Breakout

"So, you're kidnapping kids now?"

The unfamiliar voice roused them from their sleep. Lucy shifted a little, letting her eyes barely slit open. The man walking, or more like stalking, forward was dressed in black and navy with a mask on his face. The curling black hair helped with the heroic image he was portraying while the mask had whited out his eyes. Nighthawk, Lucy finally decided, had image issues.

"I have questions. They have the answers," Batman replied, still fiddling with his computer.

"Computer problems?" Nighthawk asked, coming to a stop. "You?"

"Something tried to get in my system. The defenses kicked it out, but now I want to know where it came from," Batman replied. His fingers were flying over the keyboard.

Lucy allowed herself an internal huff. She had a suspicion that Jebediah was looking for them. If that was true, then there wasn't going to be much, if any, of a trail for Batman to find. Jebediah was truly paranoid when it came to jail; he'd been like that ever since she'd met him when they were five.

A ghost of a smile crossed her lips at the remembrance of a little Jebediah pronouncing that locking him up for anything was a sin against science. Lucy highly doubted that without him and Court, the Liberation would have been much, much harder if not impossible to pull off.

"And what do you mean that they have answers to your questions? What questions?" Nighthawk turned towards the cages, frowning. "Aren't those Barry's kids? Why do you have them locked up?"

"They're palling around with Joker's kid. Why would you assume they're just eating lollipops and trading chocolate?" Batman retorted. The computer screen went black with a red error message popping up. "I bet they're even behind this."

"Now you're being paranoid. You do know that if Iris finds out about this, there's going to be—"

"—I know, I know. Leave her to me." Batman got up and stalked to the cages, sweeping them with a penetrating gaze.

Lucy allowed her eyes to slip shut. The true trick to pretending to sleep was relaxation. As long as she was relaxed, no one could tell if she was awake or not. Well, no one except Court, who inexplicably always knew and Leilani, who could find out anything she wanted with concentration.

"Even if she's the Joker's kid, she's never done anything criminal," Nighthawk argued. He strolled to the cage that held Aarti. "Diana will absolutely flip if she sees this."

"Maybe not. I called Diana, and she had no clue that the girl wasn't on the island. She's on her way now to claim her." Batman turned and walked away.

Lucy counted the slight footsteps. Recent years had gifted her a variety of survival skills and knowing when your opponent was walking away was at the very top. She allowed the herself the very smallest of slivers of parting her eyelids.

Batman was now facing Nighthawk who still seemed a bit hostile.

"There are children vanishing, and suddenly we have Clark's kid, Joker's kid and Barry's kids joining up and doing the same. Then here comes Aarti who no one knows left Themyscira joining the group. If I dig, I will probably find that there's more going on than anyone is letting on." Batman heaved a sigh.

"Come on. You can help me when I talk to Iris. She's probably the only one who can make any sense of whatever they're up to." Batman clapped Nighthawk on the shoulder.

Lucy let her eyelids close again. The eyestrain wasn't quite worth the intel. She drew in a shaky breath. After a few moments, she sat up. The sleeping gas they'd been given hadn't really worked on her, but she had taken a nap. She would place being refreshed over safe any day. Safe was a relative value, after all.

She stretched, rotating her head against her neck to work out any kinks. Then she looked towards the computer.

"Trolli?" She called experimentally. "Here, sweetie!"

Lucy waited a few seconds before slouching back against the glass wall of her cage. It had a simple electronic lock, but she was no Court who could coax it open. Lucy ran her hands over her hair, tugging at her ponytails in frustration.

"Squeak? Squeak?"

Lucy's head snapped up to see a tiny figure standing on the other side of the glass wall. The figure, about the size of half a Barbie doll, shimmered in the light. It seemed to be made of electricity, but Lucy knew that she felt like a fluffy coated ball of goo. Little black eyes blinked at her.

"Trolli?" Lucy breathed, a tear snaking down her cheek. The last time she'd seen Trolli, the little figurine had been broken and oozing sparks.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak!" Trolli looked up at the electronic lock. "Squeak!" She pronounced, thumping herself on her tiny chest.

Trolli jumped upwards, easily landing on top of the lock. Tiny sparks were left in her trail. She waved her tiny fist and then struck the lock. Instead of impacting the lock, her fist sunk into it, along with half of her arm. Trolli made protesting noises as she struggled to pull her arm out. After a moment, it came out, overbalancing Trolli who fell backwards.

The sparks lit again as Trolli landed on the floor, frowning up at the lock that beeped and disengaged.

"Squeak! Squeak, squeak, squeak. Squeak!" Trolli complained as Lucy pushed the door open.

"Okay, I know. The evil lock tried to eat you," Lucy said. She bit back a smile as Trolli looked at her and nodded emphatically. "Can you open the others?"

"Squeak," Trolli replied, rolling its little black eyes.

Lucy and Trolli dashed to the twins' cell. Dawnie was idly drawing circles with her finger on the floor, ignoring the world. She was visibly thinner than she'd been before their capture. Don was just slumped against the wall, sleeping.

"Rise and shine! The lightning's here to get us out," Lucy said, kicking the glass.

"Lucy! I'm so hungry right now that I could eat liver and onions or maybe even chitterlings." Dawnie paused and shuddered. "Nope, still sounds really good to me right now."

"No, beef tripe soup from that Taiwanese place in Star City," Don mumbled. He opened his eyes to look at Trolli. "Hey! It's Trolli! Happy you didn't die, little one."

"Squeak, squeak? Squeak?" Trolli turned its head to look at Lucy before repeating her actions with the lock. This time, she didn't fall.

"They'll be okay, Trolli. They just need something to eat," Lucy replied.

"Ah! Squeak!" The new syllable had all of them turning to look at Trolli who reached into her mouth and pulled out a whole chocolate chip cookie.

"That's okay. That's your treat, Trolli," Lucy said with a smile. She frantically wondered just how Trolli was carting around a cookie that was half her size and where it'd come from.

Trolli nodded and stuffed the cookie back into her mouth.

"Let's free the others and jet." Don took a deep breath. "We've got a crate of uneaten IWAs at home. A quick detour and we'll be fine."

Lucy frowned at that last but shrugged. She'd thought that they'd run out of the IWA bars, but it seemed not. She shoved the questions to the back of her mind. Getting out of here, wherever here was, was their current priority right now.