I had to admit, rather begrudgingly, that the boy was progressing remarkably quickly. His upbringing as an acrobat gave him the stamina to endure a physically demanding training regime, something I was only too happy to provide. I realized, in watching him master things in a few hours it had taken me days or even weeks to perfect, that much of my early training had been to hone a control and understanding of my body Dick already possessed in spades. He had a perfect awareness of his limitations and strengths so that he could watch me perform a move a few times before figuring out how to do it himself, often with little input needed from me. He was already at a point where any working out he did was pure maintenance; he had reached his physical peak and easily stayed there. I was more than a little jealous, though I would never tell him so.

It took about a week for Lucius to finish Dick's costume, a week where he drove me nearly insane pestering me over when it would be done. When Lucius was satisfied with his work and had the costume packaged and dropped by the house, Dick climbed all over me like a deranged chipmunk while I unwrapped it. He seized the costume from me as soon as I had managed to get it out of the box and darted off with it, squealing excitedly. He was back in ten minutes, a red, green, and yellow blur rushing past me, squealing so loudly, it felt like my eardrums were being pierced.

"Would you stop for five minutes so I can see if it fits?" I snapped at him and, dutifully, he drew up in front of me, snapping to attention like a tiny soldier. It did seem to fit, although it made me frown in confusion. "Ok, I know Lucius included pants."

"Yea," Dick affirmed, "but I don't like wearing pants. When I performed as an acrobat, it was always like this! Mom and Dad too!" The costume, as he was now wearing it, was quite similar to what I had first seen him in, at least in terms of construction. The bottom layer was a bright green leotard with t-shirt-like sleeves, the body bearing a scaley pattern that, I knew, was meant to resemble chainmail. It had a dual purpose though, made of the same material as the bottom layer of my costume, which was designed to constrict if pierced. This way, bleeding could be staunched almost as it began if he happened to be shot or stabbed.

Over this, he had on a red tunic with a bright yellow R emblazoned in the front on the right of his chest. The tunic was laced across his chest with yellow ties, matching the yellow cape over his shoulders, that, unlike mine, was not full length but rather, ended about mid-thigh on him. The tunic, I knew, was actually a lightweight Kevlar vest, though Lucius had done a good job making it look like it wasn't. The bright red was kind of a target, we hoped, drawing any gunfire that might head the boy's way to the most heavily padded part of the costume. The R in particular, would be a tantalizing bullseye and had a mechanism behind it to spread the impact of any bullet or blow across the boy's chest.

The green of the leotard matched the gloves, small mask and boots, which only came up to his ankles and looked like the shoes worn by a fairy in an old book my mother used to read me. What had given me pause about the ensemble, however, was the very distinct lack of leg protection. In the designs Lucius had shown me, there had been a pair of green, padded leggings, designed in particular to protect the boy's femoral arteries, but Dick was not wearing them now.

"I am NOT taking you out looking like that," I said.

"Aww, come on," Dick begged, "I can't wear the leggings, I just can't, they're too heavy! I can't jump around like I like. I've always just worn a leotard, Mr. Wayne, pleeeeeeeeease don't make me wear leggings!" I didn't feel like arguing with him; it was getting late and I was anxious to be out on the streets.

"Fine," I grumbled, "we will table this discussion FOR NOW, but only because I'm in a hurry."

"Yea," Dick cried, leaping up in triumph. He proceeded to bound around the cave as I pulled on my own costume, contemplating my plans. The boy had been dying to go with me on patrol, he had been bugging me about it for ages, but I had been putting it off. I was not even sure that I should take him at all. I promised I would help him with Tony Zucco, and I intended to keep that promise, but I still did not have a good sense of what that actually meant.

Every night I went out, I was looking for Zucco, tracking down his associates and…convincing them to spill their secrets. Did the boy need to be involved in all of that? Of course, I would have wanted to be. Realizing that had convinced me of the need to include Dick in my endeavors. His training was going well, after all, and now he had a costume. It was time. I took a deep breath and called him over again. He came tumbling to me, snapping to attention once again when he arrived in front of me. I rolled my eyes. "Now," I said slowly, "I am considering taking you with me tonight." The words were scarcely out of my mouth before he was squealing with elation.

"Ohh yes, yes yes yes yes yes, I'll be so good, I proooooooomise!"

"You had better," I growled, "you had better do everything I say, right when I say it, or I am never taking you out again, you hear me?"

"Yes sir," Dick replied, "I'll be the perfect partner, boss!"

"You're not my partner," I grumbled, "now come on." I indicated the Batmobile and turned around, finding him already halfway in by the time I did.

"Can I drive?" he asked, kneeling in the driver's seat so he could reach the wheel. In answer, I shoved him over to the passenger side and sat down. I started the car as he buckled in, totally unphased, and revved the engine. Then, we were off, careening down the winding pathways through the underground and up to the secret entrance a few miles from the manor. Dick talked the entire time we were in the car. He told me about other times he had ridden in fast cars, what he thought about being underground, how excited his friend Jeffery the snake charmer would be that he was wearing a red tunic because Jeffery's favorite color was red. There was no real flow to the things he said, they just spilled forth from his mouth, a stream of consciousness he seemed convinced I needed to hear. I told him to shut up at least five times and each time I did, he would dutifully close his mouth for two minutes at most before starting up again on something else. It was like he never ran out of words. It was maddening.

We finally arrived at the spot where I decided it would be best to leave the car. It was in an alleyway downtown, a favorite spot of mine as I had constructed a kind of cover for the car that made it look like a pile of garbage. The nice thing about Gotham was that there was no shortage of garbage piles for it to blend in with. After that, we made our way up to the rooftop of the Tanner building, an old hotel that served now mostly as a halfway house for recently released felons, another commodity Gotham had no shortage of, and started to make our way across the rooftops. I carried the boy for much of this part, hoisting him under my arm like a sack as I swung from building to building. It was warm, the sky the usual slate color with not a star in sight past the thick clouds; my sort of a night.

It was about 8 p.m. and the city was still wide awake, the sounds of horns honking and people yelling to one another heavy in the air. We were in the part of the city where Bruce Wayne would not have dared tread, but Batman frequented. I felt comfortable here, I understood it well and, despite the fact that the boy was STILL talking, I was starting to settle into my usual rhythm. I finally got him to fall silent when I told him what we were up to. As we crept quietly across the rooftops, I explained that we were going to investigate one of Black Mask's goons, Bobby o'Gravey. He was a friend of Zucco's from the mob boss's earliest days on the Gotham streets and they were still fairly good friends. He was the culmination of a series of leads I had been accumulating and was the closest link I had yet found between Tony Zucco and anyone still alive.

Privately, I was concerned about the results of this visit. This was the last, best hope I had of finding Zucco and, after this, I wasn't sure I had any more good ideas. Best not to tell the boy that though, things weren't so grim just yet. If o'Gravey could be made to talk, we could have Zucco's location tonight and then, it would all be over. I gave a shiver of satisfaction at this thought. Having this chatty boy out of my life could not come soon enough!

After traveling for about a half hour, during which the boy vibrated nearly constantly with excitement but did manage to remain silent, we reached the canning district near the docks. I could hear the water slapping faintly against the shore somewhere in the distance, and the air held a fishy smell that always made me wrinkle my nose. We clambered up onto the Sonny's Shrimp factory, closed down for nearly ten years now, and paused at the edge, the perfect vantage point to obtain an unobstructed view into Black Mask's newest hideout, the Sonny's Shrimp Administrative building, a favorite criminal lair.

I could see the mobster inside, sitting at an old, worn table with a glass of what I assumed was whisky (I knew him well by now) swirling contemplatively in his hand. He was staring vacantly at a pile of papers atop the table, covered in words I was too far away to make out, but I doubted he was really reading them either. The lair was too dimly lit, a single lamp somewhere out of my line of sight illuminated the dingy office he was sitting in. It was hard to make out any details of the room, but the shifting shadows told me there were at least ten goons in there with him. A conference room, too big to be an office, and at the top floor of the building.

I pursed my lips. I couldn't see o'Gravey. Dick milled beside me…no Robin, I had to remember to call him Robin, and he had to remember to respond to it. I turned to remind him of this and found him doing summersaults across the rooftop. Geez, I needed a leash for this kid. I was about to hiss at him to come over and join me but decided against it. Better he was back behind me, keeping himself busy. He couldn't sit still anyway. Now, where was o'Gravey. My plan had been to keep watch on the lair until o'Gravey left. I needed him isolated if I was going to ask him questions, but he could be tough to find outside of work. I figured the easiest thing to do would be to locate him and then keep eyes on him until the perfect moment to strike. Of course, that only worked if I could spot him and right now, I was failing. The ten goons I had counted were moving around the room, periodically passing in front of the door, and most of them I recognized. None of them were o'Gravey. I had been so sure he was working for Mask, that was what everyone had told me anyway.

Suddenly, there was a commotion within the building. Mask's goons were bringing in a man. I felt my stomach drop a little. Damn it! There was o'Gravey alright, slumped between two of Mask's men. One of them gave him a kick and he scrambled to his feet, straining to escape them, but they had him fast by his arms. He struggled for a few moments and slumped defeated once again. I cursed quietly. He must have double crossed them. That wasn't terribly surprising, o'Gravey was a habitual traitor, willing to do whatever it took to get ahead, and now, this tendency was going to get him killed. Fucking hell, couldn't o'Gravey have gotten himself killed tomorrow! It was damned inconvenient he had chosen today.

Well, my plan wasn't going to work. The next time o'Gravey was alone, he'd be dead. I was going to have to intervene. I glanced back at the kid, who now appeared to be…dancing. I huffed in annoyance and called him over with a hiss. He bounced to my side and clambered up onto my back, hanging over my shoulder slightly and breathing in my ear. I swatted his face away. "Alright, listen to me," I said, "our plan has…changed slightly. See that man in there, the one they're roughing up?" Robin nodded, his eyes wide. "That's o'Gravey. They're going to kill him." Robin's mouth fell open.

"But that's so mean, why're they gonna do that?"

"Be damned if I know," I grumbled, "but he probably deserves it. Unfortunately though, it means we have to rescue him." Robin started to vibrate between my shoulder blades.

"Awesome," he whispered.

"Alright, I'm going to go down there and deal with this, you can come and watch but you have to stay up in the rafters, do you understand?"

"Yea, yea," Robin agreed, bouncing on my back. He somersaulted off, landed nimbly on the roof beside me, and followed me as I headed towards the other end of the building." We needed to find a way to approach where Black Mask and his crew were sure not to spot us. The top floor of the Sonny's Shrimp Administrative building was open straight through to the roof, no ceiling to partition it off from the rafters. There was also a large skylight, lucky for me quite common in Gotham, making the entire building easily accessible from the roof. The trick would be however, to reach it without being spotted. That would require us to approach from the other side of the building, as the one we were facing had far too many windows.

Robin followed me along as I moved like he was my small, colorful shadow, easily matching my pace. He seemed more focused now that we had a task, his mind on making sure his movements were silent and that he stayed just in my wake. We leapt off the roof of the factory to that of the storage facility to the right of the admin building, nestled close enough that Robin could manage it without my help, and then up onto the roof of our target, which sloped low on the side we were on and required some tricky climbing to scale. At this point, Robin had a little trouble, since he was so small, and I realized I had not actually equipped him with any gadgets yet, so I let him clamber up onto my shoulders as I climbed. He rode there happily, his arms wrapped around my neck, singing quietly in my ear. I hissed at him to shut up and he stopped the song, but kept humming under his breath.

We reached the apex of the roof before I could silence him again. He clambered down from me and stood at the edge of the skylight, peering down at Black Mask. Before I could give Robin any further instructions, I saw the mob boss aim his gun at o'Gravey's head. Well, we were out of time. Without another word, I smashed through the skylight, my spiked boots cracking it easily and my weight shattering it inward, and landed heavily among the mobsters. The drop was just far enough, my knees creaked a bit when I hit the ground, but I managed to turn at least some of my momentum into a whirling motion. The weighted edge of my cape caught a few of the goons as I did this, knocking them down, and my boots caught a few more. The shooting started almost immediately, which suited me well, since in the confusion, they were shooting each other. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Black Mask make himself scarce and the two goons that were holding o'Gravey dropped him to take aim at me. o'Gravey shoved himself along the floor towards one of the corners of the room and huddled there, whimpering and doing his best to cover his head.

Suddenly, I heard a loud whoop from above me. "Yeah, get 'em Batman, take 'em down!" I glanced up at Robin, who had clambered through the skylight and taken up a position on one of the exposed support beams of the building, perching like a small bird and crying out in excitement. The goons glanced up at him too and I took advantage of their confusion to take a few more of them down. I quickly discovered, then, an unexpected benefit to having Robin along. A brightly colored, cheering child in the rafters of a building makes an excellent distraction, provided he didn't distract me as well. "Get 'em Batman!" he cried, "Go on, look there's one over there, ohh, one behind you Batman!"

By now, the goons had abandoned their guns, realizing that they were more likely to fall from friendly fire than from me, and were advancing with knives, bats and fists. I almost grinned. This was my favorite part. I happened to glance up at Robin, who was staring down at me, eyes wide, gripping the crossbeam he was on. Aww, what the hell. "Come on Robin," I called. He needed no encouragement. Diving as gracefully as a swan, an illusion ruined by his high-pitched squeal of glee, he hurtled down towards us, hitting the man to the left of me in the shoulder and sending him careening off balance. He pushed off from the man as he was falling, tumbling through the air towards a table he had already sighted.

He was off it nearly as his toes brushed the wood, hurtling towards another man. If I had thought he made a good distraction before, it was nothing compared to what he was able to do now. The men practically stood still, just watching him as he twisted through the air, slack jawed and uncomprehending. It was like their tiny brains could not process a brightly colored, giggling child leaping among them and throwing them off balance. That was most of what he did. That was most of what I had taught him anyway, knock them down and I would do the rest. It worked better than I had hoped. He sent them stumbling and I used elbows, knees and fists to keep them down.

It took a minute for the men to get over their shock and when they did, they started grasping for the boy, but he was far too swift for them. As quickly as he struck, he was up again, acting like he was playing the most exciting game of keep away, and the entire time, he would not shut up!

"Hey man, you hungry, how about a foot sandwich!" He kicked one man in the mouth.

"My name's Robin, ice to meet you." He smashed another man in the face with Black Mask's discarded whisky glass, spilling the ice in it all over the floor. Another man slipped on it, and I finished him off with a boot to the face.

"You got pretty good dance moves, wanna learn the twist?" As he was flying by, he snatched the man's wrist and sent him pinwheeling into two other men. He was so ANNOYING, but it was effective, so I couldn't exactly begrudge him his grating chatter.

In time that was surely a record for me, we had ten goons neatly stacked in the corner of the room and one sniveling o'Gravey ready to spill his guts. I loomed ominously over him as he sobbed and crouched in front of me and Robin, who was already fidgeting. "Alright o'Gravey," I snarled, "where's Zucco?"

"Z…Zucco," he whimpered, "why you wanna know 'bout Zucco, I ain't seen old T…Tony in ages."

"I don't care when you last saw him, I want to know where he is now," I roared in o'Gravey's face. He shied furiously away, bursting into even more frantic tears. Robin watched interestedly, head cocked, looking between me and o'Gravey. He was quiet for once. That was good. "Talk!" I growled again, hauling o'Gravey up by the front of his shirt, "talk or I'll tie you up and leave you here, let Mask's goons finish their work." o'Gravey's small, piggy eyes darted towards the groaning goons, probably already calculating his odds of survival.

"He's gone," o'Gravey cried finally, "he…he found out you was l…looking for him and he skipped town, said he was g…gunna lay low for awhile."

"Where?" I roared.

"I d…don't know," o'Gravey wailed, "he…he's gotta place d…down in Cabo! B…but he's, he's comin' back! I swear it. Said he was gunna come back when things cooled down!" I dropped o'Gravey, considering what he had said. It fit what I had learned previously, which was frustrating. The last time Zucco had gotten in over his head, he'd fled to Cabo. He hadn't stayed there long though, and probably didn't intend to this time. He already had wheels in motion here for his takeover, placing o'Gravey with Black Mask's crew being just one of them. Of course, Mask had probably figured this out, which was why he had been intending to take him out. Well, this put a hitch in my plans, but it didn't destroy them. It might actually work a bit better. Robin needed more time and training anyway. A couple weeks of that and Zucco would be back and this time, I would be ready for him.

"Come on Robin," I said gruffly, "we're leaving."

"But what about o'Gravey?"

"He's outlived his usefulness. If he's smart, he'll get out of town." o'Gravey didn't need to be told twice. He was already stumbling through the door and out into the street. I left Black Mask's goons where they were. Black Mask, I only now noticed, had completely fled the scene, bearing no real loyalty towards the hired help. It was fine, I could find him later if I needed him. I held out a hand to Robin and hoisted him up onto my back, where he dutifully settled as I shot off my grapple and propelled us up towards the roof.

"When do I get a grappling hook?" he chirped. I did not bother replying. As soon as we reached the safety of the roof and he had clambered off me, I turned to him.

"Are you hurt?"

"Nope," he answered proudly, "not a scratch. Batman, Batman, that was soooooooo fun and you were so cool! You're like an action hero, like James Bond, you're so awesome!" I blinked at him, the pleasure I felt surprising me. No one but the criminals I attacked ever watched me work and they obviously weren't loose with their admiration. To have this small child bounding around copying my moves and squealing about how awesome I was, that was…kind of cool. I was kind of cool. I mean, I had already known that but still.

In a surge of uncharacteristic good nature, I said to the boy, "Want to find some more people to fight?"

"Yea, yea yea," Robin cried, "ohh please, can we? Bet I can take 'em down twice as fast, no no, three times!" I gave him a wan smile.

"We'll see, you had better not get killed though, the paperwork that would come with that would be a bitch." Robin gasped.

"Batman, that's a suuuuuuper bad word!" I rolled my eyes, suppressing another smile.

"Come on, we have a lot to do before daylight."

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To his credit, Robin's seemingly limitless energy lasted until nearly 4 a.m., past what I would have expected. He crashed while we were keeping watch over one of the Penguin's lairs. I had been watching him cavort around the rooftop out of the corner of my eye, his flips and springs getting slower and slower until finally, he staggered over to me, clambered into my lap and collapsed across my thighs. He was asleep almost immediately. I marveled at that; flipping around one minute, asleep the next.

I started to push him off and then paused. I supposed there was no reason why he should have to move. At least here, I knew where he was and anyway, the feeling of his tiny chest rising and falling against my thighs was making me feel strangely…peaceful.

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The Penguin never showed up and the boy slept soundly as I hoisted him up into my arms, strapped him into the car, drove home and carried him up to his room. I laid him on his bed, pausing for a moment and wondering if there was anything else I should do. I took his mask off and, as I did, my fingertips brushed his forehead. He was so soft, so small and soft. Had I ever been like that? I couldn't remember. I watched him sleep for a few minutes and finally tore my eyes away, leaving the room and quietly closing the door.