"What the...?" Nightwing's voice trailed off as his eyes rapidly scanned the information on the screen. An almost childish frustration rose in his chest, along with the desire to kick something. If what he was reading was true - and considering this was Luthor's private server, it most like was - then this whole covert op just became much more difficult.

"Nightwing," Tigress' voice crackled over the comms. "Somebody's coming."

"Kid Flash, Tigress; let's get outta here. We got what we came for." He saved the file to a drive, before closing down the files and shutting down the computer. "Meet on the roof."

"Roger," Tigress replied.

"Copy that," Kid flash answered.

Nigthwing sighed again as he melded into the shadows just as a guard made his way past him. Lex had never been a likely target, considering his already opulent personal wealth, but Nightwing had been banking on him. However, after reading Luthor's personal journal, he learned that the man himself had been looking into the thefts.

He recalled a specific passage of Lex's notes:

This thief is not only capable, but also quite intelligent - aside from their foolishness, considering they stole from me. Each theft only takes as little as a hundredth of a penny, and were taken from nearly unaccounted-for sources, and are nigh untraceable. Added to all the thefts - 47 of which are from my own subsidiary companies - the amount is insignificant.

But this begged the question: if not Lex, then who?

"What do you mean, it's not Luthor?" Artemis demanded angrily, having just dismissed Bart rather forcefully after they had returned to the base.

"It's not him," Dick replied regretfully. "It's just... not."

"It's got to be a trick; maybe he knew we were onto him!"

He gave her a flat look through his domino mask. "How? Seriously, Arty, I would love to hear that one."

She sneered at him as she paced angrily, which did nothing to help her state of mind, but she continued to prowl around the room, deftly avoiding the the sparse furniture that was arranged upon the floor.

Dick watched her with the periphery of his vision as he sat on the backrest of one of the two green armchairs. His holo-screen up as he went through the data they had pilfered from Lexcorps.

Artemis kicked the other chair. "ARGH!" She left his question unanswered, and instead opted to mutter angrily, along the lines of, "I knew he was rich, no reason to do it, lots of the targets are his, why the fuck would he..?"

Dick looked on sullenly. All the data pointed away from Luthor; which reduced their list of suspects even further. The implications of this were not lost on him, and he found himself hoping that, if it was Jaime who had committed these thefts, he was justified in doing so.

Dick prided himself on his willingness to break the rules when needed - and sometimes, you might have to do questionable stuff - but even he had difficulty believing anything that could justify this.

And this was only if Jaime was the culprit.

"Maybe it's some new guy," Artemis finally said, pulling him from his thoughts.

"Maybe." His voice was flat, disbelief lacing it despite the childish hope that he still harboured. "But if it isn't-"

"If it isn't, I don't think I could take it," she admitted quickly, interrupting him. The mere thought of, of... losing another teammate - never mind that he quit the team -literally or metaphorically, it messed her up.

She clenched her teeth and turned to face Dick. "It's not him. It can't be. It wouldn't make sense."

"Nothing in our line of work ever does, but I don't want to believe it's him either. We're running out of suspects though..."

"This is so fucked," she said, for the umpteenth time.

"There doesn't have to be a point," Dinah told him, resting her elbows on the row of benches behind her. The bleachers were still hot from the intense mid-day sun, even though the ssky had darkened as the setting sun sought the horizon.

Jaime looked at her, his expression unreadable. "If there's no point, then why do it?" he asked.

She smiled wryly. "You know, we get asked that a lot when we take villains down."

"Yeah," he replied, snorting. "I know."

A pause. "And? What would you reply?"

That was a good question. Jaime had never really put much thought into his answer - actually, he didn't get to answer too often, as it was usually at that point that Superboy or Wonder Girl would yell and charge at them. "Usually?" He shrugged. "Something like, 'because someone's gotta do it.'"

She nodded. Every hero answered this question differently. Some, like Jaime, felt obligated to help by virtue of their powers; others did it because they knew it was the right thing to do; and others did it for the glory, the rush, and the fun of it all.

"What about you?" Jaime asked, pulling her from her thoughts.

"What did I answer?" she asked, knowing full well what he meant. She tilted her head back, to think. "Don't laugh."

"What?"

"I said the same thing."

He considered what she told him. "Right, I bet you're just saying that."

She shook her head. "You'd be surprised at how many of us think that, Jaime. That, or a variation of it, like: it's the right thing to do. Superman, Wonder Woman, and yours truly all believe that, for instance."

"Yeah? Well it's oversimplifying things in my opinion..." He had learned, rather harshly, more than a few important lessons, but one very poignant one was: nobody had to do anything. Nobody knew what the right thing was every time either! Was it right for him to blow up half the city to stop a criminal? Sure, some would say, because said criminal would have destroyed all of the city if Jaime hadn't stopped him. But would the villain even be there if Jaime had never become a superhero?

Was it right for Jaime, who was, at this point, earning food and money for his family, to sacrifice his legs - his livelihood- for Wonder Girl? For someone who had plenty to live by, who was nigh indestructible, and whose family didn't rely upon her to make end's meet?

But he said none of those things and instead he replied, "Really? That's cool." His eyes gazing out at the darkening skies, "I always figured I was naïve for thinking that."

She hummed, like she didn't quite believe him; like when his mother let him get away with a lie. She must've had kids, he decided. No childless person could read and react that way, in his experience at least. Jaime wondered how someone so... nice, like Black Canary, could ever get tangledup in the violent and bloody pasttime of being a superhero.

"We spend our time telling the younger generation that things aren't black or white," she said, snapping him from his thoughts. She had sat up; not quite leaning forward as she looked out to the horizon with a faraway look in her eyes. "But there are extremes." She turned to look at him, and said nothing, for a moment. "Sometimes, it's the extremes that look grey, Jaime."

What the fuck? he thought.

"A situation that had seemed so right, when looked back upon, with bias, can become a little muddle sometimes," she told him.

Of course, she had once explained to him, that was also a good thing; it allowed people to learn, judge, and grow from the past. It could also help people to not repeat the same errors; but it could sow doubt and fear. And in the wise words of Yoda: fear led to anger, anger to hate, and hate to suffering.

"Let me ask you this one thing, and then we'll be done for today, Jaime."

"Okay," he replied hesitantly.

"You don't have to answer me, or even answer now. But you'll have to answer this question eventually," she warned.

Now even less sure, he nodded, because he was stupid like that. "Shoot," he told her, his gaze flitting across her face as he studiously avoided her eyes.

Meanwhile, her eyes were searching, attempting to grasp and hold his gaze. There was an uncomfortably long silence filled only with the rustling of the wind through a nearby tree. Even though the sun was still up, Jaime felt a cold pit open up in his gut. Eventually, she turned away from him, to look at the horizon once again. She never looked back at him. "If you could go back," she started, her voice quiet; just above a whisper. "Would you push Cassie out of the way again?"

She did not wait for his answer, standing quickly and striding away as she gave him a quick wave.

He sat there for a good long while in silent contemplation. The knee-jerk reaction to answer the question had been just that; a reaction, but when he found himself about to answer it - if only to himself because Dinah had already walked away - he found the words stuck in his throat. He couldn't say them honestly without feeling fake. Even thinking he had a solid answer left him with a nervous, empty feeling sitting in the back of his skull.

Eventually, he had to give up and leave. It was a slow affair; not only because he was rolling through grass, but simply to input the motion to move was difficult.

"Man, this is so fucked," he told himself, his mind buzzing with half-formed answers and lousy reasonings.

The next few days went by in a blur. Between missions - both assigning and taking part in - protecting Bludhaven and maintaining his secret identity, Nightwing had spent all his time going over the data found at Lexcorp. It was a long and tedious process, to say the least.

Even though he'd read a pretty revealing paragraph, he knew better than to just leave it at that. Besides, Tigress would be swinging by for an in-depth discussion sometime soon. She had requested a copy of the data, as had Kid Flash; though he wouldn't be getting one.

"Aw why not?" he had asked. "I can read through it much more quickly than either or both of you."

Tigress had almost told him off, but Nightwing replied for her. "Sensitive info, we need to fine comb it. Besides, it's nothing exciting-"

"No secret lair plans?" Bart had asked.

"No."

"Super death ray?"

"No."

"Underhanded business plans?"

"No."

"Embarrassing pictures?"

"Why would-" Artemis replied, irritated enough for both her and Nightwing - while he himself was amused enough for the both of them- " You know what? Nevermind. No. Now scram, you need a shower."

Pouting, Bart had tried without success to beg for a little peek, but relented when he was fixed with two glares. He quickly left Artemis and Dick, leaving an uncomfortable silence hanging in the air.

Days later, that same expectant, tense silence filled the room where Dick was sitting in a chair, re-re-re-re-reading what he'd copied from Lex's drive. Not that it was doing any good. For all of his intellect, Lex didn't seem to know much. And, boy, did he like to hear himself talk. Dick was willing to bet the man had recorded himself talk, instead of typing the log - because there was so much to go through.

"So." Tigress' voice broke through his thoughts. "Can I get a copy yet?"

"Hm. Sure," he replied, quickly sending her a copy of the file. "I'm warning you, though, there are a lot of tangents in there."

"So, nothing useful?"

He hesitated. "Well... There is something. Everytime the culprit hacked in, they had the same M.O., and not only is it different from every hacker I have on-file but it's... completely without flourish. Like a computer program."

She looked at him. "Didn't we already know that?"

"Yeah, I'm getting to the interesting part. Well, 'interesting'. The speed at which the hack-ins happened is literally too fast to be human technology. We're looking for someone who has alien tech... or a quantum computer. Though... that, too, seems too advanced to be human tech."

Nightwing saw Tigress' mouth form into a thin line, her lips compressed tightly as she understood what he was saying. Despite the mask covering most of her face, he could tell she blanched as she let herself fall back into a spare chair.

There was another silence, this time worryingly uncomfortable; she didn't even seem to be breathing. Or maybe she was and his heart was beating too loudly to hear her. He wasn't sure how she was going to react to the news, and her silence was only making him more paranoid.

"Listen, maybe we should just have him come up to answer some questions," he suggested, but his words did nothing but make the silence more unbearable.

"Are you fucking serious right now?" she finally exploded. "You want to bring Jaime in for stealing millions of dollars? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one here?"

"Hey, I take offense to that!" he complained. "We need answers," he stated reasonably, "and if Jaime isn't our culprit, then he can help us find out who is."

"No." she told him, with the tone of finality that indicated he'd have to bulldoze her to go through with this. "He wanted out, Grayson, he gets to stay out. I wanted out. Wally... Wally wanted out, too, and look what putting the suit back on did for him. I'm not going to have someone else's coffin resting on my conscience."

That hit Dick hard. He hadn't expected Artemis to bring up Wally, especially not to convince or manipulate him. He knew what she was trying to do, but protecting was not what Jaime needed right now, Dick was sure of that. The kid could level a city if he wanted to. There was pretty much nothing that could hurt Jaime right now since he wasn't out crime fighting anymore.

But Dick didn't want Blue Beetle to come back; he wanted Jaime to do the right thing. Unfortunately, Dick didn't know if the right thing meant Jaime revealing he was the thief, or Jaime helping them find the real one.

"Dick," she whispered. "I expect you to understand, with what happened to Jason-"

"Tread carefully." he told her, tensing at her words.

She waved off his warning. "I won't speak ill of the dead, but we both know what this life can do to a kid, Dick. I... I see Wally in him, okay? That's why... I just can't. Not him."

"Artemis," he said, his voice soft and weary. "What other choice do we have?"

She looked at him, and in that moment, she was older and more tired than any veteran Nightwing had ever seen or worked with. The precursors to the lines around her eyes and the crease in her forehead were showing themselves in her frown. She shut her eyes, a defeated sigh blowing through her nose. Her lips were set, but not into a thin line. She wasn't angry anymore, she was saddened and defeated.

Shaking her head, she turned towards the door. It slid open, casting the room in a stark white light. Resting her hand on the doorframe, Artemis looked over her shoulder at him, and said, "Give Canary another week. Maybe she can find out if Jaime is or isn't innocent."

With this parting request, she left.

Oh fuck! Cassandra recoiled as the door swished open, ducking out of sight just in time. Eavesdropping was becoming a very bad a habit of hers, especially around headquarters. She hadn't meant to - she hardly ever did, after all, people had private matters - but when her superhuman hearing picked up Nightwing and Tigress' conversation and heard Jaime's name mentioned... Well, she simply could not help herself. If something was happening to her friend - the one who'd sacrificed his legs for her (even though he hadn't needed to, but she would never be ready to touch on that) - she felt she had a right to know.

"Give Canary another week. Maybe she can find out if Jaime is or isn't innocent." Artemis said, before walking out.

Quickly, Cassie dug out a USB drive from her pocket - it contained some homework she needed to print - and walked out from where she'd been hiding just around the corner. She couldn't let Artemis know she had heard everything.

"Oh, hey, Artemis! Have you seen Connor, he's supposed to help me with my Spanish homework?" she asked, giving her a friendly smile. She had barely even stuttered at all!

Artemis regarded her with a cool expression, raising a brow under the mask she wore. Cassie could tell she was deliberating whether or not she thought her and Nightwing's conversation had been heard. "He didn't tell you?" she asked, her voice thick with suspicion. "He went out with Bart to try out some new Arcade some place. Rather, Bart dragged him."

"Oh? You don't know when he'll be back, do you?"

"He has a cell, you can text him," Artemis deadpanned an underlying 'I'm not his secretary' lacing her words.

"Oh, uh, right! Sorry, was just asking." Cassie fingered the drive nervously. "Well, it's not like it's due tomorrow anyway, because it's the weekend, and there isn't school on the weekends! Well, except in Japan, they have school on Saturdays, if you didn't know."

"I didn't." A pause. "I have to go." And she left.

Cassie stayed rooted to the spot, waiting until Artemis was far away. That was close! she told herself, deflating with a relieved sigh. Whether Artemis knew she had heard or not, she had let Cassie go; she had even seemed to be in a hurry.

"Probably to destroy a punching bag," she muttered to herself, shaking her head. Walking to her room, where she had been heading anyway, Cassie pondered what she had heard, and what it could mean. Hacking, thefts, millions of dollars missing, and most puzzling... Jaime was somehow involved or related to all of that?

Could it be that "secret" mission Bart went on - the one that even he didn't know what the files theyhad retrieved contained - was to find out more about this? The timing was certainly convenient...

Cassie sat down on her bed Apparently, her ruminations had carried her all the way to her room. She tossed her USB drive onto the desk, where it slid next to the laptop every member of the team had in their room. She didn't really have a Spanish assignment to do; Connor always asked her if she had one, and if she did, they completed it right away.

"Speaking of Spanish assignments," she said to herself. "Maybe it's time I visit Jaime..." She was sure there was at least something she could do to help. "Well, it's settled! I'll visit him, and maybe I can solvesome of this mystery!"

It was a mystery and whatever the case may be, in her heart of hearts she knew Jaime could never steal from or hurt anyone. At least, not without a good reason, and even then.

Maybe he was being blackmailed, somehow, or his family threated in a way that Blue Beetle couldn't protect from; but that Jaime Reyes could. What if someone figured out his secret? What if...

What if he still didn't want to see her?

Jaime wiped his face with his hands, stubble prickling his palms gently. Blinking hard a few times, he finally focused on Dinah. She'd called Jaime into her office over the intercom - he hadn't known she could even do that - and now he was missing Geography. Not that he minded, Geography was one of those subjects he could easily catch up on if he needed, and the classes were mostly another opportunity to sleep anyway.

"I'm, uh, not in any trouble, am I?" he asked her, as she offered him some hot cocoa from the supplies she had stashed behind her desk.

Just at a glance he could see an electric kettle, pouches of powdered cocoa, tea, coffee, and even cups. He guessed Dinah had packets of cream and sugar in one of the drawers of her desk. The cup she'd handed him was one of the biggest, with a goofy face on the white ceramic.

"Hm? Oh, no, Jaime, not at all," she said, fixing herself a cup of cocoa as well. Silence reigned for a while, as she finished putting everything away. "I just wanted to see how you were doing."

"Mhm." He took a sip of his drink, the scalding liquid shocking him awake some. He'd need to drink cold water, or his tongue was going to hurt. "Don't we usually talk once a week, or something?" Isn't that enough?

"Yes," she said patiently, nodding gently. "But I would like to talk to you more often, if that's alright with you."

Was it? The conversation from a few days ago came back to him. It left him puzzled, partially because he wasn't sure why they had even discussed it in the first place, but also because he was surprised to be... well, not right, but at least thinking the same way as other heroes did, only to have that robbed from him. When he lost the use of his legs, he felt like a part of him had died too; his innocence or heroism, perhaps. Jaime simply didn't understand, in his heart, what it meant to think like a hero sometimes. He kind of missed it.

"We don't have to talk about issues." Dinah's voice pulled him from his thoughts. "I just feel like you could use someone to talk to."

"You're worried," he said, and he knew it had been what she meant to say next. "Like everyone else, Cana- Dinah." His voice was devoid of derision. He had stopped being mad some time ago, if he were to be honest with himself. "I'm just...wary. I keep feeling like something's gonna give and I'll be dragged back to my old life."

Interesting, Dinah thought to herself, and had she had a notepad with her she would have jotted that down. As it was, she stored the information in her mind, for later. "It must've been hard," she said. "Having the fate of a hero thrust upon you without a choice."

He took a sip from his cocoa, which at that point had cooled down a bit. "Yeah, but I guess like Pa said: if it's worth doing, it's not gonna be easy." He didn't regret becoming a hero, not fully. Jaime had been enraged that the choice had been robbed from him; he still had nightmares from certain missions gone wrong, or when he was controlled by the Reach... "But I don't know if I'd do things differently if I had the chance..."

"No?"

He shook his head before he could stop himself. It wasn't a vigorous shake of the head, just a light one, but still. "I-I mean... I did do some pretty cool stuff, and made a difference - or I like to think I did sometimes - and met some pretty awesome people. Who gets to say they met Batman?"

Dinah chuckled. "I don't imagine many people get to say that, really."

There was a lull in their conversation, and Jaime finally noticed the time. He'd been gone from class for almost thirty minutes. By now; he supposed he would probably just miss the entirety of Geography class. Part of him wished conversations like this one, simple and easy ones, would happen more often to him, but he hadn't forgotten that this was Black Canary. There had to be a special reason as to why she was here at his school.

"I don't want to keep you for too long," Dinah said, looking at the clock.

"Aw, come on, first period is almost over, can't I just stay 'til next period?" Although he'd almost become a straight-A student, Jaime was still a teenager and wouldn't pass up the opportunity to slack off just a little. "It's not like I'm struggling in that class, or any of them, really."

Smiling, Dinah replied, "Why not, you're right. On one condition: you have to answer my question." She had asked him if he would like to come more often, and he hadn't answered yet. He liked talking to Dinah, especially when she wasn't psychoanalyzing him.

"Sure."

"Great!"

The rest of the period went by with an air of levity that Jaime hadn't known had been missing in his meetings with Dinah. He wrote it off, telling himself he had just been too much on his guard. He still had his suspicions and planned to discover why Dinah was really in El Paso, but for now, he figured he could enjoy the rest of the period.

When he left, she told him, "See you tomorrow at lunch."

Cassie had dressed herself casually enough; a simple black t-shirt, red hoodie, and blue-jeans. She hadn't wanted something showy, she was visiting just Jaime after all (just Jaime, whom you made lose the use of his legs), and didn't want to give his parents the wrong impression.

She had thought a lot about making impressions. Patiently waiting until Jaime had not only finished school, but had been home for a while; not too long, or it would be too late and maybe his parents wouldn't let him hang out. She had brought her schoolbag in case they wondered why she was there, hoping they wouldn't figure out that she and Jaime were in different programs, from different schools.

She had even gone so far as to bring a present to his parents.

Cassie was certain she had thought of everything.

So why was she so nervous, standing in front of Jaime Reyes' front door? Why, when she knocked, her hand shook - and it had nothing to do with restraining her strength. Why did she fidget from one foot to the other as she waited for the door to open, and was nearly cowed by Mrs. Reyes' questioning stare?

"Yes, can I help you?" she asked, and Cassie could tell that she was the kind of person that would give you the coat off her back to keep you warm.

"Uh, h-hi! I'm a friend of, of, Jaime's and-" Why was she so nervous? She wasn't a supervilain, she was Jaime's mother! Maybe the anxiety of meeting Jaime for the first time since he left the team was getting to her. "I was wondering if he was free to... uh, to come study at the library?"

"A friend of Jaime's?" She stepped aside, inviting Cassie in with a wave of her arm. "I'm sorry, what's your name?" she asked, shutting the door behind her gently.

In the living room behind her, Cassie could hear the television playing and Milagro screaming enthusiastically at whatever was on. It made her crack a smile. "Oh, right, I'm Cassie - uh, Cassa-"

"Cassandra! Oh, yes, Jaime has told me a lot about you!" Cassie felt happy at that. "It has been a while since he mentioned you, I thought something happened to you too."

Her face fell at Jaime's mother's words. If only she knew that Cassie had been responsible for Jaime's accident, she wouldn't be greeting her in such a friendly manner. Or at all. Cassie was pretty sure she'd have gotten a face full of door if that were the case.

"No, I... I was there when it happened, but... I don't know. I thought Jaime wouldn't want to see me anymore. That I'd be a reminder of the accident."

"Oh, nonsense," she replied, her hands automatically lifting to rub Cassie's shoulder in a comforting manner, the ghost of a reassuring phrase coming to her lips only to be bitten back. She quickly cleared her throat, dropped her hands, and took a step back. "Jaime is in his room, just up the stairs." She pointed to the door. "I will bring you two snacks." And before Cassie could reply, she had left for the kitchen.

As she took off her shoes, she finally took note of the folded-up wheelchair leaning on the wall. It was clean, but slightly worn; the wheels dirty with dust. Even chair-bound, it seemed Jaime had no trouble getting around. This realization provided her with little comfort.

With a steadying breath, she steeled herself and padded up the carpeted stairs. She stopped just in front of the door; wooden doors but too light to slam. The dark wood giving a nice contrast to the light carpet.

She lifted her hand, and using only one finger, knocked.

"Come in," came Jaime's muffled reply, and some part of her that Cassie didn't even know existed let out a sigh of relief. For some reason she had been afraid he'd sound weak and raspy, like he just lay in bed all day.

Her trembling hand moved slowly towards the knob and she flexed her fist anxiously. Finally, just as she could hear Jaime start to ask who was there, she grabbed and twisted the knob, pushing the door open.

A/N: Sorry for the year-long hiatus, I never meant for this to happen. I jsut got so swallowed up in my studies and personal goals that I forgot to work on this story. I'm not really happy with the first chapters and it'd turned me off from working on the next chapters. but I'm back, and expect more updates on both this and To Pick up the Pieces a lot more this coming year!