Heipä hei everyone!

Isn't it wonderful that summer is finlly here? If only there weren't so many mosquitoes and blackflies out there...

Anyway, it seems that I need to explain one little detail from the previous chapter. There is nothing special in Tucker. I mean he has no connection with any DC characters. I just felt bad for him when I realized tht he was the only "normal guy" in our beloved phantom trio.

Wait! What am I talking about? Of course Tucker is special! Who else would be able to hack ghost's mechanical armor only with PDA and become a mayor of the semi big city only at age of 16?

Once again big thanks to my beta jaguarspot

And to the rest of you

Enjoy


When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.

-E.O. Wilson

It had been a while since Pamela had visited Seattle. The last time had been part of the healing process that her therapist of that time had insisted Pam went through, letting her face her past or something as sappy as that. Honestly, Pam had never liked the woman that much, she had been a coward and constantly faked understanding the emotional chaos that Pamela had been going through back then. Only Jeremy's promise to let her meet their daughter again had prevented Pamela from murdering that annoying meat-bag during her first months in the mental hospital and luckily, after Pam had been released to live with her family, they had ordered another psychiatrist to oversee her progress.

Sadly, just like last time, her mental health was the reason why she had travelled across almost the whole country to her birth city: to have her yearly check-up session with Dr. Queen.

It wasn't like Pam had been avoiding the city, quite the opposite actually. It was, after all, the place where she had grown up, met Jeremy, fallen madly in love with the man, got married a little too young and become a mother just a couple months after her twentieth birthday. It was just that Pamela had no more reasons to visit there anymore; no friends nor family to meet, and all the possible family trip plans to Seattle had been remained just like that: as plans.

After the Manson's had moved to Amity Park, Pamela had usually met her doctor in Rockford, but since Mrs Queen was now a fresh mother of a less than six months old child, the woman had asked if they could meet somewhere closer to the west coast. And of course Pam had said yes. Especially after the younger woman had explained how she didn't trust her husband to be able to take care of their infant son on his own longer than eight hours at once. Pam couldn't even blame her, when it had taken almost two years before she had herself had a heart to leave Sam in the care of her grandmother so she would be able to continue her studies and pursue her dream career as a botanist.

They had chosen to meet in Seattle mostly because it was familiar to both women and its lack of supers, the necessity that Dr. Queen understood much better than her predecessor. Pamela's therapist's husband also happened to own an office building in the city and he had been more than happy to let his wife to borrow one of its rooms for their use. Though Pam couldn't help wondering if Mr Queen would have been so openhanded if he had known who his wife's patient truly was.

The professional confidentiality surely had its own benefits.

Pam fingered the edge of her favourite gloves while waiting for the elevator to lift her to the 20th floor where the receptionist had directed her when Pam had asked for directions to the room she searched. Pamela usually enjoyed these little meetings with Dr Queen that were one of those few times she was allowed, and in a way demanded, to remove all her masks and speak honestly about her feelings and everything that bothered or scared her. And the passing year had surely brought more than enough those kind of headaches. Pamela would have lied if she had said she wasn't nervous because of this. After their last meeting Pamela had lost control of both her powers and temper more than once, one of which almost lead to the death of a human being and Pam was pretty sure that Dr Queen wouldn't accept 'he threatened my daughter' as an excuse. In the best possible scenario these accidents would only lead to a long talk and they would once again go through all her anger management practises. Pam wouldn't even be surprised if Dr Queen wanted to return to their more than once a year meeting schedule. In worst case though… Well, maybe it would be best not to worry about it before the session had even started.

The elevator jumped slightly when it stopped before the metal doors slid open revealing a boring hallway that, with its dull beige walls and stone floors, could have been part of any other office building if there hadn't been a stylized Q on the opposite wall, almost literally screaming who the owner of the building was. Only a few people were seen outside their offices, most of them probably returning from their lunch breaks or the morning's meetings, and even fewer payed any attention to Pamela who in her coral pantsuit should have stuck out like a rose among the violets in this colourless environment. She didn't mind though and just continued to make her way towards the room where her therapist had asked her to meet.

The room itself wasn't hard to find, mostly thanks to the receptionist's help and the fact that it was the only door in the whole hallway without a nametag. Apparently the room had been out of use for a while now, but Dr. Queen had promised Pam that its furniture had been left alone after the former employer had retired, meaning they wouldn't have to sit on the floor during their meeting or anything like that.

Pamela knocked on the door, letting only the calm self-confidence to be seen on her face, not wanting the passing people to imagine anything less than her being yet another rich business lady who they probably saw walking through the hallways more than once a day. And in a way they would be right, even though Pamela didn't usually take part in her husband's family business in any other way than the normal house wife was expected to.

The deep female voice asked Pam to come in and she did so by pressing the handle down and pushing the door open, only to be greeted with a smile from a familiar face behind a wooden desk that naturally controlled the otherwise sparsely furnished room.

"Ah Pamela. It's good to see you. I hope you didn't come across any bigger problems on your way here," the dark haired woman on her early thirties said and moved around the table to give Pamela a warm hand shake.

"Good to see you too Dinah. And yes, everything went fine. Traffic was a bit heavy like usually this time of day, but nothing I hadn't expected." Pam told her warmly, silently noting that the woman hadn't yet completely lost her pregnancy kilos, giving Dinah slightly fuller curves than she had had a year ago.

"Good to hear," Dr. Queen smiled, motioning for her patient to take a seat on a comfy looking armchair in front of the desk. "And I'm sorry I don't have anything to offer you this time. I didn't have time to pick anything up on my way here, and I didn't want to bother Oliver more than we already have"

"It's alright," Pam assured while sitting down on the leather chair and watching how Dinah placed herself next to her instead of returning behind the desk, purposely trying to create the feeling of a casual conservation between two friends despite their more… care relationship like connection. That though didn't stop the redhead believing that without Dr. Queen's role as her therapist, both of them would have been great friends. "How is Connor?"

"He's a happy and healthy ball of energy. Just like every mother wishes their baby to be," the woman beamed, a hint of motherly warmth in her voice as she dug her wallet up from her purse to show a picture of little Asian girl hugging a blonde baby who was staring at the camera like he didn't fully understood what was going on.

"I see that Cynthia has truly embraced the role of a big sister," Pam chuckled as she recognized the protective glint in the nine year olds eyes that even the picture had managed to capture. 'Make my brother cry and I will make you cry' it said and Pamela was sure that the photographer who had taken the picture had had a hard time trying to keep this girl happy.

The children's mother joined in the laugh, "You have no idea. If she and Ollie don't stop pampering Connor soon, they will spoil my poor boy completely rotten."

"Don't worry. Jeremy tried do the same with Sammy when she was younger and she still ended up being a level-headed young woman, if I may say so myself."

"Good to hear," Dinah chuckled while putting her wallet of and then opened a small notebook that had been resting on her lap. "But that gives us a good starting topic to our session. How has your and Samantha's relationship been. Have you been able to find the golden mean that we talked about last time?"

Pamela paused for a moment to gather her thoughts before answering, not sure how she was supposed to explain their current situation to her therapist. Dr. Queen was a very skilled woman to detect when people were hiding something from her, and even though Pamela wanted to tell her the truth so she could ask Dinah for some much needed advice, rephrasing her answer in the way that wouldn't worry the other woman more than necessary was harder than she would have hoped to.

"We have managed to find a kind of mutual understanding," Pamela ended up saying simply, her fingers once again starting to nervously play with the hems of her glove and she could have sworn she heard a little voice sounding a surprisingly lot like certain harlequin she knew to giggle in her head how ironic the circumstances leading to that outcome had been. "After Sam found out the truth."

Dr. Queen's eyes widened slightly, not otherwise showing any marks of surprise. "I assume that this wasn't something you were planning to do," she then half asked while writing something down on her notebook. The topic of letting Sam know about Pamela's past had come up during their past sessions almost every time. Dinah often insisted that hiding something this big from Samantha would only inhibit the development of a healthy mother-daughter relationship, not to mention the anger and bitterness that could possibly follow if Sam found out her mother's past at a later age or on her own. Naturally Pamela had been against the whole idea, firmly believing that the less Sam knew the safer the girl would be from the allies and enemies that Pamela had managed to gather over the years.

"Yes," Pamela answered stiffly avoiding the eye contact with the younger woman. Understanding the redheads troubled feelings, Dinah placed her hand top of Pamela's own gloved one and gave her an encouraging smile.

"Pamela. You do know that I'm not here to judge you nor your actions, but to help you to process the problems you might have and to see what you have possibly done wrong. And as I have promised you before: nothing that you say during these sessions will ever leave these walls."

Pamela nodded her head and gave the dark haired woman her own nervous smile, which her therapist answered before she leaned back against her chair and returned to her notes.

"So, could you please tell me what happened between you and Samantha that lead her to find out your past?"

Pamela gritted her teeth, a bad habit she had picked up at some point of her villain career that still showed up whenever she was frustrated or slightly angry, before spatting out her six letter answer.

"Batman"

The sharp snapping sound was heard when the pen Dr. Queen had used to write her notes suddenly broke in two on the woman's hand, giving both women a small scare. The embarrassed younger one started immediately apologize and clean the growing ink stain on her papers, but Pamela just laughed at the whole accident, joking half-heartedly how nowadays nothing was made to last. Deep inside her though… She felt how a seed of doubt was planted in her mind.

Pamela was not a fool. She has always been aware that Dr. Queen most likely had some kind of connection with Gotham's Dark Knight – whether it was partnership, debt of some sort or just a card with his number on it somewhere in the bottom of Pamela's favourite therapist's desktop box, she did not know – because Pamela knew her enemy and knew that he would never leave someone as dangerous as her without a guard. And who would be better to that job than a person who was trained to recognize the warning marks of Poison Ivy's possible return.

But as their session continued, and Pamela found herself once again explaining what had happened between her and Batman all those months ago on that cool autumn night, Pam found herself looking at the woman in front of her in a completely new way, secretly studying her micro-expressions and trying to catch the short flashes of annoyance and… disappointment? that her eyes sometimes showed, bothering Pamela with a weird feeling that neither of those emotions were meant towards her.

She had to know Batman, Pamela was almost sure of that. Really know him. Not like some half clueless helper like Commissioner Gordon was, but like that little bird boy had known him. What would that make Dr. Queen then? A secret protégé of Batman from his earlier years, maybe? She surely was young enough – only around 13-years-old when Batman had first appeared – and if she remembered correctly, Dinah had once mentioned she was originally from Gotham. But who was she now then? Everyone in the world of the supers knew Nightwing, Red Hood and Red Robin's statuses as former Robins, so wouldn't it be only natural that, if Dinah truly was Batman's protégé, this woman too had created her own superhero identity?

Of course Pamela's suspicions weren't evidence, she knew that. But still, it fit. In reality she was most likely just over thinking and this gentle woman in front of her full of understanding and sympathy was just a normal civilian like everyone else in this building.

But Pam couldn't be 100% sure so she continued studying. And talking.

Their session continued, and to Pamela's great relief, Dinah was once again able to understand what had been going through the villainess mind during that night and only forced Pamela to go through yet another 20-minute lecture about how she should learn how to control her anger. After that they talked a little more about Sam and the girl's new relationship with Daniel, which lead to discussing how things were going between Pamela and Jeremy. And finally they finished with familiar discussion of how Pamela's powers were effecting on her mental health and if she had had any strong feelings that were related to plants or how people treated them during the past year.

Despite the constant nagging voice somewhere in the back of her head, the possibility to pour out (almost) all her worries to someone made Pamela's heart feel much lighter than before she had entered in the Queen Industries' Seattle department's office building. It was the main reason why she continued coming to these meetings a year after year, even though she found them to be mostly unnecessary. That and the bunch of legal reasons and contrasts that she had had to sign to enable her integrate from the mental hospital. And even if Pam was thankful for Dr. Queen for being there for her during some very hard times and giving her support that nobody else had been able to give her, not even her friends and family, it hadn't stopped Pamela from finding herself later that night staring at three photos that she had printed from two separated internet cafes on her way back to the hotel where she was staying.

The first one was a photo of Dr, Queen that Pamela had found from some webzine, giving the viewer a clear shot of the black haired woman's face. The other photo, the leftmost one that Pamela had placed on the bed right next to the other ones, on the other hand had been a bit harder to find. Not because the person on it was less known than the wife of the man who was one of the America's richest men – quite the opposite actually – but because Pamela had taken her time trying to find something showing this other woman's face in the same angle and distance as Dr Queen on the other photo, and even though Pamela's eyes travelled constantly between all three photos, it was the middle one which she looked at most intensely.

This one was different than the two other ones. Technically it was two pictures on one, since Pamela had carefully cut off the woman's face from the left picture before placing it on the top of the photo showing Dr. Queen, making her best effort for it to look like her therapist had been the one wearing that tight bustier-leotard combination under a blue jacket. The whole process had made the redhead feel really stupid, almost like she had been a teenager gluing her own face next to her favourite celebrity (naturally she had never done something like that) and Pam would have been more than happy to stop wasting her time with something like this if only there hadn't been her tendency to get obsessed with things that bothered her.

So there she was now, comparing the photos of Dinah Queen and Black Canary with the third one and slowly accepting something she had deep inside always known: it was impossible to ever truly leave the world of the superheroes and villains behind. This shouldn't have been that big a surprise since Pamela was still regularly in contact with her two best friends, even though it meant she was consciously breaking her releasing contract, but knowing this still didn't make it hurt any less.

Pamela took a deep breath through her nose and rubbed her eyes, then picking her cell phone up from the bed where she had left it after she had talked with Jeremy and Sam to let her family know that she was still alive and how her day went.

The woman tapped the device against her chin, wondering if she was truly doing the right thing. Ignorance was truly bliss and yet it was knowledge that held the power. And what kind of power Pamela was holding in her hands right now. The civilian identities of two members of Justice League, maybe a third one too if Dinah wasn't cheating her husband and Oliver and Green Arrow were the same person. There were so many ways how she could use this information to her advantage and less than ten years ago she would have done anything to find herself in this position. But things had changed and now nothing was as simple as it had been back then.

Pamela stared at the number on the phones screen. The plan that she had in her mind was more than risky. The failure or discovery would ruin more than one life, but the success…

She closed her eyes and pressed the call button, praying in her mind that this wouldn't turn out to be a huge mistake. It took only three beeps before the quiet clicking sound informing that someone had answered.

"Red? Is everythin' okay?" a confused and slightly worried voice asked from the other end, which was understandable since Pamela had never called on this number before. It had always been the other way round. "Did somethin' happen?"

Pamela smiled a bit, not even trying to deny that hearing the familiar accent in this situation made her feel oddly nostalgic.

"Harley… I need a favour."


I feel like that there is again couple things I need to explain in this chapter

Cynthia Lance, or Sin as she is better known (and yes, Cynthia is her civilian name in comics. Just google it if you don't believe me) was (is? I don't think she is part of New 52) Dinah's adopted daughter who was meant to become the next Lady Shiva. In this universe Dinah saved Sin a bit before or soon after the season 2. And if possible, in any case, DON NOT leave her alone with Damian Wayne or let these two assassin kids play with each other. Oliver learned this the hard way after arranging a play date between these two.

Connor Lance-Queen (just Queen in this universe) is Dinah and Oliver's biological son in Injustice comic series. And before you ask: in this universe it was either Barry or Hal who bought the muzzle.

Dinah (and Oliver) actually used to live in Seattle. She had a flower shop called 'Sherwood Florist'.

Oh and btw. If you think you know what Pamela's plan is... You are wrong.

Till the next time!

Love
Kilppari