Tempest: Chapter Twelve: Burden to Bear Alone
Robin had never been inside Mount Justice before, but he knew it was the first place to look for Amara if she wasn't at home and wasn't at work (if Robin hacked the video cameras, he'd never tell). He could have stayed home for the day –school was out for that day– but he'd had nothing but radio silence from Amara since she'd gotten out of the hospital, and it had been a month since then. Robin talked quite a bit with Wally (they were best friends, after all) and he'd said that Amara was cycling from good days to bad days.
"Recognize: Robin –B01" came the disembodied artificial voice, announcing his arrival and he blinked as the light from the zeta-tube faded.
The Cave, as it was commonly called, was larger than he'd expected, despite the fact that he knew it was hidden inside the mountain…it wasn't quite what he had expected, but he didn't have much time to marvel, opting to search the Cave's computer for Amara's location and then moving in the direction it indicated.
Then he found himself in what must have been the workout area of the Cave. There was an assortment equipment around, even a set of trapezes on the ceiling, but Amara was on the bars, her wheelchair close at hand while she had her own hands wrapped around a bar, pulling her chin up over the bar before loosening slightly and starting again.
Sweat beaded her brow and her breathing was short; Robin couldn't imagine how long she had been training, but it looked like a long time. But the most surprising thing had to be that Amara had hacked off her wild curls that had been growing out so that her curls seemed even wilder from their shortness. Robin didn't think he'd ever seen her with such short hair before and it was difficult wrap his head around.
But, before he could even take a step forward, Amara's grip had slipped and she yelped as she fell to the floor.
"Hey, are you all right?" Robin moved to her side, and if Amara was surprised by his presence, she didn't show it, though that might have had more to do with her pain masking it.
"I'm –fine," Amara hisses through gritted teeth and a contorted face that made it plain that she wasn't but wouldn't admit it. She pushed herself off her back to lean forward in a sitting position, her legs resting limply in front of her, before propping her back against one of the bar's poles as she scrutinized him. "What're you doing here? Don't you have school?"
"Not today," Robin said with a shrug. "I thought you could use some company."
Amara glared, but it lacked the usual fire. "I wish everyone would stop treating me like I'm freaking porcelain!"
Sparks of electricity came off her hands and Robin stepped back briefly before plopping down opposite her, noting the bruising on her thighs that he imagined had come from her own fists, angry at the lack of use in her legs.
"We're not treating you like you're porcelain," Robin couldn't stop a snort, "you're not nearly that breakable."
"Thanks," Amara said dryly, rolling her eyes before she pressed a hand over them, hiding them from view.
"Does it hurt?" he asked her quietly, pretending not to notice how she scrubbed at her eyes, wiping away the vestiges of her tears.
"Normally? A little. Now? A lot." Amara winced, reaching a hand behind her rub at the skin over her spine, but it did little to ease her pain. "I feel like my nerve endings are on fire."
"Didn't the League doctors give you some pain meds?"
"I lost them," Amara lamented, looking so pitiful that Robin couldn't help but feel sorry for her as she tugged the wheelchair towards her with one hand before condensing the air around her into her own personal cloud and levitating herself into the seat.
Robin wasn't sure he'd ever seen her quite so miserable.
"Hey, you know it's okay to us for help, right?" he asked her, standing to drop a hand to her arm.
"I'm overwhelmed by your concern, but I'll manage fine," Amara said, wheeling away from him.
"Overwhelmed," Robin muttered, "why isn't everyone ever just whelmed?"
"Um, 'cause it's not a word, Rob!" Amara called from the workout room entrance and Robin jogged to meet her.
"It's a great word!"
"You're a dork," Amara retorted, giving a light laugh, wheeling into the resting area.
"So, how're things being Oracle?" Robin asked her when she rolled up the couch. If she'd still been Storm Chaser, she would have shot him a grin and a wink with a jaunty "Way better than being Robin, little bird" but she didn't. Instead, she braked the wheels and pulled herself up onto the couch on limbs that were probably sore from her workout. She probably only used her powers sparingly with her current disability.
"My brain bleeds from the effort," she said, sighing heavily as she pulled her laptop out of her bag where she'd left it. "But it's still better than sitting around and doing nothing…how're things in Gotham?"
"The usual," Robin said with a shrug, pulling out his own laptop that he'd brought along to help her with her hacking skills.
"Dude," Amara said suddenly, turning towards him, "is Batman your dad?"
It was the most animated Robin had seen her in a long time in a manner that didn't have anything to do with anger.
"Um," Robin said, choking on his tongue, "well…"
"I knew it!" Amara pumped her fist. "Who would have thought that Bruce Wayne was behind that mask? No wonder your dad doesn't complain about you running off in the night, chasing down criminals; he's with you the whole time!"
And Robin could only rub the back of his neck sheepishly.
Amara's enthusiasm distracted him from noticing just how exhausted she was. Her pain medication had probably just rolled under her bed, but she had been slowly weaned off her sleeping pills and there was hardly a day that went by when she didn't wake up breaking hard, feeling like Merlyn was standing over her, arrows stabbing into her skin.
But the human body could only take so much, and not sleeping wasn't very good for her health…but she'd still take no sleep over nightmares any day.
Later that night, after the Allens finished dinner, Amara keeled suddenly out of her wheelchair and onto the floor, unmoving. It was enough to startle her parents into rushing her back to the League's hospital ward, worried about wounds reopening, the paralysis spreading to her arms as well, but all Amara was diagnosed with was a serious case of insomnia, and all while Amara was fast asleep, caught in a web of terrifying dreams.
This was the most ridiculous situation that Amara had ever found herself in to date, and that was saying something, because Amara had been in a number of strange situations. But never before had she been forced into mandatory counseling.
So, Amara kept her arms crossed and a scowl present on her lips as she fervently ignored her mentor in favor of glowering at the light fracture pattern against the stone wall.
"Amy, you're going to have to talk sometime," Black Canary said gently.
"I don't feel like it," Amara responded in a burst of childishness.
"Amara," Dinah pressed, her eyes hard diamonds, "you went without sleep for four days, collapsed from exhaustion, and had to be hospitalized again…it would be concerning even without your present condition." Dinah leaned forward in her chair, her eyes imploring. "You may not be in the field right now, but you're still my sidekick, Amy, and your well-being matters to me as well as your parents."
Amara breathed out sharply, tilting her head back to look up at the ceiling…the color reminded her of the roof of Queen Industries…her feet had barely touched it before—
She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing a hand to her forehead, willing the memories away –the fear that choked her, the pain that left her crying in agony– but they didn't part from her willingly.
"Amy." Dinah's cool fingers against her protégé's made Amara jump, jolting back when she saw her mentor had come to sit against the small coffee table that had separated them. "You have some serious PTSD…what happened to you was incredibly traumatic, but keeping your feelings locked up inside you isn't good for your health…you need to let someone in."
But Amara didn't want to let anyone in, she didn't want to tell anyone how afraid she was…she didn't want anyone to see the cracks in her façade, so she stifled her screams when she awoke and blinked away the tears.
"This will eat you up, and I think you've already felt that," Black Canary said.
And Amara had.
She ripped her hand from Dinah's, leaning her head forward, towards her knees, her fingers digging into her head, knotting into her short locks.
"I can't," she whispered, "If I—" Her words were momentarily choked in her throat and she couldn't manage to get them out. "You'll think I'm weak." The words were spoken so low that Dinah almost didn't catch them.
"No," she denied, pulling Amara's hands gently away from her head, "I could never think of you as weak, Amara…you are so strong and so stubborn, and I think that's the only thing keeping you together right now."
Amara leaned back to rest her head against the armchair's back cushions and Dinah could see just how miserable her protégé was. Her eyes were haunted and frightened, her tears clinging desperately to her eyelashes before they trickled slowly down her cheeks.
"I –I can't sleep," Amara admitted, swallowing thickly, "every time I close my eyes, I see him standing over me –I feel those arrows– the pills help for a little while, but then it's harder and harder to wake up and then I'm just stuck there, reliving it over and over again, and it doesn't stop!" The horror saturated her words.
"It will get better."
"When?" Amara asked brokenly.
"When you don't let him win," Dinah said simply.
"He's already won," Amara spat angrily, swiping the tears from her cheeks as she gestured down at herself. "Look at me! He took my legs from me! I can't be Storm Chaser anymore! I'm no one!"
"No," Dinah corrected, "you are someone, someone very important, to the League, to Star City, to your family…Amara Allen isn't no one, Amara Allen is someone extraordinary."
Amara scoffed, looking away from her.
"It's true that you have a long road ahead of you for the healing process to come full circle, but look at what you've accomplished already. You can hardly use your legs, so you've enhanced your mind in response…you're well on your way to becoming better at hacking than Robin…Oracle is just as important as Storm Chaser, if you ask me…so, what are you really afraid of?"
Amara's head snapped back towards her, her outrage at the insinuation dying in her throat before she could come up with a biting retort.
"Storm Chaser is who I am," she said finally, "do you think it's easy for me, shutting that part of my life away? Officially retiring Storm Chaser? Its hard and it hurts when I see you and Ollie and Roy go off on patrol and I know I should be joining you but I just –can't!"
Her bitter words caused one hand to form into a fist and punch against her thigh.
"But is being Oracle quite so bad?"
"No, it's not bad," Amara decided after a moment of contemplation, "but if I had to choose between Storm Chaser and Oracle, I know who I'd pick."
And Dinah did too.
"Sleeping better?"
Amara looked up from the register, cataloguing shipments while Sandra was out for the hour, where she was perched on the high stool –where she had pulled herself up with only a small amount of help via aero-kinesis when Pamela wasn't looking– to where Pamela was putting together a bouquet for a wedding.
And Amara had to grimace. "It's not that obvious, is it?"
Pamela gave her a light smile. "Not if you don't want it to be."
A grateful look was shot in Pamela's direction. Amara really liked Pamela, she was patient and always listened to what she had to say and she was very kind. She reminded her a bit of Iris, but she'd never say that; no one could replace her mother in her mind.
"My parents sent me to a therapist," Amara admitted, spinning her pen between her fingers, "after I collapsed from sleep deprivation…apparently I have a lot of unresolved issues."
Amara rolled her eyes, but Pamela gave a small laugh.
"Don't we all?" she asked, arching an eyebrow for good measure and Amara smiled with her, before eyeing her in contemplation.
"Why does Sandra think you're overqualified for the job?" she asked her curiously and Pamela paused, looking up in surprise.
"I imagine it might have something to do with my doctorate," Pamela said, de-thorning a white rose.
"In what?" Amara asked with interest.
"Botany and toxicology," Pamela said, watching her reaction.
"Cool," Amara grinned. "Doctor Pamela Quinley…" She cast a wink towards her co-worker who gave another short trilling laugh. "So what's an accomplished woman like yourself doing working in a flower shop?"
"Oh, I just wanted a bit of a change of pace," Pamela said with a shrug, "things were…intense…at my last job, so I wanted a place where I could relax a bit, but still enjoy it."
Amara had to concede that it sounded a bit nice, though she herself missed the intense atmosphere that was always there when you were a sidekick; now she was doing what Pamela was, sitting back in the Cave or in her room, relaying information and looking up information that Roy, Ollie, and Dinah didn't have access to.
"Got any plans for your future?" Pamela inquired, artfully tying a bow around the collection of flowers' stalks, binding them tightly together.
"Something in science, obviously," Amara said, tapping her pen to her lip thoughtfully, "science is my best subject…but not really sure what I want to do, maybe I'll do something forensic, like Dad, but being a doctor would be pretty cool too." Amara's eyes glittered. "Doctor Amara Allen."
Then she laughed. "Probably not, but who knows, I don't really need to know what I want to do with my life yet. Ask me again when I'm sixteen."
"I'll make a note of it," Pamela promised and Amara didn't have any reason to doubt her.
The first time Amara met the assassin Cheshire she had been eleven, eager to prove her worth, battering her bo-staff against the assassin's sais to little avail.
She had seen how her enemy's eyes gleamed behind that mask of hers; she honestly enjoyed their spar, even though Cheshire was the one who had come out on top.
Cheshire had hopped up into the trees, calling to her in a voice as smooth as silk and as venomous as a Death Adder, "Maybe we can help each other out."
"I don't think so," Amara had replied, lunging forward only to find herself in a cloud of smoke, and once it had cleared, the assassin was gone.
But it had been an age since Amara had seen her, so it came as a surprise when the assassin stepped into her way as she was wheeling her way home –it was only a short distance from the zeta-tube to her house, and though she was sure it was rather late and Barry and Iris would have felt more comfortable about their daughter staying at the Cave after hours than wheeling her way home in the dark, Amara would much rather sleep in her own bed.
"Well, well, I had heard some rumors about Storm Chaser giving up the whole heroing gig," Cheshire purred and Amara pulled her wheels to a stop, her eyes narrowed, her charm from Zatara swinging from her ear lobe.
"How did you know it was me?" Amara asked finally, crossing her arms at the assassin, feeling remarkably at ease in her presence, despite that the woman had the skill to take her head off if she felt like it.
"Research, Storm, good old fashioned research." Amara could practically hear her smirk.
"Sorry to hear about your legs," she added, and there was something in her voice that made Amara think she'd dealt with someone in a similar situation. "You were kickass."
"If by 'kickass' you mean you kicked my ass, then yes, I was totally 'kickass'," Amara said dryly, and that made the elder of the two actually laugh and Amara wasn't sure that she'd ever heard such a sound from the assassin before.
"I'm liking you, Storm!"
Amara ignored that comment, making a small gesture with her hand. "I know you didn't come here to make small talk…what is it that you want?" Amara probed.
"How about a location of a certain someone?"
Amara wasn't even sure why she was considering helping the assassin; they were on very opposite sides of the ally spectrum for good and evil. But the assassin had saved her life once and Amara hated being in others' debts.
"Hero or villain?" she queried.
"Villain," Cheshire said shortly, tilting her head slightly so that she was eerily reminiscent of the cat from Alice in Wonderland, from whom she had taken the name Cheshire.
Amara sighed, tugging on a stray curl of her short hair. "Pull my backpack off the bars, would you?"
Cheshire did as she asked, her body carefully tensed, ready for an attack that didn't come as Amara pulled her laptop from within its depths, turning it on, her fingers leaping across the keyboard.
"Name?" Amara prompted.
"Sportsmaster," Cheshire said and Amara looked up in surprise, but she didn't comment, "also known as Lawrence Crock…I have reason to believe he might be heading for Star City."
"I think it would be better of me not to ask why," Amara muttered, shrinking the parameters for her search to Star City."
"Probably wise," Cheshire said, the words curling off her tongue, watching Amara intently as she focused on the laptop.
"You could have gone to anyone to help you get information," Amara said, waiting for the search of the various cameras in Star City –and there were a lot, but Amara couldn't help that– as she lifted her gaze to fix Cheshire with a pointed stare, "why come to me?"
"Worried?" Cheshire leaned forward, her words a low purr and Amara leaned back in her wheelchair's seat.
"How about confused?" she offered instead, arching an eyebrow. "I do work in collaboration with the Justice League and you've always made it clear that you're not a fan of them."
Cheshire straightened once more. "My last contact tried to double-cross me and you clearly have no interest in that, especially since you owe me one," Amara scowled at the mention of her debt to the assassin, but she didn't speak of it, "besides, we have something in common."
"A villain father?" Amara snorted.
"Exactly." Cheshire scrutinized her from behind her mask. "But look how you turned out; the sidekick to a hero."
"I think I'll take that as a compliment," Amara said, her eyes scanning over the result that cropped up. "It looks like he's disembarked a plane that landed one hour ago. Facial recognition nabbed him, but it didn't set off any League alarms…which I will worry about tomorrow…" She swiveled the laptop around for Cheshire to observe herself and then the assassin reeled back with a swear.
"I wasn't expecting him to be there already," she said bitterly, "I'll never be able to catch up with him now."
"Not on foot, or a plane, or a helicopter," Amara agreed, shutting her laptop and shoving it back into her bag, "but I'm willing to give you an alternative."
"An alternative?" Amara could hear the sharp humor in her voice. "What'll it cost me?"
One good turn deserved another, but Amara knew it would be good to have an assassin owing her a favor; what was the worst that could happen?
"Silence –you don't tell anyone it was me or how I got you there– and a favor for me, obviously," Amara said, rolling her eyes for good measure as she pulled her bag over her shoulders. "Deal?"
Cheshire considered her options –she wouldn't have been Cheshire if she didn't– before she said, "Deal." And then she knelt so that Amara could wrap her arms around her shoulders, the assassin locking her arms around her unresponsive legs. "Someone's going to notice that wheelchair in the middle of the sidewalk."
Amara seemed remarkably unconcerned. "My parents won't be pleased…but I'll just say you kidnapped me at blade-point, that should work."
Cheshire snorted. "You are a conniving little sidekick, I'll give you that."
"I do aim to please," Amara said dryly before directing her forward in the direction of the nearest zeta-tube. After this, they'd likely have to move it, but Amara didn't really care; she was an adrenaline junkie after all, and for the first time since her accident, she was doing something slightly dangerous.
"Through there," she said, nodding to the abandoned photo booth that was just big enough for the two of them.
"Oracle –B00, Authorized Guest," Amara told the dark screen flatly, giving the override code to allow Cheshire to accompany her. "Destination: Star City."
A scanning light appeared, running the length of the pair.
"Destination confirmed," the computer responded. "Recognize: Oracle –B00, Authorized Guest."
And then they vanished into the zeta-beam.
"Oracle, huh?" Cheshire snorted as they arrived in a slightly more cramped space than before. "That's catchy."
"Oh, shut up," Amara muttered, "if I don't make fun of your name, you can't make fun of mine…now find the nearest bench to drop me on."
Cheshire maneuvered them carefully out of the small closet and into a dark alley. "And leave you there?" she asked dubiously, making Amara wonder if she'd ever had to take care of anyone like Amara before.
"I've got a cell," Amara said, rolling her eyes, "I can call Speedy to pick me up."
"The red-haired archer, right?" Cheshire's voice had taken on an almost sultry tone as she helped Amara off her back, easing her onto the nearest bench under a flickering light. "Give him a message for me, would you?"
She lifted her mask slightly and Amara felt a pair of lips against her cheek. "Tell him I'm looking forward to our next meeting," she purred before disappearing in a cloud of smoke like the last time they'd met and Amara was left sitting on that bench, gaping slightly.
Then she pulled out her cell, selecting her speed-dial for Arrowhead.
A tired voice answered, "Yeah?"
"Um, hey, this is probably a bad time, but could you come pick me up?" Amara asked, picking at a stray thread on her shirt.
"Amy?" he asked blearily. "What're you talking about?"
"I'm in Star City…no wheelchair…stuck outside the zeta-tube, so can you come get me?"
She could hear the faint sound of rustling on his end. "All right, I'm on my way, don't move."
It would probably be in poor taste for Amara to point out she wasn't really going anywhere with her legs. But, either way, he was going to have some questions for her, and she had one for him: How in the name of sanity had he managed to attract an assassin?
Roy Harper had some explaining to do.
