Chapter Twenty Four
Daddy Issues
March 4th
Nightwing watched Morgan approach the cell phone on the kitchen counter, paper slip with her dads number next to it, pick it up, stare at it, and then put it down again to resume her pacing, fretting and hair-pulling.
For the fifth time in a row, oh my god Morgan, just call you dad already.
He wondered why he constantly found himself dragged into her family drama.
Nightwing sighed from his position against the wall and uncrossed his arms, approaching the shorter teenager. Grabbing hold of her shoulders, he firmly directed her towards the phone.
She dug her heels into the floor, refusing to move. He bumped into her from behind and Morgan stumbled a step forward.
"Morgan." He exasperated. "You have to actually pick up the phone and type in the number to call him."
"I know, I know." She snapped, still refusing to move towards the phone.
Nightwing sighed and rolled his eyes, not believing that she was actually making him do this.
Grabbing hold of her upper arms, he held on tight and lifted her clean off the floor, carrying her at arm's length towards the counter.
She let out a surprised squeak and kicked her legs out in an attempt to find solid ground. Her wings flapped in short-lived panic and Nightwing got a mouthful of feathers.
He placed her firmly in front of the phone and kept one hand on her shoulder to make sure she didn't just run away the moment he let go. With his other hand, he picked up the phone and the number and held them out in front of her face, a stern look on his.
She stared at the phone like it was a huge snail and Nightwing had just ordered her to eat it.
When she did nothing, Nightwing sighed harshly and dialed in the number by himself. When he was done, he grabbed hold of her hand, forcing it open and put the phone in it. Pressing the call button, he guided her hand up to her ear.
"What are you doing?" She cried out, clearly panicking.
Nightwing grabbed hold of the other side of her face too, making sure she couldn't remove the phone from her ear. She put up a very valiant fight, though.
"Jeg slår dig ihjel når det her er slut!"1 She threatened – at least, the angry danish spluttering had sounded like a threat.
"I swear Nightwing, if you don't let me go right this instant I will – Hello Henrik." Morgan suddenly drastically changed her tone of voice as the person on the other side evidently picked up.
"Talk to him." Nightwing mouthed as she sent him a wide-eyed and panicked look.
"Who is this?" Nightwing could hear the man on the other end of the line ask.
Morgan swallowed dryly, but her voice was calm when she responded. "I think you know who."
"Morgan?" The man responded, sounding disbelieving. "My god, you sound so grown up."
"Yeah well," Morgan's brow furrowed in a glare. "A lot happens when you're gone for eight years."
She didn't give him a chance to respond to that but simply plowed on, obviously eager to get the phone call over with. "Mom said you wanted to see me. Something about answers."
Nightwing realized he was still holding onto her head from both sides and let go before he could start thinking about ridiculous things, like how soft her hair was.
"We've got so much to talk about, Skat. I've been looking forward to this for so long. I promise I didn't leave-"2
"This meeting is not pleasantry." Morgan cut him off. "It is a simple necessity. You have something I want. And I'm going to get it. I don't want anything else from you. Especially not your bad excuses."
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
"Gotham. Out in front of your old elementary school. The streetlight that was always out of order. You remember the spot?" He asked.
"Yes." Morgan confirmed.
"Meet me there on monday. At ten pm."
Monday.. that was three days away.
Nightwing steeled himself as he knew he approached three days of a tense and hostile Morgan as she fretted over meeting with her father.
"Deal." She responded flatly and ended the phone call immediately, throwing the phone onto the table. It skidded along the surface from the force and landed itself in the sink, leaving behind an unpleasant and loud clanging as it hit the sides roughly.
Morgan clenched her jaw and aimed her stormy eyes at Nightwing.
"Let's go train." She barked, marching out of the kitchen. "I feel like punching stuff."
March 7th
Dick and Morgan stood underneath the broken street light in front of her old kindergarten in Gotham. They were dressed in civilian clothing, their identities and cover story in place.
After Morgan had been allowed to 'punch stuff', they had quickly settled down to decide how to best go about this.
Morgan had quickly stated that she had absolutely no interest in her dad knowing she was a superhero.
"Only people I trust gets to know that." She'd scowled.
"If he knows about your wings, chances are he'll figure it out by himself the moment he sees you in the news." Nightwing had pointed out.
Morgan's scowl had deepened, acknowledging that he spoke the truth.
"We can't be sure he knows about them. Yet. We'll figure that out once I talk with him. For now, I'm keeping it from him." Morgan had decided.
So, Morgan was meeting him as Morgan and not as Sparrow. And because it would be weird show up with a random superhero for company, Nightwing was in civilian clothing too.
But he was still wearing a pair of sunglasses, despite the dark night. If her father did manage to connect the dots and knew his daughter was the upcoming superhero known as Sparrow, it wouldn't take a genius – and Morgan's father was a genius, if all the research Nightwing had done on him was to be believed – to figure out that the teenager she had met him with was a hero too. And Nightwing wanted to keep his identity secret from this guy.
So, tonight, he was neither Nightwing nor Dick Grayson.
He was Jake Lucas, Morgan's current boyfriend whom she'd met at a bar five months ago.
The cover was awkward if anything, but any other explanation would seem suspicious. Why would she invite him along if he was just a good friend and not her boyfriend? This cover simply seemed more realistic. And Dick, priding himself on his professionalism, planned on playing his part flawlessly and without hesitation.
A car drove past and splashed the puddle they were standing by, water landing on his black sneakers, and Dick frowned in annoyance as he felt some of it leak into his socks.
He checked the watch on his wrist. "10:01" He spoke up. "Your dad's late."
Morgan glared. "Don't call him that."
He rolled his eyes. "Henrik is late."
"No, I'm not." Came a new voice suddenly and Dick found himself truly caught off guard for the first time in a very long time.
The two teenagers jumped and swung around on the spot.
As he caught sight of Henrik, Dick finally knew where Morgan got her hair from.
Her father looked, for all intents and purposes, like a Viking. Dick realized that, given his nationality, he was most likely descended from them, so it made sense.
Standing at nearly two meters, he was a mountain of a man with broad shoulders and a square jaw. Long, thick hair that was wildly curled was tied back into a ponytail at the base of his neck, his jaw covered in an impressive, blonde beard. Intelligent, grey eyes peaked out at them from behind a pair of round glasses.
"Drop the theatrics." Morgan rolled her eyes. "I'm not buying them."
The man's severe face faded into a fond smile as he started chuckling, approaching them in long strides. "I'd hoped my little girl hadn't lost her spirit."
He made an attempt to hug Morgan but she sidestepped his arm quickly, holding up a hand to keep distance. "I already told you that I'm not here for a social visit. I'm only here to get some answers and then I'm leaving again."
Her steely grey eyes, so very like her dads, fixed him with a withering glare. "So cut the crap." She seethed. "And start talking."
Henrik sighed as if he'd expected the moment would go differently. Dick wondered if he'd honestly expected Morgan to welcome him back with open arms.
"And who's this strapping young fellow, then?" He finally acknowledged Dick. He eyed the young man with an air of disapproval, like he thought he'd actually have a say in who Morgan chose to be around.
Dick wrapped an arm around Morgan's waist and squared his jaw defiantly. "I'm Jake. Morgan's boyfriend." He spoke, the words feeling foreign and wrong in his mouth. "She asked me to be here."
The two men suddenly found themselves in a battle of wills as the blond mountain attempted to stare Dick into submission.
Fat chance, Dick wryly thought. He'd been trained in stares by Batman. Nobody could beat him. And he was wearing his sunglasses still, hiding the already bare minimum of emotions in Dick's eyes.
Henrik broke eye contact first, aiming his gaze back onto his daughter. Morgan had been silent since the small encounter had started. Dick also noted that she'd gotten pretty rigid once he'd wrapped his arm around her and hadn't relaxed her muscles yet.
"Hvordan er dit dansk? Har du holdt det ved lige?"3 He spoke in his native language.
Morgan frowned at him, rolling her eyes once again. "My Danish is fine, Henrik." She responded in English, wrapping a hand around the arm that was settled around her waist. "And there's no need to be rude."
Henrik sighed again, obviously displeased with his daughter's behavior. Dick once again wondered how he could've expected her to act any differently.
"Let's go." He finally relented and turned to leave.
"Where?" Morgan suspiciously asked, her eyes narrowed upon her father.
"This place is too public. We can't talk here." Henrik elaborated. "Now come on."
Morgan looked very much like she wanted to protest but Dick used the arm he had around her waist to guide her forward, the two teenagers falling in step right behind the elder man. This meeting was going to take far too long if Morgan fought her father in everything he did.
Dick's headache would only increase the longer they stayed with the man.
Morgan allowed herself to be pulled along by Nightwing, the arm around her waist too big of a distraction for her to put up much of a fight.
She told herself it was ridiculous. Nightwing had had his arms around her plenty of times. He was her fighting instructor and sparring, she'd been locked in his embrace more times than she could count; this time shouldn't be any different.
But it totally was different because they weren't training right now, and his arms were only around her for a few seconds at a time when they fought. By now, the hand resting on her hip had been there for several minutes and she was afraid it was going to burn a hole straight through her clothes with the extreme warmth her skin felt where he touched her.
Absolutely ridiculous.
They walked down the old pavement until her father suddenly stopped and looked suspiciously to his left, then his right, before ducking into a side alley.
The alley, small, dark, and wet because of the rain they'd been getting all day, a few crates stack in one corner, was entirely uncharming, and Morgan dearly hoped he didn't plan on explaining everything there. Her nose scrunched up as the sewer smell hit her.
Henrik approached the crates and pushed them aside, revealing a decent sized hole in the brick wall. It was wide and roughly four feet tall.
"In here." Henrik pointed at the hole.
Morgan stared at the hole, then her father and then at Dick. He gave her a tiny shrug, barely a twitch of his shoulders, but the messages was clear: why not?
She stepped out of his embrace and approached the hole, crouching down to crawl through it. Nightwing was right at her heels until her father placed a large hand on the younger man's shoulder.
She saw Nightwing's muscles tense as he instinctively prepared himself for an attack at the sudden, unwanted contact.
"Lover-boy can wait outside." Henrik ordered, aiming a threatening look at Nightwing. She could see Dick sporting an intense glare behind his sunglasses and she quickly stood up.
"Sorry," Morgan spoke up, approaching the two men and stepping between them. "This is a package deal." She took hold of her dad's wrist and squeezed it roughly, digging her nails into the flesh until he let go. "Either we both go in or we both leave."
He turned a displeased look onto Morgan's face and she simply returned with a blank stare, her mouth drawn into a thin line.
When Morgan didn't relent under his hard, grey eyes as she usually would've done when she was younger, her father eventually looked away and sighed again. She was just about ready to punch him the next time he decided to sigh at her like she was a naughty little girl that needed to obey his wishes simply because he'd been her dad once.
Keeping her glare trained on his face, she grasped Nightwing's shoulder and pulled him with her towards the hole. He crawled in first and Morgan kept her eyes on her dad as he did.
Crawling through the hole herself, her eyes worked hard to adjust to the total darkness of the room she found herself in. She held a hand in front of her mouth to keep in the cough that tried to escape when she took a deep breath and got a mouthful of dust. The room was dark, but the large window to her left, which had been closed off with large wooden planks, let in a small sliver of light and it provided just enough view for her to study the room.
It looked like an old office. A large desk, covered in dust and dirt, stood to the side of the room. There was a glass pane door at the other side of the room. Morgan approached it, a sense of familiarity prodding at the back of her mind. Large black letters were plastered onto the door from the other side and Morgan took a small moment to read the backwards letters.
DR. JØRGENSEN, the letters read.
Remembrance felt like a flash of lightning surging through her whole body, starting at the top of her head and swooping down her throat and into her stomach before curling into her feet. Goosebumps, like she really had been struck with an electric charge, rose on her arms and legs, sending a tingle down her spine.
This had been her dad's office back when he still lived in Gotham with Morgan and her mother. Morgan remembered him taking her with him to work every once in a while, remembered drawing small childish doodles as she sat on the old green couch he had in the right corner of the room – or had the couch been blue? – in her small dresses and her curly pigtails bouncing around her face.
Her father had arrived in the room as well by now, saw her gaze at the spot where the couch had been, and, as if guessing her train of thought, spoke up. "You were such a cute kid. Couldn't draw for shit, though."
Morgan felt a small, fond smile quirk at her lips before she realized it. She immediately curled her lips into a scowl instead and crossed her arms over her chest. "If all you wanted to do was remind me of my childhood, I'm leaving now."
He held up his hands in a pacifying manner. "Alright, I'll cut to the case. I'm assuming 'Jake' knows everything?"
Morgan wasn't sure what he meant when he said 'everything'. Did he mean about her wings? Her family history?
She settled for a neutral answer. "He probably knows more than you do."
Henrik gave her a condescending smile and walked towards the door, flicking a switch, and Morgan was surprised when the ceiling light actually flickered to life. The old bulb blinked a few times before bathing the room in an orange glow, only making the room slightly brighter with its weak source.
"I sincerely doubt it." He retaliated. "Take that silly trinket off now, Morgan. It's unnecessary." He motioned for the pendant around her neck as he settled against the table, crossing his arms in front of him.
Morgan and Nightwing exchanged a look. So her father did know about her wings. She hesitated for a moment, heart hammering anxiously in her ribcage before Morgan slowly reached up and unclasped the necklace. A small part of her wondered how he even knew about the necklace's function.
Her wings were now visible to the world and her father's face lit up.
"Extraordinary." He mumbled and made to step closer. Morgan took a step back as he took one forward, not wanting the man to touch her wings, and he stopped in his tracks, realizing that she didn't want him near her.
"What do you know about them?" Morgan demanded harshly. Her father hadn't seemed surprised, more like impressed, meaning that he must have known something about them that she didn't.
He settled back against the table and readjusted his glasses before crossing his arms over his chest again.
"Back when your mother and I were still married, I worked in this building as an upcoming scientist. You were only one and a half at the time, so you don't remember this, but I was working on crossbreeding bird species." He began.
A cold feeling settled in Morgan's stomach. The fact that her father worked on cross breeding birds and that she just happened to have wings just seemed like too much of a coincidence.
"We did some brilliant work, my partner and I. We were both young and ambitious. Soon, only using birds became a bit too.. ordinary for us. We decided to attempt to crossbreed the birds with other animals. After a few failed attempts on some stray dogs and cats we knew nobody was going to miss, we decided to try something.. a little different."
Morgan held up a hand to stop him, feeling nauseous. Nightwing had stepped closer to her during her father's little speech, whether to keep her from falling to the floor when her knees undoubtedly gave out, or to stop her if she attempted to strangle her dad, she wasn't sure.
"Are you telling me that-"
"We both happened to have a child at roughly the same age. Her daughter was a few months older than you. We volunteered both of you as test subjects." He interrupted her, looking like he couldn't hear how unbelievably screwed up what he was saying was.
Morgan felt like someone had literally grabbed hold of her heart and lungs and squeezed for all they were worth. She couldn't breathe, only gape at her father, mouth opening and closing like a fish. Her heart had dropped to her feet. Sweat erupted on her brow and her palms.
"We injected the two of you with what we believed would grant you both bird-like traits. Couldn't be sure which traits though, so we kept you under close surveillance for a long time. After almost nine years with no results, I declared the test a failure and moved back to Denmark, where I continued my research." Her dad plowed on, ignoring the look of horror on both Morgan and Nightwing's faces.
"Unfortunately, one of my other.. secret experiments, this one thankfully not with a human test subject, was discovered and I've been in jail ever since." He explained. "Once I was finally released, my first thought was to return to Gotham and see you again." A soft look suddenly took over his features. "I've wanted to reach out to you countless times during all of those years, Morgan. You have to know that. You're still my little girl even though I thought you'd failed as a test subject." He eyed the wings on her back. "Which I was also wrong about, as I can clearly see."
Morgan found the ability to breathe again, her intakes angry and drastic. Her entire body was shaking with a fury she'd never experienced before. The only reason she'd let him speak without interrupting for so long was that she felt like her lungs had collapsed and her voice had disappeared entirely.
Well, she'd found her voice again.
"You bastard." She seethed venomously. "You sick bastard! How could you use your own daughter as a test subject, you psychopath!"
Her voice had risen to a shout by now. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
He looked taken aback at her reaction, and like he was about to defend his actions but Morgan was on a roll and not about to let him off that easily.
"Do you have any idea whose things did to me? They ruined my life! I've been living in self-loathing, fear and isolation for five years because you decided to play God!"
Nightwing placed a calming hand on her shoulder. "Let's go." He urged quietly and gently. He could tell Morgan was about to strike out at Henrik. "We got what we came for, now let's go."
Morgan, through her rage, knew he was right. Leaving her father behind in the dust would almost be as satisfying as clocking him one.
"Can't I at least hit him once?" She mumbled back. She'd regained her composure somewhat, Nightwing's grip and voice soothing. She kept focusing on that, feeling like the warm hand was the only thing that kept her grounded.
He considered her request.
"Fine. Once."
Morgan fixed her stormy eyes back onto her father, her voice dangerous and low. "I'm leaving. And if you ever contact me again, I'll throw you off of a tall building."
"Morgan, don't-"
"SHUT UP!" She roared.
With a strangled growl, she threw her arm sideways roughly, and the wall that already had a large hole in it completely gave away, bricks blasting away like a small bomb had gone off.
She barely registered the look of pure shock on her father's face before she jumped forward and aimed a sideways kick at his jaw. He stumbled to the floor with a grunt, and Morgan felt satisfaction settle in her stomach.
"You deserved to spend much longer in prison." She spat at the heap on the floor and marched out of the room, Nightwing at her heels.
She ignored her father's protests as she pulled her pendant out of her pocket and closed it around her neck again before grabbing Nightwing's hand, and started running.
The warm hand in hers was the only thing that kept her focused as Morgan ran away with no specific location in mind, just away from her father and the awful truth she'd learned from him. She squeezed it tightly, feeling just a tiny bit better when he held on just as tightly.
As they ran, horror settled even more heavily in her gut as she fully realized the truth of her situation.
She was a genetic freak because her father had made her one.
She was a test subject.
She was an experiment.
Tears blurred her vision and she nearly ran into a lamp post. Nightwing pulled her out of the way and she let him take the lead, hand still clasped in hers as they kept their fast pace down the gloomy streets of Gotham. Tears leaked down her cheeks and throat, soaking into the hem of her blue hoodie.
Some blocks later, Morgan recognized where he was taking them. Back to the Zeta tube site.
He stopped in front of it and Morgan watched with puffy eyes as he typed in a command and guided her through it. Morgan didn't want to go back to the Cave. She didn't want anyone on the Team to see her like this. But she also didn't want to stay on the dank streets of Gotham for the rest of the night. So she allowed him to push her through the tube, figuring it was her best choice to just go back. Maybe she could sneak into her room before anyone saw her.
Morgan honestly had expected to end up in the Cave, so when she found herself on a foreign street in a foreign city, she stopped in her tracks.
Of course they wouldn't go to the Cave, Nightwing was in civilian clothing. Didn't explain where they were now, though.
Nightwing tugged at her hand and kept walking down the street. When she didn't follow, he paused in his steps.
"Come on." He urged gently and squeezed her hand in reassurance.
Morgan sniffed once and followed after, deciding to trust him.
They arrived at an apartment complex and she watched him dig out a key, letting them into the building.
It was when he paused in front of a door with the name 'Dick Grayson' on it that Morgan realized where they were. They were in Blüdhaven and Nightwing had led her to his apartment.
Gratitude was the most prominent feeling in the boiling pot of emotions that was her body at the moment. He knew she didn't want to return to the Cave and have the others see her like this. He knew she didn't want to go to her mother's place in her current state either. He also knew that she didn't have anywhere but those two places to go, so he'd decided to take her back to his place where she could have her emotional breakdown without an audience.
At that moment, Morgan was extremely happy her mentor was that good at reading people. Usually it could get annoying because it made him impossible to lie to, but right now she was grateful.
He unlocked the door and stepped into his dark apartment, flicking a switch next to the door with practiced ease, not even looking at it, no doubt having repeated that action thousands of times.
Light flickered to life above them, revealing a small and cozy apartment. The kitchen and living room was combined, separated by a counter with three barstools. She could see another door at the end of the square room and assumed it led to his bedroom. The entire place was neat and tidy, exactly like Morgan would've expected Nightwing's apartment to look like.
Morgan paused in the doorway and watched as Nightwing walked towards his kitchen, throwing his keys and sunglasses onto the small counter. She was unsure what she was supposed to do.
As if guessing her train of thought, Dick looked back at her. "Sit." He ordered and pointed one hand at the small island that separated the kitchen and living room.
She dragged herself further into the room and slowly pulled out one of the barstools, climbing onto it. Her mentor shuffled around his little kitchen, producing a steaming mug of cocoa in no time. He set the beverage in front of Morgan silently and she gratefully wrapped her numb fingers around the mug.
She wasn't necessarily cold – the evening had been pretty warm – but after her first bout of fury had faded, she'd descended into a numbing sadness that seemed to almost physically dull her senses. The hot mug felt soothing against her hands. She knew she should've been crying right now, but she'd already spent her tears on their walk to his apartment and had no more to give. Her eyes stung and were undoubtedly red rimmed and puffy, matching her runny nose.
He pulled out his own stool on the other side of the table and sat down too, propping his elbows onto the counter.
There was a long silence, occasionally broken by Morgan taking a small sip from the –admittedly – well-made cocoa. Dick switched between studying her and shifting his eyes around the room in thought as the moment stretched on.
Eventually, Morgan pushed the mug slightly away, finding she didn't really have the appetite for it. She ran both hands through her hair as she lowered her head onto the grey surface of the table, weary to her very core.
Still Nightwing said nothing. It seemed he was waiting for her to speak first.
Morgan sighed.
"I'm such an unbelievably screwed up mess." She mumbled behind her mane of hair.
"No." Her mentor simply disagreed. She hesitantly moved to look up at him. "What was done to you is messed up. You're not." He spoke with such simple conviction, like he believed this to be the obvious and utter truth. It comforted Morgan immensely. If others perceived her as whole, maybe it'd help her to stop feeling so broken.
She mustered up a small, appreciative smile, and because of the dried tears on her face, her cheeks stretched uncomfortably with the movement.
Nightwing stared at the standard clock that hung on his kitchen wall. "It's late." He said. "You should get some sleep."
Morgan felt her heart take a small plunge at his words. She didn't want to go to sleep. She didn't want to return to the Cave right now. She wanted to disappear for a while.
"I don't want to." She protested, cheeks flushing slightly at what she said next. "I- I don't want to go back to the Cave just yet."
Dick looked at her with an unreadable expression. "I know." He admitted.
1 "I'll kill you when this is over!"
2 'Skat' is a danish term of endearment, like sweetie and darling. It's literally translation is 'treasure'.
3 "How is your danish? Have you kept using it?"
Well! More stuff for Morgan to angst about. Yipee.
Soooo, how do you like Morgan's dad so far? Bit of a dick, eh?
You guys have been absolutely AMAZING with reviewing lately! It makes me update even faster because I get so excited over your reactions.
Oh, and you'll want to review this chapter a lot because you really want to read the next chapter, trust me. So, the moment I get a satisfactory amount of reviews, I'll post the next chapter (Which, I will once again stress, you really do want to read)
It's in your lovely hands, my beautiful readers ;)
Fun fact: My cousin's name is Henrik. I'm pretty sure the name actually has french roots, but it's just so danish, so I decided to call the father that.