Hey readers. Well, here's the next chapter of my story. Hope y'all enjoy it.

Chapter 2: A Fathers' Secret

Gotham City

Mar'i took long sluggish strides back home, carrying her damp, crushed backpack over her right shoulder while she rubbed her neck gently with her left hand. She winced in pain when her fingers trailed over the vicious bite mark on the side of her neck.

She sighed miserably pulling up her torn up left sleeve of her black shirt with a magenta colored electric guitar and magenta tinted letters that spelled out, 'ROCK ON'. She looked like a complete mess. Her chin-length red-orange hair with jet black streaks looked like she brushed it with a rake or blow-dried with a leaf blower. Her flawless orange skin was coated with terrible scratches and bite marks revealed on her neck and arms and also her clothes were a little bit torn. Her left sleeve was practically ripped completely off and her right khaki skater boy pockets were dangling down; the bottom part of the fabric trying to keep it patched on.

Mar'i gave out a pitiful groan when she had sight of her house—er, mansion. To think, being the daughter and granddaughter of the two richest men in Gotham City would make her the most hated kid in school.

'The way the world is today will never make sense to me.' Mar'i told herself while shaking her head slightly.

She made her way up the old and creepy-looking mansion and stopped at the doorstep. She quickly smoothed out her hair making it look nice and heaved her backpack off her shoulders reaching in for a pin. She found one and pinned her pocket back to her khaki pants. When she was done with that, she pulled up her left sleeve once again, putting her backpack over her left shoulder making the strap hide the torn up sleeve. She then bent down and started brushing herself off frantically and then got back up looking at the door.

"All right Mar'i, let's just pray that dad, Grandpa Bruce, or Aunt Barbara won't notice or even better, that they're still at work and Alfred can keep a secret." Mar'i nodded to herself thinking positive thoughts as she walked towards the door. She raised her hand nervously and took a deep breath before she knocked on it.

The oak crafted door gently swung open and standing before her was her and her family's butler and closest friend, Alfred.

Alfred gasped in shock. "Good Lord Mar'i, what the devil—"

"Uh,heyAlfred.Don'tmindthescratchesandscarsandstuff.Roughdayatschoolyaknow.Well,I'mgonnaheaduptomyroom.Don'twaitup!" Mar'i said extremely quickly as she made her way up the stairs.

"Hold it right their Miss Grayson." Alfred ordered. Mar'i froze in place, barely on the third step. "Come here right now." He said firmly tapping his foot on the ground waiting patiently.

Mar'i turned and slowly walked down the steps with a disappointed look on her face.

Alfred folded his arms over his chest and looked down at Mar'i with a serious look on his aged face. "What happened?"

Mar'i was silent for a while trying to think of a way she was going to slither out of this but was unfurnished of ideas.

"Well?" Alfred asked, his voice becoming strict.

Mar'i's light-green eyes began to fill with tears as she ran into Alfred and sobbed despondently into his chest.

"Miss Grayson, what ever is the matter?" He asked looking down at the sobbing Mar'i.

"Oh Alfred! All day, I did nothing but trip and fall flat on my face! I'm such a klutz!" She cried, her wet tears seeping through Alfred's black tux and damping his white dress-shirt underneath.

Alfred gently patted her on the head with his left hand and patted her on the back with his right hand trying to comfort her. "Now, now Miss Grayson. You're not a klutz, you just had an off day. Now head on up to your room and clean yourself up while I go make you a nice hot-fudged sundae. That sound good?"

Mar'i looked up at Alfred, her tears streaming down her orange-skinned face. She sniffed. "All right. Thank you Alfred."

Alfred gave her one last pat on the head and a disarming smile while Mar'i heaved her backpack back on her shoulders and made her way up to the stairs wiping away her tears.

She reached her room and closed the white painted door with fire red letters spelling, 'MAR'I'S ROOM'.

She sniffed, a pleased smile spreading across her face. "'The Face' never fails."

"Happy Birthday Mar'i!" her family cheered.

"Thanks everyone." Mar'i smiled while taking a seat at the dinner table. "So, what's there to eat?"

"Take a wild guess." Bruce told her. And with that said, Alfred came into the dinning room with a silver dish in his hand. He placed the dish in front of Mar'i and lifted up the glimmering top revealing a medium sized bowl of teriyaki wings with a side of Mexican rice smothered with sour cream and two buttered biscuits. (YUM!)

"Dig in Mar'i." Alfred said happily.

"Don't mind if I do!" Mar'i hollered shoving the deliciously sweat teriyaki wings in her watering mouth.

"Chew your food Mar'i. You're not an animal." Her father ordered watching his daughters' meal vanish before his eyes.

"Uh huh." Mar'i mumbled digging into her sour cream coated Mexican rice.

"So, fifteen-years-old. Oh you're getting so big Mar'i!" A happy Barbara smiled giving Mar'i a tight hug. Mar'i laughed while her aunt Barbara gave her a small noogie, messing up her red-orange hair with black streaks.

Richard—Mar'i's father—sighed leaning in his chair. "The older you get Mar'i the older I seem to get. Look at me; I'm already reaching my forties."

"Oh shut up Dick. The more you complain about how old you get the more I think you're still just a small little boy." Barbara told him sitting back down in her chair taking a teriyaki wing.

"You're right; at least I'm not an old bat pushing forty in a couple of months." He smirked.

"What did you just say!" Barbara yelled slamming her hands on the table.

"Enough you two." Bruce told his two 'kids'. "I swear Mar'i, the older your aunt and father get, the younger they act."

"I know grandpa. Will these two ever grow up?" Mar'i said shaking her head. Her father glared at her and messed up her hair in a rough noogie.

"A-ha-ow." She laughed drooping her head a little trying to escape her fathers' noogie.

"Whoa! Reanimation! Thanks grandpa!" Mar'i smiled giving her grandpa Bruce a loving hug. Bruce smiled and hugged his granddaughter.

"I'm glad you like it."

"All right Mar'i, time to head off to bed." Richard told her.

"Aw come on dad. It's my birthday for cryin' out loud. Shouldn't I be able to stay up a little bit longer?" Mar'i groaned.

"Wait Mar'i, I still have one more gift for you." Barbara said heading for the living room closet.

"Awesome! What is it!" Mar'i asked plopping herself on the couch.

Her aunt Barbara fished through the closet and finally found what she was looking for. She took out four pink bags and walked towards her niece.

"I bought you all the cutest little outfits I could find at the mall. Mini skirts, tang-tops, midriffs, high-healed boots. And of course, you're going to have to accessorize!" She smiled brightly taking out handfuls of hot pink nail polish, blush, eye-liner, and lipstick. "Since you feel like staying up, I thought you'd put on a little fashion show for us and see how adorable you look in all these outfits."

Mar'i had a horrified look on her face and quickly faked a yawn. "You know Aunt Barbara, (yawn) I had a rough day today so I'm just gonna pack it in. Goodnight." She waved dashing up the stairs and straight to her room as fast as she could.

Barbara laughed. "Works every time."

"You didn't actually buy all this stuff for her did you?" Richard asked lookin through the bags.

"Of coarse not, this is all my stuff." Barbara said grabbing the backs and heading to her room. "'Night boys."

"Goodnight." Richard and Bruce said.

Bruce laughed. "She wasn't so girly like this when she was Batgirl."

"Hey, she never really experience life as a real teenager during that time." Richard said taking a seat.

"Speaking of experiences, now that Mar'i's fifteen, she's going to be experiencing puberty real soon and seeing as she's half Tamaranean—"

"I know, I know. It's just, I haven't really found a way to tell her without freaking her out and having to explain about her mom and the Titans and all that other stuff."

"But you're going to have to young Dick. Mar'i's not going to be a little girl forever." Alfred told him giving him a stern look.

Richard groaned and stood up from his chair. "It's just; I want her to spend life as a regular teenaged girl. I know my daughter and I know how determined and confident she gets. When she finds out she's half Tamaranean and that she has powers and that her father and mother were superheroes back in the day, she's gonna wanna follow in those footsteps. And if she doesn't, then she's going to be super stubborn and probably hate me for not telling her sooner or maybe go out and find her mother. That will be even worse! Dragging Starfire into this conflict. I just don't want that to happen."

Alfred and Bruce walked towards Richard and put a comforting hand on his shoulders.

"It's better now than never Master Grayson." Alfred told him.

"Go upstairs and tell her now Dick or else she'll find out on her own." Bruce said giving him a stern fatherly look.

Richard looked up at his father figure and gave him a smile. He got up from the chair and walked upstairs to Mar'i's room.

Mar'i laid on her bed listening to the soft Christmas bells on her stereo. 'My Dsmbr' from the Reanimation Linkin Park CD was playing. She turned and lied on her left as Chester Bennington started to sing.

She gazed at a picture sitting on her drawer. It was a picture of her her dad took when he took her to the park back when she was four. She sat happily in a sandbox with a plastic pale and shove sitting next to her. She smiled her toothless grin. Mar'i laughed.

"Say cheese!" A twenty-five year old version of Richard smiled holding a camera in front of him. Mar'i—four-years-old—gave a big happy smile as the flash shone. "That was great honey."

"Thank you daddy." She smiled.

"Hey, are you makin' a sand castle?" A little girl about Mar'i's age asked, her long black pigtails blowing in the light breezy wind.

"Yah! You wanna help?" She asked offering her a shovel.

"Sure!" The little girl grinned taking a seat next to Mar'i and helping her build the sand castle.

"Trisha! It's time to go honey!" The little girls' mother called out.

"Comin' mom!" She yelled out. Mar'i looked up at the girl in confusion looking at the woman that was calling for the little girl. "Sorry. I gotta go."

"Who's that?" Mar'i asked pointing at the woman.

Trisha turned. "Oh, that's my mommy."

Mar'i raised her left eyebrow. "What's a mommy?"

Trisha gave her the same look. "You don't know what a mommy is?"

Mar'i shook her head.

Trisha slapped her forehead. "Wow! And I thought my brother was dimwitted. A mommy is a nice lady that hangs-out with the daddy. Doesn't a nice lady hang-out with your daddy?"

"My Aunt Barbara hangs-out with my daddy." Mar'i told her.

"But that's an aunt. A mommy is someone who's married to your daddy." Trisha explained.

"My daddy isn't married to any nice lady." Mar'i told her.

"So you really don't have a mommy?"

Mar'i shook her head.

"Too bad, you're really missing out." Trisha said running off to her mother. Mar'i watched and saw the lady that was calling for Trisha open up her arms. Trisha ran into them wrapping her arms around her mommy. The lady did the same and lifted Trisha from the ground. Trisha laughed and was sent back to the ground holding her mommy's hand and walking off with her.

Mar'i sighed and looked down at the sand. 'Too bad, you're really missing out.' Those words buzzed in Mar'i's mind like an angry bee.

"I wish I had a mommy."

Mar'i's flashback was interrupted when she heard a knock on the door.

"Come in." She called out. The door creaked open and in stepped her father.

"Hey Mar'i." He smiled.

"What's up dad?" She asked turning her stereo off.

"Oh nothing." He said taking a seat on her bed.

Mar'i gave him a confused look. "Dad, people don't just come up to their child's room for nothing."

Richard laughed. "I know."

"So—what's on your mind?" She asked bringing her legs close to her body, wrapping her arms around them hugging them against her chest.

"Well, I came up here to tell you something." He told her debating on if he should tell her or not.

"And it is—?" She asked waiting for him to tell her.

Richard looked at his daughter with a nervous look on his face. He sighed realizing how much she looked like Starfire. She had her lovely grass green eyes and beautiful glowing skin. He smiled.

"Uh, dad." Mar'i said waving her hand in front of her fathers' face trying to snap him back to reality.

Richard shook his head. "Oh, sorry."

Mar'i gave him a, 'well' look. "You were going to tell me something." She said, her voice becoming impatient.

"Oh, yeah. I just wanted to say . . . have a goodnight sleep."

Mar'i raised her left eyebrow confused. "Um, okay."

Richard patted her on the head. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight." She said watching her father step out of her room. She still had the look of disorder on her face, but then decided to drop it and go to sleep.

She laid on her bed and pulled the covers over her body closing her eyes.

Just then, a sharp pain hit her right in the stomach. Mar'i winced and shot up from her bed holding her stomach. She bent over and started rubbing the spot gently. Her stomach burned like acid and her eyes felt like they were melting.

She looked herself in her dresser mirror. She gasped when she saw her eyes glowing a bright green but then thought she was just hallucinating.

"Wow, puberty is a scary thing to go through isn't it?" She asked her reflection. She then started to calm down when her stomach pain went away and her eyes looked normal again.

She slowly lowered herself on her bed and drifted back to sleep relieved that this weird day was finally over.

Phew, finally done with the second chapter. Hope y'all like it and are ready for the third chapter. I'll post it as soon as possible. Peace out!