Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/6585373.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      F/M, Gen
  Fandom:
      Teen_Titans_-_All_Media_Types, Batman_-_All_Media_Types, DCU
  Relationship:
      Robin/Starfire_(Teen_Titans), Dick_Grayson_/_Koriand'r, Jason_Todd_&
      Koriand'r, Barbara_Gordon_&_Koriand'r, Barbara_Gordon/Dick_Grayson,
      Batman_&_Starfire, Dick_Grayson_&_Jason_Todd_&_Bruce_Wayne
  Character:
      Batman, Robin_(DCU), Dick_Grayson, Starfire, Koriand'r, Jason_Todd,
      Barbara_Gordon, James_Gordon_Jr, Bruce_Wayne, Alfred_Pennyworth, Raven,
      Rachel_Roth
  Additional Tags:
      Human_Trafficking, Alternate_Universe_-_Human, Organized_Crime, Rape/Non-
      con_Elements, Not_Fluff, sorry_for_the_angst, Angst
  Collections:
      Teen_Titans
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-04-18 Updated: 2016-12-19 Chapters: 4/? Words: 5823
****** If Aliens Were Real ******
by Arsenicpixie
Summary
     Starfire, or Coriander, as she was named by her Norwegian caretaker,
     is not a Tameranean Warrior. Instead, she is a different kind of
     alien--an illegal immigrant. Any canon divergence is intentional
     (including ages being different, names being spelled different,
     relationships being slightly different, and appearance changes) and I
     am aware of it.
Notes
     KryallaOrchid's Orange Colored Cliffs / E'ara universe is what got me
     into fanfiction, so it only makes sense that my first work be
     dedicated to her.
     Also: This work contains elements of rape, organized crime, extreme
     violence, and human trafficking. By writing this, I am not condoning
     any of these actions and will not tolerate commentary extolling the
     virtues of these things beyond their use as plot devices.
     Clearly, I do not own any of the places or characters, only the plot.
***** A Goat in Gotham *****
I know that I am not the only one that turns my face skyward, wishing that
aliens were real. Unfortunately, they aren’t; not in the way we wish they were.
I am Cori, and I am an alien of a different sort—an illegal immigrant. I was
brought to the US as an infant, smuggled here in my mother’s suitcase on her
quest to meet her husband. She was young, a mail-order bride to a wealthy man
in Gotham City; I was his unwanted dowry, the child he’d never even imagined
existed.
When my would-have-been stepfather saw me, his reception was indicative of that
of the rest of this city—“Get rid of it.” I like to think that my mother loved
me, and that is why she found herself incapable of killing me; more likely she
was just weak. Instead, she handed me off to her husband’s housekeeper and
swore her to secrecy.
All this I know from the housekeeper, Freya, who was my true mother. She named
me (Coriander, for her favorite spice), raised me to the best of her abilities,
and hid my existence from everyone; my mother, who no doubt assumed I’d been
thrown out with the trash, my invisible stepfather, who has likely forgotten
that I ever existed, and my two half-siblings, the twins Connie and Ryan, who
have no idea that my mother was a mother before them.
Mor Freya was an immigrant herself, a Norwegian grandmother turned housekeeper
in search of citizenship, and she did not speak English well. She taught me
what she could. My education, if you could even call it that, was spotty at
best. The public schools in Gotham all required a social security numbers. The
private schools didn’t care, if you could afford the school, but Mor Freya
could not. I knew my numbers in Norwegian and English, and I was fluent in
Norwegian. I’d read classic Norwegian literature, when I’d had time. I could
cook, I could clean, I could sew.
I had never seen a map. I had no idea how much of America there was in the
world, and on the whole, I didn’t care. I’d never known anything different from
my life with Mor Freya, and I never wanted to.
It didn’t matter what I wanted, though. The year I turned ten, the world
shifted so quickly that I was knocked off my feet. Mor Freya grew ill, the way
that old women displaced from home seem to, and she was forced into retirement
from her housekeeping job. With still no citizenship and failing health, she
couldn’t afford to seek the help she needed—she couldn’t even afford the
apartment we lived in anymore. She died the same day the landlord came to evict
us.
She pressed a wad of bills into my hand, the very last of the money we had, and
whispered to me as the landlord came up the stairs outside our door, “Løp,
kjære*.” I hesitated, and the landlord was knocking on the door. She pushed me
towards the fire escape, using the last of her strength to push me. “Løp*!” I
obeyed, going out the ladder and down the stairs. On the platform, I looked
back, and watched as the landlord checked her for a pulse.
I never knew that he saw me, but he did. Years later, I learned that they
declared Mor Freya murdered, their prime suspect a bedraggled child that was
witnessed fleeing the scene. I suppose, in retrospect, this could be considered
my first brush with what some like to call the “criminal element.”
The money Mor Freya gave me didn’t last long. A ten year old needs more than
12$ to survive, and food is expensive. It wasn’t long before I found myself
alone in Gotham, barefoot and bedraggled, standing alone in the rainy night.
Days passed.
I wandered through streets I’d never seen before, unable to read their names or
ask for help. People pushed me out of their way, unable or unwilling to spare
more than a glance and a push for a minute girl in their way. My shoes were
stolen the first night that I was on the streets, removed from my feet while I
slept. This terrified me, so I stopped sleeping. If I hadn’t been found when I
was, I would have died.
As it was, it was a close thing. I was crouched in an alley. I didn’t know what
day it was or how long it had been since Freya died. Shivering and barely
conscious, I couldn’t even recoil when I was approached.
To my ten year-old self, the boy that approached looked like a man. He was
tall, maybe fifteen or sixteen, a black leather jacket on his shoulders, a
half-smoked cigarette in his hand, his strawberry blonde hair hanging into his
dark, dangerous eyes. He watched me from across the alley as he finished his
cigarette. I watched him back, unsure what to expect—no one else had even
acknowledged me in so long that I was half-convinced I no longer existed.
Finished, he flicked the butt away and stepped closer.
“Hey, kid,” his voice was rough, the way it gets when you’ve been smoking for
years. Despite the danger that emanated from his form, his voice was
indescribably kind. It didn’t matter, my English wasn’t good enough to
recognize the colloquialism when I heard it.
“I-I am not a g-goat.” I managed to choke out around teeth that were chattering
louder than my voice. His sharp laughter echoed off of the bricks around us,
reflecting off of the puddles on the ground and back into the foggy air, knives
thrown carelessly.
“Do you have a farm, little goat?” He asked, concern in his voice. He was
moving closer, and as I shook my head, he caught my wrist in his hand. He
pulled me to my feet by my wrist. Even when I stood, he towered over me.
“That’s what I thought.” His eyes roamed over my body, sizing me up. He took in
my orange hair, my green eyes dulled by sleeplessness and hunger, the way my
body was only barely containing my bones, and my dirty feet. “Do you have a
name, little goat?” Intimidated but comforted at the same time, I responded
immediately.
“Coriander.” He looked into my face, searching for something. Finding it, he
turned away and walked toward the street, pulling me behind him, a docile goat
returning home from the market.
The boy’s name was, as I later found out, Jason Todd. He was the leader of a
street gang made up primarily of children, and they all stayed together in an
abandoned apartment. At first, they let me stay with them and share their
belongings, seemingly expecting nothing in return. I slept, ate what they let
me, and began to return to normal. Little by little, Jason got to know me,
speaking what little English I could understand.
I told him what had happened—that Freya had died, that I couldn’t go to school.
Looking back, these conversations are probably the ones that affected most the
direction my life went within the gang. I certainly don’t believe that it was
due to any actual attraction on his part.
The gang let me coexist with them peacefully, ignoring me not, as I then
thought, out of trepidation, but out of pity. After a month, I was finally
asked for retribution. I was laying on the floor of the apartment, in the space
I had managed to claim as mine. Night had fallen on Gotham, and most of the
rest of the gang was either out on the streets or asleep in the corners of the
room when Jason strode into the apartment.
“Little goat!” He called as he strode in, his voice more harsh than usual. His
nickname for me hadn’t changed, and secretly, I was glad. It made me special. I
stood up as he came in, glad to see him. He grabbed my hand, the same way he
had the day he found me, and escorted me into his room.
Once inside, he closed and locked the door behind us. I’d never been inside his
room before, and I looked around, trying to absorb it. Most of the small room
was taken up by a bed with sheets and blankets, a luxury. The walls were
barren, except for a poster of a man in all black, who was wearing a cowl.
Around the edges of his room were the weapons, clothes, and books that he
owned. Jason was the only one of us that actually went to school—he said he had
a promise to fulfill.
While I examined his room, Jason watched me, an expression I couldn’t read on
his face. With no warning, he reached out and hugged me. Unsure of what had
brought on this affection, I hugged him back. I was just happy to be wanted.
“I’m going away soon, little goat.” He said, his hand in my hair. “I’m being
trained for a new job, one that can make a difference in the world,” his voice
was softer than usual. I stayed quiet, saddened by the thought of losing the
only person I had. “But to get this job, I have to cut ties with everything in
my life. I’m leaving the gang to James.” I shiver at the thought. James never
stayed with the gang, but he was arguably second-in-command. However, James was
cruel, as far as I had seen. He’d hit some of the other members, and his face
was joyful as he struck them. “I’m so sorry,” Jason whispered. I wasn’t sure
why, but I didn’t know how to ask. “I can’t stop him from this path, I would if
I could. Please believe me.” His voice broke, and I saw him truly then—a
confused boy that couldn’t stop what was happening.
“I believe you,” I replied, trying to reassure my only friend. He looked me in
the eyes, then, backing away from me slightly.
“Your eyes are like stars, little goat,” my eyes were bright, but with tears,
not fire.
“When are you leaving?” I asked, my voice pitiful. It may have only been a
month, but it had been a quiet, happy month, and that had meant the world to
me. In answer, a knock came on the door.
“Now.” He said, recomposing his face, forcing himself back into the charade of
a man that I know knew him to be. He unlocked and opened the door to James
himself. As James entered and Jason left, I thought I saw a tear run down
Jason’s face.
Too soon, James closed the door behind him. The lock clicked menacingly. James
was older than Jason, truly a man. I never knew why he’d been willing to follow
Jason’s lead, as young as he was, but it was clear now that James had been
looking forward to seizing command. His face was twisted into a sneering,
terrifying smile, and the light glinted off of his glasses and stringy unkempt
brown hair.
“It’s time for you to earn your keep, little goat.” He paused, laughing at some
internal joke of his. The laughter harshened his face, instead of smoothing it.
“You know, Jason should have been calling you our cash cow. You’re going to
make us more than just a pretty penny.” Confusion must have been written on my
face, because James took it as an excuse to step closer and show me.
Afraid, I was rigid as he approached me. His hands formed claws that ripped my
bedraggled shorts off of my hips, and he pushed me onto Jason’s bed. Pulling my
underwear off to join my shorts, he thrust a claw inside me, causing searing
pain, drawing a cry from my mouth as I tried to get away from him. He grinned
at my attempts, releasing me just long enough to free himself from the
constraints of his own pants before he dragged me back to him.
“You know,” he whispered in my ear as he pinned me beneath him, despite my
struggles. Satisfied, he freed one of his hands from pinning mine and used it
to grab my hip. “You’re really lucky that it’s me that’s doing this,” using the
hand on my hip as leverage, he forced himself inside me, sighing as I shrieked
at the pain. “I know plenty of people that would pay good money for a virgin as
cute as yourself for their very own.” He withdrew himself completely and
realigned, entering harder than before, still whispering to me. “But you remind
me so much of my sister…” another exit, another, faster entrance, harder as he
gained his momentum. My throat was raw from screaming, so I lay there silently
as the tears streamed down my face and the pain washed over me. “I couldn’t let
you be given to just anyone, not when I had been craving this for so long.” He
ceased whispering as he built up his own pleasure and brought himself to an
explosive finish within me.
He brought himself out for a final time, briefly cleaned himself and redressed,
ignoring me as I continued to sob, unmoving on the bed.
“That was fun, Babs,” he said, opening the door. “Let’s do it again sometime.”
He left the room, and me to myself.
* Norwegian: "Run, Dear." / "Run."
***** The Chains of Guilt *****
Chapter Summary
     This one is a little bit shorter, sorry. Jason's POV.
The guilt was chasing me. What had I done? How could I have let this happen?
WHAP. Robin’s staff hit me straight in the stomach, interrupting my mental
tirade. Not for the first time, my mind had wandered in the direction of Cori,
leaving me open to Dick Grayson’s ruthless attacks. It just seemed like I
couldn’t get over what was probably happening to her right now. Because of me.
I had never rescued a kid off of the streets before. All the other kids in my
gang, they had come to me from houses, schools, orphanages, but Cori… I could
still see the way she’d looked, slumped in the rain, her malnourished ribs
poking out. I had saved her, given her a home. She’d quickly become a sister to
me.
But when the Batman hands you an opportunity, you just don’t say no. A chance
to be like him? A chance to break the law so that justice could prevail… it was
my dream. Still, when I left Cori with that monster, I knew what would happen.
I just didn’t expect a text from him after.
Nice fuck. Thanks, bro.
“Where’s your brain today?” Dick’s voice comes, almost incredulous. Dick was
fourteen, shorter than me by almost a foot, and more egotistical than four of
me in one person. “That’s the fifth time this spar that I completely caught you
off guard. You’d think that someone handpicked by Batman would have a little
bit more focus.” Despite his intention to the contrary, a hint of a whine
colored the edge of Dick’s voice. It was obvious to me, even then, that Dick
felt that he was being replaced by me, and he didn’t like it.
It took almost all of my mental will not to smack the kid upside the head. I
may have only been two years older, but I was worlds more mature than him. I
sighed, knowing exactly how to assuage Dick’s fears about me usurping his
position. Besides, I had promised the Batman that I wouldn’t speak to anyone
from my old life, for fear of my falling back to it. Dick didn’t have those
kinds of restraints, he could get Cori out before she was too far into that
life to escape.
“There’s this girl,” I started, hesitant. Dick’s face lit up. Even so young,
Dick had been starting to build a playboy reputation to match that of his
guardian, Bruce Wayne. “It’s not like that, Dick,” I clarified. “She’s, like,
ten or something.” With these words, Dick’s face took on a suspicious tint.
“Anyways, I rescued her off the streets, but the new leader of my gang… he’s a
seriously bad guy.”
“Whatever,” Dick responded, jaded. He thought, even then, that he’d already
witnessed the worst of human depravity. It was a conversation Batman had to
have with him many times that year. “She’s, like, part of the gang, she’s
safe.”
“No,” I corrected him. “She’s in danger.” His eyes didn’t believe me, I could
see it. I didn’t blame him, we’d been pranking each other mercilessly since I’d
moved in, the fourteen year old’s way of establishing dominance. Haphazardly, I
decide to plunge onwards. “Anyways, I promised Batman I wouldn’t go back, or
I’d go get her out. It would mean a lot to me if you would go do it for me.”
I watch Dick roll his eyes, apparently dismissing the entire request as a
prank.
“Whatever, sure.” His response was sassy enough for two people his size, and I
told him so. He picked his staff back up and rolled back onto the mat,
challenging me to yet another sparring match before our formal training would
begin.
I didn’t know that Dick had never followed up until months later. By that
point, Batman and I had already started to have disagreements—I have no qualms
over killing scum that will only ever go on to keep harming the innocent—and I
set out on my own to corner James and get Cori away from him, before he could
hurt her any more than he already had.
It took me a long time to hunt James down, longer than I’d ever like to admit,
but eventually I found him, drinking in some dive bar, laying low from his
position as the Commissioner Gordon’s son.
“Hey, man!” he shouted cheerfully when he saw me. “Things not work out with
going straight?”
“They’re fine,” I replied, tersely. I scanned the bar, but didn’t see Cori
anywhere. I took this as a good sign.
“That’s a damn shame,” he continued cheerfully. “You always had a head for
keeping organizations like this afloat.  I’m lucky I managed to sell off that
goat girl for as much as I did, or the gang would barely be afloat.” He trailed
off, watching me carefully.
“You sold her?” I asked, hoping for nonchalance, but it still came out pissed.
“To who?” He laughed at my reaction, relishing the emotion on my face. Since
I’d last seen him, James had deteriorated faster than I’d thought possible. He
was always a little cruel and sadistic, but now, he struck me, for the first
time, as psychopathic. “She was ten, you ass! A little girl!”
“She told me she was twelve,” he shrugged. “As to who I sold her to, they’re
probably out of the country by now at the very least. A science group, called
the Psions. Paid me twice what most men would pay for virgins her age so I
figured why the hell not.” Unbidden, my hand shot out and grabbed him by his
shoulder, pinning him to the wall behind him. My elbow came up to rest not so
gently on his windpipe.
“Where did they take her?” He only smirked in response, so I pressed harder on
his windpipe, before yanking him off of the wall and slamming him onto the
table. The bartender looked up and then went back to pretending not to notice
the sort of violence that best characterized this area of Gotham. James began
to gasp and pant, unable to breathe enough air to alleviate the symptoms of
choking.
“Peru,” he gasped. I turned to leave, but I couldn’t resist letting out one
last bit of my anger at the situation, at the egotistical Dick Grayson, at the
unfair Batman, at James himself for being such a scumbag, at the universe
itself for keeping me from protecting the girl that deserved it most. I
pivoted, punching him in the stomach as hard as I’ve ever hit a man. He
stumbled backwards, shocked into a cliché as I finally stalked off. “I will
make you regret this, Jason Todd!”
“Bet I won’t,” I shot over my shoulder as I stepped out of the bar into the
cold night air.
Peru.
I’m coming for you, Little Goat.
***** Sold and Heroics *****
Chapter Notes
     The first section is Cori's POV, the second is Dick's.
After Jason left, my life started to deteriorate. As James put it, at least I
had a job now. The oldest job, apparently.
At first, every new encounter was a fresh hell, just as excruciating as the
first, but as the days turned into months, I started to grow numb, a testament
to the human ability to shut down and survive. I became a shell of myself.
When James told me that he had sold me, it was not a surprise. Since Jason
left, many of the gang members had warned me—run, get out, bad things happen to
girls in this trade. I knew they were right, but I had nowhere to go. The night
he sold me, he called me out of Jason’s room, which I had claimed in his
absence. I wore the white nightgown that had been purchased for me, a thin,
flimsy thing that barely covered my thighs. James handed me a glass of water, a
pill dissolving in the bottom of the glass, but I knew better than to ask what
it was.
“Drink this,” He said, roughly. “You’re about to finally make us all that money
I was promised.” I nodded, mutely, and drank, unsure what to expect. The drink
tasted acidic, and I felt woozy before finishing it. Scared, I turned to run
away, but collapsed into darkness before I could even take a step.
Which brings me to just now. I wake in a room. The furniture, a chair and a
bed, were wooden, but with soft curved edges. The bed has raised edges and a
soft white mattress. My head is resting on a single pillow, and a grey blanket
is tucked around me. I am only awake a few minutes before the only door in the
room opens. A familiar man steps in, closing the door behind him.
He is tall, with strawberry blonde hair and a kind expression. He wears a worn
leather jacket that I would recognize anywhere.
“Jason?” I ask, happy to see him. I get out of bed and go to hug him, but he
shoves me away, hard.
“You’re useless,” he growls at me, moving towards me. “A waste of space, and
ungrateful. How dare you take up space in my gang, my home?” His delivery is
cruel and cold, how I’ve seen him reprimand other members, but never me.
“I… I’m sorry.” I manage to get out, but he slaps me across the face. I flinch
violently. “Beklager*!” I cry, the pain and confusion dragging my native tongue
out of me. He smirks at this, and leaves.
I don’t understand what just happened. How could Jason have felt this way, when
he was so nice to me? In this confusion, all of my questions about who bought
me have disappeared. The only thing that matters is that I have been nothing
but a burden on the only person that has ever taken care of me willingly.  How
could I be so awful?
Time begins to pass again. The only marking of time I have is the delivery of a
liquid through a slot in the door and Jason’s visits. Jason visits often,
always repeating the same sentiments as before, pushing and hitting me until I
respond in Norwegian. I’m afraid of him, now, because I’m waiting for him to
not stop when I cry in my native tongue. When he does, I’m sure that he will
kill me.
How I experience things, my personality, everything, shatters. I have returned
to my shell of docility and further retreated within myself. The only time I
surface is to apologize in Norwegian and to cry at what I believe to be night.
It’s hard to tell.
It’s hard to care.
************************
Dick:
I had never truly believed Jason when he told me about the girl he left. I
categorically rejected it. Obviously he was just trying to get me to fall for
his prank. Obviously Jason would never request me to break Batman’s carefully
laid rules for a reason.
God, I was such a douchebag.
I never believed him until we finally managed to hack into the live feed
surveillance of a lab belonging to the Psion Corporation in Peru. We flipped
through feed after feed of scientists staring at computer screens, typing up
papers, and drawing graphs. You know, science stuff. Finally, we got a live
feed of a girl sitting with her legs crossed on a bad.
“Is that her?” I asked, unable to make out any colors through the grainy feed.
Jason leaned closer to the screen, his leather jacket brushing my shoulder.
“I’m not sure…” He trailed off. I shrugged and flipped to the next feed.
Another girl, this one laying down. Tears streak down her face. “That’s her!”
Jason’s fingers jabbed at the screen. He turned to me, desperation in his face.
I knew what he was going to ask before he did. “Dick, we have to save her.”
We both turned back to the screen, contemplative. I thumbed the intercom’s
button and waited for Alfred to answer.
“Master Dick?” came the soothing British accent of the Wayne Manor’s Butler and
only servant, Alfred.
“Yeah, Alfred, I was just wondering how long Bruce was going to be out of
town.” I replied, smoothly.
“Three weeks, I believe he said, sir. Would you like me to contact him?” I
rapidly shook my head, a guilty look on my face, before I realized that Alfred
couldn’t actually see my face.
“That won’t be necessary. Jason and I will be taking the Batplane for a spin,
we should return sometime tomorrow.” I could feel Alfred’s disapproval, but he
didn’t say anything, so I started setting up the plane before he could forbid
me. Jason raised his eyebrows at me, but didn’t complain, and before the end of
the hour, we were setting out.
The trip to Peru felt short, though it was actually about seven hours or so.
Jason put on the auto-pilot and we plotted our entrance. As far as we could
tell, the scientists retired to separate wing at night, and it looked like only
two or three guards were left to patrol the compound.
The compound itself was high in the Andes Mountains, almost completely cut off
from civilization. Despite the building’s altitude, it was a squat, ugly, gray
building. Fortunately for us, the compound had its own airstrip.
It was almost midnight when we landed, our descent completely silent compared
to the sound of the winds hitting the mountains. The lone outdoor guard was
disabled softly and silently, a blow to the back of the head.
I retrieved my lockpicking kit, expecting to need it on the main entrance, but
Jason tried the handle before I got over to it. The door swung open.
“I guess they weren’t expecting visitors,” I joke, trying to break the tense
silence. Jason just shook his head, clearly nervous. I looked at his face
before I realized: this was his first mission. He’d never been out with Batman
before. I groaned internally. Batman was going to kill me.
Without too much more effort, we found our way to where their experiments were
held. We passed hallways of empty rooms and rooms that smelled like death
before we finally found the right room. I picked the lock and Jason strode in.
“Cori?” He asks, only to be greeted by a shout in a foreign language and the
sound of someone falling. I walk in behind Jason to see the girl Jason had
described: a skinny girl with orange hair and bright green eyes. She was
huddled on the floor, as if she expected Jason to attack her, and she was
sobbing, one word over and over: “Beklager… beklager… beklager.” She hadn’t
seen me behind Jason.
I pulled Jason out of the room. He was shell shocked, unsure what had just
happened, why Cori had reacted like she had. I pushed him down the hallway,
towards the room where the other girl we’d seen had been held.
“Let me handle this for now, okay?” he nodded, his face carefully blank. “Go
get the other girl.” He turned to go, his face beginning to harden into stone.
I allowed myself a deep breath, and then returned to the room.
With Jason gone, she had returned to her bed, but she didn’t know what to do
with me. She stared at me, mutely. I approach her, slowly, the way I would a
wild cat—hands up, empty, and from an angle—but she remained impassive as I
approached.
With no effort, I pull her out of the bed to standing, and lead her out of the
door and away from the direction that Jason headed. I just needed to get her on
the plane and plan from there.
*Norwegian: "Sorry" / "I'm sorry"
***** Planes and Screaming *****
Chapter Summary
     short, will be uploaded in chunks. Part 1 is Jason's POV, Part 2 is
     Cori's.
After months and months, I finally got to see Cori… and she shrieked in
Norwegian at the sight of me. The image of her, all skin and bones, throwing
herself away from me in horror, was burned into my brain. Dick’s reminder that
we had vowed to save the only other prisoner we had seen in the compound was
curt, but I knew that Dick would be better able to get Cori on the plane.
I turned and left the room, trying not to cry. By the time I got down the hall,
I had composed myself. I pick the lock to the second door and open it to reveal
a deathly pale girl with dark eyes and hair. She looks up from her meditative
position on her bed and stares at me. Neither of us is sure what to expect.
“Hey,” I start, improvising. She continues to look at me, saying nothing. “I..
uh, I mean, we’re here to get you out of here, if you want.” She tilts her
head, considering what I’ve said. She stands up and walks to the door, just as
sickly thin as Coriander was. Without saying a word, she glides past me, barely
seeming to touch the floor, and she turns down the hall towards the exit
without saying a word.
What the fuck was going on here? I wonder. I’m sure that once Cori is feeling
better, she’ll be able to explain it. I follow the girl I’ve rescued, guiding
her onto the Batplane to meet Cori and Dick.
Dick is in the cockpit, talking on the phone. I get the girl into a seat,
making a wide berth around Cori, who is sleeping in a seat, buckled in. I’m not
ready to wake her up if it will be a repeat of earlier. I slid in next to Dick
as he finishes the conversation.
“I understand, B.” He says in to the receiver. “Grounded for a week… yes, it
was absolutely necessary. No, I can’t tell you yet. Bye.” He hangs up with a
sigh and starts to prepare the plane for takeoff.
“So Alfred tattled?” I ask over the hum of the engines leaving the ground. Dick
looks sheepish.
“No, the Batplane has GPS based anti-theft technology that notified him the
minute we left Gotham.” I’m uneasy about my future now that Batman knows that
I’ve broken the only rule he’s given me, but I don’t feel bad. Cori is more
important than some dumb rule, and she always will be. “Don’t worry,” Dick
starts up again, seeming to read my mind. “I told him that we were tracking
down some girls from my school, not anyone from your past.” I snort at the idea
of a fourteen year-old hiding something from the world’s greatest detective,
and Dick blushes slightly.
“Hey,” I say, reaching out to pat his shoulder. “Thanks. It means a lot to me.”
He smiles, and I am forcefully reminded that even though I view him as my equal
most of the time, he is still just a kid. The flight back seems much quicker,
though Dick and I don’t do anything except sit in the cockpit and let the girls
sleep. As the morning sun rises, we slip the Batplane into the Batcave and
prepare for the storm.
--
Cori:
I wake up in a room I don’t recognize. It’s bright and airy, the walls a pastel
yellow. I’m in a bed. This, more than anything, alarms me. I’ve never owned a
bed this nice, and even Jason’s bed back at the gang had only had a straw
mattress. This one is soft.
With a knock on the door, a boy a little older than me with soft blue eyes and
short black hair pushes into the room. He’s holding a tray of food, and I
stare, hopeful but not sure that anyone, especially a stranger, would offer me
real food. He smiles.
“Here,” he says, offering me the tray. I stare at him harder, but reach for the
tray without thinking about it. “Alfred made you some scrambled eggs.” I drag
the tray onto my lap. “My name’s Dick.” I pick up the fork on the tray, but I
try not to forget my manners, as long ago as those lessons with Mor Freya were.
“Tusen takk*,” I tell him, before I start to eat. After the first bite all
dreams of being polite vanish and I inhale the food. Dick smiles and rambles on
about himself, this house, and his school. I smile and nod in between bites but
don’t grasp most of what he says. When I’m done eating, I realize that I’ve
made a mistake. My stomach hasn’t had real food in it for months, and I’ve made
myself sick. I frantically clamber out of the bed and manage to open the first
door I touch, which happens to open into a bathroom. I barely have time to
wonder at the luxury of a private bathroom before I empty my stomach into the
sink. Dick stands sheepish in the doorway and outside. A muffled voice from the
hallway sends chills down my spine, and I’m not sure why.
“No,” Dick responds, concern in his voice. “She’s throwing it up,” The idiom
trips me up, like they always do, but my attempts to decipher it are
interrupted by me vomiting again and the idioms’ meaning is driven home. Out of
my periphery vision, I see Jason approach Dick.
“Dick!” I shout, trying to warn the boy before he’s attacked. He looks at me,
startled, then looks at Dick. I scramble away from the both of them, terrified
of anyone who trusted Jason. In my panic, I hit my head on the sink, and
everything goes black.
*Norwegian: Many thanks / thank you
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