Some awkwardness, sadness, darkness and OCCness.

This is a slightly dark chapter, so you are warned.

Babs had not been expecting to form a friendship with Rose Wilson so quickly and she hadn't expected to lose her so soon. Also she had not expected her new friend to be the daughter of Deathstroke!

Who had left a signal that he would return sometime to finish his work, that meaning that he would kill her dad.

She needed some sweets and she had let those doughnuts go to waste.

And so she went to the only place that could cheer her up, Sweet Justice.

She hoped that her best friend, Barry Allen aka The Flash, would be there working but when she arrived she saw the other guy, apparently the blonde boy had gotten a day off since he wanted to go to his grandmother birthday party.

She sighed and asked for her "Candy Cake Triple Ripple Tower with rainbow sprinkles" and went to sit to the table she usually sat with her friends and sent a text to all of them to ask if they could hang out at the time but after a few minutes they all said no for one reason or another: Zee had a show and Karen was helping her to get ready for it, Jessica was volunteering at the Pet Shelter with Garth , Diana was somewhere training with Tatsu and Kara had gone to watch a musical with Oliver at the theater.

The redhead was getting resigned to spend her afternoon alone when she felt that someone had sat by her side.

It was Hal.

Not the company she had been expecting but she wasn't complaining, even if it was the dumb jock who had almost killed her while zombified two weekends ago.

"Hi Gordon" He said while taking a spoon of his own cake.

"Hi Hal" She said "How are you?"

"Good" The brown haired boy said "I would ask how are you but you seem...not good"

"Thanks" She rolled her eyes and said "Don't you have some date to go with some cheerleader or else?"

"Not today, maybe tomorrow I will"

"So you sat with me"

"Kind of" He said "You seem in need of a friend"

Babs raised her eyebrow and said "How...kind of you to offer your friendship"

"What can I say? I'm a good friend…sometimes" Hal said haughtily with one of his charming smiles.

She laughed and asked "Are we friends?"

"Well...yeah, kind of" The quarterback said putting a hand on his chin.

"Maybe persons who share a near death experience in a forest can be considered friends" The redhead said "Though you almost killed me"

"I don't remember anything about that" He shrugged "And if I don't remember anything...it didn't happen...for me"

"You can always ask Jessica" She said half-teasingly.

"No thanks" He said rolling his eyes.

Babs knew that things between the two Green Lantern had been uncomfortable as of late, Jessica had not said much about it but maybe Hal was angry at the fact that they left him locked in the cabin. They went back for him but Babs could only wonder how comfortable he culd have been in the closet.

Then they focused on eating their cakes and she would occasionally look at him by the corner of her eye and would notice that he had dark circles around his eyes and seemed very tired.

"Have you been getting enough sleep?" She asked trying not to sound too concerned.

"I have been training a lot, both for football and the corps" He said shrugging "I'll try to get some sleep after football season is over"

"That's not healthy" She commented.

Hal shrugged again and asked "So, why are you sad?"

"Is it too obvious?"

"Kind of, you usually finish your cake more quickly and you would have already told me to leave you alone"

"I wouldn't do that" She scoffed.

"You would, you don't seem like me much"

"I do like you, I just don't like how you treat the girls you date"

"I treat them fair and right, it's just that I don't want to go into a relationship...anytime soon"

"Yeah, you treat them so right...I know that you broke with Carol over text"

"Did she tell you that?" He asked playing with the cream of his cake.

"Someone has mentioned it around in school" She said, she couldn't tell him that Jessica had mentioned it during a sleepover at Zee's penthouse.

He nodded and closed his eyes "You don't know why I had to break up with her over text"

"It was a douche move"

"You don't know the whole story about it, Gordon" He said gritting his teeth "Maybe I couldn't break up with her in person"

"Oh, is she so scary that you had to send her a text with a smiley face in it?" Babs rolled her eyes.

Hal grabbed his spoon and said "Gordon, you don't know anything about me or Carol"

Still he didn't leave so Babs said "You are right, we may share a group of friends and...you know what but we are not really friends"

"We are not" He admitted "But you seemed sad"

"I'm sad but I don't think that you would understand"

"Maybe I wouldn't but I was trying to be nice for once"

"As if"

"Hey, it's not my fault that your friends are not here"

"Whatever, Hal"

They kept eating their cakes in silence just throwing some comments about the school here and there before leaving an hour later and going their separate ways.

Batgirl missed patrol that night, the other girls seemed fine with it since she had been too occupied trying to uncover the identities of the Villain Girls as of late, especially trying to find any leads to Harley Quinn as she was the one to shot her dad in the shoulder.

Of course her dad was now okay and back to work but she couldn't let slip the fact that he had been shot by her personal enemy.

***The next day***

Babs entered the physics class in low spirits.

No leads to Harley Quinn or the others.

Her Metropolis friends were too occupied with the finals and their other activities to spend time with her.

Her GBFF had not yet returned from Gotham and had not answered her text for a while.

Her dad was fine as he could be but the shot had shaken his belief that he had moved to a safer city.

(Though they both knew that Gotham was more dangerous than Metropolis)

And she may have alienated Hal with her comment about his breakup with Carol, but he had been too blunt with his comment about her sadness.

Anyway she tried to look like her usual happy self and so she sat in the line next to Karen and Zee's who were the only of her friends who had this class with her. Well besides Barry, and Hal, but her blonde friend had been avoiding her for some reason during the last few days.

"Hi!" She greeted them happily.

"Hi Babs" Karen said quietly lifting her gaze from her book.

"Hello" Zee responded not looking up from her cellphone and then added "How are you?"

"Fine"

"Great"

"Maybe we could hang out later at…"

"I have rehearsals this afternoon, sorry" The magician said with an apologetic smile "And Karen is helping me"

"But I thought that yesterday was your show" Babs commented with a confused tone.

"Yes, but that was a magic show with my dad but I'm the director to the last production of this year" Zee said proudly and then added grimacing "And Mortimer and Oliver are among my cast"

"Is Mr. Chapin letting you direct another play? After the last one?"

"It was well received by the public" She defended her last play.

"And Mrs. Queen, Mrs. Drake and Mr. Zatara may have talked him into letting them have the last play of the year" Karen commented "But Mr. Chapin choose the play and some of the actors"

"Really? Which play did he choose?"

"A musical, he chose Grease" Zee said rolling her eyes.

Babs opened her eyes in surprise and after a few seconds she said "Does he miss the eighties or something?"

"I don't know" The magician shrugged "Anyway I won't have time to hang out for a while, Karen won't either since she is my assistant"

"Oh, break a leg then" She said smiling and wishing her friend good luck.

She sat and brought out her notebook and began to draw some bats on it until the teacher arrived.

Then the class passed with her not really paying attention, she had already studied the subject in Gotham Academy… anyway she did her best to appear somewhat interested in the class to avoid any problems with Mr. Olson, though she was sure that she was doing a pretty bad job at it and that the teacher liked her enough to ignore it.

She was ready to leave for her next class when Mr. Olson said "Miss Gordon wait"

"Did I did something?" She asked.

"No, I just wanted to tell you that I assigned you as a tutor for one of my students who would like to take AP Science next year and needs some help grasping some…advanced content, will you do it?"

Babs knew that she was good at the subject but she wasn't sure that she would be good enough to teach someone else, still she said "Yeah, who did you assign me to?"

"Harold Jordan"

She resisted the urge to face palm and asked "Can't Barry Allen do it instead? I don't …"

"If I'm not wrong, Mr. Allen is already tutoring someone" He interrupted her "And I don't think that having one of 's friends as his tutor would really help him"

"Okay then, I will be his tutor" She said resigned "Does he know about this?"

"Yes, I talked him about it yesterday"

She had another urge to face palm, maybe that was why he tried to talk to her yesterday at Sweet Justice. Also she let sink that she didn't know Hal's actual name, now she would taunt him with that.

If she remembered by the end of the day, of course.

Her other three classes were a bit more boring than usual and maybe that was why she was trying to fix her schedule to tutor Hal, go on patrol, do some research and go to work. She finally gave up during her last morning class, there was no way she could manage all of that.

Maybe she should have said no.

By lunch she was already mussing on how she was going to manage all her activities and she didn't notice her friends sitting with her.

"Earth to Babs" Jessica said.

"What does that even mean?" Diana muttered in a confused tone.

"Is she thinking about Barry?" Kara muttered "We don't need another Diana"

Babs shook her head and asked "Why would I be thinking about Barry? He is my friend"

All her friends rolled their eyes in frustration and Zee commented "You are too dense"

Then her friends started to comment about the classes and some about Zee's play, which of course led to hear a monologue about how she was going to have the titanic challenge of directing a production full of amateurs.

"I think it will go perfectly" Diana said putting a hand on Zee's shoulder "You are very talented"

"Thank you"

"Maybe we could help you with some of the preparations" Jessica said.

"I'm already helping" Kara commented with a bored tone "I'm in the play"

"Did Mr. Chapin offered to use it as detention substitute?" Karen asked.

"Yeah, he seems to like us to participate in extracurricular activities" The kryptonian said rolling her eyes.

"Are you going to help me?" Zee asked Babs as the redhead had been too quiet.

"No, I can't" She responded shaking her head "I'm tutoring someone"

"Who?"

"Hal"

Jessica gasped and then asked "Did Mr. Olson asked you?"

"Of course"

"Good luck with him, he is not a very good learner"

"Are you ready for the challenge?" Karen asked "That guy is a total meat-head"

"I don't think that he can learn anything" Kara said.

"Says the one who is being tutored in chemistry" Zee said with a smirk.

"Who is tutoring you?" Babs asked curiously.

"Barry" The blonde said and then added looking at Zee "In Krypton I did learn a great deal of science that you humans won't discover for a while"

"Then why are you failing most of the classes?" Diana asked.

"I don't think that putting any effort on high school will help me become a better…" Kara lowed her voice "Heroine"

"Are you planning to go to college?" Jessica asked her kryptonian friend.

"Nah, I don't think is worth it" The blonde said rolling her eyes.

That made Babs wonder why Hal would be planning on taking AP Physics next year, and also she started to worry about potential fail as he was not known for his brightness. Still she was sure that anyone could learn if they had the right teacher.

And she was not sure that she was the right one but she was up to the challenge.

After lunch she had literature with Kara, Carter and Hal, so when she entered the classroom she decided to talk to her…friendly acquaintance.

He was sleeping on his desk with his head between his arms, she thought that it would be rude to wake him up but she wouldn't have another chance to talk to him.

"Hal!" She said in a high voice.

He didn't wake up and so she decided to shake his arm while saying in a higher voice "Harold!"

"What's up, Gordon?" He said in a tired voice without lifting up his head.

"When do we start the tutoring?"

"Whenever you want"

"Is tomorrow's afternoon good for you? Like 5 p.m.?"

"Whatever"

"At the library?"

"At my place, I have to look after my brother" He muttered "I'll send you the address later…now let me sleep some more, you said that I wasn't getting enough sleep"

"Great" She said going to sit by Kara's side as she was usually sleeping in class and would need her notes afterwards.

***The next day's afternoon***

When Babs arrived to Hal's place she was truly surprised, it wasn't that she thought that he would be living under a bridge (well…kind of) but she wasn't expecting him to live in one of those rich-people suburbs were the yards were well kept and the streets were pristine.

All the houses looked quite normal to her but she was sure that they were posh inside.

It was quite easy to find Hal's house as the brown haired boy was playing in the front yard with a younger boy she assumed was his brother.

"Hi" She said waving at him trying to sound friendly.

"Hi Gordon" He said in his best intent to be friendly too "This is my brother Jim"

"Hi" The boy said looking at her squinting his eyes "You are not his girlfriend, right?"

"No" She said quickly "I'm not"

Then the boy smiled at her and said "Are you friends with Jessica?"

Hal blushed a little and grabbed the blonde boy's shoulder while saying "Go inside and do your homework"

Babs raised an eyebrow to that and after the boy ran inside the house she said "I never thought that I would hear you say something so responsible"

He scoffed "Let's get inside"

Then he turned his back and Babs thought "He is a different person out of school"

They went to the living room and sat in front of each other, she had little time to appreciate the decorations but she realized that she was right, the house had elegant decorations and the furniture seemed to be expensive. Also the art in the walls was quite appealing.

"Shall we start?" Hal asked looking at his notebook and coughing a little.

"Yeah" She said trying to hide her embarrassment behind her own notebook.

They studied for an hour and a half before Hal announced that he would leave for a moment since he had to prepare dinner, Babs just nodded and checked her texts.

There was no answer from Harleen yet, her last connection was from a week ago, just the day after she had visited her at night and saw some horror movies. She was starting to get worried but there was no way to reach her friend, she didn't even know where the blonde had lived in Gotham or where she was living in Metropolis.

Zee had sent some messages to their WhatsApp group asking for Kara and Diana to go help her at the school's theater. Babs snorted at that, her magician friend had to be so overly dramatic every time she had a play to direct.

To her surprise there was a text from Rose, she was telling her how she was faring at her mom's, then asking how she was and if there was some "Deathstroke's problem". She almost screamed in joy and in annoyance, joy at having news from her friend and annoyance at having been improving her house's security to avoid a new encounter with Rose's father.

After replying she decided to have a look at the decorations of the living room, she really liked the paintings though she didn't know which type it was as she wasn't really interested in art. Then she caught a glimpse of some photographs on a table, she knew that it would be intruding but she couldn't help but look at them more closely.

"Those are mostly recent ones" She heard a voice being her. It was Jim.

"Sorry" She muttered.

"Don't worry" The boy said and walked towards the table and grabbed a picture to show her "This is the last photo we have with dad"

She looked at it, there was a brown haired man who she presumed was Hal and Jim's father, an auburn haired woman holding a blonde toddler so they had to be their mother and Jim, a somber looking boy and a happy brown haired boy who was obviously Hal.

"It's a nice photo" She commented.

"It was taken a year before dad died" Jim said sadly and after putting it back to its place he grabbed another one "This one was two years ago"

She looked at it and she saw Hal's ring on his hand so she presumed that it was just after he had been recruited to the corps, she would have to ask him about that sometime later (or maybe ask Jessica since she would have to know about that, right?). Then she saw something that surprised her.

"Is that Carol?" She asked in awe at seeing the dark haired girl with Hal's arm around her. What surprised her a lot more was their happy faces and Hal's clear love in his eyes while looking at her.

"Yeah, they were dating at the time" The boy said with contempt "That was before the…"

"I think you should go to wash your hands" Hal said curtly from the kitchen's door and so Jim went upstairs, then he looked at Babs "That picture was a few months before I moved here"

"I supposed so…I saw the ring"

They fell in an uncomfortable silence and Babs said "You seem happy there"

"I guess…"

Hal looked at the photograph with a strange smile and looked at her "Are you staying for dinner?"

She looked at her watch, it was almost seven. He father would not be out of work for another hour or so and so she said "If your mom is okay with it, I'll stay"

"Mom likes when I bring friends" He said walking to the dinner room "She likes Barry and Oliver especially"

"Mom likes Jessica even more" Jim said running down the stairs.

The brown haired by grabbed Jim and ruffled his hair "You don't know when to shut up, do you?"

Babs smiled at that and they had a quiet dinner, Mrs. Jordan didn't arrive and so she avoided an awkward meeting with a parent. She didn't know why all her meetings with her friend's parents were so awkward or strange, she just had to think about the dinner at Rose's house.

"You could cook something that is not lasagna you know" Jim said without looking at Hal.

"You could learn to cook if you don't like my lasagna" Hal said and then looked at Babs "Are you okay with the food?"

"Yeah…" She said "Though I never knew that you could cook"

"Before Jack left for college Hal couldn't even fry an egg" Jim snorted.

Babs looked at Hal questioningly and he said rolling his eyes and scoffing "Our perfect older brother, he usually did the cooking before he went to UCLA…"

"Oh" She managed to say.

Jim retired after finishing up his dinner and the two teenagers were left in a cutting silence. Babs was left trying to find the words to say what she was thinking.

Hal huffed and said "Ask"

"What's up with Jim and his comments about Jess?" She asked instead of the question she was trying to formulate as she couldn't find the words for the real question that was nagging her.

"He thinks that I'm in love with her"

"And you are not?" She asked with a smirk.

"It's very complicated"

"What can be so complicated about it? You are close and I think that she may have feelings for you, you seem to have feelings for her"

"You are in no position to talk about it" Hal said rolling his eyes and then making a face "When you have unresolved feelings for your friend Harleen"

Babs felt cold in her back and as if the temperature had dropped ten grades, if he knew who else knew about her tiny crush on Harleen. She closed her eyes and then said awkwardly "I don't have feelings for Harleen"

"Yeah, I totally believe you"

"I really mean it; I only see her as my GBFF" She said trying to sound convincing. Hal wouldn't make fun of her if he thought that she…

"Of course" He scoffed "And you don't have feelings for Barry either, right?"

"We are friends"

"He has a crush on you, you know?" Hal said looking at her with a strange expression "Don't hurt him"

"I…" She gulped "I didn't know that he had a crush on me"

The Green Lantern coughed a little and said "You are really dense"

"Or you see things were they aren't"

"Right"

They fell silent and Hal decided to do the dishes, so Babs went back to the living room started to ponder on how he had noticed her slight crushes, she didn't think that she was so obvious on them and if Hal knew who else did?

Sure her first kiss had been with Harleen, but that had been many years ago and they hadn't talked about it since. Also Babs was sure that didn't like women that way, she just had a tiny girl crush on her best friend…

(A few reminders of her classmates in Gotham Middle School started to surface and she tried to push it back, she also pushed back memories with a friend and the time when people thought that they were together-together. Those times had not been nice and she didn't want to remember that)

On the other hand, she found Barry cute but she wasn't sure that she could have a relationship with him as he didn't show any other kind of interest on her beyond friendship, did he? Also that would ruin their friendship if a relationship didn't work and she didn't want that.

She shook her head; it wasn't time to think about it. She could think about it later, instead she decided to ask Hal a question that had been nagging her since seeing those photographs.

Which wasn't long ago, just half an hour ago, but still she needed to satisfy her curiosity.

"Why did you break up with Carol?" She asked bluntly when Hal returned from the kitchen "You seemed really happy with her…at least in the photographs"

"I felt like it" He said looking away "I thought that after a year and a half we should met other people"

"I…don't believe you…much" Babs said trying to find his eyes.

"I'm telling the truth"

"Well, I don't think that's true"

He looked at her briefly then he crossed his arms and said looking away "You'll laugh at me if I tell you"

"I promise I won't"

Hal seemed to consider it and said "We are not friends…I haven't even told Oliver or Jess about it…" Then he sighed and did something unexpected, he lifted d up his sleeve and showed his left arm.

She was about to say something but noticed that he had three scars in his upper arm. Two small and one large.

"What…"

He put his sleeve down again and said "You say that you want to be a detective…"

"They look like …" The redhead muttered and asked trying not to be insensible "Did she…"

"Yes, she did…"

"How…"

"The small ones are from nail scissors…"

Babs was shocked but she shook her head and asked "Why did you think that I would laugh?"

"Well the counselor at my school at Coast City did…my friends there laughed when Carol punched me in the face" Hal said and added "I'm a guy, guys are not the victim"

She remembered a few times that she had heard about guys getting hurt by their girlfriends, it wasn't common but the few times that her father had commented on it…in Gotham the guy was dead or gravely injured. She gulped and asked "What did the counselor said?"

"That I should go to the doctor and forget about it" Hal muttered "After all Carol wasn't really trying to hurt me…she was just angry"

"How could she not mean to hurt you?!" Babs asked in disbelief.

"She had just gotten the Star Sapphire ring" He explained "It's one of the most unstable rings …she was just starting to get accustomed to it"

"Wait, Carol Ferris is Star Sapphire?"

"Yeah, you didn't know?" Hal asked trying to change the subject, why he had let his darkest secret out to an almost stranger he didn't know and now he didn't want to keep talking about it. He had only told Barry after he had figured out. He then added "I mean Jessica and Garth know"

"Carol Ferris is Star Sapphire" She said in disbelief "And she stabbed you when you were dating her…" She asked "You said that the small ones were made with nail scissors…the large one is…?"

"Oh, we got into a fight as Green Lantern and Star Sapphire, she saw me talking to my…someone and she got jealous, then she went full violet rage on her so I decided to stop her and so she made a cut"

Babs just shook her head and said "And…"

"I don't want to talk about it" Hal snapped "When I sent the text, I…still loved her, but mom wouldn't let me go near her after she noticed that she had given me a black eye the day after I talked to a girl in a café… I thought that by putting a smiley face on the text she would soften up"

Babs sighed "I guess that didn't work"

"It didn't …she wants to get back together…Carol is better now, she is not as influenced by her ring as she was back then…"

Babs phone rang and she gave Hal and apologetic look and answered the call. It was her dad he would be picking her up in fifteen minutes.

They sank in an uncomfortable silence and after a minute or so Hal said "This never happened, okay?"

"Of course…" She said and raised a hand as if taking an oath "I don't know anything"

He nodded and said "I'll try not to mention anything about your friend either"

"Thank you" Babs muttered and said "I don't want people to know about it, you know how people can be about that…I'm not even sure about it…and then there's Barry"

"He suspects it… but he won't reject you if you told him"

"But knowing that would hurt him"

"Yeah, it would…but Barry is a good guy, he won't hate you for it"

"I know he wouldn't, that's why he is my best friend"

Hal coughed and said "Dense"

The redhead started to wonder if she should tell him something about herself in return but decided that she would do it another time, after all they had more tutoring to do and she needed to let sink in the new information she had.

She wondered if Leslie Willis could be Livewire if Carol was Star Sapphire, if they were could the others in their group be villains? Doris was just a bully, Pam Isley didn't seem like someone who could hurt a mosquito and Selina was just mean, though she sounded (and acted) as a cat sometimes.

Also she knew Harleen very well, she was sure of that. She was good, even if she had an almost unhealthy obsession with the Joker.

"Do you think that Carol's friends may be villains as well?" Babs asked to her friend, one could not learn something as…unexpected as that without forming some kind of a bond.

"Barry and Oliver have said something like that, but they are not so sure"

"I have to investigate"

Then she heard her dad's car outside and said while grabbing her things "Take care Harold"

"And you Barbara"

She ran out the house and got in the car, when she got inside her dad made the usual questions and she told him the usual answers as she was in deep thought about everything, she knew Harleen very well but she wasn't so sure about her friends.

Meanwhile Hal wondered if he should tell Jessica about Carol but he decided against it and focused on the question Babs asked him, it couldn't be possible or could it?

Notes:
Why did Babs not react more to Carol's abuse towards Hal? She may not heard much about relationship abuse towards men, but she is from Gotham and I think that she may have it a little bit normalized and don't give much thought as Hal seems to be okay, I'm not saying that she is indifferent but she have to let it sink. Also she now knows the secret identity of one of the Villains and is starting to suspect about the others. And she has finally realized her feelings for both Harleen and Barry, but she has some thinking to do about it.

On the other hand, Hal will eventually tell Jessica but first he has to acknowledge the real issue with Carol. He told Babs because sometimes is easier to let out some issues with a person whom you don't know well but may trust than someone that is close to you because they won't push the issue much.
The next chapter will be about Kara, Babs,Oliver and some Kryptonite.