Flashback Chapter 14 In the Sky and Underground
A stick up in a convenience store. Routine, for the Bat, but… Okay, first guy down. And the second, good going. Oh. Damn. Forgot about the third. Erm, let's see…plastic bag, tin of beans, chopped tomatoes, ravioli, jump up… aaannnddd… Thunk. All three out. Good.
Hmm. Pretty poor performance overall, actually. If I'm gonna do this, if this is my path, I'm gonna do this.
I need to think like the Bat, act like the Bat, train like the Bat.
Babs had revamped her costume. The shirt and pants were padded with Kevlar from one of her dad's old vests, the belt restocked and the high heels of her boots replaced with the treads from old sneakers. She had a painted yellow can of mace spray, more shuriken, a wrist radio tuned to police channels and a new rope.
She was planning some roof-hopping, starting from Wayne Tower and covering half of Gotham. Wayne Tower was easy enough to get into, and high enough for a nice bit of freefall.
She changed into costume in the stairwell, made it to the top and prepared her rope. She threw and anchored the grapple on the building opposite, wrapped the rope around her hands, and jumped.
Everything snapped into clarity. She was ready; ready for her first proper patrol with rooftops and ropes; she had the skills, and enough toys to get by; she was ready for her destiny.
She fell, and…kept falling. The rope should have caught her by now. It couldn't have snapped; it was a ten tonne test line.
A body, red-yellow-green and lithe, slammed into her, and lifted her up. "Hold tight," Robin grunted, one arm around her waist, the other holding his grapple's handset.
As they reached the roof, Babs saw Batman, crouched at the edge, holding the cut end of her rope. "No give," he explained. "Would have pulled your arms from your sockets."
Babs' eyes went wide at the realisation of how close she'd come to maiming herself. "Thank you," she murmured.
"She didn't know," Robin said from behind her.
"There's a lot she doesn't know," Batman growled.
"Then teach me!" Babs demanded. "I can be just as good as you, if someone'll give me a chance!"
"Why?" Batman said flatly.
"I can help. Help you, help your Boy Wonder, help the cops…"
"Or die." Before she could retort, he'd sprayed something in her face, and she blacked out.
"-bet it's in her blood now, B. I don't think she can stop. I know I can't, and don't try telling me you can. Reckon it's too late."
Babs groaned and came to at the sound of Robin's voice. Blinking and looking around, she found herself to be in an actual cave – she'd always thought the 'Bat-cave' was an urban legend to increase the mystique. But no; genuine underground cavern. As she sat up, she found her hands bound in front of her.
"Who are you?" Batman demanded in a growl (and did he have to growl everything?).
"Batgirl," she answered brazenly. "That's all you need to know."
Batman twisted slightly, and Robin nodded fractionally. Batman returned to his prisoner. "You wear my symbol. You claim our reputations. That makes you our business."
"Well then, let's all share," Babs said snarkily. "Who are you, pray tell?"
Batman glared at her for a moment, before turning away. "Watch her," he ordered Robin. "And wipe that smirk off your face.
Robin waited until his mentor had left before speaking. "That went well," he said chirpily. "C'mon, I'll show you around."
It was a crash-course in the bizarre. Batman had pumped some serious cash into the operation. Was that the real difference; he had money and she didn't? Whatever it was, these guys were seriously equipped. The best computer ever (and wouldn't she love to get her hands on it), a small fleet of land, sea and air vehicles, trophies from various bad guys (which made Robin blush, and blame it on being a little kid at the time), storerooms of spare suits and equipment, medical bay, and of course, hard copies of all their files.
"If you see this guy, run the other way and pray he didn't see you," Robin said darkly, pulling out Joker's file. A note pinned to the top, "Known Body Count", gave more than adequate explanation. Huh. She'd…forgotten how serious this could be.
"So that's us," the Boy Wonder finished. "Any questions?"
"With all this…what do you do all day?" Babs asked curiously. At first she'd found it rough, active all night and awake all day, but she'd adjusted, doing her homework in the school library at lunch time and napping in the afternoons after she got home. How would Robin's life differ?
"It varies," he shrugged. "School most days; I am still just fourteen. Patrol at night; training, learning. At the moment, my spare time's spent translating Les Misérables from the original French into German, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Portuguese."
"Really? Why?" Babs asked in surprise. "You know that many languages?"
"Tests my language skills," he answered absently. "And yeah, I do. Learning Mandarin as well, and fluent in Amazonian Greek and Atlantean. Been working on Kryptonian, but xenolinguistics isn't really my forte. Apparently I sound like I'm gargling rocks."
"I guess it would be useful; most normal American criminals fear Gotham for some reason," Babs acknowledged slowly.
"And talking to immigrants and such in their own language; not always the best English speakers," Robin agreed. "Actually, there's something you haven't seen yet. The training room." As he led the way into the depths of the cave, he kept talking. "I honestly don't know why we have it; we hardly ever have time to use it. The League's been talking about getting holo-simulators, and when they do we'll use that, but now…" He opened the door to a cramped, Narrows-style neighbourhood. The streets were filled with cut-outs set on tracks in the floor. "Probably shouldn't do this, but…fancy a go?" Robin offered.
Babs smirked, and accepted. The chance to prove herself; of course she fancied a go. Robin left, and a moment later the cut-outs started clicking along their tracks. She started walking down the street, contemplating taking to the roofs, but she'd lost her rope and the fake houses might not allow that anyway. Then, a new cut-out popped up. It shot at her, and when she ducked, a red paintball splattered against the wall. She threw a shuriken, and the cut-out snapped down.
In the same way, she took out several gunmen, a knifeman whose knife was a thin, fragile shell filled with more paint, and the momentum of the test built up. Soon, she found herself holding a pram with a ticking time bomb, under fire from three gunmen. She threw the pram at the men, and ducked.
As the bomb exploded, paint going everywhere, the click-click-click of the mechanisms fell silent. The door slid open, and Batman entered. Robin followed, face expressionless. "You used lethal force against the last three" Batman accused. "Are you a police officer? FBI, NSA, CIA? Armed forces? A judge?" She shook her head to all, confused. "Then who are you to decide who dies?" Batman continued. "Why do you do this? Why are you here?"
"I-I-" she stuttered, and Batman turned away. "Because I can!" she yelled. "Someone has to, and I can."
"Can you?" he asked, looking back at her.
"Hell yes. I don't have your fancy car and expensive equipment, I may still be learning, but I can! Just give me a chance."
Batman frowned, and Robin sprayed her in the face. Once again, Babs blacked out.
When Babs came round again, she was lying in her own bed, in her own room, in her and her dad's house. She panicked briefly, seeing her cape and other accessories folded neatly on a nearby chair. She couldn't believe they'd unmasked her while unconscious.
A moment later, she calmed down and spotted a second belt. Checking it, she found batarangs, smoke pellets, a proper grapple and more, along with a note telling her to be patient and train hard, signed "R".
She cinched the belt around her waist; it fit perfectly. Training; she could do that. Not stop patrolling, of course, but… stock up on martial arts tapes and language books. Research Arkhamites. And learn to throw her new batarangs…
AN: Still following the Batgirl: Year One story, still changing things. I'm doing this story exclusively from Babs' POV, which means other people's motives are going to be...a little unclear until all is revealed in the end. For example, in the comics, Batman was very, very staunchly against Batgirl; here, he's...considering it a bit more.
Oh, and in the original, Babs had a live fire exercise in the training room. After all the grief I've got over a few bullets in LBV, I figured...yeah, no thanks.
Speaking of, LBV updating this week. Both this, and LBV, are being updated again next week.
Last week we hit the current record for most reviews for a single chapter of Flashback. That record stands at...drumroll...four. Seriously, guys? If you reviewed, keep up the good work. If you didn't...
See you next week.
Katara