Nobody Said It Was Easy

Chapter 5

It took a lot to truly impress Bruce Wayne. But he wasn't at all ashamed to admit that this did it. He knew that he'd covered his tracks well when he assumed the identity of Batman. It would be extremely difficult, nigh impossible to figure him out. And yet... his niece had managed to do it with two days and a newspaper article.

Still... he supposed he shouldn't be all that surprised. Persephone was more like her mother than she seemed to realise. And Sarah always had been smarter than him, even as children. It would have only a matter of time before she figured things out.

'It wouldn't hurt to give security another upgrade, though', he thought as he and Robin departed for patrol that night.

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Percy shot up in bed, cold sweat trickling down her back and making her shiver even as she threw the blankets off of her. She'd had a night terror. Again.

She should be used to it by now. After all, she'd been having these dreams since she was 12. But was there really any way to get used to seeing those you'd killed staring back at you every time you closed your eyes?

The sky was still pitch black, and the alarm clock on her bedside table blinked, 12:27 am.

It was way too early for anybody else in the house to be awake. Even Alfred had to sleep. But as she walked by Dick's room, she saw his door open, and him not in bed.

'Ah. So still on patrol then', he thought, frowning slightly. Alfred wasn't kidding when he said that Dick hardly got any sleep. How did this kid function?

The house was completely dark. It always was. But now, somehow, it seemed worse. More suffocating. She knew Bruce was Batman, and that his alter ego was more him than Bruce Wayne was, but there was literally no colour whatsoever inside of this manor. Everything was coloured either black, grey, or if he was really risking it, some sort of dark shade of cranberry.

It was quiet too. Completely silent to the point where she could hear some kind of ringing in her ears. Every movement she made sounded painfully loud. She was homesick for New York, the city that never sleeps. There was always some sort of background noise there: the traffic down on the street, neighbours in their apartments around them making various bumps and crashing noises, some random person yelling on the street. Even during her time in camp she couldn't remember a time when it had been so silent.

Gotham was a big city, she knew. She loved big cities. But right now, stuck out here in this dark, isolated mansion, she couldn't tell. And that seriously irritated her.

So she ran back to her room, threw on some random clothes and a hoodie and headed out. It should go without saying that at this point, there was an essential arsenal of various daggers and knives strapped to various places on her body along with Riptide which was eternally clipped into her hair.

She knew Gotham was a dangerous place, the newspaper she had used to figure out her uncle and cousin's real identities was proof enough of that. But she also had no doubt that she could handle herself. At the end of the day, no matter how insane or murderous the criminals of Gotham were, they were still just mortals.

After facing the Lord of Time and Mother Earth herself, it would take a lot to truly scare her much less actually injure her.

Careful to make as little noise as possible, Percy climbed out the window of her room on the first floor. She rolled as she landed on the grassy ground, making sure to distribute her momentum and weight evenly so that she didn't injure herself, just as she'd been taught how to do since the age of 12.