Author's Note: I don't know why, but Stan is one of my favorite villains in the show... no explanation, therefore, about why I am so mean to him here. Er, well, enjoy!

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I don't own any characters mentioned in this story. The rights belong to DC comics, Bob Kane, etc.

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Chapter 3/?

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"And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion."
- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

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The fire tears through Terry's body like a riptide of pain, the force of the explosion ripping through his suit. Man, he hadn't even touched down on the rooftop yet...

He hits the ground with a groan and, for a moment, he can't see a thing. Even without sight, though, he's pretty sure that what just struck him across the face was the side of Mad Stan's army boot.

"You think I wouldn't be ready for you this time, Batman! You think I didn't have enough imagination to plan ahead!"

"Well, now that you mention it," Terry tries to say, but all that comes out of his mouth is a strangled gasp and a painful cough.

"That's the problem with society! There's no standard for imagination! Everything we can dream has already been done! The artistic world has a plexiglass ceiling! And no one can break through!"

Terry can feel the suit sparking, the naked red wires hot and damaged. Not good.

The veins on Mad Stan's neck are bulging with excitement and fury. "And the only solution to this impasse is..."

"Gee," Terry wheezes, "let me guess."

"BLOW IT ALL UP!"

Terry can't move his right arm, and he's not sure if its because of the suit, or if something is very, very broken. Either way, something else officially 'not good.' Stan grabs the front of the Batman costume, hauling Terry into the air. Every part of Terry's spine screams in protest (and a bit of his own scream seems to pathetically escape out of his mouth).

"But first, Bat-freak, I'm going to take care of you! You're on the side of the capitalist, information-whoring fascists, man! Which means you need to be scrap!"

Terry still can't move. He twitches his fingers, trying to move his arm enough to grab a batarang, a gas pellet, something. But between the pain, the broken suit, and Stan's grip— it looks pretty grim. He hears the loud 'click' of Stan releasing a hand-held explosive from his belt, and Terry knows from past battles what kind of range that kind of fire-power has. And he knows that, even if Stan gives him room, he's in no shape to get that far away.

This sucks. Really, really fucking sucks. Of all the ways to go, Terry hates that it's MAD goddamn STAN that finally gets him. He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath, waiting for...

The zing of a batarang is a very distinctive sound, and for a moment Terry thinks he just hallucinated it— before Stan yelps and drops him. He hits the art gallery's rooftop with a not-too-satisfying 'smack' as Stan stumbles backward, black eyes darting into the night, looking for a logical answer for the attack.

He gets one in the form of a kick to the head, a blur of black and red and glinting silver. Loud, cracking punches and sharp elbows fly, beating Mad Stan down and back.

Terry groans and looks up, bleary eyed, at his savior.

It's a man in a plain red helmet, that much he can tell. The guy's clothes look like something out of either an old horror movie or an S&M store—under a dark colored duster, leather straps criss-cross over black kevlar, keeping knives, hooks, guns, and oddly shaped shuriken easily in arms reach.

The red helmet dodges one of Stan's monstrous punches and counters with an upper-cut of his own, followed by a spinning kick that pins the hulking terrorist against the roof's 'Emergency Exit' stairwell.

The stranger's black gloved hands immediately extract two knives from his costume and stab them deep into Stan's shoulders—first the right, then the left—essentially pinning him to the wall. Stan screams. Loudly.

"Oh, you don't like that?" The sound of sarcasm isn't muddled at all by the helmet. The voice, the sheer amusement clear in it, makes Terry shiver as he tries (and fails) to push himself up again. "Hmm. You probably should have thought of that before you started picking on poor defenseless art museums and a superhero dressed up like a rodent." The man gives an exaggerated shrug and pats Stan patronizingly on the side of the head. "Now you just hang on here a minute. I'm not finished with you yet, but I've got something to clear up with the kid."

Stan just groans as the man in the helmet walks away from him and towards the young Batman, still sparking red, in pain, and lying on the rooftop. Black combat boots stop just inches from the cowl's ears and Terry looks up to see the man offering a leather gloved hand. "You okay? No serious damage?"

Terry grunts and tries to act suitably 'Batman' as he grabs the offered arm and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. "I'm fine. Who are you?"

"Red Hood. And you sure you're basically fine? Any broken bones in your face? Internal bleeding?"

"No." Terry pokes at the red wires on his chest and grimaces. "Maybe a broken arm, but mostly just a few burns and a busted suit, I think."

"Oh. Okay. In that case..." Terry looks up as the man in the helmet trails off—and is met with a punch to the face, followed by a second to his stomach. He dodges a third, stumbling backwards.

"What the hell do you think you're..." Terry starts to yell, at the same time Red Hood screams, "What the hell were you thinking!"

Terry freezes in confusion. "What?"

"Rushing in here with guns half-cocked! You didn't even have what looked like a semblance of a plan, and—trust me, kid—you're not nearly good enough to do that. Not yet. I mean, Jesus!" The voice sounds surprisingly petulant, almost whiney. "Where did you learn to swoop in wide like that, anyway? Definitely not from the old man, that's for sure. You're totally open for attack—vulnerable." Red Hood's hands are balled into fists and he's nearly shaking with anger.

"Listen," Terry half-coughs and half-growls, "I don't know who the hell you think you are..."

The man answers by kicking his foot onto Terry's right arm and pushing. The action shoots a wave of pain (yep, that arm's broken) through Terry, causing him to gasp and fall to his knees.

"I'm the guy saving your ass! Now, I'm going to finish with Stan and you better just sit there really still— before I have to do some real damage to make you." Terry clutches his shoulder and grit his teeth as Red Hood makes his way back to Mad Stan, pulling another (longer, sharper, dangerous) knife out of a crisscross of leather straps.

"You know, Stan, hurting Batman is really just not cool. But I would be totally willing to let you off with just a little roughing up—heck, I partook in the fun myself—if it wasn't for the fact that I did a little checking around today. You've been a busy boy, haven't you?"

Mad Stan growls, eyes glazed over in pain and hate, but the Red Hood continues on before he can respond.

"You set up those bombs all over Gotham practically as soon as you got out of prison. The World Gallery, the Museum of Digital Art, the Foundation Art Museum... pretty fast work. Too bad your work wasn't thorough." The man grabs Stan's right hand and drives the knife straight into his palm. Stan screams, yells "WHAT ARE YOU—?" and starts to thrash.

"I mean, you didn't check to see exactly when these places were all going to be empty, did you Stan? You just charged forward, hell bent on causing as much destruction as possible. It didn't matter to you that the World Gallery had," Red Hood twists the knife, "five whole bus-loads of kids visiting on a field trip." He twists the knife again.

"AH! WHAT THE FUCK MAN! THAT'S MY TRIGGER HAND!"

"Oh, gee, really?" That sarcasm again, laced so very eerily with amusement. "And here I was trying to damage the useless hand. My mistake."

The knife moves, slices, severs. The blood gushes and flows, pooling on the rooftop like a concentrated rain.

"No..." Terry's eyes widen and his body starts to move, rushing forward as much as he can.

Red Hood immediately pulls a gun out of his holster and shoots at Terry's feet— Terry dodges, but only barely and his muscles definitely remind him that he probably can't do that again.

"I told you to stay right where you were, Batman." There's a laugh in the man's voice when he says Terry's name, like its some sort of joke. He turns back to Stan, gun still trained on the center of Terry's cowl.

"See, Stan, I have this pretty fucking big issue with people hurting kids. And if I hadn't been able to disarm the bombs, you'd be all kinds of dead right now. But since it all worked out," the hand gives one more twist, and then a pull. Terry doesn't think he's ever heard a scream so loud. "I'll settle for knowing that you'll never make another mistake like that. Ever. Again." Red Hood wipes off his knife and slips it back onto his suit. Then he pulls out a small, black cell phone and presses the top button. "I've just sent a message to the police. They'll come get you. And you'll be fine... mostly. The nerves in your right arm are severed. You'll probably never get feeling back there. Learn to cope."

Terry slowly rises to his feet as the Red Hood approaches him, gun still carefully aimed. "And you, kid... you need to wise-up. Fast."

"Yeah, somehow I feel like taking life advice from someone who just crippled..."

"...a criminal who has proven time and time again that he's not going to reform. In fact, he was getting worse. Bolder. Get a clue, kid!" Sirens start to become audible in the distance and Red Hood cocks his head, his white eye-lenses shimmering.

"Tell the old man I'll be stopping by. Soon." He holsters his gun, quickly dodging out of the way when Terry takes the opportunity to go for a head-strike. Laughter echoes inside the helmet "Take it easy! You're in no condition to fight me—not right now. Don't worry, though, we'll have a rematch I'm sure."

The stranger gives a small salute and pulls an old-fashioned (God, back from the early Batman days—fucking classic) grapple-gun from his belt. "By the way, I also owe you pizza and a beer or something. You did good work with the Joker. Really, you should be proud."

With that, the gun sparks, the grapple flies, and the man swings away—looking so much like old videos of Bruce, the Hood's duster even billowing at the back like a cape, that it's freaky.

Terry wants to check on Mad Stan, to fix everything that's just happened somehow. But his suit is broken and still sparking, and the sirens are a lot closer. So, instead—giving an apologetic frown to the bleeding man still pinned to the stairs—he calls the car and punches the orders back to the cave.

[Terry!] Bruce's voice on the car comm is sharp with anger and worry. [What happened? Are you okay?]

"Yeah. Just shway," Terry sighs. "But we seriously need to talk."

To Be Continued...