Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice. (If I did, it wouldn't have gotten cancelled)

Chapter One

A Girl with Wings

November 11th

It was warm for November that year. Summer had arrived late, but when it finally did, it was reluctant to leave, resulting in a summer-like September and October, and a mild November that only made long sleeved shirts necessary at night. Gotham was as dark as ever, but the unusual heat removed that cold, unforgiving feel the slums usually had this time of year. Not that they were any less dangerous. The only safety you could get in this kind of place was a weapon of some sort or perhaps just avoiding it all together.

Though, there was also the safety that the Batman and his team provided. It was a well known fact that if Batman wasn't out at night, then one of his protégés (or former protégé) was bound to be. Sometimes more than one. The more observant – or perhaps obsessive – person would know that there were four of them in total: Batman, Batgirl, Robin, and Nightwing.

The even more observant person would has noticed that it had been a long time since Nightwing was last spotted on patrol in the city.

The young hero in question was, for the first time in at least a month, once again to be found on a lone rooftop, looking out over some of Gotham's more questionable streets. His eyes were constantly scanning the area, his ears ready to pick up any sound.

But the streets were quiet. There was no sound to hear, no crime to see.

With a bored sigh, Nightwing fired his trusty grapple hook and swung over the building's edge, landing soundlessly on the emergency stairs of the apartment complex across the street. In a few fluid moves, he clambered up the emergency stairs and pulled himself up onto the roof of the building, running to the other side of the flat surface, where he proceeded to stand still and listen for any incriminating sounds in the streets again.

Tonight was, without a doubt, one of the slower ones.

Still, he was glad for the opportunity to be out there again. And he should've actually been thankful for such a quiet night, as the only reason he was out was because he needed to relax for a little bit.

Nightwing wryly wondered when patrolling Gotham's slums had become 'relaxation'.

He already knew the answer to that question, of course. Since Kaldur's 'betrayal', which had made Nightwing the leader of the Team back in March, he'd been feeling very thinly stretched. Had he known how much of a burden becoming team leader was going to be, Nightwing thought, he might not have been as eager to be leader back when the team was originally formed.

So, the simple patrol, a routine he'd done so many times for the past ten years he could do it in his sleep, was a nice relaxing exercise. It was alone-time, something Nightwing felt that he sorely needed. Time away from the endless responsibilities that seemed to keep piling up on his metaphorical work desk.

Or not as metaphorical anymore, as he had literally installed a work desk in his room back at his apartment that was solely for team leader business.

He groaned quietly to himself. When Batman had asked him if he felt up for patrolling the city tonight he'd jumped at the chance to do something that would stop him from thinking about his responsibilities, and yet here he was, thinking about his responsibilities

He stepped back a few paces from the edge of the roof top and then took off at a sprint, jumping over the small gap between this apartment building and the next, willing himself to stop thinking about team stuff.

You are here to fight crime, so focus! He mentally reprimanded himself in his best Batman imitation.

Only, there was no crime to fight. The streets underneath him where empty, save for a single elderly man walking his dog.

Nightwing ran the back of a hand across his brow to wipe some sweat off of it, the unusually warm November night getting to him. He really shouldn't have worn his winter gear, but he had been an idiot and forgotten to check the local weather reports.

Looking up into the sky, he briefly wondered if there was going to be a thunderstorm later, with all the heat and rain they'd been getting for the past week.

Tonight was, thankfully, a dry one. He continued on his way, not even bothering to run anymore. Walking up to the end of the apartment building, Nightwing heaved himself up to the roof of the slightly taller building right next to the one he was standing on now.

Still no crime to fight. Maybe there criminals were just getting lazy. Or perhaps they'd all just been apprehended already.

I guess Babs and Tim are a lot more effective than I gave them credit for.

He decided to just do a quick scout of the rest of the streets, and then head home. Maybe he would even get home early enough to do some homework and still get enough sleep that night. A small smile quirked the right side of his mouth at the thought of getting a good night of sleep.

Between his school work, training, crime fighting, and being the leader of the team, sleep was one of the things he sometimes had to do without. His disciplinary need to do everything perfectly didn't allow him to slack off on anything, and sleep really was quite a time consumer.

Half an hour later, he'd covered the entire area he usually visited, without any exciting results.

He was almost itching for a good fight.

He'd continued on his way back to where he'd parked his bike – in one of the nicer areas of the city as theft or vandalism was less likely there, when a commotion underneath him made him stop in his tracks.

Nightwing ran soundlessly for the edge of the roof top and peered down, inwardly hoping for the excuse to beat up someone.

In the large and dirty alley directly underneath him, brightly lit by the yellow-tinted streetlight, he spotted a gang of five tough-looking men cornering a woman.

She was small and young – maybe Nightwing's age – compared to the five mid-twenties, maybe early thirties men around her.

They were leering at her, their intent obvious in the way their eyes roamed along her slight body, which was hidden underneath a hoodie that had to be four sizes to large, reaching her mid-thigh.

One of them lunged for her and got hold of her shirtsleeve, pulling on it roughly. When he heard the girl's surprised and fearful squeak, Nightwing was about to jump to her rescue when he saw something that made him freeze so suddenly he almost toppled over the edge of the building he was crouching on.

The guy that had hold of her shirt sleeve pulled on it roughly enough for the zipper to break and open up completely. Another tug, and the shirt fell clean off her, revealing a mangled and ill-kept pair of..

Wings.

The girl had wings sticking out of her back.

The five guys all recoiled, surprised shouts reaching Nightwing's ears, but before they could run away, the mountain of trashcans that was stacked at the left wall of the alley fell over, seemingly on its own, and buried the men underneath it.

The girl picked up her hoodie and threw it on, and then ran as fast as she could out of the alley and away from the pile of semi-knocked out men that were all groaning in pain.

Nightwing shook his head and brought himself back to the present. He'd been too shell-shocked at the unexpected turn of events to see what had made the trashcans fall over, and now he was almost losing the girl.

Making a split second decision that he at the time didn't know was going to completely change his future, Nightwing took off at a sprint along the rooftops, effortlessly catching up to the girl, who was still running away on the ground.

Keeping up with the running girl was easy, and he spent the time mulling over what he had seen.

In the brief seconds he got to see the wings, he could tell that they were ill-kept. He could see that the girl was doing what she could to hide them, as she had belts strapped around them in an attempt to make them smaller and have them flatten against her back.

His homework and promise of sleep was long forgotten now that the night had taken such an unexpected turn.

He followed the girl unnoticed for perhaps another five minutes. They were now in the middle class parts of the city, a part Nightwing was rarely in. He wasn't entirely sure why he'd decided to follow her, but the rational part of his mind reminded him that Batman would want to know about any oddities in Gotham. And a girl with wings was certainly an oddity. The detective part of him also wanted to investigate further. After all, maybe he had been mistaken. Maybe it was part of a costume (possible) or maybe she was hiding a bird under her hoodie (unlikely).

So, if he wanted to report anything to Batman, he needed to make absolutely sure that the girl did in fact have.. wings..

Maybe she was the same species as Hawkgirl and Hawkman.

That didn't explain why it looked like she was hiding her wings, though.

She ran up to an old, yellow apartment building and dug out a key, disappearing inside in a moment. Nightwing scowled and slammed his closed fist down on the top of the brick wall he was hiding behind. He'd probably lost her now. Still, he stayed where he was for a moment, thinking that perhaps he'd be able to spot her through one of the windows in the building.

He was in luck. Two minutes after she had gone inside, a light turned on in one of the rooms on the fourth floor. He spotted her walking by the window and then the curtains were closed, leaving nothing but a dark silhouette for him to spy on.

He squinted his eyes and moved a building over to get closer to the window he was looking at. The silhouette was still there, and he paused when he saw that it was taking the hoodie off, revealing the wings again. She removed the belts that had strapped the wings to her back. He tensed when the wings spread out and moved once, then twice before folding and resting against her back again.

Definitely not a costume and definitely not a hidden bird.

Nightwing swung down the building and landed gracefully on the street, running across it. He reached the locked front door of the building and studied the nameplates there.

Left apartment on the fourth floor..

He found the right name plate and read it, memorizing the names for later use.

Abigail Grant & Morgan Louise Jørgensen, it read.

He wasn't sure if the girl was Abigail or Morgan, or what her relation to the other person in the apartment was. All he knew was that Batman would certainly want to know about this, Nightwing had work to do, and he would probably not get any homework done tonight after all.

Nightwing checked his position, calculated the fastest route back to his bike, and then he was gone.

Dick leaned back in his chair, his chin in his hands as he studied the screen in front of him. His mask was off, and he had opened Nightwing's suit to let in some of the cool air. Somewhere, in a distant corner of the batcave, the flutter of leathery wings and the screech of a bat could be heard.

How fitting, Dick thought absently, though he mind wasn't really focused on the cave's wildlife.

After getting home from his patrol around Gotham, Dick settled down in front of Batman's massive computer, as he'd done so many times before. Here, he had punched in the first name he'd seen on the plate that belonged to the apartment.

Abigail Grant. The picture that showed up didn't match the girl he'd seen, so he assumed that the girl with the wings was Morgan. Abigail was a grown woman, working as a nurse at one of Gotham's hospitals. Formerly married to Henrik Jørgensen, the father of her daughter Morgan Louise Jørgensen.

Dick researched the man and found that they'd gotten divorced eight years ago and he had gone back to his homeland, Denmark. Explained the unusual name.

Next, Dick looked up the daughter's name. A picture of a young girl with big, thick, unruly, blonde curls and grey eyes popped up on the screen and Dick knew he'd found her. This was the girl he'd seen. From what he could see, there was nothing unusual about her.

She was eighteen years old, about seven months younger than him and attending her first year at Gotham's community college. She lived with her mother and worked at a pizzeria every weekend, as the pizza delivery guy.. girl. Whatever.

The important thing was that she was completely ordinary according to the files. And her mother seemed like a perfectly normal human too, not that Dick hadn't learned long ago that looks were deceiving and the bat-computer wasn't always right.

But it was right most of the time.

Still, he made a mental note to check out the father. He wasn't from America, and he hadn't been in the country since he divorced Morgan's mother, so digging up dirt about him might prove to be a bit trickier. So far, he was the main suspect when it came to figuring out why the girl had wings.

With a sigh and a glance at the watch in the corner of the screen in front of him, he decided that he'd have to continue this little investigation tomorrow.

And he hadn't even gotten any homework done.

Alright! So, I've been writing on this story for roughly half a year by now and I'm incredibly excited to finally post it! Now that my Superman story is practically finished, I felt it was time to finally start posting this one.

I know a lot of you have been anticipating it for some time, so I hope the first chapter wasn't a let down!

The chapters will be longer, I just have a thing for short prologue chapters.

Fun fact: I decided to make my original character half danish because I wanted to try my hand at someone with 'mixed' nationalities, and the only nationality I'd know how to write and feel comfortable with portraying is danish because, well, I'm danish.