"Okay, relax a little more, Charlie." Captain Marvel tells me as I hit the punching bag at the Cave's gym where we train three times a week in basic combat and then two times a where we practice with my gadgets.
"I am relaxed, Cap." I retort, but relax my shoulders, Cap and I had gotten into the routine of training with sibling banter then going for ice cream or something afterwards to relax.
"Okay, now make sure that you breath out with the punch." My breathing switches to manual and I can feel a change in the power of my punch. "There you go. Now start to add in those kicks I taught you earlier." I do what he says, feeling the sweat bead on my hairline as it carries on for several minutes. Footsteps sound outside the gym and Batgirl appears, I look up to see her stutter step in the threshold.
"Sorry to interrupt but Batman sent warning that we're getting a mission-" The tone of her voice makes me believe that this isn't a regular thing, "And if you have a spare uniform with you then you can join us." I look at Cap who nods,
"If you want to we'll end our session here and you can just spend some extra time training tomorrow." I jump up and hug my mentor,
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I run over to Batgirl, picking up my bag on my way to her, "Anywhere I can change?" The redhead nods, turning and leading me down a hallway and points to a door,
"Here, it's a spare bedroom. Be in the main room for briefing in-" She looks at what looks to be a holographic watch, "Eight minutes." She leaves the room, closing the door behind her, I immediately strip out of my training clothes and pull on the uniform I had packed (I was really hoping to go on a mission or patrol), a green long sleeved shirt, a brown underbust corset, with two golden ammunition belts around the waist, brown pants tucked into brown boots with golden accents. I attach my electric paintball pistol and my goggles, I'm about to walk out of the room before I remember to grab Scout. I perch him on my shoulder and since Miles is unable to control him since he was sent back to the hospital and was spending today being poked and prodded at with the bonus of lots of full body scans.
I make it to the briefing with a few seconds to spare, Batman walks in just as I take a spot next to Batgirl,
"Listen up team, you'll be split into two groups, there have been two tips of where the Freeze Jr. is located. Team one will consist of Kid Flash, Aqualad, Artemis, Superboy, and Sphere. Team two is Wolf, Batgirl, Robin, Miss Martian, and Tick Tock. Coordinates will be sent to you immediately. Keep radio contact at all times." I take that as a dismissal and follow the rest of the team to what looks to be a space ship.
"Deirdre, this is my Martian Bioship. She'll take us to where we need to go." With a singular hand motion the back of the ship opens up and we board the ship, "Take a seat and we'll launch in a minute for," She looks at a screen, "Dayton, Ohio." I sit down and straps wrap around my body,
"Woah." I says, pulling at the flexible material that doesn't let up,
"Gets everybody on the first time, pretty cool, huh?" Robin says, spinning in his chair, he jerks a thumb towards Batgirl, "Batgirl over here made a high pitched squeak the first time she sat down." Batgirl narrows her blue eyes at Robin and I stifle a laugh,
"You are so going to pay for that later." Robin raises an eyebrow,
"Is that a threat or a promise?" She cracks her knuckles as an answer and I see the Boy Wonder pale, and then it all clicks.
"Holy shi-" Everyone looks at me, including Wolf, who trots over to me curiously. I scratch him behind the ear,
"What's wrong, Tick Tock?" I shake my head,
"Nothing, I just realized something. It's no big deal." It's totally a big deal, Barbara Gordon was Batgirl, Richard Grayson is Robin, and that means, holy shit, Bruce Wayne is Batman! Okay, I'm going to have to schedule a date with Barbara tomorrow...
I'm ripped out of my thoughts by M'gann speaking,
"We'll be landing in a minute, get ready. I spot ten hostile personnel with weapons at the landing site, they're expecting us." Robin's hand flies up to his ear,
"Team Two to the Cave, they're expecting us." M'gann interrupts,
"They're thinking about - oh my god. They've got hostages, two small children that they think have some sort of powers. We have to move in. No mentions of Freeze Jr. though. " Robin relays this information and I stand up, pulling electrified, claw-tipped, gloves from my pants pocket and strap them on,
"Do you know how old?" I ask, M'gann closes her eyes,
"I can see them, they look around ten or eleven. Maybe twelve, a boy and a girl." I grit my teeth,
"Then let me at them. Drop me two buildings away and I'll make my way over, I have infrared in my goggles and I'll feed you information."
"Take back up, Batgirl go with her." Robin orders, "M'gann, link us up."
"Link established." M'gann's voice sounds in my head,
"That's weird." I mutter, M'gann opens a hole in the floor, I tap my bracelet that holds a thing grappling hook and grab Batgirl movie style by the waist, "Now let's go." I manage to get us onto a rooftop two buildings away from our original target.
"Okay everybody, I see ten guards on top and then the hostages are being held on the third floor from the top with five guards in the room with them. Two on each floor leading up to them, all armed." I relay this information over our mind meld thing, I look at Batgirl,
"Time to create a distraction, can you set off every single alarm in that building at once?" She scoffs,
"Of course I can, just give me a second." I bite my lip, I like her all confident and bold,
"We're about to move in." Robin says, I shake my head,
"Do that and you're dead. We're setting up a distraction, just give us a second. We'll attack at once." I look at Batgirl,
"You ready?" She asks, I nod,
"Do it." Just like that the whole building is sent into turmoil, Batgirl grabs me by the waist and grapples us over to the building where we begin to kick some major ass.
Batgirl and I land back to back in the middle of all ten guards, I throw a smoke bomb and shoot the first thing that moves, dodging the hail of bullets that rain down upon us,
"Move in!" Batgirl shouts over our link and I know that our other members are attacking from the ground up. I take one of the guys into a sleeper hold and throw his bulking body at another guard.
"That's it for the top floor of guards, moving onto the second level now." Batgirl says, I open up the roof door but she shakes her head and kicks in the grate to the air duct, "This way, Tick Tock." I give her a flirtatious grin, this isn't the best time for me to make a move but I kiss her cheek anyways before dropping down the shoot, using my hands and feet to slow myself into a quiet landing,
"Dropping into second floor now." I communicate before doing just that, I shoot both of the guards with pellets that shock them until they pass out. Batgirl lands next to me,
"We so need to talk later." I shrug,
"One more floor, I'll take left, you take right then we'll grab the children and get out through the fire escape through the window on the left wall." I point to the window on the holographic map I had pulled up from my signet ring.
"Then let's go." I let her drop down first and then follow, I shoot a guard and then duck down to dodge another's fist. I kick his knee but it backfires and he lands on top of me,
"Good job, little bitch. Now you're going to die." I feel a sharp pain as a knife enters my stomach.
"Ahh!" I scream before knocking my head against him, knocking him out. I push him off of me to see the handle of what looks to be a kitchen knife sticking out of me, the third guard runs up to me but I shoot him with three pellets and watch him drop.
"I've been injured. Medical attention ASAP." I relay over link, hobbling over to the children who are tied up with rope in the center of the room where Batgirl is already attending to them.
"What's happened, Tick Tock?" Robin's voice floods my head,
"Bad guy lost balance and fell on top of me, he stabbed me in the abdomen with what looks like a standard kitchen knife." Batgirl's head snaps up to look at me, the kids stand up and stretch their limbs,
"Can you make it out of here?" Gritting my teeth I nod, "Then let's go." I walk over to the little girl,
"What's your name, sweetie?" The ebony haired girl stares at me with wide, brown eyes,
"Alexandra, are you dying?" She asks, looking at the blood seeping through my clothes, the blade had been stuck right between the metal platings of the underbust I'd been wearing. Even though stars are dancing in my vision I shake my head,
"No, Alexandra." I give her a small smile and take her hand, leading her towards the window, "I'm too stubborn to die. All superheroes are." This elicits a small giggle from the haggard child,
"Fire escape on the left side of the building, Miss Martian, we need the ship here now."
"Already on the way." M'gann replies, just then the Bioship de-camouflages right in front of the window, a door opening in the side.
"In you go, Alexandra." I say, helping the small girl out of the window before climbing out myself,
"Holy crap, Tick Tock." Robin says, catching me when I stumble into the bioship, "You've lost a lot of blood." Before I can say anything, everything fades to a painful darkness.
A/N: Oooh! The suspense, when I was writing this last scene my mom came into the loft and I was like 'Guess who just got stabbed' after a slight freak out she proceeded to explain how that wasn't a good thing to ask while eating strawberry jelly from a PB&J off your fingers. I'm sorry about how the last chapter was originally formatted but I did fix that after it was brought to my attention by two reviewers. Keep the reviews coming, I really appreciate them! As always, message me if you have any comments or questions.
Fun Fact: Charlie finds it easier to fall asleep standing up than in a bed due to all the years spent in hospitals overnight, watching over Miles. One time her family found her asleep in a fire place, waiting for Santa Claus so that she could ask him to cure Miles when she was nine.
-M