Tempest: Chapter Twenty-Nine: Schism of Heroes
The first words out of Amara's mouth when Aqualad managed to push the debris off them were: "Fuck, Dad's going to kill me."
"Nah," Wally laughed, grinning and grimacing after high-fiving Robin. "I mean what's the worst that could happen?"
The crumbling remains of the building behind them seemed to beg to differ, but a moment later it didn't quite seem to matter because the Justice League arrived a moment later. The ones that could fly floated down from the sky, the Green Lanterns carrying a few more, and Amara could make out Dinah's frown from where she stood beside Aquaman. And then Flash zipped forward and Amara could see her father's lips drawn in a frown.
Amara's shoulders sagged as she grudgingly took the hand that Aqualad offered her.
"Oh, look," she said dryly, "my father's here to kill me."
Flash crossed his arms and Amara gave a regretful sigh, grimacing as Superboy stepped forward to show the S on his chest that was identical to the one on Superman's, and it only went downhill from there.
"Do you think they like making us sit and wait?"
"It's probably some kind of League thing, making people stew in their juices."
Several eyes turned towards Amara.
"What?" she demanded at the attention. "That is a phrase, you know."
"Like crash the mode?" Dick snorted.
Amara glowered, jabbing a finger in his direction. "Don't even get me started on you and your unwords."
Aqualad's lips formed into a smile briefly and Superboy's mouth twitched while Wally rolled his eyes up at the sky, the tension was shattered by a sharp ringtone piercing the night.
Amara pulled out her phone, scrutinizing the caller ID before realizing that the noise had jerked the attention of the contemplating members of the Justice League towards her.
"Chill," she said unperturbed, "it's just my girlfriend."
It was amusing to watch her father choke and listen to her cousin try to silence his laughter as she answered the phone.
"Hey, babe," she said, "no, I'm not doing anything, but I hear something crazy's going down on Pier 31 tonight, you in?"
Jade and Amara had created a series of key phrases that to anyone else wouldn't have seemed like a code, but to them meant something else entirely. The codes were simple, things that could be said in polite conversation and not be mistaken for anything else.
Any mention of a date at Pier 31 meant that a Kryptonian was close by and to monitor phrases accordingly.
"That would be amazing, but I've already got plans," Jade laughed from the other end and Amara couldn't but smile.
"Aw, you really know how to disappoint a girl," she said before shoving Wally away as he leaned close to her phone to listen in.
"But maybe we can meet up sometime this week," Jade offers slyly. "I'll even bring poppies."
Bringing poppies meant that there was something that Jade wanted Amara to look into.
"Sure," Amara said easily. "Can I call you tomorrow? It's kind of early and I've had a hell of a day."
"Sure," Jade said, slightly surprised by the exhaustion in her voice. "No rush, I've got my own life to get back to."
More like an assassination to complete.
"It's a date," Amara laughed, "see ya, babe!"
Then she glared at Dick and Wally in less than a second since hanging up on her call. "You two need a lesson in subtlety."
Dick had a listening device in his ear with Wally leaning close, and the sheepish grin on both of their faces was aggravating.
Aqualad and Superboy, wisely, chose to stay off to the side.
"Didn't know you were dating," Wally said innocently, leaning on one leg against his best friend, most of his weight bearing down in the Boy Wonder.
Amara smirked. "Oh, I'm not."
Then Dick swept Wally's feet out from under him and the red-head tumbled to the ground with a muffled complaint of "Why do you do this to me?"
Amara gave a simple shrug. "Kitty's great, but she's not really my type, besides, she's a little bit too old for me and has a thing for Speedy."
"Speedy?" Aqualad repeated a bit dubiously.
"I know, right? He's got a massive stick up his ass!"
Dick snorted and Wally clamored to his feet while Aqualad graced her with an amused glance, leaving Superboy in a bit of befuddlement; he was rather unfamiliar with half the things Amara was saying, so she couldn't blame him for his confusion.
But then he was distracted by Superman stepping forward awkwardly.
"We'll uh, we'll figure something out for you, the League will, I mean." Amara didn't think she'd ever seen the Kryptonian stumble over his words before. "For now…I'd better make sure they get that Blockbuster creature squared away."
And then he flew off, leaving them to the mercies of Batman and the other Leaguers, who appeared to have come to some kind of decision.
"Cadmus will be investigated, all fifty-two levels, but let's make one thing clear—" Batman said, only to be interrupted by a vexed Flash.
"You should have called," he said, and Amara got the feeling that it was mostly aimed towards her and a muscle jumped in her jaw.
"End results aside, we are not happy."
"Wow, what a surprise," Amara muttered and Dick elbowed her sharply in the side.
"You hacked Justice League systems, disobeyed direct orders, and endangered lives. You will not be doing this again," Batman finished swiftly.
"I am sorry," Aqualad said, taking a step forward, "but we will."
"Aqualad," Aquaman warned, "stand down."
"Apologies, my king," Aqualad said, raising a hand to brush against his chest, "but no. We did good work here tonight, the work you trained us to do. Together on our own we forged something powerful, important."
"If this is about your treatment at the Hall, the four of you—" Flash started to say.
"The five of us," Wally corrected with a vein of annoyance in his voice, "and it's not."
"What happened at the Hall?" Amara asked, her brow furrowed as she tugged lightly on Wally's wrist.
"I'll tell you later," he promised.
"Batman, we're ready to use what you taught us," Dick implored, "or why teach us at all?"
An unsettling silence settled over them.
Roy was speeding down the road without looking back, but he didn't need to, he'd passed beyond Gotham more than an hour ago and Batman and Robin were probably still in DC. His GPS gave a harsh beep, directing him to take the next left.
As far as he knew, Amara hadn't told anyone but him the location of her safe house, which was great because Roy needed a place to hide out for awhile and cool his head and all the other places were ones that Oliver knew how to find. But Amara had been very cautious since she'd returned from what Wally liked to call her 'Thievery Interlude', she hadn't spoken much about what had gone on during her time on the run, apart from what could have been ascertained via articles printed on Masquerade's thefts.
Sea Isle City wasn't quite what he'd been expecting; it was more out in the open and Roy had been expecting her to find some kind of storage container to call a safe house, but, then again, she did make a habit of surprising people.
Sea Isle City was the epitome of a sea-side city, you could smell it on the air, see it in the designs on the buildings.
Roy slowed his motorcycle just enough to allow him to gaze around without a fear of hitting something, of course the chances of that were rather slim, Sea Isle City wasn't very busy.
He took a right, moving steadily farther out of town, taking a winding road until he came to where the beach houses were located, then he had to arch an eyebrow as he came to a stop at the coordinates that Amara had given him.
It was…not at all what he was expecting.
Roy shook his head, parking his motorcycle under the stilts that the beach house was balanced on top of before taking the steps two at a time until he rested on the porch, pulling out his phone as he took in the hanging flower basket close to the door holding flowers that were red and blue and violet.
I keep the extra key in the flower pot, Amara's text had told him, but now that Roy could see the flower pot, it was like she loved to make him suffer, which was rather likely.
Curled around the pot was poison ivy, ensuring that the person who tried to dig around inside it for the key would get a bad case of itching.
But Roy was prepared (really, he'd been Amara's partner for far too long), and he'd brought a strong magnet with him, moving the cylinder carefully over the flower basket, carefully avoiding the poison ivy until the key burrowed out of the soil to spring up to the magnet.
Roy shook his head, flicking the dirt off as he thumbed Amara's speed-dial on his phone.
"You're a sadist," he told her one there was a click on the other end from her picking up.
Amara only laughed, the sound turning into a bit of static on the other end. "I guess you got the key, then," she said, clearly amused.
"You need counseling," he replied shortly, twisting the key in the door.
"Your future step-mom is my counselor," Amara pointed out and he could just imagine her grinning widely as he gagged.
"I try not to think about that," he said as he flicked on the light, allowing him to look upon the first level of the safe house. "And you call this a safe house, Amy? It's way too open."
Her voice was entirely too smug when she responded. "Only the part that you can see."
Roy rolled his eyes at the ceiling.
"Um, Roy, I know I said that you could use the safe house whenever you wanted but the others said that you stormed off after that whole initiation thing with the League…"
Her hesitance was rather clear and she probably didn't want to press him too much, but if there was one thing Amara was known for, it was searching for the truth.
"I should've just blown them off like you," he said with a long sigh, "it was a complete waste of time. Is that why you didn't want to go?"
"Well, I've never been one of those kinds of people that likes to be in front of a camera," Amara acquiesced. "I guess I've gotten too used to being in the shadows…I'd never really cared about public opinion."
Roy's lips thinned. As Oracle she had operated unseen in the background and Masquerade had a talent for disappearing without a trace, but Storm Chaser's uniform had been modeled slightly after Black Canary's, it wouldn't look amiss in the darkness of Star City.
"Roy, are you all right?" she asked, concern coloring her voice.
"I'm fine," he said, "Ollie and I just had another fight, but, you know, that's not all that surprising."
Amara said nothing to that, but there wasn't really all that much that she could say; she was rather familiar with his fights with his adoptive father.
"Want any company?" she asked him after a moment. "I've got tomorrow off and Dad and Mom have to go to work early tomorrow."
He arched an eyebrow. "Your dad would let you come to stay at your safe house with me being the only other one present?" That was dubious at best. Flash was extremely protective of his daughter.
"You and Wally are the only ones," Amara informed him cheerfully. "I mean, he likes Richard and all, but I don't think he'd trust him to sleep in the same house as me, I'm so impressionable, you know."
There was a noise in the background as they both laughed and Roy could hear Amara say: "You know I love you, babe."
"He's bright red, it's pretty impressive," Amara told him a moment later, "Ow, ow! Chill!"
Roy got the feeling that Dick was elbowing her in the side; that kid did have sharp elbows.
"Dad says he's fine with me staying at the safe house, but he really wants to know where it is, and that's not happening."
Roy smirked.
"Your dad wants to know how you're doing, too," Amara added, and the smirk fell.
"Well, you tell him that he can—" he snapped angrily before Amara cut him off.
"Whoa, calm down," Amara said, "I told him you weren't really feeling like talking."
That was putting it mildly.
"I'll be over soon," Amara promised. "You had dinner yet because I haven't and I've been tied up, and I mean that literally."
Roy's brow furrowed. "Um, no, I haven't really eaten –tied up? What d'you mean tied up?"
"I'll, um, tell you when I get there," Amara said, sounding flustered, which was a first; Roy couldn't remember a time when Amara was flustered.
Amara shifted on her feet awkwardly as she stood before her father and he didn't look pleased, which was saying something because his cowl was mostly covering his face.
"Your mother was under the impression that you were with me and I was under the impression that you were with Speedy," he said with a layer in his voice that commanded an answer.
Amara's insides tied into knots, but she couldn't bring herself to tell him the truth, to tell him how she'd set the first fire to sneak into Cadmus to find out more about her mother, and the weight of the flash drive in her pocket was like lead.
"I doing some research for a client," she said, the lie falling easily from her lips.
"A client," Barry repeated, the cowl rippling in his confusion.
"I know that you and Mom don't like me being involved in the BlackNet—"
"Amara," her father muttered tiredly, drawing a hand up pinch the bridge of his nose, "we've talked about this."
"I know that you think BlackNet is just all bad, but it's not," Amara said stubbornly, crossing her arms, "I help people, and that's no different than dressing up and running around firing lightning bolts out of my eyes." Her eyes glowed briefly with lightning for emphasis, which would be a bit more terrifying if Barry wasn't so used to it.
"And who were you helping this time?" he asked with strained patience.
Amara's green eyes narrowed like she was trying to ascertain if he honestly wanted to know, giving her only a split second to defeat onto one of the 'cases' she had solved that had been requested to Oracle through Limbo.
"There was a corrupt cop who'd shot an innocent by-stander and then had him convicted of murder while he was strapped to a hospital bed in recovery."
The innocent by-stander was a Nigerian exchange student who had plans of being a doctor. The request had come from his sister who was crippling under the hospital bills and the ones the lawyer had heaped on top.
Sadly, it wasn't that difficult to find proof that the cop was guilty. Amara had found far too many cases on BlackNet concerning cop corruption or brutality and it was giving her a rather morbid view on the entire establishment.
"Can I go hang out with Roy now?" Amara asked, teetering back and forth on her feet, eager to leave.
They were the last ones left. Batman and Robin had departed rather soon after it was decided that the League would come to a decision about the five of them in three days, which seemed like it was just a way to draw out the time and make them suffer, and Aqualad had left with Aquaman, leaving Wally to take Superboy home with him (Wally looked particularly ecstatic).
"I'm not happy about this," Barry told her and Amara shrugged helplessly.
"I got my stubbornness from you," she pointed out with a grin before leaping onto a cloud and vaulting up towards the sky.
"You'll keep an eye on her?" Barry asked Dinah as she stepped forward, clearly waiting until they were the last ones left to speak; she had sunk into the shadows, blending in so well that Barry had almost forgotten she was there.
Dinah gave a light chuckle that echoed. "To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure that your daughter really needs any eyes on her," she said plainly, "but she does make a habit of trying to be everywhere at once."
He gave an exasperated shake of his head. "It wouldn't kill her to slow down."
"Says the speedster," Dinah smirked. "Don't worry about it, it's probably just something she got used to doing when she was on her own, keeping busy and helping people in the best way she knows, maybe you just need to let her ease back into her old life slowly."
"She wants to keep the money she stole," Barry confided.
"Stole or was paid?" Dinah questioned instead and he looked to her, making her draw her hands up in the typical surrender sign. "Hey, I'm not saying I agree, but the kid's got a safe house that no one –save Speedy– knows the location of, she has at least one alias with a passport to go with, and enough money to set her for a few years at least…I'm saying she's got a unique way of viewing the world and in her mind that's her money, rightfully, and if she says she wants to put it towards college, is that really so bad?"
"It bothers me where the money came from," Barry admitted.
"Then ask her," Dinah suggested. "Maybe she'll tell you, maybe she won't, but you've got to open that line of communication yourself, Barry."
And then she took off, running to meet Oliver who was waiting for her at the street corner, leaving Barry to his thoughts.
Roy couldn't say he was really surprised when Amara showed up almost half an hour after the call had ended sporting a head of red curls.
"I liked the black better," he called from the living room as Amara dropped her bag over a chair in the kitchen before opening the cupboard doors to look for something to eat.
"Fuck you, Harper," Amara retorted. "Okay, there's a lot of ramen noodles, you up for that?"
"I honestly don't care," Roy groaned, turning off the TV as Amara grabbed two packages out and filled a pot with water to boil before flipping over the couch to sit beside him. "You look like shit," he mentioned, taking note of how utterly exhausted she looked.
"Oh, you know, it's an off day when someone doesn't try to kill me via drowning," Amara said giving a wide yawn and flopping back against the cushions.
"Hey." Roy poked her in the knee. "Spill."
"You've got to promise you won't tell anyone this first bit, okay?" Amara asked, sitting up to look him seriously in the eye and Roy looked at her oddly.
"You're not mixed up in something illegal again, are you?" he asked her dubiously.
"No," Amara retorted quickly before faltering, "well, maybe, I'm not really sure."
The great thing about Roy was that he didn't question it too much, only making a vague gesture with his hand clearly, meaning for her to continue.
"I've been doing some research into my mother," Amara told him, curling herself against the cushions to tilt her head back to look at the ceiling. "The genetics lab at the top of my list was Project Cadmus, so I decided to have a look around, see if I could find anything about Project Amara." Her mouth said 'Project Amara' like the words themselves were bitter and Roy twisted to arch an eyebrow towards her.
"Project Amara?" he repeated. "Was that what your development was called?"
"Like I was some sort of lab rat," Amara agreed, her shoulders slumping just slightly. "I still had my ID bracelet from back then, you know, before Weather Wizard had me foisted onto him, and the bracelet had Cadmus' symbol so they had to be involved in some way…so I decided to start a small fire."
"A small fire?" Roy repeated blankly. "You started a small fire?"
"Well, I started one, and then this genomorph-goblin started another one, and that's when it got the League's attention, but the League had to help on a blotting out the sun mission, apparently, so Aqualad, KF, and Robin rushed over to Cadmus to help where they found me trying to hack them—"
"I ditch for a few hours and I swear I miss out on so much," Roy complained under his breath, but Amara ignored him.
"But there was a file on me there," she told him. "Project Amara. I barely had time to download it before the others showed up, and then we were all distracted by Superboy—"
"Superboy?" Roy asked in confusion. "Who's Superboy?"
"He's the clone of Superman, weird, huh?"
Roy was staring at her like he'd never quite seen anything like her, and Amara couldn't blame him; it was a hard thought to wrap your head around.
"I got separated from the others by Doctor Desmond," Amara continued, "I woke up in a pod and he decided to try a stress test out on me, which involved slowly filling that pod with water."
Amara grimaced and gave a shudder. "I'm not entirely sure that he wasn't trying to kill me, but I guess I'll never know now."
"He's dead?"
"Monster-ified," Amara corrected, frowning thoughtfully, "some kind of solution they were synthesizing underneath Cadmus, I'm not entirely sure what it's all about, but I did manage to snag a sample to test."
"Does Bats know about that?" Roy smirked.
"What Bats doesn't know won't hurt him," Amara grinned, "besides, if it amounts to nothing, then I won't have wasted his time, so it's a win-win."
But Amara couldn't deny that it felt nice to hold the cards for once. She had nothing against the League, not really, but she always had the feeling that Batman always hid far more than he told.
"I will never understand your logic," Roy sighed and the water in the pan in the kitchen began to boil and Amara beamed.
"That's the beauty of it all," she laughed before pulling herself upright to add the noodles to the water.
"It doesn't have to be logical."
And Roy could only cast her a vaguely amused glance in return.
