++++++ I hope I found any little mishaps before bed time.

Volk means wolf in Russian.

I hope you enjoy.

I do not own ++++++

Twelve

Barry's voice was the first thing I heard waking up. It was muffled but I could hear it clearly enough. My eyes flickered open and I realized that I was under water, in a tank wearing a bikini but still in a tank of water.

Barry was talking to Suki, I could see he looked concerned. The two of them stopped talking and crossed the room to fish me out of the water. "You scared the crap out of me!" Barry exclaimed. He threw a towel over me and pulled it over my front. "You kept on losing your shape."

"You had us worried, little fish," Suki told me. She and Barry were both still wearing their suits minus their masks. "Barry and Dick came immediately when I called them. By the time we got back here, Cisco had fixed this contraption up in case you decided to melt away completely."

"Nothing to worry about, volk," I smiled. The two of them helped me up out of the tank and onto another towel on the floor. "God I never want to feel like that again. It was awful."

"Doctor Wells had a look at you," Suki sighed, "I tried to stop him but he had Caitlin draw blood and take some scans whilst you were out. I know how you feel about this whole thing. Barry should have back me up."

I stared at my brother. "Barry!"

"I thought it would help," Barry objected. "In case something happened. Doctor Wells would have found out a way to help."

"All you should have done was wait to see if it did and then called Oliver and River," I told him. "I didn't want my blood or body scans to be another one in the collection of meta-human archives." I wrapped the towel around my waist and followed the two back into the main control room just as Joe came storming in with that cross look on his face.

"Hey Joe," Barry grinned.

"Detective West," Wells nodded. "I assured you that Charlotte was alright in my care. You need not have rushed down here." He looked up from his computer which I could only assume was my data he was looking at. "She's in capable hands."

"I'll be the judge of that," Joe replied. He looked at me as I stood beside Suki. "Who are you?"

"Suki Wilson, soon to be Queen," she replied. "This is Richard Grayson. You must be Joe?"

"So does everyone know?" Joe asked. "Is this a city wide thing-" He stopped talking when he noticed that Suki and Dick were still wearing their suits. "Oh bloody hell!" he frowned. "Do you have powers to?"

Suki laughed. "God no." She put her arm around me, "I'm going to take little fish out to Big Belly Burger and get some burger goodness. They don't have them in Gotham. I'm in withdrawals. You boys fill the detective in on Miss White."

"Hang on, we need to talk," Joe frowned at me.

"Come see me at work on Monday," I told him as Suki and I headed into the locker room to change.

Sitting down to an extra-large chilli, cheese and bacon fries with a caramel thickshake made me realize how hungry I actually was. Sometimes being a meta-human was actually rather draining, no wonder Barry had a high calorie diet.

Suki sat down across from me, already digging into her fries. "Ah I missed this!" she grinned with a mouth full of food. "Best burgers in America."

I laughed. "It most certainly is. So I'm assuming that Amber got away?" I asked her.

Suki nodded. "She most certainly did. Her mother called 911-after throwing a rock at her daughter and she called her a murderer. So Sylvia is at the police station. The plan is to go out again tonight-turns out Curtis White had a secret office down by the docks so we're gonna go take a look. Amber's powers pack a punch, don't they?"

I nodded, chewing on a fry.

"What did you see?" Suki inquired.

I shrugged. "Nothing much." I wasn't going to tell anyone yet what I had seen. The reason was that I had no idea if what I saw was a hallucination or actually real? Was Barry right all along? Did dad not kill our mother? Was there another person in the house? Barry said it was a yellow shape though, not red-I had to know. "Just my family dying, me holding the knife…you see I don't fear much because everything you would normally fear-disappointment, resentment, hatred, I've face all these already."

Suki was silent as she watched me, I was confident that she couldn't quite tell my lies out just yet. "Mine was simple," she whispered. "Letting everyone down…and really big spiders. Like Lord of the Rings big. Like everywhere." She pinched one of my chilli fries with a grin. "So-tell me about the guy. The one who gave you the necklace."

"His name is Leonard," I answered. "Leonard Snart. He's a thief, a particularly good thief actually. We met in a bar called King of Spades-I go there to piss Joe off. Bar fight. This was before I left for Starling. Apparently I made an impression." I leant forward, sipping some of my thickshake. "Joe is a cop-that necklace was stolen and I have to give it back. It's not right that I keep it."

"Then give it back," Suki suggested. "As gorgeous as it is, and as much as I wish Richard would do the same for me-I think you should give it back."

I nodded. "Most definitely. I have to give it back…I might clean it and turn it in. As gorgeous as it is."

"Good girl," Suki approved.

"Now that we've had this considerably awkward girl moment," I frowned, "please tell me what the hell is going on with you and Richie? I saw the look you gave him when he was flirting with Caitlin. Is he like this all the time?"

Suki shrugged. "He flirts. And despite the fact I love him, he doesn't love me back. It hurts to see Oliver so in love with Felicity and River with Roy and baby Sara. You and-"

I held my hand up to stop her. "There's nothing going on there. He, like the rest of the men I have ever slept with are just that-not friends, not lovers, not companions. Don't compare what we've got to what you've got. It's nothing alike."

Suki frowned. "I mean no harm, Charlie," she told me. "There's just so much going through my mind at the moment-this whole business with Dick and Sara and then Oliver-"

"What the hell does Oliver have to do with your screwing some guy?" I snorted. "You've like literally just found out you're cousins. If you're letting Oliver or anyone dictate who you pursue then you aren't as strong a woman that I thought you were." Suki stared at me, blinking with those wide emerald eyes. "You wander the streets of Gotham City fighting crime and saving people and yet you lower yourself to the standard that a woman must always have the approval of a man to live her life." I slipped out of the booth the two of us were sitting in, snatching up my fries and thickshake to go. "Call me when you've figured out if you can stand on your own two feet."

"Charlie!" Suki objected. "Oliver's opinion means a lot to me."

"Maybe too much," I suggested. "I think it's one of the reasons Oliver denied you the Queen name in the first place. You don't have the backbone."

"Charlie!" Suki snapped. "That was uncalled for!"

"Backbone," I reminded her, waving her off and rushed out of Big Belly Burger pretty angry with Suki, in my heart I knew that I had to sort out any standing issues with Barry and with Joe but mostly I was just pissed at myself for getting crippled on my first case on my first week back home.