I just changed one interaction in this chapter, I wanted Static to go on the mission after I started writing the next chapter, that's all. Anyway, all the usual things, please review.
The next day, Mallory didn't have work, so as soon as she eased out of bed, careful not to wake Alex after his triple shift at the clinic, she donned her costume under some sweats and headed out the door, leaving a note for her boyfriend. He'd been incredibly understanding about her popping in and out at all hours, the note was the only thing he'd ever asked her to do, telling him why she left and what time she should be back so he would know when to start worrying. She stopped at a bakery on the way to the zeta tube, grabbing a shoe sole for breakfast, then continued on, punching in her coordinates with leisure.
She came out on the bridge of the Watchtower and started walking to the monitor room, not bothering to get out of her sweats. Before the team moved in, there was an unspoken understanding that the Watchtower was a professional setting, that if you were up there for business you would be in your suit. It was from the days when the secret identities of the League were not all known by the others, so it was to help protect the image, even from each other. When the team moved in, though, they changed the rules. They only wore their costumes when they were going on missions, and the casual atmosphere they brought with them was starting to catch on to even the more rigid members of the League. It was probably a good thing that Batman had walked when he did, she thought. He would have had a fit if he saw how much things had changed.
She took the shortcut to the monitor room and found Hawkwoman standing at the computer, watching the screen. "Hey," she greeted, shoving the last of her pastry in her mouth and pulling up a holographic screen of her own. Shayira nodded distractedly, pulling up a disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico. Mallory focused on her own work as the Leaguer distributed some people to handle it. She'd come up to the monitor room once a week for the past five months, scanning each time for new boomtube signatures. Every time she found them, she transferred the data to her personal computer and spent the entire night studying them, searching for a pattern, trying to figure out where the next location would be. She'd managed to stop a handful of transfers, but lately, there hadn't been any new boomtubes opening. It was disturbing, how abruptly they had stopped, and she didn't know if she should be relieved or worried. It didn't make sense.
"Anything?" Hawkwoman asked.
Mallory shook her head, her eyes still darting over the screen, finally landing on the last marked location, an open field in the midwest. She narrowed her eyes, staring at the location. That was awfully close to…she zoomed in until it gave her an exact location and twisted her lips to the side, trying to figure out the angle. The Hawk noticed her expression and walked over. "What is it?" she asked, glancing back at the main computer every few seconds to make sure there wasn't anything she needed to deal with. "It's…Smallville," Mallory explained, showing her the location.
Shayira's eyes narrowed. "The Reach farm," she noted. "I thought that place was shut down when public opinion turned."
"It was," Mallory replied, nodding. "Or, at least, it was to the Reach. I wonder…"
The Leaguer tilted her head, waiting for the pyrokinetic to finish the thought, but before she could the computer went off, announcing another distress call, and Hawkwoman went to answer it. Mallory made a quick note in her file and sent the information to her personal computer, packing it up.
She decided to take the long way back to the Bridge to make a stop at the living room to grab a snack, and before she even opened the door she could hear laughter and shouts coming from within, the sounds bringing a grin to her own face before she even opened the doors. When she stepped in, she saw half of the team, Virgil, Jaime, Peter, Jinx, Cameron, and Cassie, on the couch. Her brother and his girlfriend were in a heated videogame battle, the others cheering them on, mostly Jinx. Peter's leg was charging against the far wall, and Mallory felt the same twinge in her chest that she always felt when she saw her brother's stump, cut just above the knee. He had never complained, most days he talked about his military grade prosthetic like an upgrade, allowing his to store emergency weapons, grip walls, boost his jumps, kick with more force, even shoot detach a laser from the knee when stationary. Still, she didn't think it would ever stop hurting to see what he'd had to sacrifice because of being on the team.
"Hey," Jaime said, looking at her. "What are you doing up here so early?"
She grabbed an apple off the counter and walked over, leaning on the arm of the sofa to see who was winning the game. She smirked when she recognized the game, a spinoff of Gar's show. Peter was using the green boy's character as his avatar. "Besides stealing food, I was checking the computer," she explained.
"Find anything?" Cameron asked, looking up at her with interest. He'd been just as invested in finding a way to shut down the shipments as her, maybe more since he'd helped with some of them.
"I don't know, maybe," she replied vaguely, not wanting to explain her thought process before it was finished forming. "Enough to go take a look, anyway. Anyone want to come with?"
"Where?" Virgil asked.
"Smallville."
He made a face. "Uh, no. Thanks, but I'll stick to Dakota tonight. Nothing good happens in a cornfield after dark."
She snorted. "I didn't say I was going to a cornfield."
He shrugged. "Might as well have."
She rolled her eyes. "Fine. Jr, you coming?"
He shrugged. "Sure."
"I'll come, too," Jaime offered. "How 'bout you, Cassie?"
"Sure, sounds better than having dinner with my mom and her new boyfriend, anyway," Wondergirl replied. She looked at Virgil, a teasing smile playing on her lips. "You sure you want to sit it out?"
"Yep, I don't mind my sister's boyfriend, and anything's better than putting myself in a horror movie."
"What, you really that scared?" Icicle asked, smirking.
"I'm not scared!" the meta shot back.
"Sure looks like it from where I'm sitting," Jaime said casually, barely even looking at his friend.
"Shut up!" Virgil snapped, standing and going to the kitchen.
"Oh, be careful, Virg," Cassie said, faking a concerned look. "There's canned corn in the cabinet, it might jump out and get you!"
She and Blue snickered and Static threw up his hands, only partly faking his frustration when he said. "That's it. I'm coming, but if I end up getting torn apart by some ghost demon, I swear you guys are the first people I'm coming to haunt!"
Mallory shook her head, laughing along with the others. "Deal, I'll be expecting you."
Jinx grunted suddenly and threw her controller down on the couch beside her in half playful frustration. "Ugh, that's the third time!" she complained.
Peter grinned. "Sorry, Penny, but you don't want me to lose on purpose, do you?"
She rolled her eyes, playfully glaring at him out of the corner of her eye. "Oh, no, of course not," she replied, her voice silky smooth, making it clear that she had some sort of revenge planned.
Vigilante turned to the older hero, his hand finding Jinx's automatically as he leaned back and got comfortable. "How 'bout you, Sis? Want to play the champ?"
She laughed, shaking her head. "Never again. You have way too much time to practice."
"Well, there's not much else to do in LA. Gar's always on set, and I can't patrol during the day."
"Well, I can fix that," Mallory offered. "Come with us tonight. We can head out early and stop at the farm, see Wolf and Moe."
He bit back his grin, but it shone in his eyes just the same. "Sure," he agreed, his nonchalant tone not fooling anyone.
"Ok, I'll meet you here at nightfall." She started to leave, but she couldn't resist one more dig. "Oh, and next weekend?" He tilted his head and she finished, "check in when you get here."
He rolled his eyes. "Who told you? Dick?" She didn't answer and he groaned, the smile still in his eyes. "I really hate you guys."
She chuckled. "Ouch. Well, that sure makes it easier to put the alert on you. I know Dick's still tracking you." She slipped out of the room, leaving him to wonder how serious her threat was, and let the zeta tube take her back down to Earth.
She and Peter were at the Kents' farm just as the sun was starting to set, walking up to the house from the barn. The others would be meeting them soon to look around in the old Reach factory, but it had been a long time since Peter had seen Wolf in his retirement, and Mallory had someone else to check on. "It's just us, Ma," Mallory called when the screen door slammed behind her. She didn't get a response, though, so she poked her head into the living room, mildly surprised to see not the gray haired woman she was expecting, but her protege sitting in the rocking chair in the corner. "Hey," she said, glad to see that he was up and about for once. He'd mostly been keeping to his room since she and Conner brought him to deal with the loss of his sister.
"What do you want?" he asked dully, not looking up from his phone.
"We had an errand in town, just stopped in to say hi to everyone. Where are the Kents?"
"They went to a meeting in town, some local government thing," he replied, still not looking right at her. There was something off about his demeanor, but she tried to put it aside.
"Oh. Well, where's Moe?"
He nodded to the fireplace, where the fox, now full grown and the size of a beagle, was curled up in the flames, fast asleep. She smiled and walked over, stroking his head gently. He looked up sleepily, annoyance on his face. "Hey, baby, I missed you," the pyrokinetic crooned. Her pet woke up as soon as he recognized her voice, springing to his feet and leaping out onto her lap, rubbing against her and bouncing around. She laughed, barely managing to get in a hug before he would wriggle out of her grasp to zoom around the room again. She laughed, turning to Brion. "I guess he missed–" Her words died out in her mouth when she saw the glazed expression in her protege's eyes, and she immediately got to her feet, a glare replacing her smile as she scanned the room for the source of his expression. She found it underneath the rocker, an almost empty bottle of vodka. She snatched it out from under the chair and held it up, an irrational anger surging to the surface. "What is this?" He narrowed his eyes, clearly angry himself, but he didn't answer. "Brion, we talked about this. You can't–"
"No, you can't tell me what to do!" he yelled, getting to his feet with so much force that she was forced to back up a few steps to avoid getting hit. "You don't get to say anything. You have no idea what these last months have been like, and why would you?! You and the others, you say you care, you make promises of justice, but what have you really done? Nothing! It is all talk. You talk, and you block me from making any real progress on my sister's murder. Well, I've had enough of it. Of you."
She shook her head. This wasn't the first time they'd had this fight, or the first time she'd caught him drowning his sorrows in a bottle. "And what exactly do you think you could be doing that would be any better than what we're doing?" she asked, not bothering to mention that she was only there because she'd caught a possible lead. "Look, I get it, you need someone to blame, and that's fine, blame me, but don't take it out on yourself." She held up the bottle, indicating the liquid poison inside. "You know better than to mix your power with alcohol. It makes them unpredictable, dangerous. You want to hurt me, that's great, let's go spar, but do not put Jonathan and Martha in danger just because of your own self pity."
"Do not assume to know what I am feeling," Brion said, his tone lowering to a threatening growl. "You have no idea what it is like to lose a sister."
A tremor went through Mallory's hands and she clenched them into fists, the glass neck of the bottle melting beneath the heat in her palm. "I'm sorry about Tara, it never should have happened and I know you're hurting, but never think that you're the only one who's lost people." She took a breath, trying to loosen the tension in her body and force the ghosts of her past out of her mind. "It doesn't give you an excuse to self destruct."
He glared at her, not answering, until finally he just turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, stumbling a little as he tried to find his center of balance amid the haze of intoxication. She sighed, immediately regretting the fight but knowing better than to follow him to apologize. She looked down at the bottle in her hand, the top red hot and melted shut. Well, at least he wouldn't be finishing that one. She heard footsteps on the porch and shook her head, clearing her mind. She was there for a reason, and she needed to focus on her mission. If she was even close to being right, this would be a very important night.