Karen rolled her eyes as Justin collapsed on one of the motel beds, the creak of his weight hitting the mattress made her want to claw at her ears. Instead she turned to Jack and smiled, not allowing her irritation to show.

"Thanks Jack "this is perfect"

"Perfect huh?" Jack said skeptically arching his eyebrow at her, then glanced at the water stained walls and the TV with a cracked screen and the hole in the door.

"Its not as though I'm going to live here" she said and she leaned closer as tenants passed "besides I think I can handle any trouble that comes our way"

"I know" Jack said "but still" his one green eye still roving over the room and then back to her.

"Come on Jack, this place is better than a lot of the uptown hotels in Gotham" Karen said with a grin. "And besides, this is where he's going to go hunting, the shady nightclubs and bars are the places he's going to look for new magic"

"Well get some rest, Kare" Jack said "even with that clown in the next bed, you'll need it"

Karen grinned a

"Sure I'll do that" she said "now get home to your wife, make another godchild for me why don't you"

"Hey now, that's private, missy" Jack said and he grinned "pick up on that did you"

"It's me Jack" Karen said and pushed him out the door "now go, or your buildings going to burn down"

Jack laughed and she closed the door behind him.

"What was that about" Justin asked suddenly behind her as she turned.

"Nothing you need to know about" Karen snapped "and stop sneaking up on me"

"Why it's fun" he said stepping closer, too close for comfort. She pushed past him and unpacked the clothes that Helen had bought her earlier that day. Justin watched her for a moment and she tried not to notice his stare. Waving her hand she sent the clothes flying to the closet behind the door and she rummaged through the bag for her toothbrush and sent them to the bathroom too.

"That is too . . ."

"What" Karen felt herself bridle in defensiveness, a defensiveness she hadn't felt in a long time since she had first left Gotham. She had for the last year come to accept that her magic was not just a part of who she was but it was her and she was it. To have it made fun of by some joker with a handsome if scarred up face made her blood boil.

"Too cool" Justin said as he watched her clothes fly into the closet. "If I could make my stuff do that, I would never do a day of cleaning for the rest of my life." Karen relaxed at his words and with a wave of her hand summoned the now careworn book of ancient Celtic spells and histories that Nelson had given her and sitting on the bed she opened it and started rereading the book, though she could have bet money that she had it memorized and could recite it word for word.

"So what are we doing now" Justin asked flopping back onto his bed and staring at the ceiling.

"Waiting for night fall" Karen said "Torment isn't much of a day person. He hunts at night"

"Hunts for what" Justin asked

"Fresh magic" Karen replied "he sucks the magic out people to stay immortal or in this case if he needs a lot of power for something." She ran her thumb along the scars again.

"Are there a lot of magicians then?"

"No" Karen said "not really, but there are a lot of people . . . infected with magic, they can't use it but it hides in them. Those are the kind of people that have been disappearing lately. And people with magic have a tendency to live dangerously."

"That's why you told Jack that the underground night clubs would be where he would hunt"

"Exactly"

"What about your wolf" Justin asked "are you going to get her."

Karen had left Luna at Jack and Helen's apartment watching over Nick and Jane, promising to return and retrieve her once she and Justin had verified that Torment was hunting in the Metropolis underground. Though Luna had not seemed too bothered, once the young children and snuggled against her side, sound asleep for their mid day nap and Helen had fed her a raw hide bone. Karen kept her smile suppressed as she remembered the sight of the two kids curled up against the huge wolf, making them seem even smaller than usual.

"Later, once we know he's going to be here" Karen said "then I'll bring her along. But right now she's perfectly happy watching over her pups"

"So I guess it's just you and me then" he said with a sly grin.

"Keep it in your pants cowboy" Karen said with a roll of her eyes. "We have a job to do"

"Not until sunset" Justin said "Come on do you really want to stay inside for the rest of the day reading a book, let's go explore get the lay of the city, sight see, maybe, heaven forbid have fun"

"No" Karen said and Justin chuckled

"Don't make me force you" he said wiggling his fingers at her,

"try it and I will throw you through a wall, there's four of them to pick from" Karen said but as the minutes passed she found herself reading the exact same sentence and thinking about maybe. . .just maybe relaxing for a little bit.

Finally Karen sighed and closed the book with a snap.

"Fine" she said "but we are going to need to stop at a bank. I have couple accounts under a couple aliases. I was going to use an ATM at but since you want to go shopping, we might as well get you some actual clothes that don't make you look like some private dick from the forties"

Justin glanced down at his clothes, his button up shirt slightly rumpled.

"It's all Jack had that would fit" Justin said defensively.

"I know" Karen said "Come on, there's a branch of Metropolis bank not far from here"

A half hour later Karen was standing at an ATM staring at it's out of order sign.

"God damn it, I was hoping to avoid this" Karen mutter.

"What"

"Interaction" Karen growled and she quietly conjured her identification in her coat pocket. Pushing open the door she stepped into the shortest line for a teller and with an impatient tapping of her toes that had several people around her looking at her in annoyance but she didn't care. She just wanted to get her money and get out of here.

Justin sidestepped in behind her, brushing a hand along her arm.

"You are really tense" Justin observed quietly in her ear. She huffed out a breath.

"I don't like crowds" she muttered back. She though he smiled in the corner of her eye and her tapping got louder.

After a couple seconds she felt Justin put his hand on her shoulder and she froze in surprise her tapping ceasing.

"Relax" he whispered in her ear, his warm breath tickling her skin. He rested the other hand on her other shoulder, she nearly shrugged it off except that it didn't feel patronizing or controlling. It was comfortable, even . . . welcome. She felt her muscles loosen up and she relaxed back into his chest.

"See, not that hard is it" Justin's whisper made her want to turn around and smack him upside the head, but at that moment a shout echoed in the bank.

"Nobody move!" a deep voice cried and screams made Karen and Justin wheel around to witness five men armed to the teeth with assault rifles and machine guns, in all black with ski masks.

"Everybody on the ground" one said pointing a gun at the teller closest to the door. "You, start loading money on the counters. All of you do it" gunshots split the air as one of the gunmen shot out the cameras

Karen took a step forward but Justin held her back.

"Let go" she whispered

"Not yet" he said "this is Superman's turf"

"He's not here, and do you see Lois Lane anywhere" Karen hissed

"Then we need to bide our time, wait until they're too busy trying to get the money to notice us" Justin's voice dropped and she watched his eyes rove over the lay out. She watched as a strategic gleam sparked in his eyes, he was all business now.

"Fine"

"Keep that temper of yours under control" Justin warned "and be ready, I'm going to transport us, just long enough to change."

Karen nodded.

"Stop talking" one man screamed sweeping his gun around to them. Karen and Justin put their hands up knelt on the ground. "Lay on the floor, now"

They did as directed as the others with the exception of the man at the counter began issuing the same orders.

Karen could literally taste the auras around so augmented by fear that she had to push it away, though she would pay for it later. One woman was trying desperately to soothe her screaming child while one man screamed over the kid for the woman to shut her brat up. Karen inched over and gently pulled the child down to sit on the floor next to her.

Slowly Karen wove a presence of peace and clam around the child and his screams faded and he buried his head in his mother's breast as she sank to her knees next to him.

It was several minutes before Justin's hand touched hers gently and she tightly locked her shields in place as they faded away.

Outside the bank in an alley, Karen snapped her fingers and donned her uniform as Justin disappeared in swirl of darkness and reemerged with his own costume on. They touched hands again and reappeared in the bank.

No one noticed their absence, nor did anyone notice their reappearance as Sorceress and Shadowalker until the former spoke.

"Now look at what we have here" Sorceress said "children caught with the cookies"

All five men trained their guns on them, their eyes wide behind the masks.

"Children?" Shadowalker asked "more like idiots, I mean who robs a bank in a city with a man that has super hearing?"

"Good question" Sorceress said "let's ask"

A gun man fired in a panic. Everyone screamed as the bullet rushed right at Sorceress's chest.

Holding up a hand the bullet stopped a foot from Sorceress and for a moment everything was still and silent as it hovered there, glowing like a fire fly.

"HOLY SHIT" one of the men screamed and chaos erupted.

Shadow walker disappeared as the guns trained on them and Sorceress waved her hand again sending the bullet right back at the original shooter, taking him in the leg. He howled and fell to his knees.

The other four began shooting too, and Sorceress dodged and weaved stopping the bullets and dropping them, dancing among the gunfire as Shadowalker began transporting people out. The sound of tinkling bullets and gunfire played a song in the echoes of the bank and Sorceress danced to it coming closer and closer to the group of robbers. Then Shadowalker was by her side.

Shadowalker had her about the waist and they teleported to the counter where with a wave of Sorceress's hand the money began flying back into the vault.

"You tramp" the man at the counter shouted pulling out a Glock. But Sorceress smacked his gun away and swung up on the counter and kicked him in the chest and used him as a spring board she flipped up and bounced on her feet as the man fell behind her, cracking his head against the cement floor. She rose up as two other robbers ran up to her. One grabbed her around the shoulders and as the other one ran up to hit her she kicked him in the stomach, and threw her head back into the face of the man holding her. There was a sickening crunch as his nose broke and she broke free and opening her hand she summoned her magic and it formed into a staff. The man's mask was soaked in blood and his eyes burned with hatred as he rushed her. She dodged and brought her staff across his back. He stumbled and turned on her again.

Sorceress could hear Shadowalker fighting the other two men, and the gunman who had been shot screaming on the floor. Sorceress dodged another attack from her opponent and with a brutal strike of her staff knocked him across the skull and he crumpled at her feet.

"Hey" a shout made Sorceress turn and she watched coldly as a robber who had been previously unconscious held the little boy she had just calmed. He put the gun to his head. "One more move and I blow the punks brains out"

Sorceress stood and waited for she had felt a flicker in the auras.

Suddenly Shadowalker appeared next to him and before the boy or the man could cry out, Shadowalker had disarmed him and with a solid punch, knocked him unconscious while simultaneously catching the young boy and setting him on his feet. Then Shadow walker appeared beside her and dropped the other three on top of the two she had fought with, the only one still conscious was writhing in pain as the bullet had lodged in his shin. Waiving her hand, Sorceress, conjured a net and wrapped it securely around the criminals.

"Nice Job" Shadowalker murmured

"Not too bad yourself, Now lets' leave" Sorceress said as the sirens of the police cares sounded. "We'll do this later"

Shadow walker took her by the waist and they faded again into the gray world.

They appeared back at the motel room and Sorceress pulled down her face mask, and watched as Justin pulled off his mask. The scars were now fully visible, white streaks across tan skin and they stood so stark it was surreal to see them.

Karen liked them, it made Justin seem more like a warrior, like a man then the boy that twinkled behind his eyes. The scars went across his left cheek down to his chin and across his throat all the way to his collar bone.

"Coffee" Justin said warily "I want coffee. Hot and black"

"Coffee sounds fantastic" Karen said snapping her fingers and her civilian clothes took the place of her uniform. Justin threw his coat onto his bed and pulled off his T-shirt. Karen swallowed the gasp that rose in her throat.

His bare torso would have been any woman's fantasy, but that was not what made Karen breathless. His entire back and torso was covered in the same slash marks that scarred his face.

"Justin" Karen whispered grabbing his arm. He stopped and looked at her in confusion. "What . . . what happened? How did . . . "she trailed off when he looked at her with a sad sort of grimace.

There was a silence as he started the coffee and he sat on his bed she watched him in silence, waiting for the story she sensed was coming.

"I told you that I was injected with my father's experimental nanite project" he said rubbing his hands together "well it wasn't a conscious decision."

"He experimented on you" Karen asked horrified.

"No" Justin said quickly "no he didn't. He never wanted me anywhere near the project. But it was just me and him; he didn't have much choice but to keep me close.

"See when I was younger before the nanites; I was a bit of a wiz kid. When I was five I built a tracking system out of my dad's broken PC. And when I was twelve was at nearly a college level in every subject my father could think to teach me. I was nine when my dad started the nanite project, ten when the government approached him. We were traveling all over the world, searching for new ways to apply the technologies, for new aspects of research new developments in nanite technologies. But sometimes we were just hiding"

"From what"

"You kidding? A weapon that has the potential to allow a spy to be virtually undetectable, untraceable, invincible, and self healing. That's like Harry Potter telling everyone that he had the Elder Wand. Everyone would want it, kill for it. Especially the terrorists. We were hiding in the African rainforest, in a village. My father had more PH.D.'s and Masters than I could count, one of them was in medicine and he exchanged his expertise for protection. One day my dad was helping some of the children who had come down with pneumonia, and I was bored so I decided to go exploring."

"So even then you were insatiably curious" Karen murmured and Justin chuckled

"Yeah I guess" he said "well I was wandering and got lost pretty easy. And even though I was smart I was still a kid and freaked out and stumbled on leopard and her cubs"

"Oh" Karen whispered sitting on her bed, watching him as he trailed a finger along one of his scars on his arm.

"Yeah" Justin said, "I blacked out, but I was told what happened later. A hunting party heard the leopard and scared it away and brought me to my father. I was dying and my father was to say the least was freaking out. For two days he tried to keep me alive, but it wasn't exactly a sanitary environment. The wounds they became infected . . . I was on the verge of dying and my father didn't see much choice. He had completed his programming and had the nanites in a serum that would act as an antibody and be accepted by the internal systems of the body."

"He injected you to save your life" Karen said and Justin nodded.

"It took a while for the nanites to integrate" Justin said "I was out for three days and our enemies caught up to us quick. When I came to my dad was standing over me, asking me all these questions. I answered them but I couldn't think as clearly and after some testing we learned that the master nanite required a lot of brain power to support, lowering the amount that I had usually used for problem solving and cognitive thinking. So instead of being the world's leading engineer I became a scarred average teenager stuck in an African village. After a week my powers began to manifest and it was a bit unexpected the teleportation thing. But that doesn't matter. My dad was afraid that both the government and the enemies of America would capture me and use me for my power, so we hid. And for a few years life was alright. I learned about my powers and how to use them while my dad studied the way the nanites interacted with my body. Then after a year, they caught up o us, unfortunately it wasn't the CIA, it was some terrorist group, I never found out whom, point is they were willing to kill to get me. They massacred the small mountain village we ended up in, then my dad. . . . "Justin trailed off, his face an expressionless mask as he stared at his feet, but Karen saw his knuckles whiten. "He told me to run, to use my power to get as far away as I could. I did but I looked back and watched as he doused our house and his lab in kerosene."

"He killed himself to protect you" Karen whispered there was a silence and Karen sighed and stood and went over to him, kneeling down she touched his hands and she saw the unshed tears as he looked at her. "And you blame yourself"

"Wouldn't you?" he asked. Karen closed her eyes and breathed out a breath.

"Everyday" she said

Karen touched the scar on his arm and ran her finger down it.

"I can get rid of these if you want" she said quietly "I know a spell that could erase them"

He was silent as she traced another one on his bicep calculating the amount of power it would take to do it, while abstractedly thinking that she rather enjoyed looking at his muscles. Karen knew she was going to have to do the spell at Jacks. She had put spells of protection in place years ago both to give her some where to go where she could not be found magically, and to protect her family. She could do the spell without anyone, namely Torment, if he was here, finding her.

"No" Justin's voice broke through her thoughts and he put a hand over hers.

Karen looked up at him and found him smiling at her.

"They are a reminder" he said quietly "a reminder of what my father was willing to do for me, of what I fight for. Of what I need to protect" something in his eyes made a lump rise in Karen's throat and she swallowed.

"I understand" Karen said

"But thank you for the offer" Justin said "and thank you for listening" he smiled and before she could do anything he kissed her cheek and stood.

"Hey" Karen said in surprise and he winked at her "do that again and I'll give you more scars"

"You can try dragon lady" Justin said the boyish glint returning to his eyes. He went to the bathroom door and stopped "I'm taking a shower"

"Make sure it's cold" Karen muttered pouring herself a cup of coffee. There was a silence.

"Hey Karen" Justin's voice had turned serious again and she turned to look at him. "You're the first person to get it. To not tell me that I was being stupid to feel the way I did. So . . . thanks again"

"Go take your shower" Karen muttered "you smell like the Gotham canals"

Justin chuckled and closed the door behind him.

Karen turned back to the window and after a few moments she smiled and touched her cheek.

Realizing that she was replaying the moment she shook her head.

Focus you dumbass Karen thought to herself he's a flirt, it doesn't mean anything besides you have a mission to complete, get your head out of the clouds and back on the ground.

But she couldn't help but touch her cheek again and think about his story, his courage, and his good heart.

And she couldn't help but hope.