Fic: Family Ties, Part 4 (DCU)
They installed a gift shop. Aiofe didn't know whether to laugh at the sheer audacity or be disgusted at the commercialism. These people were world heroes? She snorted in disdain. As she stood in the center of the store, Aiofe frowned at the display in front of her. It held posters, the displayed poster showing all members of the various Justice Leagues over the course of time in a collage. One face snagged her attention. There was a vague familiarity about the face and she leaned closer to get a clearer look, but it was still too small to completely make out.
"Excuse me," she said, using the broadest American Southern accent she could fake as a helpful sales clerk walked by.
"Yes ma'am?" The young man was eager to help.
"Who is this person right here? I can't quite make him out." She pointed her finger to the tiny figure in the poster.
"Oh! Red Arrow, ma'am, formerly Arsenal of the Titans and the Outsiders." The young man beamed at her. "We have a better photo of him," the boy flipped through the rack efficiently, "here." He triumphantly pulled out the poster for her viewing.
On it was a winged woman identified as Hawkgirl, along with Superman, Batman, Black Canary, Red Arrow and Green Lantern. It was obvious it was mid-battle shot, taken by one hell of a lucky cameraman. The red-haired, red-clad archer was facing the camera and the photograph was taken immediately at the release of the arrow in the archer's hand. The arrow flew at the camera with the archer's teammates coming up behind him.
"The photographer who took that shot was awed that his telephoto lens got such a clear, close shot. He was many yards away, standing in an alley out of the line of fire from the bad guy being fought. His camera was damaged afterward and he was shocked the shots survived." The young clerk's chest puffed out. "We have an autographed copy of the photo over here if you'd...ma'am?"
Aiofe felt the blood drain from her face as the boy chattered enthusiastically at her. It looked just like...but his eyes. The archer's eyes. "What is his name?"
The clerk was confused. "Red Arrow."
"No, his real name!" she cried, thrusting the photo at him.
The clerk looked disapproving. "They have secret identities for a reason, ma'am," he told her.
"Red Arrow's name isn't a secret identity," snorted another customer from by the t-shirts. "His name is Roy Harper."
Aiofe swayed. The name and the features were right, but the age was wrong. It couldn't be Liam. "He looks young," she said faintly. "I thought he was someone I once knew."
The clerk frowned in consternation but the other customer was eager to share his knowledge. "I think he's a junior, you know, his father had the same name. At least that what I've heard. He was the old sidekick of the Green Arrow, called Speedy. Of course, now that he's all grown up and his own hero, GA got a new Speedy. Nice looking blonde girl who's a good archer too but not of the same caliber as Red Arrow." The other customer continued to wax poetic about his favorite superhero, the Green Arrow. Aiofe nodded vaguely from time to time as her brain processed the information.
Named after his father. Could it be...? "Thank you so much for your help." She started toward the gift shop door but some wild impulse made her turn back to the hapless store clerk. "I would like to buy that photo," she blurted out, pointing at the photo still in the confused young man's hands.
"Er, certainly, ma'am." He handed it to her and scurried away before she could ask anything else of him. Aiofe paid for the photo and hurried out of the gift shop and away from the Hall of Justice. The photo of young Mr. Roy Harper Junior seemed to mock her from inside the little JLA logo emblazoned recycled paper bag.
* * * * *
Hal Jordan idly flipped through the reports given to him by a slightly awestruck security guard from the Hall of Justice museum. It contained incident reports and the like, usually of overzealous fans of some hero causing a disruption by wanting to touch an artifact in the museum. Sometimes there were fights for other reasons and once someone was even brave enough to attempt shoplifting from the gift shop.
He frowned at the label of one incident report from the gift shop. "Woman had alarming reaction to photo of Red Arrow," he read aloud.
"What?" Mari sauntered in with a cup of coffee and a bagel, ready for her turn at monitor duty. Hal motioned her to sit down and began reading the report outloud.
"A woman roughly aged 50-55 had alarmingly suspicious reaction upon seeing Red Arrow in the enclosed photo. She repeatedly asked sales clerk Thomas Hertz for Red Arrow's real name, which was not provided by Hertz but by another customer in the shop. Upon hearing Red Arrow's real name, her reaction was even more alarming. Hertz was worried the woman might actually faint. Woman left the shop but returned moments later to buy the photo. No other sighting of the individual has been seen."
Hal held up a photo of a group of them fighting off some idiot of the month. Hal had to admit it was a good, once in a lifetime shot. Roy was spectacularly displayed, with an arrow barely released and in flight. His facial features were also distinctly recognizable.
Mari looked at the photo and raised an eyebrow. "I think we need to look at the security footage from that day, don't you?"
Hal grimaced. "Yes, I think you're right." He clicked around the screen in front of him and brought up the gift shop's security footage stored in the giant databanks in the Watchtower. He brought up the day in question and scanned to the approximate time as reported by sales clerk Thomas Hertz.
"There!" Mari pointed to a woman at the poster/photo counter and Hal slowed the wind through to normal speed. Though they couldn't hear the conversation, it was obvious that the young sales clerk had been right to report the incident. When the woman paid for the photo, she fully faced the camera at the register.
She was Eva O'Keefe.
"Get the rest of them up here, now" Hal ordered Mari tersely, but she was already gone.
* * * * *
Rapid fire Gaelic boomed around the room as her commander waxed enthusiastic about their latest plans for Irish freedom, but Aiofe ignored it. She stared at the photo in her hand, her mind sunk in memories. The last time she'd seen the young archer in the photo, he was a tiny infant, squalling loudly because he had the colic. His hair had been black as night and his eyes the color of the sky. Now he shared his father's bright red hair and his eye color was anyone's guess, yet the young man identified to her as Roy Harper Junior and the Red Arrow was undoubtedly her son by Liam Harper.
"Aiofe!" barked Eoghan ó Mathúna. Though his Anglicized name was Owen Mahoney, like the rest of their organization Eoghan used the Gaelic version of his name. He was a tall gangly man, raw-boned and rough-looking. Aiofe wasn't certain but she thought he was only a couple of years older than herself. He'd been the leader of their organization since the very beginning and his zealotry only grew with each passing year. Lately she herself had been feeling the need to give up. The cause was a losing battle, she knew in her heart, but somehow the idea that she wasted her entire life for nothing irked her into remaining.
She looked down at the photo one more time before putting it into the duffel at her feet and returned her focus to Eoghan and his great plan. Yet her thoughts drifted over and over to a young man with copper red hair.
* * * * *
"What are the odds that someone who is affiliated with an organization that sponsored the creation of devices impervious to our various means of detection suddenly appearing in our gift shop is pure coincidence?" asked Wally, handing Roy and Dick a soda from the refrigerator of the Watchtower's kitchen area.
"Slim to fucking none?" suggested Roy, popping the tab and taking a huge swig. "Assuming I comprehended that convoluted sentence correctly." Wally mock-glowered at him.
"You're giving it that good of odds?" asked Nightwing with a hint of sarcasm. "I think you guys are right when you keep telling me Alfred is freaking scary with his intel." Roy made a face at him. "Shit, Roy, this has got to suck for you."
Roy gave a shrug intended to be nonchalant but his two best friends knew him better than that. "Story of my life, bro."
"Still sucks eggs," muttered Wally, reaching for his second can. "These taste good. Linda banned pop from the house because the kids go haywire."
"How's daddyhood treating you?" grinned Roy.
Wally grinned back. "I'm loving it and wishing Short Pants here would join our club."
"No thanks," Dick said casually. "I'm planning on spoiling yours rotten and sending them home hyped to the gills on sugar." Both Wally and Roy stuck their tongues out at him.
"One day, Grayson," Roy mock-threatened.
"I can't wait until you're a daddy," laughed Wally. "You are so going to pay."
"Sure I will. I can't wait until both your daughters become teenagers." Dick grinned evilly as both red heads choked on their drink.
"I'm almost there!" wailed Wally in dawning horror while Roy reiterated, loudly, his intention to lock Lian in a dungeon when she turned twelve and only letting her out when she turned thirty...if she swore to become a nun.
"Are you torturing them, Nightwing?" asked Black Canary as she entered the kitchen to get her own drink. She pulled out a bottle of water and drank half of it in one pull.
"Yes, ma'am."
"I knew you were the angel in the group."
Roy hooted. "Nightwing? The *angel* of our group? What blackmail do you have on her?" Wally couldn't even speak he was laughing so hard.
Dinah winked at Dick as she sauntered away. Roy was laughing, that was all that mattered.
"Anyway back to Roy's sucky life," Wally said after he contained his laughter. "What are you going to do?" he asked the archer.
Roy sobered. "What can I do? What am I *supposed* to do?"
Neither Dick nor Wally had a response, for they didn't know either. "Seems to me," Dick said finally, "we'll just have to play it by ear."
Wally frowned a second and then turned back to Roy. "What do you want to do?"
Roy frowned in return. "What do you mean, what do I want to do?"
"You want to find this woman and see if she *is* your mother?" Roy's face showed his confliction at Wally's question.
Dick was aghast at the notion. "We can't!" he hissed, looking around and lowering his voice. "There are more reasons than I could possibly name why that's a dumb plan!"
"Name two," Wally countered mulishly.
Dick scowled. "One. We don't know this woman is Roy's mother. Two. If she is, what if she willingly let him go, or worse, doesn't care? Three. She's planning on helping destroy the Hall of Justice and hurt innocent lives for a cause so moot that former comrades of theirs are trying to figure out why they are even bothering. Four. If staying away from Cheshire is a sound idea, staying away from a second terrorist in Roy's life would be equally wise. Do I *need* to go on?" Dick ended on a huff.
Wally watched Roy's expression as Dick ran through the list. With each point, Roy's face became more remote. "Yeah, I think you made your point, Dick."
Once more aghast, this time at his own insensitivity, Dick turned to Roy apologetically. "God, Roy, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound so callous. It's just-"
"I know," Roy interrupted, emptying his can in a swig and tossing it into the garbage bin labeled "metals". "It's a crap situation all the way around, as the two of you have been pointing out repeatedly." The other two looked shamefaced. "Look, I'm going home. Lian's really cranky and I think she gave her sick bug to Omar."
"Roy-" Dick began.
"Don't sweat it, Dick, dammit," Roy growled. "Just call me if I'm needed." They watched him stalk out the door.
"Well, that was well-done of us," sighed Wally, popping the tab of his third can of Soder.
"I'm glad that was sarcasm, Wally," Dick replied. "Otherwise, I'd have to smack both of us silly."
"How do you think this will play out?" Wally grimaced when he missed the aluminum receptacle with his free shot.
"It depends on what WWFI does first, I suppose. We don't know where they are other than in Metropolis. We just have to hope we catch them in the act before something bad happens." Dick pondered the can on the floor. "But I think catching them won't be the problem. It's the what comes after that will be harder."
"Yeah," agreed Wally as he walked over to the can, picked it up and solemnly deposited it where it belonged.