blinding lights
After swinging around Gotham for the better part of two hours, Rory came up short. No clues as to where she was. Not a single one. She would just have to find more information on the ground.
The architecture in Gotham overall was very ornate with gargoyles on most taller buildings. There was the odd all-glass skyscraper but not nearly as much as you’d expect in a big city.
It turns out she had landed in the early hours of the morning so she could see the pink tinge on the horizon now. The air had a crisp quality you only got in the early morning and she could feel the sting through her suit. She supposed walking around might help but she would have to take off the suit…and the heater. Thankfully her suit went over her clothes so she wouldn’t have to find clothes to wear. It’s not like she could buy anything. She didn’t have any money on her when she got flown to Edinburgh.
Oh shit, money. If she was going to her for any length of time she’d need some money. And chances were she would be here for a little bit while working out arrangements to get back to Wakanda. But to do that she’d have to work out where she was.
Right, focus.
She swung down to the street. Only a few people walked on the footpaths. Most wearing ragged clothes and had grime on their faces. Too early for workers to be heading to work. She landed in an alley with a skip bin filled to the brim. Rory’s feet were near silent landing on the concrete. One last look around the alley to make sure there was no one around and she took off the suit.
The suit lived in a small pod that converges behind her ear. It almost looks like a hearing aid when she had the comms engaged. The suit is nanotech, new from Tony. He had left it for Nat to find as soon as he had finished building it so Nat had given it to Rory when they helped Wanda and Vision. The nanotech had a fabric feel and look to it so it looked exactly like her original suit. The best thing about this suit was having Friday. Rory could ask almost anything and would get an answer. So when Rory took off the suit, she left the comm so she could talk to Friday.
The alley guarded her against the worst of the wind but she could feel the cold air seep into her jumper. Her jeans were keeping the worst off of her legs but they weren’t the thickest ones she owned.
When Cap showed up at her door, she had just finished her shift at the café down the street. Her work jeans were black and had a slightly baggy fit. Under her jumper, she had a polo with the café logo on the breast pocket. Her jumper was a basic grey one with a hood. The outfit as a whole was meant for walking to work, working, and coming home, not for the cutting winds at the moment. At least it had stopped raining. Rory would’ve stayed in the suit if it were still raining. The dark clouds still loomed overhead.
She stepped out from behind the bin and out onto the sidewalk. The roads were what you’d expect at this time. Not quiet, but not busy. It was easy to find a gap in traffic for Rory to cross the road.
Once she crossed, she looked up at the building in front of her. The library. She had found it on her initial tour of the city. She figured that if she wanted answers, this was where she’d get them. Libraries usually had computers, right? She walked up the steps to the front doors. It was quite a grand building as a whole but the doors were modern glass ones. Rory notes the ramp leading to the front door. On the door are the opening hours and she sees that they open daily at 8 am. There is no closing time but Rory guessed that depends on how many people are there and how the staff feel. They would have to be open late for students cramming for tests and the like.
“Friday, what time is it?”
“About 7:30,” she says into her ear. Okay, she’ll just have to kill some time. She goes back down the steps and back onto the sidewalk. A car rushes by and the wind from it makes her shiver. She stuffs her hands into her pockets and brings her shoulders up to her ears. She walks down to a bus stop and sees a map on the back. The city seemed to be in three sections each one separated by channels. She hadn’t crossed a channel swinging around, had she? So she spent her whole time here looking around the one area. Great. Although she did get a bit distracted looking at all of the decorative things on the rooves. One detail on the map caught her eye, though.
Arkham Asylum.
That sounded important. Still didn’t ring any bells. Sighing, Rory turned away from the map since it only showed the city and not any surrounding area. She trudged back up to the library. She may as well just sit and wait. She plopped herself down on the highest step with her knees brought up to her chest. A rush of relief surged through her. She hadn’t realized how tired she was. She had been going almost non-stop for two days with about 4 hours of sleep total.
Oh, how she missed sleep.
She rested her head on her knees. She almost closed her eyes but she knew if she did, she’d pass out right here on the steps. Her muscles ached and her joints were beginning to get stiff from the coldness. God, she sounded old, complaining about her joints.
On her right, the soft whoosh of wheels pulled her head up. A woman with red hair pushed herself up the ramp. She fished a key out of her bag and reached up to the lock. She swiftly slid the key in and then put a code in the keypad next to the lock. The door unlocked with a soft click. Rory stood up and rushed over to the door, eager to be out of the cold. The woman held the door open for her, a small smile on her lips, twitching downwards when she caught a glimpse of Rory’s face. The woman went over to the reception area with a desk and a computer. Rory took a couple of steps into the library and took the time to look around.
The main room was vast. It had bookshelves lining every wall that also snaked around the floor. It was surprisingly modern, just like the doors. The computers were on the far left of the library, the same side as the reception area. There were seven of them all lined up facing away from the reception. Rory made a beeline for them.
Rory sat at the computer farthest away from the librarian because she didn’t want her to see Rory’s screen. It’s not like she was going to order bombs or anything but this would be a lot easier if she wasn’t questioning her search history.
She moved the mouse around a bit so the screen came to life. It was a standard login page with boxes for a name and library card number. In the corner was a button for guest login. Rory clicked on it and it took her to a dashboard with various apps. She clicked on Google and started her research. The keyboard was one of those old chunky ones that made the classic click-clack noise. Gotham city.
The results came up after a couple of seconds of loading. It had a few news articles, regular stats (population, size, etc.), and a map.
Perfect.
She zoomed out on the map so she could see the whole of America. Gotham was in New Jersey. That couldn’t be right, could it?
“Friday, compare this map to the one in your database,” Rory whispered in the hopes of not seeming like she was talking to herself.
“Gotham City does not exist on my map, ma’am,” Friday says. Huh. That’s…weird. “There are also other cities that appear on this map that aren’t in my database.” Double huh. Really weird. Well, it turns out Friday was right. She was nowhere. Gotham wasn’t meant to exist and yet here she was.
“O…kay,” Rory whispers. She clicks out of the map. She’d have to come back to that. She scrolls down the first page of results and most of them are news articles. The titles are a mix of local billionaire, Bruce Wayne, the local vigilantes, and reports of crime. One title specifically mentions the Red Robin guy she had met on the roof. She clicks on that one and skims through the article.
Red Robin saves a young girl from an explosion downtown.
In eyewitness accounts, Red Robin heroically went into the already burning building to save a young girl from an explosion minutes later. The girl was unharmed and gave a quote.
“He found me and then carried me out of the room. He was so calm and it made me feel safe.”
Although the vigilante took off shortly after the attack, he stayed long enough to make sure everyone got the care they needed.
Rory leaned back in her chair and huffed. She should definitely know who this guy was. She clicked out of the article and read a few more. Each one detailed a new member of the vigilante group. A whole damn group.
A city protected by vigilantes? Weird.
Rory never considered herself a ‘hero’ but she was well on the way to being one. I mean, she was with the Avengers for crying out loud. They were teaching her, mentoring her, to be one of them. A hero, like all kids want to be. Rory always did, at least. She would see them on the TV, saving the world, hero things, you know? Whenever Rory’s parents would catch her watching them, they would say that it’s not as glamorous as it seems, that it’s dangerous. Rory didn’t listen nor did she care. She just wanted to help people, just like the Avengers on the news.
In her mind, helping people was a bright light that was able to drown out everything else. So in turn, being an Avenger and being able to help the entire world, was a goal that shone brightly, blinding the dark parts of her mind.
So when SHIELD decided they would train her, she got one step closer. Then another and another, and suddenly she was in Germany, brought by the Black Widow. (How cool was that?!). She had been explicitly told not to fight anyone though.
“What?! The Spider-boy gets to fight?” she argues against Nat’s instructions to ‘stay hidden. Surveillance only’. One look from the Avenger shut her up. This was her job. Quite literally. Back at SHIELD she was used for surveillance, planting trackers, and the like. Not a whole lot of proper spy work, which Rory was happy with, not that she’d ever admit that to anyone. She’d always been a rather shitty liar, so if she ever got caught, she didn’t think she’d hold up well under pressure.
But you see, it’s not like she was a vigilante like these guys. She wasn’t really in charge of what she did. She just went on whatever mission was given to her. That didn’t really qualify as ‘vigilante’. Again, she wasn’t a hero, at least not yet.
So, what was she?
A crime-fighting, superpowered, teenager that still had parental controls, that’s what. But she was determined to impress the Avengers or whoever so she could become one. An Avenger. One of Earth’s mightiest heroes. Preferably without parental controls.
But these vigilantes seemed to be acting without any kind of control. Just protecting the city, and doing a better job of it than the police. That made Rory think, how bad is the crime if you need a group of vigilantes doing the police work? She clicked back on the search and typed Gotham city crime. That should do the trick.
The results that came up made Rory’s jaw drop. You’d expect to see police reports of how crime rates are going down or a few articles about bigger crimes over the years, but what came up was far more sinister.
Mass murders, breakouts from the Asylum, crime rings, and more. The whole nine yards. Any crime you could think of was committed in Gotham within the past 6 months. Arson, corrupt court cases, and more commonly, burglary. The most recent article was titled 20 Declared Dead in Fire. Rory read the first few lines and came to the conclusion that it was a large fire and was deliberate. After reading a few more lines, the vigilantes were mentioned yet again. They had managed to save the majority of the people living there but were too late for the rest.
Jeez, what was wrong with this city? The more she read, the more sure she was that she should’ve heard about this place and the vigilantes that ‘protected’ it.
After two hours of sitting there and going down a rabbit hole reading about the Bats (she had dubbed them this after learning they were all connected to the infamous Batman), she needed to take a break. The information was overwhelming and was suffocating her. On top of everything she had learned, she was confused. More confused than she’d ever been in her life. Just the fact that Gotham City, New Jersey was a place made her head spin. Then there were the vigilantes. They were well-known, like some members of the Avengers. They might not be full-blown celebrities but they’re household names. Everybody knows of them, except Rory.
“Friday, what do you know about Batman?” Rory whispers.
“Nothing. Batman does not appear in any of my records,” Friday says after a couple of seconds. Rory groans loudly, forgetting she was in a library and trying not to attract attention.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. You don’t know anything?” Rory asks a little too loud.
“Only what you’ve read today,” Friday says. Rory throws her head back and sighs. What the hell is going on? The answer is on the tip of her tongue. Her subconscious knows something she doesn’t. Ever since she fell onto that roof, something felt…off. She can’t place it. It’s tingling the back of her neck and makes her want to go somewhere familiar. Like, go home. That was probably her instinct talking and she needed to think rationally. Work out what’s going on then figure out what to do about it. She needs to write down the facts and see it clearly on paper. She glanced around and there was no pen and paper in sight. Ugh, she will have to ask the librarian.
She went to stand up and go ask for a pen and paper when she heard hushed voices. She stood up just enough to see over the cubicle that the computer was in. The librarian was talking to a tall guy in jeans and a black jacket. He was bringing a chair over to the desk to sit with the librarian. Rory sat back down in the chair and looked around the rest of the library. They were the only other people in the entire library. She looked back down at the time on the computer. 10:04. Where are all of the people? There wouldn’t be that many students here at this time but still.
Back home, Rory didn’t frequent the library as much as she would like. Whatever time she was there, there were at least 20 people. Another fact that added to the discomfort of Gotham. She peeked over the cubicle again and the two didn’t look like they were going to stop talking any time soon. Rory could listen in if she wanted but she didn’t want to eavesdrop. She’d heard some crazy conversations when she eavesdropped last and didn’t want a repeat of that awkward interaction.
Sucking in a deep breath, Rory started walking over to the librarian. Halfway there, the guy must’ve heard her walking over so he turned around in his seat. He smiled at her but had that same look in his eye that the librarian had earlier when she held the door open. Rory smiled back.
“What can I do for you, love?” The librarian asks once Rory gets close enough.
“Uhh, could I get some paper and a pen please?” Rory replies.
“Yeah sure, just give me a second,” the librarian goes over to where a printer sits in the corner. An awkward silence settles in once Rory is alone with the guy. She gets the feeling that he’s staring at her but when she looks over at him he’s looking at his phone. He must’ve known that Rory was looking at him because he glanced up and smiled again. He had dark hair, almost black, hanging over his forehead and dark blue eyes. Rory almost forgets to smile back.
“You’re Australian, right?” He asks after a moment.
“Yep, born and bred,” she grimaces.
Who the fuck says ‘born and bred’? Say something normal!
“Are you new to Gotham?” He continues.
“Yeah,” she says. What else was she supposed to say? ‘Yeah, I’m new to Gotham, mainly because it didn’t exist 6 hours ago.’
“Welcome, I’m sure you’ll hate it,” he says with a sincere smile. Rory already knew that.
“Yeah, thanks,” she says with a forced smile. This guy lives here, he might tell her more about the Bats. “What’s the deal with the vigilantes?”
“They…protect the city,” he says after hesitating. “They’re outside the law, but they’re good guys, don’t worry.”
She hums and looks away. The rain had started up again outside so she’d have to hide out in the library for the foreseeable future. The sky was still a dark grey so the rain wouldn’t be stopping for a while. Rory didn’t mind. She loved the rain. Loved being inside when it rained, more like. It was cozy and the sound of the rain was peaceful. Another thing she loved was the smell of the rain. Petrichor, that’s what it was called. She had told that to Sam and he didn't let her forget how much she sounded like a nerd.
“Shouldn’t you be at school around about now?” He asks and Rory snaps her head back to him. Her mouth opens and closes a few times not making a sound. He smirks and chuckles. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. Just be careful, not everyone takes kindly to kids not in school.”
She nods and looks away again, not wanting to continue this conversation. Rory will not be going to school while she’s in Gotham. There won’t be much point anyway, she’ll be going back to Wakanda soon. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him open his mouth again but thankfully gets cut off by the librarian.
“Here you go,” she hands Rory the pen and paper. Rory mutters a thanks. “Do you want to sign up for a library card? You’ll be able to borrow books and keep any progress you’ve made on the computer.”
Rory stands there like a deer in headlights. Again, she won’t be staying but she had just spent 2 hours on the computer. If she was anyone else, she’d want to keep that progress. Also, if she couldn’t get back to Wakanda in the next few days, she could keep researching the city. The Avengers would expect some sort of explanation as to where she had been.
“Yeah, sure,” she takes a step toward the desk and puts down the paper. The librarian searches through a pile of paper then finds the correct one and places it in front of Rory.
“I’m Barbara, by the way, and this is Dick. He likes to come by from time to time,” she gestures to the guy.
“I’m Rory,” she says while filling out the sheet. Name, date of birth, and, oh, address. She was living in Italy before Wakanda but she had told Dick that she was new here so writing Italy as an address would look a tad suspicious. The others seemed to have noticed her hovering over the address part so Barbara clarifies.
“It’s just so if you lose the card, we know where to mail the new one.”
Oh, okay. She puts down the address in Italy because she won’t ever be needing a new one once she goes home. She just hopes that Barbara comes to the conclusion that Rory was on holiday. She finished the rest of the form and turns it back to Barbara. She picks up the form, makes sure it’s all filled out then puts it next to her computer. They all stay quiet, and the awkwardness makes Rory want to spontaneously combust.
“Well, thanks for the paper,” Rory goes to walk back to the computer. “And the, um, library card.”
Rory takes off, painfully unaware of the bruises and cuts littering her face.
“See,” Barbara says as soon as Rory is out of earshot. “Those are not the normal bruises you see from street fights.”
Dick had come into the library because he wanted to keep Barbara company and because he didn’t have much else to do. He had expected to be caught up on what happened after the girl fell out of the sky because he had gone to sleep as it was his night off. So when Babs started rambling about someone in the library, he was a bit shocked. Of all the times he had been to the library, there had been about two other people there, total. The shock grew when she told him that she had cuts and bruises everywhere and looked about Tim’s age.
Then he saw it in person.
He had seen his fair share of injuries, both his own and his family’s, but not on some random kid. Street fights can get pretty intense but not like that. She had one black eye, a bruise spreading across her neck, her lip was split, and there was dried blood trailing down a cut on her hairline. When she had signed the paper, he had gotten a good view of her hands. They had cuts on the fingers past the first joint and also had dried blood on them, as well as a blue substance. The thing that shocked Dick the most is how unconcerned Rory had been about them, almost as if she had forgotten about them.
“You were right,” Dick agrees. He gets a sense of foreboding for the kid. She had obviously not had a great time and Dick can’t help but feel it was going to get worse. Anyone with cuts and bruises like that had to be struggling. The thing that got caught in Dick’s mind was that apart from the injuries, she didn’t look like a street kid. Her clothes were clean, looked relatively new, and she looked healthy (again, ignoring the cuts and bruises.) There was something more going on here. That brought his thoughts back to the blue stuff on her hands. It didn’t look natural.
“What do you think’s going on?” Babs drags him out of his worrying. He shook his head, leaning back in his chair. He had his suspicions but he didn’t have enough information. He watched as Babs reached over and grabbed the form Rory had filled out. She hands it to him. He reads through it all.
“She’s 16,” he sighs. “And her full name is A-.” He stops abruptly.
“What?”
“She put her address as somewhere in Italy,” he says in disbelief. “Huh.”
“Didn’t she say she was new here? As in living here,” Babs frowns.
“Yeah, that’s what I got from that conversation. She’s also Australian, so why was she living in Italy?” Dick looks over the rest and doesn’t see anything else of interest. He takes a deep breath and tries to let go of some of the worry. Rory wasn’t his business, so he didn’t need to get worked up just yet. From that brief interaction, she didn’t seem to be worried about the pretty serious injuries, so maybe they weren’t uncommon for her?
Oh, god that didn’t make him feel any better.
“Do you want me to run her name to see if anything comes up?” Babs asks already turning to her computer. He nods and turns back to his phone. There wasn’t any more news on the girl that fell, only that Tim was a bit freaked out by her. She had said her name was Redback so Babs ran that codename and got absolutely nothing. She had a spider thing going on so they had thought she had something to do with the Council of Spiders but they ruled that out due to the logo on her shoulder. It was a capital A with a circle surrounding it. They’d never seen it before and that’s what they were more worried about. A new group.
“Uhh, Dick?”
“Yeah, what?”
“I can’t find her anywhere.”