Christie's POV

I woke up to my early morning alarm clock reminding me that school was the new normal. Although hopefully not the way it'd gone so far. The sun's rising rays slipped through the blinds as I got ready for school in preparation for the bus. I then ran downstairs and grabbed a protein drink before running out to meet the bus that had somehow gotten here already. As I stepped up, the sounds of lots of various voices and conversations filled my ears. This time I noticed Will waving me over to an empty seat next to him, "Hey, Christie! Come over here!" I walked over and sat to join him as the bus continued onward. "So, do you think it would be cool to be a superhero?"

"I mean, yeah! How could it not?" My mind drifted to the night before and the fact that Will's best friend was Robin, and he didn't know it. I didn't say anything about it, though.

"Yeah, it'd be pretty epic... Do you want to hang out more after school again? It was kinda fun, even if we didn't find a lot!"

"Yeah, sure. Where? And what would we do?"

"I dunno, just something!" He smiled back at me, truly seeming not to care what we did, as long as it was something. Will really did seem fun and just purely nice. He was growing on me.

"You could maybe come over to my house and we could play games."

"Ok, cool! -Wait, I have to do something today. How about tomorrow? And we can still eat lunch together?"

"Yeah!" With that, the bus rolled to a stop, and everyone began filing out. Half the kids were trying to finish conversations on the bus, and the other half were racing into school like the bus was on fire. As I went to get off, I noticed Tim's look my direction. I couldn't exactly tell what it meant, but it could have been friendlier. I went through the first classes and then made my way towards lunch, still unsure, but pretty cool with Ms. Williams' over-the-top excitement for math. It was a far-cry different from Ms. Burns' very serious, no-nonsense teaching. I went to sit at the empty table in the back of the cafeteria, that no one had claimed yet.

"No, not that one!" Will called out quite quickly, stopping me. "It has gum on it"

"Ewww!" I started back over to where Will was already sitting down, the same table as the day before. No one was really at this table either. I had already sat down and was simply looking around the room, when I noticed Mandy still writing notes on seemingly me and Tim, although maybe a few others were included. However, this time it wasn't only Mandy watching me. Tim was looking my way again, but pretty quickly redirected his attention back towards Flash, who sat across from him at their table, when I noticed him. I looked back to Will a somewhat random question coming to mind, "Tim seems a lot older than the rest of our class..." It wasn't a full question, but it should have been enough.

"Yeah, he is." Will said before pausing long enough to finish eating. He shrugged before adding, "I don't know exactly why, but he's late to class a lot, and forgets homework a TON, so this is the second or third time he had to redo. It's not good, I guess, but it's kind of cool! I mean, he gets to be in class with us!"

"Yeah, cool," but I didn't fully mean it. Probably because he's trying to be Robin too. The lunch bell rang, and we headed to our next class, English. I went in and sat down right about when everyone else did. Then I noticed Ms. Williams wasn't there yet. "No one's here," someone stated the obvious from the back of the classroom. "Why are we still learning English, anyway?" I wondered aloud.

"Yeah!" Someone else agreed.

"I already know English; we should learn something else!"

That's when Ms. Willaims joined us. "Hey, everybody!!" she called out, smiling widely, as she entered the room.

"Hey" echoed back, but few were half as enthusiastic as Ms. Williams was. I responded as cheerfully as I could. She was really nice, and I wanted to help return it.

"So, y'all ready to learn some English?!" She exclaimed from the front of the classroom, "Sorry, I'm late, got hung up with someone outside"

"Why are we still learning English?" I asked genuinely.

She paused to really consider the question for a minute, then responded, "Hmmm, good point. Do you guys want to learn a different language?! Like Spanish, Japanese, Koren?! Something new!"

Loud calls of a variety of answers came out before she suggested we vote, bringing the answer to Spanish, my vote.

"Awesome! This is gonna be so fun! And I get to learn it with you all, because I don't know Spanish yet either!" She was so excited, but everyone in the class fell into silent confusion. How is she going to teach it then?

After a very basic Spanish lesson consisting mostly of "Hola!" the class ended, most everyone wondering how this was going to work, but it was what it was. On the way to history, I was a little surprised, in a good way, when Mandy stopped to talk to me, "Hey." She had a pretty quiet voice and gave about that same feel up close as she had from a distance. Like she was secretly and silently stalking you. "Hey!" I did sound cheerful, but my energy was far outmatched by Will's, who wasn't too far behind me, occupied by something in his locker. Mandy's energy level, however, was maybe half what mine was. "So do you know about the school dance coming up?"

"No, are you going?

"Yeah, I'm going with Tim." That's kinda weird, why would Tim want to go with her? She's creepy... She was so blank in the way she said it, that even this was a bit eerie. Like she wasn't just going for fun.

"Cool," was all I said back.

"Are you going?" She stared directly into my eyes, and, it felt like, directly into me.

"Maybe," I gave a slight shrug. I wasn't going to go with anyone. That was gross.

"Hmm..." With that she walked off to history class.

We walked in to be greeted by an empty room. We all sat there unsure of what to do for a few minutes. Some made paper airplanes out of their homework paper, and others were arm-wrestling. Finally, Mandy stood up and walked to the front of the room with something to say. Just the fact that she was up there was enough to bring almost everyone's attention to her. Apparently, Mandy was pretty well-known. Not in a popular way, but in that "what is she REALLY up to?" way.

"Russia has one of the most powerful militaries in the world, second to only America..." It was random, and slightly odd...suspicious, maybe? She proceeded to explain in pretty good detail how the Russian military worked and how they made their tanks and missiles. How on EARTH does she know about that?! I looked around the classroom to see everyone else's feelings on the matter. Everyone looked intrigued but stunned in a slightly terrified way. The quiet kid who took notes on people all day knew how to create military-grade missiles. Ms. Burns never did make it to class, but we finished almost the entire hour listening to Mandy describe, in great detail, weapons of mass destruction. After class, the bell rang announcing school's close for the day. Lots of excited kids ran to cars to be picked up, while lots of others began walking home with friends. I planned on walking home as well, Will with me until we were no longer going the same direction. I got home and decided to chill out the rest of the day.

A few hours later I heard my phone ring. I walked over to see an unknown number. I never got unknown number calls, so I decided to pick up.

"Hey!" Came the friendly but slightly unsure voice from the other side. It was slightly familiar.

"Hey. Who is it?"

"Tim. Can you meet me somewhere?"

"Ummm... yeah, I guess. Where?"

"There's an old shack that no one lives in. You need to come by yourself." It was a little suspicious and strange, but this was Robin. He shouldn't be kidnapping me. Once he gave me the directions, he hung up, and I prepared to go meet him. I told my parents where I was going and headed out the door.

It was a bit of a walk, but it didn't take me too long to get there. The old shack had definitely seen better days. It was rusted and lopsided thanks to one wall having been crushed in. There was light around it, and a horror movie could have taken place right where I stood. I still wasn't really worried about it. I was meeting a superhero here. I walked in, having to step over some random, broken metal pieces, almost all red with rust, that were sporadically lying around. Once inside, I immediately saw Robin who looked at me almost with some sort of anticipation. He seemed to be attempting to suppress a smile. We were only there only a minute when Batman emerged from the shadow in the corner, where I hadn't previously noticed him.

"Christie?" It wasn't really a question.

I nodded in response, too intimidated to say anything. He really was a dauting figure. He was a good bit taller than Robin who was a good bit taller than me.

"I understand that you found out Robin's identity. Were you suspicious of something in particular, or did you just happen to see it?"

"Will said he got behind in school, and hanging out with Flash was a bit odd." I said unsure of exactly how to answer. And he has the same name as the comic, but it's not like I can say that...

He had almost no reaction, and I began to think. Why all the questions? Wait... I know Robin's identity... now what?! Is that a problem? I got increasingly nervous as I waited for him to continue what was a bit like an interrogation.

"I assume you didn't tell Will? Even though you know they are close friends."

I shook my head.

"Why not?"

"I assumed if Tim and Will are close, if Tim wanted Will to know, Will would know by now."

Robin may have shifted his gaze down, but that wasn't my main focus. Batman took a minute before responding, "Honestly, I'm impressed that you picked up on the things you did while being so new to school, and also that you wouldn't tell anyone when many would be sharing it with everyone." He paused for a breath, "Would you be interested in joining us?"

The question surprised me in an awesome way. That would be epic! It took me a second before I could respond, still shocked at my option. I didn't know what to say. Nothing seemed right, but I had to say something.

"Yes!"

He seemed pleased enough, before adding, "You will be starting, at the least, with mostly inside research, of course. I don't assume you have much training yet?"

"No, none"

Thankfully he didn't seem surprised by that. Robin then took his opportunity to step forward, "Awesome! Now you need a name. Any ideas?"

I thought about it for a second before saying, "I think it should have something to do with birds. It matches."

"Cool, but there's a lot of bird names..."

"Bluejay's a cool name, but I don't want a blue

suit..." Then, suddenly, from somewhere behind me came a voice I'd never heard, "Hey! What's wrong with blue?"

I spun to the source of the voice behind me to recognize Nightwing standing in one of the openings of the shack with a playful smirk on his face.

"Nightwing?!" I said, confused.

He smiled wider, jumping over some debris, and reaching out his hand to me, "Yep! And you are?"

I shook his hand, "Christie."

"Very nice to meet you! Now, what did I walk in on?" He turned to Robin for an answer, and I realized Batman was nowhere in sight. Wonder where he went... That was a little creepy, but my attention was drawn back to Robin as he began answering Nightwing's question, "She's our newest recruit!" He sounded pretty happy about it too.

"Awesome! I don't think Christie's gonna cut it for a code name, though... whatcha got?"

"Well, we were thinking it should have something to do with a bird." I responded.

"How original!" Nightwing responded playfully, "What bird? Or just not a blue one?"

"I don't know yet..." I went back to thinking of ideas as Robin added, "We were coming up with ideas before someone walked in and interrupted." He looked to Nightwing and smirked.

"Well, excuse me! I have to head out anyway, but you need to tell me when you do come up with something! I want to hear!" With that he ran off, disappearing in the distance.

"How about Cardinal?" Robin looked away from watching Nightwing disappear, to me for a reaction.

"I like it, but I'm not sure... maybe I'll try it"

"Yeah." Robin said still in thought, "I think it's cool!"

"Yeah, I like it!" I said, having thought about it a bit longer.

Just then, Batman reappeared, once again, seemingly from nowhere, this time holding something in his right hand. A small black box that couldn't contain a whole lot. He reached it to me, and I accepted it listening for an explanation.

"Open this somewhere private, after we finish. It should be self-explanatory."

I looked at the box, wanted to know what was inside, but I would wait.

He continued, "Do you have any ideas yet for a suit design?"

"Not really..." I said thinking about it, and not coming up with anything.

"I can start on something basic, then, and you can tell me when you do have some. Preferably something more subtle than..." He glanced to Robin, who looked like he was trying not to laugh.

"Don't blame me!" He added from the side.

Batman looked back at me, "Do you have any further questions?"

"No"

With that finished, he nodded and walked off. Robin waited for us to finish before looking to me with a slightly crooked expression, "You can't let Batman design your suit! It'll be solid black."

Would that be all bad? ...Yeah, it would.

"He did say we could add stuff...

Robin shrugged, unconvinced, "I guess see you soon...or, uh...tomorrow"

"Yeah, see ya'!" I said a mix of excited and nervous energy coursing through me. I was starting a new journey...as Cardinal.