Tempest: Chapter Eighty-Five: Redacted

AN: Hm, I wonder what's going on with Zatanna? ;)


When they painted Ariel's new room blue and gave her bedsheets with a wave pattern on it, she burst into tears. Amara remembered clearly when her adoption had been finalized and looking at the room that Barry and Iris had given her, not really understanding that it was all for her.

"You-you don't have to keep getting me stuff," Ariel stuttered through telling Harley pushed the cart through the store with Pamela stopping occasionally to grab things. Amara was there mostly for moral support, with one hand holding Zatanna's and the other holding Ariel's, pretending not to notice at how she was clinging to her.

"Honey," Pamela said, kneeling down so that they were level. "This stuff is to make you feel at home in our house, in your room…I know it's something you aren't used to but you can have whatever you want in that room and it won't cost you a thing."

"It won't?" Ariel turned her head to fix her dark eyes on Amara's.

Amara's mouth twisted. She loved to say that everything had a price, particularly in her line of work, but not with this. "It won't," she promised. "Mom Squared aren't going to be like your other foster parents, I promise. You get your own room, your own clothes, your own bed…you can decorate however you want, it's a gift."

Ariel considered that seriously, looking down at her arm, encased in a bright blue cast, just another symbol of where her previous family had fallen short.

"And gifts are free," Amara assured her. "Now, do you want that hanging chair or not?"

Ariel rubbed at the back of her head. "Okay," she said finally.

"Okay?" Harley asked.

Ariel nodded. "Just okay," she said.

Amara knew that she liked Harley and Pamela, which was good, but it would probably still be awhile before she completely trusted parental figures, so as long as they all gave her the space to figure that out, everything would be fine.

"I think I saw a bunch of blue stuff over there," Zatanna pointed to their left, releasing Amara's hand to offer one to Ariel who took it after a moment, allowing her to be directed towards the sea of blue.

"Well," Harley sighed, "we've got our work cut out for us, that's for sure…you don't happen to have the name of your therapist on hand, do you?"

"Dinah Lance," Amara smiled, looking after Ariel. "Don't worry, she's doing much better than I was when I was adopted."

"Really?" Pamela came off slightly relieved.

"Yeah, I wouldn't let them buy me anything new for about two months," Amara admitted, "and I'd stolen all my clothes and they were a few sizes too big for me…they were pretty much destroyed by the washer because they were being washed like every other day…trust me, Ariel's doing great and she likes us, but what's not to like, am I right?" She winked and both her moms laughed.

"Anything you need while we're out and about, Petal?" Harley nudged her shoulder with a grin.

There was pain radiating down her spine and she almost said "Some pain meds would be nice" but the words caught on her tongue. "Nah," she said, "I did see a funny shirt I'm gonna get Zee, though." She darted after her girlfriend.

And when the pair caught up with the kids, Zatanna was positively howling at the shirt Amara was holding out to her with a grin on her face, the shirt bearing the words 'basic witch'.

Things were looking up.


"I've got a plan," Amy told Zatanna seriously.

"Am I going to like this plan?"

"It's for Nadira and Kaldur," Amy waved her off and Zatanna acquiesced, "they're still being idiots, completely flustered morons, so I have to do something."

"Maybe you should let them figure out their feelings on their own?" Zatanna pointed out, poking Amy in her side.

"No, they'll just mull in their respective crushes until they melt into the floor," Amy complained, "and every time I mention Nadira, Kaldur trips, and every time I mention Kaldur, Nadira drops whatever she's holding…broke my favorite mug that way…so I'm going to make it better for everyone." She crossed her legs and took a drink from her cup of hot cider, while Zatanna still held onto the fingers of her free hand.

"You've set them up," Zatanna realized, shaking her head fondly when she saw Nadira walking on the opposite side of the road. She'd changed out of her ballerina practice outfit -it was the number one way to draw eyes and none of the ballerinas really liked that kind of attention- but she still looked good. Amy had always said Nadira was the prettiest of her friends -not that she wasn't, it just caused a spike of jealousy in her- and she wasn't wrong.

"I admit to nothing," Amy hummed contentedly as Kaldur appeared. Amy had told him they were doing a Team lunch together in Gotham and to meet them all, not knowing that they hadn't told anyone else about the lunch.

He looked around for any indication of his friends when he accidentally bumped into someone. "My apologies," he said quickly, turning to catch their elbow when they stumbled before his tongue caught in his throat.

Nadira's eyes flashed up to meet his. "No problem," she said, feeling impossibly warm and breathless. "Hi."

"Hi," Kaldur managed out, making no move to release her elbow and she seemed fine with that, "you look, um—" His brain completely quit on him for exactly five seconds. "Nice," he blurted, "you look nice."

"Thanks." A dark flush was beginning to appear on her equally dark cheeks. "You look—" She swallowed at the sight of his developed biceps, "healthy," she managed to squeak out.

His phone buzzed suddenly and he looked at it to see a message from Amy saying 'lunch is off, have fun on your date ;)' and he was equal parts exasperated and relieved, which was what he would tell Amy the next time he saw her.

"Would you…would you like to get some lunch?" He braced himself.

"Absolutely!" Nadira said a bit too eagerly, positively beaming and Kaldur smiled to match her enthusiasm. "I know the best place!"

He released her elbow and she looped her arm around his. "Lead the way," he said and off they went with a skip in their step.

"See, that?" Amy said, pointing towards the smiling pair, "that's cute as shit. Not as cute as us, but almost on the level."

Zatanna laughed and kissed her. "How about a lunch of our own?"

"Babe, you read my mind," Amy said with eyes gleaming.


Petya Petrov was an odd fellow, that much everyone thought on the fishing boat. He moved around a lot, never staying anywhere very long. He was much younger than the other deckhands that Ivan Vasilev had and much stronger. Ivan had once mentioned that he'd probably be decent at the bow if Petya ever wanted to come with him and the boys to go hunting and Petya got this strange look in his eye, so much nostalgia and pain that Ivan decided not to bring it up again.

The kid was barely out of his teens and his memory was a complete blank slate. Ivan didn't know how Petya could handle that, only having flickers of who he used to be. He used to have a sister, that was all that he knew, and Ivan got the feeling that something truly terrible had happened to her, and that was why Petya remembered so little.

"She liked storms," was all Petya had ever said about his sister and Ivan wondered if that was really all he remembered about her. If so, it was better that than some brutal murder that Ivan had been imagining.

He wondered if she looked like him, a little Russian girl with red hair and blue eyes far too calculating.

But he knew better than to ask that, even if Petya hadn't been an amnesiac to start with.


The TempleofDelphi had been operational for several weeks but hadn't been technically open to the public until that night, once all the Oracles had gotten everything squared away. There were a lot of things that they'd borrowed from BlackNet, which the operators really weren't pleased about, but they were the ones that had used stolen coding in the first place, so Amara felt that it was just desserts.

She was right about exactly one thing; it was slightly, just slightly, more legal. And for some unknown reason, there was a small wanted poster on the side of the display that displayed no image, just a name 'Oracle' and a growing reward. Amara thought it was a bit odd to crowdfund murder, but it had been done several times now that she wasn't surprised that someone had put her and her fellow Oracles up for it. No one who'd seen it could really understand why it was there, but it was a reminder of the cost of Oracle's help; a price on their head.

Oracle might've been the ones in charge of the site, but you could hire just about anyone -not including assassinations and murder, character assassins, sure, but not actual assassins, as disappointing as it was for Jade- for any reason. Sometimes you needed Oracle's skill specifically, sometimes you needed someone more specialized, but the site was created for one specific purpose; getting people the help they needed when they couldn't do it the legal way.

Working for Oracle, Dick had once said, was one of the most lucrative ways to earn money, and he wasn't wrong. Artemis still occasionally did a few jobs as a runner when she and her mom needed the money.

The first thing Amara had done when the fostering paperwork had gone through was get Ariel a laptop far more functional than the one she'd been using, and maybe someone else with morals that weren't a Russian Roulette should've put their foot down about someone as young as Ariel aiding and abetting people with crimes, but Amara really wasn't the best person to ask that.

Amara was regularly reprimanded for her ability to toe the grey line, and it got her into some trouble, not necessarily with just her parents.

She'd holed up in the Watchtower to run a system check on its encryptions, like she did from time to time, wary after how Soothsayer hacked her. She wasn't expecting anyone to really stop by for a chat, so she stiffened in surprise when Hawkwoman paused over her.

"Can I help you?" she asked cautiously. She'd never liked the Hawks very much, and it had nothing to do with them being aliens; she had no problems with Superman or M'gann or any of the otherworldly Lanterns she came across. But the Hawks…there'd always been something about them she didn't like. Some disdain for her that Amara hadn't understood years ago when she was small(er) and clung so desperately to her father's hand.

"I hope not," Hawkwoman said. "Your help has a price I never want to pay."

An offensive sting rose up inside Amara because, honestly, what the fuck? Practically everything she did for the Justice League was completely free, sure, what she did as Oracle on her own time had a price, but with Hawkwoman acting like she was, Amara couldn't help but be affronted.

Amara did what she did best; she played it off.

"Okay," she said without inflection, returning her attention to her laptop and pretending the woman wasn't there.

Hawkwoman wouldn't let her, though.

"I don't trust you," Hawkwoman said, rather bluntly, something that Amara had respected up until the point she'd actually met her and even when Amara had smiled, Hawkwoman had looked down on her with distaste. (Amara would've liked to say that it was because she toed the grey line, but that had been far before Merlyn had even shot her off Queen Industries) Amara couldn't help but narrow her eyes.

"That's your problem," she said. A lot of people didn't trust her and were wary of her, though, lately that had more to do with knowing that both her biological parents were villains and that she was willing to give an eco-terrorist the benefit of the doubt, even if she'd practically retired from villainy.

"I think you're dangerous," Hawkwoman added, apparently wanting Amara to know just how much she didn't like her.

"Everyone's dangerous if you push them hard enough." Amara arched an eyebrow, raising her eyes slightly from the streams of coding across her screen. It was impossible to gauge her eyes behind the white coverings for her eyes in her winged cowl. "Don't pretend this is new for you, you never liked me."

"True," Hawkwoman agreed, tilting her head slightly, "but I wasn't grown in a lab."

That one, that one really hurt, because it wasn't like Amara could do anything about that. It wasn't like she chose to be created in a lab, in an artificial womb.

Amara looked away quickly, wanting to spark a fire, but her powers -as ever- didn't help her get out of the current situation. She was so pissed off, so upset, that her voice completely quit on her. And that made her even angrier.

She waited until Hawkwoman was gone before packing up her things and heading to the zeta-tube, heading over to the Cave.

"Hey!" was the first thing Zatanna said when she saw her enter her room, a bright smile on her face that wavered at the stony expression on Amara's face. "Amy? You okay?"

Amara flopped down onto the bed beside her. "Can I just pass out right here?"

"Um…sure?" Zatanna frowned. "Wanna talk about it?"

Amara shook her head, burrowing herself deeper into the pillows as Zatanna dropped a kiss to the top of her head.

(She won't ever tell you anything because she doesn't trust you)


Amara twisted her food around on her plate, not really eating, nausea simmering deep in her stomach.

"Not hungry, Amy?" Iris probed and Amara shrugged. Truth be told, it had been genuinely months since she'd eaten a full meal, but she still ate more than this.

"Do you think…" Amara swallowed her words briefly before barreling on. "Do you think there's something wrong with me?"

That made Wally -who was texting his girlfriend-, Barry -who was frowning at Justice League-related news reports on his phone-, and Iris -who was reading some regular news reports- all give her their full attention.

"What?" Wally choked out. "What's wrong with you?"

"Because I was grown, not made."

The violent denials she got from all three of them were enough to startle her into dropping her fork.

"Okay, first of all, you were born," Barry pointed out, scowling immensely, "you grew in an artificial womb, but you were born."

"Barry, honey, I don't think that's what she meant," Iris sighed, "and I don't think it's the best case to be making."

"Ah, right."

"There's nothing wrong with you," Wally pressed, "just because you weren't made the same way we were doesn't mean there's something wrong with you…who's been saying something like that?" Wally, as ever, was the first person to defend Amara in a crisis and the first one she went to with problems that she couldn't tell Roy or Dick.

Then he remembered how stiff she'd get whenever the Hawks were around, particularly Hawkwoman. Amara had always been excited about female heroes, especially when M'gann had first joined the Team, and she'd never had a problem with Black Canary or Wonder Woman, or even others that remained a part of the Justice League, preferring to avoid the publicity, like Fire and Ice. But she'd never liked Hawkwoman.

(Wally might've once had a crush on her, but, come on, she was a badass lady with a mace? What wasn't hot about that? Retrospectively, Wally probably should've realized that he had a thing for women who could kick his ass.)

"Hawkwoman," Wally decided, fixing his eyes on his cousin, "she said something to you."

Amara's mouth thinned into a line. "It's nothing," she muttered, "it's fine."

"If it was fine, you'd be eating more," Barry pointed out with care.

Amara shrugged. She was used to people not trusting her; she couldn't change people's minds.

"Well, she can shove it!"

"Wally!" Iris reproved, though not very much.

"Roy would say it if he was here," Wally stoutly, only to make Amara bury her face in her hands. "Ah, hell, sorry, Amy, I didn't mean it—" He was around the table and hugging her in seconds, and the next thing Amara knew, she was cocooned in a West-Allen family hug.

Then she was laughing too much to consider why she'd been so upset in the first place.


Amara had been working The Roy Harper Case for exactly three months and two days and she'd hated every second of it. She had recordings and transcripts of the recovered conversation between her and Vandal Savage when Roy was completely under his control.

At this rate she might as well start working on a complete dossier.

She chewed on the end of her pen thoughtfully. "Okay, go back to the beginning," she said to herself, "When did things change?"

Well…maybe they didn't change immediately, but Savage had said that the pieces of metal in Roy's head were Luthor tech, and the most likely time that they had been placed had to have been during that disappearing act he'd had when Amara was ten. He'd been investigating Luther Corps at the time, but they'd never been able to prove Lex's involvement…

Amara called Ollie and he answered immediately. "I need a mission report that you did almost four years ago," she said.

"Hello to you too, Amy," Ollie sighed on the other side before instantly becoming suspicious, which was practically a go-to with dealing with Amara. "Which mission report?"

"The one where Roy got kidnapped investigating LexCorps."

There was a long silence on the other end and Amara could practically hear the wheels turning. "Yeah, I can get it to you…actually, you can get it, its stored on my server; you've got the password."

Amara did. "All right, I'll stop by and make a copy."

"Let me know if you find anything."

It took time to run over to Star City to grab the files she needed and then head back to the Cave, pulling her transparent whiteboard back towards the couch, erasing everything on it and writing Lex Luthor at the center and circling it.

The Justice League had a helpline that people could call regarding criminal acts done by villains or common criminals and, according to the statistics, people were more likely to use the JL helpline than the police one. The reason Roy and Ollie had been investigating LexCorps was because someone had dropped them a line about illegal shipments in Star City.

Amara gnawed on the end of her marker. Now the fact that it was Roy and Ollie on that mission was pure chance. Dinah had fudged the coin flip because Amara had gotten injured the day before on patrol; a few bruised ribs that she didn't want Amara to strain. And Amara had been too proud to turn down the chance at a solo mission.

There was something weird about that. There was a lot of weird things about Amara and about Roy. Amara had to keep digging, keep going back.

So, he'd gone off investigating LexCorps, but when Amara had found him, he'd been in a long-abandoned building owned by Europa Industries that had been condemned, the very same Europa Industries that had owned the building that Steve Trevor had been recovered from. Back then Amara had found a tie linking Europa Industries to Project Cadmus, that Europa was the original Cadmus…at some point they'd made the switch from bioweaponry to cloning…unless they'd found a way to combine the two…

Amara's mouth thinned. She didn't like that idea. It all went back to Cadmus and there was still a lot that Amara didn't know about her time there.

She made another call. "This is going to be an odd question."

"I'm used to that from you," came Bruce's dry voice and Amara's mouth twisted faintly.

"You did a lot of research on my origins when Dad first found me, right?" she asked instead. "Did you happen to find out why I was created in the first place?"

There had to have been more to it than wanting to create a child from two villains to mold to serve some unknown agenda, though she was sure that was a large part of it, she was still missing the who and the why. And maybe it had nothing to do with Roy -which she very dearly hoped- but it was still a question that she didn't have the answer to.

"No," Bruce told her, "and we have no idea who funded Project Amara."

"Great," Amara muttered.

"Is there a reason you're asking?" Bruce inquired.

"Not sure yet," Amara said before disconnecting. She chewed on her lip, tapping the marker against her lip. Vandal Savage and Lex Luthor were associated with each other in some way, that much she knew. How else could Savage have taken advantage of technology that LexCorps had developed?

But Savage…Savage was an obvious villain, whereas Luthor was subtle. He wanted heroes gone, Amara knew that well enough, and Luthor might've detested heroes, but it was mostly because he'd wanted to be one himself and he'd always been jealous of the power they possessed, particularly Superman. He'd been the one to fund the Everyman Project with the goal of creating non-metahuman superheroes (which was a bit odd, since there were several heroes that didn't have any powers and they still kicked ass) and there were some rumors that he was the one behind the project's failure and the high death toll…

Savage might be the powerhouse now…but she got the feeling that Luthor was looking forward to when that wasn't the case.

She pulled up the files on her laptop from Project Amara but it made no mention of who had funded the program….that was redacted. In fact, a lot of the information she'd accessed the first time she'd broken into Project Cadmus had been corrupted or redacted and it was annoying just how long it had taken her to realize that.

But, in her defense, she'd been busy focusing on other things and Project Amara hadn't really been high on her priority list. There were some records on stress tests that were readable, but that was about it. Amara hadn't gotten the chance to look any deeper since she'd downloaded the data, or she probably would've picked up on it a hell of a lot sooner.

As it was, Amara was incredibly aggravated.

Amara grumbled loudly. "I'm going to have to break into that place again, aren't I?" The only consolation was that, at least, she knew that she could break into Project Cadmus since she'd done it before.

"Here's to hoping I don't destroy the building again," she muttered to herself. Though, really, that was only partially her fault and was probably more on Conner.

Either way, she knew for sure that her father wouldn't be happy, but Amara needed answers and she was getting them one way or another.

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