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Author Announcement(s): Okay. Listen, I KNOW that I have A LOT of OTHER FanFics STILL UN-Finished, BUT I just HAD to start THIS one! …Besides, I HAVE BEEN, and WILL CONTINUE to be updating my OTHER FanFics quite regularly! Speaking of which, I would LOVE some of your (whomever may be reading this HOPEFULLY enjoyable work of FanFiction) ratings, reviews, and thoughts on my other FanFics as well, as I use ANY/ALL comments that I get, in-order to make my Fics better for ALL who are, and/or, WILL be reading them!
New Notice: I have started a new FanFic, that is a "Cross-Over" FanFic, between the two television shows, "Teen Titans," and "Young Justice." I would GREATLY appreciate any and all feedback that I could get on that, OR, on ANY other of my FanFics, as I use every and any comment and piece of feedback given on a story, to make it a better reading experience for all those currently reading it. Those two shows are based on DC Comics' DCU though, so I simply supposed that you all would enjoy that.
II. Return
A girl walked warily throughout the hallways of her high school. The institution of higher learning had its usual hustle and bustle, but there was also the usual aura of fear, fretfulness, and fatal stares that filled the toxic atmosphere. This school taught its students a great deal, but one thing that it did not teach them was how to survive, and that was information that one greatly needed to be able to live in Gotham City.
Her ponytail suggested, however, that even though she was a female, she did not particularly want to look like a female, and thus attention from the opposite sex was not only unwanted, but mostly unwelcome was well. The girl had her book bag slung over her shoulder, like so many of the other students, as she walked down the hall.
She approached her locker, and she opened it in an expertly quick manner. She unzipped her book bag, and emptied what little contents that she needed for her day. They rest of the material, along with the bag itself, was violently crammed into her locker. She proceed to shut her locker, although she was dreading the action for some time—because shutting her locker meant that she was about to start her day, and she wanted to do anything but start her day. In all actuality, she just wanted to end it.
Although this was the case, she was happy when she saw what lay beyond her locker door. It was the friendly face of Matthew Maxim.
Matt did not treat like the general male populace did. He treated her as an individual, as a person—not as a prize. The truth was that he saw her as being better than himself. She saw him as being her equal. It was a constant topic of dissonance and disagreement between the two.
His neatly chaotic blonde hair rested on top of a peaceful, yet stern face, whose eyes were currently scanning and scrutinizing the girl in front of him. He scanned over her, but not so as to demean her, or focus on her figure, but rather, her details. He looked over her muscular form, and he once again, silently marveled at it—as he often did. Of course, he did notice that she was attractive. He was Hal Jordan's son after all, although her attractiveness was not what he focused on.
He wasn't the only one examining the physical physique of his friend, though. Laura swiftly scanned Matt, in his entirety, and she had gained every piece of intrinsic information about her friend that she had needed from that one simple scan. Her father had taught her how to do that—among many other things. Matt was fit—very fit. Laura constantly wondered what drove the boy. It wasn't simply his need to keep up with her. She knew that.
Matt would claim that was the only reason that he had to be so strong, so swift, so mart, and so sensible, but Laura knew that he was lying. He was an excellent liar—a trait he had learned from his father, no doubt—but Laura was the daughter of the second greatest detective to ever roam the Earth. She was no fool. Matt had a deep drive to do…better. And his drive was paying off.
He needed to keep up with Laura, to be her equally even counterpart, at all times. If he wasn't equal to her, then he wasn't able to compete with her, and if he didn't compete with her, then he would never reach his potential—his powerful potential. His father made sure that he would reach his potential. Hal Jordan made sure that his son would use his failures to drive his successes. It was the only logical thing that Hal could do for his son.
Laura's gaze lingered for a second on the abdomen of her friend. Matt was no fool either, but he didn't notice the girl appraising his assets, because he was currently appraising her own. He had woken up late this morning, and as such, he had quickly thrown on whatever was lying around his room. Apparently, the only option that he had was a tight white t-shirt—a very tight shirt. Laura wished for a second that his abs weren't so defined. Her father had already reached his quota of annoying sexual jokes regarding Laura's drool, and the boy's abs. There were just as many jokes, regarding the boy's drool, and his daughter's body.
Dick Grayson was not the traditional father. Then again, he had learned everything that he knew about fatherhood, from watching his own father—Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne was the legal father of Richard "Dick" Grayson, but the only blood that Dick and Bruce shared was the blood that they had both spilt—in their crusade for justice, their crusade into darkness. Bruce Wayne had adopted four sons—Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Terry McGinnis. Bruce had been biologically related to only one of those adopted sons—to Terry. Bruce also had a fifth son, Damian Wayne, that was also his biological son.
Bruce Wayne shared the same bond with all of sons, although he shared no blood with them—except for two—he shared something that ran deeper than bloodlines ever could. He shared battle with his sons; he shared his teachings, training, tempering—and his love—with his sons. These boys had lost everything on the streets of Gotham, but they had gained something far more valuable, when Bruce had adopted them. They had found themselves. They had joined their father in his crusade against crime. The criminals of Gotham City were weaklings, and they fed on weakness. Bruce's sons were weak, and those criminals had preyed in them; those criminals had broken those four boys.
But, when Bruce adopted them, he rebuilt them; Bruce made them stronger. As they became stronger, they learned to protect those that put their faith in heroes, because it took immense strength to have faith—especially in this city—and those with strength lived. Batman made sure of that—as did Batman's partners. Batman's partners were the four boys that had helped him make sure that the strong lived, the four boys that had helped him protect Gotham—the four boys that had donned masked costumes with him. And Dick Grayson had inherited more than he had ever realized from his father.
Dick Grayson was an excellent father, just as Bruce Wayne was. He was simply unorthodox. He could joke with unusual things with his daughter. He was not the best. But he did beat every other father that thought they were better. Dick knew his daughter, inside and out, and he would do anything for her, give anything for her—even his life. Laura would never let another one of her parents make that sacrifice, though. Not in this lifetime. Laura was the world to her father.
Laura's gaze finally raised to Matt's head, and she caught his eyes, just as he was looking up at her face, as well. They both resisted the urge to blush—deeply. They knew what the other was doing, and they weren't even trying to hide it. Matt then turned his attention to the kids around him, listening, observing, deducing. He was good at that. He was good at deducing things. One thing he could not deduce, though, was how Laura had managed to progress so far, and so fast, in all of the areas that she had excelled in.
She was far stronger, swifter, and smarter than any girl—or, for that matter, any boy—her age. She had pushed herself far beyond any limits she might have had long ago, and it showed. She had quite a bit of obvious and well-defined muscles on her physique. But unlike so many girls who would have built their muscle on their arms and upper chest, the dark-haired girl had put her extra muscle on her abdomen and lower-back, and thus, she did not resemble some of the "she-hulks" that walked around this city pretending to look like a threat.
Her physically fit and attractive form was a product, mostly, of her intense determination to improve herself—constantly. She had an insatiable need to prove herself—to prove the world wrong, to defeat anyone of the opposite opinion that she was weak. She was slightly insane in that regard, but Matt didn't mind that fact; in fact he found it somehow endearing. Watching her brutally beat another boy whose mouth seemed to have no regulator, or some girl who was simply asking for it made Matt's day. Besides that, she had a legitimate excuse for being slightly short of sane. It ran in her family. If only she knew of the accursed "Bat Bloodline."
Regardless though, she always had something to prove, just as her father did, and just as her mother did. She saw the world as her enemy, one that she could not defeat, and one that was constantly beating her—and for the most part, she wasn't wrong. Her father was a hero, but she did not know that. Her mother was hero, but she refused to be accepting of the heroic decision that her mother had made long ago. She had chosen her daughter over herself. She knew her father as Dick Grayson, and nothing more, but she would always know her mother as a hero, one that did not have to die.
She wanted nothing more than to make her father proud, and as such, she was always pushing herself to do better, to excel wherever she could, to be the daughter that he wanted—the daughter that he deserved, the daughter that her mother deserved. Her father was always proud of her though, and even though he constantly told her this, she wanted nothing more than to do better. She felt that she owed him something more, because he had given her a family, a mother, and a father who loved and respected her, and also because he had to live with the girl who had been the reason for his wife's demise.
Richard never blamed Laura for what had transpired, but she always did. She hated when he defended her, or her mother's decision. The world had given Laura so much. Then, it had taken it all away. No. The Joker had taken it all away. Laura still remembered that fateful day—that nightmare—very vividly. It was a nightmare—memory—that crept into her unstable mind night after night.
When Laura was five, she witnessed her mother being brutally murdered at the hands of a deranged clown. She was a detective working his case, and she was relentless. She was fearless. Even in her last moments, her only worry was for her daughter. She would not stop, until she had found and dealt with "The Joker." She was too relentless, though, and it caused her to enter into a game that Lana Storm, Laura's mother, knew she couldn't win. The Joker was just as relentless as she was, perhaps even more so, and he played the game out to its conclusion.
The clown had stood there, over the injured woman's body as she slowly made her way to her feet. Her legs were broken, and she was using the wall to assist her in raising herself off the blood-stained floor. She was wincing and whining ever-so-slightly, and—even though she tried to mask her pain—her daughter was in more pain than Lana was at every sound she made. She would stand, or her daughter would die. That was the choice she had. That was the choice that The Joker had given her. She chose her daughter's life over her own. Her daughter, although only five-year-old, would never be able to agree with her decision. Her mother put bad people away. She made the world better. She was worth saving. Laura wasn't. But, apparently, the world did not want to be a better place. Because the world had killed her mother. No. The Joker had killed her.
The moment that her mother rose from the pool of fluid—mostly her own—on the floor of their apartment, The Joker slayed her—ruthlessly. He had become increasingly better at hand-to-hand combat—a consequence of so many run-ins with Gotham's resident "Bat-Family"—and as such, he was easily able to overpower the well-trained Lana Grayson.
The Joker had been waiting for her. He knew everything about her. Unfortunately, Lana knew everything about The Joker as well, and thus, she knew what was coming. The girl watched in horror, as her mother fell to the floor, lifeless. At that very moment, the clown had laughed, as though he had just told an amusing joke. He spoke to the little girl before him, and as he addressed her, he continued to cackle. His cackle would haunt her deepest nightmares, her deepest fears, her deepest rages. She would never forget it, and she would never want to.
"Remember, little girl, when you play games with The Joker, you lose." the clown had informed the girl, gesturing to her dead mother as he said the words.
The girl sat there, crying and not knowing what to do. Her father would come home hours later, and his world would be shattered. Later that night, Batman would break his one rule, and The Joker would die. Richard Grayson had killed The Joker, and he had enjoyed it, but he could not stand to wear the symbol of Gotham's protector after he had just become one of its criminals, and as such, after that night Batman was no more. The Joker had died, but he had taken Batman with him.
And, without Batman, Gotham City had become hell. It was already a hellhole, but now, there was no comparison. The real hell looked much more appealing that this godforsaken city that Richard now lived in with his daughter. He refused to fix it though. Batman was dead. He was sure of that.
Laura was constantly trying to prove herself, to earn the worth that her mother saw in her. She owed the world everything; the world had given her everything, and she owed it everything. But, The Joker had taken her world away, and she owed him something as well. She had an obligation to make the world a better place like her mother had done. The Joker was an obstacle, a disease, a virus, that prevented the world from being a good place. Her mother knew that, and she had tried to correct it. She had failed, but Batman had not. But still, this world, this place that ate its heroes, needed to be better, and Laura needed to make it better. She owed it to the world, to her mother, to herself, and even—or rather especially—to people like The Joker, to make this world...better. There were few left to help world be better, as it was.
Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, The Green Lantern, the "Bat-Family," the "Flash Family," the "Kryptonians," the "Amazons," the vast majority of the land-dwelling "Atlanteans," and so many others had been eliminated. Yet still, her father remained. But Batman was dead. If she only knew what her father could accomplish—what he had accomplished—then she would have forced him into that "Bat-Suit."
She was always trying to better herself, trying to earn what her mother had given her, trying to gain some worth, some value, so she could at least, begin to fix this world, this broken thing. But she had no idea where to begin, and absolutely no idea where to stop if she ever did begin. She was never satisfied with the outcome of her perseverance, though. Her training, her studies, her exercises—she excelled at them all—but it was never enough. She saw nothing in herself, and her father was constantly angry at her for this. He saw an infinite amount of value in his daughter, but she did not reciprocate this. She wanted to feel this way. This was the only way she knew to honor her mother, whose decision she still could not comprehend. She hid it well though—very well.
What made her even angrier was the fact that Matt seemed to think that she was better than him. That fact annoyed her to no end. He was constantly trying to push himself to be her equal. Physically, they were equal. Mentally, they were different—very different. But that didn't mean that they weren't equal; it just meant that they were different.
Her intense determination and drive to better herself came primarily from her father, who constantly pushed her to be better—not because he wasn't proud of her—which, for the most part, he always was—but because he knew she could do better. She was all that he had left, and after her mother had been taken from them—in the violent and gruesome way that she was—he couldn't help but worry about his daughter. He always worried about her. He had devoted his life to her, and thus, she owed it to her father to make sure that she was okay, that she was safe. And being okay in this city meant pushing yourself to your limits—pushing one's self so far beyond their limits, that is, until they no longer had any limits. She had done just that. The seventeen-year-old had become far smarter, stronger, and faster than most her age, but, by all means she was, in no way, any safer—especially in a place like this. This hellhole. The hell that they called Gotham City.
Besides her determined nature to constantly learn and break her boundaries, having her father teach her most of what he knew in hand-to-hand combat came in very handy in furthering her prowess. She had no idea how he was so well-versed in such areas as explosives, weaponry, disarming an opponent, and many martial-arts, combat, and strategy, but she was thankful—regardless of how he had come into the information—that he had chosen to share it with her, to train her in these areas.
Matt knew what she was capable of. He had seen her use her skills on more than one occasion. He respected her for it, but sometimes, he feared her for it as well. She wasn't the only one with family secrets, however. Matt knew nothing of his legendary father. He knew nothing of the "Light That Shone Brighter Than Any Other." He knew nothing of the hero, Hal Jordan, of the fact that his father was "The Green Lantern." Had he known, he would have, more likely than not, forced his father to don the ring once more. This city—this world—needed heroes. Matt and Laura were the children of two of the greatest heroes of their time, and they knew nothing about this fateful fact.
Laura's beautiful hazel eyes looked deeply into Matt's amber ones—deeper than any physician would see—and she scrutinized him as well. The silence lasted longer than should normally be acceptable, but neither felt any awkwardness. They were silent, but they were still communicating. He was the first to speak—as was often the case. She was not the talkative type.
"You should wear your hair down." he stated, almost abruptly.
She playfully scowled at him. "Yeah, that would be a terrific idea." she replied, rolling her eyes as she did so.
"You look prettier with it down." Matt responded.
She smirked at him. "That is exactly why I should not wear it down." she replied.
"What do you mean by tha—" Matt started, but was cut off by another voice entirely.
Another boy approached Laura from behind, and he wrapped his arms around her waist. This second boy, with his mop of dark brown hair and green eyes, spoke to the girl, whose waist he had just taken control of.
"Hey baby. Guess what. Luck must be smiling on you, because my Saturday just opened up. That means I'm free, which means that your dreams are about to come true." the large muscular boy addressed the girl. He was doing this to any and every girl he could his hands around. Laura was attractive; he had noticed that accurately, but he had failed to notice that she was a slightly psychotic and viciously violent young teen. He was soon about to acquire this information in a very unsavory manner.
The girl responded, but before she responded verbally, she responded physically. She swiftly and silently spun out of the boy's hold, and as her entire body was spinning, she raised her left leg at an exact and precise angle, and it connected with the boy's head, sending him flying some feet backward, and crashing to the floor. Matt, who up until this point had been furious at this arrogant fool, now showed a small smirk, and he had to try very hard to suppress a laugh. The newly-stunned and dumbfounded, massively muscular, boy looked up, slowly but surely, to face his attacker standing several feet above him.
"If, when you said that my, and I quote, 'dreams would come true,' and you were referring to the dream I have, where I cut you up into little pieces and feed you to my dogs, then yes, it is very likely that it will come true." she addressed the boy beneath her.
She took a step towards him, and the stunned boy backed-up feverishly, crawling backwards as fast as his limbs would allow him. She chuckled at his reaction, and Matt could no longer hold in his own laughter. The boy got up, and, although he was still dazed and shocked, he was rather quick in how he performed this action. The girl called out to him, as he slowly began to retreat.
"…Oh, and Chukie?" the girl addressed the boy that she had sent crashing to the floor moments before, and who was now steadily retreating.
"…Y-Yeah…?..." Chukie responded, unsure of himself, and not wanting to continue his conversation with his attacker.
"If you ever touch me—or any girl—like that again, without my or her consent, that arm will be returned to you in pieces. Do you understand?" she asked. The boy nodded eagerly.
"Good. You are free to go now." she said, ending their "conversation."
The stunned boy turned on his heels and bolted in the opposite direction.
She turned her attention back to her friend, who was watching her with much amusement painted on his face.
"…What?" she asked him dryly.
"Nothing. I just enjoy watching you kick a dude in the face. Especially that asshole. I mean, really Laura, I think it just made my day." he said to her, smiling sarcastically as he did so.
"Why? You could have easily done that." she questioned quizzically, already knowing the answer.
He shrugged. "You just looked better doing it." he replied readily.
"You were looking at my butt, weren't you?" she asked, teasingly, smiling slightly.
He nodded, shamelessly. "Your dad's is still better." he commented.
She went red in the face, as she scowled and narrowed her eyes at him. "Your mom still has better abs then you." she retorted. She lied.
"You and I both know that you're lying." he replied, smirking.
"Whatever. Come on. We'll be late to class." she said dryly. She did not enter into fights that she could not win. Bruce had passed that on to her, without the girl knowing it.
She turned and led them both to their first period class.
The two entered the room to find all of the students gathered around a single boy. Laura and Matt recognized the boy almost immediately as one of their classmates. Although people were gathered around him, they did not appear to be interested in him, per se. What he held in hands, however, seemed to be what everyone was interested in. What he held in his hands was nothing out of the ordinary, but Laura immediately felt a sense of foreboding. She hated feeling this way. Matt's own sense soon had an equally forewarning sense of approaching trouble.
The two approached the crowd and she brutishly pushed her way into the center. She heard all of the voices around her, but she ignored them. She reached the student with the paper, and she looked sternly at him. He returned her gaze, but he said nothing.
"What's wrong?" she asked the apparently stupefied boy in front of her.
He responded by simply handing her the newspaper. She took the object in her hand, and scanned the page, and almost immediately, her eyes fell on what, presumably, had already captured everyone else's attention.
The headline read: "A Laughing Matter, or Life-Or-Death? The Joker Returns to Gotham." Directly adjacent to the text was the picture of a man dressed in a purple and green suit, decorated in an insane variety of clown makeup. This makeup, however, did not make him look appealing or funny. It made him look menacing, insane, crazed, and—Laura couldn't figure why she would use this word—viral. He looked viral. This was The Joker that she was staring at, but it wasn't The Joker.
This was not the man who had killed her mother, but she couldn't help but remember the face, the makeup, and the smile—oh god, that smile—as one and the same. Her old feelings of fear, hate, anguish, torment, and rage—pure, uncontrollable rage—boiled to the surface.
This was a man that she had never met and that she had never thought about, but yet she knew everything about him—or at least she felt she did. His face was the one that plagued all of her nightmares. He was the reason her father worried so very much. She knew none of these things for a fact, but she knew one thing for sure—although she had absolutely no idea how she knew this so-called fact—and that fact was a simple one: she was on a collision course with that man—with The Joker.
Matt's own eyes narrowed at the female clown behind The Joker in the picture. Her left foot was pressed harshly on top of one of her many defeated foes—a well-trained "Gotham Police Department S.W.A.T. Officer"—and her facial expression and physical form stated, quite clearly, that she was a very skilled hand-to-hand combatant.
He scrutinized her further—not because she was attractive, although he would admit that she was—but because something odd stuck out to him. The Joker and his apparently crazy clown girlfriend had just robbed a store in the newspaper picture, but what caught Matt's eye was the object in the female clown's hand: a green ring.
A/N: Please Rate And Review! I would GREATLY appreciate it! Stay tuned for the next update!