Thank you all for being patient with me. As I said last chapter, I'm rebuilding my backlog, and while I'm doing that, chapters will be slower to come out. That, combined with a minimum of time and a maximum of writer's block, meant that this chapter took over a month to write, re-write, edit, and publish. The writer's block in particular was vicious for the first half of October. I had this chapter outlined from start to finish, but the words still refused to flow. I wrestled it into submission over the last two weeks, though, and it has turned into the second longest chapter of this story to date.

Thanks also to all of you who left reviews. Your support means a lot and helps keep me writing even when it isn't fun. I appreciate you.

Finally, and for the umpteenth time, I urge everyone who can afford it to donate what they can to help the people of Ukraine. I know other events around the world have overshadowed Russia's invasion in the media, but it's important not to forget that just because we don't hear about it doesn't mean the war isn't still ongoing.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Chapter 14

Harry had known Dick was a sneaky little bastard from the first day he'd met him, but as he watched him at work now, he realized he'd badly underestimated just how devious the younger boy could be. Within ten minutes of Bruce leaving, he'd already sweet-talked Alfred into making them fresh pancakes, giving Harry a chance to fetch what he needed from the Tower. By the time he got back, Dick had patched himself directly into the feed from the cave security cameras, thus bypassing the locked Batcomputer, and subtly adjusted a few of the angles to create a blind spot they could talk in. A quick monitoring charm and a muffliato in case Alfred wandered back down gave them the perfect covert workspace, all in the middle of perhaps the most heavily secured and monitored place on the planet.

"Did you get it?" Dick whispered.

"Yeah, and you don't have to whisper. I've got a spell up. No one can overhear us. Now shove over. Give us some room."

He pulled the cloth-wrapped package out from under his jacket and pulled off the coverings.

"What did you call this thing again?" Dick asked as he set it down.

"A Pensieve. We can use it to review memories. It's a good thing Sirius has one. They're really rare. I only ever heard of one back home."

The Pensieve Sirius had wasn't as ostentatious as the one Dumbledore had kept in his office, but no less powerful according to his godfather. It looked like a shallow stone bowl with delicate silver inlay around the rim. A silvery liquid sloshed around the bottom. Despite the jostling of getting it into the cave, not a drop had spilled. If he strained his senses to their maximum, Harry thought he could hear a faint whispering from the bowl, like an echo of an echo far away. He didn't know what memories Sirius had stored in the artifact over the decades, but they must have been powerful indeed to leave such a lingering mark.

"So, how does this work?" Dick asked as he ran a finger over the polished stone bowl. "Do we drink it?"

Harry gave him a tolerant look. "This is magic. That would make too much sense. Just watch."

He raised his wand to his temple and focused on the memories he wanted to bring out. Then, just like Sirius had taught him, he sent a tendril of magic from the tip of his wand into his head. He pictured it latching onto the memories he'd brought forward. When he felt a strong connection, he dragged his wand away from his temple. A thin filament of silvery light came with it. The sensation of the memory leaving his head was quite unlike anything he'd ever felt; an odd mixture of pulling a splinter and releasing a belch. The memory itself didn't vanish, but it faded and flattened into generality. It was the difference between seeing Shakespeare performed live on stage and merely reading it to himself from a script. All the information was still there, but much of the life had gone.

Dick stared at him, eyes wide, as he cast the memory into the Pensieve. The liquid within swirled, and he could see images flickering within.

"That… was really gross," Dick said. "Cool, but gross. Grool? No, that sucks. What was that?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "My memories of Artemis from the boat. If we're going to figure out what Bruce is hiding, I figured that's as good a place to start as any. Follow my lead."

As he had before, he leaned closer and closer to the liquid in the bowl, until his face broke the surface. The moment it did, he felt a lurch and gravity changed directions. His body toppled forward into the bowl, only it wasn't a bowl anymore. It was a blank void. He fell through gray mists for a timeless moment, before his feet hit the solid ground. The mist rolled back, and he was once more in the filthy room he'd woken up in on Joker's ship. He shivered at the sight, but the slightly unreal cast everything had in a memory helped. A moment later, Dick fell out of nowhere and landed next to him with a yelp.

"What the- where are we?"

"In my memory from earlier. Look." Harry pointed at where his memory self was just now picking himself up from the floor. He winced at how unsteady he looked. Living it had been one thing, but seeing himself stagger about like a hobbled drunk really drove in how impaired he'd been. No wonder Sirius was upset at him for casting in this condition. It was a miracle he hadn't turned himself inside out.

A moment later, the door to the room slammed open, and Artemis stepped in. Then, to his mortification, Dick got a close-up view of his aborted attempt to tackle her. He doubled over laughing with his hands clutched to his stomach as Harry's memory-self slid a good foot across the deck on his face.

"Don't laugh, you arse. That hurt."

Dick wiped a tear from his eyes. "I'm sorry, but that was the funniest thing I've ever seen. You were like the opposite of a ballerina. Just 'whoa!' and crash and-"

He tried to mime Harry's pratfall, but dissolved back into a fit of laughter halfway through. Harry took a half-hearted swipe at him, but he cartwheeled out of the way, chortling all the while. He thought about throwing a jinx at him, but he wasn't sure if that would even work inside a memory. Besides, the bouncy little goblin would just dodge it, anyway.

Harry gathered the tattered scraps of his dignity like a security blanket. "When you've quite recovered yourself, remember we're here for a reason. Or do you want to sit in the cave and play checkers until Bruce feels like sharing with the class?"

With a visible effort, Dick pulled himself back under control, though nothing could suppress his smirk. Harry chose not to comment on it, though, and led the way out of the room to follow his memory-self and Artemis.

There wasn't much to learn at first. From her accent, Dick pegged her as a native of the Crime Alley area, but since they already had an address for her, it wasn't very helpful. A closer look at her features, what they could see of them under her mask, suggested mixed Asian and European ancestry, which was marginally more useful. Her gear was an obviously hand assembled mix of off-the-shelf sports gear and custom equipment. Nothing that would help them figure out who she was, let alone why Batman had tried to kick them off the case.

It wasn't until they reached the fight on the main deck that they finally spotted something useful. Harry hadn't had much of an opportunity to admire Artemis' fighting skills before, what with the dozen crazed thugs trying to rip his spine out through his arse. From those few glimpses he'd gotten, he'd noticed she was much more skilled than he was, but it was only now, with an uninterrupted view of her work, that he realized he'd badly underestimated her. She wasn't just good. She was brilliant. Efficient. Agile. Where he looked little better than a pub brawler, she looked graceful and deadly. Not as good as Batman or Robin, but better than anyone else he'd seen. He understood why it had taken an entire group of Joker's goons mobbing her at once to finally take her down.

Her style also looked familiar. Not all of it, but every few moves he had a sense he'd seen elements of her technique before. It wasn't until he watched her somehow parry a stab and twist her attacker into a lock throw, all with one hand, that it finally clicked.

"That was your move," he said to Dick. "That throw. You used that on me last week. And that sweep. How does she know the same moves you do?" A crazy, impossible thought occurred to him. "Is she- do you think Bruce trained her? Does he have other students?"

Dick, who had been watching the fight just as intently as he had, jerked his head in a sharp negative. There was no trace of humor on his face anymore. "No. She didn't learn that from Bruce."

Harry cocked his head. There was something off about his tone. Normally, Dick never would have missed an opportunity to tease him about losing a spar. "How can you know for sure? I mean, it's not like he doesn't have secrets. Maybe he-"

"I know because I didn't learn those moves from Bruce," Dick snapped. His eyes were narrowed, his fists clenched tight enough to creak, and his voice had slipped into the crisp tones Robin used when giving orders in a crisis. Harry had to fight not to take a step back. He was the better part of 2 feet taller than the boy, but Robin had more than a hint of his mentor's intimidating presence.

"So… where did you guys learn that stuff if it wasn't from Bruce?" He asked, eager to move the conversation on.

Dick hesitated for a long moment before answering. "I learned them from the Sensei of the League of Shadows."

He said it so matter-of-factly, it took a solid five seconds for the words to actually register. When they did, Harry's draw dropped. "The League of Shadows? You've got to be joking!"

He's heard of the Shadows, of course. Bruce had given him a general brief on their goals, their methods, and their more prominent members as part of his education on global threats. Even a cursory study had taken three whole days, but it had boiled down to a handful of salient points. Namely, they were a bunch of fanatical, well-trained, insanely dangerous killers who followed their even more dangerous leader with a near-religious zealotry. And apparently, Dick had taken lessons from the man who trained them.

Dick glanced at him, and then back at Artemis. His posture grew tenser, if that was possible. "It was in my first year as Robin. Right after Two-Face… you know. Got me. Bruce tried to fire me and I kinda flipped out. Ran off. Thought I could do this-" he waved a hand over his Robin armor "- on my own. Ha, I even did okay for a bit. Stopped one of Freeze's plans. But then I met a guy named Shrike."

His jaw clenched so tight Harry was worried he'd break his teeth. He'd never seen Dick so pissed. Around them, the memory-fight continued, but even that awful racket couldn't distract him from Dick's story.

"Shrike sold me a line about 'making a real difference' and 'using my gifts for a higher purpose' and all the usual crap. And I bought it hook, line, and fucking sinker." He sneered at something Harry couldn't see. Perhaps his own past self. "Me and a dozen other kids all joined up with him. And at first, it was okay, y'know. He taught us some cool tricks, we beat up some bad guys, and he told us how great we all were. It was almost like being Robin again."

A cloud of old memory darkened his face. "Until it wasn't."

Harry winced. It didn't take a genius to figure out what came next. "He was a Shadow?"

Dick scoffed and crossed his arms. "Yeah. A recruiter, I guess you could say. Anyway, he noticed I had skills. Said I had a lot of potential and explained what the League was. Or, at least, what they see themselves as. He made it seem so heroic. Then, he offered me a spot training directly under O-Sensei. The second-in-command of the Great One himself."

Harry's eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "And you said yes?"

"Duh. It wasn't the sort of offer you refuse and walk away." Then Dick smirked; a devious, terrible expression that heralded nothing but chaos. "I wasn't as dumb as he thought I was, though. Before we left, I left a message for Bruce and swallowed a tracker I built from a cell phone. It didn't, uh- last all the way to Infinity Island, but I guess it gave him enough of a lead. I didn't have any other options, so I played the good student and new recruit. Batman showed up two weeks later, and I helped him break into the compound. It was the first time he and Ra's al Ghul ever met."

Harry blew out a long breath and tried to process what he'd just heard. Behind him, the Joker cracked his memory-self across the head and pinned him to the deck. Across the ship, Harley continued her brawl with Artemis, screaming invectives all the while. His focus was on Dick, though, who had lapsed into silence and was gazing into the middle distance.

"So… Artemis is a part of the League of Shadows?" He prompted.

Dick twitched and came back to himself. "I- maybe? I don't know. She definitely has Shadow training, though. You can't get that without a connection to them. She could be a plant, or she could be here on a job. And if the Shadows are back in Gotham, and especially if they're getting involved with us, I want to know why." He pounded one of his fists into his palm. "Screw whatever Bruce thinks. Get me out of here. I've got an idea."

Harry gripped his upper arm and willed them out of the memory. Everything faded back into mist and he felt a sensation of rising rapidly. Then they were both back in the cave, pulling their faces away from the Pensieve. Harry took a moment to shake off the vertigo, but Dick marched right for the Batcomputer.

"I thought Bruce locked you out?"

Dick snorted as he slipped around the back of the massive machine. "He shut down the console and the monitor and locked down the system. But I helped him design the current system architecture, and I helped install the last dozen hardware updates. I'm done playing around."

Harry heard a metallic clunk, various whirs, a few curses, and a disturbing amount of banging drift out from behind the computer. He was curious, but he was also smart enough not to ask questions. When it came to computers, Dick had long ago given up explaining things to him. He could use them, but the mysteries of how they worked were a bunch of tightly closed boxes as far as he was concerned. So he waited patiently, or rather with the sort of helpless impatience that does a decent stand-in, and a few minutes later Dick emerged with two fistfuls of wires and a determined expression.

"I can't bypass the console lockout," he said, and began plugging and splicing and generally connecting various wires to each other or to his wrist computer. "Not without Bruce's key. But I think I can bypass the console itself and use my wrist computer for input and output. If I can do that, I should be able to get around the system security and log in."

"… sure. I completely understood all of that."

Dick gave him a long-suffering look. "Just- give me a sec. I'm doing a thing. It's clever. You should respect the thing. That's all you need to know."

Harry sighed, but sat down and tried to find a few more scraps of patience. If he was being honest with himself, it felt good to be off his feet. Whatever Sirius and Alfred had given him had cleared out the effects of Harley's drugs along with the worst of the backlash from using so much magic while impaired, but he was a long way from 100%. Now that he had a moment to just breathe, he could feel the accumulated aches and exhaustion of the last 24 hours weighing him down. His body throbbed with the dull, heavy pain of blunt force trauma. Every time he moved his face, it felt stiff and raw. There was a persistent ringing in his left ear. Above all, he just felt tired. Drained. The little bit of magic he'd done so far had already taken more out of him than an entire sparring session with Sirius usually did. The cot in the corner of the cave sang its siren song to his sore body, but his curiosity over the mystery that was Artemis sang louder.

Still, the initial burst of adrenaline that had gotten him on his feet in the first place was wearing off now that he was still. Sleep was a sly intruder and could take even the most guarded from behind. His eyes drooped lower with each passing second. His thoughts drifted, and without even noticing, he slipped into a doze.

"Hahahahahaha! Hahahahahahaha heeheehee! Woohahahahaaaa!

Madcap laughter echoed in the darkness. Rough hands jostled him and pulled at his clothes. There were chains on his wrists. Icy chains. His hands ached from the cold and the chafing.m. His face ached from where Harley Quin had been punching it. His throat ached from screaming.

A smile loomed out of the dark, an impossibly wide gash of yellow teeth ringed with cracked ruby red lips. Twin green eyes, bright as suns and twice as big, shone above the grin. Another smile, smaller, but just as menacing, and with blue eyes rather than poisonous green, peered through the gloom next to the first.

"Ooh, I wanna see him tap dance again. Can I, pudding?"

"Of course, my dear. Anything for you." The larger smile leaned in closer, and the rest of Joker's face came into view. His fetid breath washed over Harry as he spoke. "I'm afraid dear Arnold is the real expert at this sort of thing, but you know what they say. Practice makes perfect!"

Sparks. Pain. Screaming. Laughter. Always the laughter. Even when the sparks died and the pain relented, the laughter remained.

"Harley, dear, I've just had a wonderful idea. A little game we can play with our guest."

"Really? Sounds fun!" The blue eyes stared adoringly at the Joker.

"It warms my heart to hear you say that." The loving words sounded like a curse in that cold, grating tone. "Let's have a competition. You against the understudy. Who's the better dancer, do you think?"

"Me, me, me!" Harley bounced up and down in her excitement. "He's too gangly and beat up and drugged." She leaned in close to whisper in his ear. "Sorry, honey, but I have to tell it like it is."

Harry tried to retort, but his words came out as a mess of groans and drool.

"Hoho, I'm liking the confidence, kiddo," Joker chortled. "Here's the rules. Our brave interloper here-" he poked Harry hard in the ribs "-will cut a jig to my tune. Then you'll have to match his moves, but better. What do you think, my dear?"

"I think mama's about to get herself a prize!" Harley squealed.

"For my first trick, let's have a basic pirouette!" The Joker cackled with glee and jabbed him with the cattle prod again, in such a way as his flailing twisted him in a sort of circle. Harley blew a raspberry and turned a perfect pirouette.

"Dosado!"

Pain.

"Jeté!"

Pain!

"Suzie Q!"

"Arabesque!"

"Moonwalk!"

PAINPAINPAIN! He lost track of the times between the shocks. As the electricity coursed through him, contorting his body in sick mockeries of dance, he felt himself languish in agonizing milliseconds. The pauses were mere blips in a languorous river of suffering.

"Harry?"

He groaned, and the flame in his mind threatened to gutter out, but he held strong. The pain fell into that little imaginary spark and kindled it back to life. As it did, he felt a modicum of focus return. His vision cleared enough to see Joker and Harley dancing a waltz around his cell.

"Harry?"

The Joker met his eyes over Harley's shoulder and winked. It was a friendly wink, conspiratorial, even joking, but, as with everything the clown said and did, it felt wrong. Beneath the amusing facade, there was nothing but emptiness and evil. He couldn't help but tremble. These little breaks from the shocks and the beatings were their own form of torture, because he knew what would come at the end of them.

"Harry!" A gloved hand shook his shoulder, and the world shattered. His eyes snapped open, and he shot to his feet with a startled gasp. In front of him, Robin hopped back sharply, and just missed taking a flailing elbow to the face.

"Whoa, hold your fire!" He said, hands raised in mock surrender. "Innocent kid here."

Harry stared at him, panting. A laugh fought its way past his nausea and pounding heartbeat. A kid Dick may have been, but innocent? There may have been devious 13-year-olds in the world, but he wasn't about to put money on it.

Dick's devilish grin faded after a second, and he took a cautious step forward. His voice was low and concerned, and his eyes, for once, were totally devoid of amusement.

"Bad dream?" It was a short question, but those two words carried the weight of years of nights like this one. Years of nightmares, both before and behind his eyes. Harry usually had to remind himself that, despite his age, Dick had been doing this longer than some Leaguers. Not now, though. Now, the experience showed as clear as day.

"I'm fine," he answered without even thinking. He wasn't sure if it was the truth, a lie, or something in between, but that was a tangle he didn't have the strength to pull at. Not yet. For now, figuring out the mystery behind Artemis was diversion enough. Dick must have read something of his thoughts on his face, because he didn't push for more. Instead, his grin reappeared like the sun poking through rain clouds.

"Sure, sure. Asshole move, though," Dick teased. "Napping while I do all the work? Who's going to think I'm smart if I don't have an audience to watch and give me validation?"

Harry gave him the flattest, most unimpressed stare he could manage. "I don't understand what you're doing anyway, so how am I supposed to know if it's impressive or not? For all I know, you just made a giant mess out of spite, and this was actually easy."

Dick pouted. He was disturbingly good at it. Everything, from the slump of his shoulders to the slight wobble in his bottom lip, painted a flawless picture of offended innocence. He might almost have believed it, save that he'd seen Dick use the exact same expression to wheedle his way out of trouble at school no fewer than eight times. So instead, he aimed a kick at his shins.

"Quit whingeing, you big baby. Did you do your thing?"

Dick snorted and held up his wrist computer. The holographic display showed the now-familiar home screen of the Batcomputer. "Take a guess. Impressive or what?"

It was impressive, but Harry wasn't about to take a bellows to his friend's ego and tell him that. "What are you waiting for, a kiss? Look up… well, whatever it was that made Bruce clam up."

"You're really lucky Barbara doesn't know how much you suck with computers," Dick muttered. "Give me a minute."

In the end, it took three minutes for Dick to pull the relevant files and figure out why Bruce had suddenly turned on his sphinx impersonation, and it wasn't even close to what he'd been imagining.

"Are you having a laugh?" He said as looked at the two pictures on the screen. One was of a slender Asian woman in her late twenties, with stripes painted on her face, wearing some sort of combat suit. The other, much more relevant picture, showed a veritable mountain of a man, with cropped blonde hair, wearing a hockey mask and armor on one arm. Harry recognized him from one of Bruce's briefings on major international criminals. "Sportsmaster's daughter. Bloody hell. She's Sportsmaster's actual daughter?"

Huntress' too, he supposed, but her file said she was retired and in a wheelchair, now. Apparently, she'd hidden her husband's identity and location during her stint in prison. According to the report she'd finally filed just a few months ago, she'd tried to talk him into going straight like she had. When he'd turned her down, she'd kicked him out and told the police everything she knew about him. With the notable exception that their daughter had apparently taken up vigilantism in her spare time.

"No wonder she has Shadow training," Dick murmured. "Sportsmaster does work for them all the time. Batman thinks he started out as a member before he went freelance."

"Okay, but why would Bruce get all weird about it? This isn't some world-ending secret."

Unfortunately, he thought he already knew the answer. Bruce could be paranoid, and he didn't want to imagine what scenarios the man had concocted in his head once he'd realized the girl who'd saved him was the daughter of not one but two supervillains, one of whom was an active member of the League of Shadows. As if to confirm his fears, Dick spoke up.

"Are you kidding? Her father's a merc who works with Ra's Al Ghul and she just happens to save you on your first night in the field? No way that's a coincidence. Not after the Shadows already tried to recruit me four years ago."

Harry felt his frown deepen with every word Dick said. It wasn't that he didn't understand where he and Bruce were coming from. No one could deny it was suspicious as hell for the daughter of a supervillain to appear and save him just when he needed it. All that aside, though, something in his gut told him Artemis wasn't a Trojan horse. For one thing, no one, but no one, would risk getting involved with the Joker for something as unimportant as gaining an in with him. For another, he liked to think he was a decent judge of character. Artemis just didn't strike him as having tried to play him or gain his trust. If anything, she'd been contrary, abrasive, and downright rude to him most of the time. In the end, it took him only a few seconds to decide.

"I'm going to go talk to her," he declared. In his head, he started a countdown. He got all the way to four before Dick overcame his shock and spluttered out a response.

"You're going- are you nuts? Didn't you hear what I just said? League of Shadows? Possible spy? Any of that ringing a bell? That's. A. Bad. Idea."

"I. Don't. Believe. That," he responded in the same tone. "I don't think Artemis was trying to spy on us. She saved my life. She didn't ask any questions. She didn't hesitate. She just helped. And I think the least I can do is thank her and not let her only lasting impression be Bruce giving her the third degree."

"Well said, Mister Potter."

They both jumped a foot in the air when Alfred's voice came from behind them. When they turned around, the butler was standing not even two yards away, a steaming platter of pancakes in one hand and a set of silverware in the other. The barest hint of a smile graced his lips, but from him that may as well have been gales of side-splitting laughter.

"Yes, very well said," he carried on when it was clear neither of them were able to speak. "And I must say, the two of you made a commendable stab at evading my attention. Adjusting the cameras was a particularly elegant touch."

"You- I mean-" Harry felt like a First-Year called before the headmaster for the first time. "How did you know?"

"Do recall, Mister Potter, I raised the boy who would become Batman," the butler said with a pointed look at both of them. "You and Master Richard may disabuse yourselves of any notion of pulling one over on me for some time yet to come. Now, I believe you were discussing what to do regarding the young Miss Crock."

Dick made to speak, but Alfred silenced him with a raised finger. "I heard your objections, Master Richard, and they are valid. However, let us not allow fear of the possible to render us churlish or insular. Let us not forget, she saved Mister Potter's life. She did not have to. Indeed, in doing so she drew attention onto herself she would doubtless rather have avoided. Yet she did so anyway. That is worth considering, no?"

Dick bit his lip. "She trained with the Shadows."

"As did you," Alfred pointed out. "Proof, therefore, that such training is not solely the purview of the wicked. I know you wish only the best for Mister Potter, but it would be unjust to condemn Miss Crock without even giving her a chance. Far be it from me to disparage Master Bruce, but his interpersonal skills are, perhaps, not best suited to greeting potential new allies."

Dick frowned, and Harry saw his opportunity to jump in. "I know what it's like for everyone around you to treat you like a leper for something you can't control. She didn't choose her parents. She did choose to help me. Besides, I'm just going to say thanks and to make sure Bruce didn't put her under house arrest or anything. I'm not going to pick a fight."

The memories of his summer after Fourth Year still weighed on him, sometimes. No matter how good Dumbledore's reasons may have been, suffering through months of near-total isolation had been a private hell all its own. The last thing he was about to do was subject someone else to that torment when he could fix it instead.

Dick looked back and forth between them, obviously torn. Harry could practically hear his naturally friendly side warring with the suspicious detective Bruce had instilled within him. It wasn't a long battle. Not even the best efforts of Batman and the villains of Gotham could put more than a veneer of cynicism over Dick Grayson's sunny personality.

"I- no, you're right," he said with a small smile. "I'll go with you."

Harry opened his mouth to agree, but Alfred cut in before he could make a noise. "I fear not, Master Richard."

Dick turned to object, only to run full tilt into the immovable object that was Alfred's sternly raised eyebrow.

"Master Bruce believes you to be in the Batcave, and so here you will remain in case he requires reinforcements. It will also give you an opportunity to put that-" Alfred cast a gimlet eye at the mess of wires and panels Dick had made of the Batcomputer "-to rights."

Dick winced, and Harry let out a silent sigh that he'd escaped blame for the mess. Alfred was remarkably tolerant of their shenanigans, and the subsequent clutter, but he also insisted they tidy up after themselves if they broke anything while also breaking the rules. He never raised his voice, nor turned his glare on them, but somehow they always found themselves scrubbing up mud and sweeping broken glass without ever quite figuring out how he'd tricked them into cleaning.

"Hey, at least you get to enjoy the pancakes," he reminded Dick. "And if Bruce gets back before I do, maybe he'll yell at you so much he'll get tired and forget to think of a punishment for me."

"That would be a truly impressive bit of magic," Alfred remarked. Dick snickered, and it was Harry's turn to slump in despair. Bruce was going to skin him alive for this, and Sirius would tan his flayed hide into a rug afterwards.

He and Dick couldn't spend too much time commiserating over their inevitable doom, however, or they risked Bruce returning before they'd even committed the offenses he'd murder them for. He donned his armor (after repairing it with a spell), utility belt, and enchanted jacket once more, and moments later Gwaihir took to the skies and winged towards Gotham. Apparating was out of the question until he'd had some more rest, but he didn't mind the slower means of transport. With the rain in abeyance, there were few joys comparable to flying about as an eagle.

From above, Gotham at night bore little resemblance to the grimy, crime-riddled urban maze he'd spent the last months training to patrol. The mix of streetlights and industrial fume gave the city an ethereal glow. Up in the sky, he thought he could see the city the way Bruce saw it. The ghost of what Gotham could be shone through the film of what it was. In that unearthly light, the skyscrapers soared rather than loomed, the streets looked less labyrinthian, and even those people he could make out below seemed to walk rather than scurry from place to place in fear. For that moment, Gotham looked like a city worth fighting for.

'I really need some sleep if I'm thinking stuff like that,' he told himself. Nonetheless, looking down at the phantom city made the horrors from earlier, if not easier to bear, then at least more worthwhile.

He found the apartment complex easily enough. Before he would entertain the thought of Harry going on patrol, Bruce had him memorize Gotham's streets, its major landmarks, and a dizzying array of routes both on street and over rooftop. The matter of finding which apartment Artemis lived in resolved itself when he saw Batman's distinctive silhouette leap from an open window on the second floor. The surprise made him fumble his wing beat, and he dropped a dozen feet before he recovered. His heart hammered against his breastbone as he waited for that cowled glare to turn upward.

A second passed. Then three. Then ten. After a minute, he finally let himself relax. Eagles couldn't sigh like humans, but he came as close as his form would allow. The distinctive roar of the Batmobile confirmed it, and he finally dared to swoop low enough to land on the windowsill. It looked in on a sparsely furnished bedroom. A familiar looking blonde girl stood in the doorway opposite.

Artemis, who looked a good deal less intimidating dressed in pajamas and bandages, reeled back in shock at the sight of a Golden Eagle perched on her windowsill.

"What in the-"

Apartments didn't have the same sort of threshold as proper houses. Even at the best of times, they only developed a shadow of the mighty defenses a typical family home would. This particular apartment didn't even have that paltry barrier. Its threshold was a whisper thin membrane, no more a barricade to him than a sheet of tissue paper. Nevertheless, barging into her apartment, let alone her bedroom, uninvited felt inappropriate. Instead, he shifted back to human and settled onto the fire escape outside her window.

"Hi there. Good to see you alive."

His attempt at courtesy didn't quite have the effect he'd intended. Artemis squeaked, stumbled backwards, and stared at him, slack jawed.

"Jesus Christ! Marauder?" Her shocked expression melted into a glare. "What the hell is wrong with you Bat-people? Do you get off on scaring the shit out of me?"

He winced and chuckled nervously. On further reflection, he supposed she had a point.

"Sorry. I didn't think. Um… are you alright?"

She kept her glare for another few seconds before she sighed and relaxed. When the tension flowed out of her, he could see the exhaustion it had hidden. She looked as if she could barely stay upright.

"Ugh, yeah I'm fine. It's not like I can unshit my pants." Her glare returned abruptly, this time tinged with betrayal. "What are you doing here? Batman said you didn't know- Did he tell you-"

She broke off, but he could guess what she'd been about to say. Batman had told her he and Robin didn't know about her parentage, which had technically been true when he'd left the Cave. Her body was once again tense as a bowstring, and he couldn't tell if she was ready to fight or flee.

"He didn't tell me about Sportsmaster," he assured her. "Robin and I figured it out on our own."

"Uh-huh." She didn't look at all comforted by that knowledge. If anything, her fists clenched tighter and her glare intensified. "And what are you doing here? You wanted to arrest me yourself? You wanted to warn me to keep my nose clean or else? Because Batman already told me he didn't trust me, so you can shove it up your ass."

"I'm not-"

"How'd you even find me, anyway?" She demanded. He bit back a flash of annoyance at her interruption and took a breath. Snapping at her wouldn't help matters, and it was the exact opposite of what he'd come to do.

"I used a tracking spell to trace the remnants of that cloaking spell I cast on you earlier," he explained. "I was worried Harley Quinn had thrown you into the water. And I didn't come here to give you a warning or anything. I came to thank you for saving me. I don't care about Sportsmaster or the Shadows. You saved my life. I thought I owed you a thanks in person, at the very least."

That, finally, broke through her defensiveness. She eyed him for a few seconds, obviously weighing his words, before her shoulders slumped. Once again, the fight left her, and this time she looked even more worn out than before.

"… oh. That's… oh." It looked as if she wanted to say more, but she lapsed into an awkward silence instead. He waited a few seconds for her to find her voice again, but she just stared blankly into the middle distance.

"Can I come inside?" He asked at last. "It's just, this isn't the most comfortable perch and someone's going to spot me and ask questions."

Artemis jerked like he'd roused her from sleep. It obviously took her a moment to refocus on him, but when she did, she grimaced and nodded. He sighed in relief and clambered through her window. His knees had started to go numb from crouching on the cold iron of the fire escape. As his eyes adjusted to the light in the room, he spotted the battered furniture, fraying carpet, and peeling paint. For a moment, his mind superimposed the image of his old bedroom at the Dursleys, but even that hadn't felt so empty. There was a palpable aura of discomfort here. Even neglect. No doubt Sportsmaster had squashed any chance of the apartment feeling like a home. No wonder the threshold had been so weak. He wasn't all that psychically gifted, but even he could feel the pall the man had left in this place, though it was noticeably faded.

By far the most battered and worn thing in the room was Artemis herself, however. Her face was a patchwork of bruises and swelling. A bandage wrapped around her head and pinned an ice pack to her temple. Another bandage covered a splint on her right arm. Rather than the loose grace she'd held herself with before, her posture was stiff and hunched. As a not infrequent recipient of batterings himself, he sympathized with her plight. At least he'd usually had Madame Pomfrey to patch him up after one of his misadventures.

Artemis muttered something under her breath and he shot her an inquisitive look. "What was that?"

She snorted, and he thought her cheeks darkened a shade. "I said, it figures the first boy I invite into my bedroom is a damn cape, and a Bat at that."

He felt his own face heat, and whatever he'd planned on saying suddenly vanished from his mind. The sudden realization he was in a girl's bedroom took up all his available focus. He wasn't a virgin any longer; Helena had seen to that, but experience didn't mean much in the face of teenage hormones. His tongue was suddenly made of wood and he had to fight the urge to shuffle his feet.

Artemis obviously realized what she'd said and her own blush deepened, though her smirk was as sharp as any he'd seen. "Get your mind out of your pants, princess. Even if I didn't feel like a bruised banana, you're not my type." She rubbed her head with her unbandaged hand. "Ugh, I hate having a concussion. They make me babble."

"They're not much fun," he agreed, grateful for the shift in topic.

"Speaking of, you're not looking half as shitty as you should." She waved at his body, which was rather less battered than the last time she'd seen him. "I'm guessing magic comes in handy with healing. Any chance I could get some of that over here, Mr. Wizard?"

He took stock of her apparent injuries and his own condition. Neither situation was stellar, but he figured he owed her at least this much. He pulled out his wand and gathered his magic.

"My godfather was the one who healed me. I'm not very good with healing spells, and potions are dangerous for non-magical people," he hedged. "I can't do much, but I can probably help with the smaller stuff."

She shrugged. "I'll take it."

"Mmm. Stay still," he said and drew his wand down in a line in front of her. "Episkey."

The energy for the spell left him in a rush. Normally, he wouldn't have noticed such a drain, but as tired as he already was, it left his limbs trembling. Artemis, on the other hand, jerked like she'd just stepped in icy water. A ragged gasp tore from her throat and she doubled over as if punched. He stepped forward to catch her if she lost her balance, but she straightened up on her own. Her good hand automatically went to her face and prodded it experimentally. He leaned in for a closer look himself to see the results.

Just seconds ago, her face had been a puffy blue and purple mess. One eye had nearly swollen shot, her lips had been fat and bloodied, and talking had clearly been painful. Now, the bruises were gone, as if they'd never been there. The swelling around her eye had receded to a barely noticeable shininess. She clenched her jaw and seemed surprised she didn't have to wince. Her eyes drifted closed, and much of the tension visibly drained out of her body.

"Holy crap. That's… a lot better. I almost don't want to die anymore."

He grinned tiredly, though she probably couldn't see it beneath the spells concealing his appearance. "Magic is pretty wicked. Sorry I couldn't do anything about the arm, though. Or your head."

He'd tried to force the charm to at least make some progress on her more serious injuries, but it just wasn't meant for that sort of specialized healing. It topped out at minor broken bones, and even that had been a struggle. His knees threatened to buckle underneath him and his migraine returned from wherever it had been vacationing.

"Yeah, well, feeling like five kinds of crap is better than feeling like eight kinds of crap, I guess." Her eyes opened again, and went wide when she saw him. "Whoa. Are you okay? You look like you're about to pass out."

"I'm fine," he said automatically. His reassurance was undercut somewhat when his knees once again tried to buckle. "I just need to sit down."

"Uh-huh." From her face, he hadn't been very convincing. "Can you make it to the living room on your own? Because if you eat shit, I'm not dragging your giant ass down the hall."

It turned out he could make it to the other room without falling, though it was a near thing. He collapsed onto the couch, which creaked alarmingly under his weight. Artemis sat on the coffee table across from him and smirked.

"Now things are back to normal, huh princess? You're not gonna die on me, right? I don't think I could explain a corpse on the couch to my mom when she gets home, and you're too big to hide your body."

He affected a wounded expression and flipped her off. "You could be a bit nicer. I did just heal you, after all. My godfather's going to hang me by pinkies from the rafters when he finds out I used more magic."

Artemis furrowed her brow, and he hastened to wave off her concerns. "Not literally. It's fine. He'll probably just ground me or something. Besides, I already pissed him off when I cast that tracking spell earlier, so how much worse can it get?"

"Why would he be pissed you used magic?"

"He was worried I might stroke out and die," Harry said without thinking. It was a solid three seconds before he realized what he'd just said and he winced. As usually happened when he let his mouth run away from him, he watched the words fly out into the world with no way to call them back.

Artemis' jaw dropped open, and a small, strangled gurgle escaped her mouth. Her eyes went even wider than when he'd ignited the pillar of fire back on the ship.

"That can happen?" She asked hoarsely.

"I mean, maybe. I already had a few brain bleeds from what I did on the ship, and that tracking spell wasn't the easiest, but…"

He trailed off. From Artemis' increasingly horrified expression, he wasn't doing a good job alleviating her concerns. Without warning, she cursed and snapped a kick right into his shin. He yelped and withdrew as best he could, but she was once again more mobile than he was and she advanced like a righteous volcanic eruption. She snatched a pillow from the couch with her good hand and gamely tried to beat him to death with it, cursing a sulfurous streak all the while. Some of the words were in French, and some in an Asian language he didn't recognize, but the general trend wasn't kind to him, his intelligence, or his ancestry.

"Gaaagh! What the hell?" He roared in between blows. They didn't hurt, but it was the principle of the thing. He's expected conversation when he'd decided to seek Artemis out, not a cushioned bludgeoning. "Will you stop, crazy girl?"

She did stop, though not before delivering a final few blows. When he dared to peek out from under his arms, he saw her glaring at him, face flushed and nostrils flared. The heat of her gaze could have melted a small glacier. The part of him that was sixteen noted it wasn't a bad look on her, but the rest of him kept a watch on the pillow still clutched in her hand. Signs indicated it might still come into play.

"What the bloody hell was that for?"

"For being a crazy idiot, that's what," Artemis snapped. "Next time someone saves your stupid life, maybe don't try and kill yourself right after."

"I wasn't-" he began, but it was too late. The SS Artemis Crock was underway with a full head of steam.

"I mean, I knew you heroes were crazy, but that's just- what the hell were you thinking? Huh? I don't want your death on my conscience. I've got enough shit to deal with already." He opened his mouth to speak, but she raised the pillow threateningly and he closed it again. "What, do you have an actual death wish? Fighting the Joker, lighting the ship on fire while we were still on it, now this. What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you do something like that?"

"Because I thought you might have needed help," he snapped once it was clear she actually wanted him to speak. "No one knew where you were. Batman and Robin hadn't even seen you. I figured Harley Quinn must have thrown you overboard, and I wasn't about to let you drown."

Silence reigned between them for an uncomfortable span. Twice Artemis opened her mouth to say something, but both times she closed it again without a word. Her glare wavered, and he caught a glimpse of something beneath it. A sort of lost confusion, as if he'd been speaking gibberish. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the pillow tight enough to rip the fabric. Finally, she let out an explosive breath, let the pillow drop, and settled back onto the coffee table.

"God, this has been a weird fucking night. You, the Joker, Batman, now you again." She groaned and rubbed her eyes. "My mom's gonna kill me when she hears the full story."

Harry winced. He'd have patted her shoulder in commiseration, but he liked having two hands and Artemis didn't seem like the sort of person who welcomed unexpected contact.

"Maybe leave out the part where a supervillain threw you into the ocean," he suggested.

Artemis grunted. "That's not what-"

She cut herself off and glanced at him warily, but it was too late. He'd heard enough to fill in the rest of the sentence. Now it was his turn to pick up on the words she'd obviously not meant to say out loud. In that moment, a handful of loose threads that had been itching at the back of his mind wove themselves into a tapestry. In the memory, Harley and Artemis hadn't been near enough to the railing for her to go over by accident, and the crazy jester hadn't looked like she was winning their fight. For that matter, why would Quinn have thrown Artemis overboard? During his brief time with the Joker's new sidekick, she'd struck him as someone who would prefer the more hands on approach. Why toss her opponent overboard and hope for the best?

'Because she didn't,' he realized. Artemis refused to meet his eyes, and it was all the confirmation he needed.

"Harley didn't throw you overboard, did she? You jumped. When you saw the Batplane coming, you jumped."

Artemis glared bloody, violent murder at a spot three feet to his left. A steel door had swung shut behind those grey eyes, closing off whatever sliver of openness he'd seen earlier. "So what if I did? It's none of your business."

Harry stared at her, slack jawed and bug eyed, for the better part of a minute as his brain tried to comprehend what would have led Artemis to choosing a midnight swim in Gotham Harbor, with a broken arm no less, to rescue by Batman. The answer was obvious, but no less stunning for it. She was genuinely more afraid of Batman catching her than of drowning in the dark.

'And I led him right to her.' Nevermind that it had been the right thing to do. Nevermind that she might just as easily have been stranded in the ocean. He'd unwittingly made what was apparently her worst fear into a reality.

"I'm sorry," he said. Her eyes snapped to his, wide with surprise. "Not for helping Batman find you, but just- well, for getting you into all this. I'm sorry."

Her surprise lasted for all of a second before another skeptical mask slid over it. "Don't worry about it. It's done." As if to spite her words, her good fist clenched and unclenched by her side over and over and over. "It would have happened eventually. Nothing to do about it now."

"This doesn't have to be a bad thing," he pressed. "Batman, Robin, me; we're not your enemies. I promise."

Her answering snort was heavy with bitterness and doubt, and it hung in the air between them like a dark cloud. He kept on going anyway. Something in him wouldn't, couldn't, let her just wallow in loneliness.

"I'm serious. I told you, I don't care who your dad was. Neither does Robin, and neither does Batman. Not really. It doesn't matter if-"

"Would you just shut up!" Artemis shouted out of the blue. Anger turned her voice into a whipcord. "Fuck! Just stop. Do you think it makes a difference what you say? My dad is Sportsmaster! He's a supervillain. It matters. I don't care how much you say you don't care. My family is- it matters, okay? You don't know anything about me, so just shut up!"

She paused for breath, and her whole body was trembling with emotion. She looked stubborn enough to bend horseshoes around, and he didn't dare try to butt in. Not yet. It hasn't been so long ago he'd had a few rants like this one, and he knew just how well he wouldn't have reacted to an interruption in the middle of one.

When she started again, her voice was quieter, but tense. Like a violin string tightened to the very edge of snapping, it sounded harsh and dangerous. Liable to snap at any moment and slice him to the bone. "Words are cheap. You can say you don't care as much as you want, but sooner or later you will. That's how it works. He poisons everything in my life. So don't give me this crap that you trust me. You don't know shit about me."

The tiny apartment was quiet for a long time after she finished speaking. Artemis watched him warily, an unspoken challenge written in her tense muscles and furrowed brow. It was a challenge he spent second after agonizing second mulling over.

He understood where she was coming from. He really did. After that summer with scarcely a word from his friends, after he'd spent months grinding his teeth at the lack of news, the lack of progress, the lack of anything, and especially after he'd learned his friends had deliberately kept him in the dark, he'd felt the same sort of anger and resentment. He could only imagine how it was for her, with those feelings compounded after years of living under Sportsmaster. It didn't change one thing, though. He did trust her. He trusted her more now than he had when he'd first set foot in the apartment, in fact. The problem was how to get her to see that.

Fortunately, it was a problem with an obvious solution. Unfortunately, that solution was risky, crazy, and a few other unflattering adjectives. Bruce might very well banish him from Gotham just for thinking about it, let alone going through with it. Sirius, however, he thought would approve, and that mattered a lot more to him. Most important of all, it felt like the right thing to do.

'Bruce will just have to live with it,' he told himself. He wasn't Robin. His world didn't revolve around the man's approval. Even so, the thought of Bruce kicking him out of Gotham, and on his first night of patrol no less, curdled his stomach. 'It's a risk I'll just have to take.'

He stood up on shaky legs. The brief rest had stopped his head from spinning, but he would need proper sleep before he could manage more than a short walk. Artemis tracked his movement silently, face still set somewhere between bracing for a blow and snarling a threat. He looked her dead in the eyes and took a breath.

"I do trust you," he said. Then, before she could get a word in, he dropped the charm concealing his appearance. The magic washed away with a sensation like peeling glue off his skin, and he saw her eyes refocus as, to her, his features resolved from a memorable blur into his proper face. He stuck his hand out and smiled. "My name's Harry. Harry Potter. Nice to meet you."

Artemis went so still he briefly thought something had petrified her. She wasn't even breathing. Only the tiny movements of her eyes, as she looked over his form, gave any indication of life. For a moment, standing in the middle of her living room with his arm extended for a handshake, Harry felt like the world's biggest prat. Awkward didn't even begin to cover it. Then, stiffly, as if someone else was moving her limbs, Artemis reached out and shook his hand.

"Artemis Crock," she murmured. Then her brain visibly caught up to what was going on and she sat down heavily, shaking her head.

"You did not just give away your secret identity. That didn't just happen."

He choked back a snort of laughter. Somehow, he doubted it would go over well. "I figure it's only fair. Besides, friends shouldn't have secret identities from each other."

Artemis sucked in a breath so fast she choked. Coughs shook her, and Harry winced at the sight. Coughing with bruised ribs was about as much fun as taking Polyjuice potion. Madame Pomfrey had often let him suffer for a few minutes after taking a bludger, in the vain hope it would dissuade him from taking another. It never had, much to her dismay, but it gave him a wealth of experience to draw on when it came to the aftereffects of a beating.

"Friends?" She eventually wheezed. "We're friends, now?"

He shrugged. "We fought a supervillain together. I'm not sure you're allowed to do that and not be friends." A memory from Hogwarts stirred, and for once it didn't hurt. "I made one of my best friends back home fighting a mountain troll together."

Artemis eyed him for a moment before she shook her head. "I don't even want to know."

Harry couldn't blame her for that. There were days he could scarcely believe the nonsense that was his life, and he'd lived it. For a long time, he'd resented the craziness that dogged his every waking hour. Now, after he'd traveled across universes, met deities, and was apprenticed to not one, but two superheroes, that old aggravation had faded. He didn't welcome further insanity, but he suspected his ability to distinguish what was and wasn't normal had burnt out after years of constant strain.

"So… friends?" Artemis asked again. She still sounded skeptical, but not scathing. There was a hint of openness in her face once more. "How's Batman going to feel about you sharing your identity with the daughter of a supervillain?"

Not well, was the truest answer, but it also wasn't the relevant one. "I think he'll learn to live with me giving my name to a fellow hero."

"Hero?" Artemis scoffed. "He made it pretty clear what he thought of that idea. 'Wait and we'll talk later', as if I don't know what that really means."

Harry sighed internally. This was exactly what he'd been afraid of. "He may be an arse, but Batman doesn't play games. If he says he'll think about it, then he really will think about it. And if he tries to stop you, just ignore him. He'll get over it, eventually."

"You really think I can- what, bully Batman into letting me be a hero?" She sounded as doubtful as he'd felt when Sirius had told him to go knock on Bruce's door. That still ranked amongst the most stomach churning moments of his life, and not for lack of competition. It had paid off, however. In the coin of sweat, and pain, and bone-crushing work mostly, but it had still paid off.

"Why not?" He smiled at the memory of Bruce's face when he'd first seen him in the foyer of Wayne Manor. "It worked for me."

That, finally, got a laugh out of Artemis. A nervous, slightly hysterical laugh, but a laugh all the same. He laughed a little himself, and another fragment of the horrors of the boat faded away.

They spent a few more minutes talking, mostly about nothing, but the twin specters of exhaustion and injury reared their heads before long and demanded their due. After the third time he found himself nodding off in the middle of speaking, made his excuses and got up to leave. Artemis was visibly flagging herself, and he imagined they looked quite the pair of zombies trudging back to her room. He reapplied the concealment charms on his face and climbed back onto the fire escape outside her window. At the last minute, he turned back to Artemis.

"It was good to meet you," he said. "See you next time, Luke."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say, princess."

He grinned, and just to mess with her, vaulted over the railing. Halfway down, he transformed into Gwaihir and took off over the city once again. With a couple of beats of his wings, he was back above the buildings and heading toward the distant clouds. He didn't get very far, though. Just two streets over, he spotted something on the roof of a mid-rise that put his stomach into his throat.

Batman. Staring at him. Pointing at him. Not looking happy. Perhaps worse, the shimmering figure of Sirius' astral projection stood beside him. With his eagle vision, he could see the look on his godfather's face. It wasn't encouraging.

'I know you see us. Land. Now.' Sirius spoke directly into his mind, which he hadn't even known was possible from a projection.

He got the impression he would be landing whether he wanted to or not, and decided not to make things any worse than they already were. He swooped low and turned back to human as his feet hit the roof. A feeling of vertigo passed over him for a moment, which he did his best to keep from showing in his steps. Neither of them needed to know just how exhausted he really was. And he was exhausted, if even his animagus transformation was enough to make him dizzy. Instead, he raised his chin and stood in front of them as defiantly as he could.

"Robin told you where I was?"

"He didn't need to," Batman said. "Golden eagles stand out in Gotham. Thank you for confirming he was in on this, however."

Harry cursed to himself. Of course Batman had noticed him when he was leaving the apartment. It had been stupid to even hope otherwise.

"You put yourself in danger again." Sirius growled. "You disobeyed both of us again. I know you know better than this. So let's hear it. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Harry took a breath and steeled himself. "I'm not sorry, if that's what you're looking for. Artemis deserved a thank you. A proper thank you," he emphasized with a glare at Batman. "Not an interrogation."

Batman narrowed his eyes. "You know who her father is."

Harry clenched his fists. "Yeah, Robin and I figured that one out, no thanks to you. You shouldn't have tried to keep us in the dark. We're not kids. Either you trust us, or you don't."

"Trust?" He bit the word off like a bit of foul meat. "You just gave away your secret identity to a potential security risk. How am I supposed to trust you after that? Your stupid decision put all of us at risk."

"My stupid decision?" Harry asked hotly. "How about your decision to treat Artemis like an enemy? She saved my life. She wants to be better than Sportsmaster. She wants to be a hero!" He jabbed a stiff finger at Batman's chest. "You don't get to decide who does and doesn't fight to protect people. I didn't give away my identity to Sportsmaster's daughter. I gave my name to someone who saved my life and fought next to me. To a friend. You don't get to choose those for me either."

"I do not think Artemis is an enemy," Batman said. "But she is compromised. My plan was to ensure her father didn't have a hold on her any longer before I put her in a position where she knows anything he wants to know. That would have kept us all safe, including her. That isn't possible now. You allowed your emotions, and hers, to dictate your actions."

"And you let her think she had to sneak around behind our backs or we'd throw her in jail!" Harry shot back. "If you'd just acted human-"

"Enough!" Sirius' shout stopped the conversation dead in its tracks. Literally. Harry felt his voice freeze in his throat, and from the grimace on Batman's face, he was similarly silenced.

"That's enough, both of you. This isn't helping things." He took a step closer to Harry and stared him in the eye. "You've only known this girl for a few hours. You're sure you can trust her?"

"I trusted you after less time than that," Harry reminded him. "I haven't regretted that. I won't regret this."

Sirius nodded wearily. "That's what I thought." He waved one translucent hand and a point of golden light appeared off to the side. It stretched into a line and then appeared to rotate in midair to reveal a doorway outlined in glowing gold. Through it, Harry could see the familiar furniture of his room in the Tower. "Get some sleep."

Harry's jaw dropped. Where was the shouting? The lecture? The vows to lock him in some dungeon for his own good if he stepped a toe out of line again? He'd braced himself for it all so well the sudden absence left him off balance.

Sirius caught his expression and glowered. "Don't think you're getting off easy. You're still in eighteen different kinds of crap. But there's no point in yelling at you when you're liable to pass out on me. So get some sleep, or so help me I'll knock your arse out and you can recuperate on this roof. Bruce and I need to have a conversation."

Harry wanted to object. He wanted to stomp his foot and demand they let him into their talk. There was nothing he hated more than people having discussions about him behind his back. That was what he wanted. Just at that moment, though, he wanted sleep more. His bed looked like the single most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and he'd seen Helena Bertinelli naked. Without a single input from his brain, his feet set out for the portal. By the time he even noticed, he was too tired to object. The air changed from the cool damp of Gotham to the magically maintained warmth of the Tower and the portal snapped shut behind him. His bed rose up to meet him, and then there was only comforting darkness.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

With that, I am officially done with the pre-show timeline. Next chapter will move into the timeline of Independence Day, though I don't know if it will actually get into the events of the episode. While I definitely enjoyed setting up the background of what's to come, I look forward to getting into the events of the show. That's ultimately what you're all here for, and it's why I started this story.

Regarding this chapter, once again, Artemis' characterization was the most difficult part to pin down. It was even harder than last chapter, because I wrote this from someone else's (biased) POV. Harry doesn't have a window into Artemis' head, and so neither do you. That having been said, remember that she's an extremely guarded, extremely stressed person who's dealing with exhaustion, a concussion, and way too many emotions for a single night. It's supposed to come off as uneven.

The comic readers among you may recognize some of Dick's backstory from 'Robin: Year One'. I just expanded on his time with Shrike and added in a few elements from 'Daughter of the Demon'. We know that the League of Shadows targets promising young people in difficult situations to manipulate them into joining, and I thought that fit in perfectly with the events of that comic. Let me know what you think.