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“I ain’t asking you, I’m telling you! Quit it with this shit!”
“You can’t boss me around! I don’t work for Batman and I sure don’t work for you, buddy!”
“Oh, fuck that noise! If you’re gonna claim to be our medic, you can’t backtrack and say you aren’t actually a part of the crew!”
“You admit I am on the team, then!”
“Fuck no! That’s not what I’m saying! I’m saying you can’t just invite yourself along and interfere in this shit! You’re not trained…”
“I do martial arts!”
“You ain’t equipped…”
“Uh, hello. I’m not exactly wearing spandex here, Mr. Scaly Panties!”
“AND you got the street smarts of three-day old roadkill! Look at you! You walked into a gang fight thinking it was a mugging…”
“Uh…excuse..."
“In my defense, it looked an awful lot like a mugging!”
“You tried to talk the mugger down…”
“I told you, I’m Custodial! You’re Customer Relations! Where were you when we needed you, Sir Punch-A-Lot?”
“Umm, excus-”
“Not the point! You tried to talk the mugger down, interfered when his ‘victim’ who clearly had gang tattoos, by the way…”
“Oh wh- this is Gotham. Ev-everyone has gang tattoos! Little old babushkas have gang tattoos!”
“Excuse-”
“You got in the way of a young male with gang tattoos…”
“... biased profiling!”
“.... as he tried to shank a rival and ended up getting fucking STABBED, you menace to all common sense!”
“It’s just a flesh wound!”
“And then ran after stabby like a complete moron when he started chasing down the guy he missed…”
“Hey! Could you just…"
“Well, I couldn’t let him get away, could I? Citizen's arrest!”
“... right into the disputed borderline between gangs in the area, which is frankly the kind of place that makes the Gaza Strip look like elderly matrons arguing over sponges at afternoon tea…”
“.... Oh-oh… okay, I did sort of do that, but you were running after me by that point! You’re Customer Relations, remember? I would’ve expected you to know what you were doing when it came to conflict resolution!”
“Uh, could you two just…”
“Oh don’t even! I didn’t give a flying fuck about those two bags of scum, I was just tryin’ to make sure you didn’t get your stupid ass beat like a bass drum, thank you very much, Custodial!”
“Hey!”
“And I was just trying to keep gang initiation rites from going ahead, which is sort of your job, so you’re very welcome Customer Relations!”
“HEY !”
“WHAT?!”
The gang member holding the gun on them swung it back and forward, pointing it from one to the other, slightly nonplussed by their lack of concern. His crew was loitering artlessly down the end of the street, and another loose pack of lurkers wearing different markers was down the other end of it, shifting restlessly. There was tension, yes, but almost a dawning sense of embarrassment from both sides as they came to the realization the two teens simply didn’t think they were worth bothering with.
It was weird to be ignored in their own territory.
It ceased being weird, at least for the guy with the gun. A lithe figure dropped as silently as a shadow from the fire escape and landed on top of Gun Guy with a satisfying crunch, limbs tangling and flailing as the newcomer basically cartwheeled him over. The next thing they knew, the guy was a groaning heap off to the side and the newcomer was straightening up to face them.
She saw Robin and beamed. “Hi!” Her voice was a warm, familiar sparkling yellow-silver.
Robin’s jaw dropped open. Then his smile was so wide it practically took up his entire face. “Hey!”
“Who… are you?” Sparrow asked curiously, holding a pressure pad to his bleeding shoulder. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. I love your armour! It looks like Nightwing’s, only gold.”
Robin’s face twisted up like he’d just swallowed a moldy lemon. “Oh no. Oh no, fuck, please no. Please don’t tell me you got found by him?! ”
“Him who?” Sparrow looked from one to the other, baffled.
“Hi,” the girl in gold finger stripes smirked. “My name is… Flamebird.” she enunciated slowly and carefully, like she’d practiced it a thousand times.
“Wow!” Sparrow looked impressed.
Robin groaned in despair.