Ugh, so this took way longer than I was anticipating. Really sorry! Things are coming along nicely though, so bear with me! This chapter is basically the Lian/Kat show, but you get some reunions you guys have been asking for, so I hope you like it!
Lian Harper woke up to a pounding headache. She felt Bart's hands on her shoulders, "Stay put, you've been out for two days. Only my wife could be unconscious longer because she had a temper tantrum than when she was stabbed and her lung deflated."
She spoke, her voice hoarse, "You're mad."
"Shit, Li. You're the empath. You tell me." He growled.
Yup, he was angry. Very angry. She could feel her father down the hall, and Alfred. So they'd brought her home. Lian opened her eyes to stare up at the ceiling she'd slept under most of her life. "I'm home."
Bart leaned over her, scowling, "Yeah, less people for you to mess with."
"My mother..." Lian asked, trailing off because it hurt to talk.
Bart brushed her cheek with one hand, holding a cup of water with a straw to her mouth so she could wet her throat, "She's fine. Your grandmother sprung her and she vanished. Your dad tracked her down and they talked. Sounds like she's remembering some things."
"Really?" She said, joy blossoming in her head.
Bart grimaced, "Stop that."
Lian realized she was leaking her emotions out and winced apologetically, "Sorry."
He sighed, "Doesn't bother me, but if you use your power on Alfred at the moment, he may kill us both. Old man is livid with you. You're going to be kissing his ancient English ass for a long time. Your Gramps is about the same, but he's pleased about your mom, so shouldn't take him too long to forgive you."
"Great."
"I think the only one not mad at you is your grandmother." Bart continued, ignoring her groaned remark.
"She loves me." Lian rebuked.
Bart rolled his eyes, "We all love you, she's just crazy enough to be proud of you for brain zapping not only yourself but your amnesiac mother as well."
Lian hummed, "Grams is always the exception to the rule."
"Nah, the woman's certifiable. I'm telling you now, those damned cats of hers are not allowed in our future children's nursery. And she'll only be allowed in for good behavior." Bart told her, only half joking.
"What ever you say, dear."
Bart kissed her, grinning, "That's the spirit!"
"Don't get used to it." She warned, secretly counting down the days until they'd been married for five years and she could kick her birth control to the curb. Based on her maternal history, she'd have a hard time being a mom, but Bart would be an amazing dad, more than enough to coach her through the first little while, she'd catch on soon enough.
He sighed dramatically before sobering, "I'm glad you're okay. Had me worried for a minute there. Don't think I could breathe until Raven told me you were still in there."
Lian pulled him back for another kiss, "I'm sorry."
Inches from her lips, he smiled, "I know. Asking you not to do it again is a waste of my breath though, isn't it?"
She raised one eyebrow and looked away, "Maybe."
Bart pressed his lips to hers briskly, "I'm gonna go grab you something to eat. I'm sure you're starving."
"You got that." She muttered, sipping water from her cup and looking to her left, "Shit, how long's she been like that?"
Bart looked over at Raven, who was slumped in the chair by the window Lian frequented with books. "Um...hour or so. I'm not waking her up. I value my junk way too much."
Lian waved a hand, "Get her food too, please. I'll wake her up." He was gone in a split second and Lian lay back on her bed, saying her friend's name once, "Rae."
The older girl opened one violet eye, "Idiot."
Lian sighed, "I deserved that."
Raven sat up, stretching subtly, "We tried to tell you that you needed to train with your Metagene more."
"I know." Lian whispered, an apology in her voice.
Raven stood, too graceful to ever pass for human, and joined Lian on the bed, a book in her hand, "We start tomorrow."
Lian nodded in acquiescence, "Okay, Rae. Go easy on me?"
Raven smirked, "Never."
Lian's retort was cut off by Bart's return, so she scooted up the bed to make room for him to sit close to her, "What took you so long?"
"Ah, can it, Princess." He groaned, handing both females food.
Selina breezed in a few minutes later, getting Lian dressed and tutting over her for a beat before breezing right back out, leaving all three of them a little breathless. Raven shook her head, "That woman..."
Lian scowled, "Are Gramps and I the only two people that actually like her?"
"Pretty much." Raven drawled.
Bart shrugged, "She and your mom were patching things up, before. Maybe they can get back there."
"We'd have to find her first." Lian sighed
Raven glared at her, hissing her name in warning. "Lian."
"No, Rae. I know I've got training, but that's tomorrow." She shoved the last forkful of beans into her mouth and pulled some shoes on, "I'm gonna go talk to my dad." The other two moved to follow her, but she held up a hand, "Alone. I am capable of doing things on my own."
"If you say so." Bart said, his eyes sparking with amusement. Nothing excited him more than when she used that tone of voice.
She kissed him once, hard, "Hush you. I'm talking to my dad. Between the two of us, even my track record is better in regards to discussions with him."
It didn't go anywhere. "Dad, seriously, we have to find her!"
"No, Li."
"Why not?" She asked, very confused.
Red sighed, "We talked, she's remembering some things."
"Okay, but what does that have to do with me not finding her?" Lian asked, huffing.
He shrugged, "You don't need to worry about where she is, Lian. She'll come back."
Panic welled in her, spiking further when her fingers brushed the crocheted bracelet of Mariah's she'd mysteriously ended up with. "You're not listening to me! I need to find her! Now!" Lian yelled, drawing the attention of those around them, mostly a glare from Alfred as he directed one of the maids in her job.
"What's gotten in to you?" Red asked, staring at the forceful young woman in front of him like she was a stranger rather than his daughter.
Lian sat back on her heels, staring back at him with her mother's blue eyes. "I could say the same to you." She swallowed hard, turning to leave.
Red tried to grab her arm, "Shit, Li, wait."
Lian spun back around, using every ounce of control not to lose it on him, "No, Dad. I don't know why you won't tell me what you two talked about, and why that means that we don't need to find her, but I don't care anymore. You've made it perfectly clear where you stand on this matter. I won't bother you with it again. I'm just going to go find someone who will help me."
She was gone before he could stop her. That was the unfortunate downside to having brought her home to Wayne Manor. She had her car there, and she and Bart had stripped it of every technological method that could be used to track it. His damned son-in-law had even designed a shield of sorts, that kept the car invisible to satellite imaging. Really it was a microchip that recognized when the car was being viewed, and erased the data before it could transmit properly. It was more than enough though.
Lian drove into Gotham furiously, faster than she should have, but nowhere near fast enough to outrun Bart. He hopped into the passenger seat while she was driving ninety miles and hour, and just put his hand on her thigh, projecting his own emotions onto her.
Finding Damian wasn't too hard, especially with the empathic tag Lian used to find him. Bart had calmed her considerably by the time they came across him in the street. "Hey, Lamb Chop." He greeted with a smile to Bart.
Lian smiled at her uncle, melting into the hug he offered readily. "Hey."
He smoothed her hair down, and pressed a kiss to her forehead, "What's got you so upset? You're leaking anxiety a little." He looked over her head at Bart, who made a face back at him.
Lian cursed her limited control, grimacing as she pulled away from him, "Sorry."
Damian shrugged, "I'm super chill, a little anxiety will just keep me on my toes. We having dinner tonight?"
"Could we?" Lian said, brightening considerably.
He slung an arm around her shoulders, "Sure thing, Lamb Chop. There's a new place that just opened up around the corner I've been dying to give a try."
"Sound's perfect." She said truthfully, linking her fingers between Bart's and tugging him along.
Lian managed to keep her mouth shut until dessert. Between bites of fried ice cream, she begged her uncle to find her mother. He wove his spoon between his fingers idly, "Your father said no?" She nodded, and Bart rolled his eyes, knowing where his old friend was headed before he even said, with a slow grin, "Even if we weren't talking about my sister, if your dad's against it, I'm all for it. I'll find her, Lamb Chop, for the both of us."
"Thank you." She gasped, breathless with relief.
Damian shrugged, "Eh, all I'm doing is tracking down my lunatic sister and giving her your phone number. Not too difficult for a man of my caliber."
Bart laughed heartily while Lian glared skeptically at her uncle. Bart stood, smiling, "Seriously, thanks, man. This one here's overworked herself, so we'll leave the tracking to you." Lian started to protest, but they ignored her, "We're going away for the weekend."
Lian shut up at the look on Bart's face, and Damian mocked a gag before leaving the two on their own. He returned to his hide out and began scouring for Kat, finally catching a street camera shot of her in Star City. He hijacked a Zeta tube to get there, ignoring the fact that, officially, he had permission to use them.
Damian slid into the shadows behind the woman, and only the slightest shift of her body gave away that she knew he was there. "Hey, Kat."
"I'm sorry." She said softly, and her voice was all Kat, the weird accent that had been lingering on her tongue while they'd held her captive was gone.
He leaned against the railing next to her, wondering why she was even at this building. It wasn't a great vantage point, and the luxurious flat they were on the balcony was essentially vacant, only used for parties a few times a month. "For what?"
Kat refused to look at him, still staring out at the bustling city, "I left you. You were my responsibility, and I left you alone." She glanced down at his wrist for a fraction of a second, "Don't bother trying to convince me you weren't alone. You were wearing a visitor wristband. Even Mom had her own ID badge. What happened?"
Damian winced, "Red needed someone to blame, and I didn't stop you before you got yourself killed. Pretty easy target. For the record, I don't blame him. I needed to learn to live on my own someday."
She finally looked at his face, her own a marble of disgust and disbelief, "You were fifteen, Damian. People learn to live on their own when they're in their twenties, not fifteen. Why the hell would Red do that?"
Her brother put one of his hands over hers, his fingers trembling ever so slightly, "Because he almost lost his entire world when you died. Without Lian, he wouldn't still be here." He squeezed her hand gently, still stuck in how surreal it felt to feel her skin so warm and alive under his. "And you struck out on your own when you were eighteen. I'm a prodigy, so I took a two and a half year head start."
Kat scoffed, shaking her head, "That's not funny."
"Sure it is, Sis."
She sucked a breath in at that. A week ago, she was Mina, then she was some strange split between Mina and Kat, and now she was Sis. Kat held onto the railing as memories assailed her. They weren't as overwhelming as the first ones had been, but she could still vividly remember when the calloused hand on top of hers had once been tiny and smooth. "Oh, Dai." She exclaimed softly, staring up at him. "You got so tall."
He chuckled, "Yeah, I did. Good thing you're still biologically a year older than me or you wouldn't be my big sister anymore." He saw the minutely crushed expression on her face and pulled her to him, hoping she didn't try to kill him again. His head was still ringing from the impact of her fist. Having just embraced Lian in a similar manner, it was easy to tell that the two females shared the same build, and an embedded tension that he could only try to ease. "Hey, Kat. I didn't mean it like that." He rested his forehead on her shoulder, vaguely remembering every hug he'd gotten from Kat when he'd wanted one from their mother. Emotion overwhelmed even him, "You will always be my sister."
She scoffed, but it had less force behind it than the one before, "I'm a killer, Damian, not to mention half crazy."
He had to laugh, just a little bit, "Oh, Kat, that makes us even more alike." He held her a bit tighter, whispering, "I am too."
She laughed, shaking in his arms and finally returning his embrace. After a bit, she stilled, humming a bit to her self, "All of this is so mad, but I have to say you make more sense to me than anything. I have to ask though: Which side are you on?"
"I'm not on either side." He answered instantly, "There's a fine line between ruthless and evil, and I have to keep an eye on it more closely than the League would like. Red or no Red."
"I want to be good." She whispered, though it seemed like an impossibility.
Damian sighed, looking older than he should have, "I do too, Kat. I'll show you how to toe that line, if you'll let me."
"Will that be enough?"
He arched an eyebrow, "For Lian?" She gave a tiny nod, "You're her mother, Kat. She's missed you for eighteen years. If you give her the time of day, she'd be overjoyed. She's the one who sent me after you, actually. Well, more truthfully, she demanded I find you and give you this." He handed her Lian's phone number, "She wants to see you."
Kat took the scrap of paper into her hand like it was something precious. "I think I'd like to see her too." Her own phone dinged at that moment, summoning her back to Metropolis for a meeting. Damian accompanied her back to Metropolis before going back home to Gotham.
Zazzala greeted her at the door of the meeting room, "There you are, we've already started. I was getting worried." Kat murmured a blasé apology, and followed the other woman into the room where a handful of villains were congregated.
Her spine tingled. Something was wrong. Instinct was telling her to run, Mina to kill.
Vandal Savage was up front, "Here we have it. Cadmus Project Felid. Our target is the fifth in the series of genetic experiments, the most complete. Most of us here will be embarking on Operation Leo shortly, but you should all be aware of the project as you will be vital to the over all success once we have Leo back in our possession." Savage gestured and a dossier appeared on the left side of the screen. But on the right side...
Kat couldn't move. The face on the right side of the screen was Lian's. She kept her own face passive. "Why this target?"
Savage stared at Lian's picture, "She's a project, and we need final results from tests that cannot be performed in the field."
"One little girl can't be hard to capture." One of the others said arrogantly.
Savage outlined why Lian would be a difficult individual to detain, but Kat could hardly pay attention. As soon as she was able, she politely escaped, and held onto her decorum until she was a block away from the building and vomited into some bushes.
She had to get to Lian before they did.
"Oh yeah, oh yeah-ah, that gun is loaded
I know that I messed up a few times or watcha wanna call it
I know if I fell down, you'd change the way that I saw it
I put it on the line for this time only
(Is that what you really want?)
I can't see that I got red hands, I'm colorblind singing (day-oh)
Don't put the blame on me, child, the damn thing gone wild (day-oh)
Never wanted to be fooling you, can't believe I was ruining you-oo
(Is that what you really want?)
Oh yeah, oh yeah-ah, that gun is loaded
That gun is loaded, but it's not in my hand
That gun is loaded, but it's not in my hand
The fire burns, I'm not the one with the match, man
That gun is loaded, but it's not in my hand"
Red Hands
By: Walk Off the Earth
Things are going to get a little dicey in these next couple chapters, but not without a little Lian/Bart smut!
Anyway, your reviews are what keep me coming back to this little world, so, please, keep them coming! :)
-Jenn
