This is less of an actual chapter and more of a filler. Basically what happens in three days after the initial incident.
A voice was calling from the front of her home, and Cathy followed it. It was her mother, standing in the parlor. Cathy stopped just outside of the glass panels of the door, well aware that she wasn't supposed to go in. Their house was old, the parlor had been set up by her great-great-great grandma Catherine, and had been kept up by her great-great grandma Juliet, her great grandma Ruby, her Grand, and her mother. Cathy had never been allowed inside before.
"Cathy," Her mother smiled and gestured that she should enter and take the seat on the exceedingly old bench before the piano, "come here, I want to show you something."
Cathy did as her mother bid, picking her way carefully over the sinking carpet, looking around the room warily, as though the floral patterned wall paper may bite her if she wandered to close. The bench was too steep for her to get up on her own and her mother had to haul her up the last few inches, waiting until her daughter had settled in on the hard wood. The dual colored keys shone before her and Cathy watched her mother reach forward, listening and observing as the older woman tapped away a small melody.
"The stars!" Cathy exclaimed, humming the tune quietly as the lyrics entered her mind. Twinkle, Twinkle, little star…
"That's right," her mother said, dropping her hand in her lap, "do you want to learn to play the piano Cathy?"
The little girl nodded vigorously, smiling happily up at her usually busy mother and scooting closer, eyes on the instrument before as she listened to her mother's instructions.
"You must remember, family is often born of blood, but it doesn't depend on blood. Nor is it exclusive of friendship. Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family."
― Trenton Lee Stewart, The Mysterious Benedict Society
It was three in the morning when Hal and I got back to Coast City, and while my brother went to bed immediately, taking the TV remote with him and locking his door behind him. I was exhausted, everything hurt and we had made a brief stop at the hospital on our way in, not bothering with civilian guises and just walking in as Lanterns. It wasn't the unusual actually, the Flashes did that, the Arrows had now and again when they didn't feel like wasting time making excuses. Aquaman didn't need a disguise, he was the king after all. But according to one very concerned doctor I had four broken ribs, a minor concussion, and a small crack in my collar bone. All in all not to horrible. It wasn't as bad as the time Robin had had to go in full costume because a pipe went through his stomach.
Hal had gotten out of his mission with relatively no damage done, but he was clearly just as tired as I was. Which would not do. I pulled out my phone from where I had left it that morning, between the couch cushions, and speed dialed number two. It rang for several moments before I was put through.
"You've reached Carol Ferris. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you," the tone sounded and I was glad that she hadn't picked up. Carol worked hard, she deserved to get some sleep for once in her life.
"Hey Carol, it's Cath. Sorry to wake you up but I just needed to tell you that I don't think Hal will be able to get to work tomorrow. I go run over earlier today, well yesterday, and ended up breaking a few ribs. I'm fine, but we just got back from the hospital and Hal is dead tired so if he doesn't show up for work and forgets to call in that's why. I'll see you later, buy."
I hung up once I was done, tossing the electronic into my room and waiting until it had landed safely on my bed before I grabbed the screw driver from its place above my door frame, sticking into the small hole in Hal's doors knob, twisting it and listening to the door unlock. I crept in, watching his already sleeping form warily and slipping over to his night stand. I ignored the charging power ring on the side table and bent over, pulling the plug out of the wall before exiting quietly. I knew every creek in this apartment, every loose board that might give me away, and avoided them skillfully.
My brother had no idea he wouldn't be getting up in the morning. For such a laid back guy he pushed himself harder than he should. It wasn't really healthy.
I went to my room, shedding the semi-civvies and yanking on my lovely pajamas before I fell face first into bed and twisted into the fuzzy blanket. My ring floated to its battery and I mutter the Oath quickly before I snatched up my phone, sending a quick text out to everyone. One to Robin, who probably still had his phone, Roy, Kaldur, and Wally with instructions to sleep late or else, and asked Wally to tell Superboy I said hello, as the clone had decided to stay with the red head until things cleared up for him.
Darkness fell over my senses and all I knew then was sleep and dreams of running under the ground with my family.
Hal had panicked when he'd woken up, until he saw the voice message from Carol telling him to stay with me and take a break. He had been irritated that I hadn't told him before, but to be honest it wasn't the first time that had happened. He'd called me in from school on several occasions because we'd been too tired when we got back from a mission to do shit.
It was late in the afternoon when I finally woke up, got dressed and managed to scrounge together some semblance of food in our mostly expired kitchen. I needed to go shopping today for sure. Hal had left a note saying he had gone on a date (bit surprise) so I was left alone. I wasn't allowed off planet or on patrol until Saturday. I had actually been woken up at six that morning to have Kilowag and Salaak chew my ear off in scolding and Ch'p make sure I was unharmed. Arisia called around eleven to do the same and Chinmay texted me about ten times for ditching him for lunch.
So it wasn't just the League I was in trouble with. It was everyone else too. The only person who I hadn't done anything to deserve a scolding from was Terra, and she and I were going shopping with Elise around six so we could see the nighttime premier of some horror movie the cheap theatre was playing.
It was another hour or so at home, spent alone in seclusion with nothing but a few texts from Wally and Dick asking how I was and a call from Roy inquiring as to whether we really had done everything the entire superhero community was buzzing with, before I bothered to get ready. Shorts and a Flash tank top were all I needed before leaving the house with my freshly charged ring (I was going to ask John the next time I saw him if there was a way to keep the battery with me somehow) and a jacket for when it got cold that night. Which it would. Quickly.
I met up with Terra outside her apartment off Park and she opened the door of my Elantra(paid for it myself) and slid in. she dropped her purse in the open foot space and grinned at me, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ears as she greeted me before snapping the seatbelt on and kicking back.
"Feet of the dash dear," I ordered, swatting at her legs and pulling out of the parking lot and into traffic.
"Yes mom," she mocked, doing as I said and tucking her legs up under her chin, smirking when I sighed. If we crashed she was going to get those limbs crushed. Not that we would crash, Dr. Collins said that I should be able to drive carefully so long as I wore sun glasses and didn't blast the music. The latter was the only annoying part, seeing as I needed to wear sunglasses near all the time usually.
"You just love not listening to people don't you?" I asked, rhetorically, listening to her laugh and agree while traffic tore around us. It was always so loud in the city, it was sometimes overwhelming. Which was why I usually had music blaring, blocking out the incessant shriek of civilization. The Coast City Indoor Shopping Center loomed above us, five stories high and not to full on Monday. Elise would be working her summer job in Flats & Hats (such a creative name), and her shift would end when it closed at nine, and we would drive across town to catch the movie at Cinema Savers at ten.
The next three hours were spent crawling the mall, my convincing Terra to try on various things she would never willing put on herself and goofing off in various stores. Tossing tennis balls back and forth in Jerry's Sporting Goods, picking out new swim suits in Lola's Surf Shop, and dropping by Pizza Hut around eight to split a small pepperoni. We finished at F&H, me buying some new sandals while Terra chatted with Mike(the store manager) and Elise until they closed down and Terra and I went back to my car. Elise had managed to gather up enough money to buy a VW bug off her cousin in some town in Utah and she came after us.
The movie wasn't too bad, it was fairly cliché, but not bad. Ghosts haunting some people who had no idea what they were doing. Not that it made any difference to the specialists they tried bringing in. It was midnight when we got out and I dropped Terra off at her house once we were finished. The Super Walmart on Harmony was open 24/7 and I grabbed a box of cereal and some half priced produce, milk was added to the list as well and I grabbed a bottle of coke as well. If nothing else there would be food in the morning.
Tuesday was boring. Chinmay and Taylor dropped by to have lunch, and ended up dragging my sleeping ass out of bed. Hal had gone to work that day, and wouldn't be back until later in the night thanks to monitor duty on the Watch Tower. Around two Wally texted me, complaining about his moms wanting he and Superboy to go outside the next day and we made plans to meet up in my city later that night with Dick. He was getting impatient with Bruce, he had expressed it several times Tuesday and he was off Gotham City patrol for a while so it wasn't like he would be missed. Alfred wouldn't tell Bruce unless specifically asked so we were in the clear.
There was virtually nothing to do for the rest of the day, though Hartley did call once to confirm what Wally had told the Rogues. They had called me for such things like that several times since Wally first joined our ranks. Hal and I had been on call the first time he went out in costume, and I had stayed over in Central the first time Barry went off planet and left Wally alone. I had to go in and keep a billboard from falling on him and James when they ended up slipping on Lens ice. So we had a decent relationship. I was one of the few heroes they didn't mind crashing in Central, and we worked together often enough to keep the ginger out of trouble. I'd even been invited to James's birthday party last year.
They were nice guys, weird as it sounded, much better than the nuts I had met in Gotham during the few times I visited.
I really hated that place. Being honest the only non-bat Gothamite I didn't hate was Catwoman, and that was mostly because she had attended a fundraiser Carol had in Gotham three years ago (She liked dragging Hal to them, and he liked dragging me along as well) to steal some diamond from the hotel that was hosting and she had been one of the nicest people I'd ever met in that city. She was one of the few adults that didn't treat Dick and I like we lacked intelligence.
We met up on the beach line, a small cove I liked to go to that most people couldn't get to. The whole place was surrounded with trees and the cove itself was a dip in the landscape, peninsulas on both sides extending out to curl as a C around a deep cut off in the stone, leaving several yards of dark water in a large pool. Seal and Great Blue Herons frequented the place, and there were actually a decent number of them there when we arrived.
The birds took off and most of the mammals hit the waves when Wally made his grand entrance, much less subtle that Dicks little ninja tricks. I had been waiting for about ten minutes before the Boy Wonder showed up, sitting on one of the rocks the jutted out of the coast line, and Dick had appeared right behind me. I ended up with soaking wet jeans and mud filled flats thanks to that kid. And what did he get? A laugh, of course.
Wally sped in less than thirty seconds later, stirring up the local wildlife. Why those two were still awake at what was after midnight for them(it was only ten for me) I didn't care to ask. It was summer, they would be able to sleep in just fine.
"Hey Dick, Cath," Wally greeted, brushing some of the dirt off of his trainers.
"You're late," we both replied, me reclaiming my seat and Dick lounging on the still warn stone, sunglasses pushed back into his hair. Wally dropped down before us, crossing his legs and pulling out a bag of chips.
"Supey says high," he informed us, crunching on the fried slices of starch.
"Return the gesture when you get back. How was your little excursion?" I inquired, showing off my vocabulary a little bit.
"Well we ran into a couple of guys robbing the mall, beat them up, got Supey some new shirts, had to explain to the police why he was able to throw one of them through a wall, got some pizza, you know. The usual."
The usual for us was really, really weird.
"Fun. Any news from Bruce on what he's gonna do?" Wally and I turned to the bird to find him shaking his head, looking frustrated.
"Nothing," he growled, glaring at the water, "he hasn't even mentioned it and whenever I ask he just brushes it off!"
"He said to give him three days Dick, he's got till tomorrow before we have legit reason to confront him about it," I tapped my youngest friends forearm, drawing a sigh from the dark haired gypsy.
"I know, but he could at least put something in the Bat Computer," he mumbled. Wally snorted and kicked his shoe.
"Why, so you can hack it again?" he asked, grinning at Dick teasingly.
"Yes! And he won't drop that either. He is so not whelmed."
"Somewhere Webster is rolling around in his grave," I stated, shaking my head.
"Webster was a real person?" asked Wally, to which I shrugged.
"Dunno. Sounds like a name though, and it says it's his dictionary, so maybe he is a real person?" I wasn't actually sure now that I thought about it.
"Merriam-Webster is a company, not a person all by themselves," leave it to Dick to know that. Really, half his brain must be trivia for the soul purpose of irritating teachers everywhere.
"I'll remember that," I said, laying back on the stone and sighing as the sky stretched out above my eyes. Dick shifted around and I felt the back of his skull connect with my stomach and out of the corner of my eye I saw Wally move to join us on the rock. His legs must have dangled off the stone and I felt Dick move around and clothe rustle as the Bat found himself a pillow just as I was.
"What do we do if they say we can't be heroes anymore?" I flinched at the Red heads words. I knew they had been thinking of something like that.
"Well they can't stop me, Lanterns are an independent organization from the League, and you two have had enough training that I say you could be heroes in your own right. Maybe not solo just yet, but if they try and clip you two of your rights as trained heroes we can go find Roy, dig up Kaldur and grab Superboy, form our own team maybe? If it comes down to it. We won't let them keep us from protecting people," It was more than protecting people though. Being Heroes, have Wally's speed, my flight, Kaldurs time on land and two regular humans work, it was freedom. It was knowing you could do something and then following through with it. We could do anything, anything we put our minds to as cliché as that must sound.
"Just run off and make our own team? Can we do that? What about a base, resources, money? I need food, Rob needs his equipment, same with Roy and we'd need a place to start from," I never knew Wally to be so logical in anything none scientific.
"We can. We'll figure something out for funds, as for a base of operations I know a few people who owe us enough that it wouldn't be too hard to get the materials for one. We could find a city, Blud Have or Jump City or something and set up there," Dick commented, shifting around slightly.
"It's plausible. Remember most of the league were just solo criminals not to awful long ago."
Wally hummed in agreement but I could tell he was doubtful, we all were. Dick wouldn't really go directly against Bruce and it would be hard for Wally and me to do the same with our own guardians. We could do it, really, we could, but I hoped it wouldn't come to that.
About twenty minutes later Kaldur showed up and we all chatted for another hour or so before I forced the boys off to bed. Each received a peck on the cheek or the forehead, a small custom from the planet I grew up on. The gesture wasn't romantic for us, it was meant to say something along the lines of 'good luck in the night', 'sleep well', or 'live until dawn'. They were used to it by then, so none of them really did anything, except for a juvenile comment from 'the Wall-man'.
They left, and I went home to have Hal remind me to get up in the morning.
That morning I received a text from one Bruce Wayne with a Zeta teleporter code and a set of coordinates.
It looked like the bat would keep his word.