Here's chapter two! Forgot to mention that, in my head, Lian is pretty much actress Jane Levy.


"Dad, I'm fine." Lian repeated for the hundredth time.

"You could have died, Lian!" Red yelled, continuing to pace across the recovery room floor like he'd been doing since she'd woken up after surgery.

"Yes, but I didn't. I'm going to be released back to the field in a week, so it obviously wasn't that bad." She argued.

Bart pipped up from her side, "Honestly, man, the blood and shit was way worse than it actually was. I mean, barely nicked her lung, more show than actual injury."

Red was aghast, "How can you encourage her?"

Bart shrugged, "I didn't marry a suburban housewife. It's usually better just to support her. She's going to do what she wants either way. Li's stubborn as a mule."

"Yes, she's stubborn, like her mother, and look where that got Kat, dead in a box in the ground!" Red yelled.

Lian stared at him, her chest aching in more than just the pain from her shallow stab wound. "That's not fair." She whispered.

"What's not fair is my wife struck out on her own and got herself killed, and for some reason our daughter wants to do the same damn thing!" Red yelled, pulling at his hair.

Raven was at the door, "Red, you need to leave right now. Lian needs some breathing room." She gestured to Bart, "You too."

Bart kissed Lian's temple, "I'll be right outside once you get your mojo under control, okay? We've got a game of tic-tac-toe we need to finish."

He zipped out the door, followed by Red.

"Thank you." Lian said to her mentor.

Raven nodded, "I could feel you six floors down. Figured you needed some help before you brain blasted them."

Like Raven blowing things up when she was upset, Lian would project her own emotions if things got to be too much, and it was never pretty. When in battle, she could channel that mental stun gun pretty effectively, but when she got upset, all bets were off. When she was ten, she'd put Tim Drake in a coma for a week for jumping out of an air shaft and startling her while she was upset about a test grade. That was why her almost daily meditation sessions with Raven were so important. She had a very fragile hold on her power and Raven knew it. Lian gave a tiny smile, "That bad, huh? Sorry."

"It's alright. Although between you and Starfire, my head is killing me." Raven said, assuming a hovering lotus position, "Let's meditate."

Lian sat up as best as she could, crossing her legs loosely, joining Raven, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos."

Two hours later, Bart knocked gently on the door, pausing them mid 'Zinthos'. "Yes?"

He poked his head inside, "Li, your Grams is here."

"Who told her?" Lian asked with a groan.

Selina pushed through the door, shoving Bart to the side, "You grandfather. Terry called to cancel dinner tonight, and I smelled a rat." She brushed some of Lian's riotous curls out of her face, "Are you okay, sweetheart?"

"I'm fine, really. The blade was short, and if my head hadn't been about to explode because of my own power, I probably would have been able to get her before the whole foam blood thing became an issue." Lian told her honestly. Yes, her chest was aching, but her lung hadn't even collapsed. She'd had worse training injuries.

Selina smiled, "Ah, 'foam blood thing', what an inconvenience. Whoever stabbed you is cruel though, I can say that much."

"What do you mean?" Lian asked, watching Raven phase through the wall.

Selina fussed with her hair again, "I was never one for violence, but I know enough. A puncture lung, Lian, without your little speedster, it would have been much worse. And without your team knowing you were in trouble, you would have been left to a very slow death. That's how she killed the security guards."

"Just how much did you get out of my grandfather?" Lian questioned.

Selina smiled evilly, "Everything. I even got the coroner reports to read on the trip here."

"You're awful." Lian said with a smile.

"I know." Selina agreed, tucking Lian in tighter, "You're looking pale, I'll let you rest."

Lian was exhausted, so she didn't protest. "Okay, let me know if they find anything, won't you?"

Selina nodded, kissing her cheek, "Of course, sweetheart. And if you need anything, just ask. Isis will come find me."

Lian pulled the grey cat up the bed, letting her curl up in her arms. The cat purred happily. Lian was her second favorite human, after all. "Thanks, Grams."

Selina stalked out of the room, a pleased smile on her face.

Lian drifted in and out of sleep for the next few hours.

"The building had a secondary camera system." Dick explained to those gathered around him in the core of the Watchtower. "Whoever she is, she didn't know about it. This is the first time we've gotten cameras on her while she's in action."

Selina judged the holograph critically, "Nice form, quick, slight limp on her left leg."

Dick arched an eyebrow at his adoptive step-mother, "A limp? How can you tell?"

"Don't second guess me, Dick." Selina snapped. He was her least favorite of all her pseudo children. Terry was always the favorite, even if he did have that awful dog.

He made a growling noise that Bruce cut off with his arrival. He eyed his wife curiously, "How did you get here before me?"

"I've got connections." She answered simply.

Bruce resisted the urge to roll his eyes. That would only give her further satisfaction.

"Does no one care that I'm the Batman now? I think I can analyze these tapes on my own." Dick protested.

Starfire was the only one that didn't look pissed by his tantrum, floating around laughing, "Oh, Dick, we shall celebrate your promotion for the next month! Let me sing our song of congratulations, all two hundred verses!"

Selina cringed along with everyone else, "Starfire, dear, not now."

Starfire clamped her mouth shut, nodding. For some reason no one was sure of, she was terrified of Selina. And Selina was never one to let the opportunity for fear to pass her by. In her heart, she was still a villainess.

"That wasn't nice, Selina." Dick chastised.

Selina glared at him, "Boy, don't make me use Bruce's cane to beat you."

He averted his gaze back to the hologram. Even in her sixties, Selina was fierce. She'd hung up her cowl after Kat had died, but she was still known to open a can of whoop ass on people that annoyed her or harassed her cats.

Bruce scowled at her, "Selina."

She went to his side, kissing him gently, "Hello, handsome."

"Who stabbed my granddaughter?" Bruce asked, voice hard, using one hand to force Selina to sit next to him.

Dick shrugged, "No clue. MO is consistent with robberies that have occurred over the last ten years, but there's never been any video until today. Or survivors, actually. As far as I know, Lian's the only person who's seen her."

"Cheshire?" Bart offered.

"No, she's on vacation with Artemis, a truce or something like that." Dick answered.

"Paula wanted to see London." Selina filled in. At the odd look she got from Dick, she shrugged, "What? Paula and I are best friends. We talk." She looked peeved, "That's all I get to do these days. Bruce, hon, can I have a new necklace?"

He shot her serious side eye, "No stealing. You're a reformed convict, remember?"

She sighed, petulantly, "I know." Isis slinked through one of the doors, and Selina was on her feet in an instant, all humor gone, "Lian."

They raced to her room, but Bart got there first. "Lian! Stop! You're gonna hurt yourself!"

She was screaming, eyes wide in terror, fighting against him, trying to get out of the bed. "They won't stop! Make it stop!" She collapsed, sobbing, "It hurts, it hurts so bad."

Bart curled himself around her, eyes wide in fear as he looked at the others, but brushed a hand over Lian's hair soothingly, "It's okay, Li. It was just a nightmare, You're okay. I've got you." Her eyes closed, and she drifted back to sleep.

"What the hell was that?" Dick asked, voicing what everyone else was thinking.

Bart sighed, "Nightmare. She's been having them more and more, ever since we got married. She never remembers them in the morning, but they scare the shit out of me. I haven't been sleeping well because of them."

"No wonder you have begun looking like the ass." Starfire said helpfully.

Bruce was scowling, "You should have said something. We need to have her scanned by Miss Martian or Martian Manhunter."

"You know, you could just say, M'gann and J'onn. She's not a 'Miss' anymore anyway." Selina said, dabbing at Lian's sweat soaked face with a towel.

Bruce's scowl intensified, "Call them."

"On it." Dick said, pulling Starfire with him as he left.

"Did she pull her stitches?" Selina asked.

Bart pulled up the cotton shirt Lian was wearing, exposing her stomach and ribs, freshly marked with a one inch gash. "Looks good." He said, ghosting his fingers over the irritated and swollen skin. He couldn't stand to see her in pain.

Red was standing in the doorway, silently fuming. Bruce turned as his son in law walked away, "Red, where are you going?"

"To find the bitch that stabbed my daughter!" He yelled back, gesturing rudely.

Bart chuckled, "And he blames all the impulsiveness on Kat. He's no better."

Selina smiled fondly, "Ah, to be young again. Sometimes I regret how things ended with Talia. That Lazarus Pit could come in so handy."

Talia had been dead for fifteen years though. She'd gone after Damian, set on 'reclaiming' Damian. Just for that, Selina had been given permission to put her suit back on, and had sent the woman back to her father in pieces. She'd already lost Kat, and she would never let anyone take Damian from her. He was her son, not Talia's.

She pulled out her cellphone, slipping past her husband, "Selina, what are you doing?"

She loved that he still worried about what she was up to even though she'd really been on good behavior since the whole Talia debacle. "Calling our son so Red doesn't get himself killed. That would upset Lian so."

"You really think that's a good idea?" Bruce asked, thinking about all the times Red had tried to strangle Damian.

"I'm his mother, he'll play nice if I ask." She said confidently, calling him. "Mijo?"

She could hear the smile on Damian's voice, "Hola, Mama."

While Lian and Damian met at Chinese places, he met her at Mexican places, and they'd both taken to learning Spanish from the owners of the hole in the wall places they frequented. She dropped the playfulness though, they didn't have time for it, "Darling boy, someone stabbed Lian last night. She's going to be fine, but Red's taken it upon himself to hunt down her attacker. Would you mind keeping an eye on him?"

Damian sighed, "You ask a lot of me, Mama. Protect a man who hates me?"

"Do it for your niece who loves you." Selina countered.

"Okay." Damian agreed. He couldn't deny his mother or Lian anything.

"Thank you, my darling boy." Selina said, far too pleased with herself.

Damian chuckled, "I'm not a boy anymore, Mama."

"You'll be a boy until you give me more grandchildren, so it's your own fault." Selina snapped back playfully.

Damian packed up his stuff and continued to try to reason with his mother about why he couldn't date as a homeless avenger. Her response was that he wasn't homeless, using all of her old apartments, and that he wasn't getting any younger. "Alright, Mama. Enough. I've got to go do some work for some woman who thinks it's a good idea for me to risk my neck for the sake of some curly haired ginger girl."

Selina laughed, "I love you, Mijo."

"Love you too, Mama." He replied, hanging up the phone and searching out Red. It wasn't a hard task, he had embedded trackers in all of his family members, even Red. He was his niece's father after all.

He kept his distance, weaving through Gotham, watching as Red asked old drug connections about the mysterious woman. Because of the link his mother had given him to the Watchtower, he heard when Dick relayed a sighting to Red.

The woman was there too. Red watched from afar, and finally outed Damian, "I know you're there. You might as well make yourself useful and help me come up with a plan. We don't know a lot about her style, after all." Damian crouched next to Red, and they watched the woman empty a safety security box like she was grocery shopping.

"Well, she's very focused." Damian observed, "Knows exactly what she's going after and doesn't care who gets in her way."

"That's what Selina said. Lian's lucky to be alive." Red growled.

"Mom said Li was fine." Damian replied.

Red was not so sure. He kept his mouth shut though. The woman may be focused, but if they started fighting each other, she'd know they were there and be gone.

They attacked from both sides, but she was hardly phased, expertly defending herself from them as she got what she came for.

In a last ditch effort, Red grabbed at her blonde hair. It came with him when she kicked him away, mask and all.

He felt like she'd stabbed him. He actually wished she had. It would have hurt less.

In place of the blonde, long black curls tumbled down across her shoulders, framing a face that was in his dreams every night. Impossibly blue eyes, full lips, and pale unblemished skin.

"Kat." He said softly, her name rolling of his tongue in disbelief.

On her other side, Damian was frozen as well.

She looked confused, narrowing her crystal blue eyes at them for a second before tearing away, taking advantage of their odd stunned stillness.

Belatedly, they chased after her, but she lost them easily in the subway system three blocks over, slipping through their hands and into the darkness. "Did you see her?" Red asked, wheezing next to Damian.

Damian nodded, jaw clenched, looking far too much like his father, "I saw her. But she didn't see us, not really. A clone?"

Red shrugged, holding out his hand, "We'll find out."

Damian grinned at the strands of black hair in Red's grip, "Nice." He faltered, "She didn't recognize us. Not at all."

"No, she didn't." Red confirmed.

"What the hell are we going to do if that's not a clone?" Damian asked.

Red closed his eyes, "Shit, I don't know, Damian. I really don't know."

"Let's go. We found her once, we can find her again." Damian said.

Red nodded, "You're right. But, Damian. I don't want Lian to know." His brother in law frowned at him, "This is gonna hurt us enough either way. I don't want Lian to have to go through any of this. I don't want to go through this."

Against his better judgment, Damian promised to lie to the only person who'd cared for him unfailingly and without any desire for payment. His mother loved him now, as he loved her, but he would never forget that it had been Kat who had raised him, or the hateful glares Selina had given him as a child. He couldn't decide what outcome would hurt more, if she was real and had forgotten them, or if she was an evil clone they'd have to put down.

Red couldn't either.


"Life is like a mean machine
It made a mess outta me
It left me caught between
Like an angry dream I was stranded, I was stranded

And I'm steady but I'm starting to shake
And I don't know how much more I can take

This is it now
Everybody get down
This is all I can take
This is how a heart breaks
You take a hit now you feel it break down
Make you stay wide awake
This is how a heart breaks

Don't you wanna go for a ride
Down to the other side
Feels so good you could cry
Now won't you do what I told you
I remember when you used to be shy
Yeah, once we were so fine
You and I why you gotta make it so hard on me

And I'm sorry but it's not a mistake
And I'm running but you're getting away"

This is How A Heart Breaks
By: Rob Thomas


Thanks so much to those of you who reviewed! Let me know what you think about this one!

-Jenn