Cats Eat Birds - Damian Wayne/OC

72 | AT MOTHER'S KNEE

GOTHAM CITY; CRISTEN'S HOUSE | 1:53 AM | CRISTEN

     TALIA WAS ACCOMPANIED by a group of four of her men, who stood around the car with tactical armor under their coats. They went unmasked, which eased Cristen's anxiety by a fraction. (No eyes in the red darkness). What didn't help was how easily her kitchen was cleaned up, and how, without word, Talia's soldiers moved forward to receive the body bag they snuck out of the house. Even if this clone had planned to hurt her, Cristen couldn't help but feel like they were doing something deeply wrong as his body (Damian's body) shifted under the black material.

"Shouldn't have killed him," Cristen muttered, pacing the strip of her lawn to sense for anyone watching. "The information we could've gotten from him..."

She kept most of her attention on the vibrating bubble of energy that only she could feel. Clark had done his reading on what Palacians could do with their insight, and so they used their time together to bond and to train. She'd managed to create telepathic mental barriers, restore memories, and most recently, influence attention diversion. When anyone on the street came close to looking down at the small swarm of people on her sidewalk, Cristen's insight would influence them to look the other way. She was tragically good at making people fail to notice her.

"He was a clone. His only design was to follow orders, which would include secrecy." Talia observed. She seemed to be trying to comfort Cristen.

The way Talia talked, and Bruce talked, and Tim talked, and everyone talked, made it seem that the League of Assassins were omniscient. Just like Batman, they had files on everyone. Spies on everyone. Cristen found it curious how little Talia seemed to have gathered on her. If she were a mother capable of getting infinite information on the girlfriend (?) of the son she could no longer see, Cristen would do nothing but paranoid herself into a data corner. Height, weight, age, dating history, schooling history. What shoes she wore two months ago. And yet Talia al Ghul knew so little about Cristen or her powers. The basics, maybe—but definitely not the fact that Stray was Kryptonian.

Maybe she'd started to look. She knew where Cristen lived, her secret ID. But she'd seemed surprised that Cristen had lasted against Damian in a fight, she'd just suggested that Cristen would have no way of getting information from the clone (she did; insight), and knew only that she had some sort of powers because of the inhibitor collar. Watching the assassins load the piece of tech into the car, Cristen had a thought.

"...Damian told you to stay away from me, didn't he? To not look into me anymore?"

Talia's brows arched in real surprise. "Pardon?"

Cristen just stared at Talia's face. A faint, sharp smile pinched her lip. "You have no idea what I am."

"Don't be so sure," Talia warned, but she didn't know that Cristen could see it was a cover. Her condescension toward Cristen quickly became curiosity. "And cease your smirking. I may have saved your life, Cristen Young, but that was in the name of my son's affection. Not my own."

Before Cristen could take in just how satisfied it made her to have back a semblance of mystery, her insight bubble around the block was punctured. Cristen had clipped her utility belt over her shoulder, unsheathed a trio of batarangs, and stepped into the center of the street before the rest of their group had even noticed she'd moved. As it approached, Cristen's hair twisted in the breeze, rolling around her face like deadly black tendrils.

An old, 60s Corvette convertible slowed until the front grille was a foot from Cristen's knee. They were smart enough to keep their headlights low, so Cristen could make out the two people in the front seat without squinting, and they could do the same to the girl they'd nearly ran over. She raised her batarangs in either fist. Above them, Cristen's insight gave the mind of a spying old man a push back to bed.