Disclaimer: I don't own the DC verse or JLU.

Author's Note: I was intending to wait until either This Ain't the Golden Years or Resurrecting the Red was finished before I started on this, but I decided to do it anyway. I'm not sure how much time I will have this summer to update since I'm going to be gone. Because of that, I decided to start on it early.

Shades of Avarice

Chapter 1: VII

A woman had been killed in Hub City.

This wasn't unusual, necessarily. Like Gotham, Hub City was a city notorious for its crooks as well as internal corruption. What was unusual was that this woman had been a prominent City Council Member.

Name: Mary Evelynn Czerwinski-Bradvn
Age: 62

Investigative Reporter, Charles Victor Szasz "Vic Sage" had tried to get close to the crime scene, but had been rebuffed by the city police. Not to be daunted, he had simply hacked into the Hub City Police system later to see their official report.

Cause of Death: Uncertain. There appeared no signs of a struggle. An autopsy showed no signs of rape or other physical abuse. Additional testing revealed traces of the drug Curare in the deceased's blood stream.

A pair of blue eyes narrowed beneath a faceless mask. Vic Sage, the Question, was turning the police report in his mind as he silently, and quickly, gave an illegal search of the dead woman's apartment.

Curare, the Question automatically thought. "A poison historically used by South American indigenous people. It is often used in small doses in modern anesthesia. But through an error or accident, a patient remains fully conscious and sensitive to pain during surgery, but is unable to move and thus unable to alert attending staff to their state of awareness."

So, he thought, she must have been conscious, but unable to defend herself. Vic Sage carefully avoided the security cameras that the police had set up in the apartment as he pondered the mystery.

A political assassination? It was possible. According to the Question, anything was possible. However…

His mind flickered back to the photo of the dead woman. The roman numerals for seven, "VII," had been etched in bloody detail into her left cheek.

Why "VII"? Why in roman numerals?

If this was a political assassination, it was no ordinary one.

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

"Who were my parents?" the young boy asked. The stern faced nun glared down at him. The young orphan, one of many in the orphanage, had developed a reputation as a 'troublemaker'.

"I don't know," the sister answered stiffly. "Now be off. It's time for the rosary."

The red haired boy trundled off, hiding his loneliness and disappointment under a mask of bitter nonchalance. He had no friends at the orphanage and none of the foster families wanted him. The only true friends he had consisted of the old gardener, Old Sam, and the young nun, Sister Theresa, who snuck him treats behind the Mother Superior's back.

Charles Victor Szasz swallowed the lump in his throat and fought down his loneliness. He had literally been abandoned on the doorstep of the Catholic orphanage when he was a baby. The red haired boy had no idea who his family had been.

Fighting down several unwelcome tears, he ran back towards the dormitories. He knew he would get into trouble for missing the daily rosary, but he would deal with it.

As a child, Vic Sage was always in trouble.

"Are you okay Q?" Helena Bertinelli asked. Vic murmured a noncommittal reply and turned over to try to feign sleep. Unconvinced by his acting, the Huntress gave him a whack to the head. Vic turned over in the bed to blink at her tiredly.

"Must you be so violent?" he asked dryly. Helena gave him a smirk before it turned into a concerned glare.

"You were having another nightmare," she accused.

"Not a nightmare," Vic mumbled. "Just another bad memory."

Helena peered at him through her long dark hair. It had taken some pushing on her part to even get the stubborn man to bed and even longer for him to fall sleep. He was obsessed with solving the apparent murder of the City Council member.

It appeared as if all her efforts and threats were now wasted. His dreams, which were usually not pleasant, always served to keep him awake the rest of the night. That was, she suspected, in part why he had become known in the League as a "Kook" or a "Nutcase".

The truth was, she believed, was that his conspiracy theories were a way for him to focus his mind off of more unpleasant things, like his childhood.

"Q," she murmured. "Vic." She ran a hand through his reddish-blond hair. Granted, her Q wasn't exactly Prince Charming, but he was hers.

He stared up at the ceiling. She could only imagine at the jumbled strain of thoughts that constantly plagued him.

"Vic," she said quietly. "We've talked about this before. "You're the Question, you…"

"The biggest question," Vic admitted softly. "Is who am I?"

There was a pause. Helena knew that the only person he had ever admitted, would ever admit that to, was her.

"Find out," Helena encouraged. "You're the Question. Figure it out."

Vic Sage closed his eyes, wondering just how he would figure that one out.

…………………………………………………………………………………………….

The man paused before entering the silent building. It was early morning in Hub City, just barely three in the morning. Few people were up and about this time of day.

"Stop."

The man paused as the security guards checked him for hidden weapons, which was futile as far as he was concerned. However, the group had agreed that each of its members would submit to a security check, no matter how useless they each thought it was.

Finally finished with their search, the guards let him go after checking his briefcase. The man picked it up and continued on his way. He paused briefly before his intended doorway as he picked up traces of the argument on the other side of it.

"You've endangered this operation! If you had to kill Bradvn, you should have made it look like an accident or like a normal assassination!"

"Oh do calm down Lust dear," another female voice purred. "You do know how I enjoy playing with my victims. Besides, we all know I'm not half as bad as Gluttony…"

"Victims?" the first female voice, "Lust", raised itself in outrage. "Because of your sick pastimes, we could be…

"Enough, the both of you," a firm, deep voice ordered. "Although I do have to agree with Lust, Sloth. If you had to kill the woman, you should have picked a less…interesting way."

"Yes," another voice added. "At the very least, you shouldn't have carved 'VII' into her face. That's going to raise unwanted questions." The woman being berated, "Sloth", closed her mouth as she cast a fearful look at their "leader."

"Of course Greed," she murmured. "Please forgive me."

The man outside the door placed a white, demonic mask over his face before walking into the occupied room.