I wrote this in kind of a rush, and I haven't gotten a chance to reread it yet, so I hope it's not too bad. There is one part in there where Zatanna says that Peter's all of their brother, and I thought it was kind of weird when I noticed it so I thought I'd throw a little reminder in here. Mallory's only known Peter for llike two weeks longer than the rest of the OG team, and by the time he comes along she had already moved into the cave, so really she and the team have had about the same amount of contact with him. Anyway, just a thought, hope you like it, please review!

Year 10

6 months later:

"There he is," Mallory pointed out, already diving down to the street where the truck they'd been watching was pulling out of a parking garage. "Wait!" Hal called, but she was already too far down to catch. She swooped down in front of the truck, charging right towards it. She ignored the frantic argument the men in the cab were having on whether or not to mow her down, locking her eyes on the lower part of the vehicle. At the last second, she dropped down even further and rolled so that her back was inches from the pavement rushing below. In milliseconds the car rushed over her and she brought her superheated hands up to the undercarriage, melting two straight lines through everything holding the truck together. It continued to rush past her, totally fine, and Hal finally caught up to her.

"What's wrong with you?!" he asked. "You didn't even stop the…" A loud crash interrupted the rant and he looked over to where the truck had fallen on its side against a lamppost, the tires gone and the undercarriage falling apart. He looked back at the pyrokinetic. "Oh."

She grinned, her breathing still heavy from the adrenaline rush. "Yeah. Your turn." The doors opened and the smugglers started to climb out, ready to make a run for it. They didn't even make it to the ground, though. Hal caught them in a net, turning it into a bubble as soon as they were in it. "Good job," she said, her tone overly patronizing and a teasing smile playing on her lips. "Best rookie I've ever trained."

He arched an eyebrow, playing along. "Excuse me?"

She shrugged. "John and Kilowog were right, you have your ring back for a whole month and you think you know everything. So ungrateful."

"Oh, please, I've been doing this for–"

"A month. I don't care how many grays you have, grandpa, you're back on the bottom." She laughed at the mock annoyance on his face and tilted her head. "How does it feel?"

He shook his head, barely keeping the mock annoyance on his face. "Whatever. I'm going to drop these guys with the cops, you want to help, or just keep rubbing it in that my pension started over?"

She laughed, but she flew along with him to the police station, dropping the bad guys off and flying back out towards the edge of the city. Mallory noted that the crater that Hal had put in the street had been fixed, the only thing marking the horrific event being a memorial with the names of the people who had died. "So, how was Oa?" she asked, training her eyes back on the Lantern. He'd gotten his ring back four months ago and had been on Oa being retrained ever since, only getting back to Earth a little less than a month ago.

"It was fine, I guess, if you don't mind people telling you things you already know."

She shrugged. "It doesn't hurt to get a refresher."

He rolled his eyes. "Sure. What about you? What happened while I was gone?"

She shrugged again. "Nothing much. Job, patrol, family, same old."

"I know that's not true. There's always something going on with the team, how's Kyle doing? Oh, and your ice friend, how's he doing with switching sides?"

"I don't know, that's going to take forever to tell you, and I'm only here for—"

"The rest of the afternoon," he finished, reminding her what she'd agreed to.

She tilted her head. "Yeah, why am I here, anyway? I know you didn't need the help for those bank robbers, they were no better than amateurs."

"What, I can't just ask for your company?"

"No," she said, but then she chuckled and sighed. "Fine. Kyle's good, he's been staying in DC now that he and Donna are dating."

"Yeah, I saw them last week, he came on patrol with me. And he didn't give me a hard time about it."

She rolled her eyes. "Great, then you should have asked him to come again. I'm not even a Green Lantern, I don't even know how I got involved with you in the first place."

"You got–"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, superstrength, and for three days I'm somehow forever linked to you. I think you did it on purpose."

He just smiled, not confirming or denying the accusation. "What about your friend Jr? He's still doing all right working with the team?"

"Yeah, he's great. I think I started a trend, though."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I convinced Cameron to switch sides, and now Zatanna's training Jinx and Dick just found a girl in Bludhaven that he's starting to train. He found her taking out a gang that was terrorizing the east end, but she ended up putting eight out of the nine of them in the ICU. He's hoping he can get her to lighten up a little before he introduces her to the team."

"Yeah, I hear that's not the only antihero you guys have been dealing with," Hal mentioned, cocking his head to the side as he waited for her to tell him about their other problem.

She sighed, nodding. "Yeah, they haven't exactly been subtle," she said, thinking about the path of destruction Red Hood and Arsenal had been making through the underworlds of the planet. They had been in nearly every country in the world, and their body counts grew with every new group they set their sights on.

"How are they maintaining it?" Hal asked. "If it wasn't for the League funds, I don't think most of us would be able to maintain our operations, much less travel around the world like they're doing."

"Oh, does it take a lot of money to use that ring?" Mallory asked, arching an eyebrow at arguable one of the cheapest hero identities on the League. He didn't even have to buy his costume, or his transportation.

He smiled. "You know what I mean. They have to buy supplies, and weapons, and travel. How are they doing it?"

"Oh, didn't they tell you? Jason's a millionaire," she told him, shaking her head in annoyance.

"How?" he asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

"He's still running crime in Gotham, taking a percent of the takes of every major gang in the city. Not to mention their little PR stunt, Bats for hire. They have plenty of money, don't worry about them. The Outlaws are really becoming a problem. They have the League and the Light after them. If we didn't care about them, we'd probably let the Light get them and be done with it."

He snorted, shaking his head. "Yeah, like Batman would ever let that happen."

She shrugged. "Maybe not him, but I wouldn't put it past GA." She got a message in her mask and replied with a touch in the air in front of her.

"What is it?" Hal asked.

"Nothing, just a reminder that I have an errand later. I still have another two hours, though, so let's go find something good, like an alien attack or escaped supervillain, or a runner."

Her request was punctuated by the sound of sirens cutting through the air, and he chuckled. "Ask and you will receive," he said, and they changed their flight course, heading towards the trouble.

Two and a half hours later, Mallory was in a park in DC, her costume changed out for jeans and a t-shirt, her hair still red from patrolling. She settled on a bench near the willow tree, but she only had to wait a minute before Zatanna appeared on the walkway a few hundred feet down. She rose and met her halfway.

"Hey, thanks for coming," the magician said, the same thing she started with every year. "I thought Artemis was coming."

Mallory shook her head. "She took my turn last year. Is he on his way?"

Zatanna nodded. "He'll be here soon." She fell silent as they went into the tree to wait, her nails digging into her arm, her way of covering her anxiety.

Mallory edged in front of her friend. "I went on patrol with Hal this morning," she said, trying to get Zatanna's mind off the wait.

"How's he doing?" the magician asked, her eyes still darting between the redhead and the spot Fate always appeared.

"He's good." She chuckled. "He wanted to know about everything he missed here. Especially about Jr and Jinx. Asked how they're working out, if switching sides really went as smooth as we claim."

Zatanna rolled her eyes, her fingers loosening and her eyes staying on Mallory. "They're doing fine. Jinx has more dedication than half the team."

"Oh, I can't guess who you're talking about," Mallory said, laughing softly.

"No, of course not, Kid and Static are always right on time for roll call."

"Well, to be fair to Bart, he can get there in less than a second."

The magician chuckled. "That's no excuse to always be late."

"Are you training her today?" Mallory asked, trying to gauge where her friend would be going after their appointment.

"No, she's got the day off. Peter's coming in, they have a date."

"Oh."

"You didn't know?" Zatanna asked.

"Uh, no, he told me he was coming in tomorrow. Has he been coming in on Friday every weekend?" Since he and Gar had moved back to LA for Gar's new season to start taping, her brother had been coming back to the East coast on the weekends. He claimed it was to keep training with the team and spend time with the family, but they all knew it was to spend time with Jinx. They'd started dating only a week after Mallory brought her to the League, and six months later they were still going strong.

"I mean, yeah, mostly. I thought you knew," Zatanna answered. They shared a look, both shaking their heads, smiling.

"That little…" Mallory muttered, and Zatanna chuckled and finished, "teenager?" When Mallory arched an eyebrow, she shrugged and added, "please, like we never snuck around at his age? I remember one time in particular when you told Red Tornado you were going to an anatomy lecture to meet Isaiah at that club in Gotham."

Mallory shook her head, covering her eyes with her hand. "Ugh, don't remind me! I don't want to think about Peter like that, he's my baby brother."

"He's all of our brother, but he's not a baby anymore. He's fifteen."

"So, are you saying I can't bust him on his date and lock him up in Ollie's island prison for the next few years?" Zatanna rolled her eyes, but Mallory was just happy to see her smiling. "Fine," she said dramatically. "Then do you want to have dinner with me? Alex is making chicken and mushrooms, and we just picked up the new dining table last night."

The magician's eyes drifted back to the tree and the shadow came back to her face. "Uh, no. Thanks, but I'd rather be alone tonight."

Mallory pressed her lips together, anger flowing through her as she watched her friend wait for the one time in the year that she got to see her father. "I don't get it," she muttered.

"What?" Zatanna asked.

A spike of alarm went through the puyrokinetic's chest when she realized that she'd said it out loud, and she wracked her brain for something benign to say, but in the end she explained, "When the helmet is on, the person wearing it isn't in control, so why does it have to be a hero who puts it on? Why couldn't the League sentence someone like Wotan or Doctor Destiny to wear the helmet? They'd have the affinity for magic that your dad has, and it's not like prisons can hold them, so the helmet would be the perfect way to get one of them off the streets, and make them do something good for a change. It's a win win."

Zatanna smiled a little, shaking her head at her friend's logic. "Yeah, I guess, for everyone but the wearer, but there's no judge in the galaxy that would agree to that."

Mallory rolled her eyes. "Judges," she muttered disdainfully. "It's no different than Waller's little Suicide Squad, maybe she should sign off on it."

"You didn't have the same opinion when it was Cameron being forced into the field against his will," Zatanna pointed out, trying to ease the topic off the board.

Mallory pressed on, though, becoming a bit defensive at the mention of her ex's history with the squad. "That was different."

"No, it wasn't," Zatanna said firmly, anger cutting through the cloud in her eyes. "It's a line we shouldn't cross. I would do anything to save my dad from Fate, but he wouldn't want me to resort to sacrificing someone else to save him, even if it is a bad guy." A flash of light opened up a portal above them, and the magician's eyes lit up, leaning forward anxiously as she waited for Fate to come through. She glanced at Mallory as he did. "Thanks. You know, for trying, but it just wouldn't be right."

The pyrokinetic winced, hanging back as her friend made the same deal she'd made for the last three years: one hour with her father, no more, and her word that he would put the helmet back on at the end. 'Right'. Like this was 'right'. She sighed, refraining from shaking her head as Zatara removed his helmet and the father and daughter held each other like a lifeline. It wasn't fair, but it was all she had, so Mallory went back to her bench, her timer set, and Zatanna and Zatara went to the swings, same as always, to squeeze a year's worth of bonding into sixty short minutes.