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“I think I may come to appreciate Brown after all, Grayson. Her efforts at naming this pretender, while crude, are almost amusing,” Damian said, and Terry groaned, wanting to pound his head into something. He would rather be almost anywhere than here. Where was Shriek when Terry needed him? He could be deafening the whole city right now, and that would be preferable to this on-going debate about what he should be called in the field.
“You are not calling me Batlad or Batkid. Come on, if there's someone here who is a Batkid, it's him, right?” Terry asked, glaring over at Robin. “No, wait, I take that back—he's Batbrat.”
Laughter came from everyone then, all through the communicators, even the one that belonged to the computerized voice of Oracle. Terry couldn't help smiling as Robin glared back at him. That was probably better than messing with Matt, truth be told.
“I will kill all of you,” Robin said. “I will.”
“'Course you will, Demon Spawn,” Red Hood said. “Just make sure I stay dead this time, deal?”
“Jason, he is not killing you.”
“You claiming that right for yourself, Dick?”
Dick shook his head. “No. You know how I feel about killing things. Though if anyone here has earned the right to take down any of you, it's me. In fact, I would even claim right to Damian—”
“Excuse me?”
“I've had to put up with you for months now, Damian. If anyone does anything to you, it's me,” Dick told him, reaching over to ruffle his hair, and Robin glared at him. Terry held in a smile. They did kind of remind him of himself and Matt, even if Matt wasn't homicidal and didn't know anything about Batman.
“Boys,” Oracle said over the line. “There are still inmates missing from Arkham.”
“Yes, and us girls are doing all the work again. As usual,” Batgirl said over the line. “Here I am taking down yet another goon while you boys stand around talking—and not only that, but I also came up with every name I could for our newest bat—Redbird—”
“You can't call him that,” Tim—Red Robin—protested.“That's Robin's car—well, it was Robin's car—”
“Redwing!”
“No,” Dick said, and Terry was glad to have him veto that one. He really wished they could just be numbers. He was Batman. Terry had been Batman for too long to stop being Batman now. He knew that in this Gotham, Dick was Batman. And he was a damn good Batman. Still, Terry was Batman.
“Red bat?”
“You continue to amuse me, Brown, if only by your ineptitude.”
“You know what, Damian, I will—”
“Enough,” Dick said, using the Batman voice again. “Red Hood, you take Robinson Park. Ivy's back to her old haunts. Harley's already out of commission thanks to you, so you can handle her friend now.”
Hood pulled out a gun, checked the magazine and Terry figured he was smiling underneath that weird helmet of his. “Yes.”
“Good. Go,” Batman ordered. Red Hood gave him a mocking salute and left. “Red Robin, join up with Batgirl. You two are going after Scarecrow.”
“Uh, Batman, not to argue with every decision you made,” Tim began, “but considering that I just handled Clayface, I don't need my hand held. Neither does Batgirl. We could choose our own assignments. Not only that, but you gave Red Hood an assignment on his own and—”
“I gave him Ivy. That way he has something to shoot, he's unlikely to kill anyone, and does not have anything to do with Two-Face, who killed his father. That is my job. Yours is Scarecrow. He is too dangerous to go up against alone. Don't get overconfident. You went after Clayface first because civilians were in danger and it would take time for Scarecrow to put any kind of plan in motion. We gave him that time. It was a risk we had to take. Now it ends. You two go together. End of discussion.”
“Batman?”
“You have a problem with my distribution of labor, O?”
“Not at all, Man Wonder. I think you chose well and had sound reasons for your choices. I'm starting to wonder if it was worth calling the Birds back.”
Batman smiled. “Don't go too far. We've still got a lot of inmates unaccounted for, and plenty of them are dangerous. In fact, if you know where Killer Croc is, I may have something for Robin and Ter—still need that name—”
“Batboy!” Batgirl said. Terry wondered if she was bouncing on the other end of the line. “Yes, because he's a boy—”
“I am not,” Terry protested. “I may have started when I was seventeen, but I'm not—”
“And like Oracle said, Batman is definitely a man,” Batgirl went on. “She has reason to know, more than most of us, but even if she didn't—have you seen him? The washboard abs, the incredible arms, that ass—”
“Batgirl—”
“Which is not to say that you're not cute, Red Robin, but you know, when the girls in our line of work get together and discuss the guys—”
“Batgirl,” Batman and Oracle interrupted at the same time. Oracle's computer voice continued with a short admonition. “Inside voice.”
“Right.”
Batman looked like he might have a headache. “Just rendezvous with Red Robin and deal with Scarecrow. If Catwoman doesn't mind, Oracle, we need someone on—”
“She's there.”
“Good,” Batman said. “Robin, Batboy, you have Killer Croc. And try not to kill each other in the process.”
“You're not seriously going to call me that, are you?” Terry asked, shaking his head in disbelief as Batman disappeared. “No, wait, Dick, come back here! You can't—”
“Grayson will suffer for this,” Robin said, looking at where his mentor had been. He turned back to Terry. “Either come now or I leave you behind, pretender.”
Terry grimaced, almost wishing they'd chosen that nickname over “Batboy.”