Crime Fighting Fairy

As he looked out over the Gotham skyline, Batman found his eyes and thoughts straying yet again toward the river, and the neighboring city just beyond. Bludhaven. For months it had eaten at him, that defeated look in Dick's eyes after he and Barbara called it quits yet again. He hated seeing his son hurt, and no one seemed more capable of inflicting pain than Barbara Gordon.

He had respected the ability of the woman to wear the bat well, and after she had lost her legs to the Joker's bullet, he had continued to be impressed with her ingenuity as well as her stubborn refusal to give up. Known as Oracle now, she continued to fight crime in a different venue. He considered her a powerful ally . . . But a silent part of him despised that she also had the power to shred his son's heart on a whim. He couldn't tell Dick that he secretly cheered when he had announced their breakup. He had, at the time, prayed that this time would be the end of it – permanently; not that he would have been able to tell his son as much. At least, not without risking losing him again. After suffering through the past few of years without him, it wasn't something Bruce or Batman was willing to do.

Now, after watching, not only Dick, but Nightwing suffer for an idle, petty, power trip the woman had been on for three-quarters of the past year, he was unsure that the Barbara wasn't a necessary evil for Dick's happiness. He hoped the hell not, but it was beginning to appear that his hope was a hollow thing. These past few weeks were worse than usual for the simple fact that he hadn't heard from the boy . . . Man! Dick was a man now. It was nearly three weeks since the last phone call; four since he had last seen him. Two weeks had been the longest length of non-communication they had gone through since he and his eldest had patched their differences up. Usually they would speak two or even three times a week. He was getting seriously concerned now, worried that the funk his son had been in for so long had progressed into actual depression.

"Have you heard from him?"

Batman looked over at Red Robin. It was a testament to his level of distraction that he hadn't heard Tim's approach until after he had already managed to cross half the distance of the building's rooftop. Unacceptable. He needed to focus or he might as well head back to the cave, else some wise-ass punk might get lucky enough to put a bullet in him.

"I take it from your question that you haven't heard from him either," Batman muttered.

He didn't like this. It was one thing for Dick to ignore him. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that he had angered the younger man at some point during his last visit, although if he had, he had been completely unaware of it. But, it was totally out of character for him to ignore his younger brothers. The fuss that Damian had been making earlier in the evening had assured Batman that the boy hadn't heard from Dick either.

"No, and I have to tell you that I don't like it." Red Robin's eyes swept the streets below, looking for trouble automatically, although he was nearly as distracted by the current familial issue as his father. "He hasn't been this incommunicado since last year."

Batman nodded. "But even then, you would hear from him occasionally."

Damian was still new. The boy had come to his care from his mother, Talia al Ghul, almost a year before, shortly after he and Dick had ended their long estrangement. But in that time, the boy had forged a unique relationship with his eldest brother that was making this recent silence as difficult for him as it was for the rest of the family. And it was unusual for Dick to not take Damian's need for attention into account.

"Are you thinking this is about Oracle? Or could this be more serious than that?"

Batman glanced at his companion, his face grimmer than usual. "I begin to think that this thing with Oracle is becoming more worrisome than Bludhaven's current gang problem."

This earned him a look from Red Robin. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, if we are this distracted, being on the outside; how much more distracted must Nightwing be? Bludhaven is far better crime-wise than it was before Nightwing moved in, but it still is far more dangerous at night than is Gotham."

"You think that he's going to be less cautious than usual, don't you? That his distraction by his and Oracle's relationship problems will get him hurt . . ."

" . . . Or killed." Batman hated thinking about that. He just got his son back after nearly three long years of living in hell without him. He couldn't stand the idea that he could lose Dick to a moment of inattention, all because his son couldn't move past his heartbreak.

A crackle over his comm-link alerted him to a robbery in progress on the police band, interrupting thoughts better left to daylight hours. Fifth and Emerson was just a few blocks away. According to what he was hearing, the police were still ten minutes out.

"Did you catch that," Red Robin asked, turning to face the direction of the ongoing robbery.

Batman was already in motion, pulling out his grapple as he ran across the roof. He felt more than heard Red Robin moving up to pace him. They leapt off the building edge together.

Red Robin landed on the sidewalk outside the jewelry store just seconds behind Batman. The store front was dark, and no movement could be seen from outside. The metal grating that normally covered the storefront during closing hours had been cut with what must have been some heavy duty bolt cutters, and pushed up out of the way. The glass door was broken and propped open with a brick.

Had the thieves already gone?

Batman placed a finger on his lips. Unnecessarily, thought Tim, but he kept his mouth shut and followed his mentor into the darkened store.

The darkness wasn't total, the light from the street penetrating part the way into the store. Glass from the door crunched underfoot, sounding loud in the silent building. Red Robin frowned. Shouldn't the alarm still be blaring? Or did it have a silent alarm? He and Batman had reached the store within ninety seconds after hearing the alert. How could the thieves have had times to break in, turn off the alarm, rob the store, and escape without detection in little more than two minutes? It didn't seem possible, unless maybe something scared them off before they started.

Something crunched under his boot than wasn't glass. Tim kneeled down. What is that? A pearl? It was white, whatever it was. He picked it off the floor and shined a light on it. I-it's a tooth!

"Red Robin, I don't think our robbers managed to escape after all." Batman's voice came from the back.

Walking to the back room, he saw three hooded men unconscious and tied up, sitting back-to-back in the middle of the room. One of the men was bleeding from the mouth; his jaw swollen. The mystery of the tooth was solved. Red Robin moved up to the trio, carefully tucking the tooth into the bleeding man's shirt pocket. There was some visible damage to the room they were in, but not so much as he might have expected when one considered the sort of fight that would be necessary in order to leave three grown men in this condition. And apparently, Batman agreed with his assessment.

"Whoever took them down was fast," Batman commented. "I suspect he caught them in the act, and surprised them."

"Do you have any idea who could have done this, and left without leaving a clue," Red Robin asked.

Batman looked thoughtful for a second. "I have my suspicions. I only know a few people in Gotham capable of this, and two of them are here."

"He had to have been incredibly fast to have accomplished all this and leave without us running into him," Red robin postulated.

"Not necessarily so. You didn't notice the security keypad by the door when we came in? The thieves had disabled the alarm before they even entered the place." Batman walked back out to the front. The thieves weren't going anywhere, except maybe to the emergency room before they were booked and tossed into a cell. Sirens could be heard in the not so distance and were closing fast.

"But it was the alarm that alerted the police, and us."

"True. So, think about it again."

"Unless Flash was cruising by without telling us he was in the vicinity," Red Robin mused. "Someone must have taken these guys out at his leisure, and then set off the silent alarm on his way out the door? That would make sense."

The police had arrived. They entered the establishment cautiously until their eyes adjusted to the gloom enough to make out the Caped Crusader and Red Robin milling around at the rear of the showroom.

The first officer smiled, lowering his weapon. "Batman, Red Robin," he greeted them. "One of these days, we are going to beat you to a crime. It would be interesting to watch you walk in after the fact for once."

Batman nodded to the officer. In the shadows still, Batman recognized the voice and build of the man to belong to Officer Dillon Scott. Still a young officer, not long out of the police academy, he remembered. Batman had met him at several crime scenes over the past couple of years. He had noted him because Commissioner Gordon had told him after one meeting that he had graduated Gotham's police academy the same year that Dick had graduated from Bludhaven's academy. The young officer didn't seem afraid of him at all, and the only reason that Batman didn't consider that a problem was the rather intense amount of awe and hero-worship that stood in its place in the man's eyes.

"That would be an enjoyable turn of events, indeed, Officer Scott," Batman growled. "Your perpetrators are in the back."

Red Robin stepped aside to allow Scott and several officers through. He followed Batman to the street. It wasn't until they were standing on the roof of the neighboring building that Tim felt free to talk again.

"You allowed the police to believe that we nailed the crooks." It was a statement of fact. He looked to his mentor.

"Whoever our hero is, he or she didn't leave any clues to his or her identity. He didn't want credit. As I don't believe anything was taken, you saw the bag full of jewels sitting in the middle of the table; I saw no reason to waste the night with answering questions and raising speculations that would be better served by returning to patrol." Batman explained. "I doubt our hero is ready to hang up his cape at this early hour. Perhaps we may run into him yet tonight."

Several hours later, Red Robin and Batman had returned to the roof where they had begun their night; staring once more across the river into Bludhaven. They had run across three other busted crimes over the course of their patrol. Like the jewelry store robbery, the perpetrators were unconscious and zip-tied at the spot of their crimes; their victims or bounty sitting and awaiting the authorities just as pretty as you please. Even the statements of the witnesses or victims had been garble-headed enough that the hero could have been nearly anyone in a mask.

"You know," Red Robin muttered, disgusted with the night's work. "I could have taken the night off, and finished a paper for my political science class."

"Watch what you say," Batman warned.

No references to civilian life while on patrol, no matter that they were the only humans for blocks that were awake, let alone out on such a cold night. The wind was picking up, fluttering Red Robin's cape behind him, though not so Batman's. The wind had a difficult time creating a ripple in the heavy leather that made up Batman's current cape.

"Sorry," he said. "So, have you determined who our hero is?"

"The only obvious ones that it could be would be Red Hood, although that seems highly unlikely as he seldom leaves his territory, and when he does, he usually doesn't bother stepping in to stop a crime in mine . . . Or Robin, who would have to be out without permission." Damian. It was Wednesday night, and Robin wasn't allowed to patrol on a school night.

Red Robin smirked. "This sounds like something the demon-child would do."

"It is a good thing that said child isn't in hearing of your name calling."

Red Robin darted a look, but Batman's lips remained in the same grim line as always. Had his father's remark been a rebuke, those lips would have tightened and lost their color. It told Tim that the name itself didn't bother him so much as the reaction to it by its intended recipient did. Not a rebuke then, so much as a warning to watch who was around to overhear him; particularly if that person were Damian himself.

"While I wouldn't put it past him, Robin's been skating on thin ice for the past week. I doubt he would be stupid enough to risk being grounded from his weekend patrol for a mid-week joyride through Gotham's criminal sector."

Red Robin tilted his head as he thought about that. "If he thought he could get away with it, I certainly wouldn't put it past him. You said you didn't find clues as to who this guy . . . or girl, could be, right?"

"Mm, and that might be our biggest clue."

"So, you do have some ideas on who it might be?"

Batman straightened his shoulders, and turned to make his way to where he had parked the batmobile. "Do you want to come home tonight?"

So, you're going to play this hand close to your chest, eh? Red Robin looked in the direction of where he had hidden his bike. He was tempted. Alfred's breakfasts were always the best.

"I should head back. I still have that po . . . uh, paper due." The regret was there in his voice, however. His mouth started watering. He wondered what he had in his refrigerator. Bologna and frozen pizza. There was cereal, but his milk had smelled a little off yesterday morning. "But if you're willing to talk me into it, I can always come by in the morning."

"I know someone who would love to see you," Batman paused, glancing back over his shoulder. "If you have no plans, come by for breakfast. Bring your stuff with you. You can borrow the study, if you like."

"Will you be there?"

"For breakfast."

"You should play some hooky. My stuff won't take me long. Might be fun to just hang out for a while."

"It just might . . ." Batman's lip quirked.

Red Robin grinned. "See you later, then," he said, but Batman was already gone.

He took his time making his way back to his bike. They were ending the night early. Might as well, he thought, since our crime-fighting fairy seems to have taken care of everything for us tonight. That still bothered him; the not knowing. It had bothered the Batman, too, although Tim suspected that his mentor had some other person in mind when he had left. Maybe after a good night's sleep and one of Alfred's award-winning breakfasts, they could take some time to consider their hero's identity.

Even the demon-child might be able to give us some helpful input, Red Robin added, generously.

He pulled his bike out from behind an overloaded trash receptacle where he had stashed it earlier. Visions of bacon and omelets dancing in his head, Red Robin turned his bike in the direction of his apartment, looking forward to his next meal.