Sorry I haven't updated in so long! I was busy with school and yadda yadda but on the bright side. I graduated high school!

Story note: The story will no longer be back and forth from drama to action; the story will now focus on the action and story line rather than Taylor's angst because I'M annoyed with it. Freaking character writes itself and she loves to be moody.

I hope it doesn't get confusing, but this story will consist of five to seven overlapping arcs and story lines. Hope you enjoy!

Orange and Black

Chapter Five

Taylor skipped her classes that day. Probably unwise considering it was the last week before exams but she didn't care. Leaning against her dorm door in a lazy sitting position, she waited for night to fall. The day passed with unbearable slowness.

Around six in the afternoon, her phone rang. The generic sound caught her attention and she flipped it open. "Hello?"

The voice on the other line sounded relieved, "Taylor? Oh, thank God, I thought something happened!"

"Barbra? How'd you get my number?"

"That's not important," Barbra dismissed. Taylor rolled her eyes as Barbra continued the phone conversation, "You were supposed to meet me at Starbucks like two days ago, remember? I figured you forgot but, when you didn't show for psychology, I got a little worried."

Taylor winced, her vanity had really blinded her lately, "Oh…my bad."

Her voice grew sympathetic, "I heard about your roommate-"

"Look, I've got to go. It's going to get dark soon and I need to go grocery shopping."

Barbra chuckled slightly, "Yeah, grocery shopping. Got it. Can we meet at Central Park? I know that's where you're going."

Confused for only a moment, Taylor nodded with her words, "Sure…thanks, Barb."

Taylor could practically hear Barbra's grin, "Not a problem. Eight o'clock and don't be late."

Hanging up the phone Taylor sat still for a few seconds, lost in thought, before yanking herself up and heading to the once-shared closet. She switched her jeans out with her favorite black skinny jeans: ripped at the knees and worn into flexibility: then pulled off her mock-jersey and replaced it with a black sports bra. Looking at her choice in clothes, she knew she had no particularly dark sweatshirts.

Feeling almost guilty, Taylor grabbed Maggie's black zip-up hoodie: a gift Taylor had given her the year before. On the hoodie was a red bird skeleton; said bird skeleton was a logo for an energy drink that usually sponsors Taylor in dance competitions. Almost all Taylor's clothes had the logo printed on it somewhere in some sort of neon color. Maggie had been in need of a sponsor and, before the drink company interviewed her, Taylor gave her the hoodie for a good impression.

Taylor smiled at the memory. Pulling the hoodie on, she donned her only pair of specially-made red Parkour shoes and her discarded mask from the suitcase in her closet. Finally, Taylor threw her knapsack onto her back.

She left the hood down while she left the campus. After she was a few blocks away from the campus, she pulled up her hood after securing her hair into a loose bun. The mask laid in her hoodie's front pocket.

The city streets were ridiculously crowded and people ran into each other as they all rushed for busses, taxies, and subway stations in hopes of getting home quickly. She wasn't really sure why but none of the people, despite how rude they were being, could make Taylor angry, which was odd because Taylor had never been a patient person. Actually, she'd always been a bit moody: always depressed, angry, or complaining about something: but that particular day, her inner turmoil vanished. It seemed totally insignificant.

For one of the first times in Taylor's life, she realized, she was more concerned with someone else rather than herself or her own problems. She was acting for Maggie.

Her thoughts pondered the phenomenon for some time as she wandered the slowly de-crowding city. The puddles from Friday night had vanished from the streets and, with any luck, the rooftops as well. Not that she planned on using them if she didn't have to. After Thursday night's scrape on her ribs and Friday night's brutal beating, Taylor was in no shape to be doing any strenuous activity for at least a few days. She would be of no aid to anyone.

Around seven thirty, she arrived at one of the entrances to Central Park; Taylor realized then that she had no idea where in Central Park Maggie had been found. Stupid. The only thing to do was look around for the tell-tale yellow police tape. A glance around revealed an empty street and Taylor placed her mask on her bruised face, effectively becoming Claw. Pulling the hood closer to her face, Claw set about determining the most likely crime scene: hidden away somewhere. In her peripherals, she noticed a spotlight in the sky: The Bat Signal.

It wasn't until roughly nine-ten that she spotted the scene.

Walking towards it, Claw walked up the tape that surrounded a twenty-foot radius around a park bench. A white chalk outline remained on the bench and partly the ground where Maggie had no doubt been found. There was blood smeared across the trail and the grass around it.

Allowing herself only a momentary pause, Claw took a shaky breath and approached the bench.

"You're late."

Startled, Claw twirled around to the voice of Barbra; Batman's sidekick stood only feet away from where Claw had been standing before she'd leaped away in fright in full armor.

Barbra raised an eyebrow behind her mask, "No costume?"

"Too many blood stains, Barb," Claw simpered. It was weird to think of Barbra being in that armor. Perhaps Claw would have been angry or jealous before, seeing as her school yard rival was now also the student of her idol, but it just seemed trivial. Oddly, Taylor found herself respecting and, dare she admit, dependent on Barbra.

The other girl only nodded, observing the crime scene before stating, "Use code names when we're on call."

Claw nodded and turned herself, still shaky, to the bench again.

"It's a good thing, though," Batgirl said to Claw's confusion. Elaborating, Batgirl continued, "that your other costume's dirty. It was much harder to see you coming."

An 'ah' of agreement escaped Claw's mouth. She didn't comment on it though; Taylor was actually pretty fond of that costume: it reminded her of her little sister. Ignoring her creeping angst, Claw spoke, "Do you know what happened?"

Batgirl shook her head, "Batman's seen the case file but he didn't say anything about it."

Walking around the blood stains, Claw observed an anomaly with the ground near the chalk outline of a hand that probably hung from the bench. There was something white tangled beneath the grass, not easily missed.

Batgirl spoke up, "It looks like the body was placed sitting upright on the bench. Why bother, though?"

"What do you mean?" Claw asked as she looked at the white thing in her hand. The part which had been touching the blood stained ground was inescapably bloody.

Glancing at Claw, Batgirl explained, "Why bother sitting her up straight? I mean, if the blood pattern is any clue she probably fell over initially, but he moved her so she sat up. Why?"

"I found a piece of white bread. Probably ripped off from a full slice. Regular store-bought loaf, I'd guess." Claw said.

Batgirl frowned behind her mask, not that Claw could tell, but it was apparent in her voice. "That could have come from anywhere; people throw bread to the pigeons all the time."

"I'm not so sure," Claw bit her lower lip, "If it had been there before Maggie was here, it would be covered in blood, but this piece only has blood on the side that was touching the ground."

"So someone put it there after the fact."

"Exactly."

"This doesn't answer 'why,'" Batgirl countered, "They posed her and then threw a bread piece at her?"

Claw frowned, not wanting to look at the bench any longer, and moved back toward the other female vigilante. "There was probably more bread but, by the looks of all the bird poop around here, it didn't last long."

Batgirl and Claw's eyes, or rather white slits and hollow sockets, met and they knew their next step. They glanced up to the sky to the still lit bat-signal.

"We need to see that file."

They exited on the opposite side of the park Claw had entered and Batgirl held out an arm to Claw, signaling her to pause.

"What?" Claw rose an ungroomed eyebrow at Batgirl.

The Batman's sidekick frowned, Claw could only tell by the slight shift in her mask. "Are you okay?" She asked.

Confused, Claw responded bluntly, "My best friend in dead. No, I'm not okay. I want to find the guy who did it and-"

"Maybe you should let me and Batman handle this. You're too close to this case."

Frowning as understanding hit her, Claw rebutted, "If he didn't want me out helping people he would have tried to stop me before now-"

"The only reason he hasn't stopped you is because you never took more than three guys at a time," Batgirl interrupted yet again, provoking Claw's hair-trigger temper. Batgirl continued, yelling at the other girl, "You've only been fighting small time thugs and he thought you knew what you could handle! He thought you'd leave the big fish to him and take care of some of the minor distractions!"

Claw was glaring at her by this point, but Batgirl continued her rant, as if she'd been trying to get Claw to realize this on her own. Was that why Batgirl had let Claw come see the crime scene? To scare her off the case?

"At least until Friday," Batgirl huffed in frustration. Claw frowned in confusion, her anger abating ever so slightly to curiosity. Friday had been when she fought the man with the half orange and half black mask.

"What do you mean?" Claw growled with more anger than she intended.

Making her way into a sprint across the street, Batgirl scoffed, "You didn't notice? Do you have any idea who that guy was?"

A thought struck Claw as she chased after the girl, "Did he kill Maggie?"

"I doubt it," Batgirl clicked her tongue. Grabbing Claw around the waist, she shot her grapple gun at the closest rooftop and they soared towards it. When they landed on the roof, Batgirl continued.

"That guy was Slade Wilson. As in the mercenary-turned-criminal Slade Wilson; ringing any bells?"

Having no time to marvel at the utter coolness of the grapple gun, Claw shrugged, "No, but that was a robot not some ex-mercenary."

"It was one of his Slade-bots."

"Slade-bots?" There were more of those things?

"Yeah, they're robotic copies of him. He usually uses them as distractions. The point is: Slade is bad news," Barbra said seriously, concern filling her voice, "Batman and I were watching your fight; Slade was going easy on you. He was testing you-"

Snorting in indignation, Claw took her own opportunity to interrupt, as she hefted herself onto the next rooftop, "And it took you that long to help?"

"We were chasing him from the bank he'd just robbed when you popped out of nowhere-an impressive feat with a costume like that." Batgirl called back as she raced off.

Claw took off running in the direction of the bat signal and Batgirl. Reaching the edge of the roof, she aimed for the next rooftop. It was about six feet away, but she made the jump with practiced ease. Quickly, Claw noted the pain in her shins, ankles, and knees. The muscles in her thighs weren't very happy either, but it wasn't crippling. Hopefully, if her encounter was successful, she could head back to her dorm afterwards and rest.

The vigilantes kept up their sprinting and jumping for several minutes before they came to a building which was taller than the one they were jumping from. Too late to stop her leap, Claw snatched the closest eleventh story window pane of the taller building and pulled herself hard enough to propel her body up so that she could snatch the next window pane. Two more similar maneuvers later, Claw was on the rooftops again. Batgirl was already on the next building, having used her grapple gun.

The GCPD was only two rooftops away, but Claw remembered that particular rooftop from a few months previous. And she remembered it well. Preparing herself for the drop, she recalled the building that stood between the one she was on and the GCPD was about four stories below.

Sprinting, Claw reached the edge of the rooftop and used every bit of strength left in her legs to jump the huge gap. Her arms flailed a little and she shouted curses, but she kept her attention on the closely approaching rooftop. Claw positioned her legs into an angle less than 90 degrees but more than 45 degrees as she landed leaning forward. As she hoped, inertia forced Claw's body to fly into a summersault. Despite the success of the maneuver, she felt a twinge in her ankle that surely signified a sprain.

Hissing in response to the new pain, Claw placed her weight on her good ankle and shook out her bad one. It hurt bad enough to elect more curses from the red head's mouth, but after a moment Claw ignored the leftover pain and jogged to the form of Batgirl.

"You're really slow." Batgirl teased.

"Shut up, Bat-face."

Batgirl grew very serious, "Look, I meant what I said. It looked like Slade was testing you. And Batman thinks you need to lay low. If Slade's taking an interest in you, you need to be less interesting."

"Why does the bat care?" Claw was feeling uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. This Slade guy had scared her, even if it was only a robot; the way he was able to predict her moves even before even Claw knew what she was doing was eerie. From that thought, she decided to take up her martial art classes again.

Batgirl's voice grew softer and Claw could hear a smile, "Because you remind him of himself."

Before Claw could respond, Batgirl leapt off the building's ledge and glided down to the GCPD rooftop.

A feeling of warmth filled Taylor's stomach: she reminded Batman of himself? That was kind of awesome.

Feeling special, Claw scaled the building down a few floors before kicking off the wall and landing next to Batgirl noisily. This gained the attention of Barbra's father, Commissioner Gordon, who turned around.

Gordon seemed confused, probably because he was expecting Batman. Or maybe, Claw's more logical side reasoned, he was confused as to why she was with Batgirl.

"Took you long enough. Where's Batman?" Gordon directed his question at Batgirl.

She responded, modifying her voice with a device built into her mask, "We need to ask you a favor, Commissioner."

The change in Batgirl's voice startled Claw, but she did her best not to show it by disguising her shock as bored curiosity, or at least that's how it came out.

Gordon's eyes shifted to Claw, who only then realized that her hood had fallen down, allowing her hair, which had fallen out of a bun and into a loose ponytail, to spill out. Well, crap, came a bitter thought from Taylor. A thought of changing hair colors flashed across her mind.

Gordon's eyes tried to lock with her own, but her mask served it's purpose and her white slits stared back at the police commissioner.

Batgirl gestured to her red-haired friend, "Commissioner, this is Claw."

"A new sidekick?"

"Actually, no," Claw hesitated to say, unsure what Gordon needed to know.

"We have a favor to ask," Batgirl repeated, glancing at her college rival.

Commissioner Gordon pulled himself back to topic, "What kind of favor?"

Speaking quickly, Claw injected herself into the conversation, "I need to see the file on…a girl that was found murdered in Central Park a few days ago."

Raising an eyebrow, Gordon almost sighed, "The Brown case? The MCU is still following a few leads-"

"I'll need everything you have on the case…please?" Claw tried to be patient with the man.

Gordon opened his mouth to speak, but Batgirl cut him off, "Batman has me looking into most of the cases unrelated to the Joker's escape. He's focusing on getting him back behind bars so I'm responsible for everything else."

Claw hadn't heard anything about the Joker escaping, but if it got her the information she wanted…

The commissioner, grey haired but still somehow intimidating, huffed and after a moment's hesitation spoke, "I'll get you the file if you can tell Batman I have an update on The Joker. He'll want to get it from me."

"Sure thing, Commissioner," Batgirl assured. Reaching up to her mask, around her right ear she spoke to no one.

"Batman," she called, then after a moment spoke again, "The Commissioner needs to speak with you about the Joker case. It's urgent." She waited another moment before addressing Gordon as her hand fell back to her side.

"He's on his way."

Gordon nodded, "Wait here." He turned around and walked back into the GCPD roof access.

"So," Claw said after a minute or so of awkward silence, "Joker's out?"

A heavy sigh escaped Batgirl's modified voice, "Unfortunately, yes. Saturday night Batman found an imposter in Joker's cell."

Frowning, Claw mused, "Doesn't he usually start up mayhem as soon as he's out on the streets? The Joker, I mean."

"Usually."

The abrupt answer left larger implications to Claw's imagination. "He's planning something big, isn't he?"

"I don't know," Batgirl admitted, "That's probably why Batman's left me to deal with everything else. Joker's been laying low."

"Weird." After a pause, Claw inquired, "Should we do something?"

Batgirl responded as the roof access opened again, "One case at a time, Claw."

Barbra's father was silent as he walked over to the two, file in hand. Claw practically snatched the file from his hands before he'd finished holding it out for her. With a large amount of self control, she placed the file in her knapsack instead of opening it immediately.

"I'll be needing that back, you know," Gordon gruffed with an eyebrow raise behind his square spectacles.

With a nod, Claw agreed to have the file back in a few days. At the sound of someone at the stairs, he turned away to see Detective Bullock lumbering towards him; a glance back to the vigilantes proved what he already knew: they were already gone.

\~~~~~/

No fight scenes here but in the next chapter we'll get a look into Maggie's case file and the Batman-Joker storyline will progress. First review to guess the culprit behind Maggie's death gets a chapter dedication! I've put some obvious clues in here. :)