The towers of Neo-Gotham were glittering. Light came flooding out of spire windows and bounced back from the grey sky. It came through fog and sleet and reflected back from wet cement. It was bright and cold, and for every bit of cheer, there was two parts pain. This was Gotham after all.
Brian huddled in his dark green sweatshirt. He was small for his age; making his fifteen years look more like thirteen. It made it easier to get around on the fringes of the good neighborhoods. The parents there were less likely to look at him and instantly think troublemaker especially if he played the little boy lost card. The good neighborhoods always had more places you could get warm if you were careful. Their street lights weren't broken, the bus stops had roofs on the shelters, and if he was careful, Brian could sometimes get into one of the gardens where the climate was controlled so the plants wouldn't freeze during the winter.
Today was one of the good days. Brian had slipped into the biodome at the tail end of a group of soccer kids before sneaking into the more garden oriented section. In the summer the bushes he hid behind would be full of flowers, but for the time being, the area was clear. To be safe he kept on the move. The better neighborhoods meant better security as well as everything else. Around here, people actually cared if things got vandalized or if someone who didn't fit right stuck around too long. It didn't matter that this biodome was technically open to the public or that as long as he wasn't damaging public property or anything, he should have been allowed to stay. Still, there were a few things he could do to get people like that to leave him alone.
Brian headed for the greenhouse in the corner of the dome and slipped inside. Pulling a notebook out of his jacket, he sat on one of the overly large pots. Here he was able to relax. He would pretend to be working on a project for school if anyone asked and he could spend three maybe four hours in the amazing warmth the greenhouse provided. To keep his hands moving and add an element to his story, he picked out a plant and started sketching. The smoky red rose was curled around its trellis like it was trying to strangle it.
Matt routed his signal through three other countries before connecting back to the cave. He wasn't sure it was totally necessary since Mr. Wayne had dropped plenty of hints that he knew what the young Robin was up to, but it felt right all the same.
The adventure seven months ago hadn't been planned and it hadn't been repeated since then. For one week back in May, he had stolen the Robin costume and helped to save the city after the memories of Bruce, Terry, and Commissioner Gordon had been scrambled. It had been a desperate time leaving him the only one with full knowledge of the secret and then only because he had been secretly hacking into the Batcave using Terry's access before the misadventure. Everything had gotten fixed since then, and now he had his own access through the Robin account.
The only downside was that no one remembered what he had done. He had thought about telling them straight out; Forcing them to acknowledge him. But then he had pondered what would happen if something like that had happened again. This time there would be no safeguard left behind to remind everyone.
There were also everyone's protests to consider. Gordon had certainly been the loudest voice, but Mr. Wayne had only acquiesced because there wasn't really another option and Terry had already split by that point. And that as when he knew what was going on and they didn't. With things the other way around, there was no way they'd let him help.
After some consideration, Matt had decided to give himself as much training as possible and wait until he was needed again, or until he turned fifteen, whichever came first. Fifteen seems like a good age to step forward but he had a feeling he won't need to wait that long.
In the meantime, he read all the books that Terry brought home from work. He practiced Aikido and Judo at Kairi's dojo and convincing their mom to let that happen hadn't been easy. He practiced tumbling and other gymnastics, after school when his mom thought he was at the rec center.
Matt slipped into the crowds around Gotham University. It wasn't hard to tune one of the spare communicators to the campus security frequency. Once he knew their pattern he slipped into lecture halls and took notes on things he didn't have the background to understand, but tried to piece together anyway.
He spent time on simulators in the arcade, learning to drive and fly every vehicle he could, in as realistic a setting as he can manage. He knew there were some things he could only learn from Mr. Wayne, but he also knew that that time would come. After long days, Matt slipped into his room, turned on his stolen bat communicator, and settled in to learn a whole other list of wonders.
Sometimes people asked about the scar on his leg. The story changed depending on who was asking. Sometimes he crashed his bike. Sometimes he couldn't remember because it happened when he was little. Sometimes it happened as part of that story his mom likes to tell, about how he got attacked by a pelican at the beach and his dad fought it off. The story he doesn't tell is how he got it from a super-villain who was about to start torturing him. It doesn't bother him; Terry has scars he doesn't talk about too.
Robin is now part of him. A persona that had been internalized but that no one ever saw. He dreamed about the suit he would build for himself; discarding the decades-old hand-me-down that had been the only option last time around.
For now though, Robin was stuck watching from the sidelines as Batman got to throw all the punches. He followed patterns, stole files from the archives, and went over old cases - trying to find the flow of the detective work.
Matt finished his homework with the communicator propped up on one side of his desk. His mom had the late shift at the hospital tonight so he didn't have to hide it. She was taking the unfavorable shifts now so they'd be able to have Christmas together. With Terry's luck, someone would try to blow up the world that day but one could always hope.
Terry took down a pair of thieves who had no idea what they were doing if the feed from the communicator was to be believed. With homework done, Robin settled into his own work. According to statistics from the past few years, crime wouldn't spike until after New Years, when the cold had settled in and people were getting desperate. Right now the Christmas cheer was doing its job. There was something else that was bothering Robin though. It was hard to pin down, something about the weather, and the fact that even now after Thanksgiving, some of the trees on campus still held onto a few of their leaves. Temperatures were the highest they had been in seven years. Major crimes were down but minor crimes were up because of the meta-factor.
It was driving him nuts. He knew there was something there, but Matt couldn't seem to pin it down. There wasn't anything in the files either, he had gone through all of Mr. Wayne's active case files and nothing matched up with what he was seeing. Maybe that was what it was, him just seeing things. Maybe he was just grasping at straws and finding patterns where there were none. Maybe Mr. Wayne was seeing all the same things and already knew they meant nothing.
The phone rang and Robin pushed away from his computer to answer it, falling back into being Matt as he went. "Hello?" Robin's voice was steady, confident, even if he didn't have the depth yet, but Matt's voice was light and always mocking or whining or laughing, full of obvious emotion and easy to read. Matt was still a child who hadn't seen the worst the world had to offer.
"You should be asleep young man." His mom didn't bother with a greeting; she just started in on him.
"I was doing homework I swear."
"Oh really. Are you sure you weren't just on your computer playing games?"
"No, well, only a little, but I did work on my homework, promise."
On the other end of the line, his mom paused and he could almost see the look she would be giving him. Finally, she sighed. "Alright, but I expect you to go straight to bed after this. Is your brother home?"
"No, he called and said there was a mix up with the decorations for the Wayne Christmas party and he would be late." It had been a text and it had been from Bruce, or more likely, some automatic procedure of the Batcomputer, but Matt wasn't going to make a big deal about it.
"Alright," she didn't sound surprised. "You get to bed now, hear me? You don't want to be falling asleep when we go skating tomorrow."
He had forgotten about that. Ice-skating was a tradition; one that he had been looking forward to. "Right!" this time the excitement in his voice wasn't faked.
Brian woke to the sound of the greenhouse door rattling. It was dark outside and any excuse he might have used wouldn't be believed. A glance through the leaves showed a maintenance guy, probably doing one last sweep before locking up for the night.
Brian scrambled off the bench, abandoning his notebook in an attempt to find somewhere to hide. Something tugged at his attention, A vent, it's cover half overgrown with moss. It came free easily with the moss blunting any sharp edges. The inside of the vent should have been too small, but again, moss had covered the walls and made squeezing forward easier. He was nearly in when a hand caught at his ankle and dragged him back into the artificial light.
"What do you think you're doing brat. I should have you arrested." The maintenance man snarled. Brian just covered his head and tried to look small. The man half dragged him to the edge of the biodome, booting him out the door, and shouting at him to not come back.
Brian stumbled, tried to catch his breath and pushed himself up. He ran for a block and a half, keeping out of sight. when he slowed down, he pulled his coat tighter around his shoulders. He was hungry and cold after the warmth of the greenhouse, but it was nothing he wasn't used to.