Author's note on the stats for this story below, but good to be back guys, sorry for the impossible wait.

I do not own Young Justice.

A Girl's Guide to Killing Heroes

Chapter Six: Her move, His make

"Send me your location let's,

Focus on communicating

Cause I just need the time and place to come through."

-"Location" Khalid

April 12

Gotham Academy

There's a lot of things that Juliet doesn't tell her sister.

M.J has no idea that she's being bullied—if she did she'd flip the hell out and try to do something about it because M.J was the mom Juliet didn't really get to experience, but she was also the sister she could never ever replace. It's not some cliché bullying either, Juliet can take care of herself, it's the least she can do with everything she knows M.J does to try and make sure their family will be alright. She doesn't need more to worry about.

Juliet doesn't tell her sister that she knows enough about what her sister does when she leaves the house in the dead of night and comes back looking like she's left a little piece of her behind in those blackened streets. Juliet isn't dumb—and she knew her sister knew that too. She's had her fair share of snooping through things, running fingers over sleek metal and gazed into the depths of a gun barrel staring back at her. It's these things that spur her to work harder so her sister doesn't have to do those things anymore.

Juliet also doesn't tell her sister that she's pretty sure their family is cursed. Whether it was some ancestral thing or maybe one of their parents pissed off a psychic or witch in their past—who knew. If she did tell her something like this, she was pretty sure that M.J might mildly freak out because her sister was low-key superstitious and she'd blow money on some cheesy psychic.

"Sorry," Katie sneered, flipping a lock of curly hair over her shoulder and stepping over Juliet. "Didn't see you there for a second."

"I thought she was a janitor for a moment," one of Katie's underlings snickered. "Could have fooled me."

Juliet didn't say a thing. She waited, quietly bringing her now swelling hand closer to her chest. Another girl stepped past, the heel of her shoe digging into her papers and dragging it across the tiled floors before they laughed, bright, shrilly laughter and walked away from her like she was nothing more than a funny joke plastered on the window. Juliet counted to ten in her head and then counted down from ten and repeated the process a few times. It was a trick her sister had taught her when she felt things pushing at the seams and needed to remind herself that there was something beyond this shitty moment in time. Juliet thought about her sister's surprisingly good flank steak with garlic noodles, thought about her dad's corny jokes and how she looked like their mom, according to M.J.

If there was anything that could make a bad day better, it was that. Her sister always had this kind of dreamy, far off look when she talked about their mom, and her eyes were always so warm and loving whenever she said Juliet looked the most like her—a carbon copy with a bit of spice.

That thought does the trick and Juliet let out a quiet sigh of relief. Her palms no longer feel like they're going to melt through the floor and the back of her left hand had begun to swell from where one of the girl's had stepped on it when she bent down to pick up the homework she'd dropped. Juliet's eyes flickered over to her dirtied papers, a bit crumpled and torn at one edge. She grimaced, regarding the paper thoughtfully and figuring her math teacher wasn't going to appreciate such work.

Just my luck. Juliet let out a heavy sigh, running her good hand through her hair and grumbling to herself when it got stuck in her unruly red locks. She tugged it free and gingerly ran her fingers over the now large bump on her hand, turning an ugly shade from where the heel had dug in. Maybe I can just go to the nurse and ice it. I could just say I got my hand caught in a door—

"You alright?"

Juliet's mood threatened to plummet, but she held strong. Her eyes slowly trailed upwards, regarding the now familiar outstretched hand and quietly troubled gaze looking down at her. Timothy Drake wasn't an ugly guy—he wasn't handsome like the pictures of his adopted older brother she'd seen. He had a more...business kind of look to him that reminded Juliet a lot of her dad, actually. She'd thought about this the other day when she'd been mopping the floors of a convenience store for some extra cash and idly realized on better circumstances, maybe this guy wouldn't have been that awful of a person to know.

"Fine," Juliet said briskly. She brought her hand closer to her chest and snatched the rest of the papers off the floor, shoving them into her bag. It's got a tear, I need to ask M.J to help me fix it later. "Thanks."

Tim arched a brow, the corner of his lip tugging a bit as he put his hand back into his pocket and watched her stand. "You're thanking me now? What'd I do to deserve that?"

Juliet paused. "You didn't do anything."

Tim turned to look over her shoulder. A serious look came over his features as his eyes went down to her hand and Juliet roughly shoved it into her blazer pocket, hissing at the sudden sting but refusing to take it back. "They're getting worse. You know this needs to stop, right?"

"No, I love the attention," Juliet snapped.

Tim didn't look the slightest bit deterred and now Juliet remembered why she'd realized that yes, perhaps in another life when Tim Drake was not Tim Drake and she was just Juliet, they could've geeked out about the comic books and television shows she knew he was into because she loved them herself and she'd seen him pouring over them once or twice. But Juliet wasn't like that—she didn't dwell on past things and curious thoughts. She needed to focus on the now and the things that mattered and the things she needed to do to make their life right again.

Bullies and smart rich boys who couldn't seem to take a hint were not those things.

Juliet shrugged her backpack over her shoulder and moved to step past him. Tim sidestepped, getting in her way and she scowled, eyes snapping up to him furiously. The look her gave her was a calming one, his hands held out at his sides as though to ward back a wild animal. "Listen, I know you don't think I'm the guy that can help you—"

"I don't think about you," Juliet sneered, even though she had thought about him before but he didn't need to know that. "I don't think anything about you or them. I need to get a new copy of the homework assignment before break's over so get out of my way—"

"I know I don't owe you anything," Tim tried again. "I know you just think I'm another rich kid at this school with too much time on his hands who's willing to offer some charity to the help, but I—"

"Didn't I just say I don't think anything about you?" Juliet ran a frustrated hand through her hair. "Look, Drake, I don't care about any of this, okay? You don't need to help me. You don't need to do anything. I don't need help."

"Juliet," Tim looked a little annoyed, and that was making her annoyed. "I'm not just going to stand around while one of my classmates is clearly getting bullied. That makes me worse of a person for keeping quiet. I'm trying to do my best and not butt into your life, but if you're not going to do anything about it, then I should."

"Why do you care?" Juliet snapped, feeling anger ripple through her veins and heat gather in her body. "Everything you just said contradicts yourself—I don't get it. Drake, the only thing anyone's asking of you is to leave me alone."

Juliet attempted to step past him again but he followed after her. Juliet felt her lips tug down into a fiercer scowl and she roughly began to stride past him with Tim at her heels. "Juliet, I just want to help."

"Am I the lucky commoner of the month?" Juliet laughed darkly. "I didn't enter that raffle, sorry."

"No," Tim sighed, exasperation lacing every syllable and Juliet felt heat flicker around her fingers. Think about M.J. Think about Dad. Think about how you look like Mom. "You're my classmate—you have been, for the past two years. I know I never said anything to you before, but you of all people don't deserve this."

"You don't even know me." Juliet quipped over her shoulder. "For all you know I could be drowning puppies in my free time."

"No," Tim said, matter-of-factly, and Juliet whirled around to give him a cursing of a lifetime when he instead addressed her as though she were another business client. "You don't. You do play with cats on the street and stop to pet dogs walking by. You work at the convenience store on the edge of New Haven where there's a park across the street. You help the kid who sits next to you all the time because he's bad at quadratic functions and you don't ask for anything in return and—"

"Oh my God," Juliet gaped, face turning pale and her eyes grew wide. "You're a stalker, aren't you?"

Tim's cheeks flushed and his eyes went wide. "W-What?"

"Holy shit," Juliet dragged her good hand over her face and accidently tangled her bad hand in her hair. She winced and quickly tugged it out. "This is so creepy—how do you even know that stuff? No, that doesn't even make sense. Why would you stalk me? I'm not worth stalking—"

Juliet's eyes narrowed and a look of fury suddenly crawled over her features. Tim stiffened in surprise, looking startled by the transformation and Juliet suddenly marched up close to him, jabbing a finger into his chest. "Are you after M.J?"

"M.J?" Tim questioned, looking confused before realization flickered across his face. "You mean your sister?"

Juliet's eyes burned darker and her lips pulled down into the beginnings of a snarl. "I don't know what Wayne Enterprises has to do with her, but if you're the ones who're—"

Juliet cut herself off. Tim was staring down at her in obvious confusion, eyes wide and searching and looking to understand. Juliet quickly backpedaled and Tim's hand snapped up to grab her wrist on reflex. "What are you talking about? Juliet, is everything alright—"

A searing hot pain spread across Tim's fingers and he jerked his hand back in surprise. Juliet suddenly looked like a cornered animal, fury flying across her face as her eyes seemed to burn and she took several steps back away from him. "I-I don't know what..."

She finally seemed to settle on anger as her best line of tactic and Juliet snarled. "Leave me and my family alone, got it?"

Her eyes burned darker and Tim halted, frozen in place and looking poorly confused and only growing in worry as she turned on her heel and stomped off, shoving her hands into her pockets roughly. "Or else."

The smell of burning cotton brushed against her and Juliet quickly gripped her hands together tightly, ignoring the pain of her swelling hand and shutting her eyes as she counted desperately to a hundred instead of ten.

"Alright, fettucine or marinara?"

I blinked. The now empty lecture hall was the only thing meeting my gaze. The professor was already gathering his things and chatting with a few other students and I blinked once more, reaching up and rubbing at my eye as I wiped at the corner of my mouth to make sure there wasn't any drool.

There were several new factors added to my daily life that I tried to account for. The new job was the biggest one out of all of them—reasonably so, since it was killing a hero for Christ's sake. There was a sale coming up at the supermarket for eggs and eggs were a great staple food so I needed to get in on that. Mechanical engineering was starting to kick my ass and I needed to go through my half-assed lecture notes and redo them so I wouldn't fail the midterm coming up. Ryan was saying something about tracking down patrol schedules and I needed to fix Juliet's backpack because it noticed a rip the other day and Lauren was still going on about that ball.

My eyes slowly turned to the charming, bright eyed man at my side, two steaming containers in either of his hands and I grimaced.

With Nightwing taking up such a large portion of my thoughts as of late, I'd almost forgotten about my would-be one night stand and his attempts of a civil friendship. I didn't mean to be arrogant and assume he was looking for a little more than that if possible, but Dick Grayson seemed like the kind of guy who had his shit together. If he was looking for a relationship he could do that with any of the hundreds of girls following at his heels and hoping for a smile from his smooth lips. I think he actually just wants to be my friend.

I turned my eyes forward again and squinted. Can I even handle a new friend? How do you become friends with someone again? You just... hang out, right? Oh my God, Ryan's right. I'm turning into some kind of social anomaly—

"I feel like you prefer the more creamy kind of sauces," Dick mused thoughtfully. "But you've always struck me a red sauce kind of gal."

Wordlessly I took the marinara container from his outstretched hand and his smile widened. I considered taking the fettucine just to throw him off my tail, but I was actually starving since Juliet forgot her lunch and I forgot to wake up and make us both food so I'd handed her the snacks I'd been hoarding for the stake out tonight. Dick's smile widened and he followed after me as I gathered my things together and shoved my notebooks into my backpack.

He offered the pencil on the desk and I nodded, taking that too and shoving it in without much grace and zipping it up before I slung it over my shoulder. Dick looked amused, towering and muscular and like a shadow as he followed at a leisurely pace behind me.

"You're awfully compliant today," Dick said.

I spared him a glance and worked at popping the lid off the steaming container. Tomato and spices wafted up to greet me lovingly and I almost groaned, reaching a hand toward him. Dick laughed, setting a plastic fork in my grip and I immediately dug in, twirling the pasta around and shoving it into my waiting mouth.

"Hungry," I managed around the first bite, toes curling in pleasure. He'd gotten the really good pasta across campus from the expensive Italian deli. "People do crazy things when they're hungry."

"I can tell," Dick mused. "You seemed to be pretty willing after one donut."

I choked on a forkful and Dick laughed, rubbing a soothing hand on my back beneath my backpack. I shuffled away and mindfully waved my fork at him. "Personal space."

Dick's smile widened and he slid his hands into his pockets. "I can do that."

It killed two birds with one stone, really. I didn't like hands on me to begin with unless they had the same blood as my own running through my veins. Ryan was a special exception too. Contact usually meant someone trying to shove me off a building or throw me to the ground, and years of this line of work drilled all sorts of habits into you. I doubted Dick Grayson, who graciously fed me, would appreciate being thrown over my shoulder and having his arm twisted behind his back.

The past couple days Dick had made a huge effort to try and find himself in my line of sight or merely in my life. I didn't detest it, just didn't have the time for it. My mind was still reeling over everything I'd have to start putting to work with Nightwing's assassination—God even thinking it sounds wrong. This wasn't going to be an easy job—probably the hardest ever and could very well end badly for myself and everyone else involved.

I doubt they would have any problems. I narrowed my eyes and swallowed. One less person on their payroll.

I'd mused that this guy thought I was interesting enough to have around. I doubted he was in dire need of friends—then again what did I know, guy could be contemplating suicide for all I knew—and Dick was nice enough. He was beginning to have a place in my crooked heart as a source of free food, which was always a plus. I may not have time to handle all his hopes and dreams, but I figured I could find some room to be social with things other than guns and dead bodies for once.

There was a bitter thought that suddenly flickered through my head but I focused instead on getting another forkful of pasta. I'll worry about the aftermath later. I needed to call Ryan and figure out what was the best course of action with the least amount of damage. No matter how I looked at it, killing Nightwing would definitely leave a huge mess—there was the Justice League to worry about—Batman to worry about.

"We'd have to disappear completely." Ryan had said the other night when they were piling notes and data together. "He's... This guy's his partner, isn't he? He'd come for us with everything he had."

Eyes I didn't know the color of but a smile I did know flashed through my mind. Annoying words and a thin line of hope that I wanted nothing more than to cut and burn filled my mind. You don't have to do this.

"You're thinking about another guy, aren't you?"

I blinked in mild surprise, turning to look at Dick as I shoved another forkful of pasta into my mouth. I chewed, watching as he watched me and I swallowed. "How'd you know?"

"I'm a pretty good detective," Dick reminded. I rolled my eyes at that and he twirled his fork through his fettucine, looking thoughtful. "You... Is everything alright with you? You look like you're not really feeling the aster."

"Could be better," I admitted truthfully. Lies didn't cut through this guy like they could for Lauren or anyone else. It reminded me a bit of talking to Juliet, really. "Just have some new issues with work. Project I've taken on is a little over my head."

Dick rubbed his chin in thought. "I've had that happen to me plenty of times, believe it or not."

"The famous Dick Grayson, having problems?" I gasped, turning to him with wide eyes. "No."

He threatened to take a stab of my pasta and I yanked it out of the way. Dick laughed, shaking his head. "I'm always getting in over my head. I... Well, there's a group of kids I help tutor and work with. I'm responsible for them while my coworkers away and..."

Dick trailed off, looking thoughtful and far off and I regarded him curiously. "And?"

"And sometimes you think you can handle more than you really are capable of," Dick shrugged. "And sometimes that ends up hurting the people you're supposed to be leading because they have to match you step for step."

Ryan flashed through my head and I suddenly wondered if maybe I had made the wrong choice after all. What if I was dragging my partner into something he didn't even want? Ryan didn't really need the money as bad as I did. He could get by with all the demand for his hacking skills. Maybe I should've consulted this better before agreeing—

"But," Dick added, scooping some of his pasta and depositing it into my container. "Sometimes you need to remember you've got to push your limits otherwise you'll never know what you could've achieved."

I gazed down at the mingling red and white and frowned. "What if it's not worth it?"

Dick chewed, looking contemplative before he snapped his fingers and turned back to me. "You don't really know till you try, right?"

No. I realized, with a bit of quiet, sad finality. This was the right choice. It's the only way.

I laughed, shaking my head as I jabbed my fork into the container and grinned. "You're not wrong."

"You know, I think we've really been hitting it off."

"I hate it when my food mixes for the record."

"Noted."

"I've started a guide of sorts for us to get through this with our lives," Ryan's voice started up in the communicator in my ear and I waited, perched over the city skyline as I watched Gotham's city lights glitter and gleam beneath the night sky. "A guide to killing heroes, catchy right? Bet it'd sell pretty well."

"What's our first move?" I inquired, adjusting the mask over my eyes. Gotham wasn't the best city, but it still had one hell of a view at night.

"Patterns comes first." Ryan answered. "We need to figure out where we can find this guy. What's his schedule? How does he move? Fighting style, partners... the works. I've got a good amount of data compiled already. Our biggest issues look like his partners and his own skills himself."

I nodded absently to myself. "He's strong."

"Very." Ryan agreed. "And he's not alone, which makes him stronger. He's got a team of kids that seem to work with him, bunch of sidekicks or something. Usually looks like he's not on the frontlines himself which means when he's not on his own patrols he's leading them."

"And he's got Batman."

"And he's got Batman." Ryan sighed. "Which is probably the worst hero he could have."

"Not Superman?"

"Nah. I'd just find a way to get my hands on some kryptonite, surprisingly easy to barter if you know who to please. Batman's out of our league."

"We could always try to figure out who's behind the mask," I said. "Kill him off duty. If we figure out who Nightwing is, killing him becomes ten times easier."

"Unmasking heroes has never been easy," Ryan reminded. "It's next to impossible most of the time."

I considered the time frame we had on this mission and the several things that were at stake. Ryan was rattling off possible starting points in my ear and I idly weighed my handgun in my palm, the cool metal resting against my skin as I cocked it at the sky. "...think you could find a way to figure out where his team might pop up next?"

Ryan went quiet for a moment. I heard the tap tap of keys and he whistled. "I could work something out. We'd need something to bring them out though."

Bring the heroes to us. I tested the gun in my hands and switched the safety off. My gaze flickered to the side and I turned my head slightly. "You got any ideas?"

The wind whistled past my ears. The masked man behind me merely smiled. A golden strip of cloth covered his eyes and a thick, heavy black cloak hung over his frame. I contemplated my chances of shooting him on the spot, but it was unnecessary and a waste of my own ammunition. Ryan was silent on the other side of the intercom, no doubt having already tapped into the nearby cameras and was watching himself.

"Justice would merely like to offer you some advice," he voice sounded just like any other of the generic members and I scowled, turning fully to face him as I fully contemplated shooting him in the head in the next minute. "You may shoot, if you'd like. Justice will not change."

"Better make it worth it," I snarled.

"Be careful." Ryan said quietly.

The member reached into one of his pockets and withdrew and envelope. He set it down on the ground, putting a weight on top of it before he moved backwards to the ledge of the building. "Justice wishes you luck."

I watched without any remorse as the man stepped back and then disappeared from sight, falling off the edge of the building. I didn't even bother looking to see if his mangled body was splattered against the concrete, regardless of whether it was magic or whatever shit they did, it didn't matter to me. I stood, pocketing my gun and striding over to the envelope. Ryan was muttering curses in my ear and I chucked the scale they'd set down on the envelope and ripped the top open.

A golden L shimmered in the faint lighting and I unfurled the paper, eyes skimming its contents.

"To clip his wings, you must use the fire that warms you."

"Stupid riddles and stupid shitheads," Ryan said dully. "We'll do this our own way."

I crumpled the paper in my hands. Annoyance flickered through me above it all, but quietly, deep in the far corners of my heart I knew exactly what they might be referring to. And it wasn't going to happen.

"Alright, sweetheart," I tapped the communicator in my ear and narrowed my eyes, standing tall against the dark city skyline.

"Let's catch some heroes."

Oof, where it begin. Firstly a thanks, for sure, to everyone who loves this story and who stills loves it after all this time. It's literally been years since I've updated this, I know, but I can't believe some of you guys still hold on strong and have hope, and I have to thank you immensely for that and for loving this story enough to put your hope in it or shoot me a message about it.

This story was definitely put on the backburner for me, along with a lot of my other works. Awhile ago I lost all the data and rough drafts for a crap ton of chapters and stories for a lot of the things I was writing, including a book I was kind of playing with and it was a bit of blow for me because it was just gone and I was like well shit. A lot of this story got lost in that as well, and even though I still had ideas for it and an ending, I didn't really know if I had the heart to rewrite so much of it. I've thought about it a lot and just decided then to make it different from how I originally planned, treat it like something new like all the other new stories I've been writing, so I was finally able to come back to this.

Thank you all for your patience and for holding out hope for this story. I hope it won't disappoint. I'm a trash author who loves a lot of stuff and gets inspired for all kinds of things and wants to write stories for everything, so I start a lot of things and get all over the place. I promise to see this story through though, since it does have an end. Updates will be slow, very slow, but they'll come. My focus is more toward finally finishing up Enigma and working on some of my newer works, but I haven't forgotten my roots and I promise this story will see an end.

That all being said, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! I love writing about Juliet and Tim so it was the easiest scene for me to get back into the groove of things with this story. I've been asked if there'll be any crossovers with Nascent—I'm thinking about it, since it's a fun idea, but we'll have to see ;)

Thank you all so much for reading and for loving this story. If yall love heroes and love anime, I started up a story for My Hero Academia as well, so feel free to check it out!

Marshmellow-

-OUT!