Disclaimer:I do not own Young Justice
Episodes reaction: I always seem to be commenting on the episodes that were aired so I decide it will get its own section lol. Anyways, is anyone else annoyed by how useless Robin seems in the Young Justice series? I mean despite the fact that he's the most experienced of the group he always seems to be losing his fights. He's not even in a third of the series! He seems to be a glorified door opener for the team. *sigh*
AN: Yeah…so this is kind of a sequel to Mother's Wings, but you don't really need to read it if you don't want. I just might reference a couple of things form there. So there is some kind of pre-established relationship between Conner and Dick, just so you know, but I don't think this story will be focused on it really. Maybe, depends how its all flows.
-G-o-t-h-a-m- -C-i-t-y-
The sound of rushing water could be heard when you entered the large room. Aside from the unmade king side bed pressed against the center of the left wall, the room was in perfect order. All the drawers were pushed in, all the pens and pencils in their respective cups on the desk, there wasn't even any loose articles of clothing laying on the floor. It was hard to believe that this room belonged to a teenage boy. More like some middle age neat freak, especially since the large flat screen opposite of the bed was currently settled on the news instead of something more artificial. The two anchors were chatting without any words as the green MUTE sign floated in the lower right hand corner.
Steam seeped into the room as it accompanied a young, dark haired male. Around his waist there hung a white terry cloth towel while a second was currently being used to dry off his hair. As ice blue eyes focused on the television screen, he let the towel drop to his shoulder. The fact that it was one mute didn't deter the male from watching. The two anchors were chatting about some sort of new product that might prove to be dangerous to children. It wasn't all that interesting, he was about to find the remote to turn it off when suddenly they all tensed. One of the anchor's reached up and grabbed onto the small headphone in his ear. His face serious as his co-anchor stares at him. The dark haired male watched the man's lips with a new interest.
"This just in! There has been a prison break at Bla-" The screen turned off with a blup, startlingly the young man. Looking around for the source, he noticed a familiar frown directed at him from his doorway. One that was holding on to the remote. Sheepishly, the raven rubbed the back of his neck and smiled guilty.
"Hey Alfred"
"Master Richard. What have I told both you and Master Bruce one several occasions?" Alfred asked as he placed the remote down on the dresser that it was perfectly parallel. "No watching the News first before school or work. You two will never be able to concentrate and the Dynamic Duo do not do mornings. Now hurry up or you'll be late for class."
Dick laughed and held up his hands in surrender to his guardian's guardian. "Alright, alright. I get it already. I'll get ready now."
Satisfied that the young man would no longer be distracted, the elderly butler left the room. With a sigh and a longing look at the black screen, the young millionaire got dressed for the most boring part of his life: school. He assembled his school uniform easily, having long ago set a routine to minimize the time it took. Richard Grayson was anything but inefficient. He grabbed his jacket and ran out the door. Seeing the banister up ahead, he quickly slipped into the blazer and took a running jump. He slid down the railing, flipping off right before he could crash into the thick wooden ornament that decorated the ends. As he stuck the landing, his stuck his arms out like a Olympic gymnast.
"I'd give it a 9 sir." Alfred said as he slipped the other's backpack on through his outstretched arms.
"A 9?" Robin asked incredulously, lowering his arms and grabbing onto the strap of the back. "Did you not see that amazing take off?"
"The landing was a bit premature." Voicing his own opinion with a grin, Bruce Wayne walked into the foyer.
Alfred nodded. "My thoughts exactly, sir."
"Everyone's a critic." Richard mumbled, before returning his attention to the others. "What are you still doing here? You're usually at work by now."
Bruce shrugged his shoulder. "I have a meeting so I thought I'd ride with you. Or would that be to embarrassing at your age?"
"Seriously?" Richard asked, his excitement showing. Between school, clubs, work, parties, the League, Young Justice, and being Gotham's Batman and Robin, Dick rarely had any time to hang out with Bruce. As they both headed towards the limo together, they talked about all sorts of random things that had absolutely nothing to do with them. Just as they were on the topic of a new movie coming out, the driver pulled them off the estate and into a sea of people.
Both males tensed as the reporters swarmed the vehicle, rapping against the windows as they yelled at the top of their lungs. One or two reporters weren't an uncommon sight at the front of Wayne Manor, but this was ridiculous. With an affirmative nod for his adoptive son, Bruce rolled down one of the windows and several arms stuck themselves through.
"RICHARD GRAYSON! WHAT IS YOUR REACTION TO THIS NEWS?"
"BRUCE WAYNE, WHAT SORT OF ACTIONS WILL YOU BE TAKING?"
"HOW DOSE IT FEEL KNOWING YOUR PARENTS' MURDERER HAS ESCAPED?"
At first the jumble of words and shouts made no sense to the two, but everything was starting to make sense.
"W-what did you just say?" Dick asked, paling quite visibly.
"You mean you didn't hear? Tony Zucco has escaped from Blackgate Penitentiary this morning!"
"Take us back!" Bruce barked at the driver, rolling up the window much to the protest of the reporters. The car back up immediately, getting as far away from the reporters as possible. The short drive to the porch was silent as Dick tried to process what he just heard. How could this happen? This wasn't real.
"Richard." Bruce said softly, as he touched his ward's shoulder. Dick looked up and saw that at some point the limo had stopped and Bruce had opened his door. "Go inside, Richard. I'll take care of this. Do you understand me? Everything will be okay."
Out of reflex, he nodded but there was no real feeling behind it. He allowed himself to be ushered over to Alfred who took him to his room.
How does it feel knowing your parents' murder has escaped?
'Cold.' He thought as he buried himself into his blankets, unsure of when exactly he had gotten into the bed. 'I feel cold.'
-M-t.-J-u-s-t-i-c-e-
"Conner," Aqualad called out as he poked his head into the training room, unsure if the other male was there or not. The clank of metal being set down, notified the Atlantian that the clone was indeed there. "Batman has called an emergency meeting for the entire team. Wally and Artemis are on their way."
Superboy frowned as he grabbed the towel that way lying beside him, wiping the sweat from his face before swinging it over his shoulder. "But Robin's not here."
"Perhaps he too in on route. I am not sure, Batman may have the answer for you. I just know that we are needed right away."
Conner nodded his understanding and followed his leader out the door, they made a stop at the kitchen and picked up M'gann. At some point the entrance announced the arrival of Kid Flash and Artemis. They greeted each other warmly, and made their way towards the conference area. The large blue tinted holographic screen already had the blown up face of the dark knight staring down at them.
"Dude, are you calling us from the Batcave?" Kid Flash asked excitedly as he noticed the scenery around Batman. Or rather, the lack of. All the group could see was a few stone walls and darkness, not exactly the most human friendly background. But the guy was called Batman for a reason.
"Shut up Wally." Artemis scowled, hitting the red head. Hard.
"Ow~" He whined as he rubbed his arm. Aqualad stepped in between the two in order for them to stop squabbling.
"You said you have a mission for us?" He asked loudly, subtly telling the arguing two to pay attention.
Batman ignored the two who were sheepishly rubbing the back of their necks and focused on their leader.
"…yes. This," the profile of an older man appeared as the video of batman shrank in size and moved over to the far left corner, "is Tony Zucco. The head of a powerful mafia and had in a hand in a lot of shady dealings. Problem was that no one could pin anything on him. Evidence kept disappearing and witness never stood up. It wasn't until four years ago that they were able to finally pin him down with something. He was sent to Blackgate Penitentiary for two consecutive life sentences for the Grayson murders. And now he has escaped."
"I do not mean to be rude Batman," Aqualad interrupted as he looked at the video link of their team's boss. "But this does not seem like a league problem. Would this not be a matter for the Gotham police to handle?"
The dark knight stared silently at the team, causing them all to become suddenly nervous. After a long pause, he finally spoke to them. "Yes. But the target you are going to apprehend is not Zucco." He turned away, pushing a couple of buttons. The holographic monitored soon became clustered with newspaper clippings and amateurish photos. A league styled profile pop up on top of the previous images, causing the group to stare in shocked horror.
"You got to be kidding me." Kid Flash said as he stared at an all too familiar face. "You want us to capture…"
"Robin." Superboy said quietly as he reached out to touch the image of the youngest member of their team.
Batman nodded solemnly.
-E-l-s-e-w-h-e-r-e-
Robin pulled the binoculars away from his eyes, but continued to stare down at the man who had "created" him. It was still bright, though most of the street was deserted. But the Boy Wonder knew better to leave anything to chance as he hid in the shadows of the roof. He watched as the man he hated about all else shake hands with the owner of the club behind them. He continued to keep his eyes focused on the two until they retreated into the closed building.
How easy it would be to do this. The thought should have scared him, but Robin found himself completely numb. With three consecutive life sentences, he never thought that he would have to face this bastard again. No, that was a lie. He often thought about facing the one who had broken him so long ago. But he had always been calm when he thought about it, because this monster wasn't worth his anger, his hatred. He always had Bruce by his side in these scenarios and more recently, Conner was there as well. But now he was standing alone on the roof, readying himself for the confrontation of his life time.
They wouldn't understand.
He had to do this.
They wouldn't understand.
He couldn't let this happen again.
They wouldn't understand.
And they would hate him for this.
He felt something inside him waver as he thought of the reaction he would get from his teammates. But now was not the time for this. It was already too late. He slipped his fingers into one of the many contraptions of his belt and pulled out a photo. The face of the smiley girl within it steeled his resolve. He would this even if he became hated, even if it turned his friends against him, turned his father against him.
It was all so ironic. Robin was supposed to be the "light" to Batman's "dark". Yet here he was, about to do something darker than anything that Batman had ever done. Could he return to being that light after all this was done? Probably not. Even now after all the years of living in Gotham and fighting some of the most disturbing people in the world, it was getting harder to be "Robin". Maybe he would need to take a new name. But now was not the time to think about that.
Now he needed to wait for the sun to set, he needed to wait for the night to come. Then he would begin.
AN: Hmmm, probably the longest chapter I have ever written. I think my writing has improved quite a bit since Mother's Wings, but many it's just me. Anyways, please review and don't just favorite/Alert it. Because you can always unfavorite/Alert it, but you can't unreview something. Besides, reviews made me giggle and squeal like a fangirl.