AN: Hey guys, been at a Law and CSI conference all week so I couldn't update. Even now I'm at the airport, trying to get this all written up before I have to board. Please review, I need more feedback on what you guys want to see!
If there's one thing I'm really not good at all, it would be noticing big details that could be important. Sometimes I was just blindsided by the entirety of the situation, I would miss the crucial aspects, and end up getting shit for it. Let's say, for example, there's a giant dog charging at me (this is completely random, don't judge my improvisational skills). If the situation is really intense, say I'm fighting a band of ninjas who want to kill me and I need to save a prisoner before they die from lead poisoning or something, then I'll acknowledge the fact that there indeed is a giant dog rushing at me. However, I'll completely miss the fact that the giant dog has accompanying giant teeth that are prepared to rip me to shreds, and in that situation, without any back up, I'd be totally screwed.
The battle last night when I was saving little Tom was a lot like the analogy with the dog. I was all caught up in fighting the baddies to save the boy in the beginning, then after saving the boy I was preoccupied with getting him somewhere safe. Even after he was secured at the Police Station with help, all I was really worried about was checking out Gotham a little more and then getting to sleep. Never once did it cross my mind that someone might have seen Owlet tromping across town with an 8 year old hanging off her back in the middle of the night. Even worse, the assumptions they could make from that sight would have been worse than them just seeing me. But the part where it gets really bad? The people who saw me carrying Tom, also saw me helping him to the GCPD. Owlet, a self-proclaimed anti-hero working in the drug ring in Gotham, saved a little boy and brought him to the Police Department.
I'm not sure if you people are quite aware of how something like that can harsh a girl's rep. Considering one of the only reasons the Cleaner allowed himself to trust me was my aggression towards taking down Fincher, I'm almost 100% positive that if he heard about my act of charity, he'd have a hit on me faster than I could say "Dude, trust me." What I wasn't sure about was how widespread and fast and far this information would get out. When the idea that someone had seen me first occurred it was as I lay in bed trying to fall off to sleep before going back to school on Thursday. I had assumed it would be all over the Gotham Underworld, like with the Cleaner, and maybe Penguin or Clay Face, if they paid attention to small time "villains" like Owlet. But the one thing I never thought would happen, was the whole thing going viral.
I stepped into Gotham Academy Thursday morning, my pleated skirt on neatly with my white shirt pressed perfectly and barely tucked in, my hair in a relatively calm state (for my hair, at least), doing my best to look like a respectable student at GA. It didn't change the fact people were giving me strange looks, but I would've been naïve to assume otherwise. Private schools were run by gossip, I had come to find out, and I was a good story to pass around with all my conspiracies. I was sure Dick was now pretty popular with the "In" crowd considering he'd been the victim. But as I walked the halls, looking around, I could see that the students of my school weren't discussing how adorable Dick Grayson was or what I bitch I was. They were talking about Owlet.
From what I could tell, people were still hung up on the whole "Owlet goes to Gotham Academy" thing, but as I looked around I could see some people pointing furiously at their smartphones with their perfectly manicured hands. Sneaking a peek, thanks to my training from the Dark Knight, I was able to see they were actually checking the news on their phones. And on the front page of the online Gotham Gazette? Owlet, with an accompanying grainy cell phone camera video of the anti-hero giving a little kid a piggy back ride and eventually waltzing into the Police Station. It took all my control not to let my mouth drop open as I saw the article. The title blazed at the top in bold, ugly letters: GOTHAM'S NEWEST VIGILANTE TURNING A NEW LEAF.
"'Turning a New Leaf'?" I question with a dubious look. Whoever was writing articles at the Gazette should start working on their titles. Around me the bell to get to first period rang out and the rush of students going to their classes pushed me along until I was finally to my Biology classroom, taking my seat in the back and waiting for the lesson to begin. Barbara came in just before the bell rang, taking her seat next to me without a word. I didn't even think her green eyes darted over to look at me at all, as if I wasn't even sitting there. Perplexed by her behavior, I turned to the front of the class, wondering just what the teacher was going to torture us (cough, cough, me) with today. I was surprised to see it was a substitute teacher, an old lady who identified herself as "Ms. Scarlett Noble." She had a very pronounced accent, as if she were stuck on speaking like an airy Southern Belle. If she hadn't been as elderly and not nearly shaped in all manners like a toad, she might have been a quaint little teacher.
As the sub assigned us work to do I shot glances to Barbara from the corner of my eye, wondering what was up with her. She didn't meet my glances even once, hunching up her shoulder towards me as she leaned forward over the table to work on her sub sheet, her long red hair serving as a curtain that severed eye contact between the two of us. I gave a minute scoff but tried my best to focus on my own work as well.
By the end of the hour I was completely nodding off as I filled in the innocuous questions on cell division in the body cells. Biology was so easy for me it was almost a crime. Trying to give Barbara a taste of her own medicine, I completely disregarded her existence as I turned in my paper, slipped my bag onto my shoulders, and left the class at a hurried pace. As I was halfway down the hall I heard a single "Mona, wait!" accompanied with the sound of rushing footsteps, which I was able to pick up over the background noise of slamming lockers and talking teenagers. I look leisurely over my shoulder to see Barbara Gordon rushing to catch up with me, shoving some loose papers into her half-way open messenger bag as she makes her way towards me. For some reason I actually stop, crossing my arms over my chest as Barbara comes nearer.
"We need to talk," she says sternly without even the barest hint of an attempt at small talk. Her face is dead serious even though her hair has gotten kind of crazily fly away since her hurry to get out of class.
"What, you pretend I don't exist all period then suddenly want to have a conversation with me?" I ask coldly, unable to keep the disdain from my voice. I'd pegged Barbara as one of those normal people I could actually stand to be friends with, and friends didn't randomly ignore you in the only class you shared.
"It's important," she stresses, her eyes narrowing almost dangerously. Was that a challenge I heard in her voice?
"What could possibly be more important than getting to my next class?" I ask sarcastically, more bite in my voice than usual.
"Owlet." The one word is enough to make me pale although I try to play it off as if the word hasn't fazed me at all.
"Why would I care about some teenaged vigilante, Barbara?"
"Mona, don't play games with me. We need to talk." Barbara can't seem to stress the necessity of this discussion, and after her one word explanation, I'm almost eager to hear what she has to say. If she'd been passing along gossip she wouldn't have been so serious about the whole thing. Telling someone that Owlet was Bette Kane wasn't all that serious of an accusation, and it was routinely one made by the bimbos that attending GA just because they could. Barbara was intelligent enough to transfer into Honors Bio, and if she had something to say to me about Owlet I think Creative Writing could wait for a little bit.
The two of us milled around in the hall until it was completely empty and we were officially late for our second period. Barbara looked around as if she was nervous someone was going to come around the corner suddenly. Pulling me to a darkened corner Barbara looks piercingly at me with her vibrant green eyes. "I know your secret," she starts bluntly. I can't help it as I'm taken aback immediately.
"What secret?" I immediately try to deny any involvements I may have with the winged vigilante that was now virally popular. It's nearly impossible to wipe the panic that I know is building up in my eyes.
"I know that you're Owlet," she stresses my name in a whisper, looking around conspiratorially. "Don't even try to deny it."
"You're full of shit, Barb," I scoff, not even trying to keep my voice down. Maybe with a stroke of luck an administrator would come around and kick our butts into detention for trying to skip class. I looked around the hall but saw no such luck coming around the corner.
"C'mon, Mona. It'll be easier if you just admit it."
"There's nothing to admit!" I tell her, my voice rising even more but now in hysteria. "I'm not Owlet, okay? Just drop it!"
"If you're not Owlet then why are there so many clues pointing to the fact that you are?" she challenges, narrowing her eyes at me. I scoff, hoping I seem confident in my denial.
"Clues?" I say dubiously. "What are you, Sherlock Holmes?"
"Coincidence One," Barbara starts, looking triumphant already as she speaks. "Whenever you disappear, Owlet always seems to pop up somewhere else."
"Oh yeah?" I say, rolling my eyes, trying to keep my freak out under wraps. "Have any examples for your grand assumption, Barb?"
"You were going Tuesday and Wednesday this week, the only two days in recent times that Owlet has been seen out and about in the daytime." I force myself not to bite down on my lip, knowing I'll only look guiltier.
"Those were crazy little happen-stances," I tell her, my air of confidence quickly waning.
"Then how can you explain how pretty much all of the injuries Owlet sustains show up on you?" she asks me, starting to list off various injuries seemingly off the top of her head. I'm too panicked to really listen, trying to plan out a way in my head that this could turn around and somehow go better for me.
"That's still not proof," I tell her, the anxiety creeping slowly into my voice.
"Then how about the background check that I did on you?" she asks me sweetly, her eyes holding a victorious gaze that I can't match.
"Background check?" I echo, my stomach dropping to my feet. "What background check?"
"I pulled all the files with your name in them at the Police Station and read up on you. In your witness statement of the day your parents died in the fire-" I can't help but flinch at how casually she says it. "It says that you were muttering 'Fincher' over and over yet you wouldn't explain to anyone what you meant. Everyone took it as a strange side effect from the shock of being in the fire and took nothing of it. But you were talking about Jerome Fincher, weren't you?"
My lips are pressed into a tight line as she speaks and I don't even react when she asks the question. Barbara takes this as a yes, going on with her little speech.
"Which would mean that Fincher was somehow at the scene of the fire, either you saw him or something that pointed to him. That ties directly into Owlet's hate of Fincher. Didn't you claim a month or so ago at the gala you crashed that Fincher had ruined your life? Killing someone's parents seems like a pretty big life ruiner…"
"Barb," I say quietly, on the verge of tears at this point. The stress and the anxiety are finally building to a breaking point and I'm having an impossible time trying to contain them. She ignores me, easily continuing with her show of how I'm Gotham's most popular anti-hero.
"And your parents were inventors, weren't they?" she asks me, the question obviously rhetorical. "Specializing in 'giving humans animalistic qualities to improve the lifestyles and innovations of the future'." The quote is from a statement my parents had given on their experiments what seemed like decades ago though it was only a few years. "Experiments they're credited for include not only surgeries to give animal-like characteristics, but things that you could just slip on to improve the aerodynamic and naturally strengthened properties of the human body. And wouldn't you say that the Owl suit that Owlet wears does just that?" Barbara looks at me, glory shining in her eyes. She knows she's got me right where she wants me. She's thrown so much evidence into my face it'd be stupid at this point to deny anything, as much as I still want to.
"Are you the only one with a secret?" I ask quietly. My eyes, which had been cast down at me feet the entirety of the conversation now flick up to meet Barbara's. She looks taken aback for a moment, surprise etched into the features of her face before they smooth over.
"What do you mean?" she asks carefully.
"The only people who would be this interested and invested into finding out if I was Owlet would be Batman, Robin and Batgirl. The first two already know, so the third person is really the only option." The assumption is a big jump, I'll admit. I was really only going off of how nosy Barbara had been just to get all the clues to see if I was Owlet or not. "So why would Barbara Gordon be interested unless she wasn't giving all of the information on her as well? I mean, it would make sense. You were raised by Jim Gordon who's worked in the Police business for who knows how long? You had a sense of justice ingrained into you since the moment you could walk. And living in a corrupted place such as Gotham, it only makes sense that you'd decided to don the cape and the cowl as well." The girl purses her lips and I know that I've got her just as much as she's gotten me. "So what now?" I ask her, my voice growing stronger as I break the silence of the hallway. "Do we just face off here? We've fought before, why should this be any different?" Almost unconsciously I slip into a fighting stance, sliding my foot back so my position is steadier. My fists raise themselves the tiniest bit, ready to go but not challenging the girl before me.
"No," she says quietly, now as pale as I had been when she'd first mentioned Owlet. "No, we play it cool."
"'Play it cool'?" I ask. "What the hell do you mean by that? Ignore the fact that we're both vigilantes at night and pretend that we're just normal kids, friends, at a prestigious private school?"
"Yes," Barbara replies. "We leave it all on the battlefield. We can't bring our differences into our normal lives. That's compromising for both of us."
"You're okay with keeping my identity secret?" I ask her with a venomous tone that I can't seem to help.
"Do I really have a choice?" she spits back just as furiously. "If I tell everyone you're Owlet you'll tell everyone I'm Batgirl and we'll both be screwed."
"Fine, so is this a truce?"
"A truce insinuates that I can trust you."
"Ouch, that hurts, Barb. I thought we were friends."
"We were. Owlet and Batgirl never were."
"Fine. Then are you going to trust me for this one thing?"
Barbara gives a long sigh and I can tell she's struggling with the choice. "If my dad and Batman and Robin can trust you, I suppose I can." She sticks out her hand abruptly and I take it, shaking it awkwardly. Both our hands drop and I give her a strange look.
"That's it? We shake on it and we're good? You're not going to attack me if I go out on the streets at night?"
Barbara has already begun backing away from me at this point, shouldering her messenger bag. Her eyes meet mine almost dangerously and she smiles at me though it isn't friendly. "Guess we'll just have to let fate play it out."
As I stepped into Modern History that day I could feel the awkwardness radiating from everyone around me. It was obvious my presence here wasn't welcomed. Apparently punching a popular rich kid in the face was frowned upon at Gotham Academy, even with my new reputation. I looked around as I walked in switching my backpack to my other shoulder as Ms. Dee greeted me at the door with the usual handshake, a grim look on her face.
"Mona," she says evenly, looking at me sternly. It's a look that I don't really like on her; it ages her even more than her normal tired expression did.
"Good morning, Ms. Dee," I say with a forced smile. The encounter with Barbara a few class periods ago still has me shaken but I do my best to seem normal. As normal as I can, anyway. "What did I miss in class?"
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," she says with a frown. "We started an independent project on Tuesday and I need to catch you up to speed."
"Okay," I say with a nod. At this point I'm not even attempting to be cheerful, I'm just trying to be civil, to keep things rolling so that everything runs smoothly. This day cannot end soon enough. "Do I need to stay after class to get caught up?"
She shakes her head. "No, everyone will be researching today, so I can personally get you up to speed. Take your seat and I'll get to you when class begins." I nod once more and take my regular seat at the back, surprised she hadn't moved me since the incident with Dick. A few minutes later he comes in just as the bell signals the end of passing time, sliding into his seat and pretending I don't exist. Dee starts class up but I ignore what she's saying as I occasionally look at Dick from the corner of my eyes. Did he know Batgirl's true identity? Did Barbara know that I knew who Robin was? All of these questions about identities were making my head spin. All I needed right now was a chance to lay everything out on the table and get all my facts straight.
Eventually when everyone breaks off to doing their own things, Dee comes to the back of the class, taking Dick's seat next to me. "Alright, here's the papers you'll need." Dee hands me a thick packet and I can't help but internally grimace. Big packets were never a good sign. "The project is a job shadow opportunity at a local Gotham business or corporation. On Tuesday the class had their pick of the city and where to choose from. You're going to get the one that's left, hope that's all right." Dee doesn't even look sympathetic for me and there's a sinking feeling in my gut that I've gotten the worst place Gotham could possibly off for a job shadowing experience.
"So, where do I have?" I ask, almost not wanting to hear the answer. She looks grimly at me.
"Arkham Asylum," she tells me. I bite my lip, giving a little nod. Yup. That was pretty much the worst place Gotham could offer as a job shadowing experience. "You'll need to study up on it. The facility already expects you to shadow next week so that's already all set up. All you need to do is call them to ask about what you'll need to know about their procedures and anything you'll need to do beforehand. Understand?" Dee gives me a pointed look and I can just barely see some regret in her eyes. She doesn't really want to send me to job shadow at Arkham, but she knows this will serve as a well enough punishment for me.
"Perfectly," I mutter, flipping through the packet and seeing all the paperwork I'd have to do before going. This was not going to be a fun project for me. I'm sure other people got more interesting and safe places, like Gotham Hospital, and Gotham University, and the local courthouse. Maybe someone even got to job shadow at Wayne Enterprises. I wouldn't put it past Bruce to take this chance to add more good reputation to the Wayne name. He was getting better about noticing when he was looking suspicious in his normal life, though it was true he wasn't the best at being inconspicuous.
I sighed heavily to myself. Today was shaping up to be pretty awful, quite frankly. My secret identity had gotten out to someone else (how many people was that now? 6?), Dick was being, well, a dick, and now I was forced to job shadow at one of the most dangerous places in the entire city, maybe even the country. It seemed to me as if all the bad luck in my life had chosen today to show its face, and there didn't seem any way that this day was going to start looking up.
"Mona," someone said as if trying to get me out of a trance. Startled, I looked up, shaking my thoughts away as I focused on the person before me. It was Dick, who stood at my table, looking down with a frown on his face. His blue eyes were flat and dull and it wasn't a very good look for him at all.
"Yeah?" I ask, not quite sure what else to say to him. I'm shocked that he's even talking to me at all.
"You got Arkham for the job shadowing project, right?" he asks quickly as if the matter is urgent. I nod slowly.
"Yeah…" There's nothing else really to say to him, and I'm unsure of where he's going with the conversation.
"Good," he sighs, looking like he's had a load lifted from his shoulders. "You need to meet me after school, at the fountain," he adds hastily. "You need to come home with me."
"Why?" I ask immediately, wondering what could possibly be going on. My brain couldn't function fast enough to figure out what possibilities could've have existed, yet the first few that I did flash to weren't very pleasant. One, Dick was going to get revenge for my punching him, and it wasn't going to go very well for me. Two, Bruce was going to tell me something about Owlet, whether it was a new mission that I'd have to do with the Cleaner, or even finally confronting the Cleaner (both sounded very exhausting to me).
"Bruce," was all Dick replied. "You'll be there?" he asked me, his eyes meeting mine with a piercing look. It hit me then how far apart we'd grown in the span of a few weeks. We had once trusted each other, once depended on one another. Now we were forced to reassure that the other would show up when promised, that we'd be able to cooperate long enough. We held the stare there for a few moments before I nodded slowly.
"Yea," I said slowly, wondering how we could've gotten so far apart in such a short amount of time. "I'll be there." I would make sure of.