Chapter Text
“Thanks for letting me stay here.”
“What happened?”
“They think I killed someone. Why do they never believe me? What is it?”
“A gift. It’s for you.”
“Me? I don’t get it.”
“I won’t need it anymore.”
“What?”
“I won’t need it anymore.”
“Why would I need, or want, it?”
“They don’t believe you,”
“So? They’ll realize it wasn’t me. Eventually. They always do.”
“And then the damn cycle repeats. Listen, this is it. This is your chance to escape. One hundred percent foolproof. Not even the Bats could find it.”
“You want me to abandon everything.”
“You’ve already abandoned yourself. Take this chance, find yourself. Think about it, please. I want to give you a chance.”
“They’ll find me. Something will happen and they’ll find me.”
“Probably. But it will give you a chance to find yourself first.”
“Alright. What do I need to do?”
Jacqueline Garcia, or Jackie as she preferred to be called, was unremarkable.
If you asked her cohort what she was like, they wouldn’t be able to tell you much beyond the fact that the junior chemistry major was always studying late hours in the campus library or that she was a good lab partner. If you asked her professors what they thought, they would tell you that she was a good student but not much else. All in all, she wasn’t too memorable.
However, if you asked her roommate what she thought, well, that was where things got interesting.
Robin Gillas was a sophomore psychology major with plans to become a human resource specialist. It was luck of the draw that the on-campus housing lottery had placed Jackie in the same dorm room as her. The semester had started only a month prior, and Robin already had a laundry list of reasons to complain to her friends about her unfortunate luck in roommates.
Like Jackie’s clumsiness. Normally this wouldn’t be something to complain about, but like most things, Jackie took it to an extreme. She would constantly trip over thin air, drop heavy or fragile objects willy-nilly, and smack into the furniture. Robin had once witnessed the hapless girl stub her toe walking past a doorframe.
Robin had also noted that Jackie had a deep distrust of anything electronic. Sure, she still had a laptop for assignments and whatnot, but she used a burner phone (much to the dismay of her lab partners) and didn’t have any sort of social media.
Even more concerning was her frequent and somewhat violent nightmares. Last week Robin had had a rude awakening to screams of, “They’re in the room!” It had taken her nearly ten minutes to convince her distressed roommate that no, there wasn’t anyone else in the room, much less shadow ninjas.
As a psychology major, maybe Robin should have been more interested in her roommate’s behavior but at this point she was beyond done, and it showed through her interactions with Jackie.
Not that Jackie really cared. She preferred a roommate who, even if she bitched to her friends, minded her own business for the most part.
After all, she really wasn’t here to make friends. She just wanted to get her degree and go.
Only three and a half semesters to go, that was her mantra.
Once she had her degree, she could go anywhere. Hopefully far, far away from the East Coast and all the crazy capes and villains that were running around.
What the fuck she was thinking when she chose to go to college in Metropolis, she would never know. It was frickin’ crazy! Metropolis University even had lockdown drills in case there was a supervillain attack, though the plan was basically to stay in the classroom and pray that Superman showed up.
Damn. Step aside fire drills, you’re no longer needed. Unless, you know, Firefly shows up or something. Still, Firefly is more of a Batman villain so if he did appear …
Only three and a half semesters to go.
If she lived that long. Fuck.
Though her p-chem prof was going to kill her long before any villain got the chance. Just looking at the pages and pages of integrals, power series, and absolute derivatives made her eyes cross. Like, what the fuck? Is this still even chemistry? It all just looks like math and, shudder, physics.
Staring at the homework due in a few short hours, it was times like this that Jackie regretted not having any friends. She knew for a fact that the rest of her cohort studied together in smaller cliques of “friends.” Not being a part of any of those groups meant that she wasn’t able to compare answers with anyone else.
Sometimes life’s a bitch. No, scratch that. Sometimes humans are a bitch. And by humans, Jackie meant herself. The rest of her cohort was actually kinda cool. Still, old habits die hard. There was no way she was going to be able to make any friends, not with her history.
Speaking of history, had she already turned in the paper for her art history class yet? It’s due tomorrow morning to the drop box, and late assignments lose points…
Jackie was so caught up in her thoughts, she didn’t notice the dark storm clouds rolling in until she felt a drop of water hit her nose.
“Fuck!” She shouted loudly, drawing the curious look of several passersby on their way to class. She quickly gathered her notes from the picnic table where they were spread out and threw them into her worn-out backpack. As she was zipping the backpack, she noticed a large tear next to one of the zippers. “Fuck!”
With an exhausted groan, she slung her backpack over her shoulder and rushed off towards the humanities building, making it seconds before gallons of water started pouring from the darkened sky.
“Damn. If I wanted rain, I would’ve gone to Gotham,” Jackie mused, watching as the wind started picking up.
It was odd though. The forecast hadn’t called for a thunderstorm.
Jackie stared at the ominous clouds, debating if she could make it back to her dorm or not before deciding against it and finding a table in one of the halls to sit at. Her backpack wasn’t waterproof, and even if it was, there was still that hole. All her notes and rental books would get wet. Better just to wait for a break in the weather.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong.
Of fucking course her suspicions were proved right moments later when the alarms started blaring and the emergency lights started blinking.
Villain attack, because why not?
A voice over the speakers informed students that a villain had been spotted nearby and to seek shelter in one of the classrooms, because a puny five in thick wall would definitely stop a villain if he wanted to get into the room. Still safer than wandering outside, Jackie supposed.
Once again, Jackie gathered up her notes and shoved them into her abused bag. Technically, when the alarms go off you are supposed to abandon all your belongings and just book it to shelter. Not going to happen. So much shit gets stolen around here that Jackie even brings her bag into the bathroom stall with her.
Superman might be able to stop a rampaging robot, but he has yet to stop a petty crime on campus.
Jackie resentfully tossed one strap over her shoulder and made her way to the nearest classroom. Luckily, she was in one of the older buildings on campus. Some of the newer buildings had doors that lock automatically from the inside if the alarm goes off.
She pushed the door open and was greeted by cultish sight of a professor wearing a toga and holding a scroll standing before a semicircle of students sitting on the floor.
“You mind if I hunker down here?” Jackie asked, not at all concerned about the odd sight before her.
“Absolutely,” The professor said, waving her into the room.
“Thanks.”
Jackie dropped her backpack against the wall and sat down beside it. A few more students filtered into the room, some looking more startled than others at the state of the classroom.
The minutes ticked by as everyone listened to the raging storm. The wind picked up even more as the thunder roared loudly, shaking the room.
A few students had pulled out their phones and were trying to figure out what was going on.
A student from the class sitting in front of Jackie showed her phone to her friend and whispered, “Looks like it’s Weather Wizard.”
“I thought he was a Flash villain?” Her friend whispered back.
The student shrugged. “It’s not like they have boundaries or anything.”
True. But usually villains stick with their M.O. Something Jackie had been extremely grateful for in the past. It was kind of surprising that Weather Wizard came to Metropolis. Villains usually avoided the city like the plague unless they were from it for the same reasons that they avoided Gotham.
The bigger name the cape, the harder they hit.
Plus, no one in their right mind wanted to end up in Arkham. Even the crazies knew that it wasn’t somewhere they wanted to go, though they would inevitably break out before the year was up. Why Batman always fucking insisted on throwing his baddies in there was beyond Jackie. If you weren’t insane before being sent there, you definitely were after.
Robin had once told Jackie that she wrote a paper on it and everything. Got a B+ on it too.
It was amazing what those with an outside perspective thought about that hellhole of a city. Definitely not somewhere Jackie planned on visiting anytime soon.
The end of the hour had nearly arrived before the thunder finally softened to a low rumble before stopping entirely.
The alarms stopped blaring as an all clear played out over the speakers. The students sighed a breath of relief and tension she didn’t know was there flowed out of Jackie’s body.
“Due to the circumstances, we’ll pick up again next time,” The professor proclaimed cheerfully to his ring of students. “Remember to watch the clip from Life of Brian before Friday and I’ll see you then.”
Jackie vowed right then and there she would figure out what this class so she could take it next year.
She grabbed her discarded backpack and joined the wave of human bodies leaving the classroom. Once she was in the hall, she debated finding somewhere to sit before deciding to head back to the dorm. Her classes were done for the day and all the good study spots were likely already claimed.
The walk back to the dorm was pleasant. The after-storm-smell that permeated the air made Jackie nostalgic. Despite herself, a stab of longing pierced her heart. Maybe she could go back, maybe she could at least check on them…
No. Soon, maybe, but not yet.
Jackie dodged a few late sophomores as they ran out of her dorm hall. She caught the door behind them before it could lock and made her way to the elevator.
A years ago, she would have taken the stairs. Now, she was so mentally and physically exhausted all the time that she didn’t really feel like walking three flights with a backpack weighed down by expensive paperweights (textbooks).
She got into the elevator alongside a student she recognized from her communications class freshmen year. Dark times.
The student was on his phone. Jackie stole a quick glance at his phone and saw that he was watching a video of Superman fighting Weather Wizard. The fight ended relatively quickly. But then again, what could hail do against someone who was fucking bulletproof?
The elevator dinged as it reached Jackie’s floor and she made a mental note to look up the video later as she got off and walked towards her room. Room 427.
She glanced with disgust at the shitty plaque before fitting her key into the lock and opening the door.
Robin was gone, naturally. Her and Jackie seemed to run on opposite schedules. Whereas Jackie tended to occupy the room in the evenings and at night, Robin would prance in at the early hours of the morning, waking Jackie as she fumbled around in the dark before finally sleeping well into the afternoon.
The random roommate selection was a bad idea apparently. Who knew?
Jackie dropped her backpack unceremoniously onto the floor by her bed before pulling out her laptop and booting it up. She clicked open the internet and typed ‘Superman’ into the search engine, pulling up dozens of new articles and videos about his newest villain encounter.
She clicked into one of the videos that portrayed the end of the battle. It showed Superman tying up a defeated Weather Wizard with a steel bar and handing him to the police.
Jackie was about to exit out when she suddenly paused. The last few seconds of the video showed Superman talking into a comm before flying off with a startled look on his face.
That didn’t bode well.
Jackie could look into it further, but it wasn’t any of her motherfucking business. What the capes did was their problem, not hers.
All she is, is a junior chemistry major at Metropolis University. Nothing more, nothing less. End of fucking story.
And yet…
Maybe it couldn’t hurt just to quick hack the Justice League’s floating frat house in space?
No. It could. It definitely could. Between Cyborg and whichever bird Batman has monitoring the systems at the moment, Jackie would be smoked out within seconds. Especially if there was something going on and they were paying more attention for potential intruders.
Yeah. Better just to lay low. Don’t want an angry visit from Gotham’s resident bat furry. Hell no.
Besides, if something big really was going on, they would send out the All Call over open radio waves.
Jackie shut down her laptop and set it aside before collapsing onto her bed with a content sigh.
This was the life. Go to classes, cry between classes because you didn’t understand a single damn thing the professor said, eat crappy college food after classes, cry about the fact hot dogs should not taste like that, go to dorm, cry about the fact that your crappy roommate is a slob, do homework, cry because you still don’t understand a single damn thing that the professor said, go to bed, cry yourself to sleep because college sucks and you didn’t choose a major where you could go hang out with friends at a bar every other night.
Damn. Hormones. Jackie wondered not for the first time that week if she was PMSing. Puberty was a fucking bitch before, but this was something she wasn’t sure she would ever get used to.
Homework. Right. She still had a crap-ton of homework to get done.
With an angry growl, Jackie kicked over her backpack with her foot. Fuck this. She was taking a nap, and no one could stop her.
She’s in college for fucks sake. Her dads always did encourage her to be independent after all, if for different reasons.