OOM: Birds of Prey 108

Official Misfit report: her first not-quite-official mission with Babs’ team goes awesome. Charlie doesn’t get to save the day as epically as she did when Batgirl took a bullet for Huntress, but she totally helps, creating a distraction so the home team can kick some ass. And they even let her on the plane afterward. (Not that she needs planes because duh, teleporter, but she hangs out with them because are you kidding, pass up on a chance to bond? She also gets stuck helping a Fury dig bullets out of her body while trying not to throw up, because ew. Ew.)

(Also? She fights Harley Quinn. And she was completely and totally winning, so suck it, people-who-said-she-couldn’t-do-this.)

Afterwards, though, she tries to drop in on Babs to say hi, maybe revisit the whole… ‘you’re not one of my operatives, Misfit, go away’ thing, but no one’s there.

Except. They left something. A file, with the address of her old apartment building in it. And a flight plan. To Metropolis.

Charlie hasn’t been to Metropolis for a while. Ever since she decided it was time to move forward and be a hero, she hasn’t wanted to look back as much. Not like she’s forgotten anything, just – she can’t think about it all the time and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Going back there makes her chest burn, like her lungs are filling up with smoke all over again, like she can still hear her mom screaming at her, begging her to Bounce out, for god’s sake Charlie go.

(She hadn’t wanted to leave them.)

When Babs and Zinda finally roll up, Charlie’s sitting on the ground, arms wrapped around her legs, waiting. “Guess you’re mad at me now, huh,” Charlie says, low and quiet. (This place sucks all the energy out of her.)

“I’m not mad, Misfit,” Babs says, which is a total lie, but whatever. It’s a nice lie. “Sweetie, I need to know… are you homeless right now?”

Charlie shrugs up a shoulder. “A little bit, maybe.” She nestles her chin against an arm. “I had a family and everything. I mean, that part was true. But. Well. I never met my dad. We were pretty poor. I knew about my powers. The teleporting, the way I don’t stay wounded if I get hurt, but I didn’t use them much. They made my mom nervous.”

She goes quiet for a minute. Babs lets her, just waits for her to get ready to start talking again.

“There was a fire,” Charlie says. “The landlord bribed the inspectors. Fire escape was gone. The smoke detectors were broken. You might’ve heard.” It was in the news. Charlie saved some of the clips. “I knew from experimenting that nothing living survived Bouncing with me.”

(She was eight. She’d wanted to show their dog her cool powers. She had no idea, there was – it was like he exploded. There was so much blood, and she’d just kept screaming.)

“Mom made me go. Screamed at me to Bounce out.” (I’m staying we can find a way mom please) “Seventeen – seventeen dead.”

(Her mom. Her baby brother. They didn’t make it.)

“Landlord got six months, time served.”

(Justice.)

Babs leans forward. “Misfit, it’s important you tell me the truth now. You have no one? No family who could…?”

“Nope.” Charlie digs her fingers into her leg. “I thought I could have you guys, but I guess I blew that by lying, huh.”

Babs goes quiet for a while. Then: “You have a name, right?”

“Yeah. Charlie. Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe.” She swipes at her face, trying to clean it up a little. “For reals.”

“I believe you, Charlie.” While she’s still kind of in shock, Barbara starts wheeling towards her car. Unsure of what else to do, Charlie follows her. “You think you can learn to follow my instructions?”

“Ummm. Probably not?”

Barbara sighs, shaking her head like she’s exasperated, but there’s a little smile on her face. “Well, that’ll have to be a start. You coming?”