Tempest: Chapter Thirty-One: Breaking of a Partnership


Everything was signed, Pamela and Harley had bought the house. It was a really nice house, all things considered, nothing but wildlife in any direction.

It was in Gotham, of course, as the city was still Harley's home and would be Pamela's again once she moved back with her, but it was on the outskirts of the city where it seemed to be untouched by the corruption that seeped into Gotham's underbelly.

But Pamela needed area for her plants to grow, where the sunlight was clear and beamed down on them from the sky.

Pamela was always in a better mood when it was sunny, but that had to do with, in part, her weakness to darkness from her chloro-kinesis.

But there was also something almost humorous about the whole situation, because while Harley and Pamela had gotten a bit domestic as their relationship had progressed, neither had ever thought they'd be the type to actually get a house together, but here they were. So much had changed since Pamela had left to go to Central City, since she'd found out that she had a daughter.

Most of the pictures on Pamela's phone were taken with Amara, with both green-eyed females grinning widely at the camera. Harley doubted that Pamela had told Amara the truth yet, but she knew that she would, after all, there was a room being set up in the house meant for the tempestuous meta-human. It was large and spacious, probably bigger than the room at her house, perfect for an almost teen-aged girl.

"Are you going to tell her you're moving before you drop the bomb or after?" Harley asked her girlfriend breathlessly once they'd situated a rather expensive –but totally worth it because wow, you could sink right into that thing– couch in the living room.

"Before," Pamela groaned, flopping down on the couch opposite Harley, propping her feet on top of Harley's legs, making her laugh. "We're not on the same shift at work until Wednesday, so I'm going to spring it on her then."

"That's so mean! I love it!" Harley gave a cackling laugh that Pamela loved so much. "Her birthday's coming up soon, isn't it? Going to get her something?"

"August tenth," Pamela said, a smile softening her lips. "I was thinking of getting her a ring with her birthstone."

That way it was something that told Amara that her birth-mother cared about the day she had been born, whether or not it had been by synthetic means or not. That she thought the world of Amara even though she'd never revealed her identity to the girl.

And Pamela truly did want to, but she couldn't seem to come up with the best way to reveal that information to her daughter. She doubted it would go over well if she just told her that she was Poison Ivy and her mother. That would be more likely to cause a few explosions, and Pamela wanted to keep that kind of response from happening, if she could help it.


"I'm not even surprised," Amara said, her eyes narrowed as she sat cross-legged on her bed, his fingers tapping over her laptop's keyboard, sifting through the records of Project Amara. "You and Ollie are like magnets with the same charge, you repel each other."

"Your nerd talk isn't helping," Roy complained on the other end.

After the Fourth of July, Roy had made up with Oliver, but, true to his nature of inevitably clashing with his adoptive father, they were at each other's throats again, though more of the animosity was coming from Roy than Oliver, seeing as the Green Arrow was well known for being easy going.

"Maybe you and him just need to talk it out, supervised by Dinah, because I'm pretty sure it'd be chaos if you two were locked in a room for an extended amount of time," she said, clicking on a video link and watching a child-like version of herself undergoing what looked to be a serious stress test that involved dropping her from a great height.

It was horrifying to watch, especially since Amara didn't remember anything to do with stress tests from that young. The video-Amara dropped like stone, curling into a ball in fright, just barely managing to spare herself a far broken bones by spinning the air around her at a few inches off the ground.

"He's stifling me," Roy said shortly and she could just imagine him huffing in annoyance and crossing his arms. "I don't know why I bother coming back here when he keeps pulling this on me."

That had Amara pushing her laptop back and sitting up more fully, focusing her undivided attention on Roy's voice in her ear.

"Tell me you're not serious," she said weakly. "Roy, Star City is your home!"

"You wouldn't understand," he said, "you're still a kid, but I'm an adult now and they still won't let me into the Justice League."

Amara swallowed her words, not really knowing that to say to him to soothe the sting of the words of the Leaguers. Honestly, she didn't understand their reluctance, it was more understandable concerning the younger sidekicks, particularly her and Robin who were the youngest of them, to want them to wait, no matter if they had more experience, but Roy was fully grown and had proved himself on more than one occasion.

"Roy—"

He severed the connection before Amara could come up with something to say that would make him feel less like the League had stomped on him and threw him away, not that she could have actually come up with anything that could have helped the situation.

Amara sighed, pocketing the phone and pulling the flash drive out of her laptop to clip it to her key chain, turning the laptop off and letting it charge on her desk before making her way downstairs.

Both Barry and Iris were at work, so she wasn't going to run into them, and Amara needed to get to her own work soon. She was the only one on shift today and Sandra really couldn't afford for her to be late.

Amara made sure that the black gem was swinging from her lobe before she made her way out of the house, hopping onto the first bus that stopped close to her house.

She made it to the flower shop within five minutes of having to be there, and Sandra took being on time seriously.

"Right on time, Amy," Sandra called from where she was standing behind the counter, putting a few last touches on a bouquet that looked like it belonged in a wedding. Amara had lost count how many time she or Pamela or Sandra had made wedding bouquets, most of which had included white roses.

"If you got married to your girlfriend," Amara had said to Pamela once, "what kind of flowers would you have in your bouquet?"

Pamela had paused. "I never really thought about marriage," she'd admitted. "But probably something exotic…maybe some flowers that no one's heard of."

Her green eyes had glittered and Amara had laughed.

"I'm heading out to drop this lot off at a chapel," Sandra continued and Amara jerked herself out of her thoughts. "How do you feel about manning the store while I'm gone?"

"It's no problem," Amara assured her, grabbing an apron from behind the counter, shoving her bag in a cubby hidden beneath the counter, out of sight of customers. "You're not expecting anymore deliveries, are you?"

Amara couldn't technically sign for anything, being twelve and all.

"Don't worry," Sandra called over her shoulder, "it'll just be you, think you can handle it?"

Amara thought about the last time she'd been alone, which had resulted in a few gang members ending up with a few broken ribs. "I think I'll be fine," she said before the door slid shut behind Sandra, leaving Amara in silence.

Flower shops weren't really known for being busy, apart from on holidays –particularly on Valentine's Day, and Amara really hated Valentine's Day, purely because of the chaos it caused by people waiting until the last minute–, but there was always someone that liked to get flowers and someone that liked to by that person flowers.

The last time Amara had gotten flowers was when Wally and Dick had brought her a bouquet of Chrysanthemums back when she was still in the hospital ward of the Hall of Justice after being shot by Merlyn, but it was always the thought behind the flowers that Amara liked the most.

The bell on the door to the shop rattled as it opened and Amara was already speaking: "Welcome to Bouquet Boutique, how can I help you?"


"You're late."

Amara rolled her eyes behind her mask. "I was debating about not coming."

Roy lifted his eyes from the binoculars he was using to focus on Brick's operation on the docks stare at her blankly, but it was hard to tell with how his domino mask covered his eyes. "Why? We always patrol together when we're not with GA or BC."

"Really, Speedy?" Amara said dryly as the cloudy darkened above them, the stars shining brightly in the night sky and Roy couldn't tell if she was the one causing it or it was simply a night of bad weather. "You hung up on me earlier and you've been nothing but annoyed every time we talk, it's so not crash."

Roy wasn't sure he'd seen her quite so aggravated with him, barring the first few weeks of their partnership and he bowed his head slightly. "I'm sorry," he apologized, "I'm just so angry with the League, I didn't mean to take it out on you."

"I know," she said, dropping to perch on the edge of the rooftop, nudging him with her knee as she tilted her head even as he pulled the binoculars back up to his eyes. "Brick causing mischief again?"

"You take a look," Roy invited and Amara turned around, fixing the goggles over her eyes, twisting the lenses in order to zoom in. ("Why do you always get the good tech?" Roy complained. "Oh, people are still guilty about my little accident with Merlyn, besides, the goggles look way better on me, babe.")

"He seems to be running low on men, but I guess you'd get tired of working for a criminal if you kept ending up getting shot with trick arrows," she muttered. "But I suppose it's better than being shot with a real arrow, so who could complain?"

Roy snorted. "You would know."

The smile she gave him was rather wry. "Yes, I would." She never skirted around the topic of her 'accident' even if her parents still did, and she was grateful that Roy didn't either. "Want to kick some ass?"

"Absolutely," Roy gave her a grin, and they split up, Roy taking the high ground, shooting a grappling arrow to the opposite side of the pier, landing lightly on the metal framework of a warehouse that was never finished, while Amara darted into the darkness of the shadows, fading from view, as it was easier to surprise attack someone with jarring shocks to their central nervous system when you were hidden from view.

Two of Brick's henchmen were gathering a shipment of guns when an arrow containing a compressed canister of knockout gas at its tip, and within seconds they were out, the guns clattering to the ground.

Brick had grabbed up one of the fallen guns, aiming it high to where Roy was perched in the rafters like a bird ready to take flight.

"You again!" Brick seethed. "I'm startin' to get insulted Green Arrow's not messin' up my operations personally!"

Roy's eyes narrowed at the slight before leaping out of the way of several of his shots, flipping through the air before firing off an arrow that lodged in the gun's barrel, causing the gun to explode in his hand, ripping through his shirt as he yelled.

He hoped Amy was having more fun.


Amara left Brick to Roy in favor of darting after a shipment of guns already leaving the pier. She snapped her fingers, causing sparks to roll off her hand as the truck rolled past her as she gave a flick of her hand, an arch of lightning to rupture the back wheels on the truck's back end before using a quickly formed cloud to leap onto the back of the truck as it tried to wheel out towards the pier's entrance but with only two tires fully functional, it was a bit difficult.

Holes were bored through the top of the truck as someone fired off several rounds up at her and Amara had to dance around a bit to avoid the shots, balancing in the air when the shooting stopped, fooling them into believing they'd managed to get her.

The next second she'd blown out their windshield and a few seconds later had them all tied up.

Grinning to herself, Amara jogged back towards where Roy was, only slightly surprised to see that he had been joined by Kid Flash, Robin, and Aqualad.

"Tell Arrow he shouldn't send boys to do a man's job," Brick was calling in a sneer, and Amara was always ready to get one last word in.

"How about a woman's job, asshole?" she asked, a kick colliding with Brick's head, sending him pitching him forward, ducking out of the way as Roy fired off another arrow, this time meeting his chest and releasing a powerful foam that rendered Brick immobile.

Amara leapt up to join her partner and the other sidekicks as Wally said: "High-density polyurethane foam? Nice!"

Roy ignored him.

"So, Speedy, you in?" Robin asked and Amara looked to Wally.

"We're trying to get Speedy to join us at the Cave," Wally informed her, as she'd been missing out on some things while she'd been stopping a shipment of guns from getting out of the pier.

"Pass," Roy said coolly, and Amara wasn't surprised. "I'm done letting Arrow and the League tell me what to do. I don't need a babysitter or a clubhouse to hang out with the other kids. Your Junior Justice League is a joke. Something to keep you busy and in your place. I don't want any part of it."

Amara found herself starting in surprise and moving forward, trying to catch him before he disappeared into the shadows. "Speedy, hey, wait—"

But he was gone and Amara was stung. She'd known that Roy's anger that he'd been pushed aside instead of being considered a full Leaguer had set badly with him, but still, it wasn't like him to disappear in the middle of patrol.

Amara gave a sharp sigh, twisting around. "I have a patrol to finish," she remarked stiffly, before launching into the sky atop a cloud.


Roy had his things packed, he'd be out of Amara's safe house in a matter of minutes and he really didn't want her to find him still packing the last of his things, then she'd probably find a way to convince him to stay. She had a way of using her big green eyes to convince others and they had worked on Roy on more than one occasion.

He had barely shut the door behind him, dropping the key back in the hanging pot, when he was interrupted.

"You know, she's not going to like you disappearing without a word."

He twisted around in surprise at the eerily familiar voice. It belonged to a young woman with a head of dark and wild hair, grey eyes, and smirking lips. The oddest thing about her, though, was that her arms were wrapped around an open crate, holding a pot with few flowers that were pale pink with pointed petals jutting outwards.

"Cheshire," Roy realized.

Her eyes glittered. "Right in one, and you're the partner with a wicked aim."

Tension stiffened his body as she stepped forward with a definite sway to her hips that was clearly meant to draw eyes. Roy had never seen Cheshire without her mask on, but her attractiveness wasn't all that surprising. But it was very distracting.

She walked past him to rest the crate on the small wooden table next to the door and Roy caught a glimpse of a folder full of notes tucked into the crevice between the crate and the pot and his brow furrowed.

"Amaryllis belladonna," she added when she noticed his befuddled look. "A flower that's beautiful but deadly, and ironically sounds a bit like her name. She gets a kick out of things like that."

"I guess you know her pretty well, then," Roy said, slightly annoyed by the fact.

Jade shrugged. "Good assets are hard to come by."

Roy knew she was lying, though, there was no way she'd come up with jobs for Amy simply because she was a good asset.

She curled her fingers around the edge of the petal briefly and Roy rather thought that the flowers' description could easily suit her, being both beautiful and dangerous.

Then she turned to look at him and there was something in her gave that made him swallow thickly.

"What d'you know," she smirked, "you're cuter without the mask, Harper."

Against his will, Roy flushed a deep and bright red that went from his cheeks down his neck and its appearance made her laugh lightly before leaning up to press a sultry kiss against his cheek as he stood there trying to regain the ability to move his body.

"See you around, Harper," she said before making her way back to her motorcycle leaving Roy trying to find out how she'd discovered his identity.

And God was she hot.


Amara had her eyes glued to her phone as she followed the others through the Cave, she could have probably helped Miss Martian with showing them around, but she was far too focused on if Roy was going to text her back. She hadn't heard anything from him since the previous night and she thought he might have been in a mood, so she'd given him some space, but he still hadn't responded to her.

She frowned, ignoring the smell of smoke in the air and Miss Martian's despondent apologies that were quickly waved aside.

"Call me Kaldur'ahm," Aqualad said with a smile before correcting, "actually, my friends call me Kaldur."

Maybe she should text Oliver and see if he'd heard from him? Amara grimaced. That probably wasn't the best choice; he and Roy still weren't really talking.

"I'm Wally," the red head told Miss Martian with a lovesick stare that made Dick snigger behind his hand. "See? I already trust you with my secret ID…unlike Dark Glasses over here."

Dick frowned, resting his hands on his hips.

"Batman's forbidden Boy Wonder from telling anyone his real name."

Dick rolled his eyes at the ceiling, the movement obvious enough that the others could tell what it was. "And that's Amara," he said, nodding to the girl who was so enraptured with her phone, "but we all call her Amy, there's always Storm Warning, too, but I think Speedy's the only one who calls her that."

"Is she always like that?" Miss Martian asked, looking to Amara, who was remarkably unaware of the conversation threading around her.

"Nah," Wally said, biting into another charred cookie, "her partner isn't speaking to her and she's getting annoyed."

"She's also this nerd's cousin," Dick added, elbowing his best friend while Kaldur smiled and Superboy huffed in a bit of amusement.

Miss Martian looked from Wally to Amara, comparing Wally with his green eyes, bright red hair, spattering of freckles across his cheeks, and the squareness of his jaw, to Amara with her green eyes, wild grey hair, and the heart-shaped face. The only thing relatively similar between the two of them was the eyes.

Her confusion must have shown because Wally laughed. "We're adopted. Flash is her dad and my uncle."

"Oh," Miss Martian said in surprise before brightening, "well, my name is M'gann M'orzz. Like, you can call me Megan. It's an Earth name, and I'm on Earth now." There was an awkward note in her voice that everyone was wise enough not to comment on.

Superboy, who had been mostly leaning back and removed from the conversation, now moved towards the hall away from the kitchen, when something stopped him.

Don't worry, Superboy, we'll find you an Earth name, too.

He reeled back violently, cold fury washing over him. "Get out of my head!" he snarled.

What's wrong? I don't understand, came M'gann's voice blearing so suddenly into Amara's head that she actually dropped her phone and grabbed her head. Everyone on Mars communicates telepathically.

"M'gann, stop!" Kaldur ordered, causing the Martian to start. "Things are different on Earth, here your powers are an extreme invasion of privacy."

Amara stooped to pick up her fallen phone as it gave a buzz, Ella's name showing up on the caller ID.

"Hi, Ella," Amara said with a sigh.

"Ooh, what did I do?"

"Sorry, I've just been waiting on a call from a friend of mine, that's all," Amara assured her, smiling lightly. "What'd you need?"

"Well, shift starts in about ten minutes, so—"

Amara did a double take, checking the digital clock on the oven. "Oh, shit," she said, "I didn't even realize."

Ella laughed on the other end. "I figured I might as well call you just in case."

"Thanks," Amara said, moving to grab her bag from one of the living room couches before making her way back towards the kitchen. "Give me a few minutes, I'll meet you there."

"What'd Roy say?" Wally asked her.

"I wouldn't know," Amara said shortly, "he's not speaking to me. That was Ella; it's almost time for my shift, so I gotta run."

Dick's eyebrow arched above his sunglasses. "You work at a flower shop, Amy, they're not going to kill you if you're late."

"Babe," Amara said in a deadpan that had Dick smacking his face with his hand, and amusing the others, "I'm not sure if you're aware, but punctuality is very important to Sandra. See you guys later!"

Then she made her way towards the zeta-tube, disappearing in a blaze of blue.

"If she called you 'babe'," M'gann said carefully, befuddlement clear on her face. "Does that mean you're dating?"

Dick's face burned hot.

"Nah, Amy doesn't care enough about romance to want to date, too busy," Wally said around another charred cookie, "she calls everyone babe, just you wait, she'll probably use it on you too."


"What d'you mean you're moving?!"

Amara was gaping at her and Pamela was almost tempted into whipping out her phone and snapping a picture of the look.

"Just that," she laughed. "I'm moving back to Gotham in October to live with my girlfriend."

"Aw, man," Amara complained, "but you're so much fun to be around! It's going to be so boring without you here, Ella, I'm going to have to start bringing my laptop to work on slow days."

"I'm sure you'll survive," Pamela said, though secretly delighting in how Amara freely admitted how much she'd miss her.

She almost told her then, she almost told her the truth, but the words got tangled in Pamela's throat and she knew it probably wasn't the best time.

"My girlfriend misses having me around," Pamela continued, her eyes growing fond as she thought about Harley, "and I miss having her around…and this job was only supposed to be temporary, anyways."

Amara gave a sad hum as she rang up the customer who approached the cash register with a bouquet of lilies.

"I'll miss seeing your face," Pamela added, "who knows, maybe the next person will be as fun as me."

Amara doubted it.