Death Wish

Nerves

Forming a special covert operations team out of the sidekicks of the Justice League was supposed to be their chance to prove themselves as individual heroes.

Turns out it's just the League's way of babysitting them.

For months they've done almost nothing but train and sit around in the mountains hoping for a disaster. Sure, there have been a few missions sprinkled in here and there, but compared to her workload in Gotham, it's basically nothing.

By the end of summer, she was only visiting on her off days and for scheduled training exercises. When school picked up in the Fall, her focus turned back towards Gotham. This was only further encouraged by a new drug market picking up. There's never a shortage of drugs in the city, and with all the crime families and the roster of rogues seeking maximum chaos, new variants are always popping up.

The latest of these is called Pollen, a likely homage to its chemical similarity to those produced by Poison Ivy, though there's no other link to her participation in its trade. It's been around for a few years, but it's blown up in the last few months because of linked long-term aggression and dependence, the fuel for the latest uptick in Gotham's petty crime.

"B, I think we're good to clear the sports center," she comes, finishing her sweep of the aforementioned building. "Anyone who was here is long gone and they took their stuff. All I've got is a pamphlet for 'Things to do when in Bludhaven' and an empty soda can."

"Bring the pamphlet."

"Already on it, I'm on my way back to the cave now."

"Negative. I need the tape from the camera across the street."

She sighs, "Sure thing, B."

She hops out of a second story window and grapples to the roof of the building across the street. It's been a long night of clearing buildings and despite an early start in anticipation of the workload, she's only a few hours from sunrise. Now with the extra chore, she'll be lucky to get any sleep before school, but she'll be at the mountain for the weekend, so she'll catch some sleep then.

It doesn't take much maneuvering to gain access to the camera in question, and there's even less effort involved in pulling the feed. She connects her glove to the camera and begins the download process. There's probably not going to be anything on the feed, with how cracked and dusty the lens is, but that'll be a problem for Bruce since she'll be gone.

Her glove chirps with the completed download and she disconnects. Just as she closes the access panel on the camera a chill runs up her spine as she's made acutely aware of a presence nearby. She looks around and quickly leaps from her perch onto the rooftop but finds no one.

She looks around and sees nothing.

Then a shadow darts behind her and she pivots to watch as the corner of a cape disappears over the edge of the rooftop. She laughs to herself. It's Batgirl, trying to prove herself by sneaking up on her. She beelines for the edge and peers over, but no one's there. She hops to the next building over and looks around some more but once again finds nothing.

That's very unlike Barbara to be that sneaky. It's only been like four weeks since she put on the suit. She should be much easier to find.

"Very funny," She quips, "You can show yourself now."

Silence.

Curious, she pulls up their trackers and homes in on Batgirl's locations. Sure enough, she's on the other side of the city, in her home. Whoever's with her out here is no ally.

After one last cursory check, she deems it safe enough to return to the cave. She collects her bike from the alley next to the sports center and takes off, making sure to check regularly that she isn't being followed.

Bruce is already at the Batcomputer, unmoving with her arrival.

"One pamphlet of fun, as ordered," she says, walking over to Bruce. "I would not expect Gotham to be going for the 'fun' approach though. I think the 'expect the unexpected' approach would be more marketable, don't you agree?"

She gets no response so she pears over Bruce's shoulder to watch the monitor he's actively working on, but to no amusement. He pulls up the data she'd just collected from the camera and begins watching footage dated almost a week earlier. She yawns and decides to change out. She leaves the pamphlet within reach but out of his way.

If there was a chance of getting some sleep, she was going to try for it. Megan would definitely push for movie night or some other "normal teenager" activity and the last thing she needed was to doze off in front of any of them, Wally especially. Experience shows that to be a catastrophic mistake.

"I can't believe they are all gone." She thinks out loud, directing it only partially in Bruce's direction. "There were shipments out of each this week, and they showed signs of being operational for weeks. Why would they all vanish overnight? It's like someone tipped them off– or they were expecting us to find them and are being extra cautious."

Over the past week she's cleared almost a hundred buildings and apartments connected with the pollen trade, with almost nothing to show for it. Everyone involved in the trade, despite how new and prevalent the drug was coming, seemed to be expecting her to come barging through. Every location was completely wiped and left bare bones empty. If it weren't for the hard evidence leading them to these buildings there'd be nothing inside to indicate they'd even been inhabited in the last year.

And that's on top of more people losing their minds and memories on pollen, a whole other problem in of itself.

As she closes the display case and moves to head up into the manor, a thought comes to her. She looks over as Bruce, still sitting at the computer, and asks, "Do you think the team could clear some of the more remote LOI's? We could do full stake outs too. It'd be real field experience and a whole lot better than the nothing we normally have to do."

She waits for a response but doesn't get one. She sighs, fighting back another yawn, and heads to leave.

"We'll see."

She stops and turns to Bruce, who still hasn't moved. Her heart is light, and she cheers silently to herself before bounding up the rest of the way to the manor.