By: Xmarksthespot
Disclaimer: I don't own any copyrighted material, including works that belong to the Young Justice cartoon and DC comics.
Notes: Written during the summer time, pre-Invasion hiatus. I had a poll on my profile asking if it should be posted as one chapter or multiple, and while many voted for one, even I got bored reading it all at once because it was so long, so it shall be a four-shot! And it was never intended that a post-apocalyptic story be posted on December 21, 2012. That is merely coincidence.

Please review at the end of the chapter! I spent a very long time with this story and would appreciate it if you took a few extra seconds to provide some feedback or comments!

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Just an Ordinary Day

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A doctor once said that if you're exposed to a virus for long enough, you'd eventually become immune to it. It took Barbara Gordon one hundred forty-six days, eleven hours, and twenty-nine minutes before she was able to block off the sound of a person in pain. On the one hundred forty-sixth day, eleventh hour, and thirtieth minute, she ran passed a crying woman whose entire body had more red on it than The Flash.

It was quite true, the expression: every man for himself. It was one of the many things she had to adjust to in her new life. Barbara just had a difficult time convincing herself that sleeping to the sound of explosives being set off every other hour was no less different than sleeping during a thunderstorm. Or that the sounds of adults and children running down the streets, away from their race's worst enemies, were like hearing the pitter-patter of the rain. It made her feel even worse to know that as a child, she used to love the music that the thunderclouds made.

-.-

There is a small shelter straight up ahead, just a small classroom's distance away from her; it is disguised as a mess of barrels containing explosives, lined up against half a brick wall, and a tarp that is latched onto one of the penetrating nails. The barrels have no explosives. At least, they shouldn't, and if the creator of such a sophisticated home is experienced enough, and wants to keep warm, he or she would have checked before using such a thing to shield the people inside.

Sometimes they are labelled as having radioactive waste, which is harder to clean out, but slowly dying from chemical residue is rarely on a person's list of concerns.

Barbara has slept in a total of twenty-three shelters made up of materials covered in chemical waste since the invasion. She would tell the children in those shelters that the oozing, bright liquid from the containers were used in fireworks back then, during the fourth of July when the sky was like a garden of lights, but it would only be so long until she finds children who have never seen fireworks in their lives, only bombs.

Darting her eyes back and forth, Barbara scans the area for any witnesses. Like a thief in the night, she disappears in the shadows, and makes her way towards a small hole she assumes to be the entrance. She pushes aside one barrel to enter the tiny fort.

The men harbouring in the shelter all panic, pulling their heads up high and lifting their arms with loaded guns in their grasps. The women and children huddle behind them, equally frightened.

The redhead lifts both of her hands in the universal sign of defense, and looks at them straight in the eye. She purses her dry lips, which have more cracks running through them than the desert ground, and then opens her mouth to speak: "Wonder Woman," she says clearly and confidently, holding her stance until all the men look at one another; they nod and finally lower their arms.

Barbara doesn't talk to any of them, merely sitting down in the corner and curling into a ball. She keeps her ears opened though, waiting for the next golden ticket to be announced on the radio.

Many of them had to learn Morse code, because the host on the radio, at any time they wanted to, can say, "La-di-es and gen-tle-men…we…seem to be…los-ing…signal…" followed by a series of taps, which would indicate what name or word would be used for that week – a ticket into a shelter without a bullet through the head.

The radio goes through its routine static attack again, and suddenly the crew at the shelter huddles around the worn out piece of equipment. There are taps that follow the moment the announcer's voice goes mute.

Barbara closes her eyes and tucks her head down between her knees. She bites her lip hard so that the physical pain can drive away the mental torture attacking her mind, but stops when she begins tasting blood along the edges of her mouth.

She traces along the scars that embrace her arms and legs, taking into account a new one. Back then, if she had showed up at Gotham Academy with as many scars on her arms as she did now, she would've been sent for psychiatric help immediately.

Just thinking about her past dries her throat again, and to shoo away its discomfort, Barbara gulps. But the sound that comes immediately after is not from her, so with a quick exhale in preparation, she looks up to see a child of six or seven years sitting near her, reduced to tears.

"I-I don't –" He hiccups. "–I don't understand the taps."

Every man for himself, Barbara thinks. She refuses to teach him how to understand it, in case any unfamiliars are listening. She can tell him he wouldn't have to know, so long as he'd stay put, but that's merely telling the boy to stay in a lion's den until the pack comes home from hunting, still hungry from their lack of prey.

But the bright blue eyes that are staring back up at her, tugging at her heartstrings like a circus boy playing with the ropes on a trapeze, convinces her to give in just this once.

She musters a smile, hoping the boy is unable to see through her false happiness, and responds to him.

"The password is: Robin."

-.-

They had met on a Monday.

It was at 8:17 in the evening to be exact. Barbara shied away from the boy standing nearby, glancing at her father's wristwatch before tugging the hem of his coat, silently begging him to take her home. But Jim Gordon insisted she try to make new friends, especially while he was coming up with his speech last minute for that night's charity gala.

The room was grand with chandeliers of sparkling crystal stones that had Barbara bewildered at its beauty.

She would later find out that Richard Grayson, the small boy standing next to Bruce Wayne, had broken three of those sets of lights, in attempt to swing from one to the other.

She supposed that's what brought them together: her mesmerisation for the enchanting ballroom, his schemes that concerned the things in that room, and fate.

Of course, before then and perhaps any other coincidence after then, Barbara never believed in fate. It was like a placebo, or something imaginative to the naïve mind; Barbara was used to mathematical calculations and hard-core facts – it was why she had spent so much time in the non-fiction section of the library.

But yes, that particular encounter had been up to fate. Out of all the children at the gala that night, it had brought her: the tomboyish daughter of Gotham's detective to him: an orphaned product of the circus, recently adopted by a multibillionaire who had more models around his arm than her father had guns.

It was after meeting Dick Grayson that Barbara started to believe in fate, magic, and all other unknown possibilities.

Perhaps it was why she was searching for him now, because everything enigmatic and magical was associated with him in her mind. And maybe, Barbara thought, if he was alive, then there would be hope in the world after all.

-.-

"Get out," the man growls, grabbing onto Barbara's wrist and yanking her from her position. "You're making too much noise – you're going to be the death of us all! Get out!"

Most people these days live on a limbo: half awake and half asleep.

Screamers don't last very long; most people who are loud during their sleep are more prone to attacks, and are shamefully kicked out onto the streets – every man for himself, after all. They usually kill themselves soon after, just to end the pain early on. If not, then they pray every dusk and dawn that their screams isn't like sticking a hand into a tank of piranha.

Praying never really helps.

And for those who don't scream…They usually do in the end anyway.

-.-

"On the count of three…1, 2, 3…"

"Captain Marvel," both Barbara and the boy across from her say. They nod in affirmation and she lets out a breath of relief, satisfied that she didn't have to take down another child.

It's what she hates the most about these aliens; they can control the adults all they want, and pretend to coexist with humans in order to lure them in as bait, but using the bodies of children as puppets – Barbara feels nauseous just thinking about it.

She hides herself in a dumpster that evening, honestly thinking she wouldn't have company. But then she stumbles upon a younger boy in the same trash bin.

He gives her a large grin, and she's almost envious that he has so much optimism left in him.

"I'm Billy Batson," the boy says, introducing himself.

She only nods back. Leaning against the walls of the waste container, she hopes that sleep would overcome her within a few short minutes. However, she can't help but watch the young boy, sitting there and staring at the sky and its never-ending abyss.

Barbara is tempted to tell him that he could keep doing that, stare at the heavens, but there is no way he could fly away – away from their run-down planet called Earth. At least, she assumes it's still called Earth.

But there's something about the sight of the dark haired, blue eyed boy that prevents her from doing so. His cheerfulness reminds her too much of someone else; this boy, Billy, couldn't be more than a few years younger than she is, though that's only an assumption. His face makes him look a lot older than a person in their teens, but in this day and age, where looking thirty is the new twenty, the sagging bags under his eyes, the lines blemishing across his forehead, and the crooked nose – as if it has been broken and placed back together poorly several times – aren't really a big deal.

Billy's arms and legs, all strewn up together and being pushed in the small dumpster's corner, remind Barbara of a corpse's. A lot of things are easily compared to corpses these days; then again, corpses are pretty easy to find.

"Did you hear that?" Billy suddenly asks, knocking Barbara out of her thoughts.

She didn't. Living on the streets for the past several years has left her partially deaf, with bullets constantly being fired, airships propelling down into the city, screams flooding the area, and that high pitched ringing noise that lingers in one's ears for several minutes as a mushroom-shaped cloud is seen from a distance. It's a lot more difficult for her to pick up on the finer details now.

She doesn't bother shaking her head to tell him the answer. Rather, she holds up her index finger and presses it against her lips – they both hold their breaths.

Before they know it, the dumpster holding them topples over.

Barbara lands on her side, feeling more bruised than usual. She holds her head up, eyes widening with each passing second.

There, just a few feet from her and Billy, are a group of monstrous aliens with puke-coloured scales, fangs, and menacing blood red eyes, each with three pupils – she remembers hearing that the more humans an alien creature has consumed, the darker and redder their eyes.

"Kroloteans," Billy spits out, pulling himself out of the bin.

She turns to him in confusion, questioning the word from Billy's mouth, and wonders how he knew it. But it isn't long before she shifts her attention back to the creatures that are lusting after their flesh; they tower over her and Billy like a bully to a kindergartener on a playground.

Years ago, when these creatures first landed, they couldn't have been any taller than a kid in primary school. She used to be able to hold one with just one arm, but looks were deceiving. After a few years of feasting on human meat, or after having found some sort of advanced technology, they mutated into something far more grotesque.

"T-There's too many of them," Barbara breathes out, clenching her fingers around her bag. In her peripheral, she can see other shelters being ransacked, and people's limbs being used as toothpicks.

The three alien creatures in front of her and Billy lower, readying themselves to pounce at their prey.

"Billy, we have to run. Now!" She yells, turning her body.

"You run, I'll stay here and slow them down!" She hears Billy scream from behind.

Her legs don't slow down–they obey the young boy's order. And truthfully, at that moment, she doesn't care so much that she left Billy behind. It's become a habit for her now, to run when she has to. It's why she screams at night and gets kicked out of shelters so often: she sees their faces, the people she never stops to save; in her dreams, they all blame her.

But Barbara has to deal with it, because if she stops to save just one person, she would be going against her father's last wish: she promised him she would live.

Pushing Billy away from her mind, she dashes for the edges of the city. She isn't in Gotham anymore – she left that city many years ago – so racing through the streets is based on pure instinct; she isn't quite sure if she is heading in the right direction, whatever the right direction is.

The last thing she hears before escaping the region of feasting monsters is Billy's thundering voice:

"SHAZAM!"

-.-

Clean air in Gotham was rare, especially when one was on ground level where all the pollution leaking from the plethora of cars and transportation vehicles enter the nostrils as easily as traffic building up at noon time. Thankfully, there weren't many factories that contributed to the smell – they all lied on the outskirts of the city.

But when Barbara felt like it, she would climb a water tower, or perhaps go to the roof of a really tall building, just soak up the fresh air.

It makes her sick now, knowing that breathing in clean air is like walking pass a smoker and inhaling their cigarette's contents.

Sometime after the invasion, she had taken residence inside a building that was completely sealed shut. The scent, untouched by the war, was almost overpowering.

At most, she stayed there for a total of two days, retrieving any necessary items she needed and stuffing it into her worn out bag. She would attempt to access the computers to see if anything had updated, but the online community was a graveyard compared to the living one.

She left soon after; the smell of lavender and potpourri were nauseating and she couldn't handle it anymore.

The smell of rotten corpses and explosives is the new new-car smell.

-.-

"Dick?" She called out as she pushed the door open, lifting one arm to protect the wind from messing with her hair any more than it did on her way to Wayne Industries. Her eyes narrowed towards a shadowy figure standing by the edge, and she was unsure if he was staring out at the horizon, or if he was facing her with that familiar grin on his face.

She beamed when he started to approach her.

"Babs!" He said with excitement in his voice. "Are you here to watch the sunset with me?"

She could finally see his face, slightly obscured by the orange sun behind him. She purposely bent her knees slightly, so that it would seem he was almost as tall as her – boosting his confidence was sort of her specialty.

"What's this I hear about you and Bruce?" She asked, but frowned when she only received a shrug. "Alfred called me to see if I knew where you were; you know hearing a British accent in distress makes everything sound worse than it really is, Dick."

But the boy raised his shoulders, lowering it right after, something he had gotten into the habit of doing as of late – she had once heard Dick's "aunt" Lois call it 'teenage rebellion' but considering Barbara was thirteen as well, she didn't really want to agree. However, this had been the third time that month where she was informed that Dick and Bruce were fighting.

"Bruce is probably really worried, you know," she told her best friend.

Dick merely stepped back towards the edge of the roof again. "Nah, he's at work with his colleagues – in the air with Hal or maybe running around with Barry –you know, with his forensics work or something. He's not gonna miss me much."

Barbara pretended not to notice his feeble explanation for wherever Bruce was. The Wayne-Grayson-Pennyworth family had a knack for doing the unexpected, so whatever it was, she hadn't really cared.

She walked over to him, leaning against the railings as well – the rush of adrenaline from being so high up startled the butterflies in her stomach. She looked at him.

"There are security cameras up here, aren't there?" She asked, though she already knew the answer, having been up there several times in the past – it had gotten to the point where even the employees in the building recognized her enough to let her through; she only knew the way to the roof anyway.

"Yep," Dick confirmed.

She nodded. Clearly Alfred just wanted Dick to have some company while he was blowing off some steam, seeing as Bruce knew exactly where his ward was.

Barbara turned away from the boy and stare in awe at the beautiful, reddish-orange sky.

-.-

The first time Barbara had killed someone, as in physically injured a person enough to have killed them, was five months, twenty-three days, and two hours after the invasion.

She had shot Jim Gordon four times in the back until his body went limp, and the alien creature crawled out of his body; Barbara shot it too.

She spent the next four hours digging a grave for her father with her hands.

She hasn't cried much since.

She hasn't touched a gun either.

-.-

"Shh–it," Barbara curses through clenched teeth.

She had missed the previous radio broadcast, and few shelters rarely accepted newcomers with the old password. This isn't the first time she has missed it, but she has always managed a way to find it out for herself, usually by sneaking around and listening to the radio without anyone noticing.

Except someone had noticed this time, and chased her with their pistol.

She had taken pride of being able to estimate where the bullets were aimed, and then allowing herself to dodge them. Her reflexes were quick, and she was fit enough to knock someone out if she had to. Except the ability to escape a few gunshots must have riled the civilians up, because they seemed to be convinced she was an intruder and wanted her shot down more than anything.

Luckily, Barbara had lost them, though not without a war wound to her arm. With some antiseptic she had recovered over the years, and her water bottle, she digs into her flesh with her knife and fingers until she finds the bullet. She wraps a cloth around it after.

This makes scar number thirty-two.

-.-

"Why do you like watching the sunset so much, Dick?"

Back when Barbara's hair was still long, her arms naked from any tissue damage, and her smile was a gesture of appreciation and not for the joy of knowing she got to eat that night, she tried to hang out with Dick as many times as possible. It wasn't often, due to his extracurricular activities, or whatever it was that Bruce Wayne made him do, but it was enough for her.

She watched as he pushed himself upwards, both hands latched onto the railing encircling the roof of Wayne Tower, and kicked his legs up into the air so that he could place his bottom on the cold steel. Barbara would've grabbed hold of his arm to prevent him from falling, if she had just met him for the first time, but after four years of knowing the boy, she only rolled her eyes at his attempt to keep in touch with his acrobatic roots.

He sat on the railing as calmly as a bird sitting on a tree branch, even if it was hundreds of feet in the air. Barbara liked to remind Dick that he was not a bird and not capable of flying, but he had always ignored her on that; instead, he had said:

"It's good to say good night to the sun, Babs. You never know if you'll be able to say it again tomorrow." He finished off with a snicker, as if he had just thought of something amusing, but kept it to himself.

Barbara nodded understandingly, and turned back to watch the sky. The blue hues were finally settling in, and the pinks and oranges were fading away.

And so that night, on top of the tallest building in Gotham, both Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon had said, good night, to the sun – it was their last time.

-.-

Her first encounter with the Teen Titans was three years after the invasion – or four years ago from now. She was sixteen then.

Superman's sidekick, a boy with wild brown hair that was possibly related to either the Flash or Kid Flash due to his speed, an older hero with robotic parts, and a girl named Raven were there. The boy who called her that…He looked like Robin.

Much to Barbara's disappointment, he wasn't her Robin. He didn't look like how she remembered him, and his costume was different; not to mention he was too young. In fact, she was told by a few civilians – they had escaped the shelters with her upon the arrival of the aliens and the Titans – that his name was Red Robin.

She had merely nodded in response and gulped, feeling her face warm up considerably fast and a tremor in her arms and legs. She knew for a fact that heroes took up their mentor's mantle once the original was gone.

But Barbara refused to stop her search for the first Robin.

Instead, she told herself that the Titans were too occupied with protecting them to tell her if the original Robin was alive or not. She continued her search for Dick Grayson.

-.-

She tries not to nick her finger for the third time that night, as she angles the blade enough to cut her fingernails.

The knife had been used to kill someone once, not by her hands, of course, but from a criminal's. Barbara had just stumbled upon it when she was rummaging through the body some years ago, clothed in a neon orange jumpsuit, to find some food or any other necessities; there are still specks of blood imprinted on its handle from when she came across it.

The knife comes in handy for killing rodents. Barbara has tried their meat once, but it didn't sit well with her stomach, so really, it kills rodents that are used as bait for other (edible) animals, or for trading inside the shelters for other items. It's also used to keep her hair short, so that the strands of auburn wouldn't get in the way when she ran.

"You're quite talented with a blade," a woman suddenly says, causing Barbara's hand to jerk; luckily the knife goes off course and doesn't hit any flesh.

The stranger takes her mask off and Barbara catches a glimpse of a grinning cat. She's Asian, with a smirk printed on her features. But Barbara scowls in response, taking note of the large backpack on the woman in front of her – she doesn't want to know what is in there.

The woman's skin is marred by pale lines of pink that visibly runs from the nape of her neck down to her arms. She seems overly confident to have started a conversation with another person in an alleyway.

The redhead gets up to her feet, ready to pounce or run – whichever is necessary. It has been approximately four months since anyone has talked to Barbara freely, and the last one ended up doubling his age and flying into the skies. She secretly hopes that this one might fly too, and not bare its fangs or suddenly grow claws and scales – she shudders at the thought.

"Here," the stranger says, extending her arm.

The action causes Barbara to take a leap backwards, but when she notices that the woman, strangely amused by the whole ordeal, not budging from her position, she moves her eyes downwards and back up as quickly as possible.

"What is that?" Barbara asks.

The smile on the woman's face reminds her of the one fairy tale character she had read as a child – the Cheshire cat.

"It's a dagger," the woman says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world; there is a hint of amusement in her voice.

But Barbara isn't convinced until the stranger unsheathes it, revealing the metallic shine in the moon's light.

"It might be more useful to you," the woman holds it sideways so that she can look at her own reflection, "than to me. It's much sharper than your dull thing anyway."

"Keep it," Barbara replies with venom in her voice, "I don't take anything from anyone unless they're dying or dead." She makes no attempt to turn around and run, knowing never to turn her back on a person regardless of how human they looked. Not until they take their sights off Barbara first, at least.

The woman scoffs. "If you haven't noticed, I am dying." She, in her kimono-like garments, steps into the moonlight to reveal a large wound on her abdomen. It looks like it has been treated for; Barbara can see the bandages through the ripped clothing. However, the blood is soaking through the white cloths, and is a shade of ugly purple; this woman, with the Cheshire mask, is poisoned.

"Still no," Barbara says, stepping back a few steps.

The stranger smirks again, seemingly entertained and satisfied with Barbara's response. She turns around and Barbara knows that she's in deep trouble because she can see something move inside the woman's backpack.

"Suit yourself," she purrs and with that, the woman clad in green leaps off.

The voice of paranoia in Barbara's head tells her to move to a different location, which she does. She just hopes that the Asian woman wouldn't be able to find her again.

-.-

Barbara wakes up the next day, finding the knife that the woman had offered the night prior, sitting next to her body, along with a redheaded infant, and a birth certificate that reads: Lian Nguyen-Harper.

"What is…What the hell?!" Barbara shoots herself up, and looks around for any witnesses; there are none. The only people in the alleyway that morning are her and the baby named Lian. She looks back down at the infant, who appears to have just woken up, searching desperately for her mother.

Barbara sighs and gently picks Lian up.

Dick would've told her to take care of the baby, not because it was the right thing to do (even though it is), but because if she hadn't, the human race's redheaded population would die out, and Dick wouldn't have approved of that.

As far as Barbara could tell, Dick better be alive.

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tbc