"But Kal!"
"No, Elizabeth. It's not safe."
"I haven't shown the slightest sign of a memory lapse or anything! I'm fine!"
"And you're still grounded, young lady."
Her eyes shifted. "Kal -"
"Elizabeth."
"Why do you keep calling me that!?" Kal was about to snap at her for her attitude until he saw the look in her eyes. Over the past two years, he'd started to learn to read emotions in her eyes, and that small sign of the childlike spirit behind her eyes wasn't rebellion. That was genuine confusion, and, if he wasn't wrong, slight fear.
"Elizabeth?"
The concern in her eyes grew, but she didn't otherwise react.
"Aniv?"
She perked up, if only slightly. "Yes Kal?"
His expression grew more concerned. "It isn't safe, sweetie. We have to do more tests. Okay?"
She sighed. "Do I have to be put on probation?"
"It's not an official probation. You know that. It's more like medical leave. Even superheroes need a doctor once in a while."
"But Diana is already healed! So is Wally, and so are you!"
"Your healing factor isn't as strong as it should be when it comes to head injuries," he said, brushing the hair from her face and stroking her forehead with his thumb. "A head injury for you does a lot of damage, and we need to do more tests to be sure you're okay. Okay?"
She sighed again. "Arguably the strongest hero in this universe, and here I am, completely incapacitated because I hit my head."
"You said it, not me." He smirked a little.
"Shut up." She smacked him, and he raised an eyebrow at her. Her expression turned sheepish.
Kal kissed the top of her blonde head. "Get some rest, okay Aniv?"
"Yes Kal." She laid back, and he left her in the Watchtower infirmary.
Bruce stood outside the door. "How is she?"
Kal sighed and leaned against the wall, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Hard to say. She has some memory loss, it's just hard to say how much. Pretty major, she's forgotten her own secret identity."
"Dang."
"Yeah." He ran his fingers through his hair, pushing the signature curl somewhere among the mess that had come to rest atop his head over the past two days of trying to nurse his baby cousin back to health.
"Are you going to keep her here?"
"I'm not sure," he said, honestly. "There's not much more anyone can do for her here. And I'm not sure how many of you she remembers."
"Where would you take her?"
"Probably back to the farm. You did say they wiped memory of it from Slade, right?"
"Yeah. He's in Arkham, locked up tight. He won't be out for a while."
"That's what you say every time you catch the Joker." Kal smirked almost invisibly and raised one eyebrow.
Bruce glared slightly. "Slade isn't Joker."
"No," agreed Kal. "He's worse. He's sane, and he's not human. And for whatever reason, Kryptonite doesn't seem to affect him - at all. I don't know if that has anything to do with why he doesn't - or can't - use his powers, but there's something more about him that isn't right. . . . And I want to know it is."
He marched off, leaving Bruce watching the youngest member of the League through the infirmary window.
Aniv watched out the car window as they drove back to the farm. She was worried about her cousin. He kept calling her "Elizabeth," and seemed to think she should know all of those oddly dressed people at the Watchtower, not to mention his making her change her hair color and wear glasses as they returned to Earth. She was beginning to wonder if she was really the one who had hit their head.
Kal looked at his charge. She had submitted to the disguise without argument, but he could tell she was confused, and, he knew it didn't buther her, but the one bit of hair around the area where she'd been hit hadn't changed color at all. He'd made her brush her other hair over it and hoped it hid the stripe well enough. He could tell she'd forgotten several of her powers, namely mind reading, and he wasn't sure what else had been affected yet. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to what she had lost, and it bothered him to no end. Had she been out any longer . . . . He didn't even want to consider the possibility of what else she may have forgotten.
They arrived on the farm, and the elder of the two immediately sent Aniv to the living room to lay on the couch. Meanwhile, he went straight to the kitchen to make coffee for himself and lemonade for his cousin. He used his x-ray vision to check on her as she sat on the couch looking blankly out the window. The sun was setting, and over the past year, she'd made a habit of going out at sunset every day to look toward the sky, hoping to locate the direction Juprin was in.
Tonight, she didn't move.
Kal picked up a lemon from the counter and squeezed it over a glass. He was usually very good at managing his anger, but on this occasion in particular, he'd long passed Angry. He was Furious, and that lemon felt the full impact of that rage. His imagination told him that the lemon was Slade's masked face, and he squeezed that face until the mask cracked and the blood exploded from it, spilling from where his neck would have been. Laser beams pierced what was left of the defenses, melting his mind and leaving the shattered remains of what was a shell of a skull resting in Kal's clenched fist.
He came back to his senses and looked at the mess of juice and pulp splattered around the kitchen, and the hole in the wall in front of him. This couldn't be helping either one of them. There had to be a better way to deal with his anger.
