Ascension 2

Chapter Seventy: The Mysterious Mystery of Claire Kent Part Four. 

A couple of hours passed and Black Canary remained on the hunt for Tigress. With the storm clouds brewing over her head, rain poured down from the skies of Gotham City. To add to the fun and games, a thick cloud of fog obscured her vision slightly, which did not play well into her plans.

If there were two things people knew Gotham City for it was bad weather and crime way.

"So, she can't have gotten far," Oracle suggested, hoping to create some kind of silver lining to the dark clouds in Gotham City.

"I know that she hadn't," Black Canary said, she used a device built into her mask and walked a couple of inches forward and stopped and stared. "I slipped a tracking device on her during the confusion."

"Ah, I take it that's the reason why you didn't go after her, even after getting away from the gang fight," Oracle said and Black Canary nodded.

"Yes, and there's some things that take priority over others, a gang fight being one of them," Black Canary said, back on the hunt now and ready to go.

"Given the civilian factor, I would have to agree," Oracle said, and despite herself, she bit down onto her lip. "Most people should know how to stay out of the way by now, shouldn't they?"

"They should," Black Canary agreed, and she really wished that she could do this journey on her bike, but there were two problems. The weather was the big one and also the dense population of this particular area of Gotham City presented another problem.

"So why do you do what you do?" Oracle asked calmly and Black Canary stopped. The situation reached a lull, therefore there might be time for idle chatter. "I mean, I don't think that you have to tell me but at the same time it would be interesting to know…"

Black Canary had no reason to lie to her friend and smiled. "It's a legacy, my mother was the original Black Canary, she did this during her time, and….now it's my time to do it. Someone important to me got hurt and it forced me into action."

"So, what about Nightwing?" Oracle asked, allowing it to sink all in.

She had her theories, but she wanted to keep them neutral, if nothing else then to have a state of plausible deniability. Just in case, someone found out what she was doing. If she got in trouble, at least she could cover her own ass.

"Complicated, there are many reasons you know regarding him," Black Canary answered and Oracle nodded, she got the message straight away. "But, to put it bluntly, someone close to him was killed right in front of it, and he wants to make Gotham City a better place."

"Talk about the never ending battle," Oracle muttered, shaking her head. "And Talon and Batman….."

"Talon does it because Nightwing does it, and she doesn't want to see him get hurt as badly as he did when fighting Grundy."

Oracle once again allowed that to sink in and she sensed that Black Canary got closer. There was one more person in their little super hero party to touch base on.

"And what about Batman?"

"Not really my place to say," Black Canary said, standing hunched over against the railing.

"Because you don't really know?" Oracle asked. She couldn't help it, her natural curiosity beckoned for her to fish for information.

"I know he made a promise a long time ago, and that's all I know," Black Canary said, closing in on her destination.

She stood on the rooftop and took a quick peak in the window, she saw Tigress take her mask off. She was a fairly fit woman in her mid-30s, with dark hair, and the next sight that she saw shocked her and caused her to hesitate. It was a situation that might prove to make any attempt to go inside to be problematic.

The unmasked woman walked over and a girl with dark hair that resembled a younger carbon copy of her mother stepped over towards her. She said something to her mother and the two walked over towards the television that was flipped on. A blonde girl with brown eyes, dressed in a white t-shirt and jeans, who looked a couple of years younger than her sister pulled herself onto her mother's lap.

Dinah watched from the window.

"She has two children," Dinah whispered and Oracle paused.

"That could complicate things," Oracle said and Black Canary watched, she really hoped that she could resolve this, slip in there and get the drive undetected. The fact that there were children involved caused Dinah to think twice about doing anything.

After the program was over, the woman led her youngest daughter to bed, who looked to be drifting to sleep and protesting the fact that she wasn't. There was a moment of protest but the battle was lost by the daughter.

The older one remained sitting on the couch and Black Canary waited. Something else caught her eye and she turned over, to see Talon turn up at the door.

'What are you doing here?' Black Canary asked Talon and Talon smiled in response.

'Just hold tight,' Jaime thought, she felt bad about leaving Dinah out of the loop about what they were up to. This had to be done to accomplish Harry's goals.

Jaime dropped down from where she was and knocked on the drawer, and waited for it to be answered. The oldest daughter answered the door.

"Is your mother home?" Jaime asked her and she nodded in response and shut the door.

Seconds later, Paula Crock, better known as Tigress, stepped out of the drawer a couple of moments later and held a large envelope.

"You know, we shouldn't be having these meetings at home," Jaime whispered to her and she shook her head.

"Couldn't find a sitter on such short notice, especially with the circumstances," Paula answered in an apologetic voice and Jaime shrugged.

"Fair enough," Jaime said and she reached forward to take the envelope and took a look inside. The drive was inside. "Very good, you held up your end of the bargain, as promised…."

Talon reached behind her and handed the woman a smaller but still rather bulging envelope in response. It should have been obvious what was inside.

Once the woman was inside her house, Talon turned around and looked Black Canary right in the eye.

Dinah nearly leapt ten feet in the air when she realized that Talon teleported behind her. The crime fighter managed to reboot her brain. She turned around and went face to face with Talon.

"I didn't know that you could do that," Black Canary whispered and Jaime smiled at her.

"It's a trick that I learned a long time, come on, we can't stay around," Talon said and she lead Black Canary off away from the apartment. She could tell that the woman wanted answers, and she would give them when she was safely away.

'So, Harry's been playing some cards closely to his chest, hasn't he?' Black Canary asked, and she paused to answer to Oracle that she got it, before she returned to the mental conversation with Talon.

'That's one way of putting it, but just look at it this way, getting ahold of the drive is a good way to slip a worm onto Enigma's network and cause some real damage," Talon communicated with her.

'That's all well and good, but I don't know how Tigress fits into this situation,' Black Canary said, and Talon smiled.

'Well her real name is Paula Crock, she has two children, Jade is twelve and Artemis is ten,' Jaime informed her and Dinah nodded in response. 'When Harry found out that she had two small children, he made her a deal that she couldn't refuse to act as his agent in certain situations.'

Black Canary began to see how everything tied together and she smiled at how Harry's plan worked. He figured to take the best and the brightest of females and use them as his assets whenever he can. She had to admire how brilliant that he was.

'We'll have Oracle look at it, and make sure it gets back into Enigma's hands, make it look like what he wants, but he'll find out that it's useless….'

"And not before we install a worm into his network," Oracle said, the two female crime fighters had previously gone over the plans with Oracle. "And I'll finally be able to get access to his network, to see what he's up to."

'Why did Harry tell anyone else about what was going on?' Dinah asked, rather confused about the entire situation, but that prompted the man himself to jump in on the network.

'I think Enigma might have hacked into a couple of the camera and security systems around the city, so we needed to make the fight look legit,' Harry thought to them and both girls thought the same thing.

'Nothing more legit than a fight where we're really trying to kick the hell out of each other….because she didn't seem to be play acting…..'

'I told her not to go easy on you,' Harry told Dinah and she smiled.

She appreciated that fact. She wasn't playing around because otherwise the fight would have seemed less legit than it was. The bruises were worth it if there was a deeper plan.

'I see,' she replied, knowing where that situation stood. 'But the less people know the better.'

'Precisely,' Harry thought, and he sighed. He knew that he was playing a dangerous game.'I don't make it too much of a habit to keep things from my bond mates but…..'

'Sometimes it's a necessary evil,' Dinah thought, she understood properly some of the ways to play the game.

The next stop was the Clocktower now that they had the device in hand.

Harry stirred awake from the conversation that he heard Dinah and Jaime having. When he returned to the real world completely, he felt Martha draped over his chest when he woke up. One of her legs intertwined with his and currently he was in a state of being half awake but half asleep as well. His arms wrapped around her and the comfortable pulled up around them because it was rather cold this time a year.

He slowly and absent mindedly ran his fingers through her hair, and smiled, when he did so. This did an amazing thing of stirring her awake.

Physically starved for attention, Martha leaned in towards him and started to kiss his chest, and made her way slowly up towards his lips.

Their lips met with steamy passion with each other and Harry roamed all over her body and cupped her rear end and she straddled him.

Things were about ready to get really heated, really quickly, and both prepared to pick up from where they left off last night.

Martha smiled, and straddled Harry's hips, her core pulsing and hungry for him. She slid down across his body and draped herself over him. She pushed herself down onto him and brought his manhood deeply into her smoldering hot lips.

Harry groaned when his prick passed between her wet and willing lips. The woman seemed determined to push him into the depths of her and Harry hung on, allowing her to ride him up and then come back down.

Martha wasted no time starting and slowly bounced down upon him. The woman closed her eyes tightly and continued to work her hips down onto his manhood. The green-eyed sorcerer roamed his hands.

"Yes," Martha whispered and she worked her hips up and down him again and kept riding him.

The bed creaked underneath both of them and both kept a steady pace. He ran his hands against her and pumped into her.

"Take me," Martha whispered and he took advantage of this orgasm to roll her back onto the bed.

He slipped almost out of her, the tip against her dripping hole and her pussy moistened when he slowly kissed his way down her neck. With his motions, he went between her breasts, licking and sucking on them, which caused her whimpering to increase.

"You just couldn't have enough of that, could you?" Harry asked her and Martha shook her head, lust burning through her eyes when she looked up at her young lover.

"Never, back in me, now," Martha said and Harry was not one to deny a lady.

He groaned when her pussy tightened around him and hugged him. Her sweaty body pushed up, with Harry running his hands over her chest and leaning forward a bit. He slid almost out of her. When her body whined, Harry pushed himself into her depths.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck,' Martha whispered and Harry grabbed her hips and slammed his stiff prick between her legs.

The two continued their coupling and Harry brought her over against the wall and pushed her against the dresser. He spread her legs and pushed deep between her legs and penetrated her.

The two of them made love to each other against the dresser, with Martha closing her eyes with Harry working into her, reducing her cunt into a smoldering gushing wreck. The more Harry worked into her, the more she excited she got. His nerve endings lit up when he touched her in new places. Her hot lips closed in against him and Harry pummeled her from behind, and kept working into her.

After finding their way onto the stairs one more time, they made their way where this entire coupling began, into the kitchen.

He pushed her against the fridge and bit on the back of her neck, nipples getting hard when he pressed her against the cold surface. Harry slid himself deep between her hot thighs and she clamped down onto him, when he pushed his hands around her breasts and pinched her nipples.

"Yes, oh yes," Martha whispered, and Harry worked into her. Her legs trembled but Harry held her up to keep them from collapsing down onto the floor.

"You like that?" Harry asked her and Martha nodded eagerly when Harry continued to push himself deep between her legs, and fucked her something fierce.

"Love it, love it," she begged him and she wanted more, and he continued to drive her into the refrigerator. Her legs spread as far as possible to accommodate him when he buried into her.

Her tight cunt enveloped his massive prick and Harry felt himself drawn into her. The sex starved female continued to enjoy him go into her.

Pulling out and allowing her to come down from her orgasm, Harry lifted one of Martha's legs up, and slowly started to kiss up and down her leg. She whimpered with the pleasure and Harry stopped, when he switched from the right leg, to the left leg.

He kissed down her body, and stopped, giving her belly button extra attention and lavished her breasts. With the woman all hot and bothered, Harry brushed his manhood against her dripping slit and they made their way over to the corner.

Martha leaned back onto the corner, and sank herself onto Harry when he fucked her up against it. The redhead was careful not to bump her head, with Harry going into her.

"Faster?" he whispered hotly into her ear and she dug her nails into the back of his neck and nodded in affirmation.

"Yes, faster, faster, all the way," Martha whispered and her hot thighs hugged him when she pushed herself all the way down upon him.

The redhead's moans deepened and her pussy gushed. Harry worked into her like a well-oiled machine and pumped himself between her legs.

"Still hanging in?" Harry asked.

Martha nodded, biting his nipples in encouragement and Harry continued to pump his way between her smoldering hot thighs. He sped up his thrusts and crammed himself as hard into her as he could go, causing her pleasure to explode even more.

They made their way over to the kitchen table and Martha pushed herself down onto him, with him laying back on the table. She pushed her hot center again around him and bounced up and down onto him. He laid back on the table and allowed her to have her fun.

Harry groaned ,laying back and allowing her to ride him. Her slick center caressed his manhood and gripped him.

Martha closed her eyes, she could feel everything flow free, without any restrictions. She couldn't quite keep track of everything, but they must have christened every surface of the house over the past twelve or so hours.

Not that she complained, Harry's hands roamed over her body and she closed her hips around him, tugging on his manhood when she bounced herself up and down onto him. The redhead kept working him into a fever pitch and Harry kept exploring her body. She bounced a little bit higher and brought her hot hips down onto him, working him over something fierce.

She could feel him getting closer, and he held back a load for her.

Harry grunted, glad for the resistance that he held and Martha continued to pump onto him. She looked determined to finish what she started and after a long rest, her intensity renewed with a brand vigor. Her red hair framed her face when she looked down at him in a sultry manner and she brushed her fingernail down his chest, smiling when she kept bouncing.

She bounced even harder and Harry gripped her ass.

"Behind," she whispered and Harry nodded, pulling completely out of her and setting her up on the table. His manhood brushed against her lips and they dripped with arousal, about ready to take him in.

Harry grunted and pushed his hard rod between her soft thighs, holding his hand on her breast when he pumped into her from behind. Green eyes flowed with passion when he worked himself into her. He connected into her and caused pure electricity to spread between her hot thighs when he rammed into her even harder from behind.

Martha felt his hands roam her body, the woman rested on her hands and knees on the table and Harry continued to pick things up. Never breaking his stride, never slowing down.

Moments went by, but however much time went by, it was not long enough for Martha, and she felt Harry's hands over her.

Harry indulged himself in her sweaty mature body and treated every inch of it with the attention that he thought it deserved, worshipping her. His manhood spiked so far between her thighs. Her hips closed around him and clamped around him. She tugged him when he worked his tool over.

She felt excited by what he did and wanted to be pushed to the edge and then over it with his rapid fire thrusts. The thrusts entered her even harder.

"Closer."

Harry's whisper caused her thighs to tingle with desire and she enclosed on him, he pumped into her soft center. The woman felt her face pressed down onto the table, his hands skimmed her body. Each thrust into her brought her closer to the edge of her pleasure. The greatest pleasure, and she felt nothing else beyond that.

His balls tightened and she tightened around him. She looked over her shoulder and stared at him with a sexy look. He responded by capturing her tongue into a passionate kiss, the two of them feeling their tongues wrapped around the other.

Harry grunted and he could feel her walls tighten around him when he pumped into her even deeper.

She shuddered beneath him and his balls constricted. Her lustful moan and tightened pussy encouraged him to spill his seed deep into her depths which he did. Harry gripped her and forced her down, pumping his entire load into her. Stars could be seen through their eyes, when Harry crammed himself into her.

Harry held her hardened nipples and pumped into her, emptying his balls into her womb, and caused her pleasure to increase when they collapsed in a shuddering mess on the table.

After they were done, Martha slipped on the shirt and panties that she wore last night and smiled at Harry, who grinned back at her.

"I think that you may be determined to make love on every single surface of your house," Harry said and Martha smiled.

"Let's see, the dining room table, the stairs, the bed, the hallway, dresser, fridge, and that did a good job of hardening my nipples into pebbles, the counter, the table again, you might be right," Martha said and she leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. "And I thank you for not calling it fucking."

Even though she had no problems with a good hard fucking every now and again and she may have called it that in the heat of her lust. She couldn't quite recall off hand. Her mind was driven completely mad with her lust.

"I'll be perfectly honest, I had a pretty unsatisfying sex life until now," Martha said with a sigh and last night, it awakened something in her that she suppressed, mostly because of out necessity not to drive herself nuts. "And it consisted on the bed, in the missionary position for purposes of conception….."

"And it stopped when Claire arrived," Harry said, and he fixed a cup of coffee for the both of them.

"Yes, exactly," Martha said and she shook her head. "So, I'm sure that you could figure out that I'm making up for lost time."

'That's for sure,' Lily thought, she wondered if Martha would get on the Network soon, but she guessed it would be sooner rather than later.

"Plus according to some magazines I've read, I'm just entering my sexual prime."

Harry chuckled with a smile on his face, but to be honest, he was not about to argue that point. He made sure she was settled, and made his way into the kitchen to make breakfast. Needless to say, this was a reversal of circumstances that normally happened, but in her current state of mind, Martha could not even bare to argue.

"So what are you going to tell Claire?"

Martha didn't take too much time to answer that.

"I'm not going to rally tell her anything, at least not yet," Martha replied to him and Harry arched his eyebrow in response, when he went about to find the eggs. "Claire is almost twelve, Harry, and despite the fact that being around you probably makes her panties sticky and her bed sheets damp, and believe me, I should know as how I do her laundry."

'Yeah, so did not need to hear that,' Amanda thought.

'Didn't we when we were twelve…..'

'Things were different then, we were twelve, and Harry was only thirteen then, times have changed,' Amanda commented idly. 'Even if it's different, but that's not the point…it's kind of hard to explain.'

'Lana might be just as bad,' Nell chimed in, realizing that she might embarrass her niece if she knew that she jumped onto this conversation.

"That being said, she doesn't need to know about her mother's sex life," Martha said. "The plan that Jonathan and I've got worked out is to tell her when she's sixteen….if she finds out before then, we'll cross that little bridge if we have to come to it."

She smiled and paused.

"Until then, you're my dirty little secret," Martha said and she could not resist adding the next point. "Less emphasis on the little part though."

He chuckled and whipped up eggs into a big ass omelet that they should share.

"So was this always your plan for this visit?"

Martha returned the favor from earlier, getting up to fix Harry a cup of coffee.

"It was….." Martha admitted, looking like a little girl who was caught with her hand in the sweet jar, almost sorry, but really not sorry at all. "The venue was going to be very different and I wanted you to take me up to Metropolis for it happening…I admit Jonathan having a heart attack was some really bad timing, but I really was sick of waiting."

She finished the coffee and paused, not handing him the cup just yet. Instead, she stole another extremely heated kiss from him.

Then she sat down and drank her own coffee, whilst she waited for breakfast to be completed. Once it was done, Harry sat across from her with a plate and the omelet on it, along with some toast and some cereal as well, along with other various breakfast bits.

'You know, wish I was there right now,' Lily thought with a smile on her face and Martha jarred her head up, hearing Lily's voice in her head. 'And judging by the fact that you heard my voice, you're settled in right now.'

'Don't worry, it can be extremely jarring at first,' Rose thought in a consoling voice and Martha shook her head.

'Just got to get used to it that's all.'

She smiled and she could get used to this cooking, her taste bloods exploding. Martha chewed on her meal and decided to bring up a point. "Did you know that Jonathan was married once?"

"Yes, Mum mentioned that," Harry said and Martha smiled.

"I don't think Lily never cared all that much for Jonathan, but then again, neither did my father," Martha answered and that allowed Lily to jump in through the bond to defend herself.

'I have no problems with the guy on a personal manner, he seems nice enough, it's just that I think that you could do better and he is ten years older than you,' Lily chimed in and she shook her head. 'I don't have the slightest idea why my Uncle had anything against him.'

Martha got used to the bond slowly, but she was always a fast study.

"Jonathan was married before me, to his high school sweetheart more or less, but there was a really bad winter, where the two of them were trapped, with very little supplies, and no medical aide," Martha replied and Harry waved her to go on. "She died of the fever, Jonathan got really sick….but we married despite the fact that I knew that he might not love me as much as his first wife."

Martha didn't completely regret it. Sometimes she wondered but she didn't regret it.

"No one would ever be the same after something like that," Harry replied to her and Martha nodded in agreement.

"No, they wouldn't, but I don't regret marrying him, there are a few things that I do regret, but not that, most certainly because I got Claire out of it," Martha said, and she wouldn't trade her daughter for anything in the world. "Not exactly the life that I imagined for when I got married, but…..I got along well enough despite the difficulties. At least for the most part, I guess that I couldn't really live with it much longer…"

She trailed off, realizing that she rambled on a little bit too much.

"I really don't know where I'm going with this one," Martha admitted to him and Harry smiled, brushing his thumb across her lip to remove some stray cheese from it.

"I understand."

He responded by kissing her deeply, something that she returned without hesitation.

The Penthouse Suite of the Gotham Royal Hotel hosted some self-proclaimed royalty, in the form of Carmine Falcone, better known to the criminal underworld as the Roman. It was a family reunion of sorts, partially a business meeting. His two sons, Alberto and Mario sat in comfortable looking chairs in a conference room, and his nephew, Johnny Viti sat off to the side a little bit from the two Falcone boys.

Despite being casually dressed, the Roman still wore the finest casual clothes, because the man always dressed to impress. It was a rare meeting during the day, and one could pass it off as a family gathering, even though there was plenty of business to discuss.

"So, let me ask you something Mario," Carmine said and his son turned towards him. "Just how did you lose my grandfather's hotel to Tony Zucco of all people?"

"They blindsided us, sir," Mario said in a respectful tone, but he did not back down from his father. He looked him in the eye when he spoke. Something told him that his father respected that. "We weren't expecting to be hit from all sides right then, especially from guys that were supposed to be our side. That was the first hint that Maroni got a bit too big for his britches, and the start of trouble, they were supposed to be our side."

Mario heaved in a sight and continued.

"We lost some really good men on that day, in both senses…"

"Very well then, but did you think that it would be a smart enough to hit a place like Sal's in the middle of the fucking day?" Carmine asked, his hot temper bubbling to the surface and Mario blinked.

"That….that wasn't us, Father," Mario said, he managed to keep his tongue from going in the back of his throat.

Johnny managed to look away from needling Alberto long enough to choke on his drink when he heard that exchange. He gagged and he thought that it might have went down the wrong pipe.

Alberto enjoyed the sight of his cousin choking. He took pity on him and slapped him hard on the back to dislodge the drink from his throat.

The Roman's eyes locked onto Johnny. "So, have you recovered enough to talk?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, Uncle Carmine, I have," Johnny said, stammering over his words.

"Then, is there anything that you'd like to share with me?" the Roman asked, sometimes his nephew came off as dumb as a box of rocks and about twice as thick.

"You see…..I was the one who ordered the hit."

The Roman thought that his initial assessment of his nephew was correct. "What made you think that was a good idea?"

"Well, I thought that was justified, with how much the Maroni family really took a hit into us, and that's what Ma would have done."

"Yeah, because you're a fucking Momma's boy," Mario whispered, but there was a knock on the door.

The door opened and revealed Bobby "The Don" Gazzo, a grizzled dark haired middle aged man who stepped into the room, and was followed by a dark haired and tall and imposing looking women, who might have seemed attractive in a certain light, but one could argue that her imposing demeanor put off many from looking past that. Sofia Falcone Gigante ran the New York operation, previously with her now deceased husband, and now she ran things alone and with quite the iron fist. Men feared her, women feared her, life was good as far as she was concerned.

"Daddy!" she squealed, and she didn't care what anyone said about her. Those who called her a Daddy's girl, no matter how true, she would cut off their nuts and force-feed to them raw, and laugh about doing it.

"Sofia, it's good to see you," Carmine said, engulfing his daughter into a tight hug in response.

A stout blonde woman entered the room, dressed in a formal business suit entered. The Roman's sister Carla Viti ran the mob operation in Chicago. The Falcone's might have one of the more progressive crime families in the world, due to the fact that they had females in high positions of power.

Carla sauntered over to her son.

"Johnny, Johnny, you look terrible, have you been eating right?" she asked and Alberto snorted at his aunt.

Johnny could go without eating for several weeks quite nicely. It was a running joke within the mob that he looked like Moe from the Three Stooges if Moe ate Curly and had Larry and Shemp for dessert.

"You know, I think that you might be a bit too thin, you should come home more often, for some more home cooked meals, a boy like you needs to eat properly," Carla said, making sure Johnny's hair and shirt was straight.

Once she got that bit of business taken care of, her gaze turned onto that of her brother's. "So, you're not bug fuck nuts anymore?"

The Roman's gaze could cut through solid steal. "How, would you like to find out how a lethal dose of fear toxin to the face feels? Because, Carla, I can easily arrange that to happen if you'd like a first hand experience."

It wasn't an idle threat and Johnny piped up. "Hey, you can't talk like that to my, Ma!"

"The fuck he can't," Sofia said and she stepped in. Johnny backed off and the entire situation descended into shouting.

Bobby Gazzo, used to being the moderator in situations where grown adults acted like school children, angrily cleared his throat and he spoke. He spoke softly, and people listened, because you did not want to ask the Don to repeat himself. "Alright, calm down, the two of you are supposed to be grown adults, and what's more important, you're family, so act like it."

The Don's gaze swept over them and Sofia nodded in response. She respected her godfather's authority and fell into line Johnny did the same thing, at a smack on his shoulder from his smother.

Alberto broke into giggles and his sister's gaze turned on him. "What's your problem, Spaz?"

A knock on the door cut any argument out of place and Eddie Skeevers of all people limped into the room, leaning on a cane.

Johnny, being the master of tact he was, shouted. "What the fuck is that traitor doing here?"

Carmine ignored this little outburst, and walked over towards him. He swept Skeevers into a hug.

"I'm sorry to hear of the death of your brother," the Roman said him sincerely and Skeevers nodded. "But what happened to your knee?"

"One of the bird's thugs shot me," he grunted and the Roman responded with a swift nod.

The Roman turned to the family. "Alright, Eddie and I, we grew up together, so you'd treat him like you'd treat any other member of the family, is that understood?"

"How can we respect someone who…"

"Just do as I say," the Roman said crisply and even Johnny knew now it was time to shut up and cool his jets, before someone cooled them for him.

Mario looked unsurprised, mostly because Skeevers passed him what information that he could have.

"I'm not impressed by the current state of this family, but some of it was unavoidable," the Roman said with a grunt. Between Bobby being in the middle of Metropolis fighting a gang war with Ugly Mannheim and Sofia burying her husband in Sicily, shit went to pot when he was in his catatonic state. "And Carla, thank you for sending what men you could, along with Johnny, and sorry about what happened about the guys on the bridge….."

The Roman placed his hand on his chin.

"What exactly do you mean by Bruno's men using shit that's outta Star Wars?" The Roman asked and the Don quickly answered that question.

"It means exactly what you think it means, it's shit out of Star Wars," Gazzo said.

The Roman gave a long sweeping sigh, and he looked at the members of his family. "There's going to be a few changes around here for how I do business, Gotham is my territory, and I'm not about to have every Tom, Dick, and Harry take it from me without a fight."

The Roman paused and added.

"And it's time to put some of these factions back into line and you better believe I know that they're not about to come back under heel without a little incentive."

Harry, Lana, and Claire returned after a nice day of riding horses. Currently they were at the stable of the Potter Property, doing routine maintenance on Lana's horse, and also the one that Harry purchased for Nell as a birthday present. Although Claire rode it a bit more then Nell did these days.

Harry would normally help out but there was an instance that he shouldn't. So he opted to supervise.

'You know, it's their responsibility to take care of the Horse that they rode,' Martha said.

'Lana knows this, and so does Claire,' Nell thought and Harry nodded in agreement, not about to argue about the law being laid down by the two girl's respective parental figures.

He leaned against one of the pillars, and the girls when they had a chance, started to fire a million questions a minute at him.

'You know, they asked me a lot of these questions the other day,' Kara chimed in and Harry smiled.

'Well blame the curiosity of the young girls,' Harry thought, but considering that he had a daughter around their age, he knew to indulge their curiosity quite well.

"So, do you have any horses of your own?" Lana asked.

"Actually I don't," Harry said and both girls looked surprised at this bit of news. "At least not directly, but in a fashion I guess that I do. There are whole herds of them on Themyscira, and since I'm married to Hippolyta, and they're hers…..there might be a case for them to be might as well."

Lana thought about it for a second and she cupped her chin underneath her head. She pushed a strand of dark hair out of her face. "You know, I don't think that counts."

Harry chuckled and he wrapped his arm around Lana's shoulder, lightly ruffling her hair. "You know, it likely doesn't."

Claire piped instantly with a smile on her face. "But you got a lot of cars, right?"

"You could say that, but Diana would argue that it's our cars, since she bought just as many as I had," Harry said and Claire and Lana looked surprised. And for good reason because pretty much every single time they ran into Diana, she did the elegant lady thing. Harry chuckled.

"I didn't…" Lana said and she struggled to fight the right words, and Claire jumped in.

"She didn't seem like the type to me," Claire said and she tried to wrap this around her head.

'Oh dear, Diana, I think that you may have confused them,' Donna thought and she shifted her shoulders with a smile.

"Diana has her moments where she can be quite the Tomboy, and she does like that, about as much as I do," Harry explained to both of the girls, who smiled in response. "And she also likes to restore them…..after all a really fast car or motorcycle is about as close as you can get to flying when you have to be on the ground."

Claire frowned when she finished tending to her horse. "But you can fly, right? If you can fly, why don't you do just that?"

Harry sighed; he wished that he had the capabilities to do so. As much as he enjoyed the challenge, there were some instances where he really hated that inhibitor watch. This was one of them.

Lana noticed the reaction and frowned, before she pinched Claire pretty hard. She supposed that it wouldn't hurt her due being a Kryptonian, but the thought was there. "He's sick remember, so he can't fly."

Claire frowned, a sheepish look on her face. "Oh….sorry if I upset you."

She shifted her feet, and looked kind of uncomfortable.

"Don't worry about it, you forgot, it happens to the best of us," Harry said and he ruffled her hair playfully in response. He hauled her up and gave her a piggy back ride, and then he took Lana underneath his arm.

The three of them exited the barn and Claire thought about something. "All I've seen my Pa drive is the truck, but he said that he used to have a really nice Charger once…..he had to sell it, I don't know, he never said why, but I guess that he had to pay a bill or something."

Harry hmmed in response, but thankfully Lana saved him from having to elaborate on this situation.

"Mr. Kent was in a car accident, wasn't he?" Lana asked and Claire nodded.

"Yeah, he was," Claire told the girl.

"But what happened to the truck?"

Claire gave a pointed gasp in response, she didn't think about what happened to his truck.

"It was pretty much totaled, so we're going to have to replace it," Harry said and both girls remained silent. "The Insurance money should cover it."

Of course, Harry decided to buy Jonathan a brand new truck before he got released from the hospital. One that was released within the last five years, and he could say that it got covered by the insurance money.

Talon swept her way back to the Clock Tower, to meet with Oracle and also she ranted to Harry about a point that she wanted to bring up.

'You know, it might be a good idea to come out and say it to Barbara already," Jaime suggested without taking a breath or pausing. She was on a roll and her rant only increase in typical Evans fashion. 'Because if Dinah is any indication, she'll just hop onto the bond after her birthday, and…she'll be kind of pissed that we're keeping things from her.'

'You know, I'm not really lying to her, none of us are, there's enough clues out there in front of here, she's just not putting them together, either she's too busy, or she just doesn't want to do it just yet,' Harry said and Kara popped in.

'It might be out of loyalty to her father,' Kara thought, and she smiled. 'You know, if your psychology class is any indication, she's a bit of a Daddy's girl, and she'd feel obligated to tell Jim, since he's pretty much on the Order side of Law and Order. So she might want to bring him in to help.'

'Providing he hasn't already figured it out,' Jaime thought. 'You know, if Sarah was able to figure it out, he should have been able to as well.'

'Well then it's the same deal with Barbara, but in reverse, he loves his daughter, and she loves Harry, so he's looking the other way.'

Jaime shook her head, she thought that she left the tangled web she weaved behind after her teenage days, but there were just more strands that popped up. The Elevator dinged up and she got into serious mode.

Talon exited the Elevator into the Clock Tower, and found Oracle leaned back into a big comfy office chair. She peered onto the ceiling and had ear buds locked into her ears.

"You know, I seem to think that he's one of those meteor mutants…..I mean timeline wise, it makes perfect sense, he might have been really young, no older than about five or six when he got infected," a voice that Jaime didn't recognize said over the line.

"Please," Lois said, a voice that Jaime did recognize. "He might be one of those super-soldier experiments, you know that the government's always talking about…."

"That's real conspiracy level stuff right there," the girl said and Lois piped back in.

"Well, you think that these Meteor Mutants aren't conspiracy theory stuff?" Lois asked and she sighed, and tapped the side of her head. "I heard Dad talking to his aide and a woman who seemed to redefine the term loud and proud."

Barbara snorted in response, but shook her head, with her two contacts squabbling over each other. "You know, I don't think you mean what it thinks it means."

"What does it mean?"

"Never mind," Lois said quickly, and she shook her head. "But you know, it's more sense for him to be a super soldier than a meteor mutant…"

"Wait, wait, are you sure that they're conducting experiments?" Barbara asked, alarmed by this, but why wouldn't she be alarmed? The government creating experiments to build super soldiers was just a recipe for some kind of fucked up disaster. "Do you remember the name of the woman that her father was talking to?"

"Um….let's see, well I remember her calling her the ball busting bitch once," Lois said, she hemmed and hawed when she racked her brain. "Oh, I think that her name was Doctor Monica Gellar….."

"Lois, you dunce, Miranda Gellar….."

"Monica Gellar?" Lois hissed and her cousin sighed.

"Whatever?" she asked the sound of her face palming audible. "She's the name of that neurotic chick on Friends."

Barbara slipped on a pair of glasses on the bridge of her nose and typed up something in the search engine, and waited.

It hit pay dirt a moment later and the profile of Doctor Miranda Waller popped up. It was a public profile, so it listed some extremely public accomplishments, a Doctor of Political Science and a former Congressional Aide, and then she was appointed Warden of Belle Reve Prison. Her mother had a storied history as well but that was beside the point.

She read it out loud.

"Sounds like her…..well parts of her," Lois muttered.

"And I can see what you mean by loud and proud," Barbara said, and she took a look at the picture, even though it wasn't really a good one.

It was then, where Barbara noticed Talon standing beside her out of the corner of her eye.

"I gotta to go," Oracle said suddenly.

"Right, Athena out," Lois said with a mock salute.

"Indigo out," the second girl answered, and they vanished from the network.

"And Oracle out," Barbara continued and she got up to her feet to see Talon standing there, a sheepish expression on her face.

Jaime made a split second decision not to embarrass her any further. Rather, she took a quick stride across the room, reached in, and pulled out the Disc Drive.

Barbara whistled and stared back at the woman. "Is that what I think it is?"

"It is," Talon confirmed, and Oracle took the drive from her. "Nightwing wants you to find out what Enigma wants on it."

Eagerly, Oracle nodded, and she hooked it up to the computer, using a USB cable. Much to her surprise, she hacked into it quite easily and kind of disappointed on that front to be honest. Leaned in, she pressed her hands upon the screen.

Her mouth hung open in surprise and saw the information pour in front of her eyes. Oracle pressed a few keys and allowed a holographic display of the information to be mounted before them so Talon could take a look at it.

"Still so fucking cool," she muttered, but she shook herself back to life. "Um this is….well this is big, and I think that it's easy to figure out why he wanted this. It's the access codes to the entire Gotham City Radio Network communication grid."

Talon nodded and Oracle tried to keep her excitement down to a lower level, but she could not help herself.

"Technically speaking, he couldn't do anything with this directly, but he could piggy back off the signal," Oracle explained. She calmed herself down and continued. "If he were to piggy back off of the signal, he could access a lot of sensitive information, since a couple of the telecommunication networks aren't Wayne pay GNR to use the radio towers, since the infrastructure is already in place."

She took a deep breath.

"Wayne Entertainment uses Satellites so it's really hard to hack into them…..well I could do it with the equipment here…..but I don't think that he could," Oracle said and she shook her head. "But with all of this information, still not sure what he really wants, because it would be a lot easier just to hack the person's phone records."

Talon smiled. "How would you like to find out?"

Oracle wasn't going to lie, she thought that was extremely tantalizing information.

Roman Sionis, better known to the underworld as the mobster Black Mask, exited a limo and stood himself in front of a rather high class restaurant, especially for this neighborhood. Given that it belonged to Maxie Zeus, he expected nothing less.

He received a mysterious phone call a couple of hours, and was told that if he was at this particular location, at this particular time, he wouldn't regret it.

He manned up and rolled the dice, a couple of bodyguards backing him up in case this was an ambush. They sat in a car in a parking lot, Black Mask felt really good about this meeting. It was just a vibe that he had.

Sionis walked forward, dressed in his best ,and he stopped with the head server. "I'm here to meet someone….."

"Right this way, sir," the head server said, she had been told by the other guest that this man would be arriving soon.

Sionis stopped in surprise, and spotted Oswald Cobblepot sitting at a nearby table, eating.

"Sit down, my friend," Oswald said calmly, and he pulled out a chair to have his potential rival take a seat.

Needless to say that Black Mask was intrigued by why the Penguin offered him to come here for dinner.

He remained calm and even, and stared the bird down. He figured that it would be best to hear him out.

"So what's the deal?" Sionis asked and Cobblpeot smiled.

"We should work together, both of our families are Gotham Institutions, and with the Roman back from Wonderland, there's no telling what people like Thorne, or the other factions are going to do," Cobblepot said and he smiled. "Scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, that's the deal. You supply the drugs, and I'll supply the guns, along with a few nastier surprises."

Cobblepot and Sionis locked eyes with each other and their hands met in the center of the table with a crisp handshake. A match made in hell was just made and the ramifications would rock Gotham City.

Enigma's grin widened and he looked like a kid on Christmas morning, and it had come early for him too.

His handler transmitted the data to him and the man leaned back, with a wide grin on his face, but the grin slowly faltered when he realized that wasn't what he was looking for all.

"All that work, all that time, wasted, I can't believe it!" he howled at the top of his lungs and he tapped a button on his cell phone.

He zapped his handler through a device that he installed on the specialized cell phone that he gave him. It came in handy if someone failed him or tried to give up for information.

He seethed in anger, not knowing that a tricky little worm implanted on the drive slipped into his network and began to cause havoc.