Journal Entry by Traci Anders-Grayson-Wayne.
April 1, 3:47 EST
40 Years Later
Where to start? Conrad said this could help get my voice back, but will it really? Writing out how my life changed completely the day I turned fifteen? Reliving that horrific day on paper, or on computer as it is, will get it back? He said no one but me had to see what I write, but he doesn't know my Uncles. He really doesn't know my Aunt. One of them will definitely see me writing this and want to read it. I can't let them know how much my voicelessness bothers me. They'd worry. It's bad enough two of them have to sit outside my room before I go to sleep in case I have a nightmare, because they can't hear me scream otherwise.
"Why do they do that?" One would ask. It's because the one time they didn't, not only could they not hear me scream. I thought they had been killed too and made myself sick thinking that I was alone. I was violently sick for five days. Uncle Jason worries the most, he's always looking at me, making sure I'm safe and OK. I wish he wouldn't, but then again, I don't exactly give him reason not to. To prove myself capable of our family's legacy, I can get. . . Reckless. I wind up getting myself into situations where I need to be saved like some damsel, which doesn't help my feelings of inadequacy. Uncle Jason and Uncle Damian try and help me in being less Reckless. They often tell me they don't want my parents coming back from the dead just to kill them for letting their last living child die needlessly. (Though he worries about my recklessness as well, my Uncle Tim finds it amusing how afraid of my Parents' wrath Uncle Jason and Uncle Damian are.) Though, I can tell both of them don't want to lose me as much as I don't want to lose them.
"The Demon and I have both been killed and then brought back. We DO NOT want to have to go through the pain and hassle of bringing you back just to put you in the grave ourselves over your stupidity." Uncle Jason would often tell me after one of my reckless adventures that he's had to rescue me from (I never understood why he calls Uncle Damian, The Demon). Of course it was littered with expletives, but I was raised not to swear unless on the field.
I see I'm getting off topic, then again, this is easier to talk about than, That Day, so it doesn't surprise me. Might as well get this over with. Help or not it'll at least be good to get it down so someone will know why I lost my voice at least.
It started out like any other day. I woke up, got out out of bed, took a shower. After putting on my underwear (I really hope if someone else reads this, it's a girl,) and brushing my bright fire red hair into a high ponytail so I don't accidentally drag it on the floor. It's pretty long, Dad pouted every time mom or I even discussed cutting it. (Resist my father's pouting face, I dare you.) I hummed the birthday song to myself as I slid on my navy blue pleated skirt. I started dancing in place to the tune as I pulled on my white button up dress shirt, buttoning it up and tucking it under the waste of my skirt. After I put on my charm bracelet I've had since I was born on my right wrist and what my Uncle Tim and I call my "Inhibitor Bracelet" on my left. (I'm the only one of my siblings to look exactly like my mother. Orange skin, Orange-Red Hair that looks like living fire. . . Except for the eye color, my brothers and I share the same full blue eyes, the inhibitor bracelet allows me to have a soft pale complexion with blue black hair like my brothers.) I grabbed my navy blue cardigan with the Gotham Academy coat of arms on the left breast and red tie. I slid my cardigan on as I left my room and tied my tie as I walked down the stairs. (I even remember tripping down those stairs I was so focused on my tie. I always trip down them.) An all round normal day, the only glaring difference in the day I could notice was that it was my birthday. (Even that wasn't all that different, it does come around once a year.)
I was looking forward to the gifts my friends had gotten me. It was tradition by then, to get each other one gift on our birthdays. I guess I should've known something was going to happen when I went down to breakfast. But really, what 15 year old girl would be suspicious over her family there to celebrate her birthday? With my family I should've known better. Seeing my Uncles Tim and Damian actually getting along and not making mean spirited jabs at each other (Dad once said they would get into physical fights when Uncle Damian was my age. I was eleven then.) should've tipped me off to the world ending or something. Same with Dad and Uncle Jason not arguing about Uncle Jason's choice of residence (He lived in an apartment in crime alley). Everyone was happy and getting along. The only members missing were my brothers, but two of them were in University so either had classes or just come home from classes. The other two had to be at school earlier than I did because of school activities so pretty obvious why they weren't there.
When I entered the dining room for breakfast, my Aunt Stephanie was the first to see me. She smiled jumping up from her seat and speed walking over to me with arms wide.
"Happy Birthday Traci!" She said to me as she gave me a hug. That prompted other "Happy Birthdays!" from my other Aunts and Uncles.
My Dad smiled and raised his glass of Orange Juice with his bright goofy grin, "Happy Birthday! My North Star." I saw his mischievous smile sparkling in his eyes as he took a sip of his drink to hide his mouth, "You're five right?" he asked placing it back down on the table. Every one laughed at my indignant gasp as a response. After a few more good-natured jabs between my father and I, I sat down to eat. I smiled seeing that it was a rather large spread of all my favorites. (I really don't think I need to list every one of my favorite breakfast foods. IF someone other than me is reading this. I doubt you care what I had for breakfast anyways.) After eating my fill, Uncle Jason got up from the table informing me that he was my ride to school. I knew from his smirk, he brought his Motorcycle. I can't tell you how I got to it, I was too excited. I rarely got to ride with my Uncle Jason on his motorcycle. Something about Dad being worried about my safety.
School was pretty tame, the occasional "Happy Birthday!" from a classmate or teacher. Birthday Gifts from Admirers that didn't know me at all. Pretty typical for the popular pretty girl. Don't ask me why I was so popular, I was Valedictorian material during my time in Gotham Academy. (I'm pretty sure it was the money and company Grandpa Bruce left my Dad and Uncles.) After School was what I was looking forward to.
I met up with my friends Rachel and Whitney. Whitney's from Central City but nobody at school knew that. She's a speedster and people in Gotham tend to be so wrapped up in themselves that a wind brought on by a speedster speeding by doesn't faze them. So my classmates figured she came from the Gotham Public School. We didn't tell them any different.
Appearance wise Whitney has her mom's pale yellow blonde hair and her eyes have the same slight slant her mom's have. Everything about her physically she takes after her mother, but she has her Dad's personality, right down to his goofy grin. It's cute how they can pull the same puppy eyes too. (I warn you now, never, I mean NEVER deny them both something they both want. Resistance of The Father Daughter Puppy Dog Pout is futile! ((Note to self: Stop watching old Star Trek vids with Uncle Tim.)) They're worse than Dad if you can believe that.) Her hair isn't as long as mine but long enough she has to keep it braided. You have no idea how tangled our long hair can get when you run at the speeds she runs, or fly like I can.
As for Rachel, she's Whitney's opposite when it comes to notoriety. Every one knew her, hard not to with the scandal that surrounded her when she was a kid. Rachel is the granddaughter of Roy Harper aka Red Arrow. I don't know much about the scandal, just that she's the illegitimate child of Roy's Daughter, Lian. Roy having been known as Oliver Queen's ward at one time. What I do know is that her mother was raised as an assassin, and if not for both Roy's (Red Arrow and Arsenal,) Uncle Jason and Uncle Damian, Rachel would have been raised as one too. She stayed with us for a few months after they took/saved (depending on who you ask) her from the League of Assassins. I've never met her Mother but Rachel takes after her Grandfather in looks. She keeps her red hair in a short bob because she, in her own words, doesn't need the hassle of brushing out the tangles every 10 minutes.
Whit and Rachel are two of my closest friends. I have a third and normally all four of us meet up, but Mirin couldn't make it and had sent her present early, it sat in my room waiting to be opened. The three of us headed to the mall, Rachel's gift having been an all expenses paid day of shopping, courtesy of Connor Hawk-Queen (Oliver Queen's son). Apparently it was his way of apologizing for destroying the present Rachel was originally going to give me. It was Rachel's fault according to her, she startled him just as he let loose an arrow, the arrow just happened to leave the bow as he turned her direction to ask her what happened. The arrow landing straight through the gift. (I got an improved version of that same gift two years later, so not a total loss?)
After three hours of shopping, (I could've gone longer but Rachel and Whitney actually collapsed under the weight of the shopping bags, I wasn't that bad I don't think), we decided to stop in a coffee shop and call our respective rides home. Whitney called her mom who happened to be in Gotham visiting Whitney's Grandmother. Rachel had her own ride courtesy of her Grandfather, and I called Uncle Jason. I really wanted to ride his motorcycle again. Another sign that I should've seen as an omen was that Uncle Jason was the first to arrive.
My Uncle Jason is rarely ever prompt, it was like he was nearby, he got there so fast. The only time that ever happens is when the family is keeping watch over me as a side effect of my recently been kidnapped. The problem was, I hadn't been kidnapped since the year before. That didn't even happen on my birthday, it was two months AFTER I turned Fourteen. His arrival should have made me at the very least curious, but it didn't. I had chalked it up to him wanting to give me my gift early, he did have a small box in his hands. (I later found out it was both. He had a bad feeling that wouldn't go away about my safety, and since he was going to be in the area anyways decided to indulge the paranoia.)
I opened the box and saw two ruby stud earrings in the shape of my Uncle Jason's red helmet. I have jewelry of each member of my immediate family, something to represent Uncle Jason was the only piece I was missing at the time. I hugged him in excitement, both of us laughing. He handed me his secondary bike helmet telling me to hop on. I squealed, literally squealed, jumping on the bike behind him. I rode side saddle because of my skirt. We then sped off as I waved bye to my friends.
When we arrived home, I had hopped off with excited laughter. I didn't notice my Uncle Jason's dead silence until I removed my helmet and turned to face him. He was staring shocked in the direction of the house. I followed the gaze and saw almost all the windows shattered. I charged into the manor, I vaguely remember Uncle Jason yelling for me to stop. I couldn't, I was too worried about my family.
I remember praying that they had all been out, but I knew. Dad, he and mom made a point of one of them always being home by seven in the evening. School had let out at four, and it took an hour for us to get to the Mall. Let's not forget the three hours I spent shopping at said Mall. Another half hour with Uncle Jason's crazy driving to get home. That made the time about eight thirty or later. Then my brothers, the eldest would be either sleeping or training in the gym. The second eldest would be up in his room studying for whatever test or homework he had to do/take the next day, because he always put it off til last minute. No way would my older twin brothers not be home at this time, their extra curricular activities have never run later than six at night. I remember still wishing that at least one of my brothers wasn't home.
It was a futile wish. I ran through the front door and stopped. There right in front of me on the foyer steps, leaning against the banister, clutching his abdomen as his blood pooled around him was my Dad. I stood frozen not able to tear my eyes away from the blood. I'm sure I had a look of shocked terror on my face. I felt more than saw Uncle Jason run past me towards my Dad. To this day, I don't know why. . . But. . . From the moment Uncle Jason passed me, I remember every word spoken That Day. . .
The words and the blood, that's all I remember. There was so much blood, that's all my eyes could focus on. It still haunts my dreams. All that blood, Dad covered in it as he tells me to stay the bright and shining North Star of the family. Red liquid pouring over my Uncle Jason's hands as he tries in vain to help my Dad put pressure on his many wounds, while also demanding to know if anyone else was in the house. The trail of it my father left behind to meet us at the door so I wouldn't have to see the bodies of the rest of my family. I saw them anyways because Uncle Jason had ordered me to look for them. (I don't remember the exact order I found them in.)
I found Aunt Barbara and Aunt Stephanie in the kitchen, it looked as if they were going to bake a cake for my birthday party, before the attack. The kitchen was a mess, blood, flour, sugar, all mixed together looking like some demented version of Red Velvet cake. (I still burst into hysterical tears seeing actual Red Velvet cake.) I found Aunt Cass unconscious and bloody but alive, barely, in Grandpa's old study, in front of the Grandfather clock that led to the cave down below. I think she either was making sure no one who wasn't supposed to went down, used the cave to protect someone, or was planning on heading down there herself for better defense. (She has yet to tell me why she was there.) I found my older twin brothers in their beds with their throats slit, their eyes wide in surprise. Their entire rooms were coated in their blood. I found my oldest brother in the home gym, with how big the room is and the fact there wasn't a wall, floor, or piece of equipment that didn't have some amount of blood on it, it was obvious he put up a fight. Uncle Tim and Uncle Damian were found with my second elder brother, they were unconscious in a pool of my brother's blood. I was told later by them, they were trying to save him, like Uncle Jason had been doing for Dad, and were attacked. Knocked unconscious before they could react. (Uncle Tim still has ringing in his ears from That Day.)
The worst was my mother, I found her in the library. She had a look that was a mix of anger, pain and shock on her face. Gun shot wounds and stab wounds littered her body, the pool of blood reaching the door. I remember seeing Dad's blood trail leading out of the library, and thinking that mom and dad had to have been together either when the attack happened or they found each other during it. Both are likely. I remember screaming after finding her, and not stopping til I felt a hard strike to my neck and blacking out. I woke up in the hospital next to Aunt Cass. Uncle Jason at my bedside. He told me he had to knock me out because of how traumatic seeing my family dead was for me. I apparently was glowing and my power was short circuiting my inhibitor bracelet. That's when I discovered I couldn't speak, I had tried asking him a question. I think it was if any of my brother's survived. Reading my expression, Uncle Jason had sighed telling me no one but Aunt Cass, Uncle Tim, and Uncle Damian survived the attack.
Bat-cave, Gotham
April 1, 22:00 EST
Present Day
Robin didn't know how many times he read the Journal entry, but the more he did the more he was compelled to check its post date. Every time he checked the date though, the bigger his headache became as he tried to figure out how he could access a journal entry posted forty years in the future. He massaged the bridge of his nose with a groan as he rested his head in his hand. Unintentionally drawing the attention of his Older Brother figure and secondary mentor Nightwing who happened to be training behind him.
"Everything OK Tim?" Nightwing asked, feeling fine using names as they were in the Bat-cave. He walked over to see what Robin, had been working on.
"Yeah, Dick. Just this Journal entry. It's weird, it's dated today, forty years from now. But it mentions Jason, and though the author doesn't out right state who her dad is, I'm almost positive it's you."
Nightwing, nodded looking at Robin, "OK, I admit the date, and mentioning of Jason is weird. But what makes you think it's a girl that wrote this? And what evidence is there to say I'm her father?"
Robin sighed staring at the entry again, "The first question is easy, the writing style is a bit feminine, and if you want something more obvious as an indicator, unless school uniforms change in forty years, she describes herself getting dressed in a skirt. The second. . ." Robin Hesitated as he stared at the Journal Entry's heading. Instead of saying anything, he stood from the chair offering it to Nightwing, "Here, read it and tell me what you think."
Raising a skeptical brow, Nightwing sat down and read the Journal entry Tim had spent hours reading over and over again from the moment it showed up on the Bat-Computer. Nightwing finished quickly, not surprising since it wasn't that long and he was known to be a quick reader. Leaning back he looked to Robin with a serious expression.
"Tim, this is obviously a prank, how can the author know it's 40 years in the future? If I was writing a Journal entry I wouldn't put that. Like you said, Jason's dead. Babs is the only female redhead I know, and last I checked we don't have any kids together. Who's Damian or Cass for that matter? Let's not forget her friends, Whitney? Wally's just as dead as Jason is, Tim. Unless she's Bart's sister or cousin, she shouldn't exist. Roy would never let his daughter be raised as an assassin either so Rachel can't possibly be his granddaughter, and those are the obvious problems with this document." Nightwing said in a tone Robin didn't like. It was the tone both Batman and Nightwing would use when Robin was being overly analytical on something. Reading to much into whatever he was looking at. Robin didn't mind too much from Batman, after all, if Batman was telling him he was over thinking it, he probably was. Nightwing was another story. Even though he was an excellent detective in his own right, if Nightwing didn't want to see something, he didn't. It often rubbed Robin the wrong way when Nightwing would use that 'You're over thinking this' tone.
Now wasn't the time to object to it though, it was April first. A day for pranks. They were in the Batcave waiting for something to happen or someone (namely the Joker) to do something. Gotham's crazies always came out on April Fools Day. Batman was out casing the city, with the promise he'd call them out when things started happening. Batgirl was in the watchtower helping with the team. Robin had no doubt she couldn't sit still waiting for Batman's call and was up there just to keep herself busy until they were called in. He had to admit to himself that part of the reason he wanted the alleged Journal entry to be real was so he himself could keep his mind occupied while he waited.
Robin sighed, "I know Dick, that's what I thought at first too, but. . . " He paused and sighed waving his hand in a dismissive motion, "You know what, never mind, you're right. It's probably just some prank. I haven't slept in a couple days, I'm going to go get some coffee. I won't be very useful in the field, but I'll work the computer and be Tech support since Alfred said he won't be available for a while." Nightwing nodded watching his younger brother curiously. Robin never gave up on something that quickly if he felt it to be important. From the look on Robin's face when he started defending it, it was obvious to Nightwing the Journal entry being real was important to Robin. With that in mind Nightwing decided to take another look at the entry, analyzing it to try and see what Robin saw when reading it.
He first looked at the heading, particularly the name. Traci Anders-Grayson-Wayne, quite a long hyphenated name. Nightwing narrowed his eyes at the first name in the hyphen list, Anders. That name sounded familiar, like he knew someone with that sir name, or maybe heard of would be a better description. Nightwing was pretty sure he'd remember meeting a woman with orange skin, and hair that looked like living fire. He reclined in the chair rereading the entry again. Scratch that, he's definitely sure he would remember such a woman, as either Dick or Nightwing.
"Is this a prank?" Nightwing mumbled to himself. He being not so sure it was anymore. It had to be, no one puts 40 years later on the heading of a Journal entry. After the tenth time of Nightwing going over it, Robin came back down with the coffee he went to fetch. As Robin placed a second cup of coffee next to Nightwing he noticed Nightwing's concentrated stare.
"You're stuck on it now too, aren't you?" Robin asked.
"Something about it is bothering me, like it's TOO obvious it's a prank," Nightwing huffed with a snarl on his face, falling back into the chair as he picked up the coffee, not spilling a drop. He took a sip.
Robin looked back at the computer screen the Journal entry was displayed on, "That's my issue with it too. Like it's just too convenient to just be dismissed. It bothers me that I can't just dismiss it, even when everything is telling me it should be."
Nightwing nodded taking another sip of his coffee, the frustrated scowl still on his face. Having nothing else to do until Batman decided to call them, the two brothers decided to humor their instincts and figure out if it was a legit future Journal entry or not. If it was, they would they try and figure out how it appeared on their screen. If it was just a prank, they'd find who did it, find out how they hacked Bat-Cave systems, and take them down if they weren't in family.
As the boys worked they failed to notice a small, golden haired girl standing at the top of the cave stares. In her bright white child-size sundress, and brown strap sandals she was pretty obvious. Her golden brown eyes shined with laughter and mischief as the gold, flower, charm bracelet jingled, signalling her departure. The sound caused the younger of the two boys to briefly look up and around the cave in slight confusion before going back to the project the boys made for themselves.
They continued to work until Batman finally called them in. A person they had been dealing with on and off again for the past few months resurfaced again. This time, he wasn't just causing trouble for Black Mask, he broke Joker out of prison, then vanished. Batman was currently in persuit, but all hands on deck was needed. Nightwing and Robin put on their masks and left the cave on their cycles to help Batman track down the Red Hood and The Joker, the Journal entry forgotten.
I apologize for any grammatical errors, *flails* I tried my best. Anyways, yes people I'm back, and I will continue the stories I have sitting in limbo. They are not abandoned just need a bit of refreshing, and rerouting... also I have this insane plan for an Epic Young Justice fic... or well I think it'll be epic... I'll be releasing One-shots based around my Main Characters and the Young Justice Characters they relate to. Timeline wise it's meant to take place after Season 2... but it's AU since A) I don't know what they're planning for season 3, B) Kori'ander/Starfire and Dick Grayson/Nightwing aren't apparently canon, C) In the comics Lian is killed before she even hits double digits and D) I started writing this after I found out they were making a Season 3... though the idea for a fanfiction for Young Justice was always in my head since it first aired.
Anyways n.n hope you guys enjoyed it. The next one I'm working on is Rachel.