Monsters and Heroes
By Nikoru-chan
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." – Nietzsche.
Disclaimer: The characters portrayed herein belong to DC, Warner Bros and whomever else. This does not include me. They are borrowed for the purpose of entertainment, and no profit is being made from this fanfiction.
NOTES:
A special thanks to Maggie, for bringing the above quote in its entirety to my attention. This fic – wherever the meandering plot goes – is all yours! (Oh, and my Muse said something about wanting to have a discussion with you about 'hijacking' **grin**. Not that said entity doesn't get tangential with me anyway – I wrote 'Music of the Heart' and 'Rainmaker' in Muse-related bursts of meandering inspiration.) Setting is not Twenty-verse. Not sure if it's cannon either, but that's probably a bit more reasonable, at least for the moment. Parts of the fic are set around the story arc presented in Robin 48-51, the Dava/Transbelvia story arc and other parts are more recent, after the onset of the 'Bruce Wayne, Murderer' storyline. More notes at the end to avoid excessive spoilers. (For the fic, not the comics)*********************
THEN
He really was quite . . . remarkable, even then. Brushing at his mind, I'd seen that he'd been doing this . . . well, not that long, but certainly long enough that he should have been jaded. A little cynical. The pure fire of his convictions a bit tarnished, even.
Except that he wasn't.
Even after he'd tried so hard to save a life, but lost anyway, he wasn't.
He honestly – get this – he honestly thought he could make a difference! Even out here, where war and brutality make cynics (if not martyrs) of even the non-heroes before they can speak.
Fingers – tendrils of thought – brushing his mind, I was startled to discover that his own home wasn't all that much different. War isn't declared there, but it exists with a magnificent underground savagery nonetheless. The perpetrators in his home wear colours rather than uniforms, carry handguns furtively rather than openly as here, but they are the same. Monsters of a different coat, but similar core, these 'drug-runners' and 'street-gangs' of his home are to the local 'soldiers' and 'rebels'. All sides bloodstained. All sides guilty.
To be honest, I'd long since washed my hands of them here. There's a limit to what even a Knight can do, especially when he himself is as blood-stained as the rest. At least I can claim simple need behind my own slaughters, rather than pure idiocy. Idiocy is hate personified, acted upon. For people here it is a way of life.
That realisation was a bitter one. But then, so is this conflict. A centuries-long farce of violence. I don't even remember how it began, and the two sides, unsurprisingly, cannot agree on an origin.
I became a monster fighting it, though. Through desperation, anger . . . call it what you will. The proud, noble Knight battled off invaders, kept his kingdom whole.
Came home to find it a charnel house.
That was what broke me. That, and . . . never mind. It remains that my own killings, product of my physical state, did not make the fiend I am out of the hero I was. The constant battle against foes, enemies themselves too monstrous to bear, did that. Corrupted my soul, sharpened the blade of my heart with anguish, honed it to the point where I sliced even myself to ribbons.
There was another like me, though on a much more personal crusade. His war fought with – and for – one woman. He perished eventually. It is a comforting thought.
But the boy, dressed as spring's messenger, awoke in my apathy a spark of interest. He came, of course, for a girl. They always do.
He helped her, she drugged him. I wasn't too interested at this stage, I must admit. But then he killed the other woman.
And saved her, brought her back. He despised her, but wouldn't leave her for dead. That piqued my interest. Ethics? Morals? Here, of all places? That was when I looked more closely at his mind, at his soul.
His thoughts are ambrosial. His heart, for a miracle, pure despite it's concerns.
He has fought monsters, both human-seeming and those obviously other. Sometimes won, sometimes not. He fought Fate, trying to save that boy from drowning. . . the boy who was a known murderer. Such a contradiction, that lonely battle of his.
He left after aiding the girl he'd come for. But he didn't leave my thoughts.
Because he was exactly right, dressed as the first messenger of spring, the Robin of hope.
Because he came to help, tried his best, and left, wiser but not hopeless.
Because of my own reactions; furtively peeking into his mind, making sure he did not sense me, to wonder at the things he has seen and done that should have broken him . . . normally, were I curious, I would have plundered his head, completely unconcerned by the mental rape. I have fallen far from my own days of chivalry and heroism.
But he had not taken that first step, and I've enough of the Knight left in me that I will not be the one to force him to it.
He fights monsters with a purity of purpose, over and over. And still, he hasn't started to become one of them. I had thought the change inevitable. Oh, not physically as my Change was. But all heroes become monsters of the soul eventually. 'All'? Perhaps, just perhaps, with this boy . . . perhaps not all.
I stayed in his mind as long as I can, then, when he left, still unaware of my presence at all, I tried to forget about him. Forget this . . . aberration.
I cannot.
I will not.
I have left his mind, but he has not left my thoughts.
Enough. The decision is made.
I will make him mine. Preserve his hopeful voice for eternity, the hero with no taint of the monster in his soul.
Such a person could save the world at the final reckoning.
Such a person could save even me.
************************
ALMOST NOW
Finding a person in this new world that has developed while I wasn't paying attention is both simpler and more difficult than it ever was before. A glittering trail of data leads me to the boy's hometown, data I can move through as easily as a fish in a stream, courtesy of a travelling computer programmer whose mind I plundered even as I fed on his blood.
Does that make you squeamish? I do not care. Despite my pure origins, I remain a monster, a hero whose fall mirrors that of my namesake, Lucifer. Yes, as well as a past, this fiend has a name. Names give power, and take it away. With a name, a formless fear becomes solidified, real. Strong. But with a name, a known name, that fear can be researched, combated. Defeated.
The name of the one I search for is 'Robin'. It inspires hope, not fear. Because I know this, I know where to look. It is far, far from Transbelvia. And yet it will be homelike, I suspect. This ruined city, as damaged and torn as Tbliska. As ugly, desperate, and hopeless.
But not without it's own Knight, I discover. A being almost as shrouded in mystery as I myself am. Almost. But he is terrifying only to the guilty, this Dark Knight of Gotham. I am terrifying to all.
Even, sometimes, myself.
The boy's mind is sweet. When I arrive, I will have no trouble finding it again. A gem of hope amid the dusky squalor and despair. Mine.
Soon, boy. Soon.
Soon, Robin.
*************************************
NOW
He awoke, breathless, a light sheen of sweat covering his body. Looked around blankly, searching for the voice that had called his name in the grimy pre-dawn light. Someone had, he knew. It had sounded like a whispering caress, a breath next to his ear. Soon, Robin. It had been . . .a threat? Almost a promise, but of what he did not like to think. Yearning, fear, his reaction was confusing, and he'd awoken ready to demand an explanation from the eerie speaker.
But no one was there.
The threads he left over his windowsill were undisturbed – a simple trick, but a very effective one. He'd had no nocturnal visitors. At least, not in the one hour since I got back and fell into bed. One hour. Sheesh. Further sleep, Robin knew, would be impossible. The jittery wakefulness that possessed him now would not relinquish its grip easily. An hour before I have to get ready for school. He sighed, two hours sleep would have been really nice. Another sigh and he'd hauled himself out of his bed, already missing the warmth, and into a tracksuit.
A bit of exercise should be just the thing to soothe his jangled nerves.
Slipping down the stairs and out the front door, Robin sucked in a lungful of fresh air, enjoying the crispness, the almost preternatural stillness of the morning. This rare hour or so when the beasts of the night had crawled back into whatever holes they'd come from, and the day-walkers were yet to wake. One particular night creature stayed firmly in his thoughts as he began his stretches, ready for a jog. Bruce – Batman – where are you? What's going on? A burst of speed, and he was in the street, taking a pace far faster than he could reasonably expect to hold for any length of time. Running to, or from, something he couldn't quite tell.
The darkness. . . you've lived in it, heck you've lived *it* so long that it's scary. So long that it's started to live you. Bruce, you're changing. Have changed. And in a way that's frightening me. Heck, it's frightening all of us. But what scares me more is that I can see the shadows forming around Dick, around Babs . . . even around Steph for all that she doesn't take the whole vigilante thing seriously. I never worried about them before. Their shadows were never as dark as yours, and since you were handling it unchanged, well . . . But now I'm frightened. I'm scared for you, for them. I'm scared for me. Do I have my own darkness crowding in on me? What does it mean if I do?
With a start, Tim realised he'd reached the entrance to Wayne Manor. Stiff and locked, the once-welcoming gates were forbidding. The friendship, comradeship that had once resided behind them was gone. Tim was unsure if it'd ever come back.
Silently, he turned on his heel, heading back the way he'd come. School started soon, and he was yet to shower and breakfast.
******************************
When I see him he is as pure as ever. Matured, faceted, it seems as if every trial has simply chipped away rock to reveal more of the brilliant diamond beneath. He is a hero, burnished and polished by the monsters he faces, transmuted by them, but not into them.
Perfect.
And, soon, mine.
His mentor, on the other hand, is not. The forces working on him, the same darkness as batters the boy, have wrought very different results. The Dark Knight, this Batman, is flawed. The monsters shaping him have not simply revealed and honed his own nature (as I would have suspected, from what I saw of him in the boy's mind). They have fractured, warped him. Unlike his ward, this one has taken the first step onto the road of madness. More than that. He has walked a great distance along that path. He is almost as monstrous as the terrors he opposes. I doubt he'll ever be desperate enough to take the Change physically, for all that he's become tainted mentally. I doubt in this 'scientific' day and age he even thinks it possible. But who knows. He is a younger version of myself, in many ways.
The thought is horrifying.
Better to contemplate the boy. To think on that purity, to insert my mind ever so gently into his and drink of his emotions is as close to heaven as a monster such as myself will ever get.
I'll have him. Soon. And I'll never let him become like his mentor.
But it will take care, since his mentor is so . . . like me.
My original plan would have failed. I know that and do not berate myself for it. After all, 'soon' is a relative term. What are a few short years to an immortal?
*********************
The Bat, fool and madman that he is, wraps himself in his solitude this night as every other. Seeking to protect his heart, he does not realise how terribly, delightfully vulnerable this leaves the rest of his little coven.
Especially the fragile, perfect bird of spring. A small, red-breasted bird, flying alone through the city. He does not notice his mentor avoiding him, does not see the man halt his own movements to let the younger boy pass.
Both, however, notice when I snatch the Robin from under the Bat's very nose. This is intentional. The other Dark Knight, the one like myself, cares for the boy, and will keep him sheltered when I have . . . finished. This is good. He will be very frail, very vulnerable when I am done.
For a little while at least.
A few, short years.
His fists beat ineffectually at me, at my invulnerable-seeming skin. I feel his frustration rise as his martial techniques, more varied but as perfectly executed as any the girl in Transbelvia ever used, fail against me.
Frustration and fear. Good boy. He knows when he's in over his head, but it doesn't stop him from thinking, planning.
No, it is not the fear that does that. It is me.
I reach into his mind, and I shut him down.
He will remember none of this, at least, not until the right time comes.
The time when he comes into the gifts I have given him. When he realises what I have stolen in return. Then he will remember the look of the city, hundreds of meters below our floating feet, it's ugliness hidden in the fog and beauty of a million halogen lights. He will remember the teeth on his neck, the cold arms holding him immobile, the futility of his struggle.
He will remember the exquisite pain of the bite. The rapid pull of fading vitality, beating a furious counter-tempo to the slowing of his heart. The sudden chill of the air.
He will remember, in all it's glorious detail, the first taste of blood, rich, dark and fiery with his own heat. That initial mouthful, forced on him, the later swallows he greedily sought.
He will remember. And he will search me out.
He will save me.
The blood in him will move slowly, for I have willed it so. The changes will be gradual, so very subtle, that it will be impossible to pinpoint exactly when they started. He will be more than a boy, possibly more than a youth, when they are complete. A young man, physically in his prime. And few will notice how long he will stay that way. Just over the cusp of adulthood. When they do notice, this loving, caring 'Bat-family' of his, it will be far too late.
He will be mine.
For what is a monster, but a damaged soul? What am I, but a monster? A being fallen from grace. No, say rather dragged from grace, forced down by the very darkness I sought to combat. I have not got this boy's rare strength of spirit. But I do recognise it.
Gently I seal the wounds, rendering them invisible, and leave him breathing shallowly and rapidly on a rooftop. It is only an instant before my Dark Knight counterpart arrives, mere moments since I set this chain of events in motion. Irrevocable. Unforgivable. The work of a monster.
The Dark Knight checks his – for the moment I allow him to continue believing the boy is his - squire. Notes the unhealthy pallor and clammy skin, fluttering pulse. Mutters a curse as he wraps his own cape around the Robin. (The other yellow and black garment was in the way, covering his neck, so I had shredded it.)
Slackly unconscious, the boy's head lolls against his mentor's chest as the other picks him up, holding him with a guilty tenderness at odds with his insanity. The Knight fires a cable, swings across several rooftops. I follow him, as silent and invisible as only one of my kind who's really trying can be.
A clock tower, the building loaded with alarms. Carefully, the Knight sets down his precious burden and trips one of the electronic devices before fleeing. Seconds later another dark-clad man, this one younger but still tormented by his own shadows, springs onto the roof. A muffled cry, anguished, confirms his affection for the boy, and he scoops the limp figure into his arms, racing him inside, calling to the woman in the chair to contact others, a doctor and a friend. I am not worried. No doctor, no device can detect what has been done to him at this stage.
No mere human can tell that he's become an Offspring. That he's become mine.
Mine, but never a monster.
He will battle monsters, but never take their darkness into himself. That much I have frozen in him. He will develop, evolve, and change, but his purity will always remain. That is my gift. That is my curse. Whether it would have been so without my interference, who can say?
Wear it well, Robin. Named for hope, for the small bird with a huge heart, the one who joyously welcomes the warmth.
Hope springs eternal. And now, so do you. Even at the final reckoning, so do you.
END
NOTES:
Okay, as should be obvious, there's a fair amount of Dracula lore in this fic (and he's even referred to, though not by name). Kudos and apologies to Mr. Stoker. A lot of the vampire lore, however, has been changed to suit my plot (delayed onset vampirism, anyone?), but still, no prizes for guessing what I read recently.
Thanks again to Maggie for the quote. The other half of it is currently cooking away in my brain, and may make an appearance soon, either as a stand-alone ficlet, or in the Twenty-verse series. Not sure yet.