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Courtney becomes Courtney when she is twelve years old.

She makes it three letters down in the alphabet before she stops and looks at herself and decides that she’s going to be Courtney.

It’s an act of rebellion. Her impression of people like her is reserved for caricatures who really aren’t, jokes she’s seen on television while waiting for her mom to get home from work. She doesn’t know the words, not enough to describe herself. She just knows something inside of her screams not me, not me, not me whenever someone reminds her she’s a boy. She knows in her own head, she’s never thought of herself as one. She knows her body is starting to change in some ways and, horribly, not in others.

She knows she can’t tell anyone. She can only be Courtney to herself. But she holds that close because it has to mean something. If she’s going to be someone she’s not to everyone else, she has to be Courtney to herself.

She wonders what her dad would think.

“Sam,” her mom’s new boyfriend Pat says, holding out his hand. He smiles at her. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Your mom’s told me a lot about you.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Courtney mutters. Pat is tall and broad and looks like he’s been punched in the face a few times. She decides immediately that she doesn’t like him. But it’s not like he’s going to last. Her mom will figure out pretty soon that he’s not worth the effort. She doesn’t care what he thinks of her. She’s not going to waste energy hating him.

“Pat’s going to take you to get a haircut,” her mom says, and Courtney’s resolve in her decision curdles on itself.

“Fine,” she says stiffly.

She’ll hate Pat all she wants, then.

Her mom doesn’t move on from Pat. She marries him, like she doesn’t even care about Courtney’s dad anymore. It’s awful. Pat’s not mean but he’s boring, and he’s always there like he thinks she wants his advice. Here, Sam, can I help you with your math homework? Here, Sam, do you want to go see a movie with me and your mom? Here, Sam, do you want to try out for the soccer team? She’s sick of it.

The wedding is weird, but maybe that’s just because Courtney’s only ever been to this one. Pat asked for the drape thing they stand under and there’s a paper in Hebrew they have to both sign because he’s Jewish. They cut the cake with Pat’s hand on her mom’s. Courtney throws rice at both of them but mostly tries to bean Pat in the head. That’s the only fun part.

She’s wearing a starchy blue suit, rented from a box store that measured her to make sure she’d fit. She’s the ringbearer. Her mom says it’s a very important job. She hates every excruciating second of it. They make her pose for pictures with her mom and Pat, and the wedding photographer tells her she’s very handsome.

She’s used to it by now. She still throws up in the bathroom at the reception. Pat offers to drive her home but she sits in the corner by herself instead, watching the guests. Most of them aren’t actually her mom’s friends, just people she’s loosely acquainted with, but there’s a good amount of extended family on her side here. 

Pat doesn’t have anyone. He doesn’t seem very bothered.

Courtney put some of the rice in her pocket so she could keep throwing it at him. It’s a little bit of justice for how he pulled her aside to ask her quietly if she’d be open to being his son, now that her mom is marrying him. He’d said he wasn’t trying to replace her father.

Courtney doesn’t care.

Never once has Courtney considered telling anyone.

She’s going to be like this forever, and then she’s going to die. The thought makes her feel like she’s having a heart attack but she knows it’s the truth. The only people she’s ever seen who were like this are fictional living jokes. She knows gay people exist. Them she’s seen on the news and in real life. And sometimes she wonders if she is gay, and this is how all gay people feel, but if they all feel this way she doesn’t know how they possibly stay alive. 

She doesn’t doubt that her mom loves her. But she doesn’t want to test it. And she especially doesn’t want to test it when it’s—it’s this important. When it’s the rest of her life.

All Courtney has is her mom. Even if they barely talk— really talk—she’s all she has. She can’t—

No. Never once has Courtney considered telling anyone.

But at least Beverly Hills had people she could theoretically tell. Blue Valley doesn’t even have that.

“Sam, right?” The girl with red hair who released her frog out the window smiles at Courtney. “They put you by me in science. It’s Mary. Kramer.”

Mary, Courtney soon discovers, is actually normal, and better than anyone else in this awful town her mom decided to stick them in. She has the same hobbies as the people Courtney knows back home, and even though Courtney can tell she’s just trying to flirt with what she thinks is a new guy in school it’s not like that’s an unwelcome change of pace.

Mary’s also got a billion conspiracy theories about the kids she says are going missing right under everybody’s noses. Not all ideas can be winners.

Courtney wonders what it would be like to tell someone here. To confess her deepest secret.

She used to say it out loud to her reflection, eyes red-rimmed from crying. I’m Courtney, I’m Courtney, I’m Courtney, I’m a girl, I’m a girl, I’m a girl.

She made sure no one ever heard her.

Her next rebellion, the one that will be her second-longest, begins with her dumping a box of Pat’s stuff onto the floor.

He’s very precious about his things. He gets annoyed if anything is even the slightest bit out of place—not even annoyed, upset. He stutters over the exact reasons why things have to be the way he wants them to no matter how many times Courtney demands to know why. It makes her feel like she’s going crazy. Her mom says to just let it lie, because Pat has something that makes him “like that.” Nobody was willing to tell Courtney what “like that” meant. She had to figure it out herself.

She sorts through what comes out of the box. Framed newspaper articles. Small photos of a boy she doesn’t recognize with coke-bottle glasses and some with a man and a little kid with red hair and a spray of freckles. Two sets of clothes that used to be nicely folded.

Courtney gets herself a nice pair of fabric scissors.

“Kid” is something you can call a boy or a girl.

“What did you do to the costume?” Pat demands when they have a moment to breathe, looming over her like he thinks she’ll be easily cowed by a big tin man.

“Freed up some room,” Courtney says. She left most of it the same, really. It wasn’t her size, but it was already meant for someone with a lithe frame and wiry muscle. She cut the legs into shorts and turned the cowl into a mask and that was it, really. Pat should be grateful she didn’t do anything worse. “You should’ve hidden it better if you didn’t want me to do anything.”

“That costume wasn’t yours,” he snaps, a burst of static crackling through the speakers. “Sam, you can’t take things that don’t belong to you.”

Courtney bites down her anger. Pat took a family that didn’t belong to him. She has better ammunition now. She can destroy this whole charade they’ve set up with a few short sentences. She knows her mom never signed up to marry a superhero. Everything with Pat is going to be over as soon as she finds out, and then they’ll move back home and leave Pat and his big robot in shitty Nebraska where they belong. “Wait ‘til Mom finds out about you.”

Pat gets out of it, of course. Courtney feels like that’s going to be a running theme. But he can’t take the cosmic converter belt away from her. He can’t take away the costume. He can’t take away being the Star-Spangled Kid.

(“It’s a weird name,” she tells Pat, perched on his robot’s shoulder like a bird with mosquito bits smeared on her hands.

Pat sighs the sigh that Courtney knows just means Sam. Please.

“I’m not saying I don’t like it,” she says, because she wouldn’t be a superhero if she had to hear them all call her “boy” or “lad” or whatever other dumb words people have come up with that mean the same thing.

“Kid” isn’t the same as “girl.” But she can pretend it’s—she can pretend, can’t she? She’s never going to get the real thing.)

“Mary’s cute,” her mom teases, and every muscle in Courtney’s body locks.

“Mom, no,” she groans, but her heart isn’t in it. The walls feel too tight, the school hallway too claustrophobic. She has the urge to hide.

Mary is cute, is the thing. And she’s smart, too, probably smart enough to keep up with Pat if Courtney gave her the opportunity. Josh isn’t the only boy with eyes for her, considering the secret admirer. But Courtney…

She doesn’t know. She tries to like girls, but it makes her teeth hurt. She tries to imagine what it would be like to like boys, but it makes her whole stomach pitch violently. The thought of her body liking someone is enough to set everything on edge. She’s pretty sure she likes the idea of dating somebody, but she can’t. She really, really can’t. The idea of someone touching the body she hates makes her feel like her skin is going to crawl right off.

Whoever they are, they’d be touching Sam. Courtney’s not Sam.

The Justice Society is mostly a bunch of old dudes. Courtney thought that would mean she’d get along better with the younger ones. But Jack’s awful and she doesn’t know anything about the Sandman’s former sidekick, so it’s pretty much just Atom Smasher and her against the world. At least he seems like he’s going to be nice to her. He introduced himself as soon as she got to the cemetery with Ted. Said he knew her predecessor and asked about one of Pat’s projects but in a way that sounded like he actually cared about the answer.

But Hourman. Hourman—

Hourman looks at her—really looks at her—with his creepy white eyes and tilts his head with interest. His voice echoes but despite the buzzing accent it sounds rich and warm and human even though he isn’t. “Hello, Stargirl.”

Something shoots through Courtney’s body, giving her jitters like she accidentally hit herself with one of her own shooting stars. She can barely make the word come out. “What?”

He tilts his head again, the other way this time. “Stargirl?” He repeats, a little more hesitant this time, like he’s confused about why she’s asking. “Turn of the 21st Century.”

Courtney’s breath hitches. Someone knows. Will know? They said that Hourman’s from the future. Ted told her he’s strange and that she doesn’t have to talk to him if she doesn’t want to. Has he been telling other people? How does he know? How does the future know? What if someone overhears him now? Her mind spins in circles.

Hourman just keeps staring at her.

“Don’t,” she manages to rasp, even though every fiber of her being wants to beg for him to call her that again, again, again. Maybe she can pretend the tears in her eyes are because they’re at a funeral and the atmosphere is getting to her even though she didn’t really know Wesley Dodds. She swallows past the lump in her throat and the need in her chest to ask him if this means other people will know one day. “I’m—I’m the Star-Spangled Kid.”

“Oh,” he says. A breeze she can’t feel moves his cloak, the embroidered hems frayed in certain spots like a small animal with sharp claws had been digging them into the fabric. “So it’s not time yet.”

He moves to be closer to Atom Smasher, so she can’t ask him any more questions. She looks around to see if anyone else heard, but there’s no one looking her way except Jack. She glares at him until he shifts his gaze back to Wildcat.

Someone knows. Someone called her Stargirl. Someone called her a girl. Not just her talking herself up in the mirror to try to face another day of torment. Someone real.

It has to mean something. It has to.

(Pat’s face is still all puffy when she gets back, a few hives left on his neck. He doesn’t call her out on her shit, though. Maybe he doesn’t think the time is right for it after she went to a funeral for someone he knew and then they all nearly died. “Your mom says I’m supposed to take you to get a haircut.”

Courtney’s stomach shrivels up. “Okay.”)

“You don’t have to get along,” she can hear Pat saying. She presses her ear harder against the wall. “But Sam is your brother now, and you need to treat him with the same respect you should show Barbara.”

“Oh, right,” Mike snaps. “You couldn’t fix the old model so you decided to trade in for a new one. Not usually your style for cars but I guess it is for kids.”

“I’m not trading anyone,” Pat says harshly. “I can have two kids. Plenty of people do.”

“It doesn’t seem that way.” Mike must stomp his foot or kick something because an impact reverberates through the wall. Courtney jolts back a little. At least he’s yelling now, so there’s no need to strain to hear the argument. “You traded me and Uncle Sky in for someone who doesn’t even deserve to have the belt!”

Courtney can picture the way Pat must be pinching the bridge of his nose. “That’s still what this is about? Mike, you’re not—”

Mike does whatever he did before, this time much closer to where Courtney is standing even though he can’t possibly know she’s listening in. “Not good enough? Yeah, thanks. You’ve only been telling me that every time we’ve spoken since I was a kid. And now that you’ve got a shiny new son you can show off, I’m never going to be.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Pat says. “I’m not replacing you with Sam. I’m not replacing—anyone. Finish unpacking here. I’ll be helping Barbara with dinner.”

All she has left of her dad is the picture in the locket she’s too scared to wear outside and her name.

Only it isn’t her name, and it hasn’t been for a long time.

It’s not her choice when it all starts to unravel. There’s no early moment of confession planned and scripted and delivered only to the people she cares about most. There’s a moment of confusion, dust from a smoke bomb and blue magic light and the thrum of something from outer space. That moment is all Courtney will get.

“What happened?” She asks, rubbing at her eyes. Her voice squeaks in her throat and she coughs, trying to clear it as she attempts to use her hand to waft away the smoke.

“Um.” There’s someone looking at her. Someone who looks suspiciously like Green Lantern. Except Green Lantern isn’t thirteen years old and shorter than her. And Green Lantern wouldn’t stare at her like this, would he? She’s only seen him once in person, and they didn’t exactly get an introduction. But he’s gaping at her from behind that chunky green mask that suddenly looks several sizes too big. He swats the shoulder of the kid next to him, who looks like a pint sized version of Steel drowning in his own armor. “Uh.”

That’s the moment when Courtney realizes her body feels off. Not the familiar wrongness she’s felt ever since she was a kid and was forced to understand that there was a difference between her and girls. It’s different. Her body weight is distributed differently. She’s not taller, but she feels like it because it looks like everyone else has shrunk like Green Lantern and Steel seem to have. And she—

Cool air hits her stomach. She doesn’t dare look as she fumbles her way up and down her whole body, inadvertently dropping whatever weapon had somehow appeared in her hands. To resist the temptation she squeezes her eyes shut, stomach lurching. She’s. She has.

“Dat was not s’pposed ta happen,” Sentinel’s old sidekick says. “Not… any o’ dat.”

“Aw, come on!” Someone yells. Courtney isn’t sure who because everything sounds like it’s underwater. Superboy, maybe? Impulse? She hugs her chest. There’s flesh there to give. She felt it before but she feels the weight of it now.

Part of her wants to grab whoever did this and thank them endlessly, promising her soul if she can keep it, if she can please just keep it. Part of her feels like the rush in her stomach that comes from jumping off a building or doing a flip, relying on only herself to catch her as the ground keeps rushing up. Part of her feels like she’s about to crumble into ash because this has happened in front of everybody— and she can see her team now, all of them thirteen or younger but mostly younger and every last one of them with a visible face gaping at her except Hourman. And all of those parts are duking it out in her stomach lining.

Out. Away. She has to get out of here. There are news cameras. There are people looking at her. She needs to—

“Hey, uh, Star?” A voice says tentatively, and Courtney looks up to find a very much adult Robin looking at her like he would rather be anywhere else. He’s probably thinking about the cameras, too, albeit for different reasons. “We’re going to go to Mount Justice. If you can wrangle the JSA…”

“Sure,” Courtney says, because she can’t exactly refuse. Her voice sounds different, like she finished the wrong puberty her body has forced her into. Adult. She’s an adult. She’s a—she’s a woman and an adult.

She prayed once that she would go to sleep and wake up a girl. She was nine then. When it hadn’t worked, she’d decided that God wasn’t listening or didn’t care about her. She wonders if praying to the Spectre would’ve made any difference. The idea is terrifying.

She looks at the JSA, or what’s left of them now that all of them are missing most of their height. Pat’s there, looking all of eight years old and clutching his miniaturized STRIPE. Her mom is going to kill her.

(Her mom is going to find out.)

There are thirteen members of the JSA here, if she counts Pat as one of them. Thirteen pairs of eyes burning straight into her. Brown and blue and green and marble-white.

Courtney picks up her weapon. It fits into her hand like it was built with her in mind, the pieces on the end humming even though she can’t see a power source. Then, all at once, it lights up and chimes, cosmic energy washing over her like the feedback she gets sometimes from the belt. It must be a version of the cosmic rod Ted Knight used, the one Jack’s got now. She waves it a little and feels the heat pour off.

“We’re going to Mount Justice,” she declares. It feels weird to give orders to people she knows are old enough to be her grandparents, much less the one who’s actually her stepdad. It feels wrong to do it while she wants nothing more than to hide. “All of you, stay close to me.”

They don’t argue with her, not even Wildcat.

Somehow, Courtney doesn’t think that’s going to last.

They’re all still staring at her. Courtney can see them nudging each other, clearly vying for the opportunity not to talk to her. Robin and Superboy seem to have taken the “it’s a girl problem” defense with Wonder Girl and Secret while Impulse seems resigned to trying to stop the Flash—make that both Flashes, from what Courtney can see—from leaving footprints all over the walls. “Old Justice” isn’t exactly being a whole lot of help where they’re huddled together having their own little pep talk. Courtney doesn’t like the way Merry keeps looking at her.

Then again, they are old. It’s not like they’re going to understand.

Wonder Girl loses the argument and slinks over to Courtney. She lays out the plan in careful steps—Courtney and the Justice Society will go with Doiby and apparently Merry to Myrg to get the replacements they need to repair the weapon that partially got them into this whole mess in the first place. Courtney evidently doesn’t get much choice in the matter, although it being the Justice Society that goes to space is a necessity considering they’re using Pat’s dumb plane. It shouldn’t be too difficult with all of them on the case. The remaining heroes and children will stay on Earth and try to work things from this side to see if there are any easier solutions.

Wonder Girl also looks at Courtney’s chest. Twice.

“We’ve kind of got bigger problems right now,” Wonder Girl says when she’s done explaining things. Courtney knows exactly what she’s talking about and she’s grateful. So grateful it makes her sick.

She can see the Justice Society and the Justice League starting to squabble out of the corner of her eye. She rubs her temples. She can’t—she won’t entertain any questions. She knows there’s going to be some. Aquaman has already started to hit on her.

The worst of the questions are going to be afterward. When this is over. Because it has to end.

She might as well savor it while it lasts. Having this body. It feels so real. Organic. Like one day she really is going to get out of bed as a woman and think wow, this is how I should have always been. Like this body belongs to her for keeps. It feels solid. She has muscle. There’s more fat around her hips. She’s pretty sure her shoes are a slightly different size. 

Courtney realizes suddenly she hasn’t even seen her own face.

“Do you have a mirror?” She asks quietly.

“Bathroom’s down the hall,” Wonder Girl says, looking a little relieved that she doesn’t have to deal with this anymore.

Courtney stumbles there in a haze. She looks at herself in the mirror. Touches her face. It’s her face. There are more creases around her eyes, but it’s hers. Her hair gets curly when it’s short like this—not that it ever gets the chance to be anything else—but it doesn’t look like it’s the same haircut she’s been forced to get since she was seven or so. She touches the shaved part at the back of her head, gloved fingers rubbing against fuzz.

That’s her. That’s her.

She’s tempted to strip, take off Jack’s jacket and goggles and the ludicrously small top and look at every inch of herself, and it takes Amazonian strength to hold herself back.

It’s just going to make it harder when she has to give this all up.

Merry calls her “Starwoman” with so much ease that at first Courtney doesn’t even hear it.

For a minute, on Myrg, with the cosmic rod in her hand and a body that feels right, she thinks she might actually be free. Like she’s floating, floating, floating.

Coming back down when the kid version of Pat calls her "Sam" is like being reminded of gravity.

“If she won’t change back, it’s not everyone, and I’m off the hook,” that stupid brat Klarion says, and everybody is crowded around Secret to convince her things will be okay but Klarion is looking directly at Courtney.

When Courtney was a little kid, she accidentally swallowed lighter fluid. Her mom maintains it was her dad’s fault and that he hadn’t even bothered to call poison control until she’d gotten home and asked why Courtney was throwing up. She still remembers the taste at the back of her throat. This? Giving this up?

It’s so, so much worse.

They make her sit in the room with the big table. They’re all there, even Jack, even Pat because they haven’t gone home yet, and Courtney wants to disappear into the floor. They must be able to see she wants to run, because they’ve got Kendra behind her standing in front of the door. She knows what they’re going to ask her about. She knows but she can’t—she. She.

“Sam,” Sentinel says, authoritative and strong enough that Al actually hisses, and Courtney—

The sobs hit out of nowhere. Snot drips down her lip as she hugs her knees, the unfairness of everything (of getting what she wanted, of having what she’s always dreamed of, of being herself, and feeling it get taken away for no reason) ripping through her with enough force to leave her panting. Her head pounds from the pressure on her sinuses and her breath comes in thick gasps, the tears in her eyes leaving her completely blind.

They know about her and now they’re seeing her cry. Those are two very, very bad things.

“Sam,” a different voice, Pat’s voice, says, and arms wrap around her shoulders as he pulls her off the chair and onto the floor with him, letting her press her snotty face against his chest. She mashes her forehead into his clavicle so hard it must hurt, desperate to relieve some of the pressure in her skull. She doesn’t want to talk to him, either, but at least he’s letting her hide.

“I told you this was a bad idea,” she can hear Al saying. “Why’d you have to turn it into an interrogation?”

“I—I didn’t mean to…” Sentinel starts. Then he sighs. “Maybe this can wait."

“Oh, you think?” Pat mutters, holding Courtney tighter. Courtney digs her fingers into the front of his shirt. She’s not sure why. She just needs something to cling to.

The sound of feathers on carpet. Courtney hadn’t known that was even recognizable until she got to know Kendra. So she’s done blocking the door, then. One wing must lift like a curtain because the light drilling through Courtney’s closed eyelids darkens.

“Atom Smasher and I have got your back,” she says in a stage whisper. “I’ll take Sentinel, you run?”

Courtney’s laugh wrings out of her as another sob. “I—I—”

“We’re going home,” Pat says decisively. “Hawkgirl, I’m stronger than I look, but would you mind…”

“Sure,” Kendra says, apparently reading whatever facial expression he made. She pulls Courtney back and up, hauling her to her feet and then nudging her shoulder up under Courtney’s arm. They’re not too far off in height. Kendra’s only a little over four years older than her, but both of them are done growing. Courtney’s on the smaller side for a boy. She used to think that meant something.

“I can walk,” Courtney mumbles, face still screwed up.

“Uh-huh,” Kendra says. She switches which wing she’s holding up. Courtney catches a brief glimpse of the Justice Society. The only one not facing her is Mid-nite, who’s saying something in Mister Terrific’s ear.

“Wait,” Sentinel says. Courtney can’t see him leaning forward. “I—Sam, I just wanted to say that we’re all proud of you. You did an excellent job under very unusual circumstances. That’s all.”

Courtney can’t even feel proud.

“I didn’t realize this was not common knowledge,” Hourman says, and swoops out of the room to go back to wherever it is he goes when he’s not with them. Happy Harbor, Courtney’s pretty sure.

Pat and Kendra exchange a look over Courtney’s head as they slowly move down the hallway. One that says “I’m not going to be the one to ask him what he means.” 

Jack catches them one floor down.

“Hey,” he calls over the whir of the cosmic rod. He’d said wielders could call it to themselves without having to touch it. Courtney idly wonders if that would work now on this version. Her head hurts too much to test it. But maybe it would get her out of whatever horrible thing it is Jack wants to say to her. “You’ve got my number, right? Dad gave it to you?”

“Yes,” Pat says.

“Could you give it to the Kid?” Jack asks.

“Well, you don’t have to talk about him like he’s not right here,” Kendra mutters. Courtney holds in her pained noise.

(“Starwoman,” Merry said. Jack had called her that too, when he was telling her how to use the cosmic rod. And... Courtney isn’t sure, but she knows someone on Young Justice did, too. Secret, maybe, or Impulse. She isn’t sure if it had been a joke for them. It hadn’t been for Merry and Jack.)

“Look. Kid. You can call me if you want to talk, alright?” Jack says. Courtney doesn’t look up. “I think we might have some things in common. Just think about it.”

That gets Courtney to twitch her head. He looks honest. He also looks bone tired. He probably wants to go home and get back to his actual life. He’s one of the few of them that actually have one.

Courtney can’t imagine what he could possibly be talking about. She’s not sure she wants to.

Why couldn’t she have just kept it? Kept her?

They tell her mom she’s sick. Picked it up from Mary while she was staying with her for the past week, their excuse for why Courtney hasn’t been around. Courtney’s not really sure why they bother. It’s clear her mom’s not buying it anymore.

“Sam?” Pat says, sticking his head into her room. Courtney freezes, hands going still where she’s been rubbing them up and down her torso, the back of her head, and the insides of her thighs, trying to remember what it felt like for her body to feel right. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine,” she says, avoiding eye contact. At least that’s easy with Pat. He never makes it.

“Okay,” he says. “You know you can talk to me and your mom about anything?”

“Yes,” she says listlessly.

“Okay,” he repeats. “Did you try calling Jack?”

Courtney burrows under the covers. “Can you try leaving me alone?”

Pat sighs and closes the door. Courtney doesn’t feel bad. For one fleeting moment, she’d been real and alive. For just a second, she’d been who she really was.

She’d trade anything to get that back.

She starts wearing the locket again. She knows it’s jewelry, and therefore dangerous. But she feels like she has to. Her Teta gave it to her mom and said Sam can have this to match and it’s gold like the oversized cosmic rod was when she held it, and she feels stronger and safer when she has it. Like she’s got a good luck charm.

When it sits against Courtney’s skin for long enough, it’s warm like the cosmic rod, too.

Courtney braces for Impulse to say something. To make a joke about how last time she saw him they were both adults, and she was—but he doesn’t. The only thing he says is in response to her asking about Robin, having deemed it too suspicious to ask about Wonder Girl and Secret.

“Why do all the girls ask me how Robin is?” He complains before running a few loops around Pat. Courtney’s heart stutters, anxiety making her hands clammy beneath the gloves. But Pat’s too busy talking to Max Mercury to have noticed, and Courtney doesn’t dare ask Impulse for clarity and risk drawing their attention.

Max Mercury whisks her away. Wildcat stares at her the whole time they’re at the Justice Society’s headquarters until Max takes her shoulders and physically directs her away.

“Are you sure this one is a good idea?” He says to Wildcat, voice hushed.

“There’s nothing else going on,” he says. “And it’s a ‘gentleman’s club.’ Men only. Might be… I dunno. Might do somethin’.”

Courtney swallows down nausea.

They don’t really beat Gentleman Ghost, but he does leave, so that’s something. Courtney can’t find any victory in it, though. The people working there won’t stop talking about how they’re glad the Justice Society didn’t send Black Canary or Hawkgirl along so their building can remain “free of women.”

Maybe Max can tell she has tears in her eyes. Either way, he deposits her back with Pat without many more words. 

Her mom finds out. Not about Courtney, but about what she and Pat do. Getting kidnapped by the principal will do that. It’s fine. It’s whatever. They’ve got an Arthurian knight with a bunch of cuts on his face from shaving with a sword spending the night on their couch and that’s fine and it’s whatever and—

(Courtney knows she has to get part of her braces rewired. When she goes over her teeth with her tongue she can feel where she bent something biting at a screw on STRIPE’s chest, nails breaking while she scored them against metal trying to crack it open like a tuna can and kill, kill, kill.)

“So that was you on the news the whole time?” Her mom asks, amazed. She’s been alternating between being impressed and shouting at Pat and calling him a maniac for lying to her. Courtney’s pretty sure she’s coming around.

“Yeah,” Courtney says. “I’m gonna go up to my room.”

Her mom snags her and kisses her head. “My son the superhero.”

The Flash shows up. Al’s mom is dead. Courtney jumps at the chance to leave. She’d rather be there with Al than here, anyway.

The man in the living room stands, exhaling heavily as he looks her up and down.

“Wow,” he says. “You’ve really grown up, Junior.”

Courtney jumps into her father’s arms without a second thought.

He tells her a lot of things. He says he’s been having a hard time lately. That her mom didn’t want him to find her, that she tried to make both of them disappear. That the locket she probably doesn’t still wear is an heirloom—and here Courtney cuts him off to show him she does wear it, even though taking it off even briefly makes her feel like she’s lost a piece of protection.

“Teta said it was really valuable,” she says. “She said she brought it with her when she left Baskinta, and then when Mom was born she—”

“Right,” her dad says, and takes it out of her hand. “I’ll be back. Get you something you can actually use. Not like you’re going around wearing jewelry, are you?”

All she has left of her dad is her name.

Only it isn’t her name, and it hasn’t been for a long time.

Hello? Sam, are you paying attention? I’ve been talking for the last, like, five minutes…?

Mr. Whitmore, do I need to repeat myself? 

Hawkgirl! Cover the Kid, his back’s exposed and I don’t want any more funny stuff with him and magic.

My son the superhero.

Courtney meets the real—she meets Sylvester Pemberton, or some version of him, at least. He doesn’t say much to her at first, but when they’re on Hourman’s ship he deliberately comes to find her.

“This is weird,” Courtney admits after a few seconds of staring at him.

“You think so? The last thing I remember is going to a JSA meeting with Power Girl and Huntress, and now I’m here. I barely recognize half the people up there,” he says. Then he grins. “At least I know there’s still a Star-Spangled Kid.”

“Yeah,” Courtney agrees. She puts her hand on the cosmic converter belt. “They can’t get rid of me—they can’t get rid of us that easily.”

“Hey, Jay told me you could use a little help figuring out how to use that,” he says, gesturing to her waist. “I’m sure Pat’s been showing you some of it, but—”

“Are you kidding?” Courtney draws her knees up to her chest. “He would’ve chained my door shut if he thought it would stop me from using it.”

Sylvester laughs. “He’s got no right, with all the stuff we used to do.” 

He looks at her thoughtfully for just long enough to make her shift uncomfortably in place. Irrationally, she feels some kind of wild hope that he really sees her the way Hourman does, even though he’s not really from the future. Maybe he knows. Maybe he approves. Maybe the man she knows she’ll always be compared to actually—

He shrugs when he realizes he’s been staring. “Sorry, kid. It’s taking me some time to get used to the hair. My—well, in my timeline, Mike’s a redhead. Must’ve gotten more of your mom’s genes this time around, huh?”

Courtney never thought she’d be grateful for their ship crashing.

He fades into oblivion again before she can correct him, telling her she’s doing good and that she should tell her “dad” hello from him.

It’s not just time-sickness that makes her throw up when she finally makes it home.

“I think you’re depressed,” Pat says abruptly.

Courtney chases her reheated pasta around her plate with her fork and deliberately doesn’t answer.

“You know,” he says, and Courtney braces herself for a life lesson she’s going to have to pretend to learn. He’s been reading parenting books lately, sandwiching them within the covers of mechanics manuals like he thinks that’ll fool her and Mike. Practice for the baby, probably. “We didn’t really talk about what happened with Klarion.”

Courtney tries to say that she’s going upstairs, but her mouth won’t move and her legs have suddenly decided to stop working. Things feel very far away. Her teeth might be chattering. Is that supposed to happen?

“I didn’t want you to get upset,” Pat says. “I told you, you can talk to me and your mom about anything. It’s okay. We care about you and—”

“Whatever,” Courtney says. Her mouth is numb. She still can’t stand up. Mike retreated to his room with his dinner ages ago, a whole ten minutes. She should’ve followed him when she had the chance.

“I guess I should’ve just asked if you knew why,” Pat says. He’s not eating anymore, either, even though bow ties are supposedly the only noodle shape he and Mike can tolerate having. “Why when they turned you all into adults you… looked like that.”

Courtney wonders if he’ll be mad at her if she throws up on her plate. Maybe it doesn’t matter. He’s going to be mad at her anyway. Pat’s as old as Old Justice. Older, even. 

“Do you know why?” Pat asks. He sounds like he’s trying to navigate through a minefield. “Is there… Can you think of a reason why your adult self would be a woman?”

Courtney makes a creaking noise at the back of her throat. She should say no, she should run and hide in her room, but she still can’t move and something Pat just said is sticking on her tongue. 

Because it was their adult selves, wasn’t it? It wasn’t their idealized selves. Superboy had been an adult by the time they worked it all out, but at first he’d still been a kid. Robin had been Robin, and Courtney can’t imagine he wants to be that forever. Same with Impulse. Secret had sure liked what she’d become, but Courtney doesn’t know about Wonder Girl. They… They hadn’t been manifestations of secret desire, they were previews into what could be.

She had been Courtney’s adult self. She’d been real. She’d been what Courtney could have.

That’s why the word stumbles out. “Maybe.”

Pat chooses his words carefully, speaking slower than normal. “Do you think it maybe has something to do with what you want right now?”

Courtney doesn’t dare move. She doesn’t even breathe. She stays completely still like if she does she’ll manage to disappear. Maybe go back in time and stop all of this from happening.

“I need you to tell me if I’m off base,” he says. He gives her another forty seconds. Courtney’s starting to count them through the lack of oxygen. “Sam? Can you hear me?”

“Don’t call me that,” Courtney’s body snaps. It doesn’t feel like she does it herself because she’s suddenly watching all of this happen from across the room, looking at a little diorama.

Pat looks at her. “Not off base, then, am I?”

Courtney tries to make herself breathe from a distance. It doesn’t work but she hasn’t blacked out yet. That counts for something.

She’s still not sure how she gets to her room afterward. She just knows she’s there when her mom gets home, some meeting having run late—they’ve put her in charge of a lot more stuff now that the principal is gone and half the school got wrecked by a dragon.

Her mom and Pat talk for a long time. Courtney doesn’t bother trying to listen in.

(Sometimes she dreams she tells her mom. Sometimes the dreams end well, and her mom calls her Courtney, the first time she’ll have heard anyone else say her name, period, and tells her she’ll always love her.

Sometimes the dream ends badly, and Courtney wakes up with no family and no home and a red mark on her cheek she could’ve sworn she could really feel.

The last dream ended badly. Her mom told her that she’d ruined everything, and there’d been blood spotting on the floor, and it had been Pat who threw her out, telling her she might as well have killed his oldest child and now she’d gone and cost him his youngest. She’d thrown up in her mouth when she’d woken up.)

She’s tense when her mom comes upstairs and sits down on the edge of her bed. Her fingers trace through Courtney’s hair. They haven’t made her get a haircut in a while. Courtney’s been secretly savoring it.

“Hi, honey,” her mom says. Her voice is quiet. “Pat and I were just talking. Can you… how long have you been feeling like this?”

There’s a wet spot on her pillow. When did she start crying? There’s no getting out of this. Maybe Mary would let her stay with her, if she had to leave. She couldn’t hide out at Sandy’s manor. They’ll kick her off the team. Her voice squeaks. “Always.”

“Oh, Sam,” her mom whispers, gently tucking Courtney’s hair behind her ear. Courtney stays so tense it hurts, the name prickling on her skin. “Okay. Okay. We’ll figure it out together. Me, you, and Pat. We’ll figure it out.”

That could mean a lot of things. It could mean they’re going to try to fix her. Courtney wonders if it would work. It could mean what she has always refused to let herself hope for, that her mom is going to help her. It could be a lot of things. Courtney makes it worse on herself by gritting out a quiet “not my name.”

“What is your name then, subhi?” Her mom asks quietly. 

Courtney’s hand comes up to touch the locket that isn’t there anymore. Moment of truth time. Also “potentially the last moment she’ll spend in this house” time. “Courtney.”

“Courtney,” her mom says thoughtfully, and something in Courtney’s chest lifts. She’s never heard anyone else call her by name in anything except those dreams. Never. But her body somehow recognizes it as hers all the same. “That’s a nice name for you.”

Courtney rests her face on her mom’s thigh and cries.

They tell Mike while they’re on the trip to DC, which Courtney doesn’t think was a great idea. For all she was expecting him to immediately turn around and call her a sissy, he just looks at her critically before he shrugs and goes back to his Game Boy.

“This is my old—I mean, my professional friend Pat,” Pat’s friend tells his niece when they meet him at the inauguration. Wow, he looks a lot different when he’s not a little kid. “And this is Pat’s—”

“This is my stepdaughter, Courtney,” Pat introduces. Courtney’s cheeks turn pink the way they do every time he says that. Which is a lot, even if they haven’t actually told that many people—just Mike and now “John” and his niece—because she heard him practicing saying it in the mirror multiple mornings in a row. The niece looks like she’s her age. She also looks like she can tell. Courtney assumes she’ll have to get used to that.

But neither of them say anything. And she gets to shoot a bunch of now-President Luthor’s people. So it’s not a total bust.

This is like practice for telling the Justice Society, she reasons. Being introduced to a bunch of people whose opinions she couldn’t care less about in preparation for the ones she does. 

Besides, how many people can say they’ve gotten the Washington Monument dropped on their heads?

“I think I’m going to take the Steelworks job,” Pat says.

Courtney looks at him, eyes wide. Mary, she thinks. “But—the house, and—you have a secret wall, Pat.”

“There’s more work in Metropolis right now,” Pat says, which is probably true because anywhere would have more work than Blue Valley. And he hasn’t been back to work on the Justice Society’s plane since… Since they started planning the best way to break the news. “I’d be salaried. John practically begged me.” 

“It’d make us a little more comfortable financially when the baby gets here,” her mom adds, which means they’re officially going to do it.

“Besides, it’ll be better for you,” Pat says. Then, awkwardly, a few seconds later, “It’s closer to New York. You won’t have to travel as far to do JSA business.”

What he really means is “it’s more accepting in Metropolis.”

“We’ll rent the house out until we move back,” her mom says. She’s not showing yet. She says this baby is going to be smaller than Courtney was. Courtney doesn’t know how she could possibly know that yet. “Because we will move back, right, Pat?”

“Yes ma’am,” Pat says, and kisses her cheek while Courtney boos them.

They’re going to tell the Justice Society in spurts. Younger members first as a block, per Courtney’s request. Jakeem, Kendra, and Al. Then the ones who are old but not old old—Terrific, Mid-nite, Sand (although Sand does probably count as old old to most people), and Black Canary. Then the really old ones. Ted, Jay, and Alan. Oh, and maybe Hawkman. She’s not gonna tell Black Adam.

(She wonders if they should tell Jack. He’s not on the team anymore, but she’s not really sure what he’s been up to since he left after…)

Pat says he can help. Do it for her if she needs to. Her mom offered to do the same, even though the only member of the team she’s met is Jay. Courtney knows the only thing more embarrassing than having her stepdad do this for her is having her mom do it for her.

Pat still tags along. They can both pretend she’s not shaking.

It’s easy to get Kendra, Al, and Jakeem in a room. Courtney’s tense, pins and needles shooting through her hands. Jakeem watches Pat with the same expression he gets when someone tries to talk down to him, Kendra says a polite hello with a flick of her wings, and Al goes straight for a hug, completely forgetting other people are in the room in his eagerness to start talking about their plane.

“Sam wants to talk to you,” Pat says. She can hear the ease with which it comes out, not like the little catch he gets before he says Courtney. But he always looks on the edge of a wince when he gets it wrong.

They stop looking at Pat and look at her. Courtney gets the urge to hide behind something very large and metal. The cosmic converter belt will have to do. 

“Hi,” she says. “I—I wanted to say—”

“Don’t leave, Stars,” Al says, suddenly looking extremely worried.

Courtney swallows. They’ll see if he still says that once she tells him… She likes Al. Al’s her friend. So is Kendra. And Jakeem is… he’s okay, is what he is, but she doesn’t want him to hate her.

(Mom and Pat don’t hate her. They know, and they don’t hate her. She didn’t get disowned. The stress didn’t make her mom—didn’t—it was alright then. But the Justice Society is her team. That’s different.)

“I’m not leaving unless you kick me out,” Courtney says, trying for a strong attitude.

“What, you gay or something?” Jakeem says, ignoring a burst of almost-inaudible but clearly frantic chatter from his pocket.

Courtney’s guts go cold. She can feel the ground crumbling beneath her feet.

“Hey!” Kendra hisses, hitting him with one feather. “Ignore him, Star, he’s—”

“Hey!” Al says at the same time. “You shouldn’t call people—”

“Hey,” Jakeem protests. “I didn’t think he was actually gay, I—”

“Not gay,” Courtney says. These days she isn’t even sure if that’s true. It doesn’t matter. The truth does slip out, though, with a bit more ease than she was expecting. Maybe it’s because she’s got the belt and the costume. (Maybe it’s because Pat’s there to watch her back.) “Just a girl.”

“Huh?” Jakeem says.

“Oh.” Kendra’s expression smooths, and even though Courtney can still see confusion she thinks that’s a pretty good sign. “So that’s what happened with the witch boy.”

“I love and accept you no matter what, and I am here if you need to talk about anything or start feeling self-destructive urges due to social or familial isolation,” Al says, and while he’s very solemn the words are pretty clearly completely scripted. Why or where he got them from, Courtney doesn’t know. Kendra looks at him, evidently as baffled as Courtney is, and he shrugs.

“Huh?” Jakeem repeats, looking rapidly back and forth between all of them.

“I’m leaving,” Courtney announces. Pat squeezes her shoulder and goes with her. He waves to Al when he does. Al, currently being interrogated by Jakeem while he asks him what the fuck any of that shit from either of them meant, doesn’t seem to notice.

Mister Terrific is the smartest person Courtney’s ever met. He also looks incredibly guilty behind his mask when she pokes her head into his and Mid-nite’s little satellite lab.

“You saw the security feed,” Courtney says, unable to hide her relief at having to tell one less person today.

“I did,” he says. “I’ll update the files.”

“Okay.” She closes the door, then opens it again. “It’s Courtney. Not—you know. I didn’t tell them that.”

“I’ll fix it,” he says. “Is it only us that knows so far?”

“Yeah.” She kicks the floor a little. “Maybe you should wait to change the files until…”

“Kid—S—Courtney,” Terrific says ruefully, and Courtney’s head jerks up, “I could change them now and Dr. Cross would be the only one to know for the next twenty years. Nobody reads the files.”

“That explains why I’ve been dreaming of you as a woman,” Sand muses, and goes back to drinking his tea with no further elaboration.

“Um, Dr. Cross?” Courtney says tentatively. “Did you hear—”

“Yes, I read the file update,” he says, typing something. Once Courtney asked him why he didn’t need a braille keyboard. He said he’d already memorized the keyboard layout of his computer and didn’t see any reason to change it. Then she’d asked if he just brought the same big computer around with him everywhere and he said Terrific had bought him a bunch of them so he could always have what he was familiar with. Courtney had asked if that was weird. He’d said no. “I assumed you wanted a referral to an endocrinologist. I have the information for Scarlett’s around here somewhere.”

“What?” Courtney says, baffled.

“TylerCo has the best, of course,” Mid-nite says absently. “They’re revolutionary in their field, I suppose because of Rex Tyler’s influence on the direction of the company. You’ll need doctor’s notes, I can provide that if we backdate them to before I lost my license—”

“You don’t have a medical license?” Pat says sharply from behind Courtney.

“—although of course there’ll have to be therapy records. I’m sure I could call in a favor for those,” he continues. “Ah. Here. Dr. Kimball, that’s who Scarlett sees. Of course, she’s based out of Portsmouth… I’ll see if she has any recommendations that are closer to Metropolis. That should get you started on your medical journey once you’ve turned eighteen. Have you thought about whether you’d like to pursue surgical options?”

“What?” Courtney repeats.

“We haven’t talked about it yet,” Pat says. He puts a hand on Courtney’s shoulder to steer her out of the room. “Thank you, Dr. Cross. By the way, Sam’s name is Courtney.”

He closes the door behind them. Surgical options. Is that why her body had been… But she’d only been in her twenties, that kind of thing couldn’t happen that fast, right? And that perfectly? Wasn’t there… Wouldn’t everyone still be able to tell? Everything had felt so real…

She wants to run back and ask Mid-nite for more information, but Pat’s holding her too tightly. 

Black Canary’s not at HQ. Courtney’s not sure if that means she really quit this time or if she’s just busy with her real life, which none of the rest of them seem to have.

This is the harder part.

Sure, Sand is the chairman. He probably would’ve been the one to formally kick her out. But if Jay, Alan, and Ted don’t—if even just one of them doesn’t like it, she’ll be off the team. For good.

They’re all together, not in the room with the big table but in one of the adjacent libraries. Ted’s not in costume but Alan and Jay are, although Jay’s got the hat in his hands and is contemplatively running his thumb along one of the wings. Courtney balks at going in but Pat is right there and one of the others is going to tell them if she doesn’t do it, which makes this basically a matter of life and death.

“Hi, everyone,” Pat says when they walk in. He gets a little awkward around the original members of the Justice Society, too. Courtney assumes it’s because even though he isn’t actually a full part of the team, he could still theoretically pull rank on anybody younger than him except potentially Sandy. Maybe that’s the side benefit to being older than literally everyone else in any given room.

“The Steel Eagle need an oil change?” Ted asks, lifting one wrapped hand in greeting.

“Might pop in and see how she’s doing,” Pat says. Yeah, right. Courtney wouldn’t be surprised if he planned this whole thing just so he could check on his plane. “But the Kid wants to talk to you.”

Jay smiles at her. Ted nods. Alan looks like he might be literally smoking. Courtney can’t tell if that’s a good sign or not.

“I,” she starts. “I’m.”

The words won’t come. She steps closer to Pat, who tucks her up against his side without a second thought.

“Sam’s going to be a girl from now on,” Pat announces. He trips up on the next part despite his practicing. “His name is Courtney. Her name, I mean.”

Ted barks a startled laugh. Jay and Alan don’t say anything for a moment, but Alan’s eyes are burning.

Jay goes first. “Like Rex, only the other way around,” he says thoughtfully, looking at Alan and Ted for a moment. He narrows his eyes and Ted jumps like he was just kicked under the table at superspeed. “Well?”

“So you’re gonna turn into a girl?” Ted asks, raising his eyebrows. “This got anything to do with that whole magical mess you and the other kids got into?”

“No,” Courtney says.

“Sam—Courtney’s always felt like this,” Pat says. “We’ve already been working on it at home.”

“You think this is a good idea?” Ted looks at him. “As a father, you’re gonna go along with it?”

Pat bristles. “Well, I don’t want my—I don’t want him—I don’t want her to die.”

“Hey,” Ted says when Courtney jolts at the reality of that statement. Had that been what her mom and Pat had weighed when they were talking about her? Whether or not they wanted her to live? “I’m just askin’. It’s a free country. You can do whatever you want. Just makin’ sure this ain’t some spell that’s gonna turn me back into an eight-year-old. Kid wants to be a girl, he can be a girl.”

“I do,” Courtney says. “I am.” Then—“Did you say Rex Tyler was—”

“It was different,” Jay says. “Rex was… He explained it to me as it being like he was born into the wrong body. Like he was always supposed to be a man but something went wrong, and he was going to spend his whole life trying to fix it. It wasn’t really public knowledge, but I don’t think he tried to hide it once he made it rich and settled down with W—with Wendi.”

Courtney can hardly believe her ears. Rex Tyler was— how come nobody ever told her?

“Huh,” Pat remarks quietly. He must not have known either.

“Alan?” Jay prompts, looking at Sentinel expectantly. 

He stays silent for another moment before exhaling through his teeth. “I…” He clears his throat. “You’re sure?”

Courtney tries to stop her voice from shaking. She needs to be confident. She needs to prove to them that it doesn’t matter what they say. It’s hard to do that when it matters a lot what they say because they have the power to ruin her life right now. “Are you going to kick me out if I say yes?”

“No,” Sentinel says firmly. He says it too quickly for it to be anything other than the truth. She wonders if Rex Tyler and his—what he was has anything to do with that. If him having been broken in the same way she is primed the older members of the Justice Society to sympathize with her. “But you’ll have to train more with Ted. You’re taking a big risk.”

Courtney takes that to mean he’s only trusting her as long as it goes over well with the public and she stays capable of handling herself in the field. This is a very dangerous world for a girl like her. She’ll be a PR nightmare.

Alan takes that to mean Courtney understands the danger she’s in and that she knows he will do what he can to protect her. This is a very dangerous world for a girl like her. He doesn’t want her to have to find out firsthand.

They look at each other and see two very different kinds of lanterns. One green and burning and now named Sentinel, and one mostly metaphorical, passed along by word of mouth through an institution nobody ever belonged in, a sheer representation of hope.

Alan hopes Courtney knows that he’s proud of her.

She doesn’t.

Jack is different.

Jack, she tells alone, once she’s decided to tell him at all.

He invites her to Opal City, allegedly because he found something of his father’s he wants to give her. She convinces Pat to let her go alone. Ever since Jack stepped back from the Justice Society, he’s been… more okay to be around. Not that she has been around him. But they’ve talked on the phone and all that. If he says he’s got something for her, he’s probably not wasting her time.

(Her mom and Pat ask if she’s really sure she wants to do this—go alone to a city she doesn’t know very well to meet a man and tell him she’s an acceptable person to hurt.

Courtney thinks about the kid version of Jack jumping around with his gap teeth and bright eyes calling her “Starwoman” and says that she thinks she’ll be okay. Besides, they’ve got Tricia to take care of. Babies need constant attention, right?)

He meets her at the train station. Invites her to go on a walk with him to his storefront. There’s a sign in the window that says “CLOSING SALE” in huge red letters. She doesn’t comment on it. They don’t talk about anything substantial until the doors to Knight’s Past are closed behind them. Hell, Courtney barely talks at all. She just fidgets with her clothes and her hair and wonders if someone might have called Jack and told him already.

And then Jack puts the cosmic rod in her hands.

“This is…” Courtney’s voice dies and she struggles to find it again. “This is…”

“I have a good idea what it is by now,” Jack says. He rubs his chin. He’s probably shaved plenty of times since Courtney last saw him at his father’s funeral, but he looks younger without the scraggly facial hair. “The important thing is that it’s yours, Kid.”

Courtney grips the cosmic rod tight because she doesn’t know what else to do, pulling it close to her chest. It hums like it did when she used it on Myrg, when it had flown to her hand on her own willpower. When she hadn’t known whether the warmth she was feeling was because of the shining thing in her hands or the alien atmosphere or because of what Merry and Jack had called her.

“I don’t understand,” she whispers. The cosmic rod glows, filling her with ripples of heat under all her layers. She’s wearing a thick jacket and pants. It’s too risky to wear the new clothes her mom bought for her in public, so the best she can do is bundle up enough to make her body unreadable.

Jack turns in a small, idle circle, clearly thinking hard. “When we swapped ages,” he says slowly, “and I saw you…” He looks at her now like he’s seeing someone else in her place. “The real you.”

Courtney wants to step back but feels rooted to the spot. Like she did when Pat asked her about what Klarion had done to her.

“Kid,” he says, and Courtney realizes something.

“You never call me Sam,” she says, voice cracking.

Jack looks at her, fighting to keep a smile off his face. “Yeah, well. I figured you didn’t want me to.”

Courtney’s mouth feels dry. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t at first,” Jack says. “I thought you were just a pain in my ass. But then I really saw you. You were grown up. You had wisdom more than anyone gave you credit for. And I realized part of why we didn’t get along is because you reminded me so much of myself when I was your age. How you were brash and throwing yourself out there.” Jack sets a hand on her shoulder. “How you had to hide a part of yourself from everyone even though you want to scream.”

Courtney’s eyes widen. She remembers what Jack had said after everything. You can call me if you want to talk, alright? I think we might have some things in common. “You mean—"

“If you take the rod, you won’t be the first Starwoman,” Jack says. “You’ll be the second.”

Courtney is stunned nearly speechless, looking at her. For a moment she tries to come up with something clever, but then she realizes she doesn’t have to. She can just say what she’s feeling, because she’s around someone who understands. “How do you not go crazy all the time?”

Jack laughs. “You think I’m not?”

“I mean—you—your—” Courtney looks Jack up and down. Her clothes. Her hair. Her… Her body. Her names, because she isn’t going by Starwoman, she’s just Jack and Starman. Does that mean Courtney is expected to grow out of this, going back to hiding? Does that mean—

“I don’t mind the names,” Jack says. “Said something to someone once. Been repeating it a lot lately. Being Starman is—was the closest I’d ever come to being a man. It was Dad’s name, and David’s, and it felt right. And Jack’s my name. It always has been. Never quite felt wrong enough to shake it.” She quiets briefly like she’s not sure she should tell Courtney the next part. “Although I have been thinking about changing it lately. For Teddy.”

“What would you change it to?” Courtney asks.

“Opal,” Jack says. She smiles at Courtney. “It feels right, especially since I’m leaving the city. I’ll need more than the Shade’s roses to remind me I’ll always have her with me. What about you, Kid? You thought about it?”

“Courtney,” Courtney says. She stumbles over her words as she explains, “Mom and Pat and the JSA, they all know now. I told them. I’ve been… I’ve been being a girl in public more often, and—and I’ve—I’m being me.”

“You told the whole team?” Jack asks, surprised. And proud? Courtney is pretty sure she’s proud. “And Mr. 40s? How’d they take things?”

“I don’t know. Mom and Pat are trying. I don’t think Pat really gets it, but I don’t know if it matters if he does. They both get upset if they get it wrong in front of someone.” She runs her fingers down the cosmic rod, the graceful curve where the discharge scoop meets the energy level indicator all the way down to the second focusing lens. “The team was kinda weird, I guess. Kendra was cool about it. Um, Al had this whole speech he gave. And Dr. Cross knew all this stuff I didn’t about TylerCo and… endocrinology?”

“What about the geezers?” Courtney knows Jack’s joking. She gets along pretty well with Alan, Jay, and Ted from what Courtney can remember. Probably because she likes all the old stuff decorating the shop around them and those three are practically fossils. Although maybe he’s including Sand, who is kind of literally a fossil if she thinks about it.

“It went as okay as it could’ve, I think.” She scuffs her shoe on the floor. “They didn’t have any questions like I thought they would. Jay said that… That Rex Tyler was like me. Us.”

“Yeah, he was,” Jack says with a steady exhale. “I met him not that long ago—long story. He was pretty stealth when he was Hourman. I don’t know if everyone on the JSA knew, but Wes Dodds definitely did, and I guess Jay, too.”

“What about your dad?” Courtney asks, and she knows Jack knows she’s not just asking about Hourman.

“No,” Jack says quietly. She looks down, taking a slow, deep breath. “I don’t think he did. And I didn’t tell him while he was alive. I thought I could, but I never had the courage until it was too late.”

Courtney looks at Jack and sees her diving into action, sees her riding a cosmic wave like she was born with the rod in her hands, sees her facing guys who could kill her without showing any terror on her face, and says, “I still think you’re pretty brave.”

Jack hugs her without warning. Her tropical fish-patterned shirt smells like baby food. Courtney suddenly realizes her throat is tight. Jack’s sounds like it might be, too. “You’re the real thing, huh, Kid?”

Courtney suddenly feels very small in Jack’s arms, the same way she does in Pat's, only that makes sense because Pat is large and sturdy where Jack is graceful. She hugs back as hard as she can with just one arm, Jack’s shirt wrinkling under her fingers where she digs them into the fabric. The cosmic rod stays sandwiched between them, warming both of them to the bone.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Courtney admits in a thready whisper. “Any of it.”

“I wasn’t sure either,” Jack says. “But it found me anyway. And look at you, Stars.” 

She steps back despite the small whimper Courtney is embarrassed to hear slip from her throat. Jack gestures to the cosmic rod and to Courtney. For a moment Courtney just blinks at her, confused, and then she realizes something is casting a glow.

Only when Courtney looks down does she see that her feet aren’t touching the floor, held aloft as she curls around the rod for support.

“See that?” Jack says softly, once again clapping Courtney on the shoulder. “You’re shining.”

The moon is covered by clouds when Courtney climbs out their apartment window and jumps down the fire escape to meet Natasha on the sidewalk. She’s not wearing anything special, just a sweatshirt Josh lent her before they moved temporarily to Metropolis, but she feels just a little bit invincible with the new piercings in her ears and her hair finally long enough that she can tie it back. Natasha’s not really dressed up either, but her braids are lined with beads in a multitude of colors in a way they weren’t two days ago.

“Come on,” she says, taking Courtney’s hand. There’s a fluttering feeling Courtney gets whenever she does that. Because Nat knows, and she’s never met Courtney as anyone other than Courtney, and she’s never been disgusted. She’s never hesitated to touch her. It gives Courtney hope for when they go back to Blue Valley and she has to face Mary and Josh. “This is gonna be great.”

The two of them stay close as they follow the trickling streams of people toward a street close to Courtney’s part of the city. They’re a pretty big target. Courtney’s fingers twitch for the cosmic rod. She’s only had it for a little while and has barely used it on any real missions, but there’s something about the rod that already makes her feel safe. Although whether it’s because of whatever it is that gives her mental control over it, because of the superhero vigilance that’s embedded itself firmly in her psyche, or just because it came from Opal and Opal’s like her, Courtney’s not sure.

(And it is Opal, now. Courtney asked about it the first time she called for advice on using the cosmic rod, and she’d said it wasn’t official and maybe never would be but that at the very least she wanted Courtney to call her by the name that felt real.)

Courtney briefly loses herself in the crowd, trying to focus only on Natasha’s hand and not the bright lights and loud noises. Energy pulses through her as strongly as any cosmic force, the sound of dozens—of hundreds of people in Metropolis in June. People like Natasha. People like her.

“I got you something, by the way,” Natasha says, leaning over so Courtney can hear her. Courtney hasn’t taken her flying yet even though she promised to, because she’s waiting until she’s a little better with the cosmic rod before she trusts it to keep anyone but herself aloft, but she suddenly has a flash where she imagines it’ll be like this. Just with wind instead of people. “It’s in my pocket. When we get out of the crowd I’ll show you.”

Metropolis’ 32nd Annual Gay Parade is in full swing by the time they manage to squeeze between two spectators to find a spot up close. Natasha cheers and whoops with everyone else and Courtney can’t help but to join her, cupping her hands around her mouth and trying to use her fingers to whistle.

At some point, she realizes she can’t stop smiling.

Fifteen minutes later, she realizes that so many of them being here doesn’t just mean there are a lot of them to hurt, it means there are a lot of them to protect each other.

Three minutes after that, she starts wishing she had brought the—brought her cosmic rod, because then people wouldn’t have to use flashlights and city lights to keep things illuminated.

“Thank you for bringing me!” She yells.

“What?” Natasha shouts back.

“Thank you for bringing me!” Courtney tries again, this time leaning in closer. The car driving past them is blasting music so loud she feels like her eardrums might rupture. None of the parades Courtney’s ever been to have been like this. Not even the one the mayor of New York asked the Justice Society to be a part of was this loud, and she’d been in that one, perched at the top of the float and looking out over the top of Ted and Al’s heads.

“Of course!” Nat’s hand finds Courtney’s again and she interlocks their pinkies, gripping tight like she’s making a promise Courtney isn’t in on. “You’re a real Metropolitan now.”

Courtney’s stomach dips. She hasn’t told Natasha yet that they know when they’re going back to Nebraska. It’s not for another three months, but she’ll have to tell her a whole lot sooner than that. She doesn’t know if she wishes she could stay. Pat was right about it when they moved here. It’s more accepting and it’s closer to the Justice Society’s headquarters. But there are also people she likes here.

Well. There’s a person she likes here.

It’s not entirely fair to Blue Valley. She likes Mary, and she’s been writing letters full of half-truths back to her all this time. She likes Josh, to a lesser extent. But the way she likes Nat feels different. Nat knows she’s the Star-Spangled Kid but she also knows she’s Courtney. That doesn’t mean she gets it completely, but she knows who Courtney is and that’s meant more to her than she can explain over these past few months of not knowing where she stood with anyone in the cape world.

Besides, she… She doesn’t know if there are other people like her in Blue Valley. It seems impossible for anyone to exist there. That’s not true in Metropolis. She’s surrounded by kindred spirits here because the population is too big for there not to be women and men like her walking the streets. And there’s Natasha, who’s not like her but who told her in private that she liked girls and that she expected Courtney would be okay with that because she’s never heard about a transgender who wasn’t and—

She’s going to miss Nat. She’s really, really going to miss her, and just calling and writing letters won’t be the same.

“Hang on,” Natasha says, pulling a small box with a crumpled receipt out of her pocket. “I know you can’t wear anything other than what you’ve got for a while, but I thought these might be your style.”

It’s hard to open the box when she doesn’t want to let go of Nat’s hand, but somehow she manages it, pulling out a pair of silver star-shaped earrings.

Courtney hugs her as the parade winds down.

“Uncle John told me you’re leaving,” Natasha confesses quietly, lips brushing the outside of Courtney’s ear.

Courtney just hugs her tighter.

“Hey, Sa—Courtney,” Mike says idly, stuffing dry cereal into his mouth while he reads one of his Retaliators comics. It’s one of the few things that they haven’t packed up yet.

Courtney sits down at the kitchen table with him and asks him the question she’s had since they went to DC. “How come you’re not being horrible about this?”

Mike stands up, taking the box of cereal with him. “‘Cause it’s different if Dad’s replacing me with a girl.”

The first night they’re back in Blue Valley, Courtney holds a pair of scissors to the end of her hair and stares at herself in the mirror, daring herself to do it. The only thing that holds her back long enough for her mom to find her and gently take them out of her hand is the sight of the earrings Nat gave her winking under the bathroom lights. She wore them on the plane for strength.

“Why don’t you call Mr. Knight?” Her mom asks. “It’s only eight in California.”

“Okay,” Courtney says, but she doesn’t move until her mom takes her downstairs. Getting the phones connected was pretty much their first order of business after Pat made sure his secret wall had enough oil to stop squeaking. Courtney’s hoping they’ll be able to set the video call up soon. She wants to be able to see what’s going on at HQ when she’s not there.

Her mom parks the phone in her hand and Courtney dials the number in a haze and listens to it ring six or seven times until Opal picks up.

“I’m in Blue Valley,” Courtney says. “I don’t know why it’s freaking me out.”

Opal doesn’t even comment on that. She just tells Courtney about her day until Courtney’s too tired to keep her head up anymore and her mom rescues the phone from clattering to the floor.

Tomorrow she has to talk to Mary. It has to be okay. It has to be.

Mary is beaming when Courtney opens the door, holding a red velvet cupcake out. Josh is awkwardly squished next to her, gingerly holding his own chocolate cupcake so the toothpicks bearing the paper sign stretched between them won’t get torn out. The sign itself is written in bright blue and red marker, decorated with little star stickers that Mary has probably been saving since the 4th of July.

It reads “Welcome back, Sam!” with a bunch of underlining.

Courtney’s fingertips and face feel numb as she steps back to let them inside. “Hi.”

Mary is practically twitching with the urge to give her a hug, but manages to restrain herself until she and Josh can put the cupcakes down. She throws her arms around Courtney’s shoulders with an excited squeal. “I can’t believe you’re finally back!”

“Your hair is longer,” Josh says, a touch too stiffly for it to be an innocent observation.

Mary leans back. “Oh, yeah, it is! I like your curls.”

“You’re wearing a girl’s shirt,” Josh says. Courtney’s stomach sinks.

“Oh… yeah, you are,” Mary says. She bites her lip, looking at Courtney’s shirt and her earrings and the necklace her mom got her for her birthday that’s supposed to look like the clustered petals of a cyclamen.

Courtney knows her entire family is home right now. Pat and her mom are in the next room, probably listening extremely closely. Mike’s upstairs and while Courtney doesn’t think he could care less what happens to her right now, there’s something comforting about knowing she’s not outnumbered. Of course, there’s also Tricia, but she’s a baby in either her mom or Pat’s arms who doesn’t have the ability to process thoughts yet.

“Yeah, I am,” Courtney says.

Josh laughs, surprised and maybe nervous. “Why? Are you—”

“I’m not Sam anymore,” Courtney says before she can hear one of her friends call her… whatever he was going to call her. “I’m Courtney. And I’m a girl. Or woman, I guess.”

They both stare at her. Courtney hears a creak from the hallway like Pat just got up and is preparing to come in there.

“Why?” Mary asks finally.

“Because I am,” Courtney says thickly. She remembers what Opal said when she asked her what to tell people if they tried to interrogate her. “It’s the same way you know you’re a girl. That’s part of why we moved, so I could be myself.”

“Well, I’m still glad you came back,” Mary says decisively. She gives Courtney another hug, this one much more awkward and only from the side. “Courtney’s a cool name too, I guess.”

“I don’t get it,” Josh says. “Why would you want to be a girl?”

“What’s wrong with being a girl?” Mary challenges.

“Don’t be offended on Sam’s—I mean, he’s not really ever going to be one, right?” Josh waves his hands. “There’s nothing wrong with being a girl if you are a girl, but Sam’s not a girl.”

Courtney’s ears are ringing. She knows she should be trying to explain herself, but Josh is looking at her like she’s—he’s looking at her the way he looked at Cindy in that brief window of time before she disappeared, and now Mary is biting her lip and looking at her all wrong too, and Courtney can’t—no. She can. She has to. She swallows the bitter taste and lifts her chin. “I am.”

“I believe you,” Mary says. “Josh, he’s still Sam. Well, I guess he’s not, but he’s still our friend. That’s not going to change.”

“But—” Josh tries, and Mary punches his arm. “...Fine, I guess.”

Courtney doesn’t know if she can ask for better than this. Hope for better than this. But she knows she’s not acting like herself for the rest of the night, unable to answer quickly and stuck mostly nodding along to Mary’s anecdotes about what’s happened since she’s been gone.

Josh doesn’t stop staring at her until his mom gets there to pick them up, barely getting a word in edgewise.

“Bye, Sam,” Mary says as they get up to leave. Then she shakes her head like there are flies buzzing around her head. “Sorry. Bye, Courtney. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Courtney doesn’t have to pretend to smile. She’s beaming, braces scraping the inside of her lips. “Yeah, see you then.”

Josh waits a second longer even though Courtney can see his mom waving from the car. “I’ll see you tomorrow, too. Courtney.”

“Bye!” Courtney says, louder than she means to, and her chest is full of shooting stars.

Courtney is pretty sure the only reason they let her go back to school is because her mom got her job back first.

(She doesn’t know they tried to fire her mom and she threatened to elevate it to a discrimination lawsuit that the school couldn’t afford. If she did, she would’ve said they couldn’t afford it either, and her mom would’ve told her that the school didn’t necessarily know that.)

The first day back she sticks close to Mary, holding her books and binder like a shield.

Travis spots her from across the hall and his face splits into a nasty grin. “Hey, is that—”

Josh punches him in the face so hard they actually both fall down.

“That’s Courtney!” Josh yells from the floor, clearly not expecting to have gotten this far. Travis’ nose is dripping blood as he quails away from Mary’s furious glare and clenched fists. 

They both get detention, but Courtney feels like she’s full of butterflies for the rest of the day. 

It’s all so… normal, at least mostly. It’s not perfect, far from it. None of the teachers call her by her first name. She can’t use the girl’s bathroom so she has to either use the faculty one or the boy’s room, so she opts for neither. She has to sit out of gym. 

But Mary draws a doodle of Travis getting punched to leave in Josh’s locker to cheer him up since he’ll be leaving so much later than them and asks when she can come over to poke around in STRIPE. All the other students were a little preoccupied with the football field exploding and getting trampled by a dragon and nobody—except apparently Travis—remembers her from last year enough to notice a difference. Her mom kisses her when they pass each other in the hallway and everybody actually looks at her with sympathy even though they don’t know her.

Courtney calls Opal and then Nat when she gets home, first to talk about how it actually went okay and how she wore Opal’s pin on the inside of her sweatshirt pocket (not for strength or anything, of course, just because it looks cool) and then to complain about how lame it was without Nat there and how much she wants her to come visit so she can meet Mary and talk shop with her.

Pat tries his best to make sfeeha for her when she gets home. It doesn’t turn out great, more like a meat version of the triangle-shaped cookies he made for one of his holidays, but Courtney can’t find it in herself to make fun of him for it, and her mom promises to show him how to get it right.

One day down. One-hundred and thirty-four to go.

The first time a teacher calls her by name, Courtney is on top of the world for the rest of the week.

After a month, Mary doesn’t slip up at all anymore.

After a month and a half, neither does Josh.

Slowly, Courtney realizes she doesn’t have anything left of her dad anymore.

Not the locket. Not even her name.

“I think I want to see Dad,” Courtney says quietly while they’re eating dinner.

Her mom and Pat look at each other. Mike makes an exaggerated gagging noise. Tricia doesn’t seem to notice the change in atmosphere.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” her mom says.

“But what if—” Courtney falters at the look her mom gives her.

“No, Courtney. End of discussion,” her mom says with more force than Courtney thinks is strictly necessary.

Pat mouths “we’ll talk about it later” when Courtney looks at him pleadingly. At first she thinks that’s just his way of getting out of it, but he really does come to talk to her later in her room.

“I’ll see if I can find him,” he says. He puts his hands on her shoulders. “I know he means a lot to you. Your mom is just… She’s worried about how he might feel about you. I am too. But if you really want to talk to him, I’ll look for him.”

Courtney rubs her arms. She remembers what her dad said last time she saw him. Not like you’re going around wearing jewelry, are you? And he’d really only shown up so he could take the locket. He hadn’t done it because he wanted to see how she was doing. He hadn’t done it because he’d somehow sensed that she wanted to talk to him. He did it because he was selfish.

But she’s his daughter. She wants him to know that.

“Can you? Please?” She asks.

Pat sighs like his whole body is tired. “Sure, Court. I’ll see what I can do.”

Pat says her dad is in Atlantic City. Busted for credit card fraud and out on bail. The entire time they’re flying there, with her hitching a ride crouched on Pat’s shoulder like she used to before she joined the Justice Society, she tries to come up with the right words to tell him who she is. He might not understand at first. That’s okay. She could explain. She doesn’t like explaining, but he’s her dad. If she could tell her mom, she can tell him.

They’re supposed to check the casino he got busted at. The explosion from the vault in the basement beats them to it.

It’s a familiar tangle of limbs. She’s gone up against the Royal Flush Gang before. They’re nothing special. She’s got enough wiggle room to keep rehearsing what she’s going to say.

It’s me, Dad. Sam. But I’m not your son anymore, I’m your daughter. I wanted you to know that. And even if you don’t understand it, I’m still your kid, and I know you love me, and—

She’s responding to the threat of someone pulling a gun on her before she even registers that it’s her father’s face on the other side of the barrel.

“Dad?” She yelps.

He looks at her uncomprehendingly for a second. Courtney doesn’t know if it’s the costume or the hair or the lipstick her mom carefully applied so she’d look grown up for the “charity event” they’re supposed to be at that makes him take longer to recognize her. The Justice Society’s company line is that the Star-Spangled Kid was always a girl but they let the media think she was a boy to protect her secret identity. Courtney didn’t even know they’d made that decision. When she asked, Terrific said it was Alan’s idea, but that he’d run it by Terrific to see if it had legs.

Her dad lifts the gun until it’s aimed at her forehead. “Junior.”

Her brain screams that that’s her dad. Her body reacts of its own accord, punching him in the jaw so hard he lets go of the gun. She snags it before it can hit the ground and go off, shooting stars frying it into an unrecognizable lump.

“I think you broke my jaw,” her dad hisses, cradling his face. “What the hell are you doing? Playing dress up?”

“I’m not playing dress up,” Courtney snaps. A gun. He pointed a gun at her. “What are you doing—gkk—”

The metal hand that clamps around her neck is easily the size of STRIPE’s, and stars swim before her eyes as she thrashes. For a moment panic overloads her brain, leaving her unable to remember what Dinah told her and Ted repeated about what to do if she was ever being strangled while she fixates on the sight of her father scrambling away. 

“Dad—” She tries to choke, but it’s impossible to breathe, much less speak.

Right before the blood rushing in her ears drowns out all sound, she hears him agree that their Ace will take care of her while he leaves her here to die.

Courtney punches through the Ace’s chest like it’s nothing more than papier-mâché, metal screaming as it buckles beneath her fist. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she’s so stupid.

One dose of cosmic energy takes out the guy her dad is trying to escape with.

“I came here to see you!” She yells. Pat’s probably still fighting the Royal Flush Gang, but he’ll be fine. She swings the cosmic rod, knocking her dad into the wall. She hates knowing she’s pulling the punch. “I wanted to give you a second chance!”

He looks up at her. He has that same stupid smirk on his face he had when he took the only piece of jewelry she’d allow herself to wear. “Come on, Junior. You still can. You can let me go.”

Cosmic energy rushes through her body. “Don’t call me that.”

He stands up slowly. “You’re my son, aren’t you? Even dressed like a—”

Courtney puts him on his ass again, this time just with her fist. It’s not just the rod making her ears burn or the aftereffects of her shooting stars making her skin crawl. His head collides with the wall so hard his teeth bite his lip. Courtney wishes they would go all the way through. Anything to chew away the evidence of what he was going to say.

“The police are here,” Courtney says. She can hear the sirens in the distance. Took them long enough. The bad guys set off their explosion ages ago. “I don’t think you’re getting out on bail this time.”

“Come on, Sam.” Her dad touches his lip like he can’t believe she actually drew blood. “How can you do this to me?”

Courtney glares. She wonders if her eyes are glowing. “How can I do this to you?! Do you have any idea how”—she realizes she can’t even find the right word for it and settles on—“embarrassing this is for me?”

“For you?” He snaps. “You’re not the one whose son is running around with a full face of makeup busting up how I’m trying to make a living. You’re the embarrassment here, Junior.”

“I told you not to call me that.” Courtney aims the cosmic rod at him again. “Stay the hell down, Dad. Don’t make me tell you again. I won’t miss just because I’m your daughter.”

“You’re no one’s daughter,” he spits. “Look at you. How can anyone take you seriously dressed like that?”

Wildcat told her that knocking someone out is technically the same thing as doing brain damage. He’d said it like it was funny, tapping his own head and saying he was lucky to be the one giving the KOs instead of taking them, at least for the most part. And then he’d shown her where to hit and exactly how hard.

Courtney doesn’t feel bad about hitting the top of her dad’s—the top of Sam Kurtis’ head, she just regrets not doing it sooner.

Pat takes about thirty seconds to execute sitting down on top of the casino with her, watching her dad and the rest of the Royal Flush Gang get hauled away in handcuffs.

“I’m sorry, Courtney,” he says. It takes him another fifteen seconds to gently put STRIPE’s entire hand on her shoulder. She tries not to jerk away because she knows it’ll upset him, but she can also feel the bruises from the Ace forming on her neck. “Are you okay?”

“I guess.” Her throat hurts more when she swallows. He’d pulled a gun on her, and then he’d been okay with the Ace killing her. He would’ve let her die. He would’ve—

Self defense, a part of her argues, because she was going to kick his ass either way, but—no. No, she’s done defending him. She’s done. He’s clearly done with her.

(And still, when it comes to self defense… She remembers the awful desire to kill flooding her whole body, pushing her onward like a puppet. She remembers wanting nothing more than to kill Pat and doing everything she could to get there. And she remembers him evading and begging her to listen to him and telling her that he knew she didn’t want to do this. Trying to push her away. Not kill her. Not even when he thought it might be him or her.

I don’t want her to die, he’d told Ted. Isn’t that supposed to be bare minimum?)

“I know you wanted—I know this isn’t what you wanted,” Pat says. With clear reluctance, he says, “Maybe we could go to the precinct. You could try talking to him there.”

“No.” Courtney rubs her arms. There are tears in her eyes. She hides her face with her knees so Pat won’t see them. “We can go home now. I just need a minute.”

The silence that descends on them is so awkward Courtney’s almost grateful Pat breaks it with a small cough, voice fuzzy over the radio.

“You know I don’t always get you and Mike,” he says. “Doesn’t help when people say teenagers are supposed to be difficult. But that wasn’t—Courtney, he didn’t have any right to say that to you. He’d be lucky to have you as his daughter like your mom and I—I mean, like your mom does, it’s his fault he doesn’t understand that. Okay?”

Courtney fidgets with the cosmic rod for lack of something better to do with her hands, taking it apart at the seams Pat designed so she can stow it easier and then putting it back together again. “Do you ever wish I hadn’t said anything?”

“Only when I see how being you puts you in danger,” he says after a moment. The tension leaves Courtney’s shoulders. “But I know it’d hurt you more to keep pretending to be someone you aren’t. You’re so much happier now.” He moves his hand off her shoulder, tilting STRIPE’s head back so he can look through the monitors at the darkening sky. No stars, not with this kind of light pollution. “I don’t know if I’ve told you this. Or if he told you this, when you met him. But I think Sylvester would be proud of how you’re carrying on his legacy. I know Jack Knight is.”

Courtney looks at the winking lights of the city. She hasn’t told anyone about Opal yet. She never asked her not to, but Courtney knows someone going behind her own back to tell people was a nearly unthinkable fear. But she knows Pat’s right. Opal wouldn’t have chosen her if she wasn’t proud of her.

Holding onto the cosmic light gives her the courage to say the next part.

“Just when I think I don’t have a father, you remind me I do.” She lifts the cosmic rod. “And you’re right. I’ve got two legacies to carry on.” 

Maybe even three; Opal was a Starwoman before her, not just a Starman. She’s not ready to be Starwoman yet. She’s not the woman she was when Klarion turned them into adults. But she will be. She will be.

Courtney stands up. When she’d been training to use the cosmic rod, she’d jumped off buildings and the bravery for it came easily because she knew it wouldn’t be as hard as telling her mom her real name. This isn’t anywhere as risky as that.

“So maybe it’s time to stop being the Star-Spangled Kid and start being Stargirl,” she says. “That way I’ll have—I’ll have Jack with me, too.”

And so all of them have to look at her—not just people like her mom, Pat, Mike, the Justice Society, Mary, Josh, and Natasha, but people like Sam— and call her exactly who she is. They won’t be able to get away with doing anything else.

Stargirl. Courtney really likes the sound of that.