Chapter One — Origins
1989 ; eight
"For history always favored tragedies and it's a damn shame they liked you too."

When the newly orphaned, tiny four-year-old Arley Gluck had been thrown unceremoniously and headfirst into the Gotham foster system it'd been sink or swim. Her first family had been one of the worst as they had taken to locking her in the hall closet for hours on end as punishment. Sometimes Arley's punishment would— could; had —last for days, as it all really depended on when her foster parents remembered to let her out.

Or at least— when they couldn't remember to do that —the length of her punishments depended on when her foster parents needed something from the closet.

After them, once her caseworker had found out what was going on, there had been a string of several neglectful families. None of them had necessarily been abusive— none of them had hit Arley or the other kids that had been placed with the young girl, Arleys fosters had just simply forgot they were all there until their checks came only for the cycle to them continue —and so by the time she had once more found herself slipping through the cracks of the system, back into homes like her first, Arley had been six.

And by the time she was eight, all knobby knees and blank looks but curiously natured and still at her very core, good, Arley had found herself living in the Hartford household.

By the time her caseworker had brought to the small brownstone there'd already been two foster boys living in the house— they were brothers; Henry who was eleven and Thomas who was five —amongst Emilia and Ryan Hartfords own sixteen-year-old son, Denis.

Denis wasn't like his parents, it hadn't taken Arley long to pick that up. Honestly it hadn't even taken Arley a full week to clock that because while Emila and Ryan Hartford were tall and beautiful— Emilia had honey blonde curls that were almost always done up into a messy sort of bun and Ryan had a chiseled jaw and they both had these kind of infectious laughs that drew you in and made you smile, even if you didn't want to —Denis Hartford just wasn't.

He was lanky and awkward and his face was riddled in pimples and acne scars, his front teeth crisscrossed and had taken on a yellowish tint and though the sixteen-year-old had inherited his parents height he was always hunched over, making himself seemingly smaller.

And unlike his parents, when he would speak to Arley— when he would clumsily tack on at the end of his sentences and call her 'Sweetheart' like Emilia did —the girl would feel her skin crawl. It didn't matter if it wasn't 'Sweetheart' and instead had been 'Cutie', every time the teenage boy would lean over her so that he could talk to her, Arley's gut screamed at her to get out. Her gut would scream at her to run; that danger was nigh.

He also, unlike his parents, watched Arley.

Denis would watch her when she would sit in the living room doing her homework and across the table at dinner while they ate— and Arley pointed would avoid meeting his eyes —and sometimes, at night when his father was locked away in the office and his mother was still in the living room, Denis would keep his bedroom door open and watch as she came out of the bathroom, with her hair still dripping and the towel the Hartfords had lent to her clutched and wrung between her fingers, almost as if that was what he had been waiting for.

In foster care— when you're on your own —there are certain looks you need to watch out for. Hungry, unabashed looks; Arley had heard past foster siblings talk about those looks— about the kind of beady gazes that drilled into your back, the ones that, if you stood still enough, were almost as if they were trying to make you turn around —and about what always happened after them.

The same kind of thing always came after those kinds of looks went ignored. And at eight Arley had been starved, she'd been locked away and beaten, nearly run over once when she'd fled from the home she'd been staying in just to get away from the pan her foster mother had been wielding, and yet she knew there were still worse fates out there.

So three months after she had gotten to the Hartford home, a week after Denis— because she had known it was Denis, there was no one else it could be —had tried to wiggle the locked door of the bathroom while she had been showering, Arley, in the dead of night, unpacked her homework and her books from her backpack and quietly laid them on her bed, careful not to make too much noise.

The walls of the Hartford home were thin, if Emelia and Ryan didn't hear her from the hall and stop her then Denis two rooms down could and though Arley had pushed the small hamper in front of the bedroom door that wouldn't stop Denis. Denis might not have been anything other than a creep but he could still push over an empty wicker basket.

And if none of the Heratford woke up because she had made noise then Arley still had to worry about both Thomas and Henry, who were next door asleep. Like her they were light sleepers and if they heard her moving around a quarter after one in the morning one of them— curious Thomas or concerned Henry —would come to see why and she couldn't let them know she was leaving.

Not because she thought they would try to stop her— they wouldn't stop her anymore than she would try to stop them; not when Henry had taken to walking her to her room at night, and not when Thomas made sure to always sit next to her on the couch, cornering her between himself and the the arm of the couch —but because looking weak was practically a death sentence.

Maybe that was over dramatic but to say so wasn't wrong. Over the years Arley had found that sometimes empty eyes and blank faces were the only thing that could save you. If you looked like nothing in the universe could hurt you because you'd already been through it all then sometimes whoever was toying you— beating on you to the point the world was spinning and you shook just to suck in a breath of air —would pause.

And sometimes they wouldn't stop but they would always— always —pause when they caught that look and thought sometimes that pause was only for a moment, it would be that momentary pause that would save your life and Arley knew, deep in her gut, that the boys— the brothers —couldn't see the frightened look in her eyes that overtook the blank look she'd learned to perfect.

They couldn't see her turning tail and running away.

So once she had stuffed her clothing into the bag and after she had made her way down to the kitchen to tuck some food into her bag— all the time with her breath caught in her throat —Arley crept out into the cold late October Gotham air and onto the dark and desolate streets.

At the curb, outside the small brownstone that was the Hartford residence Arley stilled. Gotham was dangerous, the gangs and the mobs and the dealers all ran the streets while the cops either sat back and watched or gleefully participated. At eight, just as she knew what would happen to her if she stayed in the house standing behind her any longer, Arley knew that if she left— if she ran away —she wouldn't survive.

At least, not long term. She would make it a little while, maybe a few months, maybe even a year but she would never live to reach her mothers age; she would probably never even reach her teens, and yet Arley still stepped off the curb, and continued on down the streets.

Because Arley, by the age of eight, had perfected the perfect poker face and refused to allow the universe to see just how scared and uncertain she really was.

…

When Arley had learned to pickpocket she had been six, a foster brother of hers had known how to, and when a character they had been watching on television had done it wrong Roger had pointed it out so loudly and so forcefully— 'That's not how you fucking do it!' —Arley hadn't been able to stop herself from asking what was the right way.

She hadn't thought about ever using that skill until two weeks after she had left the Hardford residence, when the box of crackers, the trail mix and three cans of ravioli she had smuggled into her bag were all gone; when her stomach had begun clenching in pain Arley knew she didn't have much of a choice.

So when she stole the wallet of a business woman— a dark haired woman with heels that clicked against the Gotham concrete —and the money clip belonging to a broad shouldered, dark haired young man not much older than her, Arley only felt sort of bad as she pocketed the small handful of bills and left the rest of it— the silver clip, the expensive looking wallet and the rest of its contents —in some disgusting park bathrooms garbage.

Because she knew she wouldn't make it out on the streets for long. She could feel it in her bones, every night she wedged herself between the alleyway wall she had started staying in and the dumpster she used as cover to hide herself from both the weather and danger.

But just because she knew she would die sooner rather than later didn't mean she was just going to rollover and die; she was a girl who had perfected the ropeadope before she had learned to ride a bike, she wasn't going down without some sort of a fight.

…

Arley might have been Jewish— or at least, Arley's social services file said she might have been Jewish; her mother wasn't religious and her father had come to Gotham at fourteen from Israel —but when the local Catholic church had a coat drive for the city's homeless population Arley made the sign of the cross at the door before she got in line to pick up a coat from the graying priest that waited at the alters steps.

One by one as the line moved down and the priest and his altar boys handed out coats, and the line moved up, Arley couldn't help but look out at the cloudy smogy covered skies through the clear parts of the church's stained glass windows.

She'd been on the streets for a month at that point and the people reading the paper on the train early that morning had said something about snow. Arley supposed the weather man was right, it had been getting colder for the past week and half and the blanket she had stolen— because at that point it wasn't like she would ever give the blanket back —from the Hartfords had been doing next to nothing to project her from the cold weather at night.

If she'd had a winter jacket of her own when she had left she would have taken it but a month ago it hadn't yet been cold enough for Emilia to pick any of the children under her roof up the winter coats she had been promising to get them.

Slowly as Arley made her way up to the priest, her face blank and her fingers curled tightly into a ball, Arley prepared herself to run. He could try to make her go back to the Hartfords or some other family in the system but he wouldn't succeed.

Arley was tired, tired of being knocked around; people got jumped on the streets all time time but in her month on them no one had hit Arley, and for the life of her, she couldn't remember what that was like. The streets were dangerous and Arley was going to die on them but for the moment she was safe and she had been more free over the past few weeks than ever before and though she was cold, Arley would have rather frozen that night then back in the Hartfords residence, waiting.

"You look a little young to be here by yourself," the Father said as Arley moved to stand in front of him. "Is your mother here with you?"

"She's sick," Arley said, not technically lying through her teeth. Her mother was in the hospital; she'd been attacked years ago by some gang that'd left her comatose after nearly beating her to death. Arley couldn't even remember what her voice sounded like anymore, what her smile looked like. "There ain't any heat in the apartment."

The priest didn't look like he bought her story, his brown eyes traced over her cheekbones— she'd been skinny before the streets, she hadn't had a real chance to bulk up at the Hardfords before she had ran, and with the last thing she'd eaten being a fifty-cent honey bun the day before, her skin looked pale and waxy and sunken in —before he eyed her dirt covered clothes.

Arley looked like every other homeless person in the room, she didn't look like the kind of kid that had any kind of room to go back to; yet, with a sigh, the priest turned his back and riffled through a large cardboard box before handing Arley one jacket.

The dark colored bubble jacket was clearly second hand, it was worn and some of the thread by the left wrist was loose and the black paint that had been on the zipper had been rubbed away from a year or two so of use use leaving it silver; the jacket was also was obviously— at least —two sizes to big for her but nonetheless, with a thankful smile, Arley took the jacket from the priest and slipped it on over her shoulders.

It seemed to swallow her whole as she zipped it up; Arley buried her nose in the neck of the jacket and before she could turn to leave the priest put his withered hand on her shoulder

For a minute Arley saw white. Her heart beat loudly in her throat as her eyes seemed to look both widely around her— at the exists, to see if there was anyone else coming up on her sides to grab her and ship her back to the system —and solely at the priest in front of her.

"Here," the Father said, in his other hand held a card, "Take this."

Arley did; Detective Jim Gordan, it read in blue, underneath in smaller letters was a phone number. Her eyes knitted together as she looked questioningly back up at the priest.

"In case that mother of yours—" he said knowingly, "—Ever needs help. Jimmy's a good man, tell him Father Fitz gave you the card."

"Thanks," Arley said, she folded the card in half before stuffing it in her jacket pocket; the moment the priest let go of her Arley practically ran from him. He wouldn't have hurt her, he was a priest in a room full of people and he hadn't called anyone when she had stepped up— he had given her the jacket —but still, Arley didn't stop running until she had passed one of the Gotham Public Libraries four blocks away.

Panting, clouds of breath puffed out from the young girl as she pushed her back against the wall and bent over— her palms against her knees —as she tried to catch her breath.

Slowly, as she rolled back up, swallowing down anymore out of breath pants, Arley looked straight ahead as she forced her eyes to harden. If she could give someone pause, even for a moment, then she might be okay.

Her hands slipped into her pockets; her fingers curled around the card Father Fitz had given her. A cop would throw her back into the system; if not he'd find out about the wallet and money clip she'd stolen the month before and send her to jail.

And if he didn't do either of those two options then he was dirty and there was no telling what he would do to a young street girl like herself; Arley had heard stories of girls being picked up by cops— but not arrested and charged and booked —and sold to the gangs. Some of those girls had gotten free and made it back to the system, some of them had been Arleys foster siblings. Others Arley had spoken to over the past month in passing, outside bodegas and in the park whenever they tried to tell her about how their man took care of them and wouldn't mind taking care of her too despite being so young.

But that was why she'd run. She wouldn't be like them; they never took offense when she said that. So no matter what he was, dirty or not, Arley knew she couldn't call the cop.

Pushing down any worry— any guilt, any fear that riddled her body —Arley started off, back towards the alleyway she had started to call home. She needed a game plan on how to get more money, on how to stay safe.

She might not live long on the streets but she was going to survive as long as she could, there wasn't any other option.

…

Stealing was dangerous as it was, stealing some kids homework so that she knew more than the average third-grade drop out was dangerous and stupid but Arley liked learning, she loved reading and maybe she didn't care for math or science but with that being the only thing undone in the backpack she had snatched from the local mall, Arley was thrilled.

12 x 12 = ?

With a frown Arley thought One-hundred-forty-four.

Arley flipped to the back of the paper and looked at the times tables she had written down; everything from one to fourteen. Skimming it with her dirty pointer finger Arley quickly found out that she was right and beamed down at the piece of paper.

Maybe she would never see the inside of Gotham's public middle school and learn everything a normal kid did, but at least she would know basic math and— looking around at the homeless people that littered the train station; some were passed out and the ones who weren't panhandling laughed loudly to themselves or between one another —that was more than what some people got to know.

…

Arley wasn't blind and she wasn't inept, she knew the dirty hostile looks parents threw at her in the park were telling to get farther away. With her dark hair clumped together and her clothing stained and practically ruined, Arley truly looked as homeless as she was and parents didn't like homeless people— adults or children —around their own kids.

Ever since the snow from the flurry had melted and Gotham had been lucky not to be hot with the storm that had passed over the rest of the state— and New York —it was as if kids knew their time outside was limited and had taken to spending their every waking moment outside, dragging their parents— and their parents money —outside with them.

Hanging from the chain link fence that went around the park, Arley watched as children younger than her ran around on the jungle gym and mothers in the corner of the park pushed their small toddlers— all of whom looked like colorful marshmallows in their winter jackets —on the swings.

There'd been foster siblings who'd been tasked with watching her and the other younger kids, sometimes they would take her and the others out to a park— because Lord help any of them if something in the house broke —but no one ever pushed Arley like the mothers were pushing their kids.

No one had laughed with Arley— made her laugh —the way those mothers were making their kids laugh.

Or maybe someone had. Maybe once upon a time her mother had made her laugh.

Back in foster care her social worker would take her to visit her mother— very rarely —sometimes a foster sibling or parent would take her, but ever since she had hit the street Arley hadn't been to see her mother.

She couldn't have; not when she had just left and that would be the first place police and social services looked for her and not now when she looked more garbage monster than human, a nurse would surely call the police on her.

Arley's heart clenched, she wanted to see her mother, she wanted to hold the woman's hand up to her face just to feel her warmth. She wanted to see if the nurse who watched her mother still painted her nails bright yellow or if the young woman had switched to a different color.

Arley Gluck wanted her mother; she was eight and alone.

All alone, but safe, at least for the time being.

Swallowing those feelings Arley pushed herself off the fence and started out of the park, she couldn't miss her mother— couldn't make herself weak and a target —not if she was going to survive for as long as she could.

…

Arley had never made things easier in her life— at least, if not especially, for herself —and she knew it.

When she used to go, teachers used to say she was too smart for her own good; the way they'd say it though always implied she was anything but smart.

Past foster siblings used to say straight out she was 'Dumbass' whenever she had broken a plate so that a past foster father would stop going after someone else and turn his attentions onto her—because she knew she could take a beating, not like the kid they'd just been wailing on —or whenever she would rudely butt-in when a past foster mother would be screaming at one of the younger kids, or so on.

Arley knew on some level that they were all right, that while she might be smart but she was also an idiot.

They had to be, because Arley knew that while she could be considered smart— she knew her multiplication tables and she even knew a little bit of algebra —she couldn't actually be considered anything but a dumbass, not when it was snowing and she didn't know how to start a fire.

Algebra and knowing history facts weren't going to save her. Despite knowing how to write a haiku, Arley knew that only an idiot would forget to check how much fluid the only lighter they owned had left, especially before all the bodega's shut down on the night of what was supposed to be a snow storm.

Leaving Arley— the idiot —to find herself underneath the large industrial garbage she usually slept behind because the concrete under the garbage— though smelly and stained with leakage from the dumpster—would be dry.

…

The harbor was smelly and at night it was gated off so that no one would fall in and drown but it was the only place in Gotham you could see the stars, even a little bit.

Arley's breath came out in cloudy puffs as she looked between her book on constellations and the night sky. She'd stolen the book from the library; she'd return it through one of the drop off boxes after she was done but until then she would read about Orion and Artemis and all about Callisto and Arcas.

She might not have been able to go to school anymore but that didn't mean she couldn't learn

…

It was still the early half of December when Arley snuck into an old Gotham movie theater. Though graffiti littered the outside of the building— and the famous Waynes had been slain years ago only two blocks away; that's all the theater was known for nowadays, 'The last place the Waynes were' —the theater still ran somewhat early showings.

They weren't good movies— Some Girls, Catch Me If You Can, When The Whales Came —but they were something to watch while she got out of the cold until an usher chased her out and back into it and though the movie was bad— and a re-release, not even something new —Arley kind of hoped she got to see the end of Pumpkinhead.

She had at some point gotten invested in the badly made movie.

…

Arley was a street rat, she a stupid street rat who wouldn't live to see double digits; it was why adrenaline was pumping through her veins.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, Arley thought as she ran.

A cop had chased her away from her ally two nights ago, apparently there'd been complaints and while she didn't have to go home she couldn't stay there anymore so Arley had found herself relocated in an old abandoned warehouse that she was ready to call her own.

At least until two men in leather jackets had brought a third one in; the third man was smaller. He had his arms tied behind his back and his nose was bloody and broken and he was sobbing. Begging really.

"I have a wife, a baby girl!" He pleaded as the men pushed him to the ground and onto his knees. One of them was blonde, the other was bald and they both looked like the kind of men Arley would cross the street if she saw.

They looked dangerous.

"Please!" The third man sobbed once more, his accent thick. Arley knew well enough that it was Russian, or at least something like that, "Please you don't have to do this, I-I will give whatever you want. Please do not take me away from my family! Please don't take me away from my little girl, my Annabelle! Please!"

The man tried to get back up, back to his feet so that he could make the armed men look him in the eyes, and Arley, the moron she was— past foster siblings were right, she was a dumbass —would say she didn't think but she did.

Because as she saw the man being forced back to the ground all she saw was her father, a young Jewish kid semi-fresh off the boat he had smuggled himself on, all on his own in Gotham— a new father; in the one picture she had of her father he was seventeen and holding her and he looked so happy his face had probably hurt from smiling that much —being gunned down and all she thought about was how his kid would be her one day.

How it would be. How she had once been someone else and this man's daughter Annabelle would be her and how someone had to do something, and how that someone was her.

When Arley would say she didn't think, she would mean she didn't think about throwing the already broken bottle at the back the head of one of the men in leather— the bald one —because she had been thinking how she was as good as dead anyway and how that new born baby girl— Annabelle, the man on his knees had sobbed out that name —wouldn't be her.

The man the bottle had hit dropped. His gun clattered to the floor and Arley, standing half behind a large crate made eye contact with the blonde man; his flinty gray eyes ignited and Arley darted out from behind the crate as he took his first shot.

She was okay with dying, but that didn't mean she would stand there and let him shoot her. Arley had never made life easier on herself and she wasn't about to make it easy for the man about to kill her either.

The man who'd been forced to his knees fell back as Arley rushed out of the warehouse; the armed blonde man on her tail.

"Come back here!" He shouted, his voice held his own accent; it sounded like the same kind of accent man he had tried to kill had. The man he had meant to kill.

Arley had grown up hearing gunfire— everyone in East Gotham had —but it had never echoed through her ears in the way it did as bullets hit the bricks around her. Arley cut through one alley, adrenaline, flew through her veins as the sky started to rumble.

The man raced after her as she cut down another.

Arley ducked instinctively as another shot rang out; drop by droplet and then all at once rain started to pour down. A third shot was fired and Arley yelped loudly at a spark flashed over her head; it had hit the building next to her, just a few feet above her head.

Arley dove around the corner into the adjoining alleyway— the dead end —without looking only to feel her heart drop when she was greeted with a tall, unclimbable stone wall and no way out. She heard the man turn the corner she had thrown herself around and with the kind of dead eyed look on her face, Arley spun to meet the barrel of the man's gun.

She was going to die. Nothing good ever happened in Gotham Alleyways, everyone knew that.

Arley could feel the worn and crumpled card Father Fitz had given her a month and a half ago and gripped it tightly in her hand as the man stepped forward and forward until he was right in front of her.

Arley didn't need help, nothing but her own stupidity could help her at that point; so, Arley lunged. Just as she would for the remote if he were being held over her head, Arley's hands wrapped around the barrel of the gun and yanked it downwards, only for the man to jerk up and send Arley flying back.

Her back hit the wall of the dead end— the wind rushed out of her and Arley thought of her mother; she wondered if, when she was dead, would her mother notice how no one visited her anymore —and the blonde man stumbled back.

Lighting flashed overhead— through the adrenaline it almost looked green —and as the man lined up his gun, Arley, with her hands thrown out in front of herself, shut her eyes tightly. Just because she knew what would come next didn't mean she had to see it.

Arley had known the minute she chose the streets over the Heartfords that it would end up like that; that she would be just another body to bury in Plotters Field.

She hoped that she had at least saved that man.

Arley didn't pay much attention to the fact that something had slipped over her finger. She was more focused on the sound of her heart beating in her ears as she waited, with a baited breath to be killed.

The man fired but no pain exploded through her; instead— as her eyes opened and Arley was greeted with almost blinding green light —a voice echoed throughout her head. The man with the gun watched on with an open mouth and Arley looked at the bright and glowing green ring that had slipped onto her finger with knitted brows and a look of both confusion and wonder.

Arley Gluck of sector two-eight-one-four you have the ability to overcome great fear, welcome to the Green Lantern Corps, we await you on Oa.

And then in a flash of green— bubbled up in a ball of green light —Arley was gone, taken far-far away from Gotham City, the only place she'd ever known, and all the way to the center of the universe where a man in a mask and a council of blue aliens awaited the arrival of someone else.

Someone who wasn't her; who wasn't an eight year old street kid but rather a fully grown adult who could handle a whole space sector on their own.

Someone Arley would have to fight to be— would make them realize she could be; who she already was —because like her old foster siblings always said, she was always too big a dumbass to realize when she was in over her head and had bitten off more than she could chew.

But then again, being too big a dumbass to realize when she was in over her head and had bitten off more than she could chew was what made Arley Gluck the perfect person to be Hal Jordan's replacement and a Green Lantern.

A/N: Hey Guys! I hoped you liked the first chapter! So I know the category is crossover with the Justice League comic's but I couldn't find a category for the Justice League the animated universe (Timmverse) (Not Unlimited with is season 2 but season 1) but the story is being split into a couple of different parts anyway so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . The first part being Arley's childhood, her meeting heroes and others, basically becoming the young adult she grows up to be. The second part where the JLAS starts.

Anyway let me know what you thought!