Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jesus said that he who is without sin, should cast the first stone.

But Greta Hayes didn’t care much for Jesus anymore; and even if she did, he never said anything about dousing your enemies with a water bottle of red paint.

It had been eight years since her death, but Greta was still angry.

Angry, that a man like Dr Charles—who established the Orphanage and experimented on innocent children—was about to be given an award for his ‘contribution to science’.

It had been easy to sneak into the Elizabeth Arkham Foundation building where the ceremony was being held. Since Darkseid, Tim had set her up with a seemingly endless bank account – so buying a costume and creating fake ID’s had been a breeze. It would have been easy to ask him to take her as his date, if she had been honest in her intentions. But Greta wasn’t about to raise a toast—she wanted to raze his fields, burn down his house, trap him in an airtight cannister and subdue him with some oxygen, she…

She wanted to ruin his life, the same way he had contributed to ruining hers.

As she lurked backstage, Greta missed the days when she could dissipate into the air vents and wait as an ominous cloud of fog until the right moment. But, with a human body came human limitations. What had Darkseid called it? She was just a — ‘a normal, powerless, mortal girl’, with a series of ‘mundane hardships’.

Greta didn’t understand how trying to publicly humiliate the man who’d made her afterlife a living hell was ‘mundane’—but what had Darkseid known, really? He’d never been ritually sacrificed by a loved one.

“I’m so glad that you all could make it this evening. We are gathered here tonight to celebrate a very special man who has done ground breaking work at the DEO…” On the stage, a woman in a black satin evening gown began to speak, and on the podium in front of her, an ornate glass trophy glimmered under the stage lights. “… And so, now is the time to really express our gratitude for his work. So put your hands together for Dr Charles.”

Greta watched Dr Charles as he rose from his table and wove scenically through the crowd towards the stage as the room broke into a round of applause. Strangers patted him on the back as he passed. She saw Tim in the crowd, and even he offered a golf clap and a forced smile. It felt wrong to stand there, her muscles ached—they told her to run onto the stage right now and make her speech. The taste of blood in her mouth and the pounding in her ears were constant reminders of everything that Dr Charles had tried to keep from her by holding her captive at the DEO. But the time wasn’t right yet. She couldn’t make an impact without him on stage. She patted her breast pocket, triple checking that her speech was exactly where she had left it. For too long, the DEO had silenced her; but now was her time to speak up for all the little ‘monsters’ that they had abandoned in the Orphanage. 

The band quietened as Dr Charles stepped up onto the stage, and the applause faded as he reached the lectern. He cleared his throat, grinned from ear to ear, and began to take cue cards from inside his suit jacket. “I’d like to thank everyone for coming this evening—”

Now was her time to strike.

Greta took one step, and then another. Being four foot eleven, it was easy to duck and weave through the startled assistants and run until the stage lights were upon her. The heat of the lights crashed against her skin as though Mount Justice was exploding all over again, she pushed that thought away. Greta kept walking, and as she reached halfway across the stage-- when she was close enough to see Dr Charles break out into a nervous sweat and his eyes ignite with recognition-- the room was plunged into darkness.

Moments later, the stage was awash with a green light. The house lights remained dark and so, through the spotlights, Greta struggled to find Tim’s face. Eventually she found it. He was clearly disappointed, though not surprised; but Greta watched as the seconds passed and he stopped being Tim, and became Robin, right before her eyes.  

“Riddle me this, riddle it so, who thinks that they’re smarter than the D.E.O?”

The voice was omnipresent. The lights flashed again, and after the spots in her eyes dispersed, Greta saw him: The Riddler, stood in the midst of the tables and holding a microphone in one hand. Amongst the crowd, several armed thugs held automatic rifles in the vague direction of guests.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” The Riddler walked between the tables, mirroring the path that Dr Charles had taken minutes earlier, until he climbed onto the stage between them, “I thought I was the only one who had plans to crash this party. Tell me little girl, what’s your name?” Greta thought for a moment and tried not to look at him as the Riddler bent forward to inspect her more closely—close enough that she could feel his breath on her cheek, “come on! Or is it a secret?”

Every alarm bell in Greta’s mind began to scream, and her eyes widened as the word rolled from his tongue, “my- my name is Suzie.”

“’Suzie’, huh?” He rolled his head from one shoulder to the other and shoved the microphone towards her face, “tell us, Suzie, what brings you to the stage tonight?”

“That’s um—” the speech in Greta’s pocket and the bottle in her hand had turned to lead. Now that all eyes were on her, she questioned if she had been a touch over dramatic. “That’s personal.”

“Personal?” The Riddler cackled, and then turned to his goons in the crowd, so that they might chortle too, “Suzie you were about to douse the man in—what is this, paint? —and ruin his big moment. It stopped being personal the minute you stepped into the spotlight.”

“The moment—”

“So, you’re a showman now, are you?”

“I just wanted to prove a point.” Greta looked over the Riddler’s shoulder and towards Dr Charles. A large Edison bulb switched on in the Riddler’s face, as he seemingly remembered his own purpose and shouted,

“Yes! A point!” The Riddler straightened his back and rose to his full height, with long, confident strides he took centre stage, and flicked his wrist. Three goons sprung into life and marched towards the stage. Two pushed the award-giver into the crowd, before they flanked Dr Charles, whilst the other stood beside Greta. “Now Suzie, I understand that you might have a vendetta to fill, but I spent too long planning this evening to have it ruined by you. So,” he waved his hand once again, and the henchman by his side grabbed her by the arm and began to march her into the wings, “bye bye now. No one will be seeing you any time soon.”

Chapter Text

After a short argument over whether the Riddler’s cryptic goodbye meant that they had to kill her or not, the goon squad shoved Greta into one of the conference rooms above the event hall. The door locked with a click and then she was alone.

First, she kicked off her shoes and sat at the head of the table. Greta laid her cardigan over her legs and nestled her head into the stitching, tried to get cosy in the high-backed, plush leather office chair.

When the monotonous ticking clock became jarring in the otherwise silent room, she started to spin. Greta stuck her legs out for maximum leverage and tested to see how dizzy she could make herself before she couldn’t take it any longer. An office chair didn’t come close to being shot out of a car’s exhaust pipe or hurtling through space on the Super-Cycle with Lil’ Lobo behind the wheel; but her human body couldn’t handle it like a ghost could. After ten minutes, when Greta felt like she was going to be sick and realised that there was no bin in this impromptu prison, she stopped.

Next, she climbed up onto the table. She cautiously tested the plywood to see if it would hold her weight, and when it did, she cat-walked up and down. Though after the third time, that too became boring.

With nothing left to do, Greta slumped down and sat in the middle of the desk. She kicked all the conference phones onto the floor and took out her own. It crossed her mind that she could have called the police, but Greta figured that they already knew what was happening. She could have called Tim, but he was downstairs; Cissie didn’t lead the hero life anymore, and Cassie had changed her number and never bothered to tell Greta the new one. Unlike the rest of Young Justice, Greta didn’t have a whole roster of superheroes in her contact list, and she doubted that an Uber driver would rescue her either. They didn’t get paid enough for that.

So, she played Candy Crush until she ran out of lives, and then scrolled through Twitter until her phone reached critical battery. Once out of options, Greta slowly sank down and laid across the desk, and rested her head across one of the fancy faux-leather placemats. There was nothing to do but wait, whether it wait to be rescued, or to be shot, Greta was uncertain.

***

Tim sent out the distress signal as soon as the lights went black. The other Titans had accused him of being paranoid about the ceremony since it was announced. But whenever a large, secretive, organisation such as the DEO held a public event, it was bound to draw the wrong kind of attention – and when he had noticed that Dr Charles was the guest of honour, he knew that Greta wouldn’t be far behind.

But the Riddler?

Tim hadn’t foreseen his involvement in the event at all.

Wonder Girl had been the first to react to Robin’s distress signal. The beacon had been sent without a message, which meant that either Robin was in life-threatening danger, or he was trusting her to step up and be a leader.

Cassie wasn’t sure which option was scarier.  

This was her chance to prove to Robin-- and to Wonder Woman-- that she could be the leader that everyone expected her to be. That she really could fill Donna’s shoes, now that Donna wasn’t here to fill them herself.

Cassie kicked herself as she flew through the halls of Titan’s Tower, changed into her costume and looked for her teammates.  Tim had been stressed out about the DEO dinner for weeks now, and the rest of the Titans had shrugged him off. Of course, he’d been right to worry. They hadn’t been Teen Titans for very long, had it really only taken a handful of years for her to forget how untrustworthy the DEO were?

Wonder Girl found Bart neck deep in the fridge, with one hand playing Pokemon Go! and the other reaching for the peanut butter. In her best authoritative Amazonian voice, she sent him ahead to scout out the building and find Tim. By the time Kid Flash had caught the magikarp and suited up, Cassie knew she would have found Kon and the team could go in together.

Raven, Cyborg and the others would have to understand; this was a mission for Young Justice.

Despite the clock on the wall, Greta wasn’t sure how much time had passed since she had been locked in. Blue and red lights flashed beneath the window, and she could hear the wailing of sirens. The police were here, but use was the GCPD, really? It would take Batman himself to come and solve this—and no doubt the Dark Knight was on his way, with both Robin and the billionaires Bruce Wayne and Kate Kane amongst the captive audience in the auditorium below.

Greta struggled hard to hear through the sirens below and the mindless chatter of the guards outside. If Batman was coming, she wanted to make sure he didn’t forget about her.

But she didn’t hear any footsteps approach the corridor, neither did she hear the guards raise the alarm. All that broke the drone of police chatter and ticking clock was the familiar sudden thudding of fists against flesh, and the weak grunts of pain as something- or someone- pounded into the hired muscle. But as abruptly as the commotion had been, silence filled the room twice as fast.  

“Hey!” Greta called out; her voice weak from disuse. She picked up one of the conference phones from the floor and threw it at the door. The plastic crashed against the reinforced wood and shattered, but the footsteps returned.

“Come back! There’s someone in here!” Greta reached for another phone— as it slowly dawned on her that the person in the hallway might not be Batman. This was Gotham, and Greta wouldn’t be surprised if, in fact, she’d just announced her presence to Penguin, or worse, the Joker.

The door lock jiggled as her soon-to-be saviour struggled with opening it. Through the small window, all she could see was a slice of auburn hair that bounced with each subsequent wiggle.

“Maybe you should move the bodies, first?” She called out, and raised the conference phone, ready to strike.

“Oh, yeah, maybe!” The voice called back; Greta’s blood ran cold. Her heart seized and she looked back at the flash of hair that dipped in and out of view. It couldn’t be, could it?

The door opened.

It was.

Greta couldn’t believe her eyes. Impulse—Bart—Kid Flash— in the flesh. But he’d changed. The suit was different, no longer white and red, now yellow and laced with an unsurmountable legacy. Gone where the goggles, filled with wide eyes and wonder; They had been replaced by tiny red lenses, which glowed as they caught the light. He had cut his hair too; his auburn locks no longer flopped with each subtle movement of his head or reached his sharpened jaw.

It was almost impossible to recognize him as the boy who had been her friend all those years ago. But the crooked smile that blossomed over his face broke her heart in the way only person could. Her stomach twisted and ached, and the phone began to tremble in her hand. Without thinking, Greta threw it. The cord whipped through the air like an angry snake, but Bart moved out of it’s reach and stood back in his spot before Greta realised what she’d done.

Kid Flash lifted his hand up to his ear and pushed down on the intercom that had been built into his suit. “Guys,” he addressed the other Titans, though never once tore his eyes from the girl in front of him. “Guys you’ll never guess what.”

“What is it, Kid Flash? What’s happening?” Cassie’s voice came through his other ear, shaking with worry.

“It’s Suzie.”  

Chapter Text

A second passed, as Bart's brain took a moment for the world to catch up with his thoughts. This, Greta thought, this is Kid Flash.

The Impulse she knew would never have taken a moment to think. Even it was just a moment.

"It is-" Bart looked her up and down, and slowly lowered his hand from his comms, "it is you, right?"

Greta's tongue felt thick and heavy in her mouth, and as her throat dried, she could feel the cool airconditioning on her tonsils. Her entire body was frozen; her arm was still raised and outstretched from where she had thrown the conference phone, despite how her muscles screamed to be let down again as the weight of holding it up became unbearable. Though her hair had grown out long, she could feel the baby hairs on the back of her neck jolt to attention light the lightning bolts adorning the yellow and red costume in front of her. She could feel tears stinging in the back of her eyes, from not blinking, and from the crushing and seizing feeling in her chest, as her heart began to pound against her ribs in a manic bid for escape. It was safe to say that Greta had perhaps never been more intimately aware of her bodily functions as she had been now. Which was to say that she had never felt more alive.

It was horrible.

"Suze?" Bart asked again, uncertainty creeping into his tone, "Greta?" Her name sounded alien on his tongue, "are you okay? You look like you've seen a-" Bart caught himself and a coy smile began to tug at his lips. Slowly, tentatively, stretching his face into a coy grin.

The clock marked the seconds as they passed. Each one dragged on forever, and Greta felt as though minutes were passing as she stayed trapped there. Until, finally, the spell over her broke, and she stumbled back. Her weak knees all but collapsed as she staggered backward. In the blink of an eye - less than a blink - Bart had swept a chair from across the room and moved it behind her. The edge of the seat bumped into the back of her knees and Greta collapsed into it, breathless. Bart reappeared in front of her, crouched and staring - almost unblinking - with reverie.

"Why..." She began to say before the dryness in her throat caught back up with her. Greta swallowed, still unable to tear her eyes away from him - or from her own mortified visage in the reflection of his goggles, "why are you here?"

"Robin called us."

"Robin told you I was here?"

"No, he didn't say anything. Cass- Wonder Girl told me to go ahead, scout area. And I found you." Bart's face fell into another smile - more hesitantly, this time. For all of his naivete, it seemed even he could see that Greta was not as thrilled as he initially thought. "What are you doing here?"

"I... You really don't know what's going on?" Greta furrowed her eyebrows and looked down at him, "Robin didn't tell you?"

"Come on Suze, when does he tell us anything?" Bart lifted one hand to hold the edge of the chair as Greta fell forward with her elbows on her knees. "Tell me," his voice was barely above a whisper, "tell me what's happened. I'm Kid Flash now, Suze, I'm here to help."

Greta had felt herself being pulled in by his words, felt herself getting lost in his eyes - despite the crimson goggles that masked their verdant hues. She had been looking past the sharp lines of his jaw and the aging in his face, and the gaudy yellow suit. For a moment he had been the boy she knew, he had been hers. But then, all too quickly, Bart reminded her that he wasn't that boy anymore. He wasn't even that guy anymore. Greta pushed herself and the chair out of his grip, and awkwardly slammed into the table.

Bart pulled his and back towards him and watched from the floor as she stood and moved away from him and towards the other side of the room. He could have followed her in a heartbeat, beaten her to whatever spot she was racing towards if he really wanted to, but instead he remained crouched on the floor. Until Greta disappeared from his eye line and he rose to his full height to watch the reflection of her face in the window. He furrowed his brows as she stared down at the police cars below. What had he done? What was it he said? His mind spun in circles as he tried to work through the mire of confusion. This was his Suzie - sure, she had nearly killed them all in a Darkseid-and-insecurity filled rage... but had they really left on such bad terms?

He hadn't seen her in so long... Why didn't she want to see him?

"There are people downstairs that need your help." She said and swallowed the lump in her throat, "It's the Riddler, he's got all the guests held hostage downstairs."

"Then why are you up here?"

"Maybe I was his accomplice."

"That's not funny." Bart put his hands on the table and tapped his fingers against the coated wood. He was starting to get frustrated with all this - this talking. So many words and nothing was happening. Nothing was being done. Suzie was standing right in front of him and he hadn't even given her the biggest hug - he hadn't even touched her, even after he spent so long being unable to. He was having to hold himself back, and he didn't know why. "You're not the bad guy."

Greta felt the words pierce through her back and lodge themselves into her. "Aren't I?" That's not what you thought five years ago.

"No. How can you be? You're Suzie."

She paused for a moment, looking up from the police cars down below to catch Bart's eye in the window reflection, "no," she said, "I'm Greta. Greta Hayes"

Bart's furrowed eyebrows became deeper, pushing against the lenses of his goggles, "What're you trying to say?"

"You should go," Greta clenched her fist at her side and stared directly forward from the window, "you've done it, you've saved me. Now go and scout the rest of the place out help Robin."

"You think I'm gonna leave you here?"

"You should go before Wonder Girl turns up, she'll want to get right into the helping people thing."

"She'll have Super Boy for that."

"Kon's coming too?" Greta shook her head slowly, slowly looking up to the ceiling and blinking.

"Why are you trying to push us away?" Bart zipped around the table and rested against it, awkwardly hovering just beyond Greta's personal space, though he was desperate to get into it, "we're your friends."

"Are you?" Her voice cracked and she continued to stare up at the ceiling, "were you?"

Bart opened his mouth to reply when Wonder Girl's voice blurted through his earpiece, "Kid Flash, are you there? Are you still with Suzie?" He lifted his hand to his ear and pushed down with a subtle click, engaging the microphone,

"We're here."

"What's happening down there? Have you found Robin? Super Boy and I are on our way now."

"No Robin yet," Bart replied, "get here soon though, I'm-"

He fell into silence as the black TV screen that had been mounted on the wall burst into life. The Riddler's face filled the screen from where he had been standing on the stage downstairs, "good-evening Gotham!" Bart and Greta turned to look at it. She could see him staring at the screen in a way he had never done when they were kids. He was analysing every frame - or at least, he was trying to.

"As you all know," the TV continued, "I am the Riddler - the greatest mind on the planet! I'm coming to you tonight from the Elizabeth Arkham Foundation celebration dinner, hosted by everyone's favourite Department of Extranormal Operations." Greta stole a glance at Bart as the penny dropped, and Dr Charles appeared in the corner of the screen. He had been hoisted into an elaborate trap, with an eerily familiar glass-like cage surrounding him. "But did you know - I mean, of course, you didn't - that the DEO is not all it appears to be?"

"Suzie... what's going on?" Bart whispered, his eyes transfixed on the television.

"And you all know how deeply I abhor secrets - or well, no, I love them! And so, tonight's is a test of knowledge. My challenge to any, and all, of the little heroes rushing to help the best and brightest of Gotham is a game of wits and a meeting of the minds. Are you scared, Dork Knight?" The Riddler through his head back and laughed, "to free the so-called 'smartest man in the DEO', you'll need to beat my game and answer my questions correctly. For any hero that doesn't play the game, I'll kill a hostage. If someone is feeling bold enough to try their hand at proving they more about the extranormal operations and you lose, well..." He leaned into the camera and grinned wide enough to see the yellow staining at the edge of his teeth, "I'll kill Dr Charles."

"Wonder Girl," Bart spoke into him comms again, "are you hearing this?"

"Loud and clear, Kid Flash," Cassie replied.

"See you soon, Dork Knight!" The Riddler turned away from the camera before he stopped again. He didn't even bother to look over his shoulder before adding, "and it really ought to be soon... If no one is brave or smart enough to challenge me before midnight, well, I'll just kill everyone!"

Chapter Text

The TV fizzed into silence and Bart slowly brought his head around to look at Greta. She still stood in the window, the red and blue lights casting her face in shadow. He’d mistake it for stoic, if she wasn’t shaking like a leaf. Her fist, clenched at her side, trembled with… anger? Fear? Anticipation? He couldn’t imagine what seeing Dr Charles on the screen meant to her – it burned white hot in his own chest, the memories of the Rushmore lab, of graveyards and “gas explosions”. Bart levelled his voice the best he could when he asked again;

“What are you doing here?” He wanted to take a step closer to her, take her in his arms and spin her in a hug and tell her that it’ll be okay, but some inexplicable force kept his feet firmly on the floor. Huh, normally he had no time for doubt.

“I haven’t seen you in so long…” Her voice was still barely above the whisper that it had been in death – but she dodged the question deftly, and Bart’s attention span didn’t hold it against her,

“Years. I think – where did you go, Suz?”

“Greta.”

“Huh?” He cocked his head to the side like a spaniel, still a bemused grin on his lips. Greta lowered herself until she sat on the edge of the table, feet barely brushing the carpet as she swung her legs.

“My name’s Greta, Bart.” She shook her head, repeating herself again as the immoveable object met an unstoppable force, “I’m not Suzie.”

“Sure you are,” he laughed dryly, “you’ll always be my Suzie.”

And there it was, the stinging, ringing accidental lie. The unintentionally fatal betrayal from a boy who didn’t know any better; he was an innocent, really, in the crossfire of teenage angst and life-after-death. How to lose friends and horrify people. She studied his face, the pit in her chest slowly deepening, her heart breaking with each beat. These were the emotions that reminded Greta that she was finally alive – this is what she had wanted so badly all those years ago. But, knowing what really lay beyond death didn’t stop her from longing for it, occasionally. Right now, for example. The cold unfeeling freedom of post-mortem amnesia would hurt less than looking at the smile slowly dimming on Bart’s face, as the seconds for him dragged on like minutes, the minutes like hours.

It was rare that Bart realised that he’d put his foot in his mouth – so often, he kept running past the fumble, and no one could keep up. But she’d held his attention and forced him to confront the misstep. And a strange feeling began to twist up in his guts like snakes. “Won’t you?” His voice was small, smile vanished. She turned her eyes away;

“Where have you been, Bart?”

“Right here.” He laughed again, though doubt had crept into the bottom of his vocal chords, shaking his deepened voice, “I’ve been around. Where were you?”

Greta swallowed the taste of blood from her mouth, but still the tangy iron soaked her tongue, “where you left me.” She motioned to the room around her, to Gotham beyond the window, “I’ve always been right where you left me…”

“I—I didn’t—”

“Flash?” Cassie’s voice crackled through his comm, she must have been travelling at high speed, flying probably, “Are you still there, with Greta?” Greta tilted her head at him in confusion; unable to hear Wondergirl on the other line.

“Suzie, yeah.”

“Shit.” Wondergirl swore softly in his ear, her voice almost lost beneath the crackle of static and background noise. He scrunched his face up in confusion, “is she safe, how many other civilian hostages are there? Did you take a look at the device Riddler is using to hold Doctor Charles?”

“Yeah! She’s safe, and – uh…” Bart trailed off, realising now that he’d never finished a full sweep of the building before he stumbled upon his former friend. “I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

“I found Suzie.”

To him, it was the simplest thing in the world. This was his friend – perhaps, a small voice said in the back of his mind – his girl. Kon had always had Cassie, Cissie was never really into boys on the team, and though Suzie’s doe eyes had always been firmly affixed to Tim, he’d taken extra pride in the moments of joy he could steal from the dead girl who always seemed to drown in her sadness. Back then, he’d never known someone who had so encompassed melancholy – like she was a feeling given form. More so than the abyss, than the cold chill that ran down his spine like electricity every time their eyes met, she was sadness, and every she time giggled or even dared to grin was a victory against death itself.

“Stay where you are,” Cassie ordered in his ear, “we’re almost there. Maybe 5 minutes?”

That was lifetimes, eons even. Hopefully it was enough. “They’re five minutes away,” he relayed to Suzie, who studied him with a quirked brow. Even now, with the blush of life in her cheeks and a shimmering of light behind her eyes, she still gave him that tingle in his spine. She still reeked of sadness, of loneliness. That much was familiar, but the rage behind her clenched knuckles, the spattering of red paint on her tights – that was new, or perhaps it was old. Maybe this was Greta and he had been expecting to see Suzie.

“You should finish your sweep,” she suggested weakly.

“I’ve been told to stay here.”

“And you always do what you’re told.” And there it was, a subtle shift, a cloying, unfightable smile in her voice. The blessed sound of an achievement unlocked, or point scored.

“I do if it means I get to hang out with you.”

Just like that – one step forward and two steps back. The corner of her lips dropped back down into a soft frown, and Greta crossed her arms over her stomach, holding her insides in. Holding her heart back from leaping onto the floor between them and flopping around like a dead fish. He didn’t know what he said, but it was clear that any trophy he’d clawed out of her was snatched back. He took a step forward – every atom in his body still keening to rush forward and grab her, hold her tight and never let go. Why had he ever let go?

Bart’s face remained scrunched as he fought against his memory to remember. Time was such a pliable thing – so fluid and meaningless when it moved different from him than everyone else. He lived in moments – the moment – in good times and bad; Suzie had been there one moment and gone the next. A good time and then a bad one. And then before he could try to outpace the future and go back to the start, the next moment had swept him away and he was a Teen Titan. There was someone to save, babies to kiss, kittens to rescue. It’d all happened so… fast.

“Suzie…” He crouched down so that he was in her eyeline, but she hopped off the table and began to pace around the room. Sure, he could blink and intercept her, but even Bart Allen wasn’t immune to the ice radiating from her being. “Greta.”

“What were you expecting, Bart?” Her voice was small, quiet; he strained to hear her beneath the ambient noise of the world.

“… Nothing,” he said honestly, “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“But now that I am?”

He shrugged with both shoulders, overdramatic and exaggerated. “Then I’m going to save you, and then we’re going to find a 24-hour diner and get sundaes.”

Another almost victory. “Do you think ice cream will help?”

“Honestly I don’t see how it can hurt.”

“You should continue your sweep.” She said again, her voice gaining strength despite its initial strained wobble, “you could check out the traps, find the hidden failsafe, disarm the bomb and Riddler would never even see you coming.”  Greta hated each word that dripped from her lips, but there was something unbearable about the way Bart was looking at her – it wasn’t even the way he had looked at her when they were kids. There was something new, something more. Something that hurt. And she already hurt so much – humiliated by the Riddler, humiliated by her humanness. Now by her heart?

“Nah, Suze, I’m right here, you’re stuck with me.” He smiled and caught her eye in the reflection of the window, “and, we’ve got-" he mimed checked a watch on him bare wrist, even pulled back his glove and everything, “-just about two hours until midnight. Enough time to save the world and get the girl.”  There was a pause for a hummingbird’s heartbeat before he added, “and then to get breakfast sundaes.”

Another ghost of a smile flickered across Greta’s lips as she continued to watch him through the reflection of the window. Down below, she could see the police radioing to each other – and on the ever-present haze of cloud, the bat signal flickered into life. But whether he would come was another story – why had Tim summoned the Titans to Batman’s back yard, unless he knew the Dark Knight wasn’t going to come for him first? She tore her eyes away again – none of this was meant to be her business. She had just wanted to take some revenge, reap a protest. Not… She looked at Bart again, still grinning at her with an infectious goofiness.

He was never meant to be here – not meant to smiling at her, not saving her life or making her laugh. When she came back to life and Young Justice disbanded, Greta had expected that there’d suddenly be parts of their world that she could no longer enter. Sure, they all went to school together at first, but even then – she was never amazing academically, never sporty or showy. She’d liked her art – but no one was using a paintbrush to stop a bank robbery. Inevitably, they had left her behind.

Eventually, she had told herself she liked it that way.

The smile faded from her features and Greta turned back to the room, walking around the table to try and put some space in between them. She wanted to tell him about a place in the Bowery that did a Bananarama Split (the ‘rama’ being a spun-sugar cage shaped like big 80’s perm, which you – of course – fell flat if you got it wet). But she bit her tongue until the taste of blood bubbled onto her tastebuds and reminded her what she had to lose.

“Suzie?” Bart’s soft voice called for her, and he dared to step closer. He rested one hand beside her thigh on the table, and then the other, until she was caged in beneath him. Greta looked past him still – her eyes unfocused over his shoulder, until Bart ducked his head and caught her gaze, smiling up at her with that rogueish, too-wide grin. “I want to get breakfast sundaes,” he nudged her with his shoulder, revelling in the contact. “Like we used to.”

“We didn’t used to…”

“I wanted to.”

Greta slumped forward slightly, and Bart rushed forward (or, what felt like rushing, when it was in fact maybe an inch of movement), and she sighed into the small space between them. Her voice was a scant whisper, as she confessed, “I wanted to, too.”

“Then why don’t we? You just gotta do one thing.” Bart’s gaze flickered from her eyes to her lips, chapped and bitten slightly bloody (but rosy, and soft in the way good shoes can be), before he forced himself to look back up into her eyes. To feel that tingle in his spine once more. “One teenie-weenie-bo-beenie little thing.”

“What?”

 “You gotta stay, Suze. You gotta stay here… or let me get you out. Yeah—let me get you out. I’ll find that diner and you can get the orders in early. I’ll be back by the time they dish up, and you can keep my seat—”

“Bart.”

“…warm.”

Greta pulled her head away, pushing her lips together and looking once more back over his shoulder, out across the city. Through the smog and the streetlights, she could see two figures begin to cut through the skies. She sighed. “I can’t do that.”

“Can’t?” Bart stood up straight again and cleared his throat as though that would dislodge the lump that had formed within it.

“Can’t.” Greta repeated, steeling herself with the memory of Dr Charles. It was through that hardened expression that she could finally make out Cassie and Kon through the window of the theatre. They dipped below to street level – no doubt to rendezvous with the cops.

Bart stood straight, and ran his hand through his hair, his blunt fingernails biting at the skin of his scalp to no relief. In his ear, Cassie crackled and let him know they had arrived – that she was coordinating with the GCPD and then she and Kon would be right up. That they’d be getting to work soon. He didn’t reply beyond a half-hearted roger, roger. If Cassie heard the lack of enthusiasm in his voice, she didn’t comment on it – too focused on being the leader; on getting every step so that Tim couldn’t hold it against her later. Even though Tim would never… Well, maybe he might. In those bitter moments when the Boy Wonder got a bit too close to being Batman and needed to be reminded that the shadows weren’t really big enough for the both of them. No matter how dark Gotham seemed to be.

Besides, Bart knew that it was all wishful thinking on Cassie’s part anyway. Greta Hayes might have been human, but somehow, he doubted that would stop her from going toe to toe with Superboy and Wonder Girl, if it was her life that she was fighting for.