A/N: Same triggers and disclaimers apply.
/ Willow West – 2
It is by chance that Will (Inertia.WillowWest.Inertia) comes across Giggles. They hit it off right away.
In order to escape the police, and possibly the Flash (Uncle Barry?), she races to Gotham, purposely getting lost in the winding alleys. Shadows leap at her,
They smell
but she is not scared because she knows that the shadows are the safest place to hide. Even in her bright costume, she knows that. Will stumbles once, and stutters to a stop, a gaze pricking the back of her head like
of summertime
a needle. Inertia glances around, perpetually smiling in the wake of a superb sprint across cities, across states She does not notice the perpetrator until she reveals herself.
Will has heard of Giggles. Giggles has heard of Inertia. They stare at each other.
"Um," Will starts, awkwardly tugging on a strand of bright red hair, "Hi?"
Giggles is still looking at her, face masked under layers of makeup, the only recognizable feature two brilliant blue eyes.
"What are you doing in Gotham?" Giggles chuckles, sounding all at once mysterious and conniving and absolutely slick. Will's interest is more than piqued.
"I- I was running from the Flash. Zoom told me to go wherever I wanted—so I came here," she explains, eyes on her other girl, who circles her suspiciously, but unobtrusively, "I really don't mean to infringe on your city or anything. I don't plan on doing any crime while I'm here."
Giggles laughs again, and it sends sparks throughout Will's body. She feels like she's on fire
when it has just rained
in the best possible way. A flush creeps up her freckly cheeks, and it's not because of the cold dampness in the alley or because she's a little out of breath from running so hard.
"Then what are you planning to do?" The tiny girl asks, and she sounds so interested.
Will shrugs. She has no idea. "I guess… I'm just going to chill, or something." Giggles peeks at her from around shorn black hair. Will smiles.
Giggles licks her lips
on an old bonfire
and inquires, "Wanna meet the Joker?"
Will nods and giggles.
of flesh.
Where is my home, again?
/ The Joker – 1
This Inertia is silly, the Joker thinks, eyeing the brightly costumed villain as she plays games with his precious little girl. He likes her. So does Harley, but Harley doesn't count.
Giggles has made a friend and he approves. Right now they're sitting there, the exquisite things, and Inertia has vibrated her hand through poor Mr. Thomas Brown's stomach. She's wiggling her fingers in his ribs and asking, "Does this tickle, Mr. Fickle?" That draws a giggle from darling Giggles and the Joker feels good.
"Harley," he says, tapping his fingers on the desk before him, "Our Dixie is growing up."
Harley flounces up to him, already in her lingerie, and agrees, "It's so cute, Mistah Jay!" He feels an odd thrill of fondness for his Harley, and grabs her to him. She makes a squeaking sound and hangs on.
"Darn right it is! We should keep her. My little girl only deserves happiness, of course!" Harley gazes at him, love struck by his utter generosity. The Joker leans forward and bites her mouth, gaining a squeal.
He looks over to Inertia and Giggles. Thomas Brown is dead and they are dissecting him.
"For science," he hears Inertia say, "I don't believe in magic." Giggles watches her with baby blue eyes.
"Me neither." His cherished child replies.
The Joker has never been so proud in his entire life, and before Inertia leaves, he hands her a small stuffed animal—a Robin (its Dixie's favorite animal)—with a tracer inside. Will laughs with glee and kisses him on the cheek shouting, "A souvenir! Thanks Mr. Joker, sir!"
Where is my mind, again?
/ Zoom/Willow – 1/3
When Willow comes home, gasping about Gotham and Giggles, Eobard knows that everything is going to be okay. This is so perfect and he's so pleased with her.
So, he gathers her in his arms and kisses the freckles on her face to show his love. Will pretends to hate it, but he can see the adoration glowing in her eyes. She pats him on the head and he feels special. (This is Barry Allen's niece! A living souvenir!)
They go to bed shortly after (although not before eating the stolen cakes from the day before), and Willow crawls toward him, green eyes alight with passion and fierceness and says,
I am crippled
"Mr. Joker was really nice. He even gave me a souvenir!" She holds the little robin close to her chest, and smiles widely at him. Eobard's face crinkles in a returning grin.
by my own mind
"How wonderful. Come sleep with your uncle, now, sweetie." Will nods and cuddles close to his side. Zoom's breathing evens out, but Willow's does not. For the rest of the night she lays there, face pressed to her 'uncle's' side, eyes wide open, thinking about Dixie. She can't wait to see her again.
by my own legs
Maybe next time they can dissect a woman. That would be really fun.
stuck here, in limbo
In Gotham, Dixie dreams of the same things that Willow thinks about.
caught between the spider's web
The Joker plans his next heist, and Harley attempts to seduce him. He doesn't hit her because he is in an awfully good mood.
and the lion's den
Zoom dreams about Barry Allen, blueberry pie, and life in the future in the past.
captured in a story where both
are equally as horrible.
Where is my heart, again?
/ Kalda – 2
Kalda explores the surface world with a certain charming curiosity that attracts all kinds of people. After she kills them, they cannot say anything or give her away, and it feels so good.
She is obedient, but sometimes she likes to do things for herself.
That is not the way he trained me to be.
Kalda hitchhikes most of the way to Star City, and walks the rest. People notice her, bare feet and all, but Kalda ignores them. Star City awaits.
Black Manta gave her one mission before she left, and she intends to fulfill it.
I can finally be free.
Once inside the city, Kalda curls up outside of an aquarium and waits for morning. She is disturbed, unfortunately, by a family.
They slide, distinctly quiet (she has been trained to notice such things), into the aquarium and kill the caretaker (she does not stop them, does not care, because now she can return these animals to where they belong), and then they leave.
The girl notices her first. Kalda only notices the girl because she is so obviously not part of the family.
My hands have touched blood.
The girl does not say anything, not of Kalda's luminous eyes and strange tattoos, and not of her odd grace. Kalda refrains from killing her for this.
She settles down to sleep once more, and is interrupted. The girl has slipped into the alley with food. Kalda can smell it—it smells wonderful. All she has eaten lately are the disgusting things she finds in the trash.
"Sh," the girl whispers, "I have food. I don't want to hurt you."
Kalda knows this. She can simply tell. But she does not say so.
"Thank you," she replies, and accepts the food, "My name is Kalda'ahm, but I am also Mantalass."
The girl nods, auburn hair catching in the moonlight. She is made of tough, thick lines and scars and blood.
My hands have shed the blood.
"My name is Rae Harper, but everyone," Kalda knows, by the way Rae spits out the word that everyone means her not-family, "Calls me Red Arrow."
"I will call you Rae, or Red, if you prefer," she says regally, "And you can call me Kal, if you like."
Rae's eyes, masked in white, narrow imperceptibly, "Alright, Kal. Deal. Call me Rae, though, please. Listen, I won't tell my father about you if you don't tell anyone about me, okay?"
Kalda nods. "Of course, Rae." She says father the same way Kalda thinks it. "Would you be willing to free the animals for me?"
Red somehow stiffens and relaxes at the same time—her shoulders are broad for a girl, but her mouth is full and feminine—and then smiles.
"Sounds fun."
They kill the remaining guards and free the animals, Kalda taking it upon herself to release them into the ocean. She turns to her new friend. Her only friend, truly.
"Will you help me find someone?"
Rae says yes.
Where is my soul, again?
/ Rebecca – 2
Dixie never has nightmares. She only has dreams. Mostly, they are about Tony Zucco
His cracked spine
and some of them are about Batman. Then, she starts dreaming about Willow. These aren't even dreams, not really. Usually her dreams are beautiful and dark
clutching, clawing hands
like Gotham, but ones with Willow in them are bright and sunny. They have trees and birds and a breeze. They have robins. Dixie does her best not to giggle much in these dreams because then the illusion is shattered and she
intestines spilled all over the floor
is herself again, instead of Willow's-self. Willow tells her one day, while sitting on Daddy's floor and playing with some clown's entrails, that she, too, has dreams about Dixie. But they aren't really dreams, she says, because she's never sleeping when she has them. Will only has nightmares when she sleeps.
'Clean it up!' She giggles, 'Clean it up all by yourself!'
Daddy is extremely pleased with Giggles' new friendship, and it makes him all soft and cuddly. Sometimes he even lets Mommy kiss him, which makes Dixie super happy. The only thing that truly upsets him nowadays are incompetent minions ("That word sounds like onions," Inertia shrieks one day, "We should make onion spray and mix it with the giggle gas so that people can laugh and cry at the same time!"), when Batman doesn't bother to show up, and 'stupid fuckers' as he calls them. 'Stupid fuckers' seems to apply to most people, though. But Dixie loves her daddy. Just like (maybe not just like, if Willow's whimpers in her sleep are anything to go by) how Will loves her uncle.
Giggles met Zoom shortly after meeting her best friend forever, and while her daddy and Zoom chatted, she and Willow discussed plans to kidnap Miss Barbara Gordon and have fun with her. Barbara is Dixie's favorite next to Willow.
Willow herself likes someone named Hartley.
'Don't get blood on the carpet!'
Zoom was nice enough, and seemed as pleased with their friendship as daddy did, so Dixie approved of him. Now, though, as Willow curls up next to her, Giggles wishes she could keep the other girl forever. With Zoom around, Inertia always has to leave, eventually. It sucks.
But Dixie bites her lip and takes it because sometimes she has to leave with daddy, and daddy doesn't like waiting. Luckily, Willow is supersuper fast.
She's still in a daze, a few days later, thinking about Inertia and the dream she had last night, when Batman comes around.
'Bats don't scare me!'
She fights him, of course, twisting through the air with ease and avoiding his hits while spraying the laughing-crying gas all over the place. He is mostly unaffected, which is boring. Before she can escape and before daddy or mommy comes to rescue her, Dixie tells him so.
"Booooooring," she sings, giggling at him through the makeup coated all over her face, "You are boring, Mr. Bats." She flutters eyelashes at him and he grunts in surprise when daddy shoots him in the back.
Dixie flips out of Batman's arms with ease and twirls away, giggling up a storm. Some poor, stupid fucker that entered the alley at the wrong time chokes on the cloud of chuckles and tears and then on his own blood and spit. Giggles leans down and slices him open, thinking about Willow while she does so.
'Ha! Hahahahaha!'
Later that week, Will receives a real human heart in the mail, along with another plushy, this time a bat. She laughs long and hard, holding the heart in her hands and licking her lips in fascination.
Where is my fear, again?
/ Apollo – 2
Apollo doesn't like Rae, but that's okay because Rae doesn't like Apollo either. He blames her for Jade's disappearance, which made her father really unhappy. So unhappy that Apollo spent most of his nights in the room, hunched around himself as his father (is he really a father if he does this to you?) pushed in and out, in and out.
Rae disappears too, sometimes, but only Apollo notices because it's always at night. He doesn't know what she does, but he probably doesn't want to know, either. Finally, father stops being so angry all the time and rewards Apollo with ice cream, which makes his mother happy, too.
Apollo loves his mother.
Even if she does nothing. Even if she never will do anything.
Rae gets punished a lot more, but for some reason she still smiles a lot, too. Apollo doesn't know why, but he also doesn't care. As long as the punishment isn't his to bear.
He goes out one night, all by himself, just to get away for a bit, and comes across something beautiful—the Justice League. Black Canary and Green Arrow are in an alley taking care of some drug dealers Apollo recognizes as being part of Bane's company. He eavesdrops on their conversation after they take them out.
"We have to tell the others about the aquarium." Black Canary says. Black Canary is lovely, and destroyable. But truthfully, Apollo would rather kill someone like her quickly. He is not the sadistic mess Jade is.
"It can wait. Batman is busy dealing with the Joker—he escaped Arkham again, did you know? And the Flash has been having a lot of trouble with Professor Zoom and Inertia." Green Arrow replies. Even though Apollo hates Green Arrow with a burning, bubbling passion, he feels no necessity to kill him. Jade would. Rae might. His father wouldn't hesitate. His mother would.
"Yes, but," Black Canary purses her lips and glances around, "I don't want to get into this here. But we do have to discuss it. There's a press conference in a few days and if we don't have an answer for the aquarium killing, then the people will go ballistic." Black Canary, at least, is smart. Apollo almost admires her.
But that's been beaten out of him.
"I know," Green Arrow sighs, "I know. Honestly, I don't know what we're going to tell them. That Sportsmaster is back? They'll go ballistic anyways!" Apollo stiffens.
They know. They know that his father and his mother are back in the city and it's only a matter of time before they figure out that Apollo and Cheshire and Red Arrow have been helping them. He has to tell his father.
Apollo slips away, races back to the house, and does. His father is, surprisingly, overtly satisfied with his findings, and does not punish him that night. Instead, Sportsmaster sneaks into Rae's room.
Apollo muffles the grunts with his pillow and winces into an uneasy rest.
Where is my innocence, again?
/ Rae Harper – 2
Rae meets Willow and Dixie on a Sunday, just inside Star City, while she is searching for Kalda. She is walking around the various alleys to get to the warehouse where they agreed to meet when she hears it. Two melodious female voices, one giggling between every breath and the other too loud for the quiet, stop her in her tracks. Rae waits.
"Thanks for the heart," the louder one says, almost shyly, "I really loved it." The giggly one stops giggling for a second.
"You're welcome. Daddy said it was a wonderful, thoughtful present and he really thought you'd appreciate it. I'm glad to see he was right." The other replies, sounding so close to sane for a moment, that Rae second guesses herself.
"It was!" The other gasps, earnest in all the wrong ways. "I just wish I had something equally… perfect to give you. Something you could treasure as well."
They giggle together for a few more seconds before a wet moan resonates from the alley. Rae tenses.
"Sh," one of them comforts, "You wouldn't want to wake anyone, would you, pretty?" Oh. They're talking to someone else. Rae peeks around the wall and her eyes widen.
There, in the alley, are Giggles (no wonder there was so much laughing!) and Inertia, arched over the body of a woman on the ground. Giggles is holding a knife, slimy with blood from cuts all across the woman's abdomen and Inertia clutches a pair of scissors, also drenched in blood. There are a few jars on the ground beside her.
Giggles looks up and meets her eyes.
"Hey, Will," Giggles declares, "Look!" Inertia's head whips around at the speed of light, and Rae finds herself frozen in the face of glassy baby blues and electric green eyes. Then, confidence gathering in the pit of her stomach and staining her insides black, Rae steps forward, grinning darkly.
"I can show you a better way," she offers to Inertia at the sight of the red-haired girl's scissors about to slice off the woman's lungs, "If you'll let me."
Inertia glances at Giggles excitedly, who beams in return.
"That sounds great," Inertia breaths, reverence staining her sigh, "Really great."
Giggles nods.
"What're your names?" Rae asks as she crouches down. "Mine's Rae, but you can call me Red—for Red Arrow."
Giggles' eyes glitter. "Giggles or Dixie is fine." She says, still smiling.
Inertia shrugs, "I like to be called Will. My real names' Willow—but that sounds so stupid and old, you know?"
Rae doesn't, not really (she thinks Willow is a beautiful name), but nods nonetheless. She accepts another pair of scissors from Dixie, and teaches them.
Where is my compassion, again?