Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On September 4th of the previous year, Batman had called a meeting of the JLD for 0800 hours in conference room 8B. Naturally, all those invited attended.

This was the Justice League Dark, after all.

If someone ever called a Meeting, it was usually because there was a catastrophic disaster incoming. 

Especially as, unlike the main branch of the League, for security purposes notes on the meetings were never made available to anyone but those involved. And no one wanted to be that guy who accidentally missed a briefing about the High Demon Lord Asmodeus’ recent decision to vacation in San Diego.

Steve.

(Intern Steve was a valued member of the JLD. He will be missed.)

In typical JLD fashion, Zatanna teleported in several minutes early and started a chat with Batman about Gotham show business.

Doctor Fate was precisely 5 minutes early, to allow all those assembled within the meeting room ample time to recover from being blinded by his Ankh portal.

The Question was right on time, reeking of coffee and (despite lacking a face) giving off the distinct impression of having pulled five all-nighters in a row.

Madame Xanadu, having been granted a temporary guest pass to access the Watchtower, arrived a few minutes late, with an excuse about security taking forever to get through.

John Constantine, of course, was a half hour late. Which, given that they had told him it would start three hours earlier, was almost on time. For him, anyway.

And thus, the meeting began.

There was very little reason that one would observe the security footage of this meeting—one would need to break into Batman’s secure files, know thirteen different passcodes, and know how to navigate to the Justice League Personnel risk assessment folder. And then, for some reason, they would have to want to click on The Question’s. 

Suffice to say, it was highly unlikely that one would observe these tapes.

But if they had, the transcript of the meeting would read as follows:

Batman: Constantine. Seriously? 

Constantine: Sorry, Bats, but my meeting with [CLASSIFIED] took longer than anticipated. [They] just wouldn’t change their minds on the price.

Batman: Did you at least get what you needed?

Constantine: Well, I drove a hard bargain.

Madame Xanadu: If by hard bargain you mean burnt their shop down, then yes.

Constantine: Hey, if Bats says he needs me to [CLASSIFIED], then I’m gonna do what I have to to make that happen.

Doctor Fate: As riveting as this is, should we get to the point of this meeting?

[The Question flips to a new page in his notebook and begins to write, presumably taking notes.]

Batman: Yes. Recently, several of my sensors in Gotham have detected slightly elevated levels of radiation.

Zatanna: Okay, but. Bats. It’s Gotham. That could be fucking anything.

Batman: Not when they move.

[There is a pause.]

Batman: [CLASSIFIED] hacked several security cameras in an attempt to locate the origins of the radiation and found these.

[Images appear on the projector screen, depicting vaguely defined, slightly green blurs]

[The Question stops taking notes.]

Batman: We sent a few drones as well, but all of them were destroyed. None could record an image any clearer than this.

[The image changes, appearing to show a loosely humanoid green blob. The Question stills.]

Batman: Further investigation has revealed the existence of similar radiation in two other cities—Rome and Glasgow. 

[Constantine leans forward.]

Constantine: Sounds like they're in cursed areas. Glasgow is one of the most haunted places around—not to mention Rome. Could be magical residue?

Zatanna: It's possible that they're spirits of some kind; they're close to ley lines, which occasionally let through entities.

[Doctor Fate and the Question share a look.]

Madame Xanadu: Hm. If I were a betting woman, I'd say that they were—

Doctor Fate: They are known to me. 

Batman: Oh? Can you help us deal with them, then?

[Doctor Fate glances at the Question again.]

Batman: ...Question, do you have anything to add?

The Question: It is... sensitive information.

Constantine: Sensitive? Since when have you not wanted to share one of your ridiculous conspiracies? What’s this one, secret spies hatched up by the US government meant to be completely invisible to the naked eye? 

Zatanna: John, stop. Question, if you have any ideas, we’re all for it. I’ve never seen anything like this, although I’d personally bet on illusion magic gone wrong.

Doctor Fate: They can be dealt with without the intervention of the Justice League.

[Batman frowns.]

Batman: Are they purview of the Lords of Order, then?

[The Question leans forward.]

The Question: Look, I’ll take care of it.

Batman: The purpose of the JLD is to share important information. If your concern is secrecy, I can promise to delete any footage. But to assist us in future investigations, we need to know what these... radiation blobs are. 

The Question: It’s sensitive information.

Batman: Even from me?

The Question: Especially from you.

[The Question stands.]

The Question: I’d advise you to not look into this. I’ll be requesting a Zeta to Gotham. Tell your partners to stay out of my way. And I’ll know if you’ve sent [CLASSIFIED] to spy on me.

[The Question leaves. There is silence.]

Batman: Doctor Fate? Do you have anything to share?

Doctor Fate: No. I must return to my work.

A note, attached to the footage, which has been labeled as CLEARANCE RANK 20:

[Memo:

No further detection of similarly elevated radiation have occurred. All footage relating to the “blobs” had been corrupted or destroyed. All references to the radioactive “blobs” have been scrubbed from the JL files, and all but the most well hidden have been taken off of the Bat Servers. Oracle reports that she had been unable to determine who did so. This demonstrates a higher hacking capability than The Question had previously demonstrated. Possible spell work? Outside interference? Regardless, Question appears to have done as promised, though it is concerning that he did so without detection or explanation. He will be monitored. For the time being, the League will not be reopening an investigation into the “blobs”. End note.]

Chapter Text

The Question’s position in the Justice League was… tenuous, not because he wasn’t a good detective, but because there were very few members of the League who were able to believe what he said. His colleagues within Justice League Dark were slightly better—one good thing about operating under a magical curse is that most people with magic could muddle their way through it, though one downside of being cursed by an ecto-entity was that most people with magic were still affected—but the main League was largely hopeless. Even Batman, famed detective as he was, ecto-contaminated and irradiated from all of his years in Gotham, had to talk himself into believing what the Question had to say. 

(The look on Batman's face when he'd finally figured out why the talented paranormal detective he'd recruited always spouted utter nonsense whenever they talked was—well, their working relationship had improved significantly afterwards. Particularly after he’d realized that the Question’s habit of only speaking in open ended questions wasn’t designed to annoy him but was instead his only real work around for the Curse of Cassandra.)

But Batman did believe in his capabilities, so he was allowed limited—limited, Batman had stressed—access into the personnel files of the Justice League.

To be fair, most members of the Justice League had this access. It was not the privilege that Batman was trying to lead the Question to believe it to be. Unbeknownst to Batman, however, the Question had deciphered the Bat Redaction System; his unfiltered access to heavily redacted case files was significantly more useful than it would be to the average League member.

And if there was one thing that the Question enjoyed in life, it was uncovering conspiracies. It was digging into the deep and complex webs of interpersonal relationships and data streams, hacking into sketchy websites, lurking in the most obscure of forums, getting down on the ground and doing 5 hour stake outs of empty laundromats…

Where better to start than the Justice League personnel files? He'd started combing through them as soon as Batman had given him access, and was proud to announce that in the four months since he'd begun, he'd managed a 100% success rate at discovering his coworkers secret identities. (He would never admit that Clark Kent had actually managed to stump him for weeks. He would be taking that secret beyond the grave).

Take the one right in front of him. CLASSIFIED, Red Hood. Taken off of the villain roster due to [modified lilac hexagon]. Identity known. For Gotham only.

Now, the symbol was very interesting. It was purple, indicating an underaged vigilante, and the particular shade—lilac—indicated that the vigilante had been active for many years. The hexagon itself was meant to indicate mind control, although the lines of the hexagon were thicker than normal, which likely meant a form of emotional manipulation was involved, rather than direct control. And there was a stylized swirl in the middle of the hexagon, which they had last used for Superman’s… second resurrection? The Question checked to confirm—yes it had been his second, the magical one. All this, combined with the “For Gotham Only”...

When had the second Robin come back from the dead? And how? And perhaps most importantly, why hadn’t Jason Todd-Wayne been brought back with him? And what was this about a duffle bag full of heads?

The Question sighed, and stood from his desk. It looked like the Question would be going to Gotham. Now, how to keep Batman from finding out about it?

---

The answer? Zeta to LA under the guise of research, change out of costume, fly to Utah, and spend two days there visiting various national parks. Then, fly to Chicago and of course, drive the rest of the way to New Jersey.

“Thanks for this, Sam,” he said, smiling gratefully as he walked towards her, suitcase recently recovered at baggage claim.

She smiled back. “Course, Wes! When a friend asks for a mysterious favor regarding a potential road trip, did you honestly think I’d say no?”

Wes tactfully refrained from mentioning that they hadn't really spoken since last Christmas, which had ended about as well as a Christmas party in Amity Park could end—which was to say, with only light bloodshed. “I mean. You are busy.”

“Yeah, but this’ll take at most a day and a half," Sam waved him off. "And I need to know why you want me to drive you to fucking Gotham on a Tuesday. Especially when you are clearly capable of just getting a plane ticket.”

“Well,” Wes smiled enigmatically, “I’m afraid that might be sensitive information.”

“Sensit—I’m a Manson, peasant!” Sam exclaimed in mock disbelief. “Thou wouldst dare conceal information from me? I could have your financial future ruined with but a word!”

Wes let out a theatrical gasp. “Help, help, I’m being oppressed!” he cried, dramatically clutching his chest in mock affront.

Sam snorted. “Get in the car, weirdo.” 

“Aye aye, your majesty,” Wes bowed theatrically, reaching up to tip his hat—ah. He wasn’t wearing one at the moment.

Sam raised an eyebrow at the motion, but said nothing as she started the vehicle. Wes dropped into the passenger seat with a sigh. It appeared the Fentons had been innovating recently. Wes might have to drop by Amity to get his car upgra—were those harpoon guns?

He opened the glove box, hoping that—there! Wes happily busied himself looking through the manual regarding the new features of Sam’s FentonMobile. Sam looked over and snorted at him. Wes flipped her off without looking away from the brochure. Underwater mode. Fuck, he might have to actually go to the annual Thanksgiving celebration for this.

“So,” Sam said after a few minutes on the highway. “Sensitive, huh?”

Of course, she wouldn't let it be. Wes sighed and put away the brochure. “Don’t ask how I know this. But there might be a revenant in Gotham.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “Why am I not surprised? There’s something wrong with that city, honestly.”

Wes hummed in agreement. “Extremely. We haven’t yet figured out if the city is cursed or placed under a poisoned ley line, but we haven’t ruled it out, either. Personally I think it’s likely a combination of the Court of Owls and a malevolent City Spirit, but—ah,” he cut himself off, seeing Sam’s side-eye. “It’s pretty fucked, yeah.”

“Uh huh,” she said dryly. “We?”

Wes ducked his head. “Again. Sensitive.”

Sam raised an eyebrow, before shrugging. “Well, it’s none of my business. Just tell me if there’s something I can do to help.”

Wes nodded. “Of course,” he said, maybe even not lying. “And the same goes for you, I hope? I—well, I might not be as powerful as Danny, of course." Thankfully, this came out with only mild resentment; Wes had made strides to get over their high school drama. "And I’m not as experienced as Tucker, but. I’m—I have considerably more skills, knowledge, and resources at my disposal than I did in high school.” 

Sam smiled, keeping her eyes on the road. “Of course,” she said. “We Casper High alums have to stick together, right?”

“Right,” he confirmed.

There was a moment of silence. “Soooooo,” Sam said. “How’s, uh. I don’t know. Do you have a cat? Are you seeing anyone?”

Wes blushed, wishing fervently that he could wear his mask. Curse his fair complexion!

“Wait. Wait, Wes, are you seeing anyone?”

It was going to be a long car ride.

“Wes! Wes, answer me!”

---

There was a lurker in Crime Alley.

They didn’t do anything conspicuous. They didn’t harm anybody, always tipped ridiculously well and was polite to the girls. They didn’t even do that much lurking—they mainly wandered around, asking questions, occasionally dropping out of the shadows in a manner worthy of the best of Bats. 

According to Stacy (a fashion design major at a virtual college, had a part time dog walking business, was in the middle of writing a 10 page paper on the influence of French fashion in 18th century Russia), the shadows clung to them and they didn’t have a face.

Honestly, if they hadn't clearly been doing reconnaissance, Jason might have even wanted to recruit them. A legitimately faceless goon who was good at sneaking and being subtle? Not to mention, they had received a glowing commendation from Stacy for appearing genuinely interested in her end of term paper. And thus far, the Bats hadn’t even noticed their presence, which to Jason was leagues better than any letter of recommendation.

All that to say, when The Red Hood was—very politely—interrupted on his patrol, he didn’t immediately draw his guns.

"Excuse me," a voice said from the end of the alleyway. Jason, two seconds away from grappling away from the pile of groaning and bleeding drug dealers, paused. He didn't often get polite inquiries in his line of work.

Curious despite himself, he turned and got his first good look at the lurker. His jaw dropped, and Jason was momentarily thankful that he wore a helmet. Who wears a vivid blue trench coat over navy suit pants and a matching vest? It was like they chose to wear a three piece suit but swapped out the jacket for a disaster. And the yellow dress shirt? And the hat matched the coat and pants.

They were wearing a blue fedora. What the hell.

Subtlety, mysterious lurker, thy name is not.

(And Stacy had just lost all the goodwill her adorable corgi gained her. A fashion major deliberately choosing not to warn him of this—this travesty. Traitor.)

Jason immediately ruled out any possibility that his visitor was a member of the mob. No. That outfit was a Cape’s, no doubt about it.

“'S that a mask, or should I be wondering how you eat?” Jason asked, figuring it was as good an opening as any.

The ‘lurker’ inclined their(?) head in greeting. They stood fairly still, hands splayed at their sides to indicate that they were unarmed.

Jason didn’t believe it for a second. They were in Gotham. That fedora could easily be a flying drone with a motorized saw for a brim. "What are you supposed to be, then? The Whisper Man?"

The being in the fedora tilted their head. "As a matter of fact, Red Hood, I am The Question. And I have some for you. He/him, by the way," he added, as an afterthought.

Jason snorted, turning to walk away. He paused slightly at one of the bodies to check that she was still breathing. Yep. Unconscious. Good. He didn't want Batman on his ass for a mundane patrol. “Is the diner on 30th still okay? Or have you found a new favorite eatery in the past two days?”

There. Jason had been watching him too.

The Question followed sedately, showing no signs of being intimidated by this statement. 

Terrible sartorial decisions aside, Jason had to admit, he could like a guy who was unflappable in the face of the Red Hood. Hopefully he wasn’t a supervillain—although that wouldn’t necessarily be a deal breaker, of course.

“So,” Jason asked after they had both sat down at the counter. He nodded brusquely at the waiter (a recent hire named Thorne, student at Gotham U, 3.2 GPA and a concentration in classic literature and no, Jason was not stalking anyone; it was called a thorough background check—) who nodded back and started brewing coffee in the other room. “The Question, huh? You know, we already have a Riddler and a Cluemaster; I don't think they'd appreciate you stepping on their toes," he said genially.

The Question inclined his head. “Then it’s fortunate I’m not planning on sticking around.”

Jason smirked underneath his helmet. “What’s your gimmick, then?” He twirled a knife through his hands irreverantly. “Are all of your crimes secretly philosophical allegories? Do you annoy all your enemies by asking endless personal questions until they get so uncomfortable they slip up? Or did you just think “The Question” sounded cool and mysterious and would help you pick up chicks?”

The Question didn’t let the mocking tone ruffle him. “I am called the Question because I have many. Will you answer them?”

Jason raised his eyebrows. “Well,” he drawled, “that entirely depends on what they are.” He placed the knife down on the table with an audible thud.

The Question nodded, and then reached nonchalantly into his breast pocket, so nonchalantly that it was most definitely a ruse to keep people relaxed, and Jason knew better thank you—

He drew out a badge. A very familiar badge, the non-descript outside covering instantly recognizable despite, or perhaps because of its simplicity. He slid it down the counter towards Jason, and Jason, perhaps against his better judgment, picked it up.

“There are a few things missing in your file, Hood,” The Question rumbled. “I thought I might best be served going to the source of the information.”

"The Question, huh?" Jason mused. He studied the Justice League badge carefully before tossing it back. "Never heard of you."

"I imagine you wouldn't have," the Question touched the brim of his hat. "The best detectives are those that no one knows are watching."

Jason raised his eyebrows under his helmet. "You're a detective, then,” he said, somewhat derogatory. “Why are you coming to me? Surely you've heard of Batman. He lives just down the way—why not go bother him for a while?"

“Given as he wrote your file, I doubt he would fill in any missing details for me,” the Question responded. “And he’s always been… temperamental about our access to his partners.”

Jason let out a short laugh, the vocoder turning it into a flat and unamused sound. “I don’t work for Bats,” he said sharply. “And I’m no member of the League.” Yeah, he was going to have to have a talk with Bats about whatever the hell this was. If B had reinstated him as a hero, that talk would include a few bullets breaking the manor’s perfect plaster job. He was a goddamn crime lord, not a hero.

“Yes, I’ve noticed,” The Question responded dryly. “A question between very loose acquaintances, then, not colleagues. How did you come back to life?”

Jason tensed, the pit roaring behind his ears, waves of green washing before his eyes. “Is that a question you ask all your “casual acquaintances," Question?” he gritted out. He noticed, absently, that his knife’s handle was being slowly deformed in his hand and took several deep breaths. 

He couldn't kill a League member. Especially not in fucking Gotham. Get a grip, Jason, calm the fuck down, the guy’s just a dumbass nerd in a fedora.

"Ah," Jason heard dimly. "Perhaps—hm." The Question shifted in his seat and began making a slight trilling noise that cut through the pounding in his head with ease.

Jason shot the man an incredulous look. He was making bird sounds? When Jason had a gun in one hand and a knife in the other, and was as tense as a razor wire? 

You know, maybe he was insane. That would explain a bit. 

Somehow, the green began to recede. Jason attributed it to his confusion at the fact that the faceless man in a trench coat would think the best thing to do when faced with a Pit Rage attack is start whistling.

(He was wrong.)

"I apologize," the Question said. "That was rather forward, wasn’t it."

"No fucking shit," Jason said, slowly loosening his hands from his weapons. He put the knife back in its sheath. Keeping it out would just encourage another slip, and the proprietor would kill him if he got blood on her floors.

The Question seemed completely unphased by his violent reaction. "Perhaps I should provide context," he said slowly. Jason jerked his head in assent, and the Question continued, "I noticed that the Red Hood had received a pardon for his crimes, due to being under the influence of mind control at the time they were committed. I did some digging, and found that the aftermath of resurrection and something called ‘pit madness’ were involved. Batman’s files on such terms are… sparse, and after doing my own research I decided it might be best to come to you.” 

“Why do you want to know?” Jason challenged. “You got a dead relative you want to bring back? Personally can’t recommend it, given that you’d have to get through all of the goddamn ninjas, not to mention the excruciating agony of it all, but I coul—”

The Question laughed. It was genuine, and startled. “No,” he said. “No, that’s… no.” Jason considered that for a moment. There weren't many people who would outright laugh at the idea resurrecting a loved one. “If you don’t want to talk about your specific resurrection, would you at least explain what a Lazarus Pit is? In broad descriptions, of course.”

Jason shrugged. “If you tell me why you want to know, then sure.”

The Question nodded, and then paused for a moment, carefully choosing his words. “I am… interested, in ensuring that certain resurrection methods are… removed from play. Especially any that may involve mind-control-like effects.”

Jason abruptly remembered that his ID had the symbol of Justice League Dark. Still… “Let's get one thing clear,” he said after a moment, slowly. “I’ve never heard of you, which means that you’re small fry. And if you’re small fry, then you don’t want to get involved in this shit. No matter what kind of detective you think you are. JLD or no.”

The Question met his eyes. “I understand,” he said. “Nevertheless, if you wouldn't mind?”

Jason considered it, and then shrugged. “Green goo, lightly steaming, incredibly viscous, gave off a nasty aftertaste of ozone and fear,” he rattled off confidently. “Causes a not insignificant amount of emotional instability.”

The Question nodded. "You come out different," the Question continued, somewhat slowly. "Your emotions are a wreck for weeks if not months until you figure out how to control them. Your senses are just a little bit stronger, you heal just a little bit quicker, you're just a little bit faster. And the obsession, too—let me guess, revenge?”

Jason stared at the man in the fedora. "You sound awfully familiar with the side effects of the Pit, Question. Something you want to share with the class?"

“And the rage—that’s the “pit madness"? Fascinating,” the Question muttered to himself. “Not precisely mind control, but I can certainly see how the shock of returning via the Realms would make one much more susceptible to suggestion, and a new revenant could easily be influenced by their trauma and obse—ah,” he stopped himself, looking down the barrel of Jason’s gun. “Apologies. Sometimes I find myself unable to stop theorizing.”

Jason’s hand was steady as he towered above the man in the fedora. “Answer my question,” he demanded.

The Question hummed, and Jason reeled as he was hit with what felt like a truck made of calm. His anger dissipated immediately. “I have never come into contact with the League of Assassins,” he replied. “But I certainly intend to.” It was a promise, or a warning, and despite himself, Jason felt inexplicably relieved.

He sat down heavily. “How do you do that?” The Question tilted his head, inquisitive. “Calm the rage? I've never—they've never...” he trailed off, unable to put into words the sheer weirdness of the Pits' reaction to the man in front of him.

The Question tipped the brim of his hat enigmatically. “I would prefer if you don’t report me poking around to Batman,” he changed the subject. “He gets… tetchy, about my security clearance. And what I use it for.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “And if I did?” he challenged, though he wasn’t likely to. If Bats hadn’t figured out this guy's deal yet, Jason was hardly going to help him. Consider it petty revenge for reinstating his JL clearance. Fuck, Batman had better have listed him as a ‘vigilante’—if not, Jason might actively make his investigation harder.

(Yes, Jason was aware it was petty. No he wasn’t going to stop.)

“Then I suppose that I’ll have to change apartments, swap out my electronics, and do a few more hourly sweeps for new bugs. But, well. That won’t be anything new.”

Jason inclined his head, admittedly somewhat bemused at finding someone just as paranoid as Batman. 

Smoothing down his jacket, the Question nodded. “Thank you for confirming my worst suspicions,” he said, somewhat resignedly. “If you ever start gaining superpowers, falling through objects, feeling others’ emotions… or if you want to get rid of that "pit madness",” he put a card down on the table. “Call that number.”

“Is that a personal number, or a company line?” Jason asked archly, eyes narrowed.

The Question didn’t answer. Instead, he stood up from his chair and walked calmly to the door. “This… League of Assassins.” He turned just before the door, and Jason got the feeling that the man was making direct eye contact with him. “If you have any friends in it, you might want to get them out now.”

“That’s a big enemy, small fry,” Jason replied. His lips twisted into a dark and unamused smirk. “I suppose I gotta wish you luck.”

The man bobbed his head and touched his hat again, and Jason wondered if it was something akin to a salute. When the door swung shut, Marissa (the owner of the diner, 53 years old, inherited the diner from her shitty husband after he had a suspiciously clean, above-the-board accident) emerged from the back with one cup of coffee. “Good business or bad?” she asked in her raspy voice.

“I’m not sure,” Jason replied. “But I don’t think he’ll be coming back any time soon.” He turned to look at the card, still on the table. “Fentonworks, huh,” he said. He disconnected his helmet and placed it on the table next to him with a solid thud. “Thanks for letting me have the run of the place today, Rissa,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee.

She scoffed slightly. “He’s the idiot who came into my diner at noon every day for a week and stayed for exactly five hours nursing a single cup of coffee. He’d better not come back.” She turned to go back into the kitchen, continuing to mumble various insults under her breath. “Fedora wearing mother fucker, and who the hell wears a yellow dress shirt? Hiding his face like he’s in fucking witness protection, I’ll show you—”

Jason chuckled as her voice faded. Thus far she’d limited herself to his physical appearance—she’d have a field day if he told her what the Question went by.

---

Wes waited until he was several towns away from Gotham before calling Sam.

"Yo, Wes, what's up? If you're asking for a ride out of Gotham, I'm afraid you're out of luck—I'm about to get on another plane, and—"

"No, no, that's not why I'm calling," Wes said. "You still keep in touch with Danny, right?" He knew the answer was yes, and she knew he knew the answer was yes, but he decided to ask as a courtesy, rather than immediately jump into demanding that she call her ex for a favor.

There was silence over the phone, as Sam clearly weighed whether it was better to pretend Danny was unreachable and let Wes deal with his problems alone. Fair, he supposed. Danny and he didn't get along particularly well. "...Yes," Sam said finally. "Why?"

"Ask him if he knows about the Lazarus Pits. If he does, tell him to get rid of them as fast as possible. If he doesn't, tell him to call me.” Wes paused, and grimaced. He really didn't want to say it, but... “Actually, tell him to call me anyway. I may have set a Bat on his tail.”

Wes could feel Sam’s incredulous glance through the phone. "Okay," she drawled. "I take it there was a revenant in Gotham?"

Wes grit his teeth. "I wish that was all there was, Sam. But we were right—that city is a cesspit."

(A month and a half later, a child gets dropped off at Wayne Manor. His mother explains that the League of Assassins is no longer safe for him; the Lazarus Pits have been drained, Ra's died shortly after they were destroyed, and the infighting has made it too dangerous for the nine year old to remain. 

Jason, when he’s finally brought in the loop, will blink a few times, and then let out a very long whistle. When pressed for comment, he will say nothing beyond, "I can't believe that fucker pulled it off.")

Chapter Text

Several nights ago, Red Robin encountered an energy rifle on patrol that had covered his left arm with second degree electrical burns. Due to said injuries, Agent A had grounded him from patrol, which had given him plenty of time to pinpoint the radiation signature he’d picked up from the gun and use Wayne Tech satellites to scan for it. Batman, used to his son’s… dramatic tendencies, forbade him from sneaking out to investigate it himself, and then sicced Nightwing on him to ensure compliance while he went to check on the lead.

Following his son's search led him to Wisconsin, and an offensively modern office building which had a tacky V emblazoned on a sign out front. Vladco, a technically above-the-board international tech company with… rather diverse research avenues, and several dropped military contracts. He hadn’t found any links between Vladco and Cadmus or Lex Luthor, but truthfully, if there was anything to be said about Vlad Masters, it was that he had very poor relationships with his business partners; Batman wouldn't be surprised if the company simply did its own shady research outside of a larger conspiracy network.

He made quick work of the security and headed towards the elevators. Years of experience had taught him that if Vladco was hiding anything nefarious, it would be in the basement. A quick, perfunctory glance at his BatScanner (combining a geiger counter, short distance radar and sonar machine, and allergen scanner) indicated that there were higher levels of radiation and a suspicious amount of concrete in the lower levels. Possibly, Batman mused, there was even a secret basement. He did so love it when mad scientists were predictable.

The elevator dinged and the doors whooshed open, announcing his arrival on the lower levels. He waited for armed guards to open fire.

Instead, he was greeted with the sight of a man hunched over an entry panel, wearing a blue trench coat and a blue fedora. He was muttering to himself, vague curses and grousing that it could have just been Maddie’s birthday but no, Vlad had to be clever this time.

“Question,” Batman greeted, striding out of the elevator. (His cape made a very cinematic whoosh that he took no pleasure in.) It was no wonder the security had been so lapse, if the Question had already broken in.

“Batman,” the Question responded in turn, continuing to type at the access panel in front of him. If he was surprised at Batman’s presence, he gave no indication.

There was a moment of silence as the Question began to pry open the panel to get access to the wires, evidently having given up on trying to brute force the password.

“May I?” Batman offered, already reaching out to type before Question could even refuse.

“Of course,” he said, graciously neglecting to remark that, if Batman had truly been concerned with pleasantries, he would have waited for his response before beginning to plug anything into the keypad.

He received a grunt in reply, before the panel beeped. ACCESS GRANTED.

Batman slid through the opening doors, before pausing slightly. The Question followed. “May I offer thanks for the help?” he asked rhetorically.

“Mm,” Batman grunted in acknowledgment. “What brings you to Vladco?”

“JLD picked up some interesting energy readings from this facility," the Question said, though he trailed his last word higher to seem like a question. "Seems like it could be an extra-dimensional entity. I volunteered to do recon. You?”

Batman grunted. “A new line of energy rifles has hit the black market. I traced the cores to here.” 

They continued down the hallway, before reaching a fork. The Question looked at Batman. “Team up?”

“Hm,” he intoned in response, before turning left. The Question followed a beat behind.

The hallway was devoid of decoration, except for the ugly metal panels nailed to the walls and the persistent pink shimmer along the ceiling. The vents and pipes were entirely exposed, too. Batman glanced into the rooms they were passing, and saw bright purple and green computer monitors, green energy power chords and mysterious equipment attached to lab benches and gigantic microscopes.

The Question ignored all of these, and walked unerringly forwards, as if he knew exactly where he was going, or possibly as if he had been there many times before. Had he managed to find blueprints? “So, how’s the family doing?” 

“No private information on the job,” Batman chastised.

“Can you even call it private? Everyone knows you have a wild brood of birds, bats, and a kryptonian legend hanging around the place.”

Silence.

“I’m referring to Nightwing, of course. I would never insinuate that Superman was staying in your house.”

Batman shot a side-long look at the Question. “Focus on the mission.”

The Question tipped his fedora in silent acquiescence.

---

“Hmm,” Batman frowned at the monitor in front of him.

Question, having been going through the paper files, looked up at the sound. “Problem?”

“This code is… interesting,” Batman said distantly, continuing to type. “It appears to be an entirely new programming language, and the symbols…” he frowned deeper, barely registering the Question’s approach to peer over his shoulder. 

“Of course he did,” the Question groaned, throwing his hands up in the air. “Of fucking course he did.” He turned and violently stalked away, with all the mannerisms of an offended cat.

Batman watched him, raising an eyebrow behind his cowl. “Something to share, Question?”

The man sighed, back visibly tense, and raised his hand as if to rake it though his hair before stopping as he encountered the fedora. “Look,” he said, turning again to face his colleague, “I can... probably call someone to hack into that." His mask wrinkled, and it was clear that he did not like what he was offering. "But if I do, you don’t get to ask me who, and you can’t write me up as a security risk for sharing League secrets with an outsider over this, understood?”

Batman blinked twice—the only expression of surprise he allowed himself, as it was hidden under his mask. “You’re familiar with this code, then? Why not hack it yourself?”

“Because if I know Vlad—and I do," the Question grumbled, "—he’ll have made this thing difficult to crack. And have you ever known me to be anything more than an adequate hacker, at best?”

Deciding to put questions about the Question’s personal relationship with Vlad Masters aside, Batman hummed. “And this ally of yours—they’re good?”

“Could I find anyone better with this language?” the Question asked rhetorically, before pausing as if to reconsider. “Well,” he admitted, “there might be one. But since you should never have reason to cross paths with him—yes. You could say he's the expert.”

Batman pondered. It would be one thing to hack into the servers himself—he could control where the information went, and he trusted himself not to use it in the interest of Wayne Industries. But to allow—not even allow, to ask— an unvetted hacker to access the servers of a major corporation with its hooks in every conceivable technological industry, trust that they wouldn’t abuse the information… Then again, could he allow more energy rifles to get into the hands of criminals? This was the quickest way to render their supply of weapons ineffective…

He sighed, already regretting his decision. “Very well,” he gestured to the computers. “Call your… ‘expert’.”

The Question’s shoulders, if anything, grew more tense. Visibly uncomfortable, he reached for… a personal cell? Interesting.

He typed a brief message, and waited for some time. He glanced at Batman. 

“Don’t judge the ring tone,” he warned.

Batman frowned, and was about to suggest that he try Oracle, before the phone began to ring. 

Ghost! Ghostfacers!, came blaring out his speakers. We face the—

The Question hurriedly pressed accept. Batman blinked.

The Question ducked his head. “It—it makes more sense in context?” Before Batman could insist that he put the phone on speaker—he was hardly going to let the Question share sensitive information with his hacker contact without listening to his response—the Question pressed the button himself. Ah. It was always an unexpected pleasure to work with someone who understood how he operated.

“You texted?” the Question's contact drawled. It was a male voice, sounding as if they had just woken up from deep sleep. Though he had a midwestern accent, it was unlikely he was currently residing there, as it would still be day. Though, as a hacker, he could simply have highly irregular sleeping hours. 

“Don’t use names or personal references,” the Question said matter of factly. “I need you to help me hack into Vladco.”

There was a brief pause, before the sound of rustling could be heard. “Alright, sure,” the voice agreed, with the air of someone saying “this might as well happen”. “You’ll tell me what this is about later, right?”

“Possibly,” the Question said. “Most of it, anyway. Are you at a computer?”

The hacker laughed. “Am I at a computer. Honestly, it’s like you don’t even know me.” The Question’s mask moved slightly, in the way it often did when he was amused or smiling. The voice continued. “Do you have Debra?”

“Of course,” the Question said, sounding vaguely affronted. “As if I would ever leave her behind.”

He reached into his pockets and pulled out a—Batman did a subtle double take. A PDA? Rather outdated, but it did look heavily modified—its screen glowed slightly green, and it appeared to have several extensions and buttons that no normal PDA would have.

“Cool,” the voice said. “Plug her in. I’ll take it from there.”

The Question shook his head fondly (Batman filed his reaction away as useful information) and did as instructed, pulling a USB cable out of one of his coat pockets. 

The sound of typing ensued. Lines of text appeared on the monitors before them, frustratingly still in the odd symbolic script as before. 

Batman sidled closer. “That is an interesting device,” he murmured to Question. “Did you make it yourself?”

The typing on the other end of the line paused. “Wait, wait. Did I just hear a voice?”

Batman was admittedly surprised. He had spoken exceedingly quietly—clearly the phone was high tech, to be able to even pick up on the audio signal. And the hacker—perhaps he had enhanced hearing?

“If I tell you it was your imagination, will you believe me?” Question asked, longsuffering.

“We—I mean, wow, I just can’t believe that you’re breaking into Vladco with someone. Isn’t that, like, number one on your dream date pinup board?”

Batman cleared his throat. It was not a chuckle. 

“Wait,” the voice said in an exaggerated whisper, “are you on a date right now? Do you have a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend! Or a date mate, I don’t discriminate. Did you call me in the middle of your date night?!” he had progressively been growing higher in pitch, ending the last word on a shrill sort of scream.

The Question hunched his shoulders somewhat. “I’m… at work. Not on a date.”

“...Mm hm,” the hacker intoned skeptically. “Could be a work date.”

“I was unaware that breaking into buildings was a form of foreplay for you,” Batman responded, dryly. “Rest assured, I will leave that to Huntress from here on out.”

The Question winced as the Hacker let out an unholy squawking sound. “Huntress?!”

“A different Huntress!” Question exclaimed frantically. “Now get back to breaking into the lab!”

“Oh, I finished that ages ago,” the voice said. Batman quickly turned to look at the computer monitor to find that all the firewalls had been bypassed. They had gained full access to Vladco’s systems in under a minute. He was begrudgingly impressed at the speed of the hack. “I’m a very efficient multitasker. Back to the point—you’re dating a person named Huntress?!”

Batman sat down at the desk, searching the database for any hint of energy testing, or blueprints of batteries that matched the energy core specs. Aha! He quickly erased all traces of them from their servers and closed the computer—though not before downloading a decent amount of the other data. It was highly unlikely that Vladco had only been illegally manufacturing energy weapons, especially if the Question had an established grudge against the company's CEO.

He stood, tuning back into the argument behind him.

“-finally dating someone, but a superhero? And they’re named Huntress, oh my god, Ques, why?”

“I hate to interrupt,” Batman interrupted. “But we have to go.”

“And why is that guy’s voice so goddamn low? It’s like he gargled gravel and then decided to speak with a voice modulator that pitches him two octaves lower than the human larynx.”

“Okay bye!” The Question said, slamming the end call button.

His voice echoes through the room for a few moments.

The Question studiously avoided Batman’s gaze. 

He grunted. “Lab’s down here,” he said, leading the way. His cape billowed dramatically behind him.

“I’m going to make you pay for that, Batman,” the Question whispered, following behind.

Bruce hid a smirk.

---

Approaching the lab, Batman frowned. Had the air gotten… colder? He also detected a slight humming from up ahead. Likely heavy machinery or an energy core was behind those doors, perhaps both.

The Question sighed. “Ah, and here would be the extra-dimensional entity we detected,” he concluded, brushing past Batman and heading towards the door. “I’ll handle this part?”

Batman hummed. “What about the “interesting” energy readings you detected makes you think an extra-dimensional entity is involved?”

The Question paused before pulling the handle. Looking back over his shoulder, the Question inclined his head. “With Vladco involved? It’s almost always a sure thing. Stay out here,” he commanded. “I don’t want this to get messy.”

Batman furrowed his brow. He didn’t want to disparage the Question’s martial prowess, but… “If it turns into a fight—”

“Would I endanger myself like that?” the other man asked confidently, before entering the lab.

Batman got a brief glimpse of a massive column of green light before the door closed behind him. There was silence. Expecting to hear muffled ritualistic chanting, Batman was surprised to hear, instead, a decent amount of grunting, some very heavy banging, the shattering of glass, and a heavy thud. Following that was a loud whooshing noise. A voice—suspiciously tinny and somewhat otherworldly—cried out “AHA! I AM TECH—!” before yet another whooshing noise occurred. 

The background hum of electricity vanished. Before Batman could even try to open the door to see what was happening, The Question poked his head back out. “We’re all good now,” he said, only slightly ruffled.

“Hm,” Batman grunted in acknowledgement, before sweeping past him into the lab.

There was a large (broken) glass column in the middle of the room, attached to which were several tubes leading to large metal containers. Batman paused to inspect one. Ah. “Batteries?” he mused.

The Question cleared his throat. “Entity was in the tube,” he reported.

Batman hummed in understanding. So Vladco had captured an entity and drained its powers to use for energy cells. Interesting, and potentially catastrophic. Not for the first time, he cursed the culture of corporate greed.

“Did you ensure that the entity wouldn't be able to return to this realm and take revenge on the entire human race?” he asked, pointedly.

The Question’s mask shifted somewhat. “Would I really leave that to chance, Batman?” he protested. “I'm not an amateur.”

Batman raised an eyebrow underneath his cowl. “That’s not a yes,” he growled.

“I’m confident that the entity won’t take revenge on the entire human race,” the Question rephrased.

Batman took a mental note to research Vladco later. They must have worked with magical beings before, to the extent that the Question was personally familiar with one of them. Their coding language—perhaps a mystical dialect? Strange that a human hacker would be able to decipher them, but then again said hacker might have worked with Vladco before splitting ways. Perhaps a disgruntled ex-employee? 

“Very well,” he said. “In that case, we must destroy any schematics of the energy cells, determine who in the company is distributing them, and—”

“And thoroughly discourage them from attempting to continue their scheme?” The Question finished. “It’s always a pleasure to work with a like minded individual, Batman,” he said, tipping his fedora.

Batman grunted. “Likewise,” he responded.

Chapter Text

The Question, although cordial with the Lords of Order, was not particularly close to any of them. Thus, it was a great surprise to be pulled aside by Doctor Fate after a mission debrief. And if he were to expect Nabu to ever ask him for a favor, it certainly wouldn’t have been this one.

“I’m sorry,” he said blandly. “I must have misheard you. Did you just ask me to come play poker with you?”

Nabu shifted, and in his flatly booming voice reiterated, “Yes. I have a plus one for a poker night and would appreciate you accompanying me.”

The Question raised his eyebrows underneath his mask. “I have some follow up questions,” he responded leadingly.

Nabu nodded. “Ask them and I will answer.”

The Question narrowed his eyes. Nabu normally would have just explained everything from the beginning. The fact that he wasn’t volunteering any additional information indicated that he was trying to keep something a secret—and the Question, of course, wanted to know everything.

“With whom would we be playing?” he asked, figuring that anyone willing to play poker with a Lord of Order must either be similarly noble and rigid or a verifiable card shark trying to exploit Nabu’s natural inclinations against lying and subterfuge.

Nabu, like the Question, wore a full face helmet that hid his facial features. Nevertheless, the Question detected a certain…sheepishness in the set of his shoulders as he answered. “I have been issued an invitation to the weekly card game hosted by Lucifer, the Morningstar.”

That…was not the answer the Question had anticipated. “An honor, I’m sure,” he said graciously, rather than exclaiming  the Lord of Lies?! “And I am equally honored you would choose to invite me. Who else would be in attendance?”

The Question detected Nabu’s grimace. “Klarion, the Lord of Chaos, and his plus one, his familiar Teekl.”

The Question choked. “I—a Lord of Chaos? Doctor Fate," he said, and hurriedly looked around the room to make sure there were no eavesdroppers, "and I mean no offense by saying this, have you been possessed? Or are you being blackmailed somehow?”

“I could not refuse the invitation,” Nabu said nobly. “I am aware of the dangers—that is why I have invited you.”

Sighing, the Question pinched the bridge of his nose. “Walk me through your logic here, Nabu,” he said. “You want to invite me—a liminal ruled by obsession, into a poker game run by the Serpent of Eden, one of the best tempters around. And you’re willing to compete against a Lord of Chaos, knowing that the odds are very high that he’ll break the rules—hell, both of them are probably masters at poker, or at the very least far superior to you. And you think I am the person to invite to make this go better for you?”

Nabu cleared his throat. “You are… the only one of my acquaintances that I could invite to such a gathering without it ending terribly.”

The Question imagined Doctor Fate inviting a member of the normal Justice League and winced, conceding the point. And of the JLD members—no. Just no. Constantine would probably end up betting the rest of his soul, Zatanna would break and try to kill Teekl after half an hour, and Intern Carlos, despite his prior dealings with the Angels Erika, was not prepared for Lucifer Morningstar. “I can see your logic," the Question admitted, "but you could also simply not use your plus one.”

Nabu shook his head. “I... am not talented at subterfuge. You are. And you will become a powerful Ghost, dedicated to discovery and the pursuit of knowledge. As a poker player, I could not ask for a better partner.”

“Ah,” the Question intoned in understanding. “You want me to try to recoup your losses.”

The Lord of Order inclined his head. 

The Question hummed. “Convince me,” he said. Poker with the devil wasn’t exactly a sane thing to do on a Friday night.

Nabu grimaced slightly before saying, “I didn’t tell Batman about your people.” 

The Question raised an eyebrow. “I see,” he said, almost impressed that Nabu would stoop to claiming such a debt. He thought it over for a moment, before nodding slowly. “Alright then,” he acquiesced. “Text me the time and location. I’ll be there.”

As he said this, Doctor Fate’s invitation glowed subtly with the Question’s RSVP.

---

As in every Thursday, a woman was delivered an envelope with a gold embossed list of names, with several checkboxes beside them to mark an RSVP. Her name, of course, was absent from the list—though she had been reassured that she was always invited.

(The mailman was quite confused to be delivering her a letter, of course—he typically delivered packages, and had absolutely no recollection of picking up the envelope. He’d remember an envelope like this, pitch black and heavy with the weight of the damned. And—hadn’t he just been delivering a shipment of ale to a nightclub? Why would he—oh.)

She thanked him for the delivery before finishing their appointment and continuing her day. She scanned the list idly in between her appointments—Dionysus and Athena had been invited, although Athena checked no almost immediately, and Dionysus did so as well, albeit later. Strange, it wasn’t like Dionysus to miss a party…

She stopped by a fruit stand and browsed for a short while before her meeting with Gracia Jones—age 43, female, enjoyed football; the proper kind, not that pathetic copy of rugby the States had. Resuming her scan of the list, she raised an eyebrow. 

Lucifer had invited Set and Ma’at? No wonder Dionysus declined the invitation, she smiled to herself, even she had heard of the catastrophe that was the last Egyptian-Greek meeting. Yet they had declined as well—well, attendance in the Devil’s poker night wasn’t always wise, she could understand why the Egyptians might steer clear of a meeting of biblical proportions.

Particularly as Lucifer had invited Muriel and Dagon. She was beginning to sense a distinct theme: tonight was the night the Devil had decided to bring mortal enemies together under a roof and watch the chaos unfold. Muriel and Dagon had yet to respond—likely Muriel had been ordered not to engage with demonic scum, and Dagon was of course reluctant to obey his abdicated king.

But of course, Klarion had answered yes. How could he resist such potential for chaos? And… Nabu checked yes? Interesting, he hated going to these. Too much lying, she presumed.

Oh, and with a plus one, now that was new. Now where had she heard of ‘The Question’ before?

When it came to her, she stilled. For the first time in a very, very long time, she considered actually attending this event.

---

The woman walked up to the private room of Lux. She was dressed in casual black, a light tank top and some dark jeans, and her boots were laced up tight. The human standing guard at the door gave her a quick once over, before shaking their head firmly. “Sorry, sir,” they said, “It’s a private party—invitation only.”

She smiled at them. “Don’t worry about it, Jojen Carlson,” she said, producing an ornate scroll of papyrus. “I have a standing invitation.”

The human blinked in startlement, hesitantly grabbing the proffered scroll. They unfurled it gingerly, clearly trying their best not to tear it, before clearing their throat. “Ah, yes. Lady… Death,” they paled somewhat, “I see everything is in order. They started a few minutes ago, so you should be able to jump in without much difficulty.” They swallowed heavily. “Shall I… announce you?”

She spared a moment's sympathy for the poor bouncer, who clearly knew more about the supernatural than was good for them. “Oh, I don't need an introduction,” she said. “Why don’t you go home early? Spend some time with your grandmother—I’m sure she would enjoy it.”

Their eyes widened. “I—yes,” they nodded. “Yeah, I can do that. Is—is she…” They trailed off.

Death smiled at him sympathetically. “I’ll see you around, Jojen.”

“I imagine you will,” they responded, voice somewhat strangled, before heading down the stairs quickly.

Sighing, she knocked on the door three times.

After a brief moment of silence, the door swung open, Lucifer Morningstar, the Devil himself on the other side. “Jojen, wh—oh,” Lucifer froze. “Lady Death of the Endless," he exclaimed, clearly trying to pitch his voice behind him. "Have you come for the game? We weren’t expecting you—though you are of course welcome at the table,” he continued, smoothly angling himself to fill the rest of the doorway—or attempting to, at least.

Behind him, Death could see the Lords of Order and Chaos frantically packing away a pile of poker chips and feathers, a young liminal in a blue suit watching bemusedly. “Why are we packing up?” he asked quietly—though not quietly enough.

Klarion hissed back frantically, “that is Death of the Endless, we aren’t playing a betting game against her!”

Nabu agreed. “It’s one thing to play against your eternal enemies, but no one is going to play against an Endless—the stakes are too high.”

“And she always wins,” Klarion whined, Teekl meowing in agreement. 

Meanwhile, Lucifer had begun asking Death about her commute, the weather, her family, whether she’d had time to read her niece's newest book which was, he assured her, quite good, what had brought her to the table today, and every other thing under the sun.

“Oh, I happened to have a bit of free time in my schedule,” she demurred, “and I realized that it’s been an age—”

“Oh, more than one, surely,” Lucifer chimed in, to which she laughed.

“—well, yes, it’s been rather busy ever since the universe really started picking up. But I thought—why not? It’d be good to catch up with everyone, meet new faces, let loose a little.” She smiled winningly.

“Why, Lady Death,” Lucifer purred, “nothing would satisfy me more than fulfilling those desires.”

He flourished his hands in a gesture towards the table—which was surrounded by three nervous Mortals, one cat familiar, and had been cleared of all poker related paraphernalia. “Shall we?”

Her smile turned somewhat wicked. “Let’s.”

They approached the table, Death sliding into an ornately carved ebony chair that definitely looked like a high backed throne before she sat down and always had, it swears.

(Ordinarily Death wouldn’t go for such theatrics, but if the chair felt more comfortable changing, Death wouldn’t stop it from doing so.)

The Question tilted his head minutely, gazing at the chair that both did and did not change with an air of bewilderment. Death winked. “I see an absence of poker chips,” she began, poorly masking her amusement. 

“Yes, well, Klarion convinced us to switch it up a bit,” Lucifer said smoothly, before looking at the Lord of Chaos. “He's been trying to convince us to play—oh, what was it again?”

Klarion, looking briefly alarmed at being the center of attention, forcibly perked up. “Yeah! I have this fantastic game of five person bridge,” he chirped. “I mean, these card nights are so boring, always playing the same game over and over again, and Fate here is such a stickler to the rules, that I thought a change was just what we needed!” In his lap, Teekl (whose fur was visibly standing on end) meowed loudly in agreement. 

Doctor Fate nodded solemnly. “Klarion was just explaining the rules,” he intoned. 

Death raised an eyebrow. “Intriguing,” she said. “By all means, Lord of Chaos, show us how this game works.”

Short answer: It didn't.

Though that wasn't helped by Klarion’s use of Uno cards and scrabble tokens to make up for the shortage of cards. Halfway through the first round, it became apparent that the best way to win the game would be to simply declare that you had done so—which Klarion did with remarkable enthusiasm. 

Of course, rather than admit defeat, Lucifer challenged the group to a rematch. It was highly diverting—especially when the Question ended up winning the second round by pulling out a surprise deck of Mythomagic cards and deploying, of all things, Thanatos. In retaliation, Teekl (a very sore loser, or maybe just bored with the game) decided to grow in size. Death watched in amusement as the now-tiger-sized familiar growled at the liminal—who had sensibly risen from the table and taken several steps backwards.

“Is this a part of the game as well?” she asked Klarion calmly, knowing full well that it was not. 

Klarion cackled as Teekl began to approach the Question slowly through the room which had mysteriously expanded to the size of a small arena, akin to a bullfighting ring. “Of course!” he declared, evidently inventing a new rule on the spot. “If someone wins with a Mythomagic card, the person to their left is entitled to steal the win if they defeat them in single combat!” The Question, already looking nervous, hurriedly passed his hat to Nabu and began to take off his coat. Teekl bared xir fangs. Nabu flew out of the ring, holding the Question’s hat with great care, looking far too exhausted and resigned for a man at a party.

Lucifer swept his hands through the air. “Then by all means, Teekl, Question—FIGHT!”

And thus the match began. The Question performed admirably—although admittedly, that may have been due to his occasional bouts of intangibility, which obviously made him harder to be bitten. And his ecto-guns, which did a moderate amount of damage. 

At some point, the Question turned his coat red, in the spirit of fun, and began utilizing actual bullfighting techniques. Teekl seemed to be having the time of xir life—and was bolstered by Lucifer and Klarion’s occasional cheers for xem to “get him! Tackle him to the ground! Take him down!”

Alas, after a few rather amusing minutes of this Teekl grew bored, shrunk back down to a reasonably sized house cat, and began licking xir fur clean of dust. The Question straightened his coat, cast both cleaning and color changing spells on it, and turned to Klarion. “I don’t suppose you could put the room back?” he asked in a perfectly even tone.

Klarion pouted, but did so, and they re-sat at the table to start shuffling cards.

Before a third round could be dealt, Death cleared her throat. “Gentlepeople,” she said, interrupting the second round of an argument over whether aces were the highest or lowest cards of a suit—the answer was, of course, that it depended on the game in question, but neither Klarion nor Nabu were particularly keen on admitting it— “if I could propose a game of my own?”

The entire room went still. Klarion shot Nabu a heavy look, and Lucifer appeared almost frozen in ice. The only one who appeared unphased was the Question, either out of ignorance or a true lack of fear towards death. She’d wager a bit of both.

Death smiled, privately pleased that she could still stop Lucifer in his tracks. She pulled out a big black box from the aether. “Have you ever played Cards Against Humanity?” 

She was met with a blank stare from all but the Question, whose grin was visible through his mask.

“I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar,” the Devil responded delicately.

Klarion responded similarly, “Nope! Is it like a game where you take over the human world? Because that would be fun.”

Nabu exhaled, too lightly to be a sigh but too heavily to be a simple exhale. “If this game results in the loss of human lives, Lady Death, I'm afraid my oaths would not allow me to participate.” 

Allowing herself to grin back at the Question, she opened the box. “Nothing of the sort, my friends. Cards Against Humanity is far more… mundane than that.” Teekl visibly slumped in disappointment. Death aimed a soothing look at xem. “Terribly chaotic though,” she consoled the familiar, “and with a fairly comprehensive set of rules.” 

The Question’s shoulders shook somewhat with suppressed laughter. “This game,” he began, somewhat unsteadily, “might require a level of knowledge about Earth culture that some of us don't possess.”

Death shook her head. “Then it's a good thing this is my own personal expansion deck!” she said cheerily, starting to shuffle. “I call it Cards Against the Immortal Community. It was a real hit at the last Family Meeting.” Yes, it had devolved into petty insults towards the end, and she’d lost to Delirium (whose out of pocket answers had given her the win most of the time), but Desire had fun insulting their various acquaintances, Despair’s dark sense of humor had made Death laugh on more than one occasion, and Dream had gotten inspiration for several new nightmares, so she called it a success.

The Question stilled. “I see,” he said finally, eyeing the deck of cards like a venomous snake that might bite him at any moment. “I'll explain the rules, then, shall I?”

She nodded her acquiescence, before focusing on removing any cards about Lucifer, her family members, Ghosts, or cats, so as to allow the others to play without fear of retaliation or censorship. The Lords of Chaos and Order, she was sure, would be perfectly willing to use the cards about each other.

---

After the game—Lucifer had won, managing to perfectly tailor his answers to the others’ sense of humor—they packed up. Klarion and Teekl teleported away in a burst of sparks, glitter and dandelion seeds. Nabu and the Question exited through the door, thanking Lucifer for the invitation and the enjoyable night. 

“Of course!” Lucifer waved off their compliments. “Do come back—Question, I may have to start issuing invitations directly to you, you are a delightful player.”

The liminal inclined his hat. “I would welcome them,” he said smoothly. “Any chance to play at your table would be… most entertaining.”

“Oh, stop, you’ll make me blush!” Lucifer said, fanning himself. 

The Question gave a distinct impression of a charming smile, before exiting alongside the Lord of Order.

The door swung shut behind them, and all was still.

“Well,” Lucifer turned to face Death with a winning smile. “If I’d known all I had to do to get you to play at my table was invite a Ghost along, I would have done it sooner.”

Death smiled, leaning against the table. “Oh, it wasn’t just him. I truly have been busy lately; all the intergalactic invasions, new weapons of mass destruction, not to mention the upcoming change in management of the Realms…” she shrugged guilelessly, before changing the subject. “Out of curiosity, what were you betting with before I showed up?”

Lucifer waved a hand lazily. “Oh, a bit of this, a bit of that. Klarion had some new inventions, Nabu had some artifacts, the Question,” he laughed, “the Question brought one dollar bills and fake angel feathers he purchased from a Halloween company. You do know how to pick the interesting ones.”

Death inclined her head. “I did not pick him,” she said. “But yes. Whoever ends up running the Realms—well, it's shaping out to look rather entertaining, all told.”

Lucifer snorted. “Anyone would be more entertaining than Pariah,” he said scornfully. “That Ghost was so,” he searched for the word, “so derivative.”

Death, disinclined to judge anyone, simply stood up from her relaxed position by the table. “Duty calls, I’m afraid,” she said with some regret.

Lucifer straightened to his full height. “Of course, Lady Death,” he said formally. “You have honored me with your presence.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, none of that. I’ll see you, Lucifer. And may I just say? I like the bar. Retirement suits you.”

With that, Death of the Endless returned to work.

Chapter Text

Pressed up against a large metal box vent, Oliver squinted through his binoculars at the streets below him. He’d been sitting on this particular roof for half an hour, and the vent behind him was, at this point, the only reason he wasn’t half frozen. “Alright,” he said finally, “I think I’ve got eyes on him. Corner of 31st and James St, wearing a dark blue hoodie.” He gingerly climbed to his feet.

Over his comms, he heard the tell-tale sound of an engine revving, and his earpiece crackled on. “You ‘think’?” Canary said with no small amount of exasperation. To be fair, they’d been trying to find their target for a few hours at this point, with several false leads. “You’d better be positive, Arrow,” Canary reminded him, “last time you said that I ended up stalking an innocent bouncer for twenty minutes, before he banned me from his bar for life.”

Oliver securely strapped his quiver to his back and made a running jump to a neighboring roof. The only sound from the exertion he allowed himself was a quiet oomph. “Alright, alright, I’ve apologized for that already!” he complained. “It’s not my fault everyone in a dark alleyway looks the same from above.”

“You know,” Canary teased, “you could always cave and use the Batnoculars that Batman gave you.”

Oliver continued to pick his way across the rooftops towards their target, grumbling something unintelligible about not being willing to sell out to Big Brother Wayne, his tech was perfectly fine, it’s not like they needed the Justice League. And why had Batman gone to WayneTech to source the Justice League's gear? He was right there!

(Though, to be honest, Oliver had at multiple times this evening considered contacting the Watchtower and seeing if they could find Gomez any faster with their ridiculous surveillance satellite. Stakeouts were dull, what could he say?)

Canary continued, with an audible smile, “So, what’s the plan when we catch this guy? You shooting an arrow first, or am I screaming?”

“Oh, you can scream for me all you like,” Oliver flirted.

“And you know the feeling’s mutual,” she responded dryly, “but in the meantime—plan?”

He leapt off a building to grab onto a fire escape, which swayed dangerously beneath his feet. “Whichever one of us gets to him first gets the first shot?” he challenged. 

“Oh, you’re on,” Canary purred, before accelerating her motorcycle. Over her communicator, Oliver could pick up the faint sounds of cars honking at her flagrant disregard for traffic laws.

He huffed out a laugh, before clambering up the fire escape to get a better vantage point. He needed to be… three buildings over. No time to waste!

Several unwitnessed (and highly impressive) feats of acrobatics later, Oliver silently slid into position above their target.

Simon Gomez was a spree killer with suspected super strength and hypnosis, or some other persuasion-based cognitive ability. His first murder had been at his twenty third birthday party two days ago; by eyewitness reports, he’d blown out the candles, gone to hug one of his friends, and broken said friend’s back clean in two. Then he’d gone to massacre the rest of the bar. Given the suddenness of his descent into violence, Oliver assumed that it was a meta manifestation gone bad—or a mental break caused by the initial murder. He almost felt bad for him.

Still, whether or not the murders were committed in Gomez’s right mind (and thus to what degree he could be held liable or charged) wasn’t Oliver’s job to decide. He was just supposed to catch him. And, lucky him, he beat Canary to it.

Oliver drew a non-lethal electric arrow from his quiver and drew back on the bow. Right as Canary’s bike peeled into the alleyway, he fired, and savored the look of indignation on his girlfriend’s face.

“Shit!” Gomez exclaimed as the arrow hit his back, blue electricity crackling around him. His muscles seized, and he seemed to briefly lose control of his limbs, which spasmed.

“Are you fucking kidding me!” Canary yelled, exasperated. “I was a second late!”

Oliver peered over the side of the building he was perched in. “You snooze, you lose, babe!” he called to her, triumphant.

She grumbled as she dismounted her bike. “Alright Gomez,” she said, “are you going to come in quietly or not?”

Gomez was still hunched over. Oddly enough, he didn’t seem hurt, just stunned. Darkly, in a lilting voice, he asked, “...Quietly?” 

Oliver blinked. “Gotta admit,” he quipped, “we don’t get that answer a lot.”

Gomez slowly stood straighter, shaking out his arms. Something about the way he moved made Oliver wary, just two steps to the left of normal, like a shapeshifter trying to get the limbs right. “Come in? Quietly?” He started to laugh.

Canary stepped forward cautiously. “Look,” she said soothingly, “we can help you, Gomez. You’re a good kid. We know you wouldn’t have hurt those people—”

“You’re right,” he interrupted her. “Simon wouldn’t have.” The alley filled with an air of foreboding, of menace. Gomez cracked his neck, and turned to face them.

“O…kay,” Oliver said, “never a good sign when they refer to themselves in the third person.”

“Simon asked me not to hurt anyone,” he said, with an unhinged look in his eyes, “and then I made him watch.”

Canary backed away and raised her hands in front of her—both in a gesture of surrender, and to a ready position just in case she had to palm strike him. “Gomez—”

“You know,” the man in front of them drawled, “I recognize you two. Dinah Lance, right? And… Oliver Queen.” He said it slowly, like he was savoring each word. Canary and Oliver exchanged a brief glance, silently confirming that this man should absolutely not know their secret identities. “I’ve been wanting to play with you for a long time.”

Oliver drew another stun arrow, as the man’s—being’s?—presence grew stronger. He could smell the faint trace of sulfur, he could taste the anger (which, before today, he wouldn't have said had a taste) and he felt waves of darkness wafting through the air.

“But we were so rudely interrupted last time,” the entity continued. A grin, far too wide for a human face, began to spread across Gomez’s mouth. “I guess it’s my lucky day,” he finished with a dark glee.

That presence… Something about it was familiar. 

Too familiar.

Oliver briefly flashed back to the day that he and Canary had undergone that depossession ritual after being exposed to the JLD’s doll collection. That aura—

Oliver fired his electric arrow, hitting the demon right between the eyes. The demon snarled, legs collapsing beneath him. Without control over his arms, he landed hard. The demon's head rolled, disconnected from the spine, but he managed to bar his teeth anyway, eyes locked on them. Oliver had the strange feeling this was how a deer would feel if it locked eyes with a wolf.

Before he could recover, Oliver scrambled down the side of the building, Black Canary sprinting back towards her bike. Shit, what was it that demon had been called again? He fumbled for his phone—just his luck to not bring his JL comm on patrol today, but how was he supposed to know they’d run into possession?

Canary climbed onto her bike backwards, still facing the demon, who was beginning to roll over and get to his knees. Oliver rushed to sit down, pressing up against her front in a way that in any other circumstance would be incredibly indecent, and grab the handlebars. As the demon—Felicity! Felicity was his name! As Felicity began to rush towards them, Canary let out a long, sustained cry past Oliver’s ear, and Felicity flew back against the wall, disoriented. 

Oliver revved the bike, Canary grabbed on tight, and they took off down the street.

He frantically dialed Zatanna, wedging the phone in between his shoulder and ear. This was so not in their wheelhouse.

“You calling Z?” Canary yelled into his ear. 

Oliver nodded. “Fuck demons!” he exclaimed, practically shaking with adrenaline.

They exchanged a quick, disbelieving look, before Oliver quickly turned his eyes back to the road. His phone let out a beep, and he sagged in relief. Thank god, Zatanna would be able to take over from here. 

Unfortunately, it was not to be. Just as Oliver was about to open his mouth to give a quick sit-rep, he heard the automated voice mail message.

“Apologies, Zatanna Zatara is unavailable at the moment,” came a computerized female voice. Oliver groaned. “If it is an urgent matter, press one to be forwarded to another member of the JLD. If it is not, please leave a message after the beep, and she will get back to you as soon as she can.”

“What’s wrong?” Canary yelled over the sound of the bike. 

“Voicemail!” Oliver called back. “Gotta—can you press one? I can’t reach—” he swerved to avoid an oncoming car. Shit, he really needed to focus here.

Canary reached up and grabbed the phone from him, frantically jamming the number. As the dial tone sounded again, she glanced over Oliver’s shoulder and paled. “Can you go any faster?” she yelled. “Because Felicity’s gaining on us!”

Oliver, eyes still firmly on the road in front of him, nevertheless heard a howl of rage and a screech of metal as Felicity grabbed a nearby parked car off the ground. “Left!” Canary directed, panicked. “Fucking left!”

In the middle of all the commotion, the automated message “Your call is being forwarded to the nearest JLD member. Please hold as we attempt to contact them,” was completely lost.

---

Wes ducked yet another item, which shattered behind him. “Hey,” he complained, returning fire with a pillow. “That’s not a box!”

The Box Ghost puffed his chest up in offense, before frowning. “Well, it’s a box shaped vase,” he justified.

“Which is not a box,” Wes replied. He took the time to throw an offendingly spherical grenade at the ghost, the pin—which was shaped like a cube, adding insult to injury—already pulled.

“YOU DARE DEFILE A BOX BY CHAINING IT TO A—” the grenade went off and Boxy was blown back several feet, a red cloud of glitter released. He coughed, plumes of glitter floating out of his mouth, some clearly stuck on his tongue. “How did you even get this glitter to stick?”

“Sorry man,” Wes said. “But look at it this way: I’m planning on booby trapping Tucker’s place with them, so you’re doing very valuable product testing.”

Boxy retaliated by throwing yet another box of IKEA furniture at him—this time, for a massive KOLBJÖRN cabinet that was, according to the product picture Wes saw as it flew at him, painfully beige.

“Oh come on, Boxy, you can do better than that!” Wes laughed, dodging it with ease. “I could see that coming from a mile awa—shit!” The Box Ghost’s strategy became clear as Wes stumbled over a wooden crate that definitely hadn’t been in front of his feet a second ago. Looking down, he could see the floor had abruptly become littered with traps.

Boxy let out a gleeful, maniacal laugh, as he threw another human-sized package at Wes’ head. “At last! Your days of dodging my beautiful boxes are over, Weston!” he crowed. “There’s no way you can escape—”

Wes went intangible, allowing the box to pass through him with a shiver of discomfort. No matter how liminal he may be, he wasn’t technically dead yet, so going intangible always felt… strange.

Boxy pouted. “Come on, Wes!” he said, crossing his arms petulantly. “We said no powers!”

Wes shook out his limbs, before gingerly stepping towards the ghost to give him his prize. “We agreed that use of powers or falling prone would constitute a loss,” he corrected. “And I wasn’t going to let myself get knocked out by a box holding IKEA furniture, of all things.”

Boxy rolled his eyes. “You picked the location,” he pointed out. Which was a fair criticism, although it wasn’t like Boxy hadn’t jumped at the chance to destroy the biggest IKEA store in the world. 

As Wes pulled out his phone, he visibly brightened. “Ooh, ooh, I want to see the turtle!”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “You’ve used your last two wins to look at photos of the turtle, Boxy,” he said dryly. “Don’t you want to see something more interesting?” Boxy drew himself up, no doubt affronted by his insinuation that there could be any animal more mighty or majestic than the box turtle. Wes quickly interjected, “I’ve got a photo of a Green Lantern’s genetically engineered attack spider in a box terrarium,” he offered.

Boxy wavered, clearly torn, before flying closer. “Show me the box terrarium,” he said.

Wes was happy to comply, and the Box Ghost spent the next several seconds cooing over more photos from the Justice League’s most recent take-your-pet-to-work day. At least it wasn’t over Booster Gold’s pet turtle, though. 

Finally, Wes pulled his phone away. “Next round?” he challenged.

Boxy grinned. “Since I won, you have to be seeker.”

Wes smiled slightly. Boxy was never patient enough to wait for Wes to find him—he preferred ambush attacks, using all the boxes available in one overwhelming wave, which always gave his position away and left him with no ammunition left. As long as Wes outlasted the ambush, he was able to beat Boxy handedly. 

But Wes was hardly going to tell the Box Ghost that his strategy was flawed. Then he’d stop winning.

About to retort with something suitably braggadocious, Wes paused. “Sorry, do you hear that?”

Something was buzzing.

Boxy scoffed. “As if I would fall for your—actually, yes, something’s buzzing.”

“Hmm,” Wes mused. Where could it be coming from?

Ah. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his league communicator. “Apologies, Boxy, but I’m going to have to take this. Work stuff,” he explained, genuinely contrite. “I’d let it pass but nobody ever calls me unless everyone else is busy. Can you give me a minute?”

Boxy crossed his arms and glared. “Five,” he said haughtily. “But if it takes longer than that, you’re babysitting Box Lunch the next time Lunch Lady and I go on a date.” 

Wes didn’t quite wince, because Box Lunch was a lovely child—but at the same time, she was a ghost child, and that made her a fucking nightmare. “Of course,” he responded anyway. He tapped on the com twice and raised it to his ear. “This is the Question,” he said into it.

There was a burst of static and the sound of muffled shouting, and something that almost sounded like his name being said. Magical feedback? The normal league communicators weren’t designed to handle the forces of the universe, mainly because it was expensive to get nth metal. (And it was cheaper to mass produce the earbuds than make multiple brick-like phones—no, these beauties were reserved for specific members of JLD or magic users like Captain Marvel.)

Luckily, the connections could be stabilized from one end. The Question tapped a button, and the words cleared up—though not as much as they should have. Odd—were they perhaps not using a League standard comm? How against protocol.

“Well I don’t fucking care if it’s the Question,” someone shouted faintly. “I’ll take goddamn Constantine!”

Was that Black Canary’s voice? “Green Arrow?” the Question hedged.

“Question, there’s a prob—” there was a crash and a maniacal cackle, followed by cursing. Over it all was a pitched, inaudible-to-humans hum, that was clearly interfering with Arrow’s signal. Hm. Definitely magic; most likely demonic in nature—possibly a sorcerer?

“Where are you?” the Question asked calmly.

Green Arrow cursed. “Can’t give exact coordinates,” he gritted out. “Star City, we were investigating a spree killer when—” BOOM.

Unfortunately, the fix for magical feedback didn’t work on audible feedback. The Question winced at the ear piercing shriek.

“I’m sorry, I’m really having a hard time hearing you,” he said. He made an apologetic expression at Boxy, pushing a vague feeling of ‘sorry, I owe you, back soon?’ at him. The ghost rolled his eyes.

Fine, he mouthed back, but until you come back I’m ruling this IKEA.

That was fair enough. The Question nodded his agreement, and turned to pick his way out of the ruined furniture display room. The line was wordless for a while, just coughing and undefinable shouts, before there was a scraping noise and, far too close, Green Arrow shouted into it, “FELICITY.”

It would be entirely counterproductive for the Question to freeze at this, and so he didn't. Instead, he picked up the pace slightly, graduating to a brisk walk. He didn’t want his coworkers to die, after all. Excellent, the exit. The door shut behind him. “Felicity, as in the demonic doll?” the Question asked.

“NOT A DOLL,” Green Arrow said. He was clearly shouting, yet the volume transmitted through his communicator was faint. It must have been dislodged during the fight. Or, if he was (as the Question was beginning to suspect) using a phone, he’d had to put it away to use both hands.

(Had he put it in his quiver? …That was not an important question.)

“I see. And do you have an address?”

“Just get J’onn to zeta you to our location,” Green Arrow snapped. Then, “DUCK!”

The Question clicked open his car, and walked to its door. “Keep your comm on you,” he said, opening the door and sliding into the driver's seat. He hit a button on the underside of the steering wheel, before starting the car. 

“IS THAT A CAR STARTING?” Green Arrow asked, aghast. “ARE YOU DRIVING HERE?”

The Question did not deign to answer him. He flicked a few switches as the FentonMobile roared to life beneath his fingers. “Do stand back from the demon,” he advised. 

“Yeah we don’t really have a choice in the matter, you annoying conspiracy nut job piece of sh—”

The Question decided to let that slide. “I’ll be there in five,” he said, before hanging up. 

“Hey, Boss,” chirped the in-car AI. “We going somewhere in a hurry?”

The Question pressed one more button, causing a small tray to come out of the dashboard—where one would ordinarily put a CD. He placed his communicator inside for it to read. “Track the most recent call, if you could,” he said. “We need to get there as fast as possible.”

“Sure thing!” the car’s automated assistant said. “Engaging Realm travel mode now.” The car's windows and doors sealed with an audible click. In front of him, a large green portal opened. The Question stepped on the gas.

---

Dinah panted, struggling to catch her breath after the end of her most recent Canary Cry. 

In an effort to keep the demon away from heavily populated areas, she and Arrow had been driving in circles through back alleyways for almost ten minutes now; they even stopped every once and a while to allow Felicity to catch up, to make sure his attention was fixated solely on them.

But they were clearly fighting a losing battle. Her cries were the only real method they had to keep the demon away from them during those moments—though Arrow, of course, made valiant efforts to shoot out Felicity’s eyes, and his electricity arrows certainly seemed to be doing something. Unfortunately, Felicity seemed to be adapting. At the beginning of their merry-go-round chase, a twenty second cry was enough to knock Felicity back over a block and stun him for almost half a minute. Now, he barely seemed disoriented.

“How much longer can you keep this up?” Arrow asked, veering hard to the left in order to avoid crashing into a dumpster. Ordinarily, she might have quipped about his terrible driving skills; right now, she was just glad he was able to drive while she was screaming directly past his ear.

“As long as I have to,” she said, though not as confidently as she would have liked. “When the fuck is the Question supposed to get here again?”

Arrow scoffed scornfully. “He said five minutes, but he was also definitely starting up a car, so who knows.”

“Goddamnit,” Dinah groaned, momentarily resting her head against Arrow’s shoulder. “Of all the fucking times for Zatanna to have a show.”

“At least we reached someone,” Arrow said, “I mean, the Question isn’t the worst option.” He skidded over a glass bottle with a loud crunch, and winced.

Dinah blinked, unable to believe what she was hearing. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

Arrow also seemed surprised at what he’d said. “Well,” he continued, awkwardly, “he is helpful. Sometimes. I mean, would you prefer Etrigan?” He nudged her side to let her know they were coming up to the end of an alleyway. 

Dinah readjusted her grip. “Fair enough,” she said, conceding the point. “We could have gotten Ragman.”

Arrow opened his mouth to respond, making a sharp turn to the left, before abruptly slamming on the brakes. They skidded to a stop, Dinah only barely managing to hold on. “What?” she exclaimed, craning her head to look around. 

Felicity was right in front of them. Gomez’s hair was windswept, and his brown skin was sickly pale in the light of their headlights. Unphased by the exertion of the chase, he was wearing a supremely satisfied smile, and his eyes glinted red with malice. Shit.

Dinah frantically clambered off the bike, while Arrow snatched an arrow from his quiver and shot the demon directly between the eyes. The demon blinked at them once, before reaching up and slowly pulling the arrow out. The hole in his forehead knit itself closed, leaving rivulets of blood running down his face that didn’t appear to bother him in the slightest.

“Now, that wasn’t very nice,” he said, voice cavernous and echoing in a way that made Dina wince in pain. She opened her mouth to cry one last time, but choked.

She couldn’t make a sound. She couldn’t breathe. Next to her, Arrow seemed to have the same issue, though it didn’t stop him from continuing to fire. Each arrow seemed to make Felicity more and more amused.

“Your pointy sticks won't work on me,” Felicity boasted. “And unless I missed something, you’ve run out of the fancy shock ones.”

Dinah’s heart pounded in panic. Felicity was too close for them to be able to escape on the bike. Even if they could, there was no guarantee that whatever Felicity had done to them would go away with distance. No, they were going to suffocate here, in a back alley in Star City, all because they’d decided to go into the Question’s storage locker for no reason other than curiosity, and curiosity was always supposed to kill the cat, not the Canary—

Just as spots were beginning to appear in her vision, she heard the unmistakable vroom of a car pulling up. Dinah almost collapsed in relief as Felicity turned to face the eyesore of a blue sedan. She recognized that vehicle.

She stumbled over to a wall, unable to support herself, and waited for the Question to step out and help them.

(Under any other circumstances, she would have laughed at the thought.)

Instead, she heard a strange whirring noise, and two circular metal protrusions emerged from the hood. She blinked in confusion. Then they fired a pulse of green energy so blinding Dinah had to blink spots out of her eyes. A giant something came flying out of the body of Simon Gomez, slammed into her bike, and skidded until it came to a stop at the end of the alley.

Dinah gasped for air, whatever hold Felicity’d had on her breaking. At her side, Arrow did the same. They shared a look of shaky disbelief. Why did the Question have energy launchers in his car? (And how could she get her hands on some?)

Speaking of the Question, he nonchalantly opened his car door. His footsteps echoed on the brick floor of the alleyway, stopping only briefly to check the pulse of Simon Gomez, before continuing towards the demon. Dinah gaped, incredulous, at the sight before her.

The Question wasn’t wearing his usual get up. Instead, he had on what appeared to be post-apocalyptic casual wear on—in that his casual wear (a set of brown cargo pants and a long sleeved olive green shirt) looked like it had gone through the apocalypse with him; it was dotted with small burn marks and covered in dust. To complete the look, slung over his shoulder was a glowing green rocket launcher.

He sauntered casually over to the demon, who let out a small groan. Having been separated from his host, his true form was revealed. Though it was hard to tell exactly how tall he was, given his current position curled up against a wall, Dina would estimate he was at least seven feet. His maroon skin glinted under the distant light of an orange streetlamp, his four arms clenched into fists at his sides, and his leathery wings were pinned awkwardly beneath him. His biceps were easily the size of Dinah’s head.

At her side, Green Arrow whistled quietly, impressed—although she couldn’t tell if it was with the Question or with the demon. Dinah, meanwhile, was having difficulty dealing with the cognitive dissonance of seeing the Question outside of his trademark blue trench coat. If it weren’t for his faceless mask, she’d have thought he’d just walked off the set of a jungle exploration ad. 

“You’re not Constantine,” Felicity said, eyeing the Question with mild trepidation.

“No,” the Question said calmly, before aiming the rocket launcher directly at the demon’s chest. “Constantine punches above his weight class.” He pulled the trigger.

BOOM. A blinding, brilliant green light filled the street. Dinah and Arrow both flinched, forced to close their eyes. A thick, noxious smoke filled the air with an acrid smell of ozone and, oddly enough, citrus.

Over the ringing in her ears, Dinah could hear the Question continue, “I don’t punch.”

The smoke began to clear as Felicity wheezed in pain. His chest looked caved in—although it clearly wasn’t enough to kill him, as he continued speaking. “Dude, what—” he coughed, “—the fuck was that energy blast? That wasn’t like any exorcism I’ve ever been through.” 

The Question inclined his head, and chanted a few words. A shimmering white light appeared around him—one of the Question’s shield spells, the ones that doubled as holding cells, Dinah remembered.

She straightened from her half-slumped position against the wall. “Aren’t you going to shoot him again?” she asked, confused. “Seems a bit counterproductive to put him in a shield first.”

The Question looked at her over his shoulder. “Of course not,” he responded. “Why would I risk permanently killing him? Can you imagine the political ramifications?”

“Of course not,” Arrow said dryly. “Killing a demon would be such a disaster.”

“I’m glad you understand,” the Question said, seemingly genuine. Dinah didn't believe it for a second; the Question was a sarcastic little shit.

She hesitated. “Then what are you going to do with him?” she asked, finally. She wasn’t going to argue with the JLD member about demons. Even if that JLD member was the Question. 

“Now, that is a good question,” the Question remarked, before looking back at the demon. “Which do you prefer,” he asked, setting the rocket launcher on the ground, “the doll or the thermos?”

“Thermos?” Arrow said incredulously. The Question gestured to his side, where—yes, oddly enough, a mechanized thermos hung by his belt, with the same green detailing as his rocket launcher. “Is that… normally under your trench coat?” Arrow asked, voice somewhat strangled.

To be fair, Dinah could see his point. There was no way that something so bulky should be able to lie under the Quesiton’s usual gear without them noticing—and they would have noticed a thermos.

“Perhaps,” the Question responded. 

Felicity’s face contorted into a moue of distaste. “No, man, don’t put me back in the doll!” he said. “Bro, that thing fucking sucks—there’s no range of motion, you can’t look at anything, you can barely hear anything,” he continued to list his former prison’s various defects at length, before finally trailing off into a grumble.

Dinah raised an eyebrow. For a demon, he didn’t seem very malevolent when not actively trying to kill them. He sounded more like he was in whatever the demonic version of a frat house was.

The Question hummed. “Would you prefer the thermos, then?”

“Fuck no, dude!” Felicity objected. “I’ve heard about that thing—it’s basically a white noise torture chamber in a pocket.”

Arrow inhaled sharply. “Is that true?” he asked, voice biting. “Because we have a strict policy against torture in the Justice League,” he began, before being cut off.

“Why do you assume that the JLD follows the same protocols of the main branch?” the Question said, clearly not actually seeking an answer. “Especially when we boast such illustrious members as Jason Blood and Doctor Fate?”

Though he was unable to refute that, or perhaps precisely because he couldn’t, Arrow drew himself up in righteous indignation. Sensing that he was about to say something he’d regret, Dinah put her hand on his arm to soothe him. “You’re better than that, Question,” she said.

The Question briefly looked touched, which was mildly concerning; surely he knew that, although Dinah didn’t necessarily respect his theories or research methods or taste in women or—well, actually, maybe it wasn’t such a surprise that he didn’t expect her to compliment him, even if obliquely.

“I do wonder,” the Question said, addressing Felicity, “from whom did you learn about this thermos? I’ve been reliably informed that its more… torturous aspects only set in after a day or two, and I can’t think of a single demon I’ve used it on for longer than that. Truthfully,” he said under his breath, “it’s more cramped than anything else.”

Felicity seemed mildly offended at that. “What, you think I only spend all my time with other demons? I’m cultured, man! I have diverse friends!” The Question stared at him, expressionless, and Felicity finally admitted, “Dan told me about it—”

“You know Dan?!” the Question asked, incredulous.

Felicity puffed up in self-righteous indignation. “Yeah, dude, I know Dan. We’re not all intolerant assholes—I can appreciate a ghost just as much as a—”

“Ancients,” the Question despaired quietly, running a hand over his face. “Dan has friends.”

Dinah and Arrow watched as the Question seemed to have a crisis while, in the background, the demon ranted about how everyone automatically assumed that just because he was from hell, he was a monster, and a bigot, and an asshole, and not all demons fit the stereotype, in fact most of the people he knew—

“Should we… try to interrupt?” Arrow asked her, nervously.

Dinah shrugged helplessly. “You want to handle the demon?”

Taking Arrow’s answering grimace as a denial, Dinah pursed her lips. “So,” she said. “Magic rocket launchers.”

“Yeah,” Arrow breathed. “Gotta admit, I did not see that coming.”

“Pretty effective, too,” Dinah said. “I’m wondering if I can get those installed in my next bike.”

Arrow shot a quick look at the absolute wreckage of what used to be her bike and grimaced. “Hey, I will happily shell out extra for those upgrades.”

“We’d have to convince the Question to give us the specs, though,” Dinah mused, “and something tells me he’ll keep them close to his chest.”

“Yeah,” Arrow said, in dawning realization, “why doesn’t the entire League have access to those?”

“Magicians and their trade secrets,” Dinah groused.

Movement caught their attention, as the Question started towards his car. “Hey!” Dinah called. “Where do you think you’re going?” she gestured to the demon still trapped in the alley with them. “Demon,” she pointed out.

The Question gave the distinct impression of rolling his eyes. “What does it look like I’m doing?” he asked, opening his trunk and grabbing a large briefcase.

He walked back towards Felicity and crouched down next to him. Opening the briefcase revealed a frankly disturbing collection of dolls. As Dinah watched, somewhat spellbound in horror, the Question began inquiring into Felicity’s preferences. “Would you prefer the classic china doll style?”

Felicity shook his head. “Nah, dude, way too fragile. If I’m gonna be stuck in a doll I want it to have some durability to it, you know?”

The Question nodded sagely. “Plastic, then? I have quite a few Barbie and Bratz dolls.”

Felicity scrunched up his face in thought, before shaking his head. “Too skinny. Plus they set unrealistic body expectations for young girls, and I’m not that kind of evil.”

“No, you’re just the mass-murdering kind of evil,” Arrow muttered under his breath. “Way better.”

Dinah smacked him on the arm. “Don’t antagonize the demon!” she hissed.

“I have a Disney Rapunzel doll with fully articulated legs and feet,” the Question offered. “Although the hair is a bit of a mess—far too long to be manageable.”

“Rapunzel? Man, I fucking loved the animated series,” Felicity said. “Those songs were bangers.”

“Rapunzel it is, then,” the Question said, with a note of amusement. 

“Okay, sorry,” Dinah asked, unable to stop herself, “how do you get Disney in hell?”

“Oh, this is like my fifth time topside,” Felicity admitted, as the Question began to rummage through his bag for spell ingredients. “Yeah, Hell’s kinda got a revolving door situation ever since Lucifer decided to go on vacation, you know? Half the top brass has taken off to Florida or Australia, and I think Lilith decided to go deep-sea scuba diving? So it’s gotten pretty lax.”

Dinah didn’t want to think about the implications of that. 

“Is this… common, then?” Arrow asked the Question. “Dealing with demonic possession and all that?”

The Question shot him a quick glance from his position sketching out a quick pentagram in white chalk. “Why do you think I carry a briefcase of dolls with me?” 

Arrow shuddered at the thought of dealing with more than one demon possession in his lifetime.

Having finished assembling his spell components, and freehanding a very intricate spell circle, the Question intoned g̷̠̎e̴̬̐t̶͇͝ ̴̧̉ì̴̯ṇ̵͘ ̸̠́t̶̲́ḧ̵͉e̷̦͝ ̸̲̑d̸͉́õ̸̦l̸͗ͅḻ̶̎. The words scraped at something in Dinah’s soul, and she cringed away from it. 

There was no flash of light to indicate that something happened. The body of Felicity simply disappeared, and the doll in the Question’s hand began to move gingerly. 

“Alright,” Felicity’s voice came from the motionless mouth of a Disney princess. “I can work with this. Ooh, I can even roll the ankles! Sweet.”

The Question reached back into his briefcase and pulled out a label. “How would you like to be referred to?” he asked. “Currently you’re in our system as “Felicity, number X239K”, but I could change it if you have a name you prefer.”

Felicity let out a bark of surprised laughter. “Felicity?” he said, dumbfounded. “Fuck, I love it, keep it that way. Felicity,” the doll’s head shook in wonderment. “Fucking aces.”

The Question nodded and noted it on the label, which he then stuck to the doll’s neck. He packed up his components, snapped the briefcase shut, and stood from the ground in one smooth motion. “Arrow, Canary,” he said, inclining his head. “A pleasure as always.” 

“We’re glad for the help,” Dinah said honestly, reaching out to shake his hand. Bemused, the Question tucked Felicity under his arm so he could respond in turn, giving a quick, perfunctory squeeze. “And if you’re willing to part with the blueprints for those energy rifles in your car, I would do literally anything for them.”

The Question huffed a small laugh. Arrow came up beside her. “No, seriously, she would,” he said. “And I know you know my identity, so you know we’re good for it. Name a price; we’ll double it.”

“Alas,” the Question said, “I’m afraid that the blueprints are proprietary knowledge.” Dinah almost laughed at the joke (because there was no way he was serious; magic energy guns capable of shooting demons out of people didn't get copyrighted, no scientific board would agree to certify them.) He hesitated for a moment, before continuing, “but I could pass along a message?”

Dinah raised an eyebrow, surprised. “Well,” the Question explained, seeing her response, “you heard Felicity; demonic possession is on the rise. Why should I deny you necessary tools?”

Dinah quirked her lips into a small smile. “Thanks, Q,” she said.

“Hey, Dinah,” Felicity said conversationally from where he was wedged inside the crook of the Question's arm. “Just so you know; next time we see each other, I’m going to kill you.”

“You can try,” she responded with more confidence than she actually felt.

The Question hummed. “Will you check on the possessed victim? His heart beat was strong when I checked it, but there’s no guarantee of anything.” 

“Oh, shit!” Arrow exclaimed, and rushed over to check on Gomez, clearly remembering that he’d shot the man in the head without a care on multiple occasions.

Dinah stayed in place and watched the Question walk back to his car. As he opened the doors, he asked, “Hey, Felicity, what are your thoughts on coming to the Thanksgiving celebration? I’m sure Dan would appreciate the company.”

“He would?” the demon asked, far too eagerly, before quickly sputtering, “uh, not that I care. We’re barely even friends, y’know, we’ve just hung out a few times, I wouldn’t expect any—”

“Dear gods,” the Question said, sounding absolutely horrified. As he slid into the car, he continued, incredulous, “Dan has a boyfriend.”

The doors closed on Felicity’s frantic (and somewhat wistful) denial.

Dinah huffed a surprised laugh, before calling an ambulance for Simon Gomez. 

Maybe she’d leave him her card before they left. He’d probably need a really good therapist after this adventure. 

Omake:

Wes stared at the small ghost child in front of him and sighed. “Alright,” he said. “I want it on the record that I’m bringing you here under duress.”

Box Lunch blinked up at him mulishly. She was missing her customary pink hairnet, and he’d managed to wrangle her into a slightly more classy set of overalls, to much dismay. “I don’t care if it’s duress or not,” she said, and stomped her feet. “You promised Dad you’d look after me, so I’m coming with you!”

“I made that promise under duress too,” Wes grumbled, before sighing again. “Alright,” he rolled his head and shook the tension out of his shoulders. Grabbing his (temporary) charge’s hand, he guided her to the front of the line, getting extremely weird looks from the various young people waiting in the queue. 

He did his best to avoid looking at the excessively bright club sign—it was decent branding, admittedly, but still, just because the club was called Lux didn’t mean their sign had to be blinding. 

Tapping the shoulder of the bouncer, he said, “The Question and plus one. I believe Lucifer’s expecting us?”

Chapter Text

Helena sighed as Wes turned the corner to reveal yet more brick houses. While they’d been a welcome sight fifteen minutes ago (after the endless fields of corn they’d driven through for several hours), at this point they’d gotten just as repetitive. 

“Wes,” she said, “you know you could’ve had Flash Zeta us directly to your friend’s house—we didn’t need to take the scenic route.”

“Having the Justice League know the general location we wanted to be dropped off was bad enough,” her boyfriend said, “and the only reason I allowed it is because the FentonMobile blocks all satellite footage and traffic cameras from recording, so it’ll be at least mildly difficult to track where we’re going. Besides, we’re almost there.”

Helena squinted out the window. Nope, more brick and wooden houses, all seemingly identical in the suburban hellscape he’d taken her too. “Are you sure you haven’t passed it? All these houses look the same. …You know,” she said, knowing Wes’ likely answer but offering anyway, “if you want, I can open Maps—”

“No need,” Wes said dismissively. “It’s impossible to miss.”

“Right,” Helena said, privately wondering just how different the Fentons’ house could be to the others in Amity Park. “Okay.”

She stole a glance at Wes in the driver’s seat. “It’s still so weird to see you without that mask on,” she admitted. 

Wes’ brow furrowed, and he darted her an unreadable look. “Good weird?” he asked, voice carefully neutral in that way that meant he was very worried about the answer.

Helena rolled her eyes. “Of course,” she said, “though it’s extra weird with you still wearing your superhero getup. I thought no one knew you were a cape—what’s with the suit and tie?”

“This is civilian wear,” Wes protested mildly. “Besides, Sam—you’ll like her—bought me these as a joke. I would never let a gift go to waste.”

Helena tossed her head back in laughter. “Wes,” she said, “you cannot seriously be telling me that you picked your superhero outfit just to be petty to one of your friends.”

“Why not?” he challenged.

She shook her head fondly. “And she doesn’t know you’re the Question?”

"When have I ever been on the news long enough for her to notice?” Wes asked. “Besides, she knows that I’m a paranormal detective—that’s enough, isn’t it?”

“Right.”

They turned another corner. Helena’s eyes widened at the sight that met her. 

“See,” Wes announced, unnecessarily. “We’re here.”

“Here” was right. The Fenton household was almost exactly the same as the others on the block, save for one key difference: the massive metal contraption protruding from the top, looking almost like an alien saucer (and Helena had seen her fair share of alien ships, she knew what she was talking about). Metal poles and wires protruded from it and the electric sign seemingly bolted into the front facade of the house buzzed with a neon glow. “Fentonworks,” it proclaimed cheerfully, for all the world to see. 

Helena closed her mouth with an almost audible sound.

Wes pulled into the driveway and parked next to a shiny metal tank, with a massive green F emblazoned on the side. Helena fumbled for the car door, eyes transfixed on the sight, before climbing out. “Well,” she said faintly, and then said nothing, at a loss for words.

“I did warn you,” Wes said, before pausing. “...You didn’t believe me,” he stated, voice weary. 

“Sorry, babe,” Helena said. “But in my defense, curse or not, I don’t think anyone would have believed you.” Still, she’d seen weirder during her time in Justice League, and especially with the Birds of Prey—she’d get over it quickly.

They approached the front door and Helena whistled as she looked up at the giant sign—even bigger than she’d expected up close, it was clearly only affixed to the house by wishes and a prayer. “You weren’t kidding when you said they were weird.”

“It’s been up since before high school,” Wes said, long suffering. “I’m beginning to think that they made some sort of unholy deal to keep that sign intact.” He looked back at the road longingly. “Right,” he turned to Helena. “You brought everything?”

“Q, we went over this like, three times during the car.”

Wes nodded. “Right, we did. Well then.” He straightened his coat. “No time like the present.” And with that, they entered the fray.

---

“Sorry, Q, what’s this about me needing to bring weapons?” Wes heard as he woke up, slowly blinking awake after falling asleep on his futon after a night of research. Squinting above him, Wes was blessed with the sight of Helena (his girlfriend, his wonderful girlfriend, and how on earth he managed to convince her to like him is beyond him, truly) standing over his futon with a long sheet of paper in her hand. 

Wes blinked at her, still bleary from sleep. It was nine in the morning, you had to forgive him for being distracted, given that he went to bed at six. Granted, judging by her gear, she had just come off of duty, so she was probably sleep deprived as well. 

Helena cleared her throat pointedly. Wes refocused. “What?” he asked.

“Your itinerary list,” Helana clarified. “For Thanksgiving?”

Wes blinked at her again. Thanksgiving? Ah, yes, the list of suggestions he’d written last night—was it last night? Judging by the disarray of his board, it had probably been there much longer than a night; long enough for several new papers to be tacked over it, at least. Though he had been deep in the investigative spirit recently—

Helena would want an answer. 

“What about it?” he asked, swinging his legs off the futon and standing up. He made his way to the coffee machine and stared at it blankly.

“Well, it says that I need to bring weapons, for one,” Helena said, moving out of his way.

“Oh, no, I’ll just give you some of mine for the evening. Yours won’t work on most of the guests,” Wes said, narrowing his eyes at his coffee machine. He was confident that he’d figure out the fancy settings one day, but right now, he was having difficulty remembering which button was on. Why couldn’t any of them be labeled?

“Q,” Helena said. “It’s Thanksgiving. Why do I need weapons?” 

Ah. Sometimes Wes forgot that not everyone grew up in a Ghost town. 

Giving up the coffee as a lost cause, Wes turned back to face her. “There’s no truce on Thanksgiving,” he said. “If it was Christmas you’d be fine, but—” he shook his head. “And I’d prefer not to go, but I was invited on three separate occasions this year, and if I don’t attend the Fentons will get all…” he searched around for the right word, “mopey. And you don’t want the Fentons to be mopey, Helena, it’s a disaster.”

“The Fentons who are hosting,” Helena clarified. “The parents of one of your friends, those Fentons?”

“The people who made my car,” Wes informed her.

“Ah,” Helena said in realization. “Well, no. We wouldn’t want them to be… mopey.”

“Exactly, so I have to go,” Wes said definitively. He crossed over to the fridge to grab his overnight oats. “But the Fentons are all—” he refrained from saying batshit insane and obsessed with family togetherness, “—a bit extreme, so I know that they’re going to invite all of the family. And since most of the family wants to or has tried to kill the other members, it’ll be a bit… much. Best to come prepared.”

He grabbed a spoon from the drawer, before pausing. “Do you want any eggs?” he offered. See? He was learning the relationship things. He was so good at them.

Helena blinked at him. “No, I’m good with cereal,” she said. Wes shrugged, and went back to sit at the table. He stuck a spoon into his incredibly mushy overnight oats with a small grimace. He’d definitely left those in the fridge too long. “So, is this like a mob thing?” Helena continued, “Everyone tries to kill each other for power?”

Wes quirked his lips. “Not exactly,” he said. “But Jack Fenton is still harboring under the belief that Vlad is a good person—”

“—Vlad Masters?” Helena interjected in disbelief.

“—which means he’ll definitely be invited, and because he’s such a dick, he’s definitely going to show up, which means Dani is going to be pissed because of the whole “abandoning her to die” thing—although to be honest,” he said as an aside, “you’d think she’d be over that by now, what’s a little unethical cloning between friends?”

Helena raised an eyebrow. “I think that Superman might have something to say about that,” she said dryly. Wes waved an errant hand at her in dismissal.

“Yes, yes, but if you think about it, Kryptonians all reproduced via cloning and genetic engineering, so he should be much more okay with it than he is,” Wes said, and then paused. “Should I send Superman some Kryptonian parenting books? Hmm,” he said, and walked over to his conspiracy wall to grab some paper. He needed to make another list.

“Q,” Helena said, putting a hand in front of him. “When did you go to bed?”

Wes blinked down at her arm. “Ah. Hm. Six am?”

“And when was the last time you’d slept since then?” Helena asked, eyeing him in concern.

Wes cast his mind back. And further back. Finally, he shrugged. “I’m enhanced,” he reminded her, “I get more energy the longer I do research.”

“And does your brain recalibrate without sleep?”

Wes narrowed his eyes at her. “...No,” he said, drawing it out. He had a sinking suspicion as to where this was going.

Helena sighed. “Alright, Wes, go back to sleep, the Thanksgiving briefing can wait until tomorrow.”

“It really can’t,” Wes said, imagining letting Helena meet the Fentons without prior warning. No, she needed as much advance information as possible so she could still decide to back out with ample time to let Maddie readjust the seating chart. (Not to mention, if Dani showed up, there was a non-zero chance that—no, no, it’d be fine.)

Helena sighed and steered him towards the bedroom. “I just got back from a week-long stay in Gotham,” she said, “and I am ready for bed. Please let me stay with my boyfriend who I almost never get to see now that we don’t work in the same company anymore.”

“Oh,” Wes said, letting himself be moved. “Of course.”

Once they reached the bedroom, Helena stripped herself of her gear, putting them in the drawers he’d saved for her. Her bow was hung on the wall, and she hit the mattress with a gusty sigh. “That’s better,” she said. 

“Right,” Wes said, before gingerly climbing in after her. “Er. Good night?”

Helena rolled her eyes and closed the blackout curtains.

Wes laid there for a few more minutes awkwardly, before Helena finally murmured, “If you want to give me the briefing right now, go ahead. But I make no promises to retain it.”

Wes smiled, relieved, and went back to it. 

“So,” he said, “Val is definitely going to be invited—Valerie Grey, she was a superhero for a while during high school, by the name of Red Huntress, so you might want to be careful about responding to only your name. But she spent most of her superhero career trying to murder Danny—the original, with a “y,” not Dani the clone, with an “i”—partially at Vlad Master’s command. She also spent a while thinking that Ghosts were non-sentient monsters, which didn’t help, since Danny was pretending to be a full ghost at the time.”

Helena made a sound of surprise at that and propped herself up on the bed next to him. “Why would she think that?” she asked skeptically. “I mean, even if she knew nothing about ghosts, pop culture is pretty clear that ghosts are human souls.”

Wes nodded. “Yes, but the scientific consensus within Amity at the time indicated that ghosts were non-sapient, and whenever they entered the town they tended to wreak havoc, so people largely hated them. Which leads us to the Doctors Fenton, Maddie and Jack, who actively hunted their son down several times while threatening to vivisect him, and Vlad will bring that up—even though he was often the instigator of it.”

Before Helena had the time to react to that, he continued, “and Jazz is their daughter—she’s the only sane one, she’s a psychologist.”

Helena made a moue of distaste. Wes smiled ruefully. “Yeah, but she’s a good therapist. Kinda invasive sometimes, but good. Oh,” he remembered, “but since she’s all about forgiveness, they’ll also probably invite Dan, because Jazz thinks that what happened in another timeline stays in another timeline—even if what happened in said timeline was Dan killing the entire Justice League shortly before causing the actual apocalypse.”

Helena blinked at him sleepily. “Dan, Dani, and Danny,” she said dryly. “One’s a clone, one’s an alternative universe version who killed the Justice League, and one’s a ghost.”

“They’re all half-ghosts, actually,” Wes corrected her. “But yes. You can see why it’s complicated?”

“And where do you fit into all this?” Helena asked. “I mean, I can’t picture a tiny Question running around underfoot and getting mixed up in afterlife shenanigans—oh wait. Wait, I can.”

“Ah,” Wes said. “Well. I tried to kill Danny, of course.” 

Helena blinked at him again, significantly less sleepily this time.

“Also they have shit food,” Wes changed the subject. “And I don’t want to deal with politics.”

“Are they… Republicans?” Helena hedged.

“No,” Wes said with a small laugh, “Sam would never let that happen. But Danny might end up inheriting the throne of the Underworld at some point—it’s all very up in the air at the moment—so every conversation with him and Sam ends up devolving into brainstorming potential new structures of government. Currently I think they’ve settled on an anarchistic commune?”

“Danny… who is the one you tried to kill,” Helena said, slowly.

“Yes.”

Helena took a deep breath. “And you’re still going?” she double checked.

Wes shrugged as best he could from his position on the bed (half propped on his side so he could face Helena better). “Look, you don’t make Madeline Fenton sad on Thanksgiving,” he said. 

“I’m going to get your entire backstory from this, aren’t I?” Helena realized, before flopping back onto the mattress.

“Do you still want to come?” Wes asked. She could back out, he wouldn’t blame her. Hell, if it weren’t for Dani and Jazz, he wouldn’t be going, moping Maddie or not. 

“Oh I didn’t say that,” Helena refuted, hitting him lightly on the arm. “If you think I’m missing the chance to look at your high school yearbooks, you’re dead wrong.”

Wes suppressed the instinctive smirk at the pun. Then he remembered that she’d understand that it was a pun soon enough and couldn’t suppress the smile.

“And,” Helena continued, pulling up the covers a bit more, “if that’s all…?” she trailed off leadingly. 

Wes paused. He could tell her about Sam and Danny and Tucker’s will-they-won’t-they situationship—but he probably shouldn’t. “The rest can wait,” he said.

---

Two weeks after that conversation, Helena was already regretting letting Wes leave the conversation until later. Yes, she’d read his entire dossier on the Fentons and their likely guests, and he’d tried to go over them again during the car ride over, but—well, some of what he said was just a little too outlandish to be believed.

(And yes, she knew objectively that her incredulity probably had something to do with his curse, mitigating effects of Gotham contamination aside, but she still felt guilty about being unable to pay attention to her boyfriend.)

(And how on earth did she start dating the Question of all people, and why was it the most stable and healthiest relationship she’d ever had?)

All that to say, when Wes opened the door to the Fentons’ place (with gritted teeth and tense shoulders), she wasn’t nearly prepared for the chaos that awaited them.

A wave of sound washed over them, so strong that Helena only managed to retain her composure due to long exposure to Black Canary. It sounded like—techno-death metal, raging against the machine and calling for war against the establishment? Helena cast a glance over to Wes, whose nose was wrinkled like he’d smelled something distasteful and was muttering something about how if “Maddie was using one of her experimental ecto-powered air fryers again when he’d specifically told her he was inviting a human—”

Then the music changed to something equally loud, but distinctly Egyptian. Helena wasn’t super familiar with Arabic, but she was pretty sure the recording was saying something about love and passion and ruin and maybe birds?

“Um,” Helena shouted hesitantly. “Should I bring out ear plugs?”

Then the song (which Helena finally placed as Umm Khultum’s Al-Atlal, purely because she’d done some research into Umm Khultum after having to babysit Damian on patrol once—the less said about that experience, the better) abruptly switched to Goodnight Saigon by Billy Joel. Helena could hear a loud groan in response. “Come on, Sam!” a male voice echoed from the other room—somehow audible over the din, which was admittedly impressive. “We agreed that I had music rights!”

“Ah,” Wes said, “that would be Sam and Tucker fighting over what music to deafen us with. Apologies, most everyone in this house has some form of hearing impairment—too many explosions when growing up.”

In the distance, a female voice shouted something back, though completely unintelligible. 

Helena shrugged. “I mean,” she said loudly to be heard over the new song (this time the Imperial March from Star Wars), “I’ve worked with Canary, it’s not the worst thing I’ve heard.”

Wes pulled out some ear plugs and handed them to her. She took them from him gratefully. 

In Wes’ breast pocket, Felicity piped up, “So, do I get some of those too?”

Wes rolled his eyes. Helena stifled a smile. “You should just be grateful I brought you here at all, Felicity. But yes, now that you mention it,” he said, “we should go to the basement. That’s probably where they’re keeping Dan until the dinner’s ready.”

Helena quirked her eyebrows. “Is the basement where they keep all their family members?” she asked, following Wes as he began his way into the house. “Or just the megalomaniacal ones?” 

Before Wes could answer, a woman rounded the corner angrily, before coming to an abrupt halt at the sight of them. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she said, taking in the sight of Wes in all of his blue-suited glory. She reached into her pocket to shut the music off. 

“Sam,” Wes greeted with a smile.

Sam wore combat boots, black jeans and a dark purple sweater, which matched her startlingly purple eyes. Helena refrained from asking about them—from what Wes had told her, they could have been contact lenses, but they stood an equal chance of being completely natural. Instead, Helena stood back as Sam sighed in exasperation. 

“I gave you those suits as a fucking joke,” she complained, before hugging Wes anyway. Helena could faintly hear Felicity make a muffled noise of complaint at being crushed. 

Sam drew back and looked closely at Wes’ lapel. “So,” she said, dragging out the syllable, “what’s with the possessed doll? Unless she’s the infamous Helena we’ve heard almost nothing about, and the frankly out-of-your-league brunette behind you is a paid actress.” To Helena, in a loud stage whisper, she continued, “blink twice if he’s kidnapped you.”

Helena laughed. “No, I’m Helena,” she said, offering a hand to shake. “And you must be Sam, right? Q—I mean, Wes has told me so… little about you.”

“I gave you a dossier,” Wes said, mildly miffed.

“Half of it was redacted,” Helena pointed out with a teasing smile. 

Before Wes could respond with a similar quip, Felicity piped up. “Uh, it’s he/him pronouns, thank you,” he said to Sam. “You can’t just assume that I’m a woman because I’m inside of a female presenting doll. Weren’t you supposed to be the social justice warrior with an over-inflated sense of self righteousness? Ask first.” 

Helena tensed slightly as Sam blinked at the doll, then slowly looked up at Wes. “Wes,” she said lowly. “Did you describe me as a social justice warrior with an over-inflated sense of self righteousness?”

Wes cleared his throat. “Of course I did,” he said. 

Sam stared at him with narrowed eyes for a long moment, before grinning. “Good!” Helena suppressed a laugh, and Sam continued, putting her hands on her hips, “Now, who is your charming companion, and why on earth would you subject not just one but two plus ones to this disaster of an event?”

“Ah, he’s not my plus one,” Wes said enigmatically. Felicity did his best to wave. Given that he was wrapped in a tiny doll-sized straight jacket (it was made of a repurposed Barbie doll dress and was a bright shiny silver), it didn’t go well. 

“Hi!” he said. “This man promised me he wouldn’t banish me back to hell if I went to this party. Apparently he wants me to be a distraction for Dan?”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Wes, did you bring Dan a demon to snack on?”

“Well,” Wes said. Helena looked at him sidelong, but when he didn’t elaborate further, she decided not to make the obvious “snacc” joke that immediately sprang to mind. 

Sam snorted. “Of course you did,” she said, and shook her head ruefully. “Alright, well Dan’s in the kitchen—apparently Maddie wanted to show off some new recipes and Dan is her,” she bit back laughter, “captive audience.”

Helena looked between them. “Chains or zip-ties?” she asked. “Just because if it’s chains, it might rattle a bit during dinner, and it’ll be hard to hear everyone. Oh!” she said, remembering that she’d packed an entire arsenal for this trip, “If you want, I’ve got some rope in my purse.”

Sam looked at her in surprise, before smiling. “Oh, you’re going to fit right in,” she said. She began pulling her down the hallway towards the living room. “Now, Wes has told me absolutely nothing of substance about you except that you’re a good shot. Guns or archery?”

“Archery,” she said, gamely following. Wes trailed after them. “I’ve heard very little about you as well, but Wes is pretty tight lipped.” They passed by what was clearly the gaming/TV room. It was also likely the source of the music earlier, given the giant speakers and the man that roughly matched the description of Tucker Foley that Wes had provided. Helena nodded at him and he gave her a wave. 

(Something about the anticipatory way he was looking at her made Helena somewhat wary—as if he knew some deep dark secret and was just waiting for the chance to spring it at the worst moment to cause chaos. Still, Helena worked with Barbara Gordon, and no one could be worse than Babs. She just… resolved to be cautious around him in the future.)

They passed the room and Sam continued, “Yes, Wes is very bad at telling people things.”

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t cursed me—” Wes called from behind them, with such an ease of familiarity that it was clear that this was a very common rebuttal.

As if on queue, Tucker poked his head out from the gaming room behind them, and another man shoved his through—and Helena meant through—the wall right next to her. “It was high school, get over it!” they (including Sam) chorused. 

Helena just barely stopped from reflexively drawing her crossbow to shoot the man in front of her. She had not been prepared for phase shifters popping up three inches from her face.

“Well so was my murder attempt, Danny, and you haven’t stopped reminding me about that, have you?” Wes needled.

“We only cursed you because you kept talking,” the tall, black haired and blue eyed man—who was absolutely jacked, what was he, Superman’s cousin?—said, walking the rest of the way through the wall.

“And I only tried to kill you because you made me think I was going insane and nothing mattered, so who won that round, really?” Wes replied with only a slight tinge of bitterness.

“Wait, wait, hold up,” Helena said, raising her hands. “You guys are the ones who cursed him?”

“Did Wes not tell you?” Sam asked, genuinely surprised.

“I didn’t even tell her I was cursed,” Wes pointed out, “I had to ask someone else to do that for me. She’s not liminal, remember?”

Helena, remembering that incredibly strange conversation with Batman about her love life of all things, suppressed a shudder. “And I appreciated it,” Helena said. “Made a lot of things make sense. But—I thought you’d just touched an artifact wrong, or gotten too deep into a conspiracy and someone needed to keep you quiet.” 

“Well,” Wes said dryly, “you’re not wrong.”

“He kept trying to reveal my identity to the government who wanted to dissect me,” the man—Danny, Helena would wager—said easily. “And he stalked me a bunch and tried to get footage, so we had to take some precautions to make sure no one would believe him—and then the added bonus of that was that the more Wes talked about it, the more ironclad my identity became.”

“Instead of just talking to me,” Wes hissed, “and asking me to stop, like a normal person.”

“Oh, please, none of us were normal in Amity High, that’s what was so great about it!” Danny said with false cheer. In response, Wes threw a knife at him, which sailed harmlessly through Danny’s intangible form and embedded itself into the wall. 

Never one to let a knife go to waste, Helena reached around Danny to pull it out. Upon closer inspection, the walls were rather pocketed from knife marks. Not to mention covered in the remnants of half-cleaned scorch marks. 

Knife in hand, Helena was tempted to stab Danny as well. The curse that Wes had was one of the worst things she could imagine living with, and the thought that he was going to Thanksgiving with the people who’d placed it on him was—she took a deep breath. Clearly they’d resolved their issues, and she wasn’t going to stir the pot during an already volatile meeting. She’d just—bring it up later, when they’d gotten home. Maybe recommend that Wes talk to Dinah about it. Circumspectly, since she also wouldn't be able to believe him. Hm. Were there any ghost therapists he could go to?  

“Right!” Danny said cheerfully, glossing over Wes’ most recent murder attempt with ease. “What has Wes told you about this madhouse?”

“A lot,” Helena said. “Though it was hard to believe,” she said pointedly. Danny’s smile only barely faltered.

“Right, well, here’s a basic rundown: I’m half ghost, Sam is buddies with a plant god, Tucker is the reincarnation of an Egyptian pharaoh, Valerie is a superhero that rides a red hoverboard and should be showing up soon, my “godfather—”” he made a face, “—is Vlad Masters and is literally Obsessed with me, my parents are mad scientists, there’s an evil version of me tied up in the kitchen right now, my sister-slash-cousin is my clone, and Jazz is completely normal and said she’d be late, so we can start without her.”

Helena blinked. She’d technically already learned all that information, but—it was easier to remember, now. Which meant she should probably thank him for the rundown, even if passive aggressively. 

…Nah.

Wes heaved a gusty sigh. “Alas,” Wes said. “And here I was hoping to get to talk to the only one of you who doesn’t make me want to tear my hair out. A true shame, Helena,” he bemoaned, “I’m afraid we’ll have to make due with the superior Dani.”

“Yes, my point exactly,” Danny nodded, completely serious. “You’re completely human, right?” At the look Wes shot him, he raised his hands defensively. “Hey, I don’t know what kind of people you run into in your profession! As far as I know, she’s a river spirit you bribed with a pot of gold.”

Helena rolled her eyes. “Helena Bertinelli, and yes, all human. I’m from Gotham.” she introduced herself, offering her hand to shake.

“Ah,” Danny said knowingly, and shook her hand. “Danny Fenton slash Phantom, possible future high king of the infinite realms. Once I die all the way and an official battle royale is held, that is,” he clarified. “Welcome to the Fenton household. Now, Wes, who is this darling little demon?”

The demon gulped audibly. “I’m… Felicity, sir,” he said. “It's an honor to meet you.”

“And you’re here because…” Danny trailed off.

Wes, in an act of mercy, filled the silence. “He’s Dan’s plus one,” he said. “I just had to fetch him from lock up. Dan doesn’t know he’s coming, but I assure you it will be hilarious.”

Despite being made of plastic, the doll gave the distinct impression of blushing bright red.

Danny cooed. “Aww, Dan has friends?” He wiped away a tear. “He’s come so far from the inter-universal threat he used to be, how sweet.”

“Hey!” Felicity snapped. “Dan is just as deadly as he ever was—if anything, that white cell torture stint you put him through just gave him more ammunition! He killed Abaddon in two minutes flat just because they refused to acknowledge their minions’ working rights! And he conquered an entire section of the Demonlands using just his strategy, bloodthirstyness and pure strength! What have you been up to, ‘future King of the Infinite Realms?’” The tone Felicity used made it clear that he didn’t consider that title remotely impressive. “Killed any more old men who were recovering from solitary confinement recently?” 

In hindsight, maybe bringing Felicity was a bad idea, Helena realized. Fortunately, Danny seemed charmed by his outburst, rather than offended.

“Aww, Dan has a boyfriend,” he cheered. “You’re so cute. Let me take you to him, he’s in the kitchen.”

Wes and Danny did a trade off, and Felicity was gently escorted through the wall.

Helena stared after them, speechless.

“Yeah,” Sam commiserated. “It gets a little wild around here. But hey, if Wes brought you, you’ll fit right in.” With a reassuring pat on the shoulder, she left the room, thankfully using the doorway. As she did, she muttered under her breath, “Who would’ve thought that Dan cared about unions.”

Helena looked at Wes, who was rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

“Look, I did warn you,” he said.

The unfortunate part was that he had.

“Just say the word and I’ll shoot them at least once.”

Wes furrowed his brow. “Why?”

“They cursed you,” Helena said. “I mean, I can overlook it if you want to, but apparently they drove you to madness and made you—you—” she emphasized, because prior to today she would have said that Wes was the least likely person she knew to kill someone out of anger, “—want to kill them, so. Some light shooting seems only fair.”

Wes seemed genuinely touched and Helena immediately resolved that, even if he said not to shoot them, she would at the very least stab someone before the night was over. “There’s no need,” he said. “They didn’t know that it would make people disbelieve everything I said—they thought it was just a secret keeping spell. And it worked on them, too, so when I told them what it was doing, they couldn’t believe me.”

Helena took a brief moment to imagine what that must have been like and barely managed to hold back a shudder. “So it’s water under the bridge,” Wes said with a face of such deliberately crafted nonchalance that Helena didn’t believe him for a second. “Anyway, we should head to the dining room, because I have to see Dan’s face.” 

There was an unholy screech, and Helena truly did mean unholy, because it shook the walls and made a nearby vase fall to the floor. Luckily, it didn’t break—though it was also made of reinforced shatter proof glass, she realized as she picked it up.

“This way,” Wes said, and led her to the kitchen.

Once they reached the doorway, Helena stopped and raised an eyebrow. A girl who looked similar to Danny but was distinctly younger (and glowing slightly) was floating around the room cackling like a mad woman. In between the laughter, she kept chanting,, “Dan has a boyfriend, Dan has a boyfriend, Dan has a—”

Meanwhile a man, bound head to toe in glowing chains to a rolling chair, which was itself chained to a metal loop in the floor, was snarling “—ut your throat and feed you to the fucking dogs, Dani, and by dogs I mean hellhounds—”

“Which you can get because you have a demon boyfriend?” Danny chimed in.

“Don’t you fucking start—” the man snarled. He looked almost identical to him, but a tad more muscular and somehow pointier, with sharper teeth and red eyes. This would be Dan, Helena presumed.

On the other side of the room stood Tucker, evidently having made his way through a different route, as Helena and Wes hadn’t run into him on the way to the kitchen. He’d just finished opening a bag of chocolate popcorn and was shoving a handful of it into his mouth. Sam sidled up next to him and stole some out of the bag, which he helpfully angled for her ease of access. 

Wes carefully crept inside, lounging against the wall to get the best view of the ensuing argument. Helena, who wasn’t suicidal, stayed safely outside of the room (and the line of fire). 

The argument continued for a good while longer, before Dan finally shouted, “We’re not fucking dating!” His words rattled the china and the windows again. The silence from that lasted a few moments, and Helena could actually see Felicity wince. 

Then, footsteps sounded.

“Now, now, sweeties, what’s so exciting that we’re using our wails indoors?” a woman asked, clearly coming back from the bathroom. She was wearing a skin tight teal lab/hazmat suit that would almost look suspiciously like a super suit, if it hadn’t also been covered in flour. 

None of the three halfas moved a single sullen inch. Maddie tsked and made her way to kitchen island, grabbing an apron from a hook on the wall and tying it on. “Sam? Tucker?”

“Danny and Dani were teasing Dan for his demon friend. Acquaintance. Plus one. It’s unclear,” Sam said, popcorn having mysteriously disappeared.

“Ah, I see.” It was the single most disappointed ‘I see’ that Helena had ever heard in her entire life. She was disappointed in herself, and Maddie hadn’t even looked at her. She found herself awkwardly adjusting her grip on the vase that she was still holding, feeling the odd urge to hide behind it.

“Well, Danny, Dani, we don’t disparage other peoples’ relationships in this household—exepting Vlad, of course. So how about you apologize to your brother, and his…” Maddie trailed off leadingly.

Dan huffed. “I barely know the guy,” he muttered, but his cheeks were just a bit green around the edges. Given that the girl was glowing green, Helena presumed that was somewhat close to a blush.

“Oh no, right, yeah,” Felicity said, soldiering on. “I mean, you come down to hell loads of times—” he cut himself off before he could say anything more incriminating, like, “I'm sure you never even noticed me.”

Felicity had clearly not meant to say that last part out loud, and tried to duck his head to avoid everyone’s gaze. But unfortunately for him, they’d all heard it—even Dan, who was so studiously avoiding everyone's gaze that he could probably teach a MasterClass on the skill.

Oh my god, Sam mouthed to Tucker, who replied with, I know right?

What kind of highschool bullshit, Helena wondered, feeling a wave of intense second hand embarrassment on his behalf. A few feet away from her, Wes radiated contentment at a job well done. At least someone was happy.

“Well, my colleagues and I are calling him Felicity,” he said, drawing all the attention to him—and as a result, Helena in the doorway. “Because, quite sensibly, he doesn’t want us to know his name.”

“Hey, Felicity is a bitchin’ name,” Felicity said, taking the out for all it was worth. “I mean, come on, that shit is Latin for happy, bro. Everyone should be fucking scared of a demon named happy. Happy with what? Your violent demise, that’s what.”

“Isn’t it… a girl's name?” Maddie asked, politely.

“So? Do you know how many tits Beezlebub has? More than he has any right to, that's how many. Y'all humans are way too obsessed with “traditional gender roles” and physical manifestations and bodies,” Felicity said the word with audible distaste, “and that patriarchy bullshit, when everyone knows that the important stuff is all in the mind and the soul and magical power.”

Sam’s eyes were slowly widening with fascination. “I think I like you,” she said, sounding somewhat surprised. She gave Dan an approving nod that somehow effortlessly communicated “you have good taste and I’m disturbed by it; also I’m incredibly confused about how you managed to land this guy.”

Dan glared back, viciously.

With the conflict clearly having wound down, Maddie smiled. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Felicity. Do you have any dietary restrictions?”

Felicity blinked. “Well, I mean. I’m kinda in a doll right now, so… I can’t really eat? And there aren't any taste buds either so… whatever you make is fine.”

She nodded. “I’d shake your hand, but I imagine that Wes put you in that straight jacket for a reason—or is it an aesthetic choice?”

“No, yeah, that's fully functional. I kept trying to eat that fucker’s face,” Felicity jerked his head in Wes’ direction.

“And you didn’t manage it,” Wes said smugly. “So fuck off, Felicity.”

---

After a bit more back and forth (and once something started burning badly enough for them to smell it), Maddie kicked them out of the kitchen because “they’d distracted her too long, and now she’d have to remake the pies from scratch.” 

Since Helena had already eaten (and had packed several ration bars in her purse), she wasn’t too fussed with dinner getting pushed back even more. Especially as Wes had helpfully informed her that whatever food would be served would likely be “highly toxic” and that she “shouldn’t consume it under circumstances.” 

Still, everyone else grumbled for several seconds before lapsing into an awkward silence. It was as if, having teased Dan and Felicity and antagonized Wes, they’d completely run out of casual conversation topics. 

Eventually, Helena spoke up. “So,” Helena said, deciding that she really couldn’t handle the quiet any longer, “Wes gave me a dossier on you guys, but it really only focused on species and potential conversational landmines, not anything personal. What do you do for a living?”

This managed to set off an amiable round of small talk, interspersed with Dan and Felicity reminiscing about the gruesome details of their jobs. (Apparently sections of Hell were run like a corporate office; on reflection, it made a disturbing amount of sense.) 

Danny, as Wes had said, worked for NASA as an engineer. When Helena had asked, politely, about what made him want to work for NASA, he’d visibly hesitated, before saying something about an Obsession with stars (a quick glance at Wes confirmed that this was both an Important Secret and also incredibly surprising that he was willing to share it with them, so she deliberately kept her face neutral and didn’t ask follow up questions) and that while he couldn’t be an astronaut for obvious reasons, working on the machines was good enough. 

Helena knew a bit about space faring machines—working in a space station makes it almost impossible not to pick up something—but obviously not as much as Danny. Asking him about his favorite planets and nebula set him on a five minute rant (that Sam and Tucker mouthed along to at times, looking at him fondly) about how the James Webbs Space Telescope had allowed NASA to take so many more photos of stars and discover entirely new planets, and how it was a marvel of engineering and he was constantly so excited to see what would come next—

And then at some point he transitioned into a diatribe against Boeing, apparently for canceling its contracts with the government, which Helena tried to pay attention to, even though she was not a mechanic and didn’t give a fuck about planes. 

This allowed Sam to segue into talking about governmental oversight and safety regulations and how capitalism squeezes the life out of companies and creates a toxic work culture, which led to Felicity commenting that actually, capitalism was working out great for Hell—it was way easier to corrupt souls now. He did acknowledge that unions were important, but only for demons, who “deserved them more”—and of course, he managed to gush about how Dan was leading the charge towards workers rights in Hell’s infamous torture division.

Sam immediately turned to press Dan on when he turned into a socialist, and Dan snapped something about how he had to pick something up after her nagging him all the time, which made Sam genuinely tear up.

(To Wes, Helena whispered, “Why does she look so happy about that?”

Wes turned to murmur into her ear. “Dan’s too emotionally incompetent to say he missed them, so this—carying out Sam’s life work—is probably the closest they’re going to get it.”

“Ah,” Helena nodded in understanding, before tuning back into the conversation.)

Dan, uncomfortable with how the room’s attention had shifted onto him, started talking about LexCorp, which Felicity apparently adored and Sam hated for exactly the same reasons and Tucker despised for completely different reasons, and insisted on chiming in with his two cents about how the recent phone updates were useless—and about fifty minutes later, the doorbell rang.

By this point, Helena and Danny had bowed out of the conversation, and were watching the others passionately debate the evolving trends of animal cruelty in food consumption across time and species. The conversation topic had been sparked by Helena offhandedly mentioning that she was thinking about going vegan. (This had been a suggestion by Wes—at any time that the conversation seemed to lull, he’d instructed her to mention something about environmentalism. Helena was pleased to report that it had gone incredibly well.)

Dani-with-an-i and Wes, on the other hand, had disappeared into another room a few minutes after the conversation had shifted away from tech companies. Helena didn’t know what they were talking about, but she assumed it had something to do with one of Wes’ conspiracies; shortly after Lex Luthor’s disappearance had been mentioned—as a travesty (by Felicity), as a grand triumph (by Sam) and as a disappointment because he’d never be able to be proven to be an utter hack (by Tucker)—Dani’d given Wes an odd look, and had pulled him aside once the conversation had shifted to more mundane topics. 

Still, this meant that when the doorbell rang, Dani (who was closest to the door) quickly called “I’ll get it!” and Wes came back into the main area nonchalantly. His hands were pushed casually into his pockets and his back was slouched the perfect amount, and Helena knew instantly that something about that conversation between him and Dani hadn’t gone as planned.

“Fifteen says it’s Vlad,” he said.

“No bet,” everyone in the room said in unison—even Felicity, who’d learned better than to bet against Wes after the third time they’d played Coup together. 

“Curses,” Wes bemoaned dramatically, “it’s like none of you like losing money anymore.”

The sound of the door opening shut everyone up, and Dani’s voice drifted down the hall. “Oh.” Her disdain was palpable. “It's you.”

A somewhat raspy voice, with a distinct upperclass accent, responded, “Yes, it is. Hello, Dani.” As if on cue, every person in the room rolled their eyes. This, Helena assumed, was no doubt the infamous Vlad Masters. The supervillain, “well, he’s not as bad as Lex Luthor” Vlad, whose experiments at the very least never featured live test subjects, even if his company made some incredibly dangerous killer robots. Which Helena obviously had no knowledge of, because she and Wes had certainly never broken into any of his labs together, no officer, not them. 

She shot Wes a raised eyebrow, before discretely tapping the pocket of her purse which had the collapsible bow that Wes had gotten her for Valentine’s day. 

Wes considered her unspoken question about whether she could shoot him, before inclining his head. If the opportunity presents itself, go for it, he indicated, tapping his watch twice.

Meanwhile, Dani was stomping back into the room, exasperated. 

“The douche has arrived!” she announced with a grandiose flourish of her hands. “And you all can deal with that, because Helena and I haven’t talked yet and I’ve been dying to meet her—” at this, Sam, Tucker, and Vlad all groaned at the pun, while Danny and Dan grinned, clearly sharing a similar sense of humor— “ever since Wes mentioned her the last time we hung out.”

“Wait, Wes mentioned her to you?” Danny asked, somewhat offended. “I only learned about her this morning.”

“I had to hear about it from his suspicious work colleague,” Tucker said, shooting Wes a look that felt… ominous. “I had to do a whole research binge to figure out her name. You made me internet stalk you, man! Not cool.”

“Wait, you guys didn’t know about Helena?” Sam asked, confused. “I mean, I had to tease it out of him at first, but once he started talking about her he wouldn't shut up.”

Wes was steadily growing more and more pink, and Helena had to work hard not to blush as well. Fortunately, before she had to say anything, Vlad rounded the corner to the living room. “Ah, you’ve invited Weston, then?” he commented, shooting them a disdainful glance. “Are you still doing your detective work?”

“It pays the bills,” Wes said calmly. 

“Hmm,” Vlad said, looking down his metaphorical nose. “I see. And your colorfully dressed companion is?”

“Helena Bertinelli,” she said, fully prepared to throw the vase that she was still inexplicably holding from earlier—at this point, she’d been holding it for too long to put it down.

“Bertinelli… as in the disgraced mob boss?” he sneered delicately.

“And you’re Vlad Masters, right?” Helena said, cheerfully upbeat. “As in, the CEO of the failing Vladco which is only hanging on because you do shady, barely above the board business mergers with much better companies?” She leaned forward and asked, in mock sympathy, “how are you doing after Queen Industries’ most recent lawsuit against you? I heard it was a doozy.”

Vlad’s eyes narrowed, and Helena grinned at him with all of her teeth. There was a moment of silence, before he nodded once. “A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Bertinelli,” he said. 

“Oh, please,” she said, waving her hand airily. “Call me Helena.”

“Damn,” Tucker whistled, as the tension broke. “We just witnessed a murder today!”

“If Wes wasn’t dating you, I would,” Sam proclaimed loudly, to which Dani responded—

“Not if I got there first!”

“I loathe you all,” Vlad glared, before sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose. “My apologies, for the rabble, Helena. I’m glad that Weston, at least, has brought over a partner that actually suits him.”

“Don’t go throwing shade on Dash when he’s not here to punch you in the face,” Danny bristled.

“He never succeeded at punching me in the face,” Vlad pointed out dryly. “That was the problem.”

“Hey!”

In the midst of the airing of dirty laundry and rehashing of old slights that ensued, Dani squeezed her way to Helena and quickly dragged her through to another room—literally through, through several walls, in fact. Helena could feel the remnants of some of her internal organs being left behind her.

“Hi!” she said, excitedly, before pausing as Helena bent over to heave into the vase that she was still holding.

“Sorry,” Helena said, breathing deeply. “Sorry, just—” she vomited again. “Oh, wow, that’s way worse than when Ba—” she cut herself off before mentioning the Flash by name. “I mean—hoo, boy.” Dani hovered worriedly over her, hand awkwardly raised a few inches over Helena’s back, as if unsure if she should rub it soothingly or not.

Helena took a few more moments before her stomach settled. She stood straighter. “Hi. Dani, right? It’s nice to meet you.” She took a discrete scan of their surroundings. Apparently, whatever Dani wanted to talk to her about merited being flown to the roof. The roof was inexplicably covered in a large dome-like green forcefield, and Helena wisely decided not to ask about it.

“Yeah,” Dani said, before awkwardly flying a few more feet away to give Helena some more personal space. “Right, sorry, I thought that you’d probably phased before with Wes, so—I should have warned you, though, my bad.”

“That would have been appreciated, yes,” Helena said, before shaking her shoulders out to relax. “But it’s alright. Is there a reason you’ve pulled me away from the main group? Or should I be worried you’re planning on dropping me off the ledge,” Helena remarked, only half joking.

“Oh, right,” Dani said. “Um. So, I know you’re a super,” she blurted.

Helena raised her eyebrows skeptically. “Okay,” she said, drawing out the last syllable, clearly indicating that she thought Dani was crazy, but was willing to continue the conversation out of the goodness of her heart.

Dani huffed. “Oh, don’t try to deny it,” she said. “Wes and I literally destroyed Cadmus together, okay, I know you’re the Huntress.”

…Helena might have to reevaluate a few of the odd favors he’d asked her to help with a few months back, shortly before any trace of Cadmus basically disintegrated. “Right,” she said, privately resolving to ask her boyfriend about why he wanted blackmail material going forward, instead of just giving it to him. “Do you… need any superhero help? Because I’m not a member of the Justice League anymore,” and she didn’t express any bitterness at that statement, no siree, it had been almost fifteen months since that had happened, and she was over it, “so if you need to get in contact with anyone—”

“Oh, no,” Dani said, shaking her head vigorously. “If I wanted to talk to the League, I’d just get Mxyzptlk to introduce me to Superman—actually, I might do that,” she said to herself, “could be fun. But no, I—well, you work with the Birds of Prey, right?”

“Yes,” Helena said slowly. “Though I don’t go into Gotham as much as I did.” When Dani didn’t say anything further, clearly struggling with trying to put what she wanted into words, Helena took a guess. “Do you want to join us? Because Batman tends not to like meta supers in Gotham, but I’ve been itching to piss him off for a while, so I’d be happy to introduce you to—”

“No, no,” Dani said. “No, it’s just, I know that the Birds of Prey work with the Bats sometimes, and I was wondering if you could introduce me to Red Robin?” her voice got progressively higher as she continued. She was visibly nervous.

Helena couldn’t help herself, she chuckled. “Are you a fan?” she asked. “Personally I can’t say I see it, he’s a bit of a robot sometimes—”

Dani shook her head. “No, it’s because he’s in the Teen Titans. With Superboy. And I figured it would go over a bit better to ask Red Robin for an introduction than just showing up at Superboy’s house; I remember my early days after being made, and I didn’t trust anyone, I don’t want to ambush him at Titan’s Tower.”

Oh, Helena remembered. Right, Dani was a clone.

“Of course,” Helena cut her off as she was rambling something about the importance of finding zones of safety for child development, and how apparently according to Jazz her decision to go traveling basically as soon as her brainwashing was undone had “stunted her emotional maturity.” “I’ll text Oracle right now, yeah?”

“Really?” Dani perked up.

“And I’ll swear them to secrecy before I tell them anything sensitive,” Helena promised, pulling out her phone. She quickly pulled open her texting app and scrolled until she found Barbara’s contact—an eye emoji surrounded by sparkles.

Hey Babs, she typed, do you have time to meet up for a coffee on Monday? I’ll be in Gotham for a case, and I’d love to chat about some stuff. She paused for a moment, before adding, relationship related. Barbara might not pick up for case work, but she’d definitely rearrange her schedule for a chance to gossip about her personal life.

“There,” Helena said, putting her phone away, “done. I can’t make any guarantees, of course, but I’ll see what I can—” she cut off as Dani launched herself at her, squeezing incredibly tight around her chest. “Dani—” she choked, “strength!”

“Right, sorry,” Dani said, hurriedly letting go. “Still, thanks so much! I—seriously, you have no idea how much this means to me.”

“Anytime,” Helena said. “Though, I have to ask—why me? Wes works with Batman too.”

Dani grimaced. “Yeah, but—Wes tries not to let his Amity stuff overlap with his work at the Justice League. And he doesn’t want any of us to know about him being the Question—I only know about it because we’ve run into each other a few times during his cases.” 

Helena didn’t wholly believe her explanation (you don’t call someone who you’ve only worked with a few times to take down extra-governmental paramilitary organizations, after all). Still, she didn’t mention it.

They exchanged numbers, and Dani promised to hit her up the next time she was in Star or Gotham, “—and maybe even tag along on patrol; I never did the superhero schtick that Danny and Dan did, but it seems kinda fun sometimes.” 

Helena laughed, and promised that it wasn’t nearly as glamorous as it looked sometimes. “The sheer amount of dirt I have to pick out from underneath my nails is enough to start a garden, I swear.”

This segued into a brief discussion of nail care, as apparently Dani had never had her nails done professionally, and Helena vowed to rectify that immediately. Admittedly, she didn’t often paint her nails because they could be a hassle when trying to shoot and they always chipped, but it was a crime that Dani had never tried it.

As they were making plans to go to one of Helena’s favorite spas in Star—because apparently Dani had never been to a spa either; someone had utterly failed in raising her—they were interrupted by an unholy shrieking noise. Helena grabbed her crossbow reflexively, aiming it at… a flashing light. 

“Is that—”

“A repurposed fire alarm used as a dinner bell?” Dani chirped, before holding her hand out. “Yes, yes it is.”

Helena looked at Dani’s outstretched hand before looking back up at her face. Dani’s eyes danced. Helena sighed in resignation. “You’re lucky I still have this vase,” she said, and grabbed on.

The world blurred and Helena squeezed her eyes shut. “Fuck,” she said as her surroundings solidified again. “That is unbearable.” She opened her eyes and did her best not to jump at the stranger standing right in front of her.

“Dani, have you already started making an alliance with Wes’ mysterious partner?” a well manicured hand took her vase away. “I’m sorry for her—it’s like she was raised in the wild,” the woman—black, long hair tied up in a ponytail, clearly a bit windswept from outside; most likely Valerie Grey, Helena noted—said sarcastically.

“Oh, I’m sorry, some of us weren’t raised in ivory towers, your imperial majesty,” Dani retorted, before pulling her in for a hug. “Val! When did you get here?”

“Sometime when you and your new bestie were off gossiping,” Val said, hugging Dani with one arm, the other passing the vase to another woman—Jazz, most likely. 

The redheaded woman shook her head. “Dani, did you seriously take this girl flying? I mean, at least you gave her a vase to keep the vomit,” she said, eying the vase dubiously. 

Helena refrained from mentioning that she’d picked up the vase by accident. “Oh, it’s alright,” she said. “You must be Jazz, right?”

“Actually, I’m Danee with two ‘e’s,” she said, utterly serious. 

Helena hesitated, unable to tell if she was lying, and looked at Val, whose lips twitched. “Nice to meet you, Danee with two ‘e’s,” Helena said, and shook her hand. “Your parents must have been really uncreative, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” Jazz nodded. “We’re just glad they didn’t actually name us Phantom–with how obsessed with ghosts they were, it was a legitimate possibility.”

Helena laughed politely. “So, Val, Wes tells me that you ride a motorcycle? What kind?”

This topic was sufficient to occupy them as they made their way to the dining room. Apparently, Val was the only one in the entire group that didn’t ride a FentonMobile—which was why Jazz and Val had come together, as Jazz’s car refused to drive anywhere near Amity Park, and had stalled out five feet from the town line. 

“And I guess you couldn’t just call AAA?” Helena said, entering the dining room. She quickly scanned the table to see if there was any kind of seating chart. Wes hadn’t showed up yet, but he’d probably want to sit near Jazz and Dani, so Helena wandered towards the end of the table and pulled out a chair—coincidentally, across from Dan and Felicity, who’d both been chained into their respective seats. 

(Felicity was perched on a tiny doll chair which had been glued to a brick and surrounded by protective runes, and Helena had to resist cooing at the sight. For a demon, he was oddly charming, if you could ignore the violent outbursts.)

Jazz snorted and settled in next to her. “I mean, can you imagine? “Hey, operator, my car stalled out because its in-system AI refuses to get any closer to my house. Could you send a tow-truck to take me to my Thanksgiving reunion? Don’t worry, you’ll recognize it by the neon sign out front. Oh, you won’t need to take me back—the AI is perfectly fine going away from Amity, just not towards it.””

“Wow,” Dan chimed in. “I think that car is the only one with sense in this entire house.”

Sam, Tucker, Wes and Dani all entered from the living room, with Vlad filing in behind them. He sat on the other side of the table—far from Dani, who was clearly much more comfortable the more distance there was between them. 

“Now, Tucker,” he was continuing, “have you acquired a job since last we spoke? Or are you still making video games.” He reached towards the center of the table and grabbed a bottle of wine, pouring himself a generous glass.

Tucker rolled his eyes and explained that he was still quite employed, thank you, the video game market was booming, actually.

Vlad made some dismissive noise and turned to Sam, who narrowed her eyes at him. “And what is it you’ve been doing, Samantha? Still coasting on your parents' money?”

Oh, he’s the rich, judgemental wine aunt, Helena realized. That made… a lot of Wes’ stories make more sense, actually.

Sam rolled her eyes. “At least my parents had money,” she said. “Don’t know about you, but I think inherited wealth is just the tiniest bit more ethical than mind controlling people to give you their fortunes, don’t you?”

Wes settled in next to Helena. “Are you alright?” he asked quietly.

Helena nodded. “Phasing sucks, but aside from that, yeah. You?”

“Adequate,” he says, meaning good, but looking forward to going home. “Hey, Jazz,” he said, louder. “Nice to see you! How’s the job?”

Helena widened her eyes. “Jazz? Wes, I think you’re mistaken—this is Danee with two ‘e’s.” Wes snorted.

Jazz happily responded with details about her job as a psychologist at Arkham asylum, what the hell—for several minutes. Across from them, Dan was hanging on to Jazz’s every word, even though he was clearly trying not to appear interested. 

In the middle of Helena talking about Poison Ivy and Harley’s second wedding—Jazz had taken the news that Helena worked with the Birds of Prey with remarkable calm, only shooting Wes one glance—Maddie poked her head in from the kitchen, before sighing. “Oh, honestly, is Jack still in the basement?”

As if on cue, both Dan and Vlad made a face.

“You did kick him out of the main level,” Tucker pointed out.

“Well, yes, but that’s because he kept bothering me in the kitchen!” Maddie said. 

Dan muttered, “And by bothering she means “burning all the casseroles.”” 

“The dinner bell rang ten minutes ago,” Maddie continued, exasperated. “Oh, could one of you go get him? He’s probably in an experiment right now.”

“I’d be happy to get him,” Vlad volunteered smoothly, standing from his chair. Danny shoved him back in his seat. 

“No,” Maddie said, sternly, and Vlad wilted like a sad puppy. “Danny?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Danny said, “you guys turned off the ecto-protectors, right? Because I don’t want to get electrocuted for interrupting Dad’s tinkering time.”

“Of course we—oh,” Maddie remembered, “actually we’re in the middle of an experiment that—”

“Then I’ll get him,” Val said, rolling her eyes. “I swear, this family,” she grumbled, before trudging down the hall. 

“Thank you, Valerie!” Maddie called after her, before turning to face the rest of the group. “Now, which one of you wants to help me move the food over?”

A deathly silence fell over the crowd. Most of them exchanged looks, clearly begging someone else to volunteer. 

Helena, confused by the sudden stillness, cleared her throat. “I can, if you want,” she said, before she was immediately interrupted by Sam.

“No, no, Helena, you’re a guest, you shouldn’t have to deal with the food yet,” Sam said, with a far too big smile. “I can get it.”

“No, really, it’s fine,” Helena said, standing up from her chair. “You’re vegan, Sam, I’m not going to make you move a dead bird. Wes, do you want to help me?”

Wes, who’d been taking a deep drink of his wine and clearly wasn’t prepared to be called on, started. “Uh,” he said, before glancing around the room. For some reason, Sam and Danny were shooting him death glares, while everyone else looked on the verge of laughter. He made some quick mental calculations, before saying, “Sure, Helena,” and putting his wine back down. 

For some reason, this appeared to be the cue for everyone else to stand up and follow them to the kitchen—except Vlad, who mumbled something about making sure that Dan and Felicity didn’t get up to anything nefarious, which was almost laughable.

“Why are they following us?” Helena signed to Wes quietly, cognizant of the fact that half the people in the room had superhearing. 

He twitched his fingers. “Food,” he signed back, with no further explanation.

“Alright, Helena, if you could take that casserole dish,” Maddie directed her once they reached the kitchen. “And Wes, could you get the cranberry sauce and gravy?”

Helena cast a glance at the turkey as Maddie went to lift it, and hid a wince. It looked well over twenty pounds, and Maddie was—well, a mad scientist, obviously, but mad scientists weren’t often the strongest people, and Maddie looked fairly slight, even for a woman her age. “Oh, I can take the turkey,” Helena volunteered.

Sam made a low, mournful sound, and Tucker whispered for her to shut up, Sam.

“Oh, that’s alright, dear,” Maddie said, “I can get it.”

“No, really,” Helena insisted, “it’s no problem.”

She went over to grab the turkey, before frowning. Was it… trembling?

Wes made an irritated noise. “Maddie,” he said warningly, “you did remember that Helena is uncontaminated, right?”

“Of course I did!” Maddie exclaimed. “I cleaned the oven and everything!” Helena reached out to grab the wooden platter it was on again, and the turkey jumped up and kicked her hand away, before growling somehow, even though it didn’t have a mouth. Its stuffing started to ooze out of it.

Reflexively, Helena grabbed the carving fork and stabbed it to the serving block. “Hell no,” Helena said. “Stay.” It wriggled, valiantly trying to escape once again, before subduing and hissing at her. 

“Uh uh,” Helena shook her head. “You are food, and you will remain food, understand? I don’t want to see any more escape attempts today—Maddie spent hours cooking you and you will honor that time commitment.” The turkey made a rude gesture, and Helena grabbed the carving knife, brandishing it at the place its head used to be. “Do you understand me?”

It grumbled a bit more, before falling still. Helena breathed deeply. “Wes, can you de-posses this thing or something?”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Wes responded calmly. “You did bring ration bars, yes?”

Helena rolled her eyes. “They have shit food,” she parodied him mockingly, before grabbing the turkey and turning to walk out. 

Clustered in the doorway were Sam and Danny, staring at her, jaws dropped. Behind them, Tucker was filming their faces, and Dani was filming Helena. They probably planned to combine the two videos into a reaction vid. 

“Would you move,” Helena asked politely, “this thing is about thirty pounds, and I’d like to put it down before it tries anything again.”

They hurriedly cleared the area, and Helena walked out. 

“Dude,” Danny said, catching up to her. “Your reflexes are insane.”

“I’m an archer,” Helena said dryly. “Comes with the territory.”

Entering the dining room again, she set the turkey down at the other end of the table, far away from her. It hesitatingly craned its neck around to see if there were any escape routes. Helena brandished the knife again. “Try it,” she hissed.

Wisely, it didn’t.

“So,” she said, settling back into her seat. Wes and Maddie entered with several more side dishes, and Tucker and Sam (who had evidently been coerced into helping out) brought the mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce—which fortunately remained motionless. “Is that a hazing ritual of some kind?”

Dan eyed her warily. “Did you just—threaten the turkey into letting itself be eaten?”

“Why, is it hard?” Helena said with a tight smile.

Felicity shuddered. “Dude, you’ve got no idea,” he said, in Abyssal speech that Helena only partly understood. “Those two—their house is fucking crazy, man. Last board game night? They had Trigon’s daughter and the Oracle of All there. Parallax’s host even showed up, man—”

“Oh, Hal,” Wes said, sitting down next to Helena. “He’s great, don’t let Felicity make you think otherwise.”

“Oh, babe, let’s not bring up Hal at the dinner table,” Helena said. “He’s not fit for polite company.”

Wes opened his mouth, undoubtedly to say that their company was in no way polite, before Helena kicked him gently under the table. “Of course,” he said.

Heavy footsteps sounded down the hall, and Dan’s face went sour. “Jazzypants!” a large man in a blindingly bright orange jumpsuit exclaimed, before rushing over to give her a hug so strong it lifted her off the floor. “It’s been too long—you should visit more often!”

Jazz frantically patted the man—Jack Fenton, Helena presumed—to let her go. “Breathe, dad,” she wheezed.

“Oh, right,” Jack dropped her. “Sorry, kiddo, sometimes I forget that you’re fragile.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Dan muttered under his breath. Felicity turned to face him as best he could, and said something quietly that Helena couldn’t pick up (and based on Wes’ slightly disappointed expression, in a language he couldn’t understand). Dan’s face softened slightly and he huffed a rueful laugh, before responding equally quietly.

Helena and Wes exchanged a brief look, before leaving the two to their private conversation. Jack had turned to his son and was boisterously describing their most recent experiments with Realm travel tech—which clearly reminded Wes of something. “Ah, Jack,” he said, “when you get the chance, I was wondering if you’d be able to take a look at my car.”

“Why, is the AI acting up again?” Jack asked, coming over and resting a large, meaty hand on Wes’ shoulder. “I keep telling Jazzy that all you’ve got to do is a factory reset and it should all work out.”

“Actually, no,” Wes said. “I was wondering if you could program in a second main user. It’s gotten a bit irritating to deactivate and reactivate the defenses every time Helena wants to drive.”

Jack’s eyes widened slightly, and a large grin spread across his face. “Right, you mentioned a plus one! Helena, is it?” he said, extending a hand to shake. “It’s an honor, truly an honor.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Helena said, shaking his hand and hiding the wince at his grip strength. She’d once arm wrestled with Wonder Woman when drunk, she could handle one super jacked—pun unintended—man. 

Jack nodded effusively, and continued, “of course, we can get to that right after dinner! You’ll be sticking around for a while, right?”

Helena was used to bringing three days of clean clothes with her wherever she went, and she had enough ration bars to last another week, so she let him know that they could stay all night if necessary. Jack clapped his hands together. “Great! In that case,” he said, turning to look at Maddie to ask when they should start eating. He stopped at the sight of Felicity.

“Hi,” Felicity said casually.

Jack looked at him for a moment, then looked at Dan, who glared at him as if daring him to react poorly.

“Nice to meet you too,” Jack said. “I’d offer a hand to shake, but—”

“Yeah, yeah, straight jacket and all that,” Felicity waved him off (metaphorically). “You’re Jack Fenton, right? I’ve heard so much about you.” His voice promised centuries of pain and an agonizing descent into the underworld if he so much as breathed wrong.

Jack was utterly oblivious. “Good things, I hope,” he laughed. “Are you Dan’s plus one? Good, good, I’m glad he’s got someone. We’ve been worried—when he’s not stuck in Clockwork’s void, he’s always drifting about, not answering calls, roaming the afterlife. It’s good to hear he’s got friends.”

Dan opened his mouth to object, then closed it, clearly at a loss for words and fighting back a blush. 

“Oh, I don’t know if—” Felicity started, before Dan interrupted him.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he said. “Sit down, food’s ready, you dumbass.”

Jack started to do so, before Felicity called out, “Oh! Actually, could we have the specs for those ecto-guns that’re on Wes’ car?”

Wes, who’d started pouring himself and Helena a glass of wine (completely unprompted, but completely correct—Helena needed one), almost dropped the bottle. “What?” he asked.

“You promised Dinah that you’d get her the blueprints, remember?” Felicity said, before shrinking back slightly as the entire table focused on him. “What,” he said, defensively. “It’s a good gun, managed to knock me into my real form with one hit. I wouldn’t mind looking at the blueprints myself, figure out a way around them.”

Val looked at Felicity. “Wes, how did you and this charming demon meet?” Clearly, someone had debriefed her on who Dan’s plus one was—actually, based on the way that Tucker and Val had been leaning over his PDA a few minutes ago, Helena would bet that Tucker had even shown her the security footage of them in the kitchen earlier.

“Do you think I have much of a social life beyond my detective work?” Wes asked rhetorically. “Where else would we meet?”

Tucker opened his mouth to speak, looking disturbingly, unexpectedly gleeful at the opening Wes had given him to say… something. 

Wes talked over him. “More to the point, Felicity, why do you want Dinah to have those guns?”

Felicity shrugged as best he could. “Make it more of a challenge next time,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, those screams of hers were pretty good, and the electricity definitely spiced it up, but I feel like we should mix it up in the future the next time we go for a romp about town, you know?” 

Dan’s eye twitched, and he abruptly looked to be contemplating homicide.

“Hm,” Wes said. “Well, thank you for reminding me. Yes, Jack, if you’re willing to share those blueprints, especially if you could make them attachable to a motorcycle of some kind, we’d appreciate it.”

Jack’s eyes lit up, always excited to build a new machine. “Absolutely!” he said.

“Hang on,” Val said, “are we talking about bike mods? Because I want in if there are bike mods.”

“I thought you didn’t want to ride a FentonMobile,” Jazz teased her. 

Val waved her hand to shut her up, “Yeah, yeah, but this is just guns, right? And I can always use some guns.”

Jack briefly looked crestfallen at the thought that he wouldn’t get to build an entirely new bike for Val, but soldiered on. “We can go to the garage after dinner,” he promised, practically vibrating in his seat. Helena got the impression that the only reason he didn’t suggest going now was Maddie’s warning glare, which promised violence if they allowed her food to grow cold.

“Well, then,” Vlad cut in, voice drier than the desert. “Shall we begin?”

Maddie clapped her hands together. “Right! Let’s get started. Anybody want to say something they’re thankful for?” 

“Nope,” Sam said, reaching for the grilled asparagus.

“I’m good,” Tucker said, already carving himself some roast beef.

“I’m glad that none of us are dead,” Danny said while grabbing the mashed potatoes, before laughing at his own joke.

“I’m thankful for my new bike guns,” Val said, sipping her mug of apple cider and waiting for everyone else to be done grabbing food, sensibly not risking getting stabbed by an errant fork or elbow.

Dani didn’t say anything, just reached for the cranberry sauce. 

“I’m grateful for whoever passes me the turkey and cranberry sauce,” Dan said dryly. “Seriously. Or if someone would untie me, that might be nice.”

Wes rolled his eyes and grabbed him a plate.

“Oh wait,” Danny said, remembering something. “Thanks for not ending the world, Clockwork!” he yelled, apropos of nothing. 

“Thanks, Clockwork,” a chorus of other voices sounded, in varying degrees of genuine or sarcastic. 

The room became full of the sound of knives and forks scraping against plates, the occasional scream as one of the asparagus or green beans tried to make a run for it, and compliments to the chef. Wes and Helena opened their ration bars from home, more for something to do than out of any real hunger.

“Huh,” Dan said, mouth still somewhat full. “You brought your own food? What, didn’t trust Maddie to cook up to your standards?”

“Your turkey came to life,” Helena pointed out, over the sound of Sam’s triumphant “gotcha!” as she successfully stabbed her tofurkey loaf mid-escape attempt, five inches from the edge of the table. 

Dan acknowledged that with a hum and swallowed the rest of his food. 

Felicity had a tiny plate in front of him. He eyed it with some trepidation. 

“So,” Maddie finally said, “how did you and Dan meet, Felicity?”

“The usual,” Felicity said, seemingly eager not to have to deal with the food. “Dan killed me in battle in an alternate timeline. It was a fun fight, too.”

Maddie blinked. “Right,” she said, “of course you did, not sure what I was expecting, honestly.” Soldiering on, she turned to Helena. “And you and Wes? How did you two meet?”

“We met at work,” Wes responded blandly.

“Oh, did you hire him to investigate something?” Maddie asked. 

“Something like that,” Helena said. 

Jazz’s eyebrows furrowed. “If you work with the Birds of Prey, though, why did you hire Wes of all people?”

Wes drew himself up in (mock) affront, but was overshadowed by Sam practically bolting up out of her seat. “Wait, you work with the Birds of Prey?” she exclaimed, before excitedly looking around the room. Very few of them had any recognition on their faces, and Sam huffed in exasperation. 

“The Birds of Prey? Seriously, Poison Ivy is a member, they’re that vigilante team in Gotham and Star that destroyed ACE Chemicals and turned their warehouses into community green gardens?” A dawning look of realization spread to Danny’s face, and Sam rolled her eyes. She turned back to Helena. “You’re a Bird of Prey? Which one?”

Wes winced as Helena replied, “the archer. You probably haven’t heard of me, though—”

Val spat out her drink. “Huntress?”

“Wait, Wes,” Danny said, a shit eating grin spreading across his face, “your girlfriend is a superhero named Huntress?”

Dan burst into laughter at the look of confused disgust on Val’s face. “Wait,” he said, between gasps for air, “wait, please tell me you call her that in bed, I’m begging you.”

“You knew her secret identity, right?” Val said, horrified. “Helena, tell me he knew your secret identity before you started dating.”

“He calls you Huntress on dates!” Danny wheezed. “Oh my god, that is priceless—”

At her side, Wes buried his face in his hands. Helena furrowed her brow in confusion. “He calls me Huntress on the field, yes,” she said, slowly. “It’s a pretty standard practice amongst capes, which you all know, given as several of you have moonlighted as a vigilante or supervillain of some sort. I’m—really not getting the reaction?”

Tucker leaned forwards, about to say something that Helena could tell, based on his expression, she would not appreciate. Vlad interrupted him. “Ah, see, young Valerie is a superhero as well. By the name of Red Huntress,” he emphasized slowly.

“Yeah,” Helena said. “I know.” At the looks of surprise around the table, she raised her eyebrows. “Wes did give me a dossier on you. But plenty of supers have similar names—it’s not like Red Robin and Robin have any issues. Or the Arrows, or the Wonder Girls, or the various Green Lanterns.”

“I—” Val made a face. “I mean—yes, alright. Fine. Just—” she shuddered. “Fine, alright, good.” She took another sip of her wine. “Sorry, we don’t hang out with supers often.”

“Huntress,” Dan’s chains rattled as he laughed, as bent over as they would allow him. “Huntress.” Clearly they weren’t going to get anything intelligible out of him for the next several minutes.

“Anyway,” Maddie said, shooting him a quelling look. “Wes worked on a case with you?”

“Yeah,” Helena said, trying to come up with a way around mentioning the Justice League. “Well—so, I was tracking down a mob boss, and I needed intel on his location. Wes came… recommended,” she said, instead of ‘he was right across the hall from me and I was desperate.’ 

“More recommended than Batman?” Jazz asked, dubious.

“It… wasn’t exactly a case I wanted to get on Batman’s radar,” Helena admitted.

Wes snorted. “Oh, you didn’t keep it off of his radar, trust me,” he said quietly. Helena nudged him, and he fell silent.

“Wes,” Vlad said, “you neglected to mention that your detective business caught the attention of superheroes.” His tone was disapproving. “I do hope any association with them has been kept brief?”

“Vlad,” hissed Sam, jerking her head in Helena’s direction. “Tact?”

“Present company excepted, of course,” Vlad conceded. “But—Weston. A superhero, really?”

Danny rolled his eyes. “Oh come on, Vlad. Dressing up in a costume and fighting other people dressed in ridiculous outfits is a time honored tradition in this family. If anything, it makes Helena fit in even better!”

“Oh, you have no idea how time honored of a tradition,” Tucker said knowingly, something maniacal lurking in his eyes. 

Sam shot him a weird look, before refocusing on Wes and Helena. “So, you hired Wes for a case. How’d you hear about him—word of mouth?”

“Kinda,” Helena said. “I mean, one of my team mates mentioned him once—said he was a nutjob.”

“A truly glowing recommendation,” Danny nodded sagely. 

“That’s how you guys met, you’re sure?” Tucker leaned forward. “You never… ran into each other earlier? Took the same elevator, ate at the same cafeteria, worked in the same building…?” he trailed off leadingly.

So that was his angle. Helena hid a grimace at his obvious probe. She supposed that the tech guy would have more opportunity to figure out Wes’ identity than most, but still, trying to reveal someone’s secret identity at Thanksgiving was more than a little tasteless.

Then again, she and Wes had brought Dan’s boyfriend over, so maybe finding someone to tease was the custom in a Fenton reunion. 

Helena shook her head to answer Tucker’s question, outwardly oblivious. “I mean, I guess I can’t rule it out,” she admitted. “Wes travels pretty often for his cases and it’s entirely possible we’d run into each other earlier, but that was definitely the first time we’d talked.”

“Hm,” Tucker intoned skeptically. 

“Right, so,” Sam said, clearly confused about where Tucker was going with his line of questioning. “What made you decide to ask him out?”

Helena raised her eyebrows. “He could have asked me out,” she pointed out, mildly offended on Wes’ behalf. 

Wes snorted. “I don’t get involved with clients,” he said. “Besides. Have you seen you?”

Right, in this fictional meet-cute story Helena had hired him. Though, she wasn’t sure if it was better for her to be the one to ask him out, then, considering she was paying him for a service. Was that a power imbalance? The League HR department probably would have thought it was. 

Then Helena remembered that they didn’t start dating because she’d hired Wes, and refocused on the second part of his statement. “Are you saying it was my looks that won you over?” she teased, leaning into Wes’ personal space and batting her eyes. “Were you intimidated by my world-famous beauty?”

“Helena,” Wes said, completely straight faced, “when we met, you sat on my desk four inches away from me and crossed your bare legs.”

“You were flustered!” Helena realized, delighted. 

“I was reasonably affected,” he responded. “Which you intended, I imagine.”

“Of course,” she said, settling back into her chair. “You’ve got no idea how annoying it was when you didn’t even look.”

“Is that why you called me babydoll right after?” he asked, clearly willing to sacrifice his dignity to stop Tucker from asking more questions. 

Helena smirked. “Why, did you like it?” she purred.

“You are the bane of my existence,” Wes said, looking off into the distance with a solemn look on his face. “Every day I regret you coming into my office—I should have just let you go to jail for homicide, it would have saved me a world of pain.”

“Oh, please,” she waved him off. “You know you couldn’t find anyone else of my caliber.”

“I seem to recall Canary coming in first on several occasions,” Wes said—his go to response whenever he wanted to get a rise out of her. 

Helena mock-scowled, her response similarly ingrained. “And Arrow beat your ass too, mystery man—maybe I should trade up.”

Wes shuddered dramatically. “And have to look at that facial hair every day?”

“At least he has a face,” she shot back, before freezing. Ah. Right, they had company—who didn’t have any idea who the Question was, so that last comment would make no sense to them.

Tucker, on the other hand, was smiling like she’d just handed him a new Wayne tech prototype comm unit. “So you’ve met Black Canary and Green Arrow, Wes? How… interesting,” he said. “How did you guys run into each other?”

Dani had by this point clearly picked up that Tucker was trying to reveal Wes’ secret identity. She helpfully chimed in, “Oh, Canary’s a member of the Birds of Prey too, right? Did you introduce him?” Tucker glared at Dani for a split second, before smoothing his face back to neutrality.

“Yes,” Helena said, grateful for the assist, “yeah, she and I have worked a few cases together. Wes and I actually… went on a double date with her and Arrow, a while back. Our first.”

“Oh?” Tucker asked, before getting kicked by Sam, who’d noticed that something was up with Tucker, and clearly wanted him to stop making Wes and Helena uncomfortable.

“So, Val, what have you been up to recently?”

Val looked up from her conversation with Jazz, Felicity and Dan and blinked at her. “Sorry?” 

She hadn't been listening to a second of their conversation. Helena spared a moment to be grateful for the size of the table—it made having one coherent conversation difficult. Nevertheless, upon Sam’s prompting, Val gamely chatted about her most recent adventures as a bouncer in the Chicago night club scene. Apparently there were a lot of girls wearing tacky dresses specifically to get drinks spilled on them.

Now that she wasn’t being actively interrogated, Helena relaxed, somewhat, and tuned into the other conversations that had cropped up around the table. 

Vlad was trying to convince Maddie to join his company as an inventor, to which she was replying with incredibly noncommittal platitudes. “I appreciate the offer, Vlad,” she said, and pat him on the hand before going back to her muttered conversation with Jack about their latest experiment. 

Vlad looked sour, but turned to try to engage Danny in a conversation about interdimensional politics, and how really, Danny, I helped defeat Pariah just as much as you did, and you’re so young, I’d be happy to make you my heir if it came down to it—

Danny rolled his eyes, clearly irritated with what was no doubt a frequent argument. “I’m not even king,” he said, “who knows, maybe I’ll abdicate and give all the work to Dora, you know she’d be good at it.”

“Dora?” Vlad said, aghast. “You would give the entirety of the infinite realms to Princess Dorathea?”

“See? She’s already a Princess, she’s practically got the title already!” Danny said.

“You cannot be serious, Daniel,” Vlad chided him, an edge of panic in his voice, “that—immature child can’t be trusted with the responsibility of—” and they were off, Danny clearly messing with Vlad and Vlad entirely unwilling to stop engaging with him. 

While Sam and Val chatted about fast fashion, Tucker narrowed his eyes at Wes, who met them with a guileless smile. Helena nudged his leg under the table. Don’t antagonize him, she tapped discretely. Wes easily turned to look at Helena. “So,” he said, casually, “what do you think of the Fentons?”

“Chaos,” she responded honestly. She quieted down, hopefully inaudible to the rest of the room’s enhanced residents. “You’re… interesting, around them.”

Wes tilted his head slightly in confusion. “How so?” his voice had dropped back to his normal, impassive tone, if several decibels softer, and Helena hid a smile.

“Less… mystery man, more petty teenager.” At Wes’ continued confusion, she continued, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this… overtly emotional before. Or this informal, for that matter, unless you’re sleep deprived.”

Wes’ face cleared. “Ah. It’s… old habits?”

“It’s not a bad thing, Q,” she said, “just… different.”

“Good different?” Wes asked, unintentionally parodying himself from earlier.

Helena smiled reassuringly. “I don’t mind either way,” she promised quietly.

Suddenly, Sam’s voice interrupted them, “—isn’t that right, Wes?” 

Helena looked up, Wes doing the same beside her. “Apologies, what?” he asked.

“We were talking about Gotham,” Sam said, with an effusive hand wave. “And I mentioned that it was full of revenants, right?”

“Ah, perhaps not full of them,” Wes said. “Though there are a few.”

“Right!” Danny said, snapping his fingers. “I’ve been meaning to ask—your trip to Gotham, those ecto pits, with the ninjas—how did you find out about them?”

“Well, you run into all kinds of people in Gotham,” Wes said enigmatically. 

“Ever run into any bats?” Tucker asked, leadingly. “Maybe even the big one? Maybe… worked a few cases together?”

“I don’t tend to work with vigilantes,” Wes responded blandly, “present company excluded.” From a certain perspective it was true—he largely worked with superheroes, witches, and other members of the Justice League who couldn’t realistically be called vigilantes. On the other hand, it was absolute bullshit, and Helena had to school her expression not to laugh.

“No, I bet you don’t,” Tucker continued, “I bet you work with other people, right? Hey, have you ever met an alien?”

“I have,” Helena volunteered. At this point, she’d realized that it was pointless to try to keep Wes’ identity secret—Tucker was clearly angling to reveal it at some point during this dinner—but Wes hadn’t told her to stop yet, so she’d continue obfuscating as best she could. “I was a part of the League for a bit; I even had an office on their space station.”

Danny lit up—literally, he started to glow green. “Really? Oh my god, tell me everything. Did you meet the Martian Manhunter? What’s he like? Do you have any photos of the view? What kind of atmosphere was there on the space station—and how did you maintain artificial gravity? At least, I assume you had artificial gravity, or else your muscles would have atrophied at some point. Do you have any blueprints?”

…There. That should distract people for a while. 

Helena gamely answered Danny’s slew of questions to the best of her ability (which mainly amounted to her describing something she’d seen on the Watchtower, and Danny hypothesizing what it was based on her recollection). Even Jack and Maddie got interested—apparently they’d built spaceships to survive in the Infinite Realms, but not in the actual void of space. Vlad appeared to be taking notes.

Tucker sat back for a bit, temporarily defeated. He recuperated quickly, though, and interjected as soon as Danny took a breath. “So,” he drawled, “working on a spaceship, must have been exciting. Did you ever take Wes to your office? Have a bit of an… inter-office romance?”

“That’s not exactly what an inter-office romance is,” Jazz chimed in, to which Tucker gave an exaggerated nod.

“Oh, trust me, I know what I said,” he responded.

“Okay, Tucker, just spit it out,” Sam exclaimed, exasperated. “You’re not built to play subtle, it’s a bad look on you.”

Tucker’s eyes widened in an exaggerated parody of innocence. “Oh, I’m just asking Wes some questions,” Tucker said, “there’s nothing wrong with asking him some harmless questions, right? I mean, he’s just an ordinary occult detective, surely he’s asked questions all the time in his line of work.”

“You want to do this here?” Wes asked, longsuffering. “Right now. At the dinner table. In front of Vlad.” Tucker continued to stare daggers at Wes, and he finally rolled his eyes.  “Alright, fine, Tucker, yes, I joined the Justice League three years ago, is that what you wanted to hear?”

---

This was not going to go well. From the moment that Tucker had opened his mouth—no, from the moment that Tucker had insinuated that he knew Wes’ identity, hell, even from the moment Wes called him as a favor to Batman all those months ago, Wes had known that this wasn’t going to go well. 

Letting Tucker know a secret was like letting a cat onto a countertop with an open bag of flour; it was bound to be spilled, likely at the most inconvenient time possible.

Wes really shouldn’t have come to the Thanksgiving reunion this year, harpoon guns and ecto launchers be damned. Even bringing Dan’s demonic boyfriend wasn’t enough to keep the attention off of him. Hells, he’d even brought his girlfriend, in such a bizarre display of trust his past self would never have dreamed of it happening. But he’d hoped, hope against hope that maybe, just this once, the Amity group could leave well enough alone. 

A whirlwind of thoughts spun through his head, dozens of escape attempts and explanations thought up and then hastily discarded, before finally he realized that the only way out of this was by (horribly, disgustingly, regrettably) telling the truth.

Fuck.

Helena was going to kill him for this. If Danny didn’t do it first. 

Still, feeling the eyes of a good half of the table boring into him, along with Helena’s worried gaze and Dani’s incredibly distressed aura, Wes rolled his eyes, huffed an exasperated sigh to pretend that he wasn’t remotely bothered with Tucker’s line of questioning, and admitted that he’d joined the Justice League.

Vlad, who had been eyeing this conversation with interest and had just reached to pour himself another glass of wine, dropped the bottle. Val choked on a bite of her turkey. Danny’s eyes widened, and he almost phased through his chair in shock. 

Tucker, like the bastard he was, refused to be satisfied with his admission. A triumphant grin spread across his face. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, “learning your superhero name might be a plus. What was it again, the riddler? No, the enigma? Wait, no, that’s not it either—”

“The Question,” Wes sighed, anticipating where he was going with this. “I go by the Question.” 

“Wait,” Sam was barely holding on to her composure. “Wait, hold on. You go by the Q-Wes-tion?”

Danny looked flabbergasted, though that shock was quickly transforming into unhinged delight. “Dude!” Danny laughed, “you don’t get to say shit about my superhero name anymore, you have lost that privilege.”

Ah, good. He was focusing on the name thing. This might actually be manageable. He should try to spur that on. “Your superhero name literally has your name in it,” Wes hissed. “You don’t even have a secret identity beyond a change in color palette!”

“So does yours!” Danny crowed, triumphant. “And at least I have the justification of being fourteen when I came up with it—you were, what, twenty-four?”

Wes refrained from mentioning that no, he was actually twenty three when he started moonlighting as a superhero, he’d joined the League a year later. The longer they spent shit-talking his naming choices, the less time they’d have before Jack Fenton finished his food and ushered them off into the garage. Wes eyed Jack’s plate, which was stuffed full, and estimated that they had about ten minutes. As long as he didn’t decide to get a fifth helping of food, that is. 

So. Ten minutes of utter humiliation, and hopefully the fight could wait until tomorrow.

“Wait, wait, hold on,” Val said, having done some frantic googling. “Wes, please tell me you aren’t wearing your supersuit right now.” She showed the table a photo of Wes in his customary blue-and-yellow ensemble. Dan started laughing so loudly Wes wasn’t entirely sure his ghostly wail wasn’t coming through. 

“No,” Jazz said, horrified. “Wes, you’re wearing a fedora.”

“I did not get you that hat,” Sam laughed, eyes wide as the phone was passed to her. 

“The hat makes the whole ensemble!” Wes defended himself. “The blues become complementary, it ties the look together!”

“You wore your super-suit—” Dan wheezed, “to Thanksgiving—!”

“That’s the cheapest gag gift suit I could find,” Sam said with no small amount of hilarity. “A hat can’t fix that! What—what the hell, Weston?”

“It’s hilarious!” Wes defended himself.

“Your secret identity is paper thin,” Danny’s eyes danced. “You literally just wear a suit and tie, and you make fun of my gear?”

“At least I obscure my face. You just hoped a cheap dye job and colored contacts would make people not realize your faces were identical.”

“Wes, our faces are identical,” Danny pointed out. Which they had both discovered in high school when trying out Snapchat filters the first time, and which Danny had then exploited to prove that he and Phantom could in fact be different people, and hey, who was to say that Wes wasn’t Phantom and trying to push the blame onto someone else—

“I am well aware of that fact,” Wes hissed. “Hence the mask—you’re welcome.”

“That get-up doesn’t look very protective,” Maddie tsked disapprovingly as Sam handed her the phone, The Question’s Justice League bio pulled up on it. “Wes, you know we’d be happy to make you better gear,” she offered, her tone making it clear that refusal wasn’t really an option.

Still, the last thing Wes needed was traceable FentonTech in his every day JL outfit, especially considering how many guns and whistles Maddie was bound to put on it. (She had a tendency to go just as overboard on the features as her husband, which was only slightly offset by her mildly better grasp of color theory). As such, Wes demurred, “Thank you, but no. I find people trust you better when wearing an ill-fitting suit than spandex.”

“Did you buy replacements?” Sam asked, voice still tinged with laughter. “Did you go out and buy more suits when it ripped?”

“Do I look like I’m made of money?” Wes shot back. “I have an excellent tailor and several mending spells.” The tailor was himself and the mending spells were actually spells that made his suit invulnerable to attacks, but he wasn’t going to get into that here. Knowing Sam, she’d ask him for the spell, and then they’d devolve into a three hour discussion about how just saying shit in Esperanto does not a spell make, Weston. Gods, they were all such snobs.

“Wait, do you only have one set of your super gear?” Jazz asked. “How often do you wash it?”

Ah, Jazz Fenton, so quick to jump to the logistics of wearing the same three piece suit every day. Eminently practical as always—he adored her. Wes opened his mouth to reply that he had six suits in rotation and had several back-ups in storage. He might even comment something about how laundry day was always especially hellacious, as Ectoplasm and blood tend to stain. 

Then, after finally cleaning up the wine he’d spilled in his shock, Vlad cleared his throat.

“You joined the Justice League,” Vlad said. 

By dint of years of practice, Wes did not flinch, nor did he glare at the halfa. It had been going so well, too. Jack had already finished half of his food, and was clearly not paying attention to a word of the conversation around him—he could have gotten out of this intact!

“You. Joined the Justice League.” Vlad was clearly unable to believe what he was hearing. “The Justice League,” he stressed again. 

The room grew colder as the rest of the room, no longer distracted by Wes’ sartorial decisions as a superhero, remembered the other part of Tucker’s revelation. No doubt, the implications were setting in.

“Is that so surprising?” Wes asked blandly, knowing that it absolutely was. He briefly made eye contact with Dani; she bit her lip, but nodded at him. I’ll back you up, she communicated wordlessly.

Deliberately, he did not look at Helena.

“I mean,” Val said. “It’s a paramilitary organization working outside of the purview of any government with an unprecedented amount of power and major ties to the US. So.” She generously didn’t continue to explain that, yes, Wes generally hated those organizations and went about dismantling them with extreme prejudice.

Danny had no such qualms. “Yeah, the last time you worked with one of those, we ended up cursing you,” he said with an unspoken challenge in his voice. “I kinda thought you’d learned your lesson.” 

Wes clenched his jaw at the threat and almost responded with something far too vicious for the nonchalant facade he put on around people in Amity. It wasn’t their fault, and he knew it, knew they were kids and messing with forces beyond their control and literally couldn’t understand what was going on, but still—

Who was it that pushed him to it? Why was he the one still blamed for what he did, when Danny accepted his parents with open arms after they threatened to vivisect him? Why was he the one left to suffer when Tucker almost ended the world and tried to kill Danny, and Sam got possessed by the Green and tried to kill Danny, and Val tried to kill Danny out of revenge, and Vlad tried to kill Danny, and Dan tried to kill Danny, and all Wes did was point out something that was obviously true to anyone with a working brain? Of course he had learned his lesson, Danny, he learns it every day, and it i̴t̷ ̶w̸a̶s̶n̸'̶t̵ ̸y̴o̶u̴ ̸w̵h̴o̵ ̷t̷a̴u̶g̷h̶t̴ ̵i̵t̷ ̴t̶o̴ ̷m̵e̸—

At his side, Helena moved to palm her crossbow. Wes spared a second to fervently regret giving her ecto-arrows in preparation for today. A fight would go very badly between them, and Helena was outnumbered in every way.

Fortunately, before either of them could do something they’d regret, Maddie cut in. “Danny,” she chastised him, “the Ghost Investigation Ward was a long time ago, and we all learned our lesson from it. I’m sure none of us would work with an organization that’s dangerous to us.”

“The Justice League is dangerous to everyone,” Vlad argued, for once willing to disagree with Maddie on a topic. “There’s no way to know what their intentions are, each member has a dangerous amount of power, and they feel they have the right to get involved in affairs they have no business in. That magic division of theirs—oh,” he looked at Wes with appraising eyes. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

Oddly enough, for once, he and Wes were in complete agreement. “Someone needed to keep an eye on them,” he said calmly. Because he had learned a lesson that Danny clearly hadn’t: that powerful organizations would always exist, that they would always exploit or demonize the Other, either due to ignorance or active malevolence, and the only reason they would be taken down was if the people on the inside chose to help. “Steer them in the wrong direction, if necessary.” 

Helena clutched her crossbow tighter and inhaled a tiny, almost imperceptible breath of surprise. Though how surprised she could really be at the revelation, Wes wasn’t sure; he’d gone on tangents about how power is a corrupting force far too many times for her to ignore it. That he’d decided to put himself in the role of qui custodes custodit couldn’t be too surprising.

Then again, maybe it was that he’d done it for someone else. It’s one thing to think your boyfriend chooses to stalk his coworkers out of misplaced paranoia, and an entirely new thing to learn that he does it because he’s monitoring them as a threat for a foreign, extradimensional power. 

She had the sense not to shoot him at the dinner table, at least. And because she was practical (one of the reasons he lo—had decided to date her), she would likely spend the rest of Thanksgiving weekend pretending not to care and reassuring him that their relationship wouldn’t have to change. Then, as soon as he drove her to her apartment and she was safe from him, he’d be taken in by Batman for questioning, who would probably end up expel him from the League, but at least it wouldn’t be a total mission failure because he’d already gotten the information he needed out of them and with any luck Batman would take his actions as a sign that the Realms weren’t hostile and maybe Hal would even get to meet Technus like Wes had promised him—

Gods, why did Tucker have to do this now?

Tucker at least seemed somewhat regretful, shooting Wes an apologetic look. 

“What, they needed to be monitored, so you were the person for the job?” Danny asked, something derogatory lurking in his voice. 

“Look—” Tucker tried to interrupt, probably to say something about how the conversation was getting a little heated and they should all calm down.

Wes ignored him spitefully. If he wanted this conversation to happen at the Thanksgiving dinner table, it would happen at the fucking dinner table. “And you would have been better?” he asked, viciously. “You killed the Justice League, in case you don’t remember.” With a quick, harsh wave of his arm, he gestured at Dan, who shrugged in blasé acknowledgment. He and Felicity were watching the entire thing like it was the most engaging game of ping-pong they’d ever seen. At least someone was getting some enjoyment out of this disaster. 

“And it’s not like you didn’t have ample opportunity to join them.” Considering how Danny had been in high school, constantly bemoaning that he had a duty to protect Amity, to help the ghosts, that he felt so guilty about leaving people to suffer, his refusal to join the Justice League was one of the more hypocritical things he’d done. “I didn’t exactly see you lining up at the Watchtower gates, begging to be let in so you could protect more people. You didn’t even think to try an introduction—” 

“Of course I considered it!” Danny exclaimed, pushing out of his chair. His face was flushed slightly red with anger, and Wes watched with a detached fascination as his shoulders shook with breaths he only sometimes needed to take. “You think I didn’t want to join the only group of—” he let out a frustrated sound. “But they have physicals, and take samples, and they monitor people—I couldn’t put the Realms at risk! You know what mortals are like!” His hands shook even as he balled them into fists, and the lichtenburg scars that covered them were thrown into sharp relief.

Wes looked at him for a brief moment, inhaled exactly once, and cut to the root of what Danny wasn’t saying. “Twenty-five percent of the people in the Justice League are afraid of being experimented on.” The halfa paused, face going pale. “At least seven percent actually have been.” He stood up from his chair with slow, deliberate movement, every inch of him composed, because he would never, ever let Danny see him upset. “And, as self-righteous as you are, I didn’t see you helping them.”

“Alright,” Dani interjected, pushing herself out of her chair decisively. “Let’s sit down. Danny,” she turned to face her brother/cousin, “Wes is fine—the Justice League is a decent organization, we’ve done dozens of background checks, we know most of their identities, they all check out.”

Wes could see the ripple of confusion and realization spread through the room. Yes, he wanted to say, it wasn’t just me, I wasn’t alone, I was right and she agreed with me—

Dani continued, “the JLD knows better than to poke where they’re not wanted, they’re being monitored, and we’re good. Wes, you know Danny would have gotten involved if you’d asked him to—and he did get involved with the Lazarus pits,” she reminded him. “So let’s calm down, sit, and eat.” Wes watched blankly as she turned to Tucker with an expression of righteous fury. “Tucker, what the fuck,” she hissed at him angrily.

“I’m sorry!” Tucker said defensively, higher pitched and anxious. “I thought we’d just make fun of Wes taking Helena on dates to break into Vladco, being a total hypocrite over becoming a superhero and wearing a shitty mask and a stupid fedora, I didn’t think this would get turned into an interrogation. How was I supposed to know you two were on a top secret spy mission?!”

“Breaking into Vladco?” Vlad asked, affronted. He wisely shut up at the twin looks shot his way from Val and Maddie.

“You knew about this?” Danny asked Dani, sounding somewhat betrayed.

She raised her head and met his gaze squarely. “I did,” she said. “Wes is right—someone was needed on the inside. And you’re right too—a half-ghost, or someone more liminal like Sam or Tucker or even Val, would have raised alarms. But the League is fine, I promise.” Seeing that Danny still looked unconvinced, she softened. “Danny. Do you trust me?”

“Of course,” he said, unthinking and immediate. If Wes hadn’t been tightly controlling his every reaction, he would have frozen. He felt no bitterness whatsoever; he had only begun seriously reconnecting with people from Amity a few years ago, after all, and he still didn’t trust Danny, Sam or Tucker as far as he could throw them, so the lack of trust in turn was—fine. It was fine.

(But gods, what was it like to be trusted and believed by someone unthinkingly and wholeheartedly. What was it like to be capable of trusting someone like that?)

“Then trust me,” Dani insisted.

Danny looked at her for a long moment, before sighing. “Alright,” he said wearily, before sitting back down. “But we’ll talk about this later.”

Wes felt his jaw start to clench, before deliberately relaxing it. Fine. He would let Dani explain the months of covert infiltration they’d been up to. She’d be better at it than he was, anyway, further removed from the situation, less emotionally attached to the organization. 

(Because yes, somehow in the past two years he had found himself regrettably invested in the JL and their mission. More surprisingly, he’d found himself caring invested in his coworkers—in Constantine and Hal and Nabu and Batman and even in Dinah and Oliver.)

So, Danny was taken care of for now, Sam would side with him, Valerie wouldn’t care, Tucker demonstrably didn’t care, and Vlad’s reaction was unimportant.

Which meant that now, he just had to deal with the fallout of lying to his girlfriend of fifteen months, who was also invested in the Justice League. Something about risking your lives together and trauma bonding made superheroes into a tight knit community, and even after she’d left the League she’d kept in contact. Not to mention her work in Gotham. 

Yes, Batman would be hearing about this by Monday night at the latest.

Wes sat down calmly and turned to face her. “Sorry about that, Helena,” he said, pasting on a conciliatory smile that was no doubt deeply strained. 

She raised her eyebrows. “Should I be worried you have a file on me?” she said archly. Should I be concerned that you chose to befriend my friends, to work with the organization I devoted my life to, to date me, just to get intel?

He didn’t wince. “I have a file on everyone,” he responded, unapologetic. I didn’t date you to get intel, he tried to convey silently. I did what I did, but I wouldn’t do that. 

Helena narrowed her eyes at him. “It had better be flattering,” she warned him, tapping out a brief talk later, before grabbing her glass of wine again. “Because the one Batman has on you is mainly politely worded insults, and begrudging acknowledgments that you’re occasionally useful.”

Wes snorted, because that did sound like Batman, and because she was clearly offering an olive branch to pretend that she was okay with the whole thing, so he had to pretend he was relieved and believed her. He relaxed his shoulders, trusting that she’d be able to read his body language. “Sounds like him,” he said, before taking another bite of his ration bar. “So,” he said, mouth full, “now that that’s out of the way, does anyone have any other questions?” He stressed the last word slightly, and savored the look of dawning realization on Val’s face.

“You’re going to be like Danny about that, aren’t you?” Val groaned in disappointment.

Wes shrugged enigmatically, and Helena laughed a light laugh that, if Wes hadn’t been dating her for as long as he had, he wouldn’t have been able to tell was forced. “You have no idea—it drives Constantine up the wall, the number of times he makes his name into a pun.”

“So you and Helena did have a workplace romance,” Jazz said, deliberately trying to lighten the mood. “Did you and Wes have any meet-cute moments?”

“He went through my trash,” Helena said to further break the tension.

Wes made an offended noise. “I go through everyone’s trash, thank you—you’re not special.”

“They also had offices right across the hall from each other,” Dani chimed in. “And Wes mentioned the first time he saw her at the archery range—something about her trick shot being one of the most gorgeous things he’d ever seen?” 

Wes gasped and clutched his chest in such a parody of betrayal that the entire table chuckled. “Dani!” he said, “I told you that in confidence!” Thank you, he tapped his heart twice, almost imperceptibly, and she grinned back at him. Not just for dealing with Danny, but—for Cadmus, and for the past two years, and for promising to help break him out of the Watchtower if the reveal to Batman went poorly and they needed to resort to Plan M.

“You know I gotta admit,” Dan said, through the stuffing that he’d somehow managed to levitate into his mouth, “this is probably the best Thanksgiving we’ve had in a bit. Dinner and a show,” he swallowed. “Thanks for the invite, Jazz.”

“And good company?” Jazz asked, teasingly. 

Dan scowled. “Fuck off.” (Felicity, at his side, wisely said nothing.) 

“So,” Helena said, in a blatant attempt to change the subject, “Tucker.” She shot him a quelling look, and the gamer blanched. Though, considering that without his meddling she wouldn’t have learned about Wes’ spy activity, it was likely for show. Probably she’d end up thanking him later on. “You do video game designs? Any interesting ones recently?”

Tucker valiantly spent the next few minutes trying to make a cryptid-inspired dating game—“No, I know what it sounds like, but I swear, it’s not furry porn! There’s genuinely interesting romantic options, and all the characters are pretty nuanced!”—sound interesting to a room mainly full of cryptids or (in Helena’s case) people who’d worked with cryptids. With each word, Vlad looked progressively more and more disappointed in Tucker, which if anything made Tucker seem even more enthusiastic about describing it. Ah, spite.

Finally, just as Tucker was about to describe the complex algorithm he’d designed to have clothing options factor into romance points for each character, Jack Fenton stood up enthusiastically. He’d finished off half the turkey and almost an entire apple pie. “So!” he bellowed. “Where were we—bike mods, right? To the lab!” he cried, and ran out the room.

…Wes might have to re-adjust his estimation of Jack’s eating speeds. That had been well over ten minutes. Though he couldn’t discount the possibility that Jack had gone to get more food while Wes and Danny were distracted.

Wes looked at Helena, who looked back at him, somewhat bemused. Val sighed, stuffed a dinner roll in her pocket, and threatened Tucker that if he dared to finish any of the ham before she got to try any, she’d end him.

Then Jack ran back into the room. “Thanks for the lovely meal, sweetie!” he exclaimed, kissed Maddie on the cheek, before darting back out. 

Helena and Wes quickly followed behind him, Val jogging after them. “So, Wes, Helena—how did you two meet?” Jack asked as they continued to the lab.

“Did—were you not listening to any of that conversation?” Helena asked with disbelief. Wes snorted.

“Of course not!” Jack exclaimed. “And have my ability to focus on Maddie’s magnificent cooking be taken away? Not to mention—I’ve already started thinking, Val, I know you don’t want an AI, but I really think that an automated driving system might be beneficial if we’re going to be putting in the mech capabilities—”

“The what,” Val asked flatly, and was ignored.

“—and it wouldn’t have human-level intelligence at all, it’d be totally trainable—”

“I am not turning my bike into a mech, Jack,” she responded, to deaf ears.

“—and if you think about it, it’d be way more convenient if your suit could also interface with the mech, so that’ll require a whole new program—”

“Jack, we’re not making my bike into a mech suit,” Val said firmly. This interjection finally seemed to penetrate Jack’s fervor, as he stopped in confusion.

“Of course we’re not, Val,” he said, aghast that anyone would suggest such a thing. “You’ve already got a perfectly good ecto-suit. No, we’re making it into a giant robot dog with shoulder gun turrets that can shoot lasers out of its mouth, obviously."

Obviously, Helena mouthed at Wes, who shrugged, because honestly, that was somewhat tame for the Fentons. “While we’re at it,” Wes said, “I saw something about harpoon guns in your latest brochure?”

Jack’s eyes lit up. “Yes.”

“No,” Val objected. “This is why I don’t get mods from here, for fucks sake, just get me the guns.”

“But—but robot dog,” Jack said plaintively. 

Valerie visibly wavered, before narrowing her eyes. “...you’ve already built one, haven’t you.”

“Danny said that Cujo and Shadow don’t need robot friends to play with,” Jack pouted. 

Helena burst out laughing. (If the laughter was slightly tinged with hysteria, Wes didn’t remark on it. Val tactfully did the same.)

---

Barbara Gordon squinted down at her laptop in irritation. She would find whoever was reorganizing the cookbook section of the library by color, damnit, even if there were very few security cameras covering that particular part of the library, because why the hell would she ever need to monitor the cookbook section of the library—

She took a deep breath and put her teacup to her lips to take a calming sip, only to be met with air. She looked mournfully into her empty mug and spared a brief moment to lament her life choices. She should have known better than to show up on time to a coffee shop when meeting with a vigilante—especially only four days after Thanksgiving. At nine in the morning.

Still, Helena had seemed… somewhat shaken, when she’d called on Friday to plan their coffee date. And Barbara would never admit to being worried, but—well, Helena had said she needed relationship help, and she’d gone to her boyfriend’s for Thanksgiving, and Barbara knew perfectly well how difficult those dinners could get.

(She carefully suppressed the memory of her Thanksgiving dinner at Wayne Manor. She was just glad she could beg off early to go back to her apartment, where her dad had arranged a nice, relaxing, non-murderous movie night, with no knives or insults or chandeliers to swing from.)

Sighing, Barbara pushed away from her table and wheeled back to the register to order a second cup of tea. The barista promised to bring it over to her table with a large smile that didn’t quite reach their eyes through the purple eyebags underneath them. Barbara had to hold herself back from advising that really, Julian, you should break up with your boyfriend if he’s keeping you up all night with worry, I know you care about him but if your lifestyles don’t fit, you shouldn’t try to force it.

Barbara Gordon was not a person who would know intimate details of total strangers' romantic relationships, and so she didn’t say anything, just nodded and returned to her table, thankful that this cafe left enough space between tables to be able to navigate through the chairs with only minimal difficulty.

Just as she started settling in again, the bell over the door rang, and Helena Bertinelli rushed through like a gust of air. “Babs!” Helena exclaimed, walking over to her and leaning down to kiss her on the cheek. “Sorry for keeping you waiting; I had to fight to convince Vic to zeta me and my bike.”

“You know, he really shouldn’t have agreed to do it at all,” Barbara said, fighting back a smile. “It’s a major security breach to have non-members use those things.”

Helena rolled her eyes. “Why, are you going to tell on me?” Barbara remained silent, and Helena nodded. “That’s what I thought.” Spying the empty mug next to her, Helena brightened. “Oh, what are you drinking? I can get you a refill if you want—my treat.”

“No need,” Barbara said, “I already ordered again. But you should try their scones—they go great with their coffee.”

“You’re the expert,” Helena quipped. “I’ll be right back,” she promised and headed over to the counter to order.

Barbara shook her head, and opened her laptop again. Dick had texted her, apparently to send her photos of last night’s patrol with Damian. The photos were mainly work-related—evidence from a few break-ins, some suspicious meetings in the warehouse district he wasn’t able to get audio for, etc—but the last one made her smile. Damian was crouching next to an ally cat, trying to coax it towards him. 

Think we can convince Bruce to take in another stray? Dick messaged her.

At this point you might as well make it official and create a petting zoo, she responded.

Damian’s too territorial for that, Dick joked. 

“You’re smiling,” Helena noted as she settled into the chair across from her. “Any reason why?”

Barbara shook her head. “Nothing important,” she said. “And you?”

“Me?” Helena asked, taking a sip of her coffee. “I am doing just great, thank you.”

Barbara eyed Helena’s tight grip on her mug dubiously. Helena scrunched her face. “Yes, body language expert, that was obviously sarcasm.”

“I assume you want to talk about it,” Barbara said, carefully non-judgemental. 

Helena sighed and put her mug down. “Actually,” she said, “I came here to ask if Superboy needed a motorcycle.”

Barbara blinked at her, taken aback. Helena huffed a small laugh. “Yeah,” she said sympathetically, “not where I was expecting Thanksgiving to end up, either.”

Barbara leaned forward. “Tell me everything,” she ordered.

Helena did.