Chapter Text
Lizzie was screaming.
It was all she could do. Her parents were still in their apartment that had just blown up and her arm was definitely broken after her mother threw her out of the window in an attempt to save her life. She wasn’t sure what hurt more, the pain in her arm or the hole that had just opened up in her heart.
She vaguely understood that someone was in front of her, trying to draw her attention away from the burning building but she couldn’t bring her eyes to move.
Lizzie finally stopped her scream, if only because her lungs were burning, and tore her eyes away from the horror in front of her to look at the masked person at her side.
He was wearing green leather and had a hood covering most of his head that was slowly falling down. Over his shoulder, Lizzie could see the outline of arrows dangling off his back. She turned her eyes toward him and attempted to focus on his voice instead of the ringing in her ears.
“That’s it kiddo. Just look at me. Can you tell me your name?” the man asked calmly.
“Elizabeth,” she said, finally letting the tears fall.
“That’s a very pretty name. Do you know who I am?”
Lizzie stared at the man. He looked familiar. She thinks she might have seen him on the TV or in the newspaper her father always reads.
“The Arrow?” she questioned, not sure if she was right.
He laughed. “Green Arrow, actually.” He turned his body slightly and pointed to someone he was originally blocking from view before. “That’s Speedy. He’s my partner.”
Lizzie nervously waved to the boy in red and he nodded back, inching slightly closer, as if not to spook her.
“Call Black Canary,” Green Arrow said to Speedy before turning back to her. “If you want, you can come with me and Speedy. We can help you, Elizabeth.”
She looked over her shoulder, towards the apartment building. She could hear the sirens from the fire trucks, adding to the chaos of the collapsing building. Her eyes wandered over to Green Arrow and she threw herself into his chest, sobbing.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, picking her up.
The trip over the rooftops of Star City was a blur and Lizzie soon found herself sitting in a comfy office chair in what looked like a warehouse.
“Gummy worms?” Speedy asked, offering her a recently opened bag. She hesitantly took the bag, before munching on her newly acquired sugar, finding it a better way to drown her sorrows than the tissue Green Arrow gave her.
The door opened, causing Lizzie to jump, thankfully not dropping her gummy worms. In walked a pretty woman with blonde hair and black leather with fishnet stockings. Lizzie was pretty sure the woman was Black Canary, her mother dressed up as the heroine for Halloween last year.
Black Canary stopped in front of Lizzie, crouching down to meet the girl’s height. “Hello Elizabeth. I’m Black Canary. Can you tell me how old you are?”
“Eight.”
“Do you have any family besides your parents? Grandparents, siblings, an aunt or an uncle perhaps?”
Lizzie just shook her head, realizing her parents are gone if they were asking about any other family members.
Black Canary picked up Lizzie's unbroken hand and gave it a small squeeze. “You’ll be okay Elizabeth. I promise.”
Lizzie just nodded before turning back to her gummy worms attempting to drown her sorrows like her father used to.
~
“Want to explain why you brought the girl back here instead of dropping her off with social services. This isn’t Gotham. The system actually works,” Dinah hissed at Oliver, trying not to startle the eight year old who was curled in the chair barely ten feet away.
Oliver looked over at Elizabeth. Even from here he could see tears falling from her bright green eyes. Every time he looked at the brunette his heart broke again. At least Roy was patching her up and giving the girl a sling for her broken arm.
“Oliver,” Dinah hissed, drawing his attention from the kids.
“She screamed. Like you do.”
That seemed to stop Dinah from the rant she was clearly about to begin. She sighed and leaned back against a table. “Start from the beginning.”
“Roy and I were patrolling, like usual when we saw a kid get thrown out a window. Just after she hit the ground the building she was in blew up. We dropped down to see if she was okay when she looked at the building and screamed. It was a canary cry, like yours but louder. The building was crumbling but there was no way it was going to fall before she screamed. Probably would have lost my hearing if I stood in front of her. Anyway, I finally calmed her down, learned her name was Elizabeth, and we came here.”
“Do you know what caused the explosion?”
“I was more concerned about the adorable eight year old metahuman.”
“You're going to adopt her aren’t you?”
“If she lets me. Besides, look at her and Roy, they’ll get along great.”
Dinah and Oliver looked over at Roy and Elizabeth. The fourteen year old was telling the eight year old a story using one hand for dramatic gestures and the other for cleaning and bandaging the cuts on her arm. Elizabeth was munching on her gummy worms, entranced by whatever story Roy was telling her. Oliver watched her green eyes widen with wonder before a small giggle escaped her lips.
“I think they will,” Dinah said.
Oliver walked towards the kids, careful not to spook Elizabeth,
“Hey Elizabeth,”
“Lizzie.”
“Lizzie,” Oliver smiled, “how would you like to come and live with us.”
Lizzie stared for a moment before turning to look at Roy.
“Is he nice?” she asked him, pointing at Oliver.
Roy snorted before nodding.
“Okay,” Lizzie said, turning back to Oliver. “Can I have more gummy worms, Mr. Arrow?”
“Sure. And call me Oliver. And that’s Roy and Dinah,” he said, pointing to his son and girlfriend respectively.
“Okay,” Lizzie said, hugging her now empty package of gummy worms to her chest.
~
Roy was proud to say he was the first person to bond with Lizzie. After the gummy worms and story about Oliver almost falling off a building because he slipped in the rain, Lizzie had attached herself to Roy like a leech. She would follow him around the house all day and refused to go to sleep unless Roy told her another funny story about Oliver. She didn’t talk much but when she did it was to ask a question about where something was or if she could have more gummy worms.
Oliver and Dinah approached Roy for help bonding with the newest member of the family. Roy used his best interrogation methods (bribery with gummy worms) to learn what Lizzie liked. She answered by walking towards the media room and pulling out the DVD collection full of Disney movies that Oliver had bought when he adopted Roy. Lizzie spent the fourth night at Queen manor squished between Dinah and Oliver as they watched Aladdin.
After movie night, Lizzie opened up more and was willing to go to the mall to buy stuff to decorate her room. They left the mall twelve hours after entering, with almost exclusively Disney merchandise. Disney bedding, Disney toys, Disney clothes. Roy had joked about taking the girl to Disneyland and she looked like a kid on Christmas. When they got home Oliver began to plan a trip to Disneyland.
Dinah came up with a believable story as to why Oliver had suddenly adopted Lizzie. Since no one knew what had happened to Lizzie the night of the explosion, they claimed that Oliver had found the girl wandering the streets and taken her home. After learning what happened he decided to adopt Lizzie. Thanks to being a billionaire, Elizabeth Simons became Elizabeth Queen a week after losing her parents. She insisted on changing her name to Queen but refused to give a reason when asked.
Movie night became a regular occurrence in the Queen household and every time Lizzie got to pick (which was most nights) they watched a Disney movie.
Two months after Lizzie moved in, on September 12th, Oliver, Dinah, and Roy took Lizzie to Disneyland to celebrate her birthday. The nine year old was ecstatic and insisted on riding Haunted Mansion multiple times. Unsurprisingly, her favorite part of the trip was when they walked out of the park, at the end of the long day, and Lizzie was holding a stuffed Mickey Mouse the size of herself. To be fair she was short but still, Roy thought the thing was huge.
The nightmares showed up a little later and after a ceiling fan almost fell on Lizzie because she woke up screaming, Dinah decided to train Lizzie to control her canary cry and give her some basic self defense lessons. She was the daughter of a billionaire and a kidnapping was bound to happen sooner or later.
Unfortunately, it happened sooner. Oliver had dropped off Lizzie at the entrance to her school, Star City Private Elementary, she was kidnapped in broad daylight. She was able to fight off the first kidnapper, kicking him in the nuts, but not the second. Two hours later Green Arrow and Black Canary showed up to save the girl, only to find her with a black eye and a missing tooth, fiddling with the handcuffs she escaped from, asking for gummy worms. Like Dinah explained to her, she kept quiet, didn’t use her cry, and didn’t reveal any secret identities. Oliver rewarded her with ice cream topped with gummy worms and a promise of finally watching Pirates of the Caribbean.
Lizzie met Dick Grayson a few weeks before Christmas. Wayne Industries and Queen Industries we're partnering together on a charity project and Lizzie got dragged along so she could make a friend. Apparently a teacher thought her not socializing with the stuck up rich kids was a problem. Anyway, Dick, despite being rich, wasn't stuck up and the two got along great. Oliver and Bruce found them pigging out on snacks from the vending machine they raided.
She learned Dick was Robin later that night when they showed up at Wayne Manor so Green Arrow and Batman could take down a drug ring together. Lizzie spent the plane ride back to Star City asking if she could be a sidekick like Dick because it wasn't fair that he got to be one and she didn't.
May of the next year marked the beginning of Songbird, Black Canary's protege. Lizzie wore a more feminine cut version of the archer uniform that Oliver wore. Of course hers was purple. The hood covered the messy braid that held her hair back and she loved the knee high boots so much that she wore them around the house the week after she got them. Oliver had insisted she take a bow and quiver of arrows to use alongside her canary cry. Dinah practically threatened him not to baby Lizzie on patrol. It was the first time he left his comm unit on for the entire night but Lizzie didn't need to know.
The first time Lizzie met the Justice League and Wally West was at a League Meeting at Mount Justice two months into her hero career. Dinah and Oliver didn't trust her and Roy at home alone after they nearly burnt the house down making pancakes the last time, so they got dragged along. Robin and Kid Flash were also there, making Lizzie think her parents had ulterior motives. The four of them spent the entire meeting in the kitchen, with Lizzie hanging off Robin's back like she was a koala. She didn't talk much until Wally stole her gummy worms and she spent the last hour chasing the speedster throughout the cave. Dick, Roy, and Lizzie had to team up to take him down and their mentors found them sitting on Wally in a hallway, listening to him whine about how heavy they were while they shared the gummy worms.
The first time Lizzie got majorly injured was also the first time she called Oliver dad. Cupid, Green Arrow's psycho stalker, shot an arrow into Songbird's shoulder leading to the girl falling off the building. Thankfully Oliver got her before she hit the ground but Lizzie, being over dramatic and sure she was gonna die, said, "Don't let me die, Daddy." Oliver stared at Lizzie for a good ten seconds before remembering she was bleeding. Dinah held him that night as he cried, mumbling about Lizzie calling him Dad.
Lizzie's tenth birthday was spent at Mount Justice. Dinah and Oliver made it up to her with Disneyland season passes. It was also the day she met Kaldur. Since Roy was off with friends and Wally and Dick were busy, Lizzie and Kaldur sat in comfortable silence for most of the meeting. Kaldur eventually broke the silence, asking what Lizzie liked, opening the floodgates and the final hour was spent bonding over the fact that Kaldur had never seen The Little Mermaid.
For Christmas, Oliver took Lizzie to Wayne Manor (because they didn't have a big enough backyard) and taught her to ride a motorcycle. After a few scraped knees she got the hang of it and Dick joined her on his newly acquired motorcycle and the two took turns racing around the track in the backyard.
Lizzie and Dick began having sleepovers. They stayed up late watching movies and pulled pranks on Bruce when they got the chance. Wally was invited up until they stole the batmobile and took it for a joyride. The three of them could no longer have sleepovers together after that.
Nobody knew how abusive Lizzie's parents were until Oliver and Roy began fighting. Their arguments started getting really loud and Lizzie had sought out Dinah. She asked if they would start throwing things like her parents used to. Roy and Oliver minimized how much they fought in front of Lizzie and all the beer bottles in the house mysteriously disappeared.
Dick stole Bruce's credit card and bought a season pass to Disneyland. He and Lizzie spent the entire summer at the parks. It took two months before their dads threatened to bench them from patrol if they kept spending most of the day at Disneyland. It turned into a weekly bonding after that and Wally tagged along a couple times, on Bruce's dime of course.
One one Lizzie's teachers approached Oliver and Dinah a couple weeks before the new school year asking if they were willing to move Lizzie up a grade. It took Roy, Dick, and Wally promising to help her with her homework (because apparently the two adults weren't allowed to help) before she was convinced she could survive seventh grade at ten. Dick being in the same grade as her probably helped her confidence.
Lizzie's eleventh birthday was the first time she had a normal party. The guest list consisted of Wally, Dick, Roy, and Kaldur. Their mentors tagged along, claiming it was only for the cake but they were all fond of the kid. She had a chocolate cake topped with gummy worms that Roy claimed was disgusting despite finishing his slice, and separate cakes were made for Wally and Barry. Lizzie got her own motorcycle that she called her Songcycle, citing that if Batman could name things after himself then she can too. Dick gave her a giant Simba stuffed animal that she could use instead of a beanbag. Bruce and Oliver were the only two to notice Dick's blush when Lizzie kissed him on the check.
Team ups between Green Arrow and Batman became a slightly more common occurrence, leading to team ups between Songbird and Robin. According to a goon that was feeling particularly chatty one night, two kids beating up adult men while debating whether indigo was purple or blue was scarier than Batman and Green Arrow combined.
Kaldur insisted on teaching Lizzie how to swim after learning she couldn't. After getting past the freezing ocean, Lizzie took to the water quickly. And while she was nowhere near as good as Kaldur, for obvious reasons, she was good enough to not get pulled away by the current while swimming. She even learned how to do a flip.
Lizzie stopped getting dragged to League meetings after Mount Justice was compromised. Oliver mentioned they were getting a new base in space and, after lots of begging, promised to take her there once she became a full fledged league member.
During spring break, when over half the league was off-world on a mission, Wally showed up at her door with a backpack and sad expression. He asked what she did when her birth parents used to fight and Lizzie explained how she just hid in her room. Once he promised his parents weren't physically abusing him, the two fell asleep on the couch watching Cinderella. When Roy found them the next morning he insisted on teaching them to throw darts.
Roy surprised Lizzie that summer with a sibling bonding trip to Disneyworld. She'd been begging to go for years and had spent the week exploring every park. Lizzie claimed Haunted Mansion was still her favorite ride but Roy secretly noted how often she circled back to Expedition Everest when they were in Animal Kingdom.
Lizzie hated her twelfth birthday. She wanted to have it at Wayne Manor because they had the better pool, (accidentally starting a contest between Bruce and Oliver about who had the better house), and she and Dick were kidnapped by the Joker when they went to buy ice cream. They thankfully came out with only a few bruised ribs each but Lizzie spent the rest of her birthday curled into Dick's side eating an unhealthy number of gummy worms.
Oliver and Dinah were both relieved when Lizzie came home from school saying she made a friend. Evelyn was only a year older than Lizzie and the two girls had been paired together for an English assignment. Apparently Evelyn liked Disney movies which was enough to win the brunette's heart. They barely talked outside of school but the adults considered it progress and were just glad their daughter had a friend who wasn't a superhero.
Months later, Lizzie overheard Dinah and Oliver discussing Speedy and Songbird joining the Justice League, alongside Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad. Lizzie ran to Roy's room and started bouncing on top of him, rambling about how cool it would be to join the Justice League.
Sometime in early June, a newspaper came out talking about Speedy and Songbird. While the article mostly discussed their heroics, there were a few quotes that the reporter had overheard from the two young heros, most of which included swear words from them both. Lizzie and Roy were both scolded for their language that night.
Dinah was out of town for her actual job and despite the huge house, Lizzie could still hear the argument between Oliver and Roy. By three in the morning she had enough and took the zeta tube to Gotham, not caring that it was six a.m. there, and knocked on the door to Wayne Manor, still wearing pajamas. Alfred let her in, scolding her for running away and in her pajamas no less, before letting her into Dick's room. She immediately crashed on his bed, waking up the poor teen. Oliver had a very stressful phone call and was scolded by Alfred before being told his daughter probably won't be up until noon.
~
Star City
July 4, 9:01 PDT
Songbird stood on top of the bridge's support beam, watching as Icicle Junior caused chaos below. Why did he have the sudden urge to attack today? She looked towards Green Arrow and on his signal, she and Speedy fired their arrows. Multiple small explosions rang out, destroying the ice that Junior had created.
"Finally," Junior said, turning toward the heroes, "I was wondering what a guy had to do to get a little attention around here." He shot ice spikes towards the archers. Songbird shot an arrow, breaking the spike coming for her.
"Junior's doing this for attention?" Speedy asked as he destroyed another spike.
"Apparently," Songbird said as she dodged the spikes, sliding down the cable of the bridge.
"I'm telling you, this little distraction better not interfere," he said, as they shot at Junior, their arrows blocked by an ice shield, which blew up.
"At least it's early in the morning," Songbird said sarcastically, watching as Speedy flipped off the railing before shooting an arrow right in Junior's jaw.
"Ooh! Headshot!" Songbird said, sliding on the ice, stopping next to Speedy who stuck the landing.
Green Arrow laughed, "Kid had a glass jaw."
"Hilarious," Speedy said sarcastically. "Can we go? Today's the day."