Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

STAR CITY
July 4, 2010, 08:31

Today’s the day…in a couple of hours at least.

“Sasha! Time to book it, little lady!” Papa Ted called from downstairs.

Ted Grant had long since retired from the superhero game, making the name Wildcat a distant memory to anyone who didn’t collect the memorabilia. But to Dinah Lance, aka Black Canary, Ted was family. Luckily for Sasha, someone had to teach her how to Canary Cry, and Pops didn’t know. So Dinah was pulled even more into the Grant family to teach her.

Sasha had been training since she was young. Being raised by a retired hero who helped her learn martial fighting styles was a clear push to herodom. But he had connections to the hero with the same power she did, which was all she needed to beg to learn under Dinah.

Running down the stairs in her suit, putting on her yellow cropped jacket with all the fury of a 17-year-old who was late, she yelled back, “Are they here?”

“You’d know if you were on time for once, Goldie!” standing next to Dinah and Oliver, the hero power couple, was Roy Harper. Arguably Sasha’s favorite person in the world.

They had met after Roy was rescued. During the three months when Oliver was looking for him, Dinah had decided to show her the actual ropes. At 14, she was helping kick ass and take names to bring him home. Despite not meeting him before his kidnapping, she got attached. It may have been ambient affection from seeing the stress on Oliver’s typically jolly face, but having now known him for three years, it is definitely authentic.

“Oh, shut it.”. And without missing a beat, he tossed her the helmet for her motorbike.

For non-heroes, getting from northern California to Washington D.C. in an hour requires divine intervention. Luckily zeta tubes are a bit more reliable. In Star City, the tubes that Green Arrow and Black Canary use are just across the bridge in the alley between a hair salon and a Chinese food restaurant. With light traffic, the ride is 9 minutes tops.

There is traffic.

If someone had told Sasha, today, of all days, she’d be seeing a team-up on a bridge between Icicle Jr. and Icemaiden, her response would have been: “Who the fuck is Icemaiden?”.

And typically, Goldcrest is fine gently pushing villains to talk. But with the clock ticking and Speedy looking closer and closer to blowing a gasket, pleasantries get skipped. The boys take down Icicle Jr., and Dinah takes the front while she goes towards the back with the dampening cuff. All-in-all a not very thrilling takedown until the police show up.

Green Arrow steps away to make a call about the ice damage on the bridge, and Speedy slides up next to her.

“Today’s the day,” he said, cracking one of his rare smiles.

“Yep. I almost can’t believe it.”

“What are you most excited about? Meeting the other big heroes?”. He had met all the other heroes and sidekicks, but apart from Flash and Kid Flash, Sasha had never been able to meet them.

“Obviously, I can’t wait to meet them, but that’s not what I’m most excited for." Glancing over, the two saw Black Canary and Green Arrow motioning for them over where they had ditched the bikes. “Can you even imagine what the view from the Watchtower will be like?”

“After today, we won’t have to imagine, Goldie."

WASHINGTON, D.C.
July 4,2010, 13:55 EDT

Kid Flash wasn't there yet, but across the stream were hundreds of reporters and tourists. Compared to members like Batman and Aquaman, Black Canary and Goldcrest were less in the spotlight. But without Superman, cameras were more willing to share. The heroes gathered to hold court, likely formalizing a schedule so the tour could be streamlined, and left the sidekicks to chat.

Roy wasted no time getting her acquainted with Aqualad and Robin. And the shorter of the two had plenty of cheeky remarks to make about Roy’s overprotective nature.

“It is a pleasure to meet you finally,” Kaldur’ahm said, “Speedy has told us much of you already, and I feel we will be fast friends.”

“Definitely,” Sasha said. Rolling her eyes, “Kid Flash is running late. What a surprise.”

“Knowing Speedy, he probably trickshotted KF so he won’t have to share you.” Robin grinned so wide his cheeks would probably tear in two.

“Given that I’ve already met KF, I doubt that very seriously.” Sasha sneaked a look at Roy under his hat. He looked so serious. “Though if his jokes are as bad as I remember, I know who I’ll ask to save me.”

Robin opened his mouth to speak but was cut off as the mentors rejoined them, each standing by their respective sidekick.

“Welcome to the Hall of Justice.” Green Arrow spoke first

“Headquarters of the Justice League.” Aquaman followed up seamlessly as if rehearsed.

Wally arrived at his perfectly imperfect timing. And they began making their way towards the Hall of Justice.

The fans and cameras were a lot to take in. Goldcrest had avoided the public eye for most of her time heroing, only last year starting to attend events with Black Canary. But stakeouts helped her filter out the excess noise, and she went listening for her name.

“I see Flash and Flash jr.”
“His name's Speedy. Duh.”
“No Speedy is Green Arrow’s sidekick, the one walking with the girl.”
“Oh. Look! Goldcrest is there!”
“Is that really her name?”

Wally’s voice cut through her focus. “Have all five sidekicks ever been in the same place at the same time?”

Roy did not appreciate that comment. He had always held himself to a high standard the whole time she knew him. While he could cut loose off the job, he was a one-track mind kind of guy as soon as there was a mission. She could chalk it up to nerves today, but she had discussions with Dinah about it. Dinah always assumed it was his way of overcorrecting for Oliver’s lack of emotional sturdiness. He had to be focused on his future because no one else was.

Sliding closer to Roy, she spoke softly under her breath to him. “Don’t give them a hard time. You’re allowed to look excited, though.”

She saw a hint of a smile show at that comment. And as the statues of the founding members came into view, the group paused to take them in. She heard the camera shutters increase and straightened herself up to full height.

Wally’s voice cut in from the other side. “Nerves finally hitting you?”

“You wish Kid. I’m gonna scream if I see Wonder Woman, though.”

He chuckled at that, and the group started moving towards a door marked “Authorized Personnel Only.” The nerves were hitting her despite what she told Kid Flash, and she held her hands behind her back to keep from fidgeting with her jacket zipper. The Martian Manhunter welcomed them each by name, and she saw Robin and Kid Flash bump their fists together when he turned to lead them deeper inside.

Getting into the library was no hassle, but as Flash dismissed them and the younger boys sat down, Sasha still felt uneasy. The public was still taking photos of them all, and she wanted to hunch in on herself. It was easy to be a hero when no one was watching, but it was hard to feel heroic as a teen on display at the hero zoo.

She tuned in to hear Batman’s voice, “We shouldn’t be long,” and the whirr of the zeta beam scanner coming down from the ceiling.

“What?” It was her speaking before she knew it. Black Canary turned around as Aquaman was scanned. Shaking her head, she mouthed the word “Don’t” at her and then jerked her head to the tourists.

Sasha knew not to cause a scene. It would just make the League take her less seriously.

Roy did not know how to not cause a scene. “That's it? You promised us a real look inside, not a glorified Backstage pass!”

Deep in her heart, she knew he was right. But in her head, she knew playing the game got results.

“It's a first step,” Aquaman said. “You've been granted access few others get.”

“Oh, really? Who cares which side of the glass we're on?” He threw his hand up at the window.

Green Arrow and Sasha spoke at the same time:
“Roy, you just need to be patient.”
“Roy, please calm down."

He turned to face her and the rest of the sidekicks. “What I need is respect. What I need is for them to listen. They're treating us like kids. Worse--like sidekicks! We deserve better than this. Why should I be calm when they don't respect us!”

Goldcrest looked down at her boots. They were scuffed up and needed to be shined. The heel was coming loose on the left one.

“You're kidding, right?” Speedy was only angered by the silence. “You're playing their game? Why? Because you think they play fair? Today was supposed to be the day, step one in becoming Full-fledged members of The League.”

Kid Flash sat up a bit. “ Well, sure, but I thought step one was a tour of the HQ.”

Even Goldcrest scoffed at that. How could they not know? Speedy started ranting at the others, but she stopped listening. How could the sidekicks of the most prominent and most powerful Leaguer members not know they were being lied to? Even Black Canary had told her. Except..she only told her after Roy was told by Oliver. Dinah was like her older sister, but did she really trust her? Black Canary was family, but did Dinah even want her as her partner? Or did she feel obligated to because she had lucked out to have the same power?

Sasha shook the thoughts out of her head to see Roy throw down his hat and walk straight at her.

“Guess they're right about you three. You're not ready.” He stopped in front of her and practically whispered. “But I really thought you’d be, Goldie.” He paused and then walked out the door. Without missing a beat, she followed him, not bothering to turn at Black Canary's call for her and an alarm sound.

“Speedy please!” She yelled after him. He hadn’t gotten past the doors to the main atrium yet, but she didn’t want to run the risk of saying his name where the public could hear.

He whipped around at the name as it hurt him. And with a look of anger she didn't recognize and more venom in his voice than she ever expected from him, he lashed out. “Don’t call me that! Not after today!”. But on seeing her, he softened. “Sasha… I didn’t expect you to follow me.”

“Roy, I know you’re angry at the League.” She put her hand out, and he backed away.

“Anger doesn’t begin to cut it. They have lied to the others. Even Robin looked surprised!” He took a breath. “I just want to be treated like more than a prop or a tool. You want that too right?” He searched her face for an affirmation.

She sighed and then stepped forward to take his hand. “You know I do. But I know we can’t strike it out on our own. And we need to be there for the others. We can’t solve this if we aren’t in the room.”

That got a rise out of him again, but before he could say anything, she continued. “You saw KF, Kaldur’ahm, and Robin. They were clueless to the wool over their eyes. What else do they not know!”

He stepped back and let her hand fall out of his. “Goldie. I can’t play babysitter like you can. I can’t sit there and take the disrespect like you can. And I know it exhausts you. You play nice, but you don’t have to. I don't want you to. But if you won’t walk away from it, I can't sit back and watch. When you’re ready to be treated like you should, you can come find me.” He started to walk away, but before he reached the door to the lobby, she called after him.

“So… any ideas for a new name?” He turned back and flashed his rare smile when she returned.

“I’ll let you know, Goldie. But I’m open to suggestions.” He lifted his hand goodbye. And she headed back into the library.

She walked in to see the Leaguers had gone and Wally yelling at Kaldur’ahm. Robin was watching the two silently. None of the boys looked at her entrance, but as the door shut, Wally stopped talking, arms still held high in gesturing to the ceiling.

“Crest! You came back!” He ran over to her still rattling on. “Where's Speedy? Did you talk to him? Is he coming back? Did you know about the space HQ? Black Canary looked upset that you left! Superman called about a fire at Cadmus, but then the Sun is about to be blotted out by Wotan!”

“Woah, I caught like a third of that.” She raised her hands in a time-out T. “Yes, I talked to Roy, he's not coming back, the rest of that was a blur. Someone who talks slower than a speeding bullet.” she turned to Wally again, “Fill me in.”

Robin looked at her before speaking, “Why did you come back?”

She paused, and before she could answer, Kaldur’ahm spoke up, “what is Project CADMUS?”

The boys turned to her, and she raised her hands in defeat. She made her way over to the computer screen and pointed at Robin. “Ten bucks says he can find out.”

That prompted a laugh from Wally as Robin got to work. She made her way over to one of the chairs as Robin hacked into the mainframe. Wally joined her, sitting with his head down like she was. She picked at her gold-colored gloves. Without looking at her he asked, quietly, to not disturb the boy wonder. “What did he say to you?”

“That I deserve better. That I shouldn't take this treatment lying down. He would say the same to you, KF.”

He looked up at that. “So why did you come back?”

“Someone has to look after you three. And I can’t just leave Black Canary. She’s practically my family.” she paused for a moment. “Even if she is part of the problem.”

“Crest. We've only worked together a couple times. And I know I'm not Speedy. But you can talk to me.”

“I started this sidekick thing when I was fourteen. I’m seventeen now. And, now when the paper talks about me saving the day; they talk about my body, and how I look in my suit. And in interviews, they don't ask about normal stuff. They ask if I'm dieting. And Black Canary just tells me to smile my way through it.” She shakes her head and smiles at him. “But I can handle this KF.”

She stands and heads over to the camera. “What’s the word, Robin?”

“Just some poetic justice to dish out. You and KF in?”

Wally runs up and looks at the screen. “If you're going to CADMUS, you know I’m going to CADMUS. Coming Crest?”

She looked at each of the boys and laughed to herself before walking to the door. “Why the fuck not!”.

Sasha had never been more thankful that Oliver made sure the Zeta Tubes in Star city were big enough for the bikes. Her bike was parked next to Dinah’s still, and she looked at the spot where Roy’s had been not an hour ago for longer than she’d ever admit to. But Sasha hopped on and let Kaldur sit behind her since he didn’t have a mode of transport, having caught a beam with Aquaman. Robin had his own, which felt a little illegal to her though she assumed if he could drive it, then there should be no problem. Wally, of course, was a man without wheels.

Unfortunately, Wally was also a man without a plan. And as she slid to park and hide her bike Wally had sped ahead and dangled half out the building. She ran up with Robin and Aqualad.

Aqualad started to plan but Robin had different ideas and vanished.
Goldcrest’s hero mode had kicked in though. “He’ll scout ahead and get to Kid faster than we can. We are on civilian duty.”

Aqualad nodded and unsheathed his water conductors. They both ran up and Aqualad ordered the scientists aboard the water platform. She jumped off into the building and surveyed the room.

“Appreciate the help.” Kaldur’s sarcasm was palpable. But Goldcrest had to admit, he was the best suited for handling the job. She was feeling more useless by the second. Her powers were not built for hacking or saving people. She just kind of yelled.

She wandered ahead with Aqualad. The hallway was dark, but some lights were still on. The beep alerted Wally and Robin to join them.

Kaldur stepped forward. “There was something in the–”

Wally cut him off. “Elevators should be locked down”.

Robin was already looking at the cause on his wrist schematics.

Goldcrest walked to the doors. “Aqualad? Can we get these doors open?”. She started to grab for her comm device in her jacket’s inner pocket.

“What are you doing Crest?” KF lunged for her hand. “Do you want us to lose him?”

“No? What? I’m calling Roy in. He should still have his comm on him and he deserves to be here. If he helps us, the League will have to take him seriously.”

Wally just looked at her, but Kaldur forced the door open anyway and Robin set to work on the grappling hook gun.

“There’s no time Crest.” Robin looked up at her. “We have to go now. You can worry about fixing Speedy with the League later. Poetic justice, remember?”

She jumped on the line after Wally, mentally setting up a shopping list for when she got home. She could probably raid Papa Ted’s arsenal for one, but if she wanted something from this decade she needed to ask Oliver.

“I'm at the end of my rope…Literally.” Robin hopped off and was thankfully able to open the door because there was not enough room for her to dismount. She leaped through the open door to Wally already running ahead.

“This is sub-level 26? How far down can this go?” she asked Robin as they ran to catch up.

“As far as it needs to go. This is nowhere on my schematics” he replied.

Wally freed himself from under the troll's legs and the group was led by robin to another room.

“Robin, just get us some concrete evidence for the League. We need to get out.” Goldcrest urgently said as Robin hacked the door. “KF nearly got crushed. We know shit’s crazy here. And the sun probably is fine so they can come get us.” She trailed off as the door opened and Robin said something that would have confused her if they were seeing anything else.

“I am officially whelmed.”

Wally went up to inspect one of the creatures. “This is how they hid this massive underground facility from the world. The real Cadmus isn't on the grid. It generates its own power with these things. Must be what they're bred for.”

Kaldur picked it up easily. “Of course. Even the name is a clue. The Cadmus of myth created a new race by sowing dragons' teeth into the earth”

Sasha laughed a little bit to herself before speaking. “If I see a dragon I’m out.

But Robin wasn’t joking this time. “And this Cadmus creates new life, too. Let's find out why.” He started hacking the terminal. “They call them genomorphs. Whoa! Look at the stats on these things--superstrength, Telepathy, razor claws. These are living weapons!”

“They're engineering an army, but for who?” Wally walked up behind Robin.

“Wait. There's something else. Project Kr. Ugh! The file's triple-encrypted. I can't–”

The Guardian opens the door. Sasha had met him once, but that was an older man than this Guardian. But he recognizes her and the other sidekicks and even gets KF’s name right. And then he seems to…reset. And suddenly she’s blinded by smoke from one of Robins’s bombs.

One of the things lunges at her and knocks her back. She manages a strong kick to its shoulder and then switches with KF as he gets knocked into her opponent. She lands more than she misses before realizing it’s retreat time. She and Aqualad are pulling up the rear with several behind her and he looks at her with a single question.

Is it time to Canary Cry?

And the situation is desperate, she knows. But she doesn't know what attention it will bring. Or what it will do to the integrity of the place. But she doesn’t have time for questioning herself. She rounds the corner. She braces her feet, hard. And she lets out the signature Cry that made her mentor famous.

It sends the genomorphs flying back to hit the back wall and gives Aqualad time to get in the elevator. She shuts her mouth to stop the cry and catches her breath before running to join them. The numbers tick lower.

“Robin, why are we going down?” she asks. Her voice is gravelly and she feels shredded from the inside out. The boys don’t get to know how infrequently she actually uses her Cry. It has always felt like a work in progress. She hears Robin mention project Kr again.

“Isn’t- isn’t Kr the” her voice gives out to a cough fighting its way out and she glares as she recovers at the boys looking at her.

“Perhaps we should contact the League,” Aqualad says. He pointedly does not look at Sasha as he says this. But she feels his judgment nonetheless. But as the door opens the four go out to investigate.

“You did not tell us you struggled with your power,” Kaldur says to her as they walk past the pulsating red walls. “This is vital information.”

“I know,” she says, stifling a cough. “It's harder some days. Others are easy.”

“Halt!”. And the weird man with horns is back. He tosses two barrels with his mind at the sidekicks and sends Kid Flash running ahead. Sasha dashes behind him and sees him knock a scientist prone. As he struggles to move a barrel to hold the door open she runs into the area. Moments later, the boys make it in, and Robin locks them all in by disabling the emergency lock.

“Hey, guys. You'll wanna see this.” Kid Flash summons the lot of them over as he brings up the light in the room. He walks closer as the rest inspect from a distance.

Sasha knew it. The atomic symbol for Krypton. She saw it so much in chemistry class 2 years ago. She couldn’t remember much else, but she remembered that from class. But what was this? A captured Kryptonian was impossible. Superman was the only survivor. A clone? Was cloning a human- an alien possible? Well, the genomorphs existed so that ruled out a lot of impossibilities. No dragons yet.

She hated standing silent as the boys talked. She hated a lot of things though. How Kaldur had looked at her as she coughed helplessly from her powers. How Dinah and Papa Ted talked quietly about her whenever she failed a training session from her lack of control. She hated most especially how it felt to walk away from Roy earlier when he was the only one who helped her on the bad days and still looked at her like she could do it.

“This is wrong. We can’t leave him as this” Kid Flash said. Kaldur looked like he was about to speak when Sasha raised her hand to speak.

Her voice was recovering thankfully. It was nice to have some rapid healing, even if it was mediocre compared to other heroes. “He will be…scared. We… must be calm.”

Robin nodded and released him slowly. The containment hissed as it opened.

And as the Superboy opened his eyes, he lunged at her. She went to scream and he grabbed her throat. She fell to the ground.

As she struggled to fight unconsciousness she heard Aqualad’s voice.

“We are trying to help you!”

Chapter Text

Washington, D.C.
July 5, 2010, 00:01 E.S.T

“You must awaken now!”

Sasha’s body surged forward at the sound of a voice echoing through her body. The familiar white-hot flood of adrenaline raced through her as her eyes shot open and she struggled to take in her surroundings. Unlike her normal sleeping arrangements with Papa Ted, she was not waking up to the loving chaos that was her room. Instead, she was waking up with a crick in her neck and a loss of feeling in her arms. Her quick assessment of her body told her despite the damage to her throat from being choked out that she could still speak, and the minor pains from fighting were none important. With only her hands and feet bound she could assume CADMUS either didn’t know who she was or didn’t see her as a threat. With enough time most containment shells would break from a canary cry, although she had never tried.

The Superboy is still looking at them. Kid Flash had the least patience of all of them, and he broke first in the staring match of the century, “What? What do you want? Quit staring. You're creeping me out.”

“Brilliant Kid, if they don’t kill us first, he certainly will,” Sasha said. She managed to turn her head to look at Kid from her place between him and Robin. Robin was the next to pipe up to give KF a piece of advice.

“Uh, KF, how about we don't tick off the guy who can fry Us with a look?”. And Goldcrest nodded along. Black Canary had emphasized to her after Roy was captured to always have something to pick a lock with on hand. Or in her case, tucked in her gloves. When she was younger she tucked pins in her hair as backup, but with her current pixie, fitting a pin in it is impossible.

Kaldur begins the process of talking the Superboy down, but whether he’s stalling or actually trying his hand at diplomacy she can’t tell. What she can tell is that Kid Flash is fucking the whole thing up, and she and Robin need to pick the locks quicker.

“I believe our new friend is not in full control of his actions.”

She nearly drops her lock picker at that, and her heart breaks for the clone when he relents a little bit.

“Wha--what if-- what if I wasn't?” She opens her mouth to speak but is cut off before she can even start.

“He can talk?”

In her mind, Sasha tallies another smack she owes Kid Flash. His big mouth and fast legs got him into more trouble than he was worth some days, and she was left to wonder if super-speed and reflexes damaged the brain somehow. But thankfully Superboy defends himself, and he starts up a conversation with Aqualad. That leaves her to focus on her lock.

“The genomorphs taught you telepathically.”.

“They taught me much. I can read, and write. I know the names of things.”

“But have you seen them? Have they ever actually let you see the sky or the sun?”

“Images are implanted in my mind, but no. I have not seen them.”

Somehow that statement pulls her from her work, and she cuts Kaldur off to ask him, “What’s your favorite image? The implanted image you like the most?”

He doesn’t answer, staying deep in thought until Kaldur asks another question. Sasha couldn’t imagine a life of halves like how he lived. Artificial completed schooling or memories, never having met humans other than Guardian, who was probably mind-fed information just like he was, or the evil mad scientist that concocted him in a lab. This was probably his first time ever being awake, or spoken to.

“Do you know what you are, who you are?” Kaldur asked.

He stood up taller as he recited what was clearly a mantra trained into him, “I am the Superboy, a genomorph, a clone made from The DNA of the Superman, created to replace him should He perish, to destroy him should he turn from the light.”

“To be like Superman is a worthy aspiration, but like Superman, you deserve a life of your own beyond that Solar suit, beyond your pod, beyond Cadmus.”

That sentiment clearly upset him as he yelled out in response, “I live because of Cadmus! It is my home!”

Robin didn’t beat around the bush. “Your home is a test tube. We can show you the sun.”

“We can show you anything. We can help you find your favorite thing to look at.” Sasha looked at him for any sort of emotional response, but outside of anger, she couldn’t find anything remotely emotional coming from him.

“We can show you, introduce you to Superman.” Kaldur finished. And that was the nail in the coffin, his only desire in life would be fulfilled. Despite it being the first time she had met Kaldur, Sasha had already decided she would like him.

The evil scientist guy returned right at that moment. If she was supposed to know his name she had forgotten it, and despite knowing it would be the peak of her comedic career to ask at this exact moment, she refrained.

“No, they can't. They'll be otherwise occupied. Activate the cloning process.”

“Pass. Batcave's crowded enough.” Sasha laughed at that and felt her throat clench at the sound, begging to use her power.

“And get the weapon back in its pod!”

“Hey. How come he gets to call Supey an it?”

“Kid. Supey? That’s the best? What is he? Chicken noodle?” Kid stuck his tongue out at her.

“Help us.”

“Please.” she looked at him, searching for the trace of the superboy that wanted to meet his hero.

“Don't start thinking now,” The little creature hopped on his shoulder and she saw him glaze over and unfocus. “See, you're not a real boy. You're a weapon, and you belong to me! Well, to Cadmus. Same thing. Now get back to your pod!”

He walked out, and she tucked the pin back into her glove. She had never been particularly good at lock-picking, but with her lack of focus, she wasn’t making much progress. But still, it was better to secure it than let it drop when the torture inevitably started. Roy said he didn’t remember anything about his time captured, but Dinah said that was his brain compartmentalizing. That he didn’t remember to keep himself safe because his brain locked it away because it would actually hurt him to remember it.

When the procedure starts, she’s glad Roy has forgotten.

Her mind goes blank from pain as if the forest fire consuming her has destroyed everything in one fell swoop. She only holds onto the idea that this could be forgotten. That the mind is so capable that it can lock away anything so damaging. That she can get better. That thought was enough.

But then, as quick as it started, it stopped. Her body twitched as the prods retracted, and she opened her eyes. Like a shattered mirror her pod had cracked in like a web. She felt lucky she could enjoy the show of Superboy throwing the science-guy-that-she-should-definitely-ask-Robin-what-his-name-is across the room. That was satisfying. She retrieved the pin. When the pod opens the glass should cave in on her.

“You here to help us or fry us?”. She decides to let that one slide for the sake of his face. But at this point, she might take three days to get all the slaps in.

“Huh. I don't seem to have heat vision, so I suppose helping is my only option.”. And if she wasn’t so close to getting the lock open she’d laugh.

“Ahh. Finally!” Robin frees himself and jumps out of his pod. “Lucky Batman isn't here. He'd have my head for taking so long.”

She gets it, and braces for the glass to cave in on her when the pod opens. It doesn’t move to open as Robin’s did.

“Seriously, that's what you're worried about? The whole League will have our heads after tonight.” KF says from his pod.

Sasha pipes up, “Dudes. What I would give to have Batman here right now. I’d settle for a D-tier Leaguer.”

“Free Aqualad. I'll get kid mouth.” Robin turns to Goldcrest. You’re gonna have to break it.”

Under her breath, she mumbled, “yeah I know.” and set to work. She decided to preserve her cry for escape, though her throat didn’t even feel as sore from yelling from the torture, albeit brief it was. Ever so grateful for the gloves and protective suit, she broke through the glass, freed her ankle cuffs, and joined the boys on the ground.

“You--you'll never get out of here! I'll have you back in pods before morning.” the scientist whose name is becoming less and less meaningful to her by the second says from the ground as they run out.

Robin, Goldcrest, and Kid Flash stick behind, and Robin goes to throw his disks at the orbs under their pods. Goldcrest steps forward and looks at the two of them.

“May I?”

KF sticks his arm in front of Robin, “All your's pretty bird.”

Sasha motions them behind her, and if she had eyes on the back of her head she’d see them cover their ears. But to her, her cry isn’t sharp or piercing like it used to be. It finally sounds like how Dinah described hers. Freeing.

As the fire starts they run, leaving all the scientists in the room with the shattered remains of research.

“We are still 42 levels below ground, but if we can make the elevator!”. Hulking creatures emerge from every entrance, cutting off the way to the elevator.

“Gonna say no to that plan, new plan! Live!” Goldcrest cried out, as the red pockets had even more of the genomorphs crawling out of them. Superboy started gearing up for the fight, but Kaldur stopped him quickly.

“Superboy, the goal is escape, not to bury Ourselves here.”

“You want escape?”

“That’s exactly what we want. Yeah.” Sasha knew her under-breath humor wasn’t making this escape any easier on anyone. But she knew who would have enjoyed it, and as she committed every funny bit to memory so she could recreate it for Roy, it almost felt worth it.

She could really use that grappling hook right about now.

“I--I'm falling. Superman can fly. Why can't I fly?”

“CADMUS may have deliberately underpowered you so they could control you easier.” Goldcrest looked at the unamused faces of her peers. “That’s just a theory guys,”

“Don't know, but it looks like you can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Still cool.”

“Thank you.”

They heard the elevator start coming down, rapidly encroaching on their current stopping point.

Robin said what they all were thinking, and Superboy punched the doors down and started guiding them.

Sasha started to doubt his directions, but she guessed the genomorph’s lessons could have included the building layout, but that seemed unlikely when even he was confused about when they ended up at a dead end.

“Great directions, Supey. You trying to get us repodded?”

“Don't apologize. This is perfect!”. They all ended up crawling through the vents led by Robin with this wrist computer. When they finally left the cramped space, Kid Flash sped on ahead, and Superboy ensured no genomorphs would catch up to them by destroying the stairs.

“A health and safety violation, but a necessary one,” Sasha said as she continued running up the stairs. She didn’t know if he had an uploaded understanding of a sense of humor or what a health and safety violation was, but that was a fixable problem if they lived.

She let her years of training take over as her body slid into the familiar adrenaline. She barely needed to think as she ran up flight after flight of stairs. Her heart was pounding, and she felt the fear hit as she exited the stair unit to see Kid Flash sprawled on the ground in front of a closed door.

“We're cut off from the street,” Aqualad said, and Superboy stalked towards the sealed door, not paying attention to the sarcastic quip KF tried to say.

“Can't hack this fast enough,” Robin didn’t seem like the guy who panicked, but Sasha could hear the stress creeping into his voice. As his fingers moved as fast as they could, she heard the thumping walk of the largest of the genomorphs. Behind Robin, she saw a door, and while she didn’t know where it lead, she was willing to roll the die.

“This way!” Sasha ran to the door and lept, kicking it in with her heel. The door swung open and they were greeted with what looked to be an endless amount of genomorphs in the hall. They were trapped. Surrounded.

Sasha had had a pretty run-of-the-mill hero training experience, taking down bank robbers, rapists, and drug trafficking rings, as is expected. She didn’t ever really expect to be counting how many force-grown monsters were encircling her and 4 other teens. But even as she raised her fists to try, to desperately hope she would see anyone she loved again, she felt a cold wash over her body as her legs gave way to the weight of her body.

Her mind didn’t cloud over with sleep like last time she fell unconscious, but the hall was silent until Superboy spoke. Robin had mentioned the genomorphs having telepathic powers, so she assumed there was a barter for freedom she wasn’t privy to.

Guardian spoke, rubbing his helmet with the palm of his hand ”Feels like a fog lifting,” and Sasha had never been a detective like Robin or Batman, but she felt quite proud of noticing the discrepancies in his personality, now seeing firsthand that he had in fact been had his mind fucked with.

“Go. I'll deal with Desmond.”

Sasha saw the scientist from earlier step out from behind the hoard of genomorphs as she mentally filed away his name for future reference, and appreciated that at least one mystery was dealt with. Looking up she saw him pull a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Guardian was the first to act, pushing the sidekicks behind him as he ran forward to meet Desmond. “Everyone back!”. But Desmond swatted him away easily.

Superboy ran forward to trade blows with Desmond. Sasha dug in her jacket for her comm device. In her mind, she thanked Dinah for making sure it was so durable. It had a signal now and she pressed the emergency alarm on it to alert her mentor. She looked over to see Kaldur doing the same with his belt buckle. Superboy leaped into the air and was met by Desmond, taking both of them through to the next floor.

“Ok. That's one way to bust through the ceiling.” Robin said as he shot his grappling hook up through the hole they left behind.

“I’m not complaining, are you?” Goldcrest looked at Kaldur, he was just staring up through the gap, and she couldn’t tell why. “Mind giving me a boost?”

“You think lab coat planned that?” Kid Flash took Robin’s hand as they shot up together.

Kaldur interlocked his hands and Goldcrest was able to leap through the hole in the ceiling.

“I doubt he is planning anything anymore.” Kaldur easily followed.

They all emerged to see Superboy flying towards them. Being one of the taller heroes she and Aqualad got knocked back with the brunt of Superboy’s body, but KF and Robin followed to help them both up.

Something happened. Whether it was from the shared night of fighting together, or something else, the 5 sidekicks worked together. Years of training had set them up for the fight, but wordlessly they understood how to reach synchronicity together to fight Desmond. KF ran ahead so he could trip Desmond after Kaldur and Superboy punched him. Robin and Goldcrest followed, him throwing his rings as she released her sonic scream.

She pulled back from the fight with Robin. He was used to fighting in Gotham where he could hide, but she was used to not having to dodge others. But seeing a column crumble as Aqualad was pushed through it she turned to the boy wonder.

“The buildings coming down Rob. We can’t beat him, but we can trap him.”. He pulled up the schematics of the building and she knew under his mask his eyes were wide as saucers.

“Of course. KF, get over here!”

With one less sidekick in the fight, Goldcrest ran to replace Kid Flash. Aqualad’s shield was about to fall. Running up Sasha leaped from a piece of rubble to latch onto Desmond’s shoulders, to wrap her legs around his throat. Superboy came from behind her to start pounding into his back. Grey arms came back to grab her but another pair threw her off him and shoved Desmond into the column.

She landed on the ground to see Kid Flash grab the skin off Desmond and taunt him with it, and turned to run up to Robin.

“Tell me you planned that please.”

“Don’t insult me GC,” Robin looked past her, “Aqualad! Superboy!”

The other boys ran up to get filled in, and as Robin explained which columns needed to fall, and in what order, Sasha felt everything click into place.

Today is the day, and this is the team.

And it was.

Even standing in the rubble of the lab, her jacket torn, and unitard ripped all over, today was the day.

“We did it.”

“Was there ever any doubt?”

“So many, Robin, so so many doubts.” Sasha wheezed out a laugh as she said it, coughing as her ribs protested. Laughing harder as Robin and Kid Flash tried to high-five and met her same fate.

“See? The moon.” Kid Flash gestured to the sky where the full moon was waiting in all her glory.

Sasha walked up behind Superboy on his right side and quietly, hoping to not disturb him whispered, “The moon is my favorite thing to look at, but it can be yours too”.

Kid Flash interrupted, pointing out the figure flying towards them flanked by far too many Justice League members to not be nervous, “Oh. And Superman. Do we keep our promises or what?”

Wonder Woman was even there. So yeah Sasha could feel herself sweating. Superboy stepped forward. Sasha wasn’t sure if he was emboldened by seeing the moon, taking down his captors, or just born with it, but he lifted his torn sunsuit to show Superman the symbol of his house. And she saw his hope leave his eyes as Superman said nothing.

Batman broke the silence “Is that what I think it is?”

“He doesn't like being called an it.” Kid Flash said, and stepping behind him Sasha finally smacked him upside the head.

“There’s more where that came from,” she said, and he responded with his toothy grin.

“I'm Superman's clone.”

The rest of the League turned to look at their cohorts, all wracked by the news.

“Start talking.”

After laying out the story, all 52 levels of the story, the League split apart, a Green Lantern and some of his friends took Desmond away, and the Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman stepped aside with Superman. The sidekicks stood together for a moment.

Sasha felt a hand touch her shoulder and turned around to see Dinah and Oliver looking grim. The trio found a place of isolation amidst the rubble and Sasha waited in the silence.

“Did you…talk to him?”

Oliver sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, for all his years of heroing, he had never become a good liar, “By the time I made it back, his room looked ransacked.”

Sasha felt her heart land in her boots, “I knew he was angry, but I didn’t think he would leave. I never should have-”

Dinah cut her off, “It’s not your fault, we messed up but you…you are not responsible.”

“Did he leave a note, a way to contact him, a clue?”

Dinah stepped forward, pulling her into a hug. In all her years of knowing her, she had been awkward and aloof, sparing only signs of affection when alone or with Oliver. But she stayed in the hug until Sasha pulled back.

“Don’t worry kid, we’ll find him. We found him before.”

Oliver cleared his throat, pulling their attention back to the present and motioning them to join the other Leaguers and sidekicks where Batman was talking.

“You will not be doing this again,” Batman said.

“I am sorry, but we will.”

“Aqualad, stand down.”

“Apologies, my king, but no. We did good work here tonight, the work you trained us to do. Together on our own, we forged something powerful, important.”

Flash tried to calm Aqualad down, “If this is about your treatment at the hall, The 4 of you–”

Kid Flash cut him off, “The 5 of us, and it's not.”

“Batman, we're ready to use what you taught us, or why teach us at all? -

Superboy stepped forward, “Why let them tell us what to do? It's simple. Get on board or get out of the way.

Oliver finally spoke revealing the hidden trio from where they had been listening, “I’m all for it. We made a group, why shouldn’t they get to.”

Dinah placed her hand on Sasha’s shoulder, “We didn’t give them the chance to prove themselves, so they did it on their own. If Goldcrest wants to be on a team, she will, and she’ll be great. If you don’t have the same faith in your proteges well that’s embarrassing.”

Sasha felt her face go flaming hot at the praise and the embarrassment. Black Canary never heaped praise, but when she did she did it well. Especially when there was an audience. She never criticized her in public, nor praised her so aggressively in private. She once said it was to show a united front so no one could pit them against each other. But she also knew Dinah was loving this weird PTA mom persona she was taking to guilt the other Leaguers into letting the group exist.

Batman looked around at them all standing there before speaking, “Two days, then we’ll let you know.”

The five looked at each other, each wearing small hopeful smiles on their faces. But separating Sasha let her smile fall, she had won, but she felt the loss of Roy deeply. He should have been a part of this.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3
STAR CITY
July 6, 2010, 10:30

Despite getting ripped into by Papa Ted when Dinah dropped her off back home for going off and collapsing a building with a group of unsupervised teenagers, the past two days had been relatively peaceful for Sasha. She was on bed rest for the first day as mandated, but after her stay in bed she made her way downstairs to eat a late breakfast.

Coming down the stairs she spotted her granddad in the kitchen. He must’ve heard her messing around in her room because he was in the cupboard grabbing a bowl off the shelf.

Without turning around he greeted her, “Morning sunshine, any grand plans for today?”He left the bowl on the kitchen island and walked to the pantry to grab a box of cereal.

“No plans, might see if Oliver wants to patrol some.”

They sat at the kitchen table for a while in a steady silence, as her grandfather read and she ate. The only sounds were his page-turning and her spoon clinking against the bowl.

“I’m not mad, you know.”

Her spoon froze midair. “What?”

Ted set his book down and looked at Sasha, “I’m not mad. I just thought you were going to hang up the cape for a bit.”

“I don’t even have a cape to hang up Papa.” She stood from her chair. The wood scraping against linoleum tiles. “But why would I stop? What gave you that idea?”

“You’re seventeen. You only have a year left until you graduate. I just thought you would have thought about it, maybe start planning for the real world.”

“The real world? I live in the real world. I train every day, and I work hard to prove myself as a hero Pops. I’m going to be in the Justice League one day. All of that goes to waste if I just stop and go to college!”

By the end of her rant, she was left staring at her grandad, the bowl still in her hand as she hadn’t made it to the sink. He stood and walked up to her, planting his calloused hand on her shoulder.

“How could I just stop? I feel like it's all I know.” she looked up at him, meeting his loving eyes, “Goldcrest is a part of me, but I know it’s not everything. How did you stop?”

“Come sit with me.” He led her to the well-worn couch in the living room. “It wasn’t easy, especially since my identity was public. But I just couldn’t keep at it anymore. It had eaten the best years of my life, and I could feel my age catching up to me. It took Dinah telling me off actually.” He laughed at that, lost in the memory for a moment. “But you won’t have that problem, taking off the suit for college doesn’t mean you leave it behind forever. Plenty of heroes do both, you do both right now. And I know you can do both in the future, but what I dont want is you getting stuck in the suit and closing doors on yourself. Who says you can’t have it all or do it all? My granddaughter can do anything she sets her mind to.”

He finished his speech radiating pride, and Sasha felt her heart grow with love dripping from his words.

Sheepishly she smiled, “I haven't even looked at colleges yet though.”

“Nothing stopping you now. There’s a library a couple of streets over. They’ll have computers and pamphlets on the colleges, majors, and jobs. Get dressed and go, call some of your little school friends and maybe they need to look into some stuff too”.

Papa Ted had always been old school, refusing to get a computer in the house when there were libraries and books. But he had made a good point. She texted her school friends in case they wanted to join her and ran back up the stairs to her room.

She had amassed a small but close group of friends over the years, but none of them knew her identity. When she had first started in the hero game as a freshman in high school she had the stupidly genius idea to pull a Hannah Montana herself. But Black Canary cautioned against wearing a wig while trying to kick ass and take names so she compromised. In costume, she had her actual hair out, cut short, and dyed unnatural colors to promote ambiguity. In civics, a wig that had cost a year's worth of allowance.

Sasha shoved her costume into her backpack in case of an emergency and donned her civilian wig and clothes. Her long hair now swished as she walked down the stairs and out the door. She had made it a couple of blocks down before she was pulled into an alley between apartment buildings.

“What the fuck!”, her fist flying out only to be grabbed by a familiar face, “Roy?!”

“Miss me, Goldie?”

Roy didn’t receive an answer in the form of words though as Sasha pounded into his chest with her clenched fists.

“Where were you! Oliver said you ran off! Why are you here?” She finally quit hitting him to wait for her answer.

“I’m just getting some space, letting them sweat it out. I’m holed up in one of Oli’s safe houses, I just stopped by to see you. I forgot you wear a wig though Goldie. We never hung out just Roy and Sasha.” Roy twirled one of her faux curls around his finger before letting it fall back against her cheek.

Sasha felt her cheek burn red, “No, I guess we didn’t,” she turned to walk out of the alleyway and had nearly made it back onto the main road before Roy called after her.

“Do you want to change that? Us hanging out I mean?” He ran to catch up with her.

“Yeah, I really would.” Her face broke into a wide smile as he walked in step with her.

“So where are we headin’?”

“Just the library, college stuff, I had a long talk with my grandad about it this morning, you know how it is with him.”

“College?” His voice dropped to a whisper, “Goldie, we’re heroes, what are you going to do at college?”

Matching his whisper she spoke quickly “I don't know. But I’ll find out, it's not like I'm going to stop everything, the big bat is sweating us before revealing he’s signing off on the group working together, you heard about the fire right?”

“Of course, you leveled a building Sasha, but c’mon you said you stayed to keep an eye on them. Are you just going to up and leave in a year for more school? You could have left with me and done the same thing.”

“Whether I stayed or left with you isn’t the point. We found something in CADMUS Roy. Something wrong. I’ll tell you later”

They rounded the corner to the Star City Public Library, where waiting outside were Sasha’s two close friends, Bria and Wyatt. As soon as Bria spotted her, she ran up. If Sasha didn’t know for certain she wasn’t she might’ve guessed her friend was Kid Flash. Wyatt made his way down the steps of the library more leisurely, only just hitting the bottom as Bria released her from her grasp.

“Girl! Where have you been all summer? July and you’re just now texting? That's just plain rude.”

Bria had been her friend since she moved to Star city in the 8th grade, and was one of the few people she knew if she needed to reveal her identity to she would. She kept a secret like life and death but called her out on petty stuff as her truest expression of love. Wyatt on the other hand, well, he was special.

“Oh come on, she was busy, clearly. Probably figuring out how to break the news she replaced us with this guy.” Wyatt gestured lazily at Roy before drawing Sasha into a hug. Wyatt and Bria came as a package deal, both great friends, but somehow opposites that needed each other to be okay in the long term—canceling out all their rough edges, and keeping each other afloat. Wyatt one time forgot to eat in the middle of a long project, only saved by Bria physically removing him from his glue gun and spray paint cans.

Roy had never met her friends before. Roy had also never hung out with her when in civvies, and he looked so far out of his depth he was drowning on land. He mustered up a hand and raised it, as Sasha finally put him out of his misery.

“This is Roy, our parents work together, we just ran into each other and I invited him to tag along, please be gentle with him.”, she knew her warning fell on deaf ears as she saw her friend’s eyes dance with glee. Roy was about to experience the true fear of teens. And by god, she was going to make sure he had fun.

And had fun he did. For the first time in a long time, she saw Roy joke around, laugh, and smile around people other than her. He got along with Wyatt immediately, soaking in his nonchalant attitude. Bria matched him barbed comment for barbed comment before she granted him a knowing nod of shared respect. Despite all the chaos and joking, Sasha did do what she set out to do and read article after article on college programs offered at the school around her. Printing out the admission paperwork for her top three choices.

Walking back from the printer with her stack of papers she saw Wyatt and Bria at the computers with Roy lounging, feet up on the desk, folding a paper football. As she got closer she could hear their conversation.

“I’m just saying, cool heroes dont have a name that I could call my cat. I’m not calling my cat Batman, but Speedy is fair cat game.” Wyatt had never talked about heroes with her before, but she kept conversations from breaching that topic for years from the sleight paranoia of them putting together who she was. Roy apparently held no such qualms. And he was arguing passionately.

“Well, what would you have called him? An archer should be fast! Robin Hood?” Roy had finished folding his paper football and at Robin Hood flicked it, hitting Wyatt square in the cheek. When he turned Roy held up his hands in defense and pointed at Sasha who had just sat beside him.

Bria from behind her monitor spoke, “Speedy isn’t quite a Robin Hood yet, more Little John.”

“Little John is fair cat game.”

“The cat game rule is stupid, what about Robin?”

“What about Robin?

“Wouldn’t you name your cat Robin?”

“Robin is technically also a people name so yes.”

“Well then what would you name Speedy?”

At that question, the group paused their relentless back and forth. Bria was the first to break the silence.

“Well, it has to fit with Green Arrow.”

Roy popped up to defend his name. “But he is his own person too so it should be able to stand on his own.”

Wyatt turned to look at Sasha, “you’ve been quiet this whole time, what would you have called Speedy?”

Locking eyes with Roy, one of the few times she’s been able to see his eyes without the mask obscuring them she said, “I think Red Arrow would suit him quite nicely.”

Chapter Text

MOUNT JUSTICE

July 8, 07:34 EDT

Sasha had spent the next day pouring over colleges with Papa Ted and patrolling with Green Arrow and Black Canary. She had managed to restrain herself from giving away Roy’s secret hiding space, but even she could tell he was off his game on patrol. But they made her leave patrol early, and let her know that Batman had made his decision. 

Hence why now she was in a fucking mountain. 

To be fair it was a nice mountain. 

She was in some civilian clothes, sans wig, of course, standing with the rest of the boys. Robin was in these dark sunglasses to cover his eyes still, but Sasha had decided to forgo her mask. They were waiting for KF and Superboy to arrive. Kid had been kind enough to take the clone in during the decision. 

Making small-talk wasn’t on her list of superpowers, or even general skills, but as they waited for the fastest teen in the world to arrive she tried. She waved as Kaldur walked over to where she was sitting on a crate that had yet to be moved. 

“Goldcrest, were you as nervous as I was waiting for Batman to make his decision?” He hopped to sit next to her on the wooden crate, watching the Green Lantern and Hawkman make quick work of the rubble lying around. 

“Honestly? I knew he would do it?”

Kaldur’s head shot over to look at her, “How could you know?”

She shrugged, “It just makes sense, I mean he works with the League, a team made of our mentors. It fits that we would want our own team. And we proved how good we work together. Batman doesn’t let opportunities pass him by.”

“Your logic is sound, I see why Black Canary spoke so highly of you at CADMUS.” He smiled at her, and her heart clenched at the compliment spoken so genuinely.

“I’m sure if I got a moment alone with Aquaman he would be singing your praises, Kaldur. I mean you and Superboy were going toe to toe with Bigfoot back there.” She laughed out the tension in her chest, and watched the boy’s face darken with the blush fighting to rise up. 

“I would not challenge myself to compare my fighting prowess with your own, Goldcrest.”

“You can call me Sasha you know, I guess I never got around to sharing my name.”

Kaldur never got the chance to reply as Robin popped out from the shadows. “Sasha huh, you look more like a Kate or something.” He walked over to stand in front of their legs, blocking the view.

“Thanks? I think? Were you back there the whole time?”

Robin smiled, the kind where he only quirked up the side of his mouth, “Who knows?”

Kaldur leaned forward at Robin, “Do you know when Kid Flash will arrive, I doubt Batman is as patient as we are.”

“He’ll be here. Don’t worry.” Robin turned to face her head on, black sunglasses boring into her, “You heard from Speedy didn’t you?”

“No. Speedy hasn’t talked to me since he walked out.” Sasha knew her lie was flimsy. It relied on her insistence that technically Speedy was gone. Sure Roy had talked to her, but Speedy doesn’t exist anymore. 

Robin stared at her. Despite the sunglasses she knew his eyes were searching for a trace of fear. But then he turned back to Kaldur, dropping it completely. 

Chatting for the next couple minutes or so before hearing the familiar sound of the Zeta tubes announcing the Flash’s arrival, followed by him allowing his sidekick and Superboy’s entrance. The three teens waved the boys over to the crate that they had claimed. 

“Did you miss me pretty bird?” Ever the flirt KF said as soon as he stopped long enough to lean on the crate by Sasha. 

“Are you talking to me or Robin?” 

It took Wally a second to let his brain piece together the question, but Robin wastes no time falling over laughing at his best friend. 

“Rob isn’t pretty!” Wally cried out in defense.

Robin looked especially offended at that, scoffing dramatically as Wally tried to backtrack, stumbling over his words. 

“Of course you're pretty Rob, I mean if you want to be pretty, I just wasn’t talking about you, but I find you super pretty, but technically GC was the pretty bird.” Wally prattled on as Robin tried to maintain his stoically offended face as it got redder and redder with the force of his impending laughter. 

“But to answer your question, yes I did miss you both, Superboy, how did you like Central City?” 

Superboy looked up at his name. He had walked in with Wally and stood stoically behind him throughout the ordeal. Whether he was studying the dramatic interaction or simply zoning out in frustration Sasha couldn’t tell. 

“It was fine, eventful, I got some shirts. I like them.”

She smiled looking at his Superman shirt he was wearing. “I’m glad.”

Before the conversation could continue further Batman called them to the center. As they hopped off the crate a final Green Lantern grabbed it up. Sasha muttered a “Sorry” to him for keeping him waiting. They all stood, the teens on one side and the mentors on the other, Superman oddly missing and Captain Marvel oddly present, as Batman spoke.

“This cave was the original secret sanctuary of the Justice League. We're calling it into service again. Since you five are determined to stay together and fight The good fight, you'll do it on League terms. Red Tornado volunteered to live here and be Your supervisor. Black Canary's in charge of training. I will deploy you on missions.”

“Real missions?” Robin asked. 

“Yes, but covert.”

Flash spoke up, “The League will still handle the obvious stuff. There's a reason we have these big targets on our chests.”

 “But Cadmus proves the bad guys are getting smarter. Batman needs a team that can operate on the sly.” Aquaman continued, they were doing that scripting lines thing again like at the fake HQ. 

“The six of you will be that team.” Batman finished. 

“Cool! Wait. six?” Robin asked.

Sasha’s head shot over to face her mentor, who merely shook her head at her unspoken question. 

“This is the Martian Manhunter's niece Miss Martian.” 

And the meekest looking girl approached. “Hi.” Sasha let the boys get the first introductions. She wasn’t Roy, wasn’t even a sidekick technically. And maybe they weren’t sidekicks either, technically, anymore. But she had worn that title with honor. And suddenly this new team member was included. It was throwing her. 

“Hey Superboy! Goldcrest! Come meet Miss M.” 

Walking over to see Miss Martian changing her shirt to match Superboy’s new t-shirt did a lot to endear the new girl in her eyes. She had all the makings of a sweetheart. 

“I like your t-shirt.” 

Kaldur looked around, making eye contact with each one, before saying, “Today is the day.” 

And it was. Finally.

Chapter Text

Star City,
July 15, 14:34 EDT

It had been a week since the “team” was formed. For the rest of the team that meant a week of patrols with their respective mentors. Being a covert team meant appearances had to be maintained. Star City may not go crazy if its “golden girl” went missing, but Gotham certainly would if its boy wonder did. But for Sasha it wasn’t just patrols. It was college hunting, and patrols, and sneaking out to see Roy. But right now it was just eating lunch with her pops, Dinah, and Oliver. It wasn’t too often they ate together, but Dinah had wanted to pick Pop's brain about teaching the eclectic group of teens. So Sasha and Oliver were left to chat and clean up after lunch while they talked in the refurbished garage/training studio.

Sasha felt her nerves wrack up as she washed her plates in silence. It was easy being around Oliver before everything, but knowing how bad he had taken Roy’s disappearance suddenly made the air thick with tension. Roy had made it clear he wanted a clean cut from his mentor and guardian, but he had placed her in the middle of it all.

Oliver cleared his throat. She broke out of her daydream to see him staring at her. “The plate, kiddo, I promise you it’s clean.”

She looked at the plate she was holding. It was clean, and had probably been clean for a considerable time. The rest of the plates did not share a similar fate though, sitting next to the sink untouched. She wordlessly passed the plate to Oli to dry and started on the next one.

“Alright enough of that. Set the plate down. What is this?” He leaned against the counter and looked at her, eyebrows raised expectantly. She weighed her options. Tell Oliver how guilty she felt for keeping Roy hidden from him, tell him that the kid he had searched night and day for a year almost was avoiding him because he felt unappreciated. Or lie again, and just help break his heart.

“Just got lost in my brain again. I told you and D about how busy Pops is keeping me with college.”

“Yeah you did. You know you can talk to Dinah about getting your patrols down right? I know it's still about a month before school but she knows it’s your senior year and how busy you’ll be so–”

Sasha cut him off. “Oliver. I’ve got this. Just daydreaming, I’m going to the cave in a couple days to hang and decompress with everyone. You know teambuild, meet Miss Martian for real and I don’t know I was thinking about Roy. He should be a part of this. He would hate it though wouldn’t he?”

Oliver sighed. He turned back around and took the offered plate to dry before talking, “Roy hated a lot. He hated my jokes, hilarious though they are, and he hated wasting time not training, and he hated how long it took to get to meet the other heroes. He was dedicated to being a hero. And I think if he knew about the Team, and he understood its purpose he would join. But he would always know it wasn’t the same as being in the League.”

“Yeah. He’ll make it out on his own I guess.” She let the sentence drift off as the silence grew more comfortable. Surprisingly, this wasn’t the first time Oliver and her had had a conversation like this. Despite Oliver’s reputation as a flippant archer they had a connection that was emotionally vulnerable at times. Where all the serious conversations happened here, and not with Dinah. To be fair to her mentor there were serious conversations, Papa Ted was not one to give the period talk to a girl who thought she was dying. But the first time Sasha saw someone die Oliver was there.

And that was enough.

But Roy was there for everything. And now he’s not.

Before she had to stew on the absolute upheaval of her everything Dinah came back from the garage carrying a binder that she did not have walking in. Dinah had taken to mentorship with all the exuberance of a football coach, plays and all. So she could guess her mentors' plans for not one but six kids to coach on trusting instincts.

“Sasha! Pumped for the cave with your team?” Dinah slid into a chair facing her and Oliver. He set down his abandoned washrag to join her and a rare display of PDA placed a kiss to her temple.

“Definitely, I need a break from college prep, I’ve got a month before school starts and already Pops is breathing down my neck about applications.”

Dinah laughed at that. Her smiles didn’t always reach her eyes, but this time it did. For all the comparisons to the other mentors Sasha applied to her, and for all the times she wished she had someone else's power or a connection to a hero that was different, kinder, more popular or any number of things, she knew it always had to be Black Canary. That she’d choose her. That Dinah would care for Goldcrest and Sasha. Not one or the other more.

Even if Sasha liked Goldcrest more.

Most people did.

“Well I don't know how much of a break I can promise you over there, but maybe you could head over earlier than the boys. I know M’gann is excited to spend time with you.” Dinah turned to look at her old mentor, waiting for his permission to teleport his granddaughter across state lines.

He didn’t look up from his station at the coffeemaker that was struggling to produce anything beyond a sludge in its old age, “Oh if she wants to go right ahead, she has enough minutes on her phone to call me if she’s staying longer than the weekend.”

“Yeah I’m up to kicking it with Miss M and Superboy. Gimme a tight ten and I'll have my bag packed.” Sasha grabbed her grandad in a tight squeeze before running up the stairs to her room.

It was easy to throw in some sweats, training clothes, and a set of civvies for the Cave. She didn’t know how outfitted it was yet, but Superboy was living there permanently so she could bring enough clothes to leave there. After double-checking how many socks and essentials she packed, and bringing her emergency toothbrush out from retirement from old sleepover days she was ready to go. Nearly at the stairs she turned back and found a scrap of paper with the least amount of lipstick blotting stains on it and a pen that had fallen beneath her dresser and made herself a note.

“New coffee machine-christmas”

And suddenly she was out the door on the way to spend the day with a martian and a clone. Strangely content with that decision.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mount Justice,
July 15, 17:34 EDT

“Goldcrest-B-02” was announced by the Zeta tube computer. She used to just have guest access, but if the team was going to be going on missions she guessed that they had to upgrade the access.

She had barely been in the mountain for a few seconds before Miss M was flying towards her. Literally flying. And a voice appeared in her head, not like the psychic intrusion of the genomorphs, calmer, but with a pressure that made itself known.

“Goldencrest! You arrived early!”

Not knowing the etiquette for a mental chat made her palms sweat, but she replied outloud to be safe. “Uhm. it's just Goldcrest.”

M’gann gasped out loud, in a way that felt fake. Sasha had friends in theatre at school and M’gann already reminded her of them. The way she slapped her head and said a catchphrase made her feel like she should be on a stage.

“Of course it’s Goldcrest! I’m sorry!” M’gann was now talking outloud permanently it seemed, and Sasha felt she could assume she just forgot she was off Mars and devoid of psychics.

“Not a big deal, a lot of people get it wrong. Just a bird name I thought was cool and kinda fit with Black Canary’s name. That's my mentor by the way. How much did you get briefed on everyone before you showed up.”

“My uncle J’onn told me about everyone, but he didn’t know a lot about you guys outside of powers.” M’gann turned her head away for a moment and rubbed her arm in embarrassment. “I tried to ask Superboy about you all and he didn’t respond. I think he doesn’t like me too much.” By the end of her sentence she had all but sunken in on herself, and Sasha felt the protective instinct that came up whenever she saw a child get too close to a fight she was stopping.

“Hey don’t worry about Superboy. I just met some of these guys too. I know Kid Flash the best and trust me that’s not a good thing. But c’mon we can just hang out and forget about them. I haven’t had a sleepover in years.”

M’gann broke into a wide smile, more genuine this time too, “A sleepover! We can bake cookies and talk about boys and stay up watching movies!” She clapped her hands together excitedly, “I’ve only seen proper earth sleepovers in movies!”

Sasha returned the smile, “No boys, maybe, but cookies? Sign me up for some macadamia.”

M’gann led the way to the kitchen and pulled out everything they would need with her mind powers. Sasha was skeptical about her as a hero, but the girl seemed confident about all her abilities. Flight, telekinesis, talking in someone’s head without warning. It all came so easy to her.

Midway through cracking some eggs M’gann spoke again, in her head, “So when did you become a hero?”

“Woah!” and the milk cartoon crashed hard on the ground as Sasha dropped it. She managed to grab it before too much escaped but she looked at M’gann. She could see tears welling up behind her eyes.

“Hey look at me M’gann, I’m not scared of you. I get how upsetting it is when you feel like people are scared of your powers. I’m not scared, or mad, or upset. I was just surprised. Most people are going to be surprised if you talk in their heads especially when they aren’t expecting it.”

M’gann sniffled and wiped at her face, “I don’t want you to leave me when we just became friends.”

Sasha walked over and took the green girl’s hands into her own. “I’m not going anywhere. And I don’t think I mind the mental chatting. Just warn me beforehand or ask.”

M’gann took a shuddering breath before speaking, “Ok. Can I set up a mental link for us to talk?”

“I would be honored.” And as the presence returned Sasha could feel something of a vague understanding shared between them. That as confident with her abilities as M’gann was, she was drowning in the new world she was thrust into. And as unshakable with all the strange oddities it had to offer Sasha over the years, she was desperate for the positivity M’gann offered. It was an alliance she would never have expected. But Sasha had learned early that girls had to stick together, even green ones.

“Am I doing this right M’gann?” Sasha tried to speak through the mental link. It was like a microphone had been placed in the corner of her mind so she could think privately and force certain thoughts through to her friend. But it was hard to do it and stir effectively.

“You’ve got it! Now what do you wanna talk about? I know you said no boys.” M’gann shot her a look at that. Acting all the part of a jokingly disappointed teenager.

“Simple game. 20 questions. You ask me about earth or myself or superhero stuff. I ask you about yourself, or Mars.” Sasha looked back at her, moving the bowl of mixed ingredients to the center so they could portion out the cookies.

“Sounds easy enough. I'll start since I kinda scared you with my last question.”

And by the time the cookies were out of the oven Sasha had learned far more about Mars than she ever thought possible. While she was an only child M’gann had 28 other siblings back home, and Sasha taught her all about their fellow teammates, and her own fun superhero origin story.

“Wait, so you actually just shaved your head? Why?” M’gann fell back against the back of her stool laughing.

“Ok at the time it seemed to make sense! Don’t tell me you wouldn’t shave yours in an emergency!” Sasha knew if she was speaking out loud her voice would have been high in defense, but in her head it felt the same as always.

Superboy chose that moment to walk into the kitchen. Quiet at ever he took in the scene of the two girls laughing out loud but not visibly speaking. M’gann was the first to spot him, waving excitedly, Sasha turned around to look at him before speaking.

Clearing her throat first, “Superboy, we’ve got about ten minutes on the cookies but we were going to watch a movie. Well three but it's a trilogy so they’re all connected. Do you want to join us?”

“You should! Sasha told me all about the first movie! They're toys but they’re alive. It’s going to be so much fun!”

Superboy looked between the two girls, one eagerly awaiting his response and the other passively returning his gaze. If it was a choice between M’gann and his isolated bedroom he’d choose alone, but maybe it was time to choose people.

“Sure.”

Chapter Text

Mount Justice
July 18, 11:10 EDT

The next few days passed with relative ease with the bulk of time being spent introducing M’gann and Superboy to the joy of animated children’s films. How her uncle J’onn had missed such an egregious gap in what he sent back to Mars Sasha could never know. But after the Toy Story trilogy was a rousing success M’gann asked what Sasha’s favorite film was as a child and the answer sparked another movie-watching binge. Eighteen Barbie movies later and two days basically living on the couch saw Kaldur’ahm catching them on the final movie.

“Recognized: Aqualad-B-03” was heard echoing through the cave and soon enough Kaldur was walking into the living room.

“Robin and Kid Flash should be here soon, shall we meet them?” He paused for a moment and looked at the screen, “What are you watching?”

Sasha felt heat rise up her neck and onto her face, “Barbie in a Mermaid Tale.”

“Fascinating.”

M’gann broke the silence and reached for the remote, “We should meet them. Maybe Red Tornado will have a mission for us!”

Superboy followed M’gann out towards the Zeta room. That left Kaldur and Sasha to follow.

Kaldur leaned in to speak close to her ear. “We spoke to Roy.”

And Sasha stopped.

Kaldur turned to check on her. And he heard the faintest whisper breach Sasha’s throat. “Is he okay?”

“He declined to join the team, but he seemed fine. He gave us a message to give you.”

Sasha started walking again, falling in step with Kaldur. “What was the message?”

Kaldur looked forward, refusing to meet her eyes as he spoke, “He told us to tell you: the offer still stands.”

“Oh.”

They were right at the threshold of the Zeta room when Kaldur grabbed her arm to stop her. She turned to meet him and the kind and gentle friend she knew was replaced with the stone coldness that reminded her of Batman.

“Did you consider his offer?”

Sasha had always avoided lying. Despite hiding parts of her identity from so many, she preferred to tell parts of the truth. Or to refrain from letting others ask questions altogether. She could never accept the guilt of an outright lie. But…

She forced a laugh, “C’mon, Kaldur. What do you take me for?”

She shook out of his loosening grasp to meet up with M’gann and Superboy. They both had pulled up the tracker of Red Tornado. He was approaching quickly and if they left to meet him at the door now, they would only be waiting about a minute.

“Recognized: Robin-B-01; Kid Flash-B-04.”

Robin and Wally both ran up asking questions, practically speaking in unison.

“Did you ask him?”
“What did he say?”

Kaldur answered them, voice steady and gentle again as if mere moments ago he hadn’t shaken Sasha to her core. “He's arriving now.”

Wally had barely gotten his sentence out before running to the front door of the cave, followed by Robin, Kaldur, and Sasha. M’gann looked at Superboy, seeming to wait to see what he would do. Sasha turned around at the mouth of the hallway.

“What’s the hold up you two? Hurry up!” And as Sasha ran she heard the pounding of Superboy’s boots behind her.

She hung back as the boys spoke to Red Tornado. She could already tell there wasn’t going to be a mission and felt affirmed when she heard him say. “Mission assignments are Batman's responsibility.”

Robin tried to speak up but was shut down fairly quickly.

“You'll be tested soon enough.” Red Tornado spoke with his steady robotic rhythm, yet still managed to sound like he was talking down to all of them, “For the time being, simply enjoy each other's company as Sasha has been with her quote ‘sleepover with M’gann’ unquote.”

Under her breath, Sasha scoffed, “It sounds so ominous when he says it”

She reached out for M’gann’s mind. They had kept up a mind-link over the past couple of days talking late into the night. But the echoes of the link were gone now, and as much as she had hoped to reassure her about not having a mission, she didn’t appear to need it.

M’gann was already offering to read their babysitter’s mind, “Oh, I'll find out.” but with a defeated sigh she turned around to face the boys. “I'm sorry. I forgot he's a machine, inorganic. I cannot read his mind.”

Sasha started toward the group at that. She had already become hyper-protective over M’gann, as competent as she was. She seemed emotionally fragile. She didn’t know why that was, whether it was fear over rejection or just fear in general. But M’gann didn’t seem like a superhero, she seemed like she fled Mars, and ended up a superhero.

She walked over to hear Wally being a teenage boy. He was leaning in close to M’gann and saying, “A private tour sounds much more fun.”

She laid her hand on M’gann’s other shoulder and kept her gaze steady with Wally, her voice upbeat yet icy at the same time, “A tour sounds great KF! I’ve been here for a couple days already so I can help Miss M with a tour.”

Whether Kaldur was trying to protect the girls from Wally’s salacious intentions or trying to keep his eye on the group Sasha couldn’t tell. But nevertheless, he spoke to the group, voice firm, “Team building. We'll all go.”

The tour wasn’t too bad, in her opinion, between the six of them they all had historical tidbits about the cave. It was nice, just talking about the place. The boys were clearly fighting to impress M’gann, in the funny awkward way little boys do. But she kept checking in with her to make sure she was okay. What’s some ass-kicking between friends?

Superboy spoke for the first time during the tour, “I smell smoke.”

Sasha and M’gann locked eyes. M’gann gasping and jumping into the air to fly as Sasha said. “The cookies!”

M’gann flew off, leaving the rest of the group behind. Sasha took it upon herself to explain as they made it into the kitchen, catching her breath. “M’gann…She was trying out the Grammy Jones recipe from episode 17 of-” before she was cut off.

“-- Heh. Never mind Sasha. They’re ruined now.”

Robin slid in beside the girls, “ I bet they'd have tasted great. He doesn't seem to mind.”

Wally rose up in defense, blackened cookies in hand “I have a serious metabolism.”

M’gann’s spirits lifted as she offered to make more. Prompting Kaldur to speak up, “It was sweet of you to make any.”

“Thanks, Aqualad.”

“We're off duty. Call me Kaldur'ahm. Actually, my friends call me Kaldur.” as he said that he looked at Sasha as if reminding her that he considered her a friend still.

Kid Flash leaned over the counter making doe-eyes at M’gann. “I'm Wally. See? I already trust you with my secret I.D., Unlike Mr. Dark Glasses over here. Batman's forbidden Boy Wonder from telling anyone his real name.”

Sasha piped up at that. “I’m pretty sure I’ve already told you all, but in the spirit of sharing my name is Sasha.”

M’gann smiled, “Mine's no secret. It's M'gann M'orzz. Like, you can call me Megan. It's an Earth name, and I'm on Earth now.”

Superboy started to walk out of the kitchen at that, and Sasha saw M’gann staring at the back of his head, before feeling the mind link reappear, heavier now with the weight of more minds echoing thoughts past her. And the heightened confusion and anxiety M’gann was projecting overwhelmed her. Only Kaldur was able to push past the noise to form a coherent thought.

“M'gann, stop. Things are different on Earth. Here, your powers are an extreme invasion of privacy.”

Sasha shook her head at M’gann, hoping she would understand that she was the outlier here. The group had come to a consensus, and that was the way it had to be.

Wally, ever the jokester, followed up Kaldur’s point, “Besides, CADMUS’ creepy little psychic genomes left a bad taste in his brain.”

“I--I didn't mean to–”

But Superboy wasn’t having her apology. “Just stay out.”

As Superboy walked out of the kitchen and the group sat in silence. And Sasha motioned for M’gann to follow her out of the kitchen, and as she walked out gestured at the boys to try to do something about Superboy.

To avoid Kryptonian super hearing Sasha pointed at her and M’gann’s foreheads and thankfully M’gann understood. The mind-link was reestablished and Sasha felt a wave of stress hit her from her friend.

“I don't understand. You seem so relaxed about my telepathy! And yet they reacted so horribly like I offended them? Or worse, hurt them on purpose.” M’gann’s turmoil was palpable.

Sasha spoke, grabbing M’gann into a hug as she did. “I should have explained better. I was enamored with your powers and didn’t think to warn you or the others about this. I stand by what I said. I am okay to speak with you like this, but the others don’t want to. And that sucks for them.” she pulled back from the hug to look her in the eyes. “But I think if you warn them next time it’ll go over easier. It surprised them, and me. And how did everyone on Mars talk like that? I felt like my head would explode with six of us in there.”

M’gann looked calmed by Sasha’s words and after one last quick hug made her way back into the kitchen where the boys seemed to have moved onto the couch to talk to Superboy.

M’gann stood in front of the boys before slapping her forehead and saying the catchphrase from what Sasha had pieced together was a show she had watched. “Hello, Megan. I know what we can do.” And she started flying down to the hangar of the mountain.

On the way to the hangar, Sasha fell into step with Wally, Robin, and Kaldur. After seeing M’gann fly back for Superboy she spoke, firmly, “You handled that poorly. I expected better from you three.” But hearing the woosh of M’gann’s flight had her halt any further comments from the boys.

Eventually, they arrived in the Hangar where they were introduced to her martian bioship and were able to climb aboard. Sasha followed Kaldur and Superboy up to the front while Wally and Robin sat on either side of M’gann.

Flying was…

Incredible.

Sasha had flown twice before, before she was even a sidekick, for a work thing that her grandfather had disguised as a vacation. But sitting in first class had nothing on a probably sentient alien ship. Even though she was seeing the earth in front of her flip and turn right before her eyes she felt safe and secured in the embrace of the bioship. And the tense atmosphere of a Kryptonian was almost amiable because of it. Kaldur was whispering to Superboy, and Sasha felt compelled to as well. But she had always held the same stance as her mentor, as much as she would hate to admit it to her face.

Correct in private, praise in public.

“You won't listen to a lecture in front of your friends. So I have to do it now.” her mentor had said once, training her.

“But I don’t have any super friends.” a young Goldcrest had replied, so new to the business she didn’t have her name picked out yet. But Dinah and Papa Ted had taken to calling her Pink Pigeon as a pet name. That one never saw the light of day…or the press thank goodness.

Dinah had paused at that, taking the time to correct her form on a punch, and then looked at her for a long moment before saying, “You will. I’m sure of it.”

Sasha blinked out of the memory of that early training session, one of the first ones she had ever had with Dinah.

She felt her seat swivel around to face herself.

M’gann had shapeshifted into her. Not her current outfit, but her costume, mask, and everything.

Only speechless for a moment until she could say, “Wow. M’gann that’s incredible! You got everything!”

M’gann didn’t reply, only shifting into Robin next. Her yellow boots melted into black ones, and her jacket became the cape. The feminine features remained and she slowly spun as she transformed into Kid Flash. It all reminded her of the dress transformations of the Barbie movies they had spent the past two days binge-watching, but this was real life.

Robin clapped, ignoring Wally taking self-love way too seriously, “Impressive, But you might want to stick to just GC for now.”

“Hey, you have me down pat though. I take that as a flattering win.”

M’gann sat down, crestfallen at the acknowledgment of the limitations of her powers, “Mimicking boys is a lot harder.”

Kaldur spoke up, Sasha hadn’t even realized the ship had turned him around as well, lost in the awe she felt at M’gann’s display, “And your clothes?”

“They're organic, like the ship. They respond to my mental commands.”

At that, Sasha felt Superboy shift in his seat and speak low. The ship carried it throughout, but she could tell he meant it to be an inside thought. Making a slight about how M’gann uses her powers to control her clothes and only them, not him or anyone else on the team felt out of character for him. Sasha let the conversation continue around her, taking the time to remember Superboy from the past two days. He had hung out with them, well, hanging out in the loosest of terms. He had sat on the couch. Silently. While they watched the movies. He had eaten popcorn, a little bit. He had grunted when she wished him goodnight before he closed the door to his room. These weren’t leaps and bounds of progress, but they were something. Little steps still are movement. He was practically a week old. Like a rescue dog adjusting to home life.

Sasha was pulled from her inner world when a voice that didn’t belong echoed across the ship. Like a school announcement their assigned League babysitter’s voice came out, “Red Tornado to Miss Martian. An emergency alert has been triggered at the Happy Harbor power plant. I suggest you investigate covertly. I'm sending coordinates.”

M’gann responded and the view shifted from the beautiful harbor to the urban concrete. As they neared land, the cause of the alert became transparent as the ship was sucked into a twister. Even the ship’s internal gravity couldn’t withstand the force of the winds surrounding it and Sasha felt pulled back and forth. Thankfully, M’gann was able to pull them out of the wind tunnel, and as soon as they landed the team jumped out of the ship.

“Robin, are tornadoes common to New England? Robin?” Kaldur and the rest of the team looked around at the empty space where the boy was standing mere seconds before, but they were met with only the sight of the civilians fleeing the scene of the cyclone.

The windows began shattering all along the upper walls of the power plant, and the heroes began making their way towards it. As Sasha entered, Robin was on the floor, and the cause of the natural disaster stood.

The Goldcrest's mind began turning on in her head. She felt the gears creaking as she scanned the battle. Superboy jumped into the fray and the rest followed, but she stayed on the edge of the battle. The man was in red armor. He had tech that was making mini twisters. He was committing to the aesthetic really hard with that scarf. He had way too much attitude with his monologue.

He was kicking her team’s asses.

Like hard kicking.

Robin made another comment with truly problematic vocabulary choices (turbed? really?) but Goldcrest chose to jump from her place on the side railing down. Miss M had obscured his vision, so creeping from the back where he couldn’t see her she prepared. Steeling her feet, taking a deep breath she canary cried.

And she opened her eyes to see the bodies of Kaldur and Robin flying straight into her. The boys landed hard on her chest and legs and yeah something had definitely popped out of place in her shoulder.

She sat up with a groan and her left arm hung limp at her side. The boy wonder locked eyes with her and wordlessly moved to pop it back in. Pain flashed behind her eyelids for a moment and with a sigh of relief was gone. Only the webbed hand on Kaldur was in front of her helping pull her to her feet. She followed him out the door to find Wally, M’gann, and Superboy waiting for them.

The red mech suit spoke again, taunting them. “I would have thought you had all learned your limitations by now.”

Kaldur wasn’t one for screaming, but when he did it was terrifying. “What do you want?!”

The mech suit flew into the air, lording himself over them. “Isn't it obvious? I'm waiting for a real hero.”

Aqualad turned slightly, “Read his mind. Find a weakness.”

“I thought I wasn't supposed to do that.”

“It's ok with the bad guys,” Robin yelled.

“Nothing. I'm getting nothing.” she paused a moment before doing her signature head slap, “Hello, Megan. Mr. Twister is Red Tornado in disguise. He's inorganic, an android. And how many androids do you know that can generate tornados?”

Goldcrest piped up, “That’s a big assumption. How can you be sure it isn’t a mech suit? Or remote operated?”

Kid Flash turned to her rattling off an explanation about controllers, servers, and robot finesse shit to correct her.

But Aqualad was just looking angrier and angrier, “Red Tornado sent us here.”

Robin continued the thought, stringing together evidence, “After saying we'd be tested soon enough. This is his test, something to keep us busy.”

“Speedy called it. We're a joke.”

“Wait, what’s the endgame? See if we can beat him? If we can figure it out? Neither one sounds like a test they’d throw at us.” Goldcrest looked at her teammates. But her words fell flat on her own ears. They’d all been tested like this before, mentor’s staging fights or missions.

But this time they could confront the test.

Confrontations do not typically include lightning.

The non-mech-suit-not-Red-Tornado asshole generated lightning and the grassy knoll caved under the weight of the kids being pushed into it with more voltage than one body should take.

Goldcrest woke up to another monologue and felt Miss Martian’s hand cover her mouth and stifle her words. She sat silent, waiting, but she didn’t move until the machine was out of sight.

“What happened?” GC asked, voicing the collective question.

“I placed the bioship between us.”

Superboy punched his way through the rocks surrounding him before stalking towards her, “And that's supposed to make it right? You tricked us into thinking Twister was Red Tornado.” His chest was heaving in anger and the other boys rallied around her.

“She didn't do it on purpose.”

“ I-it was a rookie mistake. We shouldn't have listened.”

All those statements hurt, but Wally looked down at M’gann with sympathy and said
“You are pretty inexperienced. Hit the showers. We'll take it from here.”

GC stood up, “M’gann made a logical step in conclusions based on what she knew. And we were all itching for an answer. That is on us. Not her.”

Superboy ignored her, walking past to follow where Twister went, “Stay out of our way.”

KF and Robin followed past, and Goldcrest pursued, yelling after them, “No. What are you hoping will happen?! We can’t beat him!”

Fighting without Miss Martian felt like old times, even if old times were one near-death experience. But at least this time there was more property damage and less genetic experimentation. Getting her ass kicked was worth it to never see those things again. But death by collapsing church sounded much less cool.

The mental debate ended as M’gann’s mental collect call reformed, the pressure of six minds slowly dissipating as she spoke, telling the team the plan she had formulated. A plan that just might work.

“Hit the showers, boys. I was hoping you could handle this. Clearly, you cannot.” Red Tornado said. M’gann may have had a head start in the acting career due to her shapeshifting, but Sasha was still proud.

Wally and Robin went to work faking Tornado power while the rest of the team set up for the big reveal. Kaldur set up in the water, Superboy in the outfield for the punch, and Goldcrest in between to canary cry him right after he emerges waterlogged. It was a sweet victory watching M’gann rip him limb from limb.

What didn’t feel sweet was watching a man tumble out of the suit crying foul.

“What?” was all Sasha had time to say before a rock fell on top of him, drowned out by Kaldur yelling.

“Don't know how things are done on Mars, But on Earth, we don't execute our captives!” Robin screamed in M’gann’s face, but the girl didn’t look like she was about to cry this time. She still held her ground, confident.

Sasha’s mind nearly caught up to what this all meant by the time the rock lifted to show the second android body, and the whole team let out a sigh of relief at the explanation about mind-reading.

Wally leaned down to pick up one of the eyes as a souvenir. And the team returned to the bioship, finally, with the pieces of the robot as evidence. The ride back was peaceful, as the adrenaline seeped out of their systems. Speaking with Red Tornado on the matter of the machine sent to kill him was short as he claimed it was a personal matter. But as the team left to go their separate ways Sasha found herself following after the boys to leave Superboy and M’gann to talk privately.

“This team thing might just work out.”

Chapter Text

CARIBBEAN SEA
July 22, 2010
20:08 ECT

The rest of the week had gone by pretty standard, Sasha had received a direct message from Bria and Wyatt about hanging out Friday night. But when Friday hit, Dinah walked in to let her know she needed to suit up. So now here she was, sitting in the bioship, instead of making fun of a movie with her friends. That guilt aside, the tension between all of them was palatable. Stiff and overwhelming, no one was talking and Sasha was left with the overwhelming worry that hadn’t gotten to her in years about a mission. But Dinah and she never went on crazy missions. They were always busting arms dealers, fight clubs, drug rings, and maybe a fight or two with Cupid or Harpy. But never this.

“We're approaching Santa Prisca.”

Miss Martian’s voice is steady, and lacking her never-ending supply of joy. Goldcrest took a glance back at her without turning her seat. She doesn’t look nervous, but when she feels around in her head for the connection of the old mental link it is gone. M’gann had rarely severed their private chat room, even when destroying the link between the entire group. When she had gone home for a few days the line had stayed open, and they would talk whenever they had time. But M’gann must have destroyed it to focus on the mission.

Oh right…the mission.

Covert. Observe and report. Not too hard. Drug operation? Child’s play. That’s not what has her nervous.

It was when Batman said, “Work that out between you.”

She had felt the confidence rise in the boys to her left and right. Both Robin and Wally had smirked, seemingly unnoticed by each other, and she knew this mission was going to go poorly. The power balance of the team had never been established, and now with no clear delineation of leader Sasha could only imagine the chaos that was inevitable. Wally and Robin both were vying for the position, and because of that would be more focused on proving that they should have the role than acting responsibly enough to obtain it.

Aqualad put his suit into camouflage mode and jumped out of the ship into the water. As soon as he puts the heat and motion detectors on a loop they can go in themselves. He, of course, makes light work of it all. She takes a moment to gauge her new tech. It wasn’t much, there wasn’t much wrong with her suit in the first place. Originally she had two suits, one flashy in her signature yellow and one for more low-key missions. But Batman had outfitted it so she could change it at will by tapping her choker pendant.

The bioship drops a line for each of them, and she holds it steady.

She looks up to see Wally having fun with his new tech. He’s tapping his lightning bolt to trigger the change. “How cool is this?”

Awesome, Wally,

Miss M hits him with a “Very impressive” before shifting her outfit to be the darker version of hers. Personally, she prefers the stealth version of her outfit. But she’d never say that to M’gann.

Wally stumbles out of the conversation and then turns to Superboy, “Hey, Supey, not too late to put on the new stealth tech.”

Superboy crosses his arms over his chest at that, “No capes, no tights. No offense.”

“It totally works for you…In that, you can totally do good work in those clothes.”

Sasha makes a mental note to give a girls' night with M’gann. She’s wanted to talk about boys and they have got to talk about this Superboy crush. He is like 2 weeks old.

M’gann opens the floor of the bioship and tells it to hang tight in camouflage mode while they’re gone. After she floats down GC, Kid Flash and Robin descend and only narrowly miss Superboy jumping out. He leaves a notable dent in the earth but is unscathed.

“Knew I didn't need a line.”

Robin looks up angrily, dusting off his suit. “And yet creating a seismic event may not have helped us much with the covert.”

Goldcrest comments, nearly under her breath, but not trying to whisper, “I’ve never expected Superman to be covert.” She doesn’t miss the look Kid Flash sends her, but she doesn’t meet his gaze. They start making their way through the jungle. Robin takes the lead, with her right behind him.

Goldcrest was both thankful yet resentful of the quiet mission. She didn’t want to talk to Wally or the others, but being stuck in her head wasn’t fun at the moment. She was anxious about the mission, about the boys doing something stupid in the name of proving who should be in charge. It felt obvious to her. But she wasn’t about to appoint him there herself. Not after the last conversation they had. She knows she didn’t get out of that talk gracefully.

Robin and Sasha were ahead of the rest of the team on the path, and when Superboy alerted them to the danger she followed Robin into the trees. He easily climbed up and began jumping and swinging through. Goldcrest was less graceful.

“GC we don’t have all day!” he whisper-yelled

“I’m a bit more accustomed to a concrete jungle, not an actual one.” She tested a limb with her foot before transferring her weight to it fully. From her vantage point, she could see the two groups of goons she heard Wally talk about.

“Why weren’t you prepped for this?”

“I don’t know maybe because I haven’t monkey-ed around a jungle as a part of training before!”

Before the conversation could continue gunshots were heard. While trees were not GC’s specialty, guns were up there. She didn’t prefer to shoot, obviously. But she could. And more than shooting she could definitely punch a guy trying to shoot her.

Kicking the gun out of one of the goons' hands while Robin jumped onto another guy's shoulders they managed to take down enough of the guys. But Robin’s heavy breathing wasn’t from physical exertion. He was pissed.

“What is wrong with you guys? Remember covert? Why didn't you follow my lead, vanish into the jungle like Goldcrest did?”

Kid Flash started speaking, not pausing taking down a guy even for a second, “That's what you were doing? Way to fill us in. We're not mind readers, you know. Er, I'm not anyway.”

M’gann threw the last of the visible henchmen into a tree and Sasha heard a crack of their spine meeting unrelenting bark. “You told me I could only read the bad guys' minds.”

“Robin, we don’t need to talk about this now,” Goldcrest said. She had started dragging some of the unconscious men to a tree to tie them up. Aqualad came up behind her, dragging one of the strays he caught fleeing the scene. After all the goons were tied Robin began speaking.

“I recognize those uniforms. They belong to the cult of the Kobra.”

Goldcrest had never felt less prepared as a sidekick. She made a mental note to do some fucking extreme research when they got back to the mountain. How she didn’t know half of this was beyond her. Star City had bad guys, sure, but this was out of her depth.

“I am certain Batman would have mentioned it If he knew a dangerous extremist was running Santa Prisca's Venom operation.”

“Agreed. And since there's clearly no love lost between the cultists and those goons, I'm betting Kobra came in and tossed them out. That's why normal supply lines have been cut off.”

The boys started arguing with each other and Sasha felt reminded of the famous saying “too many chefs in the kitchen”. They all wanted to do the mission correctly, but more importantly, they each wanted to be in charge. And how were they each supposed to lead the team when they were all young, dumb, and inexperienced at leading a team of other idiot children in tights and capes?

She was pulled from her thoughts by a new voice cutting through her daze. One of the largest of the fighters had started speaking to the team, seemingly one of the few awake. “Let me show you the rest-- Get you into the factory via my secret entrance.”

Miss Martian crouched in front of him and her eyes glowed a dull white, “There is a secret entrance, but he's also hiding something.”

They did end up following him. He said that because they have a mutual enemy they should work together which objectively makes no sense, but Sasha was not here to butt heads she was here to get through the mention and then get home.

She found herself pausing at that thought. She had never been frustrated at being a hero before. She loved it. She had never even thought of pausing before Papa Ted pushed her towards college, but now she was aching to go home and short-tempered with the team. A team she loved and cared for. They didn’t deserve to be at the receiving end of her ire even if they didn’t know they were. But she missed the ease of working with Dinah and Oliver, and most importantly Roy.

Roy would never have allowed this chaos to stand about who deserves to be the leader. He would have easily said the obvious and Kaldur would be leading the charge. But he’s not here, and now she’s too much of a coward to elect him herself.

During the climb up in the jungle to the lookout point, Miss Martian walked up next to her. It shook Sasha out of her thoughts as the mind link was reestablished after so long without it. The familiar cold feeling of M’gann thinking at her was welcome in the humidity.

M’gann’s still soft voice floated in and asked, “I know I'm not cut out for leading the team, but you always could?”

Sasha nearly tripped at that, barely dodging a root that had freed itself from the dirt. “Oh. No. No, I don't think I could.”

“Why not?”

M’ganns voice held no accusation in it, but Sasha still felt guilt start swimming up the front of her spine. How could she lead a team she would be leaving in a matter of months?

But all Sasha said in reply was, “Kaldur would do it better.” and the conversation died after that.

They finally reached the top of an overlooking cliff and Goldcrest pulled her binoculars from inside her pocket. There were about 20, maybe 25, henchmen. Several moving storage containers of Venom. And that’s just the amount she could see on the ground.

Robin was voicing her thoughts out loud, “Look at all that product. A buy is going down. But if Kobra's not selling to the usual suspects, then-”

Aqualad cut him off, “We need to identify that buyer.”

Kid Flash spoke up. “Just what I was thinking.”

“Yeah, you're the thinker.”

The boys started in on each other again, and Goldcrest felt the familiar annoyance creak in again at the two of them. She turned away from the cliff and found their enemy-of-their enemy several feet away by a boulder.

His gruff voice barely sounded strained by his heaving the boulder to the side as he announced that they should follow him.

The walk through the abandoned mine was a silent affair. They were all too mentally drained to have snappy lines at each other anymore. The stress from the mission weighed on them. This was the first official mission so they couldn’t afford for it to go wrong. And yet they were so far off the beaten path of expectations they couldn’t imagine how to find the road again. The steel door gave way under their companion's orders and Robin peered out and gave the go-ahead.

Within seconds Robin was nowhere to be seen.
“Has that little fool already been caught?”

Aqualad’s voice was dripping in his exhaustion, “No, he just does that.”

And Kid Flash, never one to be outdone, put on his goggles and announced his plan to get the intel first.

“Great chain of command.”

Goldcrest sighed, “it’s in progress.”

The remaining team and guide crept behind untouched crates, “They're only taking new products off the line. They're not touching this Venom. Why?”

Miss Martian piped up, “Maybe freshness counts?”

Goldcrest looked at her and whispered, “It's never that simple.”

Superboy spoke, for the first time since the mission started, maybe, “Helicopters coming.”

Even with her binoculars, Goldcrest couldn’t see any helicopters, but she knew better than to question his hearing.

“Superboy, where is the copter?”

He tilted his head to the side and paused for a moment before answering, “not far, landing strip outside. Coming down in a few.”

With that intel, they got to work. Kaldur took the lead, easily delegating Miss M to go invisible and stake out the meeting with the buyer and report it back. When she sent back the image of the buyer Goldcrest recognized him. Finally, finally, she felt the earth under her feet steady in this mission. Sportsmaster.

Kaldur tried to radio Red Tornado, but the comms were jammed. And before a new plan could be made their favorite enemy on standby decided to throw their hard-won stealth out the fucking window. God, what is his name? Robin would know.

This hulking monstrosity crashed through the wall and destroyed the upper walkway the teens were standing on. Goldcrest fell to the ground and felt her ears ring with the force. Superboy started fighting the biggest of them while GC and Aqualad focused on the cultists. Miss M soon joined and telekinetically threw any that were missed.

Kaldur built a shield big enough to cover the two of them and with one hand shot water at the cultists. Goldcrest was able to canary cry and knock out a swath of them easily before having to duck to avoid gunfire again.

Even with Robin and Kid Flash finally rejoining the group they were overwhelmed. The number of cultists seemed limitless and Superboy was held up with the drugged-up monster.

“Miss Martian, the radio is jammed! Link us up! ” Kaldur cried out.

“Everyone online?”

“Online.”

“yeah.”

“You know it, beautiful.”

“Good. We need to regroup.”

Robin’s voice came in, curt and frustrated, “Busy now.”. Without the comms system, they had no way of hearing what was happening around Robin, but it didn’t take a genius to guess.

“Strategic retreat. Kid, Crest, clear a path.”

Kid Flash rushed through a group of cultists, knocking them as he went. And Goldcrest screamed another group down, bringing them to their knees and into the lure of unconsciousness. A more permanent solution to their troubles. The rest of the group followed close behind them. And Superboy was able to finish the final group off by throwing his wrestling buddy into them.

There was no safety behind the steel door. They were pursued and Sasha could feel the adrenaline pumping through her veins. Kaldur called for the support beams to be destroyed and soon the rocks overhead were crumbling. The inky black darkness overtook them and they were able to rest and breathe. The racing in her heart continued to pump and it almost made her long for the steady support of running on rooftops and feeling the thump of her boots against the concrete jungle of Star City.

Sasha kicked the dirt with her boot. The red light of Kaldur’s glow stick made her grey boots look sad and dull. Looking around the room was a rough sight. Superboy stood with his arms crossed and Kid Flash looked pissed. M’gann’s normal chipper self had been replaced with an air of sturdiness that felt wrong for the girl giddy with a crush. And Robin was sulking. He was the first to tear open the silence.

“How could my first mission as leader go so wrong?

Sasha balked at the statement; how he could still think he was the leader was a mystery. But she knew saying that to him would only anger him. Luckily Aqualad responded first, “You do have the most experience. Perhaps that is exactly what has left you unprepared. Fighting alongside Batman, your roles are defined. You two do not need to talk. But this team is new. And a leader must be clear, and explicit. He cannot vanish and expect others to play parts in an unknown plan.”
Even without her saying anything Robin went on the defensive, but after a moment he backed down and finally said the obvious, “Who am I Kidding? You should lead us, Kaldur…you're the only one who can.”

Kid Flash tried to speak and was shut down by Robin thankfully. Sasha knew her wrist was ill-prepared to hit him over and over again like last time. Everyone gave their affirmations to Aqualad’s new role.
“Hello, Megan. It's so obvious. Even Sasha already said so.”

Everyone’s eyes turned to her and raising her hands in defense Sasha said, “I call it as I see it.”

Superboy backed her up, “Could have told you myself.”

Finally, they were a team. They regrouped and Robin filled them in on sabotaging the helicopter earlier to keep Sportsmaster grounded. So all they had to do was take them down now. They were back running through the mining tunnel, and Robin and Wally were rehashing the data.

“Sportsmaster is the supplier/buyer. But it still doesn't track. He doesn't have the juice to acquire the blockbuster formula, or to get Kobra to do his dirty work.”

Goldcrest interrupted Kid before he could speak, “Sportsmaster is barely a goon. He is always doing someone else’s dirty work.”

Kid Flash continued on “Goons right, neither of them has the chops to bond blockbuster with Venom. That took some major nerdage.”

Finally, they reached the opening into the jungle. And there stood the current bane of Sasha’s existence. But now he was the size of a mountain cliff and holding a trigger for a bunch of explosives. The joking side of Sasha justified this as a typical Friday night. The part of Sasha that actually utilized logic was saying that they’d been made a fool of and had one less ally on the battlefield.

“Kid, you'll need a running start.”

Sasha felt the joking side of her be so glad villains never learned that monologuing only ever got them defeated.

With one final Wally-approved taunt out of the way, M’gann lifted the fellow into the sky, and in a moment of what must have been a true catharsis, Superboy told her to drop him.

The plan was simple: Kaldur takes out the beast with lightning and water, Sasha and Wally pick off the stragglers of the cultists, Superboy and Miss Martian deal with Sportsmaster, and Robin calls dibs on the head of Kobra. The factory went up in smoke. And they got to go home to the mountain.

Talking with Batman was the least of her worries. It made her sweat, sure, but the icy hot that ran through her when after the debrief Kaldur walked up to her was the true force to be reckoned with. She was just about to go through the Zeta Tube back to Star City when he came up behind her.

“Sasha, what M’gann said in the tunnel, about you having already set me to lead, was that true?”

“Of course. You were always my first choice.”

“I see. I know we have only known each other a short while, but I value the trust that you have placed in me to lead.”

“I have good taste Kaldur, and I have good friends.”

“Of course, Sasha, you understand as Leader I must put the good of the group first. I need your reassurance you will not abandon us at the drop of a hat, or the invitation of another.”

Sasha steeled her eyes at that and closed the space between them. Her voice was flat and she met his gaze steadily. “Believe me when I say this. I value this team. And I am not at the beck and call of Roy. And I do not appreciate the insinuation that I am so easily torn.”

Sasha turned and walked through the Zeta Tube at that. Only after she had been safely deposited in the familiar alleyway between the hair salon and the Chinese restaurant did she let out the breath she had been holding.

All According to plan…mostly

Chapter Text

STAR CITY

July 24, 2010, 09:28 

It had been 2 days since the first mission, and Sasha had never been so thankful for her mild healing ability. She was no Superman to be sure, but with the amount of whaling on her that Dinah was doing in training it helped. Ever since the mission she had been training for bigger and bigger targets, terrains, and powers. Dinah had prepared her for a lot over the years, but she’d be a fool to let her slack in front of the others.

“Take ten girl, then we go again,” Dinah said. She tossed her water bottle at her and Sasha chugged greedily. She plopped to the floor and started stretching out her legs. One of her first lessons that had stuck the best was never stop stretching. 

“Tell me about them.” 

Sasha looked up at her coach and searched her face for clues, “Who?” she asked. 

Dinah sat across from her on the blue padded training mats and waited expectantly. “The team. How are they?”

Sasha laughed. It came out confused and full of nerves and higher pitched than she expected. “Well-uh… what do you wanna know? I’ve only seen a couple of them fight up close. Aqualad’s—”

She trailed off when Dinah started shaking her head, “I’m not asking for a breakdown analysis of how they fight. How do you like them? As friends and teammates?”

The question shocked her into silence. Dinah was many things: coach, mentor, and family. But she had existed on the outskirts of the family, playing daughter to Papa Ted without playing aunt or mother to her directly. A role she was seemingly okay avoiding, and a role Sasha was fine with her not filling. But because of that they avoided a lot of the talk of friends or schoolwork, and kept towards less menial things like “how to be a hero” and “how not to kill reporters who ask about staying skinny”. 

But if Dinah wanted to know, “M’gann is good. She needs a lot of help acting like a person. We watched movies the last time we hung out. She and Superboy get along but she seems to have a crush on him. He doesn't talk a lot still. I think he needs just as much help as M’gann but it's easier to help her. Kid Flash is a lot. I don’t think he’ll ever change. Robin really wanted to be the leader. He doesn’t get that we aren’t a team of Robins and Batmans though. Aqualad will be a good leader.”

Dinah paused long after she finished talking, looking at her. Sasha chewed on the inside of her lip thinking of more to say but nothing came to mind. For talking with someone she had known all her life, she hadn’t felt more interrogated. 

Dinah pushed herself off of the mat as she spoke, effectively ending the silence. “Sounds good. I hope spending more time with them will help you all grow closer. Bonds are good when fighting together.”

“Oh, I know all right. You and Oliver can’t stop bonding.” 

Dinah’s laugh echoed around the room, “Just for that, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

After the training session with Dinah, she had planned to meet up with Oliver to look at some gear. The promised “latest tech” of grappling hooks was finally being delivered on. As she and Dinah drove to The Vault, Sasha pulled out her phone to text Roy. He had never mentioned which safe house he was staying at but just in case she wanted to warn him that they were heading to one of them. She didn’t feel a buzz in her jacket the whole way over.

The weapon cache of the Vault was unparalleled. Every wall was covered top to bottom in gear that she couldn’t imagine using. Oliver zeta’d in a couple of minutes after they arrived holding his hands behind his back. 

“Dinah! Quick! Cover her eyes!”

Sasha laughed as her mentor gingerly shielded her eyes with her hands. Oliver had always hyped up giving gifts to her and Roy over the years. If she had asked she could bet that he would have dressed up as Santa for her and bought reindeer to complete the look. But Oliver loved to spoil and lavish presents and upgrades, and she would never complain.

“Ta-Da” 

As Dinah’s hands left her face, Oliver’s came into view. Sitting on his outstretched palms was what looked like a chunky forearm guard. 

“Oliver! I’m going to need an explanation on what I am looking at.”

“Kiddo you asked for a grappling gun. I give you one better. This puppy right here has a grapple gun in it,” he flipped it over to show a button at the bottom of the wrist, “but also I got to thinking about how you're fighting big guys out there. So I had the guys at the lab retrofit this to include a little something extra. Put it on.”

Sasha rolled up her sweater so her arm was out and weaseled her way into the tech. 

“Ok Sasha, now in the middle of your arm at the bottom there should be a button. Hit it.”

Out from her brace popped a shield pulsing yellow light. “Oliver, what is it?”

“Well, it’s a shield. More importantly, it can withstand a lot. So if you get into the thick of everything you can take a hit.”

“Great Oli, now I have to add shield combat training to the list.” Dinah popped off as she walked over to him, “I do want one if there’s any extra floating about the lab.”

Sasha could sense things about to get gross between the two of them so she found herself overwhelmingly distracted by some arrows on the wall. 

Star City,

July 26th, 2010, 13:03 

Sasha rubbed at the inside of her left calf. Dinah had blocked a hit with her hand and she could feel a bruise forming under the skin. In the grand scheme, it would be nothing, but she felt she had earned the right to complain just a tad. But it wouldn’t be an issue today like bruises had been in the past. It was just windy enough today to warrant jeans instead of capris. Bria and Wyatt had called last night and insisted she meets them in the park and hangs out. They had also suggested she invite Roy like last time. 

Hanging out with Roy should be no big deal. They had been sneaking out to meet up on rooftops for years. But something had changed. The guilt she was carrying about lying to Oliver for him was weighing on her. Now every time she came back having seen him and had to see Oliver on patrol that night she felt like a bigger and bigger liar. But, dutifully, she invited him. And unfortunately for her, he had accepted. So here she was, walking to meet her long-time fellow sidekick and her long-time civvie friends at the fucking park of all places. 

Totally normal. 

She smacked her hair under her wig to stop it from itching. She could feel the need to trim her real hair starting to settle in. It was almost peaking out from the edges at her neck and she doubted she could explain why silver hair was coming in instead of her faux blonde curls.

For a moment she entertained dyeing her hair red next. It had been gold, black, and silver for the past years. But the thought of red quickly left when the memory of Ronald Mcdonald the clown resurfaced. Perhaps red and gold wasn’t her speed. Sasha laughed under her breath as she walked, thinking of the look on Oliver’s face if she dyed her hair red. 

That laughter caught in her throat when she realized he might assume a redhead jumping out at him might be the prodigal son coming home. The very one who she could spy overhead standing with her two other friends.

“So you do still like us!” Bria yelled as she jogged up the hill to where they were standing. 

“Of course, she does. Can’t stand that guy though.” Wyatt jabbed his thumb in Roy’s direction. He was standing slightly further apart from the duo with his arms crossed. 

“Oh c’mon you two, jealousy doesn’t go with your nails,” Sasha said, grabbing the two in a hug. 

“Speak for yourself. I just got mine done green with envy.” Bria broke from the hug to show off her newest set of nails. Bria had a style that changed faster than the weather, but a constant was her love of all of it. The cycle never stopped. Sasha could win ten bucks betting next week that her nails would be black, and she would be screaming to Fall Out Boy with Wyatt. 

Wyatt was the typical emo boy in many ways, which clashed with Bria’s seemingly unending chipperness. But in so many more ways it fits beautifully. Bria grabbed his hand and shoved it in her face to show off his nails. 

“He let me paint them red and black!”

“I’m still not allowed to spray paint them.”

Roy grunted out a laugh at that and pulled Sasha from the nostalgia of her oldest friends. But Bria was unfazed and started to easily explain the story from middle school.

By the time she was done the group had settled into lazing about on the grassy hill. Wyatt had brought his sketchpad and was absorbed in it despite being the center of the story. Throughout the story, Sasha moved to lay her head on Roy’s knee as he sat across from Bria, “So for nearly two whole months the top of his hands were black! Not even just his fingers! Every time he tried to wash it off it just bled down his hands more. He looked like he just crawled out of a grave!”

Roy nodded thoughtfully throughout the story before turning to ask the subject of it, “And this was better than walking to the store to buy nail polish?”

Wyatt didn’t even look up from his charcoals to answer, “I was 12 with no spending money. It was an emergency.”

Sasha giggled at the seriousness of his tone, “it fucking looked like one! Wyatt the drama teacher thought your moms were going to kill her!”

“They didn’t though. Last I heard Miss Jerrells made a full recovery.”

Roy leaned back and moved his legs to stretch out. The shifting had Sasha raise her head to the whines of Wyatt, “move back I was nearly done!”

Before Roy or Sasha could speak Bria issued a correction, “This is like 20% completed don’t let him lie to you.”

Sasha returned to her spot on his knee and let the sun soak into her. Despite the cool breeze, the sun was out in full force. Even without Superman’s genes, she felt just a tiny bit healed by the rays hitting her. Roy and Bria chatted aimlessly and Bria retold stories of exploits that barely qualified as exploits. In what may have been a half hour or more later she felt a poke to her side alerting her. 

“C’mon Goldie.” the name was softly spoken. Barely a whisper, but it woke her up panicking over its use.

Sasha sat up violently, nearly knocking into Roy if he hadn’t backed up from where he had leaned over her. 

Unfortunately, Bria was on constant high alert for secrets that she could learn, “Aww you have a nickname! Goldie? Like Goldielocks? That’s so cute!”

Roy blinked at her slowly. If there was a computer in his head it had blue-screened and was not rebooting quickly enough. 

Sasha stepped in before the pause became so great it was rivaling the grand canyon, “I don’t think I’m quite at gold with my hair. Blondielocks might be more accurate.” 

Bria looked at her deadpan, “Don’t critique the name. You haven’t changed your hair in like four years. Just let the guy try and be cute. You fucking broke him.”

Roy stared at her unblinking for a second before finally saying, “it just kinda slipped out. I’m sorry?”

Wyatt finally interjected to say, “Weren’t we going to go get food? I thought we decided already.”

Sasha pieced together enough context to stand up with the rest of them and knock some dirt off of the back of her jeans. Bria and Wyatt moved on ahead of them with Bria yelling far too loud for the public, “To the Wendy’s!”

She turned to see Roy loitering and messing with his jacket. “You in the mood for a frosty?”

He furrowed his brow, “I think it’s too cold for ice cream.”

“No such thing.”

After hours of terrorizing a Wendy’s together, the group left for their separate ways. Wyatt and Bria walked home together and Roy followed Sasha. 

“Isn’t your safehouse the other way?” Sasha asked when their friends were out of earshot.

“Goldie, you don’t even know which safe house I’m staying in.”

“I know none of them are by my house. Oliver would never risk that.”

“Well, maybe I just want to walk you home? Ever consider that?”

Sasha stopped suddenly. Thankfully they were the only pedestrians out and about by her house so they didn’t hold up a line. “Roy, do you know how hard this has been? Oliver has been a wreck since you left and he didn’t even do anything wrong!”

Roy looked at her confusion ample on his face, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Because when we spend time together now I feel great, but when you go off to whatever safehouse you’re staying at, I come home to guilt waiting for me. Oliver wasn’t the problem the rest of the league was. And yet he has taken the fall. He feels like he failed you.”

“He’s always treated me like a child.”

“Roy, we used to be children. Maybe he just forgot you grew up.”

Sasha looked at her friend. The sun was setting now and soon it would be dark. She held out her arms for a hug and he nodded, drawing her into his arms. But just as quickly it ended. 

Roy spoke softly, his voice filled with disappointment, “Have a good night Goldie. The team is going to ruin you,” and he walked away. 

That sentiment echoed in her ears as she walked up the stairs to her room. As slowly as she could she got dressed in her gear for patrol with Dinah and Oliver. He had taken to joining them more nights than he didn’t. If she had to guess, he was lonely on patrol without Roy. 

CENTRAL CITY

August 1st, 2010, 13:18 

For being one of the fastest guys alive, Wally knew how to run late. Wally had asked to hang out “civvie style” and Sasha had dutifully Zeta Tubed and walked to the central city mall. 

The mall she had been waiting outside of for the past 28 minutes. 

Now, maybe half of those minutes are on her. Papa Ted had raised a prompt lady so arriving 10 minutes early is the definition of on time to her. But for agreeing to meet at 1 pm, Wally was already so late in her definition of the word. 

Sasha pushed herself off of the wall she was leaning against to walk inside. The least she could do was give Kid as long as it took for her to grab food from the mall court. The automatic doors opened and she heard the sound of tennis shoes skidding to a halt as the familiar ginger held one open for her.

“Did you miss me Pretty Bird?” he winked dramatically.

“Yeah, but my aim is getting better.” Sasha mimed drawing back a bow and arrow as she walked in. Wally fell back in faux agony at the wound her arrow had made hitting him in the heart. For all the shit she gave Wally, committing to the bit was not on his list of faults.

“Now c’mon. If I don’t get some fried rice in me stat this is a wasted trip.”

They grabbed their respective lunches from the food court and found a bench outside to sit under. 

Wally set his plastic fork down, “you won’t believe why I was late.”

“Try me.”

He gulped his drink before continuing. “So I’m finishing up with” he paused to look around, and then mimed the lightning bolt insignia on his chest, “and it’s normal everyday stuff for us. And then a reporter I’ve never seen before rushes up and starts asking me questions. They never do that! So I was super excited. But she asked if I had a girlfriend. I just stopped a guy from stealing a car. And my lack of a girlfriend is important?”

He leaned back after his tirade and grabbed his fork to angrily stab at his chow mein. “I just dont get it, man. I believed you when you mentioned the wack reporter questions you get. But we aren’t celebrities! Why do they wanna know our business?”

Sasha looked at the younger boy sitting across from her. She knew the answer to his questions. The world demanded knowledge of their inner lives because they felt entitled to it. It wasn’t enough to save their lives, not even enough to prevent fear from threats they didn’t know existed. But that answer wouldn’t help Wally. 

So all she said was, “I’m sorry. They just do, and we just gotta roll with it.”

Wally looked up from his assault on his pepper chicken and scowled, “I don’t like rolling with it.”

“I know.”

“Anything new with you?”

And Sasha did the least sane thing she’s done in a while. She justified it to herself by knowing Wally needed the distraction. She lied, “I saw Roy. He told me to say hello to you Robin and Kaldur.”

“He did! Really? Last I saw him he said we were stupid for joining the team. Did he say anything else? Did you convince him to join? Is he going to? Did you tell him about Supey and the missions and the genetic experimentations going on at CADMUS?” Wally rattled off a million questions. For a second Sasha wondered if he had broken at her statement and got stuck going at the speed of light. But when stopped she realized she could piece together half of the questions. 

“Uhh. he’s not joining. He wants to do his own thing for a while. I did tell him about the guy and the thing,” she widened her eyes and mimed the syringe to avoid saying troublesome phrases in public. “He thought it was super fucked up and said he was gonna check some shit out himself.” 

“Oh.”

That single sound was filled with all the disappointment in the world to Sasha. It was proof that no amount of justification could right was she was doing. If she came to Oliver with every word she could spin of what Roy had told her he would say the same sad sound. 

That “oh” hit the bottom of her stomach and sunk into it like an infection. 

She breathed out a “yeah.” and spooned up a now-cold fried rice. “I wish I had better news.”

Wally looked at her and gave a smile, “Bad news is better than no news sometimes.”

Sasha shook her head at that and plastered on a smile, “Enough of this sad shit, show me where us cool kids hang out in Central City.”

She wasn’t about to think about the implications of what he said. Just call it bullshit and move on.