Baby Bird
(Disclaimer: All characters are the property of DC Comics.)
(Author's Note: This is part of a larger story involving the re-formation of Young Justice in the Batman Beyond universe. It's essentially Animated Continuity with some elements from the comics.)
Toby Drake came home from school
like he always did, running from the bus stop like he was flying. Today was the
day, the day he'd been waiting for, the day he'd been born for. Today he would
finally—
His dad was waiting for him in the
living room.
Toby stopped short, his heart
pounding. His dad never came home this early. Not unless something was
wrong . . .
Oh, no.
"I want to talk to you, son," Tim
Drake said, his voice grave.
"What did I—"
"Close the door first."
Toby went back and shut the front
door, his mind racing. What could his dad need to talk to him about? His grades
were fine—better than average, in fact—he hadn't gotten into any trouble . . .
Oh, NO . . . it couldn't be. He
couldn't have found . . .
His dad ushered him into the study,
a dark-paneled room Toby was usually forbidden to enter. When he saw the item
sitting on the desk, he knew what this was all about.
Dad had found out.
"Your mother was putting your laundry
away," Tim began, "and she found this."
Toby said nothing.
"Well? Do you care to explain where
it came from?"
"Dad, I . . ." Toby started, and
found that he couldn't finish the sentence.
"Never mind, I know where it came
from. He had no right to do this to you."
Toby suddenly found his voice. "You
don't know anything!"
His father looked angry. "What
did you say?"
"Nobody forced me to do this! I had
to talk him into it, and it took forever! I made that suit myself!"
"You made it?" Tim looked at it
closely. It looked like his old Robin costume, all right, but the design had
been updated slightly. It looked sleeker, darker. Magnetic shielding, high-tech
weaponry. A mask that extended over the wearer's head for extra protection. And
it looked like the collar had a built-in mike. Nice. Much better than his old—
What was he thinking? There was no
way he could let Toby out on the streets! He was only thirteen! It was too
dangerous . . .
You were only thirteen.
Yeah, and look what happened.
Toby was sitting there, expectantly.
Tim didn't know what to say to him. His anger had melted away, leaving . . .
regret? Nostalgia?
"Listen, Tobe, I'll have to talk to
your mom about this . . ."
"I have a meeting tonight."
"You what?"
Toby knew he was in for it now.
"You and who else?"
"Um . . . we're kind of trying to
re-form Young Justice."
"Who is? Who else is involved in
this?"
Toby didn't want to tell. He knew
the first thing Dad would do would be to get on the phone and call everyone's
parents. (Most of whom he already knew.) He didn't want to get everyone in
trouble.
"Toby? I'm waiting."
Reluctantly, the boy muttered,
"Shana."
"That figures. She's just like her
dad." Shana Sandsmark was the daughter of the former Superboy and Wonder Girl,
and had taken on the mantle of the second Supergirl. "Who else?"
"Bobby Allen."
"Bobby? That's Iris' son, right?
Wally's grandson?"
"Yeah."
"Funny she married a man whose last
name was Allen," Tim muttered to himself. "Now we know where all those future
Flashes came from." (Author's note: see "Chain Lightning".)
"There's this girl who calls herself
the Sorceress. Nobody knows who she is."
"We can find out," said Tim. "That
it? That's quite a group."
"There's a couple more. Michael
Irons. He's built this amazing new Steel suit, you gotta see it. And Janet
Fries."
That last one caught Tim by
surprise. "Janet Fries?"
"Yeah, she's like his
great-grandniece or something. She's a metahuman—she actually generates cold
and ice. And she's kinda pretty, too." Toby blushed when he said that.
Tim chuckled at that. "I see. And
how long have you all been planning this?"
"A little over two months." Toby's
voice was barely more than a whisper.
"Two months?" Tim repeated
incredulously. "You've kept this a secret from us for two months?"
"I didn't tell you because I knew
you'd say no."
"Darn right I'd say no! Toby, it's
too dangerous out there! If something happens to you . . ."
"Nothing will happen," Toby said,
with the confidence of a teenager who thinks he'll live forever. "We'll all be
watching each other's backs."
"Yeah, I had plenty of people
watching my back, and I still . . ." Tim couldn't go on. He had never
told his son exactly how it had all ended for him, so many years ago. It wasn't
a tale for children. The thought of anything like that happening to his only
son filled Tim with horror. It was worse than losing him altogether.
"Dad?" Toby looked up at him,
concerned. "Are you okay?"
"I don't want you to do this," Tim
said. "It's not a game. Too many things could go wrong."
"I know that," the boy said. "I'll
be careful."
"You think you will," Tim said, and
his mind was not there, but was thirty-seven years in the past. "You train
hard, learn every possible way to take down a person, have all the Bat-gadgets
you could ever dream of, and the moment you let your guard down, just for one
second, that's it. It's all over."
"Dad," Toby said, and for a moment
he sounded much older than thirteen, "I hear what you're saying. You don't want
me to get hurt the way you did."
"I'd die if anything happened to
you, Tobes."
"You must have had some good times,
too. It couldn't have been all bad. What about the fun part? Why don't you ever
talk about that?"
Tim thought about that for a moment.
It had been fun, at the beginning. Soaring through the sky like he had wings.
Taking down the bad guys—one, two, three! He and Dick, perched on a rooftop, on
a stakeout . . .
"Have you thought," Dick asked him,
"about what you're going to do when you grow up?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, come on. I mean, you can't
wear the cape and tights forever."
"Why not?"
"Because you outgrow it. It's fun
for a kid, but you grow up and you realize there are other things in life that
you could be spending your time on. Like girls."
"Is that what happened to you? You
outgrew it?"
"Yeah, sort of." Dick shifted his
position, never taking his eyes off the building across the way.
"So why'd you come back?"
"Because . . ." Dick paused for a
long moment. "I guess it became such a part of me that I couldn't just walk
away. It's who I am now."
"Will you ever give it up forever?"
Dick was silent again. Then he said,
"I suppose I'll have to. We all have to, some day. One way or another."
One way or another . . . easy
for him to talk. He'd had a choice. He hadn't been forced out of it all of a
sudden like Tim had.
"Dad?" Toby said.
"Yeah, son. I'm just thinking."
"If you hadn't had to quit, would
you have gone on?"
Would he? If what happened hadn't
happened, how long would he have been Batman's partner? Eighteen? Twenty-one?
How long would the dream have lasted?
He had had a good time,
hadn't he? So what if it was only a couple of years? Dick was right: he
couldn't have gone on forever. And he had enjoyed it while it had lasted. In
spite of the way his career had ended, it had all been worth it.
Did he have the right to deny that
dream to his son?
"Okay," he said at last. "You can go
to your meeting. But we're going to have a long talk about it when you get
home." Toby couldn't believe
his ears. "Did you say . . . I could go?"
"Yeah, sure," Tim said, the hint of
a smile on his face. "Say hi to everyone for me."
Toby let out with a whoop that shook
the house. He took the suit and went to his room to change.
Tim sat there a while longer. Then,
without turning around, he said, "So how long have you been standing there?"
"Pretty much the whole time," his
wife said. "You knew I was there?"
"Hey, I was trained by the best."
She sat down in the chair that Toby
had recently vacated. "I didn't think you were going to let him go. You were
pretty upset about it this afternoon."
"I wasn't, but he . . . reminded me
of some things. The positive aspects of being Robin, that I'd forgotten."
"Such as?"
"Well . . ." He slipped an arm
around her shoulders. "If it hadn't been for Robin, I never would have met
you."
"That's true."
They were silent for a long time.
"I wasn't too hard on him, was I?"
Tim asked.
"No, I didn't think so. I remember
when my mom found my suit. She went ballistic, forbid me to ever wear it
again."
"Lucky for me you didn't listen to
her."
They heard an upstairs window open
and close.
"He could have used the front door."
"Part of the tradition," Tim
shrugged. "I never went out the front door."
"You think he'll be all right?"
Tim sighed. "He'll be fine. We had
to let him go sometime. He has to learn to make his own mistakes. Part of
growing up."
"Like a little baby bird," she said,
"flying the nest."
They laughed a little at that.
"Come on, Steph," Tim said. "Let's
go make some coffee."
High above the city, in the
darkening sky, a small form flew. He could have had jet propulsion units in his
boots, like the new Batman, but Toby liked the old-fashioned way better. There
was just something about swinging from rooftop to rooftop that felt right.
He was flying.
He was free.
He was Robin.