While Harley Quinn drowned in heartbreak back in Gotham, Jack Kadere was having the time of his life behind the wheel of the Batmobile.
The city might be on lockdown, but nobody had told him he couldn't fly. The only bridge connecting Gotham to the outside world was still blocked—soldiers stationed at both ends with orders to keep everyone in. Jack drove the Batmobile straight over their heads.
Gunfire erupted from below. Bullets pinged off the armored chassis in a steady rhythm, accomplishing nothing. The Batmobile's construction was as solid as its owner's paranoia. Jack traced lazy shapes in the air—an F, then a U—wondering if any of the idiots down there were literate enough to appreciate the message.
Once he cleared the bridge, he brought the Batmobile down and switched from flight mode to ground racing.
The engine roared. Cars ahead scattered to the shoulders, too panicked to make way gracefully. None of them stopped to admire the vehicle. Jack drove without any particular destination, just moving, until the engine coughed and died.
"Good cars burn fuel." He patted the dashboard. "Good women burn men."
The Batmobile was out of gas.
Jack checked the navigation display. He wasn't far from Starling City. "Starling City? So it hasn't been renamed yet." He smiled to himself. "Guess I'll pay a visit to Green Arrow. Or should I say, the Cuckold in Green." He considered it. "No, that's too long. Green Arrow works. The color fits his romantic track record anyway."
He stepped out and looked around. Dense brush. Empty road. Nothing else.
"Time to walk."
Jack picked a direction and started moving. The Batmobile sat abandoned behind him—just expensive scrap metal without fuel. Anyone who wanted it could have it, assuming they didn't mind Batman showing up at their door eventually.
He walked at a leisurely pace, like he was out for a stroll rather than stranded in the middle of nowhere.
Cars passed occasionally. None stopped.
Then a brown sedan drove past him, slowed, and pulled over ahead. It reversed carefully until it was beside him, and the window rolled down.
The driver was a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and black-rimmed glasses. Something about her—the slightly rumpled clothes, the uncertain posture, the way she gripped the steering wheel even while parked—suggested a student, or someone who'd recently been one.
"Um." She hesitated. "Do you need a ride?"
"I'd appreciate one." Jack smiled and got in.
"You're welcome." She pushed her glasses up, already looking somewhere else, and fumbled with the ignition to get the car moving again.
Her eyes locked onto the road ahead. Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel.
"You seem nervous," Jack observed.
"No. I'm not. I'm just—not great with people." Her voice came out too fast. "I saw you walking and you didn't look like a bad person, and I've never picked anyone up before, so I thought I'd try it. You don't have to worry—I just got my license recently, but there definitely won't be any problems. Are you traveling? Starling City is a terrible place to visit. Sorry, that came out wrong. I mean there's not much to do here, and if you're job hunting there are better cities, but I'm not picky and Queen Consolidated has good benefits—"
She stopped abruptly.
Jack watched her with mild amusement.
Her words had gotten faster and faster, tumbling over each other, until she'd realized she was having a conversation with herself. She turned to look at him, cheeks flushing pink behind her glasses.
"Sorry. I do that." An awkward smile. "I'm Felicity. Felicity Smoak."
"Jack Kadere."
"Jack Kadere." She tested the name. "Is that Chinese? Korean? Definitely not Japanese—Japanese names are usually longer, and the syllable structure is different, and I should probably stop analyzing your name out loud—"
"You mentioned Oliver Queen," Jack said.
Felicity blinked at the interruption. "Of course I know who he is. Famous playboy, billionaire heir. About six months ago he was on the Queen's Gambit with his father when it went down. The whole thing was—" She caught herself mid-gossip, noticing that Jack's attention had drifted elsewhere.
Six months ago. That meant Oliver was still stuck on Lian Yu.
Jack had come to Starling City half-hoping to meet the legendary Green Arrow—the hero who wore green, got cheated on constantly, and somehow still attracted more women than he could handle. Superheroes in general seemed incapable of maintaining stable relationships. Everyone was sleeping with everyone else's partners. But Oliver Queen had turned romantic catastrophe into an art form. Nobody wore the horns quite like him.
If the shipwreck had only happened six months ago, Oliver wouldn't be back for a while yet.
No Green Arrow to visit.
Disappointing.