Vicki Vale laughed to herself as she held up Gotham Gazette's paper from the other day. This was her best work yet. The Gazette rehired her the second she presented them with the headline. Gotham Daily be damned and she still had one more to go. It would make her a millionaire. Who would have thought, a pregnant Hawkgirl. It was just too good to be true. Two perfect stories fell right into her lap.

Vicki continued to laugh as she hugged the newspaper tightly. She laid back on her bed as she smiled brightly. She had to let the first headline sink in before she unveiled the next bombshell. She squealed in delight, "Vicki you have hit it big this time!"

The balcony windows whipped open and the early morning, summer wind blew through her condo. Vicki rolled her eyes. She stood and lazily made her way to the balcony and closed the windows. She sighed as she didn't even bother to turn, "What do you need Batman? Want to finally do that private, one-on-one interview? The offer is still on the table."

Batman's frown deepened, "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?" She asked in a innocent voice as she began to saunter towards her bed.

"You know what," he countered as he narrowed his eyes. "I'm not in the mood Vale. What did Hawkgirl or Bruce Wayne ever do to you?"

"Other than Bruce Wayne being an arrogant, rich jackass who dumped me for some lawyer floozy...he did nothing to me," she offered as she laid on her bed. "Hawkgirl on the other hand, well now," she slightly chuckled and Batman raised an eyebrow under his cowl. "Anything with her name on it is big bucks since the Invasion. It's business Batman though you wouldn't understand any of that. Aren't you going to ask me who or where I got the information from?"

"I already know," he dryly stated as Vicki's smile disappeared in an instant.

"I don't believe you," she said, rising from her bed.

"You and Judge David McCillion have been having some late night rendezvous for the past five months," Batman said deadpan as Vicki lightly gasped. "I bet his wife would love to hear about them. Especially since she's the Chief Executor of Gotham Gazette. You never know; maybe some journalist will find themselves lucky and have the story of the century."

"Are you blackmailing me?" She paused but then shakingly asked, "What do you want?"

"If you put on any newspaper cover that Hawkgirl's pregnant, I'll ruin you," he threatened with a scowl. "I'm not playing around! I dare you." Vicki remained silent as she gulped. Bruce felt like he accomplished his mission and turned to leave.

"What of Judge McCillion?" He heard her ask.

Batman didn't turn to face her as he smirked, "He's seeing to it that the other judges are going to award Hawkgirl citizenship." Bruce quickly made his face emotionless as he turned to face her, "Remember my promise."

"You mean threat?"

"No," he countered as he shot her a glare. "It's a promise. I'll ruin your life and career all in one fell swoop. I suggest you shred the rough draft and find another topic for your article."

Wally hummed to himself as he powerwalked rather cheerfully down the halls of the Watchtower. When he was halfway to the cafeteria for his morning snack, he spotted a rather irritable looking Thanagarian trudging down the hallway.

Wally smirked as he zipped over behind her, "Morning!"

Shayera immediately jumped and whirled around, "Goddammit Wally don't do that! You nearly gave me a heart attack. I'm on edge enough as it is," Shayera sighed as she resumed walking. "I don't need you scaring the shit out of me."

"So how is my godchild doing today?" Wally chirped, falling into step beside Shayera.

Shayera lightly glared at him, "Your godchild had me puking all night and morning, meaning you need to stop being so damn cheery."

"Well, aren't you a ray of sunshine?" Wally sarcastically asked her.

Shayera in turn raised an eyebrow, "When am I ever a ray of sunshine Wally?"

"Good point, so what'cha doing?" He asked with a small smile.

"Escaping the medbay obviously," she answered as she glanced over at him. "Don't you have anyone else you can annoy this morning?"

Wally thought for a moment before shrugging, "Nope, you were the first person I ran into."

Shayera sighed and then muttered as she rolled her eyes, "Lucky me."

"Wanna get breakfast? I was headed to the cafeteria for my morning snack."

"Sorry Wally but I'll have to take a hard pass on that."

Wally lightly frowned, "Oh come on, even you have to eat."

"I will eat when I don't feel like throwing up," Shayera responded in an annoyed tone. She then sighed, "Look Wally, I know you're trying to be all perky to get me in a good mood and I appreciate it but I really don't feel good. I need to go lay down in my own bed before I throw up again."

"Ew," Wally scrunched up his nose as he stuck his tongue out in disgust. "Just the mental image I needed before I ate."

"Please," Shayera rolled her eyes. "I bet you've seen worse than someone puking."

"Well that is true. There was this one time I fought this garbage monster. Literally made of garbage so old that it was turning into sludge and literally had sewage from the sewers all over it. It smelt like a rotting-" Wally was cutoff as Shayera held her hand up to him.

Shayera took in a slow, deep breath and swallowed, "I really don't want to hear about it Wally."

"Right sorry," Wally sheepishly smiled as he scratched the back of his head. "Anyway, can we hang out later then? I haven't been able to hang out with you in weeks and monitor duty doesn't count."

"John and I are supposed to have a talk today so I don't know when I'll be available. I should probably be free tonight. How about this; we can have dinner together and maybe play video games. Is that good enough?"

Wally beamed at her, "Perfect, you can even bring Mister Cranky-Pants as long as you two are still on speaking terms and didn't kill each other."

Shayera snorted back a laugh, "I'm sure it won't go that far Wally. I'll see you tonight."

Perhaps sleeping in the Watchtower hadn't been John's best idea. Though sleeping was a rather loose term to use as John didn't get a moment of rest the entire night. Instead he found himself pacing the entire night, running over in his mind what he wanted to say to Shayera and how he was going to say it. That and he had envisioned multiple scenarios of how their conversation could playout.

John sighed as he got out of bed and paced again. It didn't help that he was worried about Shayera and how she was doing. He figured it couldn't hurt to go to the medbay. It was technically early morning and there was a possibility that Shayera was already awake.

John stopped his pacing and beelined to the door. The Green Lantern had barely made it one step out of the door when he collided with a shorter, winged individual. He glanced down to see the redhead Thanagarian looking up at him with an unamused look as she had her hands on her hips.

"What are you doing in my room?" Shayera asked him with a light frown.

John likewise frowned in return as he crossed his arms over his chest, "Last time I checked it was our room."

Shayera raised an eyebrow, "You mean how you moved yourself into my room without asking."

"Just like how you moved yourself into my apartment without asking," he retorted.

Shayera glared at him as she pushed past him, "I'm not in the mood right now John so just shut the hell up."

John was about to snap back before he caught himself and sighed. They had only seen each other for less than a minute and they were already at each other's throats. He saw Shayera had paused after walking into the room. He saw her sigh and look over her shoulder at him.

"Look John, I just need to lay down for like an hour. Then we can have our little talk. Ok?"

John raised an eyebrow and offered her a light smirk, "Bed not comfy enough in the medbay for you?"

Shayera lightly snorted and rolled her eyes, "More like your spawn had me up puking all night and morning. That and I have a pounding headache. I just need a one hour powernap and I'll be fine."

John scratched the back of his head as he awkwardly looked away, "Right um, I'll just leave you alone then. If you're still not feeling better later on Shayera we don't need to talk or anything. We can do it tomorrow."

Shayera paused before answering, "I'll be fine. I'll meet you in the cafeteria in an hour."

"Listen," John began as he sat across from the Dark Knight. "I don't think Shayera is going to be happy if she sees you here."

Batman looked over at John and narrowed his eyes, "You seem to think that I care about that. I know better than to go to her directly. Here," he placed a plastic bag onto the table. "Alfred told me to bring this to her."

John raised an eyebrow, "And what exactly did he have you bring for her?"

"Ginger ale and bagels, she wasn't a fan of the chamomile tea apparently," he dryly replied. "Not sure if you've noticed yet but she's having a particular problem with morning sickness. She's having an issue keeping food and liquids down. According to Alfred, bagels have been the only thing she's been able to eat in the morning and not get sick from."

John slowly nodded, "I'll keep that in mind. Now it just makes so much sense with how she's been acting and everything the past few weeks. I should have known something was wrong with her when she didn't want to eat at all and that it wasn't just stress. Normally she's been skipping out on breakfast and sometimes lunch. A couple times she didn't even want to eat dinner."

"That's typical," Batman replied. "Alfred said having an empty stomach makes the morning sickness worse. We've tried telling her that but you know how she is."

"You don't need to remind me," he rolled his eyes. "I'm well aware how stubborn she can be."

"So," Batman started. "How are you two doing since yesterday morning?"

John swallowed and remained silent for a moment before shrugging, "We're supposed to talk today about what happened. We both said some things to each other that we didn't mean but they left their marks."

Batman glanced down and nodded, "You're both stubborn and tend to say things without thinking, especially when angered. I'm going to give you a warning though, Shayera has a lot of deep-rooted issues. Most of them stem back from her time in the military on Thanagar. I suggest you offer to listen to her about her life, whether you really want to or not."

John lightly frowned, "Shayera never offered to talk about anything from her life on Thanagar. That's why I never asked. I figured if she didn't want to bring it up then I wasn't going to."

"She never did because she thought you didn't want to hear about it or would even understand so she didn't bother to try to talk to you about it. She has a lot of pent up guilt and remorse. She has a very dark military past that was honestly even a little shocking to hear myself," Batman then paused. "She thinks you're going to hate her once she tells you everything."

"I could never hate her Bruce," John quietly said. "I don't care what she's done. Nothing is ever going to change the person I came to know and love. She's still the same Shayera I've always known."

"For your sake John," Batman stood to leave. "I hope that's true."