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It’s truly unfortunate to unexpectedly run into someone you went to high school with. Especially when that person is Sofia Maroni, daughter to Gotham’s top mob boss and a girl with a serious attitude problem. The dank bathroom of a bodega not far from the docks was the last place Nell Little expected to see Sofia, which was why she froze while slipping on a purple pixie boot in one of the two open stalls. Sofia’s telltale, nasally voice had Nell clenching hard enough to shatter. In the few months since high school ended, she had been fortunate enough not to run into any of her Gotham Academy schoolmates. That, coupled with the annual superhero convention being held just down the street, had made the summer a pretty decent one. But, apparently, Nell’s luck was up, because there she was, trapped in between a rock and a hard place, with nothing but her homemade Batgirl costume on. It killed at the convention. With Sofia? Doubtful. “I’m just asking this one, tiny thing, Jen,” Sofia said, checking her makeup in the mirror. She made a face at the healthy layer of dirt obscuring the surface. Jennifer “Sidekick” Dvorski’s voice trembled slightly. “Why can’t you do it yourself?” “You know why,” Sofia said. “It’ll take ten minutes. Pick up the shipment at the docks, take it to the address posted on the box.” Nell guessed Sofia wasn’t accounting for rush hour traffic, which in Gotham started a little before midnight. Jen mutter something Nell couldn’t hear, and Sofia sighed in aggrivation. “Just head over there now. Get it over with.”“Can you come with me?” “Haven’t I already explained--” The door shut behind them, leaving Nell perched on a toilet seat, thinking hard. She let one bare foot hit the cold floor while she searched around in her backpack for the other boot. Had she just overheard some kind of drug trafficking agreement? In Gotham? Probably. She fished her phone out of the utility belt, finger posed to dial her dad, a Gotham Assistant District Attorney. Before Nell could push the send button, however, she paused. Eighteen or not, if her dad found her in this neighborhood at this hour, she’d be grounded until she graduated college. Nell couldn’t call the police either. Unless they caught Jen red handed, her word wasn’t going to count for much against Sofia. And to catch her red handed, she’d have to call them once her hands touched the merchandise. And to do that, she had to be there. And Nell Little definitely could not be found at the docks around midnight. Forget grounding, her dad would throw her in jail. Do not pass go; do not collect $200. In a moment of inspiration, she glanced down at the purple bat on her chest. Maybe Nell Little didn’t have to make an appearance. When she emerged from the bathroom, the pudgy man with enough mustache for three people eyed her doubtfully. “You’re not one of those supervillains, are you? Look, I don’t keep much money in the register.” You really could easily pick out the Gotham-newbies. “In that case, I’ll just pick another store to rob.” The moon wasn’t visible above the Gotham skyline, the night obscured by purplish grey clouds that rolled and threatened to storm. Nell’s outfit didn’t raise any eyebrows on the street, most people not even looking up as she walked by. This wasn’t the place or the time for people to be real observant. A shiver went down her spine at the thought. The docks smell like rotten fish and sea air. There were boats of all sizes and purposes lined up in the marina, all of their lights are out due to the late hour. The dock itself was cluttered with discarded boxes and crates still holding cargo. A teenager with pixie cut brown hair and designer jeans was talking with a couple burly guys next to a small crate labeled Wayne Enterprises about the size of a large backpack. The crate also had a faded little triangle on the side, but the writing was too decayed to make out. Nell’s hand slipped into her belt to touch her phone in silent reassurance. She tiptoed slightly closer. The men wore deliberately nondescript clothes, muscles bulging beneath the sturdy clothing. One nodded to the small crate, while another kept an uncomfortably close eye on Jen. While they talked, Nell continued to creep forward, pixie boots silent against the damp wood. When the man making eyes at Jen grabbed her, Nell knew she had to act. Time to call the police. Nell reached for her cell phone, but her hand stops cold at Jen’s scream. Can the police get here in time? In this neighborhood, it wasn’t likely. “Help! Someone, please, help me!” Nell glanced down at the bat logo on her chest, and without thinking, sprang from behind the crate. “Boys. Boys. Didn’t your mothers ever tell you to keep your hands to yourself?” she said, raising her voice to be heard over Jess’s screams, and stepping out from behind the crate. Not her best material, but credit deserved or being plucky when her knees were shaking. “Who’s that?” the one holding Jessica asked stupidly. “It’s a bat! Let’s get outta here,” the other said, glancing around wildly, probably looking for Nell’s back-up. Nell was flattered. He thinks she’s smart enough to bring back-up. “It’s Batgirl.” The first man- who will now be referred to as Creeper- sneered, and took a step towards Nell, releasing Jessica. “That’s hot.”The second man grabbed Creeper’s shoulder, holding him back. “I’m getting outta here before her Daddy shows up. Maroni wants this under the radar.” From the look on Creeper’s face, Nell can tell he’s not going anywhere. Using the fact that they both had let their guard down to argue with the other, she struck. Leaping into the air, Nell kicked the second man in the chest with all her might. The air left his lungs in a short whoosh, he collapsed to the ground gasping and trying to catch his breath.
Thanks, Mom, for insisting on 15+ years of martial arts and gymnastics.
A sharp blow to the head sent Nell sprawling. She threw out her hands and cartwheel to avoid falling on her face. She spun around to face Creeper. The back of her head throbbed sharply, and she blinked to clear my vision.
Rookie movie, Little. Never take your eyes off your opponent, even when you’re taking down his friend.
Creeper picked up a crowbar that was lying on an open crate. Fear paralyzed Nell for a moment. He made a move for her, and she dove to the side to avoid getting her skull bashed in. He was on her in a second, throwing blow after blow. There was no deflecting them, so she dodged left and right, looking for an opening. Jen, forgotten, stood to the side, watching the fight with wide-eyed wonder. “Run! Call the police!” Nell yelled at her. As if waiting for permission, she stumbled off into the night, only stopping long enough to grab the cargo she’d come for. The GCPD probably wouldn’t be getting a call from her anytime soon. “Ugh!” Nell grunted as Creeper’s fist collided with her sternum. He’d luckily given up on the on the crowbar for a more direct approach. She rolled away from the hit, saving herself from some of the force. But not all. Bruises were sure to ensue. Lurching to the side, Nell grabbed the handle of a heavy metal bucket laying discarded by a crate. Planting her feet firmly on the uneven wooden planks and using all her bodyweight, she swung the bucket at his head. He ducks, but not quickly enough. The metal makes a sickening thud as it clipped his forehead. Creeper swayed slightly before his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell to the ground. Nell rested a hand on a light pole, leaning into it, and trying to catch her breath. From behind her, she heard the click of someone turning off the safety on a semi automatic. Her body stiffened, and she turned around slowly. The second man had risen from where Nell knocked him over. He pointed the gun directly at her chest. A loud roaring went off in her ears. She should run. She should fight.She should do something. But her pixie boots don’t deviate an inch. He smiled. “Sorry about this, Batgirl, but the money’s too good. Good enough to risk killing a Bat.” He doesn’t sound sorry at all. “Now, we can’t have that,” a voice said from off to the left.A streak a black distinguished itself against the night sky, and then the gun clattered to the ground. Hunching over, the man swore and held his gun hand in obvious pain. A Batarang. Nell and the hired bulk both stared at it for a moment, before he looked up and met her eyes. She couldn’t help it; she gave him a big ol’ grin. “What was it you were saying about my Daddy showing up?” Nell did a back handspring towards him, picking up the dropped crowbar mid-flip. Okay, maybe she was showing off a little. His eyes widened with fear, fixed on a spot behind Nell. He went to shove her out of the way, but she made her move first. Gripping the crowbar with two hands, Nell drove it up and into the man’s jaw. He dropped like a sack of potatoes. Nell astutely didn’t turn around. Part of her was scared to. Who am I going to see? Batman? Robin? Batgirl? Unlikely, since she hasn’t been spotted in over a year, and the voice sounded too deep to be female.“Aren’t you a little old to play dress-up, Miss?” Nell grit her teeth. His insult gave her the push she needed to turn around and face him. “You have your fetishes; I have mine.” The man standing in front of Nell was in all black, except for a blue design on his shoulders. He wore no cape, had a mask similar to mine--domino style, and eye length, messy, black hair. Nightwing. His eyebrows rose slightly. “Nice moves, for a civilian.” Nice backhanded compliment, for an asshole. “Where do you study?” Nell almost missed the calculating undertone his voice carried. “No comment.” That would be a dead giveaway to her identity. Kairi Tanaga ran a small, private dojo behind a fish stall in Chinatown for serious students. Nell’s surprise at being accepted hadn’t dimmed over the years. The Bat-Signal appeared in the sky. Nightwing’s attention flickered to it, and then back to Nell. “Listen, kid. Let me give you some friendly advice. Go home, put your costume in the trash, and enjoy living a long, happy life.”Nell nodded, silently fuming at his condescending tone. Nightwing, the original Robin, started crime fighting when he was just a kid. Calling Nell young was a little hypocritical. He turned away from her, mounting a motorcycle she hadn’t even noticed till that moment. He revved the engine and glanced back at Nell, who was still standing there like an idiot. “Take my advice. Because if he finds you out on these streets again, you’re going to get more than friendly advice. Got it?”No need to elaborate on who he was.Without waiting for Nell to respond, he rode off into the night. No doubt to perform some heroic deed of selflessness.What an ass.
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The next morning found Nell under her unicorn comforter so stiff moving was out of the question. That, of course, was the moment her mother decided to burst through her door, a flurry of movement and joy. “Rise, my little Mistress of the Dark,” she said. “We needed to get there by nine to find a parking space. That was ten minutes ago.” Nell burrowed deeper. “Eager to get rid of me?” She yanked the covers off her daughter, exposing her bruised skin to the cold air. “I don’t know what I’ll do with an empty nest,” she said. “But I’m ready to find out.”Ten minutes later, Nell was sandwiched in the front seat of the family Taurus, the contents of an entire dorm room threatening to spill over the divide and crush both women. Despite this fact, Simone Little cheerfully hummed a horrible tune and pulled her thick, explosively curly hair into a tight bun.While Simone’s skin was a lot darker than Nell’s, almost ebony, the share a small nose and a strong jawline. Their curly, explosive, dark hair was also identical, and both women had to climb up on counters to reach the top shelf in the pantry. Gotham University, Nell’s future Ala Matar, was founded long before cars, so her mother was right out the parking situation. They circled around the greater campus area for the better part of an hour. Despite new construction, every building was modeled after Ye Old Castle style. Everywhere Nell looked, parents and their incoming freshmen were hauling desk chairs and value packs of Ramen noodles. “You can talk to me if you’re nervous,” Mom said suddenly. “I remember heading off to college. Vaguely.” “Thanks, Mom,” she said, trying not to sound like the teenager she felt like half the time. Truth time: Nell wasn’t even thinking about moving some crap into a new abode. That ranked pretty low on her list next to last night’s events. Nell had a problem. She had a crate--probably filled to the brim with drugs--with a Wayne Enterprises and an unknown triangle logo sticker on the side. Those drugs could probably be connected back to the Italian mob through Maroni’s daughter and Nell’s former classmate. Well, to be clear, Nell didn’t have the crate anymore, which was the source of her frustrations. She didn’t have anything to give to her ADA father or the police. No evidence, no crime. She’d really messed it up by trying to play hero. The thought depressed her further, and she sunk down in her seat just as her mom whipped it into a microscopic parking spot. It only took the pair two trips to haul everything Nell owned into that tiny, L shaped bedroom and pile it onto the extra-long twin bed. After hanging up all her clothes, Nell left her mom to wrestle a sheet onto the mattress while she went in search of sandwiches. On her way to the coffee shop in the library, Nell passed a bulletin with a multitude of different flyers on it. The board sat behind a bored looking faculty member who had been roped into tabling. None of this was out of the ordinary, but two words jumped out at her from the board, like they’d been jumping out in her mind. Wayne Enterprises. She snatched the flyer from the board as the professor yawned. Gotham University was sponsoring professional development tours at Wayne Enterprises. Mock interviews, resume reviews, the works. “How do I sign up for this?”
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“Bruce Wayne? Don’t you already have enough billionaire connections?” Simon Blackstone, Nell’s best friend since 2nd grade, asked as he rolled back and forth in his wheelchair.The same bus accident which had put Simon in that wheelchair and prompted his parents to homeschool him was the incident that threw the two together. Literally. After banging heads by being kidnapped along with their whole class from a field trip, the two had been inseparable, even though they didn’t live or go to school in the same stratosphere. “Your trust fund doesn’t mature until 21,” Nell reminded him from the bed in his mansion-like room. It fit the rest of the mansion the Blackstones called home, which wasn’t far from the Wayne estate. Simon was a skinny boy with more brains than sense, and the number of freckles on his body was proportionate to his IQ points. “Still,” Simon said, grabbing the remote and pausing the crappy movie they’d been watching on his flat screen. “Why are you looking for a job at Wayne Enterprises?” “I hear you get dental.” He rolled his eyes. “Nell. I thought you wanted to be some kind of government official.” “Foreign dignitary.” “Don’t you have to be foreign for that?”She grabbed the remote. “Whoops. Back to the drawing board.” “Fine. Be mysterious. Want to go with me to this charity luncheon this weekend? I can’t bare another two-hour speech fest alone.” “Can I keep being mysterious and say no?” “No.”
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As much as Nell wanted to skip right to the tour of Wayne Enterprises to satisfy the curiosity she’d inherited from her father, there was a lot standing between Nell and her prey. Like freshmen orientation. They hoarded most of the incoming students into the stadium seats where the Nighthawks usually played. Up on the podium in the middle of the stadium was a man with no eyebrows and a tweed jacket. His eyes swept over the rows, and when they landed on Nell, she gave an involuntary shiver. The boy next to her was heavyset, and he when he shifted uncomfortably, Nell was almost crushed into the person sitting to her left. All around her, people were waving to their new roommates, old friends from high school, and new friends they’d met at one of the summer social events. Social events Nell skipped because she wanted to dress up like a bat and run around with oily-faced cosplayers. No regrets. Three rows down, a girl laughed at something her friend said and expressed that she was so glad they were in all the same classes this semester. Okay, so very few regrets. Slumping down in her seat, a fresh wave of anxiety and longing hit her. Not for the first time, she wished Simon was wheeling these new halls with her. But his parents started hiring advanced tutors for him after the bus incident, so before Nell even graduated middle school, he earned his first BA. He was on BA number three right now while getting his Ph.D. in physics. Which left her in the same position she’d been in high school: with no friends and few social skills. The man in tweed on the podium cleared his throat into the microphone. The noise called the attention of everyone in the stands to the front and shook Nell out of her pity party. She was always a little mopey when she forgot to take her Bupropion. “Hello, students, and welcome to Gotham University,” no-eyebrows said. “I am your dean, Dr. Meed.” A few scattered instances of clapping echoed against the domed ceiling, and Dr. Meed’s smile grew, making his already thin lips seem to disappear. He reminded me a bit of a toad, dressed in murky olive green. “You all are the future of this university and of Gotham. Study hard, work hard--” A glance at the stairs of the podium where a woman was gesturing frantically-- “And play hard.” The last bit seemed to go down like acid in Dr. Meed’s throat, but he got a solid amount of applause for it. “And now, allow me to introduce Miss Huang, Director of Undergraduate Experience.” The woman who had been gesturing at Dr. Meed made her way onto the stage. She was statuesque, Chinese, and her voice sounded like she’d been sucking on helium for too long. A bubbly personality poured off of her in waves. “Hellloooo, new Nighthawks! Who’s ready to have the best freshman year ever?” The crowd erupted, and Nell had to smile. Her cheer was catching. After giving the students a few rules to follow on campus and handing out a list of all the activities and events that were taking place the first week, Miss Huang dismissed the incoming class, and Nell set off to break Huang’s first rule: never travel alone at night. Shoving her hands into the pockets of my jacket, she kept her head down as she moved away from the crowd of freshman back to the other side of campus where her dorm room was. I should join them, she thought, looking back at her classmates. They were all standing around making plans for the night (pancakes, drinks, dancing, etc.) She knew she should join them, but the thought made her stomach cramp up and her breathing accelerate. Tomorrow. She’d be a social butterfly tomorrow. Like the rest of campus, Nell’s dorm building towered menacingly over her as she hurried inside, the towers seeming to block out the night sky. The lights in the hallways on the second floor were out, and no amount of wall-feeling on her part would reveal the switch. With a sigh, she pulled out her phone and put it on flashlight mode.If she were really Batgirl, she would’ve been able to see the way to her door without a light. Or at least, she would have been able to afford night-vision goggles. Maybe she’d put it on her Christmas list. Once Nell reached the door, her phone went back to the pocket, and her keys came out. All the lights were out inside the dorm as well, but the windows were open and murky moonlight half of the room. The moonlight was fortunate, because as soon as she shut the door with an audible clap, a dark figure stepped around the bend of the L shaped room.“eeeEEEEeee” was the noise that came out of Nell’s throat as she leaped back, tripping over something solid and landing ass first onto the floor. The figure reached over to the wall, and then the lights were on, shining into Nell’s eyes with the force of a thousand suns. “Ow,” she said vaguely, unsure if she was talking about the light, the bruises on her butt, or her pride. The girl in front of Nell was, well, cool. She styled her hair in an extreme undercut and dyed it an unnatural color of lavender. While Nell dressed in an ill-fitting jacket, she wore a combination of brightly colored mesh and combat boots. As Nell drank it all in, the girl leaned against the light-switch wall and said, “Hiya, Roomie. I’m Kline.” “Nell,” she said, getting slowly back up on her feet. “You always sit alone in the dark?” “Just when I’m trying to make a good first impression.” Nell had to smile at that. After a brief second of hesitation, she asked, “Do you want to go get pancakes or something?”
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For the next few days, Nell didn’t think much about the homemade Batgirl costume squished at the bottom of her suitcase inside a locked closet door. She went to all of her classes, meeting professors that were a bit eccentric at best. Kline and Nell ate in the dining hall. Once she saw the Brussel sprouts--which looked more like moth balls--she was pretty sure she’d be doing takeout pizza for a lot of the semester. If Nell expected to become Kline’s best friend, she would have been disappointed. Their school schedules did not mesh, and they mostly saw each other in passing as they were switching textbooks between classes. Most nights, too, Kline was out of the dorm. Her parents probably lived close. A lot of kids in the dorm were having separation anxiety. “Are you sure you don’t want to spend a couple nights at home?” Nell’s dad asked her on the phone earlier that day. She could hear papers shuffling in the background, meaning he was going through case files for court. “Weekends, maybe?” Faintly, from another room, her mom shouted, “She’s sure!” Nell had been booted out of the nest. “Fine fine fine,” her dad said, a distracted air invading his voice. “But you’ll call me if anyone gives you any trouble, right? You’re not leaving campus at night, right?” So she said she wasn’t. You know, like a liar. Because as soon as night fell, and it became clear Kline wasn’t going to be making an appearance today, Nell grabbed her mostly empty suitcase from the closet and headed towards the public library. A few of her fellow students gave the luggage a second glance, but the library limit on books was 75 at a time. She was not about to carry 75 books across town. The wind pushed at her wheels as the moon climbed higher in the sky. GU, built hundreds of years ago, was part of Old Gotham, which sat right next to the diamond district. Most of the construction there was new, but on the fringes between Old Gotham and New Gotham was a tiny strip of poverty. The buildings on the strip were mostly boarded up or in disrepair, but the ones that had survived decades of the worst Gotham could throw at them practically had their own personality. One of these buildings housed a Thai bodega with the best little hard candies. They came in this bag with so much design on it, Nell couldn’t even make out the name of the product--and she’s fluent in Thai. Nell pushed the Thai candy mystery from her mind once again as she rounded the corner to the next street. She stopped dead on the edge of the shadows. The bodega’s front door was wide open, and Nell could hear shouting inside. Crouching down against the outside of the building, she snuck up to the dusty window to look inside. Two men with guns and ski masks were holding up the bodega. One held the teenage cashier by the collar and waved the gun around in his face. The cashier’s eyes were wide, and a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. Nell’s hand instantly shot towards the phone in her pocket when the man holding the cashier captive said, “Don’t think about setting off any alarms. If I see one cop, you’re dead. It’s my third strike, and I’m not going back to Blackgate.”“Quit playing with the kid,” the other said. “Just get him to open the drawer. The cashier spoke up. “It-it’s locked. I...can’t just open it.” One hand still on her cell, Nell’s mind raced through possible solutions. If she called the police, these guys would kill the boy behind the counter. But if she didn’t call the police, they might shoot him anyway. No, she had to do something herself. Get them away from the cashier and then involve the police. Of course, Nell had no idea how she, Nell Little, was going to do that.
Eyes moving towards the mostly empty suitcase of their own accord, she tried not to think what she was thinking, but it was no use. Nell Little would be nothing but a bug on these robbers’ windshield. Batgirl, on the other hand….It is truly amazing how fast someone can pull off their clothes, shove them into the suitcase, pull on a costume, and hide that suitcase behind a dumpster. Nell just had to hope there were no security cameras in the area, or the world was going to see a bit more of her than she was comfortable with. By the time she made it back to the bodega, the gunman shoved the cashier towards the register. “I guess we’ll just have to make a purchase, then.” He turned to his partner, sneering, “Pick out whatever you want.” Not giving herself a chance to chicken out, Nell burst through the front door. “I’ll take a couple boxes of Pocky sticks if you’re buying.” “Batgirl,” the hotheaded one snarled, his gun moving away from the cashier and towards Nell. Which, idiotically enough, was her plan. The bullets started flying, and she dove beneath the counter. Before the other man could start shooting at her, too, she swept his feet out from under him. He hit the ground, and his head made a painful sound against the linoleum.
Thank you, Kairi Tanaga, for drilling me without mercy to dodge bullets.
She’d only had a moment to glance at the gunman behind the counter, but she was pretty sure he was carrying a .45, which probably meant eight bullets. But he could have up to fourteen. No way to know for sure down here, and he’d only used up five shots, anyway. All this went through Nell’s head during the split second before the man cursed and made moves to climb over the counter. But to climb, you usually have to lower your gun and your guard.Lightning fast, she rolled around the edge of the counter, coming up next to the register and behind the guy trying to scramble over the gum display. Nell grabbed his gun arm, bringing it down hard against the wood at a calculated angle. The bone splintered with a crunch, and the gunman shrieked. For whatever reason, the cashier was still behind the counter, shivering and watching Batgirl like a sideshow attraction. Blame the boots. Raising an eyebrow at him as Nell took the gun from hothead and handed it to the clerk, she said, “Shouldn’t you be running and calling the cops?” He was gone out the backdoor so fast she had to blink to refocus on the spot where the cashier had been standing. Beside her, gun-less, the robber whimpered and held his arm. But, like the other night, she forgot about his partner until someone grabbed her by the back of the neck and slammed her head against the same counter she had used to break his buddy’s arm. Oh, yeah. That was gonna bruise. A big guy like that could’ve caved Nell’s head in, but his brains were still scrambled from his own head injury. Which could explain why he left the gun lying right where she’d put him on the ground. Breaking his grip, Nell flipped over the counter, kicking his gun far away from the action. Before she could do more than that, however, he on her. Nell avoided another hit to the face by fainting left and landing her own hit on his ribs. He had enough padding that they didn’t break, but he staggered to the side. This time, when she kicked his legs out from under him, she made sure to go for the vulnerable side of the knee. He let out a short cry as his body crumpled to the floor. He wouldn’t be getting up again with EMT assistance. Batgirl didn’t get to celebrate her win for long, however, because the sirens of the GCPD started singing in the night time. From the bodega window, she saw red and blue lights flashing around the corner as a cop car pulled up. Too late to grab her civilian clothes. Luckily her outfit had hidden pockets for a wallet and phone. Just as the cop car pulled up, Nell jumped up onto the fire escape and scrambled to the roof. Though she had extensive gymnastics experience, she didn’t often use it to scale buildings, so her ascent was a little awkward. The dark detective and her heavy partner with stains all over his shirt froze when they first caught sight of the new Batgirl. Not surprisingly, they called out for her to freeze, come back and answer some questions. But Nell had already made her leap to the next rooftop. The feel of the Gotham air threading through her hair and blowing out her cape was amazing. She felt weightless. Powerful. Completely in control, and not like Nell Little at all. “A new Batgirl?” The female detective shook her head. “First I’m hearing of it.” The other detective made a rude noise. “Bats in this town. They breed like rabbits.” The rest of their conversation was lost to the wind as Nell soared through the night.
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“What happened to your face?” Simon asked when they met at his house before the charity function that Sunday. “Is this some kind of college hazing thing?” Nell shoved him out of her elbow space in his huge bathroom. Putting on makeup was a rare experience, and she needed concentration. “No, it’s a clumsy thing.”Rolling back and forth in his chair absentmindedly, he granted her a suspicious expression. “Since when are you clumsy?” He had her there, so she didn’t say anything and went back to applying concealer. Nell’s parents weren’t poor by any means. Warren Little was a public servant, but her mom was a famous painter. Her works were in every gallery from Gotham to Paris. But famous artist/ADA money couldn’t even begin to compare to the kind of money the Blackstones had, Nell thought, as the black town car pulled around for Simon and Nell. His parents were driving separately, and Simon’s personal butler made quick work of getting Simon in the back seat and the wheelchair in the trunk, so Nell just slid on in one the other passenger side. That earned her an exasperated look from Simon. Right. The whole door thing. Apparently once you’re in a certain tax bracket, opening your own doors becomes passe`. But Nell liked to keep her hand muscles in peak condition, so she preferred to do the door thing herself. It doesn’t make any sense to the Blackstones. “What is this for, again?” Nell asked Simon as they drove through the tunnel towards Gotham city proper. “Children's’ hospital, I think,” he said, typing furiously on his tablet. “Does this make sense?” He then proceeded to read off a very long sentence from his thesis. “Probably to someone else. Could you read it again in Cantonese? My English needs work.” That didn’t even earn her a glance up from the tablet, so she continued. “Why is it always children? It’s like once you turn eighteen we no longer care about your illnesses.” “Marketing.” The town car pulled up to the main entrance where the local news outlets had gathered. Simon earned a whole round of pictures and shouted questions. A few reporters clicked a couple of shots of Nell, since for all intents and purposes, she was Simon’s date. The attention made her pull at the long gown she’d borrowed from her mom self consciously. When She’d wheeled Simon past the wall of reporters, there was a blond woman in a waiter’s uniform waiting for them at the front door, checking invitations and taking wraps and coats though it was the middle of August. Her city twang was almost too thick for Nell to understand. “Wow, doll,” she said, eyes gleaming as she stared at Simon’s mother’s pearls around Nell’s neck. “Those real?”
Something about this woman made Nell’s stomach do flips. Though she only had a twenty, her phone, and her suit in there, she crushed her bag closer to her body. The latter was quickly becoming Nell’s high-risk security blanket, but she didn’t feel safe leaving it in the dorm unattended. “Uh—yeah,” Nell said, handing over their invitations and casting a surprised glance down at Simon. He appeared not to have heard the woman, though, his nose still buried in his dissertation. Putting some distance between the two of them and the woman with boundary issues, Nell tried to not gape at the scene in front of her. Though Simon had described this as a casual luncheon charity function, she was once again reminded that her friend and Nell had different ideas of casual. The Gotham Arts Center was a gleaming piece of architecture with high ceilings, a crystal chandelier, and marble flooring. There were at least five open bars set up throughout the room, a section of elegant chairs and tables covered by dainty, white clothes, and spacious dancefloor where quite a few people were socializing. Nell recognized a few of them from the society pages, and she had to imagine the outfits on each were worth a couple of months of rent at least. She parked Simon at the Blackstone table and frowned when he still hadn’t looked up at her. Before Nell could tell him off for inviting her here only to ignore her, Simon’s stomach let out a growl loud enough for people to hear at the next table to hear. Finally, his attention diverted from his tablet, and he had the good manners to look abashed. “I guess I forgot to eat.” A quick look around at our surroundings. “When did we get out of the car?” “You are so lucky I have too much anxiety to try and make new friends.” He smirked good-naturedly. “I know. Want to grab something to eat?” The refreshment table was on the other side of the crowded dance floor, however. It was a little too tight for a wheelchair to make it through without running over more than a few toes. Nell watched Simon’s face fall slightly as he came to that same conclusion. He hid his expression quickly, and she pretended she hadn’t seen. “I’ll grab us some stuff,” Nell said. “Might as well get a return on the ridiculous amount your family probably paid for a plate.” “It’s a tax write-off.” Squeezing between a few heiresses gossiping about another socialite, she made a beeline for the appetizer table. There’d be table service later, but the speakers at these kind of things could be very long-winded. It’s always better to be stuffed than hungry. Forgoing the smaller plates and heading right towards a platter, Nell started piling on everything that looked expensive and tasty. Which was everything at the table except caviar. Expensive? Yes. Tasty? Hardly. “I’ll look away if you’re going to start shoving dinner rolls into your purse,” a voice said behind her, and Nell tensed up just like she had for Sofia Maroni. The boy was older than Nell, but not old enough for the scotch on the rocks in his hand. But Nell supposed when your father owned most of Gotham; no one carded you. He had dark locks, piercing blue eyes, and taut jawline. A couple of the female socialites in the crowd followed him with interested eyes. Damian Wayne. He and Simon ran in a lot of the same social circles, which meant Nell’d been running into him at these functions since the second grade when he moved to Gotham to live with his father. From the first meeting, he pegged Nell as a peasant to his royalty, so naturally, he took every opportunity to pick at her. It bugged the hell out of Simon, but Nell mostly just found it amusing. Arrogance is probably the only language Damian Wayne knows, anyway. “If I were going to shove anything in my purse,” she told him, “it’d be the scallops. They’re like $20 a pound.” “Expensive food poisoning is still food poisoning.” “Poor people can’t afford to be choosy.” His lips twitched at that, and then his eyes zeroed in on Nell’s forehead, which was heavily covered with makeup to concealed where her head had been violently introduced to the counter the other night. “Nice bruise.” Well, that knocked the good cheer out of her. She quickly fished out a compact mirror from her purse. If Nell’s parents saw a bruise on her forehead, they’d have questions. Her martial arts training wouldn’t be a good enough excuse. But when she looked at her reflection, she could only see the faint outline of a dark splotch behind her makeup. Not noticeable for anyone except, it seemed, Damian. “Bar fight.” Damian snorted but didn’t reply until the waiter exchanged his empty glass for a full one. The waiter turned to Nell expectantly, waiting for a drink order. Waving him off, she went back to piling food on her plate. She had priorities. “You don’t seem like the bar-fight type,” Damian finally said, eying her quick hands with undisguised judgment. “Would you believe I was just trying to buy some candy?”The sound of a gunshot drew both of their attentions towards the door. A man with green, matted hair and a purple suit emerged from the crowd with a smoking gun and Bruce Wayne in a death grip. A banner protruded from the barrel, reading ‘gotcha’ in pink sparkles. Beside her, Damian went extremely still. As the joker made his way through the crowd, Harley Quinn shoved people out of the way. Unnecessary, as most of the party-goers were scrambling away from the two villains as fast as their stilettos and loafers would take them. She was in full costume now, but Nell recognized the jaw line and the hair; she’d been the girl at the front that noted her jewelry. Nell watched on as the Joker grabbed a microphone off the grand piano, grinning widely as he tapped it with a single, pale finger. “Testing. Testing! Hellooo, money bags.” He glanced down at the man in his grip. “I hope you don’t mind, Brucey, I just let myself in. My invite must have gotten lost the mail.” He let out a sickening laugh that was as cold as it was inhuman.
Harley joined him near the piano and fished another gun out of her cleavage, brandishing it as a few people in the crowd screamed. Nell guessed this one was the real deal. “Harley and I would love to stay for your little shindig, but we really have to go,” he said, and his girlfriend made a show of pouting. “So. Which of you will volunteer to come with us?”A moment of tense silence. “Come now. You don’t want to hurt my feelings,” he said. His teeth were a horrible yellow color that reminded Nell of a highlighter marker. “I know! Why don’t you all jump up and down, and we’ll take the ones who rattle.” Harley grabbed one older man and a woman of about thirty from the crowd and thrust them in the Joker’s general direction. They went, trembling the whole time. With her first two victims picked, Harley’s eyes roamed through the crowd, stopping on lavish jewelry and fancy suits galore.Finally, her gaze landed on Nell. “Heya, pearls,” she said, grabbing Nell by the back of the neck and hauling her away from the food table. Damian put a single foot forward, and the Joker laughed. “Ah, a young lad protecting the honor of his bonnie lass. Don’t fret. Fork over your fortune, and I’ll give her back in one piece. Mostly.” Joker and Harley marched the hostages out the back entrance where a van advertising fresh fish on the side sat. The fish on the side of the van was limp and cartoon-like, but someone had painted a green smile over its mouth.On Harley’s command everyone turned over their cell phones before being shoved into the back of the fishy van. As soon as the door shut, the woman--Dana Winters--began softly crying that her stepson was out of town. There would be no one to pay the ransom. Nell didn’t have the heart to tell her that ransom or no, she didn’t see the Joker letting any of them out of this alive. While the van pitched them around, and the sound of screeching wheels and car horns increased, the older man--Simon Stagg, CEO--trembled next to Nell, clutching his suit jacket like a lifeline. A bead of sweat rolled from his receding hairline to his chin. Beside him, Mr. Wayne sat quietly, staring intently at the floor of the van, the carpet there stained red from unknown fluids. Nell wasn’t much better off than her fellow kidnapees. A couple of strands of her curly hair got caught in something behind her, but she kept her attention on the purse still in her hands. Harley concerned herself with Nell’s phone, so her Batgirl costume was still there, undisturbed under a layer of receipts, stray tampons, and candy wrappers. The thought of putting it on, however, made her start to tremble as bad as Mr. Stagg. Of course, the thought of not putting it on didn’t do wonders for her state of mind, either. The van whirled around a corner, sending everyone in the cab crashing against metal, carpet, or each other. After saving herself from a bloody nose courtesy of Mr. Wayne’s elbow, Nell took a deep, unsteady breath. I need to think, here. Sitting duck is not a good look. For reasons unknown, the phrase “sitting duck” made her think of duck, duck, goose. After a few more minutes of Nell fighting with herself, the van squealed to a stop, and she heard two sets of car doors slamming just outside the cab where she sat. Her time was up.
When the door opened, Harley reached in and pulled out a wailing Dana. Nell, screaming “goose!” in her head, rolled around Dana and out of the van. She ran for the edge of the nearest building: Joe’s Joke’s Warehouse. A couple of bullets fired at her; she twisted and turned mid-air, transforming her straight-line sprint into a zigzag.She kept running until she got to the back of the building. Joker drove them to downtown Gotham. The brick buildings around were covered in graffiti and in disarray. Nell could hear people shouting and car horns blaring a couple of blocks away, but back here, in the factory district, it was deserted. The smell of smoke from a smoldering trash can invaded her nose as she hoisted herself up onto the fire escape. Launching herself from level to level, Nell didn’t dare look back to see if Harley was following. Gooses run, ducks sit. Once at the top of the building, Nell flattened herself down to listen. The Batgirl costume was burning a hole in her purse, but she couldn’t very well pull it out if Harley was going to pounce on her in the next second. “Pearls! Come out; come out, wherever you are!” Then Joker shouted from the front of the building, where Nell last saw the other hostages. “Leave the lover girl, Harl. We’ve got bigger fish!”Silence.Nell emptied the contents of her purse onto the roof; a suit, boots, some loose change, a mask, and a length of rope fell out. Using her superior dressing skills she demonstrated the other night, Nell threw on the suit as fast as she could. Dressed and ready to get her ass kicked, she peered over the edge of the building, trying to see the van. It hadn’t moved, and the doors were ajar. The two villains had already moved the hostages into the warehouse. Maybe Nell wasn’t as quick a dresser as she thought she was. After taking a deep breath, Nell secured the rope to a heating duct and jumped over the side of the roof. The rope burned against her skin, and she’s suddenly very thankful for calluses she’d built up in gymnastics and martial arts. She landed without a sound on the balls of her feet.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The windows on the side of the warehouse were almost completely opaque from grime and years of pollution in the area. She had to press her face against the disgusting glass to see inside, and even then, she could only make out a pile of boxes. The hostages, Joker, and Harley were just out of sight.Trying to get surprise on her side, Nell opted for a side door. Unsurprisingly, the door was not locked. Nothing worth stealing. The entrance had almost completely rusted and gave off a terrible squeak as she pushed it open. Her hand came away brown-red, and she brushed it off on her leggings before stepping silently over the threshold.Once again, Nell froze, listening for any indication that she had been discovered. The warehouse, however, was curiously silent. Nell couldn't even hear Harley's obnoxious chatter as she made her way towards a rickety, metal staircase. As soon as she rounded the corner, she could see the hostages tied up at the base minus one Mr. Wayne, who was MIA.But he wasn’t missing for long. When Nell risked moving farther into the warehouse and closer to the staircase, a cackle sounded from high above. Head snapping up, she got a good look at Mr. Wayne’s predicament.The young billionaire hung precariously from a thin rope thirty feet in the air. The Joker crouched next to the bar where Mr. Wayne’s rope was secured, spinning a razor sharp knife closer and closer to the knot.If Nell was a running goose, Mr. Wayne was a cooked one.Coming to a sudden decision, Nell lept into full view of the sociopath, trying to look a lot taller and more confident than she felt. A lot of things should have been going through her mind at that moment: funeral plans, escape plans, any kind of plan, really. Instead, her thoughts went a little like “say something, say something!”“Nice place you got here, Joker. I’d fire the maid, though.”Joker’s attention left Wayne and fell undividedly on Nell. His eyes roamed her face, and for a terrifying moment, she was sure he could see through her mask to the scared little girl inside. Then, he smiled and the moment passed, leaving an awful feeling of weariness.Ms. Winters cried something softly that sounded like “thank God, it’s Batgirl.” Nell wasn’t sure if she deserved that. Mr. Stagg muttered under his breath, and Damien stared at the new Batgirl with the kind of shock that is usually reserved for reality TV. But Nell barely noticed any of that, keeping her attention of the green and purple threat in the room.“Batgirl?” The Joker let out a high pitched giggle. “How fabulous! You must be a new one. I’ve played with all the female Bat Blunders, and I don’t recognize you.” His grin grew impossibly bigger. “I love fresh meat.”“Let these people go, and we can play,” Nell said with more bravado than she felt.He tilted his head to the side. “You must be new.”It was worth a try.The slight narrowing of Damien’s eyes telegraphed a move behind Nell before she could even feel the disturbance in the air. She dove to the side as a giant, wooden hammer came crashing down centimeters from where Nell had been standing.Nell whirled around to face Harley, who’d almost gotten the drop on her. The villain’s blue eyes weren’t as cold as the Joker’s; there was something human in them. But, human or not, the woman wasn’t going to rest until she bopped Nell good.Harley's diminished guard gave Nell her opening, and she drove her fist into Harley’s gut with all her might. She allowed herself a brief smirk of triumph as the breath wooshed from Harley’s lungs. Then, Nell stepped in closer, twisting Harley’s arm behind her back and driving her towards the wall. Not so easily vanquished, Harley swiveled out of the grip in a move of pure grace, avoiding the brick by a hair.This villain wouldn’t go down easy like the thugs at the Thai grocery or even the ones at the docks. The latter, technically, went down easy for Nightwing. Not Batgirl.Harley roundhouse kicked Nell without warning. The girl tried to dodge, but Harley was too quick, and Nell found herself airborne before crashing painfully into a crate. The wood splintered on impact, driving itself into Nell’s flesh. She bit back a cry of pain and stumbled to her feet before the next blow could fall.Harley made a beeline for Batgirl. Nell, trying to avoid another hit like the previous, flipped herself onto a crate and started hopping from surface to surface, trying to make a plan that wasn’t goose related. The raw skin on her back grated against the fabric of the suit.While Nell was a little faster than Harley, the older woman had far more experience. Nell hadn’t seen enough of her fighting style to pick out any weaknesses.“Come back, little brat; you’re hurt. Let Harley kiss it better.”Grabbing onto a metal bar near the stairwell, Nell swung out of her path. “I’d feel more comfortable with a medical professional. Thanks.”Harley lashed out with her hammer. “Dr. Harleen Quinzel at your service, little birdie.”Nell couldn’t avoid her forever, so she started running through every bit of advice Kairi had ever given her. The woman wasn’t exactly talkative, but it was still a sizable list.Out of the corner of her eyes, Nell could still see the Joker, crouched in the same position and watching the show intently.A plan hit her so hard she almost stopped playing cat and mouse. The Joker was Harley’s weakness.Picking up a discarded, broken bottle, Nell stuck it into her boot, barely avoiding cutting herself. She then jumped on top of a large crate, and, using a few large crevices in the walls, she hoisted herself higher and higher into the air and towards the rafters. The metal beams that supported the ceiling were just as rusted as the rest of the place. They were, however, probably a safer bet than the ferocious blonde waiting below and a key element in her plan.
“Look, Harley! The newest bird brain thinks she can fly!” the Joker boomed from below.“I see, Mr. J. Maybe I’ll just wait for gravity to teach her a lesson.”Nell swung herself onto a large and--she hoped--nonessential beam. It groaned beneath her weight but didn’t give way. Scurrying over to where the oxidation as densest, she pulled out her broken bottle.No time for second thoughts, Nell launched herself into the air, landing squarely and with as must force as she could muster. The beam broke where she landed, splitting in half and rust exploding into the air. The now unconnected half started to swing down from the ceiling, taking Nell with it. A second later, she flung herself at the dangling Mr. Wayne, crashing into him as the metal beam bludgeoned the unstable balcony where the Joker stood.Nell used their momentum to swing them halfway across the room and away from the crumbling platform. Lashing out with her free arm, she cut through the rope above them with the glass shard. Mr. Wayne and Batgirl plummeted into a pile of empty cardboard boxes. The impact was probably softer than the cement floor, but that’s splitting hairs at this point.Bruises would ensue.Harley wailed, but the Joker laughed as his perch crumbled beneath him. He sprang to the side at the last moment, grabbing hold of a door ledge that led inside an upper-level room. He hung there, giggling while Harley attempted to reach him through the wreckage of the balcony.Tearing her eyes from the scene, Nell looked over to Mr. Wayne, about to tell him to run, but he's not where he landed. The excitement was too much for him, and he made tracks towards the side door.Nell waded through the partially crushed boxes to the hostages. She untied Dana and Simon, giving them the same advice she would’ve given to Mr. Wayne. Damien, like his father, had vanished, the ropes that held him sliced clean through.Say what you will about the Waynes, but they knew how to make a quick, quiet exit.Leaving the stairs, Nell spun to see that Harley had succeeded in getting the Joker down, and they were now on their way towards her. Harley looked furious while the Joker looked elated. Which was somehow worse.“I outta rip your throat out, you little-” She started towards me.“Now, Harley.” The Joker laid a hand on her shoulder, holding her back. “If you did that, the fun would be over so soon. You know how I like to take my time with the recruits.”Nell started to back up. And, like meth and Parcheesi, it’s hard to stop once you’ve started.Stopping in his pursuit, the Joker chose to learn against a dusty, brick wall.“What’s the matter, Joker? Not afraid of a little girl, are you?” Nell was definitely getting better at the quick, smart alec thinking.His face betrayed nothing. “I like to watch on occasion.”She should have chosen duck.Harley launched herself at Nell. Batgirl blocked her thrusts and punches with a fast shifting of her body, using her forearms as shields. The movies rarely show how much this hurts.Buying a moment, Batgirl kicked at Harley’s left ankle. It gave her enough time to backflip a few feet back onto an uncrushed crate. High ground. The villain grabbed her over-sized hammer from beside the Joker before following, lifting it over her head with chilling effortlessness.Nell hoped her gravestone wouldn’t say that she died like a Whack-a-Mole.“Joker, what have we told you about playing with the trainees?”Three heads turned sharply towards the back of the building where two men were making their way towards the impromptu fight club. One was lean, average height, with dark hair. He was wearing a knee length, black and yellow hood, green combat boots and gloves, and a red tunic with an “R” on it. His companion was bulkier with a dark grey suit, long cape, and a bat logo on his chest.Batman and Robin were on the scene.“You let this one stray too far from the nest,” Joker said to Robin.Batman and Robin didn’t waste any time with the niceties, falling straight into battle with the Joker and Harley. While Robin and Harley traded blows, Joker mostly evaded Batman with erratic, unpredictable movements.Nell paused for a moment, taking everything in. Watching them in action, she couldn’t help a rush of adrenaline. These were her heroes. These were the heroes of Gotham.These were also the heroes that were going to turn her over to the GCPD along with Harley and Joker, she realized with a start. After all, she wasn’t actually Batgirl, had no Bat seal of approval, as Nightwing had pointed out at the docks. Nell was just...well, she wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing. Living out her deepest fantasies?It was a question for another time, however, and she took off through the same door the hostages had escaped through. There was no sign of her fellow captives now, nothing to hold her at the warehouse. Behind her, she heard Batman grunt something that sounded more like tires over gravel than actual words.When Robin came running out the side door a moment later, though, hot on her tail, she inferred Batman’s meaning. She had a couple of sore spots from the fights she’d been in in the last few days, but she ignored these hurts, pushing her legs to unknown lengths.“Stop!” Robin called behind her, like that actually ever worked.Nell sped up. In between strides, however, she realized she’d left her bag behind the dumpster back at the warehouse. The thought was startling enough that she stuttered through her next step, and that was all the opening Robin needed.Springing into action, Robin tackled the Batgirl imposter to the ground. Her temple smacked against a cracked piece of concrete, stunning her briefly into inaction. Before she stopped seeing stars, the Boy Wonder had her thoroughly pinned.“Tt,” he made a strange noise with his tongue. “Speed’s not bad.”Nell was starting to think that hubris was a requirement for wearing a bat on your chest.His knee jabbed into her back, pressing her into the ground beneath them, which was about as comfortable as you might expect. “If you’re going to be playing good cop, this is not a good start,” she wheezed.“It’ll be a bad cop, worse cop situation,” he said, amused.“What, is Batman going to completely drive his knee through my stomach?”After a moment of hesitation, he let up on the knee a little. When Nell didn’t immediately spring into action, he relaxed a little bit more.“I expected you to put up a bit more of a fight,” he said, taunting her. “Disappointing, really.”When Nell heard an intake of breath, likely Robin winding up to tease her some more, she struck. Breaking the hold he hand on both of her wrists, she reached back and grabbed his forearm. The next moment, she was flipping him over her head where he landed with a puff of dirt.The angle wasn’t good enough to ensure he stayed down for long, but it was plenty of time for her to spring over him and take off down a back alley. She expected to hear footsteps behind her at any moment. Instead, she heard Batman’s telltale voice growling something and then only her breathing and heartbeat.Nell ran for blocks and blocks, past the point where she could even feel the pain in her feet from the lack of arch support. When she finally couldn’t run anymore, she ducked into a thrift shop at the end of a block, panting heavily and expecting for a Bat to drop in at any moment.That moment didn’t come. Instead, the cashier standing behind the counter blew a gum bubble and eyed her with practically zero interest.While her purse was back at the scene of the crime, she had her phone and a little bit of cash tucked away in her Batgirl costume. The cash would’ve typically been used to buy comics at the con, but this was probably a better use for it.Heading over to the women’s section, she picked out the first thing she saw in her size, which was a nauseating shade of pink. After picking out an accompanying pair of jeans, some new shoes, and a bag, she forked over all the cash she had tucked in her costume. The clerk looked at it without much interest.“The twenty is for the clothes,” she said. “The rest means you forget you ever saw me here.”He shrugged but pocketed the cash. “Probably woulda forgotten anyway.”Looked like it was going to be a ramen noodle month.After asking for directions to the bathroom, she crowded into the small, dirty room with her new, strangely smelling clothes. The toilet wasn’t an ideal place to sit, but it looked cleaner than the floor. She breathed in and out for a few moments, wishing she had room for her anxiety medication in her Batpocket.Once her freak-out time was up, she threw on the new clothes, the suit going into the Hello Kitty backpack. A quick peek out the bathroom door revealed that the path to the back door was clear, the cashier nowhere in sight.Now that Batgirl had receded to that place in the back of Nell’s mind where she kept all her self-confidence and badassery, Nell Little, college student not-so-extraordinaire rose back to the surface.The last time anyone had seen Nell, she’d been escaping from the Joker and Harley. No doubt her fellow hostages had made it to the police or the hospital by now. If she didn’t check in soon, some overzealous detective might get suspicious.Or worse, her father could hear about her kidnapping before she showed up unharmed. A shudder went through her at the supremely unpleasant thought.The factory district was a long, long way from the upper west side. Too far to walk, but Nell didn’t dare call for a ride so close to the last sighting of Batgirl. Instead, she walked at least twenty blocks away, towards campus, so she could conceivably say she went back to her dorm, too traumatized to call the police, and that’s when she changed clothes.She was mostly banking on whatever cop got assigned to this case wanting a quick close. Which, in Gotham, wasn’t a pipe dream.The car dropped her off at the Police Department, and she walked through the front doors and up to the desk sergeant without fanfare. It took a minute or two for the harassed woman to look up from her paperwork at the short girl with frizzy hair and pearls around her neck.“Hi,” Nell said, feeling of all things a little shy at the moment. “I believe some people might be looking for me.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Nell’s father paced up and down the Commissioner’s office like a caged lion. The Commissioner was on one side of the desk, Detective Bullock and Nell on the other. Both men, one assigned to Nell’s case and one roped in by her ADA father, watched the man wear out his dress shoes. Mrs. Little would have a fit. “Why wasn’t there a security detail for the luncheon, Jim?” The Commissioner's answer was pretty patient, considering the circumstances. “I can’t supply uniforms for every event in Gotham.” He nodded at the third seat by his desk. “Now, if you don’t mind…?”Warren Little sat reluctantly, looking a lot less calm than his daughter. Her features, completely different from the pale male with freckles and red hair, were suspiciously neutral. Sometime after her father’s butt hit the chair, it occurred to Nell that, ADA’s daughter or not, she should probably look a lot more frightened. Sitting in front of authority figures always made her itch, so she drew on that reservoir of anxiety for some genuine panic. An invisible signal from Gordon prompted Bullock to turn his gaze towards Nell. He noted her clothes seemed a little haphazard and mismatched, but as he had at least four different condiment stains on his dress shirt alone, he wasn’t really in a position to comment. Bullock fished a crumpled notebook out of his breast pocket. “I’m gonna need your statement, girlie.”
Unconsciously, Nell glanced sideways at her father. To her amazement, Gordon noticed the look and rose from his chair. “Let’s grab a coffee, Warren. I have some case notes I want to give you.” ADA Little was not a stupid man, and he saw right through Gordon. Still, after shooting Bullock a doubtful glance, he allowed the Commissioner to escort him out of the office. With her father gone, Nell started from the beginning of the event, noting times and key characters with more detail than a typical witness could dredge up. There were certain perks to interviewing an ADA’s daughter, Bullock thought as he scribbled.
On Nell’s side, everything she said went through layer after layer of consideration. She ventured a few feelings of fear and confusion but didn’t want to lay it on too thick. When she got to the part about heading back to her apartment after escaping, the detective raised a bushy brow. “Yeah, I guess that wasn’t too smart,” she said sheepishly. “I just felt kind of numb. I don’t really remember most of the walk back to campus. When I got to my dorm, I just wanted to call my dad, but I knew I needed to talk to you guys first.” There was a long moment where Nell thought he was going to call her out. The detective’s eyes fell to her new backpack, sitting on the ground next to her chair, and Nell tensed up like someone had connected her to a live wire. In her mind’s eye, she saw Bullock opening up the bag and seeing the suit. He’d throw her into a cell in front of her father, who would shake his head with equal parts disappoint and fury. Nell wasn’t sure she could go to the bathroom in the middle of the room with everyone watching. Then again, that might have just been movie prisons. But the tense moment passed, and Bullock went back to finishing his notes. He asked a few clarifying questions but nothing so probing as to be worrying. Before she knew it, the detective was opening the door to the office for her and sending her back to her father. The skin around Mr. Warren’s eyes when he saw his daughter again, and he wrapped his arms around her. His squeeze might have been a little harder than necessary, but neither of them mentioned it. Her father said good-bye to his colleagues and led Nell to the elevator. She argued with him all the way down about returning to her dorm that night. “Your mother and I want you at home. Safe” was his argument. “Did she say that?” Nell shot back.His mouth twisted into a grimace as the doors opened with a ding. “You are just like her.” They walked out into bullpen, cops buzzing around them with criminals in handcuffs and paperwork in their hands. “Mom always says I learned to argue from you.” “Oh, so you’re saying this is my own fault?” There was a twinkle in his eye, though, that told Nell she’d won.
Before Nell could say anything else, however, a uniform walked a grizzly looking man in zip ties past the pair. Without warning, the man ripped through his binds and grabbed the cop by the front of his shirt, lifting him a few feet off the ground. “Why won’t you pigs listen to me?” he cried. With inhuman strength and speed, he threw the arresting officer away from him, and the man went crashing into Nell’s dad, at least a yard away. Both men were knocked a few feet back and fell to the ground with pain-filled, twin grunts.
Everyone in the bullpen froze. Even the other criminals. “It’s those doctors at Arkham,” he said. “They drugged me!”The desk nearest to him was thankfully unoccupied because as soon as he drew in a breath to continue screeching, he grabbed the solid metal desk and hoisted it above his head. Pens, papers, and a computer fell down, some whacking him square on the top of his head, and he didn’t even blink. “I told them I didn’t want to take it.” He shook his head like a wet dog, with each word getting more and more upset.
“Wouldn’t take it.”The shaking knocked something out of his pocket, and Nell watched a small baggy fall to the ground with surreal focus. The desk crashed into the wall all the way back by the elevators. People cringed out of its way, but he didn’t seem to aiming for anyone. Finally, the moment of shocked silence was over, and every cop in the room was on the man, tackling him to the ground and breaking out the meta-human handcuffs. He struggled, throwing a couple off, but just like with Hydra, two more officers replaced each one he managed to shake loose. “They forced them down my throat.” Nell could barely hear him under all the bodies. “Made me swallow.”As soon as they had him partially restrained, a woman with a lot of bling the chest of her uniform came over with a sedative in a syringe. She plunged it into the man at the bottom of the dog pile, and his eyes quickly rolled back in his head.The whole precinct hovered around him as a couple brave cops lifted him and carried him towards the specialized cells at the back of the building. Normally, Batman dealt with these kinds of crazies. The GCPD just didn’t have the funding for meta-humans. Across the room, Nell’s dad was setting the arm of the original officer. It was broken in at least two places, and his face was white from shock. His mouth opened up, and words poured from him like a waterfall. “I don’t understand. I’ve arrest Stan a dozen times,” he mumbled. The ADA quieted him and pulled out his phone to call an ambulance, recognizing the officer’s need for surgery.
His daughter, on the other hand, was completely enraptured by the baggy that had fallen out of Stan’s pocket. Inside the clear bag was a mouthful of small, oval-shaped, blue pills. But the pills themselves weren’t what held Nell’s interest. The plastic had been stamped with “Wayne Enterprises” and a familiar triangle logo. It was the same combination from the crate down at the docks on her first night in the suit. A quick glance around told her that the cops were still locking Stan up out of sight, and her father was on the phone with the EMTs while his patient laid on the ground, staring drowsily at the ceiling. No one was looking at Nell. Before she could lose her nerve, she snatched the pills from the ground and stuffed them in her bag. After glancing around again to make sure no one saw, she hurried over to her dad. He looked her over for injuries while giving the operator more information than she probably needed. A moment later, the doors to the stairs opened and a whole sea of cops from the upper levels came flooding out. Gordon moved through them like Moses, coming to stop with Nell’s group. He spoke quietly to her father while resting a reassuring hand on the young officer’s shoulder. That was how Nell Little got roped into her second police statement of the day, starting a trend she wasn’t sure she was comfortable with.
_____
A few days later, Nell was back in class like nothing had happened. The Joker’s kidnapping had been all over the news, but so far, no one had leaked names to the press. No doubt that had something to due with the sheer number of Waynes involved in the crime.She hadn’t escaped the last few Batgirl incidents without her share of bruises, and each night when she went to martial arts at Kiari’s, she was forced to relive every blow she had failed to block. If her teacher noticed her bruises, she didn’t say anything. In fact, she worked Nell harder each consecutive night than the one before, securing her brutal, hard-assed reputation. During the day while Nell roamed Gotham Academy, heading from class to class, she thought about the feelings left behind from that day and the purse that had been left in the alley. Since there was nothing more than clothes inside, the latter was easily dealt with. She’d leave the dress for some homeless woman to pretty herself up with or sell for a bit of cash. Unfortunately, though she had forced herself to leave the suit back at her dorm, the thought of Batgirl was not so easily left behind. A smart girl with her whole life ahead of her would’ve taken her almost-capture by the dynamic duo as a warning to burn the costume, the persona, and all her memories of the last couple weeks. From the front of the crowded auditorium, her lit professor announced that she would be randomly calling on students to read aloud from the textbook. Groans ensued, and Nell grabbed her anxiety meds out of the front pocket of her backpack, taking a couple when she was sure no one was looking at her. And that, right there, was the problem. Batgirl was bigger than life. She didn’t have anxiety, issues with depression: no pills needed to keep her balanced. And when Nell was in the suit, she felt like Batgirl; she got to help people. People saw her when she was Batgirl, while Nell Little could catch on fire in her third-row seat, and no one would blink until the smoke alarms went off.When her lit class was over, she walked back to class with her hands buried in her pockets. In her right pocket was her phone, buzzing faintly from the sound of Simone texting her to confirm plans. In her left, she had the packet of pills of the police station. Her fingers worried over the plastic. Later that night after Nell’s roommate had slipped out of the dorm once again, Simon’s personal driver pulled up in front of Nell’s building, despite the fact that there were no roads in that part of campus. After securing Simon in his wheelchair, the driver got back into the car without a word, though the engine didn’t turn over. Nell picked absently at a bump on her face as Simon wheeled over a patch of grass and undoubtedly expensive flowers. “Is he just going to sit there for our entire play date?”Her friend winced, but all he said was “ignore him.” The TV in Nell’s dorm was likely the smallest scene the boy had ever seen, but he didn’t comment as she put in the first disc from their favorite sci-fi. While the credits played, the former gymnast wiggled into an obscenely small spot at the back of her closet to grab her stash of off-brand candy. A chocolate bar soared through the air and landed in Simon’s lap. He snorted. “Snicklers? Really?” “They taste the same, trust fund bitch.” Both teens lapsed into silence as the first episode began. From the bean bag chair, Nell worried over her packet of illegally swiped pills, trying to find some opening in the silence to ask Simon a favor without getting read the riot act. Or worse, having to explain why she was interested in a bunch of meds she found on the ground. Sometime before the end of the third episode, Simon spoke up. “I need a favor.”“I’m not marrying you so that you can blow your trust fund on microscopes a couple years early,” Nell said automatically. “Three years,” Simon corrected. “But it’s not that.” “Does it have anything to do with you suddenly being under 24-hour watch?” She nodded out the window where they knew Duke was still waiting. “My parents were a little freaked out by what happened at the charity gala,” he admitted, “but that’s just a precursor to the problem.” After fishing out a flash drive from his back pocket, he pressed it into Nell’s hand, next to the Snicklers wrapper. “I need some files off the Gotham Academy main frame for my dissertation, and I can’t get to them remotely.”
“Stealing research now?” He rolled his eyes. “It’s just raw data that should have been disseminated, but--” “Okay okay.” Nell waved her hands like she was stopping traffic. She really didn’t want to get him started on freedom of information. “Will any computer on campus do?”He nodded. “Any desktop should be hooked up. I included a file with instructions on the drive.”Fiddling absently with the flash drive, she said, “I assume this is something you want to keep from your parents? Academic espenioge and all that?” Lips thinned. “Your point?” A beat went by, and then Nell pulled out the packet she had been obsessing over for days, handing it over to her best friend. His eyebrows shot up. “Talk about the typical college experience. Am I supposed to snort these?” “Don’t be a dork,” she said, face heating slightly. “I need your uncle to look these over and tell me what they are.” “My uncle the rockstar or my uncle the pharmacist? They’re both drugs experts.” “We’ll start with the pharmacist and keep Liam in our back pocket if all else fails.” Simon took one last look at the blue pills, expression clouding over before he nodded and slipped them into the pocket the flash drive had been occupying. On the TV screen, an alien exploded into a pile of green gloop that went all over the main character. “Is...everything okay?” he asked hesitantly, correctly guessing that Nell didn’t want him to pry. When she said nothing, he tried to lighten the mood a bit. “Because I could always throw some money at the problem.” A grin. “It’s what we Blackstones do best.”“I’ll keep that in my back pocket as well,” she promised, and the pair went back to watching the movie. This time, however, with a little more of their characteristic cheerfulness.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
While Nell’s body would’ve appreciated a couple extra hours of sleep after staying up with Simon until the wee hours of morning, she crawled out of bed just before her alarm went off. Outside the window nearest her bed, the sun hadn’t even begun to rise yet, and there were no stars in sight. After stumbling around in the dark for a moment, she flicked on the switch and was blinded by the light. Once her eyes adjusted, she founded her only pair of dress pants and a button down shirt. The bags under her eyes were blatant, but anywhere with coffee on campus wouldn’t be open for another hour at least. Wayne Enterprises didn’t look like the sort of place that would condone drug smuggling and testing on mental patients, but Nell withheld judgement as she walked through the futuristic glass doors on the bottom floor. The sun had just started to rise behind her should, and she was joined by a coupe dozen people in business suits. Doubtlessly, they were headed to work. Just past the welcoming front doors was a security check. A couple of unsmiling guards had her step through a body scanner and x-rayed her backpack, which didn’t have more than a few folders, some pens, and a flashdrive tucked away at the bottom. Just one glance at the muscles on either of the guards made Nell fiercely glad she had left her Batgirl “security blanket” in her dorm. One of the guards handed Nell back her backpack, and after sparing her one last glance, moved on to being suspicious to the next person trying to get through the security check. To the left of the body scanners, regular employees went in without fanfare, only stopping to scan their ID badges at the gate. Hiking her bag over her shoulder, Nell checked in with a pale, severe looking woman behind the front desk. She checked Nell off a list and directed her to sit next to a dozen of her classmates in the waiting room. She took a seat next to a bored boy who smelled heavily of the good time he’d had last night. After a beat of awkwardness where she was sure all her peers were staring at her, everyone settled back to staring at their respective phones. Nell picked up the sole magazine on the onyx coffee table in front of her. Gracing the cover was both Bruce Wayne and his grumpy son. Nell told herself then and there that she’d never display self-serving magazines in her lobby. If she had a lobby. Or a business. Or any property at all. The severe woman that had checked them all in came over to stand before them. She seemed incapable of smiling and very concerned with the heavy metal clipboard in her hands. “Welcome, students. I am Jaquil Orantez. You may call me Ms. Orantez,” she said. “We have a very full day ahead of us, so I’ll need each of you to keep up, wait to ask questions until the end of each presentation, and take minimal bathroom breaks. Any questions?” It was probably not the time to mention that Nell did kind of have to go. Ms. Orantez nodded once and then turned her gaze back towards the clipboard. “Until lunch, I will lead you on a tour of a few of the departments here at Wayne Enterprises. We’ll start in HR.” The crowd of GU students fell behind their guide as she took them up a glass staircase to the fourth floor. Nell kept to the back of the pack, reading each sign they passed. There were a few for the aviation department, engineering, but she didn’t find what she was looking for until they were almost at the HR suite. And as riveting as a presentation on employee handbooks and PC office language would be, it wasn’t what Nell was there for. When she was sure no one was looking in her direction, Nell rushed off in the direction of the pharmaceutical department, which happened to be on the third floor towards the back of the massive building. The men and women coming and going through the department’s doors had labcoats and the same ID badges Nell had seen in action downstairs. Pressing her lips into a thin line, she shut herself into a supply closet near the main entrance. The smell of cleaning chemicals invaded her nose, making her eyes sting a bit, but she ignored the sensation, so she could focus on the problem at hand. Getting into the department so she could sneak around was going to take a little work. Batman and Robin would have likely came up with some kind of elaborate disguise. Or came prepared with a pre-programed ID card. But Nell didn’t have any of those things, including the know-how to hack into Wayne security. That thought depressed her for a moment before she put it aside. She needed an ID card to get through the front door. But in what situation would an employee take it off while in the building? And that was how Nell found herself on the top floor, tiptoeing into the executive employee gym. Since it was open to all employees and out of the way of the public, no key card was required. To Nell, this seemed like a blaring gap in security. A useful gap for her, though. The women’s locker room was empty, so she crept through the door to the men’s. Steam permeated the air, fogging up the mirrors and obscuring her view of half of the shower portion of the room. It didn’t stop her from getting an unfortunate view of a fifty-year-old man’s flabby backside. Shuddering, she grabbed the first ID she could find in a locker. The name on it read Peyton Powers, but there was no employee picture, so it could’ve belonged to a man or woman. A couple cubbies down, she lucked out and found a labcoat to complete the look. After grabbing a couple of stray papers out of the trash, she buried her nose in what probably looked like important paperwork and walked right through the doors and past the department’s office manager. The ID scanner made a positive sounding beep, and when no one stopped her, she knew she was in the clear. Eat your hearts out, dynamic duo. Like the academic espionage Simon had asked her to do, Nell needed a computer hooked up to the Wayne network if she was going to snoop through the drugs the company developed. Most of the offices and labs were full of people hunched over their work or taking a coffee break. Before Nell could get discouraged, though, she founded an office with the or slightly ajar and the lights off. A memo about a week long vacation was pasted to the bulletin board next to the name plack. She ducked into the office, closing the door firmly behind her. The computer on the desk looked at least ten years older than the rest of the electronics on the floor. A couple buttons were missing, and she wondered if the man the office belonged to was as obsolete as his tech. After locating the USB port on the ancient machine, she plugged in Simon’s flash drive and let the program he wrote to crack passwords do the work. It was an old piece of programing he’d sent to her back in grade school when Nell begged him to help change her grade in home ec. She couldn’t cook. Not even to boil water. Once she had open the department list of current projects, she narrowed it down to drugs that didn’t have FDA approval yet. It was still a sizable list. Wayne Pharmaceuticals seemed to be working on everything from allergies to HIV and everything in between. Nell noted that a handful of the projects were tagged “invisible” and only showed up on an administrator’s account, like the one she was on. Following a gut feeling, she pulled up the “invisible” list and pressed print. Just as she pressed the button, a conversation started outside her door. “We need to see results before we talk money,” someone said. The second voice was deep and, if Nell wasn’t mistaken, would have been more at ease speaking in Spanish. “Securing the raw material has become...problematic,” the heavily accented voice said. “There’s a great risk involved for me and my men.” Nell was sure she recognized the accent from somewhere in the Caribbean, but with the door muffling the foreigner’s voice slightly, she couldn’t be more specific than that. “Your well-being is not my concern,” the other man said. “The Arkham experiments have been wildly inconclusive….” Like a bloodhound on the trail, Nell perked up in her seat at the mention of Arkham and experiments. All the clues so far seemed to lead back to that terrible place on the hill, and the thought sent a shiver through Nell even as she struggled to hear more. The pair trailed off as a couple footsteps moved down the hall. The two men waited until the newcomers had disappeared before starting to speak again.“I won’t take a loss on a job like this,” the Caribbean man said. “It’s not worth my--” The printer to Nell’s life sprung to life and started spitting out papers and uttering wheezing sounds. It was far too loud for the two men not to have heard, and the Wayne employee said, “I thought Denton was on vacation….” Nell dove for the printer and was just able to shove half of the papers under her shirt when the door swung open, colliding with the wall with a bang. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
______
Security shoved Nell into a windowless room that reminded her of the interrogation rooms down at the station. She sat down in one of two chairs, fiddling with her backpack and trying not to think of the confidential material resting against her belly button.Instead, her thoughts wandered to what her parents would say when Wayne Enterprises called them. Guantanamo would be preferable to prison they’d make her room into. She’d be lucky if she got out of this without a curfew and bars on her window for the rest of her life. Ms. Orantez interrupted Nell’s imprisonment thoughts by walking through the door to her makeshift cell. If Nell thought the woman looked severe before, it was nothing compared to now. The woman’s lips had completely disappeared, and her knuckles were tense and white. “Would you like a glass of water, Ms. Little?”She started at that, blinking. “Uh--no? I mean, no thank you.”Though Nell wouldn’t mind downing a couple dozen anxiety pills if you’ve got those lying around somewhere. Ms. Orantez sat primly on the edge of the other seat in the room, dissecting Nell with her eyes. When the girl began to squirm under the attention, the older woman folded her arms onto the metal table between them. “Can I call you Nelly?” the woman asked unexpectedly. She didn’t wait for a response. “Listen, Nelly, what you were looking at is actually classified information; we don’t let just anyone read that.” Did this woman actually think she had to explain to Nell what classified meant? She wondered if she could play stupid to her advantage or if the stiff woman would see through it. “I wasn’t trying to look at any classified information, Ms. Orantez,” Nelly said, letting her eyes go big and guileless. “I got separated from the group, and I was trying to find today’s schedule online, so I could meet up with you guys.”Thin but plausible. Ms. Orantez didn’t comment on her story. The only indication that she had heard Nell was a slight narrowing of her eyes. Which was not an encouraging sign. “Intent or no intent, corporate espionage is illegal, Ms. Little. Wayne Enterprises could easily lay criminal charges against you.” Nell felt a little faint at the words “criminal charges.”The door opened, and a man said, “I don’t think that’ll be necessary, Jaq.” Nell whipped her head to stare at the newcomer in the multi-thousand dollar suit. He had dark hair, just like his son, and the purest of blue eyes. Those eyes, unlike Damian’s, were pure in another sense, and they creased slightly at the edges with his smile. Still feeling a little woozy, Nell hoped that smile wasn’t going to be the last thing she saw as a free woman. Ms. Orantez’s icy nature didn’t thaw one bit as she said, “We’ve had a security breach, Mr. Wayne.” “I don’t know if I’d call a teenager’s curiosity a security breach.” His eyes drifted back to Nell. “Could I speak to you in my office for a moment, Nell?” A couple of minutes later, Nell was sitting in an outrageously comfy chair, looking out at the Gotham’s skyline. The crescent moon shaped window gave an exceptional view of the hard lines, harder people, and the everyday beauty of Gotham. It was a harsh beauty, but one her inhabitants come to love with a fanatic kind of devotion. “How are you?” Bruce Wayne asked suddenly after sitting silently for some time. “It’s not every day that you’re taken hostage by a Gotham City villain.” Nell’s smile was wobbly and uneasy, unable to tell if the billionaire was lulling her into a false sense of security. “You were around for more of that than I was. Sorry.” He shook his head. “Nothing to apologize for; you did the right thing. And you made a great get away. Like a bat out of hell.” It suddenly became very difficult to breathe or swallow past the huge lump in Nell’s throat. Why would he use that particular phrase? Mr. Wayne leaned back in his throne. “Now, about those files--” “I’m really sorry about that, Mr. Wayne, and I promise I won’t tell anyone. Swear it. Besides, I didn’t really see much and understood even less, so--” He cut her off with a lazy hand gesture. “I’m not worried about any of that. Actually, I admire curiosity and bravery.” His eyes twinkled. “Though I’d recommend you exercise a little restraint.” She nodded numbly, still unsure on whether she was going to jail or not. “You’re here with Gotham University, right? The career preparation?” “Right.” Not to spy on potential corruption within your company. Nope, not Nell. “How would you like a more in-depth experience in that?” he asked. Nell frowned. “I’m not sure I know what you mean, Mr. Wayne.” “Wayne Industries hires a select number of part-time workers of tomorrow in the hopes of smarter, better prepared young men and women coming into the workplace. I’m offering you a position among them.” She was floundered. Was it common practice to offer to hire someone who’d just broken into one of your labs? “Why?” Nell asked bluntly. “I mean, why me?” “Damian speaks highly of you, for one.” Nell barely withheld her snort at that. Damian didn’t speak highly of anyone.But Mr. Wayne continued. “And I’ve seen your ambition--and the lengths you’ll go to see it through. Also, I’ve seen you under more pressure than you’re likely to encounter in any job.” Except the job she wanted. The job that could get her killed, but at the same time, was the only thing that made her feel alive. “So,” Mr. Wayne said. He’d lost his easy smile, and his eyes seemed to have aged centuries, becoming predatory like a bird. “Are you interested?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
That night, Nell Little became Batgirl once again to complete the favor Simon had asked. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon since Bruce Wayne’s approval trying to wrap her head around the events of the day. The job was just answering the phones and shadowing some department heads part-time, and she couldn’t think of a single good reason to turn it down. So, she’d nodded numbly and left the billionaire’s posh office feeling more than a little out of sorts. She supposed that people with that much money could afford to be a little unpredictable and eccentric in their hiring decisions.The sheets she’d managed to smuggle out of WE were locked away in her desk drawer. She’d started to google their contents when her roommate had come bursting through the door to pick up some books. After that, she felt too gun shy to open the drawer again. Nightfall made Gotham University look like medieval Transilvania. The building emitted endless shadows and hovered over Nell as she made tracks to the computer lab on the other side of campus. This late, everyone was off campus parting, studying, or already asleep. With the exception of Nell, of course, who preferred dressing up like a bat to passing Comp. I. Unlike the library, the computer lab wasn’t open 24/7. This was only a small barrier, because the building didn’t have close to the security WE did. All Nell had to do was remove a screen and work a hard-to-reach window open. Not exactly Fort Knox.With all the screens black and the lights off, Nell had a hard time not bumping into every desk she walked past, her eyes not yet adjusted to the lack of light. One bump sent a precariously perched keyboard crashing to the ground, and Nell jumped out of her skin. Smoothing anxious hands over the material of her costume, she picked a random computer and booted up the old machine. The instructions Simon provided to access the data files were pretty simple. After all, this was GU, not NASA. A couple minutes after popping the flash drive into the computer, she was done and climbing out the way she came in. Rounding the building, Nell screeched to a stop when she came into view of an 80-year-old woman in a bright green spandex suit with a yellow felt cape. Some of her wrinkles were obscured by those dollar domino masks you could pick up at Party Place. Nell’s mouth wen slightly agape as she watched the woman try to pick the front door’s lock with what looked like a catheter tube. “Those hooligans make it look so easy on True Crime,” the old woman mutter, still fiddling with the lock. She stopped abruptly when she noticed Batgirl, still standing there in shocked silence. Dropping the tube, the woman brought her hands up in a “come at me” motion. “Aha! A Caped Crusader,” she said. “I wondered when you would come for me.” She brandished her fists again. “On guard!” There was absolutely no way--not even on threat of death or public speaking--that Nell was going to fight a woman who was around to see the creation of fire. If that was what was expected of superheroes now-a-days, she’d be hanging up the cape. “Who are you?” Nell asked, making no move to protect herself or move back as the woman inched forward. Inched, because it appeared she had a bad hip and limited mobility. The question seemed to stump her. “I guess I should have a name. Villains do, right?”Nell didn’t know how exactly to respond to that, so she waited for the woman to continue. Making an apologetic motion, she said, “I probably should have done some brainstorming on the way over from Sunny Pines.” Her eyes went wide, and she pointed a gnarly finger at Nell. “Oh, good show! You made me reveal part of my secret identity.” “Then you can probably just tell me your name,” Nell said, quickly connecting “Sunny Pines” with the Sunny Pines Nursing Home, which was neither sunny nor surrounded by idyllic nature. “Bev,” the old woman admitted. “But if I’m going to be a supervillain, I need a real supervillain name from now on.” A pause. “What do you think of Catgal? I had a taby once.” “There’s already a cat super villain,” Nell said. This earned her a blank look from behind the mask. “Who?” “Catwoman.” “Is she new?”It was becoming clearer and clearer to Nell that Bev would’ve probably been better off in Arkham than at Sunny Pines. The watch on Bev’s wrist started beeping, and she said, “Oh, fiddlesticks. It’s time for my meds. Do you know how to get from the bus from here?” Batgirl gave her directions, and Bev smiled and waved as she headed off in that direction, blathering on about being the best evil nemesis the superhero had ever had. Just wait and see!Batgirl shuddered at that thought. Mischief managed for the night, she wrapped her half-length cape around her as a gust of wind passed by and headed back to her dorm. She had to change in the dark in the communal bathroom on the off chance her roommate had come back to spend the night. By the end of that exercise, her socks were soaked, and she felt like she needed a shower. Falling into bed, Nell let thoughts of bat icons and 80-year-olds in green spandex lull her into a dreamless sleep.
_____
An unexpected cold front invaded the campus and brought with it the sniffles, coughing, and bright, red noses. All around Nell, students shuffled to class in multiple layers, looking miserable and coughing all over one another. It was the beginning a plague, in her opinion, and she rationalized skipping her morning class to avoid being sick for her first shift at WE that night.
Staying indoors proved to be a wasted effort, however, when Kline came stumbling through the door that evening, snot dripping down her face. She’d donned a Christmas sweater with light up reindeer, and her hair stuck up at odd angles.
“Stay back,” she mumbled, shuffling to her bed. “I’ve got a cold.”
Nell wasn’t quite on the level of the world’s greatest detective, but she found that statement unnecessary. Highlighting a section of her sociology textbook, she watched her roommate flop facedown on her mattress, sinking into the extra long twin.
“Did you go to the health center?” Nell asked
After a moment of enjoying her sheets, Kline turned on her side to look at her roommate. “There’s nothing they can do for a cold.” She frowned. “We can clone people, but all we have for the common cold is NyQuil.
“Speaking of which,” she said, fishing a blue bottle out of her bookbag, “I’m going to give up the good fight.”
Nell wanted to offer to get her soup or something, but she had to dress and leave for her first shift answering the phones at WE, so she settled for a cautious pat on the head. Followed by an intense hand washing.
Going through security and moving to the top floor of the WE building was a lot different when you weren’t sneaking around with a stolen ID. The severe looking woman from the tour lead Nell to the top floor, where Mr. Wayne’s office was located. In fact, they came to a stop right outside the double doors Nell had walked through a few days ago. A desk with a computer and a phone sat a couple yards away from the office.
“You’re to answer the phone and take messages,” she said, obviously not sure if Nell could handle even that. “Tell anyway who asks that Mr. Wayne is unavailable and do not disturb him.”
“Mr. Wayne is in the office?”
Instead of answering, the older woman turned on her heel and headed back downstairs. As the elevator doors shut, the woman’s eyes bored into Nell with an intensity most people couldn’t match. If the young vigilante harbored any ideas about sneaking around again, they died a quick death.
The doors dinged shut after a long moment, and the phone on Nell’s desk rung, making her flinch slightly. “Hello?” she said, like a doofus. “I mean--Wayne Enterprises. How may I direct your call?”
The rest of the night was mostly uneventful, though by midnight, a thick layer of seat covered Nell from answering the phone so many times. Talking to people on the phone for the rest of eternity was probably what awaited her in hell, if that was the direction she was going in.
A tingle on the back of Nell’s neck was the only warning before the windows in front of her station and the door to Mr. Wayne’s offices exploded, raining glass on the desk and carpet in every direction. It was almost like a violent confetti show at a party.
In the center of that destruction crouched an unremarkable, dark skinned man. Close to the equator, probably. He was rather thin and not very tall, but he’d seemingly leaped through a window on the top level of the Wayne Enterprises building, so Nell wasn’t going to judge the book by its cover.
He started towards the door, and she didn’t even hesitate--which was dumb. Moving to put herself between the man and the office, Nell put her hands out like a crossing guard stopping traffic. By some small miracle, he did, raising a condescending eyebrow at Nell.
“Move, chica.”
Spanish, Nell thought with a relief. This was something she could handle. Trying to convey more confidence than she felt, she told the man in his native tongue he needed an appointment. Her voice trembled a little. It was a lot easier to be sassy as Batgirl.
“Your Spanish is beautiful, just like your face. But I won’t hesitate to break it if you stand between me and the man who has stolen from me.”
His accent sparked something in the back of Nell’s mind, telling her she’d heard it somewhere. She got so caught up by that fact though, that the man moved before she was ready.
With the ease of Superman, he picked Nell up and threw her through the doors. Luckily, they weren’t shut all the way and just slid open under the force of her body hitting them. Still, unpleasant.
Nell flew across the room and hit the floor with a sharp thud. The momentum sent her rolling, and she almost hit her head against Wayne’s ornate desk. Like a punching clown, she sprang back up, opening her mouth to tell the boss to run, but he wasn’t there. Waynes seemed to have some kind of superpower for escaping at the right moment.
The man looked at Nell then, furious. “You,” he spit. “You gave the thief time to escape.”
Nell really hoped that was true, but at the same time, she hoped she could convince this man that it wasn’t. Putting more distance between them, she ran to the other side of the desk. He watched her, making no move to snap her neck. Yet.
“You protect a man with no honor.”
“WE didn’t take anything from you. I promise.”
He grabbed the desk, and the piece groaned at the pressure he put on it. “I’ve been tracking my supply for months, all the way from Santa Prisco to Gotham, hunting these thieves. The trail leads to this company, bonita.”
Batgirl would’ve asked the guy to refrain from sexist comments while he was threatening her, but Nell couldn’t even draw in enough air to whistle at him.
His expression clouded over. “You are one of the thieves, no?”
“No!”
But there was no reasoning with him. He slid a syringe out of his pocket and was in front of Nell in the next second. Her instinct-based defense was quickly deflected, like swatting a bug away. He poised the needle over the skin of her neck, and she stopped moving. The threat of a needle to the jugular will do that to a girl.
“Tell me where to find Mr. Wayne, bonita. It gives me no pleasure to hurt women.”
“I don’t know where he is.” It was a course whisper.
Eyes twisting into something ugly, he said, “Then taste the spoils of your thievery.”
The needle went in with a faint spark of pain, and then the burn began. It spread throughout Nell’s body, hitting all her muscles and setting them on fire. She stumbled away from Bane, bracing herself for the death blow that never came.
Instead, power bubbled up inside of her. Pure, painful, and consuming. She batted at a potted plant that got in her way and sent it flying 20 feet, crashing into a wall loudly. It felt good. Really good.
The desk Nell sat at was the next to go. She split it in half with her bare hands. If Nell thought that Batgirl suit gave her power, it was nothing compared to what the strange man had packing in that syringe.
“You feel it, don’t you?” Bane said behind her, about to jump out the same window he came in. “You’re a god now.”
The next moment, Bane vanished into the Gotham skyline.
For whatever reasons, those words snapped Nell out of her haze just as the elevator doors opened, revealing a security guard and a black man with neatly kept braids.
Most of the lobby was in a state of disrepair with Nell right at the center of it all. Words didn’t come easy in this state, and all she managed to choke out was “Bane.”
The two men exchanged looks before approaching the strung out girl. The black man got on his cellphone and said some things in Spanish, which Nell should have understood just as well as English. Then again, she wasn’t understanding English all that well at the moment.
His accent, though….
Her concentration on trying to explain what happened blinded her to the security guard’s hands until another needle ended up in her neck. Jerking, a sedative raced through her veins, sending her crashing to the floor. The world went a little pear-shaped, and the next thing she knew, a man in a white orderly uniform was standing over her.
“Do you think she knows something?” the orderly asked someone just out of Nell’s field of vision.
The black man with Bane’s accent answered. “Can’t be too careful, as you Americans say. We don’t need any more prying eyes right now.” A beat. “Can you keep her out of the way?”
The orderly shot the other man a confident smile and then looked back down at Nell. “Welcome to Arkham, Jane Doe.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Nell Little woke up in a stone room with a single glass wall. There was one bed with white, crisp sheets and numerous stains. A toilet sat opposite the bed. Behind her head, the pillow had a chunk missing from it, like someone had taken a bite. Springing to her feet, her legs almost went out from under her. Still feeling the affects of the sedative they’d given her, she stumbled over to the glass wall. Her room was just one of dozens in the hallway, all with identical setups. Immediately, her thoughts flashed back to the toilet and all the glass walls. There was no way that was happening. In the cell across from Nell’s, a man with dark hair and a wealth of scars laid on his stomach away from Nell. He didn’t so much as flinch when she knocked against the glass. He wore a white scrub shirt and grey sweats. His shoes had no laces. He was the only inmate she could seeNell still donned the business clothes she’d put on for her shift at WE. If she hadn’t been processed yet, she could talk to the orderlies when they came to give her a change of clothes, tell them about the mess up. She sat down on the very edge of the bed to wait for them, hastily avoiding a large, yellow stain. She didn’t have to wait long. Five orderlies, wearing the same white scrubs as the man who had taken her away, came into view, heading straight for her cell. The door that marred the glass slid open, and they all came inside. With a hollow feeling in her stomach, she noted that they were all quite large and unsmiling. “Hi,” she said, mentally cursing her awkwardness. “My name is Nell Little, and I there’s been some kind of mistake. I don’t belong--” “Got another chatty one,” one of the men said with a sneer. “The meds will clear that up.” Rising from the bed, she backed away slowly. “I don’t belong here. If you could just call my dad--he’s--”The smallest man pulled out a baggie filled with pills from a fanny pack. The group started towards her before she could tell them that her father was an ADA. It was all so sudden, and she was without her Batgirl uniform. The combination cost her a valuable few seconds. Two of the orderlies seized her and held her down to the bed. She kicked and clawed at them, forgetting any training she had in a mad panic. The one with the pills approached the bed, and she struggled harder. “I’m already on medication,” she panted. “You can’t….” But he did. Three of the men held her secure while the other two shoved a handful of pills down her throat, messaging it to make her swallow. Nell choked, drool running down her chin. This didn’t deter any of the orderlies, who didn’t let up until the shortest one wrenched her jaw open, checking under her tongue to make sure she had swallowed. Barely aware of being released, Nell continued to gag and pant, curling in on herself. The orderlies said nothing more to her, leaving a couple pairs of inmate clothes on her bed, but moved on to the subject of the Gotham Knights’ season opener. Nell laid there, shaking and trying to think for a long time after the door slid shut. She tried to get her mind to come up with a plan, but she kept flashing back to the feeling of being held down, grabbed by the throat. Finally, she realized she couldn’t just lie there and overdose. Who knew how these drugs would react with the ones she was already on. Taking a deep breath, she walked over to the toilet, leaning on the cold stone. “I wouldn’t,” a deep voice said loudly. It was the dark haired man from across the hall. Clearly, the glass wasn’t soundproof, but you had to speak up to be heard. Once he had Nell’s attention, he pointed skyward. She stared at him dumbly for a moment before he elaborated. “Cameras.” Sure enough, when she glanced at the ceiling she could make out at least five security cameras. The realization made her feel raw and exposed beneath the harsh light. “They’ll just come back,” the man said. “And they won’t be so nice the second time.” There was nothing to say to that, so she just went back to the bed. In light of the cameras, she knew she needed to change into the clothes they had given her. The last thing she wanted was for them to come back, hold her down, and dress her. A shudder rocked her frame at the thought. Hugging the clothes to her chest, she glanced back at the very clear glass. Her neighbor had gone back to lying on his bed and now stared at the ceiling. There was no telling how many other eyes were on her. Biting her lip, she threw on the new clothes as quickly as possible, noting that they scratched and sagged in odd places. Idly, she wondered who shimmied into them before her. Any big names? The thought was not as amusing as it would have been on the other side of the glass. Nell lost herself in her thoughts for awhile, trying to remember everything she knew about Arkham. It wasn’t much. She’d never been for obvious reasons, and the insane asylum on the hill wasn’t the kind of thing one brought up in civilized conversation. A loud beeping that seemed to originate from the walls roused her from her disheartening thoughts. The glass door to her cage, the dark haired man’s, and everyone else in the hallway slid open simultaneously. He stepped out and so did a few others she couldn’t fully see down the hallway. When Nell didn’t move, rotted to the spot, her neighbor raised an eyebrow at her. “Lunch.” Her stomach rumbled mournfully, but Nell froze for a moment. If it was lunch time, she’d lost about twelve hours. Assuming it was the same day.She couldn’t think about the implication of that and put on a strong face for the crazies of Arkham. Before her dark-haired neighbor could get away, she tucked herself into his shadow, moving frightfully behind him. This seem to annoy the man more than anything else, but Nell couldn’t begin to approach any of these people. Talking to strangers was hard enough without the criminal angle. Half the hallway stared vacantly in front of them, moving like puppets. Some twitched nervously, scratching or glancing around in constant panic. She didn’t see any of Batman’s colorful foes, but she didn’t look that hard. She tried very hard not to look at anything but her own feet. The wing shuffled across the castle-like building and into a typical cafeteria without the forks, knives, or chairs that weren’t bolted to the floor. The tables were a cheery kind of yellow that made Nell want to jump off the nearest tower. Nothing in this place could ever be cheery. The inmates received styrofoam trays and helpings of something that might have been chilli with lima beans on the side. She was pretty sure the latter didn’t count as a vegetable. Her neighbor picked a mostly empty table on the outskirts of the room, walking quickly and weaving in a maneuver that was probably meant to lose her. At any other moment, the thought of forcing her company on someone would have sent her into an anxiety-fueled panic. She plopped into a seat opposite him, and she thought she heard a sigh from her lunch companion. Biting her lip, she spooned around the lima beans, methodically pairing them off into sections of three. “What’s your name?” she asked when the beans were all sorted. He shook his head and continued to shove chili into his mouth. “I’m Nell,” she said, a little more firmly than necessary. Nothing. “You should let other people get a word in edgewise,” she said. That finally earned her a response, though it came with an eye roll. “First time in Arkham, Nell?” “Does it show?” she said, a brave face firmly in place. “I’m not supposed to be here.” “Yeah, me either.” He went back to shoveling in the questionable food. The movement revealed more of his forearms, which like the rest of him, was littered with scars. “You’re not Zsasz, are you?”He laughed, chili still in his open mouth. Swallowing, he said, “Nah. I’ve got way more kills than scars.” “Modesty and table manners,” Nell said, though she wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. He shrugged. Leaning forward, she said fiercely, “I meant what I said about not belonging here, and I’m going to get out.” That was more for herself than her companion.
_____
After lunch, Arkham inmates headed off one-by-one for their solo therapy sessions. It was apparently a bi-weekly occurrence, but Nell didn’t plan on being there long enough to fall into the routine. An hour alone with a sensible person, medical degree in hand, would free her from this hell-hole.Though she supposed, for the sake of the case, she should ask to look around a bit before running with her tail tucked between her legs. It felt good to think about the mysterious pills again, like a fraction of control fell back into place. After the nameless neighbor came back from his session, her door slid open and a kindly looking orderly with laugh lines and mom hair showed her to Dr. Penelope Young’s office. She smiled encouraging at Nell when the younger woman hesitated. The TV therapist office would have an organized desk with some kind of relaxation game gracing the surface--like raking a fork through the sand. There’d be a lounging chair near a lamp where the patient could stare up at the ceiling and spill about their crappy childhood. Dr. Young’s office sported none of those things. First off, there were mugshots on the walls. All over the walls. A couple of the faces in the images looked familiar to Nell, but she didn’t try to hard to place them. The doctor’s desk was just an IKEA table, scuffed around the edges. Two plastic chairs rested in front of the table, and Nell fell into one at the doctor’s prompting. When Nell opened her mouth to try and explain her situation, Dr. Young beat her to it. “Let’s start with introductions,” she said. Exactly Nell’s intention, but she decided to let that slide. “I’m--” The brunette woman with a slightly lazy eye shook her head. “Let’s not use names for the moment. I don’t want to start off our relationship with a lie.” A wide smile. “Just, as briefly as you can, tell me who you think you are.” A long pause where Nell tried to adjust; she wasn’t very good at thinking on her feet socially speaking, having already practiced her speech. “I’m a college student,” she said finally. “And there’s been a mistake. I don’t need therapy--I shouldn’t even be here.”The woman rested her head on her hands, looking intently at Nell. “Why is that?” Blunt seemed the way to go. “I’m not crazy. I’m not a super villain--or any kind of villain. Someone messed up and dragged me here against my will. I’ve been drugged, forced to eat really bad food, and if you’d just call my dad, we could clear this whole thing up.” Young nodded, and for a sparkling moment, Nell thought she would fish a phone out of her pocket and dial. Instead, she said, “Do you really think at least a dozen orderlies and administrators would make that kind of mistake?”“Clearly, it’s not outside the realm of possibility,” Nell said, gritting her teeth. Inside, she just kept chanting that this couldn’t be happening. The doctor had to believe her. She had to help her. This just couldn’t be happening. Not to her. After jotting down something on a blank notepad, Young asked, “Do you always shift blame onto others in your life?” It was happening. By the time Nell left the doctor’s office, she felt numb and detached from the situation. She was pretty sure the drugs had kicked in. The orderly who had escorted her asked how the session went, and Nell couldn’t summon the energy to answer her. They didn’t believe her. No one believed her. She was stuck in Arkham. After returning to her cell, she went to her bed slowly, vaguely aware of someone saying something to her from outside. It didn’t seem important. All her thoughts and feeling seemed to be on the other side of a window screen. Only the smallest trickle could get through to her.
_____
A couple days passed by. The orderlies came to bring her fresh clothes and more pills. She didn’t fight them, and they didn’t hold her down. The medication itself dampened everything, which might have been a blessing, but she felt dizzy, off balance, with horrible insomnia.Even the comfort of sleep eluded her. Though she sat with her neighbor at meal-time, she had no appetite and no desire to push her food around into organized piles. Instead, she sat and stared as the special-of-the-day got cold and ignored everything her dinner-mate might say to her. Though, those comments became few and far between after he asked what they had her on. People on powerful antipsychotics aren’t the best conversationalists. On her fourth day at Arkham--probably, it was hard for Nell to tell at this point--someone pushed her in the lunch line. To be fair, it was less of a push and more of a plowing to get to the bread rolls, but it sent Nell crashing to the ground. Clam chowder covered her shirt and pants, though as it wasn’t fresh, she was saved any burns. After cleaning up the mess that didn’t land on her, she sat at her regular table without comment, sans tray. When her neighbor joined her, he said, “That soup really brings out the ashy color under your complexion.” There wasn’t anything to say to that. Or maybe there was. She wasn’t sure any more, so she said nothing. Her throat dried up from lack of use, anyway. “Come on,” he said, handing a couple of napkins to her, a gleam in his eye. “Where’s the girl who was dying to escape a couple days ago?” She was probably still there, Nell thought, under the pounds of drugs weighing her down. But she was just Nell, the college student with sub-standard social skills and superb language skills. The irony of that did not escape her. Batgirl, on the other hand, would have been out of here two seconds after waking up. Or she never would have been in this place in the first place. No one would ever shove pills down a superhero’s throat and force them to swallow. Batgirl wouldn’t have been defeated this easily. That last thought pissed Nell off a little, so she took the offered napkins and wiped at her stained, white shirt and chunky pants. It was too late for either garment long before the soup incident. “Why are you in here?” Nell asked, voice gravelly like a 60-year-old smoker. “Got caught raising a alien-zombie hybrid army by Aquaman at Gotham’s Christmas festival,” he said smoothly. After a silent moment, he cracked a smile. “Or something like that.” Nell shrugged internally at his answer. The truth probably wasn’t very interesting anyway. “What about you?” the man asked through a mouth full of food. It was less than attractive. “I think….” With nothing to do but think for days, Nell managed to put together some of the events after Bane’s break in. “I think I knew too much.” “About what?” “Alien-zombie hybrids,” she said dryly. It could be the truth, though, for all she knew. He laughed, miraculously not choking on his soup in the process. “I suppose you want to exchange names now.”Nell became very interested with the bread crumbs in the middle of the table. “You’d be the first person here interested in hearing it.” But it would be nice for someone to know who she was. Even if they couldn’t do anything about it. Making herself meet the dark-haired man’s eyes, she said quietly, “I’m Nell Little.” “Jason.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
There wasn’t much to entertain Nell in Arkham, save her dishonest friend. So she actively tried to solve the puzzle of her neighbor.Every meal and moment outside of her Nell tried to get Jason to spill the beans. He told her he’d been locked up in Arkham for killing the president, fixing the Superbowl, and robbing a hotdog stand. Each answer was undoubtedly amusing but not at all truthful.Jason spent a lot of time watching the other inmates, tensing and relaxing, eyes narrowing and widening seemingly without cause. As someone who had spent her life with Gotham cops and lawyers, saying she’d never met someone as observant was saying something.When Nell wasn’t absently trying to solve Jason’s mystery, she was focused on her own escape and the reason she’d been put in the asylum in the first place. The former seemed impossible, the security too tight.The latter, however, Nell was sure had something to do with the case Batgirl’d been working with the unmarked pills, rage spells and Arkham connection. Despite unlimited access to the inmates, she hadn’t gotten much in the way of new information. The inmates moved away from her or changed the subject when she brought it up. That was if they didn’t flat up ignore her.“Why is everyone so tight-lipped in this wing?” she asked Jason, slamming her Styrofoam tray down after another unsuccessful fishing trip. A bit of mushy broccoli fell between them.“What do you want to talk to them for anyway?” he asked. “Most are heavily medicated.”“So am I,” she said, a little bitter. “That doesn’t make me useless.”“I haven’t found you particularly useful. Just annoying.”The orderlies still had her on a crap ton of meds she was sure she didn’t need. Some of the side effects were starting to fade but not all.“You wouldn’t know anything about some pills?” she asked, describing the medication to a tee. She’d had a lot of time to permanently itch every detail in her mind these past couple days.If she’d had any foresight, she would have brought her textbooks along and put this time to use.Jason shook his head, but his eyes sparkled with interest. “Never seen them. Why so interested?”That made Nell hesitate. As much as she liked Jason, she didn’t know anything about him. When she got out of here, and Batgirl inevitably solved the case, she didn’t want Nell and her nighttime persona connected in any way.“Just curious.” She went back to her dissolving broccoli before her expression could give anything away.Luckily for Nell, they were both distracted in the next moment back a loud, wet round of coughing from a man with a scraggly beard. The sound echoed in the buzzing cafeteria.A cold was making its way through the patients, just like at the University. Getting psychotics to routinely wash their hands was difficult. They, in turn, infected all the other inmates. Nell and Jason managed to stay sniffle-free through anti-social ness.There are benefits to being an introvert.While the coughing distracted Nell, Dr. Strange, chief psychiatrist at Arkham, came up behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder. In her surprise, Nell almost flipped the man onto the table. Not only would that move have ruined their lunch but betrayed her self-defense skills.Batgirl was the only one who could flip people anymore. All that time to think had made this apparent to Nell.“Well if isn’t my two favorite patients,” the man with yellow-tinted, round glasses said, not taking his eyes off Jason.While Nell had learned nothing about the mystery meds, she’d learned a lot about the workings of Arkham. For example, Dr. Strange’s preoccupation with her neighbor knew no bounds. He refused to provide the staff with his full name, medical history, or any pertinent information upon admittance. Nell figured that explained Strange’s fascination.“I’m so glad Jason’s finally bonded with another inmate,” Strange said, squeezing Nell’s shoulder painfully. “He’s been very lonely this past couple of weeks.”Out of the corner of her eye, Nell watched an orderly escort the scraggly bearded man—-still coughing—-out of the cafeteria through a back entrance.As Jason was studiously ignoring Strange, the doctor eventually admitted temporary defeat and left the two to their own devices. Before he retreated through the recently-used back door, however, he said, “You should come in for a session with me, Nell. I’ll set something up for later this week.”She would have preferred spending the night in a GCPD holding cell.“Tried to tell you not to follow me around,” Jason said once the doctor was out of earshot.She responded with a shrug. Having someone to talk to outweighed any unwanted attention from Strange. Still, maybe there was a silver lining in all this. Chewing on her bottom lip, she said, “Maybe I should talk to Strange about the pills.”That earned her that suspicious, slightly worried, and a little miffed. “I wouldn’t talk to Strange about anything if I were you.” _____
Strange’s curiosity overruled her current therapy schedule, and Nell found herself being led towards his office by the usual Orderly the next day. It turned out her name was Angie; she had two kids and professed herself a bonafide soccer mom.Angie waved cheerily to Nell and left her at a mahogany door with an actual brass knocker.The office was less an office and more of a study, books and art lining the walls and shelves. Strange sat at the center, a kind on this thrown. He watched the young woman through smudged glasses and nodded for her to sit. “You know, Nell,” he said, “we don’t have much on file about you. Not even a last name.”Nell thought bitterly that this probably had something to do with Dr. Young thinking she was delusional.“You’re as big of a mystery as Jason.”Shrinking a bit under the doctor’s gaze, she said, “The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” “Einstein,” Strange said. “Self-taught or did you study somewhere?” Nell and her big mouth. Instead of answering the creepy doctor, she decided to cut to the heart of the matter. “I don’t know anything about Jason. We sit together at meals. That’s it.” Strange seemed not to hear her. Instead, he leaned back in his seat, leather creaking with the movement. “You know, Nell, we really want you to succeed here. To leave in a better state than when you first came in.” A shake of his head. “Fighting the orderlies, lies, and refusal to take medication.” “All I want to do is leave,” she said honestly. Once again--a common theme throughout the past few weeks--she was ignored. “Speaking of your medication, I was thinking we should adjust it. Your dose is far too low to do you much good.” The small of her back grew sticky with sweat, and her fingers turned red and then white where they gripped the arms of the chair. “I won’t take it. And I still won’t have anything to say about Jason.” Dr. Strange smiled, and it was a genuine one, which just made it worse. “That’s not a very good attitude to have. I think we’re done for today.” It was a dismissal, so Nell rose. Before she could close the heavy door behind her, however, Strange spoke a few parting words. “Let’s talk in a few days after the meds have kicked in.” Nell didn’t wait for Angie, numbly walking back to her cell. Her body felt twitchy and agitated, but she moved like she was walking through water. They were going to come for her again, shoving more pills down her throat. She could almost feel them going down even now, and she gagged. They’d up the dose until there was nothing of Nell left, just a walking, breathing pharmaceutical cocktail. She didn’t want to be a hero anymore. If someone had offered her a way out of this place right at that moment, even at the expense of everyone in the whole city, she would have taken it. But no one was going to open a shiny door for her to walk out of this place. So she’d have to find her way to freedom on her own. Tonight.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Between the time that the sliding doors opened in her wing and when they all sat down for dinner, there were about fifteen minutes where no one would miss her. The orderlies were already in the cafeteria, watching the patients with an earlier eating time. There was no need to herd the inmates on Nell’s floor. It wasn’t as if there was any escape. Moving from floor to floor required a key card, and they were four stories up. Before she could disappear from the crowd, she inadvertently locked eyes with Jason. It was like he could see right through her to all her plans, and he shook his head, eyes narrowing. She mouthed “sorry” at him and took off in the opposite direction. Running past empty room after empty room, she kept an eye out for any stray orderlies but found none. When she reached the end of the stone hall, breathing harder, she came to a stop in front of a single, cathedral window. It looked like it had been here since the 1800s, and Nell tensed a bit as she searched for a latch. If this window didn’t open….But luck was on her side at that moment, if not in any other moment in her life. She shoved the painted glass backward, wincing at the sound of 200-year-old metal moving for the first time in decades. Her dad made a similar sound when he threw his back out over Christmas. Outside the window and about four feet down, stone trim was etched into the castle-like prison. The stone, crumbling in some places, stuck out from the building a maximum of three inches. Her foot was just over three and a half inches. A pause. A carefully thoughtless shrug. Hopping up onto the windowsill, she gripped the wooden casing with the pads of her fingers. She moved the rest of her body out and down like a climber wrapping a mountain. Her hospital slippers touched stone, which, though ancient and rough, felt solid enough. Taking a deep breath and really enjoying it since it could be her last, she released her hold on the window. Nell kept her body leaning forward as much as possible to keep balanced against the building. After a moment of waiting to plummet, she decided it was probably safe to move. Every inch the girl on the live wire, Nell tiptoed further, only able to use the balls of her feet. There were only about 10 yards between her and a lower arching roof she could jump to. From there she could probably scramble down a wall with gaps between the stone or find a drain pipe. For a moment, despite the bite of cold coming from the north, the ache in her feet, and the skin on her fingers getting rubbed raw from the building’s stone, she felt perfectly at peace and elated. Though her pixie boots were far from here, she felt a familiar fullness in her chest, a sureness in her movements. For the first time in weeks, she felt like Batgirl. The thought made her pause, a rush of feelings and accompanying thoughts tumbling down the slope of her unconscious to the forefront. Before the snowball could crash into the here and now, however, Nell realized that she’d been standing in one spot for a little too long. The stone under her left foot gave way, taking her whole leg with it. Half her body dropped straight down like an anchor, scraping painfully against the building, Her fingers weren’t much better off. By the time she caught herself, she’d torn at least five nails from their beds. The blood dripping down her hands to her forearms made gripping the smooth stones even harder. An uneven breath stuttered out of her mouth, almost sounding like a whimper in the silent night. “Okay,” she breathed. “That was a bad moment. But it’s over.” Nell continued along the ledge. At the end of the stone path, two floors down, there was an arboretum enclosed in glass. The flowers within were mostly dead, but Nell could make out a peaceful looking koi pond. If she hadn’t been so set on making like a bat out of hell from this place, she would’ve noted the location for future endeavors. She leaped from the ledge, landing on a space of wrought iron between glass panes. To keep from compromising the rusty metal, she landed with her feet far apart, distributing her weight. Upon landing, she tilting left to right, trying to keep her balance on her aching toes. Just as she finally settled, a cloud moved overhead, exposing a luminescent moon. The light fell over the arboretum, illuminating more dead pants and a decidedly not-dead figure off to the corner opposite Nell. The man was a little round around the middle with only a few tufts of orange hair. His clothes gave him away as a patient. No one she recognized but still a threat, she thought, body freezing to avoid drawing attention to herself. It would have been a lot easier if she wasn’t still in her white scrubs, which stood out sharply against her skin and the darkness in the Gotham sky. Almost as if someone whispered her location in the man’s ear, his gaze shot up to the exact spot where she stood, sweating profusely. She knew the exact moment he saw her because his lips pulled back from his teeth in a visible growl. The man lopped over to the nearest glass wall, bringing his fists over his head. Using all his body weight, he slammed the glass just once. A mighty thud sounded, and the iron under Nell’s feet vibrated lightly. For a moment, nothing else happened, and Nell almost relaxed. Then, originating from the strike zone, the glass cracked a shattered. It traveled left to right, floor to ceiling. Heading right towards Nell. She saw the cracks form on the glass to either side of her, but there was no time to jump to safety. If anywhere on Arkham grounds could be called safe. A woosh of air sounded in the arboretum as the glass began to rain down like a jagged hurricane. Dropping just as quickly as the glass, Nell fell into the pond feet first, feeling her right ankle give out beneath her with a searing blast of pain. A short scream escaped her throat as she stumbled backwards into the pond. The sound cut off when the base of her skull made contact with a metal bar.Batgirl fell into nothingness instantaneously, sinking in a couple of inches of icy, scummy water.