Well what do you know, you guys came back!
*ten people tied to chairs with tape over their mouths struggle*
Me: *laughs manically* Anyway, seeing as though you're going to be here until I finish, you wanna read what I wrote?
*hostages shake heads vigorously*
Me: Oh, well, then you want the acid vats right away?
*hostages shake heads vigorously*
Me: WELL THEN ON WITH THE CHAPTER!
One of the captives: *muffled* Are there no other options?
Me: Sorry, couldn't hear you, dear. You seem to have something over your mouth. SO LET'S GO ON THIS MAGICAL, MANIACAL JOURNEY TOGETHER .
*begins evil laughter again* *coughs harshly*
Autonomy - freedom from external control or influence; independence. Synonyms: self-rule, sovereignty, freedom.
Rachel looked up in alarm as the computer made a sequence of loud beeps before becoming quiet and pulling up a radio frequency.
"Dispatch, we have a 211 in progress at Gotham Bank and Trust. Possible 10-14. Suspect is reported as a white male, middle 30's to 40's, black and grey hair, 230 to 250 pounds. No identifying marks. Suspect should be considered armed and dangerous. Proceed with caution."
Bruce was up and out of his seat before the transmission had even ended. He pulled down his cowl and began a quick stride towards the stairs that no doubt led back down to his car.
"Wait! I want to go with you!"
He turned just as he reached the stairs with a set glare marring his masked features.
"No. You are to stay put. Do you understand?"
She shook her head. "But-"
He gave her a stern look.
"Don't misinterpret me. Just because you want to be 'in' doesn't mean you're going out on the streets with me. There's more to this than just running around Gotham and catching criminals; there's an oath, and risks involved. I'm not endangering you just because I understand what you're going through."
Her eyes widened in shock and indignation. "What would I do then, bake cookies for when you come back?"
If he comes back, her mind daringly added.
Batman's lips turned down even further, if that was even possible. "No. You'd be my eyes and ears. Monitor the computer and give me needed information. I'm not cutting you out, I'm keeping you safe. You don't want to see the worst Gotham has to offer."
Tears filled her eyes of their own volition at his slightly softer tone. She was somehow both touched and pissed that he was trying to protect her. It meant he cared, and that seemed to be a lot coming from the stoic man before her, but it also meant that he was smothering her. She wanted to be out there, flying from rooftops; free from gravity like she had been before Tony Zucco. Rachel tried one more time to get him to see that she needed this just as much as he did.
"Bruce, please. I can help you out there!"
He rushed down the steps with his harsh words hanging in the air.
"No, you can't."
It was slightly embarrassing to have to take her lessons on how to work the Batcomputer, as she'd so cleverly dubbed it, from Alfred. Every so often he'd give her a look of disapproval, as if it was bad enough that she knew, but even worse that she was helping. One of the upsides: she discovered she had a real knack for computers. Rachel had always been a quick learner, but she seemed to catch on and even excel faster than with most other subjects. She could now go through the massive piece of technology like butter, sifting through all the information breezily.
Bruce barely asked for information through the comm. link, and she was beginning to think that her 'position' was total crap. Only four days in and she was already tired of waiting up for him on the off chance he really did need her. By the second day she had begun to realize that she was falling asleep on the job and waking up in her bed. When it finally did hit her that she was slacking off, she groaned and buried her messy ebony head deeper into her pillow.
Great, now Bruce will never let me go out on patrol with him.
Day four and she already had a scary addiction to coffee, a drink she once thought belonged only to the grown-ups. Now she all but streamlined it to keep awake and keep up with her foster father's night life. And boy what a life it was. Rachel was constantly hearing about gun fights and lunatics with knives; meaty thugs that used to be wrestlers and deep undercover missions with disguises and intrigue. Her whole being yearned to go out there with him and do all the amazing stuff she heard, but she knew it was never going to happen as long as Bruce thought he was protecting her. So she began to formulate a plan as the Batmobile, another one of her titles, squealed out into the quickly descending night. There had been an idea planted in her head when she saw Batman go around to the back of his car and open his trunk to retrieve something.
Rachel waited until the next night, using every bit of her acting talent to seem natural; even going as far as to spin a little in the computer chair that was much too tall for her and sip her dark coffee. Earlier that day, she had been looking for a costume she could wear when Alfred had come up to her room. She had been in a frenzy to find something when he knocked on her door. The desperate child had ripped open her door to see a calm Alfred with his hands behind his back standing in her way. He had raised a single, prim eyebrow at her disheveled state and she knew he knew. She expected to get a scolding and for the loyal butler to tell Bruce. Instead he did something that surprised her.
With a sad, resigned smile rested on his withered lips, he removed one of his hands from behind him and held out a sight that the former acrobat never thought she'd see again. There, folded in his gloved hand sat her folded circus costume. Gone was the blood of her parents, or the damp spots where some of her tears had fallen as she clutched her broken family to her. Her search forgotten, she had tentatively reached out to touch it; afraid that her fingers would meet only air and make the costume disappear.
"Your many friends at Haley's thought it a shame and a waste to deprive you of some of your old things. I cleaned it thoroughly and was waiting for a good time to hand it back over to its rightful owner."
Once she had it affirmed that it was no hallucination, she clutched it tightly to herself. With tears bubbling in her shiny eyes, she had looked up at the kind man who looked back with a gentle smile. She sniffled. She had thanked him, but he hadn't seemed like it was something he wanted to hear. She had put it on, and looking in the mirror had been like looking into another dimension.
Her mask, along with a pair deep green gloves, which Alfred had so intuitively added to her costume, covered her eyes with white lenses that were surprisingly easy to see through. Surrounding the lenses was a border of black cloth with points at the outer edge of each eye. Her clothes was of a simple design her mother had created. A leotard with short deep green sleeves that were the same color as the bottom half of her costume and the pixie boots that adorned her feet. The torso was an alarming red with an "R" stitched onto the right breast.
My little robin.
Rachel had shaken her head of the memory. She couldn't afford to remember the past. She had taken off the mask and dressed over the costume, racing down to the Cave. It felt...good to get back into it; like an old part of herself she'd been forced to shed, but was slowly growing back. She was ready for this. Batman may not think that she was, but she couldn't wait to prove him wrong.
Bruce came down in his civilian attire of an expensive business suit and shiny black shoes that could probably feed half of Russia. There was his usual, no-nonsense look as he spared her a glance. She sighed and looked over the large keyboard with its assortment of buttons and symbols. He took a deep breath and walked forward to set a large hand on her shoulder.
"Look, I know that this isn't what you expected when I let you join me, but I've seen enough of Gotham to know that it's no place for a child. I'm just trying to look out for you, Rachel."
Rachel huffed moodily and nodded in a curt motion of tolerance. His hand slipped away and she heard his expensive shoes click towards the capsule where his suit was kept, though she didn't dare look. Her heart thudded with the excitement that she had felt when she had snuck over the fence; a sick, dull kind of beat against her chest that would have made her wince under any other kind of circumstance, but at that moment she reveled in it.
Time to put on a show.
"Bruce, I'm not up for computer duty tonight."
She smiled. By this time, he was undressing beyond the field of vision that would allow him to see her sneaking down to the Batmobile. Rachel wouldn't drag him down, she would make him realize that she could help more than just staring at a computer screen all night.
She was gonna hurl. The Batmobile was as fast as a racecar and the sharp corners that Bruce was turning were not helping. When Rachel had snuck a ride she didn't realize it was going to be her last. The sore girl tried to hold on to something, but there was nothing to hold on to. She grunted as she hit the front of the trunk at the abrupt stop that the vehicle had made. The sound of the door opening caught her attention and caused her heart to pound wildly.
Would he open the trunk? Would he find her?
She admitted she hadn't really thought out her brilliant plan, and fighting with Batman required that he knew she existed, but it still didn't calm her nerves at the silence that followed. Rachel nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of her hiding place becoming exposed. There was obvious surprise on Bruce's masked face, but it quickly turned stoic.
"You're going back to the Cave." He said it in such a final tone it was clear that he wasn't up for a debate.
Well too bad.
Rachel scowled and shook her head. "No, I can help you out here. Just let me show you."
His stoic expression showed no change. "And if you get shot? A knife through the gut?"
Her determination didn't waver, though her palms suddenly felt damp.
"Br-Batman, listen, I don't have to go with you on stuff like that," yet, she added internally, "but I can show you how well I do with the simpler stuff. You saw me take out those goons that were trying to steal from you. And that was without training, or you to back me up."
He closed his eyes and sighed. "Listen to me. I'll not be responsible for your death. I've told you why I won't have you out here with me. Gotham is no place for a child."
She rolled her eyes, though he probably couldn't see it through her mask.
"There seem to be plenty of children around."
Bruce's voice grew gruffer, and if that was any indication, he was starting to get frustrated.
"Not what I meant. We're going back to the Cave and that's final."
Not wanting to poke the sleeping bear, Rachel decided that tonight wouldn't be the night. That didn't mean she had given up hope completely, just that she had to pick her battles. Something her mother always told her when the child's temper got the best of her. Sighing loudly, she hopped out of the trunk and made her way to the front, taking the unoccupied passenger seat. On the other side, Bruce did the same. He started up the Batmobile and made a large U-turn, racing back in the direction they had come from. The petulant child sat with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes fixed at the fast moving scenery flying past the window. There was a sudden distinct beeping with some urgency. It caught Rachel's attention immediately with the insistence of the sound, and the reaction of the man in the seat next to her. He became more tense; statue like as he reached towards the console seemingly out of habit.
Just like the night she found out his secret the police operator spoke with a slightly detached voice as she reported to the nearby officers.
"10-2 at Burlington and Chandler, current 10-17 in progress."
She didn't understand a single thing the lady had just said, but it had to mean action. Bruce wouldn't just leave it, right? He was Batman. From what urban legend and Alfred told her, he barely missed a crime. He wouldn't just leave...whatever a 10-17 was to take one little girl home. Her hunch had been right, as she looked at the faded street signs whipping by and swore she saw one saying Burlington. They pulled to an abrupt stop and she nearly flew out of her large seat. Next to her, Batman unbuckled and looked over at her sternly.
"Stay put."
With that he pressed a button that locked the doors and disappeared with the swish of his cape. No way was he leaving her out here like this! She refused to be thwarted by a couple locked doors when she had finally told herself that she was going to prove that brute wrong. Rachel thought about simply jiggling the handle until the lock gave in, but she doubted that the Batmobile's locks were the same as her parents' trailer. She felt a sense of urgency grip her at the thought that he might not need much time to finish up a 10-17, and that he would be all done by the time she figured out how to get out of the infernal car. Luckily, her darting eyes found the numerous buttons that adorned the driver side of the car. Bruce had definitely pressed one of them to lock the doors.
She just couldn't remember which one.
Rachel muttered under her breath as she stepped out of the car. Of course it had been the very last button, the one that she had failed to press until all the others proved false. She didn't know how much time she wasted with the buttons, but she knew that she had to act quickly. She saw that lights and sirens were coming from not too far off, and flashing blues and reds of the police cars allowed to see that they were all parked in front of a bank. Bruce probably didn't let them see him, so Rachel made it her mission to do the same. But he had a tool belt, and she had zilch. But if she had learned anything from her time with the circus, and even more so watching Batman every night, it was that it always paid to pay attention to her surroundings. Just across from her was an old apartment building, and to the right of it was a small Laundromat. On the left was an empty lot. That obviously wouldn't do her any good, and the Laundromat was a bare, squat square of a building. It was too tall for her to get on the roof and too short to be able to get her to the next roof over.
But the apartment building, even in the dim yellow of the streetlights, clearly had a fire escape going up the side. The building itself was pretty tall, and it seemed like things were going the young acrobat's way for once. All she needed to do was find a way to get up there without waking up the occupants. Opening the trunk, she grabbed her one gadget and rushed towards the apartments. There were a few creaks and bangs that had her stopping and straining her ears for any signs of people, but she surprised herself by making it up scot free. Up higher, even with her feet planted on concrete, she felt more like herself than she had in months. A nice breeze blew through her ebony hair and she smiled, breathing it in. It wasn't as fresh as she was used too, but it was better than any she'd felt.
She felt like she'd been a bird trapped in a cage finally set free.
That must have been why she'd jumped over the gap between the apartments and the Laundromat without hesitation; enjoying the light, fluttering feeling in her stomach. The jarring feeling that travelled up through her feet when she hit the other roof knocked her back into the present situation and she quickly repeated the action to the next roof, and so on until she hit a taller building. That taller building just so happened to be the bank, which sucked for this newbie seeing as though there was a wide street in between her and her objective.
Now what do I do?
She didn't have anything on her that could get her across, and she was getting into that bank. She could sneak around, but that would take too much time. She had to make a decision, and now. It looked like the only way she could do it was to somehow leap across without ending up on the hard ground. Rachel looked down at the strange tool in her hands. Her best bet was this thing, whatever it was. The strange device was shaped like a gun, with a pointed, spear-like projectile, while her slender finger teased the trigger.
Rachel aimed at the bank right across from her, and fired without hesitation. The thing pulled her across the street, above the prying eyes of the police force down below, as well as the Gothamites that had surrounded the barricade. To soften her landing she rolled and stood up quickly with an irrevocable grin on her face. She had actually made it! A definite improvement from being locked in the Batmobile. The young acrobat grew a new appreciation for the tool in her hand as she glanced around her destination. It was very clear that the skylight had been Bruce's point of entry. Looking down into the bank, she realized with trepidation just how high the roof was from the ground. She doubted her little toy could get her down there, and as one of the older buildings of Gotham, there weren't a lot of points for her to slow the descent. Just as doubt began tunneling its way into her newly gained confidence, a man dressed in black passed just under the skylight.
A very dangerous and totally awesome idea popped into her mind at the sight of him and without a second thought she leapt from her perch and began the stomach-tightening drop down. Her timing couldn't have been better as she managed to use the unaware goon as a springboard to gracefully break her fall while also knocking him out cold. No sooner had her pixie booted feet touched the ground than she heard the very distinct sound of guns being cocked. A lot of guns. Rachel turned to face the rest of the robbers with a schooled expression of fierceness while the little voice in her head was screaming at her to run and hide. One of the criminals, she couldn't tell which, was the one to break the silence.
"Who the hell are you?"
Her mind sputtered to a halt. She couldn't very well give them her real name, and she wasn't going to call herself Batgirl either. She was her own person, not an extension of her foster father's persona. Luckily Batman came just in time to get her out of trouble. He leapt from the shadows and took out the thugs' guns with bat-a-rangs before they even had time to react.
"She's with me."
In quick, fluid motions Bats beat the robbers down until they were moaning on the marble floor. Just as fluidly he turned towards her with an enraged expression.
"I told you to wait in the car."
It was concise, curt, and filled with anger. Now Rachel understood why criminals were so afraid to come out at night.
"I'm sorry, Batman."
Suddenly, she was jerked back forcefully by her hair into a sturdy body. A single arm went around her throat while cold metal was pressed against her forehead.
"Oh, don't apologize kid. You just gave me a much needed hostage."
Rachel knew this voice. It was slimy, oily, and sickeningly confident. She had heard it deliver threats to her parents before their untimely 'accident'. She had never fully believed that her mom and dad had just been unfortunate. Before every show they made sure to check, double check, and even triple check their ropes. In their line of work, it paid to be cautious. Tony Zucco had wanted money, and just before the show had started Rachel had seen the man in the tent. Trying to tell her parents had proven useless. They had brushed it aside and continued preparing for the show. Her mother's final words had been embarrassing at the time, but now all she wanted was for her to call Rachel her little bird again.
You remind me of a robin when you fly up there. My little robin.
Now the man that she had no doubt was behind their deaths had her trapped by her neck and the threat of a bullet to her temple. No way was she letting him get away with it. She knew that he could shoot her if she wasn't precise. She couldn't just go and scratch the hand holding her and expect not to get shot. The gun had to be the first thing to go. Quickly, while Zucco's focus was on the vigilante in front of him, she pulled the arm holding the gun down harshly, causing an accidental bullet hole in the marble. Rachel took advantage of the surprise and slackening in his hold to elbow him in the gut and step on his foot with all her might.
The crook was nowhere near the state she wanted him to be but she was proud to say she successfully got out of his hold and confiscated his firearm. While Batman took over, she stared at the object in her hands. Bruce would never let her, but there was a small part of her that really wanted to put a slug between his eyes. He had killed her only family, left her alone in the world; alone in the most dangerous city in the world. Yet she knew it would bring her no peace. The small part that urged her to repay his act in kind vanished with the knowledge that nothing could be reversed. He would get what he deserved.
Batman finished stringing him up for the cops and strode over to her. "That was dangerous, reckless, and totally unnecessary."
He let that hang for a moment while Rachel blushed and looked away before continuing.
"But you still managed to do more than I thought you capable of. It was…acceptable."
A smile lit up her face that would have shamed the sun, had it been out.
"Thank you, Batman."
"So Mistress Grayson, might I ask what you have decided to call yourself?"
Alfred's question had somehow brought a measure of finality to the situation. There was no going back after tonight.
The new vigilante thought on it for only a moment or two before her gaze fell the costume she was still wearing. Both Bruce and the elderly butler next to him seemed ready for an answer, and she knew exactly what her name would be.
"Robin." (On first night of patrol, "Watch out for Robin, Girl Wonder!" and "Who's next?")
The billionaire seemed to accept this and simply turned towards the Batcomputer. Alfred, however, raised a single white brow. She understood without him having to voice anything.
"It was a family name. I think it's best to keep it that way."
Though neither said a word, she easily saw Alfred's smile, and even if she couldn't see his face at the moment, it helped to imagine that Bruce was smiling too.
Me: See? That wasn't so bad, was it?
*empty chairs where the people used to be*
Me: What?! How?!
...
Me: *teary* You know what? Whatever! I don't need you guys!
...
Me: PLEASE COME BACK I NEED YOU!
Now for my personal favorite! Hinting at a story that won't be coming for MONTHS. MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
He reviewed the security tape once more. The Bat had been very careful to cover his tracks by disrupting the footage, but Slade Wilson didn't have access to 90% of his brain for nothing. The girl was most definitely new, and though she was sloppy and obviously wet-behind-the-ears, she still had much potential. He chuckled as he noted her boneheaded stunt of jumping straight down from the skylight. Boneheaded, yet very clever. It took care of one of her enemies while also breaking her fall. Deathstroke's single eye narrowed in thought.
Lex, the bald idiot, had never been able to completely clear his debt to the assassin. Sure he had the money to pay most anything, but the debt wasn't about money. It was about the smug bastard's damn intellect. Though anyone could see the untapped potential of the girl on the tape, he would consider the billionaire's 'debt' paid in full. But he would still wait before telling him. He might need Luthor for something in the near future. He heard one of the gunmen voice a question that had been toying with Slade since he first clapped eyes on the girl.
Who are you?