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Chapter Text

Shawna was finally getting the hang of Gotham.  Not subway schedules, bus routes, or hockey hysteria—that was all old news—the real Gotham.  Everybody told her she was the luckiest lady alive to survive here for longer than a week, but Grammy corrected their idiocy one night over the phone, “Don’t believe in luck, Baez, luck is lazy.  Believe in guardian angels; they work too hard to put up with nobody acknowledging them.”

And what a guardian angel Gotham had.  Kevlar all over, folks could hardly differentiate him from his shadow.  Some folks thought he was a shadow, a ghost, a nightmare, a story for the papers; but shadows don’t remind people to sign the back of their paycheck.

Shawna slinked into her secondhand leather jacket, heaved her satchel of binders and books over her shoulder, and began the four-mile walk to Gotham University.  Traffic congested into a fifty-car pileup: a steel carpet no maid could iron out.  Alarms whined and headlights blinked.  A baby wailed distantly.  Some people were photographing the damage.  Shawna stormed over to what caused it: fowl, foul fiends toting TNT.

“Excuse me, sir!” Shawna huffed down at a man whose tux reigned in his girth.

“What do you want?” he squawked with smoke billowing from the end of his foot-long cigarette holder.

Shawna poked his chest and growled, “I have studied all night for today’s test, and I will not deal with my professor accusing me of flaking out of it because your minions are clogging the road!”

Horror wrenched his marble eyes wide, “My apologies, miss, I’ll clean this mess immediately.” He then addressed his flock. “You heard the lady, scram!”

His platoon of penguins parted for her and only her.  Shawna hmphed at him before marching away from the chaos, which resumed shortly after her departure.

“How nice to see a youngster so dedicated to their studies,” he chirped.

“Indeed,” a charcoal voice agreed before his fist flew into the gentleman’s gut.

The End!!!

Chapter Text

Shawna slogged through sixteen pages of her assigned reading before she noticed Batman sitting beside her.  Other patrons of the subway rifled along without giving the duo a first glance, never mind a second.  She was waiting for Grammy—they’d been planning this visit for ages—so who was Batman waiting for?

“My brother,” he said with his modulated voice before Shawna realized she’d asked that question out loud, “and his friends....  They’re coming for my birthweek.  My brother made me promise we won’t go crime-fighting unless we see the batsignal.  I doubt we will though, because I tapped my brother’s phone and listened in on him urging Commissioner Gordon not to do so unless an emergency arises.”

Revealing his exact age or birthday would give away too many identifying details, so Shawna accepted his ambiguous information without resentment.  She knew Batman was more of a Batteen, but he took down his rogues gallery along with Gotham’s run-of-the mill thugs alright on his own, so Shawna trusted him to keep himself safe.  Gotham's really just a larger version of her neighborhood back in Central.  Plus, his allies in Jump alternated between there and Gotham, so he wasn’t as alone as the rumor mill claimed.

“How much older is he compared to you?”

“Only by a year,” Shawna snickered when she heard him grumble indignantly regardless of how unreadable his cowled face remained.  Melancholy hushed all humor when he continued, “We witnessed his parents fall.  The saboteur made it appear to be an accident caused by faulty equipment, but Commissioner Gordon discovered the truth.” Batman directed his gaze at nothing in particular even though he faced the deaf multitude hustling in front of them.  He breathed in and out deeply before he added, “My brother and I witnessed a thief shoot my parents three years later.  We became Batman and Robin so no one else’s parents would die unnaturally.”

Grammy was getting along in years, so if she died tomorrow… Shawna would grieve, but it wouldn’t be unexpected.  Nobody expects their caregivers to die while they’re still caregiving.  She also didn’t have close bonds, plural, to abruptly sever because her folks and siblings—along with nearly all of the kids in her neighborhood growing up—thought she was intolerably eccentric for pursuing academics.

“Are your brother’s friends your friends, too?”

“So they say,” Batman’s cape fluttered a centimeter as he shrugs. “Cyborg and Beast Boy are too loud sometimes, and Starfire frequently forgets to ask me for permission to embrace me.  I guess I’d say Raven’s my friend since she’s quiet and keeps to herself.” He glanced at her book. “You’re not noisy or tactilely obnoxious, so we can be friends if you want.”

Touched, Shawna accepted; then Batman ruined it when he addressed her as Miss Baez to thank her, “Please, all my friends call me Shawna.”

“You have acquaintances, not friends.” He probably knew how she took her coffee too. “Three creams, no sugar.”

“Well, that’s settles that, you have to call me Shawna now,” her fringy earrings tickled her jacket as she chuckled. “Memorizing coffee orders is the height of friendship.”

“Coffee tastes bitter.  I drink half hot chocolate, half vanilla creamer,” he corrected. “Robin drinks unaltered hot chocolate, Catwoman drinks sweetened iced tea during warm weather or green tea with honey during cool weather, and my guardian drinks Earl Grey tea with one sugar cube.  There, now when you meet them, they’ll know you want to be friends.”

This was the first time Shawna heard about Catwoman directly from Batman.  Media that acknowledged Batman’s existence speculated that his feline fatale disappeared or died about a year ago.  Mentioning her—whatever her fate, denying it or not—in addition to his parents and Robin’s parents’ deaths hurt him more than his face would ever show, with or without his mask, as evidenced by him stiffening.  Granted, if it weren’t for his youth and costume, folks would assume he was a soldier by his posture anyway.

Wheels hummed and fizzled until they halted.  Nameless faces filed out first.  Batman and Shawna rose to wave their guests over.  All five Teen Titans sang an enthusiastic rendition of “Happy Birthday to You”, punctuated by booyahs from a mechanized André the Giant.  The end of the song, along with a booyah, was also accompanied by a noisemaker lounging in the mouth of a cloaked, floating tiefling.

A shamrock-skinned gnome grinned from elven ear to elven ear, “Check it out, dude, we gotchoo the coolest gift ever!”

A sprite-light supermodel zipped to embrace Batman before Beast Boy could hand it over, though.  Batman froze until she released him; her hair frazzled as she flustered, “Eep! My most sincere apologies, friend; one day, my joy won’t make me fail to remember your dislike of the hugs.”

“I like hugs as long as I’m informed beforehand.  The important thing is that you’re trying,” the group collectively sighed their relief until he added, “most people don’t.”

Robin frowned especially deeply.  Shawna doubted anybody—sane or not—would try to hug Batman, so he must’ve been referring to incidents that occurred as his civilian identity.  Robin’s frown abated when he asked Shawna with a voice as modified as his brother's, “Are you the woman from the bank? And the road?”

“Yep, that’s me,” Shawna extended her hand down to him and introduced herself proudly, which he accepted as if he was meeting a celebrity.

“She’s attained the height of friendship with us, so now you need to attain the height of friendship with her,” Batman nodded firmly.

The Titans looked to their leader, who blinked.  If Robin had no clue what Batman was talking about, who did?

“Your favorite drink is unaltered hot chocolate; mine is coffee with one cream, no sugar,” Shawna would’ve stammered an explanation if a wizardly woman hadn't shuffled into the conversation.

“Who here’s havin’ a birthday without tellin’ me about it beforehand?” a straight-spined lady wagged her free pointer finger furiously while her busy hand carted her luggage. “I have more time for quilting now, but that’s no excuse to give me no notice.”

“Grammy!” Shawna beamed excitedly.

“Baez!” she returned her granddaughter’s affection with a dual-cheek kiss.  Grammy squinted at the rest of the group and then harrumphed at Batman, “You’re the birthday boy, aincha?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Batman saw no point in lying.

“Do you have a quilt at home, baby?”

“No, ma’am.”

The others watched this weirdness in silence except for Shawna, who uselessly urged her, “Grammy! You can’t call Batman ‘baby’!”

“Gotham’s guardian angel himself, eh?  Baez speaks well enough about you, so I went ahead and made you a little somethin’-somethin’,” Grammy shouldn’t have crouched and unzipped her suitcase in the middle of the platform at her age, but she did anyway and pulled out a hexagonal quilt featuring various shades of gray, silver, and black.

Batman stared at it for a moment until he accepted it, “Thank you, ma’am.  You didn’t have to do this.”

“I didn’t have to spend a semester abroad in Russia either, yet I did that, too,” Grammy said as she closed her suitcase, which—as Shawna should’ve predicted—contained her quilting kit. “I would’ve never met Lowell if I didn’t.  We were pen pals for years until he finally scooted his booty to America and fell in love with my best friend Lori.  I was the maid of honor at their wedding.  See here, I done digitalized my album onto my phone last year.”

Shawna had seen these pictures a billion times by the time she turned seven.  The teens congealed to view a big strong Russian and an equally strong Russian-American clasping hands and leaning into each other wearing smiles as warm as chowder.

Grammy gathered the rest of the group’s favorite colors as well, including Catwoman’s at Batman's insistence, “Would you mind making one for her too, ma’am, if it’s not too much trouble?”

“Why, quilting is never trouble for folks as important as her,” Grammy winked at him. “It’ll have all the kitties I can stitch onto it.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Shawna and the Teen Titans—minus Robin and Raven—thought they’d gone crazy when they caught Batman smiling for the length of a blink.

“Any time, baby,” she waved goodbye to the youngsters before pivoting towards Shawna. “Baez, show me Gotham!”

Soon enough, Shawna received six quilts in the mail and wondered how to deliver them; Batman and the Teen Titans didn’t have PO boxes, after all.  An infestation of Scarecrow’s phobia gas canceled class, so she had all day and the weekend to figure out a solution.  Some heavy-duty research confirmed her suspicions and scored her a ride out to Bristol County.

The End???

What exactly does Miss Baez suspect?  Will Batman and the Teen Titans receive their quilts??  Where is Catwoman???  Find out next chapter! Same Bat-time, same Bat-fic!!!

Chapter Text

Shawna rang a doorbell that must’ve spent its previous incarnation as a bell tower because grandiosity reverberated with each beat.  Stately Wayne Manor needed such a signal to reach across its halls.  Shawna spent her journey through its twisty, cast iron gates and museum of lawn accoutrements believing she’d entered a fairy tale, and now she stood before the castle.

A svelte, bow-tied man with white cotton candy on each side of his head and strands of it embarking across his scalp answered the door, “Miss Baez, welcome, Young Lords Jason and Batman advised me to expect your arrival.  Please, allow me to assist you in carrying this monstrous bundle.” He wagged his finger hammily when she hesitated to hand any of them over, “I may be almost half a century old, but my spark of strength hasn’t snuffed out yet!”

Shawna gave him 3 of the 7 quilts Grammy had constructed for Batman, Catwoman, and the Teen Titans.  Even those three were no meager towels; Grammy made each one of them thick enough to melt ice.

Alfred carried himself and the quilts with dignity into the lounge.  One of Wayne Manor’s libraries camped out in the back on freshly-dusted shelves that Shawna figured were older than everything she owned combined.  They set the quilts onto a coffee table.  Afterwards, Alfred departed to fetch tea and implored her to stay, “The boys shall return home soon from their grandfather’s estate; missing you would be liable to transform them into sulking storms.”

Shawna settled into a nest-like leather chair.  Her dreamcatcher earrings flitted as she reviewed potential courses for next semester.  When Alfred came back and inquired about it, she gave him an exhausted, disapproving groan, “All of these classes have either no description or a bullet list of course outcomes all of the other classes will allegedly address, too.  None of them inspire me to take any of these classes, but I need at least one of them ‘to demonstrate technological literacy’.”

“Perhaps picking a familiar professor will ease your search?” Alfred recommended as he poured five handleless cups.

“I tried, but the only person I’ve even remotely encountered is a misogynist who grades freshmen like seniors,” Shawna massaged her temples at memories of that dreaded jerk. “I barely survived one class with him, I’m not about to take another.”

“What exactly constitutes technological literacy at your college?” Alfred asked while wiping stray drops with a nubby white cloth.

“Translated from legalese,” Shawna quoted from her handbook with disdain, “‘you morons will know how to turn a computer on and off properly, what you read on the internet is not always true, and never post content that damages someone’s reputation especially if someone is you.’”

“Those sound like rather low expectations in today’s day and age,” Alfred handed her a flyer.

Taught by an ex-MI6 agent, this course caters to an exclusive caliber of students: intelligent, diligent, and witty.  Batman and Jason’s delusions of grandeur may interfere with instruction from time to time, but I taught those whippersnappers everything they know, yet they do not know everything I know.  Cyborg shall serve as my assistant.

Hooked immediately, Shawna asked, “When do I start?”

“As soon as we can schedule around your other classes, but for now, consider selecting your codename to be your first assignment.”

Shawna was terrible at inventing names on the spot even after three years of Improv Theatre in high school.  She was a quarter of the way through the alphabet when a roly-poly man with coattails flapping behind him and two boys wearing cardigans entered.  Shawna stood up immediately and looked to Batman and Jason, “Your grandfather is Oswald ‘Penguin’ Cobblepot!?”

“Yep,” Jason nodded firmly before he swiveled into the sofa, understanding her surprise yet resigned to his fate.

“....That doesn’t make things awkward at all???”

“Nope,” Jason answered as he sipped his tea.

Penguin gathered his grandsons close to him and grinned: a cross between a lunatic and a mayor, “Batsy, Jasy, and I may disagree on how to have fun, but we never let our fun hurt each other.”

“Or kill innocents,” Jason piped up.

“Those too,” Penguin added as an afterthought.

“Hooray! Our quilts have come!” Batman fetched Selina’s and scampered off into her bedroom, tucking it loving onto her bed.  He gulped at a photo of him, her, and his brother together at Disneyworld, “This is from Grammy; you’d like her.  She’s a strong, independent lady like you.  She crafted it for you without doubting you’re alive.”

Shawna entered a hallowed shrine of cat figurines, cat-themed—and in some cases, shaped—furniture, and a literal cat: a loofah version of a witch’s familiar named Miss Kitka.  She possessed no sense of personal space.  She’d spent kittenhood riding Selina, Alfred, Bruce, and Jason’s shoulders—but mostly Selina’s—so she toddled up to Shawna and stood on her hindpaws against Shawna’s legs to meow her greetings.  Shawna let Miss Kitka sniff her hand before picking her up, after which Miss Kitka immediately squirmed onto Shawna’s shoulder.

“That’s her: Catwoman?” Shawna hummed at the photo with Miss Kitka stinging her left eyeball by rubbing her cheek against half of Shawna’s face and tickling Shawna’s neck with her glorious tail.

Batman sniffled, not turning his face away from it, “She never says goodbye because goodbye means you do not intend to return.  Selena always says ‘see you later’ because she always returns… except this time.  Grammy called me Gotham’s guardian angel, yet how useless is a guardian who cannot keep his best friend safe?  If Selina wasn’t out patrolling with me, perhaps taking me would’ve satisfied her abductor instead.  She would be better off if I was dead—do you know the statistics of finding someone after the first 48 hours!?!”

“Yes.” Batman looked up at her, confused.  Snot dripped from his nose until he sniffled.  Miss Kitka hopped off Shawna and headbutted Batman.  Shawna ignored her first instinct to hug him in order to respect his disdain for spontaneous physical contact, so she bit her lip and placed her hand on his shoulder instead, “My kindergarten teacher has a grandson who’s been missing for over a decade, but do you know what I learned from my first teacher: Grammy?  Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  You are going to find her one day, and she will thank you for not giving up on her because she didn’t give up on you.”

Batman burrowed into a hug and whimpered, “I miss her so much!!!”

“I know you do—we all do,” Shawna teared up, “but you don’t have to miss her alone.”

Jason bolted into the hug and wailed.  Alfred and Penguin weren’t far behind.  The rest of the Teen Titans arrived through one of Raven’s portals the minute Jason pressed the emergency button on his communicator.  They expected anything from invaders to dinosaurs to Wayne Manor in flames, yet they adapted to the hardest foe to beat: despair.  Batman was rapidly enveloped in people—and a cat—who cared about him.

One month later, Nightwing officially debuted in Kevlar adorned with a turquoise and purple bird emblem and matching mask.  Batman hunched on a rooftop overlooking GCPD.  This was his first day on patrol again to the chagrin of fedora-and-trench-coated Detective Bullock: an urban lion who believed he was king of the jungle despite lions inhabiting the savannah as Zoo Tycoon enthusiast Batman pointed out every time someone said that idiotic phrase.

Batman whispered to Shawna, “Do not alert them to our presence.  Startling Detective Bullock is my favorite part of reporting to Commissioner Gordon.” Batman hopped behind them.  Bullock’s coffee leapt as high as he did and splashed his collared shirt.  Buzz cut and bearded Commissioner Gordon did absolutely nothing.  Instead, he sipped his cappuccino and collected a manila folder from Batman.  The Dark Knight introduced them, “Commissioner, Detective, this is Nightwing.  Nightwing, this is Gotham’s Finest… and Detective Bullock.”

Bullock grumbled; Batman frowned back.  Commissioner Gordon sighed and stood between them, “Bullock, act your age; Batman, act Nightwing’s age.”

Without missing a beat, Batman spun on his heels to depart, “It was wonderful seeing you again, gentlemen, now I shall return to drunken sex at my fraternity party.”

“Oh, so that’s where you’ve been all this time???” Bullock sneered.  Gordon face-palmed.  Nightwing and Batman tensed. “Or did this case actually stump you?  Ya know, we were doing just fine withoucha, so maybe you oughtta stay out of the major leagues, Batboy.”

Batman paused.  His eyelid twitched.  The batmobile hissed open and rumbled awake.  He half-heartedly called shotgun and waited for Nightwing.

She didn’t join him until after she punched Bullock.  He slammed onto his back, woozy from her blow.  Outrage vibrated her as she clenched his shirt, “Batman wasn’t working last month because he felt useless enough to think we’d all be better off without him; he doesn’t need jealous jerkasses like you confirming everything he thinks!!!”

Shawna left a tempest of huffs.  Commissioner Gordon did not help Bullock up.  Gordon shook his head with displeasure, “You and Batman both keep Gotham safer, and if you still can’t understand that after all this time, pack up your crap and don’t bother coming in tomorrow.”

It took Shawna three times to buckle in due to frothing fury.  Batman attempted to assuage her as they sped off towards the Batcave, “That was much more cordial than how I predicted he would behave.  He may think I’m redundant, but I know now that I am not....  One day, I will find Selina and Bartholomew and ensure their abductors face justice.”

The End!!!