Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Stephanie Brown was not lucky by most qualifications. A lucky gal probably wouldn’t have been born to an asshole wannabe supervillain dad. A lucky gal wouldn’t have lost her virginity and immediately ended up pregnant. A lucky gal wouldn’t have been tortured to near death because no one really bothered to look for her. These were very likely signs of rotten luck.

On the other hand, here she was, still alive, eating the most delicious, filling breakfast of her life with her mother practically drowning her in love. For all those awful things that had happened to her either randomly or her own consequence, she was here and she had this. It took a single bite of Crystal Brown’s house-famous bacon waffles to remind Stephanie of just how lucky she truly was.

“Gaaaaaaaaaawd!!” Were there tears in her eyes? If there weren’t, they were definitely itching to come out. “You have no idea how much I missed this, mom. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted…” She slowed down, partially to swallow, partially because of the look her mother was giving her. It wasn’t harsh, it wasn’t even sad; her mother looked worried that the moment she took her eyes off her daughter, she wasn’t going to be there again. It didn’t take the world’s greatest detective to see that. So, she let out an elongated exhale before taking another sliver of food and doing her best to maintain eye contact. 

The look wasn’t unwarranted. This general awkwardness was very much preferable to the torrent of emotions that occurred the day before, whenever Stephanie sought to reveal to her mom that she was, among other things, not dead after a year and some change of being dead . Or, as it would turn out, playing dead . 

Because Stephanie Brown hadn’t died of her severe injuries at the hand of Black Mask. She hadn’t died trying and failing to be Robin for one last glorious moment, trying to undo the gang war she inadvertently sparked. There was a teensy coma involved, necessary for her body to recover from the many many ways it had been punctured in her flesh in ways they were not meant to be punctured. The fact that Stephanie could survive the level of harm placed on her by that goddamn motherfucker piece of shit Black Mask was a testament to her resilience, Leslie would often remind her. The fact she could resist rushing home to her friends and mother was a testament to her intelligence, Leslie would also remind her. To show back up in Gotham while that goddamn motherfucker piece of shit Black Mask was in control of a sizable portion of it would have been tantamount to suicide, especially in her debilitated physical state. The emotional and mental states also were not firing on all cylinders at that time.

So, she recovered. And then, Black Mask died. Murdered. Good. Stephanie didn’t feel an ounce of regret with how much happiness and relief the news of a man’s murder brought her. This meant she was free. Took long enough. Luckily, in the meanwhile, Leslie taught her how to walk and move and be her again, as much as Stephanie could be herself removed from Gotham. She wasn’t entirely sure whenever her roots buried far too deep into Gotham’s disgusting crust, yet she couldn’t deny that was where her heart was. Leslie’s concerns fell on deaf ears, forcing her to conceded to Stephanie’s stubbornness one last time. A flight was booked.

There was a lot of business Stephanie had to attend to, she was aware. All of her aforementioned friends and also Bruce and also the world at large thought she was dead. By most legal definitions, Stephanie Brown was not supposed to exist anymore. Maybe she could get Oracle or Tim or (god forbid) Bruce to sort out her problematic legal existence. But first thing was first: mom.

Everything else could wait. Her mom needed her most.

And that was what brought her to this moment, the two of them staring at each other, too many simultaneous emotions between the two of them for either to make a proper read on the other. Still, they were smiling. It wasn’t the most full-hearted smiles, but they couldn’t be discounted. At a certain point, one of them had to break the ice.

Thank God it was Crystal. “You know, I…tried calling Bruce Wayne this morning. Tell him about you.”

Stephanie nearly choked on her waffle. Her eyes bulged out. She coughed and Crystal immediately looked panicked, as if she were about to witness her daughter being taken away from her. But the girl just kept her hand in the air before downing some milk, taking a couple loud gulps before letting out a relieved sigh. And then it was back to panic. “Wha….what are you doing talking to Bruce fucking Wayne?” She…didn’t know, did she? Did Bruce tell her mom about Batman? He never even officially told her .

“Language!” Even after nearly two years of rest, Crystal’s motherly instincts had not dulled in the slightest. “But, if you must know…we connected slightly during, umm…” Her maternal confidence gave way to uneasiness. “...well, it was soon after your funeral. I got…well, sloshed, for lack of a better term, and I wanted to see you again. At least, the spiritual idea of you. He was there as well. Can’t imagine why, but I took whatever shoulder I could cry on then. Then, I ran into him again at…” The mother deflated against her chair, limping against the back. “...Jack Drake’s funeral.”

“Jack Dra–” The synapses finally caught up to Stephanie’s brain. Oh. Shit. “Oh my god.” That was Tim’s dad. She’d only met him a couple times in passing, the man obviously sizing up the girl that dared to date his son, but that was Tim’s dad . After he had already lost his mother and….shit. The world did not stop while she was away, did it? Well, it obviously had a crisis while she was, but poor Tim. He didn’t deserve to lose his dad. He didn’t deserve to be an orphan. Her mood immediately soured as she stared down at her waffles.

“Yes, I…suppose I should tell you,” Crystal sighed, her fingers tapping against the checkered cloth on the kitchen table. “You missed a lot, Stephanie. I’m not at liberty to talk about the details, but I had to admit a certain kinship with him. Never talked to him, but I was the daughter of a vigilante that died, he was the father of one I imagine is still out there.”

“Wait, what do you mean?” The daughter’s head perked back up, eyeing her mother with a mix of artificial confusion and very real surprise.

The mother rolled her eyes, allowing herself a moment of maternal superiority. “Stephanie, I know Timothy was Robin,” she stated very bluntly, noting the look on her daughter’s face. “It wasn’t exactly hard to put two and two together. Regardless, it only felt right. Tim was there with Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson of all people, comforting him like they were, well…” She did her best to shrug off the emotional scene replaying in her head. “I don’t know. Family, I suppose. We talked a bit. Unlike last time, which was largely hysterics on my part. He came to try and comfort me about… everything .” The last word was said through exhaling nostrils, averting Stephanie’s eyes. “We talked. I forgot he lost his own son however long ago. Gave me his number, if I ever wished to talk. Saw in the news some months later that he ended up adopting Tim. Seems he has a tendency to find pity in boys that have lost everything.”

Okay, so, at least she didn’t seem to be putting two and three together to equal Batman. That was good. That put Stephanie slightly more at ease as she slowly took in all this new information, this status quo that had been completely rearranged in her time away. So, Bruce was officially Tim’s dad now, huh? Bit of a lateral move. Crap, was that bad to think? Shit. “I…see.”

Crystal slowly nodded, as if confirming that Stephanie had little else to add. “So, I called him about that. We talked a little. Became increasingly obvious that his public persona is largely a facade.” Uh oh. “He’s actually quite caring and thoughtful.” UH OH. “So, we got to talking every couple weeks or so.”

Milk bubbled within Stephanie’s glass as she motorboated her mouth against her glass, eyes wide as her body reacted harder to this new information more than anything. Oh god, please please please don’t have Bruce getting friendly with her mom. Bad bad bad, that is the absolutely last thing she wanted to hear. Worst case scenario, being a Bruce Wayne love interest without a matching animal motif was an invitation to an early grave. Vesper Fairchild was a testament to that. Best case scenario…no. Blocking that thought. The absolute last thing Stephanie wanted to be was to be part of that messed up family. She was more than happy being on the outside of all that business, thank you very much. Bruce behaved enough like a disappointing father figure already.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious!” Crystal laughed and waved her hands, very much amused at the comical faces she’d missed so much. “God no. Absolute last thing I want to do is date a billionaire. That’d be a hell of a nightmare. We just became, you know…” The ellipses hung in the air as she started sipping her coffee, shooting a playful smirk and wiggling eyebrows at her daughter. “... good friends ~”

“MOM! Oh my god…” Face firmly planted in her palms, there was maybe worse than all three days of her torture. She could joke about that, of course. It was her trauma, so free reign there. “You’re the worst.”

“I could be better.” The tone wasn’t entirely mocking. Stephanie had inherited her mother’s ability to hide very real emotions in jokes. It was very annoying whenever dealing with her mother’s addictions, with Crystal constantly cracking wise and retorting in jest about her very real problem. Her mother insisted she was clean now, has been ever since, well. Yeah. Celebrated a whole year of sobriety four months ago even! Still, some old habits are never really beaten, comedy masking hurt chief among them. “It’s strange, though. I haven’t managed to contact him for the past month and some change. Not to be too selfish, but I did really miss our little chats. Wanted to tell him about you so he could tell Timothy, but…” She shrugged. “I mean, he is a billionaire. It’s not hard work, but it can be busy work. But I also haven’t heard anything about him on the news or online.”

“Did you set up an alarm for Bruce Wayne updates, mom?”

“Pfft!” It was Crystal’s time to crack up, bringing a greater sense of satisfaction to Stephanie than any villain beatdown could bring her. “No no. Well. No. I just search it manually every couple days or so.”

“I believe that’s called cyber-stalking .”

“It’s called the news , dear,” Crystal hummed, once more taking a sip of her coffee. “Important to keep up with it.”

“Uh-huh. Sure, mom.”

Since Stephanie didn’t announce her grand reappearance, her mother hardly had time to rearrange her schedule to spend time with her. It was surreal, Stephanie imagined, having your long-dead daughter suddenly show up one day and still having to go to work the next. It was a wonder Crystal had the will to tear her eyes away from her newly-risen daughter. But she was running low on sick days, not to mention she once more had another mouth to feed. Stephanie felt kinda bad about that. Last thing she wanted to be was a burden.

There was a sliver of her conscience that felt awful making her mother abruptly care for her again. Her mom would never say a word of it, naturally. That was far from her nature. She’d smile and insist everything’s fine and fall back onto her painkillers and—no! No. Stephanie had to think better of her mom. There was a true sobriety to her now, not only from the lack of drug cocktails, but a real clarity to her eyes, her speech, that smile. Mom was doing good. Stephanie merely didn’t want that to end. She didn’t want to be a burden, as empirically as she was one.

Maybe immediately going out as Spoiler the day after coming back wasn’t going to make her feel like less of a burden. Not like she’d brag about this to her mom later, of course. Her mother was far from the only root that tethered Stephanie to this wicked city. She had friends! Friends that shared a common purpose that she had been sorely lacking in Haiti. At least, she hoped she still had friends here. She hadn’t exactly died on the best terms with Tim. Dying after stealing a boy’s dream job ranked pretty high on her Steph’s Worst Goodbyes rankings. Distressingly, maybe wasn’t number one. Cassandra would probably welcome her with open, strong strong arms though! Metaphorically, at least. Assuming she didn’t hold a grudge over the whole starting a gang war thing. 

Bruce was likely out there tonight as well. Unavoidable, as much as she’d love to avoid him. She knew he wouldn’t love to see Dead Robin #2 walking around like nothing ever happened. Like she hadn’t lit the powder keg that made up the disgusting crust of the city, leaving her only one of thousands of lives lost. So many people were killed then; wasn’t much fair that she was the only one to come back. Batman undoubtedly shared the same sentiment. At least the first Dead Robin only got himself killed. His tenure was ultimately a tragedy; hers was ultimately a mistake.

“AAAAAAAAAAGH, I’m brooding already!” Fists knocked Stephanie’s head back and forth as she tried to snap herself away from the past and the worrying future to focus on the present. Was she already up on a gargoyle? When did that happen? Had she really taken one whiff of the famous Gotham smog and immediately gone into a parkouring fugue state? “Wow. Sometimes I’m so cool, I even impress myself!”

Right about now was the time Tim would appear out of nowhere to rag on her external monologue. Or Cass would come over and bonk her on the head in such a way that all her limbs would cease functioning. Sometimes it was even Batman, that dark, disapproving scowl on her face. A sight that was tragically nostalgic for her.

“ What are you doing out here, Spoiler? ” Her Batman voice had improved significantly since having her lungs pierced by nails before taking a solid year and a half to repair themselves. Leslie noted those took the longest to recover, leaving Stepahnie’s voice a good bit huskier than before. Not that she minded, really. Kinda sounded hot, smokey, mature, like an aged, mature biker lady, or Batman if he took female vocal training. “ Robin! Stop playing around and pay attention .”

Okay, Batman. Good thing the girl’s mother carefully preserved every artifact in her daughter’s room, binoculars included. “ This city. The air is still thick with corruption and smog and also greed, but mostly smog, which mostly comes from greed and corruption. Every alley speaks to me. It tells me crime is afoot. A very stinky foot that needs…cleaning… ” God, she really needed to find Tim fast, she could not be doing bits exclusively with herself.

Batman really wasn’t wrong, all one had to do was search any random alley for any random crime. Literally the first thing Stephanie saw upon lifting her binoculars was an alley outside a bar, where a woman, mid-30s, brown hair, breasts barely contained within her cocktail dress, face covered in rapidly melting makeup, either obviously drunk or drugged out of her mind, was giggling her mind away as a guy led her to a car. A car already being driven by someone else, with a door that was opened by yet another person! The binoculars went down, allowing Stephanie a quick second to let her blood boil.

Then, a controlled breath. Center on the crime, not the criminal. Robin 101. A lesson she struggled with before, painfully clear now. The car backed out of the alley. A grappling gun shot off, another sentimental trinket left under the bed for a year and a half. A purple streak flashed across Gotham once more, the forgotten color added once more to its rich tapestry. Spoiler was here. 

Spoiler had little in terms of armor, equipment, a lot of things that would make it harder for people to shoot her and immediately make her comeback short-lived. She had a kevlar vest, borrowed from her father’s surplus multiple years ago, leaving her getup nigh identical to her first rodeo some years ago. Point being, direct confrontation with men unquestionably with guns was not ideal. Tim liked to wax poetic about the stories crimes could tell. Every decision everyone involved has made has led to this decision, he once mused over ice cream atop some warehouse or whatever. The crime doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it’s the culmination of every decision they’ve made so far. So, it’s important to consider what decisions they’ve made. That tells you who they are and what you’re dealing with. God, he was so cute talking about crime fighting like there was a meta.

Anyway! Decisions that were evident. One: that was an old car, a pretty crappy one from the 90s, tiny, definitely not bulletproof. Obviously not the most professional operation. She’d seen the vehicles traffickers typically used, unmarked vans that were typically kept nice, shiny, and nondescript. There was a lot descript about this car, so many little imperfections that would make it easy to identify; even still had the license plate! So, these men were either amateurs, freelancers, or simply creeps without a cause. Creeps was obviously a given, but it was up in the air whether this was a larger operation. Either way, these guys were obviously green to their trade.

Never the most graceful, Spoiler could still get from Point A to Point B, even if that Point B was on the roof of a moving 1993 Toyota Corolla. “The fuck was that?!” a voice asked from inside. Angry, but mostly confused.

“Did a fucking person drop in on us?!” Much more skittish. There was the sound of a gun cocking.

“DUDE, DON’T FUCKING USE THAT THING IN HERE, FUCKING HELL, MAN!!” The driver, angriest of them all, for good reason. “The bat ain’t been seen all month! Probably just one of the small fry!” 

Spoiler did her best not to take offense to the accuracy. All month, though? She couldn’t recall an entire month without Batman since No Man’s Land. Longest break he’d had in her tenure was two weeks. What was Bruce up to? No, that was future question. Current question was how to stop this car.

This was a bar district, South St. Bibiana Avenue, a strip of road dedicated entirely to tiny bars and even tinier entertainment venues vying for attention. Some pretty neat indie shows around here. An avenue meant that they were on a straight shoot down a road with no one beside them, median strips separating the parallel street until the proper u-turns. This was good. Because, the moment after Spoiler threw some sharp jacks-shaped tacks up ahead, the tires were about to explode.

“I swear, something just fucking moved on–” The skittish man’s suspicions were cut short by the panic of the loud BOOM emanated from outside, followed abruptly by another BOOM!

“FUCKING HELL!!!” At that moment, the angry driver had little choice but to steer off towards the median, the smell of sparks already too strong for his taste. At that same moment, Spoiler suddenly recalled that she never got to finish her physics class before dying. Maybe then she would have foreseen the cylindrical forces or whatever the crap that led to her doing an involuntary barrel roll off the roof and onto the road. That was maybe a disadvantage on her part.

But hey! If Chumbawamba taught her one thing, it’s that if you get knocked down, the guys start coming out of the car with guns before you can get up SHIT. The man in the backseat, the one that had physically escorted the woman earlier, looked to be the big, angry one. Dude was built like a bouncer, big, beefy arms, six feet easy, blond crew cut, black tank top, black leather pants, black shoes, black sunglasses, black pistol. Real fashion statement. There was an incredibly tight window before the bad guys caught sight of the masked vigilante laying down on the road, even fewer precious seconds before their brains did the mental math required to start shooting at her.

So, like any good roguish hero, she decided to shoot first. Her grapple gun shot out, gaining enough momentum to nail the man right in the stomach with just the right amount of pain. The gun flew in the air, dropping onto the car and flopping onto the car, where it then helplessly slid across to the other side of the road. In that time, Stephanie was back up and running towards the other side of the car herself.

There was shouting, no doubt some curses, from the two men on the passenger side of the car. The driver had yet to completely get out. The door was opening as she barreled forward. She got a view of the guy, short, balding, leather jacket. She curled one hand into a fist as she dashed forward. The other swooped down to grab the gun on the ground. With a single hand, the clip came out, bullets scattered, a neat trick Batman buried into her skull more than anything with near constant drills until she could do it reflexively without even looking. Good, because that allowed her to watch the angry driver shield their face with one hand, the other going for something in their jacket. A toy, she bet, so she decided to play a game too. 

Her fist never connected with the man’s face, as satisfying as it would be. Instead, Spoiler gave a good jump, followed by a midair twirl about-face. As soon as one foot connected to the concrete below, the other kicked the door. The man hardly had time to even turn before his entire body slammed against the weight of his car’s entrance. “Yoink!” And to add insult to injury, the purple lady took his jacket.

“Why, you–!” Spoiler ducked in the knick of time once a metal bat came flying towards her head. The last guy was tall, dark skin, narrow face, shaved head, crooked grin. He at least had a neat graphic tee of an indie punk band she heard good things about. Always nice to have a single man of culture around. That bat could pack a punch if they readied it again. Luckily, Spoiler had a secret weapon: a recently acquired coat. In the right hands, such as hers, it could be used as a projectile, flashed over the man to obscure his vision.

Shit, but there was still the gun! Split second decision, she had to take the gun from the pocket, quickly unloading it. But that time gave the man time to pull the jacket away and ready his bat again. Little sacrifices. Spoiler could still sidestep out of the way of the oncoming swing, only to end up running right into the grasp of the tiny driver. Tiny by the standards of his friends and fellow nerdowells, less so by Spoiler standards. He still had a grasp with his no-doubt greasy mitts. She could break free easily, she was sure, but she was more concerned with the metal bat coming towards her masked face. Ah well, whenever backed against a wall, best to use that wall (represented here by a tiny angry driver guy likely banned from any driver for hire jobs outside of the mob) to lift one’s legs and kick a guy. In this instance, the kick managed to connect with their curled hands around the bat. The bat flew up in the air, temporarily out of play.

From there, it was a matter of elbowing the manhandling man handling her, not getting much response beyond a tighter squeeze, but also giving time for her feet to drop, one in particular going for a very vulnerable area of the man’s biology. That was enough to let her regain her freedom, just in time for another fist to fly her wait. “Whoop!” Sometimes all one needed was a quick sidestep to the right. 

The attempted facepunch was a success, albeit with a different face than originally planned. The skinny guy wasn’t the hardest punch, but it made for a nice insult to injury. “Hey! Sorry, man! I didn’t mean to–” Whatever condolences the man had, whether authentic or not, were shut down by the driver, who turned out to have a much meaner wallop than his partner. “OW! What the hell, man?! I said I was sorry! The hell are you doing?! We should be focusing on Miss Eggplant over–” He whipped around. “Where is she?”

CLANG! Spoiler finally summoned her almighty retractable staff, clanging it against the tall guy’s back, once more slamming him into his partner-in-crime. Nice little reward Cassandra gave her for making it an entire training session without bleeding. From there, it was a matter of the classic sling around the ankles, which were less gifts from Tim so much as little trinkets she kept stealing from him on their many dates. Not that the Robin minded, of course, that only made her more quirky , a favorite term of his. The two men promptly collapsed onto the road, thankfully free of other cars, everyone else on the road wisely choosing u-turns over getting involved in this mess. 

“Well then!” Another pocket around her belt revealed rope, nice and shiny. “Let’s tie this all up, shall we?”

Whenever the police arrived at the scene, they found two men tied together and stuff inside a 1993 Toyota Corolla, another handcuffed to the door of the backseat. Against the windshield behind the wipers, there was a note, a page torn from a tiny notebook, containing a message written in only the cutest of cursives

Spoiler alert! These guys work for the Zoog Runners. Drugged and kidnapped Sally Kendrick. Call tomorrow for details. -S

“The hell are we looking at, Chambers?”

The woman’s brow furrowed while she adjusted her sheriff’s hat. “A clue, obviously.”

The author of the note was presently far too busy dropping one Sally Kendrick off at a woman’s shelter clear across town, able to avoid a lot of traffic via swinging the barely conscious woman from roof to roof. Thank goodness that Spoiler kept up the upper-body exercises Barbara taught her forever ago. Poor woman wasn’t even targeted by the goons so much as the guys saw her as an easy mark. 

The skittish man explained that an up and coming gang called themselves the Zoog Runners , whatever that meant, had gained traction lately for turning crime into a gig economy. Criminals would bring in weapons, drugs, people like they were recycling plastics. The Zoogs acted more as middleman, paying whoever came in for their goods to then sell off to other, more organized gangs. They had no loyalty to any gang or family, nor did they ask for any themselves. All they did was ask for resources. A tempting business model, the man explained, almost too good to pass. Valuable insight that Spoiler promptly paid back with a punch to the face, rewarding the man a nap he hardly deserved.

Was it selfish to feel thrilled over a job well done? Maybe it wasn’t her shiniest moment, but Stephanie saved someone using her wits and skills and tools and it all felt amazing! Barbara always told her to beware the thrill. “Thrill is the mindkiller,” she was quoted as saying. Whenever asked if the thrill was the reason for her wheelchair, Stephanie was met with a dangerously lengthy death stare accompanying an eerie silence. Batman never once came close to recreating the terror she experienced in that interaction.

She still missed Barbara. Definitely the coolest adult she ever knew. Women with that much purpose were rare to come by. She was friends with so many cool, rare people. So many people she left to grieve her. Did Stephanie Brown even exist for them now? She didn’t like the idea of being forgotten; she always tried to leave an impression. Everyone wants to leave an impression, some evidence of their existence reflected in others. There was little chance they forgot about a person named Stephanie Brown, but did they still remember her ? Or, had all those happy memories become refracted in her ultimate tragedy, leaving only a cautionary tale?

Tim told her about Jason Todd. Batman told her about Jason Todd. He never revealed his face to her, yet he was willing to open up about that. Even Barbara had mentioned him in passing once. Always warnings, always the worst-case scenario. A loving son, a beloved hero, all reduced to a lecture. 

She didn’t want to be that. It may take some time, but Stephanie Brown was going to be somebody. 

Nevertheless, tonight, she was content being the woman that helped.

The next night, Spoiler was determined to see her friends. Venturing far beyond the suburbs into the city, where the buildings were shiner and the streets grimier, she knew she was bound to come across someone . It’s not as if she kept herself particularly hidden. In the whole night, she stopped two muggings, a gas station burglary (got some free jerky out of that), and an attempted carjacking. One of those things had ping on someone’s radar.

So strange how Spoiler found herself peering behind her back, hoping to see someone watching, only to find nothing. There was an increasingly eerie emptiness, a nagging lack of monsters in the shadows. She could tell the city was feeling it too.

People on the street kept looking behind their back, either searching for danger that was very likely there or salvation that was not. The crooks on the streets had a much more confident gait, no longer bothering to look behind their backs, knowing the only people hiding were more people like them. Had everyone truly left? Batman, Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, not even Huntress or Catwoman seemed to elicit a thought in these idiots’ minds. Of course Spoiler didn’t. Even during her original tenure, no one was really spreading murmurings of the girl in a purple hood. There was a goon she recalled beating up during an arms deal that she found a week later talking about getting beat up by Batman. Like getting beat up by a snarky teenage girl was beneath him, but getting beat up by one of the big boys was a status symbol that let you join the club.

Maybe it was for the best. Spoiler didn’t really have any enemies beyond her dad, but he was dead, as was Black Mask. If anyone held a grudge against her specifically, she wasn’t aware. Ironically, she may have inadvertently created a persona more stealthy than Batman. Everyone wanted to be the one to defeat the Bat, everyone wanted to beat up Batman’s little sidekick, but no one wanted to defeat Spoiler, they only wanted to beat her up and/or kill her because she’s there. No status, no honor, no reward besides ridding oneself of another annoying street twerp.

Being visible was a privilege as much as it was a curse. Those shining few weeks as Robin, being the center of everyone’s attention, it was intoxicating. She was a legend. It felt nice being something bigger than oneself. In a way, that’s what everyone strived for, right? The self was never enough, you weren’t a real person until you were part of other people. To be part of this city, this living, breathing city, was a gift. A gift that was taken away from her. A gift she squandered.

Squandered . What a funny word. Maybe she needed a good squand.

Stephanie stayed in the next night. Crystal was finally off, meaning that it was time for constant surveillance of her wonderful daughter that wasn’t going anywhere. Fine by Stephanie, honestly. She didn’t want to be anywhere else.

They went to the library together, deciding tonight was going to be movie night. Crystal had done well to teach her daughter the ways of the library, the closest thing to a true safe haven in Gotham. DVDs were taken by the armful, a temporary collection consisting largely of animated movies from Stephanie’s childhood that Crystal was more nostalgic for than her daughter, some old Hollywood classics, the film Overboard (once more on heavy insistence of Crystal), and a collection of Looney Tunes cartoons (on Stephanie’s insistence). A quick stop at the gas station on the way back and the two had all the popcorn necessary for a movie night!

The two made it through Mulan and three-fourths of Overboard before conking out on the couch together. Both women had long nights of saving people behind them and ahead, so it was understandable.

The next day, Spoiler headed out before sundown. If none of the bats were going to come to her, she obviously had to go after them.

There were multiple hidden exits out of the Batcave, leading all over various parts of Gotham. There was one moderately close to Park Row, which was the primary way Robin helped her into the cave, usually to Batman’s chagrin. 

Chagrin . Another funny word. What was that, French?

This was how she entertained her brain waiting for the entrance to open. Or, at least acknowledge her. There was a security camera at the gate, not even seeming to move. She got up in front and started waving like mad. “Hey! Batman! Robin! Yoohoo! Remember me?” Not like she wanted that to be her reintroduction to the team, but she was arguably doing this all for herself. She couldn’t just jump to the conclusion that everyone disappeared; in all honesty, she knew that she was mostly delaying confronting the inevitable truth.

Because she looked. She did just like her mom suggested and checked the news for any sign of Bruce Wayne. Nothing past sightings being chummy with some lady called Jezebel Jett, a real smokeshow with a ten-outta-ten name, that nonetheless ended up being found beheaded some days after their last sighting. Probably related! 

She checked the message boards to look for any sightings of Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing, anyone with a pulse and a cool emblem on their chest in Gotham. All she found were people bemoaning the lack of sightings recently, discussing recent crimes that happened to or around them, before devolving into pure hypotheticals or ethical debates. Spoiler did not care much about whether Batman could beat Aquaman if the former was underwater and the latter was on land, nor did she care for the endless debate over whether Batman should simply kill Mr. Freeze or whoever this new Red Hood character was. Many insisted that he died over a month ago, several others stated that they saw him several times after that point, yet still no one had seen him nor anyone for the past three weeks. It was all worthless.

Thirty minutes in, Spoiler got antsy. Her legs started to bounce as she kept returning to her flip phone for the time. It was getting late. The sun was going down. Nothing was happening. She even tried giving her old access code, taken away from her the moment she was fired as Robin, but still, anything was worth a shot at this point. The chirping computer beeping that her input invalid was the only trace of the Family Bat since she got here.

The longer she stayed, the more it began to concern her that they weren’t out there. Could be some big family road trip, a crisis on another planet, whatever, but the point stood that they weren’t here, which meant that so long as Spoiler wasn’t out there, no one was out there. That terrified her most of all. Wherever they were, the Bats and Birds could no doubt take care of themselves, but Gotham was not so self-reliable. Already, it was falling back into darker habits. Things were relatively quiet now, crimes still occuring in hushed tones, yet she could feel it. Without a guardian, those whispers would become real loud real quick.

An hour in, the flip phone vibrated with a text. Only one person had her new number, so it wasn’t much of a guessing game. saw prisn bus fall downtiwn u ok?

The girl sighed. yeah

True in the moment. No telling what the answer would be at the end of the night. She took one last glance at the unmoving security camera, frowning. She had to do this all on her own, didn’t she?

Very well. Spoiler left.  

The next night, the Bat Signal was shining bright in the sky. Next to the spotlight, atop the GCPD Headquarters, was none other than Spoiler, slumped over, exhausted. She wanted to die. Again. 

As it turned out, it was actually very fucking hard to try and wrangle up an entire bus’ worth of Blackgate inmates. Who would have guessed? Spoiler didn’t exactly have the same psychological effect that Batman or Robin or Batgirl had, she wasn’t any challenge or trophy to these people, she was little more than a fly to be swatted. So, she got swatted around a whole bunch.

It sucked to say she was fortunate her mother was being worked to death. She came home and very quickly crashed, leaving Stephanie with little need to explain her various scrapes and bruises. But hey, she was successful by most accounts! There were ten total inmates on that bus and she got six of them. Those six kept close together, choosing strength in numbers, while the others decided to run off to who knows where. In an Oracle-inhabited world, they would be tracked down and neutralized before sunrise. Now, there were four dangerous convicts just out there, doing whatever they wished to do. Spoiler looked high and low for them, even stopping a few violent crimes along the way, but couldn’t make Sonic nor Tails of them. She didn’t even know what they looked like to find them!

After all that, she had to be absolutely, one-hundred percent sure that she was truly, really alone. Spoiler had noticed a curious lack of a Bat Signal since her return. On the average day, it glowed sharply across the Gotham sky even on its darkest day, acting as a beacon for its heroes and a warning to all those that sought to summon them, cutting through the fog even on the city’s cloudiest, gloomiest days. A lack meant that no one in the city was even attempting to contact its heroes. Worst case scenario, capes had become outlawed and Spoiler was about to get herself arrested for attempting to bring them back.

Wait, no, worst case was that they were all dead. That would be worse.

“Oh. It’s you.” The voice was gruff, tired, immediately familiar to anyone with any stake in Gotham. Spoiler had only interacted with James Gordon a handful of times, twice as Spoiler, always tagging along with Robin, and twice as Robin, always tagging along with Batman. Besides that, he was all over the news, making him well-known as Batman’s unofficial PR rep. “Are you some sort of sick copycat or the real deal?”

“IIIIIIII…do not understand the question.” At least, she hoped she didn’t. If she did, then that would mean—

“Are you Stephanie Brown? Or, do you find it fun to pose as a dead girl?” Oh. He knew. Well that’s smarts. Did he know about her pre-or-post-death. She never possessed a Batman or Robin level of paranoia, so her identity was no doubt out there far more than theirs.

Guess it didn’t make a difference. Whatever. “...yeah.” She groaned as the hood came off, revealing the young blonde underneath. “Ya know, I think most detectives wouldn’t automatically propose the idea of the dead walking the earth.”

“I’m not a detective.” His tone was more defeated now, less on guard, allowing the normal melancholy to float back in. “And death doesn't mean all it used to around here.”

“Ominous,” Stephanie was quick to quip. “Look, I don’t really feel like sitting down for a full police report right now. I’m only trying to–”

“Put the mask back on.”

Stephanie blinked. “Huh?”

“You’re a mask; you should act more like it.” Oh great, so now even the police commissioner was lecturing her on vigilantism. “When did you get here?”

“Few days ago.” Probably best to keep things vague. “Why? What did I miss? I mean, obviously I missed something .”

“Batman is dead.” He said it clearly, concisely, without looking the girl in the eye. His hand had already pulled out a cigarette from his coat, the other working by reflex to light it. 

…oh god.

Oh GOD. It was rare for words to have such physical force. Spoiler felt like she’d been pushed, her skin stinging like it had been covered in duct tape that was slowly being peeled off. It wasn’t a new sensation. Black Mask had brought the tape out during one of his “riff sessions” as he called it. Thinking back to those awful, agonizing moments brought her more comfort than living in the current one.

Bruce was dead… 

“Not entirely sure how. But it happened. You could feel it in the air. The sense that something important wasn’t only missing, it was…” He waved his cigarette around noncommittally, before sticking it back in. “Chaos broke out. Arkham Asylum blew up, all the big guys were out. Every mask this city had was working overtime. Think we even had some outsiders. Madness, absolute goddamn madness.”

Spoiler didn’t say anything for a while. Her mind was still racing. Bruce had adopted Tim, right? And now Bruce was dead and Tim was an orphan…Christ, how many times over? Cassandra would be fine on her own, she supposed, yet she obviously clung to Bruce like a father. Regretfully, Spoiler had rubbed that fact in before during moments of weakness and hurt. And Nightwing! She didn’t know much about Dick Grayson besides everything that everyone knew happened to him. How many times could someone become an orphan, until it all became too much? How much hope had to be destroyed until fighting for it became too much to bear?

The creeping sensation of selfishness crawled up her spine. The only thing Stephanie had sacrificed this entire time was her own life. That was nothing.

Bruce was dead. Batman was dead. The Commissioner was only confirming what she had felt in her heart all along. 

 “And he’s…gone?” She didn’t mean to make it sound like a squeak. “What…what about the others? Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl? You know, the other ones!”

Gordon let out a long exhale, smoke billowing in the process. “No idea,” he admitted. “They helped us, got things largely in order, as much as things can be in this city. Then, I guess they just… stopped .”

“Stopped?!” At least it was a higher squeak this time. “Wha–what do you mean stopped ?! Like they just went and retired? Like they disappeared into thin air? What the hell did they do?!”

“Look, I don’t know!” Gordon whipped around, much angrier than he had previously allowed himself to be. “They stopped coming! We kept shining the light, nothing happened. Bad stuff kept happening and they never came. Been like that the past four weeks.” He paused again, taking time for another drag. Spoiler stared at him. While she lacked Batgirl’s supernatural reading skills, she could tell there was something on the tip of his lips, threatening to escape, helpfully delayed by his oral fixation. “You said you arrived here a few days ago, right? You’re lucky to be alive. You really shouldn’t be. What made you decide to suit back up?”

“What made me?” Spoiler shook her head, whipping her entire body back around, feeling sudden onset anger. “What kind of question is that? I’m doing this because I’m alive. I only had to quit before because I could barely move without rupturing a spleen or whatever. I never quit. I never quit.” Anyone that knew her knew that. No use going on a ride if it isn’t towards the logical conclusion.

The commissioner grunted in acknowledgement, not too different from the apparently now-deceased Batman. Batman didn’t smoke like this man, however, likely why he was in so much better shape. “Look. I can’t condone whatever it is you’re doing. It took me a good while to support Batman, but I’ve always known him as a grown man. A grown man can make his own decisions. But I’ve always been reluctant of the little ones, the young ones like you. I may not know him personally, but I know Batman sacrificed everything to be the hero we needed, right down to the last second. In the end, his death was little more than the final extension of that sacrifice; the destruction of a corpse.” His cigarette reached the end of its usefulness, forcing him to flick it down and stomp. “You kids deserve a life. None of you need to be him. No one else should have to be.”

“Who said you get to decide, old man?” Even Spoiler had to admit she was maybe being far too hostile in that moment. But it was a reflex. Her entire being felt like it was under attack, so her mind, body, and soul only knew how to react in retaliation. “Look, I don’t care if you know who I am. Well, I am actually really curious how you knew who I am, but-–”

“Your father ratted you out.”

“GODDAMMIT!” Spoiler’s boot splat petulantly against the asphalt of the roof. “When?”

“Your first appearance.”

“You knew about me ever since the telecast job?!”

“He didn’t take nearly being choked to death by his daughter in a silly purple costume very well.” Gordon had already summoned another cigarette. “Now, you were saying?”

“I…lost my point.” Spoiler’s posture and posturing instantly deflated, the bright white eyes under her cloak finally reflecting the tiredness inflicted on her. “Whatever.” In one fluid motion, her back straightened herself, recovering from her moment of self-pity as quickly as it began within a single arc. “Look, you said Batman is dead, but the others, you’re pretty sure they’re just missing? Is that just a hunch or something?”

Gordon gave another annoyed exhale, lighting his cigarette before putting it in his mouth this time. “We would tell. If a city loses its symbols, those symbols are used to send a message, whether by the bad guys or the good ones. Should have seen the chaos whenever Batman died. People were flashing the Bat Signal in the sky with RIP over it. Everywhere we went, it was Batman RIP, RIP Batman, it tipped from depressing to annoying real fast.”

His lighter was nearing his cancer stick, before Spoiler raised her hand in front of the man’s face. “Could you not? Sorry, I just…my brain has enough to process right now without all the secondhand smoking. Do whatever you want for yourself, but if you really think I deserve a life, I’d like to preserve it a touch longer.”

The commissioner looked surprised, more than usually allowed himself to. He ultimately nodded, storing both instruments for later. “Got more spine than a lot of my men,” he admitted with a chuckle, deciding instead to walk over towards the searchlight. “Haven’t been doing great without Barbara to keep pestering me.”

“Is she missing too?”

“Yeah.” His face was much less amused once he switched the light off, once more enveloping the two in darkness. His face was harder to read than the one hiding under the hood. “That’s what worries me most. But she’s none of your concern. None of this is. If I were you–” 

“If you were me, what barber would you go to? I’m thinking of getting a cut, maybe highlights…”

The man’s voice became a good deal more forceful. “I would count the many blessings that allowed me to be here now. Life’s given you a harsh rap, but luck kept you alive and safe. Cherish that.” He turned about face. “Goodnight, Brown.” On that black note, Commissioner Gordon disappeared into the harsh shadows, a creaking door opening and closing the only hint towards his location.

That left Spoiler alone, hooded and beleaguered, awarded little more than a view of the city. The streets were eerily empty this night, leaving the air still enough for gunshots to ring the air with clarity. Hard to tell where they were from. Gotham City wasn’t in chaos, nor was it on fire. It had become something far more unnerving.

It was quiet. Too quiet. 

Gotham used to scream. From the jagged monuments of its foundation to the glowing gaudiness of its stabs at the contemporary to its nightlife to the shops that had been operating for decades to the tiniest convenience stores packed with hopeful chefs, the city used to scream from every corner. Occasionally in terror, but always with life. That life was missing now. A storm of chaos had parted, leaving the city safe yet unguarded.

Except one hero made it. Through whatever stroke of luck, good or ill, she was still here. The confirmation that she was truly alone meant little, she supposed. Nothing was going to change and she wasn’t going to stop doing what she was doing. She could worry about her friends, do her best to find out what happened to them, but at the end of the day, all she could really do was dive headfirst into every danger she could come across because no one else was going to.

No one else was around to help.

On that wonderfully gloomy note, Spoiler took out her grappling gun, aiming around to find a solid point to grapple. Had to be some old gargoyle within reach.

Her search was cut off by the sound of a grappling gun. Not hers, she realized a split second later, but yet another hook that had attached itself to the opposite side of the police building. She whipped around in time to see a red streak launch into the air. Her heart skipped. It was an arrangement of colors she was intimately familiar with, that red and green and yellow. Her cheeks flushed. Maybe she wasn’t alone after all! If Robin was here, maybe she’d actually stand a chance to—

Standing in front of her was a child. A small child in a Robin costume staring back at her.

There are times whenever this vast, infinite universe allows a brief moment of perfect synchronicity, as if suggesting a grand design. In one such case, two perfect strangers crossed paths upon the roof of the GCPD Police Headquarters one night, looked at each other, and miraculously managed to express the exact same message with the exact same speed, wavelength, and volume, every syllable in perfect harmony.

“WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!”

Chapter Text

The kid wouldn’t stop glaring at her. Sizing her up, no doubt. Even with his eyes whitened behind the mask, whatever reason he was wearing it, Spoiler could see an irksome arrogance in this young boy’s eyes.

Irksome . Yeah, there was an apt word she didn’t conjure often.

“I asked first.” This was the boy’s first unique sentence to her.

“What? No you didn’t. We asked at the exact same time!” That was Spoiler’s first response.

“Demonstratively false,” the boy insisted, not even giving his three dollar word a flourish as he stepped a foot closer to his purple adversary. “Reveal yourself at once, woman!”

The boy couldn’t see it, but Spoiler gaped. Her eyes expanding into big, white orbs along her mask was a giveaway still. “Wha–what did you call me?!” Oh yeah, this kid was absolutely loaded with irk. Worse yet, he was getting her off-track. “Look, kid, I don’t know what your deal is, I honestly have little reason to care. That’s a cute Robin costume and all, but you really shouldn’t be climbing up police bu–”

“COSTUME?!” The boy took out several batarangs, tucked neatly between his gloved fingers, their sharp points shimmering in the moonlight. Their really sharp-looking points. Batman once confided during training that the key to batarangs was the sheer velocity at which they were launched. While there are many variations, as Batman had for everything, they were more blunt objects with sharp tips.

These were knives. They shined like shuriken, looking just as sharp. “Wait, how the hell did you get your hands on–AHH!” So began the dance of Spoiler, narrowly avoiding the razor-sharp blades being hurled at her with deadly precision. Her cape ripped, her arm was cut harsh enough to tear part of her bodysuit, and he even pinned her right in the fucking chest! The place with all her organs! In her wisdom, she had wrapped herself in a kevlar vest around where all her really good organs were, but the kid didn’t know that. This kid was…

This kid was trying to kill her.

Spoiler tripped on her shoes for a brief second before course-correcting and taking a defensive position. Last thing she wanted to do tonight was fight a murderous psycho kid wearing a cheap mockup of her former uniform. Only her uniform didn’t have a dagger along its belt, as this kid was obviously pleased to reveal. “Woah, kid! Slow down! I don’t even know what your deal is!” Even in her attempts to defuse, she stayed in position, her eyes trained on that dagger. Combatting people with knives was nothing new to her, though most of her previous opponents were within the five foot range. “Why are you dressed like Robin?”

“Because I am Robin, imbecile!” The boy’s dagger was poised. Whenever one moved, the other shifted with them, round and round, until the two were locked in an endlessly repeating circle. “This is my birthright.”

Spoiler’s face curled visibly, even beneath the mask. “Birthright?” she repeated. “What birthright?” She tried seeing if the boy reminded her of anyone. Dark skin, probably mixed, spiky black hair obviously unkempt, evil eyes—none of it rang a bell. The first thing that came to mind was Nightwing secretly having a kid or something. She didn’t know the dude much at all, but who else would feel entitled to the Robin title?

Something dinged in the boy’s head, activating a maniacal grin. Looked as if she asked the million dollar question he was waiting for. “I have inherited much through my birth. I possess many distinguished titles. First and foremost, I am known as Ibn al Xu'ffasch. Do you know what that means, woman?” He spoke with the arrogance typically reserved for princes.

“Is it Arabic for Little Lord Fauntleroy?” There was no telling what other crimes were being committed right now, yet here she was getting in a duel with a crazed ten year old. Solo Spoiler was doing amazing work so far.

An eye twitch. That got to him. “Very funny! It means—” 

He yelled something, unfortunately inaudible thanks to the roaring blades of a police helicopter that had arrived to shine their lights down on the two costumed freaks having a quarrel atop the police headquarters. Whatever sounds the boy wanted to say were easily overpowered by the blaring of the copter’s speakers. “YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO BE HERE. GET OFF THE POLICE HEADQUARTERS NOW, OR ELSE WE WILL BE FORCED TO TAKE ACTION.”

Spoiler groaned and shook her head, realizing her mistake. Gordon had warned her, she realized. She wasn’t Batman, nor was she even Robin anymore. Spoiler didn’t have the authority to be anywhere. “Yeah yeah, alright…” She was supposed to be leaving before anyway. “We can finish this later, kid.” She pointed her grappling gun away, only to look behind her shoulder. “Kid?”

He was gone. Fast little shit, wasn’t he? Obviously had some kind of training. Batman training? Her mind boggled as she zipped away. A lot could and obviously had changed in a year and a half. Was Robin back to being a pipsqueak thing? Spoiler would think Bruce might have an aversion to that for all he talked about Robin 2. Not like she could ask Bruce anymore, apparently.

Wait a minute. Stephanie started to run the calculus in her brain as she zoomed across the city skyline. Her mom kept tabs on Bruce Wayne, who was apparently a real nice friend of hers (gross), until he stopped calling back. Was Bruce Wayne supposed to still be alive while Batman was dead? Did that mean Bruce was actually dead or merely faking Batman’s death to some personal end? Unfortunately, everyone that could give her a straight answer was currently missing, so good for her. It was possible that kid knew something, but she wasn’t sure where he’d even run off to.

Until he karate kicked her midswing. After that, she had a pretty clean idea on his whereabouts. The two were dropped towards a very fragile window, Spoiler shattering the glass with her dropkicked body while the kid used her as his shield. Once she was left wallowing around on the ground of a dilapidated office from no doubt decades ago, he was landing gracefully on his feet.

This kid was not doing a lot to endear himself. “Could have just tapped my shoulder, kid,” Spoiler groaned as she scrambled herself off the floor. Soon, she was pointing her own batarang, matching the boy with his own at the ready. “What’s your fucking deal?”

The boy did not respond with his already typical insults. Instead, the eyes under his mask twitched with interest at her similar choice in weapon. “Where did you get that?”

“Gee, I don’t know. My licensed batarang dealer. You probably know him, he likes to make a lot of toys shaped like himself.” If this kid really did have any official connection to Batman and/or Robin, Spoiler figured it would be more efficient to eek the info out of him rather than ask him directly. “Think we share a tailor too. Used to have an outfit just like that. Granted, mine had a skirt. Not too late to add that to yours, I’m sure.”

“Wait.” The boy, Ibn or whatever, was obviously trying to do arithmetic in his brain. His arrogance and rage were diverted for the first time since Spoiler met him. “Are you trying to say you used to be Robin?”

Honestly, Spoiler thought this might as well have been common knowledge by now. “Uh. Yeah.” Her batarang remained raised. “Robin Number Four.”

“No, I’m Number Four!” Ibn insisted, his razorsharp batblade once more poised. “There hasn’t been a girl Robin.”

“What?!” Well now Spoiler was simply offended. “Yes there was! It was me!”

“I am perfectly certain you would have been included in my studies if you were of any importance,” the boy waved off. That had to be intentional cruelty.

“What studies?!” Spoiler shouted back, partially in exasperation, partially in detective mode. “What do you know about Batman?”

“What do I know?” The smugness returned, his scowl twisted into that dumb smug grin of his. Spoiler hoped he didn’t show that face everywhere he went; most other members of society lacked the constraint to not punch that face. “As I said before, I am often known as Ibn al Xu'ffasch.” 

“Sorry, kid, I only took high school Spanish.”

Ibn did his best not to let the woman’s idiocy deter from his dramatics. Still, Spoiler saw another twitch, which was becoming a recurring tell. “Then I shall spell it out for you. Translated into your native tongue, it means…”

The boy’s dramatic pause was even more dramatically interrupted by the entire building they were in moving and shaking. It jostled around, luckily not destabilizing, in such a way that Spoiler immediately identified it as a shockwave rather than a direct explosion within the building. Following that trajectory, she looked outside, past the shattered glass and towards another building a couple blocks down. This one was on fire, its bellows of smoke still fresh. Took all of one second for Spoiler to start dashing towards the window again. “Hold that thought.”

“Wait! What the hell are you doing?!” The boy’s voice grew fainter the moment Spoiler took the leap.

The rush never faded. The fear dissipated over time, yet the rush remained. Spoiler loved it. Loved whenever the wind was gusting against her clothes, gravity rippling them like bedsheets left out in a hurricane. Gravity had become a good friend of hers since becoming a hero, once the two learned how to get along. They now worked in tandem, gravity getting a nice object to throw around and Spoiler getting all the momentum she needed to swing around with her stolen grappling hook. It was all natural to her by now, like riding a bike. Even with a year and some change out of practice, she still knew how to do it.

Evidently, the kid knew too. Fortunately, he chose to swing beside Spoiler rather than into her this time. “Are you daft?!” the kid shouted, thankfully choosing verbal assault. “That’s an abandoned warehouse! You know who works there? Criminals! Common thugs working for the Penguin. I’ve checked, I’ve marked it down. If there is anyone in that inferno, it’s no one worth saving!”

Spoiler felt her blood boil. The flames likely didn’t help, but she knew this feeling. It wasn’t even really anger, so much as all the pieces finally coming together of whom she was dealing with. Someone who felt entitled to a role he had no business with. Disappointing, but acceptable. Ignorable even. “At least I know Batman didn’t train you now.”

Tim had been the first to teach her procedure for flaming buildings, very impromptu during a patrol together. Find the entry point with the least fire. Typically, unbroken windows were the best start considering they had not been shattered by the fire yet. Crashing into one of those, Spoiler put her arm over her thankfully already masked face to absorb the situation. Was there anyone here? Considering the screams for help, yes. Penguin apparently forgone the fire safety seminar for budget constraints, or else they might possess better oxygen control.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted two men trapped on the mezzanine. The stairs had collapsed, while the fire from below was rapidly overtaking their space on the platform. One man made the mistake of touching the metal railing with his arm, burning him and causing him to lose even more oxygen with his primal scream. The other man was at least smart enough to be covering his mouth with his dirty shirt. The smell of burning rubber became stronger the closer she got, likely thanks to their rapidly melting boots.

Both men were startled whenever a masked vigilante popped up beside them. Startled enough to draw their guns even. “Woah woah, hey! I’m here to save you, idiots!” She waved her hands at mid-level like she was trying to deescalate a bar fight. “Put those down and grab onto me!”

“And why should we trust you, lady?” God, these guys were not going to make things easy.

“Because you’re about to get set on fire! And those guns are about to get—”

“Ah!” One of them suddenly cried out, dropping their metal revolver. “Hot!”

“Yeah. That.” Spoiler glanced at the other man, still undeterred, sweating his ass off while pointing a pistol at her. “Look: I’m the only one here with a gun that can actually get us out of here, so if you’d care to cooperate, you might just make it out of here alive!”

“But imagine what Penguin would give me if I brought him a real-life cape!” blustered the man with the gun. “I’d get a promotion for sure.”

“Uh huh.” Spoiler didn’t have time for this. Her trigger finger went off discreetly, causing her grapple to shoot towards the floor, ricocheting before anyone else could even interpret it, directly into the threatening man’s stomach, allowing his gun to fall over the railing into the inferno. “Penguin only hires the best and brightest, huh?” She turned to the marginally smarter idiot that didn’t attack her. “Grab him. Hold tight.”

“Uhhh…whatever you say, lady!” The smarter idiot rushed to his groaning peer, wrapping his arm around his waist. “C’mon, Jimmy, give the gal a break. I don’t wanna die this way.”

“Don’t worry, you’re not,” Spoiler insisted as she took out a length of wire. “Now, hold still.” A few twirls and loops and the two goons were tied up nice and tight together. She wasn’t any Wonder Woman whenever it came to this stuff, but practicing on plushies back home had increased her tying efficiency.

“Ya know, wouldn’t have minded goin’ out with some dignity,” the dumber idiot grumbled. “How’s a dainty like you supposed to carry us out anyway?”

“See, that’s the funny part,” hummed as she finished tying the end of the wire to the tip of her grappling hook. “I’m not. I’m leaving that to my little friend here.” She pointed towards the entrance, still cracked open by the lucky bastards that managed to escape with less heed towards their comrades. Her tongue stuck out in concentration. Batman explained that the cables in his grappling hooks were strong enough to toe a toe truck. Frankly, he should have been more careful not to leave that kind of stuff laying around. 

The two men were left screaming as they were shot out towards the door. She had to time this out perfectly. The men were gliding towards the ground, the cable arcing with their descent. They might get some skid marks from the experience, maybe some hurty bones, but nothing worse than burning alive. Her tongue still out, she positioned the gun itself against the railing, before ceasing its extension moments before the two were set to hit the ground. The goons floated in the air for a fraction of a second before they plopped down onto the ground, the larger goon taking the brunt of the sidewalk, though both experienced whiplash. The smaller one vomited. Spoiler couldn’t blame him.

Unfortunately, there was now no way to get her grapple back without lugging the two lugs back with it. With a click of the button, the gun part of the grapple started zipping away, through the window and back towards its beloved hook for later. So, now she was without her grapple. It didn’t matter. Probably didn’t. Hoped not. She was really winging this.

Parts of the roof had fallen. There were scorch marks all around. Few corpses too, exactly what Spoiler loved to see on the job. Bomb evidently went off nearby, setting off trails of gasoline. She could smell it, the bomb, the gas, the bodies. It all mixed together into an odor she knew she knew would linger in her mind even once she cleaned off.

One man was trapped under debris. Legs crushed, face covered in soot, barely mustering the energy to reach out for help, much less cry out for it. Spoiler allowed herself a second to consider what this man had done to get himself here. Whom he may have killed, whether on his own or through direct consequence of his actions, whose lives he may have ruined or outright sold. Very unlikely this was an innocent man; such men were difficult to come by. She allowed herself a second before reaching down, helping the man drape his arms over her shoulders. There was a lot of debris that wasn’t too heavy on its own, but it was a lot. She pulled, managing to get the man’s legs out from under. Considering the lack of sounds he made, she had to figure his legs weren’t going to be feeling much any time soon. Damn near pitiable.

“Alright, just hold tight…” There was a fire extinguisher no one was able to reach in time. Quick elbow smash and Spoiler now possessed a way to clear a path. There was another man along the way, slightly burned, laying on the ground, but still breathing. Barely. With a sigh of resignation, Spoiler hoisted him on her other shoulder. It wasn’t fast, it wasn’t efficient, but the roof kept falling apart and was definitely close to full collapse. She kept an eye out for other potential survivors, as troublesome as they’d be, but it looked like the bomb had done its job admirably.

Her eyes were watering, her breathing controlled very carefully. Even if the path was safe, she was surrounded by fire and smoke on all corners. Her mask protected her, but it also made the suffocating feeling all the more amplified, even as it prevented literal suffocation somewhat. With blurry eyes dipping in and out of being open, Spoiler neared the exit. The amount of burning dead guys she had to step around hadn’t done much to keep her conscious either. Just a few steps closer, she insisted to herself mentally, not daring to waste the limited oxygen in the room on self-encouragement. 

It was still hot outside, but the existence of fresh air was welcome. Spoiler had truly forgotten what fresh air meant was really new air. Sweet new air. As she tied her two rescues together, her mind was caught on how much she was sweating underneath her cloak, how much she’d reek up the house once she headed back home. Couldn’t even wash up at the Batcave or Tim’s place. Right now, she wanted nothing less than a full chemical shower.

The two other guys she rescued were still tied up, surprisingly still conscious and all in one piece. Felt nice knowing she had an idea on what she was doing. And as the only cape in this city, at least the only one that cared , Spoiler supposed it was up to play detective as well as the hero. “You two.” She snapped her fingers, no small feat with her big purple gloves. “The fuck happened here, huh? Know who did this?”

The idiot that tried to shoot her piped up first. “Yeah! It was that, uhhh… helmet guy! The red helmet guy!”

“Red Hood,” the other idiot was quick to correct. “That new crime boss that’s been wreckin’ everyone’s shit out here! Everyone! This guy ain’t got no allegiances, lemme tell ya.”

“He didn’t have a hood on, it was definitely some sorta red Darth Vader-y type thing. That ain’t no fuckin’ hood.”

“Hood’s also a term for punk or criminal, ya know. Think that’s what he’s aiming for.”

“No, man! He’s aimin’ for the Joker’s old bit! Ya know, whenever he wore that red hood with the cape and everythin’ in that game? The Red Hood Gang?”

“Way before my time.”

“Yeah, most things are before your time, huh? I got scars older than ya!”

“Stop!” Spoiler waved her hand before looking around the thugs, her train of thought temporarily diverted. “Hey wait, where’d my grappling gun go?”

“Robin took it,” the smarter idiot replied. “Ya know, the small kid.” Of fucking course he did.

“C’mon, Robin’s not some small kid anymore,” the previously gun-happy goon groaned. “I fought Robin when he was a small kid, then he got big, then he got small again somehow. Probably a different kid, I bet. Batman probably trains a whole damn army of them.”

“Hey, remember that girl Robin from a couple years back? Whatever happened to her?”

“Ya know, I never even got to see her. Guess she beefed it even pretty early in her career!”

“FOCUS!” Spoiler massaged the bridge of her nose, trying her best to ignore the thugs’ speculation on her former career. “Red Hood. You said he was here? Why?”

Both goons shrugged. “Warned us sayin’ that Penguin’s time’s almost out in Gotham. Said we could quit an’ join his gang before things got down. Nothin’ new, really. Always happens whenever new guys decide they want some turf.”

Lesser idiot piped up. “Yeah! But this guy’s a true blue psycho! Came in there just casually slingin’ gasoline around, singin’ some sorta showtunes like he ain’t encroaching on our turf!”

“ Hey Big Spender ! Ya know, from Sweet Charity ? Catchy tune, guy should be strung up just for gettin’ that stuck in my head again.”

“Not gonna ask how ya know that. Anywhos, warned us that tryin’ ta shoot ‘em would blow us all up. So, we let him do his whole spiel, right? And like he says, he leaves, nobody follows him out. Then, two minutes later, ZOOM! He comes in on his chopper, lights a match, and blows the place sky high! With him in it!! Guy’s a fuckin’ psycho, I can tell ya that much! Then, he zoomed right outta there like nothin’ happened!”

Spoiler nodded as she took the story in. She’d read about this Red Hood guy. Supposedly made a big name for himself collecting the heads of several drug lords before collecting them in a sack and making it his calling card for the underworld. Demented stuff, reminded her a lot of Black Mask, really focused on theatricality. “I might just have to pay this Red Hood a visit sometime…”

“Pfffft! Ya kiddin’ me, right?” the bigger idiot laughed, less mockingly and more in awe of the woman’s stupidity. “He’ll tear ya to shreds! Look, lady, I dunno how long ya been in this game, but here in Gotham, bosses are split between the mean guys and the crazy guys. Some-a them can toe the line between ‘em, but Red Hood is full crazy! When he first came inta town, he ran on two things: protection from Black Mask an’ Batman.”

“An’ now both-a them are dead, so who knows what he’s doin’ now. Lookin’ ta pop Penguin, probly.”

Spoiler had no love lost for the Penguin. Still, the idea of this guy using the absence of his greatest enemies to seize power didn’t sit right with her. Normally, this was where she’d ask Babs for more details, only there was no Babs anymore, apparently. Considering Black Mask blew up her clocktower lair, she wouldn’t blame her for not wanting to set foot in Gotham again. 

Wait, no. Bad phrasing. Sorry, Babs. Wait, Babs wasn’t God, she couldn’t hear her thoughts right now. Hopefully. She did hear her shout that she was God once. 

Sirens slowly became audible in the distance, growing louder by the second. “Whelp, guess that’s my cue! Uhhh…if you want to stay out of trouble, stay out of crime!” Hard to make a dramatic exit without a grapple gun. Best she could do was run away in the opposite direction of the sirens. “Good luck!” Into the shadows she ran.

Unfortunately, it was a pretty well-lit area, so it took a nice five-minute jog to get into the shadows of Gotham’s copious alleys. Even then, she still smelt of smoke in such a way that she’d smog up the entire apartment if she returned home. Then, there would be no hiding this from her mom. She’d have to reveal to Crystal Brown, grieving mother, that her daughter returned from the grave to secretly keep doing what got her killed in the first place. It would be like whenever Crystal came home from rehab and insisted she was good for good, only to relapse at the slightest provocation from her dad or the city at large. She had been doing good. It was only a matter of time before Spoiler slipped up and Stephanie Brown was once more on her own.

The dark thoughts slipping into her brain were helpfully interrupted by a metallic clang in front of her. One additional step and Spoiler could have been concussed by her own grappling gun, which was instead laying there on the ground. Peering up, upon the rooftop of a decayed motel, there was a dark figure against the bright full moon, eyes glowering down at her as their cape fluttered in the wind. Would have been an imposing sight if not for the figure’s size.

“Ya know, from down here, you kinda look like an escaped monkey trying to look cool.”

The figure’s eyes rolled loud enough to be seen over twenty feet up. One flip later, and the boy was rushing towards Spoiler’s location. Really close to her location. Once Spoiler realized the boy’s boots were on a breakneck course directly for her face, she did her swiftest to rush out of the way. Didn’t stop the kid from grabbing onto the back of her cloak, pulling her head back just so enough to grab ahold of her mask. Spoiler was unmasked and Stephanie Brown was revealed.

Yet, the boy looked upon her and possessed no more recognition. His eyes narrowed at the increasingly incensed woman stomping towards him. “I don’t get it. You’re not a Robin. You aren’t even a Batgirl. I haven’t seen your face anywhere at any time.” He dodged the girl’s attempts at lunging for her mask with annoying levels of grace. “Mother never mentioned you. Nor did Father.”

After the fourth unsuccessful snatch, Stephanie finally let out a powerful groan she had been keeping at bay. “I am a Robin!” she shouted back, only to lead herself into Unsuccessful Snatch #5. “Or, I was! It was short, but…it mattered! I mattered!” Damn, this kid was slippery. He moved with grace nearly comparable to Casssandra. His moves were nowhere near as fluid or second-nature as she made everything, yet the moves felt the same. “Even without the costume, I’m still twenty times the Robin you’ll ever be.” That last bit wasn’t even out of frustration; only pure, undiluted resentment.

Ibn sensed it. There was a subtle shift upon his face, as if a new thought managed to penetrate his ego. He tried his best not to let it show. The kid was trained, yet there was only so much a kid could really hide. “What did you mean by that?” he finally asked, still winning their game of keepaway. “What you said earlier? You said you knew Batman didn’t train me. What did you mean?”

Stephanie let out another growl of frustration, making one last unsuccessful plunge before deciding to take a break, leaning against the alley wall. She made a quick note of the collection of dried gum on said wall before electing to ignore it. “Because you didn’t care,” she finally replied, blunt as a hammer. “People were in danger. Bad people? Maybe. Hard to tell. But still people who were people.” She looked off towards the smog-filled sky, once more far emptier than she cared for. “Batman could be an aloof asshole. I wouldn’t even put it past him to pick up another Robin after me. But he cares for this city and its people more than anything.” Stephanie surprised herself with a smile. “He likes to play the part of a cynic, the pessimist, the curmudgeon, lot of that isn’t even acting. But he goes out of his way to save everyone he can, from the biggest supervillain to the smallest thug.”

“No doubt the same philosophy that got him killed.”

The girl’s head jerked violently down to the kid. There was no use hiding her disdain anymore, the kiddy gloves were off. “And what would you die for, huh?” she spat out. “I don’t care if you’re some sad street orphan or Batman’s secret lovechild, you shouldn’t be out here if you’re not prepared to die for something bigger than yourself.”

The boy grit his extra-sharp teeth and growled, no doubt trying to act like an intimidating wolf, but coming off as a cornered puppy. “And what if I’m bigger than anything else here?” he retorted. “My life’s purpose is not to be a sacrifice. I know that much.”

“Then why are you in that stupid Halloween costume acting like some sort of hero that doesn’t help people?” Stephanie growled back, stepping closer to the boy she towered over. “We have a name for people like that down here: supervillains . People who think a crafty getup is enough permission to enact their own deluded fantasies.”

“And how are we so different?” Ibn asked in exasperation. By the look on his face, it wasn’t a philosophy he actually held, it was bordering on a real question. “Just because we beat up the bad ones?”

“No, because we help people,” Stephanie drew out, leaning down and pressing her thumbs against her middle fingers for emphasis. “Why else would you even want to be Robin if you didn’t care about helping people?

“Because I am Ibn al Xu'ffasch.”

“I don’t fucking know what that means!!” Stephanie clutched her forehead in exasperation. Her mind was made up, she wanted nothing more than to be home right now.

“ Son of the Bat .”

Bags magically formed around Stephanie’s sinking eyes the longer she stared. Static filled her brain. She was so tired. Her brain was designed to process anything this big this late with only this much oxygen. “Like…Bat… man ?”

The boy nodded, never breaking eye contact. Then, he pointed his gun up towards the sky, pressed down, shot up, and disappeared into the night once more. Spoiler’s mask was left on the ground.

This definitely opened a whole can of worms. A thousand questions wracked her brain, desperate for answers she was liable to never get. Among them all, one in particular repeated the most and loudest: why was he the only one left?

Brown family breakfast the next morning was tense. Hard not to be whenever the air still smelt heavily of smoke. Stephanie insisted that it was the result of a failed cake attempt the night before. Wanted to surprise her mom, after all! So, surprise! Windows and doors were still open wherever applicable while Crystal saw fit to replace the bad smoke with the good smoke of her incense.

Incense was a new thing for Crystal, another interest she’d taken in her short-lived role as a grieving mother. Asking about it got her chatty, which was good, because it meant less talking about Stephanie. Now, they were here, together again, sitting primarily in silence while the daughter ate her sugary cereal and the mother read her newspaper while sipping on her new morning smoothies. Asking about those also thankfully used up some time.

There was something in the air between them. Smoke mostly, but also so many words left unsaid. Stephanie had a lot to talk about, only she couldn’t talk about it, lest her mother suffer from a heart attack. Even more terrifying was the idea that Crystal actually had a lot to say, and could hear the words lost in the silence. Yet, all she did was sip.

This was getting to be too much. Stephanie had to break the tension somehow. “Hey! So…heard anything from ole Brucie Wayne yet?” It was still up in the air if the mask behind the mask was dead or simply the mask. Ideally the second, for as much grief as the man gave her, the last thing she wanted him to be was dead dead. 

That warranted a cocked brow, the mother finally looking away from her paper. “No, afraid not,” she hummed, disappointment evident on her face. “Tried calling again yesterday on my break. Worried I may have left too many calls. But here, look at this.” 

She finally presented her Gotham Gazette, whereupon the third page was a picture from far away of a familiar handsome, shirtless man lounging on the deck of a yacht without a care in the world surrounded by equally scantily-clad women. A quick survey of the text revealed that Bruce Wayne was merely taking a sabbatical for an extended period, focusing on his mental health following the death of yet another one of his suitors. There was much snark within the article, pondering how many of the women out to sea would turn up on land. The whole playboy persona was understandably becoming more and more strained following the public string of deaths that followed this man’s affections.

Upon reading, Stephanie’s eyes narrowed back on the picture. It was so obviously staged that the ocean might as well have been a matte painting. No one thought to investigate any of the women, since that would likely reveal just how long ago this photo was taken. Batman never talked about his civilian identity to her; as far as he knew, she didn’t even know about it. Even on her death bed, her fucking death bed, he kept that mask on, no doubt afraid of whatever demons Stephanie would tell his secret in Hell.

“...Fake.” Stephanie didn’t feel like playing into the narrative. Not like there was much of a masquerade to shield anymore. “Obviously fake. So so fake.”

Crystal’s face remained a frown. “Yes, I was thinking the same thing,” she hummed, adjusting her glasses and taking the newspaper back. “I’ve met the man mask off. Plus, I keep track of the news. Couple years back, there was this investigation into why Wayne Enterprises supported such an influx of charities. Had to be something up, ya know? No such thing as true philanthropy. That kind of stuff is typically used for tax write-offs, to move money around from place to place, maintain power and all that. Adds prestige, gets everyone on your side. Only Bruce is never the face of any of this stuff. He never does press conferences about them, the trails were remarkably clean and straightforward, everything always went to where it was supposed to go. So many of these guys, they say they’re donating stuff as grand public gestures, then a quick look reveals nothing went anywhere. Sometimes they even give money to charities for matters they lobby against. But Bruce is remarkably consistent. And it all comes from his salary. Course, it’s impossible for anyone with that much money to be truly innocent or clean in our capitalistic society, but–”

“Okay okay, I get it!” Stephanie groaned, happy to be finished with her breakfast because it meant she could stand back up. She couldn’t even escape that man’s shadow in the comfort of her own home. “You can stop calling him Bruce. In fact, I insist you do.”

“Ooooh, don’t be such a spoiled sport,” her mother teased back. “I didn’t mean to go on like that. I simply find it odd. I’ve seen him be quiet, thoughtful, his voice so so different from the one he puts on for all those interviews where he acts like an idiot. Almost like he wants to be seen that way. It’d be absolutely devious if we found any way he was being devious.” Dressing up as a bat to scare everyone with a gun was pretty devious. “People constantly frame him for matters, up to downright murder , yet he always shows up clean. Like, genuine, real, shockingly clean. So, why the act? What’s the point of making up all these fake tabloids? It’s so obviously controlled. Who’s leaking these, anyway?”h

“That’s—a very good question, mom.” The gears weren’t quite turning in Stephanie’s head, yet it felt like a new, very necessary gear had clicked into place. “Who indeed?”

“ Whom , dear.”

A snort escaped. “I know. I was teeing you up.”

Nestled within the scenic lawn of Wayne Manor is a birdbath. Crafted with only the finest burley clay by a once renowned but now forgotten Grecian artisan in 1854. Commissioned by Eleanor-Elizabeth Langley Kane, she passed it down to her granddaughter, who then gifted it down to her own granddaughter, a lovely woman by the name of Martha Kane. Martha, already rich in her own right, married the only man in town that could match her revenue, bringing the birdbath to Wayne Manor, creating a miniscule pocket of light within the otherwise dreary shadow of the well-worn structure. Upon her untimely death alongside her spouse, the Wayne estate was inherited entirely by their single heir, a young boy named Bruce. Bruce never tended to the birdbath much, allowing once crystal clear waters to turn green, deterring any birds that might wish to welcome themselves into his bleak, lonesome life. 

At least, this was the story Stephanie came up for the birdbath as she carried it across the lawn on her shoulder, small grunts escaping with every few steps, all to finally smash it through the front window of Wayne Manor.

“Whelp! When all you have is a nail, right?” She proclaimed this to an audience of no one, as alarms blared across the entire manor. But she could tell this because she was finally within the manor, no longer repetitiously ringing the bell or slamming on the door while shouting for attention, as was her strategy minutes ago. “Not gonna lie, surprised this place doesn’t have, like, steel traps covering all the windows and doors in an emergency. First time I can call you underprepared!” She announced all this to the open air like she was expecting a response. As if Batman would reveal himself simply to banter with her like old times.

Stephanie knew this wasn’t the case. Empirically, she knew, emotionally, she wasn’t quite prepared for any other scenario. This included the scenario of a feral child pouncing on her from the ceiling(?), landing on her back, wrapping himself around her waist, and brandishing a knife sharp enough that the edge was glaring into her eye. That’s what she got instead. 

“Who are you?!” The boy’s curiosity was liable to be the only reason Stephanie was still alive. “What are you doing here?! What is your purpose?!”

“What kind of dumbass question is THAT?!” The boy didn’t count on Stephanie ramming him into a display case. Sure, some priceless family heirlooms were jostled around in the process, a couple shattering, but it stunned the boy for the short yet perfect window that allowed her to grab his arm, jerking it in such a way that his hands had no choice but to relinquish its weapon. 

The boy remained tight in his grip, no doubt still possessing many non-weapon-based ways to kill her on the spot. “Let go of me and I’ll tell you, you little DEMON BRAT!!!” 

Her bargain caused the boy’s grasp to falter subtly. Those tight arms then slowly, downright tentatively relinquished, while Stephanie relaxed herself in kind. It took a good minute, but the two were eventually disconnected, standing across from one another, still eyeing each other with suspicious eyes, yet having the sense to both back away rather than allow themselves to tangle again. The alarms continued to blare.

The boy was no longer wearing the Robin costume of the night before. His face was exposed to the world, those haunting greens scowling in suspicion of the young woman. He wore a gray t-shirt, green along the sleeves and borders, along with blue jean shorts. At a glance, he almost looked like a normal boy. That glare, however, belied a different story. It was intense, focused, in such a way that Stephanie was beginning to consider this boy truly had Batman blood in his veins.

“So.” The long silence was finally broken by the little kid, Mister of the Bat. “What are you doing here?” Stephanie could see a twitch across his lips like he wished to tack on a new insulting title to the end of that sentence, yet thankfully restrained himself. Maybe he could learn.

“Thought that was exceedingly obvious,” Stephanie groaned, slumping against the wall. “Since you’re here, I take it you know the big Wayne secret and all that.”

“Well…of course.” Little turd couldn’t even allow her the satisfaction of figuring out his big secret. “As I told you, I am the Son of the Bat.”

“And the Bat is Bruce Wayne.”

“Yes. I am well aware.”

“Soooooooo…” Her hands rolled around each other.

“Tt.” The boy leaned against the parallel wall. “Yes. My name is Damian al Ghul. Yet, here, amongst the city, you may refer to me by Wayne. I am the Batman’s one true heir, after all.”

“Yeah, that checks out,” Stephanie sighed, shaking her head and adjusting her ponytailed hair. She was fully prepared for that likelihood after last night. Either Bruce was even better at keeping secrets from the press than she imagined, or this was a very new introduction for everyone involved. Assuming there even was anyone else. “I’m Stephanie Brown. Former Robin, current Spoiler.”

“Spoiler?” Damian’s eyes squinted with hostile curiosity. “What’s that mean?”

“It meant something at some point,” the girl casually waved off. “Wait, al Ghul? What is that, French?”

The boy was not inching closer to the girl’s side. His teeth clenched, his fists hardened, yet he did not act. Remarkably, he was able to restrict his body’s impulsive need to pulverize this annoying girl. “It’s a very important family,” was all he wished to say right now. “So, I ask again: why are you here?”

“Looking for everyone else. Duh.” Her eyes grazed around the expansive mansion once more, no new answers found. “So, big question: where are they?”

“Unknown.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.” Damian was already upset over having to repeat himself. “I got here and they were all gone.”

“All gone? Why the hell did you even—do you know how to turn off that fucking alarm?!” Stephanie typically did her best to prevent swearing around children, but this one did try stabbing her. The constant buzz in the background was not doing favors to her track of mind.

“It stops after thirty minutes. I…tested it.” His eyes briefly darted, an obvious tell. “If you were really a Robin, I presume you know of the secret hideout?”

“You mean the Batcave?” The kid nodded. “Well, it’s nothing if not soundproof. Lead the way, Little Bat.”

Damian jerked at her so hard that she was surprised he didn’t growl at her. “Do NOT call me that.” Stabbing was still on the table, it seemed.

Stephanie Brown was never allowed upstairs of the Batcave. As a show of trust, she never challenged this order, nor did she ever tip her hand at her employer and let him know that she knew more than he knew she knew. As such, in her brief history as buddies with Batman, she had grown intimately familiar with the Batcave.

This was why she had a very visceral reaction to seeing it trashed to hell and back.

The Batcomputer was smashed, both the screen and its console. One of the most powerful computers on the planet, destroyed by brute force. The giant dinosaur, whom Stephanie had affectionately internally named Gertie, was laying on the floor, its head popped up and stomach gutted of its circuits. Made her sick. Even the giant penny had been tipped over in whatever chaos partook. If she ever came across Two-Face, she’d be sure to tell him it was now an interminable tails.

Most upsetting of all was the glass displays. Monuments to Batman’s long history and tributes to heroes passed that could never be eulogized by the public, all shattered and torn apart on the floor. Whoever did this had more than a grudge, they had a statement. Stephanie heard it. She hated it.

“Do we know who did this?” Her voice was colder than even she was expecting. This shouldn’t matter this much to her. She was but the most miniscule piece of this larger legend. She didn’t even see a display case for her Robin costume. Yet, there was still an attachment. She often liked to play coy and above Batman’s stupid bit, but this hurt her. 

“No idea.” Damian’s voice wasn’t much sunnier. “I’ve been trying to figure that out.”

“Along with where everyone went?” Damian nodded. Stephanie sighed.

The floor was scattered with the tattered remains of various Batsuits from the man’s storied career. Scraps of black and gray and yellow and blue trailed all around. Only one batsuit was maintained in full: one with a lot more blue than Stephanie could recall Bruce ever wearing, strung up above the shattered computer screen. All seemingly held together by glistening, golden knives.

“Only hint I could get was the knives up there. All identical, so I only kept one.” The melancholy of the cave must have dulled Damian’s paranoia, as he was now content to share the evidence in his pocket, handing it over to the older girl.

It was heavy. Real gold, she would guess, if only because it was the most insulting. The entire blade was engraved to give the impression of a bird. Some kind owl. Hard to deny the craftsmanship.

“If they were all identical, then this was a calling card. Idiots here can’t help but leave clues to assert some kind of superiority. Set up a mystery.”

“And you suppose yourself to be an expert on such matters?” The kid was still evidently suspicious of this woman’s credentials, even after trusting her with evidence.

“What? You want a work reference? My dad is—was Cluemaster.” 

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Good. No one should.” She peered back down at the knife. Her eyes became locked in concentration, a single stream of thought continuing as she peered back at the stairs they had come from. “It’s weird. There wasn’t anything broken up in the manor, right?”

“Nothing besides a recent broken window. However, we both know where that came from.” God, the kid was like Cass if she was trained in sass instead of fighting.

“Well…why not? I’m not seeing a real fight here.”

Damian’s eyes squinted. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, look around! No blood, no loose weapons. If there was a fight, whoever won didn’t care much about clean-up. There’s no sign of any kind of struggle. It’s like they came in here without any resistance and fucked shit up. If you don’t mind the language.”

“I find it uncultured more than anything.” His eyes traced the ground, looking for any evidence to the contrary. “What does it matter?”

“Well, if the bad guys came here, wrecked shit, and then left, why didn’t they go upstairs?” She pointed towards the massive stairwell. “Did they not care about who Batman really was? Or, did they already know? If it’s the latter, then…”

“... Why wouldn’t they trash the manor as well?” The boy was catching on. Stephanie always loved this part. She deemed it the mind meld , the moment people start operating on the same wavelength. Always an exciting time.

“Right! And, if there wasn’t any resistance, then this most likely occurred after everyone disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“And what does that matter?” Damian now looked very upset to have ever been on Stephanie’s wavelength. “Still doesn’t narrow down the subjects.”

A finger went up in the air. “Ah, but it does establish a timeline and makes us question a potential motive.” There was electricity buzzing through the girl now, even if she was ashamed to admit it. Herein laid a mystery, a mysterious one at that! Not even Robin trusted her to solve a mystery on her own before. Batman definitely didn’t, the only mystery he gave her was himself. “Do you have a mystery board?”

“Pardon?”

“You know, a mystery board! A sorta bulletin board or dry erase board where you keep track of all your questions and your clues and everything.” Her hands gestured around wildly, mostly to suggest a rectangle. “Helps keep things on track. You can put tacks on it, you can put connective yarn…it makes mysteries fun! But also easier. Ya know, seeing everything all laid out.”

“Tt. No, I don’t have one.” Damian wrapped his arms together as he kept eyeing his female intruder. “Do you?”

“Used to. Had to throw it away forever ago, though. Got too good at solving mysteries, ya know?” She shrugged, doing her best to play it off. “We could easily just buy a new one. I mean, if you’re really Bruce’s kid, you have to be stacked.”

“I have no access to my father’s nor my mother’s funds,” the boy replied bluntly. “I have searched around for leftover cash all over this assuredly tacky mansion. All I could find was fifty-three dollars in cash laying in Nightwing’s room. I have spent it primarily on food throughout my patrols.”

“Oh. Huh.” Her eyes creased. “So, you’re telling me Bruce Wayne, bazillionaire, never kept any cash in his mattress or anything?”

“I eviscerated everyone’s mattress thoroughly, no money was found.”

“Hm. And I can’t really have a credit card because I’m supposed to be dead…”

“Pardon?”

“Wait!” Light returned to those baby blue eyes as Stephanie snapped her fingers in typical eureka fashion. “I got it. I’ll be right back!”

“Hello, my good man. How much would you say this lovely, rustic treasure of a birdbath is worth?” The answer turned out to be 80 dollars. Not nothing.

Chapter Text

The woman was annoying, yet oddly compelling. Damian did not wish to spend more time with her and that annoying face that constantly shifted between misplaced determinism and idiotic enthusiasm. Yet, the woman kept pulling him along, occasionally literally, to which he was always quick to snap and resume control of his own path, and metaphorically, which he found himself far less capable of resisting. It wasn’t as if the woman projected any authority. He had always been around powerful women, women with the strength to kill mighty foes with their bare hands, coupled with the charisma to lead subordinates to battle; whether it was to victory or death was irrelevant.

Stephanie Brown was comparatively an imbecile. Here she was, leading him to glory in the art supplies section of a dollar store. “Gonna need some color paper. Ya know, for categorism.” Wasn’t even a word. “Actually, know what? Glitter is probably overdoing it, but you never know. When in Rome, right? Lots of situations call for glitter! You want anything while we’re here?”

“How is any of this relevant to finding our missing allies?” He was trying his absolute best to be less conspicuously angry in a public setting, not that the girl was helping.

“That remains to be seen,” the girl hummed, adding the glitter to their cart. “Should still have a little leftover. What kind of chips do you like?”

The casualness of every inane question felt like deliberate provocation. “I do not require fatty snacks to operate. Besides, the last thing I want is to become as fat as you.” The boy’s smug grin was cut off two seconds later by an “Ow!”

She flicked him on his forehead! The nerve of the women! How did she even do that?! How did he not see that coming? Was this part of her bizarre aura? It was like she possessed a psychic field that made everyone around her slightly less attentive. Maybe it was those unnaturally blue eyes. Once he made eye contact with them, it was like getting lost in an endless, sparkling sea. Of stupidity, obviously.

“How have you been eating all alone in that mansion?” Brown asked, adding two bags of fiery hot chips to their selection. “I didn’t see an Alfred around anywhere.”

“I can cook perfectly well on my own, thank you.” What a fool to underestimate his abilities. “It is a skill one must develop for basic survival. There is a collection of non-perishables and well-refrigerated ingredients within the manor. I have simply taken advantage of that.”

“Whatcha been cooking then?”

“Soups, mostly.”

The woman deflated at this answer. It would seem she had little respect for proper nutritional value, choosing instead to destroy what little health her body still possessed with a cocktail of corn starch and acids. “Okay then. Gonna get some sandwich stuff while we’re at it. You’re a growing boy, you need growing boy food.”

“I am not–! I…” Shit. He was a growing boy. What else was he going to say? That he wasn’t growing? Oh, Brown was good. Perhaps this woman served a purpose after all. Damian needed someone to sharpen his wits, to present a mental challenge worthy of Batman himself. “Do not call me a boy.”

“Very well, young man.” A perfect verbal parry. He was slipping. He activated his last resort, a scowl accompanied by a low, unhappy guttural noise. The conversation ended there.

Stephanie stepped back to admire their handiwork. Sure, it was only a medium-sized bulletin board sitting in Batman’s old computer chair with a number of colored sheets on it, but it was a start. The board now asked the big questions on the tip of everyone’s tongue.

On a red slip of paper asked WHERE DID THEY GO???, accompanied by little doodles of Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl, and Barabara in her classic spectacles.

Beside that, a green slip of paper asked BRUCE WAYNE COVER-UP???, beside a clipping from that morning’s newspaper. Someone was keeping up the idea of Bruce Wayne living even while Batman was dead. These could be related to the missing persons. Then again, so could the next question.

WHO DID THIS??? the yellow paper asked. Below was the owl knife stabbed into the board by their resident stabber.

Stephanie’s hands wandered to her chin, holding it as she stared down at her project. “Alright. So, we have all the big questions. Now, we only need some suspects.”

“Suspect number one!” Damian had been preparing his own additions to the board during the setup. With a tac already stabbed through his paper, he slammed a surprisingly detailed sketch of a man in a red helmet covering his entire face, decorated solely by blank, angry eyes, wearing a spiffy leather jacket. Kid knew how to do shading and everything, damn. “Red Hood.”

“Red Hood?” Stephanie leaned over to absorb the picture even closer. “Odd-looking duck. Hey, you’re pretty good at this art thing! Think you could do me next?”

“Focus, Brown!” the boy snapped, rolling his eyes, even as his eyes were pointed away from the girl.

She did her best to act like she didn’t see the fluster in his cute little baby cheeks. “Okay, okay! So, Red Hood. I’ve only heard about him. Apparently started that fire last night. Real up-and-comer in the gang scene, right? Personally picking fights with gangs, killing them off, or trying to extort recruits out of them. Has an ear for showtunes.”

“What?”

“That’s all I’ve heard since I came here. What makes him a suspect, though? Does he know about, you know—us?”

“Yes. There is a personal connection.” Vaguely ominous. “Primarily between my father and mother. He’s had connections to both.”

“Are you going to tell me what these personal connections are by any chance?”

“No.” Damian was as blunt as he was unhelpful. “He is none of your concern. I have been attempting to track him in the two weeks I’ve been here. I may have found a lead towards his headquarters, thanks to following a trail of gasoline from the scene yesterday. All while you foolishly fixated on the low-ranked henchmen.”

“That were burning alive,” Stephanie was quick to correct. “I apologize for my empathy.”

“Apology accepted.”

“That wasn’t—god, you are one creepy little kid.” She looked back at the board, slightly fuller than before. “You said your mom was head of the League of Assassins, right? You know him from that?”

“One might say.” The boy’s obtuseness was not helping Stephanie’s attitude any more than it was helping her intel. “I shall question him myself. He is of no concern to you.”

“He’s on the board, that literally means he’s a concern to me.” Stephanie ran her face through her hand as she did her best to let this slide. The last thing anyone wanted to do with a kid was get into an argument with them. There was no logical argument on earth that could puncture a kid’s position of uh-uh . She’d have an easier time convincing the Joker that crime wasn’t funny. All the same, she couldn’t bring herself to fully ignore the size of the tiny would-be assassin. “Look, we can confront him some time together. I barely know the guy, he seems to have a soft spot for kids, but if you do know him and he doesn’t like you, he feels like the type to, you know— deal with you.”

“Tt. I’d love to see him try.”

“I wouldn’t!”

“Well, you won’t. Next question.”

“I’m being serious!!” Stephanie snapped in front of the boy. There was a lot she could let slide, but not this. There was a panic in her eyes that offered a small sample of the turmoil endlessly repeating in her brain. Swimming within those swirls of blue were memories of power drills, of chains, of scars that carved a valuable lesson deep into her body and psyche. It all started in the eyes, creeping its way to her bones, which were so much stiffer than seconds ago. “I’ve had terrible experiences with psychos like that. We all have. I know you want to dress up and play Robin even while there’s no one else playing your game, but awful things happen to Robin whenever they’re alone. Being Robin puts a shiny target on your chest with a big R, not to mention clothes with the aesthetic appeal of a dart board.” 

Caution to the wind, her hands planted themselves firmly on his shoulders. To his credit, Damian did not immediately tear them away. He was far too fixated on those panicking blue eyes. 

“I am not warning you, I am not scolding you, I am telling you: DON’T GO AFTER HIM ALONE.” She wondered if Damian could hear her heart thumping echoing throughout the cave, or if it was a private show. 

Damian hesitated. He didn’t look away. No verbal response came, merely a nod of acknowledgement. Blank as his face was, it was the closest thing to a non-anger emotion she’d seen on the boy. 

“Okay.” Stephanie let go, took some deep breaths to still her beating heart and rediscover some emotional equilibrium. God, emotional distress made her hungry. Bringing a bag of chips to dip her hands into at a moment’s notice was the smartest heroing decision she ever made. “Okay…” Her words were steadier now, regardless of the chips distorting them. “Next question: who’s keeping Bruce Wayne alive? Wish I could say Alfred, but he isn’t here either.”

“Likely someone within his company.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. But then I look at aaaaaaaaall this,” she waved her arms around the tarnished cave, “and I wonder if that,” she pointed towards to the big question, “is connected to this.” Her finger moved on to the mysteriously-decorated knife. “They trashed the Batman’s stuff and didn't even touch Bruce Wayne’s junk. Couldn’t have been fear. If they could break into the Batcave, if they knew he was dead, they could have easily dealt with the manor.”

“Fair point.” Hey, she’d take it. “Are there any owl-based villains in Gotham that I have failed to research?”

“Nah, closest we’ve got is the Penguin.” Stephanie’s hand returned to her chin. “Lousy dude, but this doesn’t taste like his MO. He’d never be so subtle.”

“Might there be some larger symbolism or mythology that we are missing?” Damian offered, taking the dagger off the board to feel its weight in his hand. “Does Gotham possess a history of owls?”

“Hell if I know,” the girl shrugged. “Maybe. I didn’t exactly live in Gotham until recently. Stuck to the suburbs.”

“Ah.” Damian nodded, giving the girl an eye she did not appreciate. “So, you are very sheltered.”

“Didn’t you say you were raised by a gaggle of assassins?”

“Gaggles are exclusively used to refer to a collection of geese.” He wasn’t even defensive, his tone was completely informal. “Regardless, it may be worth research. I shall scope my father’s extensive library for any leads.”

“And I shall scope the actual library!” Stephanie proclaimed with gusto and a finger high in the air. “I need to return some DVDs from there anyway.” A less powerful proclamation. “I’ll let ya know if I find anything. Got a cell number, Dames?”

“You do not have permission to call me that.” Ah, there were those devil eyes again. Stephanie was worried she’d dulled his edges with her charm. “And I do not possess a cell phone.”

The teenaged girl was scandalized. “Your mother is the world’s greatest assassin and your dad is Bruce Wayne and neither of them at any point in being either of those things gave you a cell phone?” 

“I deserted my mother’s care with the bare minimum required for my survival,” he explained curtly. “A cellular device was not among the necessities. If you truly need me, I can supply the manor’s landline telephone number.”

“Does everyone in the League of Assassins talk like that, or is that exclusively a you thing?”

The low growl of disdain that followed thankfully didn’t stop him from jotting down the number onto a slip of green printer paper, ripping it apart to hand over. “Aw, thanks~!” Assuming the number wasn’t laced with poison, Stephanie accepted. In the spirit of giving, she reciprocated with a slip containing her own number. “Meet me on the roof of Divinity Church at, uhhh… let’s say 8pm. Then, maybe we can confront this Red Hood character together. Strength in numbers, right?”

“Hn. Sure.” Any doubt of his heritage had died with that noise.

“And no going after him alone!” Stephanie shouted as she began the trek up the Batcave’s laborious steps. “Got it?! Promise me!” She really wanted the more binding pinky promise, only she valued her pinky far too much to put it at such risk.

Damian gritted his teeth. “I promise, Brown.”

He lied.

Damian knew better than to fully trust Brown. Though she possessed the basic knowledge and perhaps credentials required for Robin, it did not change the fact that he was never informed of her tenure via his mother’s typically thorough Gotham updates, nor did it alter her infuriatingly juvenile behavior. Grayson and Drake, annoying as they were, acted with the arrogance of well-trained soldiers, maintaining some manner of professionalism even as it clashed against their respective egos. 

Brown, comparatively, was what he perceived as the average American teenage girl: all vapid smiles and sweetness to mask her condescension born of ignorance, who saw him as more of a damaged puppy off the street that required pats on the head and fatty snacks in order to sedate. Didn’t help that she fought with the grace of the average bum, albeit with marginally more theory. So far, he detected little reason for deception. Any offer to elaborate on her time as Robin led to immediate caginess, followed shortly by an attempted switch of conversation. It was entirely possible that he found the blonde’s story suspicious purely because it was infuriating to consider. 

Regardless, under no circumstances was the woman to know about Jason Todd. There was no particular outcome that he feared beyond a general concern for an outcome. 

Though aware of his existence, Damian had only passed by the recovering zombie a handful of times during their extended mentorship with his mother. Upon first introductions, Jason burst into riotous laughter. This first impression irked Damian significantly. He failed to see what his father saw in this failed soldier, only able to see the inadequacies that led to his death. But, however slowly, he got better. Mother is an exceptionally valuable mentor to aspiring killers. Every so often, he would return to Talia from his travels like a homeless bum begging for money before resuming his quest. That ego never faded, however. He came out of training with the same cockiness as when he began, albeit with a wit sharpened with blood. Or steel. Or killing.

Damian was losing the metaphor fast. The trail was considerably easier to follow. He had the approximate location down from last night. Two armed men escaping the fiery pit had provided it after both had been captured and one was stabbed in the shoulder. 

The Hill was a neighborhood close to the docks, some miles east of the exploded building. Judging from the conditions of the buildings he was zipping across, he figured it was a poor neighborhood full of desperate people. It was a primarily African-American community, by the boy’s observation, as they were the healthiest demographic he observed. There were some Caucasian residents, the most visually apparent begging for money on the streets, always either elderly or aging horribly. Evidently, this area was designed to hold the detritus of Gotham. The old, the infirm, the disabled, anyone that lacked what the city wanted. Money, he guessed. It was a bizarre sociological phenomenon that intrigued the boy to some degree, if only for its inefficiency. Still, he was hardly in a position nor the mindset to question American civic structure. Red Hood was the priority here.

Pew! A bullet smoked beside Damian. The boy was taught the distinction between a shot to kill and one to warn. This was a warning, meant to warrant his attention. He remained still, save for his neck rotating towards the bullet’s origin.

He had turned his back on the apartment building that dwarfed the drugstore he was standing on. A rookie mistake, unbefitting of a Robin. Perhaps it was fitting then that the greatest failure of a Robin was lording over him from the high ground, pistol pointed, helmet glaring, his childish biker outfit flapping against the gentle thrusts of wind. It was dramatic. Damian hated that.

“Todd.”

“Demon Boy.”

Turns out that bus passes retain their power whether its user is legally alive or not. A welcome relief to Stephanie Brown, whose bike was one of many casualties in the gang war she had sparked. Beside her were familiar faces, however new they were; there were mothers dealing with antsy children offering sympathetic glances to each other, men in pristine suits besides men in tank tops and jeans covered in dirt from their job at the exploding building factory, tourists nervously eyeing any Gotham citizen in plain clothes. The breadth of humanity was here, Stephanie included.

She squeezed her legs together to better protect her duffel bag, filled with her hero costume and gear. Many of those tourists were also eyeing the bag, anxious that they might become a short mention in a tiny news story about another Gotham fiasco. Stephanie did her best to quell their concerns by peeking her eyes away from her newspaper and shooting them a smirk and a wiggle of the eyebrows. Got them to look away, so mission accomplished.

Stephanie wasn’t typically one for newspapers, being far more reliant on online sources. Upon seeing her mom’s Gotham Gazette laying on the table, she decided she could use some way to distract from her face on the bus, along with a possible distraction for herself. Crystal did say she should keep track of the news more.

As usual, Gotham was fucked. No, that wasn’t fair. There was a new Chinese art exhibit at the Burnley Park Art Museum, some new shows opening on Broadway (even if they were all based on movies instead of ideas), some classifieds, some love advice, a crossword that her mom had unfortunately already filled in. Life went on in Gotham, even among the other stories of people not living. Today’s Nancy was also a dud.

It was twenty minutes into her ride that the girl’s eyes twitched and gravitated themselves towards a medium-sized story on page 4. One of the Zoog Brothers, Martin Zoog, was found dead last night. Her brow furrowed, her eyes burning into the paper with far greater intensity than the recycled Far Side . This was one of the two guys in charge of the Zoog Runners, the pay-for-play guys she had only heard about since coming here. They weren’t even a particularly long-lasting presence in Gotham, it seemed, only being publicly active for four awful months. If she had not heard of them before, it was possible the regular, shmegular, everyday act of gang warfare wouldn’t have been worth more than a passing glance. In this instant, the story had her complete attention. Which allowed her to notice a little detail snuck into one of the tiny blocks of carnage.

According to authorities, Zoog was found in his Gotham Village apartment, his body pinned to his armchair by twenty-eight knives, as if on display as a warning.

Something clicked in Stephanie’s brain. Bringing the newspaper even closer in an effort to shield her flip phone screen, she went to her recent photos. She took a picture of Batman’s pinned suit earlier. Silently, her lips counted the knives. By fifteen , she got a chill down her spine. By twenty , her tongue got dry. By twenty-seven , she had mental whiplash from the lack of expected catharsis.

Oh wait, Damian took one down.

“Holy shit…” There was thankfully little time for anyone to question the sparks bursting within the girl’s enormous blue eyes as her body grew stiff. The doors squeaked open, quickly snapping Stephanie out of her clue-invoked trance. Her body snapped back to attention, followed shortly by her brain, which looked to see the destination. “Oh shit!” Didn’t even bother closing the newspaper as she dashed towards the door, electing to let the pages fly as she escaped with her much more important bag. “My stop, my stop, wait wait wait!”

Her misstep on the bus’ steps and subsequent tumble would have been more embarrassing if she hadn’t managed to morph it into a flawless somersault. A young girl on the bus applauded these graceful gymnastics before disappearing behind the hissing doors. No one on the street was as impressed.

By the time Spoiler was suited and her bag hidden in one of Gotham’s only nicest dumpsters, the sun was setting. “Oh hey, good timing on my part!” According to the clocktow—oh. Right. Exploded. According to her phone , she still had a good ninety-minutes to snoop around on patrol before her scheduled superhero team-up with a ten year old in her old uniform. What a life she carved for herself.

Whatever plans she might have had were entirely diverted the moment she made her first grapple of the evening. Spoiler hadn’t even made it to the tip of the ice cream shop before her phone started blasting an old Scare Tactics song, burning a hole in her pocket with its incessant vibrations. Considering there were currently only two people with her phone number that knew she was alive, one of which didn’t have a phone, she didn’t even bother to check the number as she answered the phone mid-flip.

“Yyyyello?” she hummed after gently landing on her feet (nice).

“Little familiar, aren’t we?” A man’s voice. Deep, but not, like, Batman deep. Spoiler bemoaned having to shift into serious mode immediately after her really cool flip. “ Would I happen to be speaking to the illustrious Stephanie Brown?”

Shit. They knew who she was. She gulped, knowing she had to find out how. “Who wants to know?”

“Aww, come on! I thought you were supposed to be the fun Robin! Yet I’ve been having so much more fun with the little one I have tied up over here.” Little one? SHIT. Damian. He lied to her! She knew she should have invoked pinky-promise protocols. Her brain was quick to connect the dots. “You’re Red Hood, ain’tcha? Heard some funny stories about you. Had to clean up the mess you made last night.”

“Wow, got it in one! I’m impressed, Stephie~ ” The voice was so smug that Spoiler was already formulating how to rip out his throat MacGruber-style. “Well hey, for what it’s worth, I apologize. I really wasn’t counting on Batman’s greatest failure rising from the grave solely to become my groupie. Let me make it up to ya. Give me your shirt size and I’ll send you a complimentary Red Hood t-shirt, along with the demon brat’s right index finger. No need to give your address, I’ve got that taken care of.”

“Oh, fuck you.” She did not miss a beat. “Stop trying to sound cool. It’s not working for you.” 

The tone was very familiar. It was little surprise how much Red Hood instantly reminded her of Black Mask. His name was already enough of a knockoff. It didn’t take much for Stephanie to replay Black Mask’s voice, the chilling callousness mixed with childish glee over his own psychopathy. She instantly recalled every threat, every turn of phrase, every sick joke to an audience of one the freak made in their time together; they replayed on repeat in nearly every dream she had since that time, though she had learned how to sooth her subconscious with the equally vivid memories of the man’s screams once she turned the tables on him. All this meant she knew what a true blue psychopath sounded like, so she could spot whenever villains were only doing karaoke.

There was a short pause on the other end of the line. “Very well,” the voice conceded. “ Let’s cut the cute crap. I’ve captured your little monster. If you–”

“Hey, he’s not my little monster. He is a completely independent little monster.” A silly correction to make, but what mattered was making it.

“IF YOU WANT TO SEE HIM ALIVE AGAIN,” Red Hood explained much more forcefully, before bringing his voice back to its more measured tone, “then we should meet properly. Talk things out, mask-to-mask.”

“Who said I wanted to see him again? I barely even know the kid.”

“... your phone number was in his pocket, idiot.” 

“And is that supposed to be some kind of gotcha?” Spoiler hummed, sitting down at the end of the ice cream shop. “I don’t see how that changes anything I’ve said.”

“Do you really want to bring the tally up to THREE dead Robins?” The voice was just annoyed now. Good. If Spoiler had one superpower, it was annoying people, a power she deployed liberally.

She gave a loud sigh. “Where were you wanting to meet again?”

“You never let me tell you. ” He was trying to get logical now. Oh yeah, she was good. “ O’Grady’s Auto Shop in the Hill. Be there before eight, or the kid gets it.”

“Gets what?”

“A bullet!”

“What? You’re just going to shoot him?” Maybe she’d have more immediate concern for Damian if he hadn’t tried to stab her on multiple occasions. It wasn’t even that she held a grudge. While this exact scenario terrified her but hours ago, it was increasingly obvious Red Hood was little more than a hack fraud.  Damian would be fine. “You can’t just shoot a Robin point blank in some rusty-ass garage. There’s no statement there. That’s like selling a unicorn to the glue factory for a little extra cash. What are you, stupid?”

“Would you prefer if I used a crowbar?” Spoiler could tell whenever someone was gritting their teeth.

“Nah, he’d kick your ass with a crowbar. Next.”

“Next? You want me to come up with another threat?”

“Tell you what.” Spoiler was already flying through the air with her grapple in one hand, her phone in the other. “I’ll be there in about an hour. Plenty of time to call me back with a real, actual threat. Then I’ll get to your dingy little lair, you can show off whatever motorcycles you’ve made from the bones of your enemies or whatever, we’ll exchange some threats, maybe some punches if you’re feeling frisky, and then we’ll call it a night. Sound good?”

Once more, an elongated pause. “You forgot about the boy.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah. I’ll take him home. Still have some money on my bus pass. Did you know that shit doesn’t go away even after you die? Pretty morbid.”

“A lot of shit doesn’t go aw–” Spoiler decided to hang up then and there. Only a fool believes having the last word is the most important move in an argument. The real power move is being able to end a conversation upon earning all the information one needs. Batman understood this better than anyone.

At night, the Hill was a sad, empty place, forced to survive in the shadow of Gotham’s bright lights. Spoiler had only visited this place twice before, once with Robin, followed by once with Batman. She got to share Robin’s inaugural visit; whenever they weren’t bashing Penguin’s urban outreach, the two were mostly exchanging silent, sickly glances, as if merely investigating the place was wilting away their spirit. In a shocking inverse, Batman had far more to say. He admitted his own lack of attention to this area, if only because not even organized crime saw much potential in the barren land, this place where dreams die while new ones struggle to be born. It was a suffocating place, he explained, devoid of any resources or people that Gotham would deem useful, which deemed it unworthy of receiving any of the same. Then, they beat up Killer Croc together and called it a day. She recalled the vertigo she felt while showering that night in her small yet very suburban home.

In a place like that, O’Grady’s Auto Shop wasn’t hard to find. In Upper Gotham, its gaudy, shining red Christmas lights outside would be a tiny shimmer lost in the city’s visual noise. Here, it was a beacon.

Red Hood wasn’t one for gimmicks, it seemed. The only thematic throughline with his men were big muscles and big guns. They all stood at attention near the entrance, shooting only threatening glances. She shot her tongue at them in retaliation, a gesture lost thanks to her mask. She still accepted the open invitation into the lair, as basic as it was.

There had never been a villain willing to roll out the red carpet for Spoiler before. Anyone that cared enough to recall her name saw her as little more than a sidekick at best, an accessory at most. There was no one obsessed with Spoiler, save perhaps the now long-dead and rotting Cluemaster. Black Mask might have held a grudge against her, if he wasn’t also being exponentially more useful to society as worm food. Even still, she only made an enemy out of him by chance, a result of Spoiler’s less good luck. Red Hood, however, knew who she was, and that information gave him a vested interest. But who cared about Stephanie Brown?

God, if it turned out her dad was alive, she was going to burn this place to the ground. Hypocritical, maybe, but fitting.

Red Hood was exactly where Spoiler knew he’d be: the corner of the chop shop, lounging lazily with his legs spread upon a throne built from assorted auto parts. Damian’s drawing had been very accurate, jacket and all. Villains had a habit of maintaining a signature look, regardless of how long it made them wear the same clothes over and over. Then again, who was Spoiler to judge? She hadn’t washed her outfit since coming here. 

Not too far from him was a Batmobile on display. She guessed one of the older models considering the sharp angles. Perhaps more pertinent was the tiny Robin held hostage against the hood of the car, wrapped in chains that constricted all his limbs. A quick scan revealed little more than bruises, no signs of cuts or bleeding. Just as she surmised, the boy was safe and Red Hood was little more than a minor league chump that wanted her attention most of all. How comforting.

“Liar,” she cordially greeted the boy.

“Brown,” the boy greeted back.

“Hood.” Spoiler stood between the car and the gang leader’s hilariously stupid throne. All the better to protect the kid in case things went south. “So, was that throne here before you took over, or are you really that massive a dork?”

“I have a gun,” was all Red Hood needed to say, aiming his pistol towards Spoiler with a steady hand.

“And I have something you want, right?” Spoiler asked, rolling her arms, eliminating any signs of defense. “You didn’t give any kind of ransom. You just wanted to see me. Why?”

“Why?” Red Hood chuckled, his gun unmoving as he fished a manilla envelope that he’d been sitting against. Spoiler was close enough to see Spoiler/Stephanie Brown scribbled in permanent marker on the tab. The man pulled out a massive document, fifty pages thick at least, flipping to a random page. He cleared his throat. “ Of all the teenage vigilantes that have taken up a mask during my time, Stephanie is among the most curious .” Oh, so this guy had a Batman voice too. Honestly, pretty spot-on. “ As harsh as her life has been, it has not been defined by a single tragedy. While initially fueled by a need for revenge, whenever pressed towards her current motivation, Stephanie insists she does what she does purely because she can. My assumptions of this shallow motivation were brought into question upon the fallout of her sudden pregnancy.”

“Stop.” There weren’t a lot of things that could truly get underneath Spoiler’s skin. It disgusted her knowing Red Hood possessed one of those things. “I get it.”

“Pregnancy?” Great, Damian chose now to pipe up.

“While I cannot judge a civilian for the follies of youth, I was surprised to learn of her intention to carry the baby to full term .” Red Hood peeked away from the binder, returning to his previous annoying voice. “Well, good to know you’re not a quitter.”

“Take off that mask.” Her own mask didn’t betray any emotion. The way her hands pressed deeper into her arms might have.

“Sorry?” Red Hood held a gloved hand up to his masked ear. “I didn’t catch that.”

“You heard me.” A quick tug revealed the Spoiler to be none other than Stephanie Brown! To the surprise of no one in the room and likely no one in the world. “If you’re going to use my name and talk about my life, then we aren’t playing dress-up games anymore. No more heroes and villains, it’s just me and you.”

Red Hood continued to stare, tilting his head. “You’re really trying to make demands of me? The guy with a gun, ready to shoot you point-blank?”

“You’ve read my profile. I don’t know how you got it, but you’ve read it, right?” Stephanie leaned against the front of the Batmobile, still helpfully shielding Damian even in her relaxed pose. “I’m not scared of guns. And I know better than to be scared of you.”

“Know better than to be scared of—ha!” The gun’s sights finally pulled away from Stephanie, as a result of uncontrollable laughter. “Ha ha ha ha!! Oh, that’s rich! That’s really fucking rich! Ha ha!” The more he went on, the more he sounded like the namesake he had stolen. “You’re something else, Brown. You say that after everything you’ve been through? This file isn’t even complete. It’s all shit from before you went and blew up half of Gotham! Before you allegedly bled out on the operating table. And yet, after all that, you weren’t only still alive, but you had an easy out. No one asked you to come back here to Gotham, to put that silly mask back on, to make your mom constantly worry about losing her little girl all over again…” 

He paused for a moment to obviously study Stephanie’s face. The girl was no longer capable of hiding the sheer enmity on her face, though she did not act. So, Red Hood continued. “No one asked you to do shit! And, yet, here we are. Standing here making demands of yet another killer.” He pointed the gun again. Stephanie’s glare had not shifted. 

“No, here I am.” Her frown turned into a smirk, a controlled shift she had learned early into her crime-fighting career that she found drove many criminals crazy. “You’re still hiding.”

The mask glared. “Heh.” Red Hood leaned back, observing his prey in comfort while he crossed his legs. “Ya know what, Stephie? You raise a fair point. I like your style. Never would have picked you as a suburbs girl.” His aim was still steady, despite his lazy posture. “You want a face-to-face? Fine. Fair warning, though. You may not like who’s underneath.” His free hand climbed to the back of the red helmet, clicking some buttons. 

Hssssss! Steam escaped the mask as it slowly rose. Stephanie steeled herself in anticipation for the reveal. She might not like who’s underneath? There’s a lot of people she didn’t like. Worst case scenario was her dad. Wait, no, the worst case scenario would be, like, Joker or Doomsday or her mom. What if it was Bane? It’d be very funny if it was Bane. Or the Riddler! Riddler was a best case scenario, honestly. She could easily beat Riddler, both physically and emotionally. The neck that was revealed was far too muscular for him, unfortunately.

God, what if it was Bruce ? What if he wasn’t dead? It was a question she hadn’t even allowed herself until now. It was so, so much easier to think of Bruce as just gone. There were a lot of complicated feelings between the two that part of her was mournfully glad to not have to deal with. Fuck. She was going to miss him. Maybe not now, but at a certain point, the emotional dam was merely waiting to break and she was going to eventually have to think about him and this guy wasn’t him, couldn’t be him, she rapidly realized, because she had successfully made him laugh. Masks really did have a way of playing mind games. There was always the underlying mystery of who .

Once the mask was past his chin, Red Hood arbitrarily decided there was too much expectation in there, so he chucked his helmet across the room. It hit something with a loud clang, followed by the sound of a pipe hitting and rolling around the floor loud enough to echo across the entire shop, yet no one bothered to check and see what happened. All eyes were on the man behind the mask. He had wild red hair, not helped by the helmet he always wore, styled with a white streak crawling up his fringe. The face was rough. It was the kind of face that might be handsome if it wasn’t so curdled with anger. Even now, face smug and smirking, the anger deep within was apparent. He had blue eyes as well, though ones far duller than the girl he was aiming at.

Stephanie’s face wrinkled. Her eyes scanned the man’s face, trying to make sense of it. No. It didn’t make any sense. How could it?

“Who…are you?” The question came out a lot more confused than she wanted it to, but it was difficult to mask the authenticity. “Am I supposed to know you?”

The man wasn’t very pleased with her reaction. His face fell nearly as flat as his reveal. “Did he seriously never tell you about me?”

“Who’s he? Are we talking Batman? Or Robin…?” Was this one of Robin’s friends? The more she looked, the more she realized this guy was actually, shockingly young, likely close to her own age. If she was accurate, it was pretty wild for a guy this young to make such a name for himself in Gotham of all places. Most gang leaders here were old blood in one way or another.

“His name is Jason Todd.”

BANG! The man did not appreciate Damian ruining his own reveal, as evidenced by the Batmobile tire was loudly losing air as a result of his bullet. If it was an act of intimidation, it did little to shake either hostage. Damian was only as annoyed as ever, while Stephanie was still inspecting the guy’s face pensively. “Jason Todd, huh? Jason Todd…”

It was a familiar name. It came up in her thoughts semi-recently, didn't it? Whenever she was thinking about…Robin? The dead Robin. Right. Ooooooooh . Right. 

A rush of independent information stored neatly in her brain started reconnecting. Tim discussing his reasons for becoming Robin after something vague happened to him, the suit displayed eternally in the Batcave, Batman using the display to warn Stephanie of the dangers of the job, and that newspaper. 

Stephanie didn’t want any of them to know what she knew. That the entire Batfamily’s obsessive interest into the Bruce Wayne murder case had led her down her own investigative spiral. Memories of the mystery board she had concocted flashed in her mind, string connecting significant moments of Wayne family tabloids to that of Batman mythology. There were the first documented rumors of Robin weeks after Bruce Wayne’s adoption of Dick Grayson. Dick Grayson, who was spotted dating the police commissioner’s daughter Barbara, whom she already knew. There were mounting coincidences that Stephanie had a hard time ignoring. 

The one connection that sealed the deal, however, was the last reported sighting of Robin before the death of Bruce Wayne’s adopted son, followed shortly by reports of a significantly enraged, destructive Batman, the very one Tim would occasionally discuss in hushed tones. The photo of Bruce Wayne standing at a gravestone, devoid of all pretense of being a playboy or a hero or anything other than a grieving father, was seared deep into the girl’s mind every time she saw Batman. The image made it difficult for her to ever truly hate him, especially considering the context it gave to every one of his decisions. Only occasionally did her mind recall the name on the gravestone.

“Holy shit.” Those blues began to swirl with life as Stephanie’s eyes became transfixed on her captor’s annoyed face. “Jason Todd. You’re Bruce’s kid.”

Jason’s grip on his pistol tightened. “I’m not a kid and Bruce is dead. I stopped being his anything whenever I died. Just how the law works. I’m nobody’s anything now. I don’t owe anything to anyone.”

“Then why are you still pointing that thing at me?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” With emotions running high without a mask to mask them, Jason’s underlying anger was more apparent than ever. “So you don’t try any funny business.”

“Like what? Try and take your gun?” She groaned as she leaned against the car again. “I don’t want your gun and I don’t take it you want to keep your little brother tied to your car forever.”

“Oh, we are not–!!” “That’s absolutely absurd!” “I barely even know him!” “As if I could be related to such a senseless brute!” “He’s more of a cruel punchline than anything!” “Oh, you would be lucky to be an amusing anecdote!”

“Alright, alright, simmer down, you two!!” Stephanie chided with the tone of a bereaved Kindergarten teacher. “Point is, I’m not threatening you and you have nothing to threaten me over. Now that our masks are all off and we all know who we all are, where’s the tension here?”

“You’re still wearing that stupid fucking cape for one!” Jason was quick to snap back, not putting the gun down. “Where are the others?”

“I don’t fucking know, dude!” she shouted, waving her arms in the air before dropping them back. “I was hoping you knew something about that! Do you?!”

“No! Of course I don’t!” His eyes narrowed onto his sights. “I haven’t heard from them since—look, it’s not important!”

“I think it is! I’m sorry about your dad, by the way.”

“HE’S NOT MY—!” That might have actually been the exact wrong time to show empathy. Jason’s blue eyes twitched and she could swear she saw sparkling glimpses of green reflected in them, before he finally brought both hands to his gun.

Stephanie finally steeled herself. She spread her body out wide enough to guard Damian from any bullets heading his or her way before she lunged for the gun. That gun, however, ceased to point at her and ended up pointed at the ceiling, where it proceeded to unload seven times. The only proceeding casualties were three overhead lights, one of sprinkled glass down onto Spoiler’s extended cape. After that, all that remained was a man grimacing up at the ceiling with a smoking gun. A gun that was then thrown to the ground as the man returned his interest at the two pairs of prying eyes staring at him. “Still want to talk?”

Despite everything, the girl slowly nodded, eyes still nice and round from the shock of the moment. She hadn’t counted on Red Hood being an angsty teen like her. That was probably the scariest thing he had going for him. Jason nodded back with equal speed. “Alright. Good.”

Soon, there were two former Robins sitting against the crooked Batmobile, two former proteges of the same man who were both supposed to be dead, scanning each other with no real sense of purpose other than trying to determine what the hell any of this meant. Damian was there too. He couldn’t really move. 

Yet, he was the one to speak up first. “I can’t believe there’s two of you. Two failure Robins, risen from the grave, reunited by their shared ignorance. How touching.”

“Heh. Yeah.” Stephanie couldn’t resist the release of nervous laughter before she peered back at her apparent predecessor. “So. If I may make an educated assumption, you died, came back through science or magic or whatever, then decided to come back in order to administer your own special brand of justice on the Gotham crime world? That about sum it up?”

Jason smirked, albeit in a far less demeaning way than he’d been deploying. “Little more complex than that, but yeah. Know anything about Lazarus Pits?” 

“Should I?”

“Oh god no! You’re better off in the dark.” He laughed as he slipped a hand into his pocket, drawing out a cigarette. “You smoke.”

“N-no thank you.” Wow, so a cigarette was the first thing to make her trip on her words instead of a gun pointed at her. So cool, Steph. “Never tried them, never want to. Family has a history of…you know.”

Jason shot a…sympathetic look? Was that it was? Stephanie definitely hoped it was that and not pity. Last thing she needed was a crime lord pitying her. “Nah. I get it. Forget I asked.” Then, he just threw it away behind his back. Strange dude. She really didn’t know what to make of him. “Really don’t know where any of them are?”

“No…” Stephanie sighed, slumping her shoulders as her back curled against the Batmobile hood. Soon, she was staring up at the ceiling at all the recently-broken light fixtures. “Damian said you were liable to know. Didn’t know why, but guess I know now. Probably the same reason he was so suspicious of me.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!” Damian snapped, his head resting right next to the hers. “But she is correct. I had no ability to verify Brown’s former status as a Robin, along with her general reliability. Since embarking on my personal journey to Gotham, all known Batman-affiliated personnel have been unaccounted for.”

“Wish I could say that was my doing.” Jason’s remark came out damn near wistful. “After…well, after I heard the news about Batman from Dick, I…had a reaction .”

“What kind?” Stephanie inquired.

Jason waved his hand. “Read the news,” he insisted. “It was an episode. Got taken out of commission for a bit, almost brought to prison, but got out before they could lock me up. By then, I couldn’t find anyone. No Dick, no Barbara, no Selina, no Tim-Tom, not even that leather-bound bat chick.”

That last part made Stephanie realize that whoever was behind this had to be good enough to beat Cass of all people. A truly terrifying thought. “So, all that’s really left around here are the two Robins that are supposed to be dead and Bruce Wayne’s kid that nobody is supposed to know exists.” A long exhale escaped her lungs. “Lucky us.”

“Lucky us? Lucky you.” Jason straightened his back once more before reaching underneath the Batmobile, only to pull out a pair of giant bolt cutters. “I meant what I said before. It astounds me that after everything that’s happened to you, you always bounce back and put on that hood like nothing’s changed. You have the ultimate out. Batman’s gone, your boyfriend’s gone, your dad’s gone, your killer’s gone, everyone’s gone! You don’t owe anything to anyone. God Himself is offering you a second chance at life on a silver platter, and you immediately run off to put yourself in front of another bullet.”

CLING! One of the chains came loose, allowing Damian control of his right leg again. Sadly, it was still too far away from Jason’s face for a good kick, so the guy kept talking “Me, personally? I’m enjoying this second chance. Though my vengeance has been denied, lo, I still live. There’s no need for a Batman or a Robin or a Nightwing anymore.” CLING! Another chain undone. “And I’ll achieve what none of them could ever do. They truly believed the way to save the heart of this city was to get rid of bad blood and pump good blood in its absence.” CLING!  

Damian regained control over both his legs and his right arm. “I got this. Don’t touch me.” He jumped off the side of the car to start unraveling the chains on his remaining limb by himself in silence. All while he glared at the two supposed adults in the room.

Jason didn’t fight the kid, simply nodding. Stephanie was still locked on him, looking far more pensive than her previous nonchalant state. “As I was saying, I have no intention of following their naïve, endless cycle. I will bury myself deep within Gotham’s heart, much as I was buried as a child.” He moved to the adjoining side of the car with cutters still in-hand, where the tire was still high and mighty. “And I will eat my way through that heart. I will find the very source of the bad blood. And burn it. Burn it from the inside.” Psssssssssh … The other tire gradually deflated, bringing it back down to the other flat’s level. Jason just watched.

So did Stephanie. Soon, there wasn’t any air left to lose. “That’s a stupid plan.” All eyes landed on her. Damian was shocked.

Jason was intrigued. “You have the floor.”

“I mean, I basically tried your plan. Well, me and…you know.” Her nod had to substitute the name Batman. “We both tried to take over the underworld to make it manageable, and guess what? Didn’t work. Because it can’t work. I’ve had a lot of time to think over what happened with the gang war over and over, working out where everything went wrong. Lots of things went wrong, but it all stemmed from the idea that there’s some way to use crime to stop crime, which is dumb, because all you get is more crime. There’s no morally righteous way to be drug runners or weapons dealers.”

“I’ve been keeping that shit out of the hands of children,” Jason retorted, leaning against his bolt cutters standing up. “I’ve been killing the worst of 'em too. Give me enough time, and all the criminals that’ll be left in this city are the ones that piss their pants at my name.”

“God!” Stephanie couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “You really believe that? It’s like you think you can keep M-rated video games out of kids’ hands, so you just keep making more and more games, until, guess what? You become the problem. Because you allowed yourself to become the problem.” She brought her hands up. “Look, I get it. You have a different view of justice from the other guys. Big whoop. I’m not going to judge you for shooting some fuckers that deserve it.” Her arms crossed again as she leaned against the lowered hood. “But the end goal of all this is you manufacturing more and more guns and drugs and murder endlessly forever to reach demand. Any good you would hope to do would be instantly canceled by all the evil you create, genius.”

“Hnnn.” Jason made a very Batman sound. Then, he pulled out a second gun from his boot. He pointed it at Stephanie, mere inches away from her head. She didn’t move a muscle. Damian already had a batarang prepared. “I’ll take your feedback into consideration. For now, I think everyone’s got what they wanted out of this exchange. Let’s leave it at that. I won’t touch you if you don’t touch me.”

Stephanie blew a stray hair on her face. “Alright, sure. As good a deal as any.” With a sigh, she pushed her body back up, which led to her forehead being neatly pressed against the barrel of the gun. “If you need anything, give us a call. You have my number.” With a hum, she pulled her mask back on, followed by her hood, cloaking herself back into mystique, before waltzing away. “C’mon, Dami. Exit’s over here.”

“I refute that nickname,” the boy was quick to snap back. “And I am aware of all potential exits the moment I enter a room. It is a beginners skill within the League.”

“Oh, how scary, you can find glowing signs that say EXIT. I’ll never feel safe again.”

Jason did not move even as his “hostages” did. His arm remained pointed in the same direction, his gun aimed at nothing beyond the front windshield of a Batmobile that lost its wheels, until the backdoors loudly closed behind him. Then, he finally decided to shoot. The bullet didn’t do much, of course, there wasn’t a car Bruce owned that wasn’t bulletproof. But then, he just kept shooting, over and over in the same spot, the hole becoming bigger and bigger. By the last bullet, the windshield was still intact, leaving only a smoking gun and an angry boy.

He wanted to kill them. The moment he heard of the pipsqueak dancing around, snooping into his business playing Robin, he had every intention to bring his pretend to a screeching halt. The young boy would serve as the final nail on the coffin Bruce had built for himself and all this city, strung up on Gotham City Hall to serve as the final warning to anyone that dared to sell Batman’s delusion. Then, it would be all over.

Well, more accurately, Talia was sure to come down and kill Jason in retribution, then it would be over. Not that he minded in the slightest. If anything, it was the perfect note to end on, having accomplished everything he set out to do. There were no more shadows left to chase, after all. Batman was dead, all his disciples most likely were as well. Fine by him. Fuck em. The world was best off without them, his world especially. Once they were gone and once he was gone, then maybe Gotham could finally recover. Or not. It wouldn’t really be his business by then.

He was this close to enacting the final act of all his machinations, the true end to the Batman mythology. He had the Demon Brat in his clutches, effortlessly subdued thanks to advanced training and superior strength. God, he was ready. Then, he found the number, tucked neatly in the brat’s pouch, signed Steph! with a squiggly underline and a heart for the exclamation. The name was familiar to his research. He found her file. He read.

It was an old file, naturally. They all were. Barbara stopped collecting physical copies of Batcomputer files the moment she stopped working for Bruce. As such, in this file, Stephanie Brown was alive and well, recently fired from her position as Robin for her own safety, at least according to Bruce. It had become a recurring bit for him to compare every single one of his allies to Jason in these files, rarely in a positive light. He was a warning, the worst-case scenario, a lecture. If anyone reminded Bruce of him in any way, positive or negative, he would take it as a sign to push them away, lest they become too much like him. Jason wasn’t particularly proud of this legacy. Stephanie Brown, according to Bruce, was the most Jason-like, a tornado of joy and energy and anger and rebellion that he could never curb, not even as her boss.

It wasn’t only the personality profile that drove Jason’s attention. It was how she seemingly never stopped, not even for a moment. Rebellion was a great motivator, rebellion could make you commit to a bit out of spite for a solid year, yet this bitch got pregnant, had a baby, and was back out in her hood fighting crime with zero resources like it was nothing. There were much bigger heroes that would quit the game after having a child; it was the ultimate out, not like anyone would blame them. This girl was fifteen and had a baby and that was a year and a half before landing the Robin gig. Madness. 

Batman’s madness was far-reaching and all-consuming, but she was never really part of his fake little family of soldiers. Not really. Even her tenure of Robin had a strict employer-employee status to it, at least how Bruce described it. She was a free agent that largely hovered around the Bat-Circle, dating Trustfund McRobin, playing with Latexgirl, occasionally chilling with the Birds of Prey. Her greatest mistake was attempting to join the official orbit, forced to appease the man who can never be pleased. She died for that mistake. Except she didn't. And, now, she was back.

She wasn’t part of the puzzle. She wasn’t a thematic element. What purpose did she serve? She was a chaotic variable no matter what. He could have eliminated that variable just as easily. He considered it, he really did. Yet, time and again, she denied him any satisfaction in doing it. She was good. Maybe she was worth keeping around a moment longer in order to see how the drama unfolds.

That was the justification Jason made for himself, at least, while he heated a bowl of instant noodles. His appetite for anything greater was dashed by the prior events. He needed nothing food that wouldn’t take up valuable brain power. So, he ate and he pondered. Maybe he ought to look over Brown’s file one more time, see if there’s some element he missed—

It was gone. He sat it down on his throne, and now it was gone. Damian. Oh, that slippery ninja. Maybe he really should have killed him, see what Stephanie would have done then. No, that would have been a waste. He’d check on their living status in a couple weeks, then devise his move. Right now, it was best to stay the course and absorb as many gangs as they could. There was a single Zoog brother now, so he’d have to schedule a visit with him tomorrow.

Oh right. He forgot about his guards outside. Loyal guys, not much brains to them, but they knew who had the brains in the outfit. Jason told them to stay out and guard all dramatically until he let them back inside. He supposed it was about time.

Slipping his mask back on, he went through the front door. “Hey! You can all…” They were all lying on the concrete. Bleeding. Dead.

Jason wasn’t sure whenever he became so in-tuned to the sound of a crossbow. All he knew was he heard one and reacted accordingly, rushing inside and slamming the doors shut within the span of a second. An arrow audibly clinked against the other side. So, at least it wasn’t a strong one. If this was an arrow assassin, he was probably safe. If they had other projectiles, then this door might be the one thing between him and—

The doors BUSTED open with enough force to knock Jason across the floor. No, he had to recover. Something big came through the door and he couldn’t take his eye off it. He already had a revolver handy, he only needed sights on the enemy.

It was a thing. An inky black creature ornamented with gold and silver. Its eyes were an unknowable abyss gazed through goggles. It had a knife ready in its hand. It was staring at him. Observing him. It cocked its head, like some kind of bird.

No. He knew exactly what kind of bird. 

It threw a knife. Jason shot it. It lunged towards him, already brandishing another blade. It was quick. Jason’s gun was quicker.

The assassin slumped over onto Jason, their chest wound bleeding profusely onto his favorite jacket. He could wash it. To some degree, he was actually proud of himself, getting a one-shot kill like that, straight through the armor. Nervous laughter escaped his lungs as he laid there, collecting his breath from the excitement of it all.

Then, the thing reached out and started to strangle him. Jason shot it again, the bullet going straight through the assassin and hitting the ceiling. The thing’s grip loosened momentarily, though it was already preparing another blade. One Jason could tell was made to cut through kevlar. He should know, he possessed many himself. He was lucky to roll out and get up and start blasting bullet after bullet into the monster that kept staring at him with those dark, blank goggles.

The creature seemed to relish in the sheer terror each bullet brought its attacker, for each and every one connected, tearing through flesh and bone, yet none mattered. It threw a knife, successfully hitting Jason in the shoulder. That one mattered.

Only then did it talk, its voice filtered and synthetic, less like a computer and more like a vitaphone. It was a terrifying, dark howl. 

“RED HOOD. THE COURT OF OWLS HAS SENTENCED YOU TO DIE.”

Chapter Text

Jason Todd had always found it more difficult to be witty while his body poured blood. Whenever surrounded by silence for too long, his mind would often drift back to that fateful day in Ethiopia, instantly recalling every threat, every turn of phrase, every sick joke to an audience of one the freak made in their time together. There were many regrets that day, regrets that Jason refused to entertain for very long, lest his rage become unfocused. Yet, as he replayed those final few minutes of life over and over in an eternal mental loop, he found himself regretting his lack of witty comebacks to the Joker’s taunts more than anything. His death was immutable, he had come to accept, a necessary change in being. Could have been funnier though. 

Tonight was no different. Blood loss was getting to him, depriving his brain of any potential witticisms. Disappointingly, he had devolved into pained grunts doing his best to avoid this wild bird man claiming to work for some fairy tale while their knife remained lodged in his shoulder. Better in than out at this point, honestly. He did his best not to add any additional pressure to the wound or the knife as he jumped around like a madman about the chop shop, avoiding identical knives that wished him dead. 

“YOU ARE AGILE FOR A COMMON THUG.” 

Jason hated the sound of the thing’s voice. Steampunk-ass bitch. He should have yelled that at him. He would have if his brain was working at full capacity. Fuck, was all that blood his? It looked like someone had tagged the Batmobile in red paint as an act of war. Fuck, that was a great idea. Why didn’t he ever do that? Red Hood, red paint, blood that could be traced to Jason Todd, symbolism with the Batmobile, it was so good! He couldn’t do that now. Bruce was dead. Bruce was dead, Dick was probably dead, and…shit, was he going to be dead again?

No. No, not like this. If Jason Todd was ever going to die again, it would be on his own terms. His death certainly wasn’t going to come from some random faceless cyborg bird person. Where was the poetry in that?

His rounds were only making Birdman angry. Good. While bullets did nothing to harm this freak, they stunned it for the briefest of seconds. They didn’t need to be anything other than annoying for now. Constant bullets meant it couldn’t projectile anything, which meant it had little choice but to lunge across the roof of the Batmobile to reach its prey.

Jason reached for his belt and pressed a detonator. Then, he ducked.

The Batmobile erupted into a powerful burst of flames, powerful enough to blast Jason against the nearest wall. A testament to his ingenuity, as well as his outstanding luck, that wall contained the exit, allowing him to egress onto the dirt roads of the Hill. He couldn’t be sure if the point-blank explosion would even significantly harm his attacker. He couldn’t bring himself to very much care, far too preoccupied with his own genius getaway.

He couldn’t look back. That would be unwise, whether there was a bird there or not. He could feel the flames already greedily engulfing his now former lair behind him, erasing all evidence of his wrongdoings and ideally the bird thing. Whatever. His lair was replaceable. He grabbed onto the dagger lodged in his right shoulder, letting out a loud grunt as it popped out of his flesh and bone. Looking closer, the dagger was carved to resemble an owl. Cute. Was this poisoned? He hoped not. Oh yeah, his left leg also had some shrapnel from the car explosion in it. Less cute. He dared to call it a problem.

Bandages. Bandages, right. He kept those in this belt. Right…uhhh…hmm…bandages. Bandages, right! Third pouch to the right. Right. He got them, unfurled the roll, and started wrapping the gauze around his wound. Okay, good. Good start. This was a good start. The tiny bits of shrapnel would take too long to get out. He needed to get away. Right. God, he’d lost a lot of blood. Was probably losing even more as he limped around his burning headquarters to the front, where the freshly-murdered bodies of his subordinates laid in their final rest. So much blood. Did these guys kill as many people as Jason? He couldn’t know. He’d never know. Probably not.

One of them, Bernie, pleasant enough guy, save for some domestic abuse convictions. He was scum. But Bernie never tried to kill his family. He kept them out of his life, so he could no longer hurt them. He told Red Hood this information in confidence. Now, Bernie was dead and Jason was alive. Jason was alive and stealing Bernie’s bike. Was it Bernie’s? It had the keys in. Felt like a Bernie mistake. God, he was losing so much blood.

He forgot whose bike it was several miles later. He forgot a lot of things. Memories took blood. He barely had enough to keep his eyes open. Where was he going? He was deep into Gotham now. He wasn’t sure whenever he got here. Why was he here? Where was he going? He made sharp turns and ran red lights like it meant something. Like there was an end goal. Like there was somewhere he belonged.

He had other houses. Houses with goons he’d stolen from other gangs. In other words, disloyal goons, ones that would sooner tear him apart than patch him up. Cool. Cool cool cool. He made another turn. Streets felt familiar. Like a lost dream. Horns kept honking around him. Because of him? Hard to tell. Every sensation he experienced from sight to hearing to feel faded before he could acknowledge it. He had to get away. He was getting away? Where was he going? He was…he was losing…so so so so so…

Tires screeched. Oh, they were his. Was he supposed to feel his body skidding across the road? That was supposed to be painful, right? The sky was red, obscured by highways reaching to the heavens. The heavens. Huh. He could see the sky this time. That was nice. This was nice. It was a better end than he could ever deserve. 

He’d take it.

“Robin, behind you!” Spoiler cried out, currently locking her legs around what should have been the neck of the bulging mass of muscle she was fighting.

Robin ducked, hiding behind some crates. Crates that splintered as they became riddled with holes from the machine gun that dared to challenge the small child. The bullets were thankfully neutralized by the walls of narcotics hidden inside. “Mind your own business, Purple!”

Purple? Was he workshopping insults? This kid wouldn’t last a second in a schoolyard shouting match. Though, she guessed the League of Assassins was low on schoolyards. And children, ideally. Robin obviously had a lot to prove after needing to be saved but two hours ago.

The hulking muscleman played exactly into her hand, slamming his head directly into a concrete column. Spoiler was honestly impressed by how upscale Penguin’s operations were. They were fighting in an abandoned department store instead of the standard factory or warehouse. This place was gigantic! So much open space to the point where it felt like a waste. How much area did one need to make and distribute drugs? Not a lot, it seemed, considering everyone and everything was huddled into a single corner of the otherwise massively empty structure. The building was so empty that there was a goddamn booming echo during their entire fight! There were a thousand better things this space could be used for, a homeless shelter or community center or an unabandoned department store immediately sprung to mind, yet here it was, an absolute waste even as a drug house.

Maybe Spoiler was better served in real estate. A quick glance revealed Robin had successfully neutralized his shooter with a well-timed batarang. Kid had talent, she’d give him that. But the guns kept coming for him. Him, not her, she realized. These crooks saw Robin and saw a prize. There were no points for killing Spoiler, but presenting a dead bird to the head bird would be an immediate promotion. The kid’s little colorful roleplay was making him Gotham’s number one target.

Currently, five guys were standing up side-by-side on five different piles of powdery substance, gunning at a ten-year-old in a Halloween costume, himself remaining behind a small barricade composed of the same substance. They were relentless, not allowing a moment without a hail of bullets to allow the boy to make a move. If one gun ended, another began while they reloaded. Spoiler had a feeling that they wouldn’t take a moment’s reprieve to shoot at her if she waved her arms in the air and yelled “Hey, look at me, look at me, look at me!” She wasn’t important to them.

Fine by her. That meant she could take a brick of cocaine and use it like a brick of brick, setting it down onto a forklift’s gas pedal. The forklift promptly ambled between the attackers and Robin, not that fast, but also not slow enough to keep the goons from shooting at it. Situated in the driver’s seat was a fire extinguisher, one that was promptly shot and just as promptly exploded into a misty haze. It was a solid substitute for the smoke bombs she was running low on. Gunners were still blasting, only now they were coughing and no longer aiming where the gassy specter of the forklift drove.

This made for good ninja cover. The tiny ninja that had somehow become her partner sprung from his hidey hole, cape wrapped around his mouth, positioning himself behind the moving forklift. Batarangs went flying, striking the men one-by-one like the world’s easiest carnival game. Spoiler witnessed the impressive display in full, as it allowed her to jump up onto one bad guy’s perch, disarm them and kick them to the ground, before jumping to the next and then the next, until there were five guys on the ground without guns and without a clue.

Spoiler knocked out two of them, Robin got three. Their overall numbers were a matter of spirited debate as they tied everyone up for safe delivery. 

“Hold it.” After the last good was wrapped around a pillar with the price scanner still attached, Robin pondered. “We would require the police to look at this place before Penguin does, lest our efforts be in vain. How do we let them know?”

“That! Is a good question.” One that Spoiler had not really considered. Batman possessed an electronic means of sending a beacon out to the police, whether they liked it or not. Spoiler and Robin did not currently have access to this technology. They had phones, but they weren’t encrypted or anything, so 9-1-1 was out of the question. Revealing their existence to the police was liable to be a death sentence. So, she thought and she looked around, and then she saw some paint buckets, and then she rubbed her hands together, and then she went “Oh ho ho ho~!”

It was impossible for the police helicopters to ignore the bright glowing yellow bat symbol crudely painted on the rooftop of a department store. The color pierced through the blackness of the night like the signal before it. It ultimately served the same purpose, letting Gotham know it was under watch and protection.

Was Batman back? The police couldn’t confirm. No news outlet could say for certain. Yet, come the next morning, everyone everywhere was whispering in the massive, tiny city. Schoolkids suppressed their glee in hushed tones between lessons, while gangsters muttered amongst themselves whenever their big bosses were out of earshot. A million murmurs made for a loud statement.

“Your company is hardly necessary,” Damian snapped as he walked the protracted path towards the manor. “I am exceptionally capable of fending for myself in far harsher environments than a mansion.”

“I left you alone for three hours and you got kidnapped by your dead older brother.” Stephanie looked down at her phone, low on battery but enough juice to tell her it was past 3am. “Dang, it’s late.”

“Todd and I both denounce that label,” he snarled underneath the green hoodie he packed for civvies. “Don’t you have your own house to go to?”

“I texted my mom hours ago that I’d be staying at Tim’s place. True enough, right?”

“A true master of obfuscation.”

“Did your mom read a thesaurus to you every night before bedtime?”

“Hardly.” They finally reached the front door, wherein Damian summoned a key. It looked sparkling and new, which meant that it was likely forged specifically for him. “She would exclusively read me the most essential of literature, often in their original print, as well as their original language.” He opened the door, slipping in at lightning speed. “Goodnight, Brown.”

His attempt at slamming the door was blocked by Stephanie’s foot. “Motherf—!” She puffed her cheeks and muffled a scream before pushing her own weight against the door. “Look, kid! I’m not asking to move in with you! I just need you to think for a second!” The door became an epic struggle of wills as the two pushed and pushed. “You’re all about strategy shit, right? Well, this place has become a strategic liability! Red Hood knows where you live, not to mention whoever trashed the Batcave! If those people connect any dots about who we are, where’s the first place they’re gonna check, huh?”

The struggle ceased, allowing Stephanie to fall onto the floor of the manor. Damian looked down at her, his face pensive. “You want me to abandon this place? My birthright?”

“Is that officially stated in his will?” Damian didn’t laugh. She sighed as she got back onto her feet. “It’s a humongous ask, I know, but just think about it, okay? What’s the advantage of staying here? The Batcave is trashed, no Batcomputer, no equipment, no cars, no butler, no nothing. I can appreciate the sentimental value of a creepy infinite mansion almost definitely full of human skeletons, but c’mon! Be reasonable, dude.”

“I denounce that label as well.” His face didn’t become any nicer, even as he kicked the door shut behind them, effectively inviting his new partner. “Unfortunately, I cannot deny the… validity of your strategy, I do not appreciate the precedent it sets.”

“So there are human skeletons here.”

“That is undetermined.” Stephanie didn’t like that answer. “You…” Damian struggled to find the words for once. “You order me as if you possess authority over me. As if you possess any authority at all. I came here seeking guidance, yet only the Robin with the least experience remains. I know far more about the world at large than you. I could kill you with a miniscule sampling of my training. Yet, you insist on being the one to order me.” There was a lack of venom in the boy’s words, as mean as they were. 

There was no innocence to this boy. Stephanie knew that much. He had killed before, tried to kill her even. A lack of innocence did not mean a lack of naivety. It dawned on her why a spoiled prince would come all this way to shack in his dead father’s place. He was looking for something. She doubted she had it, but she was willing to help.

It took a minute before Stephanie had anything to say. By then, she had her shoes kicked off and collapsed her body onto the Wayne family’s comfy couch. “I’m sure you’ve been to a lot of places, but this is Gotham. I bet you trained with a buncha people with long, silly names that could kill me with a thought, but I’m not a killer and I don’t plan to be. I’m only a hero.” She peeked her head up at the boy. “That’s what you wanna be, right?”

“I find hero to be an esoteric title,” Damian insisted, sitting up in the chair perpendicular to the couch with his back in perfect alignment. “Though, an appropriate one to my motivation.”

“Yes or no, dude.”

“Yes.”

“Okay then.” Stephanie flopped around, now laying on her tummy as she kicked her legs up and pressed her fists against her cheeks. “Tell me then! What’s a hero to you, huh?”

“Simple.” She rightly assumed he had a lecture ready. “A hero is a public figure that serves the greater good of a population.”

“Like Batman?”

“Like my father,” he replied sternly, suddenly far less studious. “Or my mother.”

Stephanie cocked a brow. “You consider your mother, head of the League of Assassins, to be a hero?”

“She serves the same purpose as one,” he defended. “I never cared for my grandfather’s machinations, even as a child.” He ignored the girl’s snicker. “There are many among the earth that do not deserve to live, yet I find the sacrifice of the majority population to be a waste at best. My mother understands this. She took over following his most recent death.”

“A phrase that should surprise me more.”

“And she has taken a far more measured, far more controlled approach to the League. Most were terrified of Ra’s al Ghul. They were right to be. He was an insane man with more experience and power than any mortal could comprehend. Yet, those very same people respect my mother with adoration. As such, they grant her power, which she uses to ensure this world does not fall into ruin.”

“By killing people.”

“By saving people,” he insisted. “Typically through ordered assassinations, yes. I find it difficult to separate her goals with that of my father’s.”

“We’re talking about the same guy, right? I think Bruce would have killed himself before he’d install a bug zapper.”

“I am no fool,” the ten year old insisted. “I am aware of their differences, same as I recognize the paradox they make me.” He peered down at…himself, she guessed. “Their means may be different, yet their tactics are much the same. They exist in shadows, in the fearful tones of their enemies, visible only to those they trust. They create order and meaning in a chaotic, meaningless world. You act as if they are opposing forces, whenever they are really in conversation. As such, I take both sides of my inheritance very seriously.”

“Yeah-huh…” Stephanie took it all in. Damian was still a terror, but there was obviously a lot going on in that little kid’s brain. It slowly dawned on her that the brat was raised like a prince, promised the world and trained to rule it thanks solely to his parentage. No kid should have to be born with such high opinions on his place in the world. No kid should feel the world owes them anything, nor should they feel they’re owed the world, but Damian’s destiny was decided for him far before he was born. A destiny of equal parts power and sacrifice that he had no hesitation in meeting. 

There was a grocery list of truths she wished she could tell him, if she didn’t  already know he wouldn’t listen. She wanted to tell him that the circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant, that the paths of his parents shouldn’t affect his own, that he was just a kid, dang it, that being a kid a precious, precious thing that should be cherished and preserved, that the curse of her family shouldn’t be passed down onto—

No! Bad brain!! She had to stay on track. This was no time for existential crises. For once in her life, Stephanie had to suppress her sentimental streak and lock in. She’ll look into a therapist later, but right then, she had to welcome the spirit of pragmatism. 

That started with getting her only real ally here on her side. “Can I ask why you came down here in the first place? Why do you dress like Robin?”

It was the most basic question for a warrior prince dressed like Robin living alone in his dead dad’s place, yet it still made Damian visibly antsy. His legs curled up in his leather chair nearly as big as him. “I came seeking guidance from Batman’s first apprentice. With my father gone, he was the foremost expert in his field. Obviously, he was not present whenever I arrived.”

“Obviously.”

“And while that may have awarded the Batman mantle to me by default, I had already crafted my Robin costume in anticipation of my apprenticeship.”

“You made that yourself?!” Okay, pragmatism over, Stephanie was excited now. “Like, did you design and then get, like, servants or your mom to make it?”

“Of course not!” he snapped back. “My mother did my best to dissuade me of my journey at every measure! And I would hardly trust subordinates with such a crucial task. I amassed the materials myself, before forming the costume in my free time.”

“You made that all yourself?!” She could tell her smile was starting to alert Damian, yet she hardly cared. This was too major. “That’s amazing! Like…really! I mean, the eye for color coordination alone is, like, super impressive. And you sewed all that?”

The boy was beginning to squirm. His face teetered on a smile that he refused. “Yes, obviously! Is that truly so difficult to believe? It is only befitting of a warrior to craft their appearance. It is a rite of passage in itself.”

“Ya know, I crafted my own costume! Like, way back when I was fifteen.”

“It’s evident.”

“It’s—pffft!!! Ha ha ha!!” No force on earth could have stopped Stephanie Brown from cracking up. He got her with a surgical strike! It was a fit of laughter more powerful than anything she’d experienced since coming home. Her only possible counterattack was hurling a fluffy, tasseled pillow from the couch towards the boy. 

Damian blocked it, naturally. What kind of ninja would be overwhelmed by a pillow? In the end, however, his attack was a double-edged sword. Wasn’t long before he too dared to smile, a few small chuckles managing to warm his throat. He did his best to keep them at bay, yet they would keep bubbling.

In a weird way, Stephanie felt more at home now than she’d felt in a very, very long time. For a moment, it felt like long nights shooting the shit with Tim. It was the same feeling she had after monologuing with Cass for hours on end, who would respond with a short, precise jab that would send them both rolling. It was the sense of accomplishment when she made Batman smile. All those tiny, fleeting moments made it feel like Stephanie Brown actually had something to give. Maybe she still does.

“Alright, alright! We’re—heh, I’m way off track now!” she cackled as she waved her hands, getting her brain and sides back in order. “What I was trying to get at is that, since I’m kinda the only Bat-Person left, I’m kinda the best teacher you’re gonna get! And you may know a lot that I don’t, I know a lot that you don’t, stuff you’re not gonna know unless you trust me and follow my lead.”

Damian was settling down himself, finally burying those bubbly feelings back where they wouldn’t arise, aided by clearing his throat. “What is it you claim to know that I don’t?” The question didn’t sound combative, which was appreciative.

“Well, for one!” The older Robin raised her index finger. “I know another Batcave. Two!” Her middle finger went up. “I was trained by Batman himself. Briefly, sure, but only through intensive training that included crime scene investigation, a field that I excelled at, thank you very much. Even Batman admitted that my detective skills were exemplary. This was before he even officially recruited me, by the way. And three!” Up went her ring finger. “I know Gotham. I’ve been gone a hot second, but it’s the same grime, the same alleys, the same assholes in charge. Gotham isn’t some exotic locale, it is a dimension, a living being that you must absorb before it consumes you. Am I making sense?”

Damian was pensive, yet nodded. “You’re suggesting a truce.”

“I’m suggesting a collaboration.” Stephanie hoisted herself off the couch and back onto her feet, approaching her previous attacker with an outstretched hand. “A partnership. We work together, we protect each other, we figure this out. Sound good?”

The boy peered back and forth between Brown’s hand and her eager face. His face didn’t betray any answers. “You said you know the location of another Batcave?”

“I could have us there by tomorrow morning.” Her hand remained.

The air ran silent. Stephanie’s face never lost its smile, just as Damian’s face never gained one. A minute passed. Finally, the boy spoke up. “Tt.” And then, he accepted the hand. The two hands bounced.

Dreams weren’t a common occurrence since dying. Considering most of those dreams now resulted in a cold sweat once she woke up, Stephanie didn’t mind. They used to be so vibrant, though. Whenever she got the Robin job, she would wake up energized every single day, invigorated by fantasies she could no longer recall past breakfast. Those days were long past now. Whatever dreams she had would simply be experienced while awake.

Like at 4:25am, whenever her slumber on the Wayne Family couch came to an abrupt conclusion. She could have used any of the probably dozen rooms in this giant place, if it didn’t feel completely wrong to do so. Damian said he’d already searched everyone’s individual rooms for evidence and money, so she took that as an excuse not to pilfer her friends’ abandoned domiciles. It’d be too much.

Damian was still fast asleep, however. He had insisted on slumbering on the couch parallel to Stephanie’s own. “It is the most efficient way to guard against potential intruders,” he insisted. “I am a light sleeper. I’ll notice if anything is amiss.” It was a solid excuse to not be alone. Also a good lie, considering the boy looked completely conked out. If he was anything like his father, this could have been his first attempt at sleep in some days. Meanwhile, Stephanie knew the value of a good night’s sleep, even if she had intentionally cut this one’s short. Ensuring the coast was clear, she slowly peeled her blanket off and returned her feet to the ground, before tiptoeing all the way over to the grandfather clock. Once more, she checked towards the living room. Clear. She turned the clock hands to 9:45, leading to a click. She checked again. Clear. She walked in, gingerly closing the door behind her.

Damian packed light. He did not particularly appreciate the limited fashion choices this country offered young men of his age. He refused to degrade himself with the cynical masturbation of fashion that advertised the company that forced children to make it. Nor did he care for shirts that advertised the latest toy that American animation wished to sell. He also hated flannel. For now, solid color shirts made of absorbent material, khaki shorts, and his trusty green hoodie was all he required to blend into the general populace.

That was one bag. The other had all his weapons, projectiles, poisons, books, and a Robin outfit. Everything that he had brought on his travels, along with fifteen batarangs found within the house. Brown thought it smart to fill a refrigerated bag full of groceries. It was a detail he had missed. He wouldn’t let her know that.

Brown let them all the way downtown. Or uptown. American cities were always vaguely organized by colloquialisms. Regardless, the mid-century expressionist testaments of commerce turned into far smaller, far more pragmatic architecture likely created in the same timeframe. There were few houses to be found, as the neighborhood was composed nearly entirely of brick apartments that likely packed in more inhabitants than any of the crystalline spires piercing the sky. He found that metropolises were always so much smaller than the behemoths of progress they wished to be perceived as.

The building was inconspicuous among the legion of red bricks that comprised this neighborhood. It wasn’t the tallest structure there, nor the shortest, standing at three stories. There was graffiti on the walls for no political purpose beyond the building being there without anyone inside. Damian would keep a close eye out for anyone that dared touch his domicile.

“Whelp! Welcome to Casa de Cass-a! As Cass and I used to call it~” There were far less annoying ways for her to introduce their new base of operations. He decided not to reprimand her in a show of confidence in their alliance. “Bruce apparently had this place reserved for Cass whenever she couldn’t hang around the Watchtower. I only got to hang out here a couple times, but I kept it marked in my brain.”

“You’re referring to Cassandra Cain?” 

The girl was legendary within the League. The so-called The-One-Who-Is-All, bred to be the ultimate human weapon. While so many devoted their lives to become the world’s greatest fighter, training for decades and/or augmenting their bodies with science and sorcery, legend had it that none could dare match the power this girl possessed at age eight. Yet, she reportedly rejected her destiny at the first moment she was brought to meet it, only to pop up nearly a decade later in a BDSM Batman costume. Cassandra Cain was a curious case. Damian had little idea how someone could reject such an impossibly high calling so flippantly. He hoped to ask her sometime.

“The very same!” Brown chirped, having still not depleted her irritating energy. “The two of us, we were like–” She crossed her fingers. Was he supposed to know what that meant? “-ya know?”

“Yes, I understand.” Sounding annoyed was the perfect smokescreen. Luckily, he could draw on real emotion. “And you said this lair has a Batcave?”

“Yeah! I’ll show you in a bit. Right now, we need to explore, make sure everything’s in order, and start settling down. Then we can look at the Batcave.”

He really wanted to see the Batcave. “Very well.” 

The interior was comfortable. It resembled a finely-dressed hotel suite, neatly organized and sterile. Two bedrooms and a kitchen on the first floor, two additional bedrooms on the second, and a living room area on the third. All the sheets were neatly pressed and folded, the floors cleaned, the remotes were even neatly organized on the coffee table in front of the plasma-screen television. There was a fine layer of dust around, suggesting disuse that the expired food in the refrigerator confirmed. Trash bags were stocked, fortunately, so the two performed the arduous task of taking that food out before putting the new food in.

All the rooms were barren save for Cain’s bedroom. There wasn’t much there either, though there was still a sizable collection of clothing left to rot in her closet. He fleetingly wondered if they were of similar size to him, before hastily disregarding that thought. “Huh, I don’t think she ever wore most of this stuff,” Brown noted. “Then again, she barely used this place before going back to the Clocktower. Yet her dear old dad kept paying for it. Heh. Big softie.”

Dad? “Are you referring to my father?”

“Oh yeah! I have a feeling Bruce loved finally having a daughter. She was so much like him, except, you know, cool. He threw so much money at her trying to make her happy. Even when his PMS hit and he tried to make her quit, his idea of punishment was giving Cass another apartment for herself. One without a Batcave, obvs. Oh! And then there was Cass’ boy business! She told me—”

“My father was not hers.” Frankly, the boy was insulted by the idea. “Cain was the product of two killers. By what rights does she have to call Bruce Wayne her father?”

“Goddammit…” Brown groaned, resting her palm against her forehead. It was a telltale sign of disappointment. He wondered why. “I don’t have time to explain the invalidity of blood and found family and—they just liked each other, okay? They had a daddy-daughter thing going on, just like Dick and Tim treated him like their dysfunctional dad.” 

“You believe that simply because they played roles reminiscent of family dynamics that they would be considered family?”

“Hey, last I checked, you weren’t anointed Robin by anyone. Does that make you any less Robin?

Damian squinted. This woman was attempting mind games on him again. He couldn’t deny she had skill with them. Of course he was Robin, he had every right to be! His brief interactions with his father did not override their relation. He had seen Grayson and Drake refer to his father as their own as well. He didn’t enjoy this, nevertheless, their titles as sons were awarded to them by his father after years of service. Damian overruled them both in the hierarchy, naturally. He was Batman’s one true heir, whose fathership was a matter of fact, far beyond legal documents signed out of pity. None had claim to Batman’s legacy before him.

“Tt.” He conceded for now. Damian hardly wished for more inane moralizing from the blonde. “What about the Batcave? How do we access it?”

“Right! Okay! So! Funny story!” Brown clapped her hands together. He braced himself. “I…don’t remember!” She waved her hands as if performing a musical number. She panicked after noticing Damian’s snarl. “I mean! I know there’s, like…a pole that opens up if you do… something .” Her head swerved to glance around the entire building helplessly. “We just gotta find the trigger! Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! Easy squeezy, peasy squeezy…” Her gibberish did little to assuage Damian’s concerns of this alliance.

They searched the entire place. What was neat and tidy whenever they arrived was finally torn asunder and left in chaos. The answer turned out to be the angle button on the DVD remote. Under what other occasion would someone press that button? His father might have been a genius.

The walls unraveled to reveal a pair of poles not unlike those found in a police station. Damian’s opinion on his father was instantly tempered once more. What adult man would augment his great mission with such blatantly indulgent adolescent fantasies? Batman was meant to be a serious affair, down to the batarangs and Batmobile. The fact that Brown burst into childish glee as she slid down only inspired more concern. Regardless, Damian had to follow after her.

It was a little fun.

The secret underground cave was considerably more spacious than the building above. Stone pillars holding the cave together brought to mind Ancient Rome, as did the pit at the center. A significant crowd could gather to look down at the gladiatorial arena below, where training dummies and exercise equipment were neatly arranged and ready to be used. There was even a steel gate to complete the metaphor. Damian guessed that was an intentional design on his father’s part, once more incapable of resisting fantasy.

“Ahhhhh! Brings back memories~” Brown looked fond of this area.

“It does look useful,” Damian complimented as he strolled over towards the sizable computer setup. So many screens for someone he was told was not literate. He switched it on for inspection, becoming pleasantly impressed that it still ran. “This should be particularly useful in our investigation.”

“Great!” Brown cheered as she clapped her hands. It was an aggravating tic of hers. “Okay! So, you know how to work computers, right?”

“Obviously,” he groaned, rolling his eyes before tilting his head. “You act like you have somewhere else to be...” His mastery of body language was somewhat limited, yet he was fine-tuned to people that did not wish to be near him.

“Y-yeah, I kinda…look, my mom gets off early today, and I maybe sorta kinda promised to spend time with her all day.” She was acting apologetic, scratching behind her head. She didn’t wish to anger him.

It didn’t work. “You speak of a grand mission to complete, then abscond the instant that it’s inconvenient for your private life?” Abscond?, the blonde muttered in astonishment. “After that grand speech last night, is time of no essence to you?”

“Hey! I was kinda gone for a whole year and a half, so forgive me if I kinda want to spend some time with my mom who thought I was dead that entire time!” She was irritatingly defensive. He understood many of his father’s choice words in the girl’s document. “I owe this to her. I owe it to me to still have some semblance of a normal life outside of this crazy bat-mess.”

“As if mundanity was ever an option for the likes of you,” Damian snarled in retort, only to ultimately turn away towards the computer console and wave off his partner. “Leave if you must. Your presence here would only be a hindrance.”

“There’s a lot of nicer ways to say see ya later , little dude. Just stay safe. Maybe don’t go out alone tonight?”

“Never call me that again. Leave.”

“Alright, alright, sor- ry . See ya later.” She finally grappled out, thank the heavens. 

Damian hardly needed her. He had a purpose that he intended to carry through to completion without needless distraction. This was to be his life in its totality, until the investigation was successful and he could move on to his proper training. 

The investigation stalled. The computer required a password.

That left him with the single morsel of information about his father’s operation that Red Hood had “gifted” him. Damian accepted the light reading.

Stephanie lied.

In her defense, it was a lie of omission! Not even a real bad one! She’d inform Damian afterwards if her little gamble paid off. If it didn’t, well, she’d keep it vague why the police commissioner doesn’t particularly care for her. Stephanie couldn’t blame the guy if he didn’t care for vigilantes knocking on the door to his private residence on his day off.

Yet, here she was. The thrill of finally doing a scheme again brought her fist to the door of the Gordon residence. The sensation of a sunk cost made her keep knocking again and again. Her instinctual need to be annoying to authority figures made her press the doorbell repeatedly. The lights were on. She knew this was his day off. Work the streets long enough and you start to recognize patterns in what cops are there and not there at certain points. Stephanie was great at recognizing details like that, because she was awesome.

“Yeah yeah yeah…” the gruff voice on the other side groused on the other side. Grouse . There’s a word she hadn't thought of in a hot second. She bookmarked it in her mind to use against Damian later. “Oh, son of a…” The commissioner’s voice was a lot closer now, evidently checking his peephole. Locks started clinking and clanking, allowing the door to pop open.

The haggard face of a man well past his prime opened up. Seemed the man defaulted to white shirts and suspenders even on his days off. His stomach was a lot rounder than the rest of his skinny body, yet was hard to the touch, almost like a pregnant woman. Stephanie knew this because she hugged the man the moment she had visual. “Uncle Gordon!!!” She squealed with an intensity that matched her shove. Both tumbled into the house, wherein she was quick to push the door shut with her sneaker.

“Brown!!” the man snapped, quick to push the vigilante girl off him. “What’s gotten over you?! Why are you here?!” It didn’t even take a beat for him to enter interrogation mode. Real consummate professional this guy.

“Needed to get in without looking too suspicious,” Stephanie insisted as she got to reinforcing the locks that previously kept her out. “Can’t conduct superhero business on your welcome mat, now could we? People could be watching or listening or perving around. And we can’t have that.” She dropped her duffel bag as if planting a flag.

“You’re aware you just assaulted a police officer and forced your way into his house.” His tone was flat and even. Again, professional.

“I don’t see you going for a gun. If I were you, I’d hide, like, fifty of them around your front door alone.”

“I’m not going to pull my gun on—” Gordon kept himself from finishing, choosing instead to massaged his very creased forehead. A lifetime of civil servitude in Gotham would put a lot of stories on one’s face, especially if that person actually cared. “Okay. You came here for a reason. What is it?”

Stephanie perked up. This guy was either a lot more cooperative or a lot easier to break down than she anticipated. Regardless, she cleared her throat as she prepared to take the floor. “Dearest commissioner, I would assume you are aware of the recent case of that Zoog guy?”

“Are you referring to Anselm Zoog, the trafficker?”

“Yeah, probably. The guy that got stabbed twenty-eight times.”

“What about him?” Gordon had elected to crash down on his couch, sitting beside a stack of newspapers twelve issues high. Either he was doing this deliberately to ease tensions, or he was tired. It could be two things.

Stephanie reached into her pocket. “Was he stabbed twenty-eight times with this ?” The owl-crested dagger was promptly slammed onto the commissioner’s wooden coffee table. The girl internally celebrated not fucking up the dramatic moment she had run in her head a thousand times before coming here.

“My table…” Gordon groused, unable to anything more than disappointed by now. Still, he leaned forward with his hand over his glasses and observed the intricate design. He stared silently for several seconds, before peering back at the girl that was peering at him so expectantly. “Same owl carvings. Where did you get this, Brown?”

“The Batcave.” She did her best to add flavor to her cool reveal. “Or, rather, the eviscerated, desecrated remains of the Batcave. One of Batman’s jammies was strung up on the wall with exactly twenty-eight of these little guys.”

“Like a lesson…” the man muttered, keeping his glasses straight with one hand while the other lifted the dagger for closer inspection. 

“Did any owl-themed supervillains pop up while I was away?”

“Not that I know of.” His tone turned contemplative. “So, we’re dealing with someone that has a thing out for both organized crime and Batman. Sounds a lot like Red Hood.”

“No, it’s not him,” Stephanie groaned with open disdain. “I talked with him. Massive asshole, but he doesn’t know shit about what happened to everyone. Owls would probably be too thematically inconsistent for his tastes.”

Once her eyes finished rolling, they discovered Gordon staring blankly straight at her. “You talked with Red Hood? You?”

“Yes? Me?” 

“Goddamnit…” The word came as naturally to his tongue as pronouns. “There’s really no way of keeping you out of this, is there?”

“Nnnnnnope.” Stephanie’s smile was proud and mirthful. The commissioner didn’t stand a chance. “Which is why I didn’t come here to report anything or snitch on anyone. I’m asking for help from one of the last batfolks out there.”

“I’m hardly one of you,” Gordon exhaled as he leaned back onto his couch, still holding the knife. “Don’t expect me to put on a costume or anything. Ya know, the reason why Batman and I worked was because of an agreement on anonymity. I know who you are, Brown. And I know your mother. Does she know about this?”

“Why? You going to snitch on me, Mister Policeman?” Her hands were rested on her hips for intimidation.

“That would be my job.”

“Was helping Batman in your job description?”

“No. Neither was knowingly helping teenage girls kill themselves in gang warfare.”

“It’s not the worst thing,” Stephanie hummed before leaning up against the wall beside the couch. “I know you didn’t make yourself Batman’s liaison because he was a good hang. You use him the same way he uses you. He needs someone official on his side, you need someone on the outside on your side. Right now, I’m the only one on the outside. If I’m ever going to find anyone else, I’m going to need your help. Capiche?”

“No need to bring Italian into this.” Gordon briefly took off his glasses in order to crease his brow. “I haven’t heard from my daughter Barbara in some time. She has a habit of disappearing for extended periods with little explanation. This time feels different, though. I’m worried she may be caught up in this mess.” The glasses went back on. “It would be suspicious to investigate her myself. To say nothing of the potential trouble she may be in once I find her.” He sighed again, refusing to look back at the girl. “Can you find her?”

Oh boy. Did he know? “Yeah.” Didn’t matter. It was rare for everyone to share all the information they knew here. “Yeah. I will. Promise.” It was all part of the original plan anyhow. “But you have to give me leads on any of the missing Bat-People you can. Deal?” Once more, a hand was offered.

A hand that Gordon gently nudged away with his own. “I’m not making any deals with anyone. I am simply telling you in offhand conversation that Gotham has a history with owls. You know that little rhyme about the Court of Owls?”

“...No.”

“Really? Feels like every kid in Gotham grows up hearing it.”

“I grew up in Widow Creek.”

“Hm. Not that surprising..” He reached for a very tepid cup of coffee that had been sitting halfway-finished on his coffee table.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” It was the one moment Stephanie let her cool face slip.

Yet, the commissioner was content to move on, raising his hand to stop any potential argument from escaping. “ Beware The Court of Owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadow perch, behind granite and lime. ” He spoke with the gravitas of a father reading a dramatic poem to their kid with the intention to scare them before bed. “ They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed, speak not a whispered word of them or they'll send The Talon for your head. ”

“Holy shit…” Stephanie muttered. “You tell this to children?!”

“More like children always find out. That rhyme’s been festering in Gotham since the 1800s. Isn’t even attributed to any one writer. Of course, the Court of Owls is only a myth. Then again, so was Batman for some time.” He took a sip of his tepid coffee.

“If they’re real, they could have been broadcasting themselves into the city’s subconscious the way Batman’s been doing for years.” It was the best lead Stephanie had right now. She had little reason to believe that a scary regional nursery rhyme couldn’t also be real. In Gotham, truth always leaned towards the weirdest option rather than the most straightforward. “Won’t lie, this kinda feels like secret society weirdo stuff.”

“I’m not jumping to any conclusions,” Gordon insisted before starting to sift through his stack of newspapers. “They could merely be using the aesthetics of the rhyme as a gimmick. Like how our Mad Hatter likely hasn’t spent much time with Lewis Carrol. An easy way to inspire fear is to latch onto an existing fear.”

“You don’t say…” Stephanie trailed off. She poked her head down at the stack. “Looking for something?”

“Yeah. There’s one other thing I’m curious about. Might be of interest to you as well..”

“You’re asking another favor of me already?” The vigilante shot a cheeky hand towards her gasping chest. “This relationship is moving on a little too fast!”

“I’m not asking anything of you and I never will,” he stated resolutely before finally slipping a magazine out of the pile. “Do kids these days read the news?”

“I’ve gotten into the habit.” Maybe a little too recently, but still.

“How much? Because everyone reads the Gotham Gazette . That’s the people’s paper. Practically essential to the average citizen. But Gotham isn’t home exclusively to average people.” He propped up the magazine, revealing its title: Heights of Gotham . On the cover were men exclusively in suits and women exclusively in elaborate dresses probably constructed of multiple endangered animals, all having a ball at some kind of fancy ball. “Take this paper. For rich folks by rich folks. No one that isn’t allowed into those highrises would care about the news in here. I do my best to keep track of the rich, considering how often they affect the higher percentiles.”

“And you want me to buy it?”

“I want you to read it,” he instructed as he handed the magazine over. “Page fourteen.”

“Woah, okay! Uhhh…” Stephanie fumbled with the magazine, flipping carefully through the pages. Glossy photos of yachts and giant novelty checks and the aforementioned endangered animal dresses flashed her eyes briefly, until she found the elusive fourteen on the bottom-right corner. Then, she peered up at the page herself.

Stephanie’s mouth went dry. The entire room immediately felt a lot colder. It was hard to know if her poker face was still in play or not. Probably not. Not now.

It was Cass. Cassandra Cain, all her beauty still reserved after all this time, smiling bright, smiling happy, smiling that incredibly rare undistilled smile that motivated Stephanie’s training more than any of their teasing barbs. It was uncanny to see a girl once defined by movement frozen on a page, surrounded by text she likely couldn’t read, smiling a smile that should be fleeting and ethereal and personable, only now it was eternal and printed in that annoyingly glossy newspaper print for anyone to see.

She was dressed in a gorgeous black dress. Her face was covered in makeup, her lips coated with black, her ears decorated with golden hoops, her neck decorated with silver that dipped to her chest. She was wearing heels. Her arms were adorned with jewelry that glared against the camera lens, ending with nails coated black.

Around those arms were two people. On the right, a middle-aged man, beard and mustache graying while the brown on his head was merely peppered, dressed in a garish blue tuxedo that nonetheless likely cost the same as a college education. He was smiling proudly for the camera. On the other, a woman, similar age with the wrinkles to prove it, flowing red hair, a sparkling teal dress that clung nicely to her big tits. They were so big and cylindrical. And at her age? Had to be surgery, right?

Oh, right, Cass. All three flashed giant, pearly white smiles, like they were collectively proud of something. In bold, dramatic typeface, probably Oswald, the article announced its intentions in bold red: DASHING DOCTOR & DARLING DONATOR DIVULGE DEAREST DAUGHTER . 

“I know that girl.” Gordon’s gravely voice wasn’t enough to snap Stephanie out of her stupor, but she absorbed it all the same. “Cassandra Cain. She saved my ass back in No Man’s Land. Protected me from her own father. Every now and then, you’ll see her around town, typically alone, but she’s good friends with my Barbara. Even had her over for dinner a couple times. Strange girl, but understandable considering her unique upbringing.”

“Yeah…” Stephanie muttered distantly as she kept reading. The smiling man was apparently Doctor Henry Hopkins, a practicing dentist despite owning major shares in nearly every hospital and dentistry in Gotham. The smiling woman was Rita Hopkins, daughter of some dead moneybag that was one of the top medical donors in the city. Donating to hospitals that financially supported her husband, she inferred. And the two of them were proud to announce the unveiling of their adopted daughter that they had been keeping under wraps for years, so they could allow her to live a normal life. But now that daughter was an adult, eighteen years of age, and they were overjoyed to announce her to the rest of the world.

Cassandra Hopkins , they called her. A beautiful name desecrated by total strangers. What was Cass doing? Who were these people? They did something. Something was up. This wasn’t normal. This didn’t feel like undercover work. Hell, Cass had the ultimate cover in that she didn’t legally exist. Now, here was a magazine of two rich idiots with vacant smiles that paled in comparison to hers, proclaiming proudly that Cassandra was all theirs and always had been.

“This doesn’t feel like a natural turn for her,” the commissioner continued like it was casual conversation. He sipped his coffee. “I know for a fact that the secret adopted child story is bull. Make me question the whole damn thing. Course, can’t exactly start an investigation for Gotham’s biggest philanthropist power couple off a lie you have no evidence for. Cassandra there isn’t even supposed to exist, you see. No one knows the deadly assassin David Cain ever had a daughter save for a select few. No papers mean no evidence, which means no case, only paranoia.” He took another sip, refusing to look his guest in the eye.

The magazine was slammed shut loud enough to make a pop. “I’m keeping this.” There was no negotiation in her voice.

“If you feel you need it more than me, go ahead.” Gordon shrugged, electing to turn on the TV rather than acknowledge his guest. “Today’s my day off. I intend to enjoy it. You also probably shouldn’t come here—” He hung on his last word as he finally turned his head expectantly.

Stephanie was in the middle of unlocking all the front door locks. Once their gazes met, she gave a sheepish smile. “You see, uhhhhh, I was trying to do the whole dramatic Batman exit thing he always does. Just, heh…forgot about the locks. Gimme a sec.” Clink! “Alright! There we go. Uhhh. Bye!” She slipped out like a snake, magazine and duffel bag in-hand.

Upon reaching home, the duffel bag was zipped open. Despite packaging the contents herself, seeing the only remaining Batsuit crammed messily into the same bag she brought to gym class gave Stephanie pause. Her face deflated as she exhaled, leaving a hard lump in her throat. Here was a once-living legend residing in a tiny bag in her tiny room.

It was difficult not to believe in the ethereal power of Batman, even after experiencing his fallibility so close. Stephanie and Tim were very much products of the Batman Generation, as Gothamite adults loved to call them. They were among the first to grow up with the idea of Gotham’s guardian angel punishing the wrong and protecting the powerless. They were kids that kept looking towards the future because they felt less burdened to look behind their backs at every waking moment. Not that Batman fixed everything. Far fucking from it. But there were symbols of hope that weren’t there before, not part of any institution or government body, only people that sought to do the right thing by punching the bad things. It was an intriguing idea to plant into the minds of impressionable children that they did not have to conform to the world in all its broken ways, that the power to resist was in the hands of anyone that dared accept that they had it.

Stephanie was so tiny the first time she saw Batman. She was five, if she believed her mom. He was scary. What little kid wouldn’t be scared of the giant man dressed like a demon that broke into her house in order to beat up her dad? It wasn’t even that she liked her dad at that moment. Whenever someone is that young, it’s hard to tell how much they truly hate their parents. Stephanie knew she didn’t like how angry her daddy got and how loud he yelled at mommy back then. She absolutely didn’t enjoy being locked in the closet every time she expressed her childish discontent with her daddy’s meanness. Both men were scary, same with the violence they shared. But Batman made her daddy silent. For some reason, Stephanie liked that.

Was that the first spark? The first time Stephanie realized that someone could fight the bad things? Was this the very mask Batman wore whenever he gave a five year old girl some much needed if very temporary quiet?

The mask was on her face now. It looked silly on her. It probably looked silly on him. It smelled like old tires and cobwebs. Her long blond locks pooled out from the back, keeping her from fully closing the cowl. It was so silly. She was crying. She didn’t want to. The rubber must have been burning her eyes. No. No, Stephanie had no need to lie to herself. She was crying because of justice! And vengeance! And above all else?

“I’m Batman.” She laughed, hard enough to turn her body away from the mirror. “Holy shit, Batman!” she wheezed as she started wiping tears from the cowl with the old cape. “Holy shit…”

The telltale sound of the front door opening alerted her to cease her sad mirror business. The mask went off and everything went into the bag, zipped up and thrown in the closet in a matter of seconds. “Steph, dear! Mind helping with these groceries?”

“Course, mom! Coming!” All it took was a quick shake of the head to sort those weird feelings in the weird feelings portion of her brain to be explored later. For now, groceries took priority. “Woah! Buying in bulk now, are we?”

“Well, I gotta care for a growing little girl again, now, don’t I?” Crystal asked, a smile on her face that dared to laugh yet never quite managed.

“I’m eighteen, mom.” Stephanie really loved this rapport they naturally fell into now. It was exceedingly rare to get real, true conversation with her mother before, while they now slipped seamlessly into loving teases. It was like Crystal was truly seeing her for the first time. Not the superhero business, of course. Heaven forbid she see that.

“And you’ll be nineteen soon enough!” Crystal exclaimed with gusto, carrying in more bags from her car beside her daughter. “We have to prepare for that! Big difference between eighteen and nineteen, trust me.”

“You spoil me so.” Shit. Stephanie could see her mom stop in her tracks for the briefest couple seconds, before shaking her head and moving on. Bad choice of words. Time to swerve. “Ya know, I’ve been thinking a little bit recently.”

“Uh oh.” The smile was forced, but the intent was true.

“No, really! I mean. Until we get things sorted out, I look a whole lot like Stephanie Brown, right?”

“On account of being her, yes.”

“Right! And…I don’t think I want to be any less Steph to fit in or anything. But maybe we can find a way to… redefine Stephanie Brown, ya know? Am I making any sense?”

“You’re being grammatically correct, even if I don’t understand the words.” At least her smile was a lot more genuine now, even as she put perishables in the fridge. “Thinking of going goth, dear?”

“Oh, god no! Ha!” Stephanie’s was quite real as well. “I mean, didn’t you take those barber classes back in college?”

“Barber classes?” It was an area of her life that hadn’t escaped her tongue in years. The woman stared at her daughter, astonished. “You want me to do your hair?”

“Yeah! Ya know, I’ve had it long for so long, tried to keep it somewhat tame for so long, but I had a realization that I never even tried short. All my life, I never even tried having it all short-like. Maybe now’s the time to really experiment with who Steph can be. No better time than whenever nobody expects anything out of me.”

“Because you’re supposed to be dead.”

“Wow! Way to say the quiet part out loud, mom!”

“Someone had to.” That smile, shockingly genuine. Relieved, even. “Alright. Sure. I’m a little out of practice, but these hands are still steady. Whatcha thinking?”

Crystal Brown had to use the bathroom that night. Inevitable lately. Antidepressants were doing wonders for everything but her kidneys, which were left more irate than ever. So, despite her shift in three hours, the woman was lumbering towards the one bathroom in the apartment.

The bathroom was right across from her daughter’s room. She could see the lights still escaping through the cracks in her door. More importantly, she could hear the telltale whirrings of a sewing machine behind the door. It was a sound she only heard twice before, under the same muffled filter of a closed door. It even echoed within the bathroom.

Crystal didn’t like hearing that machine. She prayed this wouldn’t be the last time she heard it.

Chapter Text

Jason Todd, who did NOT die, woke up to fresh air and an aching shoulder. The fact he had awoken to an unfamiliar setting was much less alarming than the fact he had woken up in the first place. Whatever cosmic comedian that brought him back in the first place was evidently wanting more. Sure. Why start spoiling the show?

It was Batman 101 on how to orient yourself after waking up. Don’t bother asking questions, look for clues. There were fluorescent light fixtures on the ceiling. Okay, so it was a hospital, got it. The echoing sounds of groaning and coughing in the distance were solid clues as well, but largely unnecessary. He reached for his face. No helmet. Made sense. No one wants to operate on the evil helmet guy. Did he have surgery? His shoulder ached. Most of him ached, actually, but he recalled getting hit in the—

Ah. Final evidence acquired. White as snow hair, turtleneck, white coat, scowl, it was all there. The more things changed, the more things stayed the same, it seemed. “Leslie.”

“I’d prefer Doctor Thompkins , Jason.” Didn’t skip a beat. He respected that. “You weren’t the first face I expected to see under that mask, but I sincerely wish I could have been more surprised.”

“You operate on dead people often, doc?” It felt good to talk, better than exclusively hurting.

“More than I care to,” the old woman sighed as she wandered over to his bedside. “You were quite the patch job. Deep laceration in your shoulder, various shrapnel in your legs and back.”

“How did you find me?”

“You crashed your bike in front of my clinic,” Leslie replied without a beat, looking at a clipboard beside the man. “You found me, Jason.”

“Did I? Damn.” The subconscious could be a terrifying thing when put under stress. Jason supposed his body still knew where to go whenever rational thought ceased to function. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Did you mean to kill all those people in the news?” The doc was still studying her patient’s results, though her face was as tempered as ever. She was a good doctor, Jason knew this.

“Well, yeah. Someone has to keep the streets clean with ole Brucie out of the picture, right?”

“Wrong.” Maybe it wasn’t good doctor behavior to slam a clipboard onto their ailing patient’s stomach, hard enough to make them grunt. “I was at your funeral, Jason. I know for a scientific fact that was your body, just as much as I know this is the same body.” She was glaring at him now with the contempt of a disappointed grandmother. Jason remained tough. “I don’t care how you came back. Your walk is none of my business. I am exclusively in the business of helping people prolong their lives. Which is why I suggest you rethink your approach to this second chance you’ve been granted.”

“Oh, would you prefer I take up gardening then~?” the patient asked, twinkling his eyebrows. “Suppose I’ve already gotten a head start, what with all the bodies I’ve left to ferment the ground.” Last thing he wanted right now was yet another lecture from the world’s oldest woman. His attempt to lift himself off the bed was preempted by the extreme pain around most parts of his body. “AH! Son a bitch!”

“You have more stitches than a ragdoll, so I’d recommend staying in your bed and watching your language.” Leslie was already leaving the room, no doubt to take care of more respectful patients. “We won’t be giving your armor and weapons back. Sorry.” She wasn’t.

And lo, there was Jason Todd, unmasked and unclothed besides the hospital robe the esteemed staff of the Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic placed him in. There were posters everywhere with the name plastered. Not even a hospital stay would allow him a second without thinking of him .

Then again, it was his decision to come back to Gotham. Bruce was dead, dead dead dead, and he was still here. Why? Why was he even thinking about this? Damn Leslie, confining him to a hospital bed without any form of stimuli, forcing him to think . She really was History’s Greatest Monster.

No, she was a saint. Leslie had nothing to do with any of this, he knew this. She’d seen the woman berate Bruce on a number of occasions, being sure to use his birth name regardless of the silly costume he was in, insisting that Batman was an enterprise doomed to fail. She warned him about recruiting children into his personal crusade. Maybe Bruce should have listened to her. Maybe Jason should have.

“Can I get a fucking book!!” he cried out, diverting his doomful train of thought. “I’m losing my mind over here! And trust me, I’m the last patient whose mind you want to lose!”

“I’m tellin’ ya, it hadta be him!”

“C’mon, anyone can beat up some loser Penguins an’ paint a bat. That ain’t mean nothin’, Charlie. I could do that!”

“But wouldja?”

“Pay me enough an’ I would, Charlie. Heck, I’d get in the tights an’ dance the Battusi if ya gave me the gas money!”

“Would yous numbskulls stop yammerin’ back there?!” Both goons panicked and turned towards their literal puppet master, completely ignoring the bald man mastering the puppet. That guy didn’t have the gun or the 1930s gangster outfit. “Mind yous Ps and Qs! We ain’t ‘xactly here ta sing gospel.”

It would have been a great place for it some time ago. Divinity Church was a gorgeous chapel of worship once upon a time. Now, all the cobblestone sculptures and intricate stained glass murals of testaments old and new alike were little more than scenic dressing for a myriad of criminals both big and small. Right now, it housed some big guns, both in the metaphorical and literal sense. Scarface was searching for some new digs after that dang Red Hood Gang decided to blow up his last toy store lair. Sadly, this place didn’t feel anywhere near as thematically sound, considering the block of wood lacked much in Catholic guilt.

Arnold Wesker had plenty to spare. He was not reacting well to the centerpiece stained glass Jesus shining his crucifixion down on him. His neck remained craned at the glowing portrait’s direction, even as his tiny wooden boss in his hand ordered everyone to move the merchandise. 

“Hey hey hey!! Be careful-like with dat crate, yous mook!” Scarface cried to a weasel-like man attempting to lift one of their many payloads. “Them bombs are olda dan da Pony Express! Yous so much as oogle dem wrong an’ we become part-a da decoration! Ya gonna blow us ta smithereens if ya don’t! Adhere! To! Da! Buddy system!!” Each new word brought a new slap to the mook’s face, until the dummy’s face was up in the bigger dummy’s face. “Two mooks a crate! Them old-timey bombs are expensive, ya know.”

“Gee, boss, is these bombs even worth the hassle? What’s so special about ‘em?” This mook was the next to be slapped.

“Cuz dey don’t make ‘em like dey used ta! A tangle-a wires ain’t no bomb. Ain’t no pageantary in dat! Bombs are smoooooth an’ round an’ all sexy-like with curveyature. Dey see dese and dey know they gonna kablooey! It’s, aaaahh…psychologomical!”

“Ps-psychological, sir,” Wesker shakily corrected, only to receive the next punishment of the slap-happy puppet. “S-s-sorry, sir, won’t happen again, sir!” A heavy gulp traveled down his pencil-thin neck. “B-b-b-but…at the r-rish of an-nnn-nother slap, sir, d-don’t you think m-m-maybe we’re….we’re being just a smidge…” He leaned in close to Scarface’s painted ear. “...s-s-sacreligious?”

“Well, jeez, Arnie, I dunno,” the puppet replied softly as he shook his head. “Frankly, if ya asks me, yous mooks have always been a sack-a-idjits!” Arnold received a bonk on the head this time. “Now, stop wid da questions an’ git to da actions!!”

“NO. YOU WILL COMMIT NO FURTHER SINS IN MY DOMAIN.” An unfamiliar voice boomed within the entire chapel, loud enough to shake the pews. 

“EEEEEEP!!!” Arnold shouted, his echo so much smaller as he began to cower on the floor, using his free hand to cross his heart and hoping not to die. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven….”

“Aaaaah, stop dat!” Whatever conversation the Ventrioloquist wished to have with God was cut off by one with his right hand. “Who’s dere?! C’mout here an’ shows ya face!”

“WHO SAID I HAVE A FACE? ” the voice boomed once more. “ WHO SAID I POSSESS CORPOREAL FORM?”

“Found ‘em, boss!” One of the goons blasted his tommy gun towards a nearby arch. What fell was a plastic statue of Mother Mary now ridden with holes. “Aaaaah…”

“Oh, that can’t be good…” Arnold muttered in terror at the desecrated effigy. “That can’t be good at all…”

“YOU CANNOT KILL ME. NO ONE CAN, FOR I AM AN IDEA FAR GREATER THAN MAN.”

“Find dem speakers an’ blow ‘em out!” Scarface barked at his men.

“I AM VENGEANCE. ” Every mook stopped dead in their tracks. “I AM THE NIGHT.” They all broke into a cold sweat. This speech was hauntingly familiar. “ I…AM…”

Outside, Stephanie Brown took a quick breath. She had this. She jumped.

The stained glass mural shattered. Sprawled across the full moon was a shape. The Shape. The shape that haunted every thug in Gotham, that inspired fear, that inspired hope, that embodied innumerous ideas even in mere silhouette. A dark angel descended from the heavens, and all who saw it knew its name.

Scarface mouthed the name, though no sound came out. Stephanie could read his wooden flaps. She knew what it was.

It was the same name the police muttered once they saw the bright yellow symbol once more on the roof of the church. It was the same name Scarface was cursing to put in Saint Paul slacks as he hung from the cross. It was the same name the goons muttered in their dazed confessional.

The Batman yet haunted Gotham.

The signal shined bright in the sky, the second time this week, activated by the same person. The first occasion was a test, while this was a clear statement. 

Beside the spotlight was a figure suspiciously similar to the symbol in the sky, a purple cape flapping in the wind that extended into a hood, punctured by blue spears. Under the hood was the scowl that had long haunted the Gotham underworld, a blue mask darkened by shadow. The black bat on their gray chest matched the beacon, their spiked gloves, boots, and harness matching the blue of their mask. It was a familiar look for longtime studiers of The Batman, albeit one that hadn’t been seen in nearly a decade, given new life.

That was Stephanie’s view, at least. Dissenting opinions soon appeared.

“Brown, you have ten seconds to explain yourself.”

“Or what? You’ll ground me?” The batmask hid a lot of smugness that Stephanie had to make up with in tone. At least Damian had learned a lesson in punctuality, actually arriving at the destination she set on time. 

“I’ll stab you.”

“Tough beans, kid. This suit actually has protection. I mean armor. Bad choice of words.”

“It’s not yours to wear! Much less…desecrate!” Stephanie couldn’t entirely blame Damian’s feelings. She had kind of done this without his knowing. But also better forgiveness than permission, yadda yadda. “What have you accomplished to earn the mantle?”

“I spent all night sewing the last suit we had!” she immediately defended. “I had to patch it up with my last remaining Spoiler outfit, thank you very much.”

“You’re not welcome.”

Stephanie sighed, shaking her head briefly before taking several steps back. “If you want to continue this argument, then follow me!” And then, she started sprinting towards the edge. “We need a money shot!”

“Brown, you—tch!” 

As Batman leapt off the roof, so did Robin follow. Their capes flapped together as they fell, their shapes close but never overlapping. Then, in yet another miraculous moment of random synchronicity, launched their grapples at the same time, using their velocities to swing high into the sky. To an outside observer, they may have even appeared coordinated.

Upon their third launch, Stephanie broke the silence in midair. “You wanna know my qualifications for this suit? Five foot five, one hundred and twenty pounds.”

Damian didn’t take the resume well. “I am certain my father still dwarfed you substantially. Even his chest no doubt surpassed yours.”

To the boy’s disappointment, the girl snickered underneath the mask. It was uncanny to see. “Oh, I can tell ya, he gave me more chest envy than anyone!” She kept laughing as she zoomed up to a new roof, landing on her feet with her companion close behind. “I know you want to be all romantic about who deserves what because of whatever and who cares, but it’s like I said before. We have to be pragmatic.”

“Do you consider dressing as a man to be pragmatic?”

“If that man is of bats, yes,” Stephanie insisted, most of her emotional range blocked by the mask. Those eyes still said so much, as did those hips. “These people, whoever’s behind all this, obviously have it out for Batman and everything he stands for, right? They’ve retreated now because they think their mission’s done, everyone’s out of the way. Except for one glaring omission.”

“Batman…” Damian muttered, his face pensive and hand on his chin as he seemed to be giving the girl’s ideas a whirl. “You wish to draw them out?”

“Exactamundo!” Any prying eyes would see Batman giving Robin finger guns. 

“That is not a word.”

Stephanie motorboated her invisible lips. “Irregardless, it doesn’t matter if you see me as Batman, or even if I see myself as Batman. What matters is that everyone else sees Batman and goes, ‘Holy shit! It’s Da Bat!’” Bruce was never this gesture-happy. “The more I look at everything going on, the more I see it’s all a game of symbols. These owl people, whatever their deal is, obviously want to wipe Gotham clean of everything and anyone bat-related. That’s why they trashed the Batcave but not the mansion. That’s why they shredded every batsuit but left this one. That’s why they’ve been going around stabbing people twenty-eight times with solid gold owl knives. It’s more than a threat, it’s a narrative.”

“And you really think introducing Batman back into this narrative is the way to go?” Damian looked unconvinced. But he was thinking, which was good.

“Batman and Robin,” Stephanie verbally smirked, as her true smirk was obscured. “Truly no offense to you, but we’re both pretty invisible as Spoiler and Robin. No one cares about Spoiler, they rarely bring her up because they know it’d be embarrassing to admit they got beaten up by a girl who wasn't even a bat.” One hand went to her hip, beside a yellow utility belt, while the other waved around. “And while people know Robin, you don’t exactly give off the same… aura as the others.”

“Explain.” Those weren’t happy eyes.

“They know it’s not the Robin. He’s big. You’re small. These are accurate statements, right?”

The boy was surly, but not furious. “Continue.”

“Right.” She cleared her throat. “Point is, most criminals you’ve fought probably think you’re some rando kid in a homemade Robin costume. Which, by all accounts, you are. As is, you’re completely divorced from the idea of Robin. But if Robin were to be seen with Batman…” She brought her two index fingers together, looking towards the boy for recognition at what she was throwing down.

His brain was still visibly calculating, his hand scratching his chin. “And you specifically wish to be Bat man ?”

“With a capital M, baby.”

“I am far from a baby!” Damian was quick to snap, returning to his average natural hostility. “And the M is famously not capitalized in Batman!”

“Not like I’ll be signing any of his checks anytime soon,” Batman shrugged before walking over towards the west edge of the roof. “Now, c’mon. Look at this.”

“Look at what?” the boy asked as he nonetheless followed.

“The first stop on Batman and Robin’s Reunion Tour!” She pointed down to a bowling alley. Perfect Split , the once-lit sign proclaimed it to be. “That’s a new Two-Face joint. One sighting of Batman can be brushed off as superstition. Two sightings in one night, especially one with Robin after the Batsignal went up? That can’t be a coincidence. That’s a statement.”

Damian squinted at the building. “You now fashion yourself a tactician? How did you uncover this operation in the first place?”

“I scoped it out a few days ago,” was her reply. “Big surprise, I’m not really a heavy. I can fight pretty good, but I always do my best not to get in too over my head.”

“Your profile suggests otherwise.”

“My profile can suck eggs. Anyway , after a lot of, uh, trial and error, I trained myself to never go into a situation I know will be too overwhelming for just me. Last thing you want to be is captured. First thing you want to be is together. Maybe it was cowardice or survival instinct, I dunno, but I got really good at recon. Waiting, watching, scoping, planning it’s all as important as fighting.”

“Have you even read The Art of War ?”

“I’ll add it to my backlog!” And like that, Batman spread her wings and wooshed down towards the bowling alley. She heard a loud groan behind her before a similar, smaller woosh.

Two-Face led a tight ship. While few would call Harvey Dent the “ideal” boss, he was better than most. He was only liable to hurt his subordinates if he was particularly angry, not whenever he was bored or having fun. He was manageable, so long as one stayed on his good side. Even better if one could stay on the good side of that cursed coin. At times, his sheer commitment to the bit could become bothersome, but he was also a far savvier businessman than the other costumed weirdos in town. He knew the law, its limits, where it bent, everything. For all his eccentricities, Two-Face was a lowkey genius, and unlike most gang leaders in this crazy town, he never felt the need to challenge it.

That’s how a man with a gimmick for the number two had ten men flanking him in a bowling alley. The alley wasn’t even abandoned, as per the majority of supervillain lairs, being a thriving business that was taking the day off for some negotiations. Perk of the owner being an old associate with enough warm memories and blackmail material to do his old boss a favor. A twelfth man was there, old and graying but still dignified in his boring brown business suit, being led from the entrance to the big boss with a brown leather briefcase.

Two-Face was sitting at a table near the concessions window, his legs sluttily as he waved a comically large revolver in one hand, the other doing his old coin-flip routine. “If it isn’t the honorable Judge Scagliotti! How are ya, you crusty son of a bitch?” Harvey’s voice was dark and coarse, like a bottomless pit filled with sandpaper. “Haven’t seen you since…oh, was it the McMiller case?” He caught his spinning coin in midair, holding on to it tight with a clenched fist. “Thanks for ruling in my favor, by the way. Major career win on my part. Wouldn’t be half the man I am today without ya.” He cackled, before pointing to the less-scarred part of his face. “This half, to be specific.”

“I didn’t come here to reminisce, Dent,” the judge insisted, his hand tightening around his briefcase. “I came here for my son. I have your money right here.”

“Heh.” Two-Face flashed that twisted double grin. “To the point. See, this is why people like you. You don’t waste anyone’s time with bluster and pageantry. That’s admirable for a judge.” He then snapped his fingers towards one of his men.

The well-suited minion nodded, knocking his hand against the guy next to him, before they both wordlessly walked over towards the janitor’s closet. Upon opening, a man in his twenties wearing probably the most expensive suit in the building tumbled out, his arms and legs wrapped with untold volumes of duct tape, which also covered his mouth and his eyes. The two men caught him before he fell to the ground, before carrying him over to the business exchange already in progress.

The judge did his best to remain steel-faced at the sight. There were tiny cracks, yet he kept them at bay. “Two hundred twenty-two thousand, two hundred twenty-two dollars, and twenty-two cents. One suitcase. Unmarked bills.” He allowed the suitcase to fall with an exceedingly loud THUD. “My son now, if you please.”

“Mmmm…” Two-Face growled, lifting up the suitcase and placing it on the table next to him. “Excuse me if I require some authentication first. Any one of these bills could be a trick. A single marked bill could be traced, and then what?”

“Let my son go,” the man insisted resolutely. “I gave you what you wanted.”

“Remains to be seen,” the gangster remarked as he opened the case. “No need to rush. We have all the—”

The bowling alley speakers blasted what sounded like a man letting out a powerful scream, slowly fading while a drum and bass kept a melody. Everyone jumped, Two-Face included. The judge’s son was sent crashing to the ground thanks to his spooked handlers. “What the fuck?!” one lackey asked aloud. Occasionally, even laughs filled the soundtrack.

“Looks like someone’s messing with the speakers,” the owner of the joint remarked, rubbing his hand across his balding head that now resembled the balls he proffered. “I can…fix this…”

The music faded into the back of everyone’s attention as a new oddity came rolling out. A shiny white bowling ball, like an oversized pearl, dispensed out from the machine closest to them. Two-Face snarled. “Someone’s fucking with us.” On cue, the bowling ball emitted a ludicrous level of smoke that was quick to fill the room. Blasting the ball and the machine to bits did little to mitigate its spread.

The lights went out. The guitar came in. The backlights went up. It was hard to see anything, save for the figure standing ominously in the middle of the bowling lane. A familiar figure with familiar ears, a familiar cape, and familiar blank eyes that glowed in the dark. It stepped forward slowly, hauntingly. Two-Face audibly gasped and was left staring. Two of the men were already aiming their guns. Those men had their guns completely torn apart by bat-shaped blades from the darkness. They were allowed two seconds of flabbergasted fear before the lyrics kicked in and Batman’s fist hurled into their face.

“Aaaaaaw, HEY! Walk the night! Hey, gonna walk the night! Hey! Walk the night!”

By the time the smoke cleared, five men were on the floor. Two-Face had snapped out of his stupor and opened a case he kept resting beside him. His ornamental revolver wouldn’t do for this occasion. No no no, he’d been waiting for this. He knew the world would provide him one last, final confrontation with Batman. Suddenly, the soundtrack felt fitting. He pulled out a massive shotgun. Batman was in his sights, fighting off two of his men that were restoring to pool cues as weapons. He managed to kick one into a lane, getting a strike in the process. He didn’t have long. Harvey flipped his coin in the air.

“Yoink!” And the coin was in the hand of Robin. Of course. This was all mythological. Where Batman is, Robin is sure to follow. 

Harvey smiled. It wasn’t the smug grin of a gangster putting on a show. It was excitement, a breath of life he hadn’t experienced in far too long. Everything was right in the world, because he got to fire a shotgun at a little kid in colorful tights. BOOM! CLICK CLICK! BOOM! Another bowling ball return returned to scrap, the balls within reduced to little more than ceramics. Robin ran across the lane, only for Harvey to blast those too. Wood splintered, but the boy remained in stride. “Stay still, you little run—OOF.”

He did not count on Batman throwing a bowling ball at his back with enough force to flip him over. He shot at a blacklight on the ceiling before falling on his back. He tried getting his body back up before his enemies could make any other moves. Like Robin rolling another ball down the lane and into his knees as he struggled to get up. Another loud grunt followed. Yet, bubbling inside the man, under all his evil and bile, was a laugh. A laugh that proved he was alive, that all was right in the world. Batman was back! Batman was picking up the butt of his gun and slamming it into his fa—

“WHAM!!!” Stephanie was laughing her ass off as she reenacted her victory on Cassandra's living room couch. “Bye bye birdy!”

“I still can’t believe that worked! He went right after me, like you said!” This was the most excited Stephanie ever saw Damian. He was still wearing his costume, albeit maskless, smiling bright, his hands waving like he didn’t know what to do with them. “Why did you make me say yoink?”

“Because I knew it’d annoy the shit out of him!” the girl beamed, throwing her arms in the air, her mask off to display her newly shortened blond hair. “Never underestimate irritation factor. Very similar but very distinct from anger factor.”

“You do have a way with annoying people.”

“Oh, pshaw! Me? Annoying?” She brought her hand to the bat still on her chest, unable to stop smiling the more she saw the boy smiling. “Surely you jest!”

“Your fighting may be unprofessional, yet it is also quite effective against the Gotham underworld,” Damian stated as he took another sip of his water, trying in vain to mitigate his grin. “That is a new technique I will have to learn.”

“Oh! Wow. Is…is that…a compliment I’m hearing?” Stephanie asked, leaning forward with a far less bridled grin. “Damian Wayne, are you complimenting a mere peasant such as myself?”

“I am merely expressing objective statements that are coincidently in your favor.” He tried playing mean, but there was a smirk there. Stephanie knew a bit when she saw one.

“Suuuuuure,” she snickered back, enjoying the last of her soda procured from the bowling alley. “Did you see that part where I timed my punch perfectly to the song? Creeper done slap right 'cross your face! WHAM!” It was exhilarating even to reenact it with her fists. “ Look out! I saw the fear of God in their eyes. Like they knew they were dealing with a higher power.”

“Feels premature to fall into megalomania.”

“Can’t help it! It’s the cowl!” On that note, she slipped the hooded veil back on, hiding her exuberance. “Robin, report! Robin, don’t touch that! Robin, my butt itches! Left cheek!” Her Bruce impression was only getting better. Maybe the pitch was a little wonky, but the timbre was shockingly on-point. If there was any positive to all that torture and subsequent coma-ing, it was that her voice’s new scratchiness. Did a lot to make her sound tough by leaning towards androgyny. She’d happily accept whatever little perks her physical trauma gave her.  “I gotta do the Robin bit to calibrate the impression, I’m lost without it.”

“You would do best keeping your mouth shut within the costume,” Damian suggested flatly as he took another sip. “For both our sakes.”

“Hey, I’ll work on it,” she insisted, slipping the mask back off. “Still! We didn’t make the worst team, did we? You had my back, I had yours.”

“Unnecessary, considering I had my own back. Having your own exposed is your own fault.” He paused, noting the scrunched disdain on his partner’s face. “Combat aside, your strategy of a theatrical introduction with my aid for protection was…unique. I’d almost call it smart.”

“Almost?” Stephanie smirked.

“ Almost .”

“Why not just call it smart?”

“Because then you would become smug and annoy me.”

“Look at me.” She was very smug. “Is this annoying you?”

“Naturally.”

“ Naturally . Mission failed then, right?”

The boy stared her down with those piercing green eyes. Oooh, she was so scared! 

It did legitimately annoy her how much the kid insisted on being mean even at their most candid. One of the endless confirmations of his father, she supposed, always quick to judge, but nearly impossible to get encouragement. No, that’d be far too distracting. 

How much did this kid even know about Bruce anyhow? In their discussions, he mentioned spending the majority of his time with his mother in the League of Assassins, yet he rarely talked about his father outside the context of Batman or his “birthright” or whatever. He never shared any important lessons or moments or anything with the guy. And she sure as hell didn’t hear about the secret Batman Child in any of her time in Gotham prior.

But his dad was dead. That was something they shared, she supposed, even if Bruce obviously meant a lot more to the kid than her own father, who was finally being useful to the world as worm food. And here Steph was, dressed in his old costume, playing it off with jokes. It dawned on her that this might have been an even more emotionally strenuous situation than any small kid was meant to handle, raised by assassins or not. Having to work with anyone pretending to be at least one-half of their dad was liable to have some unknown effect on his psyche.

“Hey! So…this isn’t, uhhh…weird, is it?” Stephanie’s hands waved around her general self, which mostly meant signaling towards her chest.

Damian’s eyes narrowed at the point of interest. “Are you asking if your infinitesimal tits are distracting?”

“What?! No!! No no no!! Bad Robin, no!” She initiated the pillow throw maneuver again to distract from her face. Thankfully, the ninja boy merely punched it to the floor this time. “I mean this whole Batman stuff! Ya know, me all dressed up like—you know!”

“You mean my father.” Oh thank goodness she didn’t have to say it. “It is weird. I will adjust.” He spoke with the stoicism of a trained military officer, a cry from his usual outbursts. Stephanie noted he did this whenever any emotion that didn’t involve hostility bubbled up. “It…bothered me at first. Yet, you quickly proved the credibility of your idea. As we both know this is a purely temporary setup, I am allowing you temporary use of the Batman identity.”

“Oh jeez, do I have to pay a rental fee?” Shit, no! This was supposed to be an important heart-to-heart! Was there any way to turn herself off?!

“You will suffice until I am prepared for the role myself.”

“The role of Batman.”

“Yes.”

“As is your birthright.”

“Naturally.”

“ Naturally .” Stephanie coughed. “You really want to become Batman?”

“What else would you suggest I be?” Damian asked, eyeing the woman with his usual suspicion.

“I dunno!” The older girl shrugged. “What do you want to be?”

“What are you getting at?!” the boy finally burst. “I know my destiny. Even if that destiny has…diverged in certain ways.” His quick look away told a whole story Stephanie knew she wasn’t getting. “I will be what the world demands of me.”

“Sounds like a pretty awful way of living.” It was hard for Stephanie not to be honest. “I shudder to imagine what I’d be if I was anything anyone demanded of me.”

“You certainly wouldn’t have made a great m—” For a rare occasion in the universe, Damian held his tongue. Stephanie didn’t catch that last syllable, so she was left watching in suspense of whatever ones may come. Ultimately, he opted to abort the sentence entirely. “...It is late. I shall train downstairs before heading to bed.” He hid his temper through flared nostrils as he hoisted himself off the couch. “Goodnight, Brown. We shall reconvene to strategize tomorrow.”

“It’s too fucking late for me to sneak back into my apartment,” the older girl groaned as she checked the clock above the television. “Can I stay the night here? There’s an extra bedroom. Someone oughta use it.”

Damian, simply put, clinched. “Sure.”

“Oh! Maybe I can get some training in too! Show you how we kick ass on the streets~”

“Perhaps we should rethink our previous verbal contract.”

A press on the DVD remote revealed the super fun poles down into the cave. “Nope! No takesy-backsies! Last one down has to clean up all the training dummies!” She yelled this in the midst of a mad dash, of course. Not that it mattered, as she quickly found her legs wrapped together with a bola. Her body thumped on the ground as she saw Damian rush towards the poles.

“Ha! Don’t start fights you aren’t prepared to lose, Brown!” he mocked in his sprint.

“I’m never prepared to lose!” Batman intoned in her gruffest voice possible. A hand went into her utility belt, only for a barrage of marbles to be unleashed onto the well-furnished floors, particularly near a certain Boy Wonder’s feet. Damian did not fall, yet he was far from in-control, deviating greatly from the poll entrance. Gave her time to batarang her legs free, jumping back onto her feet, which were much more adept at avoiding the marbles. “Watch where you step, old chum!” She was gonna have to pick up all those marbles later, yet victory felt very sweet in the moment.

The next moment, she was tasered. Stephanie wished it was a new sensation, but no, it was very familiar and she was still not a fan. She did, however, already have her arms wrapped around the metal pole as wires surged electricity through places that weren’t supposed to have it. Her grip grew limp, limp enough to send her falling down the hole without much grip on the pole. She landed with a thud.

“OH SHIT!” Damian’s voice echoed down into the cave as he peeked down to look at the mess he made. Funny, he almost sounded scared. “Brown! Are you still alive?!”

“I’m insulted by the implication I wouldn’t be.” In truth, Stephanie got control of the pole long enough to realize it’d be super funny to let go and make a great big thud. Per usual, her comedic sensibilities were airtight. “Now, get down here! I’m about to make a big ole mess and I need someone to clean it up!”

Damian stayed true to his word. He said a lot of other words underneath his breath as he cleaned up, words that Stephanie used context clues to determine were foreign curse words. He refused to teach her any.

“It was him, alright! I swear it on my old lady’s achin’ heart, it was him! It was Da Bat! Wait, when is dis airin’? She don’t need ta see me like dis.”

“While the GCPD still refuses to issue an official statement, whether confirmation or denial of Batman’s return, the sheer volume of reports shared within the past twenty-four suggests a reality we must acknowledge, regardless of authenticity. To some, the shadows once more bring comfort. To others, they bring a frighteningly familiar chill. Batman is in the air here in Gotham, Robin too, so evildoers beware! This is Summer Gleason reporting. Who wrote—?”

“Motherfucker.” Jason wished he was more surprised. He really did. The only two possibilities here was A , Bruce had risen from the dead, which haha, how ironic, or B , Brown did not take his advice to heart and had decided to double-down in the most asinine manner possible. It was B , he knew it deep in his aching gut.

“Hey, watch your language, boy!” a white-haired granny being held together by a cane chided him. This was but a small sample the insightful life advice swapped around the communal television in the hospital lobby. It was a true marketplace of ideas, just as Thomas Wayne envisioned.

“Watch your pacemaker, granny,” the redhead sniped back. “We don’t want you to keel over and crumple to dust here in the lobby. They don’t pay the janitor enough.” His hand then returned to its activity prior to the news report, namely beating down on the bell at the currently empty receptionist’s desk over and over and over. The granny evidently didn’t care about the coarse language she sent his way. “Hey! Hey!!! I’m ready to go, just give me my stuff!”

Turns out that dreams do come true if you never let up and just keep ringing the same bell incessantly for several minutes. “Alright, alright!” a woman cried out, her natural beauty marred by her worn-down face. “I talked with Doctor Thompkins, and she says you still have a long ways to recover. She also said that there was, and I quote, ‘no chance in Hell in that I’m giving that boy his body armor and firearms back,’ unquote.”

A bothered huff blew Jason’s skunk stripe in the air. “What about my helmet?”

“I believe your helmet was included in the statement about your body armor.” The lady was giving him real mom vibes. She obviously knew how to deal with petulant children.

She didn’t know what petulant was. “Ahem.” With his throat clear, the guy belted out at the top of his lungs, loud enough to fill the halls of the hospital. “HELMET COMMAND!!! ALPHA, SIERRA, PAPA, LIMA, OSCAR, DELTA, ECHOOOOOO!!!” He then beat his chest to clear his throat again. “Ah. My lungs may actually be bleeding after that.”

“The hell was that for?!” the receptionist was quick to snap.

Jason raised his index finger. “Give it a second. It’s a slow-burn.”

A silence filled the hospital, marred only by the television chattering about laundry detergent. Jason wrapped his arms together, foot tapping, eyes wandering. Finally, a sound broke out. A loud, womanly squeal within the hospital walls. He smirked. “The helmet is ticking!!!” 

The receptionist gaped, staring wide-eyed at the hall, before turning that glance over at the smug bastard staring back at her. “You didn’t…”

“Hey, not like I made the helmet specifically to blow up a hospital. Just how it turned out.” He shrugged. “I mean, I could deactivate it, but…oh, my throat!” Of course he had to feel it. “It’s so sore. I couldn’t possibly yell that loud again! Why, my voice is hardly even a whisper. I’ll need my helmet in my poor hands just to get it to do anything!”

The receptionist was still agape. Katy! Her name was Katy, he finally caught her name tag. Anger and resentment had thankfully mixed into the shock and confusion for a little extra flavor. “You’re insane.”

“Now, that doesn’t really sound like productive language, now does it? Oh! I’d also really need my jacket. It’s so chilly here, ya know? Tick-tock!”

Katy didn’t take her eye off the aspiring terrorist as she rang the intercom. “Bring me the helmet.” Jason nodded his head in such a way as to prompt more out of the woman. “And the jacket. Bring it all here.”

There was a delay, naturally, before a nurse came bolting out with the entire Red Hood getup in hand. The mask’s eyes were glowing in rhythm to the high-pitched chime it sounded, the tempo growing faster and faster. The nurse looked towards Katy, who only nodded towards Jason. Nurse looked towards Jason. Jason smirked as he held his hand out, directing him to give it up.

With his titular Red Hood back in his hands, the devilish criminal cleared his throat. “Helmet command! JK Protocol.” And the beeping ended with little aplomb. “Thank you~! Now, you can send my bills to this fella named Bruce Wayne. While you’re at it, tell him he’s behind on child support.” It felt nice to soak in all the familiar juices inside the helmet. His neck still ached like hell, but at least he could move now. The worst was over with. “Oh yeah. Tell Leslie I said thank you. Try to say it as sincerely as possible. Trust me. I’ll know.”

Straightening his aching back, Red Hood left the room of gaping hospitalgoers to return to the world of far more ambivalent Gothamites. God, it hurt to walk. Red Hood was likely less intimidating limping around in the broad daylight. He was scary at night, but now he resembled a common asshole with a silly helmet. Fuck, he probably looked like Killer Moth. Whatever. It would take him forever to walk to his primary base anyhow. So, he elected to run up to the first available taxi on the side of the road and let himself into the back, gun skillfully pointed toward the driver.

“Hey, buddy! Sorry, about the gun. Just a little insurance, ya know? Let me assure you that I am an excellent tipper. Now, Crime Alley. Step on it.”

Red Hood arrived in Crime Alley on record time. True to his word, he left a sizable tip. Where he got it, even Red wasn’t too sure. Hardly mattered. Few things did these days. Hands in his pockets, he limped towards the Monarch Theater. He still felt genius for setting up shop in the old cinema, the one place in Gotham that Batman was nigh psychically prevented from investigating.

The lobby was already filled with crooks and scoundrels of all description, transporting loads of contraband in and out in a tidy operation. Mostly out right now, it seemed. Red Hood’s duly-appointed middle manager Bret was keeping track of the stock and all its movement. Guy was smart, having done similar, more legal jobs at a supermarket chain, up until they decided his skills were replaceable. All it took was a couple handshakes to make him an essential part of the Gotham drug traffic. Red liked him, as much as he could like anyone willing to sell their souls the same way he had. Bret seemed downright panicked upon seeing his boss, a reaction that would have meant nothing coming from anyone but him.

“O-oh! Hey, boss! Haven’t seen you in a hot second!” While Red Hood disliked the cliche of calling any criminal weasley, Bret was fitting the characterization with great specificity. “Some, uhhh….factors have changed a little since you’ve been away.” His fingers drummed along his clipboard, doing little to assuage his boss’ concerns.

“Not like you to stall, Bret.” His tone was flat and even, his mask perfectly expressionless.

“Yeah, well…we…may have kinda sorta been…bought out?” The weasel had to squeak that last part out.

“Bought out?” Red Hood remained in far more of a growl.

“Maronis came over, bought out our entire stock. Then offered to buy us out. Ya know, bigger shares of the load, along with some stock options…”

“Wait wait wait.” Red wished he could pinch his temple right. “Maronis? They’re still in business? You really think they could fulfill all those promises?”

“Yeah, they, uhhh, showed me the numbers, boss. They check out. The small guy, Esposito, he’s apparently running a tight ship. And, truly no offense, boss, but you haven’t exactly done much to engender much in terms of, ah, loyalty within your gang. You’re hardly even around.”

Red Hood could only stare down and mutter curses underneath his breath in such a way that it didn’t escape his mask. The mask kept glaring, however. His blood was boiling. His vision was turning green. He needed—he needed to punch something. Someone. Now.

Bret was closest. His glasses shattered against his already bleeding face as he slammed down onto the fuzzy red carpet of the lobby. Red Hood was breathing deeply, shoulders stiff, the world so, so green. He wasn’t sure how long he simply stood there, lost in his own mind, all he knew was that once his mind reached some level of homeostasis again, there was a great big splotch of red and viscera where the once benign accountant laid, and no one else was around.

“Fuck. Two days out of commission of commission and everything fucking falls apart.” He wasn’t really sure what to do now. Eat? He hardly had an appetite now. His feet started moving on their own, dragging around the rest of the shambling corpse with him. They decided it was time to go into the main theater proper.

The big screen of the Monarch Theater hadn’t shown a movie in ages. Jason recalled seeing a movie here once when he was around…five? Could have been even younger. It had a horse in it, he knew that much. Right, there really wasn’t anyone to perform to right now. The mask came off, allowing Jason Todd to breathe again. He supposed it wouldn’t even make a difference if anyone saw him. No one was going to identify the young boy Bruce Wayne kept largely hidden so many years back all grown up and built like a shithouse. Staring at the shiny crimson helmet that he presented to the world, he realized his face mattered only to the smallest population imaginable, all contained within a single house.

“JASON.”

A booming voice was enough to snap Jason out of his funk in record time. He shot up, pistol ready, helmet falling to the ground, glaring around. There was a familiar crackle sound.

“JASON TODD. I COME OFFERING PEACE. HOLD YOUR FIRE.” 

“Forgive me if I don’t.” Where was that birdbrain? "What brings you to the Monarch Theater?"

The answer turned out to be the ceiling, followed by the center of the grand stage. Must have gotten a fresh set of clothes, considering these weren’t frayed to a crisp. Its wings were outstretched, perfectly displaying a hawk-like silhouette behind it, even once it descended to the ground. It didn’t immediately attack, so that was good. Neither did Jason. He kept his gun pointed, at least, as useless as it may be.

“I wish to talk.” The thing’s voice was nearly conversational, if still distorted from seemingly ancient technology.

“How do you know my name?” was the gunman’s first question.

“I do not know. Therein lies the issue. ” It took a step forward. The other person remained still. “ I see you and I recognize you. I am not supposed to do that. I am not supposed to know anyone.”

“Oh, so you want me to help with your wittle bwain damage? I know a lady, I can recommend you.” The thing’s words concerned him as well. Their questions were much the same. Jason maybe had more to lose over an answer. His body still ached, stitches still twitching. For now, it was best to stall.

“This no longer needs to end in death. You may yet be useful to us.”

“And who is us , exactly? The Court of Owls? Gonna take me to see Little Miss Muffet?”

“The Court, yes. ” It stepped closer. Jason’s face twitched. “After surviving our previous attack, they saw potential in an alliance. There is a part of me, beyond my eternal loyalty to the Court, that agrees with their assessment. Our goals align.”

Jason’s glare darkened as his finger curled even closer against the trigger. He couldn’t place this thing’s deal. Was the Court of Owls really real? That wouldn’t be too surprising, the more he thought about it. Secret societies were a dime a dozen in Gotham. “What goals?”

“A controlled Gotham, a brighter Gotham, free of pain and uncertainty. ” The thing curled its gloved talons into a dramatic fist. Cute. “ Is this not what you fought for?”

“Eeeeeeh. Not really.” Jason shrugged with his whole body. “Gonna be honest, my motives were a lot more petty than that. What’s your plan, anyway? Kill off all the crime lords, eliminate crime forever? You’re not the first to try that. It never works.”

“I do not know the plan. I am merely an extension of the Court’s will. What they see as necessary is what must be. They will succeed in their ambitions. There is no alternative.”

“Mmm-hmm. Okay, how about this? Since you get to know who I am, how about you take off that mask and let me know who you are?”

“Impossible. ” It was still. “ I am no one. I am a Talon, an extension of the Court’s will.”

“Okay, No One, take off your mask.”

“No. Impossible. I am a Talon, an extension of the Court’s will. Only they may know my face.”

“What is this, some sorta religious cult thing?” Jason groaned as he leaned against a theater seat. “How are we supposed to figure out how you know me if you refuse to let me know who you are?”

“I did not possess a want for this knowledge, ” it insisted, closing their gap even more. “ I stated it was an issue. I possess no wants beyond that of the Court. You must be investigated.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I will kill you.”

“Ha! Yeah, good luck with that.” Jason hummed, remaining in place even as the bird crawled closer and closer. “Wanna tell me more about this Court of Owls before I sign a contract? Last thing I want to do is fall into another multi-level marketing scheme, ya know?”

The bird thing tilted its head. “No. It is not my place.”

“Interesting...” Jason tilted his own head towards the massive screen, a new shadow crossing it briefly. He grinned. They were a foot apart by now. He could see so many things upon the assassin’s person that could kill him in an instant from this point blank range. “Does that suit of yours broadcast anything? Can they see or hear me in any way?”

“No. That would be unnecessary. They trust my role.”

“Really? Because I went out of my way to make little modifications to my little helmet there.” He nodded towards the intimidating helmet on the ground. “Are you aware of Bluetooth?”

“Cease this inane chatter. ” The bird thing, the Talon or whatever, extended his clawed glove. “ Accept our offer now, or die. Those are your options. Choose wisely.”

Jason grimaced down at the hand. “As I was saying, Bluetooth is quite handy. It can connect wirelessly to a cellular device, so that I can take or make calls with my helmet. I even set up speed-dial inside my helmet. Pressed it the moment I saw you.”

The monster didn’t move. “So, you chose death.”

“I chose to phone a friend.”

The lights dimmed. The bird’s head violently jerked around. Film began to roll and magnified sights were projected upon the silver screen. Green filled the center of the theater. The words normally assuring all beholders that the following preview was appropriate for all audiences were nowhere to be seen, obscured by the artistic silhouette of a bat. It grew smaller.

Chapter Text

“And you believe Cain is acting under duress?”

“I believe she’s brainwashed. Has to be.” Stephanie narrowed her eyes at the magazine clipping hung up on their mystery board. That smile so still, those adults so creepy. She didn’t trust a dentist on a good day, much less one with his arm around her best friend. “Why else would she not be around? If everyone else was gone and she was still in Gotham, I know she’d be the one in this suit.” She referred to the Batman suit she had yet to take off.

Damian could not judge her considering he had yet to change as well. It had been a long night. “It could be a long con. She could be undercover for good reason. We could be tampering with machinations we have no part in.”

“Nah.” Batman’s blue gloves repeatedly tapped the block of text on the board. “This is what gets me. They called her eighteen, right? I know Cass is at minimum a year older than that. Why act like she’s only just coming of age? And why lie and act like she was always a part of their family? I see what’s happening here. I see their plan.”

“That being?”

“They’re trying to sell her.” She backed away. “They’re advertising how one of the richest families in Gotham has a heretofore unseen daughter that’s of age and on the market and so, so beautiful.”

Damian stared at the board, observing everything altogether. “So, you’re suggesting they want to use Cain for an arranged marriage?”

“Only thing stronger than one rich family is two,” Stephanie nodded. “I looked them up. No other children. Imagine finding a girl at the perfect age where you don’t have to raise them, and you can go straight to pawning them off.”

“Consequently, we can assume these Hopkins have a connection to the owl person, correct?”

“I think so,” Stephanie hummed, taking a step back to observe the entire board. “They have to be involved somehow, to have Cass like that.” A blue glove stroked her chin. “They look fit and all, but unless they’re both secretly the coolest ninjas in the world, I don’t think they could have taken Cass. Definitely couldn’t have taken out everyone else single handedly.”

“Then they are but cogs in larger machinations.”

“To what end, though? To what—” Her perpetual pondering was interrupted by the blaring of a popular poppy pop tune within her utility belt. “Oh, whoop! Lemme get that.”

Damian slumped against the mystery board to scowl at his supposed mentor. “You need to change your ringtone immediately. That is not Batman music.”

“Hey, I paid two dollars for this ringtone, I’mma use it!” The teenage girl flipped out her flip phone, one of the simplest pleasures of life. “Heyo?”

“—you to the Monarch Theater?”

“I wish to talk. ”

“How do you know my name?”

“I do not know. Therein lies the issue. ”

“Jason…” Stephanie muttered softly before immediately hanging up. “Robin. Monarch Theater. Now.” She was already rushing for the tunnels connecting Cass’ cave to every part of Gotham. She knew Crime Alley wasn’t too far. A car or bike or anything would be helpful right now, but she could make do with her trustworthy legs. She wasn’t a speedster, but she could dash down a track.

“Wait!” Damian disliked slugging behind her, struggling to put on his mask as he dashed. “What are we doing? Who was that?”

“Jason!” Batman shouted with a loud echo, her face fully covered while her cape flapped behind her. “He’s in trouble. Someone’s attacking him.”

“And this is a concern?”

“He called me, Damian. I’m not the world’s greatest detective, but for an asshole like him to do that suggests an alarming level of desperation.” They finally arrived at a ladder below a manhole, whereupon Batman raised their grapple and shot it hard enough to bounce the cover off. “We move fast.” She zipped up to the surface, Robin following after her.

The Dynamic Duo popped up next to Park Row Church. There were youths playing basketball nearby, who all took a moment to gawk at Gotham’s heroes emerging from the sewers in broad daylight, before just as quickly ascending to the top of the church. Drivers took brief seconds away from honking at each other to stare up at the shadows gliding against the blazing summer sun. They moved fast, determined, with great purpose, the way everyone recalled. People looked to the skies and smiled, as if they had witnessed a miracle.

“So, you chose death.”

“I chose to phone a friend.”

Batman didn’t know a thing about the birdman, only that it looked like an owl, ergo, worthy of a gliding kick to the face. She didn’t count on the avian steampunk reject grabbing her legs and tossing her towards the screen so viciously. The fucker was fast. Luckily, the cloth used as the film screen was tough enough to withstand a Batman being tossed into it, only bouncing her onto her sides on the ground. It was the perfect vantage point to see the owl dashing towards her with dual golden blades summoned from their back. She briefly wondered if they had cute little owl decorations on them too. Sadly, she didn’t get a very close look as the assassin sliced apart the movie screen like toilet paper.

Transitive property suggested those blades could cut up a Batman easy.

“This is of no concern to you, Batman! I was ordered to eliminate you on sight!” the owl growled in its strange cacophonic filter.

“I dunno, that’s kinda concerning to me!”

It was never fun being on the defensive, having to rapidly back away from constant attempts to slice and dice her head off. The bird assassin was obviously trained in ways Stephanie was not. Batarangs were sliced in midair, same with smoke bombs. The latter was at least distracting for the slightest fraction of a second. There wasn’t really a lot of time to prepare for this fight before the bird was ready to chop Jason’s head off. Speaking of which, Stephanie soon realized that there wasn’t even a Jason in sight. Looked like he made a mad dash out of this situation the moment he could. Checked out.

She needed time to think. Blasting a grapple onto the theater’s balcony, Batman zoomed up towards the higher ground. She did not count on the bird having the athletic skill to hop upon one of the lower seats before launching themselves up fast enough to grab onto her leg. “Hey! No carpooling!” Her Bat-Boot kicks proved useless against the grip of their talons. The two were launched into the air together, the owl’s grasp faltering enough that they landed on their feet on two opposite ends of the aisle.

Batman took out her extendable bo staff, extending it. The bird remained at the ready with their swords. The two stared each other down, waiting for the first move. That first move finally came from the projection booth between them, where the glass that typically enlarged the moving pictures to screen size promptly shattered. From that forbidden room poured Robin and yet another bird person, nearly identical if not for their horribly singed costume. They both crashed to the floor, Robin on top, until he caught eye of his partner, wherein he pounced off his still less than subdued foe to stand by her side. Batman couldn’t resist smiling at the small act of solidarity, sadly and/or fortunately hidden by her mask.

“STAND DOWN! ” The burnt crisp of an owl commanded nice and loud, taking out a pair of daggers to match their partner’s dual swords. “YOU ONLY PROLONG YOUR DEMISE!”

“Sheesh, man, inside voices!” Batman shouted.

“I take it Todd dashed off the moment we intervened?” Robin asked as he readied his extra-sharp batarangs.

“Yyyyyep.”

“Just us then?”

“Against the world.”

The smallest combatant was ultimately the one to break the ceasefire, throwing his bat-shaped knives towards his opponents. The burnt owl effortlessly danced around the blades, their legs far longer than their partner, while the less-burnt owl effortlessly ricocheted the bats off their blades. Robin rushed after his original opponent, while Batman did a pole vault over the boy to reach them. She surprisingly managed a smack to the head of the bird, which unfortunately allowed them to grab her pole and swing her against the wall.

It was easier to recover from than the movie screen at least. The bird was already rushing towards with another swing, which she avoided with a well-timed jump onto their shoulders, allowing her to kick the would-be assassin’s masked face into the same wall. It was a momentary stunner that allowed her to grab onto one of their blades from their slightly loosened grip, before giving their back a kick for good measure. Their grasp faltered, and she had just the right amount of time to throw the sword off the balcony. Only one sword to worry about now.

Her small victory lasted less than a second, before she found herself sidestepping to avoid a dagger from the other bird, thrown nonchalantly between blows with Robin. The dagger pierced straight into her bird’s arm, eliciting a small but sharp groan, which she heard as she tripped over the row of seats she had accidentally thrown herself onto. Batman had a very ungraceful tumble onto the floor, whereupon the owl pounced down to pin her down. They were close enough for the girl to see the deep blues hidden in the assassin’s goggles, his remaining sword discarded to make way for sharp claws ready to pierce into soft flesh.

They might have, if Batman didn’t have one of mankind’s greatest inventions to summon at a moment’s notice: the taser. The Bat-Taser, to be specific, named for its unique Batman-logo shape, perfect for grasping around one’s fingers while the pointed ears on top elicited a powerful electric current capable of incapacitating most opponents within seconds. In this case, the owl was stunned, very much twitching as it laid atop its enemy, one claw reaching for their opponent’s arm, while the other went for her throat. It managed neither, in large part thanks to Robin hopping onto its back, jumping off in time for the other bird thing to stab its partner with two additional armor-piercing knives.

The resulting shriek might as well have been a deadly weapon of its own. It hurt Batman’s sharp, pointy ears, yet also gave her the chance to get up, taking the pained, electrocuted bird’s arms in her hands, and pushing him over the balcony. He was armored, he’d be fine. She wasn’t sure how long he’d stay down there, but it did give her time to focus on turning the tide between the two seemingly evenly-matched assassins.

The owl did not complete its straight shot down before it was blasted by a shotgun powerful enough to send it flying before its ultimate tumble. Jason grinned underneath his mask, his posture broadcasting his smugness. “Ya know, think I’ve got you all figured out now.” He took delight in cocking his gun at the thing laying on the ground. “Healing factor, right? Not exactly human, are we?”

“You know nothing, Jason Todd.” Pained gargles escaped the owl mask as the creature lumbered up from his place, despite the several dozen smoking holes that now coated his torso. Limbs were audibly snapping back into place all at once, creating an inhuman symphony of sounds the body was not supposed to make. All before Jason blasted it again, sending it flying back onto the ground, where the whole process started anew.

“Sounds like you know even less, Birdbrain.” He fired another shot into the monster’s leg, enjoying the modulated shriek it elicited. The thing’s armor was shockingly sound. Bones were bones, however, easy to break with enough violent force point-blank. “How about we solve this mystery together, hm? Take off your mask.”

“No.”

“C’mon. Spin those cogs in your steampunk-ass brain, before I explode ‘em.”

“The Court would not allow it.”

“Thought you said this ‘court’ couldn’t see or hear us.”

“The Court would not allow it.” It started lurching back up.

Jason threw his head back to let it know he was rolling his eyes. “Okay. Well, I’m not sure what juice is letting you do that, but I have some of my own.” He pulled out a small vial with a glowing green liquid inside. Lazarus Ooze , as he had become prone to call it, was part of a care package sent from Talia al Ghul herself on Christmas Day. The package contained three tiny vials of Lazarus Pit extract for emergencies, some MREs, some candy, a passport, and instructions to enjoy the second grave he’s dug for himself by returning to Gotham, with a photo reference of the plot reserved for him. She really was too sweet. “Unfortunately, this is my last shot, so…better make it count, right?” 

The drug lord wasted little time shooting himself up with green goop right in the arm. Truth be told, he hated this. Every time he took the stuff, his brain grew hazy, his sight warped, his memories haunting. It always made him remember his mother. Both mothers. The name Catherine was typically expunged from his psyche, buried deep under the years of torment and anger for Batman, Batman, Batman…Batman was easy to hate. Easy to think about. All this song and dance was easy, a brilliant farce of equal parts tragedy and comedy, all the world its stage. It felt so good to become a player again, to ride that same high again on the other side.

Jason shuddered to think what he’d be without the farce. He rarely considered it, save for this rare moment where his hazy mind could only see his mother pumping whatever she could to stop the pain. Inevitably, opening the mind’s eye to Catherine gave rise to…to….

The monster ran up to claw out Jason’s throat. Somehow, Jason ends up with his gloves around its throat. The other twists the arm reaching for weapons. Did he throw the thing against the wall? When did that happen? Before or after he was stabbing it in the shoulder repeatedly with their own knife? Had to be before, right? Okay, wait, there was some pain in his shoulder again. Oh! That must have been from the claws in his back. Yeah, that checked out. It would heal. The green goop was still working its magic. Its literal magic. Right! They were on the floor now, Jason was trying to yank off the thing’s lousy mask. Either that, or he was punching its lights out. Wait no, it was both.

Ah! At a certain point, having his face rammed into the backside of the theater’s chairs until it broke apart started to hurt. That was whenever Jason decided to start thrashing its face again. Was he imagining the thing with Dick’s face before? Definitely made it easier to pummel. Smug jerk, Mister Perfect, too cool for school, too cool for him . Jason’s punches were getting fiercer, the hallucinations working in his favor. Felt nice. Felt cathartic! All those uncomfortable looks, fake smiles, all those attempts in vain to hide his disdain for his REPLACEMENT. But he wasn’t the little kid that tried desperately to fill the void left by a prodigal son, he was a grown man with grown man fists that were bloodying with someone’s blood, he wasn’t entirely sure whose, why would he care? Could be both. Some of it was blue. Weird. 

This was all weird. How did he end up like this? He was supposed to be dead. He was supposed to die so many times. Was his cheek bleeding? Oh right. He took off his helmet. What did he do with it again?

“This would be over by now if you’d just let me stab it!”

“No stabbing, for the last time!” As tired as Batman was of barely dodging various knives thrown at her and arrows shot at her, she knew she had to subdue the birdie. Robin knew this too, which greatly annoyed him. “Hey, Birdbrain! Ya know, we could end this all if you were only willing to talk. C’mon, just give us a couple juicy hints about what you’re doing and we can all go home!”

“THE COURT OF OWLS HAS SENTENCED YOU TO DIE. ” Okay, so maybe calling them a Birdbrain wasn’t a good conversation starter. In her defense, neither was trying to kill them. “STAND DOWN.”

“You keep saying those two things, like, repeatedly. Are you only able to talk in radio DJ soundbites?” The fight wasn’t going anywhere. The last guy was tough thanks to their strange, weightless quality. This one had weight to them, manipulating the Dynamic Duo into a dance that the owl was commanding way too efficiently for her taste.

“I do not think your cryptic words are doing much to turn the fight!” Robin shouted, managing a solitary kick to their enemy’s shin before the bird artfully jumped back. This fight was becoming stale and repetitive. They needed something new to switch things up.

Batman’s wishes came in the form of Red Hood’s helmet popping up towards the balcony. The eyes were blinking rapidly, in tune with a high-pitched…ah beans.

The mask was far enough and the explosion contained enough to not blow any of them to smithereens. The owl got the worst of it, being blasted directly by the fiery mess that followed. Batman understood they’d be fine in that suit. She was more immediately drawn to the balcony that was rapidly collapsing beneath them. The caped duo made good work of their wings, gliding down the fifteen or whatever feet that separated the top of the theater to the bottom. Shockingly, they both managed to fall with grace. The assassin, however, flopped hard onto their face into the disgusting old theater carpet. They were still twitching, so she didn’t have to feel that bad about it.

Her eyes scanned over towards Jason, who now looked to be positively thrashing his own little birdy. Only now, the bird lacked his mask, revealing a really pale young man with a sweaty mess of black hair. Her eyes narrowed at the man. He looked familiar, like she’d seen a picture of him before. Something wasn’t clicking, though.

“Grayson?!” Robin shouted in disbelief, completing the puzzle before her. 

Grayson? That name was familiar, but where did—Richard Grayson!! Right! Spoiler had only had a few light interactions with the guy, entirely within costume, of course, but the name kept coming up in her investigation into Bruce Wayne and his—

…holy shit, they found Nightwing.

“Grayson?!” Jason repeated, his eyes glowing an ominous green. They landed on the bloodied face of the man standing opposite him, breathing heavily with their talons out and ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. Batman saw the moment of recognition on Jason’s face, along with the complete lack of change in the assassin’s shimmering blue eyes. “You…you see him too?”

“Yeah. Uh huh.” Batman’s mind was racing at the implications. This was Richard. This was Nightwing . Nightwing was…trying to kill them? But he was also some psycho bird guy now.

“You all know me?” Richard, or Talon, or whatever asked, looking disturbed by the implication himself while his eyes traveled to his now three assailants. “This is an issue.”

“What the hell are you doing dressed like that, Grayson?!” Robin demanded to know, stepping forward with a stolen golden dagger. “Explain yourself!”

Richard was quite annoyed by such demands. “I would not offer explanations if I possessed them. It has become increasingly apparent that my mission has become compromised. Disappointing.”

Batman’s eyes shifted from Jason’s borderline paralyzed face to Richard’s empty blue stare. The neurons finally connected, leading her to a conclusion that made everything make sense in the most numbing way. “He’s fucking brainwashed…” 

“Brainwashed? Wha…wha?” Jason looked to be winding down, whatever high he was experiencing before starting to fade as both his mind and body were forced to process far more than they wished. “Dick?” Without his mask, it was apparent how awful the name tasted on his tongue.

“I am only Talon, as all Talons are,” Richard explained blankly. “In an effort to satisfy my masters, I will allow you one additional chance to accept the Court’s offer. You will either be for or against us. We are prepared for each choice.”

“Dick. Hey!” The ingenious Red Hood’s tactics had been reduced to snapping his fingers at the other’s face. “Hey, Dick! We know who you are, idiot! How’d you go and let these owl people mess with your brain, huh?”

The situation had become eerily sedate, as much as Batman understood the powderkeg belying everything. Her eyes drifted towards her prior enemy, who now appeared to be rising from what should have been bone-shattering injuries. Robin was already ready to fight, as he was at anyone’s slightest twitch. Yet, there was something different about the owl, the…Talon? It lumbered, as if attempting to regain control of their own body. Their protective goggles were shattered, revealing piercingly sharp greens eyes that could be made out from the distance. It looked around, confused, without any purpose or grand mission.

“Under the stairway… ” they muttered, their voice far softer even under the same modulation. Their arms were limp and their attempts to walk proved uneven. “Stormy eyes, above the clouds!” It got ever closer towards the duo, yet it was still so unprepared to fight. “THE SOUND OF LIES!!!” It darted towards Batman with desperation in their eyes. A desperation that faded once it passed out onto the floor again, courtesy of Robin chopping the back of their head.

“ROBIN! WHAT THE FUCK!” Batman shouted at her sidekick.

“It was attacking you!”

“They were talking! They were trying to tell us something! Those weren’t monster eyes, those were scared, human eyes that probably belonged to…to…” She looked down at the now unconscious killer, noticing that Damian’s little karate chop managed to break off the back part of their helmet. Auburn red hair spelt out. “...Someone we know…”

“LOOK OUT!” It was Robin again, managing to tackle their partner away from razor-sharp talons that were heading towards her face, ducking them down as the other bird grabbed their unconscious partner.

There were perhaps more dignified spots for Batman to be than on the floor with Robin while the Talon assassin wearing Nightwing’s face towered over them, flipping their gauntlet over to reveal an alluring button underneath. “The mission has become compromised. Jason Todd, you have chosen to be against us. Unwise. ” He pressed the button. “Goodbye.”

There was the telltale boom and shake of multiple explosions. The walls were breaking apart, the roof shattering, everything collapsing all at once. Time slowed down, to the point where even Batman was uncertain how she and Robin moved so fast. Drywall was smashing against them in small enough chunks to survive. The bigger pieces were crashing down as well, along with every light and a number of theater seats that were blasted into the air. She distinctly recalled Jason yelling “C’mon!” and leading the way towards the lobby, in the opposite direction of the Talons’ escape.

Her next lucid thought was recalling that she had a flashlight. It flicked on, illuminating the theater’s basement, shaking from the activity above. Towers of film canisters left to rot crumbled, littering the floor along with long-forgotten stand-ins and rolls of posters and whatever else cinematic detritus had been abandoned over a decade before. Jason was wrapped over her shoulder now, drops of blood visible on the concrete floor. At a certain point, the rumbling ceased, replaced by the eerie sounds of silence.

Only once the coast was clear did Batman make two observations: “Holy shit, they’ve been keeping Chungking Express down here!” followed shortly by “Jason, that is a lot of blood.” Jason didn’t have a response to either.

Jason Todd hated his body. Far as he was concerned, it was a goddamn traitor.

As much as he attempted to discipline his body to have some level of control, his body always had different plans. Jason was big now, as terrifying a thought as it was. He spent so much of his developing life as a walking ghoul, unable to process much beyond his basic necessities. Then, he was found and saved and the Pit, the fucking Pit, allowed his body to finally reform into something resembling a healthy human being. While he regained his mind, he had surrendered any agency in his own body. This was not the body he made for himself over years of hard work. Sure, he trained, he fought, he did everything to hone it into a proper killing machine, but no amount of push-ups changed how this body was a compromise, the workings of fate.

What would his body be like if he had stayed home? If he simply allowed his family to be all he ever needed? It was a dumb train of thought Jason did his best to avoid. He did his best not to imagine useless hypotheticals that had nothing to do with the here and now. His body was just so stupid. He never really knew its limits because he barely even made the fucking thing. This body was not the result of any choices he made, it was only a tool of fate he could never hope to control.

That simmering hatred was still hot once his eyes finally flickered open. Unfamiliar place. Windows: midcity. Lights: homey. Laying: couch. Sofa: Demon Boy. Okay, calibration complete.

“Finally awake, Todd?” the little brat questioned with venom in every syllable. He was out of costume and clad in a green hoodie that did little to make him not look tiny. “It was tiresome watching you grumble in your sleep.”

“Did I reveal anything important?” Jason groaned, rubbing his aching head as he slowly lifted his even more aching body. Was he feeling more stitches? He just healed them all with Lazarus Juice! And then…immediately got into a fight with a killer assassin. Right. Who was also Dick? Memory was still fuzzy.

“You kept muttering about a big spender. I assume this was referring to a criminal deal of yours.”

Against his wishes, the guy chuckled. “Oh yeah. Big deal with the Fosse Gang. Don’t worry, they only care about charity, cabarets, all that jazz.” He peered around some more, now that his body knew that it was in minimal peril, save for a stab-happy Demon Boy. “This ain’t the mansion.”

“The mansion was compromised. This is Cain’s former housing.”

“The assassin or the Batgirl?”

“Batgirl, obviously.”

“Can never be too sure,” Jason mumbled as he started sinking into the couch, its plushy leather calling to him. When was the last time he was relaxing inside someone’s house? It was too far back in his memory for him to really care. “Ya know, I trained with Cain for a bit. Assassin Cain, obviously. Massive prick.”

“Then you should have gotten along swimmingly.”

“Oh, you wound me so.” He hated being in this situation. Not only was he seriously wounded again , but now he was left at the mercy of his least favorite type of people: ones that knew him. “So, where’s the new and improved Bat-Bimbo?”

“She is Batman, Todd.” Damian had that stabby look again. “You would do well to remember it. She is the sole reason you continue to live.”

“I’ll be sure to hold that against her.” He tried lifting himself off the couch again, but the pain in his side made that rather difficult. “FUCK. Ah. Shit.” He ended up crashing on the couch again. “Who the hell did these stitches?”

“I just told you.”

“Tell her she did a shitty job.”

“You can tell her yourself. She will return shortly with food.” The little demon leaned forward with his hands underneath his chin. “You awoke at an opportune time. Now, we can properly get to know each other.” He smirked. Jason saw his parents in that wicked grin. “Where does it hurt the most?”

“In my heart. Can I get a glass of water?”

“No.” The smile dropped. “Do you have contact with my mother?”

“What? No! I haven’t seen her since I came back to Gotham and I haven’t heard from her since she left me a little care package over Christmas.” Fine by him. 

“Hnn. Sounds specific enough to be true.” Damian rolled his arms and flopped back into the sofa. “Do you wish Brown harm?”

“What?” 

“You obviously heard me. She has done you a great charity saving your halfwitted butt twice. What is your reply?”

This fucking kid. He was all the haughtiness of Talia wrapped in Bruce’s condescension, the perfect soup of arrogance. “I dunno, dude. What’s her plan for me? Gonna give me to the police for all those adorable murders I murdered? Or, is she more of a lock-me-in-the-basement type?”

“She wants your cooperation.”

“Cooperation?!” How was Jason not supposed to burst into laughter after that? Stitches be damned, his whole belly was into it. “HA HA HA HA!!! Cooperation for what , Demon Boy?! Your little Batman and Robin roleplaying? Does she wanna put me in the Batgirl suit, or am I playing the villain here?”

Damian’s face did not move. “Fastball.” He flicked his wrist.

Jason didn’t know why until five milliseconds later, whenever his gut was promptly smashed in by a softball whose name was a lie. “OOF! AaaaaAAah!” He didn’t want to express how much pain he felt in that moment, but once more, his body betrayed him. “What the fuck, kid?!” After some writhing, he managed to tilt his head back up, only to see the kid’s ugly mug right in his face.

“Mark my words, Todd: if you do anything to betray Brown’s trust, you will answer to me. You got lucky the first time. That was whenever I wanted intelligence out of you. Now that you are confirmed to possess none, I have little reason not to slit your throat at the slightest provocation. Am I clear?”

Jason responded with a headbutt. The kid was practically begging for it! Besides, why be cooperative now? Last thing Jason needed was to be pitied. Sure, his body hurt like shit and he had no way of healing it by supernatural means anymore, but could strike it out on his own. He’d manage. He always did. These losers maybe had more resources, but they were in way over their heads. If anyone was going to figure out what the fuck happened to Dick, it was going to be him. And once he did, then he would…do something. Surely he’d know what he wanted once he got there.

Of more immediate concern, could he win a fight against an al Ghul in this condition? Probably not. Didn’t keep him from raising his fists to match the kid's oncoming attack. Jason wanted nothing more than to pound that little kid’s face into an unrecognizable pulp.

The front door slammed open. “Hey, Damian! Got us some takeout from a couple blocks down. You two killed each other yet?” Both boys brought their fists down to rest, glaring the entire time. A temporary truce was made, at least until Damian felt Jason had outlived his welcome, or Jason found it funny. “Oh hey! Welcome back to the world of the living, Mister Todd.”

“Har har.” The girl very obviously wasn’t afraid of him in the slightest. The longer he examined her, the more he wondered if she had lost all fear in death the same as him. If so, how did she still smile like that? Even now, there was so much life in those eyes that he couldn’t entirely comprehend. Sure, Jason could fake a smile and act like the most jovial guy in the room, but there was still a sparkle to Stephanie’s deep blues that couldn’t be faked. He missed having that. “You patch me up, Blondie?”

“That would be correct~” she beamed, finger in the air and everything.

“You did a shitty job.”

“No, I did an amazing job on a shitty person.” Her eyes glanced down at the floor. “Did Damian use the Problem Ball on you?”

“What did you get me?” Jason asked, not dignifying the question nor the concept of a Problem Ball.

“Chicken lo mein good enough for ya?” She was already handing the sauce-stained box to him, so his response didn’t really matter. “The Problem Ball was in case you became a problem.”

“Yeah, I got that.” He snatched the box away in the most aggro way possible, to better deflect the fact he was starving. All he had to eat before was the processed eggs and microwave grits the hospital awarded him for waiting a whole day before threatening to blow them up. “Your faith in me is astounding.”

“You say that sarcastically, but it really is.” And even then, Stephanie thought it wise to crash down on the couch right next to him to partake in her own shrimp fried rice. Either the girl was testing him, or she was really that dumb. It could be two things. “You’re the one that called me earlier, buddy. I assume to get you out of your little bind.”

“I wanted you as a distraction,” Jason stated harshly. “That bird guy already wrecked my shit a few days ago. Couple hours after you two left our little meeting, actually. Or, maybe it was the other bird guy. They all sound the same.”

“To be clear, we’re talking about Richard and Babs here, right?”

“...Yeah.” It took a moment for him to recall that it wasn’t a hallucination he was cathartically beating. Somehow, that made it feel a lot less cathartic. He struggled to understand how the almighty, always perfect Dick Grayson had gotten himself caught and, it would appear, mind controlled into an evil owl guy. “Wait, Babs?”

“Yeah. Ya know, Barbara Gordon? The other owl fit her bill.” She’d sound more authoritative without a mouth full of rice. “Green eyes, exact shade of red hair, cryptic messages…”

“But it was walking.” 

Jason sounded more unnerved than he wanted to. Thing was, the idea very much unnerved him. He was still processing that thing being Dick, but Babs…he hadn’t even seen her since returning to Gotham. It was news of her departure following the gang war that partially motivated his grand entrance into the Gotham crime scene. It was easy to trip Batman, but to outmaneuver Oracle was an entirely different mission. Talia had spoken of her difficulty dealing with the almighty Oracle whenever their ideas of who should be in power where came into conflict.

Babs was always amazing. Dick was hardly ever in Gotham, hardly ever a presence around him unless something big happened, but Barbara always was. Even then, she operated largely on her own, yet she’d constantly take time to hang out with the newly-minted little Robin that could. One smile from Batgirl was enough to brighten the darkest Gotham night. There was a grace to her that he knew he could never measure up to. Certainly not now. He constantly recalled the simmering anger he felt whenever Joker robbed her of all that grace, grounding a woman meant for the skies. He felt it whenever he was trapped, alone with the psycho. He felt it whenever he saw that Bruce had done everything in his power to keep the monster alive. He felt it now.

“We saw how they recovered from all those bullets, right? Not even Bruce could have survived that. It’s entirely possible whoever did this, this…Court of Owls, right? I guess they just…fixed her?”

“Like she was broken?” Was that his own teeth he was hearing? He hadn’t noticed them grinding.

“Yeah…” Stephanie didn’t look very accepting of the idea either. “It’s so weird though. I mean, all of this is totally crazy-go-nuts even by Gotham standards, but it’s a weird little thing I noticed, right?” She did the finger-counting thing. “Cass is acting like a rich couple’s daughter, Babs was talking all loud and annoying until we broke those lenses, then she started talking crazy talk at us, while Richard was completely unmasked and acting no different than before.” This was the first Jason was hearing about Cain, but the blondie raised a fairly interesting point. There was that glimmer, still shining bright despite the contents of her speech. It annoyed him so.

Jason finished his food first, the others taking their sweet time with their boxed meals. Guess he was real hungry after all. He couldn’t recall ever tasting it. “What does any of this have to do with me? Are you trying to recruit me into your silly little cosplay club? Golly gee, Mrs. Batman, do you want me to stick my hairy legs in my old silk tights to distract from your conspicuous child-bearing hips? Gosh, I’d have to think about that!”

“What else would you do?”

“What?” Her rebuttal came so quick and casual that it caught him off-guard.

“What else would you do?” Blondie repeated, mouth full of rice. “Like, news flash, dude: your shit is fucked—to put it delicately.” She pointed at him with her plastic fork. “Read that Red Hood’s suspected hideout went up in flames a few days ago. And whaddya know, a whole other one went up today! And I didn’t see any guys in that one. Or guns, drugs, anything besides a bunch of popcorn that could turn a profit. And all that popcorn got burnt, so please tell me if there’s another consistent source of income, Mister Hood. If I can even call you that, because you did kinda use your helmet to try and explode Babs.”

“And it didn’t work the second time either…” It was all dawning on him that he really tried blowing up Babs twice . He was so prepared and willing to kill anyone trying to kill him, not knowing that it was someone he might have actually cared about. Not hated, at least.

Fuck. He couldn’t deny that he was completely in the dark about all of this. This was all proving to be a massive problem, which was a problem because he was supposed to be the massive problem. Red Hood was meant to be the conflict, the issue that everyone else responded to. The problems were coming for him now. He didn’t know how to respond.

“...What’s your endgame of all this?” Jason eventually managed to ask. “Why do you want me? What are you hoping to accomplish by wearing that stupid cosplay and acting like Bruce?”

“Hey, I’m acting like Batman, not Bruce,” the girl was quick to correct with her gesturing fork. “And, it’s super simple really: keep Gotham from exploding and/or imploding for as long as I can, find everyone, save everyone, ride off into the sunset, jump in the air together for a freeze frame, Dreams by the Cranberries plays, and finally burn this suit to a fine ash. After that, I’m thinking of getting my GED.”

“Not a fan of being Batman?”

“It’s not really something I’m into, no,” Stephanie admitted as she slumped back with her empty takeout box. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun and all, but I’m only doing this because this city would fall apart without a Batman and I’m the only one still around that can fit in the tights. With a little modification, obviously. Ideally, the sudden reappearance of Batman will scare away those owls from their mysterious nefarious devices, while drawing them towards me.”

“So they can brainwash you like everyone else?”

“So that I lead them to you.” She smirked and pointed that fork again. “And him.” She pointed at the Demon Brat, who was seemingly watching the entire conversation in total silence. “And anyone else I can gather. You get to have your revenge, I save my friends, and everything goes back to normal.”

Jason continued eyeing her with his arms folded, not entirely convinced. The unfortunate truth was that he understood it. The girl’s motivations were clear as day, her plan vague but coherent. She knew to appeal to revenge. Revenge was sounding pretty good right now. Awfully dramatic. The role of Vengeful Spirit was probably the best one he had. If somehow, through some mathematical anomaly this all managed to work, the board would be reset, giving him ample opportunity to concoct his next plan of action.

“Or, we all die.” Jason wasn’t exactly going to become an optimist overnight. “Which wouldn’t be awful, but, the more you talk about revenge, it might be the more disappointing option.”

Stephanie grinned. It was as real as a smile could be from people like them. The glimmer refused to fade. “Sounds like we have a deal then.”

“We have an understanding,” her captor insisted. “Two different things. I’m not laying any money on this.”

“Do you even have any money?”

“Somewhere, maybe,” Jason grumbled before plopping his head back down onto the pillows set up for him on the couch. Hard to deny, they were high-quality pillows. “Lemme sleep on it some more. We’ll see how I’m feeling once I’m in less pain.” He locked eyes with Damian again, who was still unmoving and unemotive on the sofa across from him. “Got anything to add, Demon Boy?”

“Hardly. I was merely observing the negotiations.” He cracked a grin as well. “I learned a lot.”

“Wait, one more thing!” Stephanie’s voice cried out, stirring Jason from his attempted rest. “One of those things attacked you a few days ago, right?”

“The one that you think is Babs, yeah,” he groaned as he closed his eyes. “Said the Court of Owls has sentenced me to die, then attacked me, so I shot at it a bunch before blowing it up. Why?”

“But they were trying to recruit you after that.”

“Yes! Congrats, Nancy Drew, you got it in one!”

“And what happened to your old crew?”

“They quit on me!” Jason snapped, forced to shoot a tired glare at his already regrettable ally. “They got fucking bought up by the Italian mob, which is fucking wild, because they’ve been struggling for years, even after I joined! But they somehow had enough money to buy out my guys, who left right before…” He blinked. “...Before the assassins came…”

“It’s all piecing together, isn’t it?” She looked out the window, where night had taken over. “I do believe this is Batman and Robin time. An idea’s running in my head and I wish to chase it.”

The tiny brat was less prepared. “Are you really going to leave the known scoundrel in our lair?”

“Scoundrel? Please don’t turn cowboy on me so late in the game, Damian.” She turned back to face Jason. “Hey! Can we trust you not to do anything weird while we’re gone?”

“No.”

“See? He’s honest. Let’s go!”

Oswald Cobblepot was awarded so few moments of peace nowadays. Few crime bosses thought to warn aspiring big bosses about the time management required to run an empire. It was like being president, a lofty position that awarded you more privileges and power than almost anyone else on earth, only you were always thrown from one meeting to another, always an event or a crisis or whatever. How any American president managed to find the time to fuck in Lincoln’s bedroom was beyond Oswald. He only controlled a tiny part of Gotham and a legitimate social club, and that was enough to take up enough of his day that the infamous Penguin only briefly got to enjoy the spoils of his work.

Tonight was one of those rare occasions. He could take out one of his offensively-expensive bourbons, sit at his desk, and play old blues music while catching up on his reading in his office. A fine way for a beleaguered crime lord to spend a stormy Gotham night, Stephanie surmised. As much as she hated Penguin’s work, the idea of him possessing a moment of peace activated an even greater nerve. Lightning cracked through his overly tall, ornate windows, just long enough to cast a shadow across the room. He ceased sipping his glass once his eyes recognized the shape through pure muscle memory.

“Hello Cobblepot.” Penguin didn’t turn around, even as rain hit his back and thunder boomed behind him.

Instead, the gangster merely continued his sip, before setting the glass down onto his mahogany work desk, the ice cubes clinking. “And here I thought I was finally rid of all of you.” He finally turned his head. “Ah. Perhaps I am. You’re new, aren’t you?”

“Hardly.” Batman jumped down from the window, not bothering to close it despite the weather, landing gracefully onto the crime lord’s desk. “I see you haven’t changed much.”

“I keep myself busy,” Oswald groaned, forced to close the windows himself. “Look, if ya want anything out of me, you’re gonna have to leave the cryptic shit in your cave filled with bat guano. I haven’t done much exciting the past few months. Been laying nice and low the past year.”

“Then consider this a wellness check.” Batman coolly leapt off the desk, causing the gangster to flinch. She peered around, looking for anything of interest, before narrowing her sights on what looked to a priceless Ming Dynasty vase. Or some dynasty. Gotham public schools didn’t really hammer Asia history that much. “How expensive is that thing?”

“Fairly…”

“Alright.” She then took out a batarang. “Makes good target practice, huh? Trickshot!”

“Wait, no!” Penguin tumbled out of his chair as he made a mad scramble to his precious vase. The batarang bounced from one wall to the other, eventually clinking up against the vase just hard enough to make it swivel around desperately. Surprisingly agile for such a short, round man, Oswald dived out to catch the vase right before it was destined to shatter on the floor. By then, he was sweaty and out of breath, craning his head towards his intruder, only to find them lounging in his comfy leather chair with their legs propped up on his mahogany desk. 

Or, maybe it was walnut or whatever. Batman didn’t know much about expensive desks. “Sup?” she taunted with a wink. “Wanted to ask a few questions, catch up with the new status quo.”

“Ah. I see now.” Penguin managed to pry himself off the ground to set up his overly expensive tchotchke. “You’re one of the little birdies, aren’t you?”

“Funny. I came here to ask the exact same thing.”

Oooh, Pengy’s eyes got real small after that. And was that a double-take? Oh yeah, this was nice. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“C’mon, Ozzy, you know the expression: birds of a feather flock together, right?” She shrugged her wrists. “Even if I don’t remember that many owls in Happy Feet.”

“And what exactly do you know about owls?” he asked as he began waddling back to his throne.

“I know they’ve been out killing a lot of gang leaders. Specifically newer, younger ones. Little upstarts that dared to change the Gotham crime landscape. And whenever they fail, where do they end up?” Batman took this time to start rummaging within the drawers in Cobblepot's desk. “To old money. The syndicates everyone in Gotham is born knowing.”

“Back off, Rodent! That’s private property!” Oswald was finally in position to jump at his intruder, less so to do so successfully. Batman jumped out of the way in time so that she landed onto her feet, while the Penguin was left crashing onto the floor with his expensive desk chair.

“Yeah, I know! Already breaking and entering. Who cares?” And so, mail went flying out of her hands one-by-one. “Bill, bill, death threat, bill, scam, scam, death threat, scam—oh?” She finally landed on a letter held together by a wax seal of some crest that had already been opened. On the front read “The Hopkins Family invites you…”

Naturally, Batman slipped that against her satchel. “I’ll ask again, and this time, I’ll let you know I’m jamming any kind of signal in and out of here: are you involved with the Court of Owls?”

The Penguin’s beady little eyes rumbled with hatred as he once more pulled himself off the ground. “Officially, no,” he grumbled. “My forefathers had a history, yet I was hardly ever considered for membership. Never wanted to be. Iceberg Enterprises is a purely independent enterprise, ya see. I’ve survived so long because I keep my shiny things consolidated. Rapid expansion is bad for business, yes?” He patted down his dressy black pants. “Still, whenever you receive an offer from a friggin’ Talon, you accept. I’ve made more deals with more devils than I can even recall. What’s one more?”

“And what was that deal?” Oo, she sounded especially Batman-y just then.

“Expansion. Believe it or not, they wanted to give me more power, albeit on a single condition.” He didn’t look particularly proud to admit all this. “I would follow whatever orders they sent. Additionally, if I refused the first offer, or rejected any future offer, I would be killed. Considering the thing already killed all my guards to tell me this, I knew this was no empty threat.” He then peered towards the guards. “Shame too. They were good. Unlike my current guard, that can’t even rush in whenever I’m being accosted by a teenager!”

“Probably because Robin knocked all of your guards out before I got here,” Batman hummed sassily. “And for the record, I’m not a teenager. I’m Batman.” Yep, pitch-perfect, hell yeah!

Penguin was far less impressed, electing to set his chair back up to continue his rare moment of silence. “Ya wanna know another reason why I’ve managed this long? Cuz I always saw beyond the mask. You may have others fooled, but never me.” He finally managed a proper sip of his bourbon. “Whoever’s behind the mask is irrelevant compared to acknowledging that you’re little more than diseased man in rodent’s clothing. Too many others focus too much on the mask, ignoring the human flesh within. I, for one, do not.”

BAM!! Oswald’s revolver rang his ears while its barrel smoked. He was getting faster and faster on the draw, but the Bat was already gone. The window was opened again as well, dampening his poor carpet. “Weaghhh…”

A minute later, Robin finally found his Batman avoiding the pouring rain under some nearby scaffolding in the uptown district. There always seemed to be construction and expansion in this area, the towers always a little closer to reaching Heaven. He zipped down to her level, noticing that she was reading something. “Found something in Penguin’s office?”

“Oh yeah. Big something. Just had to make sure I wouldn’t get this thing soaking wet. Take a look.” Batman presented the letter, in all its expensive stationary glory, every word glittering gold against the parchment.

The Hopkins Family hope you will join our family in celebrating our daughter’s 18th birthday with her first ever charity gala on August 17th! All the best and brightest in Gotham are invited to participate in Cassandra Hopkins’ first ever public unveiling by indulging in her inherited philanthropic spirit at the historic Audubon Mansion. Live music, fine cuisine, and an open bar will be provided as well. Festivities begin at 7pm! 

Dress code is formal. Parking will be validated. Event is invitation-only.

“That’s in eight days,” Robin accurately determined. 

“Yep.”

“Your working theory appears very accurate.”

“I noticed.”

“Should Batman and Robin make an appearance at this event?”

“No…” Batman sighed, shaking her head. “Batman would cause too much of a fuss. We need to be stealthy, infiltrate the party, talk with Cass, gather whatever intel we can on the Hopkins’ connection to these owls. I have the sharpest suspicion the Court of Owls is only a cover for a collection of Gotham’s rich boys. Or, all of them. That entire party could be out to get us. Ya know, besides the regular rich people ways.”

“If Batman isn’t making an appearance, then who is?”

“Lemme sleep on it. I’ll figure something out.”

Chapter Text

Friday, 12:35pm (7 Days to Gala)

“Ya know, I’m starting to see the big picture here. It’s a real ugly picture.” Jason curled his finger under his chin as he observed Stephanie’s mystery board, updated to account for the previous day’s revelations. “You’re a shitty artist, Blondie, you know that?”

“My work is stylized. Per usual, my talents are unappreciated in my time.” In truth, she doodled her renditions of Talon Dick and Babs with great haste in order to slam them up on the board. But they were recognizable! One might even say adorable. “So, what are you seeing?”

“The Court of Owls is real, maybe always been real, and is most likely little more than a cabal of rich assholes with brainwashed assassins. Currently, Dick and Babs are two of those brainwashed assassins. Weirdly enough, the one bat that was actually born and raised to be an assassin probably isn’t.”

“If she was, I do not think you and I would be alive right now.”

“Instead, she’s being used as the adopted daughter of two rich assholes that are having a party to show her off to the world, very likely to marry her off. Did I miss anything?”

“All the killings, I guess. Thought you’d remember that, considering you were one of the killings.”

“It’s a living.” Jason cricked his neck as he leaned against the wall of the Batgirlcave. “The Court of Owls is eliminating newer gangs and bankrolling older ones in order to…I guess gentrify crime? Then they’ll have complete control over Gotham’s underworld in addition to their pre-existing control over big business.”

“Complete dominion over Heaven and Hell…” Stephanie’s eyes perked.

“Oh, that’s good. That’s a line.”

“Right?! I have no idea where that came from!” She staggered back and laughed as she felt her forehead. “I’m gonna have to use that later. But, uhhhh—right. Right!” She snapped her fingers to get back on track. “Jason, you had Batman’s file on me, right? Do you have access to the Batcomputer?”

“No, I do not,” Jason groaned. “Talia found me a lot of mentors, none of which were particularly good at computers. Tried using a tech wiz in my gang to hack into the Batcomputer, but Babs made that shit impenetrable. You’d have to be a literal international-threat-level genius to hack into the Bat-Network. Conversely, any old idiot can break into the secret cave Babs kept all the physical copies of every file in the network. Think she started using it as a backup after the whole No Man’s Land thing. Really upset I missed that, by the way. Looked like a lot of fun.”

“I wouldn’t know, I was preoccupied,” Stephanie groaned with crossed arms. “That file you had on me sounded pretty out-of-date though.”

“Well, she kinda skipped town after that whole gang war you started, now didn’t she?” Steph did her best to keep her glance focused on the board, that way she could keep it relatively neutral. “That was obviously her pet project. Every now and then, I’d notice Robin or Batgirl or one of her stripper friends deliver collections of papers. I can get us in if you want.”

“God, that’d be such a boon right now.”

“Tt. Boon . And you mock my vocabulary.” A familiar tic signified the arrival of Damian back to the brain trust. He held two plastic bags around the right arm of his hoodie. One beheld a ton of junk food and soft drinks meant to sustain this ill-begotten alliance, while the other contained a boatload of cash from the very same grocery store. “I got your prescribed snacks and your drug money, Todd.”

For all of Jason’s idiotic tendencies, the guy wasn’t an idiot. During his awful career transition into a full-time crime lord, he made sure to store the dirty money he scored for himself in remote spots no accountant could ever account for. Such spots included, but were not limited to: mausoleums (because it sounded cool), abandoned AC units, CRTs, organizational binders, comic book boxes, the Batcave (because it’d be funny), and, perhaps least conventional of all, the hands of random civilian Gothamites that owed him one. Red Hood’s propensity to help whatever random Gothamite in danger was equally matched by his propensity to create Faustian bargains. “Here’s a shitload of cash!” he’d say, slamming a briefcase down onto the nearest surface. “You can scrape a little off the top, enough to pay your rent for a good year or so. Take it all, or give it to anyone else, and I’ll find you, and I’mma kill you. Deal?”

They always took the deal, and they always had the goods whenever he returned. Such was the case for Francesco the Cashier over at Good Stuff Convenience. As embarrassing as it was for Jason to use a child as a liaison, Red Hood was down one mask and a couple bones that were really needed to be properly threatening. Any threats he had to make resembled an injured dog barking at everyone trying to help it. Stephanie kept this comparison to herself, as to avoid further annoying barking. Regardless of the money’s source, money was money and they could really use some.

“You make drug money sound so dirty,” Jason chastised as he went for the candy bar he ordered. “Now, are we forgetting something?”

“My father’s continued existence in the media,” Damian was quick to suggest. “If these owls wanted to erase all traces of Batman, if they’ve gotten ahold of every known bat, then who is maintaining the lie that Bruce Wayne is still alive? This Court of Owls?”

“And if so, why?” Stephanie added to the list of questions.

“Furthermore, how?” Jason was all too pleased to question.

“Where even!”

“What about what?”

“What’s good, but what about when?!”

Damian hastily aborted his older partners’ bit with a loud, prolonged groan. “You two are children! Neither of you deserve the right to call me a child ever again!”

“Whatever you say, pipsqueak.” As was inevitable whenever two troublesome dogs meet, the two got into a barking match.

“Never call me that again, or else I will kill you where you stand before you even finish saying it!” “Really, kid? Death threats? Is that all your mommy taught you when she wasn’t breastfeeding you to age—how old are you again?” “Leave my mother out of this!”

“ANYWAY.” Both birds took a hiatus from their chirping to turn towards their ostensible leader. Stephanie felt like a substitute teacher barely keeping her class together. “It’s obvious that we’re lacking information without access to the Batcomputer. You tried logging in with your old credentials, right, Jason?”

“Yeah, but all I got were annoying video messages of Bruce telling me I can still have a place in his life if I could just reach out, get help, yadda yadda, that whole spiel.” He waved his hand to make extra sure that everyone knew he didn’t care. “Got about five unique messages before they started looping.”

“Jesus, dude.” Her leer possessed more emotion than Jason could ever allow. “In that case, we need to access those physical archives. So far, we’re losing the information game. We need to see if Batman Numero Uno knew anything about the Court that we don’t.”

“Yeah, gonna put a pin in that until I’m feeling a little more spry.” Jason no doubt overplayed his grunt from adjusting his back. Steph did hear a loud crack soon after, so she didn’t immediately call foul on the drama queen. “Can’t reveal all my secrets at once, now can I? Last thing I want is to be kicked to the curb while I’m still recovering from my injuries.” If his shrug was meant to be infuriating, it was very much working.

“C’mon, do you really think we’d kick you out the moment you stop being useful to us?” Steph did her best to hide her anger in disappointment. She did everything to appease this asshole and he was still holding out on them, the jerk.

“I don’t see why you wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t we?” Damian concurred unhelpfully. “He’s a burden enough already.” 

The blonde’s typically adorable face was scrunched up into an unrecognizable emotion that held no common name. It was on the negative spectrum for certain, hovering between revulsion and utmost regret. Whether that regret started with welcoming this redheaded psycho into her home or her being born was deemed not worth interrogating. “In that case, why don’t you give me a reason not to throw you out right now?”

“I can get you a tailor.”

“Why the hell would I need a—” Stephanie followed Jason’s index fingers towards the gala invitation currently pinned to the mystery board. “Ah. Right.”

Saturday, 2:27pm (6 Days to Gala)

“Never thought I’d be allowed in a place like this without getting shot!”

“MOM!!! Oh my god!” It was only recently that Stephanie discovered that her need to get a rise out of people was an inherited trait. Drugs had dulled her mother’s deviousness, it seemed, and with their absence, her wit was sharpened. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Valentino, my mom is simply awful. I really should have warned you that she is the worst.”

The Mr. Valentino in question was a very short, rotund man, with dark Sicilian skin coated in more black hairs than his head allowed. Except for that mustache; good lord, that mustache was so obviously his pride and joy more than anything. Despite being one of the highest acclaimed tailors in Gotham, to the point where there were multiple feuding crime families that considered him family, he cared little for his own appearance; brown corduroy suspenders over a white button-up hardly made him resemble an expert on fashion. Every time Steph looked down at him, for she somehow had two or three inches on the man, she saw a really comfy sofa. Many in Gotham say they had to harden themselves in order to survive in this city, while this man looked to be getting by just fine by making himself strikingly huggable.

“It’ssa fine, Misses, eh—Brown, no?” His Italian accent was nearly as thick as his mustache; no small feat!

“Oh! Just, uhh, call me Crystal if you want!” Stephanie also seemingly inherited her mother’s habit of laughing off the most uncomfortable, creepy crawly feelings a person could have. “I happened to be off at work, so I made an executive decision and decided to accompany Stephie here on her exciting little errand!”

“Despite my protests,” Stephanie was quick to add underneath a somewhat cracked smile. “I do appreciate this, though. My friend called you a very in-demand guy.” Jason had only filled her in on the guy’s mob connections after setting up the appointment over the phone. Mr. Valentino turned out to be another citizen in debt to Red Hood, having unwittingly prevented an assassination of the guy from the Russian mob. The man immediately showered his savior with offers of gratitude so spirited that Jason couldn’t have possibly denied him. One of those offers was a single suit that could be redeemed at any point for anyone. Only one of course, because Valentino still ran a proper business.

“Ahh! Nessun problema, Miss Brown! Any fan-a Red’s izza friend-a mine!” 

“I thought you said this was a friend of Tim’s,” Crystal noted into her daughter’s ear, sending the girl into a brief but invisible panic. She had told her mother that she was fitting for a fancy party Tim had invited her to; platonically, of course, as ‘til death do us part was equally valid in high school romance.

“Red’s a friend of Tim’s! Normal friend. Good guy.” Three lies in a row. “Anyway, uh, I’m supposed to attend this gala this weekend, so I was hoping for—”

“Stand, stand!” Valentino commanded once he successfully waltzed the girl up to a podium. “You eva get a fitting before, sir?”

“Sir?” Stephanie wasn’t even incredulous. She stared at the man in confusion even as she took to the podium. She had been wearing some baggy clothes, the slight chill warranting a nice eggplant jacket with some denim jeans. It wasn’t much, but it was warm and nondescript and she did not feel like leggings this morning. Combined with her newly-shortened, downright androgynous hair, she supposed it wasn’t impossible to be seen as a boy. “Haven’t really been called a sir before.” She peered towards her mom, confused, shrugging one shoulder before her mom shrugged both. Neither ultimately attempted to correct the man.

“I’m-a sure you’ll get-a used to it!” the man jovially beamed as he got to measuring the girl’s waist and legs and everything. “Izza this ya first suit?”

“Uhhh—yeah. Kinda. Yeah.” It’s true that Stephanie had requested that Jason request a fancy suit over the phone. A gorgeous blonde in an eggplant dress might draw too much attention, especially if anyone there recognized her. The owls might not know that she’s alive, but they almost definitely knew who she was. Her only advantage was that she was by all accounts dead. But Steph was managing to sell Batman for now. A shorter Batman than before, maybe, but she managed the aura. Handsome blond-haired, blue-eyed boys in fancy suits were a dime a dozen at these things. And maybe she was curious about how good she’d look in a suit. “Going to a big, fancy bigwig party, so gotta look my best, ya know? Make an impression.”

“Ya gotta look in mind?” Valentino hummed as he got to measuring around Stephanie’s chest. “Arms up!” He didn’t make a single comment as he measured around what were undeniably boobs. 

The girl was confused for several seconds, up until her brain finally coalesced all the clues to their logical conclusion. This man thought she was just a guy with boobs, and he was being exceedingly kind about it. He really thought he pinned her down as a transgender man. 

Not that she minded it! Mr. Valentino was being super nice and thoughtful considering his perceived circumstances! It wasn’t like she saw herself as a guy or anything, she was only trying to make herself look enough like one, exactly like her Batman disguise. It was all a trick on the outside world, to make them see her as a man so that no one would even suspect her of being a woman. Which was already sort of working, completely by accident. So, that was…good? Mission accomplished? She felt weird.

She looked at her mom. It looked as if she came to the same conclusion. They stared at each other. They exchanged confused looks and shrugs yet again. Neither said a word. Looked like they were committing to the bit.

“Perdonami, but didya hear me? Gotta style, a color, a reference?” 

“Oh! Uhhh, nothing too fancy style. I don’t want to draw a lot of attention to myself, ya know? Guess I also kinda want some padding around the, uh, here area?” She signaled towards her chest, not helping the man’s suspicion. “And can I get it in eggplant?”

“Eggplant?”

“Aubergine,” Crystal helpfully elaborated.

“Aaaaaah, aubergine! Yes, yes, a fine-a color for a fine young man!” Valentino then leaned up nice and close towards Stephanie, observing her with great interest. “I’mma thinking….” He bit his lower lip and tapped his fine leather shoes. “Ah ha! A shawl lapel! Sì, sì!” He gestured wildly like he’d discovered the secret to cold fusion, before dashing off into some room for something without another word.

“What—what’s a shawl lapel?” Stephanie gingerly asked her mother as she peeped down from the podium.

“Type of suit. Don’t worry, you’re going to look fantastic…” She let the sentence linger on her lips, which were curling into a devious grin. “...my darling son~”

“Thank you, mother, thank you. You’ve been so supportive in my transition!” With a hand to her currently concealed chest, she dropped her voice down just a smidgen. If she could warp her voice into a fitting Batman tone, surely she could make it match a young man. “Really warms my testosterone-pumping heart.”

“Testosterone actually comes from the ovaries, but I appreciate the sentiment.” Crystal as she started circling her elevated androgynous child. “You know, once we figure out the complicated legal matter that is your current existence, you can be whoever you want. Any name, anything.”

“Mom, you know I’m only joking, right?” the girl felt needed to be cleared. “I’m still Stephanie Brown, same as ever.”

“I know. I know, honey, I know.” Crystal released a slightly mournful sigh, even as her mouth remained in a fragile smile. “But you’ve become more than that, haven’t you?”

Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, what did she know? Stephanie gulped, sweat condensing beneath her hoodie. “Wh–what do you mean, mom?” she asked extremely tentatively.

“You’ve become your own person. Someone I rarely had the time to raise.” Oh, phew. Except no, this was also extremely sad and bad. Her mom was even reaching underneath her glasses to wipe away some tears. Shit, this was even more emotional than Bat business. “Whoever and whatever you want to be is fine with me. I never had much ownership over you. I can hardly call myself an authority figure at this point.” God, she was sniffling too. “I can only love the person you are now. She seems lovely.”

Stephanie wished they were talking about Batman. There’d probably be fewer tears in her eyes then. There was a somber silence between the two as she found herself at a rare loss for words. Eventually, she managed to croak out “M…mom, I—”

“CUFFLINKS!” Valentino had made his grand return, carrying a chunky leather-bound portfolio. “Un bel giovane deserves a fine set-a cufflinks! I gotta quite the selection for ya right here!”

“Oh, thank god…” Steph muttered tacitly off the side of her mouth. “Yeah! Cufflinks! I’d love some of those!” The portfolio was heavy as sin, but it wasn’t like she was lacking in upper-body strength.

Saturday, 6:11pm (6 Days to Gala)

“I can’t believe she canceled on me!” Demon Boy shouted as he paced around the room, flailing his arms dramatically. “The nerve! She insists on these copious breaks with her mother, as if Gotham will simply rest at her leisure.”

Jason started grating a block of mozzarella cheese over the eggs simmering in his pan. “Spell leisure for me.”

“L-E-I-S-U—” The boy shook his head before indignantly staring his elder down. “You are attempting to divert me from my valid complaints!”

“I am attempting to make an omelet.” While he currently lacked firepower and non-hurting bones, Jason still had the manpower to raid the fridge. He waved his hand to get a good whiff of his incomplete creation. “Mmm! Already smells amazing.”

“And she insists that I do not go on patrol without her. As if I have not been trained for this position all my life!” The little guy wasn’t going to shut up anytime soon, it seemed. “I did plenty well in my weeks on my own! I am more than qualified to take care of myself!”

“Oh yeah? And what did you accomplish in that time?” Jason started adding his sauteed mushrooms to the mix, carefully partitioning them out.

“I managed the defeat of fifty-seven different criminals before Brown’s arrival.”

“The defeat? Kid, how many did you kill?”

“Only two. They were sore losers that were significant barriers to my mission.”

“And what was that mission?”

“Defeating criminals, of course. Those that were trafficking and transporting illegal materials around the city. I studied both the state law and municipal laws exclusive to Gotham City, and delivered retribution accordingly.”

Christ, Talia really did a number on the kid. “So, you were a cop.”

“No, I was fulfilling my duties as Robin.”

There was a nerve in Jason’s stomach that had not activated in years. Its tingle brought back the memory of discovering that Bruce had moved on and gotten a new Robin entirely. It was the same part of him that he recalled fluttering whenever he wore the costume, whenever people confidently called him Robin, even whenever he was so obviously not the original. It was some small part of him that felt an ownership to the bright colors the Demon Boy had appropriated. “No, you were being a fucking cop and Robin is not a cop.” He flipped one half of the omlet over the other.

Damian tilted his head as he observed the former Robin. He was a creep that way. “Then, how would you define Robin? Your tenure was short, was it not?”

“Gonna end up being longer than yours,” he grumbled, turning off the stove as he carefully transported his dinner to the fine china Alfred was so kind to stock years ago. He hadn’t talked much about being Robin these days; with anyone that wasn’t begging him to stop killing people, anyway. Not like he was going to tell any of his drug runners about his old part-time child job. It wasn’t anything he was ashamed of; he was pretty damn good at his job up until the end. Sure, he was hopelessly naive, but he was a kid. Didn’t mean he couldn’t feel an ounce of pride for his work. Being Robin was magic, intoxicating even. Every kid wishes for some level of control over the world, and being the Boy Wonder was the perfect way to fake that control.

Jason took a long exhale as he started applying hot sauce to the surface of his delicious dish. “How would I define Robin, huh? Hm.” The best way he could think was through example. “Okay, imagine this: you see an old woman walking the streets alone on her way to bingo night. Then, you see her get purse snatched by the nefarious, uh, Doctor Pursesnatcher. What do you do?”

The current Robin looked nonplussed up at his predecessor. “I have no time for these games, Todd.”

Todd shrugged. “Indulge me.”

Rolling his eyes, the boy ran the scenario in his mind. “Easy. I defeat the doctor with my inevitably superior combat skills. Perhaps I would break his arms so that he may never live up to his namesake ever again. Problem eliminated.”

“ERNT. Wrong.” Jason finally plunged the side of his fork into his greatest creation, admiring the oozy stretch of cheese that resulted. “God, look at that. I’m a genius.” A quick head shake got him back on track. “Breaking his arms was a nice touch, but you missed the point of the entire scenario. Your mission isn’t to beat up the criminal, it’s to return that woman’s purse.”

The omelet was amazing, as expected. The boy was confused, also as expected. “I was planning to do that afterwards,” Damian was quick to defend. “The point is that the threat was eliminated.”

“Doctor Pursesnatcher isn’t a threat, his only weapon is his useless art degree. You can teach him a lesson, sure, but the issue is not that he’s a criminal. The issue is Old Lady Lydia. Her whole life is in that purse. There’s her wallet for one, which has all her cash, her cards, her driver’s license, her bus pass, her social security card, everything that allows her to exist in this world. And that’s not even the worst of it. She keeps the only known photo of her dearly departed son Bobby with her equally deceased husband in that purse. She holds that picture dearly with her life. It often feels like the only reason she goes on. Every day, she looks at that picture, sees her husband and son cheering her on to live another day to preserve their memory. If it’s suddenly not there one day, who knows?” Jason dramatically shrugged before finally diving into his dish. His taste buds instantly exploded into a savory melody unlike any other. “Oh my god. Did I always have this power?!”

“Obviously I was intending to return the purse after I thoroughly defeated the man,” Damian insisted. “Mission complete.”

“No, because you popped out of nowhere to break a man’s arms. You scared Old Lady Lydia. She’s taken aback by your brutality. She runs, hoping to get away from the violent scene, valuing her life over her purse.”

“Then it’s her fault! I was only helping her!” Didn’t take a lot to make the kid turn on the imaginary woman.

“No, you brought unwelcome violence into her life,” Jason elaborated as he kept delighting in his perfect creation. “From her perspective, you turned one violent crime into two.”

“Then what was I supposed to do? Not take care of the guy?”

“No, you focus on the woman.” Taking a break from his dish, Jason got to gesturing with both his hands to illustrate the two parts of the scenario. “Here’s a scared old lady. She just had her livelihood stolen from her. On the other, a man that stole her purse. Robin’s job is to get that woman’s purse back.” He shook his right hand. “Beating up the man is easy.” He shook his left hand. “Any kid that knows basic karate could beat him up. The key is getting the purse to the woman without making a fuss. That’s where Robin comes in. The key to Robin is that it isn’t a rank, it’s a role, it’s a performance. Like it or not, we are forced to play a character established by a traumatized eight year old acrobatic Dickhead, mostly to deal with his own issues and balance out his equally immature adult man partner.”

Demon Boy flared his nostrils something fierce. “You certainly hold the role in high regard, despite your obvious bias against its actors.”

“Oh, as if you’ve awarded any one of them much respect either,” Jason chuckled darkly as he returned to his food, content to move away from the kitchen and away from the brat. “Didn’t you try to kill ole Timbo?”

“Didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I did.” He laughed at the fond memory. “Not a bad kid. Misguided, maybe. All you baby vigilantes are.”

“If I recall, Drake is only a year younger than you and has been Robin for a tenure over twice the length of your own.”

Jason’s smile dropped. Smart ass kid. “All the same, I hate to see the part played badly. I dyed my fucking hair to play it. Robin isn’t about fighting, he’s about cracking jokes, friendly winks, whatever little gestures that can mitigate the same panic Bruce thrives in. Batman exists in the shadows, Robin exists in the light. Through contrast, you either make Batman less or scary. Even alone, you exist entirely within the context of Batman. You’re essentially meant to be the part of him that’s actually approachable as somewhat of a human being. That’s your big issue, kid.”

“That I’m unapproachable?”

“That you’re barely a human being.”

The Demon Boy’s endless prattling thankfully ended there. Jason had switched the TV on, meaning he had every excuse not to look at the kid. He grunted with disappointment once he realized that his once-in-a-lifetime omelet was now gone from this world. He was meant to experience a delicacy that perfect in silence. Not like this. After some time, he heard steps away, followed shortly by the opening of the Batpoles. Upon the sound of hands sliding down, he let out a harsh sigh that he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Sunday, 2:27pm (5 Days to Gala)

For once, the Bat Signal filtering the cloudy mists of the Gotham skyline was not activated by the Bat herself. Nature truly was healing, as the police now sought Batman’s attention rather than the inverse they had been toying with. Who was Batman to reject such a kind invitation.

The flight to the police headquarters revealed James Gordon, snow white hair blowing against the wind, trying his damndest to light his latest cigarette. Man couldn’t go a single meeting without taking one, it seemed. It was concerning, yet Batman figured there were more concerning matters on the docket. She landed gracefully, slowly, right behind the man. After so sneaky entrances from Bruce, she couldn’t wait to finally be on the giving end of one.

“Ah. You’re here.” Gordon was completely nonplussed as he swirled around to face his summoned hero. Damn. Some other time then. “It’s been a second, Batman.”

Ah, right, it was best to keep up pretenses. So much of this job was performance, she swore. There wasn’t nearly this much acting involved with Spoiler. “Jim.” That felt like the most Batman thing to say.

“There’s been a murder.” Right to the point, awesome. “2205 Aparo Avenue, Apartment 211.” He handed over a case file for elaboration. It was only once she held it that Batman realized she’d never read a police case file before. “It was clean. Stupid clean.” The relative simplicity of the kill did not make staring at a photo of the corpse any less churning. “Forensics determined that it must have been a sniper. Only issue with that theory is that the place was sandwiched between two taller buildings with rooftops that should have made sniping impossible.” 

“Fascinating.”

“THE HELL?!” Jim Gordon’s glasses nearly flew off his face upon the reveal of the ridiculously-dressed behind his back. “Good lord, kid! You…” His sentence drifted as he adjusted his glasses. “You’re just a kid…”

“And yet, I am doing your job. Give me that.” Robin snatched the file away from his taller partner, much to the commissioner’s bafflement. “We may be looking into a skilled assassin beyond an ordinary hitman.” He flipped to the next page. “Says here the victim was Foley Walker, a known member of the now defunct Sprang Bridge Soldiers. Used to wear a stupid bowler hat.”

“No need to speak ill of the dead,” Gordon grumbled as he stamped out his latest cigarette. He turned subtly to Batman, nodding his head to direct them closer. Once they were in conversation range, he spoke in hushed tones. “You didn’t tell me you had a new Robin. He’s even smaller than the others. He might be smaller than the first .”

Robin noisily cleared his throat before his partner could offer any further insight. “You should know I have very acute hearing.”

“He sorta came with the whole package,” Batman relented, shaking her cowl. Only then did she realize how far she’d strayed from character and did her best to bring her performance back on track. “Anything we should know that we won’t find on that file?”

“Only if you want to eliminate all subtext,” Gordon muttered as he turned away to peer at Gotham on this particularly smoky night. “You’ll see in the report that it took place in a small walkup apartment, about three stories above a nice flower shop. This particular place has a high volume of former criminals, gangsters that have served their time and wish to lay low. We talked with the landlord, she insists that anyone found guilty of falling back into gang activity would be evicted. Says it’s a place for second chances, not final rites.”

“Did she actually say that, or did you really want to say that?”

The commish never answered that question. “What’s odd is that we did a background check on everyone in that building. All of them had a past, but by all accounts, all went straight. Save for Mister Walker. We have evidence that he still had connections to the Khadym Mob, at least up to a month ago. The landlord says she didn’t know. She also says she didn’t see or hear anything, despite living in the apartment right next to his. She was hostile. Everyone in that building was. I can’t blame a single one.”

Batman’s cowl wrinkled along her temple. “Everyone played the ignorance card, huh?”

“Every one.” 

“Makes sense. Last thing any of them needed was more interaction with the police.”

“Sad but understandably, people take a lot less kindly to our symbol than—” He turned around, to find Batman completely vanished. “-yours.” Oddly, Robin remained there, absorbed into the report. Gordon stared at him for several seconds before the boy even realized.

“Hmm?” Robin scanned the rooftop to find his partner, only to find nothing. “What? Batman!” He looked absolutely lost.

Batman realized while she was hanging from the police headquarters that she had forgotten to teach her student the theatrical ways of their job. With a groan, she hiked herself back onto the roof. “Sorry, commissioner,” she was quick to apologize before giving an exasperated nod towards her sidekick. Robin did not appear pleased to be humiliated so thoroughly, even as he joined her rooftop traversal.

Robin was uncharacteristically quiet during the parkour session to the apartment. Times like that made Batman really wish they had a working Batmobile or anything to get across town by anything besides feet and grappling. Alas, the Owls had been very thorough in their elimination of iconic transportation. They had little choice but to stick to the sky, where the air was oh so silent. It felt heavier with each mile they traversed towards their destination, which turned out to be a great many.

Breaking into the scene of the crime was easy. Batman could open any window that wasn’t bolted down, and it wasn’t difficult to find the one shattered by a sniper rifle firing point blank. The tape outline of the victim was still there, morbidly enough, decorating the midnight blue carpet that smelt violently of tobacco baked into the fabric. The police hadn’t done much to tidy the place, considering the ecosystem of ants crawling the floor to collect the last of the man’s sustenance. She didn’t see rats, but they were definitely a given. Foley wasn’t the cleanest of men, not that the 1960s infrastructure left much for luxury.

While the world’s greatest World’s Greatest Detective impersonator investigated, she began to muse. “Ya know, if we had a working computer and a working Oracle, I could work out exactly what kind of gun was used and search a database for everyone that’s bought that gun in the past ten years. Instead, we only know what the police have told us, after they’ve already cleared the crime scene. I don’t think we’ll find anything here.”

“Then why are we here?” Robin asked impatiently.

“Doesn’t hurt to double-check. Or something.” Regretfully, every moment spent at the crime scene made her less certain of her role in the matter. Spoiler was a semi-professional butt-kicker, and Bruce had taught her basic forensics, but that was all with technology and resources they no longer possessed. At no point had she expressed interest in the role of detective, yet here she was, thrust into it. As with this entire farce so far, she had to learn the part quick, lest more people die. 

“Let the record show that the victim died as he lived: in squalor.” Robin’s joke suggested he hadn’t found anything new as well.

“My English teacher would have loved you.” The who of the mystery was hardly going to present themselves, so Batman realized it was better to switch to why . “The commish made it sound like the owner was hiding something. Why else would she let a known active criminal into her house of reformed criminals?”

“A soft spot? My studies into Gotham civic structure suggest landlords are not commonly known for their moral consistency.”

“It’s worth investigating.” 

Batman waltzed out of the apartment the way they came in, before slipping onto the adjacent balcony. This one was far more decorated, the old building given new life with colorful herbs and jasmine and maples and that was the extent of her plant knowledge. Her knowledge of breaking and entering remained unrivaled, thankfully, which allowed them to slip into the landlord’s apartment. Unlike the last one, there was a body still within, one very much alive.

The report identified her as Emily Livingston, the widow of a big-time Irish gangster for over two decades. Despite making quite a name for herself at her romantic peak, her record was practically spotless following her husband’s sudden demise. To some degree, Batman admired the woman, whom she could spot preparing what smelt like a fine beef stew in her kitchen. Years had grayed parts of the woman’s fiery red curls, but they did not dull her reflexes. She may not have seen Batman enter, but she was very quick to draw a pistol from her kitchen drawer in a matter of seconds upon sighting him looming in her living room.

“I wouldn’t move, Bat ,” she threatened, voice laced with venom. “I already told the police everything I know.”

“I’m not the police, ma’am.” Batman made sure not to move an inch. “I’m also wearing a bulletproof suit.”

Emily squinted, refusing to budge. “Come here to threaten info out of me? Hang me outta window?”

“Of course not. As I said, I’m not the police.” Batman took several steps forward towards the gun. “I don’t work for them, and nothing said between the two of us is on the record. I’m not here to cast judgment, only to ensure that you and your tenets are safe after last night’s…incident.”

“Ya mean poor Foley getting a bullet straight through his heart?” The woman was bitter, as she had every right to be. “We’re safe. We look out after each other. Keep each other out of trouble.”

“Even though Walker was very actively in trouble?” The cowl tilted ever so slightly. “He still possessed mob connections, yet you kept him here regardless.”

“I didn’t know anything about that,” Emily insisted, same as with the cops. She did put her gun away, so hey, progress! “I wouldn’t have let him in if I had known.”

“Livingston, I must reiterate that I am not a cop. I’m only trying to find justice for a dead man. His history, his occupation, his sins, none of them are important to the matter at hand, unless they pertain to why he’s dead.”

The woman still wasn’t sold. She allowed her glare to divert briefly to bring her stove down to a simmer, before returning to the target of her ire. “You swear not to tell anyone? No cops, no baddies, nothing?”

“Swear on my life.”

“Yeah, well, we all thought you were dead a week ago, so not sure what that’s worth.” Batman could see the arithmetic working out in her brain, all the risks and rewards that could come from this meeting. “You wanna know why I kept Foley around while he was in the mob?”

“I would appreciate it.”

“Because we pressured him to join the mob,” Emily finally revealed. “He was a good kid, for all he’s done. The Sprang Bridge Soldiers were folded into the Khadym mob some time ago. Lotsa tiny gangs have been getting swallowed up by the big guys lately. Like a massive corporate restructuring of crime.”

Batman noticed. Part of her was positively giddy to realize her hunch was correct. Another was worried she was falling straight into another owl-related fiasco. “I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, well, my contacts were getting antsy. I ain’t involved in funny business anymore, but I keep track of folks that are.” She sighed as she allowed her body to slink slightly against her dishwasher. “My tenants, they got buddies too, right? We all got worried about what was happening. Foley volunteered to find out for us, God rest his soul. Infiltrated the mob that absorbed his boys, reported back to us all informant-like.”

“I see.” Batman remained unmoving and unemotive. “I would guess his new employers didn’t enjoy finding this out.”

“Nobody likes a snitch.” Emily laughed a terrible imploding laugh. “As if I’m one to talk. Look at me.” The woman had a heart, it was plain as day. This entire conversation was a blatant betrayal of nearly every instinct she’d learned over her life.

Good. That meant the mask was working. “Do you feel in any danger telling me all this?”

“No. No no, I don’t think anyone is going to hunt me down for this.” Red curls flew around as she shook her head. “Cuz I know who killed him. Came right up to my door after the whole thing.”

“The killer came to you?” Batman took two steps forward.

“Yep. Wasn’t no no-name either. Gave me his card. If you’ll excuse me.” Emily reached into her pocket, summoning a wallet that cracked over to summon a card, which then slid across her countertop. The card was a simple but effective matte stock, primarily red with yellow coloring. There was even a stylish graphic of a sniper reticle. Cute.

DEADSHOT:

KILLER FOR HIRE

NOW ACCEPTING COMMISSIONS

PRICES NEGOTIABLE

On the back was a phone number, with specific instructions to ask for Floyd. The mask didn’t react beyond a squint. Deadshot was a name. Whenever anyone mentioned the deadliest assassins in the hero game, they typically mentioned Deadshot in the same breath as Cain or Deathstroke. He was one of if not the best of the world’s greatest marksmans.  For him, jumping off a building and shooting a man directly in the heart with a sniper rifle amounted to hotdogging it, a way to keep a standard job from getting boring. No doubt, he could have just as easily knocked down the guy’s door and shot him and left, but no. He was the best, so he had to show it.

The first Batman managed to defeat the guy multiple times. The current one was shot multiple times by a man that wasn’t even that good at guns, but was very good at sending people into comas. 

“This changes nothing, doesn’t it?” Emily hummed as she summoned a bowl and a ladle for her stew. “Congrats, you found your man. He’s a known unstoppable killing machine with no real allegiance, who left his card with multiple people in this building in case they wanted to, and I quote, ‘get revenge for the guy I just killed.’” 

Batman pocketed the card. “I’ll investigate further. Thank you, Miss Livingston.”

“Yeah yeah, just don’t be breaking into my place no more. That includes my tenets, ya here?” She swirled her ladle commandingly.

“So long as you keep them out of trouble. I would suggest no longer using them as bait.” She swiftly turned her back, cape flapping about behind her. “Come, Robin. We got what we wanted.” Robin promptly popped out from his hiding spot behind the landlord’s couch, gave a nod, and followed their larger partner out.

“Wait, is that a fuckin’ kid?!”

Whatever other questions Miss Livingston had loaded fell on deaf ears as the duo returned to the cloudy Gotham night. Batman in particular was lost in thought, flying through the air without any real destination or purpose. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure what her purpose was right now. Deadshot had killed and that was bad, but what was she supposed to do? Go after Deadshot? A man that could kill her from ten blocks away if someone paid him to? That was insane! That was…

The job. It was the job. Spoiler didn’t have to deal with this, but Batman very much did, because if he didn’t, no one else would. She no longer supported the weight of the city, she was carrying it on her back and, for the first time, that truly daunted her. There wasn’t any Bruce that knew his enemy’s moves five days before they made them, there wasn’t any Cass that could dodge bullets in real-time, there wasn’t even any Barbara to search Deadshot’s embarrassing search history, there was no Tim to—there was no Tim. There was only Stephanie Brown, the shortest Robin in both stature and term, or at least she held that record before the child assassin decided to pick it up.

God, she’d be putting Damian in danger too. Bruce could send children into danger’s way no problem, unless that child happened to be her. She wondered why. She still couldn’t understand. Her best working theory, as much as anyone could pin Bruce down as a logical creature, was that he saw what she saw in her own Robin right now: a child so full of opportunity, that nonetheless insisted on fighting in a silly costume because that was the main thing they knew how to do. Stephanie felt so dead when she wasn’t fighting. She had every opportunity to stop, to experience a normal life, but it always made her antsy because she knew there was so much stuff out there she disliked that she wasn’t punching in the face. Maybe that’s what Bruce saw that scared him so much: a kid with no sense of duty powered purely by rebellion. He’d be right on the money. Unfortunately, Bruce was gone now, leaving her devoid of her primary source of spite.

There was nothing left to prove to him or anyone. She was Batman now, by default more than anything. Someone had to be, and the onus set on her, by whatever twists of fate.

“....an….atman…BROWN!”

“Wha-huh?” She hadn’t even noticed she’d fallen into a trance of her own thoughts until Robin pierced her thick skull.

“Your tendency to lose spatial awareness at a moment’s drop has become increasingly disturbing,” the boy insulted in his regular long-winded way. Christ, she really was getting way too used to him. “Where are we even going?”

“I…” Where were they going? By the looks of it, they were merely on the same route that got them to the building earlier, only in reverse. The GCPD HQ was already in sight. Maybe that’s where she was needed. Yeah. She needed to report that, at the very least, the case was solved, if not closed. Some sliver of her soul also longed for someone that could alleviate her increasingly weighty burden. “I’m dropping in on the commissioner again. You stand guard on the rooftops, alright? This is strictly Batman-Commissioner business.”

“Tt. Fine.” Robin didn’t hide his disdain for the lack of action he was awarded for all his relatively good behavior. Batman knew that look well, considering the number of times she’d worn it.

Whatever. She wasn’t in the mood for much more self-reflection, so no use negotiating with a mirror. Instead, she snuck off into Gordon’s office, using the same techniques as before. She was halfway through the window before the man himself switched the lights on, having reentered his office at the same time with a half-eaten danish and a new case file. He paused, though his face hardly displayed any real reaction. 

“You really have to get better at that.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Fuck, she really was in a funk right now. She still closed the window to stop the draft. “I solved your case. At least, I know who the murderer was.”

“Was it Deadshot?”

Oh. That chill down her spine probably wasn’t very Batman-like. “Y-yeah. How did you know?”

“New case, new bodies.” Gordon set the file on his desk, opening it to reveal the gruesome details. Among the files was a card, identical to the one stored in Batman’s pouch. “Two men, both former members of the Deacons that were recently absorbed into the Maroni family. One bullet, two kills.”

“Hearing that word a lot lately; absorb . I hate it.”

“I’m not a fan either.” Didn’t stop him from finishing his pastry. “Hate to say it, but not a lot my boys can do about Deadshot. We’ve had run-ins with him before.” He scratched underneath his mustache as he kept staring at the file. “I’m so tired of funerals.”

“So, you’re just going to do nothing ?” Batman didn’t mean to release so much passion in her tone, but she also didn’t count on being this agitated. “There’s an honest to god mercenary out there killing people.”

“I apologize if I keep my men’s wellbeing in mind, Batman .” Now he was looking agitated. “The higher-ups are unlikely to prioritize these cases in the first place. This is Gotham, people are being murdered every hour on the hour. These are open-shut cases. There’s no way we’ll get approval for going after a highly-trained assassin that’s only killing low-rank criminals.”

“Only? He’s killing them, Gordon!” Batman’s hand slammed against the file as her cowl’s whites grew as wide as they could. “Fucking killing them! Three men are already dead! Maybe they weren’t pillars of the community, but—” But she was Batman now. And Batman didn’t let things like this happen. If she couldn’t stop a single killing spree, what use was she? The path was clear now, and it only grew more terrifying. “These people have every right to live. No one can become a better person if they’re dead. Gotham can’t heal with all this senseless killing, even to awful people.” And Gotham’s many wounds were her responsibility now, weren’t they?

“I can’t control this,” Gordon insisted in that annoying stern dad voice, like he knew better than anyone because of how much his bones hurt. “You’ve got spirit, kid, but I really cannot in good conscience recommend you follow this case. You already had one funeral.”

An eye twitched. “Don’t call me kid.” A swoop of the cape got the case file in her clutches. “I’m Batman.” A batarang hit the light switch, allowing her to flow back into the darkness. Batman had a villain to catch.

Monday, 12:16pm (4 Days to Gala)

“Thought you said you were fine with me killing people that deserve it. Singing a real different tune now, aren’t we, Blondie?” Jason was achieving some heretofore unknown levels of snark the longer he remained largely confined to this couch. The couch was comfy, he’d give it that.

“Shut up.” Well jeez, fine. There wasn’t much to do around this boring building besides make conversation, yet even that liberty was being denied. All he was seemingly allowed to do was slump over and watch Stephanie dial the number for Gotham’s greatest gunman. 

“I’m telling you, this isn’t going to work,” he insisted on saying despite his interruptions. “This is only going to end in disaster. Or murder! And while it’s hard to believe, I would prefer you more on the living side right now. That’s as mushy as I’m willing to be.”

“Shhhh!!” She shushed him. Like she was some sort of kindergarten teacher! This was so far from the strange, upbeat girl that recruited him; this was much closer to the girl that waltzed into his lair with zero shits besides saving her annoying brat friend. He hadn’t seen this level of intensity on her since, even in the midst of battle. It was fascinating to watch.

Sublimating to her demands, the room fell silent, up until dial tones filled the void. Sound flickered on and off for regular intervals, until—

“Bienvenue~! You have reached the auspicious and even more ostentatious domain of the Secret Six! You are speaking to perhaps the most ostentatious of us all: favorite villain’s least favorite villain, Rag-Doll~! You should have seen how swiftly I crawled to your attention, I imagine it was quite disquieting.”

Jason did not hide his grin over Stephanie’s face of immediate regret. She eyed him, to which he could only give a smug shrug, before waving to make her continue. “Y-yes, uhhh, I got a card about Deadshot. The back had this number and told me to ask for Floyd, so…” She wasn’t the most skillful liar, but she had heart.

“Ah yes! Been getting lots of calls for that incorrigible scoundrel. He’s currently in Gotham, so he placed me in charge of his secretarial duties~! He prefers discussing matters up-close and personal, however; you know, within shooting range in case things go south?” Oh, Steph gulped at that part. “Tell me the place and time to discuss matters and I shall sound his alarm post-haste!”

“Oh! Okay, uhhhh—” Unforeseen complications, the enemy of improv! “Perfect Split Bowling Alley. 8pm sharp.”

“Oooh, looks like he already has an appointment for 6pm that may extend into 7pm…” Rag-Doll incessantly clicked a pen on and off. “8pm is also usually his dinner break. Then smoke break, then he was planning to see a movie…ah! How about we slot you in for 11pm?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that works.” The way Blondie’s face scrunched up in irritation like that was pretty cute. For his continued wellbeing, Jason kept this private. “I’ll see him then.”

“Parfait! That’s French for perfect. I’m trying something new to sound either more or less ghoulish. Either way, I do intend to double down. A penny for your thoughts, sir or madam or not?”

“Uh. Less …”

“Enough for me! Do remember your down payment of two thousand dollars. Have a splenderful day, and I truly do hope you savor your murder.” And like that, it was done.

Steph slowly lowered the phone, looking towards the sky only briefly to expand her mouth into a non-scream, before snapping back to neutrality. “Can’t believe I just ordered a hit…”

“Correction: you ordered negotiations for a hit, a spirited discussion with the world’s greatest shooty man. Maybe.” Jason shrugged as he leaned back and got even more comfy on the couch. There was something so freeing about never having to change out of pajamas all day. Truly, he was living the dream. “Gonna need to grow thicker skin than that if you wanna go full Dark Knight.”

“Like I need to. I’m only keeping the suit warm anyway. Ya know, until we fix all this mess.”

“Warm?” Jason laughed, on account of it being funny. “Warm for who? Alfred? Call me crazy, but I don’t really see Dick giving up his good Nightwing gig just because you weren’t feeling it. I mean, maybe Tim would–”

“Tim would rather die than become Batman.”

“What makes you say that?”

“No, I mean literally. He would rather die than become Batman.” Her face was stupid serious. “No exaggeration, definitively.”

“Oh.” Jason wasn’t really sure what to say to that. “Well. I guess that only leaves the Demon Boy, doesn’t it? Let him finally fulfill his big dream, fit his tiny lil legs inside the bat costume and let him loose on Gotham.”

“Fuck no.” Steph’s reaction was immediate and certain. “The absolute last thing Damian needs is getting drawn closer into his dad’s bullshit. The kid’s barely had a chance to be a kid. He’s a good—well no, he’s getting better at his job, but he’s obviously only doing it because of his dad. He’s all stuck in his head about his genetic destiny or whatever, like his dad should have anything to do with what he does with his life.”

“Sensing some projection.” Jason was quick to fire back with a self-satisfied smile. Steph didn’t look nearly as satisfied, electing to only roll her eyes before leaving the room. He felt a sense of victory over a fight he wasn’t even fighting.

Monday, 11:42pm (4 Days to Gala)

Damian was not a fan of repeating himself, yet Brown had insisted on returning to familiar ground. They knew how the bowling alley worked, after all, which made it the perfect trap to her logic. He could not deny their effectiveness using it earlier. The place had become defunct since its owner was found guilty of aiding and abetting Two-Face, allowing Gotham to add yet another business to its mortality rate. Truly, this city abandoned buildings at an even greater rate than it murdered its citizens.

Perched atop the lights in his Robin costume, he began to ponder the logistics of his colorful uniform. He was taught the art of blending into the shadows, a task typically performed in dark clothing that, suffice to say, blended into the shadows. Yet, here he stood in the bright, colorful garb in homage to a boy he never really knew. He had interacted with Grayson briefly following the resurrection of Damian’s grandfather and during the proceeding debacle. He was an acrobat, he was told, a clown with skills the drooling masses deemed impressive, dressed in a garish palette that could be identifiable no matter how high or how low he performed. Then, he stopped being a performer and became a hero in much the same uniform.

Now, Damian wore that uniform, largely as arbitration. Despite his copious, truly innumerable skills, he was not yet a master, therefore he dressed in the increasingly traditional garb of the student. Unfortunately, his choice of mentors were lacking, to say the least. Richard Grayson was perhaps the only Robin that could be labeled a “success” by most conventions, if only because he graduated from the title without getting himself killed. Brown and Todd, suffice to say, did not fit that criteria. They were failures by most definitions, though the longer he observed them, the more he pondered if they had indeed failed Robin, or if Robin was the means of their ultimate downfall. Todd spoke a great deal of nonsense, yet he hit upon an undeniable truth that Robin was a role created for the specific needs of a specific person. None of the three of them were Richard Grayson, so could any of them ever truly be Robin? By that logic, if he was not Bruce Wayne, could he ever truly be Batman?.

Such conclusions led down a disturbing trail of thought. Philosophy was hardly Damian’s favorite discipline, yet his entire life was predicated on ideas like these. He was the son of a symbol, locked in conflict with the symbol of his grandfather, his mother constantly torn between the two. He had only lived thus far because of what his father meant to his grandfather, rather than what he truly was; Ra’s al Ghul rarely had much use for his offspring’s offspring, his mother had told him, and he was not a collector of useless things. Damian was only alive because he was meant to mean something for the al Ghul bloodline, only that something turned out to be a healthy young body for a dead old man. Following that reveal, the boy concluded that the demon part of his destiny was a dead end, so he chose to invest heavily in the bat part. Yet, even that, it appeared, was heavily compromised. All that remained were those without pedigree or accomplishment.

“Lil Bird, how we lookin?” 

Damian did not appreciate Brown’s nickname ringing in his earpiece, but he chose not to waste time arguing. “Everything is set. Any visuals on our target?”

“Yeah. Also just realized how funny it is to call the guy a target. Heh.” Brown obviously had fewer qualms with wasting time. Fortunately for him, it was but seconds before she spoke again. “Okay, he’s outside. Get ready.”

Right. Damian shook his head, repeating his role in his head. Robin, Robin, Robin, Robin. Philosophy could wait, forever if possible.

As announced, Deadshot walked in through the front door. Robin only had a couple images from the internet to work off, but the merc made it very easy to take one glance and instantly think “Deadshot.” His outfit was idiotically bright and garish, though the colors were not too dissimilar from the kid’s own, so he tried to tamper his judgments just this once. He could judge the sheer amount of chrome that reflected off the man’s body. That was stupid. As was the literal target buckled to the front of his chest. The glowing red reticle over his right eye was more than enough to communicate his theme, that target was little more than a taunt for someone to try and shoot him. Robin supposed it would be a difficult task.

“Yo!” he cried out as he got closer to the center of the main floor of the alley. “God, hope I got the right abandoned bowlin’ alley. This place looks a lot swankier than the other ones ‘round here.” He continued peering around, never looking very concerned or giving any sort of tells. Robin was expecting a more trigger-happy man from the descriptions he’d heard, yet this man looked entirely composed despite the eeriness of his situation. “This better not be a trap. I don’t take kindly to those.”

“Hit it.” Robin nodded to no one before whipping out a batarang and managing a perfect throw in one fluid motion. God, he was good. The lights died. 

Even still, the man did not panic. The only change in body language was a slight slumping of the shoulders. “Ah hell. We’re really doin’ this?” The man still was not reacting.

A techno beat filled the bowling alley, much like before. There were the gentle tappings of a cymbal. Robin had never heard this song before and he already did not care for it. Instead, he remained cloaked in the shadows, throwing down smoke bombs towards the hired killer below. He then pressed a button that activated three smoke machines that they found in the storage closet. The boy’s mask made it easy to see his enemy and his ally through the fog, meaning he had a front row seat to…Deadshot standing there. Still no change, he was completely nonplussed about all this.

Concerning. Batman’s imposing silhouette was forming along the bowling alley, body cast in perfect shadow, to absolutely no reaction. And Robin could only stand up and watch the man do nothing except stare at Batman, likely rolling his eyes underneath his metallic mask and—oh shit. His reticle. It looked at him. Robin dashed just as a bullet launched his way.

The lights fell and shattered, right in front of the startled Batman. Robin wasn't entirely sure what to do in those precious moments. He really wanted this man’s head for daring to shoot at him, but Deadshot could see him, meaning any frontal assault would be suicidal. Best he could do was grapple onto the suspended bowling screens below, even as their killer shot every single screen there as a warning.

“Hey, idiot!” Robin saw the man get distracted by a batarang to his chrome dome. Deadshot finally turned away from him and set his sights on his true attacker.

“Idiot?” He cackled mockingly as he pointed his wrist guns at Batman. “You’re the one that started a fight with me, pal. Now, I know you ain’t the real bat. Me an’ him tousled in a sorta battle of wits sorta thing. Didn’t mind losin’ for the most part, but he was smart. When he lured me into a trap, he knew he had control. First time we fought, he filled my gun full of blanks beforehand. But look at these.” He fired three blasts into the air, giving the ceiling three fresh holes. The whistling from these holes courtesy of the strong winds outside were already overtaking whatever inane lyrics the techno had to offer. “Those aren’t blanks.”

Robin was left watching his mentor barely dodge each bullet Deadshot hurled towards her. She threw batarangs, but each only got shot down nonchalantly before the gunman focused more on her body. If he even was. It looked as if he were toying with her more than anything. He was ripping parts of her cape, hitting things right next to her, yet never connecting to her flesh with the precision he so obviously had.

“Ya know, we could just end this now, call it draw or what have ya.” Deadshot’s offer was met with several flashbang balls. They ignited, though his only reaction was his reticle changing from red to blue. “Nice one. Like I was sayin’, don’t really wanna kill ya. I don’t know who you are, and frankly, I couldn’t give less of a shit. But I’m sure you’re gonna anger a lot of people with a lotta money to spend, so I can’t kill ya just yet. Not for free!” Batman took the monologue as a chance to go for a gut punch right on the guy’s chest target, only for him to throw the first punch and retaliate into Batman’s own stomach. His reflexes were quick, he was relaxed and professional, and Brown—she was none of those things.

“You need to…stop this!” But Brown was resilient. She got back up and went back to helplessly throwing batarangs. An attempt was made to shoot her grapple gun, only for that too to become diverted by a more powerful blast from Deadshot’s gauntlet. 

All in all, the man had barely moved while Batman was only growing more desperate. There was no way to win this fight, Robin concluded. Not by Batman’s rules. Not even by Robin’s rules. Brown’s idealism had nearly won him over, convincing him that her way was the one of his father before her. Only his father wasn’t fighting right now, nor was Dick Grayson here for support. All he saw was Stephanie Brown making a fool of herself, seemingly ready to get herself killed, while Damian Wayne watched from above.

Damian realized he wasn’t Robin. Robin was likable. Robin was a glorified cheerleader for a man so unstable that he needed a kid mascot around to help him throw his punches. Robin was Richard Grayson, and Damian was no circus freak doing cartwheels for the love and admiration of total strangers. Stephanie Brown did not need Richard Grayson, which was good, considering he was not here. She needed someone to counteract her currently useless theatricality with real pragmatism.

Luckily for her, Damian never suited up without his daggers. Brown had insisted on their retirement, to which he would begrudgingly accept before secretly refusing. If they could not stop this man like Batman, he would reach his end like the League. Dashing off from his high perch, the boy mused that this was perhaps a fitting fate of a homegrown assassin. His daggers would be able to pierce even that silly chrome exterior.

At least, he assumed. The daggers never did connect. It was difficult to hold them straight once Deadshot shot straight through Damian’s left shoulder. The shot at his left hip hardly helped his aim either. All this served was to make the kid fall helplessly to the ground. He noticed that the blood on the ground was his blood. That was unideal. This entire situation wasn’t really what he wanted.

“DAMIAN!!!” Wow, he’d never heard Stephanie’s voice get that high before. Stupid girl, using his real name on the field. Way to break the illusion. The dumb, dumb illusion. This was all so dumb. He wanted to yell at her, but he was far too busy concentrating on keeping the pain tolerable. The League had taught him many ways to deal with pain. They only had so many solutions to bullet wounds, unfortunately.

“Whelp, I’m just gonna head on outta here. Call me if you actually want me to kill someone. Until then, don’t bother me. I have a small quota I need to reach by the end of the week, then commissions will close and I’ll be out of your hair. And don’t worry, none of those places were lethal. I assume he meant worse.” He did. He really did. “Probably wanna get him looked at all quick-like though. That’s a lot of blood, ya know?”

So smarmy. If Damian could look the man in the eyes right now, he’d projectile spit into both of them. He could do it. Not now, of course. There wasn’t much else Damian could do right now except fall asleep and trust Brown to aid him. He didn’t enjoy doing either.

Tuesday, 12:03am (3 Days to Gala)

Crystal Brown had a towel wrapped around her head when the phone rang for the third time. Here she was expecting a pleasant evening to herself. How silly of her to imagine. She finally picked it up, not even bothering to check the caller ID. “Brown residence, Crystal speaking.”

“MOM.” The woman’s spine straightened as she immediately went into crisis mode. “Mom, I need you to open the door in about thirty seconds. It’s an emergency!” She could hear the rapid dashing of feet.

“Steph! Baby, what’s wrong? What’s happening?” Crystal did her best not to jump to conclusions, but a million dangerous scenarios were already playing in the back of her mind. “You’re coming here?”

“YES!!” Her baby’s voice was in a full panic. “Sorry! Sorry. Just…don’t freak out, okay? Don’t freak out!”

“Why would I freak out, baby?”

“I said don’t! I’m swinging down.”

“S-swinging? Steph, what is going on? Whatever you’re doing, I don’t need to know about—”

“Please, mom. I need your help right now. Doctor Thompkins is too far, I don’t have a fucking car, he needs your help right now.”

“Who needs me?” The phone hung up a second before there was a banging at her door. Crystal braced herself as best she could, yet even she couldn’t keep her hand steady as it inched towards the knob. The knob was nonetheless soon twisted, allowing the door to creak open to reveal her daughter’s concerns.

What she saw was Batman, cloaked in a familiar purple hood, holding a boy. A boy dressed as Robin and covered in blood. Christ, he was so small. But he was visibly breathing. Crystal didn’t allow herself much time to freak out. She clenched her fists, steeling herself as she went into nurse mode. “Put him on my bed.” Her daughter nodded under mask, rushing the boy to her room.

There was no time to ask questions, no time to relieve tension. Crystal Brown had a job, same as her daughter.

Chapter Text

Damian is six years old and he is alone at the top of a mountain.

He has traveled here with a small caravan of his mother’s aids, teachers of both scholarly and lethal disciplines that his mother continually entrusted with his care. Damian trusts them as well, knowing them longer than he’s known anyone besides his mother. He realizes he was wrong to trust them by hour three of being freezing, starving, alone. He never learns if they meant to abandon him. He would be even more furious if they had simply forgotten him. 

For the first time in his life, Damian feels a grudge. It’s an intoxicating emotion that he grasps firmly. It’s what allows him to find shelter, to create fire, to hunt the animals dumb enough to live this close to the stratosphere. He finds his way down, still freezing, very sick, but very much alive, and still holding that grudge. When he returns home, the aids are there. His mother returns the next day, asks him about his learning expenditure. He’s never certain if his mother requested his abandonment. He never asks. He merely holds on to that grudge.

He is encircled by those conspiring against him. Men that refuse to look him in the eye, either out of disgust or fear, whether for himself or his mother, yet always look down at him once his back is turned. They think he can’t see them. They’re wrong. He can never tell anyone’s intentions, where deception begins and ends, so he focuses on his own. 

Damian is seven years old and he has his first kill. 

He kills the swordsman that left him with his own blade. He has followed the man’s teachings to their logical conclusion, having surpassed him in skill and cunning. He wants to feel more from it. He doesn’t. He looks to the other men that abandoned him, watching this momentous occasion. They look away. He smirks. The grudge is intoxicating.

Eyes are always on him, but they turn away the moment he meets them. He is not meant to exist. Damian al Ghul is an aberration to the destiny of Ra’s al Ghul, a destiny sought by thousands of eyes. His mother tells him such when he is small, so that he may understand that he is a miracle. As he grows older, he decides she is right. He is a miracle. He has his own destiny charted by his blood. He holds onto that destiny like his grudge. It becomes impossible to tell the two apart.

Damian is six years old and he is alone at the top of a mountain.

Tuesday, 2:15am (3 Days to Gala)

“Alright. Okay. He's stable.” 

The sentence was the first source of relief Stephanie was allowed the past several hours. She looked down at Damian and his red bandages, blood still threatening to escape his fragile little body. All the internal matters were accounted for, thankfully, all openings stitched up. She hoped. Her mom made her do half the stitches. Stephanie was admittedly out of practice, having only ever stitched her own wounds in private before. She did her best. She hoped it was enough. So far, her best was not amounting to much. All it amounted to was very literal blood on her hands.

“Mom, I—-god, I don’t know whether to start unloading all the thanks yous or I’m sorries first.” By now, her mask was off in every sense of the word, allowing Crystal a full view of every emotion on her daughter’s face; there were a lot, none of them particularly comforting.

“Baby. Baby, I…” Crystal allowed herself to trail off as she took off her own bloody gloves to throw in the trash “I have a morning shift, you know. I don’t have time to—I don’t have time to even think about…any of this. Any of this. Christ…” The nurse’s head collapsed into her hands as she tried to reacclimate herself to reality after her extended fugue state. 

It was disturbingly familiar behavior for her daughter to witness. These were little tics she watched her mother use in any attempt to think beyond the haze of alcohol and painkillers. The sight sickens her nearly as much as the viscera leftover from her partner. “Mom, I—” She didn’t have more of a sentence in mind before she made the sounds. Typically, her tongue would find some sound to make, yet not in this case. Her mouth seals shut.

Crystal walked to the kitchen. Stephanie follows her. The older woman reached into the fridge and thankfully only pulled out orange juice. They were low. Stephanie promised to buy more while her mom was at work, back whenever she believed in getting a good night’s sleep. That was a fool's dream for the both of them now, she realized. Her mother decided to make it through the rest of the night on some pulped orange juice in a coffee mug.

After a good sip, it was the mother that broke the uneasy quiet first. “So. Your Robin’s a kid.”

“Y-yeah.” There was no use denying that. “He told me he was ten. Bragged about it, even.” A nervous laugh cracked out of her. “You seem more surprised by him than me.”

“I knew you were off doing something stupid.” Ouch. Evidently, it was too late and one bleeding kid too much for her mom to pull any punches. “I knew I couldn’t stop you. Hell, to some degree, I—I was proud of you! Christ…” Her fingers started massaging her temples. This too was familiar. An attempt for Stephanie to step forward was met by a hand asking her to stop. “I thought you were with Timothy. Where the hell is Tim in all this?”

The question stung. As far as Stephanie was concerned, Tim existed purely in a special corner of her brain that she purposefully ignored, lest her brain would turn her heart asunder. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?!” Crystal clutched her mug handle tight. Her eyes were burning with hurt and confusion, which all boiled into some pathetic form of anger. “You’ve been saying you’ve been staying with Tim. But this entire time — this ENTIRE time — you’ve been playing dress-up to put some little kid in danger?!”

“Mom, he’s like me.”

“What do you mean he’s like you?!” Her mug slammed onto the counter, while her face obviously struggled to understand anything her daughter was saying. “He can’t spend a week without dressing up in a silly costume and getting himself shot?!”

“No, he really can’t.” Stephanie decided to pull out a chair to slump her Batman butt into. “He’s more than prepared. He was raised by fucking assassins! None of this would have happened if—see?” Her mother’s visible confusion was not helping. “See, this is why I never talked about this stuff with you! It’s impossible to talk about without sounding crazy. Like I have some sort of incurable psychosis.”

“Wouldn’t be the only one in the family…” This really wasn’t Steph’s day, was it? She couldn’t stop stepping on rake after rake. There were enough hot button topics active right now to make everything lukewarm. “You said the kid’s an assassin?”

“ Raised by assassins,” she was quick to clarify. “Or, I dunno, maybe. Whatever. Point is, he was dancing around as Robin before I even got back home. I became Batman partially to keep him from getting himself killed.”

“Like you did.”

“Yeah. You’re catching on, mom. Congrats.” At this point, Stephanie was happy to let her body die slumped against the dining room chair. She stared up at the rotating ceiling fan, allowing time and space to bend around it, until a loud thud in front of her forced her back into reality. There was a cold glass of milk on the table now, quickly joined by Crystal sitting down with her mug filled with the same.

For several minutes, the women acted robotically, almost as if the other wasn’t there. There were words buzzing in the air, entire arguments and reconciliations being formulated before being discarded as fiction, yet nothing really came out. Stephanie didn’t want to talk right now. Her mother could be angry at her, not like it changed anything. She barely even had a mom before the past two weeks; she could live without one a while longer. All the same, she retained that nagging sense of responsibility for Crystal, always far too nervous to leave her alone for very long.

She could only imagine what her mom was thinking. Actually, she wondered about every single thought she’d ever had since her darling daughter started vigilanting. When did she know? How much did she know? She obviously did, yet never brought it up, never raised any questions or objections until this very moment. Not three days ago, Crystal was telling her how proud she was, that she had permission to be anything she wanted to be. At the time, it felt like an oblique insistence to keep doing her good work that her mother may or may not have known about. Now, she wasn’t too sure. Maybe her mom was only giving her permission to be a lesbian or get a tattoo or whatever. What kind of sane mother would give their kid the okay to keep going out and getting shot out after nearly two years of thinking they were dead?

As her daughter became increasingly lost in her spiral of hypotheticals, it was Crystal that finally broke the silence. “We can skip to the end of this conversation, you know.” What an enigma of a woman.

“Uh. Okay.” Stephanie took one last nervous sip of her milk, placing a short-lived mustache on her lip. “How do you think this is ending?”

“With me telling you that I can’t be a part of this.” Crystal shook her head as she slowly rose back onto her feet. “I’ve turned a blind eye for a while. A long while. I really have, baby. The last thing I need right now is for either of us to get the other in trouble.”

“Are you kicking me out?!” The girl shot up like a bullet. Maybe it wasn’t really wise to jump so immediately to the worst case scenario, but that was Steph’s brain. If she had any control over it, she wouldn’t be in this scenario.

“I…look, honey.” Crystal’s hands rolled as she searched for the proper words to doom her only child. “I’ve been a part of this game before. They investigated and interrogated me thoroughly every time your father did—” She stopped as she saw the look in her child’s eyes, that tiny flare she had whenever her father was mentioned in any context. They hadn’t really discussed the man since Stephanie returned. If she had her way, he would never be discussed in her life ever again. “Police have always had their eye on me. You have no idea how many magic tricks I’ve had to pull just to ward off child protective services.”

“And you never brought up any of this while I was Spoiler?”

“No one cares about Spoiler!” Crystal likely didn’t want to look so exasperated the way she immediately shrunk. “I was worried then, yes, I was always worried, as much as I didn’t let it show. I kept my mouth shut because I thought it was a phase and that you were doing good in the world. Batman himself assured me of both.” 

Bruce talked to his mom back then? Just how friendly were they? Stephanie eliminated this train of thought immediately with a single shiver. Thank the brain for compartmentalization.

Her mother continued. “As much good as I’m sure you did, honey, no one was ever after Spoiler. I trusted you to keep a low profile. Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot on my mind at the time, or at least a lot influencing it, but I understood you weren’t Robin or Black Canary or anyone that really mattered.” Steph did her best to not be too offended. “But now, we’re dealing with this.” She directed her hands towards the bat on her daughter’s chest. “We’re dealing with that .” She then directed towards the room Damian was laying in. “We’re dealing with matters I don’t think either of us are prepared to handle. We’ve only been lucky so far. No one’s asked any questions about my supposedly dead daughter, but with you being out there while also being in here, it’s only a matter of time before someone pieces everything together. The longer I’m associated with you, the sooner the other shoe will drop, and I know it will drop. Especially with Arthur out there, doing hell knows what.”

The girl blinked, replaying the last few seconds of dialogue in her brain, before arching her neck forward slightly. No, she must have heard it wrong. “I’m sorry, what was that last part?”

“Arthur out there, doing hell knows what?”

“Yeah.” She blinked again. “We’re talking about Dad Arthur, right? Who’s also Dead Arthur?”

Crystal was even more mortified than when she first answered the door. “Did—did you not know?”

Damian is eight years old when he finally sneaks up on his mother.

Talia al Ghul is loving, yet unknowable. She is always scheming, always acting. She works with her father, believing in his ends, if not his means. Damian watches in wonder as his mother weaves conspiracies within conspiracies, repeatedly undermining his grandfather while remaining loyal to his cause. He sees how she commands, so different from when they are alone. Damian wants to believe he alone is privy to Talia al Ghul in her entirety. He wants to.

Damian is eight years old when he eavesdrops on his mother with one of her trusted advisors. He wants to display his latest lessons in stealth to make her proud. She talks about him. For once, Talia al Ghul is expressive and candid, her commanding and motherly tones discarded, leaving a woman more real than Damian can accept. She bemoans concern for Damian, what has become of him, what he will become, what she made him be. Much as her father before, she has made her child into a weapon. She ponders if it was for his survival, or her own ambition.

His mother recounts her pregnancy. She recounts the joy she shared with her beloved lover, along with the worry that fueled her deception. His father believes his son died in utero. He must, she insists, until the Dark Knight’s heart has hardened enough to accept the life that he’s been denied. Talia laments what could have been. She could never tell her beloved of their son’s birth, lest both parents deter from their destiny, yet she herself felt too weak to reject her son.

Damian is eight years old when he learns of a life he never had. A life where he, despite all that he is, is nobody. Talia describes her initial plan of leaving her newborn son on the doorstep of a random couple. She vetted them so thoroughly in the past, but now struggles with their names. She forgot their names the moment she held Damian in her arms. She couldn’t let go. Her plans dissolve in an instant, her path redirected, while her son’s destiny is forever charted.

Damian does not take his destiny lightly.

Tuesday, 12:11pm (3 Days to Gala)

“Goddamn. Hell of a thing to drop out of nowhere.”

“RIGHT?! I mean, I guess I also kinda dropped the bomb of me being alive out of nowhere, but, like, I’m me! I’m not my fucking dad! I’m not an active fucking threat or anything!”

“You did bring a ten year old assassin to your mom’s place,” Jason was quick to argue. “Just sayin’.”

“You know that’s different. I’m really not feeling like these verbal games with you right now, Jason. So far, top to bottom, one of my worst days. Depressing that this probably isn’t even cracking the Bottom 15, but it’s down there.”

“Hey, the day is still young! At the very least, you are positive proof that Joker is a little bitch with his whole One Bad Day thing. Oh! There you are…” Jason pulled out a filing drawer that revealed a neat array of carefully labeled envelopes. “I do believe I’ve found our secret societies folder. Mayhaps the day is not completely lost.”

Jason Todd wasn’t a monster. Okay, that was a lie, but Jason Todd did not like being seen as an unhelpful monster. It had been a long time since he’d been anything resembling a team player, but he was really trying to commit to the role. So, whenever Stephanie called, alerting him to how thoroughly she blew the night before, he understood that it was up to him to salvage the day. While Damian was currently in a bleeding coma and Stephanie was watching him vigilantly, Jason’s bones problems were in remission. Sure, they still made for some uncomfortable cracks and pops, so maybe he wasn’t ready to start parkouring around Gotham. He was ready enough to start transferring from bus to bus to bus, until he reached the place he had so helpfully teased days before.

There were an astonishing number of caves hidden all throughout Gotham, a number no cartographer has ever been able to pinpoint exactly. If a cave has not been recorded into the public record, it was very liable to be infested with bats. Take for example, the neat little cavern tucked away Sommerset Woods, not too far from the former home of Arkham Asylum. Jason recalled being by Bruce’s side whenever they discovered the cave in the aftermath of an Arkham adventure. He helped clear it out with the intention of creating a tertiary Batcave in the event of asylum-based shenanigans, one of many abandoned Batman projects. Luckily, Barbara saw some prime real estate in the cave following No Man’s Land and started using as a backup information source, the repository for emergency physical copies of all of Batman and Orace’s delicate little files. One only required a retinal and voice scan to gain access. To Jason’s rare luck, his log-in still worked and his voice had dropped before they set up the security.

The cave itself was a wonderland of carefully organized filing cabinets, a massive personal library dedicated to the collected works of two genius’ combined schizophrenia. Barbara had organized everything on an advanced, obscure library code that Jason still hadn’t really cracked, so he mostly kept opening and closing every drawer he could to find anything resembling a pattern. This method always eventually worked.

“Order of St. Dumas, League of Assassins, Black Hand, Kobra Cult, Cult of the Blood Red Moon…” Jason listed off into his phone as he flipped and flipped and flipped. “None of these are in alphabetical order. What are we doing, Babs? Oh waitaminute! Bingo!”

A snort crackled out his phone. “Bingo!” Stephanie repeated mockingly. “Someone’s suddenly sounding like a Robin~”

A low growl was his automatic rebuttal, helpful with avoiding the need of any further words. It was the best trick Bruce ever taught him. “I’m about to start sounding like Batman. How does this sound?” He cleared his throat before finding a low rumble in the deepest recesses of his windpipe. “I’M BATMAN. Robin, don’t touch that!”

“Robin! That is not a cupholder!"  Stephanie’s impression wasn’t half-bad, damn. “Robin! That’s too many backflips!!”

“ROBIN, you hit that goon’s ribs way too hard! Try punching softer next time! Like me!” Jason coughed. “Dammit. I really need the ROBIN or I’M BATMAN to get the voice. Lose it fast if I go too long after that.”

“It’s all in the rumble, baby. You have to sustain it, like a growl.” If nothing else, Stephanie definitely had the voice part of Batman down. She nearly had the getting kids killed part down as well.

“I’ll just drop the voice, whatever.” Jason wasn’t bitter about it at all. Besides, he had a file to read. Setting the phone down, he changed his voice to speaker before dramatically clearing his voice once more. “ The Court of Owls does not exist. ” He stopped, immediately scanning over the first sentence again. “Huh.” He went back into it.

“In the advent of my parents’ death, I refused to believe their murder was completely random. Once I ceased drowning in my grief, once Joe Chill had been tried and convicted, I searched for a greater reason for their deaths. Why would the average thug murder Thomas and Martha Wayne over nothing but pocket change and pearls? It didn’t make sense to me; I needed it to make sense. In my search for meaning, I recalled the owl that pestered my father in the days leading to his death. The owl had built a nest in the attic, occasionally flying off at my father’s insistence, but always returning. It made me recall the old rhyme, particularly the part about heeding the warnings of the Court. I concluded that the nest was a warning my parents hadn’t heeded; I concluded that I would destroy the Court of Owls, that I would crush their world as they had crushed mine. In many ways, it was my first true case as a detective. I followed the clues until I finally believed I found their headquarters within a secret room at the long-abandoned social club The Harbor House. I investigated. I found nothing but dust. After a medical emergency, I learned my most important lesson as a detective. I learned to never let my emotions guide me on a case. I needed the Court of Owls to be real and I let that need guide me. It made me superstitious and cowardly, two states I swore to never embody again.”

“Real vague on that medical emergency, huh?” Stephanie rang on the phone. “Poor fucking kid. I kinda keep forgetting he was just some fucking eight year old whenever all this happened. Single digits. He started all this shit earlier than any of us, didn’t he?”

Jason didn’t answer. He just kept staring at the document. He skimmed every passage over and over, hearing Bruce’s voice baked into every word. He had read many of his files before, all written in the same self-serious, distanced tone. This one was written similarly, yet there were little slips, evidence of emotions in the margins. They spoke of regret, fear, anger, everything Bruce did his best to never display. There were always cracks, though. These words recalled the way Bruce used to affect a smile and/or fake a laugh whenever Jason caught a stray glance of some imperceptible emotion across his face. They recalled the way Batman would harden whenever perceiving a particularly heinous act, refusing any questions that might soften his resolve. Bruce was all over this page, speaking directly to Jason.

He didn’t like that. The voice in his head wasn’t new, only now it was coated with a vulnerability Jason couldn’t stand. It wasn’t the soft tone of voice Bruce reserved for offers of reconciliation, that voice only pissed him off. This new voice was raw and unnerving. It almost sounded like Jason.

“Yo, Jason. JASON!!!”  

“Huh! I was—” Jason looked down at the document for a split second before stashing it back away forever. “I was just looking it back over for anything that might actually be helpful, but as per usual, Bruce is withholding any potentially useful information.”

“Really can’t blame him for abandoning a thread that obviously traumatized him as a kid. Dropping the Court of Owls was probably the healthiest decision he’s ever made.”

“Oh yeah, Bruce was famous for his attention to mental health.” Whatever. Jason pocketed the document into his duffel bag for later. “Fuck, what else should we look for while I’m here? Should I start looking for anything owl-related? Should I pick up your dad’s profile or something? I wouldn’t be surprised if Bruce knew your dad was alive and just never told you.”

“I doubt there’s anything he would know that I don’t.” Oh, that tone was bitter. “The last thing I need to know is his opinion on my dad.” There was a short pause followed by a loud groan, a common method she used for relieving stress, Jason noticed. He could imagine her limp limbs waving uselessly back and forth. “I still can’t believe he just fucking broke into my mom’s new place like it was nothing. That fucking creep couldn’t even bother with knocking on the fucking door! He just broke in and said he wanted to mourn with my mom, like…dude!” 

“Want me to kill him?” The question was on the tip of Jason’s tongue ever since this whole call started. “I can find him, you know. Wouldn’t be hard. Probably left a lotta clues.”

“Jason Todd, you are not killing my dad!!” There was an adorable squeak in the middle of that shout. “The world is probably a worse place with him, but I couldn’t just—I can’t bring myself to hate him that much.”

“Who do you hate that much then? Deadshot?” Jason returned the phone to caller mode as he looked over the veritable Terracotta Army of filing cabinets. Now, which ones belonged to Babs?

“No, I can’t even bring myself to hate Deadshot that much,” Stephanie admitted. “I couldn’t even work up the nerve to kill Black Mask whenever I had him dead to rights.”

That tidbit wasn’t in the dossier. Interesting. “Dead to rights how?”

“I had a gun pointed at his ugly face. I was ready to shoot it too.” This was an oddly big confession to make to a guy that had a gun pointed at her face a week ago. “But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I thought of what Bruce would think if I did.”

“Oh my GAAAAAAAAWD.” Jason’s eyes rolled so far up his head that his entire body stumbled around. “Bruce hated you. You know that, right? There was literally nothing in hell you could have done to make him happy. He made that decision the moment you decided to wear your costume.”

“Me trying to kill my dad probably didn’t help.”

Now that detail really should have been in the dossier. “You tried to kill your dad before? Like, murder?”

“First time I caught him, yeah.” She didn’t have to sound so nonchalant about it. How messed up were they that this was what made up casual conversation? “No court would have convicted me. It was self-defense, pure and simple. But Batman was there and—”

“He convinced you not to, didn’t he?”

“On the nosey.”

“That’s not a saying.”

“My mom says it all the time, which makes it canonical. Ask the Pope.”

“How do you go from nearly killing your asshole dad to being unable to shoot one of Gotham’s worst crime lords? I would kill him. Hell, I’ve fucking tried.”

“I mean, I wasn’t really trying to be a hero whenever I went after my dad. That was pure spite, baby.” She was candid, Jason could give her that. “But whenever you’re trying to be a hero, you restrict yourself. You try to, at least. I’ve always had a lot of anger inside me, towards my dad, towards the world at large, towards any parasite that sucks the world dry purely for their own greed. I’m sure you know the feeling.”

“Yeah.” Jason peered down at the pistol he kept around his waist for emergencies. It was reliable, having gotten him out of more scrapes than he cared to keep track. It was very often his extension of the feeling Stephanie described. “Yeah, I have an idea.”

“Spoiler always felt like—I dunno, an extension of that anger. I realized I had a way to fight against the stuff I hate the most and make some tiny difference in the world. If my anger towards the world ever subsided, Batman would come along and completely replenish my spite levels. Spite got me through a lot.”

“It’s pretty powerful, ain’t it?” Jason’s voice came out softer than he meant to. He loudly cleared it, ironically to roughen it back up. “Spite still wasn’t enough to put a bullet into Black Mask and save the world you love a lot of grief? We may be operating on different levels of spite.”

“I can’t really access that spite anymore.” Maybe Jason was projecting, but she sounded very disappointed to admit that. “I dunno if it died whenever I died, or the moment I pointed that gun and couldn’t pull the trigger. I would have been fine killing him, ya know.” Jason’s eyebrow rose. “Everyone else would be angry and sad, I’d probably be shunned, but I really think I would have survived. I could have saved a lot of lives that way. The fucker definitely deserved it. I’d have to live with the consequences, sure, but I fully believe Stephanie Brown would have lived life perfectly well afterwards.” There was a short silence on her end. “But Spoiler would be dead. I could kill him. I couldn’t kill the best part of me.”

There was a longer silence between the two of them. Some sliver of Jason’s brain wanted to shout, his most cynical part that knew how many lives Stephanie could have said if she just had the nerve. The rest, however, absolutely understood. His stomach understood. These masks they wore were a higher power that allowed them to access the best parts of themselves. Being Robin was magic. Of all the ways Jason could have died, he was glad he died as Robin. He wouldn’t have wanted anything less. The more he considered it, given the opportunity, he knew couldn’t have killed Joker at that moment either. He couldn’t take away the magic.

“Wow. No response. You must be the world’s worst therapist.”

“Since when am I your fucking therapist, Blondie?!” Okay, good, hostility was so much easier. 

“Since you started asking follow-up questions, duh.”

Jason’s replacement had to be stronger than Clark in order to date this chick; being a workplace acquaintance was proving to be taxing enough. “Whatever.” He started hopping towards Babs’ designated area. Her reports were usually more thorough and less dumb anyway. “Why are you telling me any of this, anyway?”

“Because you get a lot of thoughts sitting at the bedside of a kid that you got shot.”

“You didn’t get him shot, he got himself shot.” He hated whenever people couldn’t make that distinction. Stephanie was a lot like Bruce in that she had to ascribe other people’s failings to her own. “And he’ll be fine. Kid’s the genetic homunculus of the two strongest humans I know, not to mention raised by assassins. He can take a couple non-lethal shots. The big question is, what the fuck are you going to do about the guy who did this to him?”

“I…I have to stop Deadshot somehow. He’s going to keep killing people, potentially important people, if we don’t.”

“Sounds like someone’s focusing too much on the criminal.” Jason drew out one of Barbara’s drawers, hoping to get lucky and find some secret societies. A quick skim revealed this drawer mostly belonged to jilted lovers. The presence of Jason Bard and Dick in a single drawer was enough to reach that conclusion. He wondered if this Dick dossier was different from the one he found earlier. The idea tingled.

“What do you mean I’m focusing on the—oh my god. Oh my god!” Stephanie slapped her forehead hard enough to be heard over the phone. “I’ve been focusing on the criminal instead of focusing on the crime. Dammit! That’s Robin 101!”

“Not like you made it to 102…” Oh yeah, Jason was reading this Dick report later. He pocketed it for safekeeping. “My suggestion? All you need to do is find a way to get Deadshot to stop killing. That’s our real problem. Normally, I’d suggest just letting me kill the guy, but I know better than to pick a gunfight with him.”

“Ya know, you sound like Barbara whenever you’re actually helping someone.” She sounded genuine enough that Jason didn’t mind it. He’d take the compliment. “Guess it makes sense, since you’re the one digging through all the computer files.”

“If you ever call me Oracle, I’ll have you laying next to Demon Boy.” 

“See? Even got her snark down!” Stephanie cackled at her own observation. “I miss the odd times that she trusted me enough to give me an earpiece. Pretty sexy voice too, if I do say so myself.”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t say so.” He owed it to Barbara to not have this conversation.

“I’ll say it was considerably less sexy whenever it started muttering and shouting all that cryptic shit.”

Despite Stephanie’s otherwise thorough and highly illustrated recap of earlier, this had never come up to his knowledge. Alternatively, Jason could have not been paying attention. That was also very possible. “What kind of cryptic shit?”

“Didn’t I tell you? Shit, I forgot to tell you! Give me a sec, gotta search my brain…” Wasn’t a lot to search, he was sure. “I remember something about something under the bed. No, wait! The stairs. Under the stairs. She shouted something like THE SOUND OF LIES . I remember that clearly.”

The sound of lies? Was this some kind of riddle? The hell was the sound of lies? Jason felt a shiver of terror down his spine at the nanosecond his brain suggested recruiting the Riddler. Good thing he’d become a master of repressing thoughts.

“The hell was the other thing? Wait wait, I got it! Stormy eyes! Yeah, that’s it. Stormy eyes, above the clouds. She said that before the sound of lies thing.”

“Stormy eyes, the sound of lies?” Jason repeated. “What does that…wait.” Something in his brain was ticking, and not in the regular ticking sound that his brain loved to repeat at the absolute best times. The words were forming a melody that he hummed instinctually. “Stormy eyes, that hmm hmm the sound of lies… ” Long-forgotten synapses sparked back to life, finally catching up. “Who’s that peeking under the stairs—stairway, something something some…” Oh. That’s right. He knew this song. 

He knew it because it played endlessly on the oldies station that played on a loop at Gotham General Hospital, at least once a day. Jason remembered this because he was there too often for far too long. It became common to come there directly after school, and leave only whenever it was time for school in the morning. Where else was Jason gonna go? This was the only way he could see his mom.

It wasn’t exactly a wound he wanted open right now. Or ever, really. It was still impossible to process anything post-Robin, so anything pre-Robin was firmly off-limits. All those memories were still there, unfortunately, as alive and vivid as ever. He recalled Catherine Todd’s smile, still so bright while withered by cancer and whatever sickness she took to relieve the pain, while the two of them devised theories over the only radio station the hospital insisted on. Jason theorized that since the station was only for old people, the elderly kept calling in and requesting the same songs over and over again because they forgot about their calls. His mom theorized that it was called the oldies station because it was run by oldies, so the constant repetition was the result of their DJs requiring lots of naps. They laughed. 

Laughs were so rare those days that it wasn’t difficult to recall. Or, rather, the memory came very quickly. The lyrics came similarly.

Who's peekin' out from under a stairway

Calling a name that's lighter than air

Who's bending down to give me a rainbow

Everyone knows it's…

“Windy…” Jason completed under his breath.

“Whazzat?”

He shook his head, trying to focus away from his past and towards the valley of information he had to scour. Easy way to distract himself from the past was to busy himself in the present for a future breakthrough. “I have an idea. I’ll need some time, though, same with peace and quiet. Have a lotta data to sift through.”

“Ooookay. Can I ask one last thing out of you? One teensy tiny phone call? I got an idea during that awkward elongated silence too.”

Damian is ten years old and he meets his father. His father dies when he is ten years old.

He never knows what to make of his father. To be sold a legend and given a man inevitably brings disappointment. His mother spins tales of a dashing hero, Sinbad and Superman combined into a single mortal, a man that challenges gods with his ungodly charisma. The man he finds is a floundering mess of a man that seemingly struggles with every word. He does not speak a single word as he guides his previously unknown son to his lair. Then, he says it is home. The lair is the sad reflection of a man even more childish than him. The dinosaur is cool.

He meets Robin, a boy that believes himself pitiable enough to be worthy of Damian’s destiny. Here was an overgrown twerp that wormed his way into his father’s good graces, before bumbling into enough tragedies that father had little choice but to make the idiot his son. He disgusts Damian. Damian disgusts the boy. He can see it in his eyes, he sees THE LOOK, the silent acknowledgement that the boy’s existence threatens their own destiny. Damian seizes his.

He does as he was taught. Damian kills. His father rejects him and sends him back. He accepts this course. 

After so long, Damian has a part in his grandfather’s legacy, for he is a young, fit body ideal for the man that wishes to live forever. His father fights to save him. The stories begin to make sense. Damian realizes he is a stranger. The man fights with a vigor that Damian cannot understand, fights for a son he barely knows. Damian doesn’t know why. He wants to know. He yearns to know why a man would risk his life for a killer he soundly rejected. His mother refuses to let him discover.

His father dies and he is ten years old.

According to legend, his father dies saving the world, some say the whole universe. Bruce Wayne accomplishes what the al Ghuls have struggled with for thousands of years on a whim and he dies for it. Damian does not know why his father does this. It devours his thoughts like a parasite. He yearns to know why.

Thursday, 4:26pm (2 Days to Gala)

Deadshot waltzed into the apartment complex all too casually. There was no flashy window entrance, no attempt at stealth, just a man whistling a jaunty tune as he entered the same place where he murdered a man two days before. He somehow strolled up five flights of stairs in full costume, wrapped up like a mummy with guns strapped to his wrist and a jaunt in his step. There was no trepidation even as he opened the suspiciously unlocked door of his destination.

The apartment was filled with the tones of midday syndicated game shows when he walked in. He continued whistling, up until he noticed Batman sitting peacefully on the sofa, turned away from the TV to face him. It was a silly sight, she was sure, but hopefully an effective one. Deadshot’s helmet hid any facial expression, though his body language hadn’t changed either. He had a gentle sway while he eyed his enemy. “Here for a rematch or revenge?” he asked with complete nonchalance. “Considering last time, I wouldn’t advise for either.”

“I’m not here to fight you,” Batman insisted, “I’m only here to stop you.”

“Stop me?” The villain scoffed at the prospect, rejecting his previous cool. “And how are you planning on doing that? Got this place rigged to blow? Wanna take us both out in a blaze of glory? Been there, done that, buddy. I won’t have a scratch on me.”

“You said you had a quota,” Batman stated bluntly. “What was it?”

“Hm?” His masked head tilted. “Whattya care ‘bout my quota?”

“You’re going to keep killing people until you reach your quota, right?” She slowly rose, prompting Deadshot to finally point his wrist guns at her, which prompted her to raise her hands. “There’s no tricks here. You opened commissions and started advertising because you needed money. How much?”

Once more, Deadshot’s mask did a lot to mask his expressions. “You serious?”

“I want you to stop killing people in my city,” she reiterated. “So, I reiterate: how much?” The man remained quiet. Either he was speechless or he was doing mental arithmetic. Frankly, it could be two things. “Well?”

“Gimme a sec!” Deadshot returned to his silence for ten more seconds. “Thirty thousand, six hundred an’ fifty US dollars.”

“Okay. Fine.” Batman kicked her feet down on her sofa’s side handle, allowing it to recline and reveal the burlap sack of cash underneath. She slammed the sack onto the chair, noticing Deadshot leaning back at the reveal. Finally, a reaction. “Sure you aren’t overcharging me?”

“Hey, I’m a bad guy, but I ain’t a shyster. I also know my worth.” He paused, his reticle almost appearing to dilate. “Are you really paying me to make me stop killing?”

“I’m glad you comprehend the deal.” The caped crusader rifled through stack after stack of Jason’s drug cash. It was all dirty money to start with, she supposed it made little difference to dirty them up some more. “Five thousand, six, seven, eight, nine, six thousand…”

Deadshot leaned against Ms. Livingston’s wall as he watched his payment steadily increase. “You’re not him, are ya?”

“I’m Batman,” Batman reiterated, “that’s all that matters. I want you out of Gotham. I don’t want you killing anybody else so long as I’m around.”

“Ya know, I was only going to stick around for one more day,” he shrugged. “Had a ton of jobs lined up for later today and tomorrow. Harsh time limit, ya know? So congrats on saving thirty-two hours worth of people. Real heroic work there.”

For a moment, the gloved hands of justice hesitated. All this money to make one awful man swear off a day of killing? The idea sounded insane, until she recalled the part where people got to live. That was worth any sum of money, she supposed. “Yeah. I try my best.” She then skinned one of Ms. Livingston’s pillow cases off her pillow before stashing the money inside. “I expect you to keep your word. Leave Gotham immediately. Don’t come back.” She threw the sack over to the mercenary, some stacks tumbling out as they hit the floor.

“Hmm.” Deadshot inspected the odd wads with his weird periscope thingy. Batman wasn’t sure what he could even be searching for. Explosives? Poison? Whatever it was, it wasn’t there, and the man was quick to pack up his goods. “Well well. Not the way I was expecting this week to go, but it all works out. Ya got my respect, New Bat. So long as you’re a man ‘a your words, I’m a man ‘a mine. Not like I gotta lotta affection for this city. Sooner I’m out, the better.”

Batman really couldn’t wait to wash her gloves of this entire affair. One question still hung in the air that she couldn’t bring herself to ignore. “What is this quota about? Is this something I should know about?”

“Ah hell, you don’t wanna know.” He slung the sack of money over his back. “Ain’t anything important. Real anticlimax.”

“Humor me.”

Somehow, the cold-blooded killer looked downright bashful with his otherwise inexpressive mask. “It was a bet between me an’ my latest—I dunno, what’s the term people are usin’ these days? Squeeze? A regular lady friend. Ole Jeanette thought I was gettin’ soft in my work, an’ I told her there ain’t nothin’ about me that’s soft, so we made a bet ta see if I could get 100k in a single week. An’ Gotham’s usually my best market, so only made sense to come over here.”

Batman remained still. “You killed all those people for a bet?”

“In my defense, it was, like, a super sexually-charged bet deal. Said we wouldn’t do anything ‘til I filled that quota.”

“You killed all those people for foreplay ?”

“Yyyeah.” Deadshot nodded his head to the side. “Yeah, basically.”

A storm brewed inside Batman. No, it was inside Stephanie . A long untapped corner of her brain was ablaze as she stared at this man, this worthless, SHITSTAIN of a man willing to kill so casually that he did it for fucking FOREPLAY . Was this the worst time of man? She wasn’t sure. But he was the worst man she was staring at right now. Damian was her fault, but Stephanie saw all those files of the people he killed; wait no, she only read the files of some of the people he killed without so much as a second thought.

Here was a man who ended lives for a living, likely just to feel alive. Someone who benefitted from the moral rot of her city, if not the world at large. He was worthless. He existed only in service of pain and death. Now that the threat had been extinguished, the conflict resolved, Stephanie Brown was left glaring at a black hole of a human being, a man she absolutely hated . And it surprised her to feel this way. She truly hated this man. She wanted him erased off the face of the planet. There was some level of comfort in knowing she was still capable of such hate, though that comfort paled in comparison to the burning in her skull that fired every waking second she was with Deadshot.

“Well, uhhhh, guess I’ll just be goin’ on my way. Pleasure doin’ business with—”

“Wait.” Batman’s gloves squeaked as they clenched into fists. Deadshot waited. “How much for a clean fight?”

“....pardon, Batman?”

“A fight. Me and you.” She took two steps forward. “Take off that mask, take off those guns, take off that stupid armor. No weapons. Just fists.”

“Are you wantin’ ta pay me in order ta fight me?” Once more, his head tilted. “Heh.” And then, his head tilted all the way back. “HAHAHAHA!!! Oh! You’re definitely not him! But ya know what? I like your spirit. I’ll even give ya a deal! Five hundred bucks.”

Batman couldn’t have thrown the stack faster. It landed at Deadshot’s feet, where he impressively kicked it up in the air to catch. “Mask off. Weapons down.” She took her stance.

“Hoo boy. Well, alrighty. I’m a man of my word.” Everything stripped off, all that metal armor, fancy guns, and technology to reveal a muscular man wearing a white tank top and a dumb pencil-thin mustache. “Name’s Floyd, by the way. Mind if I get yours?” He took his stance.

“Yes. You don’t deserve it.”

Stephanie Brown never traveled very far. Family vacations, whenever they existed, barely breached the state border. She did not go on a cross-country expedition to find herself, she did not train with any old masters, nor did she enlist herself into any cults. All she had to teach her was Gotham. Gotham had plenty of lessons to share for a young girl even before she put on the mask. Thankfully, Gotham eventually included the likes of Cassandra Cain. Stephanie could never even hope to beat Cass in a fight, though it hardly bothered her.

Deadshot couldn’t beat Cass either. He wouldn’t last five seconds against her. Stephanie lasted thirty last time.

Fair and square, Floyd Lawton became a bruised, bloody mess on the floor. That didn’t stop him from laughing, even as much as it hurt. The fight was useless and he’d still return to the Secret Six Sex House or whatever with all his money. At most, he’d have a bruised ego. 

Stephanie had to live with that. She hated it, but she would live with it.

Damian is ten years old and he is alone in Gotham.

He escapes his bird nest to make his way to Gotham. His father is dead. He does not know what this means. What is a world without Batman? What is Gotham without its protector? What will become of his father’s legacy? He must know.

He finds an empty manor and a desecrated cave. He finds no one. All that remains of his father’s legacy is his son with his crudely-tailored recreation of his first protege’s uniform. For a day, Damian wallows. The next, he confronts his destiny.

Being Robin is not easy. Richard Grayson was a fool to create a uniform so blatant. Wicked men set their sights on the boy, firing guns and waving fists with no hesitation. He can handle them; he always has. It is the surrounding citizens that bother him the most. He saves their lives and defeats their enemies, yet they run in terror of their savior. Whatever. Damian exists to be feared, not admired. Nothing has changed.

Then, things change. He meets a strange girl. He doesn’t trust her. He meets her again, breaking into all that remained of his father’s inheritance. He doesn’t trust her then either. She saves him from the only other living testament to Bruce Wayne. He reluctantly agrees to work beside her. He uncovers his father’s own words on this woman. He reads.

He finds a woman that refuses destiny. He finds a woman that survives every disadvantage life throws at her, who thrives in chaos, who seeks a higher cause of her own making. He finds a woman strong enough to let her child go. She has no legacy to live up to and refuses to create her own.

Damian is ten years old and he envies Stephanie Brown.

Friday, 1:10pm (1 Day to Gala)

“You sure you want those guys on the mystery board? Feels…morbid. And that’s coming from me.”

Stephanie understood Jason’s return. But no, these people were important. At some point or another, they were important. To somebody, they probably still were. She hoped so. “Yeah. We do.”

It was a long time since Steph felt this guarded. That rise in anger the day before likely didn’t help, nor did her visit with the commissioner afterwards. Per her instructions, he supplied the reports of every criminal murdered by Deadshot in the last week. They were all criminals, all active in various mobs that absorbed their previous, smaller mobs. It was a troubling commonality that suggested a singular hand among these otherwise rivaling gangs. Looking at all the evidence made her head hurt a little. The price of being the world’s de facto greatest detective.

“He killed a lot after your little slip-up,” Jason noted unhelpfully, causing his temporary partner to peer at the four men slaughtered during her slump. “You lost a lot of time, so we probably lost a lot of leads.”

“We lost a lot of lives too,” Stephanie mumbled as she kept staring. “I dunno if they were good people or not. But they were alive, and now they’re not.” It hurt looking at them, all their mugshots mean but most definitely alive. The life in their eyes no longer existed because of her, snuffed out by a cosmic mix of Deadshot and her own incompetence. “I probably wouldn’t have any control over whether they lived or died as Spoiler, but…”

“You’re Batman now. And Batman is important.” It really sucked how well Jason understood her. 

Frankly, she wasn’t sure how she felt being with another murderer right now. The longer she stared at the dead gangsters, the more she wondered what made Red Hood and Deadshot so different. It’s not even like Red Hood killed anyone major. Joker was still alive and Black Mask was killed by Catwoman, thank goodness for her. Maybe he saved some lives, but all it really amounted to was more and more of these reports, of men once alive that could never be again. Even after feeling that murderous intent, the want for willingly, knowingly snuffing out life became increasingly foreign to Stephanie. 

After several more minutes of skimming the reports, she roared with annoyance. “This would be a lot easier to get into if we had the stupid Batcomputer!” she shouted to the heavens, before looking directly at the computer that refused to cooperate with them. “If we could use that thing, we could figure out the commonality of these guys and all their known associates in two seconds! But of course Mr. Know-It-All changed my password right after he fired me, and got rid of yours once you started killing people!”

“Hey, I did other bad things too. Don’t cancel those out.” Jason’s banter wasn’t really helping. “Buuuuuut, if it’s the computer you’re worried about, think I mighta found a lead on that.” Okay, now he was helping.

“What?! How, why, how?” Stephanie was all wound-up now as she pleaded towards her would-be salvation. “Jason, do not kid with me right now. This is not the time for kidding.”

“Then let’s hope Barbara doesn’t have a knack for kidding either.” From Red Hood’s Crime Jacket was summoned a manilla envelope. “Remember all those crazy Babs ramblings you told me about? I don’t think they were crazy at all. They were lyrics to the song Windy by the band The Association. Think she trying to direct us toward something. So, I got to lookin’ for a buncha Windies. Wasn’t easy, considering, ya know, it’s usually a first name, and people are not organized by first names in that labyrinth.”

“And you found some?”

“I found a lot. But, then, I found what I’m pretty sure is the one .” He tossed over the file, which Steph gratefully had the reflexes to catch. “I found that one in the potential Birds of Prey file. Babs had her eye on her.”

A quick peek revealed an average young woman, probably no older than Steph herself, black hair, uhhhh, red shirt. Yeah, not a lot to her from a glance, but a quick skimming revealed far juicier details. Wendy Harris, age sixteen (at least of the time this was typed), recently graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At age sixteen? Computer genius, father is the Calculator? Oh, supervillain father? Many such cases, Steph mentally mused. Looked like a girl after Babs’ own heart.

“Do you know her?” she finally asked. “Do you know where we can find her?”

“No and no.” Now Red Hood’s Crime Jacket was filled with Jason’s hands. “I don’t know a ton of teenage girls, sorry. I did look her up, like, on my laptop. Worked for the Teen Titans with her twin brother Marvin, up until he got killed in some kinda animal attack. Found his obituary, but nothing on her. File says she has a residence down here, though, so she might still be around.”

“Says here she nearly hacked into Oracle’s network before Babs panicked and actively locked her out,” Steph hummed as she continued her reading. “If we can find her, maybe we can get into the Batcomputer. That’d be a real boon.”

“Again with the boon thing,” Jason mocked, though his face was still locked in its smug pride. “Now, remind me, what do we say to people that have done something really nice and helpful for you?”

Stephanie rolled her eyes and stifled a chuckle. “Thank you, Red Hood.” She then slammed the file back in his hands. “Look into this. I’m tired as shit, and I’m still moving a lot of my stuff in here, and I need to try on my suit for the gala that’s fucking tomorrow, and I’m sure there’s a third thing I’m forgetting, there always is.”

“Mom’s really kicking your ass to the curb, huh?” It was helpful that Jason kept giving her reasons to hate him. Made things so much less complicated.

“We both agreed this was for the best.” Though, neither party was particularly happy at having to separate again. “She doesn’t need to be associated with me, or you, or anything. The less reasons for people to look at her, the better.”

“And what about the kid?”

Stephanie’s fast track out of the cave was briefly stifled by the question. She froze for a couple seconds, before doing her best to ignore her own hesitation. “Taken care of. Part of my reasoning towards become Batman was to protect him. This—this is just an extension of that. I’m not worried.”

Damian reaches the present. He wakes up.

The boy startled awake in an unknown bed. 

Bed, light, infusion stand, okay, he was in a hospital. How the mighty have fallen for the al Ghul heir to fall into the preying claws of the American healthcare system. How long was he asleep, he wonders. An embarrassing length, he’s certain. It pains him knowing he will have to formally apologize for his error in judgment to Brown. Surely, she will have her own criticism as well.

A more thorough scan of the room did not reveal Stephanie Brown. There was only one other figure in the room, a feminine figure with far too much poise to be his mentor. Damian slowly concluded he had lost far too much blood upon his brain taking so long to recognize the shape. It was the most familiar shape he knew. Pattern recognition kicked in and his spine promptly stiffened.

“Mother.”

“Good morning, love. Pleasant dreams?”

Chapter Text

The last memory Stephanie Brown had of Cassandra Cain was making her panic.

It’s kinda funny. Steph used to be so off-put by that hastily stitched full-face mask with dark eyes that hid most expression. Batgirl always reminded her of a scarecrow, and an effective one at that. It wasn’t until she got to know the girl under the suit that she started to pick up on how expressive she could really be. Cass had that effect on people; spend enough time with her, and it’s hard not to become aware of every microscopic twitch you and everyone else made. She lived in a unique world where a single twitch spoke volumes more than any words. Stephanie liked to think she saw glimpses of that world whenever they were together, even if she knew she could never truly comprehend her friend’s uniquely wired inner sanctum.

The last time they saw each other, Gotham was on fire thanks to Stephanie’s relentless need to prove herself. In her attempts to correct her biggest mistake yet, Cass found her. She was angry, or at least tried to be. By then, Steph had learned to read between the lines and it was impossible to ignore the sheer worry on her friend’s face, even under the mask. She wasn’t sure when Cass started caring about her to that degree. Bruce would scold her, same with Tim, probably. Cass just wanted her safe, as bossy as she was about it. But Steph didn’t want to be safe. She had to make things right.

It took a lot to make Cassandra Cain panic. All sense of cool from the coolest girl ever dissipated the second she realized her best friend was marching towards her death. She cried out for her. “STEPHANIE!!” Not Spoiler, definitely not Robin, only the name of her doomed friend. She looked so scared. The girl that could take on armies on her lonesome, who championed over fucking Lady Shiva, was scared for her. Somehow, as she disappeared to continue her failed redemption, Stephanie Brown was flattered.

There was a handsome snack of a man in Stephanie’s mirror. Arresting blue eyes, perfectly coiffed blond hair, a winning smile, all wrapped up in an expensive aubergine suit with those damn cufflinks. Oh, the cufflinks. She was obsessed with them. They glistened gold against her eggplant apparel, the perfect compliment to her biggest fashion statement yet. After this was done, she might sell this suit to pay her mother’s rent for a couple months. For now, however, she was working it. Or, rather, Lyle Miller was working it.

The irony of needing a secondary male persona was not lost on her. As much as she wished for Cassandra to meet Stephanie Brown, the last thing she needed was for the Court of Owls to notice that Spoiler was not dead and start connecting some dots. She was lucky enough to only come into direct contact with the Court after becoming Batman, and she did not intend to squander that luck. If she went in looking like this as a woman, all the fancy moneypeople would be able to clock a total dyke hottie from a mile away. She was not considering how cool she’d look as a civilian when she originally cut her hair. True, wigs were an option, but why not separate herself from Stephanie even more? Why even be considered the same sex?

Enter: Lyle Miller, a classy rich boy, but not especially so. Beautiful blonde boys were rarely a hot commodity around these rich people parties, for obvious reasons. This way, she’d be handsome enough to belong, and handsome enough to be forgotten. The way she looked snazzy as heck was merely a bonus.

“Who, me?” Steph asked herself in the mirror, hand to her bound chest, vocalizing her poshest voice in a register delicately above Batman in pitch. “Lyle Miller, of the Gotham Heights Millers? Don’t know them? Ah!” She then leaned forward to her imaginary conversation partner. “Well, I’ll be sure not to tell them that. Haha!” Oh yeah, she got that vacant laugh down.

Thanks to a very brief and yet agonizing stint at Gotham Heights High School, Stephanie had plenty experience with the rich boys of Gotham, beyond the ones that dressed up like bats and birds. They were always quick to mention their parents to assert some level of control on a society that would otherwise prey on them for their lack of sense. Maybe she was being general, maybe she didn’t really care; there were nice enough rich boys, yet the common thread was the albatross of their parentage eternally hanging over their heads. They either used their parents or their parents used them, as riches only came from people that knew how to use people. In this regard, she empathized.

“I leave you alone for ten minutes and you’re already flirting with yourself. Maybe you really need this party just to get out.” Oh, woe be to Jason Todd’s housemate. They were only on Day 2 of this arrangement and he was already on thin ice.

“Haven’t you heard of fucking knocking?!” Steph stalled her rehearsal to throw the softball on her (technically Cass’) bed towards Jason’s dumb gut. Sadly, her housemate was a quick learner, catching the Problem Ball with ease this time around. “Yeah, whatever! I’m getting ready. In case you forgot, this is a very delicate operation. It’s not like I’ve had a ton of time to practice my upcoming role with the whole Deadshot business.”

“To be fair, you did spend half that time watching over a sleeping boy you got shot. Wouldn’t call that a distraction per se…”

“Oh, fuck off.” Stephanie returned to her mirror. “It’s only getting later and you’re only wasting more rehearsal time before we go. So go.”

“No no, lemme help!” Jason Todd was going to die again very soon. “What’s your name?”

“Lyle Miller, sir.”

“Who are your parents?”

“Charles and Penelope Miller.”

“What do they do?”

“Candy production?”

“ Candy production?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never heard of them.”

“Who do you think produces candy then? Willy Wonka?”

“You got me. What do you do?”

“Look, this small talk has been riveting, but I didn’t come here to talk about my parents or myself. I came to enjoy a party.”

“And scene!” Jason clapped his hands. “Not bad, Blondie, not bad. Not the greatest character work I’ve seen, but you’ve got something to work with. Admirable deflecting too.”

“I’ve learned a thing or two about deflecting questions in my day.” Bruises usually opened a lot of questions she didn’t care to answer, even before she started donning a mask. “We still have an hour before we need to leave anyway. Gimme some space.”

“Uhhh, no, we’d have an hour in roof -time, but we’re currently in car -time. Traffic gets killer on Saturdays, especially heading towards Gotham Heights. Plus, ya gotta think of potential accidents, which, considering the motorists in this city, is a forgone conclusion. If we’re lucky, we can avoid build-up on Babylon, that stuff’s hell, but the real chaos factor is Sprang Bridge. If there’s the tiniest accident there, you’re shit outta luck, that’s a solid thirty minute delay if you’re lucky. Though, considering where we’re going, we could take Exit 8 if we can eek it over there. Most people never take the chance, they think it’s faster just to stay on course, but I know a special shortcut that involves a lot more exits, but in much lighter areas, so it’ll getcha to Westbridge in a solid twelve to fifteen minutes. Should be a pretty smooth ride from there, especially considering most of the shops on Magazine will be closed by then, so it’ll just be the late night bar crowd. You can plow right past that area on a good night straight into the rich people houses.” Miraculously, Jason Todd did stop.

Stephanie remained stone-faced from beginning to end. “You done?”

Jason nodded. “Twenty minutes. I’ll be outside.”

Gotham Heights was home to all the rich folks that controlled Gotham but really didn’t want to live inside it. It earned its title by being way, way higher above sea level than the rest of the town, making it less prone to floods, earthquakes, and general mischief than the city below. Stephanie hadn’t been there very often since her single semester down in the area in that weird twilight between the earthquake and No Man’s Land. She rode the bus for an hour every morning, always noting the infuriating ratio of houses to acres.

All the mansions in the Heights were like the mirror universe version of Wayne Manor: inverse in nature with similar ethos. There weren’t any houses older than a few decades in this part of the city, though many still strove in vain to resemble the centuries-old architecture common in Bristol. None of these architects were driven mad by arsenic and Catholicism, so the Heights often resembled a sanitized theme park version of the city it overlooked. The “historic” Audubon Mansion was no exception. All it took was a quick web search to reveal the history discussed in the invitation only dated back to 1987.

Vehicles were lined in front of the house, ranging from Bugattis to cars from the 1970s to the stretchiest of limos to more boring rideshare options. The Hopkins possessed enough land to create a makeshift parking lot beside the entrance, where chauffeurs took great care of chariots worth infinitely more than them. Within the line was a cab, not particularly glamorous but shiny and well-kept. It was a blandly interesting standout hardly worth commenting on.

“Should I ask how you got this baby?” Stephanie asked from the back, using a compact mirror to make certain her hair was handsome.

“Ya know, it’s a long and funny story that you really should have asked for thirty minutes ago. It was a whole damn saga. And you should relax . None of these rich idiots are questioning their attractiveness. They go through life assuming they’re the sexiest in the world because nobody is going to tell them otherwise.”

“Well, sorry if I’ve never actually been to one of these things!” the girl in drag retorted. “I never got to the rich people party part of Ropin. Robin . Shit.”

“Stop freaking out!” her driver demanded, twisting his body to eye her directly. “It makes you look stupid. You’re going to ruin everything and get us both killed.”

“I’m not going to ruin everything! I’m just—holy shit, you’re good.” Her anxieties instantly felt sillier than seconds ago. It was a remarkable turnaround. “Have you considered becoming, like, a teacher? You’ve got the skills for it.”

“You want me around kids?”

“Point taken.” She peered outside the window at this one house that somehow had worse traffic than the interstate earlier. All the while, one anxiety remained prescient in her mind. “What am I gonna do once I see Cass? Do I just…talk to her? What if she doesn’t recognize me? Wait, shit, what if she does recognize me? This is Cass we’re talking about. She can practically smell lies. She figured out Bruce’s whole deal just by looking at him on the news!”

“Fuck if I know.” The cab came to a jerky stop before the doors unlocked. “I’ll be a few blocks down if you need me. Just please do not need me.”

Oh boy. Well, the moment of truth had arrived. Stephanie Brown took one last breath. “Wish me luck.”

“What luck? Get out of my car, rich boy!” Jason definitely had the cabby part down. Now she had to live up to her own.

Lyle Miller shot out his cab, which was more than happy than happy to speed off towards the horizon. He looked towards the entrance, where middle-aged movers and shakers mobilized with haste towards a teenage girl’s birthday. He straightened his suit, readying his invitation for his time upfront. Once he reached the intimidating bald bouncer man, all he had to do was hand his exclusive stationary. Bald bouncer man took one glance at him and understood that this boy belonged here.

The traffic outside gave way to the far fancier traffic inside. The Hopkins were not shy with their invites, it seemed, while Gotham’s brightest and most bountiful apparently had little else to do on a Saturday night beyond attending the birthday party of a girl they’d never seen before. Unless they had. Lyle kept his eyes opened and ears peeled, knowing that any one of these predators could be the ones hunting him down. He tried not to look too distracted by the sheer size of their venue, obviously created solely for this manner of gathering rather than any housing. It was all too bright for anyone to stomach on a daily basis; the entire hall glowed a sickly gold, illuminated by far too many chandeliers that served mostly to glisten the jewels of everyone present. The snappy jazz band providing the night’s soothing soundtrack did little to dampen the bougie air.

The boy kept his distance. He quickly mastered weaving through a rich people party without brushing against anyone that would give him a second glance. Lyle remained in perpetual motion as he took stock of as many patrons as his vantage allowed. Gradually, he realized that all these people possessed missions not unlike his own. Every conversation they had, every laugh, every plate of unspeakably expensive free food, were all in service of something they wanted. Every conversation was a battle of wills and wits to some degree, though always in hushed tones and congenial smiles. Men and women all over did their best impressions of human beings in an effort to impress their friends.

“How’s the family?” “Oh, he really has grown up so fast!” “Yes, it has been a hard year, especially with the strike and whatnot.” “Lovely weather lately.” “Oh, it’s on that part of town.”

There were others closer to his age, thank goodness. There were a couple guys Lyle passed by wordlessly that glared as if they’d already formed a rivalry. There were two well-dressed boys that kept to the walls of the gathering in order to game together. There were girls in various states of disinterest, some gossiping, others complaining about having to come to this stupid party for a chick none of them even knew. This was the closest to self-awareness the young man could find. The most glaring omission was the birthday girl herself, seemingly nowhere to be found, a popular topic of discussion among her contemporaries.

“Bet they’ve been busy getting their mail-order bride through quality assurance.” It was another blonde boy, a dime a dozen here, clad in an all-white suit. 

Beside him was a similarly-aged girl with the same shade of blond and the same mean grin across her face. Twins, it was easy to deduce. “Poor girl’s probably only just figuring out what she’s gotten into. Must sound like a sweet deal, going from whatever third-ass country to getting rich parents and living in the lap of luxury. Why else would anyone adopt you right as you become a legal adult?” 

Lyle resisted the urge to pass by and “accidentally” coat the girl’s white dress with her pink drink. Sadly, he had to remain low. Last thing Lyle Miller needed was a scene.

“Remember when Bruce Wayne adopted that circus boy when he was, like, twenty-something?” It boggled the mind that Bruce and Richard and Tim had to deal with bullshit rich people politics between keeping the universe from exploding.

“Wasn’t that the kid he took in whenever he was, like, eight or something?” the girl added. “He always called him his ward or something, whatever that means. I mean—” She snrrked at her words unspoken in theory but quite loud in reality. “I can take a guess.”

“Poor, poor kid.” The boy idiot shook his head, his dumb, snickering face betraying any true discomfort. “These parties are full of sickos like that. I hear Wayne even got a new model. Remember that Drake kid? Wayne apparently snatched him right after his dad died. Guy’s body was probably still warm whenever his kid got snatched up by a billionaire. Or, sorry, adopted .”

Lyle didn’t catch the rest of the conversation, what with the ringing in his ears and blood obscuring his vision and all. There was a familiar flaring in his mind and heart, harkening to that encounter the day before. These kids weren’t killers, maybe none of the people here were by most legal, arbitrarily court-approved definitions, but they spoke of cruelty with the same casualness as Deadshot. It was the same sick mindset of people that looked at the same cruel, awful shithole of a world everyone had to live in and saw only how it could benefit them. There was so much money here collectively, enough to make Scrooge McDuck drown, but how did they get it? By canoodling with the likes of Penguin? If he were still alive, would all these rich bastards find a kinship in Roman Sionis, knowing full well where his money came? Who was he kidding, these parasites would slather him with compliments, wondering why it took them so long to consider straight murder as a means of profit, as opposed to all the slow, tempered ways they stole lives.

“Cheese, sir?” The boy’s spiral of disgust was briefly interrupted by the sudden offering from a very pretty lady, close to his age with maybe a couple extra years of maturity. There was very welcome life in her brown eyes and welcome texture to her tan, calloused hands; her smile was faked more out of survival than play, with a brunette ponytail obviously tailored for practicality than aesthetic. The server uniforms were, in a word, spiffy , consisting of golden vests with name tags (this one labeled Beth , a curiously whitebread name for a looker of obvious Indian descent) over black blouses and matching pants. Beth had more than enough spiff to share. Oh yeah, her cheese cubes looked pretty tasty too. So small, yet so solid and…

Okay, so maybe Lyle Miller couldn’t get into trouble, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make a little. He accepted two of the equilateral cheeses. Since he couldn’t identify any of these flavors in cube form, he opted for the orangest one that was most likely cheddar. Couldn’t go wrong with cheddar.  “Heads up, I apologize for this, and we should both casually walk away right after I do this.”

“What are you doing?” Beth’s well-trained professional smile dipped as panic overtook her heart. She was forced to bear witness to Lyle hurling two of her cheese cubes with impressive speed and what turned out to be even more impressive accuracy. The cheddar slammed against the Rich Twins’ cups nigh simultaneously with enough force to slam the punch up against their matching white clothing, coating them with an arresting splash of red. Wasn’t as satisfying as a punch to the face, but the shock and alarm on their faces was amusing enough to satisfy Lyle’s bloodlust.

True to his word, he casually walked away the nanosecond he got the faces he wanted, disappearing into the crowd of millionaires and trust funds like he was one of their own. There were occasional glances at the boy, but hardly any of real interest. He attempted to cross over to the other side of the ballroom, only for everyone else to begin shuffling, suits parting like the Red Sea. There were mutterings that the hosts had finally arrived. Some birthday party where the birthday girl only appears an hour into everything. Regardless of his inner snark, Lyle tried his best to maneuver to the front of the horde, bumping more shoulders than a stealthy spy probably should.

But then he saw her. No, Stephanie saw her.

Cassandra Cain was finally more than a frozen staged snapshot; she was once more flesh and blood in sweet movement, smiling a smile Stephanie had never seen on her before. She wore a sparkling white dress that shimmered against her natural beauty. That hadn’t changed. How could it? Steph looked close at her eyes, which lacked their typical intensity, even while shining the same pools of brown; they almost looked unfocused, or nervous, or whatever Steph was likely projecting while the girl waved at her “guests” with her white gloves. It wasn’t even that her eyes were glassy or she moved robotically, she was obviously still very much alive and thinking, but in ways completely foreign to the former Batgirl. Her eyes were not confused like Richard’s, nor scared like Bab’s, but there was a fragility to them foreign to the trained killer. Terrifyingly, Stephanie could imagine this girl flinching . 

In so many ways, she was Cassandra Cain, yet in so many ways, she wasn’t. All that skill and elegance and poise she always possessed had become transferred into its most boring application. 

Cass passed by and her new eyes met Stephanie’s. No, Lyle’s ! Shit! He let his character’s consistency slip thanks to nostalgia. His eyes darted away in embarrassment, only to be met by a giggle. A giggle. Lyle was understandably stunned. 

It took the emergence of his friend’s ersatz parents to snap him out of his stupor. They followed behind Cassandra, allowing her the illusion of agency. Lyle doubted they were brainwashed, so they had little excuse for their smiles being so nakedly artificial compared to their “daughter.” Then again, Henry Hopkins was a dentist, so he supposed this accounted for advertising. Their clothes were far less sparkling, even if that black and gold suit probably cost more than a car but less than an Italian man’s love. Same went for Miss Hopkins, matching her husband with black and gold, only with far more elaborate golden trims, along with a golden broach coated in brown feathers. After staring in disdain at phony rich people for the past half-hour, Lyle grew concerned at how quick he was to judge the appearance of nearly everyone here. Either he truly had sharpened his people reading skills, or being here was rapidly eroding any love for humanity.

In time, the perfect little artificial family were up on stage, the two parents sandwiching their daughter, stealing the thunder from the frizzy-haired DJ situated there, who brought whatever long-dead composer’s symphonies down for the hosts. A microphone was passed down to the father, before being handed to the girl of the hour. 

Cassandra cleared her throat, another new thing for her. “Hello! Uh, welcome to my birthday party!” It was her voice for sure, if possessing far more of an uncanny honey-sweet tone. Despite her obvious awkwardness speaking publicly, she spoke with far less trepidation than the Cass he knew, the sentences articulated perfectly from start to finish. “I know I'm a new face for most of you. I’m sure my parents’ announcement of me came as a big surprise. I — only have myself to blame for that, heh.” She twirled her head slightly, as if jostling her nervous sentences together. “My parents adopted me seven years ago. I don’t remember anything before then.” Oh, Lyle bet she didn’t. Amnesia was an easy tool to mold anyone how you’d want. “My parents kept me safe. Sheltered.” She gave a somewhat embarrassed but seemingly very genuine smile over to the Parents Hopkins. “I didn’t want to be paraded around like a sad curiosity. So, they protected me.” 

She turned back to the congregation and steeled her smile. “But I’m an adult now, whether they like it or not. I wanted to throw a little soiree to…show myself to the world, I guess! Show myself and everything I have to offer! Per usual, my parents wouldn’t let it be a small, quiet affair.” Gentle laughs filled the banquet hall, Lyle not included. “But I am no longer small and see little reason to be quiet anymore! Thank you all for coming, and let’s party!”

There was a palpable relief on Cassandra’s face once she gave the microphone back to the DJ, so maybe public speaking still wasn’t one of her strong suits. Regardless, watching her string so many words together almost conversationally, was—well, it was different. The Cassandra that Stephanie knew used words sparingly, like a blunt object. If sentences became too unwieldy, they would trail off in the middle until she found her subject again. It’s not even that Steph was disturbed to see her friend’s language improve, it disturbed her to see her language completely melded into a voice that wasn’t her own. It was one thing to brainwash someone into a mindless minion, a whole other beast to warp an existing personality into something completely new and wrong. Hatred boiled in Stephanie’s heart once more.

No, Lyle’s ! Had to stay on-mission! Despite being this disturbed by this pseudo-Cassandra from a distance, he had to get closer. He had to figure out what she knew, what her parents knew, what anyone in this entire stupid gala knew! The Hopkins were definitely prime suspects for Owl Courting, but she couldn’t really afford to incur their attention, much less their ire. It was possible that Cass knew what they were up to; it was equally as likely Cass was in on it. She seemed genuine enough on that stage, especially considering she was never much of an actor, but she was already a lot of things she never was. Lyle could really only hope that whatever science had fucked with his friend’s brain had also fucked with her perception skills, otherwise any minor deception would be an immediate alarm and the jig would be up the moment she asked for his name.

Everyone else apparently wanted to meet the birthday girl in question, or at least her parents, since they very quickly swarmed in their direction, leaving little hope for Lyle to break through the madness. Either he had to reveal his inexplicable gymnastic skill, or he’d simply have to bide his time until he could get Cass alone. But what was he supposed to do until—

“Cheese, sir?” It wasn’t a new offer from a new voice, but rather an immediately familiar one. Whipping around, he met eyes with the same Beth whose cheese he used recreationally minutes before. She was professional and experienced, evident by her measured smile and perfectly angled spine. She was probably doing a better job masking at this party than Lyle. Still, there was a glint in her eyes, her brows raised just so to communicate that her repeat was not a mistake. It’s the kind of face Lyle would make if he wanted to know more about something. He couldn’t blame her considering Lyle Miller was such a very intriguing individual.

“Oh! Sure, yeah!” He pondered over his selection, the spectrum of yellow and orange wider than he ever could have imagined. Really orange had to be cheddar, right? No going wrong with cheddar. He decided to casually pop a cube in his mouth. “So, do you–” Any line of questioning he had prepared was interrupted by the untold explosion of flavor that rocked his tongue. “Oh my god.” How could such a tiny cube possess the greatest cheese in the world?! Lyle had tasted a lot of tastes in his time, but this was a whole new, entirely unknown flavor that would no doubt haunt him for years to come. He pondered how many amazing tastes the rich conspired to leave off the market. An entire conspiracy formed within a few chews. “Oh my god. This stuff is amazing…” He looked back at the plate. “Is there a limit or anything?”

“No, sir. Take all you need.” Her professional smile quirked slightly, suggesting she was bemused by the rich boy’s question. Either that, or he was coming onto him. He was fine with both. It really helped to interact with someone slightly normal. “We would prefer not letting them go to waste by throwing them.”

“Not a waste if you manage to hit what you’re aiming for.” It was his turn to be bemused once he saw Beth’s lips sputter, barely suppressing a less-than-professional laugh. “You do these sorta events often?” He asked while stacking his now beloved cheese cubes in his hand.

“Oh! Yes.” The caterer blinked, doing her best to return her face back to her properly compartmentalized worker mode. “My company caters a lot of events up here in the Heights.”

“Mmm! I see!” Lyle didn’t even know what flavor he popped in, but he was in love nonetheless. Absolute premium, ah! Maybe he should pretend to be rich more often. “God, this stuff is amazing!! Your company’s amazing! Goddamn.” He saw her nod and glance away towards other clientele, meaning he had a split second before he lost her attention entirely. “So, uhhh—judging by your wording, I take it you don’t live in the Heights?”

“Oh no, I only come here for work. Wish I could live in a place like this. Just have to keep working towards it, I guess!” Beth’s eyes kept wandering towards everyone surrounding them, occasionally to the back of the room where other caterers carried her same professional smile. She was getting anxious, likely concerned that this random rich boy might be eating up too much of her time, regardless of his intriguing actions.

“Something tells me you’d hate these people even more if they were your peers.” Lyle observed the tiniest second of shock on Beth's face before she sought her trained visage again. That tiny crack was all he needed to work with. “Sorry for holding you up, it’s just hard to find real conversation in a party like this, ya know? Even with people my own age, it’s mostly drama and bluster.” He flopped his hands around to emphasize the boredom.

“Not interested in a little drama? After what you did?” Beth’s professional smile twitched seamlessly into guile. “You’re kidding me.”

Lyle’s smirk promptly synchronized. “I had a feeling you also value drama at places like this.” He leaned in for some privacy between the two of them. “Anything suspicious going on I should know about?” 

“You a cop?”

“Ha! No. No, I am not. Are you?”

“Heh. Hell no. But if we’re talking suspicious, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone here without any dirt. Including you.” Well now her eyes were locked in on him.

“ Me?! ” Lyle’s hand dramatically shot to his currently binded chest. “You wound me, Bethany. I’m as squeaky clean as they come. An open book!” He’d long learned that a little coy could deflect a lot of suspicion. On that, he offered a nugget of information to trade, along with a handshake. “Lyle Miller, candy empire heir.”

Beth investigated the hand, humming as she considered its intentions. It took longer than the boy would have preferred, but she ultimately accepted it, grabbing on tight. She then forcibly pulled him along, beyond the amassed congregation, to the point in the ballroom where only stragglers remained. Even after letting go, she maintained a steady pace, no longer looking directly at her newest soundboard. “Keep eating cheese. Look busy.”

He gulped down his last mouthful of cheese before going for another. Lyle Miller experienced a rush of spy euphoria from doing the most spy-thing imaginable beyond underage drinking. Only, it slowly dawned on him that this girl could also be a spy. Anyone here could be spies. Oh no, was he not paranoid enough? Should he have made Lyle Miller more paranoid? All these concerns eventually manifested into a nervous laugh as he allowed himself to follow the mysterious Beth’s lead. “Who are we looking busy for?”

“My bosses,” Beth explained, eyes still shifty at the men and women in her same uniform. “And their bosses. You know, your people.”

“I don’t appreciate the labeling, but sure.”

“Their eyes always wander to us, and not just for our succulent treats.” Her eyes were shifting everywhere now. “It’s unsettling. If you cater any bat mitzvah or community thing, no one really cares about you. Sometimes they’ll be friendly and make conversation, but they know you’re someone with a job and they’re too busy with their own stuff, right? But these guys are different. They’re fascinated by us, because we’re outliers.” Her manifesto was cut short by the disturbing abrupt return of her professional smile as she offered cheese to a couple sitting together at a table. They refused, she nodded, wished them a fun night, then returned to Lyle and just as abruptly dropped the act while they walked away. “They’re still looking at me, aren’t they?”

A quick peek behind Lyle’s shoulder revealed that, yes, that was the case. The couple only looked away once they saw the person looking at them. “Yep.”

“Fucking knew it.” Beth rolled her eyes, allowing one total second of visible disgust before returning to her sweet, welcoming smile, even as she whispered to her new compatriot. “I’m only talking to you because you didn’t keep staring at me. I also figured you were gay.”

“Oh.” There was no right way to feel, nor respond to that. Though, this did mean that Beth immediately clocked him as a guy, so score one for Lyle Miller! Undercover work was so easy. Maybe he should take over as Matches Malone while he was at it. “Well. I’m flattered!”

“They have a club, you know.” Beth’s face remained that helpful grin even after tossing that out of pocket. “You want to know about suspicious drama? I was the last person here one night, cleaning up and inventory and all that, you know? Well, you probably don’t. I bet you’ve ever worked a day in your life.”

“That’s—” Well, he supposed he never really did a real-person job. And it wasn’t like Batman was going to pay her for spending all his time as his apprentice, the rich jerk. “Tough but accurate.”

She chuckled. “I realized we were missing a table, so I started peering all around, even after all the lights went dark. I made it back here, and then there were just—people standing. In the dark, wearing these scary little white masks.” Her hands hovered in front of her face for demonstration, thankfully still looking away from the obviously chilled Lyle. “Had to be six of them. Maybe eight. Couldn’t work out any of them. They were all standing perfectly still in different sections of the hall. Scary still, like statues. Like they were looking guard or something. I kept my distance, but I couldn’t imagine moving at that point. I knew they’d see me the moment I so much as twitched. I was like that for about forty-five minutes, I think?”

Her smile was eerily consistent at this point, her dark tone disappearing briefly to offer some more cubes, before returning with remarkable speed once they walked away. “Felt like hours. But then, a door opened. Janitor’s closet. There was another mask guy inside, and then, they all walked in the creepiest way imaginable.” Her smile was still bright, even as her eyes turned so dark in reminiscence. “I tiptoed my way out. It wasn’t my business. But I think about it every time I’m here.” Her stride ended, as she elected to stare wistfully through the crowd of rich weirdos towards an origin that could not be seen.

The entire time, Lyle had little choice but to nod and absorb every tiny detail, marking important additions to the Mystery Board. By the time it was his turn to speak, his mouth was dry. “What—” He searched for the simplest question that wouldn’t give away his own insight. “What do you think that was about?”

“Some sort of weirdo, exclusive sex club, obviously.” Beth’s tone was beyond certain. It wasn’t a conclusion Lyle could really disagree with. Hell, it might not even be wrong. “I think that’s why everyone here is so weird. I imagine they’re even in the club, or want to be. Maybe they don’t even know there’s a club, maybe it’s a big secret even to them, but they just kind of inherently know, you know?” Her eyes traveled across the scores of adults here for a young girl becoming a legal adult, suddenly available for all the world to see. “All the money in the world, and they’re still playing games to reach a whole other level. Like what they have isn’t enough.”

Of course, it all made sense to Lyle. No one here really loved the concept of money in the pure Scrooge McDuckian sense (why was that duck on his mind so much tonight?), they were interested in power. They were interested in those beneath them, those above them, everything they were and everything that had yet to become, along with anyone they could use to become what they knew they deserved. Lyle didn’t know the size, nor the sheer scope of the Court of Owls, but he was starting to comprehend the structure that allowed such an organization to exist and thrive. It was one thing to possess control over your own life, but once one acquired control over other people’s lives, why not stop until you could be a part of controlling all of Gotham? A lot of these people likely didn’t even believe in the mythical Court, but they believed in a higher echelon they had yet to reach, which was good enough for them.

The bigger question was who did believe, and who was there. If this place was ground zero, then he’d have to keep an even lower profile and try to stake out. Beth didn’t know it, but her little gossiping might have saved the day and made this entire trouble worth it. “No clues on who those people could have been?”

The server simply shrugged. “Told you, they had masks on in the dark and stood perfectly still. No way for anyone to recognize them.”

“Fair point. That’s still fucking wild.” He remained on high alert as he peered around for potential onlookers. “Maybe you shouldn’t share that with anyone else. Have you told anyone else?”

“No, because I knew no one would believe me.” And then Beth flashed a far more human smile than she allowed anyone else at this party. “But I knew you would. I don’t know what your deal is, whether you’re actually supposed to be here or not, but I could tell you were different. It’s the eyes, you know?”

Well, that wasn’t very reassuring! Was there too much life in his eyes? Was he not focusing on the right stuff? Did anyone else notice this? Was Lyle literally too human to be considered rich? Just his luck to have a soul at the worst possible time. Though, that was the story of his life, wasn’t it? That’s why he was in this mess to start with. Despite the compounding freakouts bouncing in his skull, Lyle Miller remained upbeat. “Well, I’m flattered, really. Thank you, Beth.”

“Hey, I call them as I see them.” Her smile was reassuring as he gave the rich boy a spirited punch to the shoulder. “Only other guy I know like that at these things is that Wayne kid. You know him?”

Every bone that comprised Lyle’s precious skeleton instantly froze. Her brain zapped on all cylinders, instigating unruly flashes of psyche without permission. The resulting emotional miasma was far too muddled to break down, though it was much easier to determine the conflicting physical phenomena, ranging from the calmest warmth to the bitterest cold, a mix that did not fare well for the overall health of the body processing all these sensations all at once in a matter of seconds. All this abrupt collection of everything this body had ever experienced thus far resulted in what’s medically referred to as a cold sweat. Miraculously, the body still managed to walk, even in the twenty seconds it took for the mouth to regain function.

“Is he here?”

“Tim? Oh yeah! He mostly hangs around the courtyard like a loner. Like it irks him to be away from the big city for too long.”

“Y-yeah.” Lyle’s face was twitching in ways he couldn’t really visualize nor control. “Sounds like him. Say, uhhhhh, can I ask where the bathrooms are?”

“Oh, over there by the–” 

“Okay, thank you!” Beth’s helpful advice went unfinished once the rich boy made a mad fast-walk towards the direction of her two pointed fingers. Whatever reason she inferred was her own business. Lyle needed to get away. He needed to think. His eyes kept wandering across the multitude of faces once more, no longer seeing any expressions, only searching for a specific set of features that he thankfully never found.

It wasn’t purely emotional turmoil, as prevalent as it guided. Upon finally entering the bathroom and catching a breath, hopefully to no one’s significant acknowledgement, he became more concerned with the more conspiratorial implications. The probability of Tim still existing and still being himself and not brainwashed like everyone else was next to nil.

When was the last time Tim and Steph even talked? Stephanie had her cast, immediately went back into action, talked with him about spending more time together after he was forced out of Robin, then she saw him kissing another girl the next day and…

Huh. That was really it, huh? No no, Tim called her like three months later, saying he wanted to talk to Stephanie about everything, then Bruce roped her into a stupid mission to keep Tim safe and — shit, did she ghost him? Did he ghost her? Did she even talk to him after she got fired? No, no she didn’t. Goddamn. He probably had every right to hate Stephanie even without evil brainwashing.

But as he stood in the bathroom stall, attempting to sort through this tangled web of intrigue before unpacking the equally tangled web of emotions. If Tim saw him, he didn’t pick him out. Or, maybe just didn’t recognize the handsome, dashing Lyle Miller? Cass would have noticed her from a single glance, but Tim wasn’t Cass. Cass wasn’t even Cass! She looked straight at him with zero show of recognition. Unless she was also evil and pretending to not see her? The ambiguity of the entire ordeal irritated him greatly.

No, but that shouldn’t matter! Whether they were currently Lyle or Stephanie, they were still Batman, the World’s Greatest Detective! A title they didn’t really earn rather than stole. All the same, it was time to face the facts: Cassandra Cain was here, she saw Lyle and didn’t react, Timothy Drake was also here, he may or may not have seen Lyle. Richard recognized Jason, but Barbara didn’t, until her mask broke and she recognized Stephanie enough to send her clues towards help. The variables were too great. If Tim saw and recognized Stephanie, then he’d know she was alive and would immediately determine who the new Batman was. Which would be good if Tim were good, but bad if he was bad. 

Considering he hadn’t been out saving Gotham or defending the Robin mantle at all, the latter felt more likely. But Lyle had to make sure. How could he find and stalk Tim Drake, World’s Better Detective, without risking the whole enterprise? What would Lyle Miller do?

Wait, that’s right. Lyle Miller was a spoiled rich kid. He’d simply enlist the help.

And now again obscurity descends, and would indeed that it were deeper! Would, we almost have it in our hearts to exclaim, that it were so deep that we could see nothing whatever through its opacity! Would that we might here take the pen and write Finis to our work!

With his finger tipped to the next page of his novel, Jason was forced to reckon with his burner phone blasting Bad to the Bone at full volume within his tiny yellow cab. He couldn’t recall when Stephanie managed to change his ringtone, which he rarely took off his person, yet she somehow managed to find new creative means of annoying her last remaining ally. There was something to be said about biting the hand that feeds you, if Jason wasn’t also finding new creative means to bite the hand that fed him, the two of them forming a sorta ouroboros of hands. 

The phone flipped open, if only to end the incessant Destroyers, before racing to his ears. “Cabby speaking.”

“I need your help. Big problem.”

Jason sighed as he brought his reclined car seat back up. He figured this wasn’t destined to be a relaxing evening, but he was enjoying his temporary comfort. “What is it? Already brawling?”

“No, just—Tim is here.” 

Ah, a complication! So, it wasn’t so much immediate danger as much as it was teen drama. He could still get behind some teen drama. “Tim as in your ex-boyfriend Tim?”

“Yes! That Tim!” Without the Batman mask, it sounded like Stephanie was back to her regular level of exasperation. “I haven’t found him yet, but I have intel.”

“Debatable.”

“Please listen to me.” A couple seconds passed, giving her apparently enough of an excuse to continue. “Tim is somewhere, I can’t let him see me. If he sees me, he’ll notice me. If he notices me…”

“Yeah yeah, I get the implication.” If the Boring Robin sees his ex among the living, he’d be able to deduce the new Batman’s identity even faster than last time. Right now, all the two really had were subterfuge and symbols. They were already down a Robin, so losing the power of Batman would allow the Owls to completely supplant them. Also, they might kill Stephanie, whom Jason recently decided was better off alive. “So, what? You want me to find him and have him notice me before he notices you?”

“I mean, they already know about you, so probably!” she elaborated, bringing to mind the fact that Dick Grayson, fucking Dick, managed to recognize his sweet kid brother even beyond his owl-based mind control. 

Word had definitely already gotten out that Jason Todd was alive, meaning there was still one remaining relic of Batman’s legacy to collect. “You are aware that you very well might be sending me to my death, right? He’ll know who I am, and they know who I am. If they catch me, what then?”

“I’ll find you.” There was an honest sensitivity in her voice that Jason did not appreciate. “Look, I’m not great at, like, giving out orders or anything, but–”

“Well, get used to it!” He made sure to snap as harshly as possible. He imagined Stephanie flinching at his tone, before realizing she’s more likely glaring at her phone. “You want to be the Big Guy in charge, start acting like it. I’m done doing favors for you. If you want me to do anything, stop being a wet blanket and fucking tell me to do it. I don’t need any of this trepidation.”

“Now you’re just using big Damian words.” She sputtered her lips. “Okay okay, fine, I get it. If we’re really doing this, we’re really doing it. So! My dearest private butler, whose name I will not speak in this bathroom, I hereby command you to intercept any potential communication between me and my ex-boyfriend. Do I make myself clear?”

“I would have put it more succinctly than that, but very well.” Jason licked his thumb before marking his book. “And, for the record, I’m not your butler. Sure as shit ain’t your Alfred.”

“Pftt. You sure about that?”

Jason’s tongue was raised for a comeback that never really came. So, what, he mostly stayed in one of several batcaves doing support work and gathering intel instead of being on the front lines thanks to debilitating injuries and a need to not have their enemies associate Jason Todd and the new Batman together, or else they might discover Batman’s identity. Did that make him Alfred? No. Alfred was way cooler. “If you don’t hear from me in ten minutes, contact me. If I don’t respond in two minutes after that, look for me. Roger?”

“Wilco.”

Jason did his best to hang up first. He’s moderately certain he did. Regardless, it looked like this night was finally about to get exciting. He crawled into the backseat, where a spare tux was carefully hidden within the floorboards.

After exhaling one last Stephanie-style breath, Lyle Miller clapped his phone shut and finally left his stall. Maybe there was somewhere less suspicious he could lay low, maybe find a way to talk with Cassandra, who was currently right in front of her.

…Oh no, Cassandra was right in front of her.

Rather, Cassandra looked to be reading a book (something she could do now, apparently!) by the sink, only to perk her head to notice Lyle. Her head tilted slightly as the two became locked in a battle of wills, though mostly only kept staring at each other. Lyle tried to make sense of all the subtle differences in his old friend’s intrigue, while Cass was no doubt studying Lyle studying her. There was a prolonged staring match, wherein both parties blinked a total of twice within an unknown period between ten seconds or infinity. 

What was there to say? Lyle wouldn’t even know what to say to their Cass, much less this one. Hey, how are you doing? Sorry about lying to you and running off and getting myself killed! What’s new with you? Because I’m currently Batman somehow, because I’m God’s favorite running bit. I know Batman was kinda your thing, but you know, life’s funny that way! Ha ha! But none of that was liable to have any meaning to the girl in front of him, even if her eyes possessed the same sparkle that lived in Lyle’s memory.

“You know this is the women’s restroom, right?” Oh thank god, Cass spoke up first.

After one second of relief, Lyle was subsequently mortified at his mistake. So maybe his character work still had a few holes in it! It’s hard being a boy for the first time! “...Oh.”

“Also, I overheard your whole conversation.” There was obvious embarrassment in her smile. Lyle immediately started replaying the entire phone call in his head to insure none of it was incriminating. “Sorry about that, it was just, you know, kinda hard to ignore. Echoes and all.” 

“I swear I didn’t know this was the girl’s bathroom, I just kinda panicked and ran in here.”

“I understand. Plus, I do believe the women’s bathroom is a solid place to hide from ex-boyfriends. You know, historically.” Her smile was so sweet, the edges of her lips so wry, while her words flowed with ease, almost like English was her first language and not secondary to extreme violence. It bothered Lyle, it bothered him so much, because this girl felt so much like Cass, had her name and everything, yet lacked the trauma that once defined her. Whoever this girl was, she was a fantasy. Maybe she was even Cassandra’s fantasy, a version of herself completely wiped of sin.

Lyle chuckled awkwardly, moving away from the designated staring spot in front of the girl to beside her at the sinks. “Yeah, I guess so. Glad you get it.” Funny how difficult it is to be a people person once you know the person. Still, he had to lay on the charm. Charm and chutzpah was all he really had in this environment. “Lyle Miller, by the way!” He offered his hand. “Feel I owe you a name.”

Cassandra’s own gloved hand clasped his, her grip one of silk rather than iron. “Cassandra Hopkins. It’s my party, so I’d hope you knew.”

“I can’t imagine I know you more than anyone else here.” Their hands bounced once before retreating back to their owners. “No offense, but I have a feeling this party wasn’t entirely your idea.”

Cassandra’s eyebrows quirked and her lips sucked into each other in the most adorable way. Maybe she was aiming for a smile, maybe she was trying to prevent one. “It…was suggested to me that it would be… advantageous .” She was using her words far more delicately than before. “I’ve lived a very private life. A nice one, a privileged one, but a private one.”

“And why’s that?” It was the first of many questions Lyle really really wanted to ask, though the others would have to wait patiently for more context.

“I…” Oh no, he was losing her already. That face was way too forlorn. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s just—god, it’s so complicated, you know? My memory’s all fucked up. I don’t remember anything from before my parents. It made me kinda, I dunno, private, I guess. Isolated.” She let out a long exhale before putting her book into her purse, which holy crap, Cassandra Cain had a purse now. The old one probably lacked enough sentimental non-weapon possessions to fit in a bag. Lyle managed a peek at the book’s cover and found it mildly surprising that Yentl used to be a book.

Of course, the surprises kept coming, as this Cass proved far more conversational than her former counterpart. “My parents homeschooled me. Well. Gave me my love of reading, music, all the arts they thought to share. They—” She searched for a continuation of her thoughts. Maybe she was looking for her parent’s excuse.

Lyle couldn’t be certain how much Cassandra actually meant everything she was saying. For all he knew, this was an agreed cover story meant to stoke sympathy, either from the boy she immediately pegged as Stephanie Brown, or the wealthy world at large. All Lyle knew was that Cass was being used as a tool and he didn’t like it. He wanted this double-sided charade to end so they could drop all pretense and finally speak as themselves. But everything the girl said felt so real and raw. He wanted to find the deception, to be actively tricked by some evil, brainwashed simulacra wearing the skin of her friend. It would be so much easier if she was just evil. Unfortunately, Cassandra Hopkins meant everything she said.

“They kept you a secret for this long?” 

“For my own good,” she justified like breathing, “Don’t worry, it’s only because of me. I suggested it. They really are amazing parents, I’m really lucky to have them.”

“You keep saying that like it matters.” Maybe Lyle was letting his frustration show too quickly. Maybe he didn’t really care. “Cass, why has no one been allowed to know you exist until now?”

“Cass?” The girl blinked, eyes drifting away towards nothing before snapping back at the boy fast enough to give him an irregular heart palpitation. “That’s new.” Oh thank goodness, she had a smile now. “A little familiar, but I like it. Never had a nickname before.”

Yes you did! “Just kinda slipped out. But still. I’m curious, you know?” He hoped the shrug was doing a lot of the work his words couldn’t. “Every time you try talking about yourself, you keep talking about your parents. It’s, uhhh…”

“A little bit telling?” Cassandra looked flustered in a way Lyle could have never conceived. Her fingers tapped idly against the bathroom countertop. “Maybe. Sorry if you were expecting more out of me. There isn’t really a lot to me beyond my home life. I’m great at a lot of things though! I can play a mean piano! And you should see me in our private ballet studio. Rave reviews all around!”

“By your parents?”

“By…” Cass bit her tongue, the most Cass thing she’d done. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

This was just sad. Cassandra was a sad character before, but this was a whole new level of sad. It was like the Hopkins and/or Owls and/or whatever had sucked her dry of everything that made her unique before. Like they uploaded all the pleasant things a nice young lady of privilege should have, like a love for literature and crippling codependence. That part made Lyle very mad; actually talking with the resulting girl only made him sad. 

“Ya know, if you wanted, maybe I could come over and watch you perform. If you wanted.”

A quick turn of the head and Cass’ face was right up against his, more serious than she’d been this whole conversation. “Are you trying to ask me out? Are you hoping to take advantage of me?”

“What?! No!” Lyle actually recoiled back at the accusation. “No, I’m not! I can just tell you need a friend. And you seem cool, so…” Once more, he relied on the power of a shrug. “I’m happy to be your friend.”

“Hmm…” Cassandra continued her lingering stare, the closest she came to resembling the Batgirl everyone knew and loved. Then, she smiled. “True.” And she leaned back into her practiced poise. “Okay then. I’ll ask my parents.”

“What—what did you do that for? What you did right there?”

“Another special skill of mine~” She flashed an adorable wink that Lyle truly could not prepare for, nor decipher the purpose. “I have the preternatural talent of telling whenever people are telling the truth or not. It’s really helpful.”

“Oh. Okay. Sure! Makes sense!” He tried to act like that was weirder than Cassandra using a Damian-type word like preternatural . “I’ve seen weirder things.”

The natural flow of conversation was diverted easily by the arrival of an older woman into the bathroom. Grey-haired shrew gave both of the loitering occupants the stink eye, signifying that it was about time to move their talk elsewhere. Wordlessly, the two turned each and nodded, electing to walk out and let the bittie do her business in peace.

Once they were back out in the busyness of the world’s most useless birthday celebration, loud brass and drums piercing their previous calmness, Lyle sought to resume first. “Think your parents are really cool enough to just let me waltz in?”

“My parents are plenty cool,” Cass pouted, despite all evidence to the contrary. “But…” Her head nodding to the side was obviously meant to communicate more than any words she couldn’t find. “If you want to avoid them, I do have a balcony…”

Finally, some resistance! Lyle’s resulting smile was finally more sincere than practical. “Are you really wanting me to sneak up to your balcony in a Romeo and Juliet scenario? And you were worried about me flirting with you? C’mon, girl.”

“Balconies existed before Shakespeare! It’s an innocent suggestion!” Her grinning face blossomed into disarmingly brilliant giggles. “I’m not even saying anything! Balconies can be used for tons of things! I’m only telling you I have one!”

“Oh yes, sure. Little Miss Innocent over here, speaking entirely random facts that aren’t meant to be anything. How forthright of me.”

“Downright fortuitous.”

“Fortuitous? Me?” Lyle’s hand rocketed to his binded, gasping chest. “You jest. Surely, you jest.”

That damn smirk on Cass’ face was so instantly familiar, unchanged with the rest of her. “Tell me, Lyle Miller, do you make a habit of using the lady’s restroom often?”

Somehow, Cassandra Hopkins happened upon the single most incriminating question she could have asked. The creases on Lyle’s face would have been enough to rat him out if this was his true friend. “Well—”

Thankfully, any potential lie was preempted by an ear-piercing BANGBANGBANGBANG!!! Instant relief turned to a slightly delayed alarm as Lyle immediately rolled himself in front of Cassandra. A stray thought questioned why he thought himself necessary to protect Cassandra Cain of all people, before recalling that this was no daughter of Cain now. “Stay back!”

He had to determine the source of the BANGBANGBANGBANG!!! An identical discharge burst in the air. Sounded like pistol fire, two of them. He looked towards the crowd for potential casualties, but everyone looked to be fine, albeit too panicked to move. They all looked up, gaping at their attacker, a man in a purple suit, green helmet, and fluttering orange wings. Killer Moth . Lyle’s pistol prediction was right, dual revolvers in his hands still smoking while pointed to the ceiling. 

“NOBODY MOVE!” His voice was dark and booming, the eyes of his mask glowing with his speech while it amplified his voice to break through the wawa of panic. “THIS IS A ROBBERY!”

There were a lot worse rogues to deal with, but there were far better scenarios to confront any masked villain. Foolishly, Lyle left his only Batsuit at home, reasoning that it wouldn’t fit under his current clothes and he couldn’t risk having Batman completely stolen if someone commandeered the cab. That meant he was currently incognito, unarmed, and had a trembling girl squeezing his arm like it would save her life. It was a very un-Cass move, even if the vice-like clasp was undeniably her.

He had to think quick, even with his pants down. Maybe there was something around here to throw at him. Plenty of chairs. Would it attract too much attention if Lyle Miller slammed a chair against an attacking villain? Did it even matter? No. Lives were on the line, so every other concern was useless now. He looked towards the panicked girl, frowned, and then throttled the both of them towards the nearest table. Killer Moth fluttered at the slightest change in movement, aiming his guns. BANGBANGBANGBANG!!! Bullets hurled their way, prompting terrified eeps from Cass, even as Lyle maneuvered them both underneath the table. For one, rich people's excess saved the day, the fine mahogany of their dinner tables proving resistant to harmful projectiles.

“Are you trying to get us killed?!” Cassandra squawked.

“NOBODY MOVE! THIS IS A ROBBERY!” Killer Moth repeated, in the exact same droning tone and meter as before. The exact same. In fact, it was downright dull commentary for a colorful man in a moth costume.

Such suspicions were suspended as Lyle tried to focus on the task at hand. He needed one fluid motion to pick up the nearest chair and hurl it towards the villain. Except the richies also didn’t skim on the chairs, which were a fine, heavy wood, far less aerodynamic than he needed right now. Crap crap crap. Okay, maybe he could throw a fork or something at him really fast. 

Or, he could let the scary owl man crashing through a glass window take care of him. That strategy immediately proved very effective.

Masked weirdos crashing through buildings had really lost their luster since Lyle was six. Instead of awe or fear at the emergence of a previously unknown player, his instant reaction was “Oh, come on.” He didn’t even raise his voice. It all happened so fast that there was hardly time to take in the new party guest before he was on top of Killer Moth, giant brown, mechanical wings aflutter, before slamming the fellow masked marauder towards the ground. The rich folk gasped and ran off to give them both room.

Once they landed on the ballroom floor, everything was clear as day. Their visitor wore a mask that covered their entire face, covered in brown feathers with two large, ovular sections around two beady black eyes. It was instantly identifiable as an owl. An owl with a collar of fluffy white feathers that wrapped around a robe of flatter, more organized feathers, primarily brown with specks of white and black. Beneath that robe was a suit of armor colored a shade darker of brown, embellished with the silhouette of an owl taking flight, its talons sharp and ready. The talons resembled the claws on their hands and feet, one of their lower ones currently squeezing Killer Month’s helmet, the wings resembling the copper-toned mechanical feathers along their arms that looked ready for aviation. Whoever this person was, they were new and they were an owl, which was enough to sound a billion bells in Lyle’s head.

Once the gasping died, the new mask spoke. “Do not be afraid. I am not here to harm.” The very deep voice was modulated at a frequency eerily matching the Talons. Whoever they were, they obviously wanted to project themselves as a scary guy. “I am here to protect. I am here to punish those who wish you harm.” 

His talons squeezed against Killer Moth’s green head once more, until it all caved in. Blood gushed from the helmet, staining the otherwise tainted floors. The gasps returned, bringing shocked whispers with them.

Lyle couldn’t take her eyes off the new corpse. He wasn’t entirely sure what he could have done to preserve that man’s life, but it didn’t matter, because he didn’t do anything. He just watched helplessly, the same as everyone else, too distracted by the theatrics to actually do something. These people needed Batman, who was currently twiddling his thumbs because his paranoia looped around into pure worthlessness. Typically by now, Bruce would come crashing through the window to fight this obvious villain. If Bruce was indisposed, a Robin would take his place and save the day. If not Robin, a Batgirl, a Nightwing, that Catholic Guy, even Huntress if he was in a good mood! Only now there wasn’t Robin around to help anymore.

“You may be reasonably shocked now, yet you will come to thank me. ” He stepped off the now sparking helmet to better address the crowd. “ The Batman is dead. Imitators may waltz around our great city, denying that which we know to be fact, but we all know the true reality. ” Low blow, Owl Guy, low blow. “I do not stand here among you to offer myself as a replacement. I do not stand as a king, merely a man, wart and all. A man that wishes to protect this great city with all his heart, much as the Batman before him. ” He then stared down at his bloodied talons, giving them a good kick to make a tiny spot of blood slam to the floor. “ I am Owlman.”

“More like Foulman !” The insult bubbled from Lyle’s stomach to his mouth quick enough to be a hiccup. Eyes tore away from the new mask towards the boy, who only allowed a gnashing of teeth to express the panic in his heart. So much for a low-profile. “Batman isn’t dead, idiot. He’s still flying around doing bat things!” Maybe he couldn’t punch this guy in the face right now, but he could march closer towards it. “Besides! You just fucking killed that guy, dude! What kind of hero does that?!”

Owlman remained still, save for a tiny tilt of its head. “One that comprehends what must be done. That is the type of owl I am.”

“Then what must be done , huh?” Lyle tilted his head in kind as partygoers parted ways for the young man’s warpath. “Who are you to decide what a crime is worth?”

“Who is anyone to decide?”

“No one is.” Now that he was nearing Owlman’s private space, the sheer difference in height and size became increasingly known. Lyle made sure his face didn’t acknowledge how he hardly came to the mask’s fluffy shoulders. “Not you, or me, or the police, or anyone. That’s besides the point. Wanna know why people love Batman so much? Why they’ll never love you?” 

Being lower did let him poke the owl on the man’s armored chest. “Because Batman would always save you, even if you never thought to save him. He’s not the law, he isn’t a judge or executioner.” He finally peered up, where Owlman’s dead black eyes shined down on him, giving Lyle a remarkably clear look at his steely face. “Batman cares about everyone. He shoulders a love and a hope few can bear. Can you?”

“What is your name?” The owl boomed directly into his naysayer’s face.

Lyle smirked. “Doesn’t matter. I’m nobody important. Same as you.”

Owlman didn’t move. “You would do well to remember that.” And then he finally moved, ascending to the sky courtesy of whatever technology let him effortlessly hover in the air with his now glowing wings.

“Really? Going with the ‘no, you’ strategy? At least Batman knew how to banter? What can you do?”

For lack of a comeback, Owlman exited through the same hole he made. The party grew silent for a long bit, until the murmurs returned. Everyone looked to Lyle, who was brave and/or stupid enough to poop on their partypooper’s partypooper. Pictures were already being snapped of this handsome new face standing next to a dead moth man. The best Lyle could do was flash those winning teeth and give a tepid wave, before all the rich people rushed towards his side.

“Atta boy!” one man proclaimed, slapping said boy’s back harder than many mooks. “Takes a lot of bravery to stand up to another man like that! You’re something special, ya know that?”

“Heavens, I was so scared!” one woman exclaimed, as if people still shouted to Heaven for exclamation. “I could never do anything like that. You are a brave child, aren’t you?”

“Pretty cool, dude!” another man with far too much grey in his hair to say such a thing congratulated him. “What’s your name?”

“Yeah, what’s your name?” “What’s your name, lad?” “Don’t go skimming on us too! Ha~!” The same question poured in infinitely from all sides.

So much for a low profile. “My name’s Lyle Miller, ma’am. Lyle Miller. I’m Lyle Miller, sir. I’m–” Variations ensued ad infinitum, with all his complicated backstory work proving useless considering each conversation ended with an introduction, before moving to the next introduction.

The only interaction that didn’t require an introduction was none other than the birthday girl herself squeezing into the chaos. Lyle didn’t even have time to greet Cassandra, before she dreamily cheered “My hero~!”

And then, she kissed him. On the cheek, maybe, but a kiss nonetheless. And then, she took Lyle’s hand and pulled him away from all the enthusiastically curious adults, all of them parting ways for both the boy and girl of the hour. They just kept running, away from the party at large, and ever closer towards the exit.

What was Lyle even supposed to do, huh? The night had become a whirlwind, so much to interpret, so much to decrypt, but his mind was still trying to find the right way to comprehend that Cassandra just gave him a wet smooch on the cheek with rosy red lipstick, still plastered on a pure, excited smile that he could have never imagined on her face. There was no suffering in her smile, no regrets clouding those eyes. She was enjoying life in this moment unbridled, with no reason to deny herself this joy. It was so beautiful that it was terrifying.

The atmosphere made of hundreds or so rich bastards breathing through their mouths cleared into the sweet smell of pine outside. Only then did Cassandra cease her sprint and release her handsome captive. “Sorry about that, but figured I owed you after, well—” Her shrug was very adorable. “You know, everything. I still can’t believe you stood up to that dork, though!”

Oh good, at least Cass still had taste like this. “Someone had to, right?” He shrugged incorrigibly. “Just seemed kinda rude to, uh, crash a party and kill a man in front of everyone. Guess the adrenaline high got me.”

“Nuh uh.” Cass’ bob flopped back and forth as she shook her head. “Adrenaline can’t do that. That was bravery. Same way that you started protecting me whenever things got rough. You’re a brave lil hero, aren’tcha~?” Her hand rested calmly onto Lyle’s chest, which immediately straightened at the touch, because holy shit . “Oh! Wow! Was your heart pumping this hard whenever you stood up to that scary man?”

“I’m gay.” On that excuse, he backed away, regaining his space and control of his blood pressure. He couldn’t deal with this. Maybe Jason could sweep in and—Jason! How much time had passed?!

“Hmm. True?” Cassandra turned her head and narrowed her eyes in pensive observation. “Mostly true. True enough?” Her hands rested on her chin as she tried her damnedest to decipher her savior.

Lyle did his best to ignore her, electing to check his phone quickly. He saw one new message from Jason and felt her body temperature lose ten degrees before he opened it.

timmy left. followin owl man lead. go home not safe

So, he really managed to avoid Tim this entire time? Oh, thank whatever cosmic nonsense that threaded that needle. Maybe the Green Lanterns had some sort of green deity for her to thank properly later. At the very least, tonight wasn’t a total bust. He did create contact with Cassandra, more contact than he really needed, honestly. Whatever trouble Jason gets into, any new information on this Owlman would be greatly appreciated. There was nothing wrong with calling it quits early because of a murder whose investigation he really did not need right now.

ok mesag if need help

One less matter to worry about, ideally. Lyle Miller wasn’t exactly the picture of inconspicuous anymore. Whether or not the police or media got here first, he didn’t need to be around whenever they were. He finally turned back towards Cassandra, who was still eyeing him with impish curiosity. “Sorry, but I really should be heading out.”

“Understandable.” Nonetheless, Cassandra gave an overwrought, dramatic sigh with her hand on her forehead. “The hero must disappear to fight another day, never to be seen again! Many such cases.”

“Hey, we’ll meet again. You have a balcony, right?”

The resulting sparkle in her eyes as that unbridled smile formed was worth the entire night. “I do have a balcony.”

“Good thing to have.” Cabs were lining up to take people away from the crime scene already. All Lyle had to do was wave for one’s attention before opening the door. “You’ll see me again. Promise.”

By the time he was in the cab and asked to be dropped several streets down from his actual home, they only had polite smiles and awkward waves to exchange, before distance once more separated the two.

Once there was no sight of Cassandra Hopkins to be seen, Stephanie Brown took a long breath, the binder around her chest suddenly a lot tighter.

She was tired as sin, she wanted to sleep, but her mind was buzzing way too much to make such a night possible. Shamefully, Owlman really did shake her, if only because she could see his place on the Mystery Board. If the Owls wanted to be subtle, they wouldn’t have stabbed so many people so many times with specially-branded knives, nor would they have approached Penguin and who knows who else directly with a Talon. Owlman was a deliberate escalation, likely the start of a new phase. If they were gaining control of the criminal underworld, it only made sense to seize Batman’s role as well. If they were going to have control over business and crime, they might as well control the means of rebellion too.

She pondered who Owlman could be, if he might be another new Mystery Board entirely. Whoever he was, they could have casted him better. Then again, all the Court really needed was a marionette to dance around performatively. Would it have killed him to make him a little more fun, though? Whoever designed his suit had to be a supervillain, because no sane-minded human being would have thought that suit was hero material. The fluffy cape? Seriously?

These thoughts preoccupied Stephanie throughout the entire ride and subsequent walk back to the flat. Funny, this would be her first time spending the night there without Damian or Jason to keep her company. Not that she wasn’t experienced at spending nights alone, but she always saw the place as a sort of collaboration, a place where Batman and Robin could hang out and figure out this whole mess.

At least until she failed Robin. Stephanie could roll with a lot of failures, but not with Damian. It was maybe the telltale sign that she lacked Bruce’s nerves of steel, because the moment her Robin got himself nearly killed, she couldn’t bear it. Putting his life on the line wasn’t hers to make, but it wasn’t his either. Watching Damian charge into battle against direct orders reminded her a lot of herself, the worst parts of her that ruined her entire life trying to prove something. She couldn’t be responsible for letting him throw away his life for nothing. 

Oh Christ, maybe she really was becoming Bruce. Was this how he saw her? This was awful! But did that make Steph awful? Probably? She did not have enough brain power to sort through this. Therapy could wait.

Regardless, she didn’t regret it. Whenever Talia al Ghul shows up at the hospital and says she’s taking her son home, you don’t pitch an argument. Or, maybe Steph could have. Old Steph definitely would have. But at that point, it was a relief. She couldn’t survive a second panic like that.

Her stomach growled once she came inside the flat. Oh right, she was surrounded by free rich people food all night and all she ate were delectable cheese cubes. A BLT sounded pretty good.

She flipped the light switch on and Talia al Ghul was sitting on her couch, staring right at her. Stephanie couldn’t even bring herself to be startled, much less surprised. “Any good news?” she asked with a defeated sigh while moving to the fridge to pour some OJ.

“Damian has recovered.”

“Any bad news?”

“Damian ran away.”

“Yep.” She got in three good gulps of pulpy goodness. “Makes sense. Would you allow me a little muesli bar before I put on the suit?”

“I believe you can multitask.”

Wonderful. Stephanie didn't need the night off anyway. This was better.

She checked her phone quick. Still no new messages. Helpful. Just what wacky misadventures were Jason Todd up to?

Some time earlier…

Shamed as Jason was to admit it, maybe Bruce was onto something making Robin spend several days perfecting his quick change routine. He managed to go from cabby to snazzy in the back of a car within ten seconds flat. That man instilled an endless amount of useless skills that nonetheless proved circumstantially relevant. If need be, he could distract all the party guests with close-up magic.

Now that he looked closer to someone who could belong here, his search for dear Timmy Drake could commence in earnest. He’d hunted him down once before, mostly for fun, so tracking him at a dumb rich people party couldn’t be too—oh look, there he was. It took all of five steps to find the kid hanging around the patio fountain on his phone.

Maybe they were only a year apart, but Jason knew a kid whenever he saw one. Contrary to popular belief, Jason wasn’t that upset that another kid stole his precious Robin spot. It was annoying, sure, but Jason didn’t even wait for the last Robin to explode before taking his whole act. He knew Robin would always outlive him; he just never understood why him? Jason always felt antsy at these sorts of fancy parties, while Bruce had plenty of stories to tell of Dick Grayson the orphan acrobat getting into trouble at them, but this loser looked like he belonged here. He was born rich with two loving if busy parents, which he got to keep until he put on the Robin suit, wherein he very quickly lost his mom because welcome to the fucking club, buddy.

There truly was something that irked him about this kid. Wasn’t a bad Robin though. He definitely managed to stay alive longer than him, albeit at the cost of Bruce and Stephanie and his mom and his dad and that Superboy and fucking Donna, and—okay, scratch that, he was a pretty awful Robin. Fuck em.

“Well well, if it isn’t Tiny Timmy! It's a small world after all.” Jason approached the kid with a combative grin and his hands in his suit pockets. “Been a bit. What have you been up to?”

Tim didn’t even look away from his phone. “Honestly? Waiting for you.”

There was a sharp sting on Jason’s neck all of a sudden. Shit. Reflexes demanded that he feel his neck, only to find a needle in there. Sharp needle, tiny needle, easy to take out. The numbness in his legs suggested that his instant instinct was correct. “Dirty move, Drake. Dirty move…” 

Didn’t take long for his legs to give into the numbness, no longer wishing to support his increasingly weighty body. Then there was another sharp sting. And another, and one more, and yet more, until his arms, legs, neck, and everything was numb to the world. This wasn’t poison, this was anesthetic that was paralyzing him like a gas-happy dentist. His mouth felt full of cotton, his tongue incapable of releasing the expletives his replacement deserved. Yet, he was still conscious. Evidently, the Court of Owls had their own dark sense of humor.

With his back flopped to the ground, Jason saw everyone present in the courtyard hover over him, all covered in stupid white bird masks. Solid commitment to the bit. Only Tim was unmasked, staring down at him with an unbelievably smug face, those damn baby blues so full of derision. “You really should have stayed with Batman, Jason. Diving headfirst into danger all by yourself? Historically, a terrible idea. But you never were the most independent Robin, were you?”

Jason wanted to spit in his face so bad. He wanted to curse and strangle the idiot, even more so after he slipped on a stupid bird mask of his own. His vision grew green with murderous intent, only there was no outlet to express his rage, no way to punch that rich kid’s face to an unrecognizable mess of blood. He couldn’t move, even as the fountain slid to reveal the secret passage underneath, even as all these owl fuckers started carrying him like a discarded couch down to who knows where. He couldn’t even smack Tim’s hand away as it reached into his pocket.

“Hm.” He took one look at the phone, followed by one look at Jason, followed by returning to the phone, before typing something to Steph, oh no, Steph. They knew about Steph! And he couldn’t even warn her. He couldn’t yell her name, yell about her danger, about his danger, about what was to come to Batman. Batman was in trouble. His heart was raising, green obscuring his forced journey into the underworld. Batman was in trouble and Jason couldn’t save him. Batman couldn’t save him. He wanted to move, he wanted to stop all this, but he couldn’t. He never could.

Jason couldn’t help anyone and nobody could help Jason. It was the same tale that played endlessly on repeat, so the universe obviously saw him being helpful for once and sought to correct this cosmic anomaly to make up for its last one. The green consumed all, until he could no longer see or hear anything of reality. His body felt like nothing at all, crying to at least feel pain, but not even being allowed that mercy. There were no smells, no taste, no sensation at all beyond the ache of existence

It was very familiar.

Chapter Text

The phrase “force of nature” was well overused, but there were no other words to describe the woman Batman was currently riding bitch seat to. Talia al Ghul glided across Gotham on her motorcycle like she commanded the wind itself, authority forever present on her face that she refused to obscure by any helmet. Even with her voluminous brown hair blasting in the air, she carried herself a lot like Bruce did, like she had complete and utter understanding of her place within the grand machinations of the universe, of all the power that she possessed over the flow of what is and what might be. One look at her and you knew you knew nothing.

Alternatively, maybe she was just distractingly hot.

Her attire was already distracting, a bright white bodysuit decorated with armor plating containing golden-accented patterns Batman couldn’t hope to decipher any meaning to. Dual swords were prominently sheathed on her back, their hilts piercing the night with their shine. Whenever Damian spoke of “the celebrated leader of the League of Assassins,” she was imagining some manner of ninja queen that resided in all the spaces in-between. But as it turned out, Talia al Ghul wasn’t some beast lurking in the shadows like her bat-clad boytoy; if she was in-town, she wanted you to know, and she wanted you to run.

Batman sure felt like running during their first encounter.

Thursday, 9:11pm (2 Days to Gala)

“—That left hook, though. Hit me square in the jaw! But it was a desperate last move. Left him wide open for a right and proper KAPOW! Right in the stomach! Then I did this super cool move Cass showed me. Maybe you know it too, I dunno how far these things travel. Point is, I started banging on his stomach, BANG BANG BANG BANG, until I could sweep his legs, and then! WHAM! Right in the kisser, right in the schnoz! He was completely down for the count after that. Ha! Felt nice. Felt real nice. Wish I could have gotten a recording of it. You would’ve loved it. Or you’d at least love criticizing every wrong move I made. I wouldn’t have minded that.”

Despite Stephanie’s effusive enthusiasm, Damian did not cease being in a coma. He looked more relaxed in a real hospital bed, she supposed. Leslie muttered about the number of Robins she’d had to deal with the past week, but she wasn’t ever going to reject a boy in need. Doc said the boy was remarkably stable, shockingly so considering most adults took months of therapy to reach the level of healing Damian’s body had done so far. She theorized the kid’s body had locked his mind down to somehow focus entirely on healing faster than what was generally agreed upon as humanly possible.

“I don’t wanna bore you with all the emotional stuff I felt after. I know you’d hate that. I’d hate that. Is it wrong to say I know you won’t blame me for this? You’re way too stubborn to act like your actions are the result of anyone but yourself. Guess I’m too stubborn to act like I don’t feel responsible. I do, by the way. Feel responsible, I mean. Hard not to. I mean, what are we if I’m not responsible for you?”

“I would suggest discovering that soon.”

The voice was new. Stephanie whipped around, hands twitching towards the emergency Batarangs stored in her pocket. There was a woman at the doorway behind her, standing tall, imposing, and gorgeous, with emerald eyes dark enough to reflect the sun. Her frown was strikingly familiar. It took the girl all of six seconds to form an educated guess as to her identity.

“You’re his mom, aren’t you?”

“Ah. That classic Robin ingenuity.” This was Damian’s mom alright. She looked at Steph with thin lips stealthily curved into a fond smile, as if replaying a memory. Most would have missed the smile, but Steph had become sensitive to the lip emotions considering her line of work. “I’ve missed it. It’s unfortunate I haven’t been allowed in Gotham for some time. Though, security has become lax since…” Her words quietly trailed away with her sight, until she stared, and she frowned.

Stephanie shifted awkwardly in her seat, trying her best to match the eyeline of the most dangerous women in the world. She didn’t know shit about the League of Assassins beyond osmosis, but she knew this woman not only had a hundred ways to kill her right now, but she possessed as many means to wipe any trace of Stephanie off the planet. Damian really hammered in that detail.

“Should I, uhhh…leave?”

“Yes.” The concern in Talia’s eyes sharpened once she glared at the girl. “I would recommend you do. Your presence is no longer needed. I will be taking my son.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Craaaaaaaaap . Steph was definitely winning the Dynamic Duo Award after this. In record time, she managed to get her sidekick shot and blew his cover. Though, considering the former, maybe it was for the best. She wasn’t really sure what type of woman could create a boy like Damian, but he took every chance he could to laud his mother, typically in ways that made himself sound more important. A secret society of assassins was much more likely to keep him safe than a high school dropout playing dress-up as his dead dad.

Even if she initially became Batman to protect him. It was fine. This was fine. Better than fine! Good even! This meant she officially no longer had the shortest Robin tenure! That was worth something.

But Stephanie still hadn’t moved a muscle. She remained seated, watching Talia tenderly graze the resting Damian’s head. Something panged in her heart. She did her best to ignore it, along with the hundreds of thoughts too loud to properly sift.

Thankfully, Talia broke through the cloud of neurosis with her tempered tone. “You have yet to leave.” She observed, despite never turning to watch her subject.

“Oh! Yeah, yeah! Right!” Stephanie’s feet rocketed back into standing position, her footing rocky for a second as blood rushed back into her head. “I…guess I should apologize for—”

“Don’t apologize for anything.” The sexy assassin lady raised a hand, still denying eye contact. “My opinions are many, but they are irrelevant. Please leave.”

Stephanie gulped. “Alright.” And she went.

In the back of her pretty blond head, Batman knew that couldn’t be the end of it. Were it so easy that anyone she touched wouldn’t forever be drawn into her gravitational pull like a black hole of metaphor. It was foolish to hope that Damian would be an exception. And the worst part? Her brain was actively searching for a reason to delay their reunion, because she honestly missed the little guy.

She wanted to tell him she was sorry while he could actually hear. She wanted to let him know he was a great Robin, that she exclusively failed and that’s why they can no longer be partners. She wants him to know that he’s worth far more than Robin, or the Son of the Bat, or any useless title anyone else would give him. She wants him to understand he’s a kid and that’s enough.

Even if they were destined to meet again tonight, she doubted her ability to properly communicate any of these ideas to the boy. Still, she hoped he would understand somehow. Horrifically, she hoped.

The mood remained awkward as they zoomed from corner to corner in search of a single soul in this void of a city. Batman wasn’t entirely sure what kind of lead they were seeking, if they were seeking anything at all. It was entirely possible Talia was simply kidnapping her by forcing the hero to wrap their arms around her supple hips. If so, it was the perfect crime.

But mystique could only get a girl so far. “So, do you know where we’re going, or are we just going around in circles? Cuz I’m pretty sure we already passed that alley three times.” Talia muttered something under her breath in response. “What was that?”

“I said this city is infernal!” The woman blasted as her bike revved with increased anger and speed. “I have no idea where he could have run off to! I have no idea why he would!”

“Probably to prove himself!” The revelation flowed out without warning.

“And what does he have to prove?!”

“I dunno! Everything?! He finally found something to call his own and we both kinda tried taking that away from him, sooo…” Amazing what epiphanies occurred at sixty miles per hour holding onto a killer for dear life. They definitely made the situation clearer but did little to make it happier! Honestly, she kinda felt like shit right now.

Tires screeched and permanent marks were made upon the Gotham asphalt as the bike struggled to regain stillness. Now that the wind ceased to blast against the soundwaves of their conversation, Talia gently revved into one of the city’s less famous alleys. Her face remained the same stoic fury, like a Moai head enraptured in flames. She didn’t say anything for the longest time, allowing the sputtering of her bike’s engine alone to fill the air.

Unfortunately, this Batman was never one for dead air. She hated being the one to break the ice, but some ice evidently needed breaking. “Something on your mind, or—”

“I knew this would happen,” Talia interrupted, snapping her eyes of fury at the woman, before airing out a small sigh. “Eventually. You promise your child the world and they’ll stop at nothing to seize it. He’s been like this ever since my father tried possessing him.”

“Okay. I was not around for that. How long is that story?”

“Too long. We’d have to cover a minimum of one-thousand years.” That felt like a joke. Batman hoped it was a joke. “Ultimately, it ends with my son choosing to run away from home to be closer to his deceased father.”

“Can you blame ‘em?” The remark flowed like a natural curve of her tongue. Once it rolled, there was no use stopping it, present company be damned. “Every kid wishes they could be Batman’s kid. The last Robin definitely did. And Batgirl, I mean, obviously. And I don’t wanna judge your parenting skills or anything, but I can’t imagine anything at Killer Training Camp is more fun than doing Batman stuff. He just has a special sense of entitlement since he’s an, ahh, actual product of Batman. Actually, wait, I was meaning to ask, is that—”

“Yes, it’s true.”

“Wow. Goddamn.”

The edges of Talia’s lips finally subsided into what could be seen as a smile even to the layman. “That is a shorter, yet no less complex story. My beloved and I were quite the romantics back then. Too romantic.” The smile remained, even as her eyes drained of glee. “I realized the longer we stayed together, the longer we strayed from our respective destinies. Yet, following every tragic decision we made, Damian remained. I’ve protected him ever since.”

That was at least twelve times the number of words Batman was expecting. What scientifically compelled people to monologue to her? “No offense, but protect him from what exactly? He grew up surrounded by killers.”

“Weren’t you?” Oh, so now Talia was getting sassy.

“Touche, Miss al Ghul. But look how great I turned out! I’m no child development professional, but I don’t feel like this—” she gestured at her whole deal “—is what eighteen is supposed to look like.”

The mood had lightened significantly, the woman’s smile a little easier. If Batman didn’t know any better, she’d start to feel safe.

“Frankly, I find it morbid speaking to a woman parading my beloved’s skin like a Halloween costume.” See? That would have tripped someone less prepared.

“Coulda made that sound a little less gross…”

“No, I could not.” Talia returned to that ice cold glare likely registered as a deadly weapon. “I detest this entire incessant charade. It should have died with Jason. It certainly should have died with my beloved. It’s horrid enough that this entire city has become little more than a farce. All the original actors have departed, and all that remains is a shadow play. Worse yet, my only son is among those begging for the part of a shadow.”

“I wouldn’t say begging —”

“You fail to understand. He begged me!” All the cool in Talia’s eyes inflamed into horrifying honesty. “Damian has always wanted things. He has whined and cried and argued and done everything he could to get his way. But he has never begged me for anything.” She refused to look at Batman, choosing to look at nothing instead while her fingers clutched for some metaphysical understanding. “He’s never degraded himself to such a degree before. He tried being respectful, tried making his case for staying here, to continue with the shadow play. I kept turning him down, so he chanted please . Please, Mother, please , over and over. There was such desperation in his eyes. He never displayed that dread before. He never feared a challenge or taking another person’s life, yet here he was, my child, Damian al Ghul, grandson of the Demon’s Head, begging to remain here of all places!”

She finally looked at Batman and Batman immediately wished she didn’t. There was no hiding her fury anymore, which was not the kinda face one wanted to see on a living encyclopedia of death. “He begged me to keep playing your endless games.”

“Maybe because it was his choice for once!”

Talia pulled away, while Batman blinked under her mask, ironically far more apparent in her emotions. Both stared at the other, equally shook over the revelation that finally slipped out. The cycle’s hum provided the only soundtrack of the night as the words fermented.

Because Batman really had taken the kid’s choice away. Like the Batman before her, she decided that this troubled kid was better off without control over his own world, because god forbid they get hurt. God forbid his consequences be his own. But whenever the time came, whenever someone she was responsible for got hurt, she got scared. Because guess what? It was scary as shit!

Batman could take a hit, she always could, but she never carried a child bleeding to death from bullet wounds, much less one that she knew, that she joked with, that she felt some manner of kinship with. This wasn’t Spoiler business. No one cared about Spoiler, so no one put much faith in her. Bruce sure didn’t! There were short windows where he feigned trust, but it never lasted long because it was never real. Why make a learning opportunity whenever you already have a yelling opportunity, right? It's great to imagine helping someone until they become something you have to continually worry about.

She replayed the scene of a little kid cowering in fear of her father before a masked man swooped in and knocked his block off. In that moment, life blossomed. Stephanie Brown realized she was no mere victim of fate, that she had as much power in the world as the man punching her dad in the face. It meant she could punch him in the face.

Would that have been a wise option for a tiny five-year-old? Maybe not. But it was an option. It was always on the table. No one could take that option away from her, or anyone else. Not her dad, not her mom, not the police, nobody.

Not even Batman.

Both women peered up to the sky at the same sight, the same symbol that bound their fates together. They looked at each other, rumination turned to resolve as their next move became abundantly clear. They exchanged glances, total strangers in wordless harmony, somehow synchronized as they steadied themselves on the bike and revved away.

Once more, Damian was alone at the top of a mountain. This particular mountain was made of steel and concrete, but he was no less alone. This time, it was by choice.

His mother offered a return to her warm bosom and the glow of combat, only to refuse to even humor any alternative. Somehow, her presence only garnered greater isolation. He knew that to accept her hand would mean sacrificing any chance to reach his destiny. Sure, she could train him to become a great leader, a proper heir to the al Ghul fortune, but that destiny had become so clear as to become mundane. It was an eventuality, a surefire fate that Damian could reach with minimal effort.

Looking over this cursed, malodorous city, powered exclusively by thugs and the oblivious, where a thick smog hid the stars so police zeppelins could light the night sky, he sensed a destiny. This one was foggy and unclear, abstract and shapeless. It was so far away, yet nearer to his heart than he could stand. He knew what it was, as much as he couldn’t define it. He wondered if it would ever be defined, if it would ever be one concise thing he could identify and categorize. Maybe it didn’t have to be.

Maybe he didn’t have to be.

Regardless, that chase had brought him here, garbed in Cassandra Cain’s hand-me-downs, her bat symbol tight against his chest and her cape flapping free in the wind. A black domino mask hid his eyes while a scarf-like wrapped his neck. Cain’s spare utility belt showed great promise, despite its garish yellow clashing with the shadowy tones of everything else. He tightened the similarly bright tape wrapped around his now spiked gloves. He ensured the laces were secured on his stolen boots.

He peered down at his mission. He took a breath, then he jumped.

There were moments where Brown sought to tend to personal concerns where left Damian to his own devices, often with their unwelcome houseguest Jason Todd. With no intention of interacting with that overgrown mess of a teenager, Damian often kept to himself in his room, or at Cain’s own Batcave. Whatever compelled his father to give a feral child her own place, much less her own lair was beyond him, but they both contained helpful remnants, sewing materials among them. Cain’s suit was remarkable, ideal for melting into the shadows and announcing her presence alike. So, he decided to experiment.

With his personally crafted Robin suit in tatters, riddled with bullets, and his mother intending to ground him into oblivion, Damian decided now was the time to slip into the shade of night. It felt comfortable being in a skin of his own making, no ghost to impersonate nor title to uphold. All he had was a mission.

Whoever designed the rooftop of the Iceberg Lounge to be comprised entirely of transparent glass deserved praise, followed by a slap over the head. He knew little about Oswald Cobblepot, but Stephanie described him contemptuously as a Devil in plain sight. As Damian was watching him waltz about with a gaggle of goons in an otherwise empty club, he found the description accurate. He liked his men burly with suits and his women curvy with leotards, all garbed monochromatically with stupid little hats. The rotund man waddled about and squawked orders at anyone dumb enough to follow them.

The boy scavenged his new utility belt while he kept an eye on the bird-shaped gangster. He needed time alone with Cobblepot for a proper interrogation. Batman took his word that he was but a minor pawn in the Owls’ game, but Damian wasn’t so easily convinced. He had to be hiding some useful information in that shiny head of his, anything that could point them towards the enemy and salvage the boy’s hero career. One way or another, Damian was going to become invaluable to such a degree that Batman would have to take him back and his mother would just have to accept that. All he needed was one night to prove his worth.

A stethoscope proved useful. He pressed it against the glass just in time to hear Cobblepot shout “—kids are you going to let into my domain?! What if this one had a gun?! What do I pay you ignoramuses for if you can’t stop a single break-in?!” Kids? This one?

“Hey, give us a break, Pengy!” one of the bimbos whined in some annoyingly thick undetermined accent. “Least we caught this one!”

“Not dat it was part-licularly hard catchin’ a cripple.” Pardon? “Shoulda seen her flippin’ all around, like some sorta…like some sort of a…”

“A fish?” the same woman suggested.

“Yeah!! Or, like, some sorta mermaid or somethin’.”

“Mermaids ain’t real, Jeffy.”

“Whattya talkin’ about?! Aquaman’s real. My cousin out in Tampa got punched in da face by ‘em.”

“Those are Antlantis people. They ain’t mermaids.”

“Den what da hell are they? Dey gotta be mermaids. Dey’re just like a…type of mermaid, ya know? Feet mermaids.”

“Will you two hush?!” Cobblepot screeched. “I need you to take care of the gal before the big deal tonight. Which means you’re gonna get to the docks fashionably early and plop her into the sea at least an hour ahead of schedule. Capiche?”

“Yeah yeah, we capiche,” the woman groaned. “Could just slug ‘er between the eyes too. Would keep us on schedule.”

“Unwanted suspicion,” their leader chided. “I can’t afford to be part of a murder case this month. Besides, we’ve got ourselves a textbook sob story. Recent cripple, dead brother, dad’s a kooky killer; why wouldn’t she wanna dive right into the ocean? Only makes sense!”

“But we’re the ones pushing ‘er in, right?” the goon clarified.

Cobblepot groaned, long and exasperated, curving his white gloves against his protruding trunk of a nose. “Yes. Now, stop wasting my time! I’ve got my own work to do. Work that keeps you lot employed!”

Both goons peered at each other and shrugged, eventually heading southwest while their boss waddled off eastward. Which meant he’d be alone. Likely unprotected. At least no more protected than last time. It was the perfect chance for Damian to slip in, get the information he needed, and prove his worth in Gotham!

Only now there was a girl. He didn’t know who she was, only that she was captured and likely in no ability to help herself. She was subject to die tonight barring any intervention. Batman was probably still at that stupid party. The police forces here were cowardly and incompetent, only ever appearing after their crime lords had been incapacitated. The docks weren’t too far away. It would be a short drive.

But that was circumstantial. That had nothing to do with the mission. Gotham needed its guardians back. The city needed to be free of the puppet masters pulling its strings. He was meant to be a key, celebrated role in its liberation. Cobblepot knew something, he knew this in his bones. He was right there, ripe for the taking. If he simply stated on-target, Damian could earn his right to remain here. He could earn the right

Unfortunately, Damian found it hard to ignore that a girl was going to die. The girl very likely meant nothing to all of this, but she was set to die if there was no intervention. He was the only intervention around. Which meant…

Damn it all!

There was the telltale revving of engines in the back of the club. Stealthily as always, the Damian dashed across the glass on his tiptoes, careful not to slip., nor garner attention of the gunmen below that could easily see it if they ever tilted their heads upward. By the time he reached the back garage, an unmarked van was already peeling away. Masters of stealth, these helpers were not. But they were fast.

Tiny streaks of yellow coated the otherwise obsidian night. Damian slowly familiarized himself with Gotham’s unique, insipid skyline, with no small thanks for his mentor. He had yet to replicate her casual grace swinging from building to building, but he was building a habit. The speeding van ignorant cutting through traffic inched closer with each air bound shortcut. Once he hovered somewhat above the vehicle, the van was nearing a tunnel. A dark, no doubt long-abandoned tunnel. Time was running out.

He dived. A foolish move, yet the only one present. He had to meticulously control the wind and every tiny muscle fiber to ensure he wouldn’t splat. He released two Batarangs on his belt and silently prayed to no one in particular. All his arithmetic and physics teaching finally paid off whenever he managed to ram the Batarangs into the metal roof, slicing through just enough to allow him to hold on for dear life. He had approximately one second of relief before swooshing into the pitch-black tunnel.

His heart embarrassedly missed a beat at the abrupt blanket of darkness, but it quickly caught up with his brain. Any assassin worth their training was accustomed to the dark, and Damian was nothing if not trained. His eyes quickly adjusted to this specific dark to allow him to assess the situation.

His feet were currently dangling off the back of the van, the lower half of his body threatening to slip and take the rest of him with it. Having never jumped onto a moving vehicle to rescue someone inside, he pondered how to proceed. The back door was no doubt locked, meaning he had to free their abductee from the inside. How would he get inside?

He had taks. Those could pop the tires. They might also cause this ludicrously speeding van to enter a death spiral. Damian didn’t know how flammable this model was, so he decided it was best not to test. There were no side windows, meaning no way to sneak in. He peered back at his Batarangs, the only things between him and a bloody mark on the road. Closer inspection revealed these to be distinct from the ones he’d stolen at the cave. They each had a button at the bottom, signaling a second use. For better or worse, he had to uncover this use.

He pressed the button on the right Batarang. The effect was immediate, electric blue shockwaves coursing from the weapon to the van. While his rubber gloves protected him from any shock, it wasn’t unlikely that he was electrocuting the girl he was supposed to be saving. That wasn’t the best call, but it was the call that made the engine spurt and the lights shut off, which made the van come to a steady stop in the now completely unlit tunnel. Its purpose fulfilled, and the wind no longer blowing in his face, Damian turned the shock off, before dropping down from the vehicle.

“Da hell was that?!” the lug barked upon exiting the van, fighting the pitch-black with a flashlight. Kept the door wide open, like a true amateur. “How d’ya get struck by lightnin’ in a goddamn cave?!”

“Maybe that girl has some sorta Atlantean shocky powers or somethin’, I dunno.” The woman was no more useful. “Either that, or we got company.”

“Shadow monsters? Oh God. Not Man-Bats. I can’t handle another Man-Bat!”

“Relax! Man-Bats don’t got electricity, big guy. Or, wait. Maybe they do now. Oh damn.”

“I mean, we’ve already perverted God’s perfect creation. We march towards the unholy infinitely faster than we do towards His light.”

“Jesus, Jeffy. That’s morbid as heck.”

“We do kinda kill people for a livin’.”

“Yeah, but I just don’t think about it much in the big way, ya know? Religiously and all.”

The van doors creaked open, revealing the captive within. True to the earlier description, it was a girl, likely no older than Brown, with short black hair, ropes tied around her limbs, and a gag over her mouth. She was sweaty and exhausted yet still thrashing around as best she could like a defiant shark stranded on land. Her anger admirably more than outweighed her fear. Behind her were rows of metallic canisters containing some material concerning enough to warrant a skull and crossbones on every surface.

“Well, both the gas and the girl are still secure,” the woman noted. “That’s good! Would be hell if any of that shit started leaking.”

“Eh, I’m practically immune to it by n—!” A quick jolt to his thick neck was enough to make the goon fall harshly onto the concrete.

The tunnel became a lot darker while the flashlight rolled out of view. “Jeffy?! Oh god, what’s—!” The question went unfinished on account of a handy throat punch, followed by a stomach punch bound to instantly knock out anyone in her weight class. She collapsed like a broken marionette.

Damian grabbed the flashlight and entered the van. The woman was eyeing him, but not really resisting yet. Good. “I don’t know who you are, but I’m here to save you.” He summoned another Batarang and got to cutting.

The girl relished her regained arms, yet her freed legs remained limp. Right. That explained the comments earlier.

“Hey, don’t stare at ‘em, weirdo.” Her voice was scratchy and sharp, an increasingly familiar quality with Gotham’s youth. Stephanie had one somewhat similar, if far more inviting. “I mean. Thank you.” She sighed as she adjusted her hair. “For saving me. I’m Wendy. You a new mask around here?”

“No,” Damian improvised, not really expecting nor really wanting conversation. “I’m Robin. I’ve always been here.”

“Oh, you’re not Robin,” Wendy teased. “I’ve seen Robin. He’s a lot taller. Plus, he has the R on his chest. For Robin?”

“I don’t need a letter on my chest to tell you who I am.” He pointed towards the bat on his suit. “This is the Bat. It means I’m with Batman. That makes me Robin.”

The girl snickered. “Isn’t that Batgirl’s logo?”

“Do you want to be saved or not?”

“Yes! Please. Yeah. Sure. Killjoy. Jokes aside, I think you’re gonna have to carry me. Penguin’s a lot of horrible things, and we can add wheelchair thief to that list.”

Damian sighed. “You are pushing your luck and my personal generosity.” Still, he hoisted the woman, not without some straining and a couple grunts, until he managed a bridal position. The tunnel was unfortunately quite long on both ends, but he could manage. It was doubtful there would be much time left for interrogation after their quest.

“Woah! Got some gains on ya, kid. How’d a tiny thing like you get so strong?”

“I am not tiny.”

“Yeah? And I’m an Olympic sprinter.” Damian scowled at the sarcasm, leading Wendy’s voice to soften in apology. “Hey, kid, I’m just teasing. Sibling instinct. Can’t really turn it off.”

Any potential rebuttal from her savior was swiftly preempted by slamming metal. Both turned their heads to find the big guy struggling against the rim of the van. He was covered in sweat, gritting teeth, struggling to function. Damian internally cursed upon realizing his nerve strike technique was flawed for this particular subject. While the man currently lacked in leg functionality, his arms were still very usable, as evidenced by the gun he pointed at his two currently compromised opponents.

He didn’t have any threats to give, only a bullet to shoot, before subsequently collapsing onto the hard cement again. Damian weaved, avoiding the initial bullet trajectory, before it ricocheted off the floor and into one of the metal canisters behind them with a tiny tnnk!

The resulting explosion was significantly louder. The unknown gas wasn’t flammable, but it was evidently highly explosive. Damian managed a leap out of the van with his rescue before metal bits started flying everywhere. There was no outrunning the gas itself, though, which congealed into a thick alarming green. Likely toxic, he figured, if not normally, then certainly in this high density. He wasted no precious seconds nor precious thoughts before wrapping his cape around Wendy’s face. His only reasoning was made after the fact, figuring it would be a failure not to at least save his mission from toxic fumes.

As for himself? He could hold his breath for a minimum thirty minutes on a good day. Sadly, a good day didn’t involve getting pistol whipped in the back of the head by a woman in a showgirl outfit. That was enough to make his breath hitch.

“DIE, YOU OLD PERVERT!!!” She got another good hit. “NOT SO LITTLE NOW, AM I?! WHY WON’T YOU JUST DIIIIIIIE!” Damian kicked his assailant’s face with enough force to knock her back down.

It then got very cold.

Commissioner Gordon was waiting in his usual place, sipping his usual mug of coffee. Batman assumed this was the usual, considering they had never met in such circumstances before. Being summoned was new. She would have to get used to it.

“Commissioner.” Batman chimed behind Gordon, as was customary.

The man didn’t flinch as he turned around. “Batman.” There was something sacred in that acknowledgement. She held onto it. “I assume you’ve heard reports of the Hopkins party.”

It annoyed her that they had to speak exclusively under such false pretenses, but she could play the part. “Yes. Is this about Owlman? Because I can assure you, we have no relation.”

“No, but you’ve got a similar act. You both ultimately want to be the same thing.” Gordon pulled a manila envelope out his coat, handing it over to the woman he haphazardly assumed to be a great detective, or at least smart enough to wear one’s skin. “I may not have your fancy gadgets, but I’m also not blind. I can sniff this guy’s MO a mile away. He wants to be you.”

“Don’t we all?” Batman cracked open the file and immediately got to skimming the documents. “So, that wasn’t the real Killer Moth?”

“Right. Drury Walker, the first Moth, got mutated into a giant moth monster some years ago. He was pronounced dead two years ago.”

She'd know that ugly bug mug from anywhere. In the right light, she could still see the feint outline of the time Mister Moth decided to take a chomp out of her arm. Batman squinted at the coroner’s report. “Death by heat vision?”

“It would appear so.”

“So, he became a big moth…” A smile bubbled under her mask. “And then he got zapped?”

Thankfully. Gordon was grinning too, so she could feel a little less bad. “It was a recurring joke down here for months.” He sipped coffee to tamper his amusement. “Didn’t take long for a bunch of copycats to pop out. Killer Moth was always more of an intellectual property anyhow.”

“Can’t deny it’s a strong look.” She got to the latest reports, revealing the mugshot of a visibly malnourished, brown-skinned woman in her forties. Her eyes were bloodshot. “Patsy Delgado. Criminal record: aggravated assault and resisting arrest.” Any previous glee dissolved the longer she read. “Lost her mother’s house two years ago. Found camping under an overpass one month ago at the time of her arrest.” She peered up. “Batman intuition makes me doubt she deserved those charges, Commissioner.”

Gordon sighed, his eyes steeling behind his glasses. “I do my best to do as much good as I can, Batman. Same as you. Trust me, if I could solve every injustice with fists and toys, I would. I have a gun and mountains of paperwork. I like to think I’ve gotten skilled at both of them. But we can never do enough to fix everything, can we?”

“Hnn.” The sound came way too naturally. “I guess. But reading this, it doesn’t sound like Miss Delgado had much of a motive nor any means to dress up like Killer Moth and hold up Gotham’s most affluent. No connections, no funds, no nothing. She only got out nine days ago. Do we know who posted her bail?”

“Woman by the name of Tawny Fulton.”

Batman carefully flipped through the documents provided. “I’m not seeing a file on them.”

“Because they don’t exist.” He timed his next sip to Batman’s jerking head. “There’s no one registered in this state, or any state for that matter, under that name. She came dressed in a heavy fur coat, a large hat, and sunglasses that blocked any recognizable features. Her ID was fake.”

“So, you just let someone steal her? You let a cult kidnap an incarcerated homeless woman so they could string her body around like a marionette for their sick false flag drama?”

“I’ve initiated mandatory training to ensure my officers know how to identify fake IDs with the best of them. This woman’s name wasn’t in any system. To miss that little detail goes beyond run-of-the-mill negligence.”

Batman’s scowl tightened. “You think your guys let them take her away?”

“Legally speaking, I can’t say that. All I can say is if that is the case, then that would definitely complicate your owl case.” The emphasis was obviously meant to distance himself, legally speaking. “The scope of their operations only grows wider. We already have suspicion within Gotham’s elite and its underworld.”

“And now we can assume they’ve rooted themselves into Gotham’s finest.

“All while presenting the new face of rebellion above the law.”

“Complete dominion over Heaven and Hell…”

Gordon’s glasses rose at that line, because he was smart. “Where’d you get that from?”

Batman maintained her masked poker face. “A book.” She looked back down at the documents. “That mask of hers is similar to what I saw with—” She wasn’t sure how to say “ your daughter, who is currently brainwashed to serve the weirdo owl shadow government ” without compromising the entire mission. 

“—one of the Talon guys I fought. One of the less willing Talons. Looked like they were being controlled remotely through the mask, so they were unable to talk beyond simple, probably preprogrammed phrases. Miss Delgado sounded very similar.”

He nodded. “I’ll be sure to put that in the report.”

“Be sure to include that in her obituary and every report and every interview that comes out of this,” Batman insisted, stepping forward and snapping the file shut for emphasis. “Owlman killed an innocent woman and expected us to cheer. Maybe some people still will. I want people to know the truth. I want to personally make sure the Owls don’t claim a single soul in their campaign for Gotham’s heart. Capiche?”

The commissioner gave her a look she couldn’t really ascribe any named emotion to. It looked within the realm of positivity, she thought, so that would be enough. “Yeah. Yeah, I capiche. Jesus.” He went for another sip of his drink, only to be met with air from an empty mug. “Christ, it’s like the NML all over. I wasn’t trained for these complicated games of symbols and hope and terror and all this nonsense. If I wanted any of that, I would’ve aimed for politics.”

“Dude, you’re the police commissioner.” Not the most Batman way to phrase it, but it was the most honest. She was getting used to being honest around the man, despite all the deception. “You’re like the biggest political symbol in town.”

“Heh. Maybe so.” He rubbed underneath that white fuzzy caterpillar of a moustache. “Not like I was aiming for it. Was never a career guy. Would’ve been content staying as a low-level grunt, if it weren’t for…” He looked past the skyline, at everything. A city covered in smog and evil, covered with lights somehow shining brighter than any encroaching darkness.

Encroaching . Funny word there. Batman could stand some croaching right now.

“I never wanted to be important,” he continued, “But sometimes you gotta be, or else someone else will.”

Batman nodded, a tiny smile forming underneath the mask. “I can relate.”

Gordon nodded back. “Nothing’s really changed then. We do our parts, same as usual: I navigate the red tape, you punch your way through it.”

“Is this your way of asking for a handshake?”

There was a smile forming underneath that fuzzy caterpillar. “No, that won’t be necessary. Consider it a show of trust. Same with skipping the smokes for this little briefing.”

For once, Batman acted much like her predecessor, at a complete loss for words. An adult was trusting her. The fucking police commissioner was trusting her with Batman’s duties, knowing full well who she was underneath. This was…this was unprecedented. Holy shit. Trust . The word was intoxicating. She kept it tingling on the edge of her tongue like a potent drop of flaming hot sauce. A giddiness reacted across her body that her mask thankfully helped, heh, mask.

She should probably say something. “Okay.” Yep, best she’s got. No wait, elaborate! “I…appreciate the trust.” There was that word again. “Thanks for, uhh, summoning me. I’ll keep you updated. If you ever need me, just use the…” She vaguely gestured toward the giant light with the bat on it. “Yeah.”

Gordon took a glance at the light. Once he was done, Batman was gone. She was already grappling out of sight, though close enough to hear “Well goddamn. She’s getting better.”

Onlookers might have caught the mighty Batman smiling.

Some swings later, Talia was thankfully still sandwiched in the agreed upon alleyway, lounging on her bike and holding a police scanner. Batman did not recall her having a police scanner.

“Dispatch 67-11.”

“Go ahead.”

“Earlier tonight regarding this traffic hazard with the flooding on Common, dispatch had sent an email to public works just notifying them that we put some signs out there. I don't remember who it was, but would we be able to just send a 1022 email? I recovered the signs because everything's cleared up now.”

“Okay. We're doing it.”

“Thank you. Over.”

Talia lowered the scanner’s volume after Batman glanced at her long and weird enough. “Is there an issue?”

“When did you get that?”

“While you were prattling with the commissioner,” she hummed. “Provided the perfect cover for me to slip into his office.”

“To do whaaaaat ?” Batman sang as she lurched forward.

The woman sighed while shooting a poisonous stare that Batman was slowly gaining an immunity to. “To see if he’s holding anything back. Never trust an ally through presentation alone. Consider it a complimentary vetting process.”

“I don’t recall assigning you to a vetting position.” There was no hiding her annoyance now. “What do my allies have to do with you, anyway? You’re not part of my mission.”

“And yet, I am not entirely unaffected by your work.” Talia started up her engines again, adding to the alley’s clamor. “Damian told me of your feud with the Court of Owls. It is a feud we share, though mine is perhaps more business oriented. They’ve interfered with League operations in the past, most ardent during this country’s short-lived financial booms from capitalistic deregulation. They’ve fortunately been irrelevant, or at least malignant , during my beloved’s time. Obviously, that time has ended.”

“And now is the time for bottomless paranoia?”

“It always is.” Talia remained stoic as she kicked her bike back into gear. “Now, if we may resume our search?”

“Dispatch 11-83, 11-60 explosion reported in Miller Tunnel, fear toxin released, requesting investigation, over.”

“10-4. Any casualties?”

“Unknown, waiting for gas to disperse.”

Batman hopped back into the bitch seat. “Why don’t we start searching in the Miller Tunnel?”

“Do you truly arbitrarily believe my son is in that cave?”

“Maybe not.” Batman already strapped a gas mask to her already masked face, before offering an identical filter to her driver. “But someone might be. That’s reason enough to go.”

“Hmm.” Talia’s bike purred loud upon returning to Gotham’s asphalt labyrinth. “Very well. Directions.” It was only once her hair was fluttering that she applied her mask.

The mountain’s peak is as bitter as he remembers.

The air is thin, making each breeze an insult against Damian’s lungs. He chokes, he coughs, he keeps going. He feels primed to collapse from the weight of his own body, combined with the one in his arms.

He looks down at the body. His father maintains his dignity, even as a rotting corpse. His mask is torn, just so to display his cruelly preserved empty skull. Batman is dead and Damian must respect that. Someone has to.

“I’m surprised you’re still walking,” his father notes, his face unmoving and breath nonexistent.

“I have to,” the seven-year-old intones, far too sagely for his years. “It’s what you would do.”

“Would if I could, champ.” Batman sounds amused. Damian wishes he didn’t. “I’ve seen grown men freak out and go unresponsive from that stuff. How’s a kid like you survive that?”

“I have to,” the boy repeats. “I’m useless if I can’t.”

His feet crunch with every step. He maintains a rhythm, playing each step like one note in an unending rhythm. This is merely meditation, an exploration into nothingness. If there is an end, he will reach it; if none exists, he will continue.

Mindlessness does not prevent his teeth from chattering. “How…did you do this?” he asks the corpse. “How did you help so many people for so long? Why?”

“Oh, so you know my work?” Once more, his father sounds too amused. Perhaps the Dark Knight has lightened in death. “I’m flattered, kid. But if I’m being honest, I don’t think I ever helped enough. Wasn’t really active long enough to make much of a difference.”

“When would it have been enough?”

“I don’t know...” Damian looks down again, only now the skeleton is cloaked in purple, loose strands of blond hair fluttering off their decomposed head. “Don’t look at me like that. I really don’t know, kid. Sorry.”

The mountain becomes muted. Even the wind no longer howls. Damian considers the cold has taken his hearing, either temporarily or forever. He can no longer follow the beat of his steps. He doesn’t stop.

He doubts he can stop. To stop would mean surrendering. To stop would mean death. He has no personal philosophy on death, but he knows some want him alive while others want him dead, so he elects to stay alive. He has a mission. This mission burns in his heart like the only source of heat he needs, which is lucky, as that’s the only source he has.

The sky grows darker. The trees grow ragged and unfriendly. He can see figures with glowing swords and pointed hoods glowering. He ignores them. He tries, until their flaming eyes are beading down on him, their breath shooting violently against his face at a temperature that makes the wind feel more akin to fire. Still, he ignores it. He shuts his eyes and locks them, even as the eyes burn through his lids into his personal darkness. Still, he moves.

His arms have either fallen asleep or are forever frozen in place. Neither circumstance matters. His arms are unmoving, as they need to be. He may never use them again, he may never hear again, but he will get to the end. He realizes he might get there a lot faster without the corpse. His legs might feel lighter, his chest less burdened, his heart less constricted, but he can’t let it go. It feels more important than him, more important than he can ever hope to be.

No. He is important. People regale him of his importance incessantly, enough to make the sentiment undeniably true. He is important. That is why he’s alive. That is why he’s been saved countless times. He is not allowed to die until he has fulfilled his purpose, even if he may never decipher what he’s meant to be.

Right now, however, he knows his purpose. He is important because of the corpse in his frozen arms, that he maintains even as his feet fall out of rhythm and start scrambling for any monotony to get them through the rest.

“—Kid! Hey, kid! C’mon, talk to me!” Stephanie’s voice echoes in his ear exclusively, devoid of any conflicting noise. “Stay with me here! You can just set me down if you—”

“No!” the boy shouts, unable to hear his own voice. “This is nothing. I’ve been here before. I will be fine.”

“Well, at least you’re talking now. God, can’t believe I’m acting like the responsible sibling now…”

“Sibling?”

Damian peers down, seeing a corpse barely bigger than himself wearing a barely different Robin costume than he once did, similarly riddled with holes and blood. “Yeah. I…I don’t like talking about it. About him. Wound’s still pretty fresh, you know. Or, I guess it’s an old wound by now. To everyone else, at least. And the world, I guess. I dunno. Guess we never really did enough for the world to mourn us.”

“You say that like the world owes you anything.”

“Fuck you, dude!” The corpse’s wounds grew fresher with anger.
“Know what? The world owes me plenty. I haven’t done anything but help as many people as I could, and I always did it with a smile. I rolled with every punch the world gave me. I rolled with my evil as shit dad, I rolled with being too smart to ever be comfortable, and I rolled with all the dumb super nonsense. I managed a happy life on my own terms with the one sliver of family I still loved. And the world took that from me too. So yeah, I think maybe the world owes me a little.”

“The world will never give you anything.” Damian can’t understand why it hurts to say. “My mother once told me the earth gives us life and then owes us nothing. We already owe the world incalculably for that single favor.”

“And it’s wrong to want anything out of life? Is that what I’m supposed to base my entire life around? You get what you get, and you don’t pitch a fit?”

“An odd but succinct way to put it.”

“Well, respectfully, fuck that! The moment I get out of here, I’m going to pitch such a giant-ass fit that the world will have to listen to me! And oh buddy, I have demands .”

Damian ignores the body’s plans. It’s a silly idea, the dead having plans. Their destinies have already been decided: to be dead. It is the destiny of all. Damian is no exception.

His fingers are bones now, skin long chipped away. His destiny has come quicker than expected. He holds a naked skeleton with no defining features to blame, their teeth ceasing clatter. There is nothing left to connect the two beyond the logical end. Perhaps Damian is merely carrying himself, as he always has. Perhaps he has already achieved his destiny and this is his trophy. Yes, his brain decides in its atrophy, this is you, your destiny triumphant. Why, then, do you still slog, as if there is any undoing what is already here?

Because he wants to, he decides, so he will. Whether he holds a stranger or himself, he will see it through to the other side. There is no higher purpose to this quest beyond his own. His bones still move on that ambition alone.

Coupled suns now blindingly penetrate the dark winds. Damian cannot look away. It grows closer, hotter. His skin now feels boiling. Is this a creature, or some higher, inevitable calling? He refuses both. They threaten to slow his trudge to a crawl. It becomes too much to bear, but he is stubborn. He will bear it to the bitter end, as it is his to decide.

From the suns releases a winged monster. Is it his father, come to welcome his son to their shared hell? It could be his mother, here to ease her burden with a lone slash. No, it must be his grandfather, here to reap what remains of his fetid soul. A thousand options, from disgruntled mentors to vengeful Robins to the end of all things, present themselves in the seconds before the creature seizes the boy’s throats in its incisors.

Damian drops his corpse and all meanings desist. He is nothing. Nothing is anything. All words extinguish.

“For the last time, I saw nothing, Brown. This interrogation will get you nowhere.”

“Bullshit, dude. You can be immune to rat poison, but I know you aren’t immune to fear toxin. You could barely speak, you were soaked in a cold sweat, and you wouldn’t stop walking or even acknowledge us. So, ipso facto, Oingo Boingo, you were fucking hallucinating.”

“Okay, fine. I hallucinated you slipping on a banana peel and starting another gang war. I was merely attempting to spare you the embarrassing details.” Damian remained admirably petulant curled up in a wad of blankets in his new gettup with a hot steaming mug of tomato soup.

“Damian, I swear to—”

“Excuse me!” Wendy’s hand went flying in the air. “Hey. Cripple here? Am I really needed right now?” Right. Tonight had been so long, Stephanie struggled to keep track of all the threads. For a moment, she forgot that they kidnapped a civilian and brought her to Cass’ place.

The living room had become quite the portrait, what with Damian wrapped up all snug on a cough with Talia casually sipping Jason’s herbal tea, the woman that identified herself as Wendy Harris reclined on a sofa, and Stephanie still standing in her Batsuit with her face revealed, far too scared to sit down in fear that she would immediately crash the second she let any muscle relax. Part of her wished Jason was here just to complete the absurd diorama.

“Right. Right, sorry, just—” Stephanie clapped her gloves together, raising them to her face for a long breath. “Okay. So, you said your name is Wendy Harris, right?”

The girl nodded with irritation. “Yeah. Got a problem with that, Ms. Batman?” She looked to the room at large. “Anyone mind telling me when Batman became a teenage girl?”

“ Eighteen , actually.” Correcting her guest was maybe a little counterproductive, she recognized.

“Mind repeating that number? Pay special attention to the last bit this time.” 

“My name’s Stephanie Brown. And I’m only telling you this because I think I can trust you.”

“Trust me?” Wendy sputtered her lips. “Why? Because I was wrecking Penguin’s shit? Hate to tell you, I wasn’t doing that out of any community service, I was doing it because I knew the fucker had a bunch of money my dad stole for him, and I wanted that money. It was personal revenge, plain and simple. Don’t mix me up for some kinda vigilante.”

“Says the former Teen Titan.” Stephanie was glad she made the trip down in the cave earlier, so now she could drop Barbara’s file into Wendy’s lap all dramatic-like. “And don’t downplay it. Being a Titan is a big deal. Not everyone is allowed in the club.” She said with no bitterness in her heart, no siree.

Wendy eyed the file with suspicion, reluctant to dig into its contents. “What is this? Who are you?”

“I’m Batman.” It was a verbal tic now; she couldn’t hope to stop it. “I told you, Stephanie Brown. Friend, er, well, acquaintance to Barbara Gordon.”

“Should that name supposed to mean anything to me?”

“Probably not. But does the name Oracle mean anything to you?” The dawning stare on the girl’s face was everything Stephanie hoped for. Oh yeah, she got her. “Oracle’s disappeared. Well, we kinda know where she is, but not really in a way we can help her right now. But! She knew about you. She directed us directly to you.”

Wendy was too busy flipping through Babs’ summation of her life to respond for some while. “Oracle…wanted me? The Oracle? The Oracle ‘hacker more powerful than God’, that Oracle?” She squinted at her recruiter. “How do I know this isn’t a trick?”

“A trick for what?”

“I don’t fucking know!” She threw her arms in the air. “My dad? The Calculator? You hear of him? Worked for the Society? Hey, waitaminute…” She finally snapped her attention towards Talia, currently taking a long sip while calmly staring back. “You were in the Society too!”

Talia shrugged. “I was brainwashed then.” And she took another sip.

“Brainwashed? Ho ho ho ho! Oh, that’s rich . That’s twenty-four-karat rich.” Her eyes started twitching all around, no doubt noting every exit. “Fuck this. Are you actually kidnapping me, or am I free to go? Because right now, I really just want to climb into my fucking bed and die. Trust me, I’m no vigilante, I’m tech support at best. Tonight was a one-time thing. One-time!”

“I can get you access to the Batcomputer.” Once more, Wendy gave that look, and Stephanie felt a little more secure. “We’re currently locked out. Batman didn’t really leave a password for us before he, uhh—”

“Blew up?”

“Croak felt more respectful, but yeah. That.”

Talia remained blank. “I admire your sensitivity for my beloved’s passing.”

Wendy glared back at the woman. “Okay, for real, what is the assassin lady doing here?”

The assassin lady tilted her head towards her soup-enjoying son. “I’m his mother.”

“Okay. That checks out. And the kid’s really Robin?”

“Yes. He’s my partner. I’m Batman and he’s Robin.” Stephanie answered before Damian could interject. She watched his mouth close without ever questioning either label. He probably didn’t want her to see the shimmer of a smile before he resolved to slurp his soup, but Steph had grown fond of finding those little cracks.

Talia’s eyebrow quirked and it was targeted. “I don’t recall agreeing to that arrangement.”

“Because it’s not your arrangement to make.” And Steph didn’t flinch. Damian rejected looks from both parties.

“Okaaaaaaaay.” Wendy uncomfortably squirmed on her sofa. “I really feel like I shouldn’t be around for this. This all feels like a very you thing to work out, so I should probably get on my merry way and, ah…”

“If you leave now, you’ll be walking to your death.” Damian finally chose to speak up. “Figuratively, of course.”

The hacker was not appreciative. “Watch it, Batboy.”

“Please don’t call me that.” Damian took a short breath to collect himself. “Penguin knew who you were whenever he sentenced you to die, which you then did not do. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“You really raise this kid?”

Talia answered with a noncommittal shrug, before returning to her son.

“He’ll look for you. Maybe tonight, possibly tomorrow, we can’t be too certain. But he will seek retribution.”

Stephanie nodded with pride that Damian was really getting better at almost showing some approximation of concern for other people. “Right. And don’t forget, right now, you’re in a space with Batman, Robin, and the head of the League of Assassins. This is officially the safest place for you to be in Gotham.”

“You mean a space with some random blonde cosplay chick, a kid playing dress-up, and a super killer?” Wendy asked dully.

“Well yeah. Kinda. Basically.” Stephanie shrugged. “C’mon, offer comes with complimentary breakfast! And spoiler alert, I make a mean stack of pancakes...”

“Are the pancakes incentive for us to stay the night as well?” Talia questioned.

Damian turned to his mother with a rare tenderness reserved for the one person whose feelings truly affected him. “Please, mother. Whatever else you decide, this would mean much to me.”

Talia remained silent. Her face offered nothing as she focused on some inner dialogue directed at the vintage barrel hickory floorboards. Stephanie couldn’t really blame her reluctance. To give her son one night would be tantamount to giving a mouse a cookie.

“Okay, fine.” Wendy’s mind was made up first. “I thought about it, and you know what? Fine. But on three terms!”

“Lotta conditions for a free stay…” Stephanie muttered, hopefully quietly enough to not be a problem.

“One! You get me a wheelchair.”

“Done! There’s actually some spare ones lying around here.”

“Two! You let me look at the Batcomputer tomorrow.”

“Wendy, you would be a fucking lifesaver. You get that puppy working and I’ll kiss you. Done and done.”

“Actually, term two-point-five! Don’t kiss me.”

“Doable.”

“And term number three: I want my own room with my own bed.”

Stephanie’s lips puckered while she considered the current layout. “Okay, sure. Guess her royal majesty can use my room, I can sleep on the couch, and you can stay in Jason’s room.”

“Jason?” Talia was now perked up at full attention. “Are you referring to Jason Todd?”

“Yyyyeah?” It didn’t occur to Steph that the all-knowing Talia al Ghul might actually be well out of the loop. In hindsight, mentioning her dead boyfriend’s formerly dead son that kidnapped Damian the first chance he got maybe wasn’t the best reference. “He’s, ah, been staying with us the past week. He’s out right now following a lead, so I’m not sure when he’ll get back, but you know—generally here.”

And that might have fully denied Damian that cookie.

“Very well. I’ll stay the night.”

Stephanie elected to graciously accept the win and not vocalize any concerns of her houseguest killing Jason Todd.

Tim once gossiped about a blue moon where Batman actually attempted sleep after four straight days of Batjustice, only to somehow be too exhausted to even sleep. “There were too many pieces,” Robin said Batman said, “too much to think about.” And then he fell asleep at the Batcomputer for thirteen hours, at some point becoming covered in fluffy blankets courtesy of Alfred.

The two kids laughed it up then. Now, staring up at the living room ceiling on the comfy couch, Stephanie understood. And this was just a single night’s work!

Her brain had a lot to process once the endless stimuli took a break. Sadly, it wasn’t a mind honed by Tibetan monks in the Alps, or hanging out with Sherlock Holmes, or whatever Bruce did to make his brain good with smart things. Her brain was made to be generally okay at algebra. Only okay enough that it kept her out of being an honors student and all the dumb responsibilities therein.

There was too much to think of now. Too many pieces, players, complications, hints, clues, all that jazz. She hadn’t counted on today being the grand conclusion to this whole bat-and-owl game, but at the end of the day, the needle hadn’t even budged an inch in her direction, and she had no idea what to do tomorrow beyond her pancakes.

Light eked out of Jason’s room, allowing a tiny shadowy figure to escape and close the door without making a peep. Stephanie was too tired to have anything beyond a fond smile as the shadow in Cass’ Wonder Woman pajamas drew closer.

“Hard time sleeping?” she inquired.

“I have full control of my sleep, Brown. If you’ll recall, I just returned from several days straight of rest.” Damian sauntered to the fridge and summoned the milk.

“And you immediately started going after guys with guns again.”

“You’re one to talk, Brown.” The little devil smirked like he won a game of cards.

“Touche, Lil Demon. Touche.” Stephanie shifted around on her makeshift bed, curling her legs to her chest. “Missed those jabs of yours. Jason’s barbs are nice and all, but they lack a certain poisonous entitlement.”

“Mm.” An interesting new sound from Damian while he poured his milk. Sounded downright pensive. “Brown, would you be available to talk?”

“Uhh, yeah. Yeah, sure. Always. What’s up?” Definitely not the barb she was expecting. To test the waters, she patted the cushion next to her.

Damian rolled his eyes but was still quick to comply after putting the carton away like a good little boy. With as much discomfort as he could fake, he dragged himself onto the couch, milk glass in-hand. Sipping made it easy to disregard eye contact. It also allowed him to prolong the silence a teensy bit longer.

“Damian. C’mon.” Stephanie leaned her head closer. “What’s up?”

“Nothing of immediate concern,” the boy insisted, as cool as a kid actively avoiding eyes could be. “You…called me your Robin earlier, correct?”

That explained it. There was still tension in the air that Stephanie had been ignoring, or whatever you call not acknowledging one of sixty immediate concerns. Whatever it was, she hoped her sincere smile gave the tension even the tiniest cut. “Yeah, I did, kid. You and me, Batman and Robin.” She grabbed his shoulder, and after recognizing that all her fingers were still there, gave him a good shake. “Batman and Robin forever!”

“Mother said you surrendered me.”

The shaking immediately stopped, though her hand remained. “Y-yeah. Yeah, kinda…” Her face scrunched into a variety of shapes as her tongue searched for its next words. “Your mom was, aaah , really scary. No offense! But yeah. You know her better than me. And she scared me while I was… really scared. About you. Aaaand about me, I guess. You know, after…everything.”

“My injuries?” Damian inquired.

“Your gaping bullet wounds, yeah.” Stephanie pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m…really not used to being in charge. Sorry. And I’m not your mom. I look at you and I don’t see Batman or the Grand Poobah or anyone besides who and what I know you are now. And you’re a kid, Damian. A super cool, super talented kid, but that doesn’t change that you are categorically a child. And I’m sorry, but whenever I see a kid get shot as a direct consequence of my decisions, that kinda puts me on edge.”

Damian shrugged the girl’s hand off so he could look her dead in the eyes with his exasperated face. “It was my decision, Brown.” Even tapped his chest for emphasis. “I made a critical error in the field. I apologize for it, but I do not want you to misconstrue my mistake for yours. I may be young, but I am a disciplined soldier.”

“YEAH. I KNOW.” Her hands clutched like claws. “That’s the problem, Damian. You shouldn’t think of yourself as a soldier. Whenever I look at you, I don’t see mankind’s savior or my shitty old boss’ legacy. I see a kid. An insane kid that’s put their faith in me for some incredibly silly reason, and I’m still really trying to work out this goddamn mental dissonance every time I see you.”

“What mental dissonance?”

“That you’re so much like me!” Stephanie did her best to keep her voice low for her other guests, but it was hard not to get excited. A nervous chuckle bubbled. “I want you to be safe, I want you to not have to pick all these fights, but unfortunately, you’re acting just like I did whenever I was Spoiler, and Batman kept telling me to stop and go home. And guess what? I never did. I couldn’t just go home, because home fucking sucked. I hated being home. Mom was still a wreck, we almost never had hot water, and have you ever had homework? I know it’s like a stupid, childish complaint, but homework is the fucking worst . You lock me up in school for eight hours, then you want me to bring that home ? To my fucking mom? I hated home. That was the last place I wanted to be. Home was sad and hopeless and useless, but whenever I became Spoiler, I was suddenly bright and cheerful and cool and had the teensiest tiniest control over the world.”

The boy’s stare bordered on concern. “Do you need a glass of water?”

“No. No, Damian, I…” She massaged her forehead in little circles. “Do you get what I’m getting at? I really can’t believe I’ve been forced to empathize with fucking Batman, but here we fucking are. I want to keep you safe, Damian. Whether you want to accept the idea or not, you are my responsibility.” Whatever her face was doing now, she knew it was pitiable. “But I know you’re going to keep throwing yourself in danger. So, that leaves us with two options.”

Her left hand symbolized one. “A: I go full Bruce-Mode, and I perpetuate the registered trademark Spoiler Cycle. I say you can’t do the thing, and then you do the thing. Maybe I occasionally decide to let you do the thing, but then I tell you not to, but then I give you permission to do the thing again , but only so I can tell you not to even harder.” The right presented the second option. “Or, B: I do my best, I bite my tongue, and I accept that if you’re me, and I’m me, then I’m gonna have to teach you how to be a better me than me.”

Only then did she allow herself a proper breath. “Does that make sense?”

Damian continued his indecipherable gaze at the girl. “I was simply going to assert that I understood your decision. My mother is very intimidating. Many would have wisely folded in your situation.”

Three blinks followed. “Oh.” Then another three more times. “Yeah. Yeah, I can see that.”

Her partner nodded, before taking another sip to finally break eye contact. “I’m thankful for your words all the same.” A smile formed against the glass, which thankfully remained once lowered. “Frankly, I’m glad we can agree.”

“On, uhh, what part? I kinda went wild there.”

“That it’s inevitable that I become a better you.”

What followed was a loud wheeze and a shockingly successful headslap from the boy’s mentor. It would take some time for Stephanie to adjust to that word applied to herself, yet she was pot committed to the role. Her student/partner/weird tiny friend flinched a bit from the hit, suggesting she very much got the drop on him.

“Still have much to learn, I see,” she teased. “Option B it is.”

“You got lucky!” Damian was quick to defend. “You dropped my guard with your sentimental babble!”

“Whatever gets the hit! Let this be your first lesson of Option B: never be afraid to play dirty. Also, I’ll take that glass of water now.” She flashed the smile that got her out of many an escapade.

Damian rolled his eyes, grumbling “You test our alliance, Brown…” as he nonetheless got up to comply with his earlier offer.

“And while you’re at it, tell me how you came up with that snazzy new suit of yours.”

He shifted his head as he walked away, acting like Steph couldn’t see those rosy cheeks. “Do you really like it?”

“Course I do! It feels so much more like you. Don’t get me wrong, you were sharp with the regular Robin colors and everything, but your new suit really screams Damian!” Jazz hands flared. “It’s good to make things your own. And the scarf-cape thing?! Genius. A triumph. Hits that perfect sweet spot of needlessly dramatic and secretly pragmatic. Which might be the title of my memoir...”

“The scarf was actually a late addition.” Damian handed Steph her duly appointed water. “I played with some other ideas. I considered utilizing Cain’s spare masks, but ultimately decided that would only lead others to mistake me for her. So, that presented the challenge of designing a look with my limited materials that still registered as Batman’s partner, rather than another Bat entirely.”

“What materials did you use then?”

The boy was pensive for two seconds, before undeniable eagerness granted him greater youth than ever. “I’ll grab my sketchbook. Wait here.”

Stephanie complied, content to watch the kid dash down the hallway, no longer bothering to quiet his steps.

Chapter Text

The first hint that Jason wasn’t dead again was the taste of blood.

Not in any sort of angsty dramatic way; every alive guy knew what blood tasted like, so the tang of copper stuffing his mouth was the first hint that he had yet to cross the River Styx. Either that, or Charon had a bad sense of humor and elected to place Jason’s silver pieces in his mouth.

Diana probably knew Charon. Maybe he should ask her sometime. No, who was he kidding? Wonder Woman was the last person that needed to see him like this. He could handle a lecture from a flying boy scout in underoos, but a disappointed glance from Diana would be enough to make Jason crawl back into his grave.

Touch returned soon after, his skin raw and aching from the excessive anesthesia dimming. If he reacted at all, he wouldn’t know. Everything was still green, forever green green green into infinity, a monochrome void that subtly pulsated with each newly reclaimed nerve receptor. He still couldn’t move, but he could finally feel the burning of rope along his arms, which were locked into a reclining position against what he guessed were arm rests, similar burnings around his stomach and legs. It didn’t take a master detective to surmise he was currently tied to a chair. He’d been tied to enough chairs to reach that conclusion.

Course, all this only amounted to making it harder to disassociate. Jason still didn’t know where he was, though he could guess some underground owl lair considering his last few seconds of sight. Somehow, he got himself incapacitated and captured for a third time in the past two weeks; a nasty precedent. How did the mighty, feared Red Hood reduce himself to a chronic drug lord in distress?

Well, how far back did he want to go?

There were definitely parts he kept blocked off in the deepest brain folds for thematic consistency. Maybe he was best served keeping the self-reflection within the Red Hood space. By all accounts, his criminal career started off really well. The knowledge gap between him and every other low-rent thug that ran this city was a goddamn canyon. He did a great job managing the flow of drugs and guns in this city, keeping them away from children, pissing off all the right people. Sure as hell pissed off Batman.

Jason never got to join theater club as a kid, but he always took solace in his ability to set a stage. All the players were on their marks: Batman, the Joker, the prodigal son. The script had been followed to the dot. Okay, so maybe the whole Blüdhaven exploding in the background required some improv, but otherwise, it was a perfect fuckin’ script! All Bruce had to do was love his son enough. All he had to do was do nothing.

Even now, he pondered if his Bruce would have done nothing. It took him some weeks of terrible reflection to conclude that the man that fought him, the one that optioned to slice his own son’s neck rather than allow the mass murderer that separated them to face retribution, was no longer his Bruce. That man was little more than another testament to Jason’s failure, one of many ghosts cursed to haunt him. Bruce wasn’t really a character he cared to write anymore.

The ultimate anticlimax to his dramatic comeback consequently fizzled any options for a sequel. In its absence, he opted to focus on consolidating power and support across Gotham. There was no plot to follow anymore, nor any characters to play beyond the middling role of a middle manager. There was no real reward in sight beyond endless stacks of cash he had no use for.

Jason searched desperately for a worthy role, any one that would make him feel something. It never came. Then, Batman blew up.

The week that followed was a blur. Jason hazily remembered a lot of green and a lot of red, an undirected rampage of anger and probably a second emotion. Hey, every other rogue in Gotham was doing it. Lucidity returned whenever oxygen became more abundant than gunpowder again.

Everything became eerily quiet. There were no bad guys, no good guys, no nothing. Gotham City was quieter than he’d ever known it to be. Crime continued in hushed whispers; explosive battles were replaced by mean side eyes. Everyone was scared of something for some unknowable reason no one could voice. Maybe it was the mass capture of the city’s deadliest rogues. Maybe it was that every hero that aided in the capture had yet to reappear. A cool chill replaced the fire and brimstone.

Red Hood continued his reign with Jason Todd completely checked out. Were they making the streets safer? He liked to think so, but rapid expansion made it tough to maintain full surveillance over his little empire. There were likely several Red Hood factions maintaining business right now, even as their head honcho was being kidnapped by a rotating door of dumbasses.

Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered because none of this was the plan. There was no point to this, no grand climax to build towards, no character for him to portray to their dramatic conclusion.

The odd appearance of Demon Boy suggested one idea, the final end to Batman and everything he stood for. In the absence of anything else, he supposed that would be fun. Well, not super fun since Talia, the only remnant of his old life that still had any faith in him, would have inevitably chopped his head off at the end, but it was as good an ending as any. What other narrative role did Red Hood serve? What was the point of being the prodigal son of a family that no longer existed? He didn’t like any answer that reared the recesses of his mind, so he sought the easiest, most convoluted way out.

But then there was fucking Steph. Who the hell was Red Hood while Stephanie Brown still thrived?

Such troublesome introspection was graciously interrupted by the none too appetizing taste of latex gloves reaching into his slacked jaw and exploring his mouth. He attempted to move heaven and earth just to chomp down on that man’s hand, to no avail. Whatever they were sticking in there only brushed against his tongue, but the putrid taste of spoiled milk and vinegar was quick to spread across his entire mouth. Only the cold sweat releasing from every pore of his body offered him any solace as the mystery concoction was shoved down his throat. Figured he had to regain taste and feeling right before this.

Whatever they put in, his body instantly rejected it. Vomit pooled up into his lungs, threatening to drown the man with no control over any part of his body. Not his preferred way to die, admittedly. Trying to move literally any muscle only summoned more sweat, which was not helpful in this situation.

What did end up helping was someone squeezing him from behind, Heimliching poor Jason until he was forced to taste that awful medicine once more, this time in puke form. The same person slapped his back, allowing most of his regurgitation to spew out of his mouth. Most, but not all. Lucky him.

Nothing appeared to change after that. Jason didn’t become a werewolf or a super soldier or an unidentifiable goop. By all accounts, he remained the same old him. Wonderful. It was his favorite thing to be.

Jason’s hearing returned next, further debunking the theory of some specialized hell. He didn’t recall going to the bad place after his first death, but figured he had a reservation by now. Nevertheless, the first words to grace his ears after how many hours or minutes were less than supernatural.

“—pears your methods have failed as well, Apothecary.” They had to know how evil they sounded, right? Beyond the obvious creepy voice modulation, they spoke in that same dumb formal secret order voice that all these creeps adopted purely to sound creepy, but actually only made them sound like assholes. Guys like these were a dime a dozen.

“My methods are sound, Legate.” Ooo, that sounded like a slur. “The issue is with our patient. He is… unnatural.” Hey, someone was bound to say it out loud at some point.

“All of the Bat’s spawn are unnatural .” Jason really resented the word spawn . “I would have killed for the girl in my ranks. Yet, you selfishly chose to hoard her for yourself.”

“The Judge himself made the call, not I.” Not I, he says. Jeezum Petes, get a load of this guy. Thinks talking like Shakespeare times gives him authority over the world. “The Batgirl was determined to be far too unstable for Talon reprogramming. Any complications reprogramming her fragile psyche may have well created an uncontrollable killing machine. And lest you forget, you would require my drugs regardless. Best not to bite the hand that feeds you.”

“You are only alive now because I have not ordered my Talon to attack. It would take a single word, Apothecary, for me to tear you to shreds. You are deemed useful now, but do not gamble your fortune.”

“I’m positively quaking.”

So, these owls were catty bitches…

All that time pissing their pants over these guys, pondering what they knew and what they could see, and they’re all a buncha mean girls. Jason would laugh if it wasn’t so sad, or if he had control over his mouth at all.

One of the hussies audibly tip-tapped away before a door opened and subsequently closed. So, detective skills suggested that the only remaining inhabitants were the Legate and possibly their Talon that was very likely lurching over their newest capture to ensure he didn’t start any funny business. Which, sure, Jason’s business was generally hilarious. The vibrations of the door and the acoustics of the Owls’ yammering suggested a very small, perfectly square room. Had to be somewhere between 6x6 and 8x8. This was good intel to have, even if he currently couldn’t budge his muscles a centimeter.

Relative silence returned, leaving Jason to return to his mind palace and ponder whenever all his turns of phrase shifted to the metric system. It was definitely a Robin requisite. Bruce insisted that Robin couldn’t just be nimble, he had to be smart, he had to know how the world operated if he wanted any chance of aiding it. He only said this once, but it stuck with him. Kid Jason definitely thought he knew about the world, but he didn’t really. He knew Gotham, knew it in his blood, but the world was so much vaster than his mother could—

Actually, it was best not to think about that. Thinking about Robin was spicy enough.

Jason refused to ever get nostalgic. The past, with all its sorrows and comforts, were better off where he left them, which was in the grave, yadda yadda, whatever. The usual theatrics were growing increasingly stale the longer his only audience was his own brain matter.

Still, some odd piece of him felt a warm familiarity. How many kids were nostalgic for kidnappings? That was probably fucked up. He should maybe get that checked sometime, possibly kidnap a psychologist. But it dawned on him that this was classic Robin shit. This shit he knew, which meant his escape was certain. Red Hood’s power had become uncertain, but he knew what Robin could do. Robin could do anything! And he did it all with a smile on his face.

“Legate, his face is twitching.” That was definitely a Talon voice. Actually, sounded a lot like the last one he faced, which either meant the modulated voice was uniform, or…

Heeled boots clicked Jason’s way. “Damn it all! The paralysis is already wearing off. That smug runt and the Apothecary insisted it would last twenty-four hours minimum.”

A full day hadn’t passed then. Good. Steph might still have a chance. Jason could hazard a guess over the smug runt too.

“Talon! Keep watch over the prisoner. I must file a complaint.” Easy to imagine their sneer.

There was the sound of armor clattering. “Yes, Legate!” Followed by the sound of the commander leaving the room.

So, then there were two.

Without this Legate guy, the Talon audibly snuck all around their tiny room. They wouldn’t be audible to most, but Jason had a trained ear that thankfully worked now. Course, the trained killing machine was unlikely to kill him without orders from his master, so there was little reason for tension. Jason’s life was assured for however many minutes it took for tech support to arrive. All he had to do was wait this out.

“Robin.” Unless the Talon randomly decided to strike conversation. “That word has been burning on my lips ever since we met. Ever since I saw your face.” The face he was now grasping with metallic claws, awesome. “I don’t know why. I don’t know where it came from. I know the word, that is no mystery. But there is a greater meaning that involves you. That involves me .”

Awesome! They left him alone with fucking Dick of all people. The twisted brainwashed facsimile of Dick, at least. No doubt his assignment was an intentional irony on the Owls’ part. Equally ironic was the amnesiac birdman seeking answers from a paralyzed prisoner.

Dick snarled, which was pretty funny to imagine. “I am speaking to a statue.” Yeah, no shit, buddy. “You are but a corpse in waiting.” Rude. At least he released his face. Shame Jason still couldn’t spit at his.

“I am not meant to know such things. Yet, I do. And I shouldn’t.” They were just gonna keep going in circles like this, weren’t they? “I shouldn’t have a past beyond the Court. I recall a meaningful life of servitude, all my training, all my masters, a life I know I’ve lived. Yet, I look at you and I hear Jason, and I hear Robin , and I experience those words more than any crystalline memory. You are not meant to reside in my brain, Jason Todd. Yet, you do. You mean something to me in ways I cannot fathom. That I am not meant to fathom.”

How positively tragic. Now Jason Todd meant something to the great and powerful Nightwing. He must have really left an impression with the three times they hung out together. The confused lil birdboy was almost certainly recalling a memorial more than a boy, along with the typical superhero angst that came with it.

Drake got all his warmth. Babs wrote all about it. Jason was the mistake, so Timothy got to be Dick’s redemption. She wrote vividly of their brotherly escapades, a bond they shared outside of Bruce. Per usual, as with every document he burnt the midnight oil reading, Jason was the Goofus to everyone else’s Gallant. After everything he did to be a good Robin, he was crowned the bad one, the reckless street kid that would never have amounted to anything in the first place. But he did make everyone sad, which made everything after him all the better! Turns out all they needed for happy, meaningful lives was a proper sacrificial lamb!

If Jason had known that earlier, he would have volunteered. But he didn’t. He was assigned as a sacrifice post-mortem, knowing that the kid would never hear what they had to say about him.

The comfortable silence was broken again by Dick/Talon/Whatever. “If you cause me to question my loyalty, I will gut you personally.” No one had brought up loyalty and Jason had been comically still this entire time, but okay, go off. “Whatever past you signify is of no concern to me.”

Uh huh. Sure, buddy. Good to know there was some Dick dormant in that monster. He could use that. Soon, it’d be time to work that Robin magic.

Damn, he should’ve asked Talia about magic training. That would’ve been sick as hell.

Some tense hours or seconds later, there was the sound of a door, followed by footsteps. The mea n girls hath returned, Jason surmised, immediately confirmed by their petty squabbling escaping whatever noise-isolated halls they emerged from.

“—ware that I provide the chemicals needed to maintain your little pets. You raise one hand against me, and you can kiss your Dionesium farewell.” There was the Apothecary. Which meant…

“Please. You’re little more than a glorified florist.” Legate! Finally, the Real Housewives of the Court of Owls could resume. “Your formulas have been noted, appreciated, and archived. We only keep you around out of ceremony. You could be replaced by any amateur meth dealer.”

“Will you two stop bickering for five seconds?” A new voice! And one Jason immediately recognized. Tiny Tim didn’t even bother disguising his voice like the others. “You all have jobs, right? Real jobs where you have to act like real people? Can you at least pretend to be adults for ten seconds, please ?”

“Do not mistake our request for authority, child.”

“Oh, that Legate. Gotta love ‘em!” Well, would you look at that! Jason’s mouth was working again. It still hurt his jaw, like pain meds wearing off after a root canal, but he could work through the pain. Humor typically helped with that. “Okay, just to make sure, I said that out loud, right? That wasn’t just in my head?”

“Yes, we can hear you…” Poor Timmy sighed with an edge of annoyance. “Joy of joys.”

“How weak is your poison, Apothecary?” Jason’s favorite real housewife accused. “Or did you give him a low dosage for your own ends?”

“I did no such thing!” Apothecary squawked. “And my ends are the same as yours!”

“Would you two quit it!” Tim snapped. “The poison was fine! The pills were fine, the mask was fine, everything was up to standard.” Mask? What mask? “The issue is obviously him!”

Jason guffawed. Felt real nice to do again. “If I had a nickel for every time someone said that to me…well, I’d have enough money to be in bed with you idiots.”

“And what makes him so special?” Legate asked, like Jason wasn’t even in the room.

“I like to think it’s my charming personality and above-average aim.”

“It’s Lazarus shit,” Timmy shot down.

“Rude. I like to think there’s a lot more to me than my one little green goo bath.” Even if the same green goo was still obscuring his vision.

“One dip in a Lazarus Pit is all it takes to become immune to our brainwashing methods?” Apothecary questioned.

“Brainwashing methods?”

The dang owl ignored him. “I’m well-studied with the effects of Dionesium, but I have not had the opportunity to study the effects of Lazarus Pits. Am I to assume a babe like you has more—”

“Did you just call me a babe? Seriously? Like unironically? Jesus Christ.” At least Timothy Drake didn’t put on a silly voice, just an annoying one. “I have experience, yeah. I’ve seen this stuff in action. Green eyes are a regular symptom of pit madness. But what’s weird is that pit madness usually only lasts a couple minutes after a quick dip in the pit. It agitates people, stimulates the violent part of their brain—”

“The amygdala.”

The room was completely quiet for a good few seconds. “Yes, Apothecary, the amygdala. Thank you.” Timmy had admirable sass, if nothing else. “Anything else to add on the subject?”

Jason’s snort echoed. “You don’t sound particularly happy on the job, Timothy. How did you wind up with this gig? We haven’t hung out much, but this hardly feels in-character.”

“Yeah, that’s because they brainwashed me, idiot.”

“Oh.” His brow creased. “Really?”

“Yeah. Obviously.” Tim was lucky that his prisoner couldn’t see nor punch his face right now. “They found me, brainwashed me, made me work for them, got me to betray everyone else. Kinda embarrassing, honestly. But it is what it is.”

“You’re being very candid about this.”

“Yeah, well, nothing I can really do about it, sooooo…”

“The Cardinal of Owls attempted the same procedure on your even more rude compatriot here,” Legate mentioned towards the lamer treacherous Robin. “To no result. As such, we were approved for the Apothecary’s memory-erasing drug. The prisoner’s body soundly rejected the medicine. As we see, it has had no effect on his personality.”

“Wait, so that’s what you were sticking in my mouth? Now I’m both disgusted and offended.”

“I could really use that poison again right now…” Timtim muttered under his breath loud enough for everyone to hear. “Look, far as I can tell, Lazarus Pits aren’t supposed to have these long-lasting effects on anybody, not even frequent users like Ra’s. But we found excessive traces of Lazarus juice in your blood, Jason. In your blood . How is that even possible? Have you been juicing yourself with this stuff?”

“Uhhh. I plead the fifth.”

“Hilarious. Well, whatever you’ve been doing has somehow rooted itself into fun little corners of your brain. We can’t tell if it’s actively raised your average aggression levels, since it looks inert until moments of high aggression and stress. In, yes, the amygdala.”

“Lazarus formula is significantly more powerful in its resurrective qualities than our Dionesium. A high potency in his brain wouldn’t even allow our drugs to process…” Apothecary muttered like a revelation, which it definitely was for Jason. Talia never warned him about common side effects, good or bad. “Even the Cardinal’s methods were resisted. Which would suggest those damnable green eyes are little more than a form of epilepsy.”

“Wait, so you’re saying my Lazarus steroids gave me special mind control protection? Like Wonder Woman?”

“If Wonder Woman took steroids, yeah. Basically.” Timmy sounded nearly as exhausted as his captive.

“HA!! Well, sucks to be you two then!” It felt good to feel a full belly laugh again, even as much as it felt bad. “You’re stuck as a beleaguered stooge, while Dick there has a fucking birdbrain. I may have a laundry list of issues, but at least I’m me.”

“WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!” the brainwashed birdie shrieked.

“Dick. Dick Grayson? Your name? Idiot?”

“TAKE IT BACK!!!” One second later, Jason’s limp, chairbound body was being lifted off the ground, his windpipe experiencing some turbulence by being squeezed. “TAKE THAT NAME BACK RIGHT NOW!!! I HAVE NO USE FOR IT!!!”

“Legate!” Timothy screeched. “Get your pet under control!”

“TALON!!! RELEASE.”

“But—”

“You dare defy me, soldier?”

There were three seconds of contemplation before Jason’s throat was allowed to circulate air again. He was slammed to the ground, wooden chair splintering in ways he didn’t find particularly comfortable, especially with his lack of limb control. “Owie.”

“All of you, leave!” Poor Timtom’s lungs sounded ready to burst. It was adorable, frankly. This kid really ran two superhero teams? Really? “Now that he’s talking, I’d like some personal words with the captive.”

“No doubt for your own treacherous ends.”

“I literally couldn’t fathom the idea of betraying you guys if I tried. Programming, remember?” Talk about bullshit. “The Judge ordered you to focus on the Vale situation, right? You’re not needed here.”

“ … Very well. We will leave you be.” Bullshit that apparently worked! “Heel, Talon. Follow.”

There were a couple beats before Jason heard “Yes, Legate. Forgive my insolence.”

“You will be appropriately punished when the time comes. For now, we leave the children to their reunion.”

“I’M NOT A CHILD!” The retort came out in stereo, much to Jason’s annoyance.

One of the smug birdfuckers chuckled on their way out. A great insult to the injury of all the splinters currently lodged in Jason’s butt. He bet he was still in his nice pants. He liked those pants. Once the door slammed shut, the silence returned, albeit subtly scored by Timmy’s harsh breathing.

Jason figured he was best off breaking the ice. “So, you wanted to catch up? What did I miss? Decided you didn’t get enough inheritance from both of your dead daddies?”

“I really don’t have time for this.” There was the click of a gun loading.

Oh no.

A bullet rang. It was especially sharp in the very sound-isolated room, free of any echo.

Something activated in Jason’s bones that allowed them to move, just in time to roll out of the bullet’s path. But it was close. He could smell it.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Jason’s voice was as sharp as the bullet and actually hit his intended target. “Wasn’t bad enough you took Robin, now you’re stealing my gun thing?!”

“I’m getting rid of a loose end.”

Another bullet, another successful dodge. He mentally thanked Talia for sending him to that French pervert that honed his blind fighting skills. His lessons were comprehensive enough that Jason was able to literally kill him with his eyes closed. “Watch where you’re pointing that thing! Call me generous, but it sounds like your bosses still want me alive.”

“They wanted to determine if you were still useful. I vote no.” Another bullet, another roll, another dodge.

“Ya know, I don’t think they’d like this! Didn’t you say your programming didn’t allow you to betray your new owl daddies? Or is that all an act?” Jason needed a lot more working bones than he had.

“No, it’s all true.” Uh oh, the gun was up to Jason’s forehead. “I serve the Court of Owls and only wish to see them thrive. My loyalty is to the Court itself, not those idiots. If you stay, they may still want to use you. I won’t even let you be a factor.”

The sting of steel grew deeper as more pressure was applied to the captive’s forehead. This couldn’t be how he died again. This was maybe his least-favorite possible death scenario. That bike accident would have been an infinitely cooler death than whatever this was. He kept a straight face. “And why can’t I be a factor, huh? Afraid they’ll make us work together?”

“That’s a possibility, yes. But more importantly, the longer you’re here, the more likely they are to learn about Steph.”

“Learn about—” Jason yanked his head back, temporarily relieving himself of the gun for all of one second. “They don’t know?”

“Of course they don’t know. Nobody cares about Spoiler. Batman even deleted all her files after she was supposed to be dead. But I noticed the manor alarm before anyone else. I knew that purple cape. And I sure as hell knew that face at the party.”

“And how does that make you feel?” Jason felt the familiar sensation of a pistol whip on his hard head. “Ow!! Dude!” And the pressure returned.

Timothy let out a sound akin to Bruce’s “Hnn” if an adorable puppy tried it. “I’ll take care of her eventually, but I can’t let anyone else know about Steph in the meantime. The Court is ruthless. If they know she’s a loose end, they’ll stop at nothing to get her.”

“And that’s different from now how ?”

The boy’s voice chilled. “Steph isn’t like us. She still has people to lose. People the Court could find.”

“Like her mom?” There was no answer. Things sat still for about ten seconds before Jason’s mind reeled back to Brown’s file. His heart stiffened. “God…”

“Yeah.” There was little anger in Evil Tim’s voice anymore. It nearly turned tender. “The court plays dirty. I betrayed the others, but I won’t put any civilians in danger. I refuse to put…” The sentence remained unfinished. There was a tiny sniffle.

“Sounds to me like the programming missed a spot.” Jason exhaled. “Hey, if you let me go, I promise not to tell anyone. You know me, I’m not a snitch.”

“I don’t know you. Our only interaction was you beating me up in the middle of the night.”

“In my defense, I needed a laugh.” The gun clicked. “Hey, hold on! They’re gonna kill her, dude. You know that, right? Steph’s got hutzpah, but she’s an amateur. She’s gonna trip and they’re gonna rip her limb for—JESUS!!!” He didn’t invoke the name often, but getting a sharp kick in the ribs felt like an occasion. At least he could cough up the blood in his throat now. “Foul play! It’s one thing to threaten me, another to—C’MON!!!” He couldn’t swivel his body enough to avoid the second kick.

“Don’t call her that.” His voice was frigid and even. Very Bruce.

“What? An amateur?”

“Steph,” Tim corrected, applying the pressure of his leather shoes against Jason’s very tender ribs. “You don’t have the right.”

“Oh. Right. Because obviously she’s gonna come crawling right into your scrawny arms after all of this is done. I’m really trying to roll my eyes here, I don’t know if it’s working.” That warranted another rib attack. “C’mon, dude! Now you’re just being childish.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“You’re also one to talk! You keep doing it! Talk talk talk… weren’t you planning on shooting me? What happened to that Tim? Lemme guess, the impulse wore off. You probably worked up all your nerves in order to get that first shot in. Then you had enough adrenaline for two more shots, but now? Oh, now you’re having to stew in it. It can’t be done quick and dirty anymore, now you have to look into my glowing green eyes and shoot, and you still can’t do that, can you? No amount of programming will make you any less of a coward.”

“You’re calling me a coward?”

“If it quacks like a duck…”

“That’s awfully rich coming from Jason Todd, the biggest coward in Gotham.”

Jason felt his forehead crease. “I can take a lot of insults and curses, but I draw the line at inaccuracy.”

The kid scoffed. Scoffed! His voice got closer from crouching down. “Uh huh. I shouldn’t be surprised. Not like you’ve been the image of self-awareness.”

“I know what I am,” Jason reiterated coldly. “If our positions were reversed, you’d be lying here with a gaping hole in your head. I could pull the trigger without a second thought.”

“Spare me. You’re nothing but second thoughts, Todd. How many times did you have the chance to kill Bruce, hm? To say nothing of Joker. You had infinite chances at revenge, and you chose the most convoluted way as an excuse to keep delaying it longer and longer. And you never would’ve killed either of them, would you?”

The green pulsated. Jason’s right index finger twitched. He growled. “Of course I would.”

“No, no, I know you wouldn’t. And I’m not calling you a coward for that. I wouldn’t kill my greatest enemies either. But I also wouldn’t leave a disastrous trail of blood and crime in my journey to do fucking nothing. Almost like you’ve been looking for excuses to lash out at the world more than anything. So many people are dead because of you, Jason.”

“Yeah. Scum.” He tried twitching another finger. No luck.

“Jason.” Tim gave his captive’s head a double tap with his fist. “ You were leading them! You lead the gun trade, the drugs, the pimping. You were on top. You were literally King Scum! Are you that blind?”

 His body was trembling now, vibrating at a low hum. The words inflamed something deep down. “Currently, yes.” His teeth grated.

“Wow, using humor to deflect. How unpredictable. You truly are the wild card.” The tiny flick on Jason’s head still wasn’t appreciated. “Lemme guess, that was Red Hood the character, not Jason Peter Todd the regular guy. Jason Peter Todd, son of Catherine and Willis Todd.”

The vibrating quickened. “Don’t you say their fucking names…”

“It had to be so easy, right? Whether you love or hate him, there’s just something so compelling about Batman, something that makes everyone want to play a part in his grand opera. He’s an addictive idea. Easy to grasp and hold onto, yet complex enough to rattle the brain 24/7. Why, if I wanted to, I could just do nothing but think about Batman. I wouldn’t have to think about either of my dead parents.”

Fingers started to curl.

“I wouldn’t have to think about Willis Todd, a low-rent goon who got himself killed for trying to help his family. What a horrid fate! Two-Face must be a special, completely unimpersonatable evil. By the way, did a check-up on your accountant guy from a while back. Bret Harwood? Nice guy. So awful what happened to him. And did you know he was a single father? His daughter’s in foster care now. Awful, really awful. Doubt the system will be kind to her.”

Legs were slowly bending.

“Course, personally, I’d worry more about all the women having to resort to back-alley drugs to make their lives bearable. That stuff is potent! Not like they have any alternatives. It’s so much easier to treat symptoms of pain rather than the root cause, not to mention so much cheaper. Bet most of those women have mouths to feed too. Course, temporary solutions often prove addictive to the point of dependency. Eventually, you even lose the ability to tell when something’s wrong until it’s too late. I swear, whoever’s pushing drugs to people like Catherine Todd out there are a real menace.”

The green burnt now.

“And there’s just an epidemic of baddies using luring people into karmic death traps! Especially ones with bombs! It’s a big problem. Why, my friend Shiela—”

Jason could thankfully see the moment he punched Timothy Drake in his stupid fucking face.

He got to watch the boy rocketing across the room, slamming against the wall. It was beautiful. The image of dashing over and rendering the boy’s face unrecognizable flashed temptingly, until his head craned towards the exit. He was more instinct than man right now, guided purely by fight or flight. Even mid-flight, his decision remained shocking. Less shocking than the door being locked. Could’ve been predicted that.

Timmy came swinging over with his battle staff, which he had somehow hidden in his fancy business suit. Christ, even now, he couldn’t stop being an embarrassing yuppy. His first swipe missed, the second decidedly did not, causing further harm to Jason’s poor ribs. A quick twist and the staff rammed against his chin. There was a cracking sound that was better left ignored.

Even though every cell of his body was currently aching, Jason managed to keep moving through what was either Lazarus blood or simply spite. He started dodging, started parrying, until he managed to ram the kid’s staff into his stomach, stunning him for a brief second long enough to check the door. No key hole, which meant the key was probably a card he didn’t have right now.

“Upsetting that I’m right, isn’t it?” There was a wild look in Tim’s eyes that brought back memories. He swung all around, barely missing his prisoner of war. “Out of witty retorts? What are you even fighting for at this point?!”

“To beat you, obviously!” One quick twist allowed Jason to kick the staff with his fancy black shoes. It went flying, but Robin 3.0 simply returned to punches. He was still very well trained on that front. “And to do your stupid job bringing down the obvious bad guys!”

“And what do you have to gain from resisting them?” Tim snarled, managing to get a good kick in Jason’s shins, an admirably dirty trick. “You had the opportunity to join us without any trouble. We could have made Red Hood the kingpin of Gotham.”

“Guess I just have issues with authority. It’s well-documented. I’m sure you’ve read all about it.”  Was there a key to get him out of here? If there was, where would it be? Had to be in either the pants or coat. A smile crept on his face at the gust of each dodged punch. It felt like old times. Maybe old times called for old tricks.

With his tongue stuck out, Jason initiated a small rapid sequence of events: a spit in the face, a jab to the neck, a second and more successful jab to the neck, a quick spin behind the kid, a kick of the legs, a lifting of his collar, and… coat off! “Hope you don’t mind the draft!”

“You—!” Timtom lurched for the coat, suggesting its true value.

“Really? Is that the best Robin banter you can come up with? Seriously, dude, don’t lower the standard.” He checked every pocket like he was rapidly unloading a gun. Nothing, not even lint. “Pack light, huh?”

Timmy caught one of the sleeves and pulled hard. Somehow, their epic struggle had become a childish game of tug-o-war. Something must have been important about it. Kid had some arms on him too. Maybe it didn’t help that every slab of meat in Jason’s body felt like it was crying. Rather embarrassingly, all it took was one great tug for the coat to be reclaimed. The only part not reclaimed was the pearl white cufflink that popped off the right sleeve and landed on the other side of the room.

The very same cufflink Timothy was staring at with mortal attention. Jason followed. Then, they bolted.

“Dibs!”

“There’s no dibs! That’s my link!  Get your own!”

“I did! From Valentino himself!” Jason reached the cufflink with his copycat inches behind him. Thinking fast, he kicked it across to another side of the room, close to the door, before managing a successful somersault over the kid. Hurt his knees like no one’s business, but it gave him a head start.

“Ah dang, that’s a Valentino? Now I feel bad about all the bloodstains.” Tim changed directions as well, their distance widened. “Jason, you’re only putting her in danger! You’re putting us all in very real danger!”

“Yeah, I know! Yoink!” He managed to kick the tiny button into his hands, before slamming it against the door. “It’s what I do!” A quick crank of the handle and a push and…

The door slammed behind him. Jason reclaimed a tiny gasp of air from the excitement. Then, he faced the void he’d escaped to.

There was no way to tell where he was or what was there. Everything was pitch black, maybe as dark as anything could scientifically be. The air was cool. There was so little sound. He slowly and reluctantly crept towards, his flats providing the majority of the aural landscape.

He found a wall. It felt like smooth, cold metal. He searched for another door, whether it was a way out or into more trouble. The lack of stimuli irked him.

Then, there was a sound. It was a tiny sound that wouldn’t amount to a single fraction of a decibel to the untrained ear. Jason’s ears were very much trained. There was a disruption of the wind from above down to his level. Which likely meant…

There was another, much sharper gust as he took a quickstep back. A swipe. It confirmed he wasn’t alone here. Another swipe, confirming the entity’s speed.

He landed in front of the metal wall, ducking in time for the next swipe. There was a subsequent spark against sharp metal blades, a spark just bright enough to give Jason the tiniest glimpse of a masked Talon. Made sense.

He had a shape now. Shapes were far easier to fight than voids. He skillfully avoiced swipe after swipe on both sides, until they were only coming from the right. There was the tiniest sound of clicking, which suggested ammunition. On that note, Jason ducked, just in time for a metallic clink to hit the wall, before falling to the ground. A quick pick up haptically revealed a tiny knife. One in his possession now. Goody.

The Talon threw another knife equally as uselessly before attempting to slice its opponent with its claws again. By now, Jason had worked out the shape, more or less. So, if he had to take a shot in the dark, the jugular was somewhere around…

“GRRRK!!!” Oh yeah, that felt like blood splatter. Right on his face, too. That had to be attractive.

The poor owl thing’s knees buckled as he slumped to the ground. Jason nearly whistled in victory, before his brain alerted him at the last second that there may be others. It was impossible to tell at this juncture in this pitch-black void. He questioned if Talon’s were trained to fight in such conditions, or if their freaky little masks gave them the advantage. Why not test that theory?

A quick yank allowed Jason to crown himself like a proper Talon. His vision was subsequently  overtaken by a fairly high-tech display currently displaying the greenish filter of night vision. So, the bird fucker was cheating. Figured. 

As far as his head could turn, there were no other Talons in sight. The apparently blonde guy currently writhing in pain was likely the lone warden patrolling this strange metal box that he could only assume was underground. There was a real underground kinda vibe.

The Talon kept gasping, attempting to grab the knife out of his nifty new neck slit, green veins only becoming thicker against their taught, skull-like face. These birds were stubborn little things for sure, damn near pitiable. Still, Jason had little time for pity. He slammed his dressy shoe against the still stuck knife, driving it deeper and making the somehow not dead guy convulse and gurgle in lieu of whatever screams they were likely going for. Similar sounds were made after Jason used another one of its knives to pin their right arm down by the wrists. A necessary precaution to take their neat little gauntlet.

The glove fit like a glove. It was unfortunately very fun to twiddle its stupid little claws. Tests revealed that the gauntlet was exceptionally skilled at piercing both flesh and armor, as proven by the severed arm of his previous opponent. He was unsure how well these things healed, or if they could regrow limbs or not, but he knew he’d look tacky as hell with just one glove on. 

Beyond his interrogation room that he would never return to, there were three doors: north, east, and west. Any could be the exit, or at least one step closer to one. Sadly, these masks lacked a map feature, so he’d have to rely on the trusty ole scientific method.

“Eeny, meeny, miny…” East it was.

In his mad dash to the door, Jason couldn’t resist an adventurous grin. This dark, dank labyrinth did not appear friendly, but the scenario did. This was Classic Robin Shit, an ordeal he knew that he’d survive with a little quick-thinking and gumption. Even without the silly costume, Robin gave him magic. The role enveloped his heart snug as a bug, like he’d never missed a beat.

Door opened, aaaaaaaand it was another hallway. A quick peek revealed a Talon perching on the scaffolding, staring right down at the intruder. It managed to launch a knife before Jason slammed the door shut. He labeled that passage a definite maybe .

He tried west next. It was a closed-off cube with the same dimensions of the interrogation room he’d just escaped. The only differences were its emptiness and the ungodly liters of blood staining the metal floor. Concerning.

Okay, one door left. He gently slipped it open, finding yet another elongated hallway. One of many, he surmised. At least this one didn’t appear to have a pest problem. Just to be careful, he started fiddling with the goggles of his new mask, seeing everything it could do. And low and behold, it had infrared! Convenient.

The freezing metal hall was unsurprisingly blue all over. As a wrinkle, there was a tiny signature close to the end of the hall. It was stationary, unmoving, but could still present a problem. So, Jason’s jaunt became a slow creep, avoiding a peep even in these dumb dressy shoes. His precious awaited him on the surface, further motivation of escaping this circle of Hell.

The signature became clearer yet more mysterious the more he crept. The red blob of heat became increasingly human-shaped. The closer it got, the higher it went, until it was suspended right above Jason’s head. It stayed slumped in midair like a ghost, if a ghost had to be suspended in the air by cold chains. A return to night vision revealed yet another Talon.

It was definitely the saddest so far, wrapped in chains and suspended in the air like a metallic art project. Or, like an example. Could’ve been a corpse, if not for the way the head creepily twitched at irregular intervals. Oddly, its line of sight had yet to transfix on their new visitor. This was… an advantage? If this monster could even fight. Hardly looked ready for battle, what with the chains and the constant twitching and the armor coated in ash, almost like it was… burnt….

No. No no no, he wasn’t falling for this again. He snapped to peer at his blindside, searching for signatures of potential attackers. Nobody. No bombs either. Just him and this… thing.

Fuck it. 

“HEY!!!” He winced, his vocal cords not in the mood for such frequencies. The gain filter on his mask aided with some of the volume, but it was all moot. No response. “Hey, Chicken!” He watched the strain this time. “Cluck cluck! Anybody home?” Still nothing. He winced. “Babs?” His voice was a pathetic squeak.

The moronic masked minion did not change. It kept violently jerking its head from one position to the next, only reenforcing the chicken comparison. Useless.

Jason eyed the chains keeping the birdie afloat. Several scenarios played in his head. In a lot of them, this thing was actually like The Worst Talon, a Frankenstein-like that would go on an unstoppable rampage the moment he set it free. In some of those scenarios, this was used to Jason’s advantage. In several, he imagined increasingly embarrassing deaths. And in a select few…

He saw those terrified green eyes. After so many years, he got to see them again, as deep and all-knowing as his recollection. They were terrified. They twitched as if searching for some hold of reality. They were an instantly familiar green, but scared and uncertain in ways Barbara could never be.

His metal claws clanged into fists. Unfortunately, if this monster had the slightest chance of being her, he had to know. Pragmatism took a backseat.

Five swipes and as many broken chains later, and the poor bird was hanging upside down, still to no reaction. Jason braced himself for something, disappointment, horror, any potential emotion. He reached out to the ugly bird mug. Carefully, he slipped it off.

Hair spelt out first, immediately making his stomach churn. He couldn’t see the color with his night vision, but he hazarded a guess. It was ratty, greasy, and moist, emanating a disgusting warmth. Jason cringed, uncertain he wanted to see the rest. Still, he kept tugging, until there was a family pointed chin. Disturbingly prominent veins trailed up to the face. His fingers grew fidgety the more he pulled, revealing rank, pale skin coated in freckles. And then…

The eyes. It was her.

Oh fuck, he really tried to kill Barbara Gordon.

He couldn’t see the green in her eyes while the entire world was green. But he watched her face scrunch together like she was awoken from a long nap. Her eyes were crusty and took some time to fully open, before they started darting, likely noticing the dark void. She made tiny grunts while she rapidly blinked, trying to make sense of something.

Right, Jason was here too. Just staring down at her. While she was upside down. Fucking hell, some Robin he was.

He took a small breath to prepare for a greeting. What kind though? Abrasive? Sly? Meek?

Barbara started vomiting, officially initiating first contact. “Oh god…” she painfully moaned while she was forced to stew directly above the smoldering stew of her stomach’s former contents.

“JESUS!” Jason jumped back a step.

“Wha—who’s there?!” Her eyes sharpened to business, glaring in at her apparent visitor. “Torturing me in the dark now? Fine by me. You see one tacky owl outfit, you’ve seen them all!” Her eyes were so alive. It was really her; completely uncompromised her .

“Relax, Babs, it’s—”

“Don’t call me that!” she growled. “You don’t…” She winced and suppressed another burp. “I’m not talking until you get me down. This isn’t really a prime conversational position.”

Right, being upside down usually wasn’t helpful. “Right. Gimme a sec. I’m here to rescue you, by the way.”

“Well, you’re doing a bang-up job so far.”

Jason rolled his eyes and considered his next move. “In my defense, beggars can’t be choosers, congresswoman .”

“Congresswoman?” She blinked, like she was processing ancient data. “ Jason ?”

“Ding ding! Got it in one!” Christ, just being around her was bringing out the old Robinisms. “Now, uhhhh… hold still. I apologize in advance.”

“I’m not even gonna ask.” Barbara yelped once Jason jumped directly onto her legs, causing her to swivel back and forth all pendulum-like. Also got his filthy dress shoes in her face. “Jason! Oh my god. Is this a rescue, or a slow-burn revenge scheme?”

“C’mon, Babs, you’re the last person I’d want revenge on.” He hoisted himself up enough just so to reach the last couple chains keeping the Batgirl afloat. “Why do you think I waited until you were out of Gotham?”

“Because you were scared of me.”

“Hmm.” Jason weighed how much of an asshole to be. He decided to go light. “It can be two things.”

SWING~! He managed to slice all the chains in one sharp swing.

Subsequently, they both plummeted to the ground. Jason was fine, since he had Barbara to break his fall. Barbara, less fortunately, only had her own vomit to break her face first fall. She didn’t dare open her mouth to complain, so she settled for a muffled groan.

“Oh! Uh. Sorry.” There was a word he hadn’t meant for some time. “Didn’t mean to conscript you into my dirty work.”

“Har har. I’m not sure if you can see me, but I’m rolling my eyes right now.” Chains rattled as she worked her way out of the nest.

“Yeah, I can see them.” Jason jumped off his rescue. “Not to worry though! Those Owls may be assholes, but even they know better than to mess with a man’s handkerchief.” He delicately placed his iron-sharp talons into his breast pocket, summoning a tiny white cloth he then tossed at Bab’s face.

“Why the hell do you have—? Know what, forget it. There’s too many questions. I’ll ignore this one.” She got to rubbing off the vomit pouring down her face. “Let’s start with the most prescient: why are you here?”

“Got kidnapped,” he shrugged. “Turns out I’m resistant to mind control. Why are you here?”

“Got kidnapped. Aaaaaand turns out I’m resistant to mind control.”

“Bullshit.” Jason chuckled. “Be serious.”

“I’m being serious! Well, it wasn’t so much a discovery as something I trained myself to do. The advantage of a photographic memory and several years working at a library. Suffice to say, I’ve been revisiting some classics. So long as I keep my brain fully absorbed on one thing, the brainwashing can’t get to me.”

“Bullshit!” He kept smiling. “You were trying to kill me earlier.”

“Last I checked, so were you.”

“That—” He pointed at her, as if she could see it. “Besides the point. You were attacking me.”

Babs shrugged on the floor. “Yeah, because of that stupid mask controlling me. I could stave off the brainwashing, the masks can connect to the brain and just kinda… puppet the body. Maybe I could’ve staved it off if my frontal lobe wasn’t working 24/7 trying not to surrender Oracle to those assholes. They want my brain more than anything. Probably why they haven’t erased my memories like with…” She took a breath. “Help me up?”

“Oh. Sure! Sure. Uhhhh.” Jason was really out of practice with the whole rescue routine. He reached down and accepted Bab’s Talon claw in his own. “Am I gonna need to carry you, or…” The second option fizzled as the woman got onto her feet. “Right. Forgot about… that .”

Babs was downright bashful, trying to get a glance of her stretching legs in the darkness. “Yeah, same…” she muttered, her tone indecipherable. “First time using these as… me , I guess…” She tentatively took a few steps forward, as if to ensure this wasn’t a dream. She then closed her eyes, took a small breath, and performed a perfect roundhouse kick. “HIYA! Ha!” Her iron claws covered her face as she gave a very ambiguous laugh. “Oh my god…”

Jason peered away. This felt extremely private. “You, ah, okay there, Babs?”

“Oh yeah, fucking dandy!” she snapped, before bursting that unknown laugh again. “I mean, it wasn’t my choice, obviously. They just randomly decided my body needed working legs so I could, I dunno, kick people to death or whatever the fuck. I didn’t ask for this. It wasn’t my choice…”

“Y-yeah. It’s… pretty fucked up.” Only once he peered away from Barbara did Jason consider how much time had passed and how much time might be left for his great escape. “Maybe we should start heading out. You know, find an exit?”

“Wanna know the funny part?” Babs asked, completely ignoring his suggestion. “Well, it’s all pretty funny. But the funniest part is… I still can’t feel them!”

That got Jason to look back. “Huh?”

“I still can’t feel them!” She reached down and gave her armored thighs a good squeeze. “Except for the phantom pains. God, I can’t even get rid of the phantom paints. Like, the muscles have been revived, but the nerves are dead as ever. Like they’re just running on an electric current shocking the muscles back into use.”

“Soooo… what? You got zombie legs?”

“Evidently!” Babs shouted, before transitioning into very unfun laughter. “Guess it’s Batgirl, back in action! A living corpse on full display!” She clacked her claws together. “All because some idiot said so.”

“Yeah, that sucks, that really sucks. However, relatedly, I really think we should start heading out before—”

A door creaked open behind them. Boots were rushing on the ground. A lotta boots.

“Might wanna adjust to those legs. Quick.” Jason turned his mask onto flashlight mode, shining a beaming light at the oncoming Talons. He readied his claws. “We’re gonna need ‘em.”

“Great.” Barbara groaned, positioning herself in a stance ancient to her. “It’s just you and me then?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

Chapter Text

“Then, this kid called Jason Todd became the new Robin. Then he blew up, came back to life, and went crazy. I can’t tell where he is mentally right now, but probably not not crazy.”

“How many fucking Robins have there been?”

“We’ll get to that. Okay, so Oracle was the first Batgirl.”

“What.”

“Yeah! Wild. But the Joker shot her, and she lost her legs, so then she became Oracle!”

“Lost her legs like… amputated?”

“No. Anyway, apparently, without anyone to talk to, Batman went all nuts until Tim became Robin.”

“Who’s Tim?!”

“A sore subject! Anyway, he quit for like two seconds, so then I became Robin!”

“What? I feel like I’d remember a girl Robin. Okay! I get it. Sore subject. Don’t clench your jaw like that.”

“ANYWAY. I died. Kinda sorta. Less than Jason. Coma stuff. I was in Haiti for a bit.”

“Your whole life is just a series of non-sequiturs, huh?”

“Yep! And while I was gone, Bruce died. Possibly even more than Jason. Then, everyone else just POOFED! Disappeared.”

“Like a literal poof?”

“Probably not. If you want more info on that, please consult the mystery board.”

“How many of these do you have?!”

“Technically one. This is the chronology board. Anyway, I immediately found Damian dressed like Robin.”

“The kid.”

“Yes. Bruce’s kid.”

“With the evil assassin lady that worked with my dad.”

“A sweeping generalization,” Talia snarked, dodging yet another swipe of her son’s blade some feet away. “My association with Kuttler was no more consensual than your own. I’ll also have you know I’ve been working tirelessly to rebuild the damage caused in my compromised state.” She dove in for the attack with her own sword.

Wendy huffed, reclining in the Batcomputer chair. “Yeah. Sure. Everyone’s on the goddamn redemption train these days.”

Talia scoffed, lacking sarcasm. “There is no redemption. Not for me, or anyone. Redemption is a fairy tale manufactured to sell indulgences.” She parried Damian’s next attack with minimal thought. “Dear, you are telegraphing much too easily.”

“Yeah-huh. And none of that sounds evil to anybody else?”

Stephanie shrugged and pretended not to be upset nobody complimented her really impressive visual aids. “I mean, I kinda agree. I’d probably say the same thing, just with more, ahhh…”

“Interjections?” Damian suggested, barely dodging another nick from his mother.

Stephanie didn’t hide her grin. “Smartass kid.” Clearing her throat, she returned to their newest recruit. “So! Any questions?”

“A million of them.”

“Well, I can’t promise that many answers. Not for lack of trust, it’s just my breadth of firsthand Batman knowledge is, ahhhhh, limited. Believe me, I’m trusting you with a lot more than he trusted me.”

That garnered Wendy’s eyebrow. “In other words, the OG found you untrustworthy.”

“What? No! Well. Kinda. You gotta believe me, it’s less that I was untrustworthy and more that he was untrusting. Dude had issues.”

“Beyond the whole bat thing?”

“Pfft. Oh yeah. Trust me, that was the most stable thing about him.”

Talia shared a fond laugh. “I assure you that my beloved was plenty stable where and when it mattered.”

Stephanie sputtered. “Oh my GOD.”

“MOTHER!!” Damian’s face was red, and only got redder once his mother slammed him to the ground and pointed her sword at his throat. “Unfair! Cheating! There’s no honor in this victory!”

“It is always an honor to lose to an al Ghul.” She stabbed her sword into the cave floor and helped prop her child back on his feet. “You’re out of practice, dear. Have you let your father’s imposter dull your talent?”

“Forgive me if Gotham City has been low on swordfighters.” Damian grumbled while he recovered from a bruised ego.

“And we’ve been training every day! You know, discounting coma days.” Stephanie was sure to add a teensy bit too petulantly for the woman she could vividly see calling her a “petulant child.” 

Wendy raised her hand. “Can we get back to discussing Batman’s dick? I need more data.”

“Then use the computer!!” No no, that wasn’t the right tone at all. Steph was supposed to be a… leader now? Was that what happened? She doubted anyone in the room would label themselves a subordinate. “Sorry, sorry. But look, you have access to probably the most stupid smart computer system on the planet. Can you hack into it?”

“Can I?” Without bothering to turn, Wendy pressed the Batkeyboard’s Batspacebar. The comically sized screen popped to life, revealing stunning high-definition pictures of one Talia al Ghul, along with several walls of text. “I did it this morning while waiting for my coffee. You make shit coffee by the way.”

Stephanie was currently entirely incapable of indignity. Her mouth was far too slacked. They’d been trying to access this computer’s power ever since they moved in. And she just… cracked it. Went right in. That casualness had to be an act, right? No way she was treating something so gigantic like common tech support.

“Wendy…” she slowly muttered. “I could kiss you.”

“Hey! Remember the deal we made.”

“Right. Right, no kissing. It’s just…” Her hands rubbed down her cheeks. “We’re in! We can use the computer! No more outdated papers! We can just… look stuff up, like real human beings! We can do so, so much more now. Wendy Harris, you are a lifesaver.”

Wendy did her best to look cool and nonplussed, but Stephanie saw the fluster hiding underneath. “Yeah. Well. You wanted me to do it, so…” She mindlessly shrugged and looked off. “I did it. Deal’s done. You’re welcome.”

Steph realized she hadn’t said the magic words. Certainly the magic words she would have loved to hear more. “Thank you.”

Once more, Wendy waved her off, electing to return to the console. “Yeah yeah.”

“Read anything of interest?” Talia hummed, peering at her exposed profile.

“I read enough.” Their IT support huffed before closing that window. “Sounded like Bats was really down bad for ya. Though, you obviously didn’t leave on the best of terms.”

“No.” She clicked her tongue. “No, we did not.”

Damian dashed towards the screen. “Do I have a file on there?”

“Look, I just got this thing working. I haven’t absorbed every facet of the supercomputer into my bloodstream. And I’m not gonna use my new powers to help with your daddy issues.”

“I—I don’t have…!” He swerved about face, his hands squeezing his arms taut. “Unbelievable. You get an armchair and immediately start playing therapist.”

“It is a pretty comfy chair.” She continued clicking and clacking at a myriad of displays. “This thing is crazy though. Feels like I can hack into just about anywhere in a pleasant afternoon.”

“Anywhere, huh?” Stephanie brushed her chin, pondering all they could do now. They could finally stop being in the dark, might even find ways to get one over on those rich fucks. If they could just identify the people after them, then they’d actually have some cards to play. “Anywhere liiiiiiike info on the Court of Owls?”

“I mean, maybe. I guess. Hold on, you’re trying to rope me into more superhero junk!” Wendy swiveled her chair to properly, bitterly face her incidental abductor. “I know I’ve played nice up until now but let me clear things up: I don’t play those games anymore. Never will. I’ve invited waaaaay more than enough trouble into my life. Last thing I need is an ancient conspiracy on my fucking trail.”

Great. At this rate, Stephanie should look into a career in dentistry for how skilled she was at pulling teeth. “Wendy. I…” Her hands kept awkwardly searching for an appropriate gesture. “I get it. I get that you don’t feel like committing yourself to the greater good. I get that. Greater good, schmeater good, I always say.”

“And here she pitches the but…”

“But…” Stephanie leaned on the Batcomputer console, slightly closing their current height gap. “These people have my friends. They have Robin. Your Robin. Remember him? Your Titans buddy? Dressed like a circus clown trying to be cool?”

“Yeah. Kinda…” Wendy’s eyes swerved back to the screen. “We knew each other, but I wouldn’t say we were buddies. I’m not gonna put my life out on the line for an ex-coworker.”

“Then what about me?” Oh, so Damian had some words. “I saved your life. You owe me now.”

“Kid.” The hacker chewed on whatever words were stewing in her mouth. “That’s a low blow. I don’t know how or where you were raised, but down here, lives don’t operate on the honor system. I’ll always be thankful for you saving my neck, don’t get me wrong, but—”

“You IDIOT!” He slammed his palm against the opposite end of the console, leaving the girl sandwiched between superheroes. Of all possible furies, this was definitely in the righteous category. “If you can’t live by honor, why are you even alive?! Do you have any code? Any reason not to rot away in your bed into an early grave? Or do you only wish to waste as much oxygen as possible to spite everyone else with use for it?”

It was… quite the sight. Stephanie briefly considered being the adult and attempting to soothe the scene, but the adult part of her lost out to the part of her that really wanted to see the kid go off the leash. She stayed silent.

Wendy growled, really growled like a defensive dog. “Fuck you, kid!”

“Stop calling me that! I am not some common child!” Damian had more of a hiss like a cat. “I am Damian al Ghul, Son of the Bat!” He lurched forward, bearing his teeth, not helping the cat parallels. “You may consider me a child, but I at least know my purpose. I know why I was brought into this world, and I carry that burden with virtue. What is it you carry?”

“Carry?” A laugh scratched its way out of Wendy’s lungs. “Hey, dipshit! I know why I was brought into this world too, idiot: to be a twin and get me and my brother as far the fuck away from our dad as possible. I carried that burden as far as I could. And yet!” She presented her legs for show; her neck tilted to a most sinister angle. “Here we are. But I guess that’s something we have in common, huh? You were supposed to be Batman’s son, right? Looks like we both failed.”

Now, Damian was shaking. His training gloves were curled into trembling fist. The blistering contempt on his face went unchanged. “Your brother must be so relieved to know his sister is finally free to be a useless, selfish TWIT.” He slammed his fist on the console, hard enough to make a dent, before whipping about face and stomping away. “I’ll be upstairs.”

Surely Stephanie had to step in now. “Wait, Damian—”

“I’ll be upstairs!” His tone was final, the resulting door slam even more so.

No one really tried to stop him. Stephanie and Talia exchanged glances, while Wendy kept her eyes firm on the computer despite the stares toward her. The cave turned wordless for either ten seconds or ten hours.

Right. Steph was the talking one. She should break the awkwardness. “Think we should—?"

“I’ll check on him.” Talia walked towards the stairs with the speed of a fast walk but the grace of a steady walk. It was kinda beautiful, like a ballerina trying to be casual.

And then there were two…

Hey, as good an opener as any. “And then there were—”

“What’s that kid’s fucking deal?”

Stephanie really wanted to scream, “What’s your fucking deal?!” back. Sadly, she couldn’t exactly afford that level of conflict right now. She was already working overtime as a little Dutch boy using every bone in his body to plug an increasing number of holes in the dam that had become her life. Or something. 

If there was a more succinct metaphor out there, she also couldn’t afford to search for it. 

Somehow, inadvertently, Steph had formed something resembling the vague, strenuous idea of a team, or at least a collection of people she very much really needed right fucking now to forward her hopefully heroic ends. Meaning she now had to be something kinda nearing some nebulous concept of a person displaying the feint concept of a leader, or else every potential lead would blow up in her face. 

One wrong move and she might even lose Damian again, for real this time. That wasn’t going to happen.

Therefore, her words trepidatiously navigated from her brain towards the loaded minefield of conversation. “He’s got a lot of deals,” she settled on after some minor delay. “We all do. I dunno if you’ve been keeping track, but none of us are anything resembling normal people.”

“I’m normal…” the tech genius savant muttered, still refusing eye contact. “I used to think I was special. I learned better, obviously. You could have all the knowledge of everything in the world and find all the solutions to every problem in the world, and it would still only amount to shit. No slowly expiring slab of meat is going to create meaningful change in their short, useless lives.”

“Pretty dark.” Stephanie grimaced at the revelation she had to carefully play therapist now. Cool cool. Obviously, she had the perfect brain to make another person’s brain good. “Did you just come up with that expiring meat line, or have you had it locked in for a while?”

That finally swiveled Wendy away from the computer screen. “What?”

“Sounded like something you think in a moment of anguish and you’re like ‘Fuck, that’s good. That’s poetic. I gotta use that later.’ I get it. You find the phrase that best summarizes your special brand of angst and you kinda stick with it.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?!” 

“I’m just saying these obviously aren’t new thoughts. These are stewing thoughts. You’re stewing. Been there, girl! Trust me. I make a mean stew.”

Wendy became frozen in that very familiar look bordering on offense and befuddlement. It tended to spread wherever Stephanie dared tread. “You don’t know a thing about me.”

“No, no I don’t. I’m just your average daughter of a supervillain that was horribly maimed and put into a coma, up until she woke up to a Gotham she could barely recognize.”

“That doesn’t mean jack shit!” she blustered. “Yeah, sure, we’re similar. Cool, awesome. Whatever! You still don’t know shit about me!”

Stephanie sighed before hopping onto the Batcomputer terminal for leverage, allowing her legs to swing. “Right. But I know what you can do, which I assume is dark magic. I know what you’ve done, and Oracle knew what you could do. She trusted you more than she ever trusted me without even meeting you.”

Ah ha! That last bit got a quick glance of apprehension. “Yeah? So?”

“So, as my resident IT support, I got a question: what would it take to look into the bank account of one Doctor Henry and Rita Hopkins, hm?”

“Well.” Wendy’s face wrestled with itself with no doubt an epic level of mental dissonance. Whenever her mouth finally opened again, it was a betrayal. “Kinda easy. I mean…” 

She turned back towards the Batcomputer, navigating through an excess of windows at a speed faster than Steph knew a computer could act. Within ten seconds, there was a list of everyone’s accounts at Gotham National Bank. It really was dark magic.

“There! All his account info.” The Dark Magician couldn’t have suppressed her pride if she wanted.

“Oh my god.” Stephanie gaped at the immediate results. “It’s really that easy? At this rate, we could figure out everyone in the Court of Owls before lunch!”

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” Wendy snapped in abrupt sobriety. “I can get you his credit card info and everything you’d need to steal his identity easy. If you want to know where that money actually goes, that’s an entirely different story.”

A click revealed a long line of transactions. “This is his public account,” she explained. “These are all the payments and funds that’ll go on their tax-exempt tax returns. However! If you wanna find the evil, evil money, you have to go a little deeper.” Three seconds of absolutely destroying the keyboard brought up the homepages of ten different Gotham-based charities. The Doctors Hopkins were front and center on six of them. “You would need to unravel the web of deceit.”

“The nest of deceit!” Stephanie immediately plussed-up. “Thought that just now. Gotta save that for later.”

Wendy’s eyeroll was deafening. “Rich assholes, from the benignly evil to the cackling supervillains, typically keep their money flowing from one account to another to another to someone else’s account to a shared account to another private account that then flows into one of the previous accounts, so on and so forth. It’s like an endless international labyrinth of redundancy that keeps the government and assholes like me from finding out how much money they really got and whatever horrid shit they’re actually funding. That shit is a whole lot harder to decipher. That’s why I was at the Iceberg Lounge last night; I couldn’t get into The Society’s money without physically tampering with Penguin’s private servers. I still can’t access them since they took my laptop when they kidnapped me. Remember that?”

“I have some recollection.” Stephanie did her best not to let her pride show. Sure was a lot of words for someone who didn’t care. “So, let’s say, hypothetically, I wanna get into the Hopkins’ private business, dig around where the real money is. How would I do that?”

“Again, don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing,” Wendy groaned. “But—and this is a huge but—” She ignored Steph’s sniggering. “If you had access to their personal hard drive, it wouldn’t be hard to crack into it and see what networks they’ve been communicating with. May not reveal the whole puzzle, but it’ll give us some vital pieces.”

“Okay, easy.”

Steph’s girl in the chair swiveled to face her. “Easy? You’d need physical access to a rich cultist’s computer. Plus, since you’re not me and can’t perform the hacking yourself on the spot, you’d need to transport it from the belly of the beast to here.”

“Even easier!” she proclaimed. “I actually have an invitation into the belly of the beast. Or at least the balcony of the beast.”

“I cannot keep asking you what the hell you’re talking about. It’s exhausting.”

Gotham was an eyesore. That remained constant with every new angle Damian found. There was variety in its blemishes, he supposed. Rarely did one block resemble the other. 

Their current city block was being defaced down below by some raucous teenagers, one delicately tagging a wall while two others remained on the lookout. Damian briefly considered stopping them, hopping from the flat rooftop to frighten them like pigeons, but his current moroseness made him hesitate long enough to push the thought aside. He enjoyed the relative color of this neighborhood compared to its decaying slums and oppressively modern downtown.

Brown loved this place. Whether that was from psychosis or lack of stimuli, he couldn’t ascertain. He didn’t know how to love a place exactly. It was difficult to establish a particular fondness for one particular sliver of earth whenever constantly on the move, either training or hiding. 

He loved his mother. If he had anything he could call a home, she was it. Whenever mentors would wax poetic of homes long abandoned, she was his only reference point for their warmth. Yet even that warmth became tepid and fleeting as chaos consumed their lives. Still, his mother often spoke of this place, this city that would belong to Damian some day as it belonged to his father.

The idea was comforting, if overly dramatic in hindsight.

There was a soft patter behind him, discreet yet memorable. “Room for one more?” Mother asked in her initiating tone. She took Damian’s meaningless grunt as enough confirmation to sit beside him.

They stewed in silence for several minutes. His mother always respected his boundaries, at least in non-costumed affairs. He sometimes wished she would push more. Obviously, he’d never wish to suffer the consequences from telling her so.

Brown pushed people’s boundaries. She did everything to get the first and last word in. It was an efficient strategy to adopt. “Mother,” he slowly stirred, “what are your thoughts on this city?”

“My thoughts on Gotham?” she parroted, chewing on the question as she remained locked on the horizon. “Many. I do not visit often, yet every instance yields a thousand stories. Gotham is a scarred city. It wears its wounds openly with pride. There is beauty in that, I realize. Here is a collection of endless nightmares and boundless dreams, where despair and hope are equal in power and supply. It is a city at war with itself, for it refuses to heal into something it refuses to be.”

Once more, conversation became fairy tales. If Talia al Ghul and Stephanie Brown shared anything, it was their incredible ability to speak endlessly without saying anything. For Brown, he assumed it as intellectual compensation; for his mother, it kept her from ever truly being known. She had to remain a mystery, an enigma, even to her own son.

Considering her own life was formed by secrets and subterfuge, perhaps there was no true Talia al Ghul to know.

“Do you enjoy it?” Damian asked tepidly before clarifying “Do you like this city?”

“It has its idiosyncrasies,” she answered with that unknowable smile. “Gotham is rarely fake, beyond the powers that seek to control it. It may be dark and gloomy, yes, but as I said, it wears its wounds with pride. Unlike Metropolis, who hides its failures deep down below where they can’t bother the yuppies.” There was always such scorn in her voice whenever she recalled that city. If there was a True Talia, she came out at the mere mention of Metropolis. 

“This city is woven from the Endless,” she continued, “rather than empty aspirations of grandeur. That is why they have the best pizza.”

Damian finally faced his mother. “Pizza?”

His mother smiled and nodded. “I may only be a tourist here, but I know my way around. I have some recommendations if you’d like to plan lunch.”

“Oooo! Ooo! Are we doing recommendations?!” The familiar voice became a familiar shape as Stephanie Brown shot up into the air, did a spin, and landed delicately onto the rooftop. Delicately did not necessarily mean successfully, as she stumbled on loose gravel for a second before her feet stabilized. “Ha! Nailed it.”

There were several new peculiarities in Brown’s appearance. What little chest she possessed had flattened entirely, not that Damian was keeping track, while her hair was tussled just so to release an air of androgyny. A white turtleneck popped underneath a black vest hanging forever unbuttoned highlighted purple jeans. If he had not known Brown personally, he would be stuck speculating this character’s gender.

“Do you wish to explain this, Brown?” 

“Brown? Oh, I don’t know any Brown. There is only I, the one, the only, Lyle Miller~!” she exclaimed gayly with a hand to her turtleneck, her voice shifting gently into a lower drawl. “An affluent, opinionated prep school prodigy from Bristol. Despite being stupid rich and massively talented, he is still firmly cool but rude. And, whenever the opportunity strikes on a blue moon, he is prepared to take over the lauded title of party dude.”

“Did you set out to dress as Theodore Logan?” Mother asked sincerely.

“Nope! Well, maybe a little. It’s a good look, okay? It’s handsome. I’m a handsome man.”

Damian searched for some clever barb, only to find nothing within the thick weeds of absurdity. “It’s admirable how you keep mining new lows of bafflement.”

“Whattya mean? What’s there to be baffled? A lady can be a guy if she wants. It’s a free country.” His mother clicked her tongue in response. “Well, it’s free whenever I say so! I already dress up as capital-m BatMAN. This is a logical conclusion.Plus, who are you to talk? Your sick new costume is literally recycled girl clothes. Actually, if you wanted, I could scooch a couple hand-me-downs…”

There was a flash of thought.

Damian recoiled harshly as his face scorched against the cool bay winds. “Absolutely not!! Not in a million years!! A billion even!!” His mother’s giggling did not salve his mood. “Mother!”

“Apologies, my heart! It was merely an amusing image.” There was a looseness to her laughter that he was seldom privy to. How did Brown do it? “There’s no need to fret. I would never let anyone dress you in such rags. I did, however, bring a significant wardrobe up to my standards. I have plenty to spare…”

“MOTHER!!!” He was on his feet now, feet stomping, spine tightened into a level of stiffness surprising even to him. “That’s it. I’m leaving.”

“Waitwaitwait!” Brown called out, rushing over and rustling into her pants. “First of all, sorry. Second of all, catch!” A tiny metallic circle resembling a lithium battery flung from one hand into another. “Communicators! Wendy found these. So now we can contact each other whenever we want without using up all my minutes!”

Damian rolled the device in his fingers. “The insufferable shrew finally decided to make herself useful?”

“Don’t call women shrews, dear.” The Demon’s Daughter tried in vain to wash her previous smile away. “It’s unbecoming.”

“Take her advice,” Brown corroborated, “it’ll save you trouble in the future. Anyways!” She abruptly hopped and skipped back to attention. “I better head out! Got a hot date, after all. Well, not a date date, just like a cool little hangout between friends where one’s pretending to be a cute guy and the other is brainwashed to be someone completely different, and it’s not romantic at all, it’s totally normal, except it’s absolutely fucking crazy and her parents will almost certainly want to kill me, but that doesn’t matter because it’s all gonna be super normal and the end of this sentence is gonna be great!” A clap of hands signified the sentence’s end. It was an impressive sprint of words even by her standards. “Be here when I get back?”

Damian nodded curtly.

“And you?” she directed at his mother.

“I promise to stay barring any emergencies.”

“Good! And lemme know if there’s any Jason updates. Starting to worry about ‘em. Either he’s in serious trouble, or we just let a crime boss loose on Gotham again. Either way, not super great. Oh! And go easy on Wendy! I’m working on her!” On that, he took one last skip off the rooftop’s edge.

Both al Ghuls stared at her previous location in mild bewilderment, until the eldest spoke up. “I half expected to hear a splat.”

“She has been even more manic than average as of late. She is still very new to leadership. I believe I can guide her into the role.” It would take time, obviously, but she was a fast learner.

His mother hummed with that constant belittling grin. “Your faith is staggering.” Their conversation was thankfully as good as dead now. Finally, he continued his attempted escape, until she spoke up once more. “Have you thought any further about my offer last night?”

Damn it. Damian stopped and refused to turn around. “I don’t recall an offer so much as an insistence.”

“Regardless, it still stands,” she insisted. “My father—” The words are as painful for her. “For my cooperation, Ra’s has sworn to never meddle in our affairs again; a high price from the world’s greatest meddler. For all the lies he’s ever told, he’s always been honest with me. He will keep his word. We are free to be whoever we want to be, wherever we so wish.”

“Yes,” Damian nodded. “Robin in Gotham.”

“That is still not a path I can support.” It was the same disappointed voice from the countless times she denied letting him see his father. Not yet, my heart, her lungs echoed. “Finally, we are completely, utterly free, no longer bound by familial ties or the whims of megalomaniacs. We are safe. Our destinies are our own to decide.”

“And I’ve decided, mother.” His head swiveled just so, threatening to meet her eyes again. “My destiny is here.”

“This destiny will only bind you to the same fate we’ve worked tirelessly to avoid.”

Gravel shook as Damian slammed his foot down. He wished it was louder. “Don’t speak for me, mother! I have nothing to avoid! I’ve worked tirelessly my entire life to confront this fate, mother. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Thankfully, he was finally at the stairs, so he could slam the door dramatically before his mother could voice any further rebuttal. Door access was always an easy win to any heated debate. His stairway descent had an extra pep of victory.

Lyle Miller was a romantic first and foremost.

That was his dramatic throughline, his reason for being. He wasn’t a stuffy, upper crust kid with delusions of grandeur or law school. He was a charmer, a flatterer, a young man set on enjoying youth with the privilege his money allowed. The politics of wealth mean little to him, for he prefers life amongst the salt of the earth. He was a rapscallion, as he was labeled repetitiously by stuffy old teachers in private school, a troublemaker with the money to get out of trouble—a quite annoying idea for those of less stability with an equal affinity for trouble, until they too benefited from the Miller Trouble Trust Fund.

Lyle Miller was lighter than air, untethered by hardship and responsibility. He gently breezed from one stage of being to the next like a leaf in the wind, rarely planning, never fretting, never hoping, only ever living. What a glorious life he lived.

It was with this lightness that he balanced upon a long, narrow branch atop a towering tree, leaves rustling with each new step. It was a less than conventional means of making yourself known at a girl’s domicile, but hey! He had a balcony. A balcony with a large tree right outside, perfect for climbing. Ironically, this was a far safer option than knocking on the front door.

“So, did you have a backup plan in case you didn’t meet a hacker chick that could jam all the cameras?” Wendy chimed in his ear.

“Mhmm~! Ever heard of improv?” Lyle chirped, tossing a handful of gravel toward Cassandra’s second story glass entrance. He assumed it was hers on account of the barrage of pink visible even from this distance. Either that, or the Doctors Hopkins were reaching a whole new level of weird. “No guts, no glory, as the Galaxy Rangers always say.”

“Is that an actual hero team, or are you fucking with me?”

A tiny figure poked itself into view behind the glass. A tiny yellow speck, eventually revealed to be one Cassandra Cain in an adorable flowing sunflower sundress, took survey of the racket, eyes dawning once she found the source. Once she slid the doors out of the way, displaying a radiant, excited smile that Lyle could never have dreamt up. It was a level of unobstructed happiness that was completely foreign to her face, free from the clouds of burden that typically clouded her eyes.

“But soft!” she gasped dramatically. “What light through yonder window breaks?”

“Ha! Hey, c’mon!” Lyle couldn’t resist playing along, his finger scratching against his cheek. “That should be my line. I’m obviously the Romeo in this situation.”

“Romeo gave a fairer warning,” Cass giggled in that still disturbing freeness as she walked closer to the balcony’s edge. “You know, I wasn’t counting on you literally using the balcony. Although, considering last night’s theatrics, I should have surmised your Shakespearian tendencies.”

That warranted another laugh. “Wow. Two conversations and she’s got me down pat!” he shrugged cooly. “I’ve become too predictable. How very very sad. Don’t suppose you can predict my next course of action?”

The girl’s smile turned coy. “I predict you’re going to invite yourself in.”

“Damn. You’re quite the oracle.” He paused briefly to see if that garnered anything resembling a reaction. It did not. So, he focused on a quick hop that glided him down from the branch to the balcony banister with catlike tread. Considering how cool it was, he couldn’t resist milking it. “Ta-da~!”

Cass gasped with a wide, unbridled grin in awe of the performance. “Holy goodness! That’s insane! And you’re balancing yourself? How did you—?”

“Gymnastics! Medals. That whole deal.” A much smaller jump got Lyle to the actual floor. “Don’t suppose your parents would take to a boy in your room?”

“Oh, they won’t mind!” she insisted, waving her hand as she opened the screen door for her guest. “They keep asking me whenever I’ll get around to, ahem, courting boys.” Air quotes suggested a dislike for that particular term. The feeling was mutual. “You’re literate. I knew you’d decipher the subtext.”

Lyle sputtered his lips. “I am renowned the world over for my puzzle expertise.”

If they hadn’t cleared the air the night prior, this might be construed as flirting. Luckily, Lyle Miller had little interest in women, no matter how adorable or clever or cool they may be. He was a firm lover of men, like all great men are. Women are at ease around him, knowing they will be appreciated without concern for lust. Not that Lyle Miller was prone to lust even for his preferred sex.

Such feelings were distant to him these days. Perhaps strong once but now so distant as to no longer be a concern. It is a feeling he missed, if he were forced to reflect. For all the love he had and supplied freely, there was a love he knew he would never hold again.

Oh, Lyle Miller was also prone to useless pensive reflection. He was a complicated beast.

Cassandra Hopkins’ domain was hauntingly pink. Everything was arranged straight out of a furniture catalog advertising all the pretty pink things a tiny girl’s room should have. The room was as sterile as those pictures, everything arranged not by a life lived but by marketers in search of a visual shorthand. The bed looked mighty comfy, at least, what with the careful array of frilly pillows and plushies. It was hard to believe anyone over the age of 10 lived here, much less an actual adult.

“Hope you don’t mind the mess,” Cassandra remarked, prompting Lyle to search for literally anything resembling a mess in this dollhouse. “You caught me mid-piano practice.”

The piano was the highlight of the room for sure, a harsh black thing that clashed with the annoying brightness of everything surrounding it. Oh, but what a grand piano it was, even if it was actually an acoustic. It was shiny but obviously well-used, the one object in the room that was an inheritance instead of an advertisement. Looked damn expensive too. Just glancing at those glistening keys made Lyle’s fingers twitch.

“You play the piano?”

“I dabble,” Cass grinned, brushing her hands across the base of the keys. “Childhood lessons and whatnot.”

Lyle resisted questioning what childhood she referred to. Getting to the bottom of Miss Hopkins would likely require greater conversational precision. “Sounds like you’re trying to trick me into asking you to play.”

“And?” Okay, if Cass was flirting, she was doing a damn good job at it. It might even work on someone who didn’t see the wrongness in her catalog-perfect smile.

“Care to play?”

The resulting giggle sounded rehearsed. “You sneak up my tree into my house and demand I play the piano for you?” She sat down on the piano stool, motioning for her guest to join her. “Quite uncouth, Mister Miller.”

“I believe couthness was out the window upon use of yonder window.” His butt accepted the offer.

Cassandra’s hands were skillful. They moved with a dexterity and assuredness that felt the most like Cass that this Cass had to offer. With perfect punctuality, they played a sonata Lyle could faintly recall from music class. Not a Beethoven, obviously, but something far more native to the piano. Liszt maybe? Either way, the music was gorgeous, downright professional. Figured there was a secret other something Cassandra Cain could beat him at.

She looked so peaceful too, lured into a blissful state of note after note. An alarming calmness crept into the room that Lyle did his best to ignore. There were far too many matters to discuss after all.

“God, you’re amazing at this,” Lyle murmured after hopefully an appropriate length of respectful silence. “You should’ve played last night instead of those amateurs.”

“I thought the band was quite delightful,” Cass countered with a playful grin, her fingers still tapping to an invisible score even as she looked away. “Up until they were rudely interrupted.”

“Y-yeah. I was kinda meaning to talk about that maybe. I mean, that was all kinda nuts, right?”

“Yes, it was…” Her smile faltered, though her sonata did not. “I was fortunate you were there with me. Your quick-thinking saved my life. I owe you for that. I doubt I could ever repay you.”

Well, jeez, way to flatter a guy. “C’mon. Bravery is hardly something to repay.”

“Maybe. But this is a special occasion, Your bravery kept me from making an awful mistake!” There was a single errant note that was immediately corrected. “The mothman, whatever his name was—” Her, Lyle didn’t correct. “That man scared me. Obviously. He invaded my party and for what purpose? Petty cash?” Mind control, he didn’t answer. “It was only once that Owlman stepped in that I felt…”

Several notes were missed. The sonata paused for three seconds before resuming. “He killed that man,” Cassandra continued, seething through her teeth. “Killed him. Whoever that man was, whatever he was, whatever he could have been—” Rolled fists abruptly turned the composition into a cacophony, before ceasing sound altogether. “Gone in an instant. It should’ve terrified me. I suppose it did. But you know what I really felt? What I really, really felt?”

Lyle shook his head.

“Anger. Anger like I’ve never felt before. I really, honestly can’t remember feeling that angry before.” Her left hand fiddled with the keys, her other grasped the heart of her sundress. There was a darkness in her intense stare into nothing that was oddly comforting. It was damn near Cassandra. “I wanted to lunge at him. I wanted to do something. I really don’t know what. Something beyond words. Maybe punch him? I know that would’ve been dumb, but I wanted that Owlman, that…killer to understand what he did. But I just couldn’t move. I was—” She shook her head, still unblinking. “I was paralyzed. I couldn’t budge a muscle. All I could do was stand there and sweat like an idiot.”

It was news as fascinating as it was heartbreaking. Maybe the real Cass was still under that mid-century smile, which she definitely wasn’t wearing right now. Her face was steely, but so obviously scared. Her angered face twitched, as if it couldn’t hold these awful emotions for very long before shattering.

Shit. Lyle was really letting the Batman mentality take over. Regardless of whether Cassandra Hopkins was really real or just some shadow overlay of his friend, she was very obviously hurting. She was even communicating that hurt, a first for Cass as far as she could recall. Save for maybe that time on the roof…

He offered a hand on her shoulder. While Cassandra was surprised by it, she did not fight. Lyle could feel the tension slowly draining, her pained frown delicately deflating into one more neutral. “Thanks…” she muttered. “Sorry about that. Really sorry. My brain just—” Her head shook, and her eyes carried shame. “I’m really sorry. I’m just—goodness, I wish I had half your strength. You were a real hero standing up to that guy, refusing his moment of glory. I couldn’t stand the idea of anyone being on that awful man’s side. No one should decide who lives or dies. No one has the right.”

Lyle sighed and squeezed her shoulder. “That’s a shockingly controversial statement in this town. I’ve had more than enough experience with people that refuse to value life.” Supervillains, average killers, fast food chain managers, Jason, the list went on. “Nobody becomes brave overnight.”

“Most don’t wait until they’re eighteen to be brave,” Cass tried deflating.

“Nope! Wrong statistic.” He kept his grin bright as he tssk-tssked his index finger. “Most never try to be brave. You’re already ahead of the curve, baby!”

Waitaminute. It dawned that a boy calling girl “baby” might have different connotations than intended. Cassandra began to blush. And smile? And look away?! Oh no, did he do that? Was that him? Maybe this was getting too deep into flirty territory! Maybe a course-correction was in order! Yeah!

“Do you mind if I—?” He rubbed his hand across the piano’s fine finish. “I’ve had some practice myself.” Something he rarely got to brag about because it didn’t involve what he could do to human bones.

“Y-yeah. Yeah!” Cassandra forced herself to smile again, a subtlety that would be lost on most people that weren’t Lyle Miller. “Go ahead. I actually wanna show you something. Just give me a second to find it, alright?”

“Of course.” Lyle’s fingers tickled the ivory for the first time in ages, sonically testing each key. Stephanie hadn’t played one of these in ages, not since vigilante justice supplemented most of her after-school hobbies. Lyle Miller though? He was an expert. He had this. Like riding a bicycle!

He started with a simple, repetitive melody in Moderato that he knew by heart. The words slipped out just as naturally. “Tiiiimes have chaaaaanged…” He may not have the voice of Andy Williams, but he knew how to sound silly. Sometimes that was as good as being good! “And we’ve often rewound the clock. Since the puritans had a shock. When they landed on Plymouth Rock! If todaaaaaaaay, any shock they should try to stem. Instead of landing on Plymouth Rock! Plymouth rock would land on theeeeeeeeem….”

Lyle grinned. Oh yeah, he still had it! Didn’t hurt finally having an audience beyond his parents. His hands glided.

“In olden days, a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking, but now God knows! Anything goes!” He was kicking his feet now, reveling in the rush. Lyle Miller sure was one cool cat! “Good authors too who once knew better words, now only use four letter words writing prose! Anything—"

“Here it is!” Cass abruptly slammed back down on the bench, now holding a whole dang newspaper. It sadly tangled Lyle’s fingers mid-chorus, causing his brain to jumble its deeply imprinted notes. “Oops! Sorry. It really was a wonderful song.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Lyle insisted, doing his best to salve a bruised ego. “What’s this then?”

Oh great, it was the Gotham Globe, the paper that treated itself so seriously that it refused to have so much as a crossword, like their reactionary hoopla was less embarrassing. Not incidentally, terrible politics made for terrible writers! Case in point:

OWLMAN SOARS!

New Gotham vigilante saves party

There was a picture of the gilded birdbrain, naturally, standing proud amongst a circle of wealthy types. Lyle was ready to read the article proper before Cass retracted her showcase.

“I knew it’d make the news,” she explained, unimpeded by Lyle’s continuous repetitive playing. It really set a mood. “I had to see how people were reporting on the whole mess, right? And I saw this paper on the dining room table. My dad must’ve left it this morning.” Your kidnapper, actually, also went unsaid. “So, obviously, I might as well read it. And I reread it several times over, scanned every article in that thing, and while there’s plenty of words about this Owlman, there are exactly zero words about you. No mention of a Lyle Miller, or any blonde guy at that party.”

“But there were a ton of blonde guys there!”

“Please be serious! I really couldn’t believe what I read! Nothing but glowing praise and excitement over a…a murderer swooping in and killing a guy in front of everyone at my party! Why would people say that? Why would they print that?” Cassandra was anxious, a really unnerving look for her. He’d seen her fearful as all heck, but never anxious. Her eyes turned conspiratorial, and hands clenched as she tried her damndest to process thoughts and emotions that Cassandra Hopkins was likely not allowed to have.

Maybe she was still under there, buried under all that fabrication.

Course, the newspaper was still concerning, if not super surprising. “That’s the Globe, right? Who do you think owns the Globe?”

“Uhhh.” Cass peered back at the front page. “Gotham?” She didn’t sound convinced.

Lyle shook his head, his fingers continuing to riff. “The Gotham Globe is owned by one Michael W. Missile, global media magnate and owner of the Gotham Blades hockey team. He owns over sixty syndicated papers across the nation, which I’m certain will all have very similar stories with very similar bias.”

Cassandra’s face took it all in. “Huh.” That’s all she said for a moment, before shuffling a brand-new newspaper, this time the Gotham Standard with a slightly different photo of the obstinate Owlman. “What about this one? My mom was reading it earlier. Same as the Globe.”

“Peter Wexler,” Lyle answered immediately, “owns a bottling company here, the Gotham Standard, the Channel 6 and 38 news here and dozens of news affiliates across the country. I took a journalism elective freshman year. You learn to keep up with who’s telling these stories.” It was a fun elective too. Made for some nice leads.

Cassandra looked back at the newspaper. “Huh.”

“Yep.” His fingers regained melodic purpose. “The world has gone mad today, and good’s bad today, and black’s white today, and day’s night today, and most guys today the women prize today are just silly gigolos!” Again, his fingers were on a hot streak. “And though I’m not a great romancer, I know that I’m bound to answer when you propoooose!” He leaned closer to his host. “Anything goes~!”

There was that wonderful laughter again. That had to be Cassandra Cain. It had to be. “What is that song?” she asked.

“Anything Goes, obviously!” Lyle found himself grinning. “By Cole Porter from the titular Broadway smash hit!” He knew it by heart. Her mother used to play the 1987 cast recording incessantly, which led to Stephanie working her butt off to learn the song in time for her birthday.

Er, Lyle Miller did this too, coincidentally. His mom was super cool, so cool that she was hardly worth talking about ever with anyone ever.

“Interesting!” Cass beamed, seemingly enraptured. “I don’t really know any Broadway songs. Or any with lyrics, honestly.”

“Really? All classical then?”

“Yes, I’m afraid…” she sighed.

“What’s keeping you from learning new songs?”

She shrugged. “Guess I just wouldn’t know what to play.”

He squinted. “Well, what’s a song you like?”

“All the classics, obviously. Beethoven’s Fifth is probably my favorite Beethoven, and he’s pretty hard to beat.”

“No, like, real songs. Like on the radio? With lyrics and stuff?”

“Uhhhh.” Cassandra’s face scrunched with uncertainty. “I thought your song was really nice! What’s it called again?”

Lyle couldn’t stop staring. “Have you, like, listened to any songs? Watched any TV shows or movies or anything?”

“I like books a lot! I’ve read a ton of classics!” she was quick to state.

“Alright. What’s your favorite book you’ve read in the past year?”

“The last year?” she parroted. “Last year, last year…” She bit her lip. “What month is it?”

“Oh my god.” Lyle kept staring, continually seeing less and less of a person.

“What does it matter?!” Cassandra finally spit back pathetically. “I like plenty of things! I’m cultured!”

“I don’t see a TV around here. Not even a radio or bookshelf. Do you even know how to use a computer?”

“Why? Computers are for parents.”

“Oh my god!” Lyle slapped his cheeks simultaneously. He didn’t expect to be so agitated, but…FUCK!! Those fuckers really erased Cassandra and replaced her with someone this hollow?! How could someone willing create a human being with parental controls? Computers are for parents, unbelievable… 

Computers are for parents. RIGHT.

“I really need to use the—” Ah shit, the human lie detector, right. “Sorry, but may I use your bathroom?”

“Oh. Sure. I can show you the way.”

“Come on, Cass. I’m a guy! The last thing we wanna do is ask for directions. I can find my own way.”

“Cass?” She blinked, sending really super unneeded additive heart palpations with each shutter. Then, she smiled. “No one’s ever called me that before. I like it. It’s cute.”

“Yep!” Lyle shot up from the bench before this moment could become anything more intimate, because good golly was it getting weird. “I’ll be right back in a bit! But if I’m gone for more than three days, send help!”

“Oh! Okay. Uhh. Have…fun?”

Ya know, Lyle was gonna have fun.

Bright pinks turned to warmer, more relaxing beige tones past the princess’ threshold. The place was undoubtedly newer than stately Wayne Manor, its paint fresher and picture frames newer. Lyle noted the one photo with the whole “family” standing together at a park, Cassandra chief among them looking no different than she was beyond the door. For all the photos on the wall, that was her only appearance. The rest were concerned with the Doctors Hopkins and some older people he assumed to be their ancestry.

He tapped his ear before heading down the hall. “Wendy, you there?” he inquired as low as he could.

“Unfortunately,” his new friend’s voice rang. “How’s your little date going? Get any tongue action?”

“N-no! No, I did not!” Lyle snapped, only to cringe and lower his voice again. “It’s not a date. She thinks I’m a guy and that I’m gay, which I might as well be because I have zero interest in her.”

“Really? Zero? Heterosexual to the bone?”

“How about we stay focused on my whole Lyle in the lion’s den scenario? Are the cameras scrambled? Are the doctors home?” He peeked past a slightly ajar door, revealing a lavish master bedroom. Impressive but not useful.

“Yes and no respectively. I’m only seeing a couple servants cleaning on the ground floor.”

“Good. Good good good.” Another door, a bathroom. Good to know. “Now, I just have to find a computer…”

“I have the building schematics here. You might want to try the office room on the third floor.”

“They made an office on the third floor? We’re dealing with advanced psychopaths here.” Up the stairs he went! “Building schematics though? Sounds like someone’s going above and beyond~” he sang.

“Sounds like someone’s inching to get herself killed~” Wendy harmonized back. “Don’t think I’m doing this out of any sense of heroism. I’m only doing this because you’re fucking insane and I don’t need another life on my conscience.”

“Oh, just admit it: you wanna uncover the truth as much as I do.”

“What truth? That rich asshole’s have been ruining people’s lives in a bid for power? That’s not a conspiracy, Stephanie, that’s fucking capitalism. The owl theming is borderline extraneous.”

“Oh, but the rabbit-hole, it grows ever deeper! You can attempt a glance, but you’ll only find yourself staring farther down, down, down….”

“Please don’t go all Mad Hatter on me.”

A new door opened, this time revealing a sparse space with killer natural lighting. Bookshelves surrounded the entrance, loaded with medical journals and objectivists, their adjoining walls containing two tables covered with scattered documents of the medical persuasion and a gun cabinet, because of course. And at the end of the room, low and behold, was a shiny new Meridian desktop just laying there, surrounded by notes and papers and all manner of work things.

“Bingo bango…” Lyle muttered with satisfaction as he approached his prize. “Laptop located. You said I only need the hard drive, right? How would I get it out?”

“You said it’s a Meridian, right? Those are real stupid to open up. Can you identify the year and model?”

“I can tell you it’s blue.” He picked it up, surprised by its lightness. “Hey, how breakable are these?”

“As breakable as any laptop, I guess.”

“Hmm…” Lyle noticed a screwdriver on one of the tables. No, that’d take too long. He could only be absent for so long before Cassandra would worry. The hammer next to it. No, too loud. Anyone would be alarmed by the gnashing of smashing. So then, how was he going to—ah! Of course!

It was easy to unlatch and open the third-story window. It was even easier to chuck the laptop out of it. Its descent was downright elegant, up until its final demise against the concrete carport.

“What was that?” Wendy asked with great concern.

“A solution,” Lyle crooned. “Cool but rude.” On that, he swooped out of the office like he was never there, immediately heading back to the staircase.

“So much for a delicate operation,” Wendy bemoaned.

“Well, you can’t be delicate without breaking a few eggs. So, they say. They all say it. Everyone’s saying it.” He switched off the communicator and made a skip towards Cassandra’s room. One quick goodbye and he could rub that stupid hard drive in Wendy’s stupid face.

He opened the door and Tim was there.

Something short-circuited in Stephanie’s brain. The confident persona of Lyle Miller slipped away in a blink, leaving only a girl staring at a boy.

He was older. Taller. His face was fuller. It was still so cute. He was in an adorably stupid sweater vest. Those blue eyes still twinkled. His smile was still so disarming. He was still so—

Oh shit, bad time to be disarmed! Rearm, rearm! “Sorry, what—what was that?”

Cassandra gave a low, nervous chuckle as she played with her hands. “I said, uhhh. Sorry, I didn’t know Tim would stop by! I would’ve warned you if I could’ve.” Okay good, she could see him too.

No, not good. Bad. Very bad.

“Where the hell did he come from?!” Wendy chimed in Steph’s ear. “I was watching everything!”

“So, she’s talked about me already?” His voice had to be a half-octave deeper. Or maybe she just liked remembering it as squeaky and funny. It was entirely possible that Tim never existed. Now was not the prime time to confront the inherent flaws of memory.

Cass bit her lip and made a thinking sound, considering her words. “I may have overheard a phone call Lyle was having with a friend last night, and your name might have come up…” She looked to Steph for forgiveness, only to receive restrained panic and confusion. “Also, he’s a he. Don’t be weird about it.”

Tim eyed Stephanie again. He maintained that stupid cute smile, even as he dressed her down. “Right. My mistake. Well then, guess there’s no need to act like we don’t know each other, eh, Lyle?” He offered his hand. How had he become even smugger?

She accepted his hand, no longer able to question the boy’s reality. Funny, she recalled the feel of his fancy leather gloves way more than his fleshy palms. She had long wished for this moment, and here it was, in all its terrifying glory. “Yeah! No need to beat around the bush…”

Fight or flight activated. Flight.

Her grasp strengthened, causing Tim Drake’s hand to become her captive. “How about you and I catch up? Alone?” Bane himself couldn’t have resisted her pull once she dashed towards the real bathroom, throwing him in, and locking the door behind them.

So, now it was Stephanie and Tim! Just like old times…

“Stephanie…” the boy started.

“WHAT. What are you—what what are you—!” Her hands were out, struggling to grasp the words in the air. Did they want to hug or strangle Tim? She didn’t need to know right now. “Tim.”

“I’m sure you have a ton of questions.” He was so goddamn calm. It really was like old times. She hated it. She missed this.

“I’ve got a million of them! Why don’t we start simple, huh? Twenty questions?” She became overpowered by a powerful mania she happily welcomed. “I’ll start! Are you going to kill me?”

“What? No!” Tim looked offended by the question. “Steph, come on, relax.” He went to touch her, only to recoil once she smacked his hand away.

“NO. Touching.” She took a deep breath. “Are you working with the owls?”

Tim hesitated, which was already far from a good sign. He was obviously weighing his responses, the little twerp. “What owls?”

“The Court of Owls!” she was quick to snap back. “The people that wrecked the Batcave, brainwashed Cassandra and Nightwing and Babs and I’m assuming you! Those owls! Are you working for them?”

Once more, he considered his answer too long for her liking. “Yes. Yes, I’m working for them.”

“Oh my god!” Steph shook her head. “Oh my god. Just like that, you admit it.” Did this bring any ease of mind? Of course not. She saw this coming. Knowing what’s coming hardly softens the blow.

“Is your next question going to be why?”

“Let’s pretend it is.”

Tim nodded and sighed, placing his hands into his dressy pants. “It’s embarrassing, but I might as well tell you. As you can probably guess, I was brainwashed. I am brainwashed currently, right now, actually.” Said with all the embarrassment of coming into work two minutes late.

She just kept watching him. He wasn’t like Cassandra; this was, to some degree, very much Tim Drake. All of their history was still there on his face. She was likely the same. “No shit…” She took a step back to lean on the Hopkins’ hideously ornate sink. “Don’t brainwashed people usually not know they’re brainwashed? You’re talking real casual for a Manchurian Candidate right now.”

“Really? Do I strike you as more of a Sinatra or a Denzel?” Did he really think that nostalgic smile would work? Okay, maybe it worked a little bit.

“Neither. They weren’t the brainwashed guy, idiot. Unlike you!” She pointed like she was in court. “I don’t have time to play identity games with you like old times right now. I need to know what’s up. So, what’s up?”

“Not much. You?”

“Tim!” She took a step forward, hands wringing. “Please.”

Tim didn’t look threatened at all. He was more annoyed than anything, slumping against the door and huffing. It would’ve been cute if Stephanie wasn’t very much on edge right now and couldn’t be sure he’d draw a knife from those stupid pants at a coin’s drop. “Alright. Alright. You want the long story short? Owls got the jump on me. Gotham was going insane after…” He knocked his head sideways. “You know.”

“I guess I should say I’m sorry?” Stephanie offered, feeling a pang of sympathy. So much happened to Tim while she was gone, she wouldn’t know how to discuss it on a less frazzled day. Losing three parents in five years was an insane record.

“Yeah, yeah…” He shrugged it off. “Anyway, they got me, conditioned me to switch sides, swear allegiance to them, all that jazz. They have ways of just, like, erasing memories to map a new person on top, but they needed me. They needed Tim Drake, plus they needed Robin to help fix Gotham.”

“You mean control Gotham.”

Again, that damned shrug. “Kinda, yeah.” He sighed, as if this was stressful for him. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”

“Where’s Jason?”

“Jason?” Steph swore she saw an eye twitch. “Jason? You’re worried about Jason?” He asked it like it was a grand offense.

Which really did not bode well. Something was up. Everything was up. The entire world was operating without her knowledge, and Tim once again held all the cards and refused to share. Even Evil Tim couldn’t resist being a secretive little shit that didn’t want anyone else playing his stupid games on his stupid level!

Tim started creeping closer. “Stephanie, you shouldn’t be worrying about Jason! Or Cass, or Babs, or…”  He stopped about three feet in front of Stephanie, seemingly interested in how she’d stay her ground and kept a straight face the entire time. “Steph, I came here because I knew you’d be here. I know all about your little dress-up adventures. I’m talking about Lyle Miller, who I’ll admit is a shockingly hot new look for you, and I’m talking about Batman.” Oop, there was supposed to be a heartbeat there. “Stephanie, I know you’re the one dressing up like Batman.”

That was certainly lovely to hear! Put her nerves entirely at ease. She felt great. This was exactly how your body was supposed to react to the whole world exploding. 

“Don’t worry; the Owls don’t know it,” he continued unprompted. “It’s difficult to explain the length of my conditioning. They got me to betray every hero in our network, but I’m still kinda, you know, me. I still care about Gotham, and I still care about the safety of everyone in it. More than that, I still care about you, Steph. I was so, so stupid happy like you have no idea whenever I pieced that you were alive! I couldn’t believe it! You were alive! Oh my god!” He went to grab her shoulder, only to be deflected by a quick arm and a stony glare. “Right. Fair. Personal space.” 

He didn’t have to look so mopey about it. But per usual, Tim was revealing a lot more through unprompted monologuing than he would answering any question Stephanie would pose.

“Look, Steph. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. The last thing I want is for the Owls to notice you! If they finally figure out who’s been bamboozling their entire operation, they’re going to go after you, and they’re probably going to send me to take care of you just for the dramatic irony! I won’t even feel bad about it if they order me to do it! I live to serve their glorious master plan, which thankfully has yet to involve this random dead girl from two years ago nobody cares about. You understand what I’m saying, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You have no idea how much I’m risking coming down here just to talk to you.”

“And tell me what?” she finally asked, theoretically rhetorical.

The boy’s shoulders slumped as he gave his best beleaguered sad face. “Stop fighting. Please. I don’t want you to get killed. If they can’t get to you, they’ll get to everyone whose death would hurt you. I don’t want to be part of that, Steph. I can only do so much.”

Wow! No pressure, right? He spoke all this like she hadn’t considered any of it before. Like she hadn’t done everything she could to distance herself from Crystal Brown, to hide all evidence of her miraculous resurrection. She’d taken every possible precaution she could. Was that enough? Probably not! But she was trying! All she wanted to do was what needed to be done!

But none of this was new, was it? This talk, this tone, was all annoyingly familiar. This was Tim. Warped as he may be, this was still very much the boy she fell head over heels enough to keep forgiving over and over and over and—

“You’re doing it again,” she muttered.

He squinted. “Doing what again?”

“You’re fucking nuts and evil now, and you still can’t take me seriously for a nanosecond! Oh my god!” Her hands were certainly getting a lot of dramatic play. “Acting like I have no right to be out there, that I’m just a danger to myself and others, like I should just give up and go home! You’re even still calling me Stephanie whenever I look like—” She peered down at her hot boy form. “This!”

“Steph, I’ve seen you dressed like that before.”

“I’m fucking Batman now! Capital B Batman, and you still can’t think of me anything other than some stupid, reckless little girl! I’m always just playing dress up, aren’t I?! Well guess what, Boy Wonder? I’m your boss now! Now that I wear the Batcowl, you have exactly zilch zero effect on me. And as your boss, I order you to perform seventeen backflips in a row!”

Tim was dumbfounded, as usual for these situations he kept creating and having explode in his face like Wile E. Coyote. “Stephanie, I really think this is beside the point. I’m trying to—”

“Tim Tim Timmy Tom Tim Tim Tooray! See how annoying that is, Tim? So, where’s Jason, huh, Tim?” Anger had completely taken over the useless emotion of fear. Caution to the wind! “Where’s the others, Tim? Where’s the owls, Tim?” She leaned in close, reaaaaaaal close. Weird close. She was getting in his face to admire his corneas in all their Derek Jarman blue, her mitts around his shoulders. “Who the hell are you, Tim?!” Then, the shoving began. 

“Stephanie!” Tim swatted her arms away, before ducking and rolling onto the bathroom floor. It would’ve been really funny if it wasn’t also really annoying right now. He narrowly avoided a subsequent kick before making a surprise leg sweep.

Stephanie went crashing down towards the bathroom tile, only for her hands to stop her ascension right above Tim lying flat on the floor. Their faces were close, their beating chests closer, both breathing heavier than they should after such little action. Neither dared to so much as blink for a period somewhere between an eternity and a million minutes. Possibly two minutes.

It was all very normal. Totally, completely normal. No thoughts ran through her head in any of that time, especially not anything bordering on temptation. Those lips meant nothing to her. None of this meant anything. She didn’t miss this at all. She couldn’t.

“Are you two about done playing dysfunctional family?” Wendy suddenly chimed into her ears, causing her entire body to rattle with alarm. “Talia picked up police chatter. Big bad stuff is going down at Blackgate. Guy there holding guards hostage and asking for you by name.” Oh no. “Batman’s name, at least.” Oh, thank goodness. “Big Psycho and Little Psycho are already zooming over. Might wanna catch up.”

Right. The mission. Right. Tim was looking more visibly uncomfortable now too. Even still, the stalemate continued. She had to leave now, but it’s not like she could just get up and go “Whoops! My bad! Water under the bridge?” This entire encounter had to end somehow, preferably with her winning because she was totally right and the mind-controlled jerk was wrong and, coincidentally, way less handsome than her. 

So, she went ahead and sprayed a geyser of spit onto her less handsome adversary. As expected, he cringed and immediately tried wiping it off. “GAH! STEPH!!”

“That’s Lyle Miller to you, Owlboy!” Stephanie exclaimed as she jumped back into action and rocketed towards the door. “Next time we meet, I promise to knock the hypnosis right out of ya! If that doesn’t help, I’ll do it anyway! Promise!”

“Steph! Please! You can’t just ashfsfggfd…” She didn’t really catch the last part after slamming the bathroom door and rushing back the way he came in.

Cassandra was sitting dutifully at her piano, tapping keys tepidly. She looked pretty focused for the two seconds before she noticed Ste—Lyle running out. “I’m so, so sorry!” she was quick to apologize before any other words were uttered. “I really didn’t know he’d come—oh!” She really didn’t know what to make of Stephanie’s abrupt hug. Her arms moved up to strengthen the embrace, only for the rushed display of affection to end as abruptly as it came. “A-are you leaving?” 

She looked so disappointed. Scared even. Stephanie hated that look on Cass. She wanted it to go away. “Yes, sorry! But I’m fine! Just got, uhhh, family business! Candy stuff, ya know?

“Oh.” Well, she didn’t have to look so dang heartbreaking. “And Tim?”

“He’s…” A danger to you and me and everyone you’ve ever loved. “We’re alright! We talked things out. Just be careful around him, ya know?”

Now she was just confused, not helped by Stephanie dashing back towards the balcony. “You remember I can tell you’re lying, right? Should I be worried?”

YES!!! She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. “Nahhh, you’ll be fine!” One foot was already out the door. “If there’s one thing you’ve proven to me in our short time together, it’s that you’re a very brave girl. Like Batgirl!”

“Who’s Batgirl?!” shouted Cassandra Cain, Batgirl.

“Look her up!” And lo, the door slammed shut.

“If Batman was really some stupid billionaire this whole time, why couldn't he buy coffee that didn’t taste like shit?”

“I do believe that’s Cass’ coffee,” Miss Batman reported over the comm system, voice raised just so to overpower the torrential rain in the background. “I don’t think she cared much for the taste of stuff. I once saw her guzzle an entire coffee pot in one prolonged gulp because she wanted to stay awake for patrol. She lasted like ten minutes before she completely crashed out and fell asleep in an alleyway, curled up like an adorable little latex cat demon…”

“Why would she do that?”

“In her defense, it was a horrifyingly efficient ten minutes. She kept trying to drink whole pots of coffee after that like it was some magic crime-fighting elixir. Oracle eventually started hiding the coffee beans. Course, Cass always had a way to find them, because of course she did. She’s Cass.”

“Uh huh. Sound awfully fond of her.”

“Well yeah! Can you blame me? It’s Cass! You’ll never find a more lovable little asshole. Don’t tell Dames I said that. Once all this is over, you should meet her! The real her, not that Stepford Wives scenario. God, what I wouldn’t do for her right now. Wouldn’t have these pre-battle jitters with her around. Oh, who am I kidding? Yes, I would. Can ya blame me? I’m not used to being the center of attention! What if they film me from an unflattering angle? I shudder to think!”

Wendy cracked a tiny smile, supported primarily by the mental dissonance of their rapport in the face of a serious terrorist attack. Though, she supposed this particular instance was more of a silly terrorist attack.

Currently, as the Batcomputer helpfully displayed, a bunch of skull-faced goons were holding the guards and personnel of Blackgate Penitentiary hostage with a bunch of skull-faced bombs. Appropriately, these bombs were dead man’s switches. Even more skully was the giant papier-mâché skull currently hanging suspended from the ceiling down towards the center of the prison like a Dr. Wiley-designed piñata. Taking up approximately 75 percent of the panopticon’s circumference and spanning two-and-a-quarter prison stories, the gaping maw remained a motionless and undetermined threat. Bomb was the easiest and most catastrophic guess, but the lack of a clear mastermind meant an even less modus operandi. Not like the police were able to walk inside and scan the thing. 

“They’ve threatened to set off every explosive simultaneously if they so much as see a shimmer of a badge,” the commissioner transmitted to HQ. 

There was one hint towards their intentions: they had shuttered every possible entrance and exit save for a single top story window, where a crudely designed cardboard sign was displayed with twinkling glitter “You must be THIS interesting to get in!” beside a child’s attempt at drawing Batman.

Oh, how Wendy hadn’t missed Gotham.

She really didn’t want to do this right now, but after spending all day on the Batcomputer and there’s a Batemergency, it was hard to come up with an excuse. Stephanie had politely asked if she could pull up the Blackgate security feeds, and unfortunately, Wendy very much could. It was child’s play. Plus, Steph did retrieve the hard drive as promised, so maybe she was allowed one night of trust. 

Only one.

“Any update on Little Bird and Mama Bird?” chirped Stephanie, or Lyle, or Batman, or whoever. “I’d hate to do a one-man show in front of five hundred violent prisoners and the Skelemen. Skelemen. Did they give a name? Skelemen works, but I don’t like how it feels in my mouth.”

Wendy rolled her eyes as she brought up the trackers. The dots resembling the psycho mother and son duo were zooming across Gotham at a steady rate, but their relative distance, the heavy rain, several raised bridges, and several exploded overpasses delayed their ETA enough that Miss Bat was beating them on foot.

“They’re stuck around the Upper East Side. Looks like they’re having to get creative.”

Stephanie groaned childishly if appropriately. Her dot was already on Blackgate Island and fast approaching the prison’s position on the map. “Guess I’ll do some crowd warming. Ya know, get everyone in the mood. Ask where they’re from, if they’re on vacation, hopefully find a funny anecdote and start riffing until everyone’s seated and the show begins.”

“Fancy yourself as a comedian?”

“I fancy myself as a procrastinator. Trust me, I can procrastinate with the best of them. In fact, I will! Eventually. Sometime or other.”

Stephanie Brown was nothing if not friendly, though Wendy easily doubted the purity of her intentions. She called herself a former Robin, which made sense; there was always a manipulative edge to the Robin she knew back in the tower too. From other tales she’d heard around the tower, manipulation was an inherent bat-trait shared among their clan. Cassie once bemoaned that if a bat needed you, they would get you, whether you liked it or not. It was common consensus, especially among the veteran Titans, that Batman’s crew knew everything about everyone, but would rarely share anything with anyone.

Except Stephanie shared a lot. Too much, really. All this info and new toys and endless friendly banter were nakedly in-service of a single selfish goal: recruitment. Because Stephanie needed Wendy. A flattering sentiment, but Wendy didn’t need any of this. The farther she got from violent hormonal teenage drama magnets, the better.

Tonight was only a small favor, one that Blondie would owe her dearly for afterwards. Assuming she got out of it alive, obviously.

A murder of increasingly soggy police officers flocked close together on the roof of the compound, peering down at the impending madness below and loudly chattering against the rain’s incessant patter. While there was no audio feed for the roof cameras, the police scanner beside the Batcomputer gave the gist. Officers both on the roof and on the mainland were weighing the odds of going in there themselves, an idea the commissioner kept shooting down.

“Really countin’ on the Bat bein’ back in action, commish?” one copper mused on the radio. “If them bombs go kaboom, that’s 500 people dead. Just boom. Gone.”

“He’ll be here,” the commissioner insisted with unshaking certainty. “Have a little faith, Conway.”

“Got plenty of faith, sir. You know how I spend my Sundays. Now, call me crazy, commish, but I don’t particularly count Batman among the divine. I ain’t getting’ my hopes up for a Second Coming of the Bat.”

The commissioner pressed his walkie talkie for a retort, only to lose its grip in a great gust of wind that sent raindrops splattering off course.

Wendy’s eyes trickled over to the tracker screen, where Batman remained enroute, and then back at the now fully silent camera feed. Disrupting the murder of coppers was an owl. A garish, kingly being that had zoomed from the sky down to the rooftop to face his audience. Guy looked even sillier on-screen than in the recent news articles.

“Owlman’s at Blackgate.” Wendy was quick to warn her trio of traveling dots. “He’s talking to the cops.”

“Motherfucker…” murmured their always professional leader.

“So, the plot thickens,” mused the evil assassin biker lady. “I read of his debut last night. Guests also reported a dashing young man that gave him quite the dressing down following his introduction. Would you know anything about this, Brown?”

“Please stick to codenames...”

“Do forgive me. It’s only that the mere suggestion of calling you Batman activates my rarely used acid reflux.”

“Yeah, okay.” Stephanie could have done more not to sound like a deflated balloon. “Guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. If he really wants to be the new Batman, no better way than to swoop in and steal all my thunder!” Things turned quiet for a moment, which obviously meant Batmangirl had to fill the void. “Hey, wait, I thought all the papers were ignoring my involvement last night.”

“All save the Gazette,” Talia corrected. “Per usual, the only Gotham paper worth the trees it’s printed on. Vicki Vale is possibly the last remaining American journalist worth any respect.”

“What about Lois Lane?”

“I didn’t stutter.”

Wendy remained glued to the camera feed, mildly amused by the pantomime of Gordon giving Owlman an earful. Owlman had no visible reaction, because his mask was stupid. Like wow, so mysterious. I’m not like the other superheroes, I’m inscrutable. 

Then he started moving towards the window. “Guys. I think he’s gonna—” And he jumped right through the small opening. “Okay, scratch the speculation. He’s in.” Crap. This entire situation was volatile enough without the corporate plant superhero inserting himself into an active hostage crisis.

The tiny, rude boy’s dot flared up. “We could simply wait for this Owlman to fail and willingly display himself as the fool he is.”

And this was the kid calling Wendy an idiot earlier. “Kid, I think there might be way too many explosions on the line to play I Told You So.” 

“So, you’ve finally taken an interest in other people?” Oh, that snot-nosed little—

She skimmed the GPS for a split second, long enough to notice Batsteph landing atop the prison. Her eyes immediately flashed back to the camera feed just in time to see the almighty Batman swoop up into the air before landing fist-down onto the drizzling roof. Rain dripped uselessly down her purple hood, showcasing a rare practicality. 

Honestly? Pretty badass. For such a ditz, she could turn on the Bat-Aura at a second’s notice. The coppers turned silent, eyes following the encroaching legend while they made way for its arrival. Only the commissioner remained still against Purple Batman’s imposing gait. They stood across from each other, eye-to-eye, surprisingly around the same height.

The commissioner spoke first. “If you’re here, I take it you know the situation?”

“I know about the skull-faced goons, hostages, dead man’s switches, the big skull, and our beloved Owlman. Did I miss anything?”

“No, that about sums it up.” He shrugged, placing hands in his raincoat pocket, while his head seemed to wander in search of something. “How did you know? We’ve been keeping these channels as secure as possible.”

“My ears are very big, Jim.”

Wendy sputtered into her coffee before watching Batman gently pace towards the open window literally beckoning for her. “Keep this window open as long as you can. I have reinforcements enroute.”

“Roger that.” The commissioner barked near-identical orders to his men over the comms, summoning a discordantly delayed echo to scratch out of the police box. He took one last look at the hero of the hour. “There’s no hiding this. Soon, all in Gotham will have all eyes on you and that owl.”

Batman took a look back. “You make it sound like a popularity contest.”

“I’m worried it is.”

She nodded, before finally diving down into the pits of hell, colloquially known as Blackgate. 

Wendy seamlessly transitioned her focus towards the security feed peering down at the panopticon, the prison’s gooey center that had functioned as a gladiator ring more than once before. Twelve circular rows of prisoners squawked and jeered at the simulacrum of the man that very likely allowed their harsh sentences. If the cell walls weren’t firm plastic, they’d likely sacrifice any personal belongings in an attempt to even lightly annoy the leading cause of incarceration. The skull remained dauntingly unknowable, its gaping papier-mâchémaw effectively functioning as garish foreshadowing.

Batman’s descent was a swift but gentle one, the cape proving impressive both in style and function. Once her boots hit the ground, where the Owlman was regally waiting patiently. They exchanged dirty glances as the breezing cape settled into its default state. 

“Leave,” commanded the dumb owl-based hero to the dumb bat-based hero. His overcompensating deep voice filter only grew crunchier whenever transmitted through Batman’s earpiece. “Now.” He underlined like it’d make any difference.

It didn’t. “Ya know, you make a compelling argument, but I kinda already got dressed and everything. It’d be a damn shame to let this night go to waste.” Eh. There were worse comebacks. 

“It’s 4:32pm.”

“Is it now? You got a clock under that mask? Can I see it? C’mon, take it off! I have a palates class at 6, so I really need to keep track of time. Not like you have anywhere else to be, right? Unless you have another appointment with a brainwashed villain to slaughter.” Was the original Batman this much of a catty bitch, or was that exclusive to the new one?

Regardless, the evil regal owl mask prevented anything resembling a decipherable reaction. Owlman did not budge an inch. “Go home, Stephanie Brown.”

Oh that—that wasn’t good. 

Stephanie flinched; just a bit, but hard enough to register over the video feed. There was a temporary erraticness to her eyes, before Batman decided to eschew eye contact completely. “Wrong,” she improvised, looking up to the skull. “But nice try.”

“I do not operate under false assumptions,” Birdman ruffled evilly. “Leave while you still can, Stephanie Br—”

Electric audio feedback cut through the tension, bleeding the ears of every inmate and visitor alike. Either these terrorists were real-ass professionals of torture or they were imbeciles that didn’t know how to use a sound system. It could be two things.

“HELLO? HELLO?! IS THIS THING ON?” There was a shrill, nasally voice ringing loudly through the penitentiary announcement system. “TESTING, TESTING. WOW!! CHECK OUT THOSE ACCOUSTICS! ECHOOOOO!!!! HAHA! I LOVE THIS. I HAVE BECOME THE VOICE OF GOD!!” He also sounded very confidently stupid. It was immediately apparent they were dealing with less of a criminal mastermind and more of a child. 

“Where are you?!” Owldope commanded to the general sky. “Show yourself!”

“SHOW MYSELF? HAHA! HEY, GET A LOADA THIS GUY! THE STANLEY KUBRICK DRAG QUEEN THINKS HE’S IN A POSITION TO SQUAWK OUT ORDERS! TO ME!” A solid percentage of amused inmates started feeling the air with a laugh track. “DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO I AM?” 

Stephanie’s face returned to the camera’s view to give her more lethal counterpart the side-eye. “For an authoritarian, you really suck at authority.” She cocked her head towards the loudspeakers. “To whom do we owe the honor?!”

“SEE? BATMAN GETS IT! CUZ HE’S A CONSUMATE PROFESSIONAL! JUST FOR THAT, I’LL BE RIGHT DOWN!”

Wendy watched Batman roll her arms and shoot Owlman the smuggest look her void of a face could muster. Then, there was movement on another camera overlooking the looming skull’s back. A shadowy man cloaked in a black hood popped out of a room without a working camera on the sixth floor, before jumping off the rails onto the back of the now gyrating piñata. He gave a twinkly wave to the designated skullcam peering down at his wide shot, before resummoning the intercom mic.

“GENTLEMAN, HYPOTHETICAL LADIES, BONES WET AND DRY!! A TREMENDOUS THANK YOU TO YOU ALL FOR CLEARING TIME OUT OF YOUR BUSY SCHEDULES TO MAKE IT TO OUR LITTLE SHOW! I’LL BE YOUR TRUSTY, SOMEWHAT MUSTY HOST FOR THE EVENING…”

The cloak flew off, revealing what could only be described as a buff skeleton.

Wendy would have been even more confused if the Batcomputer did not instantly match his skullface to a known profile. She read the name that popped up along with its grand announcement.

“LOOOOOOOOORD DEATH MAAAAAAAAAN!!!!”

Prisoners erupted into unintelligible hoops and hollers, undeterminable between jeers and cheers. Regardless, it was a reaction, which visibly delighted the man’s skull bones. Wendy never considered a skull could even look happy before today. He wafted all their fury towards his face (which was, again, a real, no fake human skull), lifting his head to mime snorting it all in.  

“YESSSS!!! YESSSS!!! BOOO AND HISS TO YOUR HEART’S CONTENT!! RILE THAT BLOODLUST TO MAX CAPACITY, AND THEN SOME MORE!! BASK IN MY DARK GLOOM AND FROTH AT YOUR MOUTH!! FROTH!!!!”

Unbelievable. One day back in Superhero World and she was watching a skeleton man turn a hostage situation into a wrestling promo.

Stephanie was a lot less plussed. “Ya know, the whole skull motif is pretty old hat, like Republic Serial old, but if anyone’s deserved the right, it’s gotta be the guy who’s actually a skull. Unimpeachable!”

Wendy allowed a second away from the madness to open the villain’s profile. “Any plans then?”

“NOW! HOWZABOUT WE GET DOWN TO BUSINESS FINALLY?! YEAH?!”

“I’ve got a concept,” Batmangirl amended as she readied her grappling hook. “Assuming Birdbrain doesn’t get in the—” She looked to her side at the same time Wendy looked back at the feed. Owlman was pointing a wrist cannon at the Death Man. “NO!!!”

“I SUMMONED YOU ALL HERE TODAY TO—”

She moved fast, but not speeding bullet fast. By the time she managed to deck Owlman, whose mass turned out to be less than deckable, the shot was already fired.

BAM!!!! It was loud. Stupid loud. It burst into Wendy’s headset, where it painfully rang harsh enough to warrant ripping them off. Still, the ringing persisted, and the world became murky. Voices were hollow as she torturously witnessed the live feed of Lord Death Man, the entire northeast hemisphere of his exploded, collapsing from his papier-mâché stage into extended freefall.

What emotions were one supposed to feel watching the flailing corpse of a buff skeleton man wallow in the air? Sadness? Admiration? Majesty? Terror? Wendy felt them all at once. These events were occur

ring miles and miles away, and she could only experience them through low-resolution video feeds blown up on a giant screen safe and secure underground. Yet, she felt.

Death Man’s skull shattered into even more bits and pieces, the sound akin to a broken vase, while the rest of his body revealed its flesh with a horribly wet splat! Where life once was, there was nothing. Even supervillains were only meat in the end. Nothing but meat….nothing but…

“—man’s switch, you idiot…!” A distant, muddy scream broke through Wendy’s cold sweat. Her heart was beating really fast. Was that normal? No, it wasn’t. That was bad. Real bad.

Her fallen headphones relayed an even louder BOOM!! on the floor, leading her eyes back to the feed. For the briefest second, she wonders if all Blackgate had gone up in a fiery blaze, everyone dead, bodies burnt to a fine crisp, nothing but meat, nothing but meat….

But no. All that explodes is the skull’s gawking papier-mâché mouth hole. And out from its blown canvas comes a wave of shimmering silver. A small lean and squinting of the eyes revealed the silver to be quite pointy, and in fact knives. Waves and waves of tiny stainless-steel knives rained from the monster’s mouth down towards the panopticon’s center, where all of two people and one corpse were left gaping.

“RUN!!!” She heard Stephanie’s voice cry from her still distant headphones. Was she about to hear the girl’s last words? Was that it? ‘Run!’ What kind of last words were that? What kind of life did that amount to? An entire lifetime, a whole person, all leading up to one conclusive, nondescript, meaningless moment…

Except Batman and Owlman evaded the rain of daggers. Just barely, but they did. Thank goodness they did. They were both alive for a few more seconds, avoiding a fantastical destruction of flesh and bone. The only body struck was Lord Death Man’s final resting place. 

Or, would-be final, as he began to rise.

Skull fragments rejoined like a puzzle magically reforming its larger picture, while blood and squishy bits went back inside, seemingly sloshing back into position based on some biological blueprint. Once his lungs were back in place, a blood-soaked black muscle tee supplying the only proof of the man’s gory end only moments ago, he began to cackle. The knives were loud, clinking and clanking at a loud, rapid frequency that would have blocked the monologue of any less guttural villain.

“Hahahahahahaaaahaaaa~! Oooh, that did wonders for my back!” He gave it a loud crack as the knives just kept falling, many clinging onto his body to no acknowledgement. His cape was getting completely tattered, though, which only made it look cooler. “Ya know, I was about to get to the part where I reveal that I cannot fucking die, but you just had to steal the show, didn’t ya? Selfish, selfish.” He shook his head, whereupon the last couple of knives bonked his skull before bouncing into the frankly ridiculous pile of knives the villain was drowning in. “Ah well. Wouldn’t be a good host if I couldn’t roll with the punches! And I am a GREAT host!”

Reaching into the pile of deadly silverware, he pulled out the same mic from earlier. After clearing his throat, he continued where he left off. “AS I WAS SAYING!! I HAVE SUMMONED YOU HERE TODAY FOR A CONTEST OF WILLS! BEFORE ME ARE 437 PRISONERS, 2 FURRY SUPERHEROES, AND 500 KNIVES!!! NOW, I’M NOT GONNA MONOLOGUE AT YOU ABOUT SOCIETY OR THE HUMAN CONDITION OR BLAPPITY BOO, BLAPPITY BLAP. THIS AIN’T SOME HIGH-FALOOTIN’ EXPERIMENT TO MAKE ME FEEL SMARTER OR DEEPER THAN EVERYONE ELSE.” He didn’t even react to Owlman shooting his throat. “HONESTLY? I JUST REALLY WANNA SEE WHAT HAPPENS~!” Twirling his hand, his gloved fingers pressed together.

Snap! 

One after another, the cell doors snapped open to a rhythm reminiscent of falling dominoes. One row completed and another one began immediately, a cycle that continued until all ten stories of Blackgate Penitentiary were free. Only then did the first prisoner even bother stepping out. Everyone else came after.