after the incident, my mind is hellbent on training.
annabeth talks me down from storming to olympus itself, but she cannot keep me from becoming the strongest version of myself. if anything, she encourages it.
chiron handles the logistics of my parents' funeral; the shrouds, the ceremony, everything. in support of our heroism, he also sends hoards of supplies for war; shields, training swords and dummies, you name it.
i'm sparring with annabeth when the magician zatara enters with a girl i can only assume is his daughter. she walks up to us and introduces herself as zatanna zatara. m'gann flies up and introduces the rest of the team.
everyone starts telepathically ranting about tornado, until zatanna butts in.
"are you guys having a psychic conversation? because i can't tell if that's cool or really rude," she says. i sigh and nod at her. conner asks canary about tornado, who the league is still searching for. apparently there have been zero developments.
we leave to give zatanna a tour of the cave. i walk with her, me on one side and annabeth on the other. the two of us exchange a look, trying to decide on what we think of the new girl.
zatanna asks if we're really taking a tour, and conner responds that we're actually hunting down tornado. she suggests that she can't snitch if we kidnap her.
i like her already.
when m'gann asks for canary to open the doors, she includes that we're giving zee a tour of happy harbor.
robin starts to go on about how we need a really dumb idea, and everyone turns to wally. he protests, but gets an idea.
as a team, we interrogate ivo until zee casts a spell and draws the answer out of him. we travel to the coordinates he provided and hover while we activate stealth mode. to do that, i simply tap the swirl on my chest. annabeth taps the owl on hers. we drop down and run for the volcano.
we're running when we're pushed down by some strong gusts of wind. i look up and gasp; red tornado himself, wrapped in a twister. he entraps us with his tornados. the words PLAY DEAD are etched into the ground; i run at him, immediately tossed aside by a gust.
i hear red volcano tell tornado that he knows his next move. we sit up in astonishment as the younger android lifts the segment of ground that red had engraved his message in. he obliterates it and sends the pieces our way. i put of a water shield in front of annabeth, robin, and zatanna. i uncap riptide and hack my way through the rock.
the volcano behind red volcano starts spewing lava. the team starts to devise a plan to attack from all sides. when the droid is holding m'gann, zatanna multiplies wally. she says, "i use a scaled-down version when i sneak out of the house." she looks at robin, who doesn't return the glance. ouch, unrequited crush on the first day.
a wave comes from behind aqualad, but he insists that it wasn't him. he points to red torpedo. i watch in amazement as the reds take down their tyrannical brother. when superboy pulls tornado from the lava, kid explains that red needs to vent the air so the volcano won't destroy the earth. i stay on the ground while they get to work.
back in morrow's lab, red tornado explains that he was never the mole. instead, he wanted to become more human. my heart pangs for his; as a demigod, that's a constant in my life. too mere for the gods, too much for the humans.
we take him back to the cave, where zatara goes off about how zee's grounded for life. i avoid that whole debacle and make a beeline for the kitchen, where rob eventually joins me at the island.
"so...you alright? you seem a bit shaken," he says.
"fine, thanks."
he nods. "okay, it's killing me. how do you know my name? who are you?"
i chuckle dryly. "we'll tell you eventually, just not today."
"unless i figure it out first," he smirks. i roll my eyes and snort.
"keep dreaming, bird boy. athena's a genius, even more so than you are."
i leave him to his devices, dragging myself to the empty cave bedroom adjacent to annabeth's.
unfortunately, sleep is not a reprieve of my heartbreak, but an escape nonetheless.
--//||\\--
i wake up to annabeth knocking on the doorframe, already dressed. i yawn and sit up before she throws my clothes in my face. "yeah, yeah. hold on. let me get up first." i walk groggily to my bathroom and hastily put on my clothes. i grab my phone—monster-detection free, courtesy of leo—off of my nightstand.
we zeta to gotham and walk to the mall. we're using the credit card from the lotus casino, which grover had kept from so long ago. that smart son of a bitch.
shopping takes a while; neither annabeth or i had grown up rich, so we always went to secondhand stores or got hand-me-downs. we get the essentials for now; enough clothes, sheets, and shoes to last until we get ourselves back on our feet.
once we've exhausted ourselves, we hit the food court. when we get our food and sit down, i spot a familiar raven-haired friend of ours. "hey dick!"
naturally, all eyes in the food court turn on me with snide glances, but dick ignores them and strides towards us, an unfamiliar redhead in tow.
"hey guys! are you both free right now? i've actually been wanting to introduce you guys to my friend wally, he's from central city."
the redhead waves. he winks at me and says, "hey, baby. what's up?"
i bask in the normalcy of the small talk we make. gods, it feels nice to be an average teenager for once. the brief moment comes to an end when annabeth cleans up our garbage and stands up i pick up my phone and turn it on. "aw, sorry, guys. my dad wants us home." dick offers to drive us home, and we accept.
in addition to the logistics of planning, chiron had become our legal guardian. though he does not live in the house, he covers the financials under the camp's name so we can live in the house still. the empty walls echo my conversations with annabeth, duller without the warmth of my parents' love.
these nights, sleep evades me.
