Disclaimer: Don't own. Yes we do. No we don't. Yes we do, tell them we do. But we don't, and that'd be lying. You really think they'd fall for that?
Anyway, this has probably been done a thousand times, but I'm doing it anyway.
A/N: Artemis (and possibly later, [if you guys like this] the team) know who Robin is. 'B' refers to batman (in case you can't guess that). Please read and review, I love feedback, even if it's bad. Also, I'm trying really hard to start writing longer chapters (this is 2,400 words, usually I barely get half that) so let me know if you like/hate this.
She stuck out like a sore thumb. The bright smile on her face wasn't something to be scared of; but people still moved out of her way. Her pale completion and skinny figure were not intimidating; if anything it had the opposite affect. Her hair, which appeared to be dyed green (only one person on the entire planet had that hair naturally), seemed to simply be a fashion statement. A bold one at that; this was Gotham Academy we were talking about. It wasn't any of these individual things that made the other students fear her. It was the fact that she looked like the younger, female incarnation of the Joker.
It took a lot to even mildly shock Richard Grayson, also known as Robin, anymore. He had seen more in fourteen short years than most people had in their whole lives. Even so, the green-haired girl who took a seat next to him caused him to do a double take. She smiled at him, opening her notebook and putting pencil to paper. The Boy Wonder tried to see what she was doing. It was home room, and it was her first day (as far as he knew) so she wouldn't have any homework. On the paper was the outline of a person, like artists did, the vague shapes making up a human body. The only thing it gave away at the moment was that they were short, skinny, and with short hair. Judging from the lack of curves it was a male figure. The young artist looked up and caught Dick staring.
"Can I help you?" she asked, not quite angry, but mildly irritated.
"You're very good. Who is it?" She got this devious little smile as she spoke.
"That's the question."
"So they're a made up character?"
"No silly. It's what I imagine Robin looks like. You know, without the tights and cape. I've already done Kid Flash. He was a lot easier." She turned the page to show a picture of Kid Flash in regular clothes, who, much to Dick's surprise, looked a lot like the real Wally. The picture was in full colour, flaming red hair and bright green eyes, and looked amazing.
"How'd you do that? Work out what they look like a mean." The Boy Wonder had to work out if she knew their secret identities, or it was just a lucky guess.
"Just because I can't see his cheekbones and forehead doesn't mean I can't get a good idea of his bone structure."
"Why is Robin so hard then? Shouldn't he be easier, having a smaller mask?"
"Have you tried finding a decent picture of him? Most of the pictures are blurry, have bad lighting, are from a bad angle, or someone is in the way. He's more careful." Phew. That was a close one. She went back to drawing, but I realised she added none of the colour to this one that she had on Kid Flash's portrait.
Monday morning double science wasn't Dick's favourite class. It's wasn't that he did enjoy the subject, he loved it and was pretty good too. He even had a pretty good teacher. But a lot of his classmates were complete idiots. Idiots and chemicals don't mix. At least, not without a big explosion. I listened during the role call to pick up the new girl's name.
"Jessica Ter?" Alright, that was an odd last name.
"Yep, here, present, whatever," she said, concentrating on the picture rather than the teacher. There was silence for a moment, until she gave up, looking up at the teacher.
"Seriously, no one gets it? For a city protected by the World's Greatest Detective, you sure are slow." Dick sat there, thinking for a second. 'Jessica Ter. Jessi Ter. Jess Ter. Jesster. Jester!'
"Jester?" He said, more like a question than a statement.
"There we go." She patted the ebony on the head, almost like she was praising a dog.
"Jessica, I don't know what it was like at your old school, but you're going to have to wash out that dye. It has to be your natural colour," the teacher, ms. Green, said.
"This is my natural colour," she fired back.
"So it's true then. You're the Joker's kid?" One of the other students asked.
"Yeah, what of it?"
"Dude, don't tick her off, she'll kill us!" Another whispered to his friend. At this, Jessica laughed.
"Don't be stupid! There are too many witnesses for a stunt like that!" She threw her hands up, as if it was obvious and everyone should know that. The class went silent.
"Seriously, if anyone else had said that, it would have been taken as a joke." Still, silence.
"Okay I can not believe I'm saying this but can we please get back to science?"
"If you're the Joker's kid, why's that your last name?"
"It's my middle name genius, I didn't have a last name, so when they took me that kinda became my last name. So, what are we learning in science? Elements? You know my favourite element is Dubnium-" She was desperate to turn the subject back to the teacher.
"Do you actually look like that, or do you dye your hair and wear makeup so you look like your dad?"
"The Joker dumped me in the same acid that made him like that. I literally said this was my natural colour just a few seconds ago. So, what work do I need to-"
"So why aren't you crazy?"
"I was three days old, I didn't have a mind to break. Now can we please-"
"Have you ever helped him commit a crime?"
"No, I-"
"Have you ever killed anyone?"
"ENOUGH! Shut up, all of you! I am NOT my father, and if you idiots can't get that through your thick skulls, I hope someone can find a gun powerful enough to put a bullet between your eyes, because they'd be doing the rest of humanity a favour! Now can we please get back to science? Unlike you morons, I actually aspire to having a successful career without sponging off my parents."
Her timing was brilliant. She packed up her stuff, walked towards the door, and just as her foot passed over the doorframe, the bell rang. The green haired girl dumped her stuff in her locker, taking out an apple. She smiled to herself as the crowd parted to let her through. The cafeteria was clean and smelling strongly of cleaning products and unhealthy food. As she took the first bit from her apple, a boy from her last class walked by, fat wallet looking like it was about to fall out of his pocket. A few seconds after, one of the boy's friends walked by, also with his riches on display. 'They want me to do something bad,' she realised, finishing the apple. She threw the core into the bin with much more force than was really necessary. 'Where do I go? I don't really have any friends...'
"Jessica, over here!" A blue eyed, black haired boy called. She recognised him as the boy she had petted on the head. He was sitting with a blonde girl who looked a few years older and a redhead that Jessica recognised from class. Both looked mildly pissed that he had called her over. She stood next to their table, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, unsure if she should sit or leave. Dick decided for her, pulling out a chair and pushing her down onto it.
"You don't have to let me sit with you just because you feel bad. I'm used to being by myself." Please don't make me leave, please don't make me leave.
"Unlike the others, I'm not scared of you. There's no way they'd let you into the school if you were dangerous." I rolled my eyes.
"And here I thought it was my charms and witty humour." The boy and redhead girl laughed, while the blonde only managed a forced smile. I hate forced smiles, they made my stomach churn.
"I'm Dick by the way. This is Barbara," he pointed to the redhead, "and this is Artemis," and then to the blonde girl.
"I'm Jessica. But you already know that. I prefer to be called Jess, or Jessie." Dick nodded.
"So, how'd you get into this school anyway? I doubt an orphanage would send you here, and I haven't heard anything about another scholarship."
"A five dollar note I found on the side of the road. I've always been good at math, so I worked out the algorithm for the production and distribution of those scratch and win lotto tickets. Bought one, won enough to come here."
"If you can do that, why'd you chose to come here? Why didn't you leave?" Artemis asked, as if offended that I would even think of staying here.
"I looked like this. Do you think I could leave?" I was so close to spilling, to telling these three strangers everything. To telling them that the condition of me not being put in a padded cell was that I couldn't leave Gotham. 'They know they aren't going to get rid of the crazies, so they're trying to keep them in one place.' The two girls were confused, while Dick looked... Sorry? The bell rang at that moment, and I stood abruptly.
He watched her nock on the door hesitantly, the advanced Math class having started ten minutes ago. "Yes?" The old and extremely boring teacher asked, drawing the last stroke of his equation. Somedays he would haut give us one extremely hard problem and tell us to work it out without calculators and that would take up most of the lesson.
"I was told to come and join this class," she said in a matter of factly tone. Dick could already tell she didn't like the teacher, and had a feeling he didn't like her either.
"You're meant to be in basic math. This is advanced math, which would be way beyond your skill level. If you find it too easy, try the intermediate class first-"
"I just came from there. They were doing Pythagorus. I taught myself to do what's taking them hours to learn in a matter of minutes."
"Even so you should stay in the class you were assigned to. This class is for students with extremely high IQs, I doubt you'll be able to keep up-"
"I got into this school using algorithms that would give you a headache!"
"No, you got lucky. You're just another idiot scum who happened to get lucky and had enough of a brain not to blow it on something stupid." She was silent for a moment, tears threatening to overflow and race down her white cheeks, then something in her brain clicked.
"I'm sorry for your loss, but you can't blame what my father did on me."
"I don't know what you're talking about. Get out of my class room."
"Fine!" She walked back towards the door, pushing it open with too much force, letting the bang of the metal hitting brick echo, before turning to face the class. Her eyes were red and tears were starting to fall. "It's 27.385, by the way." She smiled widely, the creepiness roughly comparable to that of the Joker. "Now I've got a question for you. If I'm an idiot, what does that make you?" She slammed the door triumphantly, but Dick heard the way her steps speed up and turned into a flat out run.
Artemis sat in her history class, so bored she had started using a rubber band and pieces of paper to piss people off. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she quickly pulled it out before the noise could alert her teacher. She looked up quickly to confirm the teacher was still engrossed in her lecture, and read the text message.
Dick: I need ur help
Artemis: ok, anything 2 get out of this
Dick: Jess ran out of class. Need u 2 find her & make sure she doesn't do anything
Artemis: I can't believe B. is making us do this. Y don't u go?
Dick: I'm pretty sure she ran in2 the girls b/room.
Artemis: ok I get it. On my way.
She slipped her phone back in her pocket, and raised her hand. "Miss, can I go to the bathroom?"
"No. As I was saying-"
"Miss, I really need to go."
"No, you can hold it."
"I just got my period!" She blurted out, resorting to every girl's best excuse. The teacher softened a bit, nodding and letting her leave.
Jessica could hear the footsteps outside the door before it opened. She had enough time to lock herself in a stall and hide, but she didn't. 'Who cares?' she thought, 'they can't think any less of me...' She was still crying, with random giggles thrown in every now and then, when a hand rested lightly on her shoulder. She looked up through teary eyes to see Artemis. Jessica instinctively moved away form the hand, and as a result, Artemis withdrew it. Unsure of what to do, the blonde started to pick up the books and pencils scattered along the floor.
She picked up one of particular interest; a book filled with drawings. The paper was thicker in this book, so she could tell it was designed for art. "Can I see?" she asked the teary girl, her mission forgotten as curiosity took over. The first couple of pages were filled with pictures of superheroes, but as she got deeper into the pages, the images became seemingly more random. A vile of chemicals surrounded by storm clouds. A glowing green rock in front of a red sun. A gun in a puddle of blood, lying in an abandoned alley that looked a little too familiar. A thick green forest with various arrows stuck into the trucks of trees. And then people. "Why is there a picture of Dick in here? And me?" She looked surprised, and she stood up to come stand by me. "There's not. That's Robin," she pointed to the black and white picture. "And that's Artemis, without the... the costume." Realisation dawned on her, and she snatched the book out of the other girl's hand. "Oh my god..." She whispered, holding the book up to compare the two.
"Oh my god..."
A/N: Next chapter dedication for whoever can tell me why Jessica said Dubnium was her favourite element! Review please!