Work Text:
It has been a week since Damian had first become Shadowbird. It was rather cloudy, but there was thankfully no rain. He had been in the far north section of Gotham City for about two days, yet there were still advertisements for Wayne Industries. It felt like he couldn't escape his parents no matter what.
This didn't discourage Damian from defending the people of the area from criminals. Even while fighting crime as Shadowbird, he hoped to get far away from Gotham soon. As he was hopping from rooftop to rooftop, looking for crime, he was unaware of a new ally that was going to arrive soon.
.
Maya had expected to arrive in Gotham in an hour, but she didn't take into account the fact she had to arrive there stealthily, and had to deal with the amount of traffic from the roads near the city. She would've just swam there if the roads got too cluttered, but her cyborg body wasn't waterproof. She just had to deal with it while constantly making sure she was invisible at all times.
She had been patiently waiting for the cars to move at the Robert Kane Memorial Bridge for fifteen minutes, but the car she had snuck on top of finally was near to the entrance to the city.
Once the car in front drove into the city, the car she was on moved, and followed suite into Gotham. Maya jumped off the car when it got near an alley, and navigated through said alleyways. When she made sure no one was around, she climbed up the buildings, and made it up the roof.
She was finally in Gotham City.
Even if this section of the city wasn't as "pretty looking" as the mid section of the city, Maya was still amazed by how big Gotham City was. After she was done gazing at the city, she began to run from rooftop to rooftop.
"Okay, so my dad usually headed off to S.T.A.R. Labs in the mid east area of this city to show off his inventions along with the other guys. Since Ivo works there full time, if I find the building, I find him." Maya thought to herself. She was so focused on her thoughts, she hadn't noticed someone else that was heading towards her. They bumped into each other and fell down into another alleyway.
"Ugghh. Should've looked where I was heading." Maya mumbled quietly to herself, only to realize she is no longer invisible anymore. She quickly got up, and got into a defensive stance as a she stared down the figure with the bird mask.
"Who are you?" Damian asked the masked cyborg as he also took a defensive stance, and got out his katana.
"I could ask the same thing about you. I'm not a bad guy out to hurt innocents. Are you?" Maya frankly asks, still in somewhat a defensive position.
"Ever heard of the term "vigilante"? That's what I am to Gotham City." He stated as he put his katana away. "So, what's your deal robo gal?"
"The name's Nobody." She said as she was in a more casual position, still a little cautious. She could tell the bird masked hero also felt the same due to his body language.
Damian simply scoffed at the name. "Hmph. That's your codename? Sounds a little generic."
"The specifics on my name are somewhat personal." She defensively said, not really enjoying how he seemed to be mocking her name. "Look, I came to take revenge on someone who killed a person near and dear to me. Not really that complicated to be honest. What should I even call you Mr. Blackbird?" Maya asked, kind of wanting to roast his name as a mild form of revenge.
"Dammit. Knew it was a better name instead of Shadowbird." Damian thought to himself before looking back at the teenage girl. "Shadowbird. I know, I know, the name kind of sounds a little edgy, but it grew on me." He told Nobody, still wishing he came up with Blackbird first.
Before Maya could say anything else, she noticed the putrid smell coming from the teen in the robe and bird mask. She wished she made it hard to smell while wearing the helmet. "Ugh. You smell horrible. Did your costume come from a dumpster or something?" She asked in disgust.
"Yes." Damian nonchalantly told her. In his mind, why not tell her the truth about where the costume came from.
"That's so gross!" Maya exclaimed in disgust. She made a mental note to herself that she needed to get rid of the helmet's function to smell, since it didn't seem to do any favors for her. "You know, you can't just dig through trash. You actually have to take the time and effort to make your own outfit…"
As Maya went on somewhat of a rant about the decision of getting an outfit from the trash, Damian noticed a familiar limousine about to drive right past the alley. His eyes widened and his heart stopped when he saw the big W symbol on the limo, and quickly hid in the shadows as the limo passed by. Maya looked over, and instinctively turned on the invisibility when she saw him hide. When she looked around, she just saw some limo drive past the alley.
After a little bit, Damian went out of hiding. Maya turned off her invisibility, and was rather confused on why Shadowbird hid in the first place. "What was that about?" She asked him, somewhat stumped.
"I thought I saw something suspicious." Damian stated, not ready to tell someone he met his personal trauma.
"Like what? Did you see Professor Ivo?" Maya asked eagerly, hoping for him to say yes.
"No. I would like to assist you on your quest for revenge, since I don't have much to do." Damian told the cyborg girl. He hoped that this would be a way he could get away from Gotham.
Maya thought about this for a second. On the one hand, she was still hesitant about Shadowbird since he seemed a little shady to her. On the other hand, he didn't seem to have any interest in hurting her, and seemed rather casual in conversation. Since she could believe someone like him would be a vigilante, she ultimately decided it was best if she got all the help she could get.
"Alright. You're coming with me to S.T.A.R Labs." Maya told the bird masked vigilante as she started to make her way back up to the rooftops, letting Shadowbird follow her up.
Once Damian made it up onto the rooftops, he quickly followed Nobody, and they both started to hop from rooftop to rooftop. He decided it was best to know where they were going, hopefully no where near south Gotham City.
"Where is S.T.A.R. Labs anyways?" He asked as he followed the cyborg girl, who was invisible yet again. She looked over at him before going back to jumping from rooftop to rooftop.
"The laboratory is in the mid east section of Gotham." Maya stated as she was currently focused on her movement, not wanting to repeat her previous mistake with not paying attention to where she was heading.
Damian was relieved that they were heading east, but was a little cautious since the mid section is closer to the east than where they were now. Well, if this eventually led to them leaving Gotham all together after this, this would be worth it.
.
The two vigilantes had been running for a while before they eventually made it to the mid east section of the city. It was a lot more "pretty" looking than the north section, and was a lot more heavily populated with skyscrapers.
Maya stood on a rooftop, confidently looking over at the S.T.A.R. Labs skyscraper. She was ready. Ready to put her powers to the test. Ready to avenge her father. Ready to put Ivo or his men behind bars.
"So, what's the plan?" Damian asked the teeb cyborg as he stood next to her.
"First, we head over to find Ivo's laptop since we actually need proof he killed someone or at least that he sent his men after them. I don't wanna falsely accuse someone of murder." Maya explained, making sure to refer to her father in rather vague terms. She wasn't ready to tell Shadowbird more about herself yet.
"Do you plan to sneak past the guards or knock the guards out?" He asked Maya, since he's usually used to knocking out guards because they were usually evil.
Maya looked back at him, with a somewhat confused look. "What? No! I would be crazy to knock out some guards doing their jobs. They aren't even working for Ivo specifically. Sneaking past them would be our best option."
Damian felt relieved that they didn't have to knock out the guards since he had gotten tired of knocking out people for a week. "Sorry."
"So, I'll sneak in through the door while invisible, and you can sneak in while the guards aren't looking. I'll head into the vents while you sneak past the cameras until we find the laptop." Maya explained to Shadowbird, making sure he was listening.
With that, both vigilantes hopped to the buildings closest to the laboratory, and both observed the movements of the two guards near the door. Both noticed the guards usually looked away for a few seconds before looking back at the door.
When Maya noticed one of the guards walking away, she quickly turned invisible and hopped off of the building. She found a pebble on the ground, and threw it rather far to the ground. When the other guard walked over to where the pebble was thrown, she quickly zoomed through the door. She zoomed through the halls until she came across a vent. After looking around to make sure no one was around, she hopped to the ceiling vent, turned her index finger into a screw to unscrew the vent cover, and slipped into the vents before screwing the vent cover back on.
Damian was rather impressed by how quickly Maya was able to sneak in so easily, even with her invisibility. He knew it would be harder for him to sneak past the guards since they've gotten back into their places. He decided that instead of sneaking to the door through the ground level. He decided to sneak in from the shadows.
Damian started to hop from building to building, making not to get too close to the laboratory. His plan was to hop to one of the taller buildings nearby, go down to hide in the shadows, and to get to the door after distracting the guards. He eventually made his way to one of the taller buildings nearby, but he decided not to go to the tallest building since he would be easier to spot.
Damian spent a few more seconds watching the guards movements from afar, and taking note of the shadows the laboratory created and the shadows near the building. He soon scaled down the building and made it near the lab building, all the while hiding in the shadows of the buildings. He was surprised when both guards walked away, but took the opportunity as he quickly sneaked in through the door. When he got in, he of course made sure to stay in the shadows of the hallways so the cameras couldn't catch a glimpse of him.
He had been wandering around the surprisingly empty hallways until he heard something. "Psst. Shadowbird. Over here." Damian turned his head to see the invisible Nobody peeking her head out of a doorway not too far from him. He sneaked over to where she was to see what the cyborg girl had found.
"Look what I found." Maya said as she walked out of the doorway with the laptop in her arms. She was surprised with how easily she was able to get the laptop, even more so that Ivo wasn't in the building whatsoever. "Took ya long enough to get here." She snarked at Shadowbird before opening up the laptop, and got transformed her left index finger into a flash drive looking device.
Damian was surprised by this as she placed it inside of the USB port of the laptop. "Was this built into your cyborg body or did you add it in later?" He curiously asked as he walked over to see what she was doing on the laptop.
"Added it way later on." Maya told him as she pressed control and v on the laptop which caused it to display a lot of characters before it inserted the password. "Bingo." The now visible cyborg said to herself as the laptop went to the home screen. She took her finger USB out of the port, and started to look through the laptop's history. Shadowbird was impressed by how quickly she looked through something while looking before looking through something else. She wasn't finding anything interesting so far, but a document in the search history caught her eye. When Maya opened the file, both she and Shadowbird were shocked to see it was an order to put a hit out on Morgan Ducard. It had already been sent to two other people, presumably the people that caused both car crashes. She, of course, was pissed about how cruel Ivo was to kill her dad, and unknowingly caused a car crash that changed her permanently all over a petty business rivalry.
As Shadowbird wondered how Morgan and Nobody were directly related, Maya plugged the USB finger back in, pressed control and c, and soon downloaded the file into the USB. Once it was finished downloaded, she logged off of the laptop and quickly pulled the USB finger out of the port. "Now we have to gotta send this to the police station along with the file." She told the other vigilante as her finger transformed back to normal, and was ready to close the laptop. Before she could do so, a bullet whizzed by and hit the laptop directly. Both were in shock, wondering where the bullet that destroyed the laptop came from.
"Well well well, what do we have here?" A mysterious voice said, which caused the two to turn the heads over only to see it was Anthony Ivo himself, who was holding a loaded gun in his hands. "Looks like we have some snoopy, little mice that fell for mouse trap." Ivo smirked as he watched both of the vigilantes go in a defensive stance.
"What do you mean trap?" Shadowbird aggressively asked as he pulled his katana out. Maya started to realize that if this was all a trap for Ivo to attack people who are trying to look for evidence that he sent a hit out on Morgan Ducard, it started to make sense why the building was oddly empty. Even if he didn't own the building, he could've convinced the other scientists that something bad would happen to the lab to get them to leave. "Well, you two have some company with you." The professor smugly said as he got out a remote, and pressed one of the buttons. From the floor, about five large robots emerged. Maya recognized them from their bulky grey bodies and bright green eyes. It was the prototype of the AMZ-0 battle robot he made, and showed off at conferences.
"You two enjoy yourselves. I promise they'll go easy on you." Ivo sarcastically told the duo before pressing another button on the remote, which caused the robot's eyes to glow. No too long after, the robots charged towards the two vigilantes.
As Damian began to slice at one of the robots, he noticed how his katana only seemed to scratch the metal, and guessed piercing attacks would be more effective. He slid under the robot when it tried to do an overhead arm strike, and stabbed it in the back. When another of the robots was heading towards him, he quickly pulled the bladed weapon out of the first robot, and began to try to stab the other one.
While he was busy doing that, Maya was currently avoiding punches from two robots working together. When she slid away from the robots, another robot was about to do a high kick. Luckily, she turned around quickly enough to see what it was going to do, and jumped up to avoid the attack. When she jumped, she noticed that Ivo was currently running down the hallway instead of trying to shoot the two while they were busy dealing with the robots. "That coward!" She thought to herself before landing back on the ground and rolling over to where Damian was. He was currently busy with a robot he had just stabbed.
"Ivo's trying to escape. We have to catch him before he gets away." Maya told Shadowbird as she transformed her left arm into the arm cannon. When Maya was taking aim at the center of the hallways, she turned the sonic blasts power setting up to the highest setting. An AMZ-0 robot was about to hit her with an overhead arm chop, the bird masked teen rushed in, jumped up, and stabbed the robot in the head. While the robot was distracted, Maya was able to charge her sonic shock and fired it. The sonic blast blasted through the hallway, blowing away the robots in front of her, and making Ivo fly across the halls into a wall before dropping down to the floor.
With the robot's systems temporarily down thanks to the sonic blast, Shadowbird and Nobody quickly ran through the hallway. While she transformed her arm back to normal, she glared down at the direction of the professor. Ivo felt a chill down his spine when he felt the piercing stare, and fumbled to get his gun. "Stay back! I'm armed!" He yelled at the two before he took aim at the teenage cyborg and fired.
Damian saw this, quickly pushed Nobody out of the way of Ivo's aim, and the bullet hit his left shoulder. Much to Nobody's surprise and Ivo's horror, this only seemed to slow down the bird masked vigilante for about a second. He didn't even seem bothered by the bullet wound. The professor was scared shitless, and shot another bullet at the running vigilante. Damian quickly used his Katana to deflect the bullet which just barely missed the professor. When he tried to shoot again, Ivo was mortified to see that there were no more bullets in the gun.
He dug through his pockets, and pulled out the remote for the robots. Damian knew that Ivo was going to use it to reactivate the robots, so he threw his katana which stabbed the remote and hit the wall. As he got closer, the professor stumbled onto his feet and started to run, only to be tackled and restrained by the masked teen.
"Let go of me you punks!" Ivo yelled as he was on his back and had his arms behind his back by Shadowbird. Maya caught up with the other masked teen, and walked in front of the restrained professor.
"Looks like you're gonna be in jail for a long while for the hit you sent out." Maya said in a patronizing tone towards the man. She then looked back at Shadowbird, still concerned about the bullet wound.
Ivo stopped struggling and simply had a smug grin on his face. "Good luck with that you bozos. Without the laptop, you'll have no evidence against me." He confidently bragged to the duo. Maya simply transformed the left index finger into the flash drive from before, and unattached it to hold it in front of Ivo.
"Are you so sure about that Professor Ivo?" Maya sarcastically asked as she waved the flash drive in front of him, which caused him to glare in anger. "I'll give the evidence to the cops. Shadowbird, make sure not to hurt him. We still need him to get arrested." She told the other vigilante as before running out of the building. Ivo couldn't do anything except continue to whine about his defeat.
.
It had been thirty minutes. The GCPD had received a mysterious flash drive at their desk. The flash drive contained the file where Ivo put a hit out on robotics genius Morgan Ducard. The police were currently hauling off the professor to jail. They weren't sure what the Ivo's ramblings two masked punks were about since the guards of S.T.A.R. Labs didn't see anyone go into the building. Unbeknownst to them, the two vigilantes were on top of a building not too far from the laboratory, watching as the police drove off with Ivo in the back.
Maya felt a mass sense of satisfaction knowing the man who killed her father has received the proper justice. She looked over at Shadowbird. "Hey, thanks for helping me take Ivo down. I'm glad that I got to work together with you." She told the bird masked teen.
Damian nodded back. "I'm glad I got to work with you too Nobody. Felt nice to have some company around." He said to the cyborg girl. "Oh, and don't worry about the bullet wound. I'll be fine." He said reassuringly.
Maya still wasn't one hundred percent convinced, but knew that the male was rather adamant about it. "Alright. You should probably be heading back to your secret lair or something." She remarked, expecting him to leave right then in there.
He looked away awkwardly from her. "Yeah, about that. You see, I don't really have a base of operations or a place to stay at all." Damian explained, feeling a little embarrassed telling this to someone he just met.
Maya was somewhat surprised by the answer, yet realized that it would explain why his costume was just a simple mask and robe. "So, you're homeless?" She asked the male.
"I mean, you could say that." Damian stated to the cyborg girl. He looked over behind him, hoping to get out of Gotham soon, before looking back at her. "Look, even though we barely know each other, do you mind if I stay at your place?" He bluntly asked Nobody.
"Oh, um, sure I guess. I could patch up the bullet wound when we get there." Maya told the bird masked male, still feeling a little iffy about him even while knowing giving a home to someone who's homeless is the right thing to do. "Follow me." She told the other teen as she turned on her invisibility before starting to hop from the rooftops, heading back to the direction of where she arrived in Gotham.
Damian swiftly followed behind her from the rooftops. "You know how far your place is from here?" He asked Nobody while following not too far behind.
Maya looked over at Shadowbird. "About an hour from Gotham." She answered nonchalantly before looking back ahead, and began to focus on where she was heading.
Even if he was disappointed that Nobody's place wasn't farther from the city, Damian was at least happy he would still be away from both his parents. Yet, he still felt a little bad for leaving a city after keeping some of the citizens safe from criminals. A part of him wonders if he should return to the city to fight crime.
.
After an hour or so, the duo were currently on the path to where Nobody lived. They were both rather quiet during the hour they were traveling since Damian wasn't sure if he should reveal his identity to Nobody and vice versa.
Maya was relieved that she was finally back home, even if she came back with a stranger. She turned off her invisibility, which was a nice change of pace from it turning off every five minutes. With that, she ringed the doorbell.
Elanore had been worrying about her daughter for about two hours. She was grateful about the news of Ivo's arrest, yet still had to wait for Maya to come back from Gotham. She heard the doorbell ring and ran over to it, hoping who she thought was at the door was at the door. When she opened the door, she was relieved to see her daughter, and quickly hugged her tightly. "Mija, I'm so glad you're back."
Maya smiled sweetly as she hugged back tightly. "Missed you too mom." She told her mom, relieved to be back. She was so caught up with the hug that she momentarily forgot about Shadowbird.
Elanore looked over behind Maya, and was confused about the teen with the robe and bird mask. "Um, do you know who the plague mask guy is dear?" She asked Maya as she let go from the hug.
Maya looked back towards Shadowbird as she let go from the hug, feeling dumb for forgetting him for a moment. "I met him when I made it to Gotham. Don't worry, he helped me arrest Ivo." She reassured her mom. She knew that she might be able to fight him off if it turns out he couldn't be trusted.
Shadowbird simply waved hello to Elanore while hiding the bullet wound with his robe. "Nobody was an excellent teammate, and since I'm homeless, it would be nice to stay at a place with someone I'm on good terms with." He explained in a matter of fact way.
"Of course. Right this way." Elanore said as she moved out of the doorway to let the two in.
Maya quickly walked in with Shadowbird, and opened the door downstairs. "If you need me, I'll be busy patching up his wounds." She told her mom as she opened the door, and quickly made her way downstairs.
As Damian made his way downstairs, he was surprised by all of the technology. From the tools on the table to the small helper robots scattered around, it was impressive to say the least. "So, you built these by yourself or did your mom?" He asked, ninety percent sure if she was related to Morgan Ducard.
Maya looked over at Shadowbird as she was looking for her father's medical kit. "My dad made most of these, though I helped give some upgrades." She explained as she pressed a button, and a robotic white stool popped up from the floor next to her. "Could you sit here so I could patch up the bullet wound?"
Damian nodded as he sat down on the stool. Since he knew that they'd show their faces sooner or later, he simply took off his mask and robe. "There's a zipper on the back of the jumpsuit." He told her, hoping that she didn't find the Lazarus Dragon symbol on the front suspicious.
Maya was surprised how nonchalantly he took off the mask as she unzipped the zipper, and helped get his arm out of the jumpsuit to expose the back. "Jumpsuit must be from the trash as well. Sure smells like it." She thought to herself as she got the suturing needle along with the string. As she was busy suturing the bullet wound, she noticed how the exposed body had a bunch of scars and bruises all over it. The scars and bruises weren't that new, they looked rather old. "What's with all the markings? Is this not the first time you've tangled with being a hero?" Maya somewhat playfully asked the teen.
Damian flinched at the mention of the scars, to which Nobody didn't appreciate since she was busy trying to suture the wound. A flood of unpleasant memories involving his parents came rushing back in. He didn't feel comfortable talking about his trauma to someone he just met. "I don't wanna talk about it." He coldly told the cyborg girl. He could hear the echoes of old voices.
"Get back up!"
"Useless!"
"You can do better than that dear Lazarus."
Maya didn't feel like asking about what the scars were about since she could tell that he was uncomfortable about it. She didn't seem to notice the fact that he was spacing out since she had just finished suturing the wound. "So, here's the deal. Once I patch up the wound with a rolled gauze, I'll unmask myself and we'll get to know our names." She stated as she looked for the rolled gauze.
"Eh, why not? I already unmasked myself." Damian said as the teenage girl found the gauze. He wanted to shrug, but he knew he couldn't due to the fact that his bullet wound was about to get finished getting patched up.
As Maya was busy wrapping the shoulder up with the gauze, she found the lack of bleeding from the wound rather strange. An exit wound should produce more blood than what Shadowbird's wound had. She took a mental note about the fact as she finished wrapping up the shoulder. "All done." She told him as she got up and took off her mask.
Damian slowly turned his body around, and looked at Nobody's unmasked face, not really surprised. "For some reason, I expected you to have longer hair." He jokingly remarked.
Maya chuckled softly at the remark, knowing that he didn't have anything to say. "Should I tell you my name first or do you wanna go first?" She asked as she put everything away in the first aid kit.
"I'll go first since I unmasked first. The name's Damian." He told the unmasked girl as he raised his right arm, and used his right hand to try to fix his hair. Even though the wound didn't bleed that much, his left shoulder still somewhat hurt when he tried to move his arm.
"Neat name. Expected you to be named something like Victor or Edgar or some other serious name." Maya remarked, liking the name. It kind of fit him. "Name's Maya Ducard. If you're wondering, yes. I'm the daughter of Morgan." She told him as she put the first aid kit away.
"Kind of assumed so since you must've been related to him." Damian stated to Maya, before he looked back at his robe and mask. "I'd like to ask a favor from you. Since my outfit wasn't very professional, can you please make me a new one?" He asked, wanting to get rid of the smelly clothes as soon as possible.
"Oh of course. You can help me with the designing decisions. Though it will take some time to perfect it." Maya explained to Damian. She was excited at the thought of making a Shadowbird costume. As she started to think of adding stuff that would make sewing useful to her cyborg body, both her and the other teen heard a knock on the door along with it opening not too long after.
"You finished patching up the young man dear?" Elanore asked Maya as she walked downstairs. When she reached where the teens were, her question was answered. Her daughter simply nodded at the question as she helped the other teen back into the jumpsuit, and up from the stool.
"She did an excellent job." Damian told the older woman while Maya was busy zipping the jumpsuit back up. "Thank you for letting me stay here. Sleeping on rooftops and dumpsters gets uncomfortable." He joked, causing a playful elbow bump from Maya.
"Dude, gross! Okay, you need a shower like right now." Maya said as she walked the teen boy upstairs, much to the amusement of her mother, and both teens.
As he walked back to the living room, Damian thought about how he was somewhat pleased with his current living condition. He wasn't that close to Gotham, and he was staying in a cozy home with two people. Even though the people he was staying with were basically strangers, at least he could trust Maya a little.
He knew it was at least better than being with his parents, but that's not saying much.