Nightwing/Dick Grayson, Batman/Bruce Wayne, and Oracle/Barbara Gordon belong to DC Comics/Time Warner.
Tony Newman, Doug Phillips, and Ann MacGregor belong to Irwin Allen Productions.
I am using them without permission, however I have not and don't expect to make money from this.
Gaby, Rick, Norman, and any others you don't recognize are mine.
Rated PG-13 : Crude language; violence; sexual references.
A note about characterization of Nightwing/Dick Grayson and Batman/Bruce Wayne: both, especially Batman, have been interpreted and re-interpreted so many times since their creation in 1939/1940 that it's impossible to say there's a single valid personality for either. I've based them on the comics, but a combination of the various ways they've been portrayed over the years. While Robin/Dick/Nightwing has not changed radically, Batman/Bruce definitely has. My version may not be what you're used to seeing.
While this is a double crossover, you don't need to know anything about the non-PRTF characters except what everyone knows about Batman. This is a continuation of my Time Force series of stories, and takes place after the events of 'Time Over' and 'Sins of the Fathers'. My story 'Night Time' was a prelude to this, you don't have to have read it, but it probably helps.
It starts slow, but don't let that fool you...
Wes Collins sighed. On his right side, Jen Scotts responded with a sigh of her own. Across the table, Eric Myers rolled his eyes, and on Wes's other side Gaby Butler hid a smile. Wes stared across the diner, searching for inspiration. He failed to find it in the sun shining brightly through the windows lining the street side of the room, casting squares of light onto the tiled floor.
Nothing to do but try again. "Jen, come on. There's no reason for us to move out, just because we're getting married."
"I want a house of our own."
"But… I don't want to leave Dad alone."
"He's got Philips."
Wes sighed again. "Philips is a butler. It's not the same."
"What happens if we have kids?"
"The same thing that happened when I was growing up. They'll have a great time in that house."
"I just don't know…
"Aren't you comfortable there? Don't you like Dad?"
"Of course I do. But don't you want to be independent?"
"Well, sure. But -- I don't see why we have to move out to be independent. Why not keep the family together? Dad, us, our kids someday... What's wrong with all of us living in the same house?"
"Just like on Dynasty," Gaby murmured.
Wes silenced her with a frown. "Jen, at least think about it."
"Okay. I'll think about it." Jen's voice was reluctant.
"Thank God," Eric muttered.
"But I still say we should get the Grace flatware," Jen continued.
"Oh, Lord, help me," Eric said, a little louder. "Wes, why don't you just let her get what she wants?"
"I hate that style, it's ugly," Wes objected. "I like the Monterey."
"Does it really matter what silverware you register?" Gaby asked, with a glance at Eric, who appeared to be grinding his teeth.
"Of course it matters," Jen exclaimed. "We're going to have to live with that set for years!"
"But Dad has plenty of silverware…"
"I want my own!"
Gaby tried again. "I'm surprised you would still care about that kind of thing in the future. Thought you would think about more important things."
"It is important," Jen said. "Don't you care what kind of flatware you have?"
"Sure. I like the Wal-Mart."
"Personally, I prefer the Supermarket Plastic," Eric commented.
With a disgusted glance, Jen turned back to Wes. "If you don't like the Grace, how about the Lace Frost?"
"Geez, Jen, that one's so… girly."
"Girly? What does that mean?"
"I want something more masculine." He grinned, raised an arm, and flexed the bicep. "More manly."
Eric finally exploded. "For Christ's sake, Wes, what do you want, silverware that looks like a dick? Just don't invite me over for dinner!"
"God, Eric, do you think you could say that a little louder? I think those children over there didn't hear you," Wes said, trying his best not to laugh. He watched Gaby choking on a sip of water, and Jen trying to look disapproving, her lips twitching suspiciously.
"Well, don't argue about such stupid things, at least not in front of me," Eric said, with an only slightly repentant expression.
Gaby, recovered now, said, "Besides, you haven't even set a date yet. Why are you worrying about silverware?"
"What about the date?" Jen asked. "Can we at least decide on that?"
Wes smiled. "June's the traditional month. How about then?"
"It's almost June now, how are we supposed to be ready? And I don't know if I want to be that traditional. How about... November? We'd have five months to make arrangements."
"That's winter. I was thinking about next June."
"A whole year?"
"A year of listening to you two argue about nothing?" Eric growled.
"Now our wedding is nothing?"
"And we're not arguing, we're discussing," Wes added. "Isn't that right, Jen, honey?"
"Of course it is, sweetheart."
Eric made a disgusted face. "I don't know what's worse, the arguing or the sweet talk."
"Why are you being so negative about us getting married?" Jen asked. "Afraid Gaby'll get ideas?"
"No! Of course not," Eric exclaimed with a quick glance at Gaby.
"Don't worry about me," she said. "I never have ideas."
"That's not what I meant."
"Besides, I wouldn't dream of marrying you." Gaby leaned her elbows on the table and grinned at him.
"Why the hell not?"
"Because you'd never let me get silverware that looks like a-"
"Je-sus." Eric cut her off, giving her his best cold stare, the one that made the strongest Guardians tremble. "Think you're funny, don't you?" he asked.
"I do." She chuckled at his expression.
"I agree with you on one thing, Eric," Wes said. "We've got more important things to worry about right now."
"Yeah. The next generation of cyclobots."
Wes glanced around again. There was a harried-looking woman with three small children at the other side of the room, and a man with light brown hair in the corner. At the sound of the door closing, he looked in that direction to see a dark-haired man, perhaps a few years younger than himself, come in. He took a table by the windows after pausing for a moment to give them a sharp glance.
"Yeah." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "If someone's building a new set of cyclobots, we could have a serious problem."
Dick Grayson sat down and picked up his menu at the table by the window, regretting his slip, staring like that when he saw Eric, Wes, and Jen. He pretended to examine it while taking another look at the group of Rangers at their table in the middle of the room. They seemed wrapped up in conversation, probably hadn't even noticed him, and if they did, they'd assume he had recognized Eric as the Quantum Ranger or had simply been staring at the Silver Guardian uniforms.
He looked curiously at the second woman, smaller than Jen, with short brown hair, deciding he had never seen her before. From the body language, she was with Eric. As he was turning his attention to the menu for real, his phone rang. He sighed and answered it. Very few people had the number of his secure cell phone and he had already spoken to Barbara in the morning, so he was already fairly sure he knew who was calling.
"Dick?"
"Bruce." As he had expected, his former guardian and mentor, Bruce Wayne. "What is it?"
"Are you all right?"
"Sure. Why wouldn't I be?"
"I heard about your -- incident -- last night. Heard you were injured."
"Heard it from who?"
"There was a leak to the media. Someone in the Silver Guardians. All they said was that you were taken to their infirmary, unconscious."
"I'm fine. And you didn't need to check up on me." He heard the hint of annoyance in his own voice.
"Dick, I was worried. Can you blame me for that?"
"Well -- I guess not." Slightly mollified, Dick went on. "At least you called this morning, instead of flying out here, breaking into my room and scaring the crap out of me."
"I remember you didn't like it, the last time I did that." Bruce's voice was neutral, with just a hint of amusement.
"No, I didn't."
"What happened?"
Dick shrugged. "Not much."
"How did you get knocked out?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Why? I'm concerned."
"Look, Bruce…" Dick turned away from the other occupants of the diner and lowered his voice. "You're doing this again! I told you the last time, I'm capable of handling a few things on my own. I don't need you to butt in."
"I'm not butting in. Maybe I can help."
"Well, don't help." Dick felt a flicker of guilt, but sternly denied it. "This is exactly what happened with the Matthews case a month ago. You just blew into Bludhaven and took over. I have my own city now, my own life. I need to handle both of them on my own."
"I told you I was sorry about that." There was a brief pause, then Bruce's voice came again, sounding as if he was forcing the words. "You were in trouble. I didn't want you to get hurt."
"Yeah." He sighed. "I know you mean well, but… anyway, it doesn't matter. They said they could handle it themselves. They don't want help."
"Who?"
Dick grinned. "The Rangers. I met them last night. Had a little sparring match with Eric Myers."
"The Quantum Ranger? Is he the one who hurt you?" Now there was a spark of anger in Bruce's voice.
"No. He didn't use his Ranger powers, at least not then. It was just a misunderstanding." Dick smiled. "He's pretty good. Held his own."
"Against you? I'm impressed."
"Don't try to flatter me. Then we were attacked. By a bunch of robots, no less. They were trying to rob Bio-Lab. There was a guy controlling them. Average size, pale skin, very light hair. Didn't get much of a look at him in the dark."
"Robots?" A skeptical tone.
"No, I'm not kidding. A mob of them. Eric called for help, and two more Rangers showed up. I got hurt in the fight, they took me to the Silver Guardians' infirmary, and they fixed me. I met the other two, Wes Collins and Jen Scotts. End of story."
"Robots…" Dick could hear the curiosity in Bruce's voice, the interest. "Wes Collins. I've met his father, Alan. Done some business with him. If he's in trouble..."
"Don't even start. I asked if I could help, and Eric turned me down. I got the impression they didn't want me finding out too much about them."
"We all have secrets, don't we?" Bruce paused, and evidently gave it up. "How long are you staying in Silver Hills?"
Dick turned his head to look out through the window, the summer sun uncomfortably bright, making him squint as it reflected from cars in the street. "Just tonight."
"Well, have a good time. Let me know if anything comes up."
"If anything comes up, I can handle it on my own."
"I'm sure you can. Goodbye."
Dick said goodbye and hung up, glancing at the four people at the other table again. For a moment regret prickled at him. He had liked Eric, was curious about all three of them, would have liked to get to know them better. It would be nice to just walk up to that table, say hello, sit down and have lunch with them... The disadvantage of secret identities. Maybe Eric had the right idea, not bothering to hide it.
"Jesus, can't things ever be just normal around here?" Eric burst out, scowling fiercely. "I'm sick of mutants, robots, supercriminals out to rule the world..."
"Face it, you'd get bored without this stuff," Wes said.
"Are you nuts?"
"Anyway, no point in complaining. Someone's building cyclobots, and we've got to deal with it."
"You still think it's someone here? Not from the future?"
"I think so," Jen said. "Captain Logan would have contacted me if they detected anyone traveling to this time again."
"Maybe you should call him. Tell him what's going on, see if he knows anything."
"No, Wes, you know they left the communicator only for extreme emergencies. We're not supposed to have any contact unless we suspect interference from another time."
"Yeah, I know." Wes grinned. "Pollutes the timestream."
"I think Jen's right. Someone did steal some wrecked cyclobots we had in storage," Eric said. "Gaby, couldn't they have just copied the design?"
"I don't know about that," Bio-Lab's computer security expert replied. "The hard part would have been the brains. The computers to run them. The software. If whoever took those old cyclobots got the computer parts -- and if they have enough expertise, and the resources -- maybe they could have duplicated them."
"How hard would it be?"
"Hard. They'd have to figure out a computer technology two hundred years advanced beyond ours. I wouldn't even know where to begin."
"Couldn't they have used current computers? Aren't scientists building robots right now?"
"Well, yeah. But the state of the art is still at the level of getting them to walk and pick things up and obey simple commands. Ransik's cyclobots could move almost as well as a human, and they were capable of some independent thought. The real problem is the software... You know, if they could download the programming somehow, they might not have to understand it... they could use modern hardware... maybe..." She trailed off thoughtfully.
"So you do think it's possible someone in this time is doing it?" Wes asked.
"Could be. You should talk to Dr. Zaskin. I know his team was studying them for a while. He must have a robotics expert on staff."
"Yeah, we can go see him after lunch." Wes continued, to Eric, "Too bad neither you or Nightwing got a good look at that guy with the cyclobots the other night."
"Yeah, too bad."
"What was he like?" Gaby said, her face taking on a dreamy expression.
"I didn't get a good look. Average size, light coloring, blond or white hair," Eric answered.
"Not him. Nightwing."
"Nightwing? He was okay."
"Wow, I would have loved to meet him. Just to see him... a real superhero..."
Eric glared at her. "What are we, chopped liver? We're more super than he is."
She widened her eyes innocently. "Was he cute? I mean, really, really cute?"
"How the hell should I know? God. Why do I put up with you?"
"Last night you said you like the way I-"
"Never mind," Eric said hastily. She laughed, and took his hand. He smiled, his face warming, and squeezed her fingers. Then he sighed as Jen turned back to Wes.
"Wes, what's wrong with getting married in the winter?"
He watched them, trying not to be seen at his table in the corner, away from the sunlight slanting in through the windows. Not that any of them would recognize him, anyway, now that he'd made himself look normal. He finished his lunch, alone as usual, tasting only the bitterness of envy and resentment. And why not resent them? Big heroes. Big shots. They didn't deserve any of it.
Waiting for the check, he put on his sunglasses, and could watch them more closely. The women with them -- both brunette, one tall, one petite. Both pretty. His eyes fastened on the shorter one. Gabriella. Gaby. He had noticed her at Bio-Lab, had watched her, and thought about her. Pretty and smart. He would have asked her out, as soon as he got up the nerve, but then she started going out with him. Eric Myers. Big muscles and a handsome face, that's all women cared about. The guy didn't even graduate from high school, for Christ's sake.
The other woman was probably the same way, shallow and selfish. Wes Collins was good-looking, and rich too, that's all she wanted. No pretty girls were ever interested in him -- and he was miles smarter than Eric, or Wes, or most of the guys on Earth, for that matter. All anyone cared about was the surface, and his surface had never gotten him what he deserved.
But he'd show them. He was smart enough to make himself powerful and glamorous. He'd end up getting the girl. Again he focused on Gaby for a moment, before he got up and went to the cashier.
She glanced up at him, and then took a closer look. "Norman?" she asked, and grinned. "You've done something to your hair."
He stared at her, embarrassed and alarmed. He'd thought no one here would have noticed him before, thought no one would recognize him now, thought he'd matched his own original hair color, but it wasn't working... "I… yeah, I've just been in the sun a lot. My hair got lighter."
"You look like you've got a little sunburn, too."
Stupid. As if he'd just 'got a little sunburn'. "Yeah. I went to the beach."
"Well, you look nice." She smiled warmly.
He glanced at her again, really seeing her ordinary face and dirty-blonde hair for the first time. Not worth looking at twice, no wonder he couldn't remember her name. "Thanks -- uh…"
"Doris." If her feelings were hurt, it didn't show. She only smiled again and handed him his change.
"Thanks, Doris. Bye."
Another quick glance showed Gaby, Eric, Wes, and his girlfriend getting up to leave. He hurried out to the sidewalk and away. If Doris had recognized him, one of them might, too, although he really shouldn't worry. None of them had ever really noticed him before, none of them would care about seeing him now. There was no reason for anyone to connect him with the cyclobots, Eric had never gotten a good look at him…
And maybe it wouldn't matter, anyway. Not after what he had planned for today.
TBC...
