Author's Note: Thought or Emphasis; Flashback; Thought or Emphasis in Flashback
I don't own Teen Titans, but I do own some Batman movie DVDs. You'll know which one inspired/was source material for this episode pretty early on.
Please read and review.
Teen Titans: The Titans of Tomorrow
Chapter V, Part 2: The Bat Family
Gotham City, New Jersey.
13 million people made Gotham City their home, from the wealthy inhabitants of the Diamond District to the impoverished residents of the East End. Much of Gotham's buildings were Gothic and grim, like the manor of its greatest benefactor, but the city showed signs of change, a few new buildings of glass and steel shaping the skyline. Land developers hoped the "Neo-Gotham Project," as they called it, would herald a brighter, more lucrative future for the often-struggling city.
In Gotham's oldest district stood the institution tasked to watch over this changing metropolis: the Gotham City Police Department. The GCPD had its problems in the past, from short staffing and funding issues to full-blown corruption in some of its highest offices, but its bravest souls did what they could to maintain Gotham's police as a force of good.
Two of those good cops stood on the roof of the GCPD building, where the Bat-Signal continued to shine. The signal's operator stood silent, while her boss stood in wait.
He was a bald African-American man, his dark-skinned face wrinkled by age and troubles. Considering the year, his look was quite old-fashioned: brown slacks held up by suspenders spanning over a white shirt, its sleeves rolled up despite the weather growing colder. He found the chill kept him awake on those long work nights.
A voice in the night informed him:
"I'm here."
"Batman." He turned around, not frightened by the familiar face, though he was surprised to see another person. "…and Robin? Haven't seen you in a bit." The man's years on the force led him to witness Batman's list of partners, including the first Robin and Batgirl.
The sidekick nodded, while the Caped Crusader himself greeted in words.
"Good evening, Commissioner Bennett."
Ethan Bennett had replaced James Gordon as commissioner of the GCPD only a few years ago. Jim was a good judge of character, and saw to it that the torch was passed into the right hands. Even after Jim's retirement, though, Gordon and Batman still met for coffee and a cheesesteak every New Year's.
Under the mask, Bruce liked Ethan as well, knowing him as a man of honor even before Ethan would ever wear a badge. Bruce and Ethan had been friends since childhood and all the way through high school, but they drifted apart when the young billionaire began his travels in earnest to become a bane against crime. Unlike Bennett's old partner on the force Ellen Yin, who took quite some time to convince, Bennett was on Batman's side since his days as a mere urban legend. In time Bruce and Ethan had slowly repaired their relationship, Bruce having learned that Yin had taken up leading the Special Crimes Unit alongside Maggie Sawyer in Metropolis.
Bennett had his trial by fire going up against Gotham's criminals—in one instance literally risking his sanity after being captured by one of Batman's greatest foes—but he endured, eventually earning his place as Gordon's successor.
"On the contrary, Bats, it's not so good."
The commissioner passed them the file.
"He managed to break out of Blackgate a few days back. We've tried to keep it quiet, but the press'll probably get their hands on it soon."
The man in the picture looked to be in his early thirties. His skin was a pasty white, like that of a certain villain, and the smile on his face, bearing sharpened teeth, was almost as sinister as his. His beady eyes were as red as his victims' blood, a sight the man always relished.
"His gang's been popping up like weeds lately, almost like they expected him to show up again," Bennett continued. "Their crimes are just as gruesome as ever though."
Continuing to look through the file, the Dark Knight did not avert his eyes from the results of one kidnapping; the parents gave the ransom, yet still received their son in far more than one piece.
"The Mutants have been a thorn in this city's side for too long, and with their leader back on the streets, it's bound to get worse."
Robin put it simply: "So you want us to crush them for you, so your police force can pick up the pieces."
"You never did mince words." Bennett's lips gave a nostalgic smile briefly, before he turned to the elder hero. "We've also got sightings of some heavy weapons popping up."
"You think they're related." It was more statement than question. At Bennett's nod, Batman decided. "We'll look into it."
"Is it really just you two tonight?" He turned to his operator, who turned off the light, then back to Batman. "This could be-"
The dynamic duo was gone, the file left soundlessly behind.
"That's still amazing." Bennett would have laughed, had he not felt a stroke of worry for Gotham's heroes. The Mutants were vicious; the commissioner had seen plenty of his men in the hospital or worse due to this recent threat. "I hope they're not outgunned."
"I wouldn't worry, sir."
The voice came from the Bat-Signal's operator, stepping forth from the searchlight's side. She was an auburn-haired woman in her thirties. Fierce green orbs were the windows to a strong spirit bidden in her petite frame. Her prior adventures before being an officer had gifted those eyes with keen awareness, quite a necessary tool for a detective.
"Gordon?"
"I get the feeling they've got plenty of help."
She looked to the right at a building's water tower, more directly into the adjacent shadows…
… and locked eyes with her former protégé, who nodded back.
Detective Barbara Gordon, the first Batgirl, smiled with hope.
"They'll be just fine."
"What's the plan, Batman?"
Red Robin spoke for the whole team on a rooftop. Batgirl stood at attention, Robin leaned on a wall, and Nightstar took in the city's foreign skyline. She suppressed the growing impulse to fly for now, knowing she would be soaring high soon enough.
"The plan right now is intelligence. We don't know how big this group is, how heavily armed, or even where they are. We'll need to know them, and likely bring them together, before we…" Batman adopted his son's word, "crush them."
He broke the family into teams:
"Red Robin, you and Batgirl will handle any weapons you can find."
"Got it." The man voiced his compliance, the woman nodding pensively.
Tim had been cooped up for weeks and was anxious to stretch his legs (and wings). Sparring with Cass was a nice challenge, but a round with her could never quite compare to fighting the real thing.
Cassandra was a bit relieved, hesitant to leave Red Robin alone this time after his last mission abroad resulted in his long stay inside Wayne Manor. There was, after all, a reason Robin had to leave Jump City for a Bat-Family emergency.
Under Batgirl's faceless mask was a woman who took the pain of her precious partner onto herself—just one trait among the list of things that she and her younger brother had in common. She hoped this mission would be easier.
"Robin," the youth rose to attention, "you and Nightstar will patrol for their more standard activity. They may be planning something bigger, but that doesn't mean they won't be causing trouble."
"I understand." Robin derived an implicit directive; teaming up with a familiar face would get Nightstar more acclimated to Gotham's streets.
The group began to split up, but the new team member had a question.
"What about you, Batman?"
He stopped to turn around.
"I'll catch up with one of my usual informants." He leaped off the roof and began a grapnel swing.
"Great," Robin grumbled. "He's probably talking to her." The woman in question had not left a good first impression… especially when she tied him up with a whip.
Nightstar was clueless.
"Who's 'her'?"
In the East End, a woman relaxed in her strangely upscale apartment, her robe draping over her curves. Dark wavy hair washed over her shoulders and chest, the interspersed strands of gray only adding an attractive sheen.
She'd always been a night owl, but for once, Selina Kyle took the night off.
Selina had done well for herself since her childhood on the streets. A few security jobs in America and abroad kept her body and mind sharp, and the high commission kept her fed and clothed in the finest garments she desired.
Best of all, after her years dodging the law—and a certain superhero—her work was entirely legitimate.
…well, mostly, anyway.
Selina had always liked a thrill, and her time as the notorious thief Catwoman gave her that in spades.
One source of her life's thrills knocked on her window. She had gotten used to it at this point—it was hard not to be after a couple decades of this—and made a way for the Dark Knight to enter.
"Hello, Selina."
"Hello, Bruce."
She had known his real name for years. After what they had been through together, she deserved to know. But whatever name he used around her, he still gave her that certain tingle up her spine whenever he got just close enough. He'd been more distant from her—in more ways than one—since the little Robin arrived, but she knew that no "insane ninja witch," as she called the other woman, could erase what Bruce and Selina had.
"This isn't a social call."
"Too bad. I was thinking of getting a little tea going." A smirk crossed her lips. "Or maybe you'd like some wine, to help you loosen up?"
"Not tonight," he played along. "There's a gang on the streets. The Mutants. I need information."
"I can't offer you much." She grimaced in disgust. "They're a bunch of maniacs. Which is saying something, considering our lines of work." She'd caught a few of the teenaged freaks leering at her across one street, a pack of dogs eyeing a piece of meat—"chicken legs," they called her—but none were quite dumb enough to try taking a bite. "One of Holly's kids almost got torn apart just talking to two of them."
Holly Robinson was the closest thing Selina had to family, someone she had taken under her wing before she had become Catwoman. Back then, both were teenagers, the younger pulled away from both a drug habit and a certain profession to pay for it. Holly's welfare was one of the many complicated reasons she chose to leap off rooftops at night.
The proceeds of the feline femme fatale's exploits carried Holly through school, with enough left over to build a life away from Gotham altogether. In the end, though, Holly came back: to help the city in her own way, and to stay close to her big sister.
Part of Holly's way to pay her back was to take teach children self-defense and, if they wanted, to become Catwoman's informants. By now, some of them had taken in or had actual children of their own. The info they collected would go to Holly, who compiled it into a portable format for Selina who, in turn, would give some of that information to Batman… or the right buyer.
"Here you go." Selina gave him her notes in the form of a memory card.
"Thank you, Selina." He placed the card into his gauntlet's hidden mini-computer, transmitting the files to be analyzed at the Batcave by Alfred. "You should stay inside. If there are more Mutants around, it might be a rough night."
"Isn't it always a rough night for someone in this town?" She dismissed. "And anyway, I'm not the one about to dive off into danger."
He continued to reach for the window sill, but a hand on his bicep stopped him.
Her brown eyes looked past the cowl of the Dark Knight, visualizing every gray hair and wrinkle decorating the temples of the human underneath. "You can't keep doing this forever."
"Nor can you." He looked back. "And yet, both of us have worn a mask this week."
"Hmph."
Of course he knew.
"Just try not to die tonight," Selina warned, snide belying concern. "I want you alive long enough to tell me about your grandkids someday." She recalled the boy. "Speaking of kids, how is Robin anyway?"
Robin's attempt to capture her when they first met, and finding out that he was Batman's son to another woman, didn't exactly ingratiate the boy wonder to the master thief. Eventually, though, her frequent run-ins with the Bat Family left her attached to them all in different ways. She particularly liked Red Robin—unlike the little Robin, he had manners.
She may never have worn bat ears, but in their own strange way, they were her family too. That included Damian, as awkward as he looked when she pointed it out.
It was quite fun making him uncomfortable.
"That's a story for another time, Selina."
"Fine." The hand on his arm went to his shoulder, a coy shove sending him off. "Well, go on. Save the city, so I can get a good night's sleep."
"Good night." With a respectful nod, he took to the fire escape. "I'll see you again soon."
"Can't wait. Oh, and Bruce…"
She grinned as he looked back for a final time.
"Tell Damian his Auntie Selina says hi!"
Robin felt a strange shiver go down his spine.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." He dismissed the feeling. "Let's focus on the mission."
"Okay," Nightstar's eyebrow rose, "But I'm starting to wonder if Batman assigned us this job to keep us busy."
"You call it busy work." They had already stopped a riot in progress and a break-in of a convenience store; the former caused by Mutants, the latter caused by someone who thought the villains would give him cover to steal. "I call it productive."
"I guess it helps when you have a reputation." While the former incident took force to stop, the attempted thief merely took one sight of Robin before he surrendered.
"You have yours, Mar'i," he told the darling of Jump City, "and I have mine."
BANG.
A gunshot sounded.
"And it looks like I'll need to use it again."
"After you."
In a nearby alley, a brown-haired man in his mid-thirties gripped his bleeding arm, questioning how things ended up like this. He only wanted to get home and stay away from Gotham's dangerous nightlife, but he got caught in it all the same.
The worst fact was that someone else accompanied him.
"Take what you want, but don't hurt my—UNGH!"
A fist cut his pleading short. Its owner wore a black jacket over a gray shirt, with brown work pants and boots. He was younger than his victim, barely twenty years old, wearing red visor sunglasses. "You right, spud! We take what we want!"
"DAD!"
A young boy with brown hair reached out and started to run, only to meet a kick from a second Mutant, wearing the same style of glasses and dress, but sporting a black mohawk. The child landed on his side, wincing in pain and fear.
"Shut up!"
The father took a few more punches from the Mutant standing over him.
The one standing by the shivering boy asked, "What we do with the brat, Zeb?"
Zeb grinned.
He revealed his pistol, dirty from disuse, "We shut him up."
His partner smiled back.
Neither realized that a certain hero heard their last suggestion.
"A child?"
Their countenances dropped at the words echoing through the alley.
Zeb gulped. "Who dat, Dax?"
"Don't know, Zeb."
"You were going to kill a child?"
A birdarang soared through the air and cut into his hand, forcing Zeb to drop his gun.
"Agh!"
Discarding reputation, Robin descended upon the Mutant like a bird of prey rather than his namesake, unleashing a flurry of blows that hurtled the man into the wall. He collapsed once the back of his head met the brick.
The other Mutant cut his losses. "I ain't with this!"
A starbolt to the head, with a more measured force than Robin's, sent him to the ground.
Descending, Nightstar watched as Robin walked to the boy still lying in the alley. He called out with a rare softness to his voice. "Are you alright?"
"No." When the young man's hand reached out to him, the boy cringed, fearful of another attack.
Robin realized the boy had seen his angered assault, and, for a moment, pulled away. His line of work had him come across plenty of children in similar or worse plights as this one, and each time, he felt his blood boil.
He could still remember one of his first missions abroad, where he and Batman came across a psychopath who wanted to make children into his own personal dolls.
A European girl, her soiled dress unable to conceal her emaciated frame, extended her hand through the bars of her suspended cage. The young hero froze as the girl's desperate, curious fingers approached. A fingertip hung just an inch from Robin's face…
The memory receded. That mission was long over, the children in a better place, the villain never to see beyond the bars of a cell again. Following Batman's teachings, Robin told himself then, as always: he was a tool of justice, not vengeance.
For the Mutant he left at the wall, it was rough justice.
For this child, however, he needed a softer approach.
"It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you." The boy wonder removed his hood. His eyes, while lacking pupils from the outside perspective, still sent his sympathy. "I just want to help you and your father, okay?"
Convinced that there was a person under the hood, the child delicately reached out his hand. Robin lifted him to his feet.
"I'm Robin. What's your name?"
"Robin, wow!" He had heard the name before; a figure of bedtime stories and legends stood before him in the flesh! "I'm Warren."
"Okay, Warren. I'll pick up your father, and you can get out of here."
"But he's bleeding!"
"It's not too serious." They stood next to him as he slowly returned to consciousness. "He's gonna be fine."
The father finally came back. "Warren…"
"Dad!"
The father hugged his son, bleeding arm ignored. Whether by luck, fate, or divine intervention, their family stayed together for another day.
"Keep pressure on that arm, sir. There's a clinic just a few blocks away that can help." Dr. Leslie Thompkins' clinic still ran to this day, though she had a bit of help in her advanced years. Robin turned to Warren. "You're going to have to be brave for him in the meantime. Can you do that?"
"Mmhm." Warren stood a bit taller.
"Let's go, son." The older man looked at Robin, feeling strangely smaller before the man half his age. "Thank you."
The hero nodded. "You can thank me by continuing to be a father."
With one hand over the wound and the other holding his son's hand tight, the man took off to the clinic, never to encounter a Mutant again.
Little Warren McGinnis would never forget that night, drawing pictures and telling everyone in school with a working ear. No one believed him, but he didn't care. He hoped that when he grew up, he could pay his savior back somehow… someday.
"That was… really sweet of you." Nightstar's heart warmed. She was worried about Robin's initial attack, but understood where it came from. He told her of the European adventure, but she never seen him act that way with a child before. "Good job, Robin."
"Don't praise me yet." He nodded his head at the groaning Mutant returning to the waking world. "There's still something we can do here."
Dax opened his eyes to meet the face of two heroes.
Robin was back in his element. "Hello."
"Batman's kid!" He would never know how accurate that statement was.
"I'm not a child." He'd lost count of how many times he'd said that phrase, just in Gotham alone. "Right now, I'm your only friend. The one you can tell all your secrets to."
"I'm not tellin' smack!" The criminal proclaimed. "Mutants are loyal! We thicker than blood!"
"Loyal?" Nightstar almost laughed at his blatant lie, when the man was making a run for it just minutes ago. "Is that right?"
She stepped forward. On guard for a moment, Dax slackened his posture when her hand grazed his cheek.
"Maybe I can help you reconsider?"
The thug got an eyeful of the brunette beauty, and he liked what he saw.
"Mmm! My kind o' nasty!" He licked his lips. "Do anything you want to me!"
Nightstar smiled.
"Anything?"
"…and dat's all!"
Dax's smile was long gone, left somewhere in the alley where they Zeb's body once lay—he was already handled. Nightstar's smile was still present though, giving off a mix somewhere between amusement and impatience.
"Are you sure that's everything?"
Robin observed the interrogation of the idiot currently in his partner's loving care. He could have done the job himself, but she deserved a turn in the lead.
Rather than wield her feminine wiles like a certain feline felon, Nightstar used her raw power to her advantage. Her hand crushing a piece of the ledge made the Mutant's will waver, but it was her most recent act that made his mouth run.
Robin had to admit:
I like watching her work.
"No fib! No fib!" A tear slipped from his eye…
…and fell down his forehead. It dropped off his body, plummeting three stories to a stop where his glasses previously shattered. The blood rushing to his head combined with the pallor of fear made for an interesting rosy shade on his face.
"I don't know, Robin. He just might be lying." The boy wonder's associate played along. "My arm sure is getting tired..." For good measure, she jerked her arm just a little to fake a weakening grip on the Mutant's leg.
His fright shattered his affectation, speaking like a common Gothamite. "I SWEAR TO GOD, THAT'S EVERYTHING I KNOW!"
"Good." Nightstar responded by not-so-gently tossing her captive onto the roof. After a period of realizing he was on (and subsequently kissing) solid ground, the Mutant rose to his hands and knees, catching his breath.
"Listen up," Robin commanded. "I don't have time to drag your criminal carcass around town anymore, so you're going to go to GCPD, and you're going to turn yourself in. If you don't, well…"
He stepped aside, allowing Nightstar to float in his place; the moonlight casted a shadow that smothered Dax's body and spirit. The fluorescent green glow in her eyes was all he could see.
She answered for Robin.
"We could always play again."
He whimpered.
"You're going?"
More whimpers, and a frantic nod.
She whispered a single word.
"Go."
Dax scrambled to his feet, sprinting off with a new zest for life.
Even if that life was one behind bars, his new home would hopefully be far, far away from who the young woman he'd describe to his future roommates as "the Bat-kid's crazy girlfriend."
"We have a location." Robin transmitted the message via the Bat Comm in his ear. "They're gathering at the dump. One hour."
"Aww, and we were just in the middle of wringing some info out of this one."
Elsewhere, Batgirl and Red Robin departed a weapon-filled warehouse, its contents now shrapnel with the help of some well-placed explosive gel. This was the second cache they had torn apart while Robin and Nightstar were on patrol. The information from Catwoman helped in finding the locations.
The Dark Knight Damsel currently had the sole conscious thug against a wall. Judging by her motions, she was probably listing the many ways she could hurt him with a Batarang. One of her hands went low, and Red Robin could only smile amused as the criminal's face went pale.
I love watching her work.
Robin got his attention. "What's going on?"
"We've gotten some leeway with destroying some of the weapons, but he's a little slow with telling us about any other caches."
The Mutant could not see Batgirl's mouth, but could almost swear she was smiling under her mask.
"Just give me three minutes."
He gulped.
"We'll get to them later," Batman announced over the comm. "We've dulled the limbs, now we go for the head. I'll meet you all there."
"Got it." Red Robin cut the call.
"Until then." Damian finished back at the rooftop, but noticed Nightstar's brow furrow in thought. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
He looked at her wordlessly.
"Okay, a little something."
"Go ahead."
"Is it…" She bit her bottom lip. "Is it weird that I thought doing that was… kinda fun?"
Robin smirked.
"Welcome to the family."
In the Gotham City Dump, a congregation formed. Approximately three hundred men and women, most bald and all wearing different shades of purple and brown, readied for war, pulling out assorted guns from a series of scattered crates. Most wore the same red visor glasses as the person they came to see.
Their general, their god, their Leader, stood in the center. He wore a dull purple suit jacket with no shirt underneath, and his pants were a dark shade of brown, like the filth on which the gang stepped. Suiting his position, he presided on high, perched on a throne consisting of a ravaged car seat.
Raising his hand, the group lulled to silence.
"They call us a gang."
The boos and jeers resonated off the piles of refuse, the Leader's makeshift amphitheater.
"They think we just kids! They think we just dregs!"
More boos.
"We are not a gang." A powerful arm raised high, a few scattered sounds of 'no!' responding to his wicked gospel. "We are so much more! We are an army! We are a revolution!"
The cries became clamors.
"We will storm the streets! We will smash the police headquarters to rubble, and rip Commissioner Bennett's head off his shoulders! We will carry it down every street to show all who oppose us!"
The eyes under his glasses swelled with his hunger for war.
"We will kill, and kill, and kill, until they know that GOTHAM CITY BELONGS TO THE MUTANTS!"
The cheers shook the mountains of the literal wasteland. The war was coming, and they could hardly wait to win.
Suddenly, darkness. The lights across the dump ceased all at once.
"What's that, Rob?"
"Got me, Don."
The shadows spoke.
"Gotham isn't yours to take."
The Leader knew. It was only a matter of time.
"BATMAN!" He bared his teeth, a predator's yellow fangs visible in the moonlight. "Come out! Face me like a man! I'll beat you! Kill you! Eat out your heart!"
The old lights of the dump flickered back on. In an instant between darkness and light, Batman appeared in the center of the crowd, standing before the Leader.
The Dark Knight's cape split open, allowing him to put up his fists.
"I'm right here."
Several Mutants began to raise their weapons.
"It's the Bat!"
"Get him!"
"NO!" Their master commanded. With a single hand, he ripped off his jacket, baring his white chest to the autumn chill.
Black stood against white, age and experience against youth and ambition.
The latter's ambition gave him a new goal.
He wanted to make a legend die.
"He's all mine."
"Yeah!" One Mutant encouraged. "The Bat can't stop Leader! Leader better than everyone!"
"You sure, Rob?"
"You know, Don! The Bat berserk, come up fighting Leader! He dusted!"
Batman attacked first to prove them wrong. His first punch missed, but the second connected with the Leader's jaw, knocking the villain back from the force.
But it was only a step in retreat. Batman paused as he watched his opponent turn his head back with a smile.
"That ain't nothing!"
He returned fire, hammering the hero's guarding arms with what felt like twice the power. Batman ducked, but the Leader blocked the rising knee in time. The Leader blocked the subsequent kick to his right, jamming his fist into the hero's sternum.
Now the Caped Crusader felt himself forced back. Luckily, the bat on his chest was the thickest armor of his suit, but to the outside observer, the attack was no less painful.
"I hear them bones shaking, old man!" The Leader gloated. "You outta gas already?"
A burst of speed propelled a black fist into his glasses, which snapped and dropped into the dirt. The Leader growled.
Once more, Batman raised his fists.
"I'm not done yet."
More strikes came at the white-skinned beast in man's form, who seemed to absorb the attacks like a steel punching bag.
"Come on! Give it to me!" Batman gave him another shot to the gut—strong, but still not enough to down him. "I can take it all.
"But you?" The Leader sent a punch of his own, drawing blood from the hero's lip. "You OLD! You SLOW!" He scored another hit, this time to the left flank. "You can't beat me, or my army! With one word, my team will shut you down!" His sharp-toothed smile creased his skin. "No way you get us all!"
"You may be right. I've been at this for a long time, and I've learned when a fight is too much for one man." The aged crusader confessed. "I can't take you all alone."
He raised his right hand…
"But that's why I brought help."
…And closed it.
Explosions of smoke spread over the crowd, cries erupting within the clouds.
"GAH! I can't see!"
"I got him! I-YAAAH!" A hand yanked him further into the smoke.
"DANNY! What happened to Danny?"
"Dunno. I-ungh!" A staff descended, stopping his speech.
"It's the Bat!"
"Batman right there! ...Batman everywhere!"
"Some kinda ghosts!"
Batman smirked, his masked eyes drinking in the sight of their fear.
Times changed, but some things didn't.
A superstitious, cowardly lot.
The smoke began to clear, bringing into view a foursome currently scattering the Mutants into disarray.
Batgirl was a phantom, gliding past opponents and leaving broken bodies in her wake. Her speed and ability to read opponents were more than a match for the wild bunch before her eyes.
Three of the Mutants decided to surround her, but she was ready. The front attacker went first, only to fly over her shoulder with a throw, and the left and right met a leaping punch and kick, respectively.
The thrown thug wasn't finished and sneakily pulled out a knife, but she had already seen his arm's movement, a desperate attempt to conceal. By the time he got into attack range, she had deflected his arm and sped forward, tripping a leg. With him off balance, it was no trouble to grab his face and take him to the ground. A solid punch laid him still.
She sighed, moving on to the next league of fools. "Not even a challenge."
Red Robin used a retractable staff to handle his foes, pain bursting from his enemies' arms and legs thanks to the staff's electrified tips. A spin of his weapon blocked a desperate spray of bullets from a Mutant's pistol; the criminal's resulting moment of surprise gave Red an opening to toss a Batarang and jam the weapon.
Unarmed, the Mutant froze for a moment. Red assumed he was weighing his choices. The former charged all the same, and the latter set to close in with a strike to the collar bone...
Until Robin leaped in and downed the villain with a flying kick to his face.
While skilled with a staff as well (Drake had actually caused him to improve due to the spars they had), Robin preferred a more personal touch, never afraid to get his gloves dirty. A few spots of blood evidenced that, left by a Mutant's mouth caught on Robin's knuckles just minutes before. That Mutant surprisingly knew how to box, and out of amusement, Robin played his game for a few seconds. Disappointingly, those seconds were all he needed; the Mutant had talent, but he hadn't gone up against masters, and his glass jaw proved it.
Red was not amused at his junior's interruption. "Really?"
"You were taking too long. I thought you might have needed my help." The boy wonder smirked. "Again."
"You're just going to hang that over my head forever, aren't you?" He thrust his staff to bring a Mutant to one knee, then slammed down from overhead.
"Probably." Robin stared at a crowd of gang members running for the weapons crates. "Unless you can keep up."
"As much as I'd love to wipe that smirk off your face," Red pointed out something in the sky, "I don't think I'll have to."
Robin followed his elder's gaze and saw Nightstar bombing the enemy from above. A rain of purple starbolts cut a line between the Mutants and the crates, before she charged a larger one to blast the crates into shrapnel.
Red whistled. "You gotta love watching her work, am I right?"
Robin's backhand knocked out a thug lurking behind. "Just get back in the fight."
"You brought your crew?" The Mutant Leader growled.
"Like you have yours. But if you're frightened, don't worry." Batman kept his eye on him. "They won't get between us either."
"Fine wit' me, spud." The criminal charged. "I can still kill you on my own!"
"Can you?" Batman took his opponent's outstretched arm for a throw, from which the Leader managed to recover. "I'm not quite as slow as you think." The Dark Knight demonstrated by flowing past the series of fists that came his way. "I've been testing your strength, your speed, and your endurance. Impressive, if not superhuman."
"Stay still!"
"But even you have weaknesses. For example…"
Batman dodged yet another swing, and returned with his own, cutting him across the forehead with a well-concealed Batarang in his hand.
"You can still bleed."
The trickle of blood in the villain's eyes was enough to distract. "What?"
A punch to the face, then another, gave the Leader cause to stumble. One hand tried to wipe off the blood while the other blindly swiped in retaliation.
"You're still human." This gave Batman yet another opening, striking the Leader's chest, then upper arm, with a precise finger jab. "And I know the human body."
"What you do to my-"
"I struck a bundle of nerves in your deltoid." Batman watched—with a small amount of satisfaction—as he struggled to lift the limb. "It's not broken, but you won't be attacking with that arm anytime soon."
The Leader flailed his arms, both working and deadened, as he defied his older foe. "You… you ain't beat me yet!"
"On the contrary, I already have." The Caped Crusader did not turn his own gaze, but still invited, "Look around you."
The Leader obeyed and his fanged jaw dropped. Many of the Mutants continued to dissemble into unconscious piles or pained wrecks, courtesy of the Dark Knight's squires.
"Feeling a bit alone without your men?" Batman inquired. "Don't be. You'll be joining them."
Still in awe at his impending failure, the Leader left himself wide open. His jaw rocked left and right as black-gloved fists made their mark. The gangster's own attempt at a punch met nothing, Batman already moving behind him. He grabbed around the Leader's waist and took him into a suplex, a combined four hundred pounds of man slamming into the trash. He quickly got around to the Leader's working arm, wrapped it into an armbar… and pulled.
Everyone in the dump heard the SNAP.
"AAAUUUGH!"
The Leader could only lay there as the Batman straddled his chest and rained down more blows.
Batman made sure to keep him awake, though. He needed to send a message. He drew the Mutant's soiled face toward his own, watching scarlet and dark brown layer over white.
"I want you to remember this. And I want you to tell everyone else." He called out to the gang's remains, those who surrendered intact or submitted from injury. "Gotham is my city."
He got a moan in reply, from the pain and stubbornness.
"Say it."
"Gotham… is… your city!"
"And who beat you?"
Batman received silence.
He stood up…
Then let his black boot fall onto the Leader's arm. "AAAAUGH!"
"TELL THEM WHO BEAT YOU!"
"BAAAAATMAAAAAAN!"
"And who is your leader?"
"B… Ba…" His spirit shattered. "Batman."
"Good answer."
A fist descended, knocking out the wasteland's king.
The last Mutants balked.
"He won!"
"Leader dusted?"
"Naw, Leader live!"
"He ain't no Leader! Batman Leader!"
"Batman! …Batman!... BATMAN!"
Soon the whole crowd applauded his rise; even those waking up from their knockouts began to follow the crowd.
"BATMAN! BATMAN! BATMAN!"
Robin rolled his eyes. Pathetic sheep.
Batman, on the other hand, found an opportunity. "I'm your Leader?"
The rabble cheered once more. One Mutant raised his gun—Nightstar grabbed it out of his hand before he hurt himself.
"Fine."
The Dark Knight, now the Mutants' king, prepared his first decree.
"This is what you're going to do…"
"That was incredible."
In the kitchen of Wayne Manor, Mar'i helped Damian round up some snacks for the upcoming celebration. Cassandra and Tim split off from the group to set up the home theater room, while Bruce went off on his own to "handle some unfinished business," as he called it.
"I will admit," Damian prepared the first bowl of popcorn, "I never thought I would see the day when a gang cleaned up its own mess."
Batman's first order for his temporary minions was for the Mutants to dismantle their own operations—the remaining firearms were destroyed per the hero's no-gun policy. The second order was to discard the Mutant name and turn themselves into the police, awaiting further orders and a new name for their "gang."
Some were already painting Bat symbols on their clothes and faces with paint and dirt, much to Nightstar's stunned surprise (and to Robin's continued distress at the state of today's youth).
Only his breath control techniques prevented Red Robin from laughing as he witnessed the former Mutants pour by the dozens into GCPD; he wondered just what Batman would do with what the news media would soon call "Batman's new cult."
Batgirl was, like her brother, mildly disturbed. Like her father, she suspected his acolytes would become more trouble than they were worth.
Fortunately, that was why he had a real team.
"I think we did pretty well together." Mar'i considered. "I'm glad I could find a place with them."
"I had a feeling you would. You adapt well to new challenges." He looked back over his shoulder to the girl sipping a soda from a can. "It's one of your better qualities."
"Oh?" She pressed him. "Do go on!"
"I don't believe I need to."
"I believe you do," she placed the can on the table at the kitchen's center, "since I also remember you never answered that question."
"The question. Of course."
He paused, the sound of popping kernels filling the space.
"If you really need to know, then I suppose I can make my own assessment."
He turned around from the cooker, letting his hand glide over the table as he approached.
"You were a powerful…"
Closer.
"…capable…"
Yet another step.
He whispered.
"…beautiful addition to this team."
A smile slipped out as the word caressed her ear. "I knew it."
He backed away, yet his own smirk seemed to reciprocate her smile.
"Is that a good enough answer?"
Her heart quickened when she realized just how close he was. If she moved forward, took the chance, she knew she would-
She gulped, and not from the soda.
"That's fine."
"Good." He placed a hand on her arm, bringing her back to Earth. "Go ahead to the theater. I'll handle this."
She murmured an "Okay."
Mar'i took a slow walk back to the home theater, thinking about how he could sway her emotions.
…But I think I liked it this time.
She left her soda behind.
Damian stared on, before the light smile on his face dropped upon a realization.
"You can come out now, Drake."
"Always was hard to sneak up on you. And Cass, for that matter. You really should see if you two are blood-related." Tim finally revealed himself from the opposite door from which Mar'i left, not embarrassed in the slightest.
"What were you doing there? Eavesdropping?"
"Oh, I was just coming back to get something of my own, but then I heard your little moment! Now, I thought you'd be a complete mess, but you were actually a little smooth just now." He gave a thumb up. "I'm proud of you!"
"Don't be," Damian deadpanned. "You're not my father."
"Well, I'm gonna do something my father did for me when I was little." Tim took up a seat at the counter. "Let me tell you a story."
"Why?"
"It's important, considering this thing you're going through."
"There's no 'thing.' And you do know the girls are waiting in the other room?"
"Don't worry, it's a short story, and…" he held a pause for drama, "it just so happens to be about a girl."
He ignored Damian's annoyed grunt, and began.
"Bruce never told you, but back before you, and before Cass, I knew this girl named Stephanie. She was one of us."
That actually did interest him. "A Robin?"
"No," Tim corrected, "a crimefighter."
Tim imagined her, clad in a purple hood and bodysuit, her blue eyes and blond hair standing out from the grey bandanna that served as a mask.
"She called herself the Spoiler."
"I'll guess," Damian jumped in, "because she spoiled crimes before they happened?"
"Got it in one," Tim praised. "Anyway, Steph was a lot like me—she wanted to fight crime, and worked her butt off to get strong enough to do it. She had a mouth and the skills to back it up… well, most of the time. Unlike me, though, she was a little too reckless."
"Unlike you?"
Tim chose to ignore that remark. "It was a little early on in my career, you see, and I felt I needed to look out for a fellow rookie, so I did. One accidental run-in become two, and before I knew it…" He chuckled. "Batman figured out why I'd been out more than usual. He told me to stay away; that she'd be trouble."
"And you couldn't."
"I just hung around her even more. While I thought I was just watching her, she was changing me." He explained, "I was still hurting after losing my family, but Steph had this zest for life that I didn't quite have back then." He smiled. "She just... rubbed off on me.
"But like I said, she could be reckless. All the wins she racked up, and the ones we had together, they all got to her, I think. One night, she came to me with this big idea to take out a bunch of crime bosses at once. I told her she was crazy to do it without bigger muscle, but she didn't listen. She stormed off, told me I betrayed her."
His eyes stared down at the table.
"That was the last time we spoke in costume.
"The next time I saw her was in the hospital. Those scumbags got the drop on her and beat her to death's door." A tear nearly escaped, as his mind replayed the sight. His left hand was no longer on the counter, but at her bedside, almost reaching for her blond hair, before he stopped himself. "The injuries did the rest. The papers would never know what she did for this city, or know what she'd done for me."
The image vanished.
"After meeting Bruce, Stephanie Brown was the first person I'd ever really connected with, the first person I'd ever given my secret identity to. She was probably the first person I ever…"
He sighed.
"I always wondered if me being there, fighting by her side, would have made the big difference. I wondered if I'd ever feel anything like that again with anyone else…" He gave a tiny smile. "Well, until…"
"Until Cassandra?"
"Until Cassandra." He looked out the doorway, wondered if she was listening in. "But that's another, longer story."
"That was a tragedy, Drake," Damian told, "but what does it have to do with me?"
Tim stared into his eyes. "I think you know."
The boy's face was a brick wall. "You tell me."
"Alright, I will, since you're playing dumb." The man pressed. "You and Mar'i. Your relationship."
"She's a trusted teammate and friend." His voice remained as stolid as his face. "I care about her, of course, but there's nothing going on."
"Nothing going on with the girl you mention in most of your talks with Bruce? Nothing going on with the girl you took all the way from the other side of the country just to meet us?" He grinned. "Nothing going on with the girl you just flirted with?"
Damian frowned. "That wasn't flirting."
"If that's not flirting, I'm the son of you know who." He put on a fake, disturbing smile, then dropped it.
The Titans' leader merely huffed. That wasn't funny, for multiple reasons.
"Look, what I'm saying is, I was lucky to find someone else in my life to heal that pain of being alone. I'm part of a family again." Tim appealed, "You know what that feels like, right? Finding family?"
"Yes," Damian admitted. He had his mother from the start, but she trained him mostly as a student, a fighter, the potential heir to the League of Assassins if he so wished to claim the role.
His father, stern as he could be, was different. Bruce trained him as a costumed hero, yes, but he also made more direct efforts to treat him as a son. It was why leaving Gotham City for Jump City—including leaving his "brother" Tim, not that he would ever admit it—felt like such a turning point.
"Your family's gotten bigger with the Titans, and it includes that girl in the other room. She treats you like you actually have a heart in that chest of yours, instead of a block of ice. And I'm willing to bet she rubbed off on you, just like Steph once did for me."
Tim was right. Ever since a certain little girl in royal purple reached out to a serious little boy with her bag of chocolate cookies and an expectant grin, Mar'i Grayson had left a mark on Damian Wayne.
In his first days with his father, Damian had tried sneaking out of Wayne Manor a few times out of boredom, but that was alone. Mar'i was one of the first and few people he'd taken out with him anywhere, including back into Wayne Manor.
"You're probably wondering why you brought her, aren't you?"
"No. I know why, I think." Damian thought back. "She'd wanted to come for so long, and Grayson wasn't doing it, so I took charge. We didn't even tell him we were leaving." He gave a quiet amused chuckle at the image of Grayson's possible reaction. "I wanted Mar'i to…" Damian tried to articulate it, something he had failed to do the entire time, even from before he revealed his surprise to her. "…to understand where I came from, where both of us came from, in a sense."
He recalled her smile.
He wasn't lying when he said she was beautiful.
"I wanted to make her happy."
"Yep," Tim grinned, "she changed you alright." He reached for his junior's hair. "You're growing up!"
Damian grabbed his hand midway. "No way, Drake."
"Fine." The midair hand instead moved to his shoulder. "But you've got something good here, Damian. Just appreciate the time you have with her." His face grew serious. "You never know when it might be up."
Damian nodded silently.
It won't be anytime soon. Not if I can help it.
"Alright!" Tim clapped. "Let's get the snacks and get out of here. The girls are probably wondering what's taking us so long!"
"What is taking them so long?"
Cassandra was normally a patient woman, but this was ridiculous.
"I don't know," Mar'i slouched on the couch. "I've had to set up for five before, including a girl with a crazy metabolism, but not even I've had to use this much time. Of course, I have super strength." She had a thought, sitting up from her seat. "So… you talked about Mr. Wayne, but what was meeting Tim like? What did you think of him?"
"It wasn't the best impression. I recall him being so easy to read." She frowned. "I could tell he was afraid of me. I don't completely blame him, though. From his perspective, I was a nameless, voiceless girl in his home who could literally kill him with her eyes closed."
"Yikes!"
"Exactly. Still, he tried anyway. He tried to get me to talk, to get me to open up, even though I didn't know how to do either. It wasn't fun seeing him with that frustrated look on his face.
"But when he and the others gave me that chance, they convinced me to reach out in return. They convinced me to work even harder. My predecessor and Bruce taught me sign language and how to read, and Tim…"
The past zoomed by in her mind: Tim, juggling apples in the dining room; Tim, balancing on a bannister, pretending to be a tightrope artist wobbling on his feet; Red Robin racing her on a rooftop, diving and flipping, sticking the landing with an awkward smile as he stumbled his way to first place…
She giggled. "He taught me how to laugh!"
She looked down to her hands.
"Despite who I was, what I've done, and even how I made him feel at first…"
Her hands came together, fingers interlocked.
"He helped me feel complete."
Her smile grew.
"It's just part of why, after all these years, I've never let him go."
"Wow." Mar'i sat awestruck by the emotion.
She sounds like Mom talking about Dad.
She must really-
"And you?"
Mar'i snapped out of it, and confessed her own meeting. "Well, it was the other way around for me. I was afraid of Damian at first, but curious too. I kind of…" she searched for a less embarrassing word, "…watched him."
Cassandra saw through it. "Stalked him?"
"…maybe." She pleaded her case. "But he was such a mystery! The son of Batman! The boy who wanted my father's old name and mask! How could I resist? And he was so cool, and talented… and…"
"Cute?"
"YES! I mean…" Her eyes darted away. "Well, I guess this is awkward, you being his sister and all."
"Not at all," Cassandra dismissed. "He is cute."
"Ever since we met, I guess I never really stopped watching him." Mar'i continued. "I know he tries to keep his emotions to himself. I know doesn't exactly jump for joy when he sees me, and you're the only girl I've ever seen him hug back, but still!" Her voice fell to a whisper. "I just can't keep away."
"I've been where you are, Mar'i. Even when I could read Tim, it took time to understand myself," Cassandra assured. "But don't worry—time will sort things out, and you'll come out better for it."
"Thank you."
"I'm just passing down the advice a certain someone taught me."
Cassandra hoped Barbara would be proud.
She went on. "And don't worry about Damian, either. Alfred says that we Waynes all share that trait." A bemused "hmph" escaped, another family quirk. "You're important to him, even if he never says a thing. He let you into our home for a reason."
That much Mar'i could figure out, "But what if… what if we're both too late? Our lives are dangerous sometimes." She had seen it first-hand as a child: "Even fatal."
"Isn't that why you're fighting, to protect the people you care about?"
"Of course."
"Then Damian is very fortunate. Even on the other side of the country, there's someone by his side, someone who's there for him."
"I am." Mar'i's hand went to her heart. "And I want to be."
"No matter what happens, keep being there for him." Cassandra grabbed the hand with both of her own. "Keep watching over my little brother."
"I will. I promise!" The star child smiled. "After all…"
The boys entered the room, four popcorn bowls in hand.
She looked Damian in the eye.
"He's important to me too."
The boy only blinked.
"What're you girls talking about?" Tim sat his popcorn down slowly, but a few kernels still fell from the bowl.
"Just girl talk," Cassandra replied.
"I see we spared you from a horrible fate then."
Mar'i frowned slightly. "Not funny, Damian." All the same, she let him sit by her side, one bowl carried with him. She snatched up some kernels, reaching over his arm to get them.
She didn't move back in place, however, settling for placing her head on his shoulder.
He raised his eyebrow.
She smirked.
He merely gave a bemused "hmph," and stared ahead to the screen.
They and the older couple got comfortable as the title credits rolled.
Then Damian heard the music.
"You didn't."
Tim grinned. "Oh, I did."
"No…"
"C'mon, it's a classic!" The disk began to play. "The Battlin' Bug!"
Yes, The Battlin' Bug, a movie Tim had watched so many times in the manor, the entire family could recite the script. In fact, Tim was mouthing the narration now.
Damian sighed.
Drake could be downright insufferable.
"Mar'i?"
"Yes?"
"Please shoot me with a starbolt. Perhaps two, in my ears."
"Maybe…" she put a finger to the chin, "…after the movie, Damian."
The main character said his first quip; Drake laughed up a storm. "Man, that never stops being funny!"
Damian sank into the couch.
"Ugh…"
Back in the Batcave, Bruce Wayne waited for the call to be answered, one on a secret line going directly to the receiver. If his knowledge of time zones were correct—and it always was—she would be well awake by now.
The screen changed, and there she was.
Her brown hair fell to her shoulders. Her flawless toned skin hinted at Arabic heritage, and her powerful green eyes made any mortal man shrink before her gaze… all but one.
That man had earned a special name.
"Hello, Beloved."
"Hello, Talia."
Talia al Ghul, head of the League of Assassins, CEO of Lazarus Industries, the mother of the son of Batman, smiled in greeting.
"How goes the business?" Lazarus Industries was a pharmaceuticals company, using the scientific findings acquired by her father over the centuries to figure out an end to humanity's physical ails.
"Profitable, Bruce. We should find a cure for muscular dystrophy within the year." Her groomed eyebrow rose. "But that is not why you called, is it?"
"Of course not."
"Then, please…"
She readied her cup of finely brewed coffee in both hands, getting comfortable.
"Tell me the latest about our son."
END
Since The Batman slightly informed my work with Bruce, I figured it might as well inform other parts of this Batman's timeline, and so came the installment of Ethan Bennett. Barbara Gordon's story? Well, she's on two feet, so… you imagine it how you want.
While Talia was Robin's mother, we all know Catwoman's had her place in the Batman mythos, and I couldn't leave her alone, so she gets a scene.
If you can't tell, the source of the villain (and some of the lingo) was the graphic novel/movie series The Dark Knight Returns.
I reasoned that the "Titans of Tomorrow" Batman would employ a different approach to fighting the Mutant Leader's gang since he had some advantages the DKR Batman lacked: Batman's not retired for a decade prior, and he's lucky/smart enough to have a team before going to fight a whole gang. Needless to say, it would turn the DKR Batman's canonical two-round fight into an easier one-round knockout for ToT Batman. Still, if you've watched the movie, you can even find some lines from it, tweaked here and there.
As for "the mission abroad" with Red Robin, you could read into that what you want, but there's a deleted scene I have with one possibility.
The Battlin' Bug is a movie based on a character from the DC Multiverse's Earth 8. Earth 8 uses pastiches of Marvel Comics characters, so I'm sure you can figure out who the Bug is supposed to represent.
That concludes the Gotham adventure, but there's more to come! Keep your eyes open for the next chapter.
Until then, Titanic readers.