Matt turned on the autopilot, told the car where to go, and then ignored it. Instead he held up the costume he had hurriedly pulled off the manikin in the case. It consisted of a pair of black tights, an undershirt, a red vest with the familiar logo on the left breast, a yellow and black cape, gloves, shoes that didn't fit and a mask. Matt tossed the shoes into the foot well and striped. The tights and undershirt went on first. Both seemed to be made of millions of tiny scales that fit together like snakeskin, both flexible and protective. They were light, heavier then Matt had expected but not by much and he quickly adjusted to the weight. The vest came next along with the cup. Matt suddenly understood why half the old costumes looked like they had their underwear outside the pants. The vest was armored. Matt had expected that; what he hadn't expected were the electronics. Pressure pads took note of the pulse at the base of his neck. A pair of censors took note of his breathing. Then there was the nest of censors behind the Robin emblem. Overall it wasn't nearly as sophisticated as Terry's suit, but the similarities comforted him in a strange way. The belt, mask and gloves were already familiar and again strangely comforting. The cape wasn't, it slid around his shoulders and neck like a noose. There was some kind of mettle built into the collar, probably to protect his neck. Matt undid the clasps in the collar and bent the metal outward so he could breath. Whoever had worn the costume last had apparently had a smaller neck; either that or they had learned not the breath. Before he could make any further alterations he arrived.
The bat-mobile landed on the roof. Matt hadn't expected that. He had thought it would hover over the building or land in an ally or maybe a neighboring roof. That way Matt could have assessed the situation and found the best way to get to Gordon. Instead Matt was forced to creep to the edge of the building to get a look at the situation.
Gordon was out in front of the police barriers. She was wearing the same riot gear as the rest of her people minus the helmet and riot shied. Matt could hear her shouting through the bullhorn she held even from eighteen stories up. Mad Stan had retreated into the lobby of the building and was throwing grenades at anything that came too close to the doors. As Matt watched Gordon distracted Mad Stan long enough for several members of her team to creep up to the doors outside his line of sight. Mad Stan shouted something and Gordon raised the bullhorn again. Matt leaned forward over the edge of the building to better see the strike team. There were four of them each with either a stun rifle or an EMWave gun. They had made it to the door without being seen. Now three of them pressed their backs up against the wall beside the door while the last knelt down. From his vantage point Matt couldn't see what they were doing.
Mad Stan's next Grenade took out one of the supports for the front of the building.
Leaning over the railing as he was Matt was caught completely off guard. His weight tipped, going over the edge. His hand clamped down reflexively, but it was a bad angle. His head came down, his feet flipped over him and all of a sudden the weight of his whole body was on his shoulders. Matt cried out. The sudden pain and jerk of his already considerable momentum tore his fingers from the ledge. The momentary stop had been enough that when Matt blinked the pain away he found himself falling roughly upright. The chemicals that had been flooding his system all night seemed to reach a peak. His hands were at his belt before any plan could have possibly been formed. They found the grapple and ripped it free of its pouch with a strength that would have been impossible if he wasn't scarred out of his wits.
The device went off in his hands, sending the hook shooting into the wall of the building, which was passing by very quickly less than five feet away. The cable began to play out at an alarming speed, and Matt slapped at the device to stop it. The cord didn't stop playing out but it did slow down. The sudden change in speed jerked at Matt nearly tearing out his arms as he clamped onto the grapple. The change in speeds also sent him in an ark towards the wall of the building. Matt had just enough time to pull up his legs; reflexively flinching away from what was sure to be a painful collision. If it had blinked it would have been but as it was his eyes were practically glued open. Because of this he was facing the wall and so his feet were the first things to connect with it. He jerked; a purely reflexive motion but it bounced him off the wall in an ark. Matt found himself oddly reminded of the swings at his old school, and with a reference fell into the familiar movements. His legs were fully extended as he arced back towards the wall, his hands above his head still holding the grapple.
He hit the window and the world exploded around him. The initial sound nearly deafened him, and for several minutes he could barely hear anything. Around him the glass spun in gaged rainbows, reflecting the world back in a million pieces of shattered mirror and diamond dust. Then Matt hit the floor, and the impact tore his hands from the grapple. He slid across the polished tiles until he hit something and finally came to a stop. He looked up and found that the something he had crashed into was the wall outside the shopping center's small theater. A poster above him advertised an action movie called "Dive". For some reason Matt found this extremely funny. Nearly hysterical giggles bubbled up until he was laughing outright.
"You ok?"
Matt snapped his mouth shut. He sat up and rolled forward until he was kneeling in a crouch. The man who had spoken was twenty feet away. The buildings power was down but Matt could see well enough with the emergency lights and the light from outside that came in through the broken window. Matt took stock of the man identifying him as the man who had been trapped on the fourth floor when the building went into lockdown. He was of average height and looked to be over 50 though Matt wasn't very good at guessing ages. He was slightly overweight, but not enough to have much of a gut. His uniform proclaimed him to be Mall security. He held a large heavy flashlight in one hand; it's beam illuminating the floor between them. The man was staring.
"I heard the glass." the man said. "I thought..." he blinked several times as if trying to restart his brain. "You're Robin." he finally said as if stating the obvious would make his situation make sense.
Matt slid to his feet in one smooth movement letting the cape flow forward to hide his hands in case he needed something from the belt.
"That's right." Matt couldn't stop a small grin from creeping into his words.
"God." the guard let out a bark of laughter. "You know I've been working security for 45 years. I thought I'd meet one of you lot in the first two weeks, but it never happened. Now here you are. Are you sure you're not just some lost kid?"
At that Matt did smile. "I'm sure."
Another Explosion rocked the building and the guard cursed under his breath as he clutched at the wall to stay standing. Matt bent his knees and let his hips keep him upright as the floor rolled. He turned back to the man when the floor finally settled. The man was looking at him with a calm expectant expression. It struck home just how powerful the symbol he was wearing could be. Batman was beyond amazing but Robin too had power in the mind of the people. And not just kids either judging by the man's willingness to follow his lead.
"What's your name?"
"Dan Bruning"
Robin grinned up at the man. "Well Dan, I'm recruiting you to help me save the day. Try to keep up." He passed the man without looking up at him, letting a knowing smile play over his face. A gust of wind caught his cape at just the right moment to billow it out behind him. It may have been an act but it was definitely impressive as hell.
Gordon lifted her arm when she saw the grenade. It rocked the whole building and the shockwave sent her stumbling back a step. That was how she happened to be looking up and caught the flash of yellow come over the edge of the roof. Her first thought was that someone had thrown something off the building. The evening was already growing dark and the mostly black costume blended in with the darkening sky. Then the figure managed to turn so that he was falling mostly upright. The cape swept out from his shoulders like a flag and the yellow lining caught the light from the streetlamps below. Gordon noted that the figure was strangely small and the realization that it was a child falling towards her made her start calculating angles. Where would he land? Was anyone close enough to the spot to catch him? Then she saw the rope. He had hooked it into the building somehow and let it trail out behind him slowing his fall. He was facing the building now. In one movement he kicked off from the wall and used the arc from the rope to translate all his downward momentum into a single point. The building codes for this part of town dictated that all windows be reinforced, but that didn't stop the boy from crashing through into the fourth floor. Glass rained down in a cloud less than ten feet from the door. She noted that none of her men had been hit then looked up again. After a moment she saw the rope swing free but the boy had vanished.
She didn't know whether to be glad that he hadn't spattered on the pavement or frustrated that she now had to worry about someone being in the building.
Setting that problem aside for the moment, she turned back to Mad Stan. The whole incident had taken maybe thirty seconds. Even the broken glass could have been attributed to his grenade. If the boy wasn't dead she wasn't going to draw attention to him. "Why the grenade Stan? I thought we were having a pleasant conversation." She didn't bother with the horn this time.
"Conversation! You're just another fool they've hooked with flashy advertisements and 29.99, buy one get one half off limited time offers! Just another cog in the mass-produced machine labor industry! It's a joke, all of it!"
Gordon tuned him out. Her team was back in position after the last grenade and ready to move. She met the eyes of the team leader, Sargent Morgen. He nodded to her and held up a fist for the benefit of his team. He held up four fingers and counted down silently.
At zero he spun around the doorway at waist height the EMWave-7 making a soft thump sound as he fired the charges in an arc around Mad Stan. At the same time his partner Togashi came around the door above him, firing over Morgen's shoulder. On the other side of the door Nix had rolled a smoke grenade into the building, obscuring everyone's line of fire after the first 45 seconds. Morgen and Togashi withdrew and the last man stepped forward. Detective Toren was one of the department's best marksmen. Currently he was holding a HN-277 short range trank rifle, or as the boys called it: the Sleep gun. He had the department's latest toy as well, an inferred auto-targeting visor mask combo that would let him see strait through the smoke grenade and still have enough processing power to record everything in high-def. and play a game of solitaire on the side. He fired one shot as he came through the door and another as he sidestepped so he wasn't a target in the doorway. Gordon heard his third shot a second before the bombs went off and everything went to hell.
Authors Note:
I found the cure for writers block: through your character off a building. Honestly I tried three different ideas but could never get started until I came up with this. And then Gordon came along and said "hay what about my team" so I said OK I'll write some more cool action stuff.
Can you tell I liked this chapter? And it came out a lot faster than I thought it would too. The next few chapters should be more actiony goodness though I won't promise anything since this is making its self-up as it goes along at this point. :D
As always thanks go out to Scriviner who has been a wonderful Beta, oh and one more thing; i've drawn a couple pictures of Matt they are on my deviantart account and there are links straight there from my profile. :) as always please review.