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Birds and Bees	By : defying3reason Category: DC Verse Comics > Batman Views: 2564 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman, or any aspect of the broader DC Universe, and I make no money from my fanfiction

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
Chapter Eight
ABOUT TWELVE YEARS AGO...
Dinah's phone was ringing. It was obnoxiously late, even given masked vigilante hours. She flung her arm out and groped sightlessly across the surface of her nightstand, getting her hand first on her JL comm and beeper before she managed to find the cordless phone.
"H-hello?"
"Dinah for the love of God do not hang up the phone! I need help, and everyone else keeps hanging up on me because I guess it's early in the States, but it's not here and that doesn't matter anyway!"
"Roy?" Dinah bolted up in bed, suddenly much more awake. She hadn't heard from the kid in weeks, which was unusual. They'd been close for years, but ever since Ollie's death they'd become, for all intents and purposes, family. Dinah wasn't sure how she'd have gotten through her own grief (muddled with much more complicated emotions) without Ollie's ward and ex-sidekick to be strong for.
She threw her legs over the side of the bed and rose to her feet, already scanning the room for the pieces of her costume currently strewn over myriad surfaces. "Honey, calm down and breathe. What's going on? I'll help you, but you gotta talk to me."
"O-okay." Roy stopped and took a deep breath. When he spoke, he sounded slightly less hysterical. "I need you to walk me through changing a diaper."
Dinah sat back down on the bed and took her own calming breath. "A diaper? Any particular reason?" Then the baby started crying. She pulled the phone away from her ear and blinked a few times. There was some shifting around on Roy's side, and when she was able to hear him over the screaming baby she put the phone back to her ear. "Why do you have a baby with you?"
"I don't have the time to get into this now! Our plane's gonna leave, but I really need to change this thing and I don't know what to do! There're all these powders and lotions and she's screaming and people are staring at me-"
"Roy, I'm losing you! Deep breaths! C'mon sweetie, I'll talk you through this. Take out the new diaper before you do anything to the one the baby's wearing."
"Uh...too late. Oh gross, she put her foot in it!"
"Yeah, they do that." Dinah pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Eugh! It ran all down her back. Oh fuck she stinks! Ew-ew-ew!"
"Roy, I'd really appreciate it if you told me why you had a baby and why you're about to board a plane."
"Hold on a sec Dinah."
Dinah pressed her ear to the phone so hard it hurt, but she was able to make out Roy's hurried conversation with a woman who was not speaking English. She waited for some hints, hoping she could figure out where in the world the kid was. 'That's Mandarin...he's in China?' Roy may not have understood what the woman said, but Dinah sure as hell did. Sounded like an experienced Mommy taking pity on a confused looking young foreigner with a screaming child. She kept telling Roy how beautiful his little girl was.
Dinah told him how to say thank you in Mandarin, and he butchered it, but the meaning still came across. She snickered when the woman called him an adorable simpleton before rushing off. "Alright Roy, now why are you in China? I assume that's where you are anyway."
"Sorry Dinah, gotta go. Our plane's starting to board."
"Roy-wait-don't-hang-" Click. "Up. Urgh...and he thinks Ollie was exaggerating when he blamed ulcers on him."

The plane ride from China to New York was one of the worst experiences of Roy's life to that point, and considering the life he'd lead he felt that that was quite the trophy statement. The person with the baby was never the most popular person on a plane, but this was even moreso when the baby spent most of the trip screaming her lungs out while the father watched, too terrified to touch the child (Lian was strapped securely into her carseat; Roy paid for an extra seat rather than carry her on his lap. He didn't trust himself to hold the baby for the duration of the trip).
He alternated between watching her helplessly, with no idea what she wanted, and obsessively checking the schedule Jade had written out for him. Lian screamed herself to exhaustion about halfway through the flight and dropped into a bitter looking sleep. Roy was transfixed by the slumbering baby, thoughts brooding on the past few days.
Finding out about his daughter had been the shock of a lifetime. Roy still hadn't fully processed that he'd helped create another life; he was mostly moving on autopilot. He'd tracked Jade down after she announced her bombshell because it was the right thing to do, and he'd taken Lian with him because that was also the right thing to do. Jade had enemies: significant enemies. They both knew that. Lian would be safer with him.
And yet...
There had been a moment, not a partiuclarly long one, but a moment all the same where he'd thought Jade might come with him. He'd offered. Roy was willing to use any and all connections he had to give Jade a fresh start. She could reform, maybe become a superhero even, and they could get a nice little house together and raise Lian and be a family. He wanted that.
But apparently she didn't, which was really unfair because she knew how to take care of a baby. She'd been doing it for four months already, and Lian was perfectly healthy and happy in Jade's care. Roy might not have little Inigo Montoyas knocking on his door on a regular basis trying to avenge slain family the way Jade did, but he honestly wasn't sure he was up to the challenge of raising a child alone. Lian might have been better off with the violent-but-responsible paid assassin.
When he got back to New York Roy took a cab to Titans Tower. He couldn't really think of anywhere else to go. He'd been renting a studio, but he'd sold most of his belongings and skipped out on the place without paying the last month's rent for the sake of the trip to China. It's not like he could keep living there with a baby anyway.
Lian was screaming again by the time he walked up to the Tower. He was mostly immune to the sound of her cries at this point, but he figured he was probably presenting a pathetic sight when Donna flew down from a top level of the building to land in front of him. She crossed her arms over her ample bosom and glared at him.
"Where the hell have you been? I left you in the sickroom for fifteen minutes! You'd just been poisoned-you were supposed to be in bed for another week, at least! I thought you were going to die!" She yelled.
Roy set the carseat and thus his screaming daughter down, and turned his deadened gaze on his exgirlfriend, the current active leader of the Titans while Dick was off doing a solo case.
He had indeed been recovering from a severe poisoning the last time Donna had seen him. Jade had raked him with her claws shortly after informing him that he had a daughter, and he'd woken up two weeks later in Titans Tower to Donna nursing him, looking much more concerned than she should have been about her ex considering her current marital status. He hadn't told her about Lian, but the first chance he'd gotten he'd left the Tower to track Jade down. That had been over a month ago.
There was a good chance Donna Troy was going to murder him.
Roy didn't have anything to say in defense of himself, so he didn't bother. "If you're going to kill me, could you just get it over with? I'm too tired for this." He motioned towards the screaming baby. "She didn't like the flight. She's been doing this all damn day."
"Roy...why do you have a baby?"
"Why do you think?" He snapped, embodying the height of petulance.
"I don't know why you have a baby! Why would any woman in her right mind give you a-CHESHIRE! Oh Hera. Oh Hera, Persephone, Athena and let's just throw in the entire Pantheon while we're at it-it even looks like her! You had a baby with Cheshire?"
"It wasn't on purpose," Roy groaned. Donna backhanded him and he collapsed to the ground from the unexpected hit. "Ow..."
"You stupid son of a bitch! How could you make a baby with Cheshire?"
"I'm kind of surprised you made one with Mr. Ginger Afro Clown," Roy snapped back. "Can we finish this inside? I want to figure out why she's crying so I can make her stop."
Donna crouched over the carseat and examined the baby. Lian stopped crying for a moment and looked up at Donna with wide, innocent looking eyes. "Oh she's cute. I think she's got your eyes. What's her name?" Donna asked.
"Lian."
"Hello Lian." Donna started unbuckling her, and Roy darted forward. She eyed him quizzically. "How long has she been in the carseat?"
"I...changed her when we got to New York. So...only like an hour."
"An hour? How long before that?" Donna asked, looking pissy again. Roy didn't answer. "Oh for the love of..." She unceremoniously pulled Lian out of the seat, and Roy felt his stomach do flip flops. But Lian smiled when Donna held her, and giggled when Donna tickled her.
"Huh."
"You're an idiot Roy. She was lonely and bored, that's why she was screaming. Honestly." Rolling her eyes, Donna flew back to the Tower still holding the laughing little girl.
"Hey! HEY! KIDNAPPER!" Roy grabbed their things and raced into Titans Tower after them.
NOW...
"Is that your dad texting you again?" Cameron asked, leaning over Lian's shoulder to look at her phone.
"Yeah. I wasn't kidding when I said he worries a lot," Lian answered distantly.
"The guy did stand in the front yard and watch us until we were out of sight," Emma reminded them. She looked amused. "In a bathrobe and boxer shorts. If the skanks from lunch knew that, betcha anything we'd have a mob walking home with us everyday."
Lian looked up from her texting and fake-gagged at her friend. "Can you not?"
"Sorry, I just think it's funny," Emma said. "I mean, Hailey Mathers actually asked you to hit on your own dad for her. Sometimes I worry a little about the kids at our school."
"Only sometimes?" Cameron teased.
Lian looked back at her phone and laughed. "Daddy's running down to the store. He was halfway through making dinner before he realized our eggs were bad. Is it cool if I go with you guys to your house? He doesn't want me hanging out at our place alone."
Cameron gaped at her while Emma quickly assured her it was okay. "Is he for real? What does he think is going to happen to you? Ow!" Emma had violently whapped her brother's arm.
"It's okay, I don't care if we talk about it," Lian said with a sigh.
"Talk about what?"
"You're sure Li?" Emma watched for her nod, then turned to her brother with a look of exasperation. "Don't you remember the homeroom teachers telling us that a resurrected kid was going to start at school with us?"
"Yeah...oh. Lian, you're the resurrected kid?"
"Yep. I died in the big tragedy in Star City. That's why my dad's so crazy. He's afraid of it happening again," Lian explained.
"Well that's fair," Cameron said with a nod. "Sorry if I was being insensitive or whatever. I promise not to pick on your dad."
"Thanks." Lian smiled at her new friends, grateful they were being so understanding. Roy had unknowingly relocated the two of them to a small, insular community that was rife with cliques. Lian had grown up hopping from major metropolis to major metropolis, and she was having a hard time fitting in with her orderly, gossipy suburban neighbors. Emma and Cameron were proving to be welcome exceptions to the rule with their open friendliness.
She was about to share something of her thoughts when Cameron suddenly dropped to his knees and started convulsing. "Cam!" Emma shrieked. She grabbed his shoulders, staring at her brother in wide eyed panic, when a dart suddenly hit the back of her neck, and she started convulsing and twitching too. Lian screamed and watched in helpless horror as her friends writhed and then stilled.
It happened in less than a minute.
"C-Cameron? Emma?" Eyes welling with tears, Lian crouched next to the unconscious children and felt along Emma's neck for a pulse. She couldn't find one. "Oh my God. Oh my God! Emma wake up!"
"It was painless darling, I promise."
Lian pried her eyes from her lifeless friend and looked towards the sound of the voice. Her eyes widened in shock.
A very pretty woman with long, silky black hair had just stepped out from behind a neighbor's hedge. She was holding a blowgun in one hand. Lian stared first at the blow gun, then at the strong looking hands with the sharp, dagger like finger nails. Then her eyes traveled up the green clad form to the hard green eyes, similar in shape to her own but different in size and color.
"M-mom?"

"For the record Grayson, you were supposed to be here almost an hour ago."
"Yeah, how 'bout that? Look, I'm sorry. I got a little busy. I'll be up as soon as I can, okay?"
Damian rolled his eyes and leaned back into a cushy leather office chair. He'd made plans to train with Nightwing at the Watchtower ages ago, and was sincerely regretting it. The man was habitually late, and where Damian was obsessively punctual this meant they never arrived anywhere at even remotely the same time. Damian had been waiting for Dick at the Watchtower for so long that he'd been assigned a shift of monitor duty against his will (however, one didn't just say no to Superman, especially when he said he was going to keep his widowed mother company while she watcehed Wheel of Fortune).
"I know we get sidetracked by unexpected criminal activity, but the intelligent thing to do would be to plan for these things to happen and insert some extra space in your schedule," Damian snapped.
"Well I'll be sure to do that next time."
"No you won't."
"You're right, I won't. Give me like another ten minutes, okay?"
Damian scowled. "Ten minutes more and then I'm leaving." He ended the call and set his comm back on the monitor, then irritably waited for something to happen. When he became an official member of the Justice League, he planned on restructuring things significantly. It just didn't seem efficient to have useful members of the team waste their energy with monitor duty.
Perhaps they could hire Red Robin to do it...
"Hello? Is anyone there? Please someone pick up!"
Damian jumped forward and snatched the comm device. "Miss Harper? This is Robin. What's wrong?"
"I-I was walkinghomefromschool and-and-my friends got killed. I'm under attack, please, I need help." She was speaking in a terrified sounding whisper. Damian was already running towards the teleporters.
"Do you know who your assailant is?"
"It's my Mom!" She wailed, and then she was inaudible for her crying.
Damian put out a call to the speedsters. The Keystone Flash's comm responded almost immediately. "I'm sending you the location of Lian Harper. Get there and cover her immediately."
"Uh...my dad's not home right now," Irey West answered. "But I got it! Impulse out."
Damian was grinding his teeth so hard he thought he might break them. "The idea behind having a special line for the speedsters is so that we can call them in an emergency. It would be helpful if West would carry his own comm device from now on!"
He teleported to Earth more than ready to kick some ass.

"Lian, come out and talk to me Sunshine. I don't mean to frighten you," Cheshire called.
Lian stayed where she was. She'd hidden herself in one of the neighbors' bushes, and she was hugging her knees, trying to keep as still and quiet as she could while sobbing her eyes out.
Her mother had just killed her only friends from school. It didn't make any sense.
Then again, she didn't really know much about her mother. She'd had visits with Jade back before she'd died, but now that she thought about it, there was something really odd about those visits. When she was little, she'd told herself that her mother was an alien princess, just like Starfire, and that evil peolpe had taken her prisoner too, but she'd escaped. And since she couldn't handle living out in the open on Earth, she'd had to live in a special hospital to keep her safe.
But it hadn't been a hospital. It was a jail. Lian saw that clearly, and felt an unfamiliar flare of anger towards her father. She'd babbled the alien princess story at Roy more than once when she was little. Why hadn't he told her the truth? Her beautiful mother, whom she'd loved and taken pride in looking so similar to, was a murderer. And now she wanted to murder Lian too.
"Sweetheart, this is all very complicated, but I promise you, I have your best interests at heart," Cheshire said. Lian hugged herself tighter and tried not to breathe, very much doubting the truth of that statement. "Your father sent me a message to tell me you'd been resurrected. It was quite a shock darling. We both grieved so hard for you when you died...I think it was the hardest experience we ever shared."
Lian felt her breath hitch and quickly slapped a hand over her mouth. Her dad betrayed her like that? Not only had he never told Lian the truth about her mother, he'd spent time with the murderous psychopath and told her Lian was back? Had he told Cheshire where to find her too?
Was Roy the reason her friends were dead, and that she was about to join them?
"I thought to myself, 'I can't let that happen again'. You weren't around to see it last time darling, but your father and I, we won't survive if we have to lose you like that again. I can't take that chance. So let me help you back to rest. I'm an expert at this sort of thing, and I swear to you, I'll do it properly. You won't feel a thing. Lian, dearest darling, you deserve to go to rest in the arms of a loving parent."
As Jade spoke, she inched nearer and nearer to Lian's hiding spot. Lian could see high heeled green boots less than six inches away from her from between the branches of the bush. Her mother would find her any second. Where was the help she'd called for?
Then Cheshire was hit with a blur of reddish movement that sent her sprawling across the yard. "Oof!" Impulse went down with her, but was back on her feet in the blink of an eye. She ran into the bush, grabbed Lian's arm, and tugged her over to the sidewalk.
"HILIANROBIN'SONHISWAYSODON'TWORRYWE'REHERETOHELPYOUHI!" Impulse yelled, clearly in the throes of a Speed Force boosted adrenaline rush. Lian gaped at her and willed herself not to cry.
Cheshire jumped to her feet and charged at them with her poisoned fingernails held high. Impulse easily pulled Lian out of the way. Lian's stomach dropped to her knees when she heard Irey's next comment. "Wowshe'sfast!" That was definitely not a good thing for a speedster to say about a psycho killer.
Jade raised her hand to lunge at them again, when another figure jumped into the fight. Damian's bright green boot made contact with Jade's raised nails, neatly shattering them. A downswung batarang took out all but the thumb on her other hand.
Cheshire howled in pain and rage, and Damian leapt away from her with more batarangs at the ready. "Impulse, take her to safety!"
"I don't think I'm supposed to leave you alone with her!" Impulse shouted, sounding highly reluctant to move.
"That was an order! Get Lian to safety or you will regret it!"
"Kaygotitgood!" Impulse threw Lian over her shoulder, and then the world was moving too fast for her to make sense of anything. When it stopped, they were standing in a completely different neighborhood. Lian fell to her knees and threw up as soon as Irey set her back on the ground. "Oops. I think I went a little too fast. Are you okay Lian?"
"No," She groaned. "Nothing's okay. What just happened? Where are we?"
"My house. I figured it was safe. Uh...yeah, that's probably why you're sick. Since I just dragged you to Kansas in under a minute. C'mon, I gotta get you inside so I can go help Robin." She hauled Lian to her feet and pulled her towards the front door.
Impulse threw the door open, poked her head inside and swore under her breath when she found an empty living room. "MOM!"
"In the kitchen, and you can come in here if you want to talk to me!" Linda yelled back.
"I don't have time!" Irey called. "I brought Lian Harper here since her mom flipped out and tried to kill her! Now Robin's fighting her all alone, so I gotta go be backup! Bye!"
Irey took off in a dizzying burst of movement. The force of it left Lian sprawled on the living room floor.
Linda Park-West raced into the room, face pale with terror. "Iris West get back-dammit! She's already gone? WALLY!" Linda turned to yell up the stairs. "WALLY! Your daughter just said she's running off to fight a poison drenched psychopath!"
"Hearditonmywaybye!" The Flash raced through the room, moving just as fast as his daughter had been.
Lian stared after the departing blur with wide, frightened green eyes. "P-poisoned drenched psychopath? Did everyone know but me? Oh my God!" She buried her face in her hands and started sobbing.
Linda ran forward and pulled the frightened girl into a hug, stomach churning with guilt.

Meanwhile, Damian was having one hell of a hand-to-hand battle with Cheshire. She was at least as fast as he was, and her knowledge of fighting rivaled his own (not that he would admit it aloud). There was a chance they were equally matched, which was a first for him.
Cheshire deflected his blows and returned them with a zeal he rarely encountered. She seemed to appreciate a challenging opponent, however as her banter informed him, now wasn't the most opportune time.
"This is exciting. You live up to your reputation Robin. I'd heard you weren't as...as soft as the other Bats!" She had to duck suddenly to avoid a boot to the face. Unfortunately, she recovered her footing in half the time of a normal person, and the move didn't have the desired effect of getting her off balance. Damian mentally prepared another round of blows and began again.
"Much as I'm enjoying this," Cheshire purred. "I actually am quite busy at the moment. Perhaps another time?"
Damian managed to grab her wrist. He wrenched it towards him, pulling her off her balance, and squeezed hard. "There won't be another time. You'll never see daylight again," He growled.
Cheshire laughed, which hadn't been at all what he was going for. "Are you going to kill me little man? Hm?"
"You talk more than Red Arrow. I'm beginning to see how you complimented each other." He threw her into a toolshed, and cursed when she got back on her feet, apparently unphased by the blow.
"You seem to have taken an awful lot of interest in my pretty little daughter," Cheshire observed as she lunged for another strike. "Perhaps you'll understand why I couldn't just leave her in Red Arrow's care. Look what happened last time."
Damian avoided her blows and moved to swipe her feet out from under her. She anticipated the attack and easily avoided it.
"She's not just in his care!" Damian returned. He planted a kick in her stomach that knocked the wind out of her, grabbed her by the throat, and shoved her into a nearby wall. "If you ever go after her again, I will break my vow to my father and kill you myself," He threatened in a low voice. "Parents are supposed to take care of their children."
"I am looking after her. In the only way that counts," Cheshire choked out around his grip. Damian squeezed harder.
"You disgust me."
Impulse was anxiously watching the fight from the next yard, chewing on her fingers and trying to figure out what to do. Her father stopped short just next to her and grabbed her shoulder. "What the hell are you doing running out here on your own?"
"I'm not on my own Daddy! Robin's fighting Cheshire, but they've been moving so fast and controlled that I don't know what to do! She's, like, covered in poison. You're not supposed to touch her, right? I don't know how to help! What if I get Robin killed by accident?"
Wally watched Damian slam her into the side of a house by the throat again, and ceded his daughter a point. Still, Cheshire was one of the most dangerous, volatile opponents he'd ever fought. He couldn't just watch Damian spar with her. If anything did happen to Robin, Bruce would end him.
But he didn't know what to do either.
Then Cheshire swiped Damian across the cheek with her one remaining thumbnail. Impulse and Flash gasped, but Damian didn't flinch. Other than the blood that trickled down his cheek, there was no sign he'd been attacked.
Cheshire's eyes widened, and for the first time she started to look frightened.
"The house of Ra's al-Ghul has some familiarity with poisons," Damian informed her in a low, menacing tone. "I should be immune to all of your tricks."
Wally and Irey took a few cautious steps forward.
"That...may be a problem for me," Cheshire admitted.
Damian narrowed his eyes. "You can worry about it in a cell in the Watchtower, where we'll keep you for eternity."
"No, I don't think so," Cheshire responded. She moved so suddenly that she managed to break his grip, then she spit two quick bursts of liquid, the first hitting Wally in the face, the second planting in Irey's. The speedsters dropped to the ground and started writhing. "You may be immune to poisons, but it doesn't look like the Flash family can say the same. Are you going to help them, or continue sparring with me?"
Damian turned his fiercest glare yet on her. "I hate you more than my own mother."
"I'm highly flattered. Until we meet again Robin." She ran off. Damian didn't care to look where she went, keeping his focus on the speedsters.
"Watchtower, teleport three to medbay."

Cheshire stumbled up the street, cursing under her breath as she clutched at her bruised (possibly broken) ribs. She'd heard that Robin could fight, but hearing it and seeing it were two completely different things. 'I wonder where Lady Shiva's ranked that vicious bastard?' He had to be somewhere on her list of deadliest living fighters.
A van pulled up alongside her, and when the tinted window rolled down she was faced with a bubbly blond. Cheshire snarled at her as the woman squeaked out a cheerful greeting.
"Heya Chesh! How'd the mommy-daughter bonding go?"
"Just help me into the car Quinn."
"Sure thing!" Harley Quinn jumped out of the passenger side, opened the van's sliding door, and helped Cheshire onto a mat in the back. She then hopped over into the front, and the driver pulled back into traffic.
Cheshire carefully prodded her torso. "That beast broke three of my ribs!"
"You shouldn't call your kid a beast! It ain't nice!"
"I seriously doubt she's talking about her own child Harl," Poison Ivy said, smirk evident from her tone though Cheshire coudn't see her to confirm it. Ivy repositioned the rearview mirror so that she could see the back of the van from the driver's seat. "Talk to us Jade. We're curious girls. Who managed to get a hit on you?"
"Robin. Incidentally, you were right about him."
"Told ya so!"
"Shut up Harl. Well darling, did you at least confirm what you wanted to know?" Ivy asked.
"Yes...as long as that boy is involved in her life, my precious little girl will be safe." Jade leaned against the side of the van and let out a relieved breath. She felt as if she'd been holding it ever since the phone call from Roy that let her know their daughter was alive again. With Robin around, it seemed, there was a good chance she'd stay that way this time.
Ivy turned in her seat to give her companion a sultry smile. "Well, now that you've got that burden off you mind, perhaps we can return to our business discussion?"
"Yeah! Can we-can we-please?" Harley squealed, bouncing in her chair.
Jade winced and rubbed at her temple. She still couldn't understand why a professional like Ivy worked with a ditz like Quinn. "I've considered your generous offer, and am happy to accept. I'm in."
"Oh goody! You're gonna love it at the house Chesh! We got a toy room and everything!"
"And in the realm of things you may actually care about, a labratory prepped and waiting for our combined genius," Ivy added.
Cheshire grinned. "I look forward to our collaboration."
- 7
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- 9
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Birds and Bees