When I started coming to, I groaned loud enough to make me flinch. The sound was partially due to the soreness of my body after being blown around so much and majority because of the familiar feel of the tension wire encasing my arms.

"Seriously Grayson?" I complained without opening my eyes. "This again? You know I hate being restrained."

"Pretty sure the vast majority of the world does," a voice answered. I opened my eyes and sighed to find the new Robin instead of the one I was hoping for.

He was sitting in a backwards chair a few feet away from me, leaning on the back of it with his chin on crossed arms. He was still in full Robin gear and it looked out of place in the clean cut, high class set up of the apartment around us.

Nearly the entire wall behind him was lined with floor to ceiling windows, thin shades pulled down to keep prying eyes away. From experience, I knew that it didn't matter either way; if we were in a Batman safe house then we were probably in the penthouse so far up that no one could see inside anyway.

"What are you doing here? I thought you left me for dead?" I asked, shifting uncomfortably in my own seat. As I spoke, I realized that I didn't feel the constant brush of my mask on my skin which meant my physical identity was on full display.

That was unfortunate.

"I left you; I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to stay there to die," he answered. "Clearly I underestimated the strength of your death wish."

"Where's Grayson?" I demanded, tired of going unanswered.

"Who?" he deadpanned.

I pushed the words through my gritted teeth. "You're not nearly as stupid as you're pretending to be. Where is Dick Grayson? I'm Madalyn, an old friend."

I thought he was going to continue to play dumb but instead he lifted his head and straightened his back.

"Must not have been a good friend then, because I've never heard of you."

"I'm sorry, does he make a habit of sharing all of his friends names with you?"

"The ones that matter," he smirked, clearly trying to get a rise out of me.

I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction.

With a wide smile of my own, I said "Yeah? And what about his special sexy time friends? He tell you about those too?"

The boy's blue eyes widened behind his mask as his jaw dropped. "You've gotta be fucking with me," he said in disbelief. "You slept with Dick too? Jesus, talk about underestimating someone. He's clearly got more game than I gave him credit for."

I rolled my eyes. "Now that you know I actually know him, do you mind telling me who the hell you are?"

"I'm Dick's replacement," he said with a shit eating grin. "The newer, better Robin. Jason Todd."

"That first part seems a bit subjective, but ok then. Since we're acquainted now, can you let me out of this thing? And point me to Dick's room, I think it's time we have a little chat."

"Dick's not here," Jason replied flatly, eyebrows raised.

"When will he be back?"

"He won't; he's not here at all. It's just me."

I shook my head at his words, sure that he was lying.

I know the promise Dick and I made, but was he really going to avoid dealing with me so long as we were this close already?

"Bullshit, I saw him earlier," I said. "He pulled me out of that building just before I passed out."

Jason looked at me like I was insane and admittedly I was beginning to think so myself. "I was the one who pulled you out of that building."

"No, you left."

"And then I came back," he responded. "Thanks to some people I know, I've grown a bit of a conscious about leaving behind people. Especially ones that have saved me. I went back to make sure you got out and when I got there you were crumpled on the floor, half conscious and mumbling something."

"His name," I said quietly, more to myself than him. "I thought you were him, and I was surprised to see him. Clearly I hit my head pretty hard."

"I've been there," Jason scoffed and I looked at him again. He gave me a half smile of camaraderie, no more judgment on his face. "Even without the hit on the head." His voice was quiet, like he understood it all too well. Like those ghosts spent more time with him than he was willing to admit.

I didn't pry; he clearly didn't want to talk about his demons anymore than I did. "Not to sound like a broken record or anything, but this wire is cutting into my skin."

"Right," he said offhandedly. His hand moved to the side of his belt where he pressed a button and the wires suddenly fell loose. It did not feel as good as I was hoping it would. I let out a more painful groan than before as I slumped forward and I heard him get up from his chair, hovering near and unsure. "Umm, I don't know if you have any sort of superhuman healing or anything..."

I laughed ironically. "God, don't I wish."

"In that case, there's a hot tub in the back you can use to soak," he said, semi- awkwardly. "The jets work wonders on bruises."

"I'm sure they do. Only the best for Bruce and his disciples, right?" I said with another forced laugh as I attempted to get up. Pain shot through me and I gritted my teeth to bite back any sound that tried to escape. I forced myself to stand straight, to keep any betrayal of an emotion from my face. "But I have a nice tub and bath salts at home that work just fine. Thanks though."

Jason sighed, part exasperated part annoyed. "At the risk of sounding like Dick, I don't think you should be by yourself for the next few hours. You could have a concussion and if you're as important to Dick as you've implied, I'd rather not have to be the one to tell him that you died. Especially on my watch. He's got enough to deal with right now."

I'd started to stretch, hoping the pull of my muscles would offer a relief from the stiff pain, but stopped at his words.

There was something in the way he said it, the way he was careful not to say too much, that told me whatever happened was bad. Not bad like me considering going full criminal, but bad like heartbreaking pain. I hoped I was just reading too much into nothing, but either way I had to know.

If Dick truly needed me, I would be there in a heartbeat, our promise be damned. "Is he okay?"

"As okay as he can be for someone who just had to put another friend in a coffin," Jason answered, a sad look in his own eyes.

"Who died? I mean, if you don't mind me asking," I said curiously.

Jason shrugged. "I'm sure you'll find out eventually. It was Wonder Girl. D—"

"Donna?" I gasped out, like I'd taken a punch to the gut. My knees gave out from under me and I fell backwards on the chair again, my eyes stinging with oncoming tears. My hands balled into fists at my side and the pain I'd felt in my body a minute ago was replaced with something brand new. "Donna Troy is dead?"

"Shit. I didn't even think you would know her but of course, if you were close with Dick..."

"How...?" I forced out, my body slowly growing colder. "How long?"

Jason looked at me warily, taking a step or two back. He must've saw something in my face that even I didn't know was there.

"About a couple of weeks ago, I guess."

"A couple of...weeks..." I repeated flatly, staring out at the darkened windows behind him without really seeing them. "Donna...is dead..." I felt the build up too late; I felt the cold fill my body, felt the air fill my lungs to its fullest capacity. I felt the reverberations from deep down inside of me and then...

Then I let out a pained scream so loud and strong that the building around us shook and the glass in the windows shattered, the shades torn to tatters.

Jason, caught up in it all, fell to the floor and slid backwards until his body slammed into the wall, the chair heading straight for him. He kicked it away last minute and it went out the window with the rest of the living room furniture as my cry slowly died out.

By the time I'd stopped entirely, the place looked like it had been in an earthquake or tornado and Jason looked around in disbelief before bringing his icy eyes back to me.

"Jesus, fuck, man. That was bulletproof glass! Bruce is gonna fucking kill me!"

I barely registered his words; I just stared down at the floor, feeling exhausted and numb.

Donna Troy, my first, real friend, was dead.

And I was finding out about it a couple of weeks later from a kid who didn't even know I existed.

**********

Six years ago

I was groggy, slowly waking up from the sleep gas that Dick had hit me with, and the first thing I noticed without opening my eyes was the soft, full bed beneath me.

It was so incredibly comfortable that for a minute I didn't care where I was or even that I'd been taken there against my will. But then I noticed the voices arguing not too far away; Dick and the female voice I heard that night in the jewelers.

I opened my eyes and sat up with a sigh, looking around the fancy, well lit room around me. I was alone and could hear the arguing as clear as if they were in the room. I climbed out of the bed and walked quietly to the door, listening to their voices on the other side.

"You're smarter than this, Dick! You can't just go around doing stupid shit like this!" the female said.

"I don't need the lecture, Donna. I'm sure Bruce will give me one when he gets back in town."

"What makes you think she's going to stick around that long? You said it yourself, you had to use knock out gas to bring her here because otherwise she would've put up a fight," Donna replied back. "If she wants to leave, which she probably will, what are you going to do? Keep using the gas on her?"

"Maybe." I could almost see him shrug in my mind. "I'll figure it out when we get there."

"You're kidding me," she said, a moment of silence passing between them before she scoffed. "You know, growing up, all you ever said was that if Bruce really cared about helping you as a kid, he would've let you grow up leading a normal life. If he'd given you a choice. She may not be a kid, but if you force her to stay, are you really doing any better than him?"

"I'm not going to force her to be like us," Dick answered. "I just— I want to help her."

"Why? What makes you think she needs or wants it?"

"I don't know if she wants it, but she needs it, alright? You didn't see how she was living— where she was living. I'm surprised she's survived as long as she has. The standing of that building alone should've killed her ten times over." I thought about his words and where I'd been living. It obviously wasn't a palace like this place, but I didn't think it was that bad. I mean, I'd seen worse buildings before I decided on crashing at that one. "She's not a bad person and she shouldn't have to keep living like that."

"Not a bad person? Dick, you literally met her while she was breaking and entering. She kicked your ass and would've stolen jewelry if we hadn't shown up. What about that screams innocent in need of help?"

Part of me was annoyed by her words, but I also knew she wasn't wrong.

Everything about how we met and what brought me here said I was bad; and I was. Not just because of all the things I stole to sell on the side, but because of the things I'd seen and made no effort to stop. I never hesitated to put my safety before anyone else; he just hadn't seen that side of me yet.

Yet the girl who hadn't even met me seemed to see right into my being.

"Listen, I appreciate you having my back and just thinking things through for me, even when I never asked you to," Dick said. "But I know what I'm doing here. I'll deal with Bruce and whatever the backlash is when he gets back. Alfred already agreed to let me tell him about all of this first so just, please, promise me you won't say anything. Not to Diana and definitely not to Bruce."

"You still haven't told me why you're doing this," Donna said. "What about her makes you think she needs the help? For all we know, she really is Ivy's daughter and this is all just some plot to hit us from the inside."

I shifted my weight slightly and winced at the slight creak of the floor below my feet. There was silence on the other side of the door for a bit and I silently cursed the floorboards. I waited for the door to open, catching me in my eavesdropping, but it didn't happen.

"She genuinely doesn't seem to know who Poison Ivy is," Dick answered, and I made a mental note to really look into her sometime soon. If I'd done it when he first mentioned her, I could've avoided this entire situation. "She could be her daughter but if she is, it's news to her. She doesn't know anything about her past. I don't know anything about her but I feel like it's my responsibility to help her. Like there was a reason why I met her when I did and why she didn't kill me when she had the chance. I watched her, Donna. She had the perfect opportunity to steal money and get herself something to eat that hadn't been someone else's. Instead she left the money and took half eaten food. When have you heard of a villain or criminal who did that?"

"Maybe she knew you were following her."

Dick snorted a laugh. "When has anyone known I was following them?" His words were met with silence and I found myself wondering how many times he tried to play someone's knight in shining armor. "She deserves someone's help and I'm going to give her mine. Besides, if I was her I would want some kind of answers, wouldn't you?"

Donna sighed. "You're more stubborn than the entire League put together, you know that right?" Dick laughed softly and I found myself wondering what that looked like on him. "If you're going to insist on doing this, then fine. But I'm helping you. And before you open your mouth to insist you don't need my help, don't. It's happening anyway."

There was no warning before the doorknob started to turn and I had to lunge for the bed to keep my cover. As with much of my life thus far, I had the bad luck that I didn't quite make it and instead fell with a thud to the floor, neck bouncing off the edge of the mattress and just banging the corner of the bedside table.

A sharp pain speared across my temple as I blinked up at the door, expecting to see Dick but instead finding Donna.

She was tall, though I didn't think she was as tall as Dick, and gorgeous in an ethereal sort of way. She had long dark hair that was pulled back in a low ponytail, big brown eyes and full pink lips set in a porcelain face. She wore leggings and an oversized white knit sweater with a hole at the neckline that looked like she made a habit of picking at it.

Her face was in a fierce mask as she stared back at me, assessing my position on the floor. "I thought I heard someone at the door," she said by way of a greeting.

"No idea what you mean, I just—"

"Things would go a lot better between of us if we just kept things a hundred percent honest," she interrupted, closing the room door behind her and crossing her arms over her chest. "Lies, including small ones, imply that you're hiding something. I'm not one for surprises and would like to avoid them as much as possible. Is that going to be a problem for you, Madalyn Addams?"

"Not at all, Donna last-name-I-don't-know," I responded with an innocent smile as I slowly started to stand. And really it was true; I had no trouble with honesty. I would love it if me and everyone else in the world could walk around telling nothing but the truth all the time. Society was the one that seems to dictate that we do otherwise.

If honesty was what Donna wanted, then we were already on the same page.

"Obviously that was me at the door before. I woke up, heard arguing and went to see who it was. Then I heard what vaguely sounded like a conversation about me and decided it was in my best interest to listen in. For someone whose never met me, you sure have a lot to say."

"What can I say, I'm cautious by nature," she shrugged. "But since you heard all of that, why don't you tell me your side."

"My side of what? I don't understand why Grayson brought me here any more than you do."

"Tell me who you are. What makes you do the things you do? Why should I trust you?"

"You shouldn't," I answered with a shrug, crossing my own arms over my chest. Probably not the best thing for me to say, but we'd decided to opt for honesty. "You want the truth, so here it is. I don't know who I am, not really. My name, my whole identity? Made it up. Not even cleverly either; I chose Addams because I saw the Addams Family playing through an electronics store window and Wednesday Addams was a bad bitch that I aspired to be. I couldn't exactly have her name because, hello, red flag. As for Madalyn, it just sort of popped in my head. Who knows, maybe it is my real name but since I can't remember anything about my past I couldn't tell you for sure.

"I can manipulate plant life to an extent and I can kind of drug people into doing what I want if I breathe on them a certain way. But I don't know where that comes from and if I'm in anyway related to this Poison Ivy chick that Grayson keeps mentioning to me. All I know is that a few months ago I woke up naked and with no memory on the outskirts of Gotham river and ever since then I've done what I had to to survive under the radar."

Donna was silent for a minute before she said "And that includes stealing?"

"It'd include murder if my only option left was to become a cannibal," I answered. She gave me a disgusted and disturbed look that made me smirk just because of the effect my words made. Truthfully, I didn't think I'd ever go cannibal whether it was my only option or not.

I had to draw the line somewhere.

"That's...interesting," Donna replied. She looked me over again, assessing me with new eyes now that she'd heard two versions of me. She dropped her arms to her sides but still managed to keep her stance fierce. "Dick seems to think you need our help—"

"His help," I corrected offhandedly. "Dick thinks I need his help. He seemed pretty certain he didn't need your involvement."

"Yeah, well, he has it," she continued. "Dick is family to me and I'm not leaving him to blindly help someone I don't think can be trusted. So, if you really need help—if you want help—then we'll both be here to do it. But consider this; if you choose to stay and let us help you and decide, at any point, to double cross us and hurt Dick in any way, I will get rid of you myself."

"What, you're going to kill me?" I scoffed, more impressed by her audacity of the threat than worried by it. In my defense, at the time, I didn't know anything about her and what she was capable of. "I thought heroes weren't about that life."

"I'm a hero, not an angel. They aren't always interchangeable."

"So what would you say avenging angels fall under?"

"Don't push me to that point and hopefully we'll never have to find out," Donna said with a chilling smile.

I'd spent less time with her than I had with Dick, but by the end of that conversation I had decided to stay because of her.

She was my new Wednesday Addams; everything I wanted to be.

Beautiful. Fierce. Loyal. Someone with a life and a purpose.

Someone that, if I proved myself, I would be lucky to call family.

I've wanted Mady & Donna to be friends since I first came up with this fic idea. Even though it was a small one, it brought me so much joy to write this scene of them together. Can't wait to write more ^.^

How are you guys liking the story so far? What are your thoughts on Madalyn?