Work Text:
“Batman, come in” came the familiar voice through Bruce’s coms. It had been a quiet night in Gotham so far, so Bruce was almost happy to hear Oracle coming in with what sounded like a crime that needed his assistance. After giving her a grunt of affirmation, she continued with the details of the incident. “On the corner of 12th and Robinson, a man with dark hair appears to be assaulting a young woman with a baseball bat”.
Batman grunted again, this time in question. While he would absolutely be assisting at the scene of the crime, he was nowhere near the location and his trackers showed that both Dick and Damien were significantly closer.
“I’m calling you, B, because something is off. I can’t get an ID on either POIs. Their faces are completely being blurred by every camera I have in the area”. He heard her fingers dexterously tapping away on her keyboard, “something smells fishy, B, I’m sending a screencap over now.” And with that, his gauntlet buzzed and he had to agree with her assessment. On his screen showed two individuals, one, tall, and with a traditionally masculine build, he appeared to be wearing a blue hoodie and had a shock of dark hair, where his face should be was only a smudge. In his hands, he was swinging… a glowing baseball bat? The person being backed into a corner by the assailant, was shorter, wearing some sort of red dress and had what he assumed to be blonde hair, it was hard to tell in the streetlights. The only thing the two shared in common was their lack of facial distinguishers.
“Team–” Bruce grunted, pleased at the immediate shut off of the chatter that was always going on in the group channel. He relayed the location and the small amount of details he could give on the two individuals, “-- requesting everyone available to meet at location. Do not engage unless necessary and aim to incapacitate both.”
By the time Bruce arrived on scene, less than five minutes after he had made the call, the man was sitting on the ground, tied in what appeared to be one of Robin’s automatic restraining ropes. Unlike in the images sent by Babs earlier, this man did have a face. He had tan skin, a strong jawline, curly black hair with a streak of grey, and the most striking green eyes Bruce had seen. Between the physical similarities and the way that he appeared to be arguing with Dick over the stupidity of the name ‘wing-dings’, it was nigh impossible to not draw comparisons between the stranger and Jason who landed silently beside him.
“I don’t understand why I’m tied up and she–” he jerked his head towards the young girl with blonde hair and a school uniform, “gets to just stand there”. He then proceeded to stick his tongue out at the teenage girl and bizarrely enough, she hissed at him.
“Because,” Nightwing sighed, sounding like he had already gone through this exact line of argument once or twice before. “You were attacking a young, helpless schoolgirl with a baseball bat”. He explained as though he was talking to a much smaller child.
“Oh yeah,” he challenged, “me and what baseball bat”. He quirked his head in a cocky ‘gotcha’ motion. Bruce took a moment to observe the scene as his group broke out in arguments, all asserting their opinions on what they saw, questions of where the bat went, and a single quietly whispered ‘sword’? From Tim.
Looking around, he noticed first, the girl in the uniform, she appeared to be no older than 14 or 15, and surprisingly not frightened, she almost looked smug, while keeping an eye on the bound boy on the ground and trying to remain shrouded in shadows. Next, the man on the ground, oddly enough, he also did not seem scared in the slightest, which is the opposite reaction that most crooks have when confronted with a large group of highly trained vigilantes. His arms were bound down at his side, palms forced into the dirty puddle that he must’ve fallen into when originally tied up, nowhere in the vicinity was there a bat or any other weapon, glowing, or otherwise. Bruce held up a hand and his team immediately fell into silence.
“Explain”. He loomed over the man on the ground, no older than 19, he confidently made eye contact with The Batman.
“It’s easy, I’m just a poor college student, making my way home from late night lectures, when she” he jerked his head at the girl in the corner “tried to attack little ol’ defenseless me!”
“You were wielding a glowing bat, hardly defenseless” Robin pointed out, taking a step closer to the young man.
“Potato, tomato and all that. She’s the one you should be locking up, except I guess you probably can’t” The teenager made a rude motion in his direction. “And not just because–” and he made finger quotations within the murky puddle and deepened his voice in a crude imitation of Batman “its against the code of justice to detain young girls who look deceptively harmless” Red Hood gave a small snort at that. “More like, your technology can’t even touch her”.
“You were saying that earlier, telling me to throw one of my wing-dings” the boy on the ground rolled his eyes “at her, which is super against what we do. We don’t harm civilians”.
“Fine, don’t throw it at her, you can try and poke her although I would recommend throwing because she does bite and I promise it is much worse than her bark”. The young man was getting more animated with his head movements and facial expressions as he went on, a sign that raised Bruce’s suspicions that he might be up to something else, but seeing as he was firmly bound from shoulder to wrist, he decided to just keep a loose eye on him, instead, shifting his attention to the blonde.
“Miss, with your permission, I would like to approach you and have you just feel one of my wing-dings” Nightwing said, voice calming and slow, as though approaching a wounded animal about to bolt.
The blonde curled her lip in a smile that seemed almost a little too wide and a little too sharp in the long thrown shadows of the orange streetlight. Her affirmation was low and almost purred out, in a tone that sounded not quite human.
Three things happened next in very quick succession. One, as soon as Dick got within arms length of the girl, she lunged at him, mouth first. Two, a twinkle on the bindings of the man on the ground caught Bruce’s eye, quickly before the man burst forth, shattering his bindings and making a move towards both Dick and the girl. Three, Damien rushed forwards towards the man in an attempt to subdue him, and quickly slipped on the large sheet of ice that certainly had not been there moments prior.
Three more things happened immediately after this. One, Dick hissed as the girl sunk her teeth into the meaty part of his forearm. Two, the strange man pulled his bat out of seemingly nowhere, striking the girl as she seemed to disintegrate in front of their eyes. And three, Red Hood burst out in laughter at his younger brother steaming and trying to get his footing on the impromptu skating rink.
As quickly as the man reacted, Batman was just as swift, pinning him against a wall with a forearm to his throat.
“Who are you? What did you do to her?” He growled. The younger man put his hands up in surrender and gestured for Bruce to back off his neck a bit, which he did with a little internal grumbling.
“I’m Percy,” apparently Percy wheezed, “I sent her back to where she belongs.” He once again held his hands up in defense, “I promise I can’t and won’t hurt you.” His wide, shockingly green eyes appeared earnest, but Batman would not take the bait.
“Explain,” he grit out, “fully.”
“Cool, cool, cool,” Percy muttered, lounging with his back against the damp alley wall. “Right, so, that was a demon goat cheerleader who specifically wanted to eat me, she can’t be harmed by your silly weapons so I took it upon myself to take care of the problem. Bingo, bango, we all go home happy to have made new friends on this glorious Tuesday”
“It’s Wednesday,” muttered Damien, who caught a quick elbow to the side and a whispered ‘that’s what you take issue with’?
“Not good enough”, growled the glowering vigilante, “if she was here to attack you, are there more and how do we know you will not harm us or other Gothamites?”
Percy seemed to ponder this for a few moments, “yeah, there are probably more, but I would say its more because Gotham reeks than me specifically, no offense. This entire place smells like Hades wet gym socks, you would be hard pressed to find somewhere more habitable to their kind than here. As for how you can sleep easy at night, or morning or afternoon, I’m not really sure when you nocturnal types sleep, I can prove it.” Without grandeur or dramatic fanfare, he produced a glowing bat out of thin air. All of the bats took an instinctive step back and drew their chosen weapons, except for one.
“A sword,” Tim repeated his earlier statement. His eyes locked on the long bronze bat in front of him almost as if in a thrall. Bruce put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him behind his broad back.
Percy grinned, making eye contact with Red Robin, “you, I like”. He smirked. “Now touch it,” his grin broadened, holding out the bat, wide end facing the birds and the bat. “Listen to what the one in the weird black bald cap said and open your eyes and touch”.
Damien was the first to reach out his hand, only stopped by the gruff growl of ‘Robin’. As he pouted, Bruce turned to Tim and made eye contact, stepping between the line of vision between the boy and the bat. “What do you see, Champ”. Once again, Tim uttered only the two words ‘a sword’. Bruce took a second to swear off all his hatred of magic and gimmickry, and chose in that moment to believe his son. When he turned back to Percy, the bat seemed to flicker between just that, and a glowing bronze sword.
“Touch it, you know you wanna” Percy was wiggling his eyebrows now. Bruce pulled on some thick rubber gloves and, pushing his sons behind him, reached out a single, steady hand. Just as he braced himself for what he didn’t even know, his fingers went straight through the blade as though it was made of smoke.
“Hn” was all Bruce had to say but he hoped it point was accurately portrayed as ‘what is going on, where is the real weapon, and what sort of magic is this?’
“Anyone else want a chance?” He pointed at Tim, “Not you though. Not yet.” Damien was the first up, running his hand back and forth through the blade twice before giving a ‘Tt’ and walking back into the line, Dick tried next, after his hand passed through, effortlessly, he decided to try and shishkabob himself on the sword, the point of the sword passing through his back harmlessly.
“Take a picture”, he yelled as he stuck his tongue out dramatically to the side.
After the fanfare, Jason approached next, unbelieving of his brothers, he reached out with caution only to feel the strangely warm sensation of a blade in his palm. The blade, while pulsing with warm, strange energy felt oddly dull to the touch, he whacked his hand on it a few times and then his forearm, each connection met with a solid thud.
“Interesting,” said Percy, and gestured at Tim, “your turn, be careful now” Tim reached out a single hand, with an almost unnoticeable tremor, he reached for the blade. He barely touched the tip with a single finger when he recoiled with a hiss, a single drop of blood shining in the streetlight. “As I thought”, Percy said, seemingly to himself.
“Percy, we have several questions for you and your blade, will you come with us to fully answer them” asked Nightwing as the designated spokesperson of the group. Percy appeared to ponder for a bit before reaching out two fingers on his left hand.
“Not tonight, gentlemen, “ he snapped his two fingers together and the sound was too loud and clear as it echoed down the alleyway, waving his fingers he made direct eye contact with the vigilantes. “These are not the droids you are looking for,” he said in a low voice, and Jason and Tim watched in awe as their mentor and two brothers turned around and walked out of the alleyway leaving them alone with this strange new man.
Percy slung his arms around the two, having casually disappeared his sword back to who knows where. “Don’t look so somber, guys” he smiled, “they’ll be fine. I say we go grab a smoothie, your treat, of course.” Tim and Jason made eye contact behind Percy’s head and shrugged, now was as good of a time as any to try and get some more information out of this strange new player in Gotham.
“Now tell me, what do you two know about Greek mythology?”