Chapter Text
A cheshire cat’s grin was threatening to split Riley’s face in two. “Ice cream, ice cream, I scream for ice cream!” Her long black hair was fluttering in the wind as she twirled in place. Rachel O’Reagan giggled at her daughter’s antics and reached out to hold hands, which Riley took advantage off by dragging her poor mother toward the ice cream trunk.
Rachel was a truly beautiful woman. Her five foot eight inches of height combined with her blinding smile gave her a larger-than-life aura, especially to a little ankle biter like Riley. For her birthday, the two were enjoying an early morning walk since Riley begged her mom to go out and spend the night having fun with her friends for once.
“Calm down Riley, the ice cream’s not going anywhere!” The effectiveness of her reprimand was undercut by her melodic chortling. With a quick exchange of dollars, two scoops of mint croc chip was ready to be devoured by Riley. The old lady grinned warmly at the display “Your little sister is adorable young lady.”
“Little Riley is the beat of my heart.” Though her words were brimming with motherly love, her smile was strained at best. But Riley focused more on what her mom didn’t say, perhaps sensing this, she quickly led the two of them away.
Curiosity piqued, she began working up the courage to ask but never got the chance. Two masked figures leapt out from the shadows, before the family knew it, they both had hands clasped over their mouths and were being hauled toward a van.
Rachael responded like any real Gothamite would in her situation. First, she stomped on her attacker’s foot so hard he reflexively let go, then spun around to sink a pocketknife into the man’s throat. He reacted in time to deflect the blade, but his hand was maimed in the process. Rachel was ready to hack away at the man until there was nothing left of him but stopped when she heard the distinct sound of a gun’s safety being turned off.
The second man had a pistol pressed into Riley’s temple, his message clear. The woman let the blade drop to the floor, leading to the bloodied man punching her square in the face. Riley could hear the bones in her cracking under his fist all the way on the other side of the street.
The two men yanked the mother and daughter into their van and sped off. Riley could feel her heart pounding like a drum so hard and fast she thought it would burst right out of her chest. Her mother’s words of consolation barely registered in her mind. When the van abruptly stopped, and the two were dragged back into the cruel indifference of Gotham’s back alleys, she was too scared to scream.
Like a prisoner being marched to the gallows, Rachael and Riley were brought into a rundown warehouse and made to sit on an improvised desk. In front of them was a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties, he wore an ill-fitting suit and had slimy smirk that made Riley’s skin crawl. She wanted to run away but couldn’t due to the heavy hands pressing down on her shoulders
Her mother seemed to recognised him. “This is a bit dramatic, don’t you think?” she said in a weak attempt at humour. He decided to play along anyway and drawled out “Well, I had to get your attention somehow. You’ve a hard girl to get a hold of, especially when you don’t answer my calls.”
“I just needed a little more time Jimmy, you know how it is.”
“You needed a little more time huh. So, you have it now? You can fork over my cash, and we can all go home happy right?”
Rachel didn’t say anything.
“C’mon Rae, you clearly have enough dough to get the little rascal some desert. If you’re liquid enough to be indulging yourself, then surely repaying your debts should be easy-peasy. Especially when I was nice enough to give you an extra week out of the kindness of my heart?”
Her mom simply broke eye contact and clenched her fists in her lap. In turn, Jimmy’s body language shifted, his eyes narrowed dangerously. “You really are useless then.”
“Listen Jimmy, all I need is another week—” Rachel’s quivering voice was cut off by him abruptly rising to his feet, pushing his chair over in the process as he towered over her. The thug holding her down shuffled to the side without relinquishing his grip.
“No you listen! I don’t care what you need, I don’t care how you fucked up, and I don’t care about whatever sob story you’ll come up with to explain yourself. The only thing I care about” He pulled out a pistol from his back pocket and levelled at her mother. “is MONEY.”
A hundred and fifteen grains of lead erupted from the muzzle of Jimmy’s gun. It soared briefly through the air and dug into Rachel’s skull. It tore all the way through her brains until it emerged from the other side of her head in a wave of blood and gore. Life quickly left her eyes as she slumped over in her chair.
For a moment, which felt simultaneously like an instant and an eternity, Riley sat perfectly still. She was by no means a stranger to the concept of death, that Gotham is a city as dangerous as they come. But she never quite realised that it was possible for her mother to die. It was the two of them against the world, they were the only person the other could really trust, so Riley’s mind repeatedly failed to compute the scene in front of her. She rejected the scene in front of her with any fibre of her being…but eventually…after an indeterminate amount of time, her new reality became clear.
‘She’s dead.’
Burning hatred as hot as lava and as venomous as a spider flooded her veins. A red haze clouded her eyes. Without hesitation, Riley through herself forward, but was restrained by the man behind her. He had put her in a headlock and started to applied pressure her frail neck. She clawed at her kidnapper, desperately trying rip off his arms and scratch his eyes out.
It was in that moment, while she had his face in her hands, that she felt a connection deep in her mind. It was like a tug on a fishing rod, or maybe a circuit being closed. She pulled on that connection, as if flexing a muscle she never had before.
A thunderous boom reverberated throughout the warehouse. In the middle, where the man once stood was a ball of flames that quickly fizzled out into smoke. The two remaining men were at a loss and were further flummoxed when the small figure of Riley O’Reagan staggered out of the ashes like a zombie.
The child herself was equally bewildered by what just happened. The explosion she created was an act of pure instinct; her mind scrambled to rationalize the occurrence with the existence of a gas leak or some unknown third party.
The two men shook off their confusion first and returned to the task at hand. Jimmy’s gun had been blown away by the shockwave, so his henchmen pulled out a hunting knife and directed a murderous glare toward Riley.
He raced toward her with the full intention of gutting her like a fish. “Go away!” Riley cried while pitching a shard of torn up concrete at her assailant. In that moment, she still thought that a rogue was attacking. The contact bomb detonated upon crashing into the thug.
A second wave of heat and pressure shock the foundations of the building. Jimmy had been knocked to his back, unable to stand with blood streaming out of his ears. He groggily made eye contact with Riley who returned his dazed expression with a look of unbridled malice.
When she pounced on top of Jimmy, grabbed him by the throat and pulled her right fist back up to her head, she knew exactly what was causing the explosions. But because of that, she hesitated to press down on her index finger with her thumb, which remained pointing upwards.
Sensing his chance, Jimmy started to talk “Riley please, please don’t do this.” He attempted to cover his horrified face with a comforting smile. “I can tell Jack and Harry was an accident, don’t make yourself into a murderer.”
Riley’s hand begun to shake. “Please kid, look at this.” He started to reach into his jacket’s chest pocket and dug out a crinkled piece of paper. He unfolded it, revealing a photo of a young boy around her own age, blindfolded and tied to a chair. “This is Max. He’s my little boy; he loves playing with his science kit I got him last Christmas. Says he wants to be a doctor when he’s grown up.”
His own voice had begun to quiver, just like Rachel when she said her last words. “Black Mask’s got ‘em. Says if I don’t pay up by the end of the month I’ll never see him again. I’m so sorry about yer ma, but you have to understand, I NEED that money. So please, please just let me go.”
Her mind was racing a mile a minute; she tried to force herself take deep breathes but failed miserably as she continued to hyperventilate. She could only stare down toward her mother’s killer, hoping beyond hope she could see the twisted eyes of a monster, and kept only finding a man.
Jimmy didn’t try to persuade her any further, and Riley had no words to speak. In the end, she never discovered what she was capable of that day, because just out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jimmy subtly reach out and grab his gun.
She her thumb pressed down on her index finger and—
Riley lurched upward from her hospital bed, drenched in sweat.
She crawled out of bed and stumbled her way into her bathroom’s tap to splash water in her face and push her ratty bangs away from her eyes. Tap water rushed out and into the sink as Riley stared into the tired eyes of her reflection.
Pushing her nightmare to the back of her mind, she tried to focus on the here and now. It didn’t make her feel any better.
‘Fifteen thousand dollars.’
Those six syllables, five digits, and three words kept rattling around in Riley’s skull. Every recall of the bill was accompanied by a pulse of anger, the likes of which she hasn’t felt in eight long years.
‘Money. Money. Money. Why does everything always come back to money…’
The more she thought about her situation the more her mind went back to the purple clad vigilante who got her into this shit. Spoiler. If only she had killed her when had the chance…then she and Flatline could have spent the night kicking back and relaxing…
‘Don’t be stupid Riley, only someone with a death wish kills a sidekick.’
Idle fantasies slipped away as she began to focus on how she was going to claw her away out of the grave she dug for herself. The most obvious answer was one Timothy Jackson Drake. Her ol’ pal Timmy always gave of a sense of noblesse oblige on the rare occasions when they talked politics.
It wouldn’t be that hard really. All she had to do was frame it as him paying on her behalf instead of him handing over fifteen grand, and she was sure he would go for it.
‘All I have to do is look pathetic and ask him to save me.’
A completely different kind of anger began to worm its way into Riley’s core. It was as if her intestines had started to twist themselves into knots the way her guts began to writhe in pain and humiliation.
‘That’s right, all I have to do get on my hands and knees and beg like a good little street rat for salvation from my betters. Like a damn junky badgering their friends so they can get their next fix.’
Her listless gaze quickly transformed into a determined glare. She’s spent the last eight years of her miserable life overcoming the odds all on her own, this would be no different. It doesn’t matter that god, the universe, who or whatever thing out there stubbornly refuses to throw her a single bone. It doesn’t matter that she hasn’t experienced a second of good luck in almost a decade. Because all she had ever needed was herself.
---{ Elsewhere }---
Refusing to stagnate a second longer, Riley checked out of the hospital that morning in order to seize the weekend in all its glory.
It was on days like these that she really had no idea what to think of her metahuman status. On one hand, they’ve painted an enormous target on her back which she would have to deal with for the rest of her life. On the other, at the time of her awakening, had her powers never manifested “the rest of her life” would most likely have been measured in minutes, if not seconds.
She could at least complain that she could have at least gotten a more standard superpower than her explosive touch. If she had a fraction of Superman’s invulnerability and strength, she could have beaten those thugs to death easy, AND she could have shrugged off Spoiler’s assault like she was a toddler throwing a tantrum.
Instead, all she has is a lousy healing factor that probably only exists to maintain her eardrums and barely works elsewhere. That and a barrier that protects her from her own explosions but would do fuck all if someone threw a grenade at her feet.
To be fair, it IS completely unrivalled when it comes to destroying evidence. If Riley was a serial killer, she could kill women willy nilly all the way into her thirties without anyone having a clue. Hell, she could keep their severed hands in her pockets just for the fun of it. ‘What? The fuck did that come from?’
Riley just shook her head and kept walking. ‘Intrusive thoughts are so weird.’
Her eyes scanned the sea of bodies flowing through the streets of Gotham, eventually settling on a head of short black hair next to blonde curls. Riley knew without a doubt that they belonged to her friends. To be clear, she couldn’t usually identify men from behind just based on their haircut; Tim was just that short.
“Kept you waiting, huh?”
Stephanie turned around and fixed her with an apprehensive gaze “I’m surprised you showed up at all, shouldn’t you still be in hospital.”
Tim waved it off casually “C’mon Steph, you should know Riley’s made of sterner stuff.”
He punctuated his words with a knowing glance that Stephanie couldn’t see from her angle. Riley elected to ignore him and place the moment in her mental box labelled “Tim Idiosyncrasies: Do Not Engage”, she would need all her brain power for the next part of their conversation and refused to waste it on whatever Tim’s trying to signal to her.
Speaking of, Stephanie did not look convinced in the slightest and Riley had to correct that. ‘Today my mantra is Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss!’
“My injuries really weren’t that bad. Turns out there was a fuck up at the hospital and the staff had swapped my x-ray with someone else. I only had a small break on my arm and a rib or two.”
Doubt crept across Stephanie’s face “Didn’t you need surgery?”
“No?”
Doubt became disbelief “I’m pretty sure I heard the staff saying your ribs punctured your lungs.”
“Steph, how would you have heard that, nurses don’t go round spouting confidential medical information to anyone who wants to hear. You seemed pretty out of it when we spoke, maybe you misheard?”
‘Man, I’m a comically bad friend.’
“She’s right Steph” Tim interjected “I was with you the whole time and no one mentioned anything about a surgery.”
‘Tim is also a bad friend…for some reason.’
Once again, he turned slightly toward Riley and gave a look she was sure was meant to look supportive. Moving on, the laws of conformity dictate that when two out of three people imply you’re crazy you tend to believe them. And based on the insecure face Stephanie is making, Riley was sure her mission was a success.
‘Gregory Anton, eat your heart out!’
Riley turned toward the gym the three were loitering in front of. Personally, she couldn’t even dream about being able to afford membership to any business that doesn’t get damp floors when it rains. But apparently Steph and Tim together had been mooching off Bruce Wayne for weeks now, so when they offered to get Riley in on the action, how could she say no! “So, this the place you guys do your martial arts stuff?”
“That’s correct.”
“Pretty sweet right?”
“I’ve seen better.”
Riley snorted ‘Oh Flatline, never change.’
…
‘What.’
After a brief pause, all three teens swivelled around to see a small Asian girl standing just behind them, or at least, Riley presumed so based on their beige skin and oriental features. “What’s up Riley!”
“Fla—I mean, um, you!” she spluttered out.
“Me!” she replied unhelpfully.
“What are you doing here, er, young lady!” The punk had still not regained her composure.
“Hmph, where I go is none of your concern, Riley O’Reagan.” Flatline(?) said before crossing her arms indigently as she puffed out her cheeks.
Stephanie let out a chuckle at their antics “Cute kid. I like your style!”
“Whatever old lady.”
While Stephanie muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “fucking brat”, Tim cleared his throat and gestured toward the other two girls. “So Riley, do you know this…sassy lost child?”
“I resent that!”
“Unfortunately.”
Riley let out a resigned sigh that had too much practise perfecting lately. Opened her mouth to speak, only to realise she hadn’t magically learned Flatline’s name in the last five seconds “Introduce yourself brat.”
The pint-sized pain in her ass snapped into a salute “You gotcha, boss lady!”
“Don’t call me that.”
“The name’s Nika! The boss lady decided to take me under her wing, and I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth!
Tim raised an eyebrow at that “Nika? Weren’t you about a to say a name starting with F?” he asked Riley.
‘What are you, a detective?’ Riley thought, trying to hide her annoyance. “In Japan, the family name comes first, but I guess Nika is comfortable being on a first name basis with my close friends…”
She wanted the conversation to end there, but the curious looks both Tim and Stephanie were sending her way said otherwise. “Her full name is…Furatorin Nika…am I pronouncing that right?”
“Yup!” Her words implied validation for Riley’s quick thinking, her eyes suggested otherwise. Luckily, both of Rily’s friends were already used to Nika being a cheeky bastard, so neither thought it suspicious.
Nika ended up swindling Tim into allowing her to join their lessons together going forward. Riley was almost proud of her.
---{ Elsewhere }---
The four entered the gym, and after a few twists and turns Riley came face to face with the eldest son of Bruce Wayne; Dick Grayson. Just like Tim, he had a muscular, yet lean build coupled with black hair and blues eyes. If she didn’t know any better, she would have never thought that Dick and Tim were anything less than Bruce’s biological children.
Anyone who knows Riley well would know that her punk persona is only skin deep. She wears cheap leather jackets and owns a single pair of aviators to go with her short blue hair, just enough of a mask to fool passerby’s with connections to the lucrative trade of metahuman trafficking. This is to say, Riley is by nature a quiet reserved girl, and the act of meeting a b-list celebrity like Dick Grayson had her quaking in her boots.
“At last, the guest of honour arrives!” he let out with a booming voice befitting a ringmaster. His flamboyant attitude never wavered even when taking in Nika’s surprise appearance “Or at least I hope so, statistically speaking, at least one of you has to be Riley O’Reagan right?”
She would have liked to say she met Dick’s greeting with a squared shoulders and an easy-going smile, but that would be a bold-faced lie. Fortunately, Riley sent her sense of honesty to a farm upstate a long time ago, so she would say it anyways.
‘Maybe he’s nice?’
She cleared her throat “That would be me.”
His handsome face was promptly mired by a shit-eating grin “You’re really O’Reagan?”
‘Oh, he’s insufferable.’
While Riley let out an awkward laugh, eye twitching in irritation, Nika shoved past her and held out her hand with her palm facing down. “Furatorin Nika, a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Dick found her spoilt princess act much more amusing than her so-called boss, and played along by kneeling and placing a kiss on the back of her hand. “The pleasure is all mine, milady.”
“I changed my mind again, she’s adorable.” Stephanie stage-whispered to her companions. While Riley had the look of a man discovering their best friend of forty years had been banging his wife, Tim continued as all was right in the world. “I gotta say, I’m jealous, always wanted a little sister.”
This was enough to shock her out of her stupor “Sister!? The demon brat? Are you kidding—hey! Don’t just look at each other like you know something I don’t!” But Stephanie had already seen enough apparently, because she sauntered over to the women’s changing rooms without another word.
Dick and Nika were still inflating each other’s egos by themselves.
Riley was ready to chase her down, but Tim put a hand on her shoulder to grab her attention “We’re being serious Riley, both of us are really proud of you for looking out for this kid.” There was neither a speck of humour or mockery in his voice, his eyes were warm with understanding and sympathy.
Frankly, she would have preferred this to all be some cruel joke, because at least then she would know what the fuck he was talking about. Perhaps sensing her confusion, he continued “I know how you’re connected.”
There was only one explanation for the words that came out of Tim’s mouth, and it made Riley’s blood freeze in her veins.
‘He knows I’m Mercenary…but how!?’
While her mind kept racing with all sorts of possibilities, Tim spoke once more “I’m not going to tell anyone, don’t worry, your secrets are safe with me.”
Life really did seem to have it out for Riley. Everything would be a lot easier if the world just beat her down and didn’t stop until she was dead. But instead, she once again found herself being tortured with hope.
She was kidnapped by loan sharks and saved by her powers.
She lost her only family and got the best friend she could ask for.
She now here she was. By all rights this should be checkmate, drowning in debt and revealed as a criminal. But instead Tim is standing here, willing to turn a blind eye for a street rat with an Icarus complex.
Riley, overcome with gratitude, could only collapse into her friend’s arms and hug him so hard a lesser man would have had his spine broken in half. ‘I guess his brother isn’t so bad either…’ she thought idly. Dick had definitely noticed her little outburst and was doing his damnedest to distract Nika.
Not willing to test how long he could hold her attention, she pulled away and signalled Tim her intentions with her eyes. He nodded and dragged Dick away to the men’s changing rooms, leaving Riley with her self-proclaimed protégé.
“Is Nika even your real name?” she said with a raised eyebrow.
Riley’s little demon eyed her with scepticism; all traces of brattiness had vanished and in its place was the hawklike gaze of a trained killer. Seeing that look on the face of a child made Riley’s stomach churn. ‘Does she think this is a test? What does she think will happen if she’s wrong?’
“Sure is, but you already knew that right?”
‘Eh, why not.’
“Naturally.” Nika is hardly a rare name, in fact, it’s a cross-cultural name that has originated in Greece, Slavia, and Iran on top of Japan. If pressed, she could just say she guessed it somehow.
Just like in the hospital, Nika’s eyes lit up with reverence and cautious fear in equal measure “Sasuga Rōnin-Sama!”
‘Jeez, I can’t understand I word this girl says…’
---{ Riley’s Debt: $15,000 }---