"theres a lady who knows
all that glitters is gold . . ."
in which a wannabe hero leaves the safety of her own life to help a girl
with a very strange problem.
...
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THREE MONTHS AFTER FUNERAL.
DJ - can you come by the Manor sometime soon? There's something we need to discuss.
These words - this text message from Bruce had been front and center on DJ's mind all day. Ever since that morning, when she woke up to see it displayed on her phone.
There's something we need to discuss.
What could they possibly have to discuss? What needed to be said so desperately that it couldn't be talked about over the phone? They hadn't spoken since the funeral; not really spoken, anyway. Bruce had sent a text every couple of weeks to check in on her. She would promise that she was doing fine, and that would be it.
The thing that puzzled her the most was that she was truly doing okay. Not perfect, nowhere even close, but she wasn't exactly feeling the urge to kill anyone else. Which was always an approvement. Her boyfriend was still dead, her body was still crumbling, and she had a job now, but she had been worse. The never-ending pile of medications and hours of speech therapy were helping, and (though she would vehemently deny it) she didn't totally mind her job.
Her father had pulled some strings and gotten her a job at the Gotham City museum. History was the only thing DJ was ever good at in school, solely because she actually enjoyed learning about it. (Not to mention the whole time-traveling aunt thing.) Oliver and Laurel had insisted that DJ find something she had an interest in, but due to the fact that she had very little skills other than making people bleed, history was about the only thing she could think of.
But…it wasn't so bad. The extra talking helped her work on her stutter more. Most of the people she led around the museum were kids and teenagers on their field trips, which also wasn't bad. Her experience with the younger teens in the Titans made it easier to communicate with the teens, and the little kids were adorable and always marveled at almost anything she would say.
Even just the subject matter she was talking about all day was enjoyable. Repetitive as it was, it felt nice to have something that she could talk about with confidence. She felt good at something other than fighting for the first time in her life. It made her feel…not terrible about herself. So not terrible, in fact, that she spent her free time at the museum reading random books she could find and taking in whatever knowledge it could give her.
Would she ever admit this? Of course not. She had thrown far too big of a tantrum about getting a job to just drop it now. Every time she talked to a family member on the phone, she would make a snide comment about it. When her mom asked if she would visit soon, DJ responded by telling her that she would have to work and wouldn't be out to visit any time soon.
Even with these little comments, she couldn't deny that it was starting to feel like her life was somewhat…stabilizing. It had now been six months since she moved to Gotham - the only six months in her entire life where she didn't feel the looming call to strap on her quiver and catch some bad guys. The first time in her life where she could wake up in the morning, go about her day, then go to bed after the sun went down. The first time, she had ever had a schedule she could follow. No new bruises, no ringing ears from loud gunshots, no keeping an eye on the news.
