Nanda Parbat

Even though League policy declared that all members were to completely discard anything and everything both physically and emotionally connecting themselves to their previous lives upon entering the League, it was not absolute and very rarely enforced. Not unless it directly interfered with a member's duties to the Demon. While devotion to the League and its principles was paramount, especially for the Demon's Head and his heir, members were still allowed some small considerations. After all, as much as they would all like to pretend otherwise, they were not drones. Drones hardly made effective assassins.

These 'considerations' took form in the few keepsakes they were allowed to have in their possession. As long as they were left out of sight and unmentioned when they were "working", then a member could keep any number of keepsakes they wanted. For Shado, this meant her father's hood, which even now she occasionally wore in the dead of night, if only to pretend she could still smell his scent. That, and the Hozen, though neither Laurel nor herself were entirely certain why. The dark memories attached to the arrowhead should surely offset the religious symbolism represented. Even now, by silent mutual agreement, they could not bring themselves to speak of Slade and the monster he became in his last days.

Laurel's keepsakes were simpler. Her canary necklace was one, and while she no longer wore it since it was such a distinguishing feature (and a potential hazard in a fight), she still spent nights doing nothing but looking at it, fingering and polishing the gold medallion. The other was the List, the small book Robert had gifted to her in his last moments, and the key to solving his death. To figuring out who had condemned her to all these horrible years of hell.

She had known about the list of names ever since she had finally opened the book near a fire and revealed the invisible link being used. Even now, part of Laurel still smarted over the shock of seeing the likes of so many criminals on this list, from Frank Bertinelli to Cyrus Vanch, mixed in with several prominent businessman and politicians. What had Robert had written it for? What was the connection between all these men and women?

The shock had only grown when they arrived to the League and she had been taught to make the very same invisible ink that had been used to write the List. The ink that allowed the List to only reveal itself when near flames, and no other sources of light. It could be coincidence, but Laurel had stopped believing in coincidences a long time ago. Whenever she had a free moment, Shado (the only person she spoke of regarding these things) and her searched tirelessly through the League's library and other knowledge repositories to figured out if there was a possible connection between Robert and the League.

There wasn't one thus far, as far as she could tell. She had seen the past and current ledgers of the League's many secret benefactors, and Robert had not been one of them. So it was more likely that someone close to him had been his connection to the League. Who that was was uncertain, and did they have anything to do with what happened to the Gambit? Laurel's head was still swimming around, trying to figure it all out.

Even now, the mystery surrounding the death of the man who had chosen her life over his own was haunting her. She needed to know what was going on, to find some way to investigate how Robert, the League and Starling (because Robert had mentioned the city before his death) were connected. But she wasn't going to find the answers in Nanda Parbat, and she couldn't risk trying to find them during a mission. If Ra's found out, who knows what he would do, considering his sheer unpredictability? And the leaving the League was out of the question, especially with Shado here. The cult would hunt them down if they tried to go rogue, and they didn't have the necessary clout to get themselves permission to leave the formal way. One was not released from their vow so easily.

There was nothing Laurel could do. She was stuck. That was the conclusion she came to as she finished packing her necklace and the List with the rest of her things and followed Shado down to the garage. As the realization came to her, another bout of desperation and despair struck her, leaving her despondent. For the first time in almost three years, she would be stepping on the soil of her home country, and yet she had never felt farther away from home until now. More and more, it seemed like the day she would return to Starling would never come.

They traveled from the garage to the League's private airport, and were shuttled into several different plans, each headed for a different layover, where they would each travel on a different airline. A way to shuffle the League so the Batman couldn't locate all their members at once and prevent their arrival. As Laurel was a born American, she had been given an entirely different itinerary of cargo planes, to avoid having to go through the system and possibly being recognized by facial recognition. So she wouldn't be alone, Al-Owal and Shado had been tasked to go with her.

Al-Owal had taken advantage of this to give them their briefings now, at the behest of Ra's. This included some key pieces of information that few were privy to but would be essential to the mission ahead.

"Bruce Wayne is Batman?" Laurel couldn't hide her shock, her eyes widening a touch as her mouth slightly parted open.

While Shado was only vaguely aware of who Bruce Wayne was, Laurel was much more informed. A party animal ever since his return to Gotham in his early twenties, the man had lived a consistently wild life that put even Oliver and Tommy's worst antics to shame. The kind of life that put him on the covers of every major tabloid in the country and made him an integral part of America's worst bits of popular culture.

"He is," Al-Owal confirmed, passing over some dossiers over to them to look over. "The flamboyant fool that the rest of the world knows him to be is just a facade he puts on to prevent others from figuring out that he is the Batman. His adoptive son, Dick Grayson, puts on a similar act; in reality, he is the vigilante Nightwing, formerly known as Robin. He acts primarily as his father's partner, though he is known to occasionally strike out on his own if necessary."

"Your primary concern, however, is the third major member of their team." He took one of Shado's files and opened them to reveal a full dossier of a red-haired woman around their age, sitting in a wheelchair. "Barbara Gordon. She used to be a vigilante like them named Batgirl, but chose to retire to focus on her education. Not long after, she was crippled by one of the criminals that Batman refuses to kill, prompting her to rejoin their operation as Oracle, a powerful information broker who gathers intelligence for them through the use of computers and acts as their mission control of sorts while they are in the field."

"You need us to watch her," Shado surmised.

Their mentor nodded. "Despite her current state, she is a dangerous component of the Detective's operation. We must have eyes on her at all times in order to sabotage any of her efforts to prevent the master's plan from succeeding, and possibly subdue her if necessary. You will visit her during her work at the Gotham City Library as college students from the local university and ingratiate yourselves with her. You will have to dye your hair and wear contacts — we have already created false identies for you and inputed them into the system."

Since they were either missing, legally dead, or both as far as the wider world were concerned. After all, their discovery risked the League's anonymity. Laurel looked down and scanned the documents a little more, and felt a sense of… something that she couldn't quite put a name to. Longing, perhaps? It turned out Barbara Gordon was the daughter of Jim Gordon, the current Police Commissioner of the GCPD and one of Batman's primary allies throughout the city. It made her think of her own father, and the chasm in her heart deepened.

Whenever there was a situation in Gotham that required the Bat's attention, Gordon would call in the vigilante using a spotlight emblazoned with the Bat Symbol on it. The Bat would then swoop in, speak to Gordon, take whatever files or evidence Gordon offered, and then sought to conduct his own investigation. It was an unprecedented and more-than-likely highly illegal partnership between a police officer and a vigilante, and in any other city it wouldn't fly. But Laurel had heard enough about Gotham over the years to know that it was probably only because of this partnership that the city was still functioning at all.

After they were given their assignment by Al-Owal, the man moved to another section of the plane. Probably to speak to the pilot and see how far they were from their layover destination. Whatever the case, it allowed them a brief moment of privacy before his return.

"We'll need to be careful," Shado noted, flipping over to another page of the document. "We're not the first ones to have tried to get close to them in order to get to the Batman. They'll be able to smell a rat a mile away."

"Yeah," Laurel sighed, dropping her chin into her hand.

Her companion glanced at her. "What's wrong?"

Laurel shrugged, and gestured to the file on her lap. "This, I guess. These people — they're fighting crime without killing anyone. It's vigilantism, completely illegal, but…"

She trailed off, but Shado understood. She always did. "I know," her friend said, reaching over to squeeze Laurel's knee in comfort.

It might be illegal. Maybe it was even wrong. Laurel had studied enough pre-law to know the statistics about vigilantism, how it tended not solve problems but make things worse. But what they were doing was also technically vigilantism, if not worse. And they were doing it through killing, something that made them both sick no matter how much the League tried to sell it as necessary.

So if Laurel had it her way, if she had to rid the world of evil through extralegal means, then she'd rather do it Batman's way. With no killing at all, just bruises and broken bones. But that wasn't up to her anymore. She had made a vow, and one way or another, the League was going to make her keep it.

Starling City

It seemed like no time had passed at all when the day of Tommy's birthday came upon them all. Oliver got up bright and early to prepare for the lunch, calling the chef Sara and him had hired to see if he was on his way to the mansion, and supervising the set up of the pavilion where they would be dining at. Sara arrived some time around ten a.m., dressed nicely for the dinner and a little harried — she was covering some of the last minute touches for tonight's party. She allowed Oliver to hand off supervision of the pavilion's construction to her while he went inside to check in on the food and the guests.

There weren't going to be many guests for the lunch. Besides the birthday boy himself, there was just going to be Oliver, his mother, Thea, Sara, and her parents. They were the closest to Tommy, and everyone he wanted present for this part of his birthday, anyway. Oliver said hello to Detective and Mrs. Lance, who had arrived with their daughter and were now conversing with his mother in the living room over tea. Then he headed over to the kitchen where the meal was being prepared to check in on the food. The Queens' usual cook, Raisa, had been given the day off so the chef could have the kitchen to himself. She had still left behind a gift for them to give to Tommy, as fond of the boy as she was of Oliver and Thea.

Once he was certain that the food was fine and on track to being served when Tommy got here, he headed upstairs to see how Thea was doing. Being barely in high school, she had no part of the preparations at all asides from going gift shopping with Oliver and Sara, so unlike them, she had been allowed to sleep in for a bit. Not that she had, in the end — she had spent half the morning doing nothing but getting dolled up for the lunch. It was strange. When he had mentioned this to Sara, she had laughed.

"Speedy!" he called out as he gave a sharp rap against the door. "Are you done dressing up? The lunch is about to start."

There were the sound of footsteps, and then the door opened up to reveal his little sister, dressed up in a cute dress with a light amount of make up on. She had her phone in hand, and a nervous smile on her face. "Hey, Ollie. Sorry about that. Just got a call from Margot about something that's going on at school," she babbled out.

"It's fine, Speedy. I'm glad you're making friends. Now come on — Tommy should be arriving any minute."

Tommy's arrival was greeted by hugs and gifts, which were settled onto a table in the living room to be opened later. Once the greetings were finished, they headed out the backdoor to the pavilion, where a round table was situated in the back, complete with the place settings Ollie had special-ordered for the day. Already the serving staff were preparing their seats and drinks. It was almost perfect — the only thing missing was wine, but out of consideration of the presence of three recovering alcoholics and an underage teenager, it was decided that there weren't be any alcohol served with the meal. Besides, Tommy would be having plenty enough to drink tonight.

The next hour was spent dining on some of the best food Sara had to taste in a while. Being best friends with two billionaires meant that she had tasted some really good stuff over the course of her relatively short life thus far, but recently she hadn't had the chance to go out with them as often as she used to. Now that she was in her final year of undergrad and so close to making it to medical school, she was more determined than ever to make her hard work count. Once she had moved past enough of her guilt over Laurel's death to finally focus on her own life again, Sara had made it her goal to become a doctor in her sister's memory. This was the next big step, one that she couldn't afford to miss.

Sara pushed those thoughts away. It was Tommy's birthday, it needn't be soiled with school work. Something that became much easier when the next course was served: baked chicken and lamb in a rich, tasty sauce. She had to audibly keep herself from moaning in delight. It tasted so good.

The rest of the meal was just as delicious. Ollie and his mother had chosen a good chef for this, and Tommy was clearly pleased with what they had arranged. He looked genuinely happy, his smiles and laughter genuine. Their friend was always the most cheerful out of all of them, but his cheer always had a touch of artificiality to them. Even Tommy couldn't be completely joyful all the time.

Just as the meal was beginning to wind down and they were about to have dessert (a birthday cake, of course), things took a dour turn.

"Moira?"

The entire table fell silent as every eye turned towards the front of the pavilion. Standing there, dressed in a business suit with a surprised look on his face, was Malcolm Merlyn. Tommy's father.

"Dad?" Tommy blinked.

Mr. Merlyn cleared his throat. "Tommy, I forgot it was your birthday. Forgive me for the intrusion, I was hoping to speak with you, Moira. There is some urgent business we need to attend to."

If anything, that caused the table to fall even more silent. Sara's jaw dropped open. What the fuck, what the fuck? Was Mr. Merlyn actually serious? What kind of asshole forgot their own son's birthday? Let alone brush it off so he could go conduct business with one of the guests? Sara didn't even have to look at Tommy to know how he had to be feeling, and felt herself becoming deeply angered on her friend's behalf.

She wasn't the only one feeling hot under the collar. Both of her parents were staring at Mr. Merlyn in disbelief, as was Thea. Mrs. Queen had a deeply unpleased expression on her face, while Ollie had closed himself off, the way always he did whenever he was furious about something. He had always been so protective over his loved ones, and with Tommy he was no different. God, Sara could only imagine how Laurel would've reacted — she probably would've gone off on Mr. Merlyn herself already. Sara was almost tempted to do it in her stead.

Putting on a polite smile that was sharper than any of Sara's lab scalpels, Mrs. Queen responded with a cool voice. "Of course, Malcolm. But I'm sure it can wait until later tonight, right?"

Apparently, it didn't, judging by how Mr. Merlyn was about to protest. But then everyone's expressions seemed to finally register, because he stopped himself and cleared his throat. "Certainly. The Palm, 7 p.m. work for you?"

"Perfect. A nice, friendly dinner." Mrs. Queen put emphasis on the word 'friendly', not that she needed to. Sara knew her well enough to know that she wasn't dating anymore, and even if she was, she had far better taste than Mr. Merlyn, even accounting for Mr. Queen's behavior during their marriage.

Mr. Merlyn gave a single nod of acknowledgement and then he was gone. Good riddance, Sara couldn't help but think.

Once he was out of sight, they all turned their attentions back to Tommy, who was looking down at his plate, mood completely spoiled. Ollie, who was sitting to his right, reached over to squeeze his shoulder. "Come on. We still got birthday cake," he said, a teasing tilt to his voice.

At that, Tommy looked up and gave him a smile. A little wan, but still genuine. Internally, Sara let out a breath of relief. Maybe they could salvage this after all.

"Disaster averted," Sara quietly declared as Ollie and her watched the house staff gather up Tommy's gifts and began setting them on the living room table. The birthday boy in question was currently playing a game of Uno with everyone else (Sara and Ollie having begged off to prepare for the party later tonight) at the behest of Thea. "Or well, salvaged. Whatever, his mood hasn't been completely ruined."

Oliver hummed in agreement, scrolling through his texts. They were from the DJ, reporting that he had arrived at the mansion and had already begun setting up his equipment. "He'll feel better tonight, hopefully."

"Yeah. Hopefully." Sara brushed her hair back and sighed. "Seriously — it takes a really bad parent to forget their own kid's birthday. I know Laurel and I didn't meet you guys until after Mrs. Merlyn's death, but I still find it hard to believe Mr. Merlyn has ever been anything but a complete jerk."

"I know," Oliver agreed with his own sigh, pocketing his phone so he could speak with Sara. "Sometimes it's hard to remember those days. He used to be so different when Aunt Rebecca was alive — always there with a smile or a joke, or with this cool coin trick he used to do when Tommy or I needed cheering up. They used to be so close."

"But then Aunt Rebecca died and he changed. He pulled away from everyone, and completely shut down. Then he went and left for two years and came back so cold and distant that sometimes I wonder if he really came back at all."

Sara frowned. "That's when Tommy moved in with you guys, right? He stayed with you while Mr. Merlyn was gone and moved back with his dad when he came back."

Oliver nodded. "Didn't stop him from staying over with me all the time, though. Mom and Dad always made sure to include him in all our family activities." He looked sad. "Tommy once told me that we've been his real family ever since his mom died. I have no doubt he still that way now, even if some part of him still yearns for his dad's love and approval."

Only for the asshole to forget his fucking birthday, Sara noted, almost scowling at the thought. What a kick in the gut. "Well, hopefully the party tonight at his dad's place will cheer him up. I've called up some of our old friends on the party circuit to attend, and they've definitely spread the word. Even if we're dialing back a lot on the hard alcohol, things should be wild enough to make sure that the mansion will be suitably wrecked by the end. That is sure to piss his dad off."

"The perfect revenge," Oliver mused, before giving her a grin. "I like the sound of that."

A bit exposition heavy, but we'll be getting to the fun stuff next chapter. Not a lot to explain here, since the chapter has plenty enough information on its own.

Next Chapter: Laurel and Shado arrive to Gotham, while Tommy's special day continues.