself through an unstable wormhole, right?

Day 156: The Bats

The Joker had escaped and gone underground as soon as he heard Ivy was involved in the search for him. 

Harley was in critical condition, but the last any of them had heard, she was more stable than she had been the day prior. The doctors were nervous about infection setting in, and they had to place several stitches where Joker had attempted to cut out her heart, but she was stable. And, for now, that was all they could ask. That Harley was still living was nothing short of a miracle. 

No one had told Jason exactly what had happened to Harley, only that she had been recovered and was currently receiving treatment. The man had asked not to know, refusing to let the green cloud his vision when they were so close to finding Dalia. 

Tim came running into the Cave–where Bruce was examining what evidence they had found regarding Joker’s whereabouts–to access the Bat Computer, typing feverishly. “Bruce!! Call everyone down!!”

“Did you find DeeDee?” a small voice called out, and Bruce paused in his operations, whipping around in search of the owner: Penny. 

“Oh no, Pipsqueak,” Jason groaned as he, too, appeared from a hiding place, scooping the little girl up and putting her on his shoulders carefully. “You lost the game.”

The girl gasped in offense, smacking Jason in the head playfully. “No! You lost the game! He didn’t find me until you picked me up!”

Bruce eyed Jason disapprovingly. “Really, Jason?”

“What?” Jason shrugged. “She found the clock passage. Better to let her explore with supervision than for her to sneak off, right? And, besides, her mom was down here already helping Timbers find Dalia. They know.”

Bruce sighed, holding out his hands for Penny to come to him. She stuck her tongue out at Jason as he teased her for betraying him in favor of Bruce, muttering about how she had talked first, but he had come out of his hiding place before she had, so technically she had won. 

Jason stuck his tongue out at her, glad to see her laugh, before he turned to see Barbara rolling up to the computer to watch the screen beside Tim. 

“What have you found, Replacement?”

“We have a hit on Penguin. He got sloppy–must be nervous now. After checking those places Emilia recommended, though, I think we’ve got him. Look! Here!”

Jason viewed the CCTV footage, grinning sharply when he realized Tim was right. “Yeah, that’s him.” He glanced at Penny. “Pen, I’ve got to go rescue DeeDee. Think you can man the fort here while I’m gone?”

Penny nodded solemnly. “Yes. But I’m a girl. I will girl the fort here.”

Tim snorted, but Jason found himself putting up a serious front as he saluted the little girl. 

“Good, good.” Jason hurried and donned his helmet, hitting the call button for Alfred when he noticed other vigilantes putting on their gear. “Alfred will bring you back upstairs,” Jason promised, kissing her gently on the forehead and then swinging a leg over his motorcycle. “Tell your mama what is happening, okay?”

Penny nodded solemnly, her eyes wide. “And you’ll bring Dee home?”

“I’ll do my best, kiddo. I promise."

Chapter Text

Day 156: Our Resident Astrophysicist, Darcy Lewis

“Aw shit,” Darcy muttered, giving the burgeoning wormhole the stink eye as it began to spark uncontrollably. “So. New plan. Not stable enough to go far, but maybe I can stabilize it enough to–Ah ha! Yes!”

The portal crackled and spluttered, closing before opening again quickly, now an unbroken, more stable tunnel through space. 

Goons rushed into the room, and Darcy flung up a peace sign. “So long, suckers! Time to blow this popsicle stand!”

Darcy cackled madly as she bolted through the portal just as it closed, only to curse as she realized she was not outside of the building, but still in the base, only no longer in a locked room.

“I am so screwed,” she muttered. Gunfire split the air, and she winced–her enhanced hearing wasn’t kind in that regard. Sounds of fighting carried in from another room, and she debated between going in the opposite direction or seeing what the fuss was about. After all, fighting meant intruders, and intruders meant an entryway nearby. 

And then she heard it. 

That irritating, modulated voice filtering through an obnoxious colored helmet. 

“Penguin, I’m going to rip your vertebrae out disc by disc and play frisbee golf with them! Tell me where she is!”

“Hood, you can’t solve all your problems with a gun!”

“I know. That’s why I have two! ”

That asshole. Here to save her, and now she was going to have to save both of them because this place was going to blow in five minutes.

At least her decision was made for her. 

“Hood!” she shouted, booking it towards the commotion. “We gotta go!”

Spoiler, Black Bat, Red Robin, and Nightwing were scattered around the warehouse floor, engaged with Penguin’s goons. Darcy helped where she could, but her main concern now was to avoid getting hit by stray bullets. And, you know, trying to make sure they all knew this place was about to implode .

Red Hood, however, had dragged Penguin closer to him by his collar, holding the man up uncomfortably by his tie.

“Hey! I need you all to listen to me . We have five minutes left,” Darcy screeched. 

Hood’s head snapped towards her. “What?”

She nodded frantically. “I’m personally taking the Rolls Royce, but this place is about to blow.”

Hood looked at Penguin and frowned, then back to Darcy.

“Drag him with or leave him, but we have to leave .” 

The bats started running out of the building, Hood dragging Penguin behind him. 

Nightwing stumbled on his way out. “Wait! B! He’s on the other side of the building with Robin!”

“We’ll grab them on our way out! We have to go !”

“Dalia!” Nightwing pled. 

“I’ll grab them! I know the layout better! Get everyone out! And, uh, back away by…maybe four hundred feet?”

Nightwing’s eyes widened under the mask. “What–”

“Not important!” Darcy yelled, taking off. Hood was close behind her, speaking into his earpiece. He had, apparently, left Penguin to his own devices to track down the other members of the family.

“Robin! Batman! Do you copy? Listen, we’re clearing out. This place is about to blow. Where are you? What do you see?”

Darcy listened as Hood rattled off descriptions. “Got it. I think that’s near an exit–pretty sure they brought me in that way, since it’s closer to a back street.”

“Marco!” Hood yelled suddenly. 

“ Pollo!” a voice cried in the distance. 

“Hell yeah! Found them!”

And they did, with Batman leading them back to the exit. They all sprinted, and Darcy’s mind raced as she heard the tell-tale rumble on their heels. 

It’s odd how brains pick up small things in the middle of terror. As Darcy raced out of what she now knew to be the atypical warehouse associated with villains, she couldn’t help but think, “Warehouse. For a villain. Basic.”

Shaking herself out of it, she picked Robin up—ignoring his protests because like hell was she going to let him get hurt–and hurled him several more feet, as far away from the explosion as she could. Red Hood, and now Robin, were in front of her, Batman behind. Batman followed her example and threw her several more feet as the building imploded on itself, sending shards of tin, chunks of concrete, and fragments of glass hurtling out with great force. 

Darcy hit the ground hard, rolling into a ball and covering her face as the debris billowed over her. She heard Robin cursing her in what she thought may have been Arabic. Everyone

Batman grunted as a piece of rusted rebar lodged itself in his side. 

“Father!” Robin shouted as a wave of heat, debris, and dust surged towards them, obscuring his view. 

“B! Nightwing, where the hell are you? We need an extraction on the east side of the building five minutes ago !” Red Hood shouted into his comms, running to Batman’s side and trying to pull him into a fireman’s carry. Darcy ran up beside him and helped, careful not to disturb the injured side as much as she could. 

Which, really, didn’t do her any good when the stubborn old man yanked it out , leading to Hood letting out a string of expletives.

“Are you daft? What if something major was hit?” he groaned. 

Batman only grunted at him before he passed out, becoming even more of a dead weight. Darcy helped support him with one arm, grabbing Robin with the other and dragging him after her. “Come on, kid, we gotta get your dad some help. Stubborn arse.”

A car swung around the smoking remains of the warehouse, screeching to a halt next to them. 

“We got company,” Nightwing shouted, rolling down the window. “Pile in! This isn’t the Batmobile!”

“Grab your feral brother!” Darcy called, still dragging Robin behind her. 

Nightwing jumped out to help, only to curse loudly as another car, and then another, pulled around the corner, revving engines as the drivers began to aim firearms in their direction. “Shit, that’s Penguin! Oracle! Batman is down! I repeat, Batman is down! We need reinforcements!” 

He grabbed the part of Batman Darcy was supporting, ushering Robin into the car. 

And, in that moment, knowing Nightwing wouldn’t be able to make it to the front seat if he was hauling Batman and Robin into the back on the other side of the car, and that he had far more first aid experience than she did, Darcy Lewis made a decision. 

A bad, very bad, absolutely no good decision. But, you know, that was starting to become a theme, wasn’t it?

Darcy wondered, sometimes, how it was somehow a universal law that she ended up in these kinds of situations. 

Maybe, she considered, it was that in possible fatalistic situations like this one, she preferred to keep her life in her own hands instead of placing it into someone else's. 

Bless the souls, however, who had to trust her with their lives in return to her keeping hers firmly in her control.

Such as now. 

Nightwing was in the passenger seat, screaming bloody murder as she took a sharp turn and cut through traffic. 

Red Robin and Robin were the back, identical expressions of terror on their partially masked faces. 

Batman was laid over their laps, side still bleeding, but sluggishly now that Red Robin was holding pressure on the wound. A little too tightly, if his hiss through his teeth was any guess. 

Darcy was thankful he was near unconscious for this particular event. 

Red Hood, however, was also in the back and was elated to be fully present, irritating the others with his whoops of joy. 

“Have you no self-preservation?” Robin grit out. 

“Absolutely none!” Hood cackled. 

Darcy winced. She used to have a healthy dose of it herself, but now she really wondered if she and Hood were in the same boat. 

She was, after all, driving a stolen get-away car, with a bleeding Batman in the backseat and four of his children all screaming (though some in manic delight), as Penguin and his goons chased them through the dimly lit streets of Gotham. 

…And she couldn’t shake all of them. 

Two cars she had lost three turns back. The four still on her tail? Nada. Evasive maneuvers and all, she couldn’t shake them. 

This wasn’t stressful at all–she just had a possibly dying man depending on her to make it back to the cave without any tails that would compromise their identities. 

In a car that was very noticeably not the Batmobile, which would have long outrun these vehicles intent on manslaughter. 

Aw man, we are so screwed. 

When one of the cars ran through a small park to veer in front of her, leaving the flowerbeds and moss garden in shambles, she really should have panicked. That was the appropriate reaction, right?

Instead, she muttered, “Bruh.”

Then, she held out her right hand towards Nightwing, keeping her left hand firmly on the steering wheel, and demanded, “Nightwing, hand me your phone

“No thanks,” he panted, pushing himself against the seat, hoping that maybe flattening himself against a larger surface would increase his chances of survival. “I really want to see my wife and kid again, and the driver texting isn’t upping my chances any!”

“I need to make a call! Not text!”

He still shook his head, yelping loudly as Robin climbed between the two front seats, elbowing him in the gut in the process. 

“Dimwit,” Robin huffed, slapping the back of Nightwing’s head. “What’s your password?” he asked Nightwing, snatching the phone.

Darcy started rattling off the number as soon as Robin had the phone open. 

“And put it on speaker!”

“Quit yelling, I’m right beside you!”

“I’m sorry! This is a highly dangerous situation! I don’t do quiet when I’m being chased!”

“ Hello?”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Darcy sighed as the dial tone gave way to a familiar voice. “Pamela, my dear friend’s friend, I need a massive favor.”

“ Dalia ? Where have you been?”

“ The Penguin decided I needed to have an extended visit,” she groused, “But the Bats found me–or, at least, I was in the process of escaping when they swooped in and made it simultaneously easier but difficult.”

“ But you escaped?”

“Yeah, but, uh, not for long? They’re tailing us, and B-man is bleeding out in the back, sooooo….”

Pamela was silent. Nightwing and Robin were giving her exasperated looks.

“Robin, sweet child–” He hissed at Darcy. What had she said early? Feral. “–bratty child–I know you can hold your own against criminals, but we’re going ninety miles an hour through the dark streets of Gotham. Your chances of survival here are higher if you buckle up! Anyway, as I was saying, Pamela. I should tell you that Penguin’s goons ruined that really nice park near Selina’s apartment. Do you, ah, want some revenge?”

“ Can you bring them by the park, or do I need to meet you halfway?”

Darcy checked her mirrors. There were now two more cars–coming up on either side of their car. They were nearly boxed in, but if she could just…

She yanked the wheel left, clipping the front of the car on the left and the rear of the car in front of her, and barely shooting through the narrow gap. 

Nightwing began yelling again until Robin slapped a hand over his mouth and gave her a terse nod.

Darcy focused on remaining unboxed by the cars following her now that she had left them scrambling once. A second chance maneuver was unlikely.

“I’ll meet you at the park. How do I avoid hurting–”

Pamela cut her off. “ My babies are willing to fade for a select few. Just stick to the grass.”

Darcy sucked in a breath as the car went silent. Ivy very rarely made alliances that could harm her plants. This was big. 

She swallowed. “Alright. Robin, eta?”

“Three minutes,” he said grimly. “Take a left, then a right. Then two lefts. That’s the grassier side.”

“I’ll be ready. Dalia?”

“Yes?”

“ Cover the saplings' eyes.” Ivy ignored Robin’s offended scoff. “ I won’t be showing any mercy.”

The younger Bats purposefully ignored the patriarch’s mumbled protests.

Darcy pressed the gas as they made the last turn. The park was in sight. 

“Ivy, I’m here.”

“ Excellent.”

The call ended. 

Seconds stretched out.

And, then, the destruction was unmatched. 

Darcy made it through the grassy side of the park, tires peeling through the grass. She held the wheel determinedly in her grasp, refusing to lose control of the car now. The Penguin and company behind her followed suit. 

So caught up in the chase, the villain didn’t even realize he had entered another’s territory until Ivy swept out from the treeline. 

The grassy field turned into a jungle in mere seconds. Their pursuers’ vehicles were suspended by vines, which supported some kind of trailing blossom that spurted an acid that ate away the metal–and the people inside, if the screams were anything to go by. Explosions from fumes and gas mixing with the acid rocked the ground.

Darcy’s ears were ringing as she opened the car door and tumbled out. 

Ivy was approaching Penguin’s vehicle, purple nightshade flowers springing up in the footprints she left behind. 

Vines began dismantling the vehicle, pulling metal apart with sounds that had Darcy covering her ears until Penguin was singled out and dangling in front of Ivy, his limbs pulled in all directions like a twisted representation of da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. His expensive suit jacket began to tear at the arm seams. 

“I wonder,” Ivy purred as she stepped closer, “if you are aware of the pain he inflicted on the woman you sold out to gain another intellectual mind for your cause.”

Penguin panicked, struggling like a fly caught in a spider’s web. The vines entwined tighter around his body, stretching him out painfully. 

“Please,” Ivy scoffed, “As if a man of such material means could understand the brutality and power of nature. You won’t escape my vines. Once, we would have engaged in all kinds of fun schemes together. But, Oswald, you betrayed a very deep trust. You sold out an ally. A friend. My friend. And that is unforgivable.”

Penguin opened his mouth to protest, but choked as vines crawled into his maw. A flower eerily similar to hemlock replaced any words the man might have begged. 

Ivy tilted her head, almost looking bored. Climbing roses began to entwine around his body, digging their thorns deep into his flesh. His eyes widened, and he began to thrash around, his screams muffled.  

“Harley will take over your precious territory,” Ivy hummed, her tone matching a bored attorney reading out a final will and testament. “The Iceberg Lounge will become more successful than it ever has under her careful mind. And you… you will suffer the pain you inflicted on her by selling her out to the Joker, you poor excuse of a Judas.”

He screamed, choking on the hemlock in his mouth as thorns split open his chest cavity. 

Darcy covered her eyes as she realized what Ivy was doing. Robin, determined to prove Ivy wrong about covering his eyes, looked away, burying his face in Nightwing’s shoulder. Nightwing and Red Robin looked away determinedly. Red Hood watched impassively, though, beneath his helmet, he was an interesting shade of green. 

Ivy had entwined her vines and thorns around Penguin’s still-beating heart, slowly constricting around the organ until she yanked it from his chest, a cruel mockery of Joker’s past plan for Harley. 

Penguin was dead. 

Left in his place was a collection of thick, violent blood-red roses. Like the biblical Samson’s honeycomb in the lion’s carcass, beauty was left in the rotting corpse of the predator. 

Oh, how the mighty had fallen.

Chapter Text

Day 156: Red Hood & Co.

It was over. Harley was rescued. Penguin was dead. Ivy was satisfied. 

And Dalia. She stood there, in front of a backdrop of licking flames, her arms wrapped protectively around her. She was staring at Penguin’s mutilated corpse, her lips white, a blank expression on her chemical-damaged face. 

He hesitated. He was in costume. He should not be seen without—

She shivered, and he cursed, pulling off his helmet and throwing it down as he ran towards her, catching her up in his arms. 

She squeaked in surprise, eyes wide, as he brought his lips to hers in a passionate kiss. 

She relaxed, then, kissing him back fiercely. Her hand came up to the back of his head, tangling in his brown curls and tugging gently, pulling him closer to her and pulling both of them deeper into the kiss.

His arm wrapped tighter around her waist, and she leaned her small frame against him in response, breaking the kiss to tuck her head snuggly underneath his chin. They stayed that way for a long moment, before he pulled away to check on her. 

Her eyes were large, filled with tears.

They weren’t green anymore. They were a startling blue. He blinked at her, and began to open his mouth to ask, but then she was pulling him back into a kiss, grasping his cheeks firmly in her hands, careful not to knock his domino mask from his face.

Nightwing cleared his throat behind them before their lips met, however, causing them to draw apart again. “Well, I am going to get B to Leslie before he decides to die on us. Again. I’ll, uh, leave you to it.”

Robin scoffed at them before he whirled to follow Nightwing, stomping behind the older vigilante. Ivy left soon after, giving Dalia a wink and nod before she called her plants to retreat and disappeared into the night.

Dalia’s face flushed pink when Hood gave her a wide grin. 

“Hood.”

“Dalia.”

He tugged her back towards him, cradling her head to his chest. She was too small. Too thin. Too pale. Too starved.

She curled in against him, her chest heaving, and he realized that she was crying. 

He sighed. “I’m so sorry, Dee. God, I’m sorry.” He ran his fingers through tangled hair. They hadn’t even provided her with the basic amenities. “Did he hurt you?”

“Aside from pouring skin melting acid on me and forcing me to relive my worst nightmares with fear toxin you mean?” she said wryly, and it was then that he examined again the dry, scaly patches of skin. 

Her face had, for the most part, healed, though with some scarring. There were areas on her collarbone and cheeks that were still red and scabbed over, some areas much worse than others. The scarring was still bright pink, the skin looking like it had pulled uncomfortably tight in some areas. 

He frowned. Her scar from the first altercation with Penguin’s men had healed and nearly disappeared within two weeks. There was little reason for the injuries to still be as bad as they were, even if it was a traumatic chemical burn. 

She winced at his sour expression. “I picked at them. No reason to let them know there was more to me than meets the eye,” she spoke quietly, her voice still thick with tears. “I’ve been told it’s easier to downplay your abilities than have men fear you for them.”

“And who taught you that? Selina?”

She shook her head. “No. A friend from a different lifetime.”

She looked sad, and Red Hood wondered, not for the first time, if she would ever speak of the past before Gotham.

Red Robin’s comm dinged then, and Oracle spoke in his ear before patching Superman through to all of them.

“I assume that since there’s a smoking warehouse and a unique energy signature very near your location that you’ve managed to find her without the help of the device,” he said good naturedly. 

“Yes and no,” Red Robin said in relief. “The device didn’t zero in on her like it should have, but it did give me a general idea of where to start looking.”

“Excellent. Leslie wanted me to inform you all that she is enroute to the Cave to care for your father. I am also in the cave. Oh, and Hood? I expect to meet her.”

Red Hood made eye contact with Red Robin, incredulous. “Why the hell does he want to meet her?” he mouthed. 

“Because I’m your honorary uncle,” Clark said in good humor. “Agent A also insists.”

With that news, Red Hood grumbled, but looked at Dalia pleadingly. She made a face, but nodded.

“So long as there’s food,” she said, a little unsteady on her feet now. “I think my stomach is digesting itself.”

“There will be so much food,” Red Robin grinned. “And coffee.”

“Coffee is the nectar of the gods. I know for a fact,” Dalia said tiredly. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

Day 156: Darcy

“Dee! Dee!” Penny ran to her, wrapping her arms around her waist and burying her head in Darcy’s stomach. “I missed you!”

Darcy hugged Penny tightly, fighting back another onslaught of tears. 

“Hey, Pen,” she croaked. “How ya been?”

Darcy didn’t really want to know why Penny was in the Batcave so late (or early?). It was better, sometimes, not to question things.

“Terrible!” Penny wailed. “Damian can’t tell as good of bedtime stories as you! His are all about weird pools and assassins.”

Robin huffed. “See if I tell you any more, you small minded miscreant.”

Penny blew a raspberry at him before she replaced her mischievous face with an angelic look as she gazed up at Darcy. “Won’t you tell me a story later, Dee? Pleaseeeeee?”

Darcy snorted, remembering a similar tactic Tony and Pepper’s little hellion had tried to pull on her. “Sure, kid. Why not?”

“Yes!” Penny squealed. “I’m going to go tell Dan and Emmie! They're asleep!”

She took off, running up the stairs, and Darcy watched her with a small smile on her lips. 

“Ms. Lanes, I presume,” a cheery voice called. “If you were a Lane, I would ask after your relatives. But alas, the small difference of a letter.”

Superman stood in front of her, holding a hand out for a handshake. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Darcy took his hand carefully. “Please, just call me Dalia. Lanes is too much of a mouthful. It’s nice to meet you, too.”

“Red Hood tells me you’re aware of their identities.”

Darcy narrowed her eyes. “Not intentionally. It happened by accident.”

“Well, then a secret for a secret is only fair. You wanna tell me why it looks like you’ve been melted down and reformed?” he asked jovially. 

She paled. “I–you can see that?”

“Yes. My main concern is–are you going to implode or injure anyone around you anytime soon? I would like to know what’s holding you together after you clearly suffered something life altering."

“Lazarus Pits,” Jason chimed, giving Superman an unimpressed look. “Are you done?”

“Lazarus Pits can only accomplish so much, Jason,” he replied coolly. “Since your father isn’t well enough to run a check, I am filling in for him.”

Darcy hesitated, then asked, “What does it look like to you? The injuries you see, anyway.”

He stared at her carefully for a minute, and Darcy was suddenly thankful her nipples weren’t pierced. And then that Supes wasn’t a mind reader. 

He shook his head and met her eyes. “Like you were burnt into char.”

Darcy swallowed thickly. “I don’t think I would be lying if I told you that I don’t remember exactly what happened to me. One second, I’m at work. The next…well, I’m choking on green sludge not far outside of Gotham.”

“The pools disappeared soon after she arrived, too,” Tim put in his two cents, frowning. “Sounds like some kind of cosmic intervention shit if you ask me. Everything being too convenient and all.”

“While this is an interesting take, my gal is hungry,” Jason huffed, putting an arm around her. “And if you’ll recall, she’s been in captivity for some time on a boosted metabolism. So move before I bust out the Krypton knuckle busters, Supes. We can discuss this later. Hierarchy of needs and what not.”

As they walked out of sight, Darcy blinked up at him. “Your gal, huh?”

He winced. “It, uh, kind of slipped out.”

He realized, then, that he still had his arm around her and tried to casually remove it. She reached up and held it there, staring at him. 

“It’s okay.”

He blinked in surprise. “Really?”

She smiled softly. “Yeah. Now come on, I was promised food, and I’m about to kill someone if I don’t get any.”

“Can’t have that,” he whispered, “Bruce would have a cow if you were only here for a day and you killed someone.”

“Then feed me, sugar cheeks!”

“Sugar cheeks?”

“Yeah, not my best. Don’t hold it against me–I’m starving, in pain, and thoroughly exhausted. Don’t you have any compassion on recently kidnapped victims?”

He laughed, tightening his arm carefully around her as he steered her towards the direction of food.

If he laughed a little louder when Darcy pinched his butt, well, that was between the two of them. 

Day 156: Darcy

“Well, now that you’re not on the run from us anymore, will you please come back and work for me?” Tim wheedled, grinning widely at Darcy. 

She ignored him in favor of taking another bite of soup.

“Pleaseeeeeee?”

She scowled at him. “When you can give me peace and quiet after being kidnapped and held hostage instead of trying to convince me to reapply for a job that requires me to deal with Lucius Fox, we’ll talk. Leave me alone, Drake.”

“You can’t make me,” Tim sing-songed.

Darcy raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Really? I can and will hack your systems and wipe all of your records, including erasing any trace of your access to Wayne Enterprises. You know how tight security is after the look-alike incidents that have happened in the past. If your badge doesn’t work, you’re not getting in.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me, bitch,” she shot back, shoving another bite of soup into her mouth. “Jason. Make him leave me alone.”

“Beat it, twerp,” Jason grinned. “Or else.”

Tim crossed his arms. “Nothing you can say will get me to leave her alone.”

“I’ll tell Damian you managed to hire her out from underneath him.”

Tim gaped. “But she hasn’t even agreed to come back?”

“He won’t stop to ask that, now will he?”

“I would suggest the bickering halt and the eating begin,” Alfred said drily as he walked in with another serving tray. “Let Ms. Lanes eat, young men, or I will employ drastic measures.”

Scowling, but not willing to take Alfred’s threat lightly, Tim stuck his tongue out at his brother and ate his own dinner. 

“Whoa, Dal, take it easy,” Jason huffed, tugging the bowl away from her for a minute. “You’re going to get sick if you keep eating so fast.”

“He’s right, you know,” Dick said tiredly, leaning against the wall of the dining room.

Darcy sighed, but took her bowl back and stirred her soup, sipping a little slower. “How’s your dad?”

“They’ve got him sedated, but he’s stable now.”

“Good.”

“Harley is also stable. Not conscious yet, but stable.”

Some of the tension loosened in Darcy’s shoulders at the news. “Is she in a secure location?”

“Yes. We have some of the best watching over her. I can take you to visit her tomorrow if you want me to. You’ll have to have one of us with you in uniform, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to wear a mask yourself. Security is running a tight ship, but it's best if your face isn't associated with the Bats."

“I would like that.”

Jason squeezed her hand underneath the table. “There is a problem still, Dalia.”

“Joker is unaccounted for. He will surely make a reappearance, we just don’t know where or when,” Dick finished. 

“But you think I’ll end up caught in the middle of it,” Darcy said grimly. “I’m aware of how most villains work.” 

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to stay here until he’s found,” Jason said gently, rubbing the skin on the top of her hand gently. “Or you could come to one of my safe houses with me. But your best bet really is the manor. Bruce has gone all out when it comes to security.”

Darcy snorted. “I imagine so. You know how hard it is to outsmart a paranoid bastard like him? It’s a lot of effort, let me tell you.”

Dick chuckled. “I’m aware. Barbara and Tim are still a little peeved that you managed to avoid everyone for so long. It’s dumb luck that Jason ran into you.”

Darcy squinted at Jason, her lips twitching. “Yeah. Dumb luck. More like the Norns and their witchy fate garbage. Not that they’re real or anything.”

“I don’t know, Dee,” Jason grumbled. “We’ve met other beings considered deities before. Who’s to say the Norns aren’t real?”

“It may be the new nornal ,” Dick teased. 

Tim, not Jason, threw a knife at Dick for his terrible pun.

Chapter Text

Day 156: Darcy

“You know, I would really appreciate it if you would hug me,” Darcy grumbled, nudging Jason’s side. He lifted an arm and draped it lazily around her shoulder. She huffed. “No. I’m talking like full body snuggles, my dude. I need you to squeeze me with your yummy beefcake biceps.”

Jason snorted, removing his arm. “Okay, you lost me.”

“Nooooo!” She scrambled after him, laughing. “I am so touch deprived, and as “your girl,” I demand that you fix it. I need you to HUG ME.”

He did, then, picking her up into a tight hug. Darcy sighed in content, burying her face into his warm shoulder.

He kept the hug for as long as she stood there, and then when she withdrew, he sat beside her and let her lean against him. 

“Thanks,” she said softly.

“Welcome,” he said gruffly. “I, uh, don’t think I’ve hugged anybody like that in a while.”

Darcy laughed wetly. “Yeah, me neither.” She blinked rapidly. “Even before Gotham, I can’t remember the last time someone actually hugged me.”

She thought maybe it had been right after the Avengers reversed Thanos’s snap. When Jane saw her reform in front of her eyes in the lab with piles of papers, empty coffee cups, and sticky notes of scrawling equations everywhere that had appeared in Darcy’s absence. 

“Even when Bruce adopted me,” Jason murmured quietly, “Hugs were few and far between. He’s gotten better about that, but every now and then, someone has to remind him that even the little demon child needs affection sometimes.”

“Damian is about to get so many hugs,” Darcy murmured. Silence stretched. “I grew up ping ponging from foster home to foster home, starting when I was eight years old. It’s harder for people to keep teenagers, especially teenagers who smart off. I was a ward of the state until I was sixteen and filed for emancipation. Hugs weren’t a common occurrence where I grew up, either.”

Jason squeezed her shoulder. “I know a little of what that was like. CPS in Gotham is awful, so most of the foster kids made off on their own when they could give the families the slip.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Damian, who walked into the room and stared at them sitting on the couch. 

“What, twerp?” Jason asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing,” Damian sniffed. “I just find it interesting that you are capable of affection after all.”

Jason snorted. “Yeah, like you’re one to talk.”

“I can be affectionate.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Come sit next to us, you little jerk.”

Damian blinked. “I said I can be affectionate. Not that I was unselective.”

Darcy laughed, reaching out to grab his arm and pull him into an awkward hug with the two adults still sitting down and Damian standing. “There. Now, go away. I’m going to cuddle your brother.”

“Disgusting.”

Day 156: Damian

Damian sat by his father’s bedside, watching the intake and exhale of breath. His father was still sedated, but he was stable, if Alfred were to be believed. Damian knew, of course, that he was.

“Todd is showing another human affection, Father. It has come to my attention that he is harboring affection for this harlot you have taken in. I am disturbed.”

Silence.

“I am starting to believe we are all disturbed.

Silence.

“She hugged me, Father. Clearly her rationality needs to be called into question.”

Silence.

"I thought you would care more." Damian sighed. “Well, if you’re not going to respond, I suppose I can leave you to your rest.”

He passed Selina on his way out the door, scowling at her amused smile. 

Day 157: The Hospital

Harley’s first impression was not the brightness of everything. It was not the strong smell of antiseptic. It was pain . Blinding, hot, pain. She frowned, then inhaled sharply when that made the pain so much worse. Breathing hurt . Her hands flew to her face, and she shuddered as she felt raised–marred–skin instead of her smooth cheeks. 

“What…what did he do to me?” she gasped out, and then it was too much. Everything was too much.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t think. Her face hurt. Her chest hurt. Everything hurt. 

And then, arms were holding her down again. Again. Like they had when he cut her. When he spit on her and said those god-awful things to her. When he had sliced her face from corner to corner and then began to bite into the skin below her neck with that scalpel and—

She seized. 

Someone kept apologizing. Over, and over, and over again.

And then, there was blessed darkness. 

Day 161: Harley

When she next opened her eyes, it was to see Nightwing staring worriedly down at her. 

“Hey,” she croaked, struggling to speak at all through the tightness of the skin stretching over her cheeks. It hurt to even talk. 

“Hey, Harls,” he muttered, staring at her like she was going to shatter into a million pieces. “How are you feeling?”

“Like a rat bastard got his hands on me,” she mumbled, straining to sit up. He held his hand out carefully, shaking his head.

“You shouldn’t be moving too much. It’s not safe yet.”

Harley rolled her eyes, but laid her head back gently on the pillow. “Being a vegetable in the hospital isn’t safe yet either, dummy. Not if he’s still out there.”

Nightwing swallowed. “I’m sorry. We–we all tried. Penguin isn’t around anymore, if that helps. His sorry ass is the one who sold you out.”

Harley snorted. “Figures. I made too many jokes about running a club to rival the Lounge.”

Nightwing turned his head to look at the clock, unable to respond. “Ivy and Dalia–sorry, I think you know here as Toni–are going to kick themselves for not being here when you woke up. Dalia took Ivy to get some clean clothes and some food.”

Harley swallowed. “Is Toni–Dalia–okay? He said Penguin had her.”

Nightwing chuckled softly. “I don’t know if Penguin had her or if she had him.” He quickly related the past week’s events to her, closing the story with the fact that Dalia had first directed them to Harley’s location just in time, blowing up Penguin’s recent hub only after enough time had passed for the Bats to rescue Harley. 

“I think she blames herself that you were taken.” He rubbed his forehead. “She’s got this stupid self-sacrificing complex. It’s going to get her killed.”

She scoffed. “You’re one to talk, bird boy.” 

Nightwing sighed. “I guess so.”

Harley laid quietly, staring at the ceiling. She turned her head to look at him. “Was she the one apologizing the first time I woke up?”

Nightwing was silent, answering her question. 

There was a knock, then Dalia, Red Hood, and Ivy appeared in the room.

“Harley!” Dalia said in delight, bouncing over to the bed. She was wearing a red domino mask that looked very familiar. “You’re awake!”

Ivy was close behind her, watching Harley carefully for signs of pain. She casually hit the call button for the nurse before Harley could stop her, requesting some soft foods and pain medication for the patient.

“Hey, Toni-Dalia,” Harley smiled, gritting her teeth at the awful feeling of taut skin. That would take some getting used to. “I heard you have a savior complex. Knock it off. We have too many of those already.”

Dalia laughed nervously, shuffling from one foot to another. Red Hood put an arm around her shoulders, casually pulling her aside so Ivy could softly ask Harley how she was feeling. Harley narrowed her eyes at them, chatting with Ivy but also watching Dalia and Hood out of the corner of her eye. 

When she noticed Hood reach out and adjust the domino mask, Harley gasped as the pieces clicked. She knew exactly who that red mask belonged to now. “Nooooo. Shut. UP. When did that happen?”

Nightwing glanced in the direction Harley was staring and sighed. “You know, I honestly don’t know. It’s concerning how much I don’t know. Or is it? Really, as the big brother, I don’t think I want to know.”

Harley made gimme-hands at the fresh couple. “Ooooooh, but I do! Give me all the details! You two, get over here now. Dalia, how could you not tell me you were crushing on ol’ Red!”

When the nurse brought a plate of pureed food in, Dalia and Ivy took turns using a syringe to feed Harley, chatting to her about different odds and ends of their daily life over the past few days. Harley appreciated the appeal to normalism, but there was an unnamed tension in the room. 

She wanted to ask for a mirror. 

She didn’t.

Chapter Text

Day 161: Darcy

Darcy stared in the mirror of the bathroom into her own eyes. 

Her very, very blue eyes. 

Not the sickly, brilliant green that she woke up with when she first landed here. 

Blue eyes. 

Not even the color blue she had had before she woke up choking on green slime of an unidentified nature.

Blue eyes the color of the portal she made in her escape from Penguin. 

Her eyes widened.

Shit. 

Multiple theories began to fly through her mind as she leaned closer to the mirror. Her eyes flashed yellow, and then she fell through time and space. 

Darcy Lewis. 

Darcy Lewis.

Darcy Lewis.

She saw constellations and planetary systems Jane had only been able to theorize about. Alternate realities flashed through her vision. Whispers of her friends' fates drifted into her ears. 

Darcy Lewis. 

She pulled away from the mirror with a gasp, reeling, to find Tim standing beside her in concern. He had a hand wrapped around her left shoulder, like he had yanked her back. 

“Dalia,” he said, eyes wide. “What was that?”

“What was what?” she asked weakly, shaking. What the hell was that, indeed? That sure as hell wasn’t her voice speaking her name. 

“There was an energy spike that registered on the BatComputer. And then I find you in here with glowing nebula eyes.”

Darcy shivered. “I–I don’t know, Tim.”

Tim stared at her carefully. “Is there something you’re not telling us?”

She chuckled dryly. “You know there is. Why ask? I don’t know what I can and can’t say.”

Tim pulled away. “Hmm.” He grabbed the soap dish from beside the sink, tossing the bar in the trash and rinsing the dish. He held it up to her lips. “Spit,” he demanded. “It’s not like I haven’t already tested your DNA. You have weird energy signatures attached to it. I want to see if something’s changed.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Sure. Whatever.”

She spat into the dish.

Darcy couldn’t stay here. Not in this universe. Not when she had seen visions of alternate realities where her friends were torn apart. Not when she didn’t know if her Jane was still alive or not. 

Determined, she followed Tim down into the basement, prepared to pester him about the DNA results from his prior tests. If she could see them, then maybe she could get a device pulled together that would lock in on the strange energy signatures Tim was complaining about. 

Alas, however, that was not to be. 

Bruce was awake, sitting up carefully in the chair in front of the BatComputer. 

“Weren’t you just, I don’t know, stabbed? ” Darcy snarked, raising an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “Don’t make me call Selena.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow back. “I didn’t know you cared.”

“I don’t. I care for her. And if you’re dead, she’s mopey.” Darcy shrugged, giving him a strained grin. “I’m kidding, of course I care. You’re Bruce Wayne. Gotham would eat itself alive if it weren’t for you.”

“I seem to recall you were very vengeful with a taser,” he said wryly.

Darcy held her hands up in defense. “Hey, listen, I acted in self-defense. You snuck up behind me in an area that was supposed to be off limits. Of course I tased you.”

Bruce snorted. “Fair."

Darcy blinked at him, then cracked a grin. 

Tim grumbled something underneath his breath, and she looked at him sharply. “What was that?”

He sighed. “I said you need to come back to WE so you can manage the Waynes. You’re a natural at it. Alfred’s already claimed you were a godsend.”

Bruce looked aghast, then thoughtful. “Our PA just quit.”

Darcy squinted at both of them. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

Tim’s mouth dropped. “Wait. Really?”

Bruce looked just as shocked. 

Darcy nodded. “Fine. I’ll be your PA. But, that comes with some stipulations.” She bared her teeth in a mad grin. “If you can afford me.”

Tim nodded eagerly. “Let’s hear them.”

“First things first, I work with Fox, not for him. He has no precedence over me.”

Bruce frowned, but nodded. “Alright.”

“Also, I’m given a few hours out of each work day to dedicate to my research. I need a well-supplied and secured lab that any astrophysicist would kill for.”

“Can you balance that on top of being a PA?” Bruce asked speculatively. 

Darcy grinned. “I’m very efficient when I’m not having to avoid Batman. Also, newsflash, how handy would it be to have a PA who knows your family is the Batclan and can help cover for you when you need to duck out?”

Tim hummed, apparently not having thought about that aspect of things before. “True. Anything else?”

Darcy nodded, ready to put the nail in the coffin. “When I make Wayne Enterprises’ approval rates and stocks rise by 20%, I want half of that to go towards my research and the other half to go towards making safer spaces in Gotham for children. That includes foster homes, schools, and parks.”

Bruce blinked at her. “That’s a bold request, Lanes.”

Darcy shrugged. “Take it or leave it. I know what I’m worth.”

“And what experience do you have that makes you think you can do it?”

“Well, Wayne, just to spite you, approval rates and stocks will rise 30%. What are you going to lose if I don’t make the 20% happen? Nothing. And if I do, then it benefits WE research and makes you look like a billionaire philanthropist.”

Bruce frowned. “I’ll consider it.”

Tim leaned forward as Darcy stalked out of the BatCave to whisper, “We accept.”

If Darcy did a victory dance in her room, that was her own business. Let the games begin. 

Darcy freaking Lewis was on her way to find her way home. 

She didn't think about what this would mean for her budding relationship with Jason.

Day 161: Tim and Bruce

“Bruce, new theory just dropped. Dalia Lanes doesn’t exist.”

Bruce gave a small laugh. “I know this, Tim.”

Tim shook his head. “No, dad, I’m telling you. Alias or no alias, in this universe, she does not exist. Until a few months ago, when we had that weird energy surge and heard the rumors of the pits.”

He watched his adoptive father steeple his hands and rest them under his chin in thought. “It wouldn’t be the first time something involving alternate universes has happened.”

“Exactly. Now, my problem is that she doesn’t match these other universes. This is something beyond the universes we’ve interacted with. My theory is that she is majorly displaced. Wherever she’s from, though, she’s worked with the technology that we’re still only theorizing. We have Zeta tubes, but those are fixed, right? We, as humans, haven’t yet generated something that creates portals to a location of our choice. But what was that that helped her escape Penguin? Bruce, if I’m right, she can help us create advanced systems that would help the Justice League tremendously. It would help us in Gotham tremendously. What if we could get to a Rogue quicker? They wouldn’t have the chance to escape.”

“And if a Rogue got their hands on this system?”

Tim shook his head. “No, listen. We make it unlockable only by DNA and energy pattern recognition! If we keep it secret and only use it for the most desperate situations, or if we frame it like it’s a hero’s powers…Bruce, this could be life-changing!”

Bruce frowned. “Maybe. Or it could be life-ending. We shall see. I’ll consult with Constantine.”

“Constantine just wants to drink your expensive booze, dad. He never actually needs your help,” Tim complained, laughing when Bruce shot him a deadpan look.

Day 175: Darcy and Jason

“Ha, take that, Wayne ,” Darcy snickered, checking the numbers again. Fourteen days, and approval rates had only jumped with every passing day. Stocks were up, too. Not nearly as high as she would like to see, but high enough that she should be able to rub it in his face and get her decked out lab in the next few months. 

Everything was going swimmingly.

Harley was out of ICU, into a private room, and then discharged with a detailed plan for physical and other therapies. Joker hadn't made another appearance, and, for the past several weeks, most of the Rogues were very subdued and often didn't even make an appearance.

She was so capable at her job it made WE employees of years tremble in their boots. Approval rates were up, as were profits. And she hadn’t even had any more freaky portal visions after Tim had found her in the bathroom. Her dreams were still bizarre, but she chalked that up to PTSD and nightmares from when she first arrived. 

Her eyes stayed blue, though they were slowly dulling into their original blue, mixing again with some brilliant greens. Not a good sign, but better than the freaky galaxies Tim swore appeared in her pupils and irises a few weeks ago. 

Lucius Fox had groveled when she had returned, and she had only sipped boredly on her coffee and informed him that she was there for Mr. Wayne, CEO, and Mr. Drake, Co-CEO. She was not there to resume research on his precious device, and the device had, in fact, been moved to another lab that he was not allowed to access. 

Was she petty? 

Yes. 

Was she planning on eventually letting Fox work on the project with her?

Of course.

But let him suffer for the two months it would take her to unlock the lab herself. 

“Relishing in sweet, sweet victory?” a voice asked. 

Darcy glanced up and grinned at Jason, who had a bag of takeout in his hands with her name on it. She made “gimme” hands and giggled when he motioned to his cheek, holding the bag out of her reach.

“This is so unprofessional,” she griped, standing up from her desk and tiptoeing to give him a kiss. “Now, let me have the Kung-Pow chicken.”

She nodded towards a stack of paperwork on her desk. “Oh, hey, by the way. I’ve been working on overturning your status with the U.S. government. Do you know how difficult it is to have a death certificate overturned? You’ve had your U.S. citizenship returned, lover boy. Welcome to the land of the living.”

Jason picked up the papers, his throat tight. He didn’t know how to thank her. This meant–this meant he could be seen in public again instead of sneaking around. It meant he could come to WE and Wayne Foundation events as a family member instead of a security team member or the one on patrol. 

He didn’t–there was no way–how did one even thank someone for this? He knew this wasn’t in her job description. 

He didn't know what to say. Except--

“Damn it, Dalia,” Jason groaned. “Now I’ve got to pay taxes. What am I going to do? Report my income as Red Hood? Even the Joker won’t go against the IRS.”

Darcy snorted. “Just get a legitimate job, dummy. You need to be undead to do a lot of things anyway. Social security, retirement, insurance, passports, marriage licenses.”

Her voice stumbled a little on that last part, and Jason looked at her carefully. 

She flushed, mortified. “I mean, if you ever need those things.”

“One day,” he promised, looking at her with a look she was afraid to decipher. 

Not for me, she realized with a sinking feeling, not if I’m leaving soon.

She watched as he left, blowing a kiss over his shoulder as he carried the paperwork with him. 

Darcy’s heart thudded in her chest.

Why did I do this to myself? What am I thinking? Jason doesn’t deserve another person leaving. 

What was she going to do?

She knew, deep down, and she dreaded it.

Chapter Text

Day 192: Jason

Something was eating at Dalia, and he couldn’t put his finger on what it might be. She should, by all means, be elated. 

Bruce, impressed by the steady increase of Wayne Enterprises approval rates and stocks, turned a lab over to Dalia before the approval rate had even hit a twenty percent increase. 

They had only continued to rise, hitting a whopping thirty-five percent in approval rating and a thirty-one percent rise in stock value before they hit a plateau and leveled out. Wayne Enterprises had never seen such an increase in such a short amount of time. One percent for each day of the month broke more records than those at Wayne Enterprises. 

The Wayne family had made several public outings, making sure to be overly friendly and greet people who waved at them. Damian had walked Titus in the park and had let a few younger children pet the massive dog, even letting one shy girl hold his leash for a second. Dick had hosted a beginner’s trapeze class for free, and Tim had offered a similar class on beginner’s coding. Jason had made his first reappearance into the public eye, and soon after a press conference was held to address why he had been *accidentally* declared dead for years. It was, of course, a farce, but it was a well-constructed story for the general public. They ate it up. 

It was not as if they hadn’t held press conferences before that influenced public opinion. They had also, for years, made publicity trips out into public that helped the Wayne reputation hit an uptick in approval. Not only that, but these conferences and trips had been publicized very frequently in the past. They were in the public eye. 

The difference here was that Dalia was at the helm. She scheduled the press conferences, she planned the public outings, she scheduled meetings with important business partners and soothed ruffled feathers when meetings were canceled on short notice due to Bat Business™. Not only did she run interference as the new Wayne PA, she did so with a frightening ease. 

Tim and Bruce were astonished at how easily they were cowed and corralled by the woman. She breezed through her PA training, insulted that they considered such training was necessary.

She contacted Twitter, Instagram, and other social media companies to set up verified accounts for the “Wayne Family,” starting up a series of accounts that portrayed them in a very human, and very positive light. 

She also contacted a social media company Bruce had never heard of, but Tim had–Vine. She swore up and down the app was about to hit peak popularity with the younger generations, and when rumors began circulating that users were leaving due to their content not being monetized, she presented a proposal to the board to purchase the social media company and begin paying users who met certain qualifications for their content. 

The board voted, and barely passed the proposal due to older members not seeing the benefit, but Dalia was on cloud nine after the vote passed. Tim was elated, too, taking over the management of the app and fixing certain bugs in its coding to make the app more user friendly. Younger users who made viral videos received a personal message from Tim or Damian, presenting them with the opportunity to go to a college, university, or trade school of their choice when they graduated high school. 

The “Look at all those chickens!” little girl received a full scholarship to any school of her choice. The “hurricane tortilla” kid likewise had received a full scholarship offer, and he had declared, at the young age of 12, that he was going to attend Gotham University as soon as he graduated high school, intent on pursuing a degree in meteorology and an internship with Wayne Industries. Bruce personally wrote to the child and encouraged him to follow his plan, stating that he would send him an internship application when the time arrived. 

Approval jumped another three percent in the days following the social media purchase, much to the shock of the board members who had doubted Dalia and even to the ones who had not. The Wayne children made several viral Vines of their own, with one being a clip of Dick sitting in the chandelier, wincing as Alfred calmly chewed him out from the safety of the staircase, already having seen the effects of Dick making a similar perch in the delicate light fixture years before. 

Jason’s personal favorite was a clip where the camera panned to Damian while Tim and Dick were communicating in lines from Toy Story . 

“ TT. I don’t speak Disney. Disney is for the weak.” was adopted into Gen Z slang quickly. 

His second favorite was a Vine posted immediately after: Damian crying during the first few minutes of Finding Nemo . The two clips were quickly stitched together and made viral on platforms allowing longer clips than seven seconds. 

Damian’s social media accounts saw an immediate increase of followers from outside of Gotham. 

It was a thing of beauty to see his disgust when Dalia showed him the statistics, forever captured by the clear filming capabilities of the latest Wayne Phone in Dalia’s hand. Damian’s disgust immediately turned to gloating when she revealed that even Bruce didn’t have that many followers.

“Ha! Take your “ awesome ” and “ groovy ” parkour and shove it, Greyson!” Damian cheered. “I am the true comedic genius here!”

Dick grinned, while Tim rolled his eyes, fondly exasperated. 

“Keep telling yourself that, demon spawn,” Tim snarked.

Jason snorted at the nickname, the camera panned to him to catch the familiar response. “All hail the youngest Wayne. May we all be forever overshadowed by his comedic glory.”

The video cut. Another viral meme.

Behind the camera, Dalia grinned. Then, her face fell. She turned, handed the phone to Tim, and walked out quickly. 

Damian stared after her, eyes narrowed, before he turned to Jason expectantly. “Well? Don’t stand there like a dimwit. Go after her.”

Jason blinked in surprise at his youngest brother.

Tim raised his eyebrow and jerked his head. “Go, genius. Find out what’s wrong with your girl. She’s been mopey ever since Dad gave her the lab, which is the opposite of a normal response.”

“Dalia,” Jason called, taking the stairs two at a time behind her. “Hey, sweetheart. Wait.”

Dalia turned to look over her shoulder, stopping at the top of the stairs. “Hey.”

“Hey.” He reached for her hand, grabbing her cold fingers in his warm hand. “Come on.”

He took her to the roof of Wayne manor, sneaking out his bedroom window to sit on the decorative parapet. 

“Hang on.” He popped back into the window, returning with a quilt to wrap tightly around her shoulders. “There. You shouldn’t get cold now.”

She shuddered, leaning into him. She pulled away after a brief second against his shoulder. 

“Dalia?”

“I miss my stars.” Her eyes were filled with tears as they stared at the few specks of light in the polluted New Jersey sky. “These are not…They are different.”

And then it all came spilling out. How she woke up in the pits, alone, finding out later that she had died in her universe and was resurrected in this one. She admitted to the nightmares of burning alive, of seeing everything melt around her, of hearing the voice over and over in her dreams calling out, “ I had strings but now I’m free. I had strings. But now I am free. I am…Freed.” 

Jason’s hackles rose at her description of the voice, a shiver racing down his spine. That…that was not good. Something was freed that very clearly should not have been. 

It was very clear that it was by no accident that she had landed in this universe–the pits had dried almost immediately after she had resurrected, and Clark said she had been rebuilt from ashes. Not to mention something– someone , a higher power, maybe–had brought her here.

What did that say of the fate of his universe? 

Jason didn’t know.

“And it just–it just makes me angry. More angry than I have ever been, but I can never tell if it’s my own emotions or if it’s those stupid green pits you guys are familiar with. I don’t know how to deal with it. I don’t even exist in this universe. I don’t exist, and yet I didn’t even use my own name. If I used my real name, it became real. But when I used false ones, no one knew me,” Dalia cried softly into his shoulder. “Do you know what a miserable, lonely life it is to be known and yet not known?”

Jason had already pulled her close to him during her admission, but he pulled even closer now, peppering her forehead with kisses as he rubbed up and down her arm softly.

“Dalia, I don’t need to know your name to know you, baby.”

“Jason–”

“No. I know you , regardless of whether I know your true name or not. I know that Penny adores you and your bedtime stories. I know that Emilia trusts you with her kids more than she trusted her own husband. I know Alfred loves you enough to name you an honorary Wayne already. I know you are scarily capable of turning public opinion of us to something favorable. You are capable and talented at everything you put your hand to. You are you . In this universe or out of this universe, Dalia Lanes. True name or no name at all, your essence traveled the multiverse to arrive here. With me. Regardless of whether or not you are to be in it, you are in it. Regardless of whether you are born to exist here, you exist here, now . To be placed within my radius and within my time, some higher power has gifted me with you. ”

Dalia’s mouth opened, then shut. Her eyes closed, and she shook against him. “That–that was some grade A romantic shit, right there.”

Jason snorted, dropping a gentle kiss on her lips. “Well, I am a huge Jane Austen fan. Drawn out, heartfelt romantic shit is my specialty.” 

Dalia grabbed his face and kissed him deeply, leaving Jason’s head spinning. He drew back for breath, resting his forehead against hers.

“My true name, lover boy, is Darcy,” she whispered, “Darcy Lewis. And I am so glad that my universe dropped me into yours.”

Jason’s happy laugh carried into the house. 

“Well, Darcy Lewis, I am honored to know you, and hold you, and love you, Miss Darcy Lewis. In this universe and the next.”

She sniffled. “Sap,” she huffed, dragging him into another kiss. “I love you, too, Jason Todd Wayne. You’re my reparations from the universe for this shitshow.”

Two rooms down, standing in a window staring at the couple, Damian gagged. “Drake, this is disgusting. Why are we here?”

“Shhhhh!” Tim hissed. “This was your idea!” He looked back at the couple and cooed.

Damian huffed. “Of course it wasn’t.”

“Yes, it was! You’re the one who wanted to check on her!”

Damian sniffed. “No. I simply wanted to make sure the harlot didn’t kill my brother. That’s all.”

“Oh please, demon spawn. You know Dalia–Darcy–is not a match for Jay when he’s prepared.”

Damian shrugged. “I don’t think he was prepared for all of that .”

Tim rolled his eyes. “He absolutely was. I voiced my suspicions the other day. I knew from the start when I couldn’t find records that she was displaced. The DNA test the other day only proved it.”

“ Tt. They are kissing again. Yuck. They are like…seals. Fighting over a grape. Look at them. How revolting.”

"Yet you are still staring."

"It's like a train wreck. I can't look away."

“Timothy. Damian. I will end you ,” Darcy threatened, her voice carrying up to them. “I built up your reputations the past few days–I also know how to destroy them. Bats or no bats, I will kick your butts. And I will call in reinforcements to make sure I soundly kick them. Go. Away. ”

Tim yelped, dragging Damian away from the window and down the stairs before Darcy could make good on her threat. 

“Yeah! Go away, perverts!” Jason cheered. 

Darcy laughed, resting her head against Jason. 

They sat quietly under the stars for some time before one of them broke the silence. 

“If you want to go home,” Jason said softly, “I will help you find it.”

The acknowledgment choked him, grabbed his heart and squeezed until it felt like he couldn’t breathe, but he could offer no less. If her universe had survived, she needed to know. He couldn’t imagine being without her, but her world could very much say the same.

How could any universe survive without Darcy Lewis?

Chapter Text

Okay. So this update is not a chapter. If you're looking for an update, I just posted one last night. But, back to the reason for this update: I am at a point in my writing of future chapters that I need constructive criticism on. Like, I need to know what my readers would think so I can progress. I will delete this update after some routine discussion, but I need pros and cons from my lovely readers. I'm going to lose my mind if I can't write the next arc, but the next arc requires a decision that could go one of two ways. 

My question is this: Should I make it to where the MCU exists as comics in the DC universe Darcy is in? It would be crucial to the plot if I included it. I can do without it, but it would take a lot of brain power for me to rework that area of plot. For me personally, the pros outweigh the cons. But I also don't want it to be an easy means to an end? Like, if I use it, I want to do it justice. If I don't use it, then I work harder to work around that. Does that make sense? I don't know. What do you guys think? Batman is referenced in Marvel movies/comics occasionally, so it wouldn't be too far of a stretch if it were the same in the DC universe I'm working in.

I need thoughts! Please! If I can have people discuss this idea with me, I will post another chapter this week? Give me some feedback, please? 🫣🥹

Chapter Text

Day 200: Darcy and Tim

“Alright. So if we look at Sample A, we see that the proteins are normal. The energy signature is even mostly normal, but it’s still off compared to this reality’s signature. But…” Tim clicked the mouse, bringing up another file on the computer. “If you look at Sample B, which was taken after the nebula eyes incident, the proteins have changed. There’s also some kind of…energetic residue that matches nothing in the system in Sample B. And now, with our latest sample, Sample C, we see that the proteins and energy signature are quite nearly back to what appears to be the standard: Sample A, which is relatively normal aside from signatures related to the pits.”

Darcy looked at the screen, tilting her head. “Damn. I wish Bruce were here. This is so not my area of expertise.”

Tim blinked. “I mean, we can go get him?”

Darcy snorted, walking over to her notebook and beginning to jot down observations. “No. Not Bruce Wayne. Bruce Banner. He’s an expert in this kind of genetic mutation thing. My specialty is wormholes and space energy. Like, you know, building wormholes to other galaxies. Which would be much easier if there was always a fixed point, but we had to build the machine to where it could open at any coordinate. Also, apparently, witchy magic is a thing I handle scientifically now. There was a whole alternate reality created within my reality by a powerful witch who got her powers from a freaking mind stone. I lost all sense of autonomy and my background for a little bit. That was fun.”

Darcy continued writing, finally glancing up to find Tim gaping at her when he hadn’t said anything for several minutes. “Uh…Tim? You good? Do you not have powerful magic users in this dimension?”

“You–you’ve built wormholes to other planets ?”

Darcy blinked. “Really? That was the part that shocked you? I’ve been working on the zeta tube device for months, my dude.”

“Yeah, a device that creates a stable connection to one coordinate that has to have the same device on the other side to work successfully. You’re telling me that you’ve worked on devices that don’t require a fixed point and device on the other side that have a near galactic range?”

“You…don’t have those yet?”

“The hell!” Tim blustered. “We’ve had you working on the zeta device because that’s our only point of reference! And this whole time you could have been working on a device that opens anywhere on earth or space ?”

“I mean, the conditions would have to be right, but yes?”

Tim ran a hand through his hair. “I knew your wormhole device was beyond our current technology and could create wormholes to select points nearby but this ? Darcy, do you know what this means?”

“Uh, it means that Fox is going to have a conniption when he realizes he used me to fetch coffee and file lab reports?”

Tim snorted. “No. It means you’re going to change the course of the Justice League’s future. ”

Darcy’s eyes widened as she realized the implications. “Oh shit. Tim, this cannot get out. If Penguin got a hold of me for the device, imagine the implications of a device this reality has only theorized.”

Tim looked shocked. “Oh. That’s…not good.”

Darcy snorted. “No, no it’s not.”

Tim tapped his pen anxiously against the counters of the lab. “Okay. So we put this lab into a full lockdown. We work here or at home. Nothing is recorded on Wayne Enterprises’s servers. We’ll get the world’s most encrypted laptop, add more encryptions, and store everything there. We never talk about the device on any type of network that can get tapped or recorded. Okay?”

Darcy breathed in deeply. “Okay.”

Tim began muttering under his breath, rapidly scratching notes onto his legal pad. He looked up, a thought suddenly occurring to him. “Wait. Darcy. The witchy incident.”

Darcy raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“What is a mind stone?”

Memories flashed through Darcy’s mind. The attack on New York. Thanos. The Blip. Wanda.

She shivered. “The mind stone is an infinity stone. The embodiment of elements science cannot begin to explain. Infinite powers that control everything we know. We’ve only scratched the surface. Space. Time. Power. Reality. Mind. Soul. These are the infinity gems that only the most powerful can hold. And humanity paid dearly when they were last held by the same person. I nearly lost a good friend. Half of the universe’s population lost five years.”

Tim sat on a stool, listening eagerly as she related the events of the Thanos’s arrival on earth, the Blip, and the aftermath of the greatest alien invasion and the greatest battle earth had ever seen. 

“I disappeared for five years. It was like everything dissolved in mere seconds. It hurt, it hurt so badly. And then it was over. I ceased to exist. And then, suddenly, I was right back where I was when Thanos snapped his fingers. It was over. We had won. No one has recovered yet. The economy. The work force. The supply chains. It will take decades, maybe a couple of centuries, for us to get back to where we were before we lost half of the population.”

She stared at the pages of her notebook. “It wasn’t like that when I died. I thought maybe Thanos had returned. But it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t a dissolving feeling. Everything was…melting. People were screaming. It was…awful. It was so different. But part of me thinks that the stones were involved. They would have had to be for what I witnessed. For me to be stripped down to mere atoms like Clark indicated…Only the stones are capable of that.”

The lab was dead silent, Tim’s eyes wide as he stared at her haunted face. 

“I don’t know how I survived,” she whispered.

Tim was digesting everything she had told him. The implication that these stones had such a powerful and infinite impact on her reality…Wait. Reality.

“Darcy. Can you think of a time when you were in close proximity to any of these stones?”

She frowned. “I was around people who were around them.”

And then the realization hit her. The Aether. She had only been touched briefly, but the liquid had rushed over her skin before the Aether had possessed Jane. “The reality stone.”

It was like a gun had gone off. She was scribbling furiously. “Tim. Is there any evidence whatsoever that my cells have been rewritten? Have we looked at cells? Or just the DNA within them?”

Tim ran to the computer, typing furiously. The screen changed from detailed strands of DNA to a separate visual. “Oh my god,” he whispered. “Darcy. Look .”

Darcy’s heart thundered in her ears as she stared at the screen. Her DNA had certainly been altered–she knew this already because of the samples they had entered the lab to study. But to see her cells was something completely different.

Sample A and Sample C were mostly normal. But Sample B, the Sample that had led them to the lab in the first place had extremely abnormal cells. They were golden, shimmering, with red weaving in and out of them. There were other colors, and altogether the cells looked…

“Holy freaking nebulas,” Darcy muttered. “That’s not just energy from the Hex, the alternate reality created in my reality. That’s–” She swallowed. “That’s reality stone particle energy. And what the hell is that?”

"Other energies." Tim frowned. “But why would it only activate after the incident a few days ago?”

“It shouldn’t be possible,” she whispered. “If my reality was destroyed, then the stones should have been destroyed with them.”

“The law of conservation of energy is not an exception to world ending events, right? So energy is neither created nor destroyed. It’s possible that, somehow, despite its destruction, you are still tethered to your reality.”

Darcy looked at him slowly. “Or, I am all that remains of it. Energy cannot be destroyed.”

“...But it can be transferred. Holy shit.”

Darcy paced back and forth.

“But that still begs the question: what activated the sparkle eyes?”

Tim got really quiet, then softly asked, “The stones had to have a user, Darcy. Could a being powerful enough to use the stones survive the aftermath?”

The blood drained from Darcy’s face. “ I had strings but now I’m free.”

Tim started cursing. “We’ve got to warn Bruce.”

Tim ran into Wayne Manor, dragging Darcy behind him. A concerned Jason ran behind them.

“Dad!” Tim called, bursting into Bruce’s study. “We have a world ending situation to deal with!”

Bruce raised an unimpressed eyebrow. It was only then that Tim saw the guest Bruce was currently entertaining. John Constantine. 

Jason’s eyes widened. Bruce wasn’t in costume. Bruce wasn’t in costume and was entertaining Constantine as Bruce Wayne . 

Tim also looked like he was having a conniption. Darcy, hiding behind Tim, was delightfully unaware of what was happening, aside from the fact that it was very not good .

“Boys,” Bruce nodded. “I’d like you to meet Mr. Constantine. He is under the impression that I am trying to tear reality apart.”

“Nice whiskey, your father has,” Constantine smirked, swishing the ice around in his near empty glass.

“It’s very nice,” Jason said slowly, clearly uncomfortable. 

Darcy peered at Constantine from behind Tim, causing the guest to narrow his eyes and leap to his feet.

“ You!” 

Darcy gulped. “Me?”

“Rat bastard!” Constantine shouted, whirling around to point a finger at his host. “You are a rotten, lying, rat bastard, Bruce Wayne!”

“My parents were married,” Bruce replied boredly. “And I’m not sure to what you are referring.”

“Her! She reeks of the same energy that’s been cropping up left and right! I’ve been trying to keep this freaky guy from tearing a hole in our space-time continuum, and she’s out here lighting up like a beacon for his attempts!”

Jason gaped. “Wait. She’s part of the guy tearing a hole in our reality the past few months?”

“Aye. Calls himself the Watcher or some shit. Has glowing eyes. Ya know.” Constantine narrowed his eyes at Jason. “How did you know about that?”

Jason stumbled over his words, scrambling for an excuse. 

Darcy met Tim’s wide eyes. She knew they were both recalling the same incident: the nebula eyes, where she fell through space and time and heard the voice calling to her. 

“Oh my god,” she whispered, right as Constantine let out a similar expression, only in an explicit form. 

“You mean to tell me you are Batman?” Constantine shrieked. 

The corner of Bruce’s lip ticked up, but aside from that he stayed silent.

Tim blinked. “I thought you knew that?”

Constantine whirled on him, eyes narrowed. “No, you snarky little mouse! I didn’t know that! I came here because I thought pretentious Bruce bloody Wayne was dabbling in things his rich sticky fingers should avoid! I didn’t know you were all the bats. Which Robin are you, then? Not the one who died, because that one over there reeks of pit energy! Clearly he is Red Hood!”