Monday, June 8th, 2009, 07:30
New Jersey
Gotham City
Fashion District
Malik woke to the sound of Selina singing.
Not humming while she made coffee, not the radio playing in the background, but actual singing. Her voice carried through the apartment with surprising sweetness as she moved around the kitchen, and it took him a moment to recognize the melody.
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you..."
He sat up in bed, confused. How the hell did she know it was his birthday? He'd never told her the date, had actively avoided bringing up anything that might make her ask questions about his past or his family. The subject of birthdays had simply never come up in the eight months they'd been living together.
"Happy birthday, dear Malik, happy birthday to you."
When he emerged from his room, still wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt that had seen better days, Selina was standing in the kitchen with a small chocolate cake on the counter. Thirteen candles flickered on top, and her smile carried the particular satisfaction that came from knowing a secret.
"How did you know?" he asked.
"I have my ways." She handed him a cup of coffee, prepared exactly the way he liked it. "Make a wish."
Malik stared at the candles, thinking about wishes and secrets and the strange reality of having someone care enough to remember a birthday he'd never mentioned. The last time anyone had sung to him, his parents had been alive and the world had made sense in ways that felt impossible now.
He blew out the candles without making a wish. Some things were too dangerous to hope for.
"Thirteen," Selina said, cutting him a piece of cake that was probably too big for breakfast but exactly the right size for celebration. "That's an important age."
"Why? Doesn't seem so important..."
"Because thirteen is when you stop being a kid who doesn't know better and start being a teenager who has to own their choices." She settled into her chair with her own piece of cake, studying his face with the attention she usually reserved for security systems. "Which brings us to something we need to discuss."
The serious tone in her voice made Malik's stomach clench. Whatever this conversation was about, it wasn't going to be pleasant.
"You've been different lately," Selina continued. "More distant at school, more focused during training, more aware of the surveillance and the dangers. You're growing up fast, faster than most kids your age."
"Is that a problem?"
"It's a choice." Selina set down her fork and leaned back in her chair. "The last few months have shown me something I wasn't expecting to see. You're not just surviving in this world, you're thriving in it. You understand the games being played, you're learning the skills, and you're making connections between things that most adults miss."
Malik waited for the other shoe to drop. There was always another shoe.
"But thriving in this world means leaving the normal world behind, and I'm not sure you've really thought about what that means." Selina's voice was gentler now, like she was explaining something she didn't want to be true. "So I'm going to give you something I've never given anyone before. A choice."
"What kind of choice?"
"The choice to walk away." Selina stood up and moved to a drawer near the window, pulling out a manila envelope that looked official and expensive. "I've been working on this for the past month. New identity documents, college fund, placement at a boarding school in Switzerland where brilliant kids go to become the kind of adults who change the world through legitimate means."
She placed the envelope on the table between them, and Malik stared at it like it might explode.
"You could be gone by the end of the week," Selina said. "No strings, no obligations, no connections to me or anything I've taught you. You'd be Malik Hoffmann, scholarship student from California whose parents died in a car accident. Tragic but normal, the kind of background that generates sympathy rather than suspicion."
"...Why would you do that?"
"Because you're thirteen years old, Malik... and you deserve to know that there are other paths available." Selina's expression was carefully neutral, but Malik caught something underneath that might have been sadness. "Because I've watched you struggle with..... all of this, and I know how hard it is to maintain identities that pull in different directions."
Malik picked up the envelope, feeling the weight of official documents and new possibilities. Inside was probably everything he'd need to disappear from Gotham forever, to become someone whose biggest concerns involved homework and college applications rather than surveillance networks and criminal training.
"What's the catch?"
"No catch. But no takebacks either. If you choose to leave, that's it. No contact, no checking in, no safety net from me. You'd be completely on your own, building a legitimate life with legitimate skills." Selina's voice carried finality. "And if you choose to stay, you're all in. No more pretending this is temporary, no more holding part of yourself back. You commit fully to learning what I can teach you."
Malik stared at the envelope for a long time, thinking about choices and consequences and the weight of decisions that felt too big for someone who'd just turned thirteen. The smart play was probably to take the out, to grab the new identity and run as far from Gotham as possible. Normal life might be boring, but it was also safe.
But as he sat there, turning the envelope over in his hands, Malik realized something that surprised him. He didn't want normal anymore. The thought of sitting in safe classrooms learning safe subjects while safe adults made safe plans for his safe future felt like death by slow suffocation.
"I can't go back," he said finally.
"What do you mean?"
"You've taught me to see things differently. To notice patterns and read people and understand how power really works." Malik set the envelope down without opening it. "I can't unsee that stuff. Can't pretend I don't know what I know."
"You could learn to ignore it."
"Could you?"
The question hung in the air between them, and Selina's smile was rueful with recognition.
"No," she admitted. "I couldn't."
"Besides," Malik continued, his voice gaining certainty as he spoke, "you're not just my teacher anymore. You're..." He struggled for words that could capture what their relationship had become. "You're family. The only family I have left. Walking away from you would be like losing my parents all over again."
Something shifted in Selina's expression, a vulnerability that she usually kept hidden behind masks of competence and control.
"Are you sure?" she asked. "Really sure? Because once we have this conversation, there's no going back to the way things were."
"I'm sure."
Selina nodded and stood up, moving to another drawer and pulling out a small wrapped box. "Then this is for you."
Inside the box was a lock pick set unlike anything Malik had seen before. The tools were elegant and precise, clearly custom-made and probably worth more than most people's cars. But more than that, they felt significant in a way that went beyond their monetary value.
"These belonged to my teacher," Selina said. "The woman who taught me everything I know about moving through the world without being seen. She gave them to me when I was about your age, and I've been waiting for the right person to pass them on to."
Malik held the picks carefully, understanding that he was being given more than just tools. This was inheritance, tradition, acceptance into something that most people would never understand.
"What was her name?"
"Mama Fortuna. She ran a crew of girls who specialized in impossible thefts from impossible targets." Selina's smile was fond with memory. "She used to say that the best thieves weren't the ones who could crack any safe, but the ones who could become anyone they needed to be."
"What happened to her?"
"She got old, got careful, got caught." Selina's expression grew serious. "The game eventually gets everyone, Malik. The question is whether you play it long enough to matter or whether you burn out before you make a difference."
That afternoon, while Selina was out running errands, Malik found himself standing in his room holding the last photograph of his parents. It was the one he'd saved from the apartment fire, slightly scorched around the edges but still clear enough to show their faces.
For eight months, he'd kept it hidden in his dresser drawer, taking it out sometimes when the grief felt too heavy to carry alone. His parents smiling at the camera, arms around each other, completely unaware that their son would someday become someone they could never have imagined.
They'd been good people. Honest people, at least tried. The kind of people who paid their taxes and followed the rules and believed that the system would protect them if they just worked hard enough and stayed out of trouble.
The system had failed them completely.
Standing there in his room, holding their picture, Malik realized that honoring their memory didn't mean becoming who they'd wanted him to be. It meant becoming someone who could survive in the world that had killed them.
He walked to the kitchen and held the photograph over the sink, then reached for the lighter Selina kept near the stove for emergencies. The flame caught the corner of the photo, and he watched as his parents' faces disappeared into ash.
It wasn't anger that made him do it. It was acceptance.
When Selina came home an hour later, she found him in the living room reading a book about European art history in Italian, practicing his language skills while learning about the cultural context of famous thefts.
"How was your afternoon?" she asked.
"Educational," Malik said, not looking up from the book. "I've been thinking about what you said this morning. About becoming who you need to be."
"And?"
"I think I understand what you meant." Malik closed the book and met her eyes. "My parents raised someone who was supposed to fit into the world as it should be. But that person died with them. The person I'm becoming is someone who can handle the world as it actually is."
Selina studied his face for a long moment, reading whatever she saw there with the skill of someone who'd spent years learning to interpret human nature.
"Happy birthday, Malik Anderson," she said finally. "Welcome to the rest of your life."