ISSUE #8 (December 2018)
Written by Emma Woods Featuring: Supergirl
Batgirl
Superman
Batman
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"WORLD'S FINEST"Gotham…
No-one could navigate the skyline of the Narrows quite like the people who were born there. Hazardous to say the least, several generations of erratic construction had created a haphazard array of pitfalls to ensnare the unwary. With floors built on top of floors to account for an ever growing, desperately poor population, the overcrowded island District had grown ever upwards, precariously held together by the needs of its people, every rooftop unique in the obstacles it presented, and rarely did they remain the same from one evening to the next. To navigate the skyline of the Narrows was to tread lightly. Batgirl hit the ground running. There was no time to slow down, the young woman vaulting over the top of an air vent before deftly leaping across the divide between one building and the next, tucking into a tight, rolling fall as she landed on a rooftop one floor lower than the one before. It was second nature, navigating this parkour course from hell, Stephanie both born and raised within the tight confines of her home, her heart beating a mile a minute as even a single wrong foot could result in both a long drop, and a sudden stop arriving in rapid succession. “STOP!!” she cried out, ducking left and right, both to avoid each new obstacle and to keep her target in sight, a gangly youth by the name of Michael Kaiden, local peddler and persistent pain for the otherwise, relatively law-abiding residents of the Narrows. She grumbled quietly under her breadth as he displayed further intention of doing nothing of the sort, his own wild, panicked dash only driving him further towards an impending accident. Her curse became slightly more audible as he suddenly disappeared from sight, navigating a sharp corner that could have diverted him only who knows where. It didn’t take her long to make the distance, skidding about the tight turn and… It had been several weeks since Batgirl had last heard a gunshot from up close, and when that crack of thunder split the air scarcely a few feet before her, she only had the chance to exhale once. With her eyes opened wide, she could see Kaiden stood almost within arm’s reach, pistol in one hand and pointed towards her chest. In that moment she was only aware of two things, her own, white hot panic, and the look of horror on Michael’s features… Neither of them was fully aware of what happened next, not as Superman caught the bullet scarcely an inch from Batgirl’s chest, not as the Last Son of Krypton had both appeared and interceded at the last moment, his feet not even touching the ground. Stephanie blinked, several seconds passing as she tried and failed to swallow. Eventually her brain began scrambling to catch back up with reality, regardless of how much the man hovering beside her broke the rules of it. Superman. The Superman. The impossible Superman, right there beside her. Saving her life. Finally, she swallowed. “Thankyou,” she managed to croak, utterly mortified by her lack of composure, clearing her throat to try again. “Thankyou.” “You’re welcome, Batgirl,” Superman smiled back, his manner humble, Stephanie desperately hoping that it didn’t show just how much her heart was all a flutter. He knew her name! Superman knew her name!! Kind of… As his attention turned towards the slack jawed Michael, his manner became… disappointed? He presented the discharged bullet between his fingers before he dropped it. Superman did not raise his voice, Superman did not need to raise his voice, and yet his quite disapproval was damning all the same. “Young man,” he said, “I expect better.” “I…I…I…” Michael stammered, his features as white as a sheet, “…I’m sorry.” He dropped the weapon he still carried, the pistol dropping to the rooftop and forgotten. Kaiden followed soon after, his legs giving out as he fell to his knees, the teenager despondent and practically brimming with remorse. Superman, with Stephanie as his witness, came down to earth as though his ability to leave it was no great thing, and knelt before the boy on the cusp of manhood, placing a consoling hand on the youth’s shoulder. “I believe you.” Michael nodded, humbled into silence. “You’re still getting arrested,” Batgirl reminded him, suddenly realising that the whole scenario had been taken out of her hands. “Detective Gage will catch up eventually. Peddling guns now instead of drugs?” she questioned, evidently not feeling quite as forgiving as the Man of Steel at this particular moment, “are you bound and determined to remain on my shit list?” Michael shook his head meekly, Stephanie kept her arms folded, determined to remain angry. It wasn’t working. “Plead guilty and serve your sentence,” she huffed ever so slightly, eventually unfolding her arms as Superman stood back up to regard her, “and I’ll scrub you off it, ok?” Michael nodded, despondent with himself and his actions. “Batgirl,” Superman question, moving over to the young woman to speak in private, “might I have a moment?” “…Sure,” Stephanie nodded, not wanting to be rude, the worlds greatest Superhero guiding her by the shoulder. “I was hoping you might be able to do me a favour.” The Batcave… Kara Zor-El was no longer convinced that she could feel cold, not while her Kryptonian physiology was being fuelled by Earth’s yellow sun, and yet… She opened her eyes, feeling sullen as she lay back against a slab that would not be out of place within a mortuary, her surroundings dark, hollow and uninviting. The cave was oppressive, beating down on every one of her heightened senses, the beat of her temples ringing in her eyes as she could feel the walls closing in around her. The Mountain. It was like being back in the heart of The Mountain. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before opening them again, reminding herself that the Mountain was in her past, that the hellish industry of that forsaken place had failed to kill her. She had survived, she was stronger for it. It could never hurt her again. She blinked as the lights above her table flickered back into life, a single bar of luminous green tracking down her prone physique from head to toe, the machines emitting it whirling and chittering in some manner of inorganic language. For a full hour she had endured this examination, one test after another, prodding and probing and all manner of indignities. Her patience was wearing thin, her good humour thinner still. “That’s it,” a stranger broke the mind-numbing tedium, a girl, a teenager like herself by her best estimation, one who spoke with higher spirits than anyone else she had encountered thus far in this benighted city. “All done, so I’m told at any rate.” Kara sat up, immediately grateful to be doing so, turning to the young woman who had freed her from her state of monotony. She was attired like the other one she had met upon her first arrival in this underground lair, clad from head to toe in lightweight, tactical body armour, the headpiece of which was moulded to resemble some manner of animal Kara was not familiar with. There was a symbol of her chest, a shape she did not recognise and yet carried some manner of significance, Kara had to wonder if there were comparisons to the Shield she wore upon her own chest, the symbol of the House of El. Kara, reserved, turned her attention back across the expansive cavern to where her cousin waited some distance away, Kal-El in deep conversion with the other armour-clad stranger. His manner was pensive, folded within his thoughts, his gaze piercing as he observed numbers, facts, figures, any number of countless variables as they played out upon a monitor before him. Batman, her cousin had called him. That symbol, that same symbol upon his chest… Did her people have more in common with humanity that she realised? “Is he your Father?” Kara questioned, seemingly apropos of nothing, her accent stilted as she continued to learn one of the blunt, primitive languages of her adopted home. Batgirl, for her own part, burst out laughing at the thought, she couldn’t help herself, even though it did not last long. “No, he’s not, we’re just, well,” she went on to explain before her brow began to furrow, the teenager unable to come to a suitable consensus on their current standing. “It’s a thing that’s being worked on, I’m frankly shocked that I’m here at all. I think I’m supposed to be making you feel more comfortable. Is it working?” Kara didn’t answer, more perplexed than ever. “No? Well, I brought you something to drink,” Batgirl offered, collecting a nearby tray, upon which sat two cups. The craftsmanship for both was exceptional, and from each rose a pleasant aroma. Kara accepted one politely, bringing it to her lips to taste the beverage… her eyes widening the moment she realised just how pleasant she found it. “I know, right?” Batgirl smiled before leaning in as if sharing a secret. “I’m fairly certain an old, British guy makes it, but I haven’t been able to find him yet. More?” Kara nodded and Batgirl retrieved a nearby pot, filling her guests cup with as much of the beverage as it was capable of holding. Next, the Gotham Vigilante helped herself to a seat beside the Last Daughter of Krypton, filling the silence left by the reserved, immigrant from the stars with small talk. “She’s Kryptonian,” Batman stated with finality, summarising his findings with typical efficiency. He lent forwards in his seat, his hands clasped before him, assessing information with methodical proficiency. Superman resisted the urge to sigh, standing to the side of his estranged friend, doing his best to ignore the tension, trying even harder to not add to it. The manner in which the League had dissolved was difficult for them both, that neither of them believed that they had been wrong did not make reconciliation any easier. Clark Kent, however, was not one to give up. Neither was Bruce Wayne. And so, there was still hope, Superman need only look ever so slightly sideways to see the two young women talking to know that much was true. He had to wonder if Batman could see it to. He had to believe he did. He wanted to. Still, Batman’s keen, analytical mind was as equally capable of unravelling the most convoluted of mysterious, as it was to stating the abundantly obvious. “I already knew that,” Superman insisted, trying not to sound condescending. “You already believed that,” Batman didn’t seem to extend the same courtesy. A moment of hesitation suggested he may have regretted it. He did not apologise. “I’m detecting a degree of cellular degradation,” he followed up, Bruce moving onto more pertinent information, “common with previous cases of prolonged hibernation. Nothing alarming, but it would account for her absence.” “Kara’s pod was knocked off course, she should have arrived when I did,” Superman informed, his shoulders tensing a fraction at the thought. His cousin had been set adrift amongst the stars for decades, lost, alone, with the only family that she had left utterly oblivious to her plight, vulnerable and helpless. It wasn’t his fault, and yet… “You couldn’t have known,” Batman interrupted his thoughts, his tone had softened. Most would have missed it. Superman missed nothing. Clark hesitated, before nodding slightly, gratefully accepting the sentiment. “These I find far more troubling,” Batman returned their attention to the monitors, his manner returning to cold professionalism. Several images appeared, some of Kara’s back, others of her arms and legs, the last bringing her skeletal structure into stark relief. Superman didn’t need to a doctor to know what he was seeing, and the implications filled him with a temper that he so very rarely displayed. “Her time, however brief, beneath our yellow sun has gone a long way to heal the damage caused, but there is no mistaking the remaining evidence.” Indeed, there was not, the scaring was as unmistakable as it was excessive, a tapestry of abuse written out across flesh. “Multiple lacerations, fractures, breaks, burns,” Batman went on to list, his own temper simmering. He didn’t show it, he did all that he could to supress it, but he remained as equally as furious. Few cared more for his fellow man that Bruce Wayne. “Something happened between Krypton and Earth, Kara was not merely delayed on her journey here. She was tortured.” “I know,” Clark confessed with a deep-rooted sigh, having already harboured his own suspicions, but to see the evidence laid out so proficiently, it was difficult to accept. “Kara, she isn’t ready talk about it.” “She needs to,” Bruce asserted. Superman held his ground, “We will talk when she is ready.” “Therapy,” Batman insisted, turning to look the Man of Steel in the eye, “professional and unbiased. Not you.” “Are you sure…” “I can put you in touch with people of discretion,” Bruce assured, while his tone remained uncompromising. “Even discounting this,” Batman motioned to the images, “Kara was no infant when Krypton died, she was not raised on this world as a native. She was there, she watched it happen, she witnessed the death of her entire people. She is traumatised, Clark, deeply, perhaps irreversibly. She needs help. She needs it now. One way or another, Trauma will find a way to manifest.” Superman looked to his oldest friend, the man armoured within the visage of the beast he most feared, his life an all-consuming crusade that he can never achieve. “Always.” “Are you ok?” Batgirl queried, looking to the Girl of Steel beside her, “you seem, tense.” Supergirl opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t, the young woman looking upwards, the walls of the dank cavern closing in around her. It was restrictive, suffocating, as if the cave itself wanted to swallow her whole, she could hear the walls whispering. She closed her eyes, knowing it was in her head, steadying her breathing as she refused to allow this hollow, foreboding expanse to control her. Not again. Opening her eyes, she narrowed her gaze, still looking upwards as she focused, just like her Cousin had shown her, and with a ringing in her ears the oppressive ceiling above faded away, her X-Ray vision piercing the rock until she could see the sky high above. She exhaled a slow, deep sigh of relief as she felt the pressure leap right off of her shoulders, the horizon a welcome reminder of her freedom. “I do not like enclosed spaces,” Supergirl confessed, Batgirl patiently waiting beside her for an answer. “They make me feel,” she paused, searching for an appropriate expression, but when none came to her in this crude dialect, she left the sentiment unfinished. Batgirl did not press her further, choosing instead to enjoy her tea beside her new companion. “Hey,” Stephanie suddenly spoke up, setting her cup aside and standing up with an expansive stretch, “how about we bounce, sound good to you?” “Bounce?” Kara arched her brow in confusion. “Leave,” Batgirl confirmed, “go somewhere else, I’m not big on the Mancave either.” “We can go?” Supergirl queried, looking quizzically in the direction of both her Cousin and Batman. “Why not?” Stephanie smiled, encouraging the immigrant from the stars to do likewise, “The first time I met Batman, he told me to stay in my room. Do you see how well that worked out?” “He told you to stay in your room?” Kara queried, getting up herself, thankful to be leaving. “It was a whole thing,” Batgirl explained without really explaining anything at all, “and he can be bit of dick sometimes.” Turning her attention to their predecessors, Stephanie called out, leaving little room for argument, “We’re going out for some air, you’ll know where to find us.” For a moment, Superman believed that Batman would protest, but when he didn’t he found himself pleasantly perplexed. “They’ll be fine,” Batman answered the question that had gone unsaid. “They need to start somewhere.” Clark smiled, despite himself, watching the two teenagers departing in good company. They called him the Man of Tomorrow, but in truth, tomorrow belonged to someone else. The Narrows… Kara was not overly convinced that the food that she had been presented with was edible. She did not want to seem rude, sat on the rickety ledge of an apartment building rooftop beside her companion, a small, carboard container in one hand, and a plastic fork in the other, the duo alone in the night air. She prodded tentatively at the noodles and, more specifically, the unidentified meat that was mixed in, inhaling a short sniff of its tangy aroma. “This is, good?” she queried, not quite convinced. “Depends on how hungry you are,” Stephanie confirmed, showing no hesitation in devouring her own portion, “and after being nearly shot today, I’m starving.” “What is it?” Kara desired further explanation, evidently far less keen to dig in. “We don’t question the nice vendor who gave us free food,” Batgirl paused long enough to explain. “Why did he do that?” Supergirl looked up, the bold blue and reds of her attire standing in stark contrasts to her drab surroundings. She was genuinely perplexed, gauging in the girl in purple and black beside her. “He wasn’t afraid of you.” “I pulled his son out a burning a building,” Batgirl revealed with a shocking lack of grandeur, “he’s been grateful ever since. I’ve upgraded the suit since then, but he knows it’s me. He offers me free food, I don’t want to be rude.” She smiled after a moment, Stephanie acutely aware of who she was sat next to, “Burning buildings, must seem like small potatoes to you.” “No,” Kara shook her head, looking back to her food, nudging the meat with her fork, “it doesn’t. I had to lose everything, before I had the strength to fight for anything.” The two sat in silence for a long moment, neither wanting to venture further, before Supergirl looked to the heavens. She could still see it, even from here, the light of her sun far above, light that had travelled from across the cosmos from a time that Krypton still hung in the heavens. Her people. She could almost imagine that they were still there. “This is your home?” she asked finally, her tone so quite Stephanie barely heard her it at all. Batgirl nodded in the affirmative, “I was born here, in this very building, two floors down. I don’t live here anymore, I moved a little way over there, but I like to come back every now and then.” She set aside her carboard container, inhaling a deep breath of the chill, night air. “When I was little, my Dad would bring me up onto the rooftop, and we would look up at the stars together. He would point them out to me, and they were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.” Letting the memory sit, Stephanie cleared her throat with an embarrassed sigh, “Of course, now that I’m older, I know that I live in the Narrows, and what I’m really looking at is a curtain a smog blowing in from the mainland. I’ve never seen the stars, not really, it was all in my head, my Dad just made me believe that it was real.” Kara turned her gaze from the ghost of Krypton and back to her companion, the girl no older than herself, as vulnerable as she had ever been, and yet… She had saved a boy from a burning building. Supergirl held out a hand, Batgirl looking back at her quizzically, “Take a breath.” “Excuse me?” Stephanie questioned as she took the hand that was prompted to her. “I said,” Kara went on to repeat, “take a breath.” Then they were airborne, before even a word of protest could be spoken, Supergirl taking Batgirl in her arms and launching into the night sky, the Kryptonian defying the very laws of gravity as she took flight. She went up, straight up, Stephanie forced to close her eyes against the wind resistance, holding the breath she had been told to take, trying not to think about how high they were going. A moment later, they broke the cloud cover, the duo piercing the fog of pollution to emerge out into the clearest night sky that she had ever known, the entire horizon stretching out before her, a sea of stars, bright, glorious and stretching out as far as the eye could see. They were real, just as she had believed they were, just as she had seen them in her head. They were all real. She couldn’t speak, there were no words. With no-one to see, Batgirl pulled back her cowl, swallowing slightly as she was carried in the sky, the cleanest air she had ever smelled washing across her naked features. It was like being born again, for the first time. “Why?” she questioned, disbelieving. “Because they belong to everyone,” Supergirl explained, “not just me.” “Stephanie,” Batgirl stammered, not quite able to compose herself in the moment, “my name is Stephanie Brown.” “Kara Zor-El,” Kara exchanged the sentiment although, upon momentary reflection, it felt slightly hollow, “Karen Kent.” “Pleased to meet you, Karen,” Batgirl said, meaning every word. “Pleased to meet you to, Stephanie.” “Welcome to…” Batgirl paused, rethinking what she wanted to say. “Welcome to our home.” “Thankyou,” Kara answered, the two alone with their thoughts. “Thankyou for letting me stay.” |