Title: The Very Next Day
Characters: Carrie Kelly, Bruce Wayne
Continuity: Occurs between Dark Knight Returns and Dark Knight Strikes Again.
Summary: Whatever possesses a teenage girl to change her wardrobe.
Warning: Contains some uncomfortable undertones.

Carrie kicked the stairs, kicked the weight lifting equipment, kicked a stray batarang, kicked a chair and almost kicked the Case. She wound up staring at the second-most original Robin costume in its permanent, amputee glory. She took off her gloves to examine her bloody, bruised knuckles, wondering if the other Robins ever had her problems, all those years ago.

The Bats, Bruce's hodge-podge army of misfits, wouldn't obey her without a requisite beating. Every night, she went to pass on orders from Batman. Every time, it was a string of insults from flatscans who couldn't even read a complete sentence. No matter how tough she acted, how many times she hit them, it didn't sink in through their tattooed skulls. That was the drawback of having an army composed of teenage fan-boys. Burned out frags.

She blinked, the colors swimming out of focus, glaring against the brown and gray of the Cave. When she had first asked about this costume in the case, all he said was, "I wasn't fast enough." She couldn't wait for Bruce to save her from this mess. She draped her cape over her arm, fingering the yellow fabric. Her hands were getting stiff in the cold damp.

Times kept changing. Batman's old villains were dead and the old heroes might as well be, having defected to political correctness. Now, Bruce had a legion of good soldiers full of hope and belief in his symbol. They might not wear red and green with yellow capes, but her job had been streamlined. He didn't need another Robin; he needed a lieutenant.

Following Arrow's lead, Bruce had reclaimed his symbol, changing his methodology. The Bat once meant demon of the night but now stood for a peoples' revolution. She had done the same with Robin, taking the name and costume the role to help him, succeeding too well. It meant light, hope and obedience and his Bats resisted all attempts to change it. They would not obey someone they considered a mascot, no matter how important it was to Batman.

She turned her back on the case, shuffling over to the medical bay to fetch a ray-healer.

She would need a new symbol, some artifact abandoned by a former hero, dead or disillusioned, forfeited to the people. There had to be one she could use, kept alive by the stories. Superman was a sellout, but the yellow 'S' on the red shield still meant truth and justice, just as the bat still meant vengeance and order despite the changes. The new symbol only needed to be bright.

She pulled up the meta-vigilante database and searched for symbols and standards. It had to be something the Bats, in all their drug addled idiocy, would recognize instantly. Thinking of all the times they called her 'chicken legs', reminding Carrie she was a girl and Robin was supposed to be a boy, she added a second condition. It would be less work if she could find a female power symbol.

She narrowed the results down to 'women' and the list shrank exponentially. Having no magical abilities whatsoever, she removed the top hat. Second, the yellow canary because it was all over the fashion mags. Then she erased the wings, because scuttle said Hawks were still around, somewhere. That left the gold eagle with doubled wings.

Carrie sighed. If only it were that easy. Just as Robin came with gender connotations, the Eagle came with powers. People would expect anyone wearing it to be a meta. Bruce told her to be the best, not what she wasn't. Doing a half-assed job that you couldn't do well got people killed, especially Robins. She plopped her chin on her folded hands, adding a requirement for the new symbol. She was only a girl not a... Huh. She chewed on her lip, leaning back in the over-sized chair, then punched up the history vids.

Once upon a time, Wonder Woman had another kind of power, that represented women rather than all people or metas. Men had that power in this world, persisting in their rule, but even the bravest man was scared of Wonder Woman. Only Superman, an alien, could keep up. Everyone had respected Diana because men in power feared her. Not anymore.

The old man poked his head around the viewscreen, squinting at the image. At first, Carrie thought it was some variation of anger, but only his eyes flinched, blinking a few times. The intense golds and red, the sharp contrasts of the white and blue washed out his costume. He snorted softly, a gentle insincere laugh, that told her she was on the wrong track. He stepped further into the shadows, a scarred wreck trying to blend in with the cave walls, away from the overly bright vid.

Carrie tried to imagine Bruce and Diana in the same room, on speaking terms. It was a strange image, a gray and black angle juxtaposed against gleam and gold. She figured it was a similar contrast between him and Robin. Batman and Wonder Woma-

"Well?"

"Huh?"

"I figure there's a reason for the deer-in-headlights impression."

"Um," she answered non-committedly. She had seen him with Wonder Woman, in a way, that old bird who ran the escort service. He hadn't been fast enough to save her from the Joker, so there they found her, wrapped up in Diana's costume. Carrie wouldn't have cared except that Bruce went and macked on the old hooker which was typical creepy and gross adult. She wrinkled her nose.

The Joker's problem had always been the same. His jokes weren't funny because they were true and could therefore be researched and predicted. A basic rule of predictability: never assume there isn't a reason. Even so, all she found, after breaking through some extensive security software on this computer, was a profile on Catwoman. That explained why Bruce had sped like a demon through the city to reach her, but not the costume.

She held her fingers away from the keyboard. There was a reason. The Cat had power the same way as Diana, control over men. Enough so that it lingered, yanking on Bruce like a tether. It was hard to make him worry like that. She chewed on a fingernail, resisting the urge to open a file Bruce didn't think she could access.

He was staring at her, his cowl off now. He glanced between her, slid down in the chair and the unchanging holovid. "There's been word on her?"

"Nuh-uh. Research."

He cocked his head to one side, pursing his lips. No matter how smart he was, she knew he didn't know jack shit about teenage girls, which meant he would leave rather than guess. He would figure it was some rule of conduct he was supposed to follow.

As soon as he was gone, she returned to the search criteria page, for a moment. Symbols. A stupid mistake. Not all heroes had standards; some were the symbol.

A human sized panther was grinning down at her with a thousand watt smile. Bright green eyes looked through the camera, through the screen. Carrie knew from the history vids that a cat's eyes were so bright inside they glowed, penetrating the shadows and darkness. Looking at this vid, she realized that was only a ghost back at that apartment complex, a residual spirit haunting its small corner of Gotham with myths:

Stories that, unlike Robins, the Cat couldn't die, that she had nine lives, that she would come in the night for bad men, rip out their eyes, rip off their balls and dance in their blood. All those stories persisting even though the Kyle woman was dead from old age. It didn't matter because Gotham's Cat continued to haunt every little boy like a proverbial bogeyman.

Carrie leaned on the edge of her seat. The old man would have a shit fit but this was practical. It was scary, recognizable and could be bright gold, orange and yellow. It was best for the job, within her limitations.

On the outside, the costume was sex and domination coupled with things that cut and tear, but masks have two purposes. They hide something and bring to life another. So what did this costume hide? A few keystrokes later and she was reviewing the condensed minutia of a human life, the things Bruce wouldn't tell her about Selina Kyle.

She was just a teenager like me. She tried to imagine how badly a woman had to be hurt. She put the pain on the outside and it turned into a mask. It was scary sort of mask, because it was an honesty trick.

Carrie chewed on her lip. Bruce teased her for the way she explained things like this, but she was right and he knew it. She had been right about giving the Mutants a cause to follow and she would be right about this, too. She had to be. The cat-costume was a double-bluff and that required she expose some part of herself that needed to be protected. She didn't have that kind of hurt inside, but...

Sometimes, when Bruce was away being Batman, she was scared of the Bats. It didn't matter that she could protect herself; there were so many of them, following, squawking and making lewd gestures. Someday, Batman wouldn't be fast enough. She swallowed. She couldn't tell him that because then he would try to protect her and make things worse. He wouldn't let her do her job at all, make her leave like the first Robin.

It would be dangerous. If the mask slipped at all, the Bats would see behind the mirror and jump her like a pack of street dogs, but they were already trying to do that. It was crazy and there was that memory again, of Batman kissing that woman, which could be a real glitch. She wrinkled her nose again.

He would love it.

She almost punched through a message explaining her whereabouts in case Bruce returned early, and had to stop herself. Robin needed to ask permission and wait for orders, not her. She would do the job or she couldn't, no other way. Carrie waited in the shadows a bit longer, curious that none of the Bats noticed the gaudy leopard along the outskirts. She unclenched her fists, to fight with an open hand, and stepped into the weak fire-light.

The tall skinny one with a red mohawk, Nitch, jumped up, arms gangly at his sides. "Ey, ey! Chick... Trash that." He grinned, big stupid buck-teeth, at his pals. "Kitten."

Damn shame the others liked him. Robin would put her arms akimbo, look up at him, and return fire with some witty. Then maybe come in with the bo staff and knock out his crooked teeth, but this costume had different rules.

Carrie threw herself into a spin, snap-kicking Nitch in the stomach to bring his head down. She activated the plasma blades, reminding herself that change was necessary for survival, and ripped out his eyes. The acrid liquid dripped into the fire, seared flesh leaving a stink of cooked meat.

Nitch froze, wind-milled his arms, clutched his face and started screaming. He tripped over the trash fire, fell on his ass and caught fire. Someone from the gathered crowd jumped forward, hands outstretched to offer aid.

She slid her foot towards the second Bat, holding her arms stiff. She dropped the eyes into the fire where they crackled and popped like too much grease. Forcing herself to smile, she tried not to think how it felt to tear out a chunk of flesh rather than meet the solid resistance of bone. It didn't bruise, for one thing.

The second Bat swung his gaze between her and Nitch. "But-"

"What?"

He narrowed his eyes.

She kept smiling. "You gonna try'n kill me? Cuz I'll be back tomorrow."

He swallowed like a bird, nodding, then shaking his head. His eyes scanned the costume, shadow skewed by the fire-light.

Carrie imagined that he was remembering the Stories and hoped he had trouble sleeping next shift. The idea of startling them awake was filed away for future use.

"Nuh," he stuttered.

"Put him out."

The murmuring crowd flowed around her, grabbing up Nitch, sweeping him away. A single Bat remained, of average height, no hair. His eyes were calm. "Anything else?"

"Orders at 22:00, all reps."

He nodded.

When Bruce came back to the Cave hours later, she was ready. He almost kept walking but jerked, stumbling ungracefully, then stared. She scrambled over the armrest of the computer chair, landing full of torque.

He didn't quite step back, but his lips parted in cold shock, shoulders jerked. His face worked in visible anger mixed with something else. He almost spoke, making several abbreviated noises, and glanced once at the Case.

Wrapped in the myth, she had to wonder, what other Stories about Batman and Robin were true. "Y'like the orange, Boss?"

He rubbed his chin, composing himself. "Yeah. Real sharp"

"I can make leopard spots too and it changes color." She jogged forward a couple of steps and. only because she was looking for it, saw him flinch again. "Black too, but that's kind of dark, y'know?"

He ducked his head and made that laugh again, nodding faintly. "You did good, Rob-."

She shrugged, maintaining her facile attitude. "It's okay. Only matters what they see, right?" She beamed at him, knowing what that looked like in the mirror, the wide smile and green eyes, just to see the tic start on his jaw.

"Yeah," he murmured finally. "Right."

He never said anything about the brief upsurge in medical reports.