Hey guys! Trying my hand at the some Batman now. Don't forget to read and review!
The Illusionist
"Any heat signatures, Proxy?" Robin swore she heard someone calling to her from inside the Monarch Theatre.
She wasn't stupid, she knew what this place was, what it meant to Batman. So she wasn't going to bust the door down and walk into a trap. It had to be a trap, the sound of a woman calling "Robin."
But, on the off chance (the way off chance) that this was someone who needed her help, she stuck around, but in the shadows.
It was the fact that the woman was calling for Robin that made her suspicious. Batman purposefully made them (Nightwing, Red Robin, Red Hood) take routes at random so that no one could memorize their schedules and predict where they would be. And Robin couldn't see anyone through any of the windows, and, though that didn't mean they hadn't seen her, she found it unlikely they had. They knew she was coming, more likely.
Proxy's gravelly voice replied over the wire, "Yeah, one in the auditorium. It looks like they're... pacing?"
"Thanks, bae. I'm going in."
"That's not a good idea, R. We don't know which one that is."
Robin snorted. Proxy thought it was a trap, too. She and Proxy (and Babs) were generally always on the same page.
"Well, let's narrow it down. Find out where the big swigs are. Where's Joker?"
"Arkham."
"Bane?"
"Blackgate."
"Seriously? Why isn't he in Arkham?"
"Well behaved when on drugs."
"Fantastic. Make sure B knows about that."
"Will do."
"Black Mask?" Robin still felt that chilling stutter in her chest, over two years later. She would always have that, she supposed. It was stupid and irrational.
Actually, given the criminal track record for Gotham, it could easily happen again tomorrow.
"Arkham. So's Ivy and Croc. And Penguin."
Robin barked a laugh. "Be serious, Proxy. Penguin is like a b-minus level at the very most. Most people entirely ignore his existence, anyway."
"True. If it's none of them, who is it?"
"Where's Harleen?" Robin asked instantly.
"Erm..." the clacking of keys came over the wire, "Quinzel... No idea. She's not in Arkham."
Robin huffed. It actually angered her how little attention they gave the former psychologist at the ward. "Harley Quinn" really wasn't bad. Sure, Bruce and Dick might disagree, but, all things considered (and by "all things," she meant versus the rest of the loons), Harley was a saint. More or less. Given the right treatment, she could potentially be healed... yeah, that was wistful thinking, but this Robin was nothing if not hopeful.
"Who lets those idiots run that place? They wouldn't know a sick person if they... you know—"
"—were doctors in charge of their welfare and healing?"
"Bingo. It's Harleen, by the way, so I'm definitely going in."
"R." There was warning in her tone.
"Relax, she loves me. Seriously, she loves me, and I have no idea why. She used to break out of Arkham to grab coffee with me. She'd even go back willingly afterward."
"Whatever. But if anything's off—"
"I'll get the hell outta there."
:::
Dick wasn't sure how he had done it, but Bruce had managed to get all of his sons under one roof. It was miracle that hadn't happened in five months at least. It was another miracle that nobody was fighting, which hadn't happened in over a year.
"What are you doing?" Damian looked over Tim's shoulder at the laptop screen. They were both in Tim's room. Tim had been typing for going-on seven hours nonstop, and Damian had been reading a book on his bed.
"Work." Tim replied shortly, not looking away from the screen. "And I'm really behind, so can you go away?"
Hurt shone visibly on the (technically, he was still ten) eleven-year-old's round face, and he backed away. "Oh... okay."
Dick frowned deeply. Tim and Damian's relationship had always been rocky, but Damian was making strides to try and fix things between them ever since he came back. And Tim was being difficult for no understandable reason.
Actually, Tim had been very off lately. He was always working, almost never going out on patrol. Dick figured he was going out more than they knew about, but he wasn't checking in with either Batman or Nightwing. And he avoided the Manor like the plague. It had gotten to the point where Jason was spending more time at the Manor than Tim. Along-with, Tim was short with everyone, and it was getting old real quick.
"Why don't you put the computer up, for, like, ten minutes?" Dick made his presence known and leaned against the doorframe. "Jason and I have been waiting for you to start the movie."
"I told you to give me fifteen minutes—"
"—two hours ago." Dick interrupted. Damian was in the process of leaving, but his former partner was in the way.
"Wha..." Tim looked at the clock.
Oh.
"Hey, Dami, go wait for me and Tim in the media room," Dick nudged the youngest Wayne's shoulder, and the boy obeyed.
Tim closed the laptop and fought back a sigh. He already knew there was no way out of having the impending talk.
Dick sat down on the bed across from Tim. "Be nice to Damian."
"I'm not being mean to him."
If Dick was one for growling, he would have growled. "He spent the entire day trying to spend time with you. And you ignored him then cut him off."
Tim stared blankly. He... hadn't noticed. "I-I didn't realize—"
"—of course you didn't!" Dick snapped, causing Tim to jump. His voice sounded eerily like Bruce's reprimanding voice. "Because you're always in that damn laptop! What's the matter with you lately?"
Tim fought back the shiver that ran up his spine. He hated this; he hated how much just getting yelled at by his big brother affected him.
"Hey, Dickie-Face, give it a rest." Damian had gone and tattled on Dick to Jason. Maybe the kid did really care about him. "Come on Timmy, we've got a movie to fall asleep halfway through."
Tim stood quickly and power-walked away from his older brothers (Dick, really) and into the media room. If he'd walked a little slower, he'd hear Jason tell Dick to lay off him.
Tim curled up on the smaller of the couches. It surprised him when Damian plopped down next to him, even with the other empty couch and chairs in the room. He had a giant bowl filled with a ridiculous amount of popcorn. That's not to say they weren't going to eat all of it.
"Hey, Damian?" Tim ran a hand through his hair, a nervous habit he'd always had. "I'm sorry about today, and... you know... I-I wasn't trying to ignore you. I was distracted..."
Damian felt terrible for his older (and technically only) brother as he rambled through his apology. He got it, Tim was distracted. And he hadn't been eating. And he hadn't been sleeping. Tim didn't even have a place to sleep; he sold his apartment two months ago. Damian found out, but he hadn't told anyone yet. Tim wouldn't have wanted him to. And Tim was too tired to have Dick yelling at him.
"It's okay, Dra-Tim." He scooted closer, hoping Tim wouldn't notice and kind of hoping he would. "Popcorn?"
:::
The extremely uneasy feeling returned as Robin found the door to the Monarch unlocked. Nobody leaves the doors to an abandoned, decrepit movie theatre unlocked.
On an inhale, she walked through the door, dropping into a crouch and glancing across the room. Other than an emptied concessions stand, some overturned benches, and thirty-year-old movie posters still hanging in their glass, the room was deserted.
Proxy said the heat signature was in the auditorium, though, so that's where Robin headed, mildewed carpet making an unappealing crunching sound under her tactical boots.
Robin pulled back the heavy (and stinking) velvet curtain, surprised to find the front of the auditorium lit by two camping lanterns. A tall, thin woman was, as Proxy predicted, pacing in front of the (remaining) seats.
"Harleen?" As a rule, she referred to the former psychologist by her full name.
Harley's eyes shot to the doorway. "Robin! I was worried you hadn't heard me."
"Nah. Are yo—"
"I'm alone!"
Robin started toward her, smirking. "I was gonna ask if you were okay, but you got my second question."
Harley laughed nervously, but rushed over to greet her favorite Robin with a hug. Awe, she was worried for her. "I'm glad you're here. There's something, or somebody, really, that you need to know about."
"Okay," Robin said, returning the embrace, "but first, when did you get released from Arkham?" She took a step back, looking Harley in the face. "You did get released, right? Because we talked about this."
The older woman grinned. She really did like the girl; she actually cared about her, and it was so endearing. She was so glad she didn't let Joker kill her. It was nostalgic seeing her back in the Robin costume. "I was released. Not that those useless motherfuckers really helped any."
"You're more sane than usual." She was okay to say that, because she was genuine about it. Not that it ever bothered Harley to be called crazy; she knew she was. She used to date the Joker.
"I'm self-medicating."
"Oh. It's working." And it was. The grey tint the woman had acquired from her "fall" at Ace Chemicals was shifting to an almost normal tone, and the two tone colors in her hair had faded to two different shades of purpley-gray, and were blonde at the roots. Her blue eyes shone brightly with awareness.
"Yeah, it makes running my operation, like, fifty-billion times easier, but way more boring."
"Harleen."
"Relax, Robin," she giggled. "I'm keeping it all in Hood's territory; Batsy won't have to deal with me."
"Hood's joined up with the Bats. You hadn't heard?"
"I hadn't. Well, shit, that throws a wrench in my plans." She crossed her arms, pulling a face as she thought. "Wait—what about Batman's 'no killing' thing, because Hood definitely kills, like, I saw him chunk a guy off the bridge right before I—never mind. Don't answer that. That's not why we're here."
Robin purposely ignored the bit about the Red Hood. No killings in the last nine months, at least. Reported killings, a voice in her head that sounded eerily like Tim's decided to remind her. "Right. Why are we here?"
"There's a new player in our game," Harley told her, tone far more serious than Robin could have expected. "And his abilities are nothing you Bats and Birds are prepared for."
:::
Tim shocked everyone when he suited up for patrol with the rest of them. Bruce purposefully gave him the easiest route. Damian pulled Dick to the side and demanded he go with Tim. Only just have returned, he wasn't back on the team yet. Stephanie Brown was Robin. He was glad it was her, and not anybody else, but he wished she was still Batgirl. Not that he was patrolling currently, but he wasn't thrilled to have Barbara in Stephanie's place (even if it was her to begin with). Whenever his father let him be Robin again, Stephanie would go back to being Spoiler. The dynamic would be thrown off. They wouldn't be partners anymore.
That, and he found Barbara positively boring, which was what he told Dick on more than one occasion. And if anyone asked, that was the only reason Damian wanted Stephanie to be Batgirl again.
No one got to leave the Cave, however, before a gunshot followed by the sound of shattering glass and Alfred and Damian shouting echoed down the elevator shaft.
Batman, in his full uniform, bolted up the hidden stairway, the others on his heels, quite coincidentally, in age order. Red Robin thought momentarily that this would totally blow all of their covers and the location of the cave, but they weren't going to lose Damian again, identities be damned.
"Damian! Alf!" Batman called through the house. They quickly found the butler and boy in the the middle of the ballroom, shotgun in the old man's hands.
Alfred looked more irritated than frightened. Actually, he looked only irritated. "One man. He has a gun. He ran in here, I'm sure of it, but he's... vanished."
"'Vanished'?" Batman had a reason to be confused. The ballroom was against the left side of the house, and there was only one entrance, the double-doors they came through. The back wall was completely windows, windows that didn't open and were filling the room with light from the sunset. There was no place to "vanish" to.
"Are you sure he ran in here?" Nightwing asked, eyes scanning the room.
Damian answered for them. "Yes. I blocked the way to the parlor, and Alfred was standing in the way of the library. Fa-Batman, we saw him go in here."
Those two rooms bordered the ballroom. If this—thief?—ran this way, the ballroom was his only option.
"I believe you," Batman put a gloved hand on the boy's shoulder. Damian needed the reassurance. He was a mess when Bruce told him he couldn't be Robin, even if it was only until he healed up. It was a difficult for him mainly because his father didn't just mean physically, he meant mentally, too. And that took time, time he could spend ignoring all the hurt and pain he carried by smashing faces in for justice and letting all those emotions get bottled up into a tight painful weight that clung to his soul in a vice-like grip and slowly destroyed him. Or something like that; Tim didn't know. Anyway, it was hard for Damian right now.
"Even so," Red Hood said, walking the perimeter of the room, "he isn't here. Which means he's either escaped an inescapable room, or he was never here."
"He was!" Damian protested. The breathiness in his tone was a good indicator that he was about to have another fit. He'd been having a lot of those since he came back; the frustration would morph into many different emotions before ending in panic. Alfred walked over quickly and pulled the boy against his side. "I swear I saw him!"
"You saw what you thought was a man run in here," Red Robin backed Hood, but kept his tone gentle. "He might have been an illusionist and could make it look like he ran in here."
Nightwing nodded. "Wouldn't be the first one we've come across. Batman?"
Batman had a deep frown showing below his mask. "An illusionist who's managed to get us all in the same place."
As if on cue, the doors slammed shut.