Marty's Bar
Robin hadn't the foggiest idea where Marty's Bar was, but a quick search of the internet found him an address. He brought the R-cycle, though he suspected they would have to walk home. If Nightwing was as inebriated as he sounded, he'd never be able to stay on a motorcycle.
Robin found the bar mostly empty, save the bar tender and Nightwing, who was leaning heavily on the bar and slowly scooting an empty glass around, sometimes stopping to giggle to himself.
"I thought I told you to go home," Robin said "what the hell are you doing here?,"
"Drinking," Nightwing replied sluggishly.
"I see that," Robin took the glass away before Nightwing shoved it off the edge and broke it "do you have any idea what Batman will have to say about this?,"
"What he doesn'... know... won' hurt him none, right?,"
"You think he won't notice the hangover you're bound to have in the morning?. Or you staggering into the house smelling like... a bar?,"
The bar tender was standing at a discreet distance, but was clearly listening. Robin decided to get Nightwing out of here before either of them said anything compromising.
"Come on. Get up," he took Nightwing by the arm and dragged him to his feet, whereupon Nightwing almost immediately did a face plant onto the floor.
Robin caught him, and threw his brother's arm over his shoulder. Nightwing leaned heavily on him and he staggered slightly with the weight. They weaved their way out the door, where Robin resumed the interrogation.
"What's gotten into you?. Sure you lost the fight, and nearly your life, but that's no reason to go drown yourself in alcohol. You know better,"
"That's... what I like about... you. Always... lookin' for... out for... the um... my... person... or something like that... anyway,"
"Your breath stinks," Robin said "seriously, what were you thinking?,"
"I was thinking... it was fun," Nightwing replied "and you know what?... it was,"
"Say that again in the morning," Robin didn't even try to guide Nightwing towards the R-cycle.
He'd come back for it after he got Nightwing home. He aimed Nightwing for home. Getting up onto the sidewalk was a challenge, since being drunk seemed to have liberated Nightwing of his understanding of curbs as well as his sense of balance.
Batcave
They did, eventually, manage to make their way home. Nightwing did have to stop and throw up a couple of times, an activity he seemed to find unusually entertaining. By the time they got home, he was evidently not feeling so spiffy as he had earlier.
"Alright, sit down. Right here," Robin guided Nightwing into a chair "now, you stay. I hear coffee is a good idea in these situations. I may be wrong, I don't know. This hasn't really... come up in my training before now,"
"S.. sure... you go. I'll stay. Ooh... pretty birdy,"
"Right... Dixie," Robin paused, thinking.
Nightwing seemed a little more sober now, but he and Dixie had never hit it off. There was no telling what might happen if Robin left the two of them alone. But if he took the parrot up into the mansion, she would probably set to squealing and wake up Alfred and Bruce.
He decided to take her with him, half hoping she would scream and thus lift the responsibility from him. He both did and did not want Bruce to know about Nightwing's drinking. On the one hand, Bruce should know, because it could easily be a real problem. On the other hand, Robin didn't want Nightwing to get into trouble and he really didn't want to see his brother and father fight.
"Come on, Dix," he said.
"Three blind mice. Three blind mice," She squawked, climbing delicately onto his arm
"Yeah, yeah,"
A short time later, Nightwing had consumed the cup of coffee under the watchful eyes of Robin and Dixie. During that time, Robin had tried various tactics of conversation to figure out exactly why Nightwing had chosen to get drunk in the first place.
Finally giving up, he took the empty cup from Nightwing and set it on the desk.
"Come on, up to bed. We'll talk about it in the morning... or afternoon, as the case may be," Robin said wearily.
"Don't tell me what to do,"
"Oh we're doing this now?," Robin sighed "you're gonna be a mean drunk now?,"
"Lay off me," Nightwing growled.
"What?. You're going to sit down here all night?,"
"Maybe," Nightwing replied sourly "what are you going to do about it?,"
"Nothing," Robin replied "nothing whatsoever. I've done what I can. Now I'm tired, and I'm going to bed. You can stay down here and wait for Bruce to get up and then fight with him if you like,"
"Fight!. Fight!," Dixie yelled suddenly, sensing the tension between the two.
"Shut up, you damn bird!," Nightwing snarled, then turned on Robin "that's you!. Always giving up easy!. Hand your problems over to daddy and he'll make them go away!. You've never had an original thought in your life, have you!?,"
"Don't," Robin warned "not right now,"
"Why not!?. Think I'll hurt your feelings, Robin?. Ha!. Even Robin's a hand-me-down!. A name I thought up when I was nine!," Nightwing spat.
"Nightwing, please,"
"Nightwing, please," Nightwing snorted "you know what?. Nightwing's a pretty stupid name too. I've got a better one,"
Robin opened his mouth to say something, but then thought better of it.
"Shikra," Nightwing said "you know what that is?. It's a bird of prey, not very big. But it hunts birds as big as it is. I'm sure it eats robins for breakfast,"
"Really?," Robin shook his head "that's really nice. I'm sure you'll be happy with your new name. As for me, I kind of like the one I have,"
He turned his back and started walking towards the stairs. He might have made it, except that Dixie suddenly took it into her head to fly off his shoulder and right for Nightwing. Robin turned in time to see Nightwing catch her by the chest, and to take in the look of wrath in his dark eyes.
Dixie screamed and flapped her wings, biting at Nightwing's gloves to no avail.
"You and your stupid parrot,"
"Let. Her. Go," Robin growled, his voice low.
"Or what?. You couldn't stop me if you wanted to,"
"Maybe not, but I can sure try and beat the hell out of you if you don't,"
There was a dangerous light in Nightwing's eyes. One Robin hadn't seen in some time, and had hoped to never see again as long as he lived. For a moment, he feared Nightwing would simply crush the life from the parrot right before his eyes. Instead, he suddenly let her go. As Dixie floundered through the air, Nightwing lunged for Robin. Robin hadn't anticipated this and anyway Nightwing was faster than he was.
Nightwing plowed into him like a ton of bricks. As Robin was going down, Nightwing kneed him in the stomach. He fell, only to be kicked in the ribs repeatedly.
Dixie, terrified but also infuriated to see Robin being attacked, flew at Nightwing's head. She grabbed at him with sharp claws, beating at his face with her wings. Nightwing lashed out with one hand. He struck the parrot and she reeled backwards, falling from the air like a stone and crumpling to the floor.
"Bastard!," Robin shouted "why did you do that?,"
He started to get up to go and check on his pet, but Nightwing kicked him in the face and he was driven back to the floor. A second kick and the lights went out.
Nightwing, Shikra, looked down at the bird. He was tempted to make sure it was dead. He then looked at Robin, equally tempted to end the little brat's life too. But instead he climbed the stairs, found a bottle of wine and sat himself down in the living room with a glass and the tv remote.
Smiling to himself, Shikra turned on the tv and watched the late night programs. He had a couple of hours to kill before Bruce got up, and it would be longer still before the morning news.
He sipped the wine and began to consider his next move.
Wayne Manor
07:30 AM
"My, aren't we up early this morning?," Bruce was startled to find that Dick was not only up and in full Nightwing costume, but he was sitting on the couch with his feet on the coffee table, holding a glass of wine and staring at the television, which was showing an infomercial.
He looked up at Bruce, and there was a dangerous look in his eyes. A strange look, one Bruce had never seen on his face before.
"Off to watch some poor kid's parents get killed in front of him?. That is what you do best, isn't it?," the words stung, but they were so unlike Nightwing that Bruce wasn't sure how to respond.
Instead of answering, he instead picked up the bottle of wine on the coffee table. It seemed to be mostly full, maybe Nightwing hadn't been at this... whatever he was doing... for long.
"What do you think you're doing?," Bruce demanded, shaking the bottle.
"Put it down, Bruce," Nightwing said, his voice low "and, for the record, I know exactly what I'm doing. For the first time in my life,"
"What are you talking about?," Bruce asked.
"Do you think I didn't notice?," Nightwing growled, slowly getting to his feet and setting the empty glass on the table "that I couldn't see the truth?,"
"I don't follow," in truth, he did, but he hoped he was wrong.
"Don't lie to me," Nightwing spat "you knew there was danger!. You knew someone would try to kill them, but did you do anything about it?. No. You sat in the audience, pretending nothing was wrong. And now they're dead!. You got what you wanted. You always do,"
"Dick...," Bruce was shaking his head, but Nightwing interrupted.
"No!. I've had enough. You can't tell me you didn't want a companion. Company in your lonely life. Someone who could truly share your pain. And when I outgrew you, you went off and found another and did the same thing to him. Just sat back and watched while his whole world was destroyed!,"
Bruce had always been afraid that Nightwing harbored these feelings towards him, but never had the courage to ask. Now the words were said, and they seemed wrong. It wasn't something Nightwing would say. Not under ordinary circumstances.
"What's wrong with you?," Bruce asked.
"Wrong?. With me?. Everyone thinks something's wrong with me!. Well get this, old man, I'm fine!. There's nothing wrong with me!. Except you!. You and your damn crusade!. I hate it!. I'm sick to death of it!. And I'm done,"
Bruce opened his mouth to respond to Nightwing's outburst, but there was a sudden loud cry from the direction of the secret entrance to the batcave. The noise had evidently woken Dixie. Bruce decided to go and check on her, maybe give himself and Nightwing a few seconds to cool off.
"I'm going to go see to the bird,"
"Yeah. You do that. I'm out of here," Nightwing blew past him, going out the front door and disappearing into the still dark morning.
Shaking his head in bewilderment, Bruce went down to the batcave.
"Thief!. Thief!. Thief!," Dixie was at the head of the stairs, screaming her little head off.
On seeing Bruce, she broke off mid-word with a squawk and scurried down the stairs, wings waving above her head. Bruce followed the bird with his eyes as she hopped down each step, which looked like an exhausting process which would be easily avoided if she would just fly. But Dixie seemed to avoid flying whenever possible.
A low moan distracted Bruce. At once he came down the stairs, barreling past the startled parrot, who took to the air and resumed her cry of "Thief!. Thief!,"
"Robin!," Bruce knelt beside the boy and ran a hand over him to check for broken bones.
Bruce turned him over on his back and Robin's eyes half opened and rolled. He moaned again, but didn't actually respond. Dried blood covered the left side of his face. Bruce put his arms under the boy and carried him up the stairs to the living room couch so he could get a better look at the wounded Robin. Dixie flapped after him.
She alighted on the mantel where she took up a new cry.
"Shikra!. Shikra!. Shikra!," she shouted, looking around the room with wild eyes.
All the noise woke Alfred. At Bruce's request, he went to get a towel and some warm water so Bruce could clean the wound on Robin's face and see how bad it really was.
A/N on Reinvention: Unlike part 2, part 3 was actually somewhat planned. As soon as I decided that Robin would be injected, I knew the story would go on much longer. I was somewhat afraid of exceeding my 20k word limit, for fear of getting bored and not finishing the story. It's much easier to finish a story after you're bored if you've only got a few thousand words to go.
I was actually very lazy with the prologue, which was written for a story I never got around to. It was one of my many failures to write after creating my mountain of gold story. I realized that this story was going to be vaguely horror, and the prologue was definitely that. A few tweaks and the addition of some scenes actually involving the Team and it was good to go.
As with most horror stories, there's very little depth in this one. Regular guy turns into monster and starts killing things. Initially, Robin was going to turn into a Velociraptor, more or less. But that seemed slightly stupid. He was supposed to be more advanced than the misshapen monsters they'd been fighting. A dinosaur seemed a step in the wrong direction and also not really all that scary. And so I added a few features, leaving the most deadly aspects of the Velociraptor intact while adding things which might make it more frightening.
At first, Robin in his monster form was going to be that which frightened the wolves. But, as the story developed, that made less and less sense until I finally realized that Nightwing would have to become a beast too. That's right, all he was supposed to have was the mental connection. The dragon was a last-minute addition. I thought of maybe having him be virtually the same as Robin, but decided against it, actually at the last second.
When Superboy encounters Robin in the woods, that was actually going to be Nightwing. Right up until it's revealed in the story, I had fully intended for it to be Nightwing. But then it hit me, shape-shifters. I could metaphorically kill two birds with one stone. There could be a cure and also that would make them much scarier, especially when you consider that the next step would be to have them shape-shift into people (yeah, so I started stealing from the box of existing comics, but it's not like the comic writers haven't already done that so I can't feel too badly).
I briefly toyed with the idea of writing a fourth part of the story before Nightwing got returned to normal, but by then I had another plot idea entirely and knew I would soon be quite bored with this one.
Halfway through writing this story, I became sick, and was still sick until about a quarter of the way through part 4. The effect was, of course, that this suddenly seemed like the most fantastic story I had ever written. Once I recovered, I recognized it for what it is: extremely dumb. But by then the story was all finished, so I didn't have to think about how devastatingly absurd it was for Nightwing to be a dragon or for the cure to be found in the dragon's bite.
Having finished my horror/fantasy... thing, I went for something a touch more grounded in reality.
Interestingly enough, while I hold Reinvention up as the weakest part of the series, many people have told me that it's their favorite part. Isn't that always the way?. The author becomes popular for the book they think was their worst.
