It's a little shorter than normal, but I think it's a necessary chapter. Hope you like it, please review!
A few nights after classes started, Mallory and Jen were in their room working on homework. Mallory stood up from her desk and stretched, and Jen looked over at her. "Taking a break already?" she asked.
"What do you mean already? I've been at it for three hours!" Mallory said, playfully defending herself.
Jen smirked. "Weakling. You've been away from the school too long."
Mallory laughed. "Yeah, and I'm glad I got out of there. When I think back to that place, all the hours of bookwork I put in, I shudder," she said, grinning.
Jen shook her head. "Hey, you could've gotten ahead and put those hours to good use, but did you? No."
"Neither did you, miss quitter," Mallory shot back.
Jen laughed. "Touche," she said.
Mallory looked out the window at the city and smiled. "I think I'll use that gift Nightwing left for me," she said, going to her closet and pulling out her suit from the box at the top. She changed in the bathroom and came out with her mask in her hand. Jen leaned back in her chair, eying the suit as Mallory carefully burned the hair dye off.
"Well, there's the color I know and love," she said.
"Oh, that's right, you haven't seen me as a redhead since I joined the team," she said.
Jen nodded. "Yeah, and believe me, I was wondering about it when you showed up to coffee with black hair. The only reason I didn't ask was because we were in public."
Mallory chuckled. "Well, I appreciate that. It's the shampoo I use. It only reacts to fire, so when I need to turn into Inferno, all I need to do is flame up," she explained.
"Huh. Where'd you get that?" she asked.
"Kid Flash," Mallory replied.
"Of course you did," Jen said.
Mallory shrugged. "Hey, can I help it if I know the League and their sidekicks?" she asked. She put her mask on, and Jen shook her head and turned back to her books.
"Go save some lives. We can talk later."
Mallory gave her friend a quick backwards hug, then went to the window and climbed onto the ledge. She closed it before jumping off the building and flying towards her usual section of the city, feeling like something was different with the night.
It didn't take Mallory long to find a man robbing an older woman near the park. She landed a few dozen feet away, assessing the situation before approaching the mugger. "Excuse me, sir, but I need you to let the woman go," she said.
The man, maybe mid twenties, whirled around, one hand still holding on to the woman's arm. "Back off," he said.
Mallory raised an eyebrow. "Really, dude? Come on, just make it easy on yourself and come quietly," she said.
He pulled a gun out of his pocket and aimed it at Mallory. "I said back off," he yelled.
Mallory held her hands up, readying her shield, and took a few steps forward. "Give me the gun," she said calmly. She was close enough now to see that something wasn't right with the man. He was trembling from head to foot, and he had a manic look in his eye. He moved the gun from Mallory to the side of the woman's head.
"Back off!" he yelled again.
"Ok, ok," Mallory said, holding her hands up and taking a small step backwards. "How about you let her go, and we can talk about this, ok?"
"I'm not going to the chair," he said, his speech slurring a little.
"No, you're not, I promise, ok? But that woman's not involved in this, so why don't you let her go, and I'll be your hostage, ok?"
"I know what you're doing. You want me to kill you and start some range war, don't you? Well, I won't do it!"
Mallory bit her cheek, her mind racing. She couldn't make any sense of what he was saying, and with the gun touching the woman's head, she couldn't heat it up without severely burning her. She couldn't call anyone without the guy noticing, and she was scared that if he thought she had reinforcements coming, he would just pull the trigger and be done with it. She glanced around subtly and noticed that the wall that they were against only went up about ten feet.
"Ok, look, if I leave, will you let her go?" she asked.
"If you want to leave, then go! I don't want to keep supporting you when you ain't helping anything!" he practically screamed.
Mallory nodded and backed up. The way the woman looked at her, fear and betrayal shining through her terrified tears, broke Mallory's heart, but she kept backing up until she was behind the fence, at which point she immediately took off running for the other side of the wall. She got to the top and saw that the young man was still holding the gun on the lady, and he was getting more unstable by the second, now yelling at the woman for being a bad cat to him.
She was about to jump down on him when she heard Superman yell, "Torch!"
It startled her, and she fell backwards into the scene. Luckily, the guy aimed the gun at her. As his finger tightened on the trigger, she put her shield up, but Superman flew in front of her, catching the bullet and grabbing the man. Mallory landed gracefully in the grass and, after shooting Superman a glare that he didn't see, she went to see to the older woman, who was sobbing in the grass. Superman came over to her after a minute.
"He's not making sense. What happened here?" he asked.
Mallory now openly glared at him. "Well, if you had bothered to ask before you swooped in to save the day, I could've told you that he's on drugs, and I think he's overdosed. He needs to get to a hospital, and so does she." Mallory put a hand to her ear and took a short step away. "I need an ambulance and a squad car at the north entrance of Centennial Park, one adult male, white, mid twenties suspected overdose and one adult female, hispanic, aged about sixty five is the victim, possible shock," she told the dispatch.
They said that they would have the cars there in a few minutes, and Mallory went back to the woman. Superman watched as his partner checked her for symptoms of shock and injuries, and tentatively assessed that she was having a panic attack. She helped the woman calm down as the ambulance was pulling up, and the squad car followed the ambulance to the hospital. Mallory took off without a word, and Superman followed her, trying to catch up to her.
"Torch, what's going on?" he called. Mallory clenched her hands into fists and kept flying. Clark grabbed her arm and gently pulled her down to the roof of the Daily Planet.
"Really?" she asked, crossing her arms.
She turned to jump off the roof, but Clark put a hand on her shoulder. "You're not leaving until you tell me what you're so mad about," he said.
Mallory threw her hands in the air. "Of course, you don't get it. I had the situation handled. You didn't need to get involved!" she said.
"What, you're talking about what happened back there? I didn't want to take the chance that you didn't," he said, confused at her attitude.
"I can take care of myself, I don't need you to babysit me," she said.
"Torch, calm down, let's talk about this," he said calmly.
Mallory laughed, frustrated. "Don't talk to me like I'm a kid, Clark," she snapped.
"Ok, then, talk to me. This isn't the first time you've gotten irritated with me for no reason," he said.
"I'm just tired of you treating me like a kid. I don't need you to jump in all the time and fix my problems."
Superman sighed. "I just don't want you to get hurt. In my mind, if I don't help you, then you'll fall."
"Then let me fall! Give me a chance to see if I can catch myself," she said, her voice almost pleading now. It turned back to anger as she continued, "It's like you can't see me as anything other than that ten year old that you first met. I'm not that person anymore, Clark. I grew up, I changed, and I got better at what I do. I just want you to see that."
Clark recoiled, hurt and confused at her words. She froze suddenly, and he thought for a moment she was going to apologize, but instead she said quietly, "oh, my gosh. This is exactly what I've been doing to Peter. No wonder he gets so mad at me."
"Torch," Clark started.
Mallory looked at him, still mad, but her voice was calm, making her next sentence cut all the deeper. "Don't call me Torch. I outgrew that a long time ago."
Clark stared at her in surprise, the hurt showing on his face, and he didn't try to stop her as she walked to the edge of the roof and drove off. He watched as she flew off towards Metropolis University, her fire lighting up the sky as she flew away from him, out of his reach.