Little Tyrants
Author's Note: "Little Tyrants" is a song by Anberlin.
I scoured decades worth of comics to find quotes from her. There aren't many, but I did find a few. For people wondering what Mary Grayson looks like, watch The Batman (2004) cartoon season 4 episode 1 "A Matter of Family".
Mary Grayson felt the warmth of the night air on her face. She was headed to Powers Industries. Slade had told her the coordinates of all the chips. She knew she was good enough to get in and out without setting off the alarms but she needed her son's attention.
She slipped into the building with ease. They had lax security on the outside, and only some armed guards on the inside.
She slips and grabs all three computer chips. She begins running, the guards give chase, sounding the alarm and alerting Titans Tower.
Suddenly, five figures stand in front of her. Mary smiles, her son is taller than her now.
"Titans, go!" Robin orders. Mary turns and runs in the opposite direction, leaping from rooftop to rooftop.
"Stop!" she hears a female voice call to her. It's the one they call Starfire, the one she'd pegged as Dick's girlfriend.
Mary feels pain shoot through her shoulder as Starfire blasts her with energy. She's fast, but not that fast.
Raven uses her power to grip her and throw her off balance, stepping back quickly, Mary somersaults to regain her balance, something she's always done.
Robin's eyes go wide, he recognized the maneuver. He can't spoil this just yet.
Beast Boy slammed into her as a ram, sending her rolling toward the roof edge. She gets to her feet and flips to the next roof, pulling off the quadruple aerial somersault.
It can't be! Robin thought, sprinting after her, he fired his grapple gun, trying to get ahead of the hooded figure. Suddenly, his line goes taught, and he begins to fall.
He hadn't seen Mary throw a circus throwing knife at his grapple wire.
Someone cut my grappling wire!
"Robin!" Cyborg shouts, shooting his hand out to try and grab him. Raven and Starfire are too far away and Beast Boy is keeping up with their opponent.
Robin didn't even have time to reach for anything. He was falling too fast. At the rate he was going, he would slam into the pavement.
Suddenly, he came to a hard stop as someone caught him, he looked up expecting to see Starfire, she was the one who usually caught him when he fell, but she usually flew him up to the roof and he wasn't flying.
The stranger tosses him up onto the roof and backs away from him. He catches a glimpse of something on their clothing, its Slade's insignia.
"Why are you working for Slade?"
"The dark is generous. Its first gift is concealment: our true faces lie in the dark beneath our skins, our true hearts remain shadowed deeper still. But the greatest concealment lies not in protecting our secret truths, but in hiding from the truths of others. The dark protects us from what we dare not know."
"Dude, you think you're being all cryptic and smart. I recognize Matthew Stover!" Beast Boy shouted.
"No more games, who are you?" Robin moved towards her, he was going to take off her hood.
She somersaulted backward and leaped up to a higher vantage point.
"You don't get to peek just yet."
Cyborg blasted her and hit her in the leg.
She seems to shake it off, growling in irritation.
"What'd you come here for?" Cyborg demanded.
"These," Mary held up the chips, they were the same computer chips that Robin had stolen as Red X.
"And my reunion…that you're dying to watch!" Mary looked at Robin. She kept her face just out of sight.
She somersaulted down and unsheathed a sword. Robin grabbed his birdarangs and used them to create a sword to block the incoming blow. Slade's new "apprentice" or whoever it was, suddenly removed the cloak with a grand flourish that did exactly what it was supposed to do, get their attention.
"Good to see you, Dick," Mary greeted her son, and sent him flying into the wall.
She leaped after him. The Titans pursued her.
Dick is stunned, just for a minute and got to his feet. "Mom, are you a muló?"
Raven knows what that is, it is an evil spirit that comes back from the dead to seek revenge on those who had wronged them in life. Raven had studied magic from all over the world. She was surprised that Robin knew some things about it, but when he'd explained to her that he'd grown up in the circus and could recognize the Tarot cards and some other things like good luck charms, she'd looked into learning about the Romani and what they called magic.
"I'm not the living dead, but I am pissed off, if you must know," Mary replied.
"How do I know it's really you?" Dick asked. There were plenty of shapeshifters that could pass themselves off as other people. He'd been tricked by one, Madam Rouge and he wasn't ever going to be tricked like that again.
"My birthday is June 27th," Mary replied.
"You have anecdotes, trivia. Slade could have told you my real name and my mother's birthday. I know he knows who I am."
"But I know your real name, the one I gave you when you were born, the one to confuse the evil spirits," Mary glanced at him.
"More information you can easily find on Google," Robin told her. "Impersonating my mother is something that anyone could try; the three of us were world famous."
"I know you spit my vegetables in the trash when I'm not looking, little Robin," Mary smiled at him.
The term of endearment wasn't widely known to many except some close friends, but Slade had probably learned that too. But the knowledge that he spat his vegetables in the trash was something that only his mother would know.
It's her. It's really her and in a surreal twist of irony, she's working for the man he hates the most.
He's so screwed.
"God help me," Dick prayed, he hadn't prayed in so long, but he was going to have to fight her.
"God can't help you now, son. He's far too busy," Mary smirked. She held up something.
"Mom, why do you have a leash?" Robin asked.
"It was your father's only answer for you," Mary replied. "Doesn't matter now." She threw it away.
She pointed the sword at him, "This fight is between the two of us. Your friends can sit ringside and enjoy the show."
His friends looked at him. "I'll humor you, mom. Stand down, I'll deal with her."
"Robin…" Starfire began to protest.
"I'll be fine, Starfire, I promise."
He looked at his mother, he's always missed her, she was the wise one of the family. Always ready to give him advice. He really wished that he could wake up from this nightmare.
"Dick, are you sure of your abilities?"
"Yes."
"Keep reaching…but when you reach, know what you're reaching for! Be sure of yourself and you can never reach too far!"
It doesn't feel real, he feels like it's a dream that he's having and not reality at all.
"We took you up to perform with us when you were five, they thought we were crazy."
"But we always made sure you would never fall," Mary smiled, pulling out an apple. "Humor me."
Robin caught it as she tossed it to him. "It's kind of pointless, you're going to kick it out of me during this fight."
"Maybe, but we always did this before a show. Full stomachs make dull minds. And up here, a person needs to keep their wits about them."
Robin swallowed a bite. "Dad always said that. Where is he? I thought that…"
"We would be brought back together. Well, I'm not gonna get that happy ending."
"Do you know how you came back?"
"No, and it doesn't matter to me."
"Then what matters, Mom?" Robin asked.
"You matter. Family's the most important thing."
"For you to quote Tony Zucco to me is delicious irony."
"I know."
They finished the apples and stared at each other.
Then he does something none of his friends expected, he turned and ran. In this moment, he's not their fearless leader chasing down an evil criminal. He's an eight-year old running from his angry mother while she's dual wielding one of his father's belts and a wooden spoon after he's been disobedient and skipped his chores and homework to go goof off with Raymond McCreary, Raya Vestri, Bryan Haly, and Zane.
Mary gave chase, "You can't run away from what you don't want to deal with, Richard! Get back here!"
Robin felt his training kick in and he wheeled back around to face her. Their blades met, he stabs and slashes at her, but she avoids it with her excellent acrobatic skills.
He managed to stab through the armor, he heard her cry out in pain. Robin hated it; he hated the idea that he had to hurt her.
She suddenly kicked him in the face, knocking him off the roof. Slamming his sword into the wall, he pulled himself up and stood on the hilt.
Mary looked down at him.
"On your knees, I want you to beg for forgiveness!"
Robin pulls out his second grapple gun and pulls himself up, pulling his sword out of the wall. He charges at her.
Mary yanked his cape over his head and hit him in the face. He somersaulted back and came at her again.
She grabbed him by the shoulder and crushed the same pressure point that Tony Zucco had when he was 10. Robin screamed but fought through the pain and slammed his staff into her face.
"Mom, why are you working for him? WHY?! I can help you!" Robin screams; he's trying desperately to get through to her.
She slammed her fist into his gut.
"Its second gift is comforting illusion: the ease of gentle dreams in night's embrace, the beauty that imagination brings to what would repel in the day's harsh light. But the greatest of its comforts is the illusion that dark is temporary: that every night brings a new day. Because it's the day that is temporary. Day is the illusion."
She's quoting Matthew Stover again, using Revenge of the Sith to be as cryptic as possible.
Robin slammed the hilt of his sword into her face. She reeled back and he kept coming, slashing left to right.
She blocks it, but barely. He's gaining the upper hand. He reaches out, wraps his arms around her falling backward he uses his legs to push her away and slams her into the rooftop. She gets into a kneeling position as he points the swords at her throat.
It's over, Mom! You're going to tell me what's going on."
"Its third gift is the light itself: as days are defined by the nights that divide them, as stars are defined by the infinite black through which they wheel, the dark embraces the light, and brings it forth from the center of its own self. With each victory of the light, it is the dark that wins," Mary smiled. She liked giving him little clues without really telling him anything.
"Well, you're certainly skilled. I'm impressed. So, what happens now?"
"Lose the belt, the knives, and hand over the chips. You're going to tell me everything."
"What makes you think I'm going to do that, little Robin?" Mary asked calmly.
"Because I'm the one with the swords to your throat!" Robin replied.
"Snip, and then all of me is nothing at all," Mary quoted Matthew Stover again. "Son, do you think this is how I'm going down?"
"I know this is how you're going down!" Robin replied.
"Think, Dick. I picked this place to fight you. Hell…do you just think I carry a katana around in my back pocket?" Mary asked.
Robin saw the handle of her sword begin to smoke. He threw it away. It exploded.
"I'd do a lot more than throw that away, and I'd do it fast!" Mary began running.
Robin tried to follow her but felt a searing pain in his chest. Looking down, he saw three circus knives embedded there. She'd thrown them before he'd even had the chance to blink. Starfire and Raven moved to help him. Beast Boy and Cyborg took off to search for her.
Robin slammed his fist into the pavement. She's gotten away with the chips.
Mary examined her stab wound, it had healed almost instantly. She had no idea how that happened.
Slade looked up as Mary Grayson entered his lair.
"Excellent work. I had heard of your reputation, but you put on quite a show."
Mary bowed with a grand flourish. "Glad you enjoyed it."
"What is his name? The one you mentioned, the one that you say only you know?" Slade asked.
"You're not Romani so you that's not for you, and even if you were, that's for me to know and you'll never find out."
Mary tossed him the spherical container that held the chips.
"Aren't you going to ask me what I'm planning?" Slade queried.
"Like you'd tell me," Mary laughed. "I am merely here to entertain the king of an island of one."
"What do you mean by that?" Slade asked.
"You're smart, you figure it out," Mary looked at him. He'd left his bedroom and was standing before her in his uniform with his mask on.
To Slade's surprise, Mary started a conversation with him.
"You watched me, didn't you," Mary looked at him.
"Yes, I tapped into the security cameras. I had no idea you knew how to get under his skin so much."
"I'm his mother, I know him better than anyone."
"And yet you don't bother to share any information with me."
"My son is my business, not yours. If you want me to continue cooperating with you, you'll let me deal with him."
"Fair enough," Slade looked back in the direction of his bedroom.
"Your Russian girlfriend screams your name really loud, she could wake the dead," Mary smirked. "She was screaming when I left and she barely had you in bed yet. The last time I ever heard a woman scream that loud I was in labor."
"She's not my girlfriend," Slade glanced at her.
"Oh right, Angelica, your not-friend with benefits, your informer," Mary recalled. "It seems that you're enjoying yourself."
"She can do whatever she wants as long as she gets me my info," Slade replied.
"I'm not sticking around for this sideshow," Mary told him. "I did my job; I got you your computer chips. I'm actually impressed she's asleep now."
"What's the matter, jealous?" Slade asked.
"I have more important things to do than being jealous of her, besides, you know I'm not your type."
Mary looked at him, "But I am curious. Do you enjoy it? A man who manipulates people can easily put on an act. You say you let her go as much as she wants, but I figure you're mentally rolling your eyes like, "Are you done yet? Let me sleep, and will you please stop screaming!"
"What makes you think I don't enjoy hearing her scream?" Slade asked, amused.
"Believe me; I know when a man is ready to stop. John wasn't my first; I know how men act in bed. I know when a man is looking at his bedmate, but he's thinking about someone else," Mary drank from her water bottle.
"And just who do you think I think about during my trysts?" Slade glanced at her.
"Not me, that's for sure," Mary laughed. "You hate my son, so in turn, you hate me for having him. Or perhaps you hate me for dying. If I hadn't died, we would still be traveling together as a family. There wouldn't be any Robin the Boy Wonder to constantly meddle in your supervillain plans."
Mary put the bottle down, "Perhaps you're thinking about your ex-wife. All the pictures I saw of you in that house you were smiling, happy and acting like a normal person with a normal family."
Slade didn't answer her; he didn't need to.
"Now I have some unfinished business to attend to. See you down the road," Mary told him.
"Huh?" Slade asked.
"Performers never say "Goodbye" it's always "See you down the road." I thought you were so obsessed with my son you knew everything about him. You don't know him as well as you thought."
Mary walked out of the lair. She didn't hear Slade let out a growl of irritation. She always found a way to get under his skin. Slade put her out of his mind.
He had other things on his mind, his informant was waking up, and she'd want to play again.
He walked back to the bedroom and crawled between the sheets.
Slade felt his irritation spike even higher, he was growing tired of Angelica's focus on pleasure rather than business. He would have her look into Raymond McCreary that Mary had mentioned and the Court of Owls.
He recalled Grayson in his mind's eye. She was beautiful. He didn't particularly have an attraction to blondes despite the fact that he was one when he was younger.
She had a lovely figure, and he couldn't help but be tempted a little. His relationship with her son was most certainly not amicable. It wasn't like they were friends.
Many women had the misconception that "love" would "redeem" him, and he wasn't nearly as bad as the newspapers made him out to be. He was definitely as bad and despicable as the papers said.
Mary wasn't those other women. After all, having a man hold a sword to your throat does not give the positive first impression of a guy you want to take on a date and have a relationship with.
But she had a relationship with Raptor, and it most definitely was a physical relationship. Mary Grayson certainly did know how to wrap men around her finger. From all his research about Robin he knew that her husband had never cheated on her, Slade wasn't always faithful but he tried to be, he wasn't good at it.
The taboo aspect of it all made it a smidge exciting. Just a smidge and he knew that he'd been fascinated by her, not when she was alive of course, but there were very few people in the world who were as fearless as she was.
Seducing women wasn't particularly hard, but Robin's mother was not a woman that had a lot of relationships that were particularly too intimate in a physical sense, she might be someone who had many boyfriends, maybe, maybe not.
Mary was one of those people who wanted a deep, emotional connection with a partner before any physical intimacy took place and that was not a place Slade wanted to go.
Slade couldn't help but entertain a fantasy about having her. Her son would go off like a rocket if he discovered them having this sort of relationship, but then again, she wasn't an "easy" person, not that way.
But was this really about Robin? Slade wanted to convince himself that it was. But Mary wasn't Adeline Kane. She wasn't a brilliant strategist or a socialite.
Mary seemed average, the typical person you'd pass on the street and never give a second thought. But she was clever and resourceful. Not many people could hide in plain sight from the police for decades and not be found out, even after death.
She also seemed to understand him, unlike Addie, but she wasn't the same. He wasn't the same; he wasn't the charming and charismatic military man. He wasn't the devoted husband and loving father.
But Mary treated him like he was a normal person. Maybe that was the sort of fantasy he had in his head, that he could have a normal life again.
"Slade?" Angelica asked as she looked up at him. She rolled him over and straddled his waist. "Something on your mind?"
"No, nothing at all," Slade smirked. "Now, where were we?"
"Hello Samantha, it's been a long time," Mary greeted the rich socialite. Samantha Vanaver had recently moved to Jump City, establishing herself among the rich elite.
"How ironic that you've come to see me, little sister," Samantha spat out the words with venom.
Mary put her hand on Samantha's shoulder. They were both eerily similar in appearance, blonde hair and green eyes; they were also alike in height as well. The only real difference is Mary's hair was pulled back in a simple bun while Samantha's curly hair fell naturally around her face.
Mary pointed her finger in Samantha's face. "You can't really call me that, we didn't grow up together. I was just the illegitimate daughter of Phillip Vanaver, who had a fling with my mother Elizabeth Lloyd when she traveled with Haly's Circus. I only met you once at that "special" performance, where you decided to take my son and make him your murderous puppet!"
The rich heiress laughed. "Your son belongs to the Court of Owls. He is the Gray Son of Gotham."
"It was payback for the day you waltzed into my father's house, told him who you were, and asked him to give millions of dollars to a bunch of sick gypsies near Paris, as if Vanaver money was well spent on them," Samantha brushed off Mary's hand like she was dirty.
"You're a racist bigot, we don't call ourselves that, we're Roma. You just love lording your superiority over everyone else, and that's why I hate you!"
"And your husband, John Grayson, who was he? A nobody and so are you!"
"You claimed that your grandmother was Amelia Crowne, one of Gotham's First Citizens. Heh, as if a man with Crowne blood would set foot in a circus."
"You just can't stand that my grandfather, William Cobb worked his way up from nothing. I have evidence, physical evidence, but you people wanted to bury me, your dirty little secret. The Crownes and the Vanavers don't get to play the saintly, good-hearted rich when they cover up their bastard children. I have proof that I'm a Crowne, but you helped them bury me. I've never liked rich people who lie, and you're the reason why. Tony Zucco murdering me was just a nice convenience for you, wasn't it?"
Mary crossed her arms, "With the Crowne family fortune, my son could have had a good life, gone to a good college and maybe started a business of his own. Dick would never flaunt riches; I raise him to always be grateful for what he has. He could have done a lot of good things with that money, helped a lot of people. Money that you people stole from him."
Mary leaned in to Samantha Vanaver's face, "But you just couldn't handle that I was dead, you had to have the Court of Owls resurrect me so you could watch me suffer. That was your mistake!"
Mary grabbed Samantha by the collar of her dress shirt, "I will have my revenge! I will make you pay! Literally, every penny of the Crowne fortune will be given to my son! I don't care to be called a Vanaver, that doesn't matter, but you'll live, and I will destroy what you care about the most: your precious reputation! I'll show everyone what a fraud you really are! Grandmaster of the Court of Owls!"
The Court of Owls is my real life, but what are you going to do?" the Grandmaster of the Court of Owls taunted her.
"I'm going to do what I do best; I'll steal everything from you, and burn your home to the ground, not this fancy mansion, but your real home, the Court of Owls itself!"
Samantha Vanaver pulled out a gun, "Do you really think someone like you can threaten me, you're a nobody. A dead nobody without skills to fight."
"This is not a threat, Samantha Vanvaver, this is a promise, I'm going to stop you the way I see fit, so you better enjoy your freedom while you have it, because I'm going to enjoy watching Dick haul you off to jail, and then someone else will probably off you in prison."
"The fact that your son is a police officer is just pathetic. You people will never crawl out of the dirt, you'll always be filth!"
"I'm rather proud of him, he can help people in his own way, it's good of him to risk his life for others."
"How sweet, but he's never going to arrest me, you can't prove anything about the Court of Owls. I suggest you enjoy your freedom, Mary. I'm going to take pleasure in killing you myself."
"You're a tyrant soon to come undone, and I'm going to be the one who's going to do it." Mary bowed sarcastically to her, "We all hail the king."
Samantha prepared to pull the trigger, but Mary moved quickly and somersaulted over the balcony and disappeared into the night.