In His Footsteps
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman and/or any and/or all related concepts and/or characters. This are copyrighted to Bob Kane and Bill Finger(?). I am a mere Fanfiction writer with far to much time on her hands.
Genre: Romance/ General
Pairings: Timothy Drake (Robin III)/ Cassandra Cain (Batgirl II/III) with mentions of Bruce Wayne (Batman I)/ Selina Kyle (Catwoman)
There were no secrets in Gotham City that The Batman did not know. He knew the dirty slums and the highest cleanest mansions. He knew the preschools and the retirement homes. So for them to think they could hide their almost illicit romance from him by ingenuous means was almost insulting his intelligence.
He was tyrannical, fanatical about their Mission. The Mission came above all else; they were the only force the people of Gotham could trust. They were the Bat-family. No child would lose their parents like they had. No maniac was would be free to murder, pillage and rape as they had before the Batman appeared. If their blossoming relationship caused someone to die because they were too busy doing other things they would be stripped of their masks. The Mission came above all else. No Joe Chill, no Tony Zucco, no Joker, no Two-Face, no David Cain, no Captain Boomerang would hurt the good citizens of Gotham or anywhere else; the sins of the past would not be repeated, not if the Bat-family could help it.
The Bat-family, a group of elite that he had handpicked, although some greater force had seemingly guided them to him, hand-trained and entrusted pieces of his Mission, his Gotham City, to; they were the caped, costumed volunteer police force of Gotham.
Yet he understood the romances that could spring up on the job, all too well. And his boys, Nightwing and Robin seemed to prefer dangerous women just as he did.
A flash of purple, deep luxuriant purple paced him and his lips twitched into a split second smile before he remembered she was a criminal and it was his job to bring her to justice.
Perhaps he would tonight.
---ON THE OTHER SIDE OF GOTHAM CITY---
Robin loomed over the streets below, perched delicately on a cracked stone gargoyle. Tonight was a lull-night as the most dangerous of Gotham's Rogues were safely locked away in their asylum cells. It was only petty crimes that were occurring that night but it was still his duty to stop them. Even the sight of the "Baby Bats", "The Brat Bats" or wherever else the criminal underbelly called the younger two of the Bat-family, the criminals were never unanimous on their nicknames, could still make even a B-List Rogue piss their pants. The A-Listers were too used to their meddling behavior now to be truly fearful. Unless they hurt the Baby Bats, then Papa Bat was never far behind.
Tim did not know what he would do once he out-grew the Robin role, only that that event was soon approaching. He teetered on the edge of adulthood and he had no idea of his future as a solo vigilante. Nightwing had done it; growing from being the first Robin to the first Nightwing.
The scent of lilies invaded his sharply trained nostrils. He set the grapple line automatically; it was anchored to an adjacent building. Without hesitation he leapt from his ledge, swinging through the sky over the bustling street below and met his similarly costumed vigilante girlfriend midway. Her anchor had been set in his former perch and so when they met their lines twirled together, letting them press close and share a kiss before the lines began to unwind and they continued their swings. They landed, their grappling guns retracting their lines automatically before they fled to the alley between the first building a its neighbor. The isolation made it a perfect place for a rendezvous. Their evasion of Batman only made their meets more exciting. Once arriving he looked around with much perplexity before a slim but strong arm pulled him from the dim light into the shadows afforded by a large dumpster. Batgirl could be a seductive little chameleon when she wanted to be, putting the skills she had learned from both her assassin father and Batman to much more pleasurable uses than crime-fighting.
She had him to the wall, her tormenting touch already causing him to teeter. Denied verbal language by David Cain, the foremost assassin in the world and her father, Cassandra Cain had instead grown up with body language being her language. She could read someone's movements and thus intentions like Tim could read a book.
And it made her all the more deadly. Batman had tried his best to wash the more malignant parts of her Spartan upraising and training away but some parts he wanted to stick. This gift of hers, to read the body, was one of those parts he wanted to stay and so it had.
His mind said he should quibble with the fact that The Big Bat may find them but her tongue stroking his lips as they kissed ended the moral debate that warred within him.
They were well acquainted with eachother's bodies, sparring together and administering first aid upon each other when required had assured that and so it was no time before they had progressed quite far in their 'underage delinquency' but seconds before they started the act a large shadow loomed on the wall.
They looked to each other in mortal terror before righting their clothes and fleeing in opposite directions.
---ON THE ROOF ABOVE THE ALLEY---
The Huntress dropped her spread arms and cape, smirking. She could do a pretty spot on impression of The Batman when she needed to, even though she thought his no killing rule was outdated.
It may have been after hours and they may have not been her students but Huntress, at her core, was a teacher. And a teacher's job was to guide kids into the best possible futures for them. So if she needed to use the image of an elder vigilante as a scare tactic to stop to hormonal teenagers from possibly making the worst mistake of their young lives then so be it.
She sighed, her face falling into pursed lips, and turned away to continue her rounds just as the Bat-light lit up the sky.
END