Originally posted at the Multiverse as E8:Batman #3 on 4/24/07
Anniversary part 3
Gotham City Wharfs
Red X and Nightwing.
Batman and Robin.
The four of them stared at each other while Tony Zucco, being telekinetically bound to a chair by Nightwing, began to urinate on himself. The red-headed criminal turned to her partner and screamed "Do it." Red X spun around, charging his grey gauntlets to shot a potentially lethal energy blast to end Tony Zucco's life, when Zucco was saved by the quick reflexes of Robin as she threw an R-shaped shuriken that managed to redirect Red-X's shot by a few centimeters.
Batman went airborne simultaneously with Robin's throw. Nightwing managed to stop Batman's advance with her telekinesis and slam him to the ground, but this left her open to a flying kick to the stomach from Robin. Red-X extended his hand and was set to give Robin an energy blast to her back, but that plan was stopped as Batman grabbed his arm and threw him across the room. Robin's attack caused Nightwing to lose her concentration, setting Zucco free. Zucco made a break for the door, with Red X following right behind him.
"I can handle her, go after them." Robin said to Batman as he began his pursuit. Robin turned her attention back to Nightwing as she grabbed her collapsible Bo staff. "You know Breast-wing, with women like you wearing outfits like that; you're making it real hard for most people to take us costumed heroines seriously." Robin was commenting on the generous amount of cleavage that Nightwing's uniform was showing.
"If you got it, flaunt it, and my name's Nightwing."
"I think Breast-wing really captures your essence." Robin said as she charged Nightwing, leaping and extending her Bo staff to full length to perform an overhead attack. Nightwing dodged the telegraphed attack and pushed her away, with her telekinesis sending her into a stack of crates. Robin crawled away from her landing spot and saw Nightwing make lifting motions with her hands, and two nearby corresponding crates began to levitate. Nightwing made a throwing motion and the crates flew towards Robin's direction. She was barely able to roll out of their way.
"Girl-Wonder, I can do this all night." Nightwing said was she continued to do the same to the numerous crates in the warehouse.
"No, no, no." Zucco screamed to himself as he realized that he had run into a dead end. His only way out was a fire escape and he tried to climb it, but his sweaty hands kept him from doing so, causing him to fall to the alley floor. He looked up and saw the glowing red X that's been haunting him for the past couple of weeks. "Look… I'll give you anything… anything you want."
"What I want," Red X's computer-altered voice began as he grabbed the lapels of Zucco's shirt, "is your head on a pike. You're going to pay for what you did to my family."
"What… what are you talking about? I didn't do nothing."
"You scum, you don't even remember." Red X slammed him into a wall. "You don't remember going to a circus about ten years ago…"
"Christ… you're… the kid?"
"Yeah, I bounced around from different foster homes and different orphanages, but everyday, I thought about this and how I'm going to enjoy this."
"Put him down." Red X turned around to see Batman standing behind him. "Put him down or I'll put you down."
"You're going to protect this scum?" Red X threw his prey like a medicine ball against the wall. Batman stood silent, thinking how when he was Robin, he probably would've let Red X have his way with a slime bag like Zucco.
"Batman, please help me, I'll pay you." Zucco pleaded as he picked himself up from the ground.
"Shut up." Red X slapped Zucco across the face, knocking him down. "You want to save him… you're going to do it over my dead body." The X on his face began to glow.
Robin's War Journal
I didn't know how much longer I could've keep dodging everything Breast-wing was throwing at me, especially when I started to breathe heavily and began to lose a step.
"I'm getting bored of this." Breast-wing said while making a grabbing motion with her hand. I was stopped in my tracks as it felts like a hand just grabbed me. She made a pushing motion and I'm suddenly pinning me to a wall, the breath taken out of my body and the pain I was already feeling amplified. Breast-wing looked like she was grabbing something distant and I noticed a heavy-looking anchor being lifted up across the room, when the solution hit me.
Her hands.
Her telekinesis is controlled through her hands. I feel so stupid for not realizing it earlier. For whatever reason, Breast-wing didn't bind my arms at my side and that was going to be her big mistake. I grabbed a hand full of Rs from my belt and tossed them in her direction. She instinctively put her hands up to block them, dropping me and the big anchor. Before she probably realizes her mistake, I'm airborne and cracking her upside the head with my Bo.
She was down for the count.
Winner: Robin.
I took the communicator from my belt to check in on the boss. "Batman, Nightwing is out of commission." I cringed as I said that lame-o name.
"Stay with her, don't let her…" Communication goes dead, but not before I hear a scream. I ran towards the exit praying that my partner was okay…
Batman threw a couple of pellets at the feet of Red X, who jumped up and grabbed the steel grating of the fire escape. As he catapulted himself over the railing, he saw that a gas had been emitted from the pellets. "Come on Batman, do you think I'd be dumb enough not to have a built-in gas filter in my mask?"
"No, but that wasn't my only objective." Red X looked down and saw Tony Zucco passing out. Batman hoped that would make him useless as a hostage or possible human shield.
"Well, I appreciate the assist." Red X leapt from the steel grating and landed behind Batman after doing a somersault in mid-air. Batman threw a right at the villain, but he was quick, grabbing the punch and throwing Batman over his shoulder. Batman tucked his shoulder and rolled when he hit the pavement, coming out of it in a fighting stance facing his adversary. Red X charged Batman as blades extended from the posterior side of his hands, each shaped like the top half of an X. He swung at Batman's head and followed it with an uppercut. Batman ducked the first attack, stepped back to dodge the second and countered with a thrusting sidekick and a palm strike to the chest that managed to put some distance between the two. Red X looked at his chest armor and in the middle of it was a small rectangle-shaped device that emitted jet-like propulsion sending him into a nearby dumpster. Red X emerged from the wreckage visibly discombobulated.
"Heh, I'm impressed." Red X said. He ran toward the fire escape, jumped on to the ladder and catapulted, flipped and somersaulted his was up to the rooftop with the showmanship of a circus acrobat.
His acrobatics… Batman thought, they look familiar, almost Olympic-level. He followed Red X to the rooftop and was greeted with some energy blasts coming from Red X's gauntlets.
"This doesn't have to be difficult." Red X pleaded his case. "I'm actually helping you. How many lives do you think this mafia scumbag has destroyed besides my own? How many other children must he have left orphaned because of his protection schemes, loan sharking, drug-dealing and God-knows what else he's done."
"Turn him over to the law." Batman said.
"The law's broken. The law has let him walk free for the past ten years. My parents deserve justice, they deserve vengeance." Red X increased his assault on Batman, who countered by throwing a batarang at Red X, who blasted it but realized too late that it was the kind of batarang with a blinking dot in the center. It exploded on contact with the energy beam almost sending Red X over the roof's edge.
Batman was going in for the collar when he received a transmission from Robin. "Batman, Nightwing is out of commission."
"Stay with her, don't let her…" Batman didn't get to finish his sentence as Red X recovered from the explosion and managed to get a couple of headshots in on Batman before firing a close-range energy blast, sending Batman down to the alley below.
"Wow, looks like my street cred is going to get a huge bump." Red X said as he made his way down the building to a barely conscious Batman. He was about to finish the Dark Knight when his gauntlets failed to respond to his command. An internal diagnostic showed Red X that his suit was out of power, due to the multiple blasts damaging the power system. "Damn it"
"Get away from him." Robin shouted as she leaped toward Red X, prepared to deliver an overhead blow with her Bo. Red X easily sidestepped the telegraphed move , grabbed Robin by the throat and positioned himself behind her, popping his X-shaped blades from the back of his gauntlets, placing them at the Girl-Wonder's throat.
"You know, you shouldn't be so reckless with your attacks." Red X suggested.
"Let her go." Batman said staggering to his feet. He tried to move further but was unable to do so. He looked past Red X and Robin to see a battered Nightwing holding him in place.
"You know, I will, but not until we get in the clear." Red X said backing away from Batman. "Don't worry about this little cutie getting hurt. I'm no petty murderer, not yet."
WBGK TV Studios
Arturo Rodriguez was reviewing a variety of new footage in his office for his late-night talk show when a burly looking man, in a torn and disheveled brown Italian suit barged in.
"I'm sorry Mr. Rodriguez," Arturo's secretary said, following the man in. "I told him you were busy but he just barged his way in here…"
"It's okay, I know Pauly." Arturo said, waving off his secretary. "What do you have for me?" he asked his wise-guy friend.
"You heard about the wharf tonight, right?" Pauly said as he reached into his jacket pocket and took out his cell phone.
"Yeah, what about it?" Pauly flipped the top of his phone, pressed a couple of buttons and turned it over so Arturo could see the video he had taken of Batman and Robin going over the crime scene at the wharf.
"How did they escape?" Batman asked his partner in the video.
"She had a short-range teleporter on her." Robin answered.
"Oh, my God…" Arturo sputtered.
Pauly slammed the top half of his phone shut. "How much is dat worth to ya?"
The Batcave
"Well Maser Jason, it looks like you have a concussion sir." Alfred Pennyworth said as he shone a flashlight into the eyes of his employer Jason Todd. "We should probably get you to a doctor."
"Just give me some extra-strength Tylenol or something. I'll be fine."
"Yes sir, very good sir." Alfred said. "Anything for you Miss Stephanie?"
"I'm fine, thank you Alfred." Stephanie said, holding an icepack to her forehead.
"Alfred, give us a moment alone please?" Jason asked.
"Certainly sir." As Alfred left the cave, Jason turned his attention to his 16 year old partner. "You disobeyed my order."
"When?" Stephanie asked, taking the icepack off of her head.
"When I told you not to leave Nightwing."
"I heard you scream. I thought you needed my help."
"That was the second time you disobeyed me."
"When was the first?"
"When I told you to take the night off."
"Well, I think in hindsight, it was a good thing I didn't."
"That's not the point Stephanie. How can I trust you to be there for me and have my back when I can't depend on you to follow orders? Because you left her, both she and Red X got away and Zucco's still in danger."
"You know, it's not like Zucco deserves our protection. He's a mafia dirt bag piece of trash and I'm sure he had this coming to him." Stephanie put the icepack back on her head.
A memory suddenly came into Jason's mind, a memory of when he was Robin helping Batman take down a drug-dealing/pimping operation.
"I had to take him down!" A 14 year old Jason Todd told his mentor, Bruce Wayne. Jason Todd was wearing his classic Robin costume of a red tunic with green sleeves, yellow cape, green gloves, pixie boots and short pants.
"You shattered his collarbone" Bruce Wayne lectured his adopted son. He was wearing his Batsuit with the blue cape, cowl and gloves and had the bat symbol on h is chest in a yellow ellipse. "There were at least ten different ways you could have ended that and none of them had to involve that kind of damage."
"He's a drug-dealing pimp. I didn't think I had to fluff up some pillows before I took him out." Jason countered, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"We need him. He would've talked. He couldn't talk because he was going into shock from the injuries you inflicted."
"You're right. I'm sorry. That was dumb." Bruce Wayne was about to smile, thinking the boy learned his lesson, but would soon be disappointed in what his sidekick said next. "But that doesn't mean he didn't deserve it."
"This was a mistake." Jason said out loud.
"What's a mistake?" Stephanie asked.
"Bringing you into this, it was a mistake. I'm just repeating the same mistakes Bruce did by putting you out there when you're not ready for it. I almost died because of that and I can't let that happen to you. You're out as Robin."
"No… no, you can't do that. You can't do this to me." Stephanie began to plead with tears filling in her eyes. "What about the past year, all of the good things we've done. You're just going to throw me out because of what happened today?"
"It's been building for a while. You've been becoming more reckless, careless, and are becoming more prone to using excessive force. Even Red X could tell. If you didn't go for the knockout right away, you wouldn't have gotten in that situation were you were a hostage. What if it had been Two-Face, or Killer Croc, or the Jo…" Jason hesitated. He always hesitated when saying that name. "I can't let what happened to me happen to you."
"I can change. I will change, I promise. I won't even fart without your permission." Stephanie's attempt at humor was lost on Jason.
"Look, Stephanie…"
"Jason, please reconsider. When we're out there… I feel the difference we make. It feels like I'm compensating my daughter for not being able to be her mother by making the world she's going to grow up in a better place."
"But Steph…"
"I'll train more, I'll go on inactive duty like you suggested yesterday. I'll hone my skills. I'll do anything to prove myself to you. What about all those talks of us being a team and us being partners. You've said that Batman needs a Robin."
"I need a Robin that listens…"
"One more chance, please, I'm begging you. Give me one more chance."
Jason looked into her tear-filled eyes and hoped what came out of his mouth next wouldn't lead to him staring at her grave. "Steph… this is it. It's zero tolerance from here on out. You disobey me, no matter how minor it seems you're done."
"Thank you," Steph said, hugging Jason. "I promise I won't let you down."
As Tony Zucco was leaving the Gotham Supreme Courthouse, he saw Sidney, also known as Sid the Squid frantically waving at him. Tony made his way toward Sidney, glad to be out on ROR, thanks to the judge being a family 'friend'. "Hey Squid, how've the boys been?"
"Great man," Sidney began as they walked to a parked limousine "since Pauly handed them the video of the Bat, we've been living it up big time. You should just see the women that have been all over us. Our street cred is bigger than ever."
"Women…you too?" Sidney nodded yes. "Damn."
"Yeah, you won't believe the broad I'm hooked up with. She's a fashion designer. She's throwing us a party tonight and came with me to pick you up." Sid opened the door to the limo and inside was a gorgeous, busty red-head wearing a black dress that left nothing to the imagination and almost caused Tony to slip on his own drool.
"My manners, allow me to introduce my self. My name is Tony Zucco."
"Hi, I'm Cheyanne. Cheyanne Freetmont."
The End.