Author's Note: This is one of my favorite chapters from this section! (And I almost accidentally deleted it. Oops!) I really love Shriek as a villain; he's unlike any other Batman villain and seems to have the same semi-obsessive relationship with Terry that villains like the Riddler did with Batman—not as symbiotic as Batman and the Joker, but intense none the less. Enjoy the chapter! ~ Tsuki

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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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Darkness Cannot Drive (Part 7/?, Chapter 6)

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The boy on the screen sits alone on a small, grassy hill and smokes a cigarette. The camera zooms in until the boy turns, rolling his blue eyes dramatically.

[[What are you doing, Alfred? It's my birthday, right. You guys said I could pick what I want to do, and I want to smoke a cig without you and Bruce getting on my case!]]

[[Of course, Master Jason,]] a voice from off camera says. It's possible to hear the warmth that radiates from that voice—it's the sound of amusement and of love. [[But I thought it would be appropriate to capture the moment as evidence for the next time you suggest that we, quote, 'never let you do anything.']]

The boy laughs and shakes his head. [[Well, fine, roll camera then!]] He turns toward the lens and makes a flirty, kiss-face. [[I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Demille.]] After batting his eyelashes, the boy takes a long drag and proceeds to blow smoke rings, as if daring any future spectator to call him a novice. After a few more goofy faces and laughs between puffs, a voice can be heard off camera, calling everyone over for birthday cake.

It's Bruce's voice.

Terry freezes the video a stares intently at this young Jason's face. There's a spark in his eyes—a look of true happiness, a look of love and hope. It looks so much like something Terry had seen flicker across the man's face that night in Bruce's hallway, before it had dissolved into a bitter fury.

It's not exactly a look of a boy's love for his father; Terry knows that that looks like—he remembers seeing that look on Tim Drake's face when Bruce had come to see him in the hospital. But Jason's is not that kind of look. Jason's eyes here speak an entirely different language. It is rawer, hungrier. Almost lustful. It is, in Terry's opinion, strangely un-Robin-like.

"You done staring at that yet?" Max asks, waving the pre-calculus textbook before his face. "It's been, what, over an hour? And we are supposed to be studying you know."

"Huh? Oh, yeah."

The explosion hits before Terry has the time to finish closing the laptop. The building rocks and trembles. "What the hell?!"

Terry sprints to Max's window and scans the sky. "Slag it. No fire... just the sound of explosions..." Another eruption, like a small earthquake, rattles the windows and Terry frowns. "And no question about who's responsible. Max— you may have to help me suit up!"

.

.

Jason shakes his head, feeling shards from his helmet scrape his scalp and fall from his hair. "Fuck," he coughs, pushing himself up to stare again at his anonymous assailant. "Another broken helmet. You know I'm going to make you pay for that, right?"

The white, robot-like creature chuckles, his laugh echoing metallic under his mask. "You're welcome to try."

Jason just grins and grabs one of the light bombs from his belt and lunges forward. He darts low toward the creature's leg— ready to blind him with the light, then cripple him with a quick knife stab to the thigh, severing the rectus femoris.

He doesn't get that far. And invisible force hits Jason again like a brick wall, and another series of shorter bursts slice at his arms and face like sword swipes. Another invisible punch gets him straight in the gut and makes him taste blood.

"That was brave. However, ultimately futile." A white arm rises away from the metallic body and, even though he didn't see anything happen, suddenly Jason can't move.

"What the..."

"Like it? This is something new that I developed. Not that you'd know; you don't seem to know enough to even appreciate my old inventions. I'll have to find Batman eventually—hopefully he'll appreciate the genius behind this." The blue orb of a face bends close to him and Jason can see his own reflection—angry and badly bruised. "You know, it used to be that I could only force the vibrations in a forward direction. But now I can vibrate them in place. I can use them to carry something. Or contain something." The white metal hand makes a tight fist and suddenly Jason feels walls pushing against his shoulders, pressing in against his chest. Soon, he's gasping desperately for air, unable to breathe. "Or crush something." There's that metallic laugh again.

The pressing stops for a moment, but doesn't reduce. Jason bites the inside of his mouth until he feels a bit of flesh tear away from the inside of his cheek—anything to stay conscious as the air is forced from his lungs. The metal hand grips his chin and tilts his face up. There is a soft, clicking sound—like tongue against teeth—inside the blue orbed face. "You do look like him. Blue eyes, dark hair... are you related to him?"

Jason can only make strangling sounds. As if on cue, the invisible walls recede until he can finally cough out, "Who?"

"The Batman. Are you related? It would be an odd coincidence, but it's scientifically plausible."

"Oh yeah," Jason spats. "Half-cousins, twice removed, on my mother's side."

The white and blue metal tilts, as if considering. "Are you trying to be funny or insult my intelligence?"

Jason flashes his favorite shit-eating grin. "Why discriminate—I like both options."

"I see. You're nothing more than a sardonic plebian. And you're distracting me from finding the Batman. Well, I think I've humored you for long enough..." The white hand is positioned in front of Jason's face now, and the circle on the palm starts to vibrate, and a high pitched noise—like far away screaming—starts to whistle in his ears, and Jason closes his eyes for a moment and sees crowbars swinging on his eyelids and thinks, 'This is it again.'

And then the hero swoops in.

.

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The Batman is quick and ferocious. He doesn't give Shriek even a moment to fire off one of his sonic blasts. An elbow to the unprotected side of his throat, a batarang in the sonic blaster of the left palm, and then another in the right. Claws extend from his gloves and he gouges out the circuitry from Shriek's chest plate. A swift side hook to the head sends the white and blue helmet flying and reveals a thin and grimacing silver-haired man underneath.

One more punch to the face is all it takes; Shriek collapses on the rooftop, faintly groaning.

Batman ties Shriek tightly with chord from his belt. The hero and the villain say nothing to each other, until the young Batman smirks grimly and pulls a small card from his belt. It's a playing card from a child's board game, clearly spelling out in black letters: "GO TO JAIL. DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT $200."

"Cute," Shriek says dryly.

Batman doesn't say anything. But his grin widens, as if to say, "Yeah, I thought it was."

When Batman finally does speak— to Jason now—his voice is rough and gravely, like Batman's should be. "You okay?"

Jason snorts. "Depends. My body's okay. Pride's a bit wounded, though."

Batman chuckles. "Don't worry about it. Took me awhile to figure out how to deal with Shriek's sound waves. And it's still hard if he gets a shot it—those blasts can disorient me for, like, ten minutes."

"Those were seriously sound waves?"

"Yeah."

"Huh. That's pretty hardcore."

"Dr. Shreeve actually worked in sound technology for Wayne Powers Inc. before he went all super-villain, if you can appreciate the irony."

"Hn," Jason shakes his head and feels something scrape inside his mouth. He spits out a mouthful of blood and broken tooth pieces. "Damn. That's going to take all night to heal."

Terry raises an eyebrow. "That's pretty fast."

"Yeah. Comes with the pretty face. I heal faster than most. Still hurts like a bitch, though."

Terry looks about to respond when GCPD sirens start to grow in the distance. "That's the cue. Let's get out of here."

"Wait." Jason grits his teeth and walks over to the tied up Dr. Shreeve. Before Batman can say a word, Jason shifts his hips and drives a sharp kick to Shreeve's face. Another downward punch follows and soon there's blood flecking Shreeve's face and Jason's glove. "There. Told you I'd make you pay for breaking my helmet, fucker."

"Just to let you know," Batman states flatly, "he can't hear you. He's deaf without his mask."

"No problem," Jason looks the man called Shriek in the eye and Shriek glares back, murderously. "I think he got the message."

.

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As Terry follows the unmasked Red Hood—Jason, his mind amends—through the night sky, he can't help but think of that sarcastic young boy from the videos. The former Robin is clearly in his element as he swings left on his old fashioned grappling hook, then lets go, diving head first into the neon-kissed expanse of an alleyway. Before Terry's breath has a chance to catch, Jason grabs a pipe with one hand and slides to brace his foot on a ledge. "Coming?"

Terry follows, feeling a little silly as he spreads his bright red wings and fires up his jets. But Terry rarely uses a grappler—the city's just not made for it anymore and the fact that Jason uses one, Terry's pretty sure, says just as much about his stubbornness as his skill.

Jason grins, cat-like, and ducks into the window that he had landed on. Without much hesitation, Terry follows.

The world inside the window looks like a fairly normal apartment, but one which is fairly cold and nearly empty. The walls are blank except for one series of projection monitors (all set up in a square formation, for optimum viewing possibilities) and various electronics—a VM-chip reader, a CD player, and two more contraptions that Terry can't identify. The only other furniture in the room is a black futon, already folded down flat and topped with crumpled sheets. The only sign of real life—besides a slight smell of needs-to-be-washed laundry—is a punching bag in the corner, a small castle of empty take-out boxes, a mini-fridge, and scattered pieces of computer parts on the floor.

"Home sweet home," Jason waves his hand loosely around the room. "I'd tell you to make yourself comfortable, but it's not exactly set up for, well, people." He walks over to the mini-fridge and pulls out a water bottle. He tosses one to Terry without looking and Terry catches it—thinking for half a second before remembering to use his good arm. Jason smirks as he twists open the top.

"So, there's no way you're healed enough that the old man let you out of the cage. So, what's up?"

Terry shrugs, trying to look casual and yet heroic. "Saw the explosion. Had to come save your ass." Terry flashes a wild grin before forcing his face to turn serious again. "Injured or not, it's still my city."

Jason snorts. "Nice. You even have the bat-lingo down. Exo-arm on the left?"

"Yeah. It bulges out a bit. It was a bitch getting the suit on."

"And it's going to be even worse getting it off. Especially if you don't want to mess your arm up even more than you have. The old man will be able to ease you through it... if you want to tell him you've been fighting the good fight without his permission anyway."

Terry shoots the best bat-glare he can manage Jason's way, but can't keep it up for long. Jason's just too... likable. At least Terry thinks so, but Terry has been hanging out with riffraff and juvee rejects since he was twelve, so what does he know? He sighs and pulls off his mask, shaking his hair out immediately—he hates cowl-hair.

"And suggestion two?"

Jason smirks, but there isn't any malice in it this time—just a bit of curiosity. "Come here."

Terry tries not to raise an eyebrow as he walks cautiously over to Jason. The former Robin slowly places his hands on Terry's shoulders and moves them slowly over the slick material of the suit. One hand pressed firmly against the injured arm, the other roaming with searching fingertips along his upper back and up his neck. Terry stifles a sigh. This felt... nice. Weird, but nice.

Jason suddenly frowns. "Kay, I give up. Where's the latch for this thing?"

"No latch," Terry half-laughs and half-coughs, trying hard to not let a blush hit his face in any obvious way. "There's a flap of fabric that you can pry loose and it acts as a zipper. The suit's circuitry just sort of knows that's when to shut off and open."

"No kidding? Old man's getting fancy." Jason walks around to face Terry's back and once again braced his hand on Terry's broken arm. "Ah, got it. Okay, don't tense up—I need your arm relaxed or this might injure it more." Terry feels Jason's left hand keep his shoulder in place as the suit ever-so-slowly peels away from his back. He reaches into the suit and peels the fabric away from Terry's right-side, coaxing his left arm out into the cold air. From there, Jason slowly rolls the fabric off of the left-arm's exo until Terry feels the last wisps of fabric slide from his fingers.

Jason sighs. "There. Now let me get you a change of clothes. I doubt you want to wander around Gotham half-naked in a bat suit."

"Wouldn't be my first choice," Terry admits. "Thanks."

"No prob." Jason shuffles through a pile of clothes on the floor, his brow creasing slightly. "Uh, I think these are pretty clean."

Terry takes the offered black tee and jeans with a smile—which fades into a tense line as Jason turns away, giving Terry some privacy to change. Terry just buttons the last button on Jason's jeans when he hears, "So, what happened to your dad?"

Terry's fingers slip, but otherwise he doesn't let his body react with anything more than a raised eyebrow. "Who said anything happened to him?"

"I did. No one gets into the Bat business if they have a healthy, well-adjusted family. Or if they do, then it doesn't stay that way for long... one way or another, there's got to be something your fighting for. And death is a great motivator. But—beyond that—I hacked into Wayne Tech and looked at your security file. Did you know you're listed as an 'intern'? Anyway, it only lists Wayne and your mom as your security contacts. No father. So… what happened?"

Terry closes his eyes for a moment before answering. "He used to work for Wayne Powers, back when Wayne's name was just on the company logo for show. Powers had my dad killed. Made it look like a gang of Jokerz did it."

"Jesus," Jason whispers. His voice sounds reverent, almost approving, as if Terry's answer has passed some sort of test.

"Yeah. Mom's still around though, and my little brother. Actually, if you take me out of the picture, they practically do have that healthy, well-adjusted family. Weird, huh?" Terry sighs and fingers the edge of the black shirt Jason had given him. "How about you? What happened to your parents?"

Jason snorts and seems to brush the comment away, but not before Terry can see a real, sharp pain flicker across his eyes. Jason seems to hesitate a moment. "Fucked off and died is the short answer. Maybe I'll tell you some other time."

Terry knows that he shouldn't feel so relieved that there will be another time... but he does. "Yeah? Okay. Maybe after that I'll tell you how I met the old man."

Jason laughs. "Not sure you can top my story in that department, Ter."

Terry smiles, noticing that the sadness in Jason's eyes has lessened a bit. His eyes are bright blue-green when he laughs.

"Well, I guess we'll see won't we?"

"Hmm. Guess we will."

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TO BE CONTINUED...