Of Shadows and Strawberries

She hadn’t always been Shadow. 

There had been a much simpler time, growing up in a cramped, one bedroom apartment in the city with her parents. They had always loved the strange baby they’d adopted, even when she’d begun to conjure objects, pets, and eventually a whole person out of the shadows. 

They’d taken Javier in stride, of course. “Great!” they had laughed upon Hera’s introduction of her new ‘friend.’ “We’ve been saying we needed a babysitter.”

But Javier wasn’t really for them: he was for Hera. She had always been a bit of a loner in school—weird kids with creepy powers tended to get that sort of treatment—but Javier was different. For one, he wasn’t a kid; he appeared to be an adult, and treated Hera with a certain level of respect. 

We’ll say he appeared to be an adult, because in all honesty, neither Javier nor Hera knew how old Javier was. She had just conjured him one day in her bedroom, a thin, shadowy figure of a man with no distinct features. 

He’d seemed a bit nonplussed to be suddenly existing, but he said, “Er-hello there,” and Hera replied,

“Hello. Want any strawberries?”

And from then on, they’d been friends. 

In fact, when Hera’s parents had been killed by a drunk driver when she was 17, Javier and her shadow-cat Midnight had been the only family she had left. 

So, the odd trio took to the streets. 

Javier had actually been the one to suggest that she take up crime-fighting: he had been getting a bit tired of fishing moldy, half-eaten strawberries out of the garbage bins. 

“Well, just think about it,” he pondered. “I mean, these people. The Sentinels. They’ve got powers like yours, right? They’re outcasts, too.”

“So what’re you saying? That they’ll just welcome me onto their team with open arms?” Hera replied bitterly. “ ‘Hey, Hera, where are you staying? Oh, the gutter? Well, why not crash on our couch for a while?’ ” She chucked the brown apple core she’d been nibbling at back into the dumpster and shook her head, “Un-fucking-likely”

“No,” Javier said patiently, “What I’m saying is that they’ve got that whole space station up there, right? Big hunk of metal, floating around in the sky. No one’s ever been in it, but from the outside, it’s huge. It’s gotta be made up of mostly rooms, right? Places for the members to stay, catch some sleep while they’re up there.” 

“Oh!” Hera shot up excitedly “And if we were members, we could stay there! I bet they have showers there, too.” 

“Yeah, only there’s no ‘we’ in this outfit,” Javier appeared to fold his arms behind his head, snuggling into the hot concrete. “You’re the brains of this organization, so you go be the superhero. I’m just your lowly, shadow-servant, remember?”

“Oh, fuck off,” she laughed, shoving his shoulder. “You are not.” 

A split appeared in the shadowy recesses where Javier’s face would be, indicating that he was probably smiling, “Well, you’ll need some sort of silly get-up to even qualify.” 

“Oh, right,” Hera mused. “Hang on…”

The shadows under the dumpster slid out to Hera’s feet and around her form, swirling into a billowy sort of cloak, complete with matching black cowl and boots. 

“Whatcha think?”

Javier stood up and nodded seriously, giving her a once-over, “This could work. Now you just need a name. What about...Darkness?”

Hera considered it for a second and then shook her head, “Nah, too edgy. What about, um, Figment?”

Javier just stared at her and then said stiffly, “As in ‘figment of your imagination’?”

“What? No-”

“Because we’ve already been over this; I am not a figment of your imagination, Hera,” Javier said somewhat testily. “I’m a person. I exist. Other people can even see me, for crying out loud-”

“I know, I know,” Hera sighed, patting his arm. “I’m sorry, it just popped into my head, and I said it before I thought about it.” 

“Yeah, well,” he exhaled, calming himself. “Sorry, I just-yeah. Anyway,” he coughed a bit sheepishly, “What about Shadow?”

“Nice and straightforward, I guess.”

-

The trip up to the space station had only taken a few seconds—where there were shadows, Hera and Javier could go, and there were definitely a few lurking around the outside. 

They were perched rather precariously on the lip of a huge hangar door, wondering if they should knock and how long Hera’s oxygen supply would last in the bubble she’d formed around her head.

Eventually, the operator of the hangar—who had been quite rude over the intercom—was forced to let them in, if only to let Hera catch her breath for a moment. 

She had scarcely even straightened up when there they were, three Sentinels striding right towards her. 

“Identify yourselves,” one of them said sternly. He seemed to be wearing some sort of durable, red and grey armour. His eyes through his hooked-beak mask were stern, watchful, and, at this moment, vaguely annoyed. 

“I’m here to join the team,” Hera raised her head slightly. “I’m Shadow.” She flicked her eyes to his shadow, making it creep up his body in a somewhat unsettling manner. 

“Appropriate,” he noted. “And who’s this?” 

“Ah, this is um-He’s my...companion?”

“God, you make it sound like I’m your familiar or something,” Javier muttered to her and reached forward with an outstretched hand, “Name’s, ah, Figment.”

“Well, this is a little unorthodox, you two” said the man who was all smiles, shaking Javier’s hand like his life depended on it. He looked like a cardboard cutout of Ronald Reagan that had been draped in a spangly, red-white-and-blue outfit. “We normally don’t allow non-members into the station, but seeing as you haven’t got a ship, it’s not like we can just put you back outside.” 

“Actually,” the bird-man said, “it’s exactly like that.”

“Ah, come on, Raven, lighten up,” said the third man, who was hardly more than a boy; a lean sort of fellow wearing a dazzling amount of white and a little white domino mask. “Or should I say, ‘chill-out’? I guess it’d match my aesthetic more.”

“If you talk about your ‘aesthetic’ one more time, Icefoot, I’ll blow up the station, I swear,” Raven said wearily. 

While the three were busy debating their fate, Hera hissed to Javier, “Figment? Really?”

“Shut up, I panicked.”

“And will you be joining our team as well, Figment?” the Reagan clone asked. 

It took Javier probably a few seconds too long to realize he was talking to him and then he said haltingly, “No-er-not exactly, I was just here to see her off you see-”

“Ah. Well, while you’re here, would you like a tour of the station?”

“They don’t have the proper clearance, Captain Super,” Raven said stiffly and Captain Super waved him off.

“Nonsense, they’re practically on the team already.”

-

She’d noticed her powers going on and off the last couple months, but she’d resolved to just ignore it until it became a problem —much as people do with their check-engine lights. And eventually, it became a problem. 

It was probably the fifth or sixth big battle to save the world that she’d been in as a Sentinel. There seemed to be about one a year, usually right at the beginning of the summer. This time, it was giant worms from space that shot lasers, and, apparently, her powers couldn’t think of a more perfect time to give out than right then. 

Raven had flown to her side almost immediately, dragging her behind a bit of crumbled building to safety.

“Hera, are you alright?” he said in a rare, gentle tone. 

In fact, Hera had only heard it after the heated nights that they spent together, nights that usually only occurred when one of them really needed it. They knew they couldn’t make anything of it—the lives of heroes were far too complicated to allow for simple relationships—but privately, they had both thought it would have been nice. 

“Yeah, you know, just performance issues,” she laughed. “Nothing serious.”

Raven frowned, “Fine. Wait here until we can clear the field. And see me after the mission for a debriefing.”

“Sure, Rave,” she said coyly, thinking maybe this was going to be the fun sort of debriefing. 

It was not. 

-

“Augh, that enormous dick-hole Raven,” Hera raged, battering her bedpost slightly with her foot. 

She and Javier were back in their room in the space station, and Javier was calmly observing Hera having a slight meltdown while experimenting with a grape. 

“The nerve,” she seethed. 

“Why are you off active-duty, again?”

“My powers have been giving out recently,” Hera admitted. “So we went to Mystic and she told me that I draw my powers from the Shadow World and that they’re-”

Javier promptly began choking on his grape, “The-hgk-Shadow World?”

“Yeah,” she gave him a weird look. “Why, do you...know it?”

“No, of course not,” he coughed. “Just interested.”

“Right. Well, anyway, I’m sort of reaching my allotted limit of them, so to speak, and Raven said until I get that ‘figured out’ that I would be off active-duty,” Hera scowled. “Stupid fucking bird-man.”

“Well,” Javier said slowly, trying to figure out if the grape skin was supposed to get stuck at the back of his throat or if that was just the unfortunate result of almost choking to death on a grape. “At least he cares about your safety and well-being and whatnot.” 

“What?” Hera frowned. “Cares? I don’t think he-”

“You two sneak around an awful lot for him to not feel anything.”

She eyed him, “I didn’t know you knew about that.” 

“It wasn’t as if you were being particularly stealthy about it,” he smirked. 

She glared at him, “Well, I’d agree with you if this were a normal man we were talking about. But this is the Raven, remember? The ruthless, cut-throat vigilante who drops criminals from the sky and shit like that. He doesn’t care about anyone.”

“I’m just saying if I was the Raven, and I didn’t care about someone, then I would be perfectly fine letting them burn themselves out for the sake of the cause,” Javier pointed out. 

Hera flushed, “What is your point?”

“My point is, that, you know,” he waved his hands vaguely in a circle. “Life’s too short and all that. Sometimes you find people that drive you nuts and you can’t live without ‘em and-” he swallowed hard, not because of the grape this time, “I dunno, I’d just hate for you to miss out on that.” 

-

Being off-duty for the foreseeable future had been a bit of an adjustment for Hera, after she’d thoroughly enjoyed being a superhero for several years—not to mention her only friends besides Javier were heroes. 

But to her surprise, these friends didn’t just fade away once she was off the team. 

Icefoot had helped her and Javier move into another dingy, one-bedroom apartment that reminded her of home. She and Raven had kept up their current arrangement. And Captain Super had actually been the one to recommend her for the detective job at the police department. 

So, Hera settled into the somewhat-but-still-not-quite-as-exciting life of a retired superhero detective, chasing down the occasional car thief. She tried not to use her powers, only allowing herself a few moments of victory when she was on a chase and the perp was getting away.

She regretted that the day that Midnight began yowling, panicked, as she faded into and out of existence every few seconds. 

It got so bad that eventually Hera had to concentrate for several minutes just to bring Midnight back for a few seconds. At that point, Javier had come and put a comforting hand on her shoulder, and they had taken Midnight over to her bed, tucked her in, and dissolved her. 

Hera sat on the floor, crying and clutching Midnight’s collar as Javier held her, allowing a few smoky tears to wisp down his face as well. Hera, however, was crying more from fear than from grief, one endless thought spinning in her head: What would happen to Javier once she couldn’t maintain him anymore? 

That night, she vowed to herself that she would never use her powers again. 

-

Hera was approaching her late forties, and she hated it. For one thing, she couldn’t just fling herself around the city chasing scumbags anymore—she had to be careful. And for another, Javier didn’t age: he stayed exactly the same as he'd always been. So his mockery was incessant. 

There was a knock on their apartment door one day and Javier sprang up, saying, “I’ll get it! Wouldn’t want you to trip and break a hip on your way to the door, now would we, sweetums?” 

He cackled as he danced out of her reach, and flung the door open, “Oh. It’s for you, Shadow.”

If Javier hadn’t said ‘Shadow’ so deliberately, Hera would have thought there were a bunch of trick-or-treaters standing outside her door in early July. The costumes were so bright, and the kids so young, younger than she had been when she joined the Sentinels. 

She spotted the Raven’s new ward, Blue Jay, among them, and smiled, “Hey, Blue, what can I do for ya?” She wasn’t really sure why Raven had randomly adopted a child, but she figured he was probably just lonely in that big old house of his. And she wasn’t complaining; it was cute how much the kid imitated Raven. 

“We need your help, Shadow,” Blue Jay said seriously and Hera stifled a giggle. 

“Okay...with what?”

“You’re the only one who can save the wo-”

“Uh-uh. Nope. Not interested. Never in a million years, kid. I’m retired for a reason.”

-

“Well, fuck,” Hera sighed, staring up at the swirling vortex that was busy trying to consume the city, and eventually, the world. 

“Persuasive little shit isn’t he?” Javier commented. “Remind you of anyone?”

“Well, I mean, we’re just gonna have to let him down,” Hera shook her head, turning to walk away, “I can’t-”

Javier grabbed her arm and said quietly, “Hera.”

“Don’t ‘Hera’ me, you-” Hera flamed. “I’m not doing it. I’ll lose you-”

“Listen for like ten seconds would ya?” he sighed and she quieted.

“Fine. What?”

He looked as a guilty as a shadow can look and said, “Look, I never told you-and I should’ve, I just- I didn’t want you to feel bad-”

“Told me what?” 

“You didn’t bring me into existence,” he exhaled. “I remember where I was before I popped into your bedroom that day. I was in the Shadow World.”

He fidgeted a little and then said, “I had a life there. And a girl.”

“A girl?” Hera sputtered, “And you never told me? What-what was she like?”

“Beautiful,” Javier sighed achingly. “A huge pain in the ass too, but I loved her. It’s been so long now, I don’t know if she’d-” 

He twisted his hands a bit more and then said, “But I’ve got a chance to try again, right here. All you’ve got to do is let me go,” he looked up at the vortex, “and save the world.”

He smiled at her reassuringly and she said brokenly, “Okay.”

They laced their fingers together and turned to face the vortex. 

He added offhandedly “Y’know, it’s funny...We started doing this whole ‘hero’ gig for selfish reasons. It would make sense to finish it for the right ones.”

He stepped forward, but Hera was still holding his hand and looking at him with big, tear-filled eyes.

“Hera.”

“Yeah?”

“You know I love you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve gotta let me go now.”

“Y-yeah.”

There was a pause as Hera wiped her face on her sleeve and then:

“Javier...what was her name?”

And Javier smiled and said “Cassandra. Her name’s Cassandra.”

-

She hadn’t always been Shadow. But in this moment, watching her best friend dissolve into nothing but shadows before her eyes, she wished she never had been. 

-

It was a few days later. The world had been saved, everyone was happy, and Hera couldn’t have a funeral for him, because he wasn’t really dead, was he? Just gone. 

Bruce had been incredibly helpful: putting her up in his house and taking the calls from her work about when she’d be back. She had followed Javier’s advice about him, and he’d been right, as always. 

“Bruce?” she called one day as she’d seen him disappear around one of the many corners in this gigantic house—she felt like she’d been looking for him all day and hadn’t found him until just now. 

“Hera?” he paused on a staircase. 

“I was thinking,” she sighed. “Look, I know we’ve talked about this before, but...I’m still interested if you ever wanted to-”

“Actually, I was going to ask you about that too,” he said, a surprised and somewhat pleased grin creeping onto his normally somber face. “With all these new heroes, and Blue Jay to oversee them...there’s hardly a need for old Raven anymore, is there?”

“No,” Hera admitted happily “I suppose not.” 

He smiled and offered his hand so they could climb the stairs together, and she took it, saying as they walked, “You’re not that old.” 

-

And when they had their first child a few years later, a daughter with violently green eyes, the sort of eyes that would loom at you from the shadows, Hera could think of only one thing to name her: Cassandra

Well, that’s not exactly true. She first thought that Figment might be a good name, because she knew if Javier ever found out about it, he’d be furious. 

“We could call her Fig, for short,” she tried to convince Bruce. 

He sighed, “I draw the line at Fig, Hera. Besides, Javier would hate it and you know it.”

“Alright, fine,” she huffed. She considered for another moment, tickling the baby on her lap, and then said, “What do you think about Cassandra?”