Don't own the DCU.

Chapter 4

Jack didn't looked up from his book when he heard Thoth start barking and felt him straining against the leash Jack had tied to the stairway rails. "Hi Stephen," he greeted distractedly, writing down a line from the book into the notebook he'd balanced on his knee.

He heard his cousin sigh, followed by the slow quieting of his dog as Stephen likely knelt down to pet him and run him through tricks that he'd started training the dog on. Jack felt vaguely insulted; it wasn't like he didn't try to go over the tricks with Thoth himself, but the dog refused to listen to him so he was slowly giving up. As long as he got trained, neither Jack nor his parents cared how that came to be.

"Jack," Stephen finally acknowledged him, and Jack frowned as he heard the sadness and exhaustion he's heard every time he's visited for the last two weeks still there, underneath the standard greeting. "I hope you weren't waiting that long."

Jack shrugged. He wouldn't know how long he was there; he kind of lost track of stuff like that when he was reading a good book. "It wasn't that long."

Stephen clearly doubted that but didn't say anything, and Jack was grateful. His parents were always on him about doing something productive every minute of the day, and visiting Stephen was a great reprieve from that kind of stress. He moved out from in the front of the door, and followed his cousin in after he'd unlocked the door and collected Thoth. Jack felt a pang at having forgotten his dog for a second before shrugging it off. He probably would've remembered quickly after getting into the apartment.

The place looked somewhat messier than it traditionally did, just like it had the last few times Jack had come by, and his concern increased even more. "Is everything alright?" Jack asked, marking his place in his book, setting it and his notebook on the still fairly new coffee table and making himself comfortable on the couch. Thoth was trailing behind Stephen as he got out a mug and started up the coffee maker. Jack managed to stop himself from rolling his eyes as he observed his cousin's caffeine addiction and waited for a response.

Stephen looked at him in confusion and leaned against the counter with the coffee maker on it. "Everything is fine, why do you ask?" In the kitchen lighting, Jack could better see the shadows under his cousin's eyes.

"You've been kind of off for a while now, that's all. I'm worried." The younger boy hated the way his face burned in embarrassment at admitting something like that to his cousin and looked away from the other to stare fixedly at his book.

He heard Stephen shift a little before letting out a large sigh. "Sorry, I'm just...coming to terms with some stuff." Jack peeked up and saw that Stephen was now looking down at his hands. Hands that were faintly trembling, Jack noticed.

He tried to stem his curiosity but felt his will give way in less than a minute. This was why he thought archaeology would be a better fit than business; he can't imagine other businessmen would take his habit of sticking his nose where it doesn't belong very well. "What stuff?"

Stephen was silent for a few minutes, and Jack felt his face burning again. He shouldn't have expected Stephen to answer, he'd already noticed how private his cousin was regarding his mom, and never liked bringing up his dad at all (which made sense, considering he probably didn't know anything about him outside of whatever his mom had told him). Why would he talk about that stuff with Jack of all people? And then he made a sound, emotions there that Jack couldn't quite name, and began opening and closing his hands sporadically.

"I guess I've only recently had a chance to sit down and realize: my mom is gone. She's not just waiting for me to get the money I'd need to visit her, she's not avoiding calling me to give me a feel for what being adult is like, she's not gonna tease me about Caroline ever again, she's...she's dead." He swallowed roughly. "I think it all became a blur at first, and when I went to college it was easy to push that to the side, to think "it's alright, she's just busy" or "she doesn't want to distract me from my classes", to think that it'll all become normal after I graduate and go back home, or get my own place. You know, just a horrible denial."

"What changed?" Jack asked, almost dreading the answer. He really doesn't think he should be the one to hear this.

"I saw someone a few weeks ago, she looked just like one of my mom's friends, but that friend lives in Star City so it couldn't have been her. But when I saw her, I looked around for my mom and it all kind of, just...hit me."

Jack drew a blank on what to say in response to that. "Uh, my – err, condolences. Is there – that is, is there anything I can do to help?"

Stephen shook his head, pushing himself away from the counter as the coffee maker stopped producing noise and filling his mug with the dark liquid. "There's not much anyone can do, really. I just – need time to mourn, I guess."

"Alright," Jack replied dubiously and, because he still hasn't quite gotten a handle on social etiquette, asked, "will that be for much longer?"

Stephen made a strange, choked sound at that. "Probably not," he admitted. "I would guess less than a week."

"Oh, good." Jack said, relieved, before pausing. Was that considered rude? "It's just, I hate to see you so down. Thoth too, I think." Upon mentioning his dog, he looked around but couldn't find him. He was probably next to Stephen.

Stephen smiled at Jack and left the kitchen to join him on the couch, Thoth appearing and trotting at his heels. The dog jumped into Stephen's lap once he got settled, but Jack didn't notice as he picked his book back up and continued to read it, reveling in the feeling of accomplishment from helping his cousin out.

Stephen had guessed correctly on when his grief would finally abate, and now only felt a kind of emptiness that came with all of those emotions finally leaving him. Along with the tiniest smidge of guilt for lying to his cousin. But it needed to be done; he both needed to rid Jack of his worries and more firmly establish his past to the Drakes. Any inconsistencies (though he didn't see any on his part) would now be dismissed as Jack misremembering and he could potentially acquire more sympathy if Jack tells his parents everything that was spoken.

But Stephen dismissed those thoughts for the time being and instead focused on the building he'd trained his binoculars on, binoculars which he modified with zooming options and auto-focusing after one week of stakeouts with the current, inferior version had driven him to frustration.

(They fortunately already had night vision technology integrated into them but, to his chagrin, thermal imaging technology was still classified and he didn't want classified technology lying around his civilian apartment or in one of his not-safe safe houses. Besides, if it continued to work without difficulties for another month, he planned on patenting it and selling the patent to the military if possible. He was already playing with the stock market and suspected the manufacturer who'd replicated his processor for him wouldn't stay quiet for much longer if he hadn't already started making even more of the hardware, so it wasn't like technology was going to advance the way it did on his first universe. Might as well improve lives and benefit from it at the same time.)

He zoomed in as he registered shadows moving along the ground toward the building, and smirked in triumph. It was a group of ninja, all of them quite skilled by their body language, but they clearly hadn't been expecting Stephen to wait up until four in the morning to spot them.

Joke's on them, he's been stalking them for the past two weeks while patrolling and he'd taken the next day off in preparation for this.

Looks like Ra's is already sinking his claws into Gotham, Stephen mused. I can't imagine anything I've done currently would have attracted him to Gotham earlier than planned, so for now I'll operate under the assumption that this is all concurrent with my original world's timeline. Fine by me, I always wondered what would happen if you kicked down an ant hill when the hill was barely even formed. Do the ants stay and keep at it or leave for safer territories? He tucked away his binoculars and took out his bo staff. Let's find out.

Stephen barely made a sound as he swung into position and dropped down, the ninja farthest in the back turning into his convenient landing pad and getting knocked out instantly. The others spun around but Stephen was already in motion, staff out and jabbing hard into their sternums before being spun and hitting them in the back of the head as they desperately tried to regain their breath. Stephen heard movement to the side and shifted his staff to be wielded with one hand, lashing out with the other and taking out the ninja there with a nerve strike to the neck.

Stephen stood in the middle of this self-made carnage, confirming that there were no additional sounds of people approaching and that everyone he'd knocked out were all still breathing steadily. That...was way too easy. Looks like years of trying to one-up Bruce actually did motivate the Demon's head to improve the quality of his men. Stephen felt an ominous grin creep onto his face. They are so screwed.

And indeed they were. The ninja were all skilled for the time period but, without several vigilantes, heroes, and rival assassin groups to make them evolve and improve to survive, they were easy pickings for a vigilante that had been fighting more skilled versions of them for years. Stephen tore through their ranks with ease, putting them all down with as little damage as he could, though there were a few broken noses here and there that Stephen mentally argued had to do more with them not blocking properly than anything intentional on his part. At the very least, I probably just found some of Pru's future instructors.

With everyone sufficiently subdued and the more squirrelly ones he'd noted while fighting tied up, Stephen made his way through the building and found what he was looking for: the large computer likely keeping them in contact with their primary base. The landline nearby reinforced the image.

It only took a few minutes of typing and hooking his glove up to the computer to have it routing all of its information to an isolated server he'd set up (hey, you can never be too careful. Ra's might actually be ahead of the technology curve at this point in time).

"You left people lying around outside," a voice said from behind him, and Stephen didn't bother twitching as he turned his head to look at the person.

He nodded in brief greeting. "Batman. Long time no see."

He saw the Batman turn his head slightly in what looked like puzzlement and drop the ninja he was carrying to the ground. "Shrike," he greeted in turn, still sounding off-balance. "I never told you my name."

Stephen held his head in place and gaze level so that he could best emulate the incredulous stare he was giving the man behind his cowl. When Batman began to shift (and really. Batman, uncomfortable? Even without seeing young Bruce running around Stephen could tell it wasn't him) Stephen broke himself ou of his stupor and shrugged a little. "You have a giant bat symbol on your chest. I just assumed..." he trailed off awkwardly and let the silence build back up. Maybe he went by a different name and Batman was an old name he went by?

The man calmed in the face of the logic presented to him. "Ah. That makes sense. You are correct, I go by Batman." The man paused again, obviously putting his thoughts together, and Stephen finished what he was doing and began changing around some of the database he had access to while he waited. "You modified your outfit," Batman finally noted, and Stephen smiled.

"Yup. Just wanted to improve on the symbol and add some more resemblance to my namesake." He'd changed the clasp as he had designed it a few weeks ago and added a white streak to his cape, along with giving the "beak" of his cowl a sharper look. He'd contemplated adding some red accents to the leggings or boots but decided to wait on that. Overall Stephen was pleased with the changes, even if he still greatly resembled another universe's Red Robin.

The Batman hummed before focusing on why he was there in the first place. "What are you doing?"

"I found these League of Assassins members here and just wanted to see what they were up to. It looks like they were here mostly to establish a base in such a crime-ridden city, rather than here specifically for a hit."

Batman looked surprised. "I did not think this city that bad in the crime department."

Stephen quirked a brow up in surprise to that statement. "While the city doesn't appear to have any enhanced villains or enhanced-based crimes being committed, it still has a long history of crime family feuds and violent gang wars from what I've seen. And my sudden appearance is already losing its intimidation factor; people are creeping back out of the woodwork." Not to mention the other simple fact most upper class Gothamites don't tend to notice: the police were already quite corrupted and only served and protected either the richest person in the area or the one who'd paid them the most at the time of an incident. He'd confirmed that suspicion within the first two weeks of patrol.

Batman hummed and nodded. "I'd never considered the richer families in the area being the leading proponents on crime. I suppose that would mean that there are indeed several groups in constant conflict with affluent backers, should every family have a different group they supported."

Stephen blinked a little at that, unnoticed beneath his cowl, and added, "Either incredibly naïve or has far more faith in humanity than most vigilantes I've seen working out of Gotham," to the mental dossier he was compiling of this strange Batman. Aloud he simply hummed in acknowledgement, and the two remained silent as he finished downloading as much info as he could manage to his remote isolated server for future study.

Once that was completed, the two shared a nod and disappeared down different streets, Stephen somewhat unnerved by the footsteps he heard echoing behind him. I might need to actually gear out this other Batman before his lack of tech gets him into serious trouble. And what a strange thought that is.

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