Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gotham, 2:17 AM. Somewhere near the Narrows.

I hated liars.

Not like most people do—because lies are cruel, or dangerous, or messy.

No. I hated liars because I could feel them. Every deceit is like a knife twisting in my gut—a phantom pain that leaves me reeling, sick to my stomach.

And I didn’t have time to be lied to tonight. Not when I was already late. Not when the window was closing fast and Penguin was expecting another perfect report.

The man in front of me stank of sweat, smoke, and desperation. He shifted from foot to foot like that might convince me he had somewhere better to be. His hoodie was damp and threadbare, but the expensive watch on his wrist said he’d been paid recently—probably for looking the other way.

“I told you,” he said, voice sharp with panic creeping in. “No drop tonight. You must’ve heard wrong.”

My throat itched immediately. A lie—small, lazy. He didn’t even believe it himself.

I sighed, running a hand through my rain-slicked hair. “Look. I’m not here to ruin your night, okay? I just need a location. The sooner you give it to me, the sooner we stop making each other miserable.”

“I ain’t saying another word. I got a kid,” he snapped, patience running bare. “You think Penguin’s scary? Try crossing the ones moving that shipment.”

Bigger lie.

The nausea curled low in my stomach, familiar and unwelcome. My body hates dishonesty. White lies are a tickle, half-truths make me dizzy, but outright fiction like this? It feels like food poisoning and vertigo rolled into one.

I didn’t dare flinch.

“You’re lying. Again.”

His eyes narrowed. “What are you? Some kind of freak?”

Not the first time I’d heard that.

Before I could answer—or vomit—he bolted, shoes skidding as he vanished down a side alley.

I let him go. No point chasing a symptom when I needed the source.

The truth was still out there.

I leaned against the wet brick wall and pulled out my cracked phone. One hour left before Penguin’s guy ditched the meet. If I didn’t bring back something solid about the rumored dock drop, the Drops deal would be off. 

Maybe my heartbeat too.

I didn’t know who these new players were—just that they spooked the usual muscle. Whispers about masks. Something older than turf wars, something colder.

But I wasn’t paid to ask questions. I was paid to smell the truth in a city that reeked of lies.

I tucked my phone away and started walking. My coat flared behind me, the torn hem catching briefly on a chain-link fence as I passed.

Somewhere in the fog of my exhaustion, the faintest whisper tugged at me—summoning the name I never asked for.

Truthseer.

I hated that name, but it stuck to me like my last shred of sanity.

And in Gotham, anything that sticks around long enough eventually gets you killed.

Chapter Text

The fire took everything. Not just the house, not just the life I had lived full of warmth and security—but them. My parents. Gone before I could even make sense of the heat, the noise, the chaos.

I’ve tried to piece that night back together a thousand times, like a shattered mirror someone keeps insisting will hold a reflection again. 

It doesn’t. 

I can still hear the screams, sharp and ragged, slicing through the darkness. I can still feel the flames curling around everything I loved, greedy and unrelenting, until the world went quiet in a way that made my ears ache.

And of course, because life apparently has a sense of humor, my body decided shock was a better option than processing reality. 

Convenient, right? 

Denial, fear, and trauma neatly wrapped into a single, tidy package—perfect for a ten year-old who now had no one left to ask why the universe hated her.

The person who should have been there—Uncle Charlie—vanished that same night. He was supposed to be my guardian, the only other lost soul who might understand what we’d lost. Instead, he left me in the ruins, and honestly? He almost killed me too.

Not literally, of course—but close enough that ever since that night, my heart has rattled around my ribs like a loose coin, a constant reminder that my ability had awakened.

I asked him one simple question, buried beneath the haze of memory-blocked trauma. His answer was a lie so sharp it nearly stopped my heart cold.

I don’t remember anyone calling 911. Maybe that was part of Charlie’s last attempt at being a halfway decent human—but who knows? 

Somehow, the paramedics pulled me back from the edge, dragging me kicking and screaming to Wayne Memorial Hospital.

After that, I became a hot potato tossed into the foster system—just a name forgotten, another kid lost in the cracks of a city that didn’t care.

People love to say grief is the worst kind of pain. They’re wrong. Grief is just the warm-up act.

Because what I feel? It’s something else entirely.

It’s like lies burrowing under my skin, chewing me up from the inside out. My throat burns, my head spins. The truth inside me doesn’t whisper—it screams. Think toddler tantrum on steroids, no nap, and no off button.

That was my curse. My twisted little superpower. Long before I even knew what either word meant.

Foster homes blurred into one another—a parade of strangers with too-bright smiles and rules that made less sense than algebra at three in the morning. Linoleum floors, peeling wallpaper, the faint scent of bleach that never quite masked the underlying despair. Bedrooms that weren’t mine, walls that didn’t keep anyone out, and ceilings that didn’t promise safety.

Every home came with a different set of challenges.

One family had a dad who barked orders like he was training soldiers, while the next had a mother who cried so much I wondered if she’d mistaken me for her own lost childhood. 

Siblings who stared at me like I was a ghost who’d stumbled into their reality. Teachers who asked questions they didn’t really want answers to. Social workers who treated me like a spreadsheet.

And all the while, I couldn’t help but notice. Not in a fun “I’m a detective!” way, but in a way that made me uncomfortable: the tiny tells people didn’t know they were giving off. The flicker of panic behind a forced smile, the micro-gestures that screamed, don’t get too close.  

I didn’t understand it, but my body remembered every betrayal, every lie, every half-truth whispered just to keep me in line. I became a walking lie-detector, whether I wanted to or not.

I didn’t belong anywhere. Not really. So I ran. Not out of courage, but because staying was worse. Because even a ten-year-old can figure out that fear tastes better than submission—and at least when I was running, the world had to chase me.

I wandered Gotham’s streets, a scared kid playing grown-up, worrying about things most adults wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

And then Oswald Cobblepot found me.

Apparently, petty theft to survive is the kind of thing that gets you noticed. Especially by people you really don’t want knocking on your door.

I remember the first time I really used it—the power nobody warned me about that felt more like a curse than a gift.

It was in a grimy alley just off Crime Alley, the kind of place where hope went to die and nightmares grew teeth. There was this guy—a small-time hustler, eyes flickering like he was already calculating his next lie. I was hungry, older, and desperate.

“Nice watch,” I said, letting my words hang in the air like a warning. He froze, finally noticing me. My appearance wasn’t anything special, but over time I’d learned that my green eyes had a way of sparking fear. “Where did you get it?”

I didn’t have to hear his lies to know them. They echoed in my chest, twisting into a tight knot that made my head throb and my stomach churn. Truth wasn’t something I saw or heard—it was a pulse beneath my skin, a whisper in my bones.

I focused, reaching out with everything I had, nudging at the lies he was trying to hide, pressing them to the surface. It wasn’t like flipping a switch; it was like unraveling a knot, piece by piece, until his carefully built mask frayed and slipped.

“Stole it off an old broad on 5th street,” he spat, but the defiance in his voice couldn’t hide the panic in his gaze.

His eyes widened. The fear was a tangible thing, raw and sharp, as the lies he clung to shattered quietly under my touch. The truth didn’t shout—it bled through, unsettling, impossible to deny.

I could make people face the same truth I had to, both of us against our will, both of us just as fearful.

That’s when I noticed the eyes watching me.

Oswald Cobblepot, leaning against the brick wall just beyond the flickering streetlight, like a shark circling something wounded but worth keeping.

After the hustler vanished, and I was left with no watch to pawn, Oz stepped forward, that crooked grin slicing through the grime I stood ankle deep in.

“You’ve got a rare kind of sight, kid,” he said, voice smooth and low like oil on ice. “Most folks ain’t as charming as you.”

I crossed my arms, muscles stiff and sore from running and hiding. Hunger gnawed at my ribs, and my stomach protested. “I’m not looking for trouble, sir.”

He chuckled, a sound like rusted metal scraping stone, devoid of actual humor. “Ain’t no trouble here, kid. Tell you what—I can show you how to use that gift of yours better, if you’ll let me?”

I hesitated, the nausea twisting in my gut like it always did after pushing too hard.

“If I come with you, you promise me you won’t just leave me?”

I was young, impressionable, and forgotten. I wasn’t aware I was making a deal with the devil.

His eyes flickered—not yet kindness, but something close, something I was starving for. “I’d never let something like you slip through my fingers, doll. You’re too valuable.”

So I followed him, from that dark alley to the warm glow of the Iceberg Lounge, stepping into Gotham’s underbelly and the beginning of something akin to a prison sentence.

Years later, the kid who once crawled through Gotham’s gutters had traded ragged survival for something colder: a reputation that made most of Batman’s rogues look like amateurs.

They call me Truthseer now—the city’s most elusive ghost, a whisper just beyond Batman’s sprawling family of bats, the secret weapon Oswald Cobblepot claimed as his own. Not because he gives a damn about me, of course.

I was supposed to stay under the radar, a weed quietly pushing through cracks in a city that had soaked itself in corruption and shadows.

Oz had a talent for collecting broken things and bending them to his will, like some twisted gardener pruning weeds to bloom where he wants. But weeds don’t wait politely—they grow fast, especially when they’re desperate for sunlight.

I became his eyes and ears at every gala, every stiff dinner where the city’s richest draped themselves in jewels and lies, pretending the world outside their ballrooms didn’t exist—while I made sure I could at least still see it.

My job? Rooting out betrayal, sniffing out half-truths and secrets buried beneath polished smiles. At least, that’s what he told me.

Truth is, I’m more like a shadow in a ballroom—always present, rarely noticed. A nobody weaving between chandeliers and whispered deals, my green eyes flickering over familiar faces while my heart stays buried behind layers of carefully constructed armor.

I’ve watched the Waynes from the edges of the room, like a moth drawn to a candle flame I’m too afraid to touch. There’s something about them—something that twists my gut and pulls me back to a past I can’t quite leave behind.

Bruce Wayne’s laugh carries across the marble floor, rich and effortless. I don’t know why it catches my breath, but it always does.

Maybe it’s because, for all the masks I wear, all the lies I peel away for others, I’m still just a kid who lost everything and never stopped looking for a place to belong.

Oz never promised freedom. He only promised survival, and that, I’ve learned, can feel a lot like a chain.

Gotham City Subway, 8:50 PM

The subway screeched to a stop, metal teeth grinding against metal rails, and the doors folded open like a trap snapping shut. 

I slipped out, merging with the swarm of commuters and dissolving into their hustle and bustle. The air smelled of wet concrete, exhaust, and the faint tang of body odor that no amount of perfume—or desperate hand sanitizer—could mask.

People here didn’t make eye contact. They weren’t interested in your story. They were ghosts with the weight of their own lives pressing them into their jackets and scarves, noses buried in phones, headphones blaring tunes that drowned out reality. 

Perfect cover.

Changing my face was a ritual. Not just makeup or hair—though those helped. It was deeper than that, a meditation in motion. 

I twisted my posture until it screamed confidence or cowardice, depending on the mask I wanted. I adjusted my gait, careful to mimic someone oblivious or in a hurry, blending into the rhythm of the crowd. 

I changed my scent—cologne one minute, nothing the next, always enough to be forgettable. Even the way I breathed mattered: short, nervous breaths for the timid persona, slow and measured for the calculating one.

I could be five different people in a single day, and none of them would be Lily Hallowell. I wasn’t just hiding from Oswald’s enemies or the cops or whatever Gotham deemed a threat that week—I was hiding from the reality of what I had become.

And yet, here I was, moving through the subway like a phantom, unseen but seeing everything. 

Eyes flicking, catching the twitch of a pickpocket’s fingers, the half-whispered argument over a stolen wallet, the lonely woman gripping her purse like it contained her entire soul.

Oz’s rules were gospel: Never recognizable. Never predictable. Keep them guessing—or keep them dead.

I tugged my hood lower, the frayed edge brushing my lashes. Two fingers flicked the collar of my jacket just so—an unconscious tic I’d picked up over years of disappearing in plain sight. A dab of lip balm to catch the light. A tilt of the chin so the shadows fell differently. Nothing flashy. Just another face in Gotham’s endless blur.

I almost made it to the staircase uninterrupted, but duty calls. 

Literally. 

My burner phone buzzed against my hip—a dull, vibrating reminder that the life I thought I could escape was always one step behind. I fished it out, thumb swiping over the cracked screen.

Unknown Number

Deal moved up by an hour. Boss wants you here in 30.

People pressed past, elbows grazing me, briefcases bumping my ribs, shoes scraping the platform in a rhythm that made my stomach tighten.

His voice from earlier crept in like smoke through a keyhole, oily and impossible to ignore: “You go sniff out the liar and bring me the truth. No slip-ups.”

Not a request. Never a request.

Every time I peeled a truth out of someone, every time I cracked open a lie, there was a cost. A big one. Someone lost their livelihood. Or their freedom. Or their heartbeat. Sometimes all three.

It didn’t matter if I liked them, hated them, or had never met them before—if Oz pointed me at a target, I dug until I found the truth. 

Then I handed it over, like the good little weapon I was. And what happens to a weapon once it’s used? Nothing. It just waits to be fired again.

I’ve stopped counting the lives I’ve helped ruin. The faces blur together in my head—wide eyes, trembling hands, that sharp inhale when they realize the lie won’t hold anymore. I’m the last thing they see before Penguin’s machine grinds them down.

He doesn’t care if I bleed or break. He only cares that the lies crumble.

I swallowed hard. One more liar tonight. One more name on the list I’ll never write down.

The crowd pressed tighter as the train pulled out. My hoodie snagged on a strap, a woman muttered curses under her breath, a kid scraped past with a backpack that smelled like old pizza. 

I adjusted my posture, shifted my weight, let the rhythm of the moving bodies carry me forward. Up the grimy station stairs, out into the city air that hit like a slap—cold, damp, smelling of rain and car exhaust, of broken dreams and wet asphalt.

And just like that, I melted into Gotham’s streets, just another face in the city’s endless tide, leaving nothing behind but footprints in puddles and the faintest trace of green eyes.

Unknown Warehouse, Somewhere in the Narrows, 9:15 PM

I slipped into the warehouse five minutes early, because punctuality, apparently, was the one virtue I hadn’t managed to kill off. Go ahead, engrave it on my tombstone: She was on time for her own funeral.

The side door groaned on its hinges, warped from years of Gotham rain, but I was already inside, sliding between crates and scrap metal like breath through cracked lips. In my head, I moved like smoke—mysterious, untraceable, possibly poetic. 

Reality check? More like a dust bunny someone forgot to sweep out of the corner, wearing beat-up boots and a healthy dose of bad karma.

Tonight, I’d gone full Truthseer.

Matte black mask over my mouth and nose, turning my expressions into Gotham’s worst guessing game. High-collared hood concealing what it could of my glowing eyes. Armored vest snug against my ribs. 

Practical was the name of the game: weatherproof cargos tucked into combat boots that had seen better years, gloves with reinforced knuckles, and a thin, breathable layer underneath to keep me moving fast without overheating. 

From the outside, I could’ve been anyone—tall, short, male, female. 

That was the point.

My footsteps didn’t make a sound as I ghosted forward, avoiding the loose boards and glittering glass. Still, light bent weirdly around me when I shifted, like even the city wasn’t totally sure where I ended and the shadows began.

Inside, the air reeked of gun oil, dust, and that sharp chemical tang of Drops—Penguin’s latest cash cow. A flickering bulb hung over a card table stacked with product, silhouettes twitching in the corners. Three bulked-up guys stood watch, guns printing under their coats.

One guy—slim, clean-shaven, trying a little too hard to look casual—was my mark. Penguin suspected a rat in his supply chain. It was expected of me to confirm it. 

Translation: figure out if this guy was about to ruin his career, his freedom, or his pulse rate.

That itch started low at the base of my skull, the way a migraine sometimes slinks in before it wrecks your whole night. It crawled behind my eyes, down my spine, until my skin was buzzing with static. 

The conversation had a rhythm—predictable, even boring—except for him . He was a half-second off-beat. Too slow here, too fast there. A song that was being sung horribly out of tune.

Something bad was coming. My intuition never lied—unfortunately.

I stepped forward, shoes clicking deliberately on the concrete—just loud enough to make them notice, but not enough to start a fight. No greetings. No small talk.

The ones who were supposed to know me already did. The rest? Let them stew in mystery. Messenger. Muscle. Or the last face they’d ever see. Your guess.

“Mind telling me where you sourced these?” I nodded toward the neat rows of vials and weapons under the flickering bulb.

His eyes darted between me and the guy packaging the cargo, like he’d suddenly realized the room was smaller than he thought.

I leaned in close enough to taste the cigarette smoke on his breath, lip curling under my mask like someone had dared me to inhale it.

He hesitated, eyes flicking nervously between the vials, the guns, me—like I was some weird spider dangling over his head.

“Uh, I—I, uh,” His voice cracked halfway through the lie. Rookie mistake.

It wasn’t the pause that gave him away—it was the spike. The lies hit me like a gut punch, thumping against my ribs and clawing up my throat.

Colors bent at the edges, the room sharpened a little too much, voices a touch too loud. My vision didn’t just narrow—it snapped into hyperfocus, every detail screaming at me: he’s hiding something. Bad. Really bad.

And just like that, my “gift” turned into a very unsubtle, very insistent spotlight aimed squarely at him.

I reached for it—reached for him.

“Tell me what you’re hiding.”

It was like unthreading a knot made of razor wire, every lie snapping back with a hiss. The others had stopped what they were doing, eyes flicking between us with sharp, uncomfortable curiosity.

Resistance burned in him, but the tension snapped anyway, spilling the truth raw and unwilling into my hands.

Not that it made me feel any better. There’s a special kind of disheartening in knowing you’ve got someone like putty—and the kind of satisfaction that comes with realizing just how easily you could crush them.

His breath hitched. “It’s a sting,” he stammered. Panic curling every word. “GCPD’s got snipers on the roof. Whole place is wired. You’re all—”

His confession was still hanging in the air when a hand yanked me backward so hard my shoulder nearly dislocated.

Shaved head. Leather jacket. The subtle but unmistakable scent of old bourbon clinging to him like armor. One of Oz’s men, my lifeline in human form, had me in a grip that could bruise.

“Boss says to get you out first. So time to move,” he growled, teeth flashing as if I’d forgotten who I was dealing with. Breath hot, reeking of distillery fire, he didn’t wait for me to argue. He just dragged.

I had about half a second to glare before the world went feral.

Gunfire cracked, sharp and punishing in the cramped space, rattling my teeth. Shouts erupted, heavy boots slammed against the concrete, and bullets sparked off crates and metal scaffolding. The acrid smell of gunpowder filled my mouth, making me taste my own adrenaline.

My escort shoved me toward the rear exit, boots skidding on the dust-slick floor. I twisted just enough to keep the chaos in view—habit, survival instinct, and a little morbid curiosity I probably shouldn’t admit to anyone—when the ceiling split open.

Not literally, but that’s exactly what it felt like.

He dropped into the chaos like a thunderclap—all black and midnight blue, escrima sticks in hand, moving faster than my brain could keep up. Nightwing.

Great.

Penguin’s men cursed and fired wild shots that he dodged like they were kindergarten toys. Every step he took was precise, every strike controlled, the kind of fluid, lethal grace that made people forget how dangerous he was until they were on the floor clutching ribs and dignity.

And then his eyes—sharp and electric even under the mask—locked on me.

I knew that look.

The “civilian in danger” look.

Which would’ve been heartwarming if it weren’t absolutely, laughably wrong.

My guard shoved me behind a crate just as something heavy and loud crashed somewhere behind us. Nightwing’s eyes caught mine mid-swing—quick, sharp, measuring. Too sharp for comfort.

“Stay down!” he barked over the roar of gunfire.

I didn’t.

“Wait!” A voice sliced through the pounding in my chest like it had a personal vendetta against calm.

I didn’t slow. Didn’t even glance back. But the footsteps behind me multiplied—fast, relentless, like they had their own rhythm and weren’t about to negotiate.

I slipped along the shadows, aiming for the side exit, but nothing was invisible—not to him.

And there he was—blocking my path, every inch of him a wall I couldn’t finesse around. Breathing just a hair too fast from the fight, poised like the storm itself had molded him.

“ Nightwing ,” I hissed, voice tangled in disbelief, dread, and the faintest pinch of respect. 

Yeah. I was screwed.

“In the flesh,” he said, that crooked, lopsided smirk slicing through the warehouse gloom like a spotlight. Too bright. Too magnetic. Like some guy who just won a bet he didn’t even know he’d placed—and was about to cash in big.

“Now—the real question is, who are you?”

His voice was maddeningly easy. No anger, no suspicion. Not even a hint of the “I just caught you and you’re dead” vibe I thought should be there.

I blinked, grit scratching at my eyes—half from the chaos still screaming behind me, sirens wailing, metal clattering, shouting—but mostly from the absurdity. 

This calm, here, now, in the middle of a warehouse full of bullets and illicit activities.

His armor—matte black, molded to him like it had grown there—was as much a part of him as the slash of blue pulsing faintly across his chest, like it had its own heartbeat. He looked designed to be a problem—to the guilty, the corrupt, and now? Me.

My brain short-circuited. Run? Lie? Distract? Vanish? Run again? Nope. Nothing came fast enough.

So, naturally, I blurted, “Yeah, like I’m really gonna tell you that.”

He didn’t even flinch, as if that was exactly the answer he expected. A slight tilt of his head, dark fringe swaying—some Bat-coded micro-expression? I didn’t know. But it was harmless and completely unnerving.

“You’re not armed,” he said, eyes sharp, flicking to my open, shaking hands, then down to my empty belt. “Didn’t even flinch when the guns came out.”

Oh, great . Caught.

His gaze pinned me like a spotlight, and I hated how seen I felt.

“But when you got that guy to talk?” His voice dropped lower, threading beneath my skin. “You looked like you were gonna be sick.”

My breath caught—hot, traitorous—and I grabbed for my default shield: sarcasm.

“Maybe the tuna salad I had for lunch was off.”

He twitched the corner of his mouth, a faint, almost reluctant smile—like he’d just realized he was dealing with a toddler who’d somehow snuck a curse word into polite company.

“Funny,” he murmured, voice low and smooth, the smile lingering just long enough to be unsettling. “So, you work for the Penguin.” Not a question. A verdict.

Goddamn it.

My mind scrambled like a broken engine trying to start. Comebacks, pivots, distractions—anything to throw him off. But the words stuck. Tongue glued to the roof of my mouth like I’d swallowed cotton. 

My thoughts scattered in every direction, like startled pigeons flapping away from a street corner after someone yells.

I was stranded.

Then something shifted in the air between us—not in his posture, not a twitch or a step—but in the quiet steel behind his calm. Like he’d set down a weapon I hadn’t noticed, daring me to do the same. To drop my guard, to show some crack in my armor.

Tough luck, buddy.

“Wrong,” I shot back, smooth as silk despite the tremor in my hands—the same hands that still buzzed with the residue of lies I’d just pulled from that cop’s lips. “I’m adjacent.”

He gave me a look—a tiny, reluctant smirk that made it clear he wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cuff me right then and there.

“Adjacent’s still bad news in my book.”

I swallowed, saying nothing. Truth be told, I wasn’t even sure I could speak. Not here. Not now. Not with him staring through me like I was made of glass, all my flaws and secrets on full display.

One minute alone with a man who could read me like an open book, and all I wanted was to rip my own hair out just to break the spell.

“They don’t trust you,” he said quietly, his voice low and heavy—not accusation, but something closer to a bruise you didn’t see coming. “They trust what you can do. But you make them nervous.”

Then, softer, like he’d already guessed the answer and just needed to hear it from me:

“What can you do?”

That question hit me like a punch to the ribs, bruising my ego, shattering the fragile remnants of my self-esteem.

My hands clenched into fists without warning. I didn’t notice at first—the sting of my nails digging into my palms would come later. A souvenir from the unraveling I was trying desperately to hide.

Nightwing had front-row seats to my slow, messy meltdown.

What could I do ?

I tore truth out of people like stitches torn from skin. Lies crawled beneath my skin like fiberglass under my nails—scraping, whispering, burning. Truth wasn’t comfort. It was a tuning fork humming relentlessly in my bones, vibrating until every false note around me shattered and fell apart.

I couldn’t not know.

That didn’t make me powerful. It made me tired—haunted by things no one dared speak aloud. Cursed to live a heartbeat, a breath, a step out of sync with the rest of the world.

And he was the cruel exception.

No static. No scrape. No hum of deception.

He felt painfully, disarmingly honest. 

Which should be impossible. I didn’t know him. Not really. Never up close, not like this. But every cracked, overworked sensor inside me screamed how genuine this person was.

My stomach twisted—not from my own gift this time, but from something else. Something unspoken. My nerves, raw from years of running, made me feel like the wrong note in a symphony that otherwise played perfectly.

He hadn’t moved. Not blinked. Not shifted an inch. His expression was maddeningly steady—open, unafraid, no lies needed.

It rattled me.

I stared, wound tight, the weight of truth pounding behind my eyes like a migraine ready to break. And there he was, just standing there, watching me short-circuit.

My options spun like a roulette wheel, dizzy and bleak:

Lie? He’d see through it.

Run? He’d catch me, easy.

Tell the truth? Over my dead body.

My throat felt thick as tar as I forced my voice to work, raw and cracked at the edges.

“Wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Nightwing’s smile softened into something gentle, scarily understanding.

“I might.”

Two words. Tiny. Innocuous. But they hit the ground and cracked it open beneath me, like a fault line I’d been stepping over my entire life.

He meant it.

For one impossible second, I almost told him. Almost unlocked the vault I kept so tightly sealed I didn’t even let myself breathe near it.

But terror won—again. That sharp reminder that I wasn’t worthy of absolution, that this was probably some clever trap designed to lull me into thinking I could be normal, or trusted, or even safe for half a heartbeat.

Gunfire cracked somewhere deeper in the warehouse, sending vibrations rattling through my ribs. Nightwing’s head flicked over his shoulder, just a fraction of a second, but long enough to remind me that the world hadn’t stopped spinning. Not for me, not for anyone.

I slid past, pivoting on my heel, slipping through the door before he could follow.

The night air was a cooling balm as I ducked into the nearest alley, mask pulled high, mahogany hair blending into the dark as my hood fell from its perch.

I didn’t look back—but I could still feel his attention like a brand.

Nightwing wasn’t going to forget me.

I wasn’t sure if that was a problem or an opportunity.

Chapter Text

Gotham 3:04 AM. The BatCave.

It was three in the morning—not that anyone was actually sleeping. It was the Bats most productive hour, where caffeine became a food group and silence felt more like a tactical maneuver than peace and quiet.

Tim hunched over the monitor, illuminated by a wash of cold blue light, his posture tight with frustration. His fingers flew across the keyboard, tapping out commands faster than most people thought. 

Surveillance footage flickered across the screens: grainy street cams, heat signatures, traffic scrapes pulled from encrypted servers. His half-empty coffee mug steamed next to him, forgotten and going bitter.

He muttered to himself, rubbing his eyes, blinking through another digital dead end. Then another.

“I’m just saying,” Dick’s voice drifted from near the weapons rack, “you weren’t the one who got shot at trying to interrogate a suspect.”

Tim didn’t look up. His jaw was set. “Yeah? And you weren’t the one who spent five hours parsing five years of encrypted gang patterns only to find out our one solid lead walked past you in a hoodie and didn’t even blink.”

“I said she was clever,” Dick replied, his voice maddeningly casual as he raised both hands like he was surrendering in slow motion. “Tactical observation, not a compliment.”

Tim didn’t even glance up. “You said she was cute.”

Dick choked mid-toss, nearly dropping the batarang he’d been idly flipping. It clattered once in his palm before he caught it and scowled. “I did not.”

Tim snorted. “No, but you were definitely thinking it.”

Dick pointed the batarang at him, half in warning, half in wounded pride. “I have no idea what she even looks like.”

“Like that’ll stop you.” Tim leaned back in his chair, smug. “Face it—she’s mysterious and you like it.”

Dick rolled his eyes so hard it looked painful. “You spend way too much time around Steph.”

“And yet, I’m still the well-adjusted one,” Tim said with a smirk.

Across the cave, Bruce stood like a statue in the half-dark, arms crossed, face unreadable under the low lighting. 

The glow from the Batcomputer barely touched him, casting sharp edges across his jaw. He didn’t move—at least not in any way that counted. Tim sometimes wondered if Bruce ever blinked unless it was strategic.

But as their bickering echoed through the cavern, there was the faintest shift—a twitch at the corner of Bruce’s mouth, not quite a smile, not quite disapproval. Just a flicker of something amused. 

Then it was gone, buried under the usual granite expression. Still, Tim caught it. So did Dick, judging by the betrayed glance he tossed Bruce’s way.

“The girl,” Bruce said at last, voice low and cutting through the air like a blade. “You’re sure it’s her?”

Tim straightened a bit, dragging a file to the center screen. A digital spider web unfurled—glowing red lines connecting incidents, data blips, and surveillance anomalies, all pulsing toward one central node.

“At the center, we’ve got her digital signature,” he said. “The same one flagged during the Falcone case three years ago. Back then, she was tagged as ‘Truthseer.’ Psychic-adjacent. Outlier. No one ever confirmed it,” He gestured toward the screen. “But the patterns have an exact match”

Bruce stepped forward, scanning the web of data with narrowed eyes, his expression tightening.

“The one who helped destabilize the gang war between Falcone and Penguin, then vanished?”

“That’s the one,” Tim confirmed. “But she’s not just back—she’s moving. I tracked ghost patterns through the East End. Same digital weaving, same predictive targeting.”

Dick crossed the cave, arms folded, expression sharpening. “She didn’t strike me as trained. Defensive, sure. But raw. If she is the Truthseer, she’s walking into the lion’s den with no weapon.”

Tim leaned back in his chair and sighed. “So what else is new? Everyone in this city has a death wish.”

Bruce didn’t respond, but didn’t necessarily disagree. He was reading everything— calculating everything.

“You’re thinking we bring her in?” Tim asked, knowing exactly what Batman’s silence was conveying.

Bruce’s reply was immediate, self-assured. “No. Not yet. We watch. We learn.”

“And if she notices?” Dick asked, flicking through the limited data on the girl. “If she figures out every Bat in the city’s tracking her?”

“Then we see what she does with the truth.” His tone dropped half a degree colder. “But no more loose ends. If she’s the Truthseer, she knows more than she should—and people like that don’t just stumble into our radar. Someone pointed her there.”

Dick’s brow furrowed. “You think she’s working for someone?”

“I think she’s dangerous,” Bruce concluded, not liking that there were loose ends he hadn’t tied up yet. His cape whispered behind him as he turned and walked deeper into the shadows. “And I don’t like mysteries I didn’t solve first.”

Tim blinked, glanced at Dick. “Did he just admit to being annoyed?”

“Mhm,” Dick grinned. “He’s grumpy. That means we’re on the right track.”

Bruce shot both of them a look , but didn’t stop walking. The Batcomputer cast a ghostly blue hue across his back, outlining the rigid set of his shoulders—soldier mode, full tilt. Tim knew that posture well. It meant plans were already forming behind that granite expression.

“Red Robin,” Bruce called without turning, “catalog everything she’s touched in the last forty-eight hours—street cams, public transit, drone sweeps. If she left a shadow, I want it on file.”

Tim nodded, already typing. “On it. But fair warning, she’s careful. Like, annoyingly careful. She knows how to move between blind spots.”

“Then find the spaces she avoids,” Bruce replied, opening another file with practiced efficiency. “What someone doesn’t want you to see is just as important as what they let you find.”

“And me?” Dick asked childishly, arching a brow. “Let me guess—more rooftop stakeouts? Sidewalk surveillance? I already earned my Hide-and-Seek merit badge this week.”

Bruce turned, finally facing them. His eyes settled on Dick—sharp, unwavering. “You’re going to find her again.”

Dick blinked. “Oh, great.”

“She trusts you. Or at least, she didn’t engage in lethal force on sight.”

“That’s your metric now?” Dick grumbled. “Low bar.”

“You’ll do recon in person,” Bruce continued, ignoring the complaint. “Casual. Civilian if you can manage it without giving yourself away. She’s more likely to slip up in conversation than online.”

“Any idea where to start?”

Bruce walked back to the workstation and typed a few commands. A map of Gotham’s east end lit up, red markers highlighting transit dead zones, alley networks, and power blackouts.

“She’s been seen near Bowery, Glenmere, and South Docks—always alone, always moving after midnight. Start there. And if she talks, listen.”

Tim glanced over his shoulder. “And if she doesn’t?”

Bruce’s eyes met his. “Push.”

Dick raised an eyebrow. “Meaning what, exactly?”

“Expose something she doesn’t want you to know. Create friction. If she’s hiding something, she’ll react.”

Tim frowned. “You want us to rattle her?”

“I want to know what she’s afraid of,” Bruce said simply. “And what she’s willing to protect.”

There was a beat of silence. Somewhere deeper in the cave, the sound of a distant bat screech echoed against stone.

“You think she’s a threat,” Tim said finally.

“I think she’s a wildcard,” Bruce answered. “And I don’t play games without stacking the deck.”

Dick exhaled, slinging his jacket over one shoulder. “Well. Guess I’m making a new friend.”

“Careful,” Tim muttered, typing again. “You sound almost hopeful .”

“I’m hopeful she isn’t secretly another Rogue with a tragic backstory and a body count.”

Bruce allowed the faintest edge of a smile—barely there, more a release of tension than amusement. “Oracle’s on standby. Call in if it goes south, Nightwing .”

As the two younger vigilantes turned to leave—one half-exasperated, the other quietly intrigued—Tim paused at the door. His gaze flicked back to the glowing red of the map, the phantom path of a girl who’d managed to stay one step ahead of them.

“Hey,” he called absentmindedly, projecting his thoughts out loud. “If she’s been hiding this long there’s a reason. You think she wants to be found?”

Bruce didn’t look away from the screen. “Everyone wants something, Tim. Our job is figuring out what it costs them to admit it.”

Iceberg Lounge, Unknown Time

I sat stiffly on the corner of Oz’s desk, arms folded, looking like the dictionary definition of relaxed poise.

Inside, I was screaming at the top of my lungs.

It was, of course, all an act I’d perfected over the years—just enough confidence to say I totally have everything under control but not so much that he’d feel the need to prove otherwise. 

That balancing act wasn’t instinct. It was self-defense, learned fast and reinforced often when you ran with one of the seediest men in Gotham.

My clothes were too grungy for the gaudy opulence of his office, my mood worse. At least the outfit could be washed.

Oswald Cobblepot leaned forward over the glossy mahogany, the overhead light catching on the gold rings that crowded his thick fingers. His beady eyes tracked me like I was a ledger he was balancing, deciding if I was in the black or deep in the red.

Then came the smile—crooked, paternal, and about as genuine as a counterfeit bill. It never touched his eyes. I doubted warmth had ever been invited to live there, let alone directed outward towards anyone.

“You’re getting noticed, Lily,” he warned, my name rolled out with the same tone most people reserved for a threat. “The bats are circling tighter. Makes a man wonder—loyalty or liability?”

My pulse ticked up, but I kept my face neutral, forcing a small smile and pushing the crawling itch under my skin back down where it belonged. “You know I’m loyal. You taught me better than that.”

He tapped a long fingernail against the desk, slow, deliberate. His head tilted just enough to make me feel like I’d missed a step in a conversation he was having with himself. “Loyalty’s earned, doll. Not given.”

It had been a week since the sting operation went sideways— spectacularly sideways—and I found myself involuntarily tangled with some of the city’s most notorious vigilantes. 

Whatever cosmic prankster was running the show must’ve decided my fate was to keep running into them—destiny, if you want to be dramatic. Destiny to get me killed , most likely.

Monday I caught a glimpse of Signal, standing just far enough to be seen but close enough to make me change my route. I was dressed as a civilian, so that one was chalked up to coincidence.

Tuesday I noticed Red Robin lurking just out of sight in an alley after I was leaving a deal in Park Row—always watching, never approaching. It felt more like a haunting than being stalked.

Wednesday? Shadows shifted, and I was sure I saw Spoiler and Black Bat tracing my steps from rooftop to rooftop. I didn’t stick around to find out.

Thursday was Robin. More eyes on me, cold and calculating, like I was a chess piece being moved. I hurried away before he could close the distance and declare checkmate.

Friday almost felt like a breaking point—Batman and Robin showed up in the Narrows, and I had no choice but to duck out quickly. It would’ve been an immediate loss on my end to go toe to toe with the dynamic duo.

By Saturday, paranoia was an unwanted roommate. I was legitimately too terrified to leave my apartment. Nightwing again? No, thank you. I hid under my blankets, eyes glued to the blinds, trying to pretend the city didn’t exist for a few hours.

Of course, Oz decided Saturday was the perfect time to give me a lecture. Because nothing says “tough love” like a boss who picks the worst moment to remind you how much trouble you’re in.

So yeah. Years of living in secret and in one week I was officially on the Bat’s radar.

Lucky me.

I swallowed, the weight of his words pressing into my chest. His whole ‘father-daughter’ act was just another kind of cage—one lined with velvet, sure, but still locked tight. 

The Iceberg’s dim lights buzzed overhead, catching on the slick polish of his desk and the faint gleam of gold on his rings. His grin looked different under the weak light—less charming, more abrasive.

“I’m not a liability,” I said, keeping my voice low, steady. Reassuring, because anything else would only make him lean in closer.

“You will be if you slip up.” His tone was matter-of-fact, it being a given that I fail, there;d be consequences. “The bats sniffing around? The rats in the supply? Every crack you let open gives them a way in.”

His gaze softened—or maybe he just learned how to make it look that way, to manipulate me into believing what I had here was what I deserved. “You’re my best chance, Lily. Don’t forget that.”

I nodded, though it tasted bitter, like swallowing a teaspoon of ash. It wasn’t comfort he offered—it was a reminder. 

My only purpose was to be a tool, polished and sharpened, with a timer ticking somewhere deep inside me. One misstep, one slip of attention, and the repercussions wouldn’t wait for explanation.

I shifted on the edge of the desk, feeling the weight of his eyes like gravity pulling me into a space I didn’t want to occupy. 

Every instinct told me to leave, to run and pretend the future wasn’t already stacked against me, but some part of me—the part that had survived long enough to be here—stayed put.

The room hummed with that quiet tension you could almost taste, a low thrum in the air between us. I could almost hear it counting the moments until the next mistake, the next test, the next fall.

Living day to day was exhausting, but at least I made it through this one. 

Chapter Text

Most girls in their twenties spent their weekends partying with friends, flirting with strangers. The biggest worry on their mind is being able to afford the rent for that month.

The world was their oyster, gleaming and briny and full of possibilities.

I, on the other hand, got to call myself errand girl for Gotham’s most neurotic and bird themed crime boss.

Go ahead, put it on a postcard: Greetings from your friendly neighborhood criminal lackey.

I yanked open my closet door—well, the tiny cupboard in my apartment that passed for a closet—and glared at my options. 

Black. Darker black. Slightly lighter black. Maybe with a hint of bruised-purple if I squinted . 

A deep sigh tore through me, the dawning realization that my wardrobe officially had the excitement of wet cardboard.

There was the tiniest smidge of longing to do what others my age got to; be reckless without repercussions, live in the moment because tomorrow was still promised. 

The burner phone had buzzed earlier that evening, shattering my fragile hope that I’d get to bask in the sweet silence Oz considered a reward for maintaining invisibility.

Barely two sentences, it’s sender a mystery I didn’t want to solve:

Unknown Number

Boss wants you at the Iceberg for something undercover. Tonight.

"Of fucking course." I muttered in reply, tossing my phone onto the bed and watching it bounce spectacularly onto the hardwood floor.

I grabbed my coat, aged and with enough fabric that it could double as a parachute if necessary, and slid into sneakers that I didn’t even bother tying.

By the time I reached the Iceberg Lounge, the growing night-life had claimed the streets like a tidal wave. Neon reflected off slick pavement, music thumped from every corner, and the thin wail of sirens kept time with impatient taxi horns.

The skyline grinned down like a predator, daring me to misstep. It wasn’t the best omen for what was to come.

Iceberg’s front entrance was guarded by men twice my size, all of them clearly above me in muscle but not in rank. A familiar face shot me a look that said not again as I bobbed and weaved my way towards him.

I didn’t bother with my pleasantries—I’ve known Tony long enough that he knew charm wasn’t in my arsenal when it wouldn’t be returned. 

“Hey, Tony,” I said, voice low and easy, like I was greeting an old relative rather than a human brick wall with a penchant for minor crimes. He nodded once, a small, almost reluctant acknowledgment, his expression unreadable.

A line of club-goers stretched behind him, all of them craning to see why some pale, hooded girl had skipped the entire queue. 

Their outrage was almost tangible, some belligerent enough to voice their complaints at me cutting the line out loud. I fought the urge to roll my eyes, knowing I probably should’ve taken the back entrance.

Newsflash , I didn’t really want to be here in the first place.

The elevator ride up felt like a miniature test in patience—and in how creatively one could curse under their breath without it being detected by the cameras.

I pressed my back into the corner, arms crossed securely over my chest, trying to convince myself this would be over before I knew it, even though my reflection said otherwise.

The mirrored panel was both a blessing and a curse. I studied myself like a scientist running an experiment doomed from the start: sunken eyes, pale enough to make a mortician blink, and a complexion that looked like it had personally filed complaints against me for neglect. 

Cherry, the house mom, and her makeup bag was going to have its work cut out for itself tonight, given that I was allowed to borrow it. Full glam or full disaster—and at this point, I wasn’t sure which was more likely.

The dressing room doors finally appeared, all shiny surfaces and fake smiles, promising nothing more than temporary camouflage from the already drunk clubbers. Inside, hairspray thick enough to make my eyes sting hit me before the floral perfume did, my nose wrinkling on reflex. 

Some of the girls waved, their smiles bright enough to be warnings or invitations—I couldn’t decide which. Others ignored me, which I almost preferred.  

I dove headfirst into a mountain of sequins that had apparently multiplied overnight, glitter threatening to tattoo itself permanently to my skin. I let myself pause for a second, weighing whether this headache deserved a shot of liquid courage—or three.

The door slammed open before I could decide. The other girls’ chatter died mid-sentence as they registered who had arrived.

Oz.

Not technically supposed to be here—he owned the place, sure, but apparently the club’s rulebook had a “do whatever the hell you want” clause when it came to him.

Bottle service girls giggled and winked as he passed, practically tripping over themselves to get his attention. It was performance art—equal parts hope for reward and fear of his temper.

“Evening, Oz,” one called, voice pitched somewhere between reverence and panic. “Looking handsome as always, boss.”

He ignored them, or maybe their adoration simply dissolved into the background of his orbit. Either way, he was coming for me, arms outstretched like a hug was our norm, and I felt every nerve in my skin bristle imagining the contact.

The doting ‘father’ and adoring ‘daughter’ act was in full swing—and I was the unwilling supporting character, trapped center stage in a room full of girls who wished they were me.

“Where’s my favorite girl?” His voice slid through the noise, expectant and dangerous, like chocolate syrup laced with cyanide.

I took stock of my appearance in the mirror before greeting him, trying to dial up the watt of my smile. 

“Hi, Oz,” Sweet enough to be tolerated but sharp enough to remind him I wasn’t a prop, I pushed the words through my teeth. “I got your message.”

He crouched slightly to level with me—well, as much as his rotund frame would allow—fingers drumming against the vanity with a rhythm that felt like a countdown.

Apparently, he wasn’t happy with my attitude.

“What’s with all the gloom, sunshine?” His eyes gleamed with amusement, but the weight behind them told me I was about to become a pawn in something far bigger than a fake persona and dressing lavishly. “You ain’t happy to see me?”

“Of course I’m happy to see you.” I forced the words out immediately, carefully measured, as I combed through my longer-than-manageable hair. The lie burned in my throat, a bitter tang I couldn’t swallow.

I tried my hardest not to start coughing.

He laughed, warm and wet, already moving on with what he actually wanted to say. With a single exaggerated sweep of his hand, he shooed the girls out of the dressing room. They scattered like startled birds, heels clicking and jewelry jingling, leaving the two of us alone.

When the door clicked shut behind them, Oz leaned back, eyes narrowing just enough to make me feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. The performance had ended. The game—no, the test—was about to begin.

“Tonight is the Wayne Charity Gala,” he said, tossing the name around like it wasn’t the most influential night of the year. He went into detail about a certain individual that had gotten on his nerves, whoever it was had stepped on his toes too many times to look the other way.

He had spotted a potential mole.

A DA office employee. Once an informant for Penguin, suspected of double-crossing him. 

And I was being sent to play exterminator—the expendable extension, expected to be charming, invisible, and subtly investigative without triggering any alarms.

I hated how he already knew this man was a traitor. I hated how this was all an allegiance game to him, to prove myself still, after all these years.

I hated how I was going to do as he said anyway.

His hand closed around my shoulder, the weight and strength of it startlingly strong for someone his size.

He leaned close, his face too near, breath heavy with cigars and cheap cognac, warm against my ear. The hair on the back of my neck prickled, uneasy with being in his hold.

“You have fifteen minutes before your car leaves,” he informed, each word deliberate, slow, a quiet command that felt like the press of iron. “Don’t disappoint with your attire.”

I nodded, every fiber of my body frozen for a fraction longer than I’d like to admit. My throat went dry, my usual defiance dulled by the unexpected behavior. 

Just for a second, I remembered that this man could—and had—broken people without raising his voice. My mind raced, knowing that failure wasn’t just a misstep tonight.

The grip disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared, leaving me blinking in a shallow gasp for air, my muscles loosening slightly but my chest still tight. I could breathe again, barely, but the echo of pressure lingered in my bones.

As soon as he left the room, I moved on autopilot, distracted and trying to calm my mind.

My hands worked with mechanical precision, each movement felt removed, unreal. I was inside my body but outside it, observing the ritual of getting ready with dissociative clarity, avoiding the full impact of the assignment looming over me. 

I grabbed a black dress—safe, classic, not flashy enough to scream “Look at me!” but still functional enough to let me move if things went sideways. Glitter scratched under my fingertips as I slipped it on, muttering under my breath about how I couldn’t reach the zipper. 

My arms trembled slightly—not from fear, not exactly, more from the residue of Oz’s grip and the thought of the gala waiting to determine my fate.

I’d be damned before I asked him to zip me up. 

Shoes. The next disaster, staring at me from their box like tiny ankle assassins. Square heels, easier to walk in—but still the kind that made me three inches taller and three times more likely to break something mid-escape unless I kicked them off mid-run.

I shoved my feet in anyway, muttering about how the universe really hated me tonight.

Accessories were next: tiny, sparkly distractions from the fact that I was an imposter. A necklace that didn’t jingle, earrings that didn’t scream, a bracelet that—miraculously—didn’t double as a shackle if I tripped. I paused to weigh my reflection in the mirror. 

Each glimmering piece felt like a talisman, a promise that maybe I wouldn’t completely embarrass myself—or, you know, lose my life.

A knock at the door jolted me.

“Ride’s here,” Oz’s voice rumbled through the wall like he was personally delivering doom via subwoofer. 

Every muscle in my body tensed as his voice settled over me. Penguin’s grip on my shoulder returned in memory, a ghostly pressure that made my ribs ache. 

I’d felt his fingers like a vice, a childish fear coursing through me as I forced myself to open the dressing room door and stepped back into the same hallway.

We walked in silence toward the back entrance, my pumpkin carriage masquerading as a sleek, older town car that was just flashy enough to blend in without raising eyebrows.

Oz opened the door for me with a flourish, but before I could step inside, his stubby fingers brushed a stray strand of hair behind my ear. I froze, my expression smooth as porcelain while every nerve in my body screamed at me to read him, to guess what the gesture really meant.

“I’ll find him,” I promised, voice steady— mechanically steady, an ability born from locking every muscle into place and pretending terror didn’t exist.

“Good girl,” Oz murmured, his figure somehow taller and more imposing than I remembered. “I assume you know what will happen if you don’t.”

When he finally shut me into the backseat, the ache lingered—a quiet humming that reminded me exactly who I belonged to, and what failure would cost.

I straightened, tugging at the dress that stubbornly refused to sit right, and tried to get lost in the sight of skyscrapers passing me by.

Test or not, I had a job to do. Every step from here on out had to be precise, invisible, and convincingly ordinary—even if the world I moved through was anything but.

The Wayne Gala glittered like a jewelry store under siege. Every chandelier reflected a little too much money, every table groaned under the weight of silverware that could buy a small country. 

A string quartet floated somewhere in the background, its music polite and civilized, and the laughter of Gotham’s elite made me wonder if they’d ever suffered a moment in their lives.

I kept my eyes moving. Target in sight just around the corner: the DA office employee, mid-fifties, perfectly pressed suit, a smile that could steal candy from a baby—or, well, sell Drops overseas.

George Arlowe.

He was shaking hands near the champagne tower, grinning like someone who’d just been handed the city on a silver platter, completely oblivious to the fact that Penguin had unleashed his biggest trump card on him tonight.

I slipped through the crowd silently, weaving between servers carrying trays of sparkling wine and hors d’oeuvres that looked like they’d been sculpted by angels with a side hustle at Sotheby’s. 

My heels clicked just enough to remind me I existed, but not enough to summon a security squad. 

Breathe, I told myself. Calm, invisible, a socialite with way too much time, and absolutely no sense.

Falling into character was half the job itself.

Hair pinned back into something that screamed “effortless elegance” while secretly being a tightrope walk between flat and disaster. Lipstick muted, just enough to stop whispers—but not enough to invite conversation. 

I wasn’t here to sparkle or to accidentally flirt with someone who could ruin me. I was here to hunt.

And if I stole a bite of some cocktail shrimp, it was only to boost my morale. 

A waiter brushed past, nearly knocking into me as I had done so, sending a tray of champagne trembling in his hands. 

I froze, not out of fear for the glasses—the people here had invested in crystal that could probably survive a small meteor crash—but because one wrong move and suddenly every polished, judgmental eye in the room would be staring straight at me.

The man caught it, flashing a smile that said oops , and moved on.

I exhaled slowly—quiet enough not to draw attention from the patrons, loud enough to remind myself I still had lungs—and shifted my weight, eyes locked on the double-crosser once more. 

He was chatting up a woman in emerald silk, leaning just a little too close, like she might know more than she should. 

Or maybe I was just chronically paranoid.

I ducked behind a towering pedestal of flowers, the blooms big enough to hide an army—or at least one very nervous girl who had no business being here. 

My brain immediately launched into its favorite game: What’s the next brilliant move, Lily?

I could walk right up to him and pretend this was a “fancy seeing you here” moment instead of a surveillance mission. 

Or I could corner him on his way out and hope my heels didn’t snap, maybe just knock him unconscious, cause a massive scene, and spend the rest of the night running for my life in a dress that cost more than my life savings.

Mid-spiral, I slammed into something solid.

Correction— someone solid?

“Whoa—sorry, my fault.”

I looked up as the oddly familiar voice washed over me, and suddenly the room tried to sharpen around him, every background laugh and clinking glass fading into white noise. My brain did its usual freak-out thing, trying to process this in a coherent adult fashion—and failing spectacularly.

Oh. Shit.

His face—sure, I’d seen it in newspapers and charity billboards a million times—but now it was real, impossibly close, and my pulse had apparently decided to run a marathon.

Dick Grayson. Bruce Wayne’s eldest.

I had this awful habit of reading people like books I wasn’t supposed to, a “gift” I’d once been proud of, now more similar to my other curse. 

Sometimes, for the sake of my dignity, I wished I could just turn it off.

And yet here I was, soaking in every detail, memorizing it into my unconscious.

Without even trying, he radiated warmth and charisma. Not just good looks—though, hello, yes, obviously —but the kind of demeanor that made the world pause for a second, like gravity itself was giving him a nod. 

The tilt of his head, the casual set of his shoulders, the way he leaned into the space as if he owned nothing and everything all at once—it was infuriating.

He was like someone had bottled the sun and snuck it into a tuxedo, setting it loose in the middle of a crowded room. 

I was blinking stupidly, trying to convince myself I wasn’t literally melting into the marble floor.

“It’s fine,” I said, voice a little too shrill, stepping aside and out of arms reach before my own mouth could betray me.

But he lingered, a genuine, patient smile tugging at the corners of my resolve. His deep, blue eyes held a pull I couldn’t name, almost hypnotizing in the way they seemed to weigh me without judgment, as if he could see through the carefully constructed walls I wore. “Haven’t seen you around before.”

“I’m not around much,” I replied, clipped and brittle, forcing my voice to break. The more he looked at me like I was worth knowing, the more I wanted to spontaneously combust.

Out of all the damn hiccups tonight. I grouched internally, feeling more off-kilter by the second. Of course, it had to be a Wayne.

I’d watched this family from afar at galas like this, the easy laughter, the way they moved around each other like they belonged. Always something out of reach, being my options were Oz and sometimes Tony. 

And now—here it was, in high definition.

God, I hope the rest of them aren’t close by.

He outstretched a tanned palm, knuckles faintly scarred, which struck me as odd for the son of a billionaire. 

I froze, staring at it like it might bite. Every instinct screamed at me not to reach for it—don’t get attached, don’t get seen, don’t get involved.

George was moving somewhere in the background, almost out of sight and god forbid, going home. 

“My name’s Dick,” he said, eyes open and inviting, so honest it made the edges of the crowd blur and even my usually hyper-alert instincts settle for a moment. “What’s yours?”

A tiny, unreasonable part of me—the part that wanted connection, normalcy, and maybe to laugh at the absurdity of this gala—wanted to take it. 

To trust. To reach.

Another part whispered that nothing good ever came from letting someone in—even someone who looked like he belonged in a storybook rather than this city. My chest tightened as I measured my words, my thoughts caught somewhere between curiosity and fear.

I left his hand hovering in the air, a symbol of everything I refused to give. “It’s nice to meet you, Dick,” I said, deliberately sidestepping his question, sidestepping his presence. 

A flicker passed across his face—curiosity, maybe confusion—but I didn’t pause to analyze it.

My attention snapped forward as Bruce Wayne entered the ballroom, as did everyone else’s. 

Even with all these eyes on him, there was still something almost playful in the tilt of his smile, a spark in the corner of his eyes that suggested he knew exactly how absurdly serious everyone else was taking themselves at this event. 

Every step was measured, every glance precise, but he seemed so carefree on the surface.

My nagging mind reminded me that attention from another Wayne, the Wayne, was not something I needed tonight.

The butler behind Bruce scanned the room like a hawk, eyes darting over every glittering gown and polished cuff. I thought he was just watching the crowd, but then they landed on me and Dick.

The intent of that gaze pressed against my skin, a quiet, unspoken question I had no intention of answering: Who are you, and why are you here?

It wasn’t angry or accusatory. If anything, it was more evaluating, trying to almost figure out how I fit into this picture.

I didn’t want to fit into any picture, or be photographed for that matter, and somehow I’d already crashed and burned this entire mission in less than five minutes.

The fragile balance of this encounter—of this whole assignment—could collapse at any second and so frustratingly easy.

Now, as a civilian, I was on the radar of very wealthy, very powerful people. I needed to disappear. Now.

Dick’s hand hovered between us, suspended, the unspoken question fizzling in the air. It was almost painful to be so cold towards someone so genuinely warm. 

Then I saw him—George Arlowe, the target—moving toward the exit with that infuriating mix of confidence and obliviousness like I had guessed he was going to do. My stomach dropped, and I had to look away fast when I realized Dick’s gaze had drifted in the same direction.

“Sorry. If you’d excuse me—” I murmured, voice tight and clipped, cutting off any chance of protest.

George reached the center of the room, fingers tightening around the briefcase under his arm, oblivious to the world beyond his carefully curated bubble. My pulse spiked—this was it. The opening I’d been waiting for.

I stepped just far enough into the current of the crowd to let it swallow me, blending into a swirl of fake laughter, dizzyingly bright lights, and the sharp suits of corrupt politicians.

The prickling of eyes on my back was a quiet warning I couldn’t shake. I forced myself to breathe, to move, to act like it wasn’t there.

I needed this night to end already.

George was either the most insanely perceptive person on the planet or just stupidly lucky.

He slinked out through the service corridors, briefcase tucked under his arm, that awful confidence still in place. 

I almost wished it was because he realized I’d been tailing him all night, but then he started flirting with one of the waitresses near the cocktail bar, and I had to face the truth: he was just clueless.

I had this. Totally.

I followed him in the shadows, boots silent against the polished floors, until the polite chatter of the gala faded behind me and the hum of the city filled the air. 

Every corner I took, every step I mirrored, was deliberate. He was a rat in his own maze, and I knew every twist, every blind spot, every unlocked door.

Getting him to go to the Narrows had been a real ordeal. The janitor’s closet had turned into a tiny, sweat-box prison while I wrestled out of heels that hated me, a dress that tried to strangle me, and makeup that refused to budge without a fight. 

By the time I finally slid into leather, zipped up the mask, and inhaled the faintly acrid scent of disinfectant, I felt like a vigilante—or at least a very sticky one. 

Victory, sort of.

George wasn’t going to wait forever.

By the time we hit the loading docks, the board was already set. A ladder left carelessly against the wall, an unlocked rooftop door, and the janitor’s industrial cleaner smeared in a neat little trail—it looked like the perfect getaway route.

I didn’t have to run him down. Truthseer already had a reputation. A flash of leather at the edge of his vision, a shadow that moved a little too deliberately under the stairwell lights—suddenly, George wasn’t so sure of himself anymore.

Paranoia bled into his expression. His head snapped up, barely visible eyes scanning the dark.

“Who’s there?” he hissed, knuckles white around the briefcase like it was going to save him from drowning.

The mask clung to my skin, fitting like it had been waiting for me all along. Truthseer wasn’t just a name—it was a cover, a second skin that made me untouchable.

George hovered near the ledge, shoulders knotted, body stiff, eyes glued to the drop like he was practicing how to give up.

I stepped into the glow of the city, slow, unhurried, letting Gotham’s skyline frame me like the world’s most dramatic stage backdrop. 

“I think you already know why I’m here,” I said, keeping my voice low, flat, bracing myself for the usual chorus of lies and excuses.

His hands trembled. His face went pale, folding in on itself in a way that made my stomach twist—uglier than anything my curse had ever dragged out of someone.

His hands trembled. His face went pale, folding in on itself in a way that made my stomach twist. Ugly. Worse than anything my curse had ever dragged out of someone. Every twitch gave him away—fingers clamped around the briefcase, shoulders curling in like losing a few inches of height would save him. 

Panic moved through him in slow motion, and it was painful to watch.

The wind whipped across the rooftop, pulling at my hair, tugging at my mask, carrying with it the sour stink of sewage and exhaust. Gotham never let you forget where you stood. The city didn’t care about guilt or innocence—it chewed through both just the same.

“ Please, I have a family. A daughter in college, a son in middle school—I did what I had to do.”

I studied him, cataloging every twitch, every shallow breath, the way guilt painted him like an open map. I didn’t even need my ability tonight. The truth tumbled out of him on its own—messy, jagged, desperate.

“What you had to do was stay in line,” I snapped, voice uncharacteristically jagged, clipped around the edges. 

There was a growing irritation—at him, at the situation, at myself for even feeling a flicker of sympathy. “You chose Penguin’s rivals over him. You know what happens to people who make that mistake.”

“He’ll kill me,” he choked out, tears brimming. “He’ll kill them.”

Something twisted in my chest—a pang of recognition, that same helpless knot I’d carried through my own family’s mess. My shoulders tightened, memories of whispered warnings and survival lessons pressing in, reminding me that the cold, hard truth didn’t change: sometimes, no one was coming.

Against every instinct screaming at me, I leaned closer into his space. The faint, shaky whimper that escaped him—barely carried over the wind—made it almost impossible not to.

“Fake your death,” I murmured, voice low, urgent, as if the words themselves could push him out of danger. “Leave Gotham tonight. If we’re lucky, he’ll believe it.”

He blinked, stunned, like mercy was an alien language. “You’d let me go?”

“I’m not letting you go,” I said, tone steely, a thread of pleading underneath. “I’m letting you disappear.”

For a long beat, he just froze, trembling like the city itself had found him, and then the sobs broke loose. He bolted, swallowed by the night, his footsteps fading into the hum of Gotham. 

Hopefully, he’d never show his face again.

I stayed behind, alone on the rooftop. My hands shook, but not from the wind. From what I’d done. From taking control. From realizing that sometimes, saving someone else meant throwing yourself straight into the line of fire.

I pressed a hand to the mask, drew in a breath through it, felt the faint rise and fall of my chest, the thrum of my pulse hammering against ribs that didn’t feel like mine anymore. 

I thought of George’s family, my own, of every life tangled up in the city’s mess, and I couldn’t tell if I’d done the right thing—or if I’d just tied another thread of danger to my already tangled life.

“Funny,” a voice drawled from behind me, and somehow, I wasn’t startled. “I thought you were going to deliver him gift-wrapped to Cobblepot.”

I didn’t need to turn. Nightwing dropped from a higher ledge, landing with a quiet, effortless grace I’d never possessed. 

Gravel crunched softly under his boots, hair tousling in the same breeze that tangled my own. Even in the dark, I could feel his presence—and I wanted as far away from it as I could get.

“You always make a habit of eavesdropping?” I said, dread curling like smoke through my veins, fingers flexing as if ready to strike.

“Only when it’s interesting.” His eyes flicked from me to where George had been, calculating, unblinking. “For someone who claims to be on the sidelines, you’re pretty wrapped up in Penguin’s plans.”

I stepped closer, letting the rooftop shadows swallow me, my pulse hammering in my ears. “You don’t know what happens if I fail him.” My voice was low, almost a growl, and I could see the faint crease in his brow, the twitch of a frown at the corners of his mouth.

“Maybe not,” he said, calm, almost too calm, eyes scanning me like he could read every choice I’d made, every risk I’d taken. “But I know what happens if you keep helping him—and it’s not something you walk away from.”

“Bold of you to assume I can walk away.”

Why was I saying that? Why was I trying to convince him—or maybe myself? Penguin already had my head on a metaphorical mantle, and any misstep now would make that literal. 

I wanted to bite back, to snap at him, to shove him off that ledge, but something in the way he watched me kept my mouth shut.

He studied me for a long moment, the city lights glinting off his mask, hiding his eyes but not the way his posture shifted, alert, assessing. “Are you in danger?” His voice was quiet, soft even, but there was a sharp urgency underneath. “If you are, maybe I can help.”

I pressed my lips together, weighing the truth against the lie. Saying yes would pull him in, drag him into the storm I was already knee-deep in. Saying no might just keep us both alive—or at least keep him out of the line of fire.

“Don’t go making promises you can’t keep, birdie,” I said, low, controlled, letting the barb hang in the air. It wasn’t about him; it was about keeping the upper hand, keeping the distance I couldn’t let him breach.

Boots crunched against the gravel, muted beneath me. Heart hammering, I pushed forward, weaving between vents and rusted equipment, letting the city stretch below me like a tangled web of alleys and neon streaks. 

Every step was exhausting, my muscles coiled, ready to spring if needed. Steam hissed from vents, curling around my ankles, mixing with the faint tang of gasoline and ozone. 

I was going to crash into my bed and sleep for the next ten years.

Nightwing didn’t follow as far as I knew. I didn’t even bother to check. 

He trusted—or at least respected—that I could handle myself. And maybe that scared me more than anything.

It was time to disappear. To slip into the dark, to let the city swallow me whole until the storm passed. 

Truthseer wasn’t done—but for now, I desperately had to vanish.

Chapter Text

My week, in the simplest of terms, could be summed up as awful.

Or maybe horrible. Disastrous worked too. Catastrophic, world-ending—take your pick. If it meant doomed beyond repair, you were probably on the right track.

It might’ve been funny, if it wasn’t me living it. I was the punchline of one of those old sitcoms where the neurotic character gnaws their fingernails and shoots panicked glances at the door. 

Except, instead of a laugh track, I had radio silence.

I’ve been holed up in my shoebox apartment all week, curtains drawn, pretending the outside world doesn’t exist. I’m half-convinced that if I cracked the blinds, Oz’s beady little eyes would be staring back at me through the glass, waiting.

The fridge hums louder than it should, and of course I noticed it immediately. My over analyzing brain catalogues every wrong sound like I’m prepping evidence for some cosmic trial. 

It hums because it knows I haven’t bought actual groceries in two weeks. Knows I’ve been living off takeout cartons stacked on the counter, some half-full, some empty, all of them starting to congeal into a smell that clings to my hoodie.

That was the first sign I was going stir-crazy.

Ice cream has also officially become its own food group. I can rationalize it—calcium, sugar, dairy, all the essentials, right?—but I know I’m lying to myself. 

Breakfast at nine in the morning is usually accompanied by some C-list action flick rerun, volume turned up way too loud for a weekday. The kind of movies where everyone shouts their lines and explosions cover up the holes in the script. 

I sit there with my spoon dangling from my fingers, zoning out, counting how many days in a row I’ve worn the same hoodie. 

Spoiler: too many.

If I squint and ignore my blatant spiraling, I can call this a vacation. Unofficial, unpaid, unapproved—whatever.

But I desperately needed a pause, a reset. That’s the lie I keep telling myself.

Really, I’m waiting for the execution axe to fall.

Because George Arlowe is “dead.” Gotham’s eating it up like it’s the scandal of the century. His family’s shattered, headlines dripping with words like tragedy and loss. Every reporter in the city is practically salivating, wringing their hands over what could’ve possibly driven a man like him to end it all. Gotham loves a spectacle, and grief is the city’s favorite flavor. This one’s no exception.

But I know the truth. Nightwing knows the truth. And George? He better keep his mouth shut unless he’s got a death wish.

If I’d actually thought through the so-called plan I pulled, this would’ve been a win. A clean trick. Me, one step ahead of Penguin.

Instead, all I can think is: I’m such an idiot.

Oz, obviously seeing the same headlines, had called to tell me I’d done a “good job.” His exact words, delivered in that deadly calm that made me half-expect a hitman to appear behind me and finish the sentence with a bullet.

Honestly? I would’ve rather been screamed at. Messed up, sure—but if Oz really knew what happened, a yell would’ve been something I could fight against. Something tangible. This calm, measured tone was unpredictable, and left me exposed, unprepared.

He never said he knew. Not directly. But I could feel it pressing against the spaces between his words, laced through the effortless control in his voice. He knows. He has to. Men like Oz don’t miss things—not details this glaring, not mistakes this obvious.

I had never defied him, and now that I had, I had no idea what to do with myself.

It felt almost like an identity crisis, my thoughts looping back and forth like a broken record I couldn’t turn off. I shoved it down, deep, wrapping it in routines and small tasks, pretending that if I ignored it hard enough, it would go away.

And then, as if the universe couldn’t resist twisting the knife, the TV decided to make everything somehow worse. The news anchor’s voice cut through the room, all solemn emphasis and hollow gravitas, each word hammering down on the knot already lodged in throat.

The anchor’s smile was bright, her tone gentle, like she was trying to break something tragic to a child without leaving a permanent scar. Too bad I was already scarred for life, and no amount of practiced words could prepare me for what came next.

The Hallowells. My parents. Their charity work. Their “untimely deaths.” The anniversary—today, of all days—blaring across the screen like some cruel, cosmic joke. And then—like a punch straight to the gut—my name.

Their daughter. Lily Hallowell. Dead.

I laughed. Couldn’t stop it. The sound came out rough, jagged at the edges—half sad, half hysterical. 

I’d been so caught up panicking over whether someone was out to get me that I’d completely forgotten what day it was. 

And yet, here Gotham was, convinced I’d been buried for years. 

Maybe they’d been quietly celebrating all along, relieved that one more Hallowell was finally out of their way.

It’s the foster system, really. Broken even back then—careless, blind, a mess of misplaced kids and missed opportunities. They lost me and never bothered to check, sweeping it under the rug like they do with any high-profile runaway.

These days, sure, they claim they’re better. Batman made the city start paying attention, forced them to care a little. Even so, I wouldn’t be surprised if another kid vanished tomorrow and no one even batted an eye.

The camera cuts to a family photo. My parents, grinning like the world had nothing but time to waste. And me—small, eyes bright, but not because of my ability—clinging to their legs like I’d never let go. 

I don’t even have a copy of that picture. 

“That’s it,” I muttered, the words rough in my throat, charged with an emotion I couldn’t quite name.

I peel myself off the couch, brush crumbs off my hoodie, and shove a cap over my unwashed hair. Sliding my feet into sneakers, I don’t even care that I could pass for the homeless beggar who always hangs around my street corner.

Gotham thinks I’m dead? Fine. Let them. But I need proof I ever existed—a breadcrumb trail I can follow back to the life I barely remember.

The library seems like the obvious place to start.

I felt so out of place as soon as I entered the front entrance, I didn’t even know where to start.

Years of learning to read the room, surviving situations where a single misstep could get me killed—you’d think that would be enough common sense to find a row of computers. 

After fifteen minutes of searching, apparently not.

It’s been a hard week, okay? My brain is fried, my patience thinner than the library’s carpet. Somehow, I scrape together enough functioning neurons to make it to the front desk.

There’s a familiar face working there, and I can’t place why I know her. 

She’s impossible to miss—red hair catching the library’s weak fluorescent glow, wheelchair parked neatly behind the counter, posture straight, sharp. 

Alive in a way that makes my chest ache a little—envy, maybe, or something softer, harder to name. Confidence, perhaps. A quiet, effortless kind that lets a person feel like they belong in the world.

If my life were different, I think I would’ve wanted to be her friend.

“Looking for something?” Her voice is polite, warm even, but her eyes—glinting, assessing—sweep me from head to toe over the rim of her glasses. 

I recognize that gaze. I’ve used it myself a hundred times, sizing up strangers, sniffing out who’s dangerous, who’s lying. And suddenly, it’s me being measured like prey.

I stumble over a weak excuse, mumbling something about wanting newspapers, archives, anything old. My words feel impossibly small, slipping out of me before I even know if I trust her. 

I can practically feel my face heating up, and I’m painfully aware of how off-balance I seem. It’s mortifying, the elusive Truthseer, scourge of the criminal underworld, reduced to a socially anxious mess.

Thankfully, she nods, more kindly than I deserve, and points toward the computers. Right behind me. The solution has been staring me in the face the whole time.

“You’ll need a library card to use them though,” Pushing away from the desk, she leaned over toward some cabinet to her right, pulling a stack of forms toward her as if she’s done this a thousand times before. “I can set up an account for you, if you don’t already have one?”

Right. A library card. Which means a name. Which means I’d have to explain how a dead girl is signing up for public services.

I must look like a cornered animal, because she doesn’t push. She doesn’t lean over the counter or insist on explanations or ask a single probing question. She just slides a temporary card across the desk, along with some paperwork.

“In case you change your mind,” she hums, light and easy, as if she isn’t handing me an escape hatch but something I didn’t even know I needed—a lifeline I’d been too stubborn to ask for.

I nod, clutching the card like it might explode in my hands. My fingers wrap around it so tightly, I’m surprised it doesn’t bend. “Thank you—uh?”

“Barbara,” she says, smiling gently, “but most people call me Babs.”

With startling clarity, it hits me—I’m talking to Barbara Gordon. Commissioner Gordon’s daughter.

Oh, Oz would just love this.

“Thank you, Barbara,” I manage, stiff, awkward, giving her a tiny wave that barely registers as human contact. I don’t offer my name in return. 

I can feel her noticing, probably cataloging it in some quiet way, and I pretend that I wasn’t talking to someone who’s actually on the right side of the law.

As I shuffle toward the computers, the library smells like old paper and dust and polished wood, and for a moment it’s almost comforting. 

It’s private here, unassuming, like the world outside doesn’t exist for a few moments. For the first time in days, I can actually hear myself think.

I glance down at the card again and notice the neat handwriting at the top: You can print free articles on computer 3.

It’s such a small thing. Almost laughably trivial. 

But somehow, it feels like the nicest gesture anyone’s made for me in ages. I tuck the card carefully into my hoodie pocket, resolved to find at least one photo I could claim as my own. 

I settle in at the computer, shoes scraping softly against the linoleum floor, heart jittering in that quiet, anxious rhythm it always does when I feel out of my depth.

The screen glows harsh in the dim library light, washing over me in bright, sterile clarity. My fingers hover, then tap, fumbling through logins and passwords I half-remember, half-guess, every keystroke echoing too loud in my skull.

I scrolled past faded headlines and grainy photographs, trying not to get lost in the weight of the years. 

My fingers hover over the mouse, hovering too, like I could break the fragile illusion if I move too fast. 

And then—there it is.

A photo I’d seen before, similar to the one on the news, buried somewhere in memory, faint and half-forgotten. My parents, smiling at the camera, arms wrapped around each other with that effortless warmth I only catch in flashes. And me. Small, barely taller than my mother’s knee, clutching both of them in the tightest hug my little arms could manage, my face smooshed between theirs.

I blinked back tears, mortified, rushing to hit print before the waterworks started. 

I blamed the lack of sleep for the emotional distress. 

I should’ve left sooner. Packed up, melted into the city streets like I always do, invisible and untraceable. But luck and I? We’ve had a falling out that's been going on a decade.

I ran straight into them.

Three of the Waynes, just standing by the library doors, deep in some debate that sounds important—at first. But then I catch the words “pineapple” and “pizza topping” and suddenly I’m not so sure.

I freeze, brain firing off a million questions at once. Why are they even here? They probably have an entire mansion’s worth of books at home, stacked like the Library of Alexandria. And yet here they are, out in the open, debating toppings like it’s a United Nations summit.

They’re younger than me—at least, that’s what the family gossip and vague lore tell me—but knowing that doesn’t make the sudden knot in my stomach any easier to ignore.

Praying to every higher power I can think of that this isn’t because they spotted me at the gala, I curse under my breath.

How do I keep running into these people?

That night, I actually looked presentable. Not the hoodie-and-cap disaster I’ve devolved into now, so maybe I wouldn’t be recognized?  I wracked my memories, trying to remember if they were even at the gala, and came up with nothing. Brilliant.

I suck it up and push through the exit doors, bracing for whatever disaster Gotham’s social calendar has decided to throw at me today. 

Maybe I can sneak past, avoid all human contact, blend into the crowd of pedestrians, and—bonus—maybe even survive without spilling my dignity all over the sidewalk.

Instead, the blonde girl— Stephanie Brown , I think—locks eyes with me immediately and grins like she just spotted the best thing in the world. “Cool hat,” she says, loud enough to yank me fully out of my mental preparation.

I balk, frozen mid-step. She’s pointing at the front of my cap—the faded Mighty Crab Joys logo stitched into the fabric, colors dulled from too many washes and too much sun.

“You like them?” I ask before I can stop myself, words spilling out by the sheer surprise.

“ Love them,” she affirms instantly, enthusiasm radiating like she just discovered treasure, “I only know, like, one other person who likes their music!”

The pale, tired-looking boy standing beside her—Tim Drake, literal CEO of Wayne Enterprises—lets out a long, exaggerated sigh and makes a face.

“Because they’re overrated. Plenty of better punk bands out there.”

Stephanie elbows him, launching into a heated argument about musical taste. “Don’t listen to Timmy, he just needs a nap.”

Tim rolls his eyes so hard I half-expect them to get stuck. “I got a whole four hours of sleep last night, thank you very much. This opinion is completely valid.”  

Duke Thomas, a boy with deep smile lines and patience evaporating by the second, leaned toward me with a conspiratorial groan. “Here we go,” he grumbled, like he’d been trapped in their millionth argument all day.

And sure enough, Stephanie doubles down, Tim bickers louder, and I can’t look away.

They’re ridiculous. Absurd. Untethered from the world I live in. And I really can’t stop watching. 

There’s something comforting in it, the way they argue without malice, like normal siblings, like the world can shrink down to just this tiny, ridiculous bubble of motion and noise.

Somehow, Tim catches me staring. He glances my way, eyebrows raised, like he expects me to step in, to arbitrate, to solve something that isn’t mine to solve. And I laugh. Out loud

Light, unguarded, the kind of laugh that makes my chest feel lighter for a second. The three of them freeze mid-gesture, blinking at me like I’ve done something strange, and maybe I have.

Stephanie grins wider, elbowing Tim again like she’s delivering a fatal blow. “See? It’s two versus one.”

Tim stumbles back a step, rubbing his shoulder and narrowing his eyes, though the annoyance barely sticks—more like a reflex than a real threat. “Their top hit is literally just their own theme song,” he mutters, voice tight with mock outrage.

Before I even realize it, my mouth moves. “Maybe I’ll lend you a CD sometime,” I say, nodding toward Stephanie. “Next time you’re at the library.”

Her face lights up instantly, looking at me like this was a promise. “ Deal. ”

I’m already sad about it. Because there won’t be a next time. Not for me. Not with them.

I feel a small pang of guilt—okay, more like panic—but there’s no time to linger. I’ve already said too much. Talking to them was a mistake. I wave awkwardly, muttering a farewell that probably sounds like a cough, and shove my hands in my pockets before anyone realizes I haven’t been properly introduced.

By the time I catch the bus, the copy of my parents’ photo is clutched tight in my hands. I trace the edges, memorizing the lines of their faces, the way their smiles catch the light even in black and white, like some cruel little reminder of what we once were.

Then my stomach growls—a low, accusatory rumble—reminding me that all I’ve eaten today is a single, lonely bowl of ice cream.

Fantastic.

Once again, I didn’t buy groceries, because priorities are apparently optional when you’re busy feeling sorry for yourself. 

Batburger it is, then. 

Chapter Text

I didn’t want to be here.

Here, being in the middle of a warzone that I hadn’t been invited to, much less prepared for.

Oswald Cobblepot had officially lost his marbles.

I knew the week off had been too good to last. No texts, no assignments—suspicious, but not impossible. Even crime lords couldn’t stir up trouble every single night.

Oz more than made up for the silence with back-to-back jobs, each one worse than the last, like he was testing how far he could push me before I cracked.

My shoulders were still purpled from Tuesday’s “favor” gone sideways, and the split lip I’d earned two nights ago throbbed every time I so much as breathed. For all that effort, I’d turned up exactly nothing except a growing file of bruises. 

Which, I was starting to think, was the point.

Run me ragged. Make me sloppy. Strip away every ounce of control before I even thought about clawing some back. That was Oswald Cobblepot’s specialty—punishment disguised as routine, cruelty dressed up as business.

Which is how I ended up wedged behind a water heater, the metal groaning with every gunshot. Dust sifted down in lazy clouds, catching in my throat even with the mask, while the pipes above clanged like they were about to burst. 

My knees ached from crouching too long, breath hitching each time the auctioneer’s voice cut through  the ringing in my ears.

Some underground auction, he’d called it, another recon to see who the new players were.

More like a powder keg with a sign that said kick me.

I didn’t even have a backup—no half-baked gang of lowlifes to stumble in as my distraction, no handler in my ear, no lookout posted on the street. 

Just me, my bruises, and the warm reassurance that Oswald Cobblepot thought dropping me into the middle of a shootout, empty-handed, was somehow a lesson in discipline.

Gunfire cracked against the metal walls, deafening and a reminder I needed to get moving. Two rival crews were busy tearing each other apart over boxes of unmarked drops and stacks of clean cash, and I was right in the middle of it—a sitting duck.

My palms itched for a weapon I didn’t have, nails biting into my skin instead. Every instinct screamed to move, to bolt, but where? Through the rain of bullets? Into the waiting hands of whichever side won first? Staying crouched was suicide. Running was suicide. 

I pressed flatter against the heater, tugging my fraying black jacket tighter like the thin fabric could stop a bullet. The concrete floor was slick with spilled something—beer, blood, probably both—and the thought bubbled up anyway, unbidden and sour:

Oz was going to get me killed one way or the other.

I wanted to push back, spit in his face, prove that the years of obedience—the calculated compliance, the blood-smeared favors—didn’t mean he owned me.

But even now I felt it, the phantom weight of his hand at the back of my neck, heavy as a collar, pressing me down until I sometimes mistook it for my own spine.

I told myself doing his bidding was survival, that it kept a roof over my head, even if it wasn’t the gilded penthouse he liked to flaunt—but the lie was starting to curdle on my tongue. 

Family didn’t sharpen you into a weapon and then point you at the slaughter.

Mine hadn’t. Not once. 

The Waynes—fractured, messy, maybe not even bound by blood—still moved like orbiting stars. They didn’t have to say it, you could feel it: the tether was love. Not leverage. Not control.

So what was I doing, crouched behind a rust-stained water heater while bullets screamed past, nursing bruises like heirlooms? Rationalizing every cut and scar as though they were proof of belonging, like Oz really was family. 

I crept down the corridor, every sense sharpened, every muscle wound tight. Shadows clung to the walls like they didn’t want to let go, twisting longer with every flicker of the failing lights. 

Graffiti scrawls leered at me with melting clown eyes, paint dripping like old wounds that never healed. The air was sour—rot, gasoline, and mold thick enough to taste—like the whole place had been soaking in every crime, every scream, every filthy deal that had ever gone down here.

Small mercy: my shorter frame worked in my favor. It’s harder to shoot what you can’t see, and harder still to catch someone who can slip between broken crates like water through cracked stone. Chalk one up for being fun-sized.

Behind me, the death spray quieted. No more gunfire, no more shattering echoes—just voices. Harsh, guttural, sharp enough to cut. A mix of thick foreign accents and pure Crime Alley snarl.

“No way we lost them,” one barked, voice ricocheting off the shipping crates. “Richie’s got eyes on the outside. No one slipped out that wasn’t ours.”

I slid past a box of Drops dressed up like fresh produce—because of course the city’s worst drug needed bananas as camouflage—and another crate heavy with stolen jewelry that probably belonged to someone very rich and very dead. Their footsteps were getting closer. My window of escape was shrinking fast.

“No way are we killing the Truthseer, though, right? Penguin won’t like it if she don’t make it out.”

My alter ego bounced off their tongues like a curse, warped and ugly. I really did have more enemies than friends, huh?

Another voice cut in, lower, colder: “Penguin don’t care if she’s breathing, long as she’s worth something to the freaks that want her. But if she talks—she ain’t worth a damn.”

My stomach twisted. Freaks. Worth something. Profit. All nice little euphemisms for “my head on a platter.”

Oz wanted me cornered, but to sell out his biggest prize? He’d dangle me like a threat over every other gang until they bent the knee, then turn around and auction me off like some rare trinket? 

What the hell was going on?

I didn’t have the luxury of answers, not with only a pocket knife and a death wish.

I slipped between rust-stained barrels, every step rattling through my bones like I was running on fumes. My heart thundered anyway—traitorous thing—beating loud enough you’d think it was trying to keep up its double-crossing streak and rat me out to the men who’d love nothing more than to see me belly-up in the harbor.

At the end of the corridor, the exit waited—a dented metal door glowing faintly under the flicker of a dying light. Salvation, if salvation came in the form of something that looked one sneeze away from collapsing. Relief buzzed in my chest, sharp and dizzy, like maybe I was pulling this off.

I was escaping.

Of course, the second I got through that door, I’d probably run headfirst into more trouble. But at least if I died out there, I could do it breathing the city’s signature cocktail of exhaust fumes, sewer stench, and smog. 

Then—

A glint.

High above, tucked in the rafters, something caught the sickly yellow light. Red metal. Polished. Glaring down like it had a personal grudge. My brows knit, head tilting as I squinted through the gloom, trying to make sense of the shape.

And then it moved.

He dropped like vengeance given wings—leather and steel cleaving through the air. For one dizzy half-second, my heart jumped in my throat, stupidly convinced it was him. The lines were almost the same—the sharp descent, the predator’s patience in the rafters. My pulse stuttered, traitorously hopeful. Nightwing.

But then the roar of machine guns split the air. The room erupted in fire and fury, white-hot tracers shredding the shadows I’d been clinging to. Bullets chewed through crates, walls, the floor—merciless, indiscriminate. 

I flinched as splinters and sparks rained down, diving behind the nearest hunk of rusting metal. My lungs burned like I’d swallowed the whole damn firefight.

“What the fu—” My voice cut off in a choke as another burst rattled the air.

No. No, this wasn’t him. Nightwing didn’t use guns. Nightwing didn’t kill. And whoever this was, they were painting the room red without hesitation.

The men screamed.

 “It’s her—get her!”

“No, it’s—shit, fall back! Fall back!”

Panic fractured the room—men shouting, gunfire cracking wild, ricochets sparking off the pipes like fireworks gone wrong. I hit the ground hard, chest heaving, cheek pressed to the floor as every bad decision I’d ever made in my life queued up like greatest hits. 

When I cracked my eyes open, the first thing I saw was steel-toed boots planted firmly, barely inches away from my face.

Either I’d just discovered a new level of rock bottom, or Death had a questionable sense of style.

Slowly—because sudden movements seemed like a fast track to a bullet—I peeled my cheek from the floor and looked up.

Towering above me was a furious, red-helmed nightmare. The helmet caught the flickering light and turned it into a bloodstain made of metal, glaring down like judgment itself.

“Jesus Christ,” I hissed, scrambling upright with all the grace of a cornered cat. My boots slipped on splintered wood, but I got my hands up fast, palms open in the universal language of please don’t shoot me in the face.

The barrel tracked me like a spotlight. Matte black, steady, too steady for someone new to the game. My stomach sank. I’d seen him circling the edges of Gotham’s rumor mill, a ghost story with too much ammunition. Not a hero. Not a cop.

Another player. Fresh, sure—but unpredictable.

“No, actually,” the voice corrected, tinny and distorted through a modulator, dripping with the kind of smug patience that came from knowing he had the upper hand. 

The metallic snick of the safety clicking off followed, way too theatrical to be anything but intentional. “Name’s Red Hood.”

He didn’t lower the gun. If anything, the angle sharpened, like he was daring me to twitch wrong. My pulse thundered in my throat, but I kept my eyes locked on the glossy visor.

Two seconds. That’s all I figured I had before I’d be a chalk outline—when heavy boots and shouted voices crashed in from the hall, snapping the standoff like a whip crack.

“Over here—both of ’em!”

Wave two was starting, sharp and merciless. Muzzle flashes strobed the walls. Red Hood didn’t flinch. He just pivoted on his heel, movements precise, and answered fire with crisp, disciplined bursts.

And then my gaze snagged on it.

The chest plate.

Black armor, sleek and brutal, but stamped bold across the front—bright, brazen, impossible to mistake.

A new Bat?

I sucked in a breath, connecting the dots with all the grace of a busted Etch A Sketch. Red Hood— the Red Hood—was apparently working with the very people I was trying to, you know, avoid like the plague now.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Bullets ricocheted off the pipes above, raining sparks that singed the fabric of my arms. I ducked lower, boots skidding in a puddle so slick I almost pulled off the world’s least sexy split. My heart hammered like it was trying to eject itself from my ribcage, which felt extremely unfair, because my brain was already busy screaming on repeat: get out, get out, get out.

One of the men broke from the smoke, knife flashing. Instinct snapped through me. I blocked with my forearm, shoved up against his wrist, and slammed the heel of my hand into the soft spot beneath his jaw. He gagged, stumbled, dropped the blade with a clatter.

From my left, someone barked at him—

“Drop her, she’s worth more breathing—”

The words cut deeper than the knife had. Heat seared through my ribs. My curse clawed up my sternum, blistering like glass splintering under my skin. Lie. Half-truth. Whatever it was—they didn’t want me dead. They wanted me alive.

Funny way of showing it. I snarked internally.

Another shout cracked across the room—

“Orders were clear. Hold her. The buyer wants—”

The burn flared sharper, crueler. My throat tore with a curse as the truth threaded itself through me, jagged and raw. Not random. Not collateral. They were after me. Specifically.

I barely had time to register it before Red Hood’s hand clamped around my arm and yanked me sideways like a hook through my collar. A bullet shredded the pipe where my head had been a heartbeat ago. I slammed into his Kevlar shoulder with a grunt.

“Eyes open, idiot,” he barked, voice grated raw through the modulator. “Unless you’re volunteering for target practice.”

I shoved off him, breathless. “I didn’t exactly ask to—”

Something hot clipped his shoulder, making him grunt, and I was thrown back into the chaos.

The next man lunged. I kicked his knee in, hard. Bone crunched, and he screamed, swinging wildly at my face. My hands trembled, but I snatched the dropped knife off the floor, flipping it into a defensive grip. My throat still burned with the aftertaste of their lies, that acidic sting of my curse, but I forced it down and snarled:

“You will do the right thing—and protect me.”

The words ripped out of me like a tornado, but belief made them true. That was the razor’s edge of my curse—if I believed it enough, if I anchored it in the marrow of my conviction, reality bent to match. Dangerous, reckless, draining as hell. I almost never pulled it out unless I was desperate.

And I was so far past desperate.

His pupils blew wide, body slackening like a marionette with the strings cut. Then, with no hesitation, he pivoted and opened fire—on his own men. Screams and gunfire tangled into one jagged symphony, smoke rolling thick and acrid around me.

But even as the chaos swallowed them, their words clung, lodged under my skin like glass splinters.

Orders. Buyer.

Like I’d been itemized, packaged, and auctioned off.

My lungs burned. I spun, scanning through haze and muzzle flash, every nerve lit and sparking. Someone was watching.

Red Hood.

He froze, helmet tilting like he’d just spotted some alien perched awkwardly next to him. Even through that red mask, I felt the double take. His head swiveled so fast it was almost cartoonish, like physics had decided to take a coffee break.

“Wait.” His voice dragged through the modulator, incredulous and slow, like we weren’t in the middle of a gunfight. “Wait—you’re the Truthseer?”

“Uh. Yeah?”

That really didn’t sound convincing, Lily. 

He stared. Not just a glance—this was full-on, peeling-you-open, trying-to-read-your-soul kind of staring. My skin crawled under it, and I had the weird, irritating thought that he might actually enjoy making me squirm.

“No way.”

“Yes way,” I snapped automatically. Mouth moving faster than my brain could keep up. Probably not the smartest move with a guy who had a twitchy trigger finger pointed squarely between my eyes.

His helmet tilted again, slow and deliberate, like he needed a second angle to process me. I twisted my stomach and swallowed. 

“No. Absolutely not. You’re the one giving the Bats a run for their money?” He waved the gun lazily, casual as if he were pointing at a coffee cup instead of a human being. “You’re so—tiny.”

My jaw dropped. Heat flared under my skin, half fury, half oh-god-I-might-die embarrassment. “Excuse me?”

“I was expecting—hell, I don’t know—someone taller.”

“Wow. Rude.” My voice came out sharper than I meant, fury cracking clean through the fear that was trying to drown me. 

It steadied my hands on the knife, gave my legs enough steel to keep from shaking. “For the record, I went toe-to-toe with Nightwing and got out unscathed. Twice.”

Why the hell was I telling him that? The words tasted like weakness the second they left my mouth, but I couldn’t take them back.

That earned me an actual laugh—short and smug. It rolled through the helmet and was way too amused for the fact that people were still trying to kill us. “Yeah, well, Nightwing’s soft. Bleeding heart, Boy Wonder himself.”

Something in me bristled. Irrational, considering Nightwing wasn’t exactly sending me holiday cards. But still—my fists clenched on instinct, the knife’s hilt biting into my palm. “He’s not soft. He’s—”

Red Hood froze mid-reload, every movement cutting off like I’d flipped a switch. The helmet angled toward me again, a predator catching a new scent. “Oh my god. You’re actually defending him?”

My cheeks burned, heat flooding up my neck. Why did I feel like I’d just said something mortifying instead of dangerous?

I opened my mouth to spit back something scathing—anything—but the universe had opinions.

A bullet screamed past my temple, singeing a line of heat through my hair. My breath hitched. Another pinged off his chest plate with a metallic crack that made him grunt and stagger. My stomach flipped, nerves sparking, knife trembling in my grip for a completely new reason.

“Okay, this is getting old.” His hand clamped around my arm like a vice. Pain flared sharp and white as he yanked me sideways. Air punched out of me when my shoulder slammed into his chest. The floor slick under my boots scattered puddles of dark, suspicious liquid as he dragged me.

“Hey!” I snapped, twisting against his grip, my shoulder burning where his fingers locked. “I don’t take orders from you!”

“Yeah, and I don’t babysit,” he shot back without missing a beat, shoving me behind a stack of crates. The impact rattled my spine. He pivoted smoothly, gun already up, stance squared like he’d done this a hundred times.

Two clean shots cracked through the haze, muzzle flashes sparking like lightning. Someone screamed in the distance. The acrid bite of cordite rolled in heavily, stinging my throat. I coughed into my sleeve, heart still sprinting faster than my body could follow.

I pressed back against the crates, forcing words past the adrenaline. “Pretty sure I’m older than you, jackass.”

He didn’t even glance at me, just pivoted with a precision that made my stomach tighten. My fingers itched, restless against empty air, a useless reminder that I had nothing to defend myself with. Right now, my life was balanced on the edge of someone else’s control, and the thought made my pulse jitter in warning.

“Why the hell are you even here?” I demanded, frustration sharper than the ache in my ribs. More at myself than him, truthfully.

I met his gaze—or at least the angle of his helmet—and he paused, just enough to make me feel small and obvious. Then he tilted his head like he was examining a puzzle that didn’t quite make sense. “Duh. I’m a crime lord. Taking over the city and all that jazz.”

I blinked. Laughter clawed its way out, half a squeak, half disbelief. “And this is Batman-approved?” I gestured vaguely at the red armor, the weight and shine of it somehow both ridiculous and terrifying.

He let out a low, buzzing laugh, humorless, like metal scraping metal. “Hell no. B? Approving this?” He gestured toward the twin weapons slung across his chest, the ones that had just turned half the room inside out. 

Point taken.

Then, just like flipping a switch, his focus snapped back to me—laser-sharp and impossible to ignore. “Hold up. Why are you here?”

The tilt of his head wasn’t casual. No, this was a full-on mental inventory: threat, pawn, or inconvenient mess? I felt my teeth grit against the implication, heat crawling up my neck. “Aren’t you usually guarded closer than the president?”

Sure, moments ago, I’d been teetering on the edge of disaster—but I’d have clawed my way out. Probably.

Why was I here? Part of me already knew the answer. Part of me didn’t want to.

Someone wanted me. Big, red-target-on-the-back, not-your-average-gang-hit kind of wanted. The thought slithered up my spine, leaving a tremor in every nerve. I swallowed past the taste of fear and squared my shoulders, trying to sound steady.

“Honestly? I’m starting to wonder about that myself.”

“Sounds like somebody’s on Penguin’s bad side,” he teased darkly, sounding as if their was a smirk curling the corner of his mouth under that metal death trap. Seriously, how did he breathe in that thing?

Then he reached into his jacket like he was pulling out a stick of gum. Instead, he revealed a grenade the size of my head. My stomach lurched and my chest felt hollow for a heartbeat, my breath gone before it returned in a harsh gulp.

“Relax,” he said, the modulator buzzing faintly, like it had its own heartbeat. “Party favor kind.”

Party favor. Right. Because nothing says “fun” like a flashbang the size of a small moon turning your eardrums into a Jackson Pollock painting. My teeth rattled, my vision shimmered, and for a glorious, terrifying few seconds, the room was pure chaos.

When the ringing finally eased, half the hired guns were sprawled across the floor, groaning like they’d collectively discovered the worst hangover in history. I actually thought some of them were dead. 

My stomach did a somersault of guilt and horror until a pathetic moan from one guy reminded me the apocalypse was only metaphorical. Another muttered a curse, probably wishing he’d stayed home.

I blinked at Red Hood in a new light, the room finally quieting enough for me to notice—he’d been using non-lethal force the whole time. “Rubber bullets? Seriously?”

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” he shot back, holstering one of his ridiculous guns like this was all part of the plan.

“So, you are brown-nosing Batman,” I assessed, tone dry.

“I’m just trying to keep him off my back,” he replied, calm as if being a walking, gun-toting nightmare somehow counted as responsible adulting.

We slipped out the side door before reinforcements could ruin our night—or before the rest of the crew stirred from whatever concussive stupors had them down for the count.

The Narrows swallowed us whole. Back alleys twisted and yawned under the weight of old brick, walls slick with rain and grime, carrying the faint whisper of rats, dripping pipes, and broken glass.

An unspoken warning pulsed in the shadows: no one in their right mind came here alone.

Darkness pooled like spilled ink, perfect for ghosts—or morally worn-out people like us. My boots scuffed lightly over discarded wrappers and gravel, each step a tiny percussion against the silence, each step a reminder that getting caught here would be unpleasant.

I reached for his wrist before he disappeared into the gloom, half instinct, half desperate plea for a tether to reality.

He froze. Dropped into a defensive stance. Guns leveled, helmet glinting under the streetlights. Waiting. Expecting an attack.

I froze, too. Took a careful step back, realizing with a sinking gut that reaching for him—bold, stupid, symbolic—was probably the dumbest move I’d made all night.

It was metaphorical. Reaching out. My first real step away from the Penguin’s world—the grime, the deals, the betrayals that had defined my life for far too long.

I needed someone—anyone—who could do more than help me escape. I wanted someone who could help me actually fight back , someone who could handle the dirty work I couldn’t do alone.

Nightwing could save me, but Red Hood seemed like he could get me revenge.

“I’ve got every secret on Penguin. His deals, his movements, his favorite color,” I said before my brain could talk me out of it. My voice shook just enough to remind me how much was riding on this. “And I know you’ll want to hear it.”

He stepped closer, red visor catching the streetlight like a neon warning, demanding and predatory, as if daring me to back down. “Why are you telling me this?”

I lifted my chin, forcing myself to look defiant, even though the man in front of me towered a foot over my head. “One, because I think if someone like you tries to take over, things might actually get better.”

Uncomfortable silence. Just him, unreadable behind that helmet, waiting for me to falter. To yell, gotcha!

“And two?” I swallowed down the bile, forcing myself to speak the words out loud. “I want the Penguin gone.”

My mind flashed to Oz, and the disgusting thought that he’d been trying to sell me out—like some commodity—to a higher bidder made my stomach twist.

I wanted Gotham better. Cleaner. Safer.

Not for glory. Not to feel like some cape-wearing hero. But because the filth of this city had seeped too far into my bones, and I couldn’t keep pretending I belonged to it.

What I didn’t say—what I’d never admit out loud—was that maybe, just maybe, working with him made me feel a little less morally swampy compared to Gotham’s golden-boy brigade.

Red Hood let out a laugh, distorted but real. The first sound from him that wasn’t a threat or a gritted-modulator growl. For a heartbeat, I thought it was a sign: maybe we were full-fledged allies, or at least wouldn’t kill each other on sight.

“All right, Truthseer,” he spoke, settling into the moment, gloved hand extended. “Deal’s on—don’t make me regret it.”

I shook his hand. His grip was tight, almost a warning; mine pressed back, trying to match it. I wasn’t afraid of him—not really—but I was terrified of what this deal now meant.

As he stepped back and disappeared into the street, leaving me alone to stew in my own undoing, I thought I caught him muttering under his breath.

“‘Wing's gonna be so jealous.”

The diner reeked of burned coffee and fried regret. For a place that never closed, it somehow felt classier than Caesar’s Palace—if Caesar had a taste for stale hash browns and existential despair.

I slid into the nearest booth, ignoring the fact that I probably looked like I’d survived a building collapse: soot smeared across my cheek, hair wind-frizzed into a tragic sea-witch aesthetic, and my split lip refusing to heal as if to personally mock me.

All I wanted was grease, caffeine, and maybe ten uninterrupted minutes before I unleashed a scalding shower the OSHA handbook would declare illegal.

The waitress set down my coffee just as someone slid into the booth across from me. My brain, still half-distracted by dreams of bacon and hot caffeine, registered it a beat too late. Refill? Bad news about the kitchen running out of pie?

Nope. Detective Bludhaven. In the flesh.

I choked on my sip, pale fingers setting the porcelain cup back onto the counter with a little too much force.

Dick Grayson looked about as worn as a paperback left out in the rain—creased in all the wrong places, maybe a little tired—but nowhere near as wrecked as me. His uniform sat crisp on his frame, like he hadn’t just worked out in the most brutal street corners.

“Mind if I sit?” he asked, politely, as if the seat weren’t already his by default.

I raised an eyebrow, unconsciously fussing with my hair to try and make it less of a tangled mess. “Would it matter if I said yes?”

A hint of a smile tugged at his mouth. Dimples. Great. Just what my sleep-deprived brain needed—another perfectly timed distraction.

Dick leaned back into his seat, seeming unbothered, but his gaze scanning me with the same quiet intensity that made me want to explain everything and nothing at once. And then, with a start, I realized he wasn’t just looking at me—he was cataloging my bruises, my injuries, and, finally, my mouth. 

Those piercing blue eyes locked onto my split lip, and I had to pinch myself to remind my brain it was probably just the obvious injury.

It was unnerving. Concern settled in his gaze so effortlessly, it made my chest tighten. I didn’t even know this man beyond the media portrayal, yet here he was, silently assessing me. 

His job as a detective had to be the reason—a bright shiny star of moral goodness in a city that had long since stopped glittering.

Ha. Just like Nightwing. I bet those two would make excellent friends.

“How have you been?”

What a loaded question. One of those ones that sounds polite but really isn’t—it’s less a greeting and more a full-body scan in the form of a sentence. I could tell he was probing; I hadn’t looked like this at the gala. 

Back then, I’d been clean, composed, and capable of convincing anyone I wasn’t teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Now? Not so much.

“Just peachy,” I said, flashing my teeth like a proper, put-together adult—which ended up looking more like a pained grimace. “Can’t you tell?”

His brow furrowed, like he was trying to decide whether to be concerned or roll his eyes at me. I suspected he could do both simultaneously if he really wanted. After a beat, he let it drop, though the crease in his forehead lingered, subtle but stubborn. 

The waitress arrived like a saving grace, sliding a plate of greasy goodness in front of me with a practiced smile. Bacon, eggs, and a stack of pancakes stacked like a monument to regret and sustenance. I inhaled the scent like I hadn’t eaten in days, which, honestly, might not have been too far from the truth.

She leaned over Dick’s side, batting her lashes in a way that screamed “ please notice me,” and he just gave her a friendly, easy grin. 

“Coffee and pancakes, please,” he asked. Nothing more. Polite. Neutral. He didn’t even twitch when she practically hovered over him, making me want to shove a fork at her and tell her to back off.

The waitress glanced at me with a haughty little tilt of her head, clearly judging my disaster-level state. Then she spun on her heel, chirping over her shoulder at Dick, “I’ll get right on that for you, hon.”

I poked at my pancakes, stabbing a piece with my fork like I was trying to find the courage hiding in the syrup. “Well, someone has the hots for you.”

His tanned hands waved me off, easy and dismissive, but the smirk that settled across his face—bright, genuine, unbothered by the exhaustion clinging to him—made it clear he didn’t take himself too seriously. “Comes with the territory.”

“Of what?” I asked, tilting my head, a mix of snark and curiosity threading my tone. “Being a Wayne?”

He shook his head, grin widening, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Nope. Of being this good-looking.”

He startled a genuine laugh out of me, one of those sharp, unexpected bursts I hadn’t realized I still carried—like the one I’d accidentally let slip at the library a few days ago. 

It was alarming how easily this family could pull something so light from the depths of my chest, tugging at nerves I usually kept neatly coiled and hidden.

There was a flicker of surprise in his eyes—wider than before, almost like he hadn’t expected to hear me laugh at all. Then that surprise softened into something warmer, lighter, a small, delighted spark that made his entire expression shift. 

I felt my cheeks heat, my laugh dying off awkwardly, but his gaze didn’t waver; he held it, steady and unjudging.

I cleared my throat, stabbing another bite of pancake for emphasis, and waved a messy hand in his direction. “Food’s coming,” I said around a mouthful, hoping he got the hint before I completely embarrassed myself with syrup-dribbling enthusiasm.

We ate in a comfortable silence, the kind that was rare for me—and even rarer with someone I didn’t know. Or, maybe, someone I thought I didn’t know. Probably a combination of sleep deprivation and adrenaline finally deciding to take a vacation from my system.

The pause between us was like static—full of questions neither of us dared to ask, both skirting some invisible line we hadn’t drawn but clearly existed.

Then, mid-bite of pancake, he leaned back and dropped casually, “Don’t worry about the check. I’ve got it.”

I nearly snorted coffee out my nose for the second time tonight. “Excuse me?”

“Consider it a bribe.” His tone was light, almost teasing, but I saw the faint crease of expectation in his brow, like he knew I’d protest.

“Oh no. Absolutely not.” I shoved my fork into a piece of scrambled egg, stabbing it like a tiny defense mechanism. “I can pay for myself, buddy.”

Before I could add the speech about dignity, responsibility, and how I wasn’t some helpless diner damsel, Dick had already handed a wad of cash to the waitress. Not the crisp, pristine bills you’d expect from some rich boy pretending to be casual—these looked worn, personal, real.

That wasn’t daddy’s money. That was his own. Hard-earned, real, made-money.

The waitress blinked at the stack like she hadn’t expected it, then let out a soft, impressed whistle. “Well, aren’t you a gentleman,” she said, fluttering off to grab our change despite Dick’s casual, “Keep the rest,” tossed over his shoulder.

I poked at my plate, suddenly finding the pancakes unbearably boring, my mind spinning. “You—you didn’t have to do that.”

“Maybe,” he said, eyes calm and disarming. “But I was serious about that bribe.”

Before I could muster a proper protest, he slid a piece of paper across the table, and my whole body tensed, bracing for disaster.

“This is my number,” he said, calm as if he weren’t handing something so personal to a practical stranger, ignoring—or maybe not noticing—my flabbergasted expression. “In case you ever need it.”

I blinked at the paper, then back at him, palms suddenly slick. “Smooth.”

“Can I at least know your name now?” His smile had that easy, unshakeable kindness, waving any sense of suspicion I carried.

I hesitated, half-expecting to lie, to deflect, to protect myself like I always did. But something about the openness in his eyes—the way he’d looked at me across a breakfast booth, without judgment, without expectation—made the truth slip.

“Lily,” I said, voice quieter than I intended.

“Lily,” He repeated, rolling the name over like it fit perfectly. His smile widened just a fraction, small but genuine. “That’s a pretty name.”

I snorted, shaking my head. “And that’s a pretty lame pick-up line.”

Shut up! I gripped the edges of the table a little tighter, my cursed ability buzzing faintly in the back of my mind, amplifying every word, every emotion in bright letters.

He was being totally truthful.

Horrified, I tried to rein in the sudden, stupidly personal heat curling in my chest. Literally, be quiet, Lillian.

He didn’t even flinch. Dimples, warm blue eyes, that quiet honesty—everything burned into my memory with infuriating clarity. And the stupid, undeniable warmth flickering through me?

Definitely the coffee. Had to be.

Chapter Text

The first feather showed up on my windowsill.

Just one. Pale as bone, curled like it had been plucked fresh from some bird that definitely wasn’t alive anymore. 

Normal people might’ve thought, cool, urban wildlife. 

I knew better.

The feathers on my third story sill didn’t exactly scream Disney princess moment. It felt more along the lines of someone knows where you live.

The second one I noticed arrived the next morning, tucked under the strap of my messenger bag like some creep had lovingly placed it there while I was out grabbing coffee.

That’s when my brain started doing the whole slow, sinking oh no thing.

I wanted to blame Penguin—honestly, it would’ve made my life so much simpler if this had Oswald’s greasy little fingerprints all over it. A mind game to torment me since he lacked the physical proof that I double crossed him.

Ironic, given my previous life’s purpose. Hell, this was even bird themed mental warfare.

Despite every sign pointing to his possible involvement, he was the same oily, vindictive trash heap he always was. Still sending me on the occasional job, still wanting to continue weekly Friday night dinner to ‘catch up’.

No more, no less. 

Which, unfortunately, meant someone else had decided to send me gifts.

That’s when I started to notice them everywhere.

White feathers in the gutter as I exited the subway. A faint owl symbol scratched into the wood of the laundromat door I passed every day. Another one smeared in red chalk—hopefully chalk, not blood—across the mailbox outside my apartment.

And then came the letter.

Not shoved under the door like the pizza flyers I usually stepped over. This one was hand-delivered, sealed with cracked wax that smelled like old rain, sitting there like it had been waiting for me.

The parchment was soft at the edges, like it had been passed around a thousand times before finally landing in my lap—a cursed game of hot potato.

The calligraphy wasn’t run-of-the-mill cursive. It looked ripped from a history book and sharpened into a weapon, as if the writer had dipped their pen in menace just to enjoy how it crawled under my skin.

I opened it with bated breath, somewhat hoping for coupons instead of my death warrant.

“Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all the time.
Ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime.
They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed.
Speak not a whispered word of them, or they’ll send the Talon for your head.”

The words pulled something sharp and terrible out of me—a memory, one I didn’t ask for but couldn’t shove down before it started.

A child’s voice, my voice, small and exuberant, singing those lines. The hazy image of my uncle Charlie beside me, his scratchy voice making the rhyme sound like a joke, like something to laugh at while he made shadow puppets dance across the kitchen wall. 

I sank to the kitchen floor before I even realized I was moving, knees buckling like my body had just decided, nope, we’re done here. My back clipped the cabinet hard enough to make the half-loose drawer above me rattle a dull warning. 

The paper slid out of my grip and skidded across the tile, landing face-down like it wanted no part of me anymore.

Pressing the heel of my palm to my temple, I found myself trying to massage the avalanche of what the hell into some kind of neat stack, but my thoughts scattered like marbles.

I knew that whatever this was, it had its claws in what went wrong at the auction.

I tipped my head back against the cabinet door, eyes tracing the dusty line of the vent above the stove like maybe staring at dead metal could hold back the storm building in my chest. Don’t look at the letter. Don’t give it more power than it already has.

This was fine. Totally fine. Absolutely nothing to panic about.

Except the panic didn’t care what I told it, not if this Court of Owls wasn’t just a spooky bedtime story for Gotham rich kids.

Maybe those feathers and owl scratches weren’t gang graffiti after all. 

Maybe Penguin’s mood swings, my very expensive buyer’s sudden ghost routine, and Charlie’s vanishing act weren’t separate fires.

Or maybe I was just slapping strings on a corkboard like a conspiracy nut with too many trust issues and not enough hours of sleep.

This wasn’t something I could just write off as weird, though. If I didn’t cut it off here, now, it was going to grow teeth. And when it came back to bite, it wouldn’t be some annoying itch I could scratch out of existence. No. It would drag everything with it—my cover, my plan, a thousand percent me if I wasn’t careful.

Every line, every clue, every stupid feather pointed in the same rotten direction—and the only way to stop feeling like prey was to find out what Charlie had been digging into before he left me choking on the dust.

The Gotham Public Library still had that comforting smell to it—old paper and lemon cleaner, tucked into every forgotten corner.

Honestly, it was the biggest relief I could’ve asked for, considering everything else in my life had chosen to swan-dive off a skyscraper into a vat of despair.

I put in the effort to pull myself together this time. My jeans didn’t have a single hole or rip to them, paired with a jacket that wasn’t held together by the will of God and three stubborn stitches. 

My hair was brushed, squeaky clean from this morning’s scalding shower. Braided, even. A thick mahogany rope down my back that thudded lightly against my shoulder blades with every step like it wanted credit for existing.

Under the library’s unflattering fluorescent glare, it became more apparent that my skin hadn’t really gotten its daily dose of vitamin D in a while. Which only made my eyes—bright, eerie green—shout even louder at anyone dumb enough to hold eye contact.

This wasn’t about blending in for once. This was about me, reclaiming at least one square inch of my train-wreck life. If I was going to dig through archives that smelled like mothballs and mildew, I wasn’t going to do it looking like a raccoon that lost a fight with a garbage truck in Crime Alley.

With my luck, I’d run into another Wayne. Safer to at least look like I belonged on the polished park avenues instead of the gutters that actually raised me.

I adjusted the strap of my Dad’s messenger bag, leather edges fraying just enough to betray how many years it had been hauling my life around, and drew in a deep breath, letting the smell of books and chilled air from the HVAC system soak through the static crawling under my skin.

Charlie’s name in the library search bar led me straight to his old journalist files. 

Box after box of yellowed notes, brittle clippings, and scribbles in margins that looked like someone had been arguing with themselves in ink. My fingers itched as I flipped through them, silently thanking every minor library god that my temporary card still worked.

Immortal bloodlines.

Gray Children.

Names that sounded like the opening acts for a questionable metal festival.

But Charlie hadn’t treated them like jokes. His handwriting went from irritated to obsessed, lines stacked over each other, question marks pressed so hard they dented the paper beneath.

Whatever this was, he’d been chasing it, hard.

I kept flipping, fighting the urge to constantly check over my shoulder. Police memos copied by hand. Pages ripped from city ledgers. A string map folded into the back of a manila folder, thumbtack holes still in the corners.

And then—an article draft, half-finished, no date.

“The Court of Owls: Gotham’s Old Blood Empire”

“Rumor, myth, or hidden monarchy?”

“If they’re real, they’ve been here since the first brick of this city was laid—and they’re still pulling the strings.”

I stared at the headlines, pulse kicking up, a quiet panic that hummed like electricity behind my teeth. 

The monitor whirred beside the stack, screen throwing pale light over the pages. One hand flattened over Charlie’s papers, grounding me, while the other dragged the cursor through every result the city’s digital archives coughed up.

Property transfers going back a century, board members with names that disappeared from public record, old trial transcripts that mentioned “anonymous benefactors” funding both sides. 

All of it—buried just deep enough that no one who wasn’t obsessed would bother.

The bedtime rhyme wasn’t just a rhyme, not some rich-kid bogeyman.

The Court of Owls was here. It had always been here.

They were tied to something ancient, organized. Something big enough to swallow my uncle whole—and they’d left me the feathers and the letter as proof I was next on the menu.

You really can’t catch a break, huh, Lillian?

Clocktower, exact location unknown, Barbara Gordon

Barbara Gordon didn’t usually keep her Oracle net tethered to the Gotham Public Library.

Normally, her alerts pinged for the fun stuff—illegal weapons shipments, shady offshore transfers, and the occasional Joker wannabe trying to livestream his manifesto on City Hall Wi-Fi.

A few weeks back, her gut—which at this point probably qualified as a meta ability—told her it wouldn’t hurt to keep tabs on the old databases. Just in case that girl came sniffing around again.

She’d been there in person, not Oracle, just Barbara killing a quiet afternoon by volunteering, when her Jane Doe practically radiated in neon letters: something weird this way comes.

Barbara had clocked it instantly: not normal, not random, definitely not safe.

So she did what any responsible, hyper-competent, semi-retired vigilante would do—she put the library on quiet surveillance. A side project with low effort, hopefully low stakes. 

Probably just another blip on Gotham’s ever-increasing radar.

Until today.

One of her silent tripwires went off, loud and clear.

Barbara stared at the blinking notification on her screen, a soft, polite ping that screamed she wasn’t going to get any rest, anytime soon.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, exhaled through her teeth, and muttered to no one in particular. “Guess dinner with Dad’s getting rescheduled.”

A few keystrokes silenced the alert; a few more dug into the trail it left behind. And, of course, it led exactly where she suspected it would.

Computer number three again. Same terminal she’d pointed her toward last time.

Barbara sat in the tower’s low blue light, eyes narrowing as the grainy feed played out on the monitor. The girl was there, hunched over archives, elbows braced like she’d been living in the stacks. Different day, same face, seemingly same purpose.

Not a coincidence.

Not with the Court of Owls suddenly crawling out of the shadows again, leaving feathers and corpses like calling cards in the lower end areas of the city. 

Their surge lined up a little too perfectly with Penguin’s panicked power plays—and how the Truthseer stopped being a rumor and started clocking in like tearing through Park Row was on the daily schedule.

Barbara rolled her chair back a few inches, the soft hum of the wheels underscoring the churn in her chest. There were only two kinds of people who dug this deep: the ones who didn’t know what they were stepping into, and the ones who knew exactly how dangerous it was regardless.

She didn’t buy this girl as naive, but she was certainly biting off more than she could chew.

If Barbara noticed the pattern, someone else would eventually. Bruce, at best. Someone worse, if the timing went bad. And if the Court really was awake, a curious civilian in their archives was basically ringing a dinner bell.

Decision made.

She turned from the monitor, snagged her bag from its usual slump by the console, and slung it over her shoulder in one smooth motion.

“Better I get to you before somebody less friendly does,” she muttered under her breath, fingers dancing over the keys to lock the tower down.

The quiet click of the systems powering off was final.

Civilian Barbara Gordon wasn’t intimidating. Civilian Barbara Gordon was just a woman with her red hair knotted into a low bun, jeans faded from too many washes, a soft gray hoodie pulled over her shoulders, and a pair of black gloves that made shoving her chair across Gotham’s cracked sidewalks slightly less miserable.

By the time she wheeled into the library’s main floor, her net had already narrowed the location to the second-floor archives. 

The shelves were underused, their contents drawing more late-night conspiracy chasers than anyone looking for casual reading.

And there she was, hands sorting through a crumbling box, her lip caught between her teeth as she zeroed in on whatever she was hunting.

The first time Barbara had interacted with her, the girl had been a live wire—all darting glances and twitchy edges, paranoid, but not of Barbara. Whatever had her spooked had been somewhere else entirely, invisible but pressing in.

It was what made Barbara soften, just a little. Not a conscious choice, more a quiet instinct—be kind, even if the act was small and, funnily enough, technically her job.

But here, now, left to her own devices, she didn’t look like a threat or a mystery wrapped in ten layers of trouble. She just looked like someone searching for answers.

They were about the same age, give or take. Smaller frame, sure, but there was a sharpness in her posture that didn’t belong to anyone pretending to be ordinary. 

She wondered what had carved that rigidness into her—fear? Training? Survival instincts?

Bruce had noticed first at the gala—a flicker of something he couldn’t quite shake, a familiarity carved into the round lines of a stranger’s face. Alfred had been the one to quietly, devastatingly, confirm it: She looks just like her mother. 

It had taken Dick, charming and annoyingly persuasive as ever, to finally pry a name out of her a week later. It didn’t take them long to figure out a last name.

Lily Hallowell.

Alive. Inconveniently entangled with Oswald Cobblepot. Suspiciously orbiting the vigilante known as the Truthseer. And, if Barbara’s hunch was right—which it usually was—a bright, shiny target for the kind of sinister players who liked to use girls like Lily as leverage.

And now? Harmlessly researching old investigative records in broad daylight.

Barbara rolled past two empty tables, slow and steady, the sound of her wheels barely more than a hush against the old carpet. She chose a spot across from a window, angled just enough to give her a clear line to Lily’s terminal without crowding her space.

Then she waited, patiently, still.

She knew someone with that kind of posture—alert, coiled—would clock the outlier in the room the second it appeared. No need to make a scene. Let Lily find her so she didn’t rattle the girl.

Impressively, it didn’t take long. Lily’s gaze flicked up from the monitor, unsure but immediate, locking onto Barbara with the kind of intensity that said she was already halfway through a threat assessment.

Barbara met it with a reflexive smile.

“Research project?” Barbara asked at last, tilting her head just enough to make it conversational rather than probing. Her gaze drifted over the brittle journal pages and photocopied articles scattered haphazardly across the table, curiosity without judgment.

From where she sat, the print was too small to catch anything useful, so she inched a little closer. Some of the papers looked handwritten, others official documents published in the newspaper. It was clear she hadn’t exactly found what she was specifically looking for.

She let the humor of her smile bleed into her eyes, until they crinkled with amusement as she spoke. “Glad to see you got my note about the free printing.”

Lily stilled as she was caught by the question—not full-on deer-in-the-headlights, just a subtle hitch, a frame out of sync. Recognition landed a beat later, her eyes softening, her mouth tugging into a polite, faint smile.

“Something like that,” she offhandedly commented, vague on purpose, voice pitched different than last time. Her shoulders squared into something more confident, hands flitting to quietly shield whatever it was she’d been reading. “More of a personal project, really.”

Barbara couldn’t look away. The girl wasn’t just answering—she was shifting. Sliding into a persona, smooth and practiced, every inch of her recalibrating to play for her audience.

Unfortunately for Lily, she had spent years around people who’d written the rulebook for that particular game.

Barbara leaned in just enough to feel like company, not an interrogation. 

“I didn’t peg you as the investigative type,” she wheedled, letting the words float like bait on a hook. “Hope whatever you’re chasing is worth the allergy attack. Those boxes look like they were packed back when Gotham was still debating indoor plumbing.”

It flickered there—a moment of honesty, of her actually listening instead of just prepping the next verbal counterpunch.

“If I’m right, it will be.”

The double meaning hit like a dropped mic—too quick, too clean. Barbara’s brow shot up before her brain even caught up with the reaction. You could see it click in Lily’s eyes a beat later: wrong thing, wrong time. 

Her mouth snapped shut, shoulders pulled in, like maybe she could wrestle the truth back into hiding if she just sat still enough.

Bingo.

Barbara kept her tone light, easy, like two friends hashing out homework, not a detective coaxing secrets. She didn’t want to spook her now—she was so close.

“Sounds like somebody already has a theory,” she joked, gesturing at the scattered piles on the table. “I don’t know what you’re looking for, but maybe I could help?”

Something sparked behind Lily’s eyes before Barbara even finished the sentence—too sharp, too bright, like someone just lit a match a little too close to bare skin. Barbara’s chest tightened, instincts going, that’s not normal, but no memo arrived explaining why.

Then came the tell: a twitch at the base of Lily’s throat, a cough that died halfway out. A blink, a breath, and poof—perfect posture, neutral expression, armor back in place. If Barbara hadn’t been looking, she might’ve believed the glitch never happened.

But she was looking. And that wasn’t just garden-variety caution. That was Lily clocking her—realizing Barbara wasn’t just a friendly face here, she was probing, and Lily somehow now knew it.

Before Barbara could even line up a follow-up, Lily moved. Smooth, practiced, like she hadn’t just short-circuited a second ago—a casual wave, a confident nod, dragging the room’s gravity back to her like she owned it.

With a faint thrill and a spike of frustration, she realized she wasn’t in control anymore.

“Actually, I’m pretty much done here.” Lily’s voice came out breezy, casual—to Barbara’s trained eye, it was clear there were still warning labels hidden under the fine print. 

She leaned in, swept the files into a perfect little stack, hair sliding forward like a stage curtain dropping at just the right moment. “Just a few things I need to skim. Nothing you need to lose sleep over.”

That last line didn’t just close the door; it locked it, bolted it, and politely told Barbara to have a nice day. It left a bitter aftertaste she swallowed fast—because no, this conversation wasn’t over, not by a long shot.

She slid back in, all polite grin and reaching hands. “You sure?” she asked, like it was a friendly offer and not the softest kind of challenge. “I could let you check some of those files out. Might be tough without a library card, though.”

Lily’s eyes sparked—not dangerous, just irritatingly amused. “I appreciate it.” She even managed to sound sincere, playful, like they were swapping jokes instead of power plays. 

Annoyingly enough, she’d just tilted the board in her favor without breaking a sweat.

“But I think I’ve got it from here. Temp card, remember?”

She held up the very card Barbara had handed her weeks ago—a harmless little favor that now felt suspiciously like a loaded gun aimed right back at her.

Nice work, Barbara. You played yourself.

Lily slowed just enough for something unguarded to slip through—a flicker soft enough to make Barbara’s chest tighten. “Trust me, you really don’t have to worry about me,” she said, offhand, like a throwaway line meant to vanish in the noise.

Except Barbara caught it. Clung to it.

Lily didn’t wait for a reaction. She gathered the papers with practiced ease, like even her exits were rehearsed, then pivoted, slipping past in a blur of calm, controlled chaos.

Barbara sat there blinking, mind sprinting to catch up. There it was—a spark of decency, a sliver of truth buried under all the armor and attitude.

She saw it. She felt it. And just like that, Lily waltzed right out of it, leaving Barbara with nothing but questions and a grudging, reluctant respect.

Barbara gave herself two whole minutes after arriving back at the Clocktower.

Two minutes to just breathe. To let the adrenaline burn off before it hardened into something hasty, reckless. Two minutes to shuffle every mental file into place, scan every interaction cohesively, and finally admit—surreally—that they all pointed to the same ridiculous, impossible conclusion.

She let herself sink lower into her chair, tugging her glasses up to rest on the crown of her head and pressing her palms into her eyes like maybe if she rubbed hard enough, the situation would rewrite itself.

It didn’t.

The servers hummed like white noise, low and steady. Her monitors pulsed with the city’s heartbeat, tracking its shadier rhythms in soft, flickering blues and greens. Code scrolled, feeds looped, all of it waiting for her next keystroke.

The world beyond her walls felt muted, like it had the decency to hold its tongue while Barbara Gordon figured out whether the world was about to implode, or if she had any shot at stopping it.

For once, nothing else demanded her immediate attention. No alarms screaming through her headset, no frantic Bat-requests piling into her queue. It was as if the night itself had cleared its schedule for this one, singular revelation.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, a quiet laugh slipping past before she could catch it—not amused, just overwhelmed. Of course. Typical. 

The very person they’d been chasing had been right under their noses this whole time.

Potentially.

Barbara wasn’t one hundred percent certain. Not yet.

But the threads were there, and they all tugged in the same direction. And God, wasn’t that just the world having a laugh at her expense.

Of course the mysterious Truthseer wasn’t some grotesque, mask-wearing psychopath tucked under Penguin’s wing. Not some nightmare villain who fit neatly into a rogues gallery line-up. 

No.

Of course it was a girl.

A girl who could be kind—was kind—and just happened to be standing in the wrong place when Gotham decided to eat her alive.

And now Barbara had to make that same girl public enemy number one. Not because she’d burned down a block or poisoned the reservoir, but because she’d been curious. 

Because she’d gone digging where the Court of Owls buried their secrets. 

Because, for reasons Barbara still couldn’t untangle, she’d ended up running errands for Penguin in the process.

Barbara fixed the frames back into place over her eyes, cursing inaudibly despite being the only person in the room. 

She’d seen it in real time—the way Lily Hallowell didn’t just hear her question, she felt it. The subtle stiffening of her shoulders, the flicker in her gaze, like a split-second of fight-or-flight catching in her throat. Not a tell you could train for. Not something you could bluff.

Barbara had been baiting her. Casually, carefully. And Lily had known.

Not suspected. Not guessed. Known.

It was as if the truth itself had walked up and slapped her across the face, and that just wasn’t possible. Not without help. Not without tech or powers or both.

Barbara’s stomach dropped.

The math didn’t lie.

Lily Hallowell—the same Lily who’d been running circles around them, slipping past Nightwing’s defenses, making the rest of the Bats scramble like, well, actual scattered bats over Truthseer—checked every box.

She pulled out her phone, thumb hovering over the encrypted channel a beat longer than necessary. Whoever she told first would set the tone for the fallout.

Bruce and Damian would go full Batcave Autopsy Mode.

Jason might actually enjoy the chaos, which was almost worse.

Tim would combust—loudly, and worse, victoriously. He’d been nursing this long-winded theory for weeks, insisting Truthseer and Lily were one and the same. And now? Now it was starting to look like he was owed a big, fat apology.

But Dick?

He was the only one who’d stood in front of both versions of Lily—the smiling girl with a library card and the ghost in the network who called herself Truthseer. He hadn’t just skimmed files or run voice matches. 

He’d talked to her. He’d looked her in the eye and walked away thinking there was something worth saving there.

And now those two paths—innocent curiosity and criminal notoriety—had knotted together into one very messy, very dangerous reality.

Barbara needed someone who could cut through the noise. Someone who wouldn’t treat Lily like a case file or a ticking bomb. Someone who could see past the intel dumps, the bad optics, the wrong alliances, and remember there was still a person underneath all of it.

Someone who’d listen first. Punch second.

Her throat felt tight as she exhaled, slow and heavy—not amused, not even tired, just resigned.

It was time to light the fuse.

“Nightwing,” Her tone was crisp, professional, but the edge of it snagged in her throat. She let the name hang there longer than usual, like maybe if she didn’t say the rest out loud, it wouldn’t be real. “You’re going to want to sit down for this.”

A faint hiss of static answered first, loud enough to make her wince and drop the volume a notch. Then Dick’s voice cut through—smooth as ever, a grin you could hear, all coiled energy with nowhere to go.

“Hey, O! Please tell me this is something juicy and not another Arkham breakout. I’m already neck-deep in lunatics tonight. Pretty sure my suit still smells like Killer Croc’s sewer shortcut.”

Barbara let her head tip back against the chair, eyes closed, letting the weight of what she was about to say press her deeper into the fabric. She was officially stalling, and she hated stalling. It wasn’t her style.

“Babs?” he prodded, a subtle shift in his tone, sounded the barest hints of concern by her lack of reply.

Get on with it, Gordon. Rip off the bandage.

“Actually,” she confessed finally, each word measured in hopes to soften the impact. She knew it was pointless, “yes to the former, no to the latter? I made a little house call earlier.”

She could already feel Dick lining up the questions, the way he always did when he smelled trouble. Better to kill the suspense before it spun out of control.

“I spoke with Lily Hallowell.”

There was a brief silence, not long—but long enough to make her question if he was now the one still there. 

When he finally spoke, the grin was easily gone. His tone had flipped faster than he ever did off a rooftop—all the brightness stripped out, replaced with something careful.

He knew what she was alluding to, sounding just as hesitant as she felt. “Tell me you didn’t just confirm what I think you did.”

Barbara stared at her own reflection in the darkened monitor, jaw tight, stomach twisting in a way she didn’t appreciate. 

She wanted to tell him no—that Tim’s long-shot theory was still just that, that Lily Hallowell wasn’t tangled in something that could get her killed. 

But the evidence didn’t care what she wanted. Every trail pulled the same way, ugly and undeniable. And Barbara Gordon didn’t ignore facts, no matter how much they sucked.

“This isn’t a total confirmation,” she reluctantly said, voice low and frustrated. “But it’s starting to look less impossible.”

Dick let out a breath she could practically hear over the comm, more a sigh of disbelief than anything resembling calm.

Barbara pressed on before he could speak. “She was kind, Dick. Genuinely. Whatever Lily’s gotten herself into, it’s deep. And if she is Truthseer, she’s already on half the watchlists in Gotham. Pulling her out won’t be easy. If it’s even still possible.”

“Tim’s going to lose his mind,” Dick muttered finally, the soft scrape of a gloved hand through hair almost audible in his voice.

She could already hear Tim’s voice, screaming from the depths of the BatCave in her head: “I told you! They’re the same person! I’ve been right all along!”

“That kid’s been yelling she’s the Truthseer for weeks. Weeks, Babs.” Dick’s voice came tight and wind-cut, the kind of uneven cadence she knew meant he was in motion—rooftops, probably, or leaning into a turn on the bike. 

She could hear it in the background: the muted rush of air, the occasional thrum of a grapnel line or the low growl of an engine. 

“I know.” She said quietly, fingers drumming against the edge of her keyboard—a nervous tick she hated, but the only outlet her restless brain allowed.

“You told him he was reaching.”

“I did.”

“You told me he was reaching.”

“Also true.”

Dick groaned like the weight of the entire city had just landed squarely on his ridiculously broad shoulders. The sound carried over comms, shrill but familiar, and for a second it grounded her in the kind of normal nonsense only they could consider routine.

“Great. That’s going to blow a hole straight through every plan we’ve got,” he muttered, softly, like if he didn’t say it out loud maybe the universe wouldn’t make it worse. “Did you tell the others?”

The glow of the monitors painted her in sharp neon blues, every unread alert screaming for her attention while this single revelation screamed louder. She shook her head—then cursed herself for the useless gesture. “No. You were the first to know.”

A hush fell over the encrypted channel.

“Thank you.” He sounded appreciative, a little strained, but resigned to do what was right, no matter how messy it got.

“Let’s tell B,” he said after a beat, voice lighter but edged with inevitability. “Unless he somehow already knows.”

And then the switch flipped—the quiet intimacy of their one-on-one call dissolving into the sharp click of an open channel, full team on the line.

Dick was first, naturally.

Nightwing: B! You busy? I got some less than great news. 

Oracle: Excuse me, who actually spoke with her today?

Nightwing: My bad, we got some less than great news.

Barbara rolled her eyes, fingers hovering over the keyboard. After all these years, Dick could still make a simple debrief feel like a sitcom punchline. 

But the twitch in his phrasing, the extra zing in his sarcasm—it was telling. Underneath the jokes and bravado, she could see the tension coiled tight, the way he always did when something hit closer to the chest than he wanted anyone to notice.

Batman: I assume an identity has been confirmed?

Time to face the music.

Oracle: Lily Hallowell. Same face Agent A spotted at the gala, same bone structure, same eyes. Nightwing got the name last week, but I just watched her walk out of the Gotham Public Library carrying files on the Court of Owls investigation and her missing uncle’s research, verified by the checkout catalog.

Pause. Alfred’s dot blinked into the feed.

Agent A: I do believe that confirms matters, sir.

Nightwing: It confirms that she’s alive, yes. It doesn’t confirm she’s the one that’s been tearing up Crime Alley for years.

Red Robin: HA. HA. HA.

Too late for Dick’s damage control—Tim had arrived with his two cents, polished and honed for maximum impact. She could already tell he was fired up, and honestly, she was mildly impressed he’d managed to contain it to a single transmission.

Oracle: Oh good. He’s awake.

Red Robin: I TOLD YOU. I TOLD EVERYONE. I SAID “HEY, MAYBE LILY HALLOWELL’S DEATH WAS FAKED AND IS NOW MOONLIGHTING AS PENGUIN’S LIE DETECTOR,” AND WHAT DID I GET? LAUGHTER. DOUBT. MOCKERY.

Robin: Your intelligence has been compromised by caffeine overdose. It is not our fault you cannot be taken seriously.

Red Robin: Spoiler, Black Bat, AND Signal totally believed me.

Robin: It was out of pity.

Since the Truthseer chase began, Tim had been adamant: Lily Hallowell and the Truthseer were one and the same. Naturally, the rest of the Bat-family had their doubts—no meta-gene, no records, and, well, no one had even confirmed the girl was alive.

Until now, obviously.

Red Hood: You also said the same thing about three other missing heirs, a barista in the Narrows, and that one accountant with IBS, so maybe we’re not the crazy ones here.

Red Robin: Details. I know this one’s right.

Barbara wheeled back toward the console, already dragging her notes into the main file.

Oracle: I’m not saying Red Robin’s theory is right—

Robin: See—

Oracle: Yet. I’m saying we now have a living, breathing Hallowell who’s clearly hunting answers about the same city players we’re tracking. Who may—or may not—have abilities similar to our unknown rogue.

Batman: So we have a liability.

Nightwing: Or a potential ally?

Oracle: Most likely both.

Bruce didn’t reply immediately, which meant he was thinking—not dismissing, not committing—just turning the knife in the dark like he always did. Tim, naturally, couldn’t leave a vacuum.

Red Robin: I’ll just be here, basking in the warm glow of being the only person in this family with functional pattern recognition.

Nightwing: You’re going to be insufferable for weeks.

Red Hood: Correction: months.

Oracle: You boys can fight later. I’m trying to narrow down any known addresses or public records, but none are available. I’ve also planted a library hold request for the files she took. When she returns them, we’ll know.

Robin: You let her leave with classified evidence?

Oracle: I found her in the first place. You’re welcome.

A brief pause, before Hood’s unsure, modulated voice interrupted the line.

Red Hood: Hey, so, would this be a good time to mention Truthseer approached me to be allies in taking down Penguin?

The encrypted chat practically exploded. Barbara had half a mind to unleash a virus on Jason’s pathetic excuse for tech, just to make a point.

She sighed. Of all the things to keep a damn secret, Todd.

Nightwing: Wait—what?

Red Robin: No fu—

Agent A: Language.

Red Robin: —freaking way.

Robin: Idiot.

Batman: Explain.

Red Hood: Fine. I ran into her at an auction. And no, I’m not telling why I was there. Things went sideways. Penguin was trying to sell her out, I think. She made it crystal clear she’s not interested in being anyone’s pawn.

Red Robin: And you wait to mention this now?

Red Hood: I’m a busy guy.

Robin: Too busy to report time sensitive information?

Both Damian and Tim’s disbelief was steamrolled by Dick’s sudden brainstorming energy, practically vibrating through the chat like a minor earthquake.

Nightwing: That actually explains a lot. Truthseer made it sound like she couldn’t disobey Penguin even if she wanted to.

Red Hood: Told you. But let’s be clear—I’m not giving away all my moves on purpose. Trust me, I’ve got a plan.

Batman: If they make any moves, I want to know, Hood. Nothing unnecessary, nothing dangerous.

Red Hood: Aye, Captain.

Oracle: If they’re the same person—

Red Robin: They are—

Nightwing: They might not be—

Oracle: Once again, if—then the Court of Owls, Penguin—they’ll want her dead or alive. Whoever gets to her first has the advantage.

Barbara’s fingers hovered over the keyboard like she might throw it at someone’s head. Advantage? Sure. What she meant was: holy hell, we’re walking into a giant clusterfuck of a problem.

Batman: Then we make sure we do. I want eyes on her at all times. I want to know how big this mess really is.

Red Hood: I’ll get closer to Truthseer.

Nightwing: I’ll handle Lily. See if they’re really the same person.

Red Robin: Your denial is impressive, Wing.

After a long pause, Bruce did what Bruce always did—state the obvious like it was strategy.

Batman: Keep her safe. Quietly.

Everyone: Already on it.

The line went dead.

Barbara stared at the monitors without really seeing them. Rows of code, timestamps, camera feeds—all the tools she’d trained to notice, all of it useless compared to the image burned into her mind: a girl in the archives, a polite smile masking edges carved by fire and loss.

She’d read about the Hallowell fire years ago, when she was younger, still trying to memorize the rhythms of Gotham’s tragedies. Another old-money name snuffed out, whispered over cocktails and police radios alike. Tragedy had been easy to file away then. Just another story.

Except this one had crawled out of the ashes.

And not just crawled—adapted. Survived. Wound up brushing against Oswald Cobblepot, slipping past the Court’s reach, circling truths people twice her age and with twice the resources hadn’t even thought to chase.

Barbara felt something twist low in her gut. Not fear, not exactly. More like a recognition. A reflection.

She’d seen plenty of people break.

Lily looked like someone who’d bent instead. Even when hollowed out, given every reason to turn on the city that had done this to her, she remained herself. 

That made her dangerous.

And, apparently, worth saving.

Barbara exhaled slowly, turning toward the city lights bleeding through the high windows. Gotham’s skyline glared back at her: jagged, cold, impossibly alive.

“Please don’t get yourself killed,” she murmured, soft enough that even the servers wouldn’t catch it. “I have a feeling you’re going to matter.”

The screens pinged behind her—another alert, another reminder that life moved on whether she watched it or not.

But Barbara stayed put, letting herself sink into her work for just a moment longer. Just a woman in a chair, staring out at a city full of ghosts, knowing that one of them had finally come home.

Chapter Text

I was circling the drain, mentally speaking.

Another night gone, and I had exactly nothing to show for it except an assortment of empty energy drink cans and what looked like a crime scene of sticky notes and shredded files carpeting my apartment. 

The carpet’s pattern was gone beneath paper; my toes found clingy scraps every time I shuffled from couch to fridge like I was navigating some sad, stationery-themed quicksand. 

My eyes ached from the bluish light of the laptop, my hands rubbing at them to chase away the exhaustion that wanted to consume them. My old coffee sat in forgotten mugs strewn across various parts of the room, the smell settling into the cushions like it was trying to become part of the decor. 

Every surface had been claimed by my growing paranoia, and the worst part? That little, cold part of my brain that actually did math and read patterns—okay, fine, obsessive-compulsive pattern recognition—kept whispering the same thing: this is exactly what they wanted.

The fridge had become a whiteboard, the magnet clips holding up timelines and receipts like the thing was an altar to bad decisions. My dresser had transformed into an unwilling filing cabinet; the drawers protested under the weight of envelopes and napkins with scribbled phone numbers and dates of interest. 

Above the bed, the wall displayed the cliché clue mockup in all its glorious absurdity—red tape strung between names and dates, photos pinned in a constellation that looked like a map of my ruined sleep schedule. It was every conspiracy movie prop rolled into my life and I was somehow both a player and an extra.

Spoiler: I was nailing the part.

I could practically hear my landlord scheming my eviction from three floors down—not that Gertrude had ever liked me to begin with. To be fair, the smell of permanent marker probably counted as a lease violation. I was ninety percent sure my neighbors, the ones I’d spoken to maybe twice, were just waiting for an excuse to complain.

Still, all my work, every late night, every wall of scribbled notes, pointed to the same, awful truth: my family had been tangled up in something they never should’ve touched.

Turns out, the Hallowell name wasn’t as spotless as I’d spent my whole life pretending it was. 

Go fucking figure. 

Somewhere along the line, the shine cracked—and whatever was rotting underneath had started bleeding into my life. Which meant one thing: I was going to have to break into the old Hallowell warehouse and dig up whatever was festering.

Warehouse was a lazy word for it, though. The place wasn’t just some corrugated metal box on the edge of town. 

It was practically a family monument, a storage unit on steroids where my uncle Charlie spent half his life. By day, it was stacked with crates, records, and whatever ‘antiques’ he swore would be worth something someday. 

By night, it doubled as a clubhouse for Charlie’s so-called friends—rich men who had nothing better to do than play cards until dawn and laughed too loudly at their own jokes.

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer wasn’t some old proverb to Charlie, it was his version of a moral code, emphasis on his.

I used to tag along sometimes when my dad would visit. Too young to be in the way, too old not to notice things. Charlie would let me sip flat soda from the vending machine and spin in his squeaky office chair while he held court with his associates. 

The place smelled of leather and the faint sweetness of spilled whiskey seeping into the floorboards. For a while, it even felt safe—loud and alive in a way my house never was after dark.

But I hadn’t set foot there since everything went wrong—too afraid, too protective of the secret I was still hoarding from Oz. The idea of walking back into those rooms, where the air still carried stale memories and laughter that didn’t belong to me anymore, made my skin itch like I was wearing it wrong.

Exactly the kind of place no sane person would waltz into alone.

And yet—surprise—I was very much, humiliatingly, alone.

Barbara Gordon had been the last human being I’d spoken to in a non-transactional way, and even that left me gutted. She was too friendly and devastatingly too curious to trust now.

My curse had snapped against her words like a mousetrap, cutting deep for no apparent reason. She’d lied about something—what, I couldn’t tell. Even with her open and honest expression, my throat still burned like I had just chugged a can of acid.

It was driving me even crazier not knowing why she had a reason to lie to me, what angle she was trying to play, but it served as a reminder.

No matter how many aliases I wore, how many masks I crafted, I didn’t belong. I was the outsider in every room.

And, God, I was tired of it.

Red Hood didn’t count on my list of contacts. Texting him felt like messaging a coworker you barely knew just to say hey, how’s the weather? Except instead of ignoring you, he’d send back a very polite bullet.

Our relationship was strictly transactional: I fed him Penguin updates, he didn’t turn me into Gotham street art.

Which—speaking of—I still needed to tell him about the Drops deal next week before he decided I was holding out. Or worse, backing down from taking out Penguin.

I’d been a little busy, okay?

We were all business, two unlikely allies teaming together to take down a common threat..

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

The way he’d treated me at the weapons bust the other night—like I’d somehow graduated from“annoying liability to stubborn sibling he never signed up for—was seriously wrecking my strictly professional narrative.

It wasn’t even supposed to be a big deal, a random quick in-and-out job. I’d tipped him off about a drop I heard from one of Penguin’s guys in the Narrows—a warehouse full of unmarked crates that definitely weren’t holding Girl Scout cookies—and we’d agreed to keep things quiet. 

He’d handle the firepower, I’d handle the truth.

Literally.

The ringleader barely got three words into his alibi before it hit—nausea, the migraine, that awful crawling sensation in my throat that meant he was lying through his teeth and badly. 

I tried to keep my composure, but Red Hood noticed and completely overreacted.

Next thing I knew, he was shoving me behind cover while unloading half a clip at the smugglers trying to bolt while I was busy trying not to throw up.

By the time everyone was either knocked out or long gone, I was covered in dust, my pulse somewhere near the stratosphere, and he was glaring at me like I was the one who’d almost gotten him killed.

Regardless of his questionable behavior, that still left me with exactly zero allies.

Unless…

My gaze snagged on the crumpled napkin draped over the loveseat—the one from the diner, ink smudged but still legible, a phone number scrawled like it was just innocently waiting to be used.

I’d told myself I’d never actually use it. He’d been polite, that was all. A nice guy humoring the weird girl brooding in the corner booth after a pretty awful day. And yet—he’d still given me a way to contact him.

I couldn’t figure out why he’d done something that stupid. Curiosity? Pity? Maybe he just wanted to see how I’d react.

Whatever it was, I still kept it. Couldn’t bring myself to throw it away, no matter how much I told myself I should.

Which was ridiculous.

He was Dick Grayson—Blüdhaven cop, billionaire’s oldest son. The type of person with an actual life, actual friends, probably a girlfriend with legs for days and looks that could earn her supermodel status.

And me?

A fraud. A borrowed name wrapped around a ticking clock.

Still, I found myself on the floor, folded up like a pretzel on my hideous orange rug, sweatpants sparking static against the fibers. The burner phone hovered above me, blank message thread glaring. The little blinking cursor mocked me.

How did normal people start conversations?

“Hey, long time no see, you remember me?”

“Hi, I might be unraveling the secrets of a death cult, wanna grab lunch?”

Or my personal favorite: “My whole life is a dumpster fire and I’m running out of options, please help.”

The longer I stared, the more pathetic it felt. My lip was already raw from chewing it, the pit of my stomach doing Olympic-level flips. He probably wouldn’t even remember me. 

Or worse, he’d remember me too well—every awkward, choking thing I’d said at the diner, file me under sympathy and dangerous complication, and then quietly decide I was more trouble than he wanted.

What if he thought I was stalking him? I thought intrusively before I could stop it. 

“Funny,” I muttered, snorting unladylike into the hush of my apartment. The sound ricocheted off paper-strewn walls and came back at me, smaller and meaner. “Me, becoming the stalker.”

My thumb hovered over the keyboard. Start, delete. Start, delete again. Twenty minutes of drafts that looked like ransom notes:

Hi, it’s me. Too abrupt.

This is Lily, do you have a moment to talk? Too desperate.

Have you seen anyone murdering owls lately? Asking for a friend. Okay, maybe I needed sleep more than I needed answers. Shocking, I know.

In a burst of pure frustration, I gave up on trying to sound clever. I just thumbed out the most boring, painfully normal thing I could think of:

Me

Hi. This is Lily. From the diner the other night?

No emojis. No rambling. Just enough to make me want to throw my phone out the window the second I hit send.

Because the moment the message delivered, my body froze. Overthinking—my ever-devoted bestie—showed up right on cue, armed with a list: reasons one through a hundred why this was, without question, the dumbest thing I’d ever done.

The stupid typing bubble didn’t even have a chance to taunt me, I was already bracing myself for silence, for the eternal void of unanswered texts.

Then the screen lit up. Immediately.

Unknown Number

Hey!!!

Three exclamation points. Who was this guy?

My heart skittered like a panicked rabbit. He replied almost instantly. And—was that excitement? 

I just stared, trying to process it. My brain gave up halfway through, leaving me stuck between giddy panic and that awful, sinking what did I just do feeling.

Embarrassment took hold of me as I added his name to the contacts, like I was a teenager doodling in the margins of a notebook instead of a grown woman unraveling the mystery of my own homicidal secret admirer. 

His name lit up across my screen again, louder than it had any right to be:

Dick Grayson

I thought you tossed my number in the garbage or something!!

Ok, two exclamation points. We were reaching appropriate volumes of speaking now. 

Me

Almost did. You wrote your number on a napkin, remember?

I winced at my own words the second I sent them. Good people skills, Lillian.

Nothing says “well-adjusted” like opening with mild accusations about someone’s intellect.

But his reply came fast:

Dick Grayson

Guilty. But hey, the napkin worked, didn’t it? You texted. :)

Me

Congrats, your levels of persuasion are unmatched. 

Dick Grayson

Ok, obvious sarcasm noted and ignored, what’s new with you??

My thumb hovered, a response trying to form itself but unsure how.

What’s new?

Oh, you know—just a sprinkle of sleep deprivation so bad I’m seeing things, a fridge covered in serial-killer-style maps, and an identity crisis big enough to block out the Gotham skyline.

Totally normal week. Nothing to see here.

Me

I’ve been a little busy. You?

Dick Grayson

Just work, there’s a new cold case I’ve been working on!!

Busy in a good way or busy in a bad way?

I chewed my lip raw again. He didn’t have to get involved. He shouldn’t care. And yet—

Me

Depends on your definition of bad. I might need some help with something.

There it was—out in the open. My pulse spiked like the Bats themselves were about to crash through the ceiling and arrest me for saying it.

His typing bubble appeared, disappeared, then reappeared again. Honestly, the suspense could’ve finished me off right there.

Dick Grayson

Consider me on standby, what’s going on??

I really wanted to tell him everything in detail—the Court, the files, the fact that I was one misplaced feather away from a breakdown. Clueing in someone, anyone, on the things I was shouldering by myself and without a single instance of how to handle sounded like bliss.

But I didn’t, couldn’t.

He was a stranger. A kind one, sure, with distracting, annoyingly pretty eyes. And he didn’t need to be dragged headfirst into my derailing life just because I was too stubborn—or selfish—to deal with it alone.

So I’d keep it surface-level. Ask for cop advice. Pick his brain about procedure. Maybe get some perspective without unloading the entire criminal catalog of my life onto him.

Me:

I think I have a stalker?

Short. Palatable. Technically true.

Before I could spiral further, my stomach growled so loud it might cause my neighbors to file a noise complaint.

Survival first. 

I shoved myself off the floor and stormed to the kitchen, peeling back the lid of a Styrofoam cup of ninety-nine cent ramen, my mouth watering at the smell of chicken bouillon.

The kettle hissed to life, steam curling upward and tangling with the stale air. I focused on the simple act of boiling water—anything to keep my brain from gnawing itself to pieces while I waited for his reply.

Then my phone rang.

I nearly dropped the pot, heart leaping so violently it felt like it had tried to crawl into my throat as I snapped the burner off. 

No. Way. Was he actually calling my cell? My stomach clenched, palms slick, every nerve in my body screaming abort mission, abort mission.

I snatched it up like it might explode in my hands. My brain ran through a hundred scenarios, all of them bad. Did I even answer? I wasn’t sure if I could even get my voice to work properly.

Then I froze. The number blinked at me, bringing me back to reality.

Oz.

Of course.

I sagged against the counter, gripping the phone like it was a lifeline and a grenade at the same time. My pulse slowed, replaced by the faint burn of embarrassment and relief.

Sucking in a breath, I pitched my voice into syrupy sweetness, dialing the “perfect daughter” act up to eleven. It was harder than it sounded—masking disappointment in more ways than one. I almost wanted to hang up and pretend my phone had died.

“Hi, Oz.”

“Hello, my Lily,” came Oswald Cobblepot, gravelly and oddly purring. There was a hint of possessiveness in his tone that made me wince. “I trust you haven’t forgotten Friday’s family dinner. Tradition isn’t optional, doll.”

I made a very dramatic, very unnecessary motion of smacking myself in the face—one palm down, dragging it across my features like I was trying to erase my own frown. My cheeks scrunched, my eyebrows attempted a revolt, and somehow my mouth looked like it was locked in a silent scream.

I cursed myself—how had I forgotten?

A quick mental slideshow of my month zipped by, and I knew exactly why the dinner had slipped my mind. 

Since finally convincing Oz to let me have my own apartment, his one rule had been sacred: monthly family dinners. Classic, sit-in-your-best-dress, pretend-life-is-peachy dinners where you talked about the weather and other thrilling minutiae.

Except my life technically belonged to him, could very well be cut short by someone else if I didn’t pull it together, and was about as interesting as stale toast.

“Of course, Oz,” I said, pumping every word full of fake cheer, sugar-coating the panic like frosting on a particularly bitter cupcake. I stirred my noodles with exaggerated casualness, pretending to be interested in their soggy fate, even as my appetite vanished. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Something rustled in the background—papers, chairs, maybe someone else in the room. I could hear it faintly, like a warning in Morse code. He had to be at the Iceberg Lounge; he rarely left the building these days.

“Wear your best outfit, sweetheart—we’ll have company,” he warned, the words crawling through the line like something slimy and satisfied with itself. My mouth worked its way open, indignant and already full of questions.

Click. Dead. Before I could even ask who. 

I was this close to flinging the little silver device out my third-story window—the perfect display of fury—but, miraculously, I exercised some impressive self-restraint.

Well, guess I was hurtling straight into the unknown Friday afternoon. Lovely.

If I played this right, maybe the mysterious dinner with Oz wasn’t just an unavoidable torture session. Maybe it was an opportunity—intel, details, leverage. Stuff Red Hood would want. Stuff I actually needed.

I stared up at my pale ceiling, ramen abandoned, bile curdling in my throat. Lies apparently made a fine new seasoning for my life.

Dick Grayson

You’re taste in music is so bad!!

I scoffed at my phone, placing down my curling iron to tap out a reply. A strand of hair slipped from the barrel and bounced against my cheek, but I barely registered the faint burn against my skin. 

Between the pinging notifications and the clock ticking toward dinner with Oz, my attention was tunneling. 

Me

*Your

And there is nothing bad about MY music taste

The bubble appeared almost instantly, like he’d been waiting with his rebuttal.

Dick Grayson

Low blow, leave my grammar alone :p

You think the Mighty CrabJoys are better than Great Frog 

I rest my case 

I rolled my eyes, lips quirking despite myself. Smearing more pitch black mascara across my lashes, I tried not to think about how ridiculous it was to be painting my face for dinner while grinning at an argument over rock bands.

Me

You use emojis like you’re in middle school

And I don’t even know who Great Frog is??

Based off their name, I know they’re bad 

The reply didn’t come right away. His typing bubble flickered on, disappeared, then reappeared. I could almost see him—phone in hand, indignant to my opinion—debating whether to steer us back to what he really wanted to talk about: the stalker situation. 

The reason I’d texted him in the first place.

We’d started there: legal advice, protective orders, all the do’s and don’ts of keeping myself safe. But somewhere between “file a report” and “don’t walk home alone,” the conversation had unraveled into something easier, safer. Grammar nitpicks and debates over bands I didn’t actually care about.

Which was fine. Necessary, even. Because if I let him linger too long on the real issue, he might start noticing all the things I was leaving out.

A tiny part of me liked talking to him about mundane things.

Dick Grayson

Nuh uh, one of my good friends is the drummer!

…and still not as bad as pretending this whole stalker situation isn’t, you know, super serious!!

I jinxed myself.

There it was, the smack in the face called reality, barging in just when things were starting to feel almost normal.

Me

Pretending is a strong word

I’ll handle everything after I get through this dinner tonight

Dick Grayson

Your priorities are questionable, not gonna lie o_o

I stared at the message long enough to forget the curling iron still dangling from the outlet. A thin wisp of smoke curled upward before I panicked, swatting it away and yanking the cord from the wall like I was disarming a bomb. 

So much for multitasking.

Me

Oops, sorry, I think the phone’s cutting out

Dick Grayson

We’re texting, that excuse doesn’t work >:(

I adjusted the hem of my dress for the third time in five minutes, watching my reflection like it might tell me the secret to getting out of this mess.

Cherry—the house mom who’d seen me through scraped knees, bad haircuts, and every awkward phase in between—had outdone herself. 

My hair tumbled in glossy waves, curling into loose tendrils that brushed the middle of my back. Glitter caught at the corners of my eyes, winking with every blink, and the small beauty mark above my lip looked intentional now, accentuated instead of accidental. She’d turned me into someone crafted to be noticed—admired, even.

Cherry leaned in the doorway and gave me that satisfied smirk she kept for clients who actually obeyed her instructions. You look the part, it said. Now don’t ruin it.

Every detail screamed look at me, and all I wanted was to disappear.

Breathing in, I let out a laugh that sounded more like a wheeze. Friday family dinner with Oz promised to be exhausting, especially now knowing that strangers were in attendance. I’d have to act in line even more, put on a show I didn’t want to perform.

Just a little while longer, I promised myself, smudging the faintest dollop of gloss over my mouth. You only have to survive this hellhole a little while longer.

My phone buzzed in my clutch, and for a second I braced for more nagging about my priorities. 

Instead:

Dick Grayson

So

Are there any highlights to this dinner of yours? Who’s the lucky guy? 

Me? Going on a date? Yeah, right.

I snorted loudly, thumb flying.

Me

Highlights? Please. It’s less dinner, more networking nightmare

My Dad expects me to show face

Can’t disappoint, I guess

Calling Oz Dad never sat right—it felt like erasing the man who’d truly earned the name. But secrets demanded sacrifices, even of language. My father had carried the title, Oz had only stolen it.

Dick Grayson

Ew, sounds awful

Want me to send you memes to survive? I’ve got a stockpile of very bad ones

Me

Depends. Are they just lame, or Great Frog’s newest album lame?

Dick Grayson

Keep it up and I’ll spam their entire discography!!

Me

Please, spare me

You can’t see it, but I’m waving a white flag

I caught myself smiling, which was absurd, and yet I couldn’t stop beaming at my screen like a fool.

Cherry nudged my side as I passed, and I looked up to find her sly, full glam expression aimed straight at me. “Who’s got your attention, little flower?”

Freezing, I became belatedly aware that my reaction had probably betrayed me. I folded into myself, grateful for the blush already on my cheeks to mask the real flush. My fingers tightened on my clutch, as if sheer grip could contain my embarrassment.

“No one.” I blurted, giving myself away completely, sliding the burner back into my bag—but my thumb had barely left the screen when it buzzed again.

Expecting a response, I peeked—

Not Dick?

Red Hood

Watch the guests. Any juicy gossip, you know where to find me

I blinked owlishly at the message, and just like that, the bubble of distraction popped. 

I’d told Hood about tonight, of course—the intel I was meant to gather, the people I had to size up, the careful little moves I had to make across a room teetering with powerful strangers and deceit.

Freedom wasn’t going to hand itself to me. I had to take it, piece by piece, even if tonight wasn’t going to be the one I’d imagined. 

It was going to suck. I was going to have to deal with it, no shortcuts, no pretending Dick Grayson was actually my friend, no illusions of an easier life.

Feeling both drained and oddly wired, I gave Cherry a quick nod and a clipped goodnight, promising I’d see her later. She seemed caught off guard by the shift in my mood, her eyes softening with a silent warning as I walked past: be careful.

I didn’t bother answering, figuring it was best not to lie about actually pulling this off.

A shiver ran down my spine as I faced the long hall, the polished floors turning each click of my heels into a deafening echo. The elevator doors loomed like silent sentinels guarding 44 Below. 

Tony stood there, all quiet efficiency, his gaze staring straight ahead, unflinching, as he ushered me inside. I forced my shoulders back, an eerie, practiced calm slipping over my features as my last line of defense. 

The heat hit me first—warmth from bodies pressed too close, half of them tangled in “business talk” and the other half in things I definitely didn’t want to know about. I wrinkled my nose as a group of grown men passed around Drops, grinning like a pack of overgrown teenagers.

Everyone looked like they owned something—or someone. I ducked my head slightly, eyes flicking over the crowd, scanning, without drawing too much attention in hopes of staying off their radar.

It’s like stepping through the gates of hell. I bemoaned internally, toes already plotting a tactical retreat if things went sideways. Green eyes flicked over the loitering bodies, each handshake and forced laugh a tiny barb aimed at anyone who dared stand in their way.

I kept moving, letting the noise and luxury blur around me until a shift in the room pulled my attention—a quiet gravity that told me exactly who everyone here was orbiting.

And there he was, holding his head high among every bloodthirsty, corrupt politician the city could cough up.

He looked like he’d stepped out of a magazine titled Villains Weekly—velvet suit, perfect posture, eyes that could probably curdle milk. Oswald Cobblepot knew how to play to his audience; every gesture screamed control, every inch reminded me I had to be smarter than I’d ever been tonight.

I wished I had a gun or something. My frown fought its way onto my face before I could stop it. Mental note: ask Hood for one later.

The room seemed to swallow me whole as I approached him. Deep shadows clung to the corners, broken only by shafts of cold amber light that sliced across the polished black marble floors. Smoke from cigars curled lazily upward, wrapping around crystal glasses and the careful seams of tailored suits. 

“Evening, doll.” Oz’s voice slithered through the noise, oily and venomous. The chatter faltered for half a beat, eyes flicking toward me as I stepped forward. His right arm slid into mine, a possessive hook that drew me face-first into the crowd.

“Right on time,” he purred. “Let me introduce you to some friends.”

“Any I need to be extra friendly with?” I asked, dropping my voice half an octave and fluttering my lashes like I’d become some soap-opera starlet. Bubbly, doting, loyal daughter—mask flawless, even if it felt absolutely vile.

The question was mostly for me anyway. Who was a target, who was an ally, and who would I have to placate while imagining their head on a spike?

Oz’s beady eyes glinted, and his jagged teeth flashed in something that passed for paternal pride. “I like the way you think. Consider everyone on limited probation here.”

Translation: trust no one and look pretty while doing it.

I could feel them all—the men in the room, tycoons and business sharks, my curse flaring under their attention. Every eye that lingered on me made my hands tremble, the hair on the back of my neck pin straight. 

Oz’s arm hooked through mine, and the nausea hit fast—partly from the force of his touch, partly from the curse clawing at the back of my skull. 

Too many lies, too much rot disguised as charm. Every pulse of false laughter, every flicker of greed, scraped against my senses until I wanted to claw my way out of my own skin.

He was parading me. Putting me on display like a prized cut of meat, and I could practically feel the room turning to look. I forced a smile anyway—bright, effortless, the kind that said look how fine I am with being hunted.

But beneath the gloss, my mind worked overtime. Every face, every movement, every thread of conversation catalogued with surgical precision—the twitch of a jaw, the false warmth of a handshake, the tremor in a laugh. It wasn’t vanity that kept me upright; it was survival.

This was a performance and every detail I gathered would be ammunition for Hood later. If I was going to be the centerpiece of Oswald Cobblepot’s little circus, I might as well learn how the lions liked to feed.

Every insult, every glance, every slight I endured, I filed away for the revenge I wanted.

“I gotta go talk with some fellas in the VIP section, you don’t mind, do ya?” Oz peeled away, drifting toward the back booths like a king returning to his throne, leaving me to orbit the room he’d claimed. My new job was obvious: figure out who mattered to him and why. 

Their silhouettes lingered in a haze of cigar smoke and dim gold light, half-hidden behind frosted glass and the glint of expensive cufflinks. 

I didn’t need to see their faces to know they were old money, old blood, the sort who made deals that rewrote laws while sipping imported scotch. The faintest murmur of laughter drifted out from their corner, low and confident, like they already owned everything worth owning.

“Go show these guys out here how fun you can be, yeah?” Oz said, patting my hand like I was a trained showpiece. I nodded because that was what you did when a predator put a target on your back.

I eased away reluctantly, practiced in the art of being unremarkable. Not graceful like a dancer—graceful like prey that knows exactly how to be forgettable. In theory. 

In practice, loneliness is a magnet, and the second I stood alone the first of many started to circle.

Might as well eat something before someone tries to eat me. I groused internally, resigning to my fate this evening. 

My stomach made its opinion loud and clear, growling as the scent of roasted garlic and butter drifted past. I zeroed in on a tray of hors d’oeuvres like it was a lifeboat. 

A canapé—perfectly engineered bite of carbs, cream, and garnish—practically winked at me. I plucked it before the server could vanish into the crowd, devouring it like it was the best thing I’d tasted all week.

“Careful there, honey.”

Ugh, already?

The voice slithered against my ear. Hands ghosted far too close to my waist, and I pivoted just enough to make the dodge look accidental. My gaze shot up, irritation hidden under a polite startle, to find a cop. 

Barely taller than me, greasy hair lacquered flat like it had lost a fight with motor oil, his cheap aftershave stung my sinuses, failing to cover the liquor radiating from his breath.

His eyes dragged across me with a laziness that wasn’t lazy at all, smirk pulling like he thought it might look charming. He was clearly hopped up on Drops, with the way his pupils looked blown even in the poor lighting. 

“Wouldn’t want to ruin your dinner, now.”

Disgusting. Was my first thought, clean and startingly clear. My nose twitched as the stench of him curled into me, and bile rose at the back of my throat, and not from my curse. All I wanted was to plant my fist into his square jaw, watch that smug look scatter across the floor like loose teeth.

I tilted my chin and summoned the first persona Oz had drilled into me—the one that said I was agreeable, harmless, perfectly safe. Wearing it felt worse than setting myself on fire.

“Don’t worry, I’ll manage.” I coaxed, each word a sugar-coated blade as I waved him off.

He didn’t hear the edge. Or maybe he did and just didn’t care. Undeterred—men like him always were—he launched into questions, all dressed in innocence but dripped with intent. 

Where are you from? What’s a pretty girl like you doing here? Got someone waiting for you at home?

My answers came automatically, neutral little nothings I’d perfected over years. Deflections disguised as glamour, every word scraping at my patience.

And it wasn’t just him. Other men hovered nearby, circling like sharks in tailored suits, their questions blending together. They wore too many rings, designer clothes to disguise their sins, smiles just sharp enough to cut if you got too close. 

I continued to pay attention. I remembered the names, the affiliations, the little slips in their stories. 

Paul with the cufflinks engraved just a little too personally for a “gift.” Mario, who dropped the name of a judge like it was supposed to impress me. Stanton, who smelled like money but carried himself like a thug. One by one, I cataloged them, tucking away details for later.

Something about them gnawed at the back of my mind, a wrongness I couldn’t quite name. Like a splinter under skin—small, but impossible to ignore. 

My ability buzzed faintly, like a faulty wire sparking in the background, insisting there was more to these men than their surface-level charm and cheap deceptions. Something I wasn’t supposed to see. Something Oz didn’t want me to notice.

I was brought back to my original intention: I needed to know who Oz was talking to in those back booths, and why he didn’t want me anywhere near it.

Because if Oswald Cobblepot was excluding me from a conversation, it wasn’t out of courtesy—it was strategy. And whatever game he was playing tonight, those men were part of the board.

A small part of me—terrified but curious—wondered if he was speaking to the same men he was selling me out to right now. 

The cop’s voice dragged me back, grating against my ears like the squeal of bad brakes. Another question I refused to hear—slick, oily, sliding over me with the same sheen as the sweat covering his balding forehead.

I didn’t even catch the details. Probably if I wanted to get out of here, or whether I had a boyfriend for the second time, or some other prying nothing.

It didn't matter. My lips parted anyway, and out came the reply—neutral, an answer that fit anywhere and meant absolutely nothing. I’d said versions of it so many times it was practically muscle memory.

Like any other moron, he didn’t pause, not even long enough to hear it, before launching into another monologue about himself.

My thumb tapped restlessly against the inside of my forearm, a nervous metronome keeping time with the ache in my patience. I held my arm tight, like pinning myself in place might stop me from bolting. Salvation had to be here somewhere—tucked away like a lost key I couldn’t quite remember where I’d dropped.

I’d officially reached my boiling point when a lingering hand decided my hip was public property. The contact seared like acid—unwanted and infuriating. I shoved it off with a spite I didn’t know I’d been saving, every ounce of restraint snapping clean in half.

I didn’t care about the shocked look that crossed his face—or the flicker of rage that followed. My mouth curved into something deadly, my eyes catching the light just enough to make him second-guess his life choices.

The rest of the room faded. Sound bled out until all that was left was the thud of my pulse and the ugly little laugh that bubbled from the cop’s throat. I turned slowly, savoring the tension, locking eyes with him. Drops still glittered faintly in his pupils, his grin lazy and stupid like he thought this was flirting.

Bad move.

“Touch me again,” I drawled sweetly, leaning into his personal space so only he could hear. “and I’ll make sure you can’t walk straight for a week.”

The arrogance in his demeanor completely turned stony, immediately shuttering—his grin faltering, others nearby glancing over, the music and chatter smoothing uneasily around us like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. 

“Oz wouldn’t be too pleased with your behavior, you know,” I added, voice low enough to slice cleanly through the rose colored image he imagined this interaction to be. His hand fell away, and before he could recover, I stepped sharply on his foot—hard—heels meeting bone with a satisfying crunch.

I tore myself free and started toward the back, fury coiling into focus. Each step was a battle cry wrapped in poise. I didn’t care about the stares that followed, or the whispered assumptions, I had a job to do.

Oz was at the bar now of all places, fetching drinks like some glorified errand boy. I actually froze, taking in the scene with the barest hints of just wonder. The man who made crime lords sweat was pouring champagne like he’d missed his calling at a five-star brunch. 

It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so wrong.

For a control freak like Oswald, playing servant was more than out of character—it was a red flag the size of Gotham Clock Tower. Who were these people that could make him bow his head? The same man who sold out Maroni and snuffed out Falcone didn’t just fetch drinks. 

Not unless he was terrified—or trying to impress a monster bigger than himself.

The moment he looked up and spotted me storming his way, his face darkened.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” His whiny voice snapped, the edge of panic undercutting the true anger he was fronting.

My head snapped down to stare deeply at him, shoulders vibrating. Huh, rage was a new outward emotion for me. “I was just harassed by every slimeball you know, and you’re mad?”

I should’ve been scared. This was the man who had held more power over my name, my life, than anyone I’d ever trusted. Furious, no less. 

Even if it was just a misunderstanding, even if he hadn’t meant it that way my instincts told me to apologize, to back down, to smooth the edges of his temper.

But I didn’t.

Instead, a wicked little spark lit in my chest. Finally—finally—Mr. Composed was cracking.

A voice cut through the tension behind him as his mouth parted to berate me, stopping me before I could unload years of tightly coiled fury on the short man.

“Going so soon?” The words were effortlessly innocent, but authoritative, almost in the way Oz wished he sounded.

The speaker was tall, impossibly straight-backed in a suit that looked like it cost more than my apartment building times ten, and half-hidden behind a masquerade mask that caught the amber light just enough to make his expression unreadable. 

Every syllable dripped tight intent, his sole purpose to dissuade me from leaving. My body could sense something amiss, but the curse was going haywire with the rest of my emotions.

“Why don’t you join us for a drink first?”

From the corner of my eye, I watched with interest as Oz froze, a flicker of unease—or maybe disbelief—crossing his features.

Just like that, my temper cooled into something frostier.

The door I’d been clawing for had just creaked open.

I hesitated only a beat before taking the man’s offered hand—cool, unmarred, too easy. His grip said welcome to the show, not nice to meet you. He guided me into their private world, the low murmur of the party outside fading into something quieter, hushed.

The couch was sleek black leather, more expensive looking than the ones outside in the open cocktail lounge. It squeaked faintly as I sat, the fabric of my dress catching against it, and I had the fleeting thought that I’d just been seated on a throne designed for execution. 

My new position was clear enough: front and center, next to the man in charge. Oz’s old spot.

Perfect. Exactly what I didn’t want.

The others lounged in the half-circle of the booth like sleeper agents at rest—every suit tailored, every cufflink gleaming, every mask obscuring just enough to make me itch. 

Gold, ivory, black, silver—each one ornate, each one a barrier. Faces erased, details smothered. Nothing to memorize except posture and tone, and that made my job infinitely harder.

I tried to catalog what I could anyway: the way one man’s pinky tapped against his glass in a rhythm, the subtle tilt of another’s head when someone spoke, the faint scent of cigar smoke clinging to the leather. 

Little things. Clues. But none of them gave me what I needed—names, alliances, intentions.

Beside me, the masked man clearly calling the shots sat too close, his scent crisp and metallic, oddly reminding me of blood.

Which didn't bode well for me. 

To my left, another man poured charm like cheap liquor, his laughter syrupy and fake. Across from me, one of the silent ones simply stared—eyes flat and unreadable through his mask’s narrow slits.

Oz lingered on the edge of the group, posture rigid, glare sharp enough to carve stone. I met it for half a second before breaking eye contact. If looks could kill, I’d already be the ghost haunting this booth.

And yet, I couldn’t help thinking how ironic it was: I’d spent half the night looking for a way in, and now all I wanted was to crawl back out.

I’m fucking screwed, I thought, fingers clasping tight in my lap. My posture screamed tension, but I forced my shoulders to drop, lips morphing into a practiced, doting smile. 

I felt more than saw the man next to me lean back, the faint glint of gold along his mask catching the light as he tapped a finger against his glass. His attention wasn’t on me—it was on Oz, assessing and pointed.

“Won’t you fetch some champagne for our guest?” he suggested, though there was nothing casual about it. It was a command disguised as conversation.

Oz stiffened, jaw tightening like he’d bitten into granite, but he moved. Each step toward the bar radiated reluctant obedience, every ounce of his usual control replaced by simmering irritation.

I suppressed a laugh that wanted to escape, biting the inside of my cheek. It would’ve been rude, yes—but it was so satisfying to see him reduced to this.

Studying him as he returned, the flute of champagne was held out like a bribe, his glare slicing across the space between us. He handed it over with all the grace of a man enduring punishment, and I accepted it delicately, letting my fingers brush his ever so slightly—not enough to provoke, just enough to mark the interaction.

“Tell me, what is your name?” The masked leader finally turned his full attention to me, tilt of head subtle. Older than me by at least twenty years, he seemed like the type that didn’t ask—he demanded focus.

It was like he already knew the answer, waiting just long enough for me to confirm it. That deliberate patience made my skin crawl, my answer spilling out before I could really even begin to try to reel it back in.

“It’s Lillian.” I stated, soft and light, letting the cadence of the single name sound breezy, almost vulnerable. Coy. Slightly naive, but careful, as if I were testing the water, letting them believe I was harmless.

I lifted the flute, sniffing first—it smelled fruity, nothing like poison, though I wasn’t about to take chances. A quick, practiced check, and clearly nothing was off.

Around me, everyone else polished off their drinks as if it were water, Oz included. He probably would’ve poisoned it out of spite if he could, but whatever. I let the thought slide, knowing despite the bumpy few months, the man still needed me alive for now.

The champagne touched my lips, crisp and unexpectedly sweet, sliding down my throat with a surprising warmth. Strawberries. I pinched the flavor out in my mind, noting how mouthwatering and almost addicting it was. 

I sipped again, enough to appear meaningless, to seem perfectly at ease while my senses cataloged every detail—the smell, the temperature, the weight of the glass in my fingers, the way the bubbles tickled the tip of my tongue.

It did nothing to settle my nerves as I noticed my mystery guy had a very clear reaction to my name.

His shoulders stiffened, the tiniest fraction, and his hand froze mid-sip. It was clear I confirmed an answer he had been looking for. Something about it made my pulse hitch, despite how miniscule the action had been.

He recognized me.

From where?

I studied his features: graying, neatly combed hair, a faint stubble along his jawline. Nothing stirred in my memory—no flash of a shared past, no fragment of familiarity. And yet, a stubborn, impossible part of me kept whispering that it should. That it had to.

“Do you ever go by Lily?” His voice was low, soft, almost sad. There was a weight to it, a depth that felt too intimate for a stranger in a room full of masks. The question hit me like a sudden gust of cold wind—unexpected and unsettling.

Yeah, I don’t like this guy.

I lifted my glass and finished it in a single swallow, though the liquid no longer comforted me. My stomach twisted in a way that had nothing to do with the champagne. 

Why did the sound of my name from him set off alarm bells I couldn’t name?

Before I even realized it, another flute had been pressed into my hands. I barely registered it, too focused on holding myself together, on keeping the careful composure I had spent years perfecting. 

“Sometimes,” I commented, lifting the glass until the scent of strawberries was all I could comprehend. A second, deliberate swallow followed, each one grounding me while my eyes stayed locked on him. 

Not for courage but for cover, the bubbles gave me something to hide behind.

My face twitched almost imperceptibly, betraying the storm roiling inside me. My curse flickered, a pulse of warning that twisted around my scrambled emotions like a live wire, reacting to the blind unease I was feeling.

“It’s only polite to offer your name in return,” I rebutted, letting the words sound like a challenge, a play for information that he wasn’t giving, “once you ask for someone else’s.”

“It is, isn’t it.”

He leaned in, and before I could react, his hand closed over mine, firm and unyielding. Reflexively, I tried to pull away—but it was anchored in place, and like a wild animal, instinct tried to scream at me to hide.

My eyes darted around, searching for an ally, anyone, but the room offered only polished masks and predatory stares. Help wouldn’t come from this den of vipers, not when I walked into it so willingly.

He leaned closer, hot breath ghosting against my ear. I braced for the worst—poison, a knife, a betrayal that would leave me bleeding on the marble floor.

It wasn’t any of that.

It was worse.

“They call me Charlie.” His words brushed against my mind, inaudible only to my ears, and my surroundings went startlingly blank. 

“My friends do, at least. And Lily, none of the men here are my friends.”

He was telling the truth. 

Charlie was here? My Charlie?

He was alive.

I was going to vomit. My fingers rattled in his grasp, every nerve in my arm going pins-and-needles numb until I was half convinced I was having a cardiac episode right there on this stupid couch. But the pain wasn’t physical—it was entirely emotional.

My heart hurt. It was that old, ghostly kind of hurt that never really healed, a phantom wound torn wide open by the man who’d put it there in the first place.

Tears marred my waterline, and I desperately blinked them away as he leaned back, cool and composed, as if he hadn’t just detonated my entire reality with a single sentence.

My breaths came uneven, shallow and quick, chest rising and falling like I’d been running. Hold it together, I told myself. Don’t lose focus. Don’t look weak.

Anger flared next, vengeful and uncontainable. How long had he been out there, watching, letting me think I was gone? Letting the world convince me that I was alone? Resentment clawed at me, raw and bitter.

The men around us, as my vision went high definition to sweep across the stragglers—who were they if not his friends? The buyers Oz sold me to? The Court of Owls determined to screw my life up more than it already was?

Both?

None of this added up. My mind spun, trying to reconcile the image of the uncle I had mourned, the man who had abandoned me, with the presence of the stranger holding my hand, eyes unreadable, yet carrying the weight of truths I wasn’t ready to hear.

“They aren’t my friends either,” I stammered, the words trembling before they caught fire, voice tiny, frail. Anger bled through the cracks in my voice, hot and raw, every ounce of hurt and betrayal I’d ever swallowed sharpening into something lethal. “And they sure as hell aren’t family.”

He flinched—I felt it, a twitch beneath the mask, subtle enough that no one else would notice. But I did. I always noticed. The other men pretended to keep up their conversations, but their gazes flicked toward us, wary and watchful. 

They feared him. They feared me? I could feel it humming under their words.

Charlie—my uncle, apparently—forced his face into a grin, one that didn’t reach his eyes, for the audience watching this interaction start to go south. A hearty laugh burst out of him, too loud, too bright, the kind of laugh people use to fill the silence before it swallows them whole.

He raised his glass toward mine, the crystal chiming softly like a warning. The sound nearly broke me.

I clinked back anyway, every muscle trembling as he addressed someone sitting beside him, murmuring something meaningless for the crowd. Then his hand was at my elbow, guiding me up, playing the part of the charming gentleman while I fought every urge to collapse to the floor and just—sob.

Because this wasn’t how reunions were supposed to go.

“You’re being hunted,” he immediately rounded on me once we were pulled near the empty hallway, low and urgent, eyes scanning the room, though I knew they weren’t looking for anyone but me. Oz was craning his neck to keep me in sight, but Charlie’s back was broad, shielding me. “They’ve marked you. That’s why I’m here. That’s why they’re here—”

“I know,” I snapped before he could finish. My head was swimming, tipsy enough that my words felt blunter than they should, sharper. “I know, because of you!” 

My voice cracked, both with anger and disbelief. “You’ve been behind all of this, haven’t you? The damn feathers, the notes? You got Oz to sell me out so you could swoop in before someone else could?”

“I had to,” he said quietly, the gravity of it pulling his features taut. “I’ve infiltrated the Court of Owls. I knew this day would come, but I couldn’t—”

My hands were balled into fists at my sides, nails biting crescents into my palms. I could feel the heat crawling up my neck, the buzz in my veins doing nothing to take the edge off. 

“Couldn’t what?” My voice cracked halfway through, but I pushed through it. “Couldn’t stick around to raise me? Protect me? Newsflash, I’ve been dead to everyone for years, Charlie. So don’t—” I swallowed hard, the words splintering in my throat. “Don’t act like now’s the time to mourn.”

He hesitated, then tugged at the edges of his mask. When it came off, the air seemed to thin. The face underneath was older, rougher—but the eyes were the same shade as mine. The same shade as Dad’s. It hurt just looking at him.

“Please, Lily,” he said quietly. “I’m only trying to help. That’s all I’ve ever tried to do.”

I almost laughed. Years of sleepless nights flashed behind my eyes—moments where I’d wondered if my life was even worth saving. The blood on my hands, the guilt, the lonely nights—none of it washed off. And now here he was, showing up like some kind of savior, pretending he’d been trying all along.

The part of me that wanted to collapse into him was small and stupid. The rest of me was too tired, too furious, and too aware that this was a second chance I was wasting.

“Stop,” I hissed, cutting him off. Every sip of champagne made my vision tilt, made my pulse hammer harder. I was four glasses deep, six? “I don’t want to hear any of it.”

“You have to,” he insisted, strong hands holding onto my forearms, his voice almost pleading. “I don’t have time. You can’t—”

“Leave me alone, Charlie.” 

The words tumbled out, wicked and commanding. My eyes flared, their glow reflecting off of his ashen face, my abilities igniting. It clawed at him like a tangible force, twisting his will, bending him in place.

His eyes widened, momentarily panicked, as he tried to resist, to argue, but he couldn’t. My command held him fast. With a reluctant, trembling exhale, he released my arm and backed toward the booth, voice caught in his throat, as if every instinct screamed against leaving me, and yet he obeyed.

I stumbled back a step, chest heaving, vision slightly blurred from the alcohol and adrenaline. My fingers pressed to my temples, willing my pulse to slow, my mind to clear.

Fresh air. I needed fresh air. I needed space to think. To breathe.

I needed to get out of here. 

So much for dinner.

I sank against the wet brick of the curb, letting the chill seep through my dress and into my bones, the faint taste of strawberries on my tongue making the world taste sweet but disorienting.

Rain slicked the street ahead, tiny droplets bouncing off my heels, the rest of me tucked under the awning like some damp sewer rat. If I focused hard enough, I could smell wet asphalt, car exhaust, and the faint tang of something burning a block over—it was a poor attempt to ground myself, to feel more connected to my body.

I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear for the fifth time in as many minutes. Each time it fell back into my face, I swatted it away like it was trying to sabotage me. The strand stuck again, clinging to my cheek, and I just resigned to let it stay there.

Even my hair was now out to get me.

Then the practical part of me crept back in, interrupting the self-loathing, as I checked the time. Nearly midnight now, and the subway would be a minefield: late-night drunks, muggers, and every other hazard Gotham could throw at someone walking alone. 

I let my gaze wander down the slick street, imagining the long trek home, the fluorescent lights of the subway casting strangers’ faces in harsh, shifting shadows before they attempted to mug my empty purse.

Yeah, better stick with a cab.

I exhaled, letting the brisk night breeze chase the fog from my brain. Part of me wanted to throw myself into the rain and feel it soak every inch, just to feel something other than regret—but I wasn’t stupid enough to invite a miserable cold that would put me out of commission for longer than necessary for something so childish.

Might sober me up though, my conscience offered—though it sounded less like Jiminy Cricket and more like the devil lighting a cigarette on my shoulder.

My palm started vibrating, yanking me from my intrusive thoughts. 

For a second, I thought I had unlocked some weird new ability from my curse, until my glossy eyes registered I was still holding my burner cell.

Looks like I suddenly have service out here. 

Long, prompting messages from Red Hood blinked on the screen, all of them demanding concentration I didn’t have.

Red Hood

Yo, is a guy named Mario there? I think I just accidentally turned his Drops operation into a fireworks show

I vaguely remembered talking to someone named Mario—but was he the balding guy, or the one with the obnoxious cufflinks? I hammered out a few sentences in reply, squinting at the screen like it might rearrange itself into clarity.

Unfortunately, it didn’t make a lick of sense.

Dammit. A few glasses shouldn’t have hit me this hard. 

My thumb hovered over the keyboard, hesitating, trying to remember the details I needed to relay, knowing in the back of my mind this conversation would have to wait until morning—when I’ve had time to sleep and actually process the past two hours.

Me

Fuck that guy, Mario probably deserved it

Also, can you get me a gun? 

I hit send before I could second-guess it. The screen blurred, double-vision style, and I couldn’t be bothered to check for spelling mistakes. Pretty sure Red Hood had survived worse than my grammar.

Red Hood

I mean, sure

Someone giving you trouble? At the club?

Me

Short answer, yes

Red Hood

And the long answer?

Me

Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy

I hugged my bare knees tightly, phone warm against where it pressed into my skin, and listened to the world around me.

It was easy to get lost in thought when everything felt so loud—my decisions, the distant sounds of the nightclubs bass, the city breathing. Bewilderment rattled through me, shaking loose the cage of my imposter syndrome, whispering that tonight was some fever dream I’d wandered into by mistake.

I scrolled through a flood of old texts from Dick Grayson—the ones that hadn’t delivered earlier—each one worse than the last. Terrible puns. Outdated memes. Jokes so stale they belonged in a museum next to the dinosaurs.

Tears blurred my vision, some from laughter, the others from the ache that was crawling up through my throat. 

I wasn’t sure if I was crying because of how funny he wasn’t, or because my uncle—my thought to be missing or dead uncle—was apparently now alive and well and maybe running point on the cult trying to kill me.

Hard to say which part hurt more.

“Damn you, strawberry champagne,” I muttered, swiping roughly at my cheeks. The motion only made me dizzier. I pushed myself to my feet, wobbly and waterlogged, because sitting under a dripping awning feeling sorry for myself wasn’t a good look.

I pressed closer to the wall, the cold brick biting through the thin fabric of my outfit, keeping me more awake than it should have. The street stretched out ahead, empty and barren—completely indifferent to my crisis of needing a ride home.

I could maybe bribe one of the valet guys out front to drive me, promise eternal gratitude and whatever cash hadn’t drowned in my clutch—but that required standing up straight and pretending I had my life together.

So, naturally, I decided to multitask instead.

My thumb hovered over the screen again, scrolling through the wreckage of Dick’s messages until I found the tiny blue link I’d ignored earlier. A distraction. That’s all I wanted. Something dumb enough to make me forget the mess for five whole minutes.

I squinted, trying to tap it before it slipped away from me. My finger missed once. Twice. Third time’s the charm?

The screen lit up, blindingly bright, and I thought I’d done it. Then a ringing sound, shrill and piercing and very much not the beginnings of a video buffering.

Oh no.

No no no no.

I stared down in utter shock, expression twisting into a whole range of emotions, settling on pure horror. “Shit,” I whispered. “Shitshitshit.”

Every nerve in my body jolted awake as I scrambled to fix it, but my fingers were drunk, rebellious little gremlins. I jabbed at the red button—missed. Jabbed again—missed harder. 

Somehow, by the sacred law of drunk physics, I managed to hit speakerphone instead.

“Hello?”

His voice came through lower than usual. Rough, like he was either trying to disguise it or had been previously running. Something thudded in the background, heavy and final, followed by a muffled curse that did not sound like someone sitting comfortably at home.

I froze, frowning at the glowing screen like it might cough up an explanation. There was another noise—metal clattering? It echoed off the brick around me, and I rushed to turn down the volume.

For half a second, I thought I heard someone yell. Then again, that could’ve been from the nightclub behind me. Or one of the dark alleyways that looked like they’d eat me whole.

“Uh—hi?” My voice came out thinner than I intended, raspy and awkward. I ran a nervous hand through my now damp hair, curls smoothing out into natural waves. “Are you—you sound busy?”

There was a rush of air on the line, uneven, labored, like he was catching his breath between words.

“No, not at all,” Dick spoke after finally getting a moment, and yeah, that was the exact thing someone definitely says when they’re absolutely lying. I tried not to dwell on the weird sting of his white lie, tuning my focus to whatever he wasn’t saying.

“I thought you had that dinner with your Dad tonight?”

I swallowed hard, my face hot enough to glow. At least he couldn’t see how disgruntled I looked.

“I didn’t mean to call,” I blurted, words tumbling over each other in a frantic heap, an explanation trying to make sense of itself. “I was just trying to click the link you sent—”

A sharp crack split through the line. Gunfire. Or something very close to it.

My fingers twitched, clutching the device a little too tightly. “Uh—what was that?”

“Hmm?” His voice came back a little breathless, almost distracted. “Just some bad reception.”

Bad reception. Right. And that groan in the background was definitely someone agreeing with him, not dying or anything.

“So, this is a butt-dial?” he asked, tone light, teasing—though there was a faint exertion to it, like he was moving.

“Not intentionally?” I squeaked, wincing at how much worse the reality of the situation truly was.. “If anything, it’s a drunk dial.”

“Ah.” There was another thud, and at this point, I was giving up on finding out what was keeping Dick Grayson preoccupied. “So, you think of me when you’re drunk?”

My entire nervous system short-circuited, grounding out a feeble: “You wish.”

He laughed, delighted with my mortification, infuriatingly amused by it. “Ouch, no need to sound so defensive.”

Something crashed behind him, followed by what might’ve been a grunt. I couldn’t just let it go. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

“Perfectly fine,” he said, a little too quickly. “Just—uh—taking care of something.”

I could hear the faintest huff of a laugh, confirming my Truthseer ability was right about him being a terrible liar—right before the line exploded with a crash, a whoosh, and what sounded suspiciously like someone yelling “—Are you really on the phone right now, ‘Win—”

I blinked, recognizing that voice even through the distortion, and yanked the burner away from my face on instinct. “I—sorry, what—?”

There was a breath, static, a muffled thud—then his voice came back, steadier, closer, like he’d just pressed the phone back to his ear.

“Sorry about that. You were saying?”

Right. Totally normal. No follow-up questions needed.

“I was—uh—I didn’t mean to call,” I said again, because clearly once wasn’t enough humiliation for the night. “I’m actually heading home—”

“It’s midnight,” he cut me off, doubt threading through his voice. “The buses stop running soon. Where are you, exactly?”

I winced, already knowing he wasn’t going to like my answer by the sound of his tone. “Behind the Iceberg Lounge?”

There was a strangled noise, followed immediately by an incredulous: “Alone?”

“Technically,” I amended, trying for confidence and landing somewhere around damage control. “You're on the phone with me.”

My joke didn’t land well. I could feel it, even through the line—the dead air stretched too long, thick with unamused disapproval. Somewhere on his end, there was the faint rustle of movement, the shift of someone pacing.

For some strange reason, he marched straight onto the offensive.

“Why didn’t your dad take you home?”

I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see it. “What is this, twenty questions?” I rubbed at my shoulders to fight the sudden frigid breeze subconsciously, wishing I’d ignored the link instead of ending up in a pop quiz with the most persistent person I’d ever met. 

“It’s only one,” he sing-songed, though he definitely wasn’t playing around. Sparks hissed in the background, staccato arcs of electricity that didn’t make any sense. I could almost hear the hum of volts and the metallic zing as if I were face to face with it. “And you’re dodging it.”

“Maybe I like being mysterious,” I stubbornly refuted, trying for flippant, which was basically code for please stop asking before I say something stupid. 

Not that I was half as weird as he was being right now. Seriously, what the hell was he doing?

“Uh-huh,” he deadpanned, skeptical. “Try again.”

I sighed, curling my fingers around the phone like it might magically strangle him for me. Ending the call crossed my mind—maybe I could pretend the battery died, or stage a fake death. A dramatic collapse onto the sidewalk, complete with fainting noises.

He waited for my answer, calm and patient, radiating that natural trust that I would respond.

And of course, being the spineless wimp I am, I did.

“Okay,” I admitted, letting my shoulders slump a little. “It was terrible. O—my Dad and I argued, I may have run into someone from my past that really should’ve stayed there, and I bailed on dinner when I realized my stalkers were apparently on the guest list. Happy?”

Nothing.

“Hello?” I glanced downward to see if the call was still connected, even more perplexed when it said it was. “Did you mute me?”

Somewhere in the background, I thought I heard a thump—then muffled shouting, like someone had smothered the microphone. Movement bounced around in the noise, impossible to pin down.

I frowned, brows knitting tighter the longer the silence stretched. “Okay, either you’re ignoring me or you’re being kidnapped, and I’m really not equipped for option two.”

A few seconds later, the sound returned in full force. A low rumble. A revving engine.

My brain scrambled to make sense of the fragments I was hearing. Someone was talking fast, giving orders—or maybe arguing. 

I caught a harsh, clipped voice muttering something that sounded like “Fine, sure, I guess I got this, Dickwad.” Another voice, softer, almost robotic, answered. There was the click of a device, a sudden surge of electricity, and then the engine again, revving harder, closer.

There was a shuffle, then his voice came back—panting but trying to sound steady through the barest hints of worry. “Sorry, had to wrap something up real fast.”

“Wrap something up?” I repeated. “Like what, a damn street race?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.” The growl of the bike deepened as he spoke, wind rushing against the mic. It sounded like he was moving, driving, and fast. “Just—stay where you are, okay? I’m on my way.”

“You don’t have to come get me.” I snapped, immediately hating how small I sounded. Because obviously, the natural response to someone being decent was to bite their head off. “I can handle myself.”

Oops, that didn’t sound friendly.

“I don’t doubt that,” he assured before I could apologize, tone suddenly gentler, placating my rising temper—but laced with something that sounded like concern. “But I’d rather not test it tonight. Stay put. I’m coming to get you.”

“Wait—”

“I mean it, Lily.” The utterance of my name from his mouth made me pause, unconsciously listening despite my very clear protest “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

The call clicked off, and I was left staring at my own reflection in the dark screen—cheeks flushed, hair a disaster, eyes wide enough to qualify for a horror movie poster.

How had a single drunk dial turned into a full-blown rescue mission?

I dragged a hand down my face, exhaling a groan that puffed into a cloud around me. How could tonight possibly get worse? I’d bombed dinner, failed to hear Charlie out, and now Dick Grayson was apparently suiting up to play white knight in my tragic little saga.

A few stragglers stumbled out of the club’s glittering door, their raucous chatter bouncing off the alley walls, slurred directions about Batburger trailing behind them. I paid attention to their voices, sinking into the noise of someone else’s stress-free lives. 

From the distance of their conversation, I knew they were near the front entrance—my little bubble safe, for now, as I impatiently waited.

Until it wasn’t.

I lifted my gaze when the feeling hit—that subtle, skin-crawly sense of being watched. Not panic, just the kind of alert that never really turns off once you’ve learned to listen for it.

With a shiver, I hoped it was just the thickness of the rain, a paranoid trick of my mind—or maybe some stranger from the party, lost and staggering like the rest. 

My sight wandered, lazy at first, tracing the glistening asphalt and the slick curve of the streetlight reflections—then it locked. Across the road, a figure lingered. Potentially male, by the way it seemed to dominate the dim space around it, blending into the darkness yet somehow impossible to ignore.

For one absurd, heart-stopping second, I swore Charlie broke free and somehow found me.

But it moved wrong, unexplainable, and I knew it wasn’t him.

The gleam in its eyes caught the luminous drizzle, reflecting an unnatural light that seemed to pierce straight through me. Its shape was grotesque—too broad at the shoulders, too elongated at the limbs, something about the angles of it felt not quite human. 

My stomach lurched as my brain tried to make sense of it, failing spectacularly.

Court of Owls, my mind supplied unhelpfully, offering the only solace of an answer possible. He was trying to warn me, he said they were here. 

I’d never seen one in person—just rumors and scraps of what Charlie had written—but I’d always assumed they were more person than owl. The people from earlier, sitting alongside Charlie and I in the booths, hadn't looked this way.

The letter slid under my door had been neat, legible, written in a steady hand that belonged to someone with blood and bones.

This wasn’t a man in a mask like the rest.

This was something else entirely.

The stillness of its body only made it worse: leering with an animalistic edge, a nightmare wearing a man’s silhouette.

Fear surged hot and sharp through my veins as it took a step. And another. Each movement was assessing, clearly savoring the distance between us in hopes of studying how far my fear could stretch. The streetlight flared against its outline, stark and unnatural, like someone had carved a man-shape out of shadow and left it standing there.

I wanted it to stop. Needed it to stop—so I could pin down what it was, prove it wasn’t real and I was just impossibly out of my mind.

But it didn’t.

It tilted its head instead, concise and birdlike, the motion jerky enough to scrape down my courage. For a second, I swore I heard it breathing. Slow. Heavy.

My body refused to listen to reason. One step back. Another. My heel caught on the curb, and I stumbled, catching myself on the metal pole that supported the weight of the train tracks above it.

It moved again—closer this time.

“Don’t move,” I commanded, voice firmer than I felt, because apparently my instinct for survival had gone on strike and I was banking on the absurd idea that it would listen. I lifted my hands slightly, willing my power to leak into my tone, that subtle push I used to make people—or animals—listen to me. “Who are you?”

The Talon stuttered, jerking as if caught in an invisible web, but it fought, struggling against my influence. Metal scraped against stone, faint and cruel—its talons testing the ground beneath its feet, mocking me.

Okay. I panicked, hands twitching for a weapon I never carried to begin with. That’s never failed before.

The figure lunged, a blur of motion that my mind couldn’t keep up with. My legs scrambled, backpedaling wildly, each step barely carrying me forward as a strangled yelp built in my chest, clawing its way up my throat. 

My arms flailed instinctively, trying to balance, to ward off an attack I couldn’t even see clearly. Raindrops pelted my face, stinging my eyes, and the cracked sidewalk threatened to swallow my footing with every desperate step.

My heartbeat thundered in my ears, a deafening drum that made it hard to think, let alone react. Everything in me screamed to run, to move, to put distance between myself and the impossible predator lunging through the dark.

And then—over the pounding in my ears—came the rising snarl of what I was praying to be some divine intervention, and not this guy's backup. Headlights slashed through the haze, cutting across the street and painting the creature in white for a split second.

It froze, a growl escaping its throat—or maybe that was the engine—before it vanished, dissolving into the darkness of the alley as if it had never been there at all.

The motorcycle skidded to a stop beside me, water hissing where tires met the slick road, engine idling like a beast crouched at my shoulder.

Dick was here. My brain was slow in catching up, my senses disoriented. He was actually here. 

He came.

Even blinking didn’t help. He was close—too close—and the space around me suddenly felt smaller, crowded by him. Broad chest shielding me from the rain, from the dark, from whatever the hell had just lunged at me. His features were calm but alert, cataloging me, my expression, every tremor in my stance

“You okay?” His voice was low, careful, but carrying that edge of concern that made my knees feel like they might fold anyway. His hands hovered, as if he would catch me if they did.

I could only stare past him, at the spot where the figure had been. My mind scrambled, looping over what I’d just seen, what I thought I’d seen, and what I was seeing now—the alley empty, drenched in sideways sheets of rain, his blue eyes, just as stormy as the weather.

“Yeah,” I whispered, voice mystified, shaky, despite the effort to steady it. “I think so?”

His eyes followed mine, narrowing. “What did you see?”

I almost said nothing. Almost.

The truth slipped out anyway, soft, almost reverent.

“An owl.”