Warnings: Implied non-graphic, non-consensual sex between a minor and an adult. Be warned if anything involving rape, underage sex, or especially both triggers you. Also, gore, the Joker, and all the usual craziness!

A/N: Thanks for any wonderful comments I have gotten, especially in the last few days! You guys keep me writing! :) Anyways, I hope you enjoy it!

/ Willow – 5

Willow knows that Klarion isn't really dead. Despite her and Dr. Fate's best efforts, the witch of chaos managed to escape. She has no doubt that Klarion will go straight to the Justice League with her woes. They might be discovered.

None of this matters, however. She has the helmet—a very powerful thing that the Injustice League treasures greatly—and Abra Kadabra's head for her souvenir room. She'd gone to Mr. Luthor for a cryogenic chamber for the head. He'd congratulated her on the wonderful find and provided a sort of cooler for it.

Do you remember Christmas Eve when we first met,

They rewarded the entire team with a robot. Tornado 25, a prototype for an even more brilliant robot, is their new 'den mother' as Dixie likes to call it. It took Dixie twenty five minutes to hack the thing, so they're all very impressed with the programming.

you gave me a diamond necklace?

Willow waits for her uncle silently, clutching her precious notebook to her chest. She told Dixie to wait up, but she knows that the other girl will fall asleep on Kryptongirl far before Willow gets back.

That's okay; they'll make it up to each other tomorrow.

The walls are closing in.

I still have it. Wear it almost every day.

Zoom, her uncle, speeds around the corner. He's not smiling. His mouth is twisted into an ugly frown. Willow steps forward, eyelashes fluttering nervously.

"Uncle," she greets, "Why so serious?"

Do you know how diamonds are created?

Zoom scowls even more deeply at her.

Suddenly, he's all up in her face.

Zoom is not deceivingly delicate like Dixie; there's no thin, tiny body with soft breasts and slick warmth between the legs. There are no brilliantly azure eyes framed by long lashes, or milky skin covered with makeup and scars. Strong thighs, big hands, cold fingers.

I do. They're crushed, smothered, condensed, oppressed coal, rock, meteor bits.

Zoom is not sternly, beautifully curved like Kalda. There's no golden toned skin and flinty silver eyes, no winding tattoos and whip scars on the back. There are no kind words, tender touches, or fleeting whispers. Crooked teeth, sharp bones, rough arms.

Diamonds are unbreakable. Invincible, one might say.

Zoom is not vaguely naïve, yet endearingly angry like Kryptongirl. There are no bluntly honest interruptions or suddenly possessive proclamations. Where diamond hard, but silky smooth, skin was there is other stuff. Cruel words, loathing scowl, blunt fingernails.

I am not made from diamond. Maybe I'm made from cubic zirconium, though.

Zoom is not alien green and misleadingly warm like Morgan. There are no vaguely compassionate brown eyes and affectionate mind-speaking. Instead of tentacles, extended to be horrific, taken to be exceedingly kinky, it hurts. Stony eyes, growling voice, empty promises.

The point is, it's so easy to break me compared to the others.

Zoom is a lot like Apollo when they have sex. But Apollo is nicer. Apollo is kinder. Apollo is better. Apollo takes care of her. It occurs to her, this night, that Zoom is not her uncle. Who is he?

Over and over I forget and, in a sense, I'm a lot like

She screams once, and pulls away. She runs, runs as far as she can. Dixie embraces her with open arms. Kryptongirl rages. Apollo's eyes shine with something akin to understanding and for the first time in forever they kiss like they mean it.

Dixie calls the Joker, but doesn't tell her.

you.

Morgan tells her to lie on the bed, tells her,

"I'll fix this, beautiful."

And he does.

Is Aunt Iris still alive, uncle?

Apollo tells her to sit in the chair, tells her,

"I'll make it hurt less, precious."

And he does.

Does she miss me? Does she talk about me?

Kryptongirl tells her to sit at the table, tells her,

"Have some cookies. Morgan made them. They'll make you feel better."

And they do.

Does she even remember me?

Kalda tells her to get in the shower, tells her,

"Let me scrub away the pain. It always works for me."

And she lets her.

I remember

The Joker tells her to come into the room, tells her,

"Look, look at his body, my darling. Isn't it wonderful?"

Zoom's (not her uncle, neverheruncle) cold, cruel, rough, hard, burning (inahousecorpses), dead eyes stare at her.

And it's so wonderful.

one year we went

Dixie tells her to hold her hand, tells her,

"I love you."

She replies, "I love you too."

to the carnival in Keystone

She lies in their shared bed and wonders if Zoom lied to her about magic, too.

and it was really fun.

Your compassion is here.

/ The Joker – 2

When Dixie calls him, the Joker is in a good mood. He's happy. Contented. Everything is going to plan, the others are cooperating accordingly and Batman is too busy to catch him because of Two-Face and Poison Ivy. But after she calls him, he stops being in such a good mood.

"Daddy, please," she begs, angry and terribly sad, "You have to kill him. Or make him stop. He's hurting Will!"

She loves Will. He approves of her. And Zoom is a sick, twisted man. Besides, he's never killed a speedster before. It could be… fun.

"Oh sweetheart," he responds, rancid breath puffing against the phone, "Anything for you."

He hunts Zoom down, just for fun, terrorizing Central City while he's at his. Batman is very confused, attempting to help the Flash track the both of them. They don't understand why he's here, but Zoom sure catches on. He begs the Rogues to hide him. And true to their melted little hearts, they don't. They care about the Flash far too much. The Joker thinks it's impossibly sweet, and doesn't kill them for the time being. Captain Cold, the old dodger, ignores him and refuses to stir up trouble while they're there.

He captures Zoom easily on the last day of the week, when the man is half starved and past insanity. He pleads, but the Joker does not let up. This is fun.

"All for good laughs," he tells the other man, ripping open Zoom's chest with a flick of his wrist, "No hard feelings. Hahahaha."

Zoom's rib bones glitter in the moonlight.

The Joker boxes up his brain and heart and sends the former to Batman and the latter to the Flash.

/ Apollo – 5

He's so angryangryangry, he's just better at hiding it than Kryptongirl. He wishes he could have killed Zoom, but that mission was the Joker's. So, instead, he trains.

Kalda comes in, wet from visiting her father. She twinkles under the eerie colors of the lights in the training room, and nods to Apollo. He stops, for a moment, and nods back. They, at least, have an understanding. He cannot say the same for the rest of the team.

Surprisingly, Kalda joins him.

They combat for a while, teasingly dangerous with too-close flicks of their poisoned weapons, and Apollo learns a thing or two about the true grace of an Atlanean. They stop, breathing heavily. Now, Kalda drips with sweat. There's a certain irony about someone from Atlantis sweating salt water.

Alice fell down the rabbit hole

Apollo stares at her heatedly.

"I know what you are thinking," Kalda starts, "and I will help you, if you wish." Apollo's eyes are hard and grey, the stormy sky, the tumultuous ocean. Kalda's are clear and silver, the still sea, the cloudless dusk.

"I—" Apollo cuts himself off briefly and looks away. Those eyes are pulling him in. "I just need to make things right. For me, too."

Kalda nods, again, understanding. "Yes. And I must find Rae."

Apollo purses his lips.

to get away from the oppressors

He still doesn't like Rae. But Kal—she obviously cares about her. And Apollo doesn't want to mess this up. This team thing—it's been good, so far. Besides, Willow likes Rae. So, he agrees, placing a careful hand on Kal's forearm. A kind of reassurance.

but she hit her head on the rocks

They go, swift and silent, Apollo wordlessly thanking his namesake's sister for the new moon that graces the sky. Stars spread a silver glow over Kal's body next to his, and Apollo appreciates it probably more than he should. They head for Star City, the last place Sportsmaster and Huntress were seen.

Apollo knows where their house is.

and fell unconscious.

They sneak in, efficient mostly because Apollo knows every trap, every cheat that his father could ever pull.

Kal steals the information on Rae's whereabouts while Apollo slides into his parents' room. He'd thought, for a mere second, that Lawrence would wake up, would sense this. A true villain, Apollo justifies, would know.

There, lying cold and still, the Mad Hatter finds her

He uncaps Willow's choice poison and it goes dripdripdripping past his father's lips, into his father's throat.

"Down the esophagus," Will would say, were she here, "and into the stomach. The acid of the stomach cannot neutralize this poison. It works quickly, too—the subjected will be dead within the hour. No outer signs of death, and the poison will destroy itself."

He leaves his mother alone.

and brings her up to lie with him.

She will live, live with the guilt and the pain as he has to. She will die every day knowing what she's done to him, how she has neglected him.

Apollo leaves the room with this tight, satisfied feeling in the pit of his stomach. The hole there fills with the sweet syrup of revenge, the sticky molasses of retaliation after so many years. He has never felt so free.

He has no doubts that the Joker and Lex Luthor will suspect them, but the ones who really matter—the heroes—will not. Not for a while, not until it's too late.

There has always been an end game. They just have to reach it.

She lies with him for eight days,

Kal meets him outside, manila folder clenched between her mocha fingertips. Her cheekbones are stark in the starlight, her face twisted into something halfway between hope (bitter, bitter hope) and resignation.

"Have you done what is necessary, my friend?" She asks, polite and interested. Apollo smiles darkly, teeth a wicked line between his lips, canines oddly sharp. He makes Kal excited in a way that she has not been since the last time they saw Rae.

"Of course, Kal," he replies. He holds out his hand, steady and stable. She takes it.

"Let's go."

and they are the best of her life.

Morgan and Kryptongirl—Connie, now, if Apollo remembers correctly—intercept them. They stare at the two aliens, the foreigners. The ones with no true feelings.

"Don't go alone," Connie warns them, all at once concerned and angry. She is protective, possessive, and obsessed, but they like her that way. Morgan nods, eyes as empty as ever. But his mind fills Apollo's with a pleasant buzzing, a kind of warmth that could only be found before when Jade would crawl into his bed late at night and slip their bodies together and whisper in his ear.

"Let's go get ice cream, little brother." He would say. And Apollo would agree. They'd leave the window open—it didn't matter if father knew, mother would approve and that's all that truly mattered—and have cones in the park, making friends with the local junkies. Those are the only happy memories Apollo has of his house in Star City.

Rae came with them a few times, too.

When the Mad Hatter asks Alice to stay,

"I have an idea," he says to the others as they make their way deeper into Star City, following the harsh lines of alleyways and drug addicts as they go. "Do you want to get some ice cream?"

she says yes because there is nothing for her anywhere else.

And together, they make Wonderland.

Your bravery is here.