"Move around me," Damian snaps, twisting my arm again with practiced ease and a bored expression.
Damian whined to Alfred about how bored he was just one too many times, leading to Alfred very helpfully suggesting that Damian instruct me in fighting techniques.
Granted, I did ask Dick to teach me how to fight a few days ago, but I wanted Dick to. Damian is mean.
As if to emphasize this, Damian sweeps my feet out from underneath me with one hooked foot; his upper body didn't even shift with the movement. To my credit, I manage to catch myself on the palms of my hands and pull my legs towards me into a crouch. He already swept my feet out from underneath me, and I was not one to make the same mistake twice.
He gives a minuscule nod, turning to the weapon rack. "Warm-up over," he announces.
Him knocking me to the ground twelve times in twenty minutes was warm-up? How is that a warm-up? Shouldn't there be stretches or something?
Damian withdraws two practice swords (dull, but still a freaking metal sword) and tosses one half-hazardly to me. I barely catch the projectile, one hand on the hilt and the other on the blade. He narrows his eyes at the hand on the blade. "First lesson: don't catch the sword by the blade."
I throw the sword back to him like a javelin, deliberately blade first. He sidesteps, allowing the blade to pass him before grabbing its hilt. He turns to me, a question in the crease between his eyebrows. What can I say? The condescension got to me.
"I don't fight with weapons," I condescend right back, like it's beneath me, instead of just a preference.
"Then what do you fight with? It can't be with skill." He replaces the swords on their rack, accepting that I would not be sparring with them today.
Ooooh, that was a good burn. Too good; I don't have a comeback. "I know that," I state petulantly, turning away. There's a too-quiet silence; I know Damian, and I know how this went down when he pinned me the seventh time. He had attacked when I turned my back, and he attacks now.
He goes to hook one of his legs around one of mine, upsetting my balance so his arm can come around my neck and help my back better acquaint itself with the training floor. When he tries this time, I anticipate and fall faster than he expected, grabbing his arm as it goes to hook around my neck three inches too high. One foot bending back to catch myself, I snatch his arm in the open air and twist around, finally finally reversing our positions and twisting his arm behind his back.
It only lasts about a second and a half; he rotates his shoulder and kicks backwards at my knees with perfect synchronization, ending with my back flush against the floor and a very sore kneecap. I sit up from my position, glaring at my knees for betraying me.
Damian, completely out of character, offers a hand.
I glance between it and his impassive face before reluctantly taking it, allowing him to help pull me to my feet. I raise an eyebrow at the gesture and silently question why.
"You learn," he praises shortly, but the compliment is short lived. "Fighting without weapons is a poor choice."
"Um… thanks? And I want to fight because I think it looks cool. I'm not going to dress up like a bird and go fight crime in the dead of night, so weapons are unnecessary."
Damian's heavy expression lightens with confusion. "I don't understand why Grayson brought you here if you aren't going to train."
"I think it's because I don't want to train."
"So you have no interest in becoming a vigilante?" He says vigilante as a sort of compromise between hero, anti-hero, and villain; there are so many different affiliations.
I contemplate his question, thinking of how many heroes I've happened upon in my short three years. I'm the clone of one, I've met tons more, and I now live in a house full of them. It's not that I don't want to be a hero, it's just a big decision. It's dedicating your entire life to thankless, selfless work. Everyone else's needs come before yours. The weight of the world is in every decision you make, until you die. I want to do good, but I need to make sure it's what I want, regardless of my DNA.
"There are ways to do good other than being a hero," I reply evasively, noting it's the same thing I'd said to Dick. It's my crossroads motto. I haven't made a decision off the reasoning that I am technically only three years old. When I'm older and have seen all there is to see, I'll decide. When I've finished creating a person outside of my DNA source. Later. When I'm older.
With a slight tilt of his head, Damian regards me curiously. "Doing good is what makes you a hero."
Surprised by his words, I allow, "Maybe one day, then."
He nods, maybe, almost smiling.
Before the bonding moment can really get going, shouting can be heard from a couple floors above us. Damian glances towards the voices once before moving towards the pole, but I block him. Holding a finger to my lips and gesturing up, I silently promote eavesdropping. Agreeing, he nods, inclining his head to their voices.
From what I can tell, Dick and Tim are fighting over a pending Gotham alert and a Justice League thing. Tim is adamant about going to the League while Dick argues he'd be better suited for the League mission and Tim is needed here.
"I'm not working with the demon spawn!" Tim roars, clearly very upset. Damian's frown morphs into a snarl.
"You don't have to work with him! Just take care of it yourself and if you're about to die, Damian can hop in. I have to go to this. Technically, I'm Batman right now."
"I need to be there," Tim pleads.
"I need someone here!"
"Someone else!"
"WHO?"
Their fighting volume declines as Tim finally listens to Dick's reason. I look to Damian for answers, but he waves me off with a vague, "League mission."
As if I didn't hear that.
Damian's watch flashes twice as Dick summons him, and he answers it by sidestepping me to get to the pole. I follow up after him, reaching the platform as he strides up to Dick and flat out refuses to work with Tim.
Dick gruffly tells them to deal with it-saying a couple things about "growing up" and "hero's responsibility"-before pulling the cowl of his uniform over his head and striding away from them. He waves with a smile at me, which quickly fades into a mask of impassiveness as he moves past.
I watch him disappear inside the beautiful lights of the Zeta Beam. "So what are you guys going to be-" I turn to the other brothers, but they're both gone.
I look to Alfred, who'd snuck down here at some point during Tim and Damian's brief argument. "Everyone here sucks."
He offers me a glass of lemonade from the collection on his platter and takes one himself. "An accurate assessment."
We toast to that.
Beep. Beep.
Lazily, my eyes open.
It's around four-thirty in the morning, according to the Bat-clock, and I'm nestled in front of the Batcomputer with a blanket thrown over me. I step from the chair to yawn and stretch, sending the blanket to the floor. I'd been watching the many programs run on the computer when I fell asleep, waiting for the brothers to return. I look for them now, and am surprised to find the Cave empty.
Alfred usually sleeps at this hour; 3-7 if no one has injuries. Tim and Damian only sleep in the late afternoon, though. Shouldn't they be back from their mission six hours later?
I return to the Batcomputer, scanning the screens for any missed transmissions.
Now I remember the beeping that had roused me.
backup, reads one from "RR"; Red Robin.
now, says another, three minutes later.
its jason
battwqeqet
Well… that can't be good. All the vital signs from both Damian and Tim are shut off (not dead, I don't think?) and the only thing transmitting is their tracking signal. Something-or someone-is blocking everything their suits set off, except their tracking. Such an obvious, in your face trap.
I memorize the streets before I know what I'm doing.
I jog towards the transportation area, knowing, knowing how bad an idea this is. I have zero intention of using my powers for this, and would rather avoid ending up in the middle of a superhero flex battle from any other hero that might show up. There are few skills I have for this kind of operation (barring from the powers I'm not going to use), and as I said before, I don't fight with weapons.
I swear if I end up getting kidnapped…
I mean, I'll be pissed, but there won't be much I can do to complain, because this is so stupid.
Choosing one of the smaller motorcycles, I click on a helmet and start up the engine. I've only driven a motorcycle a few times and had loved every time, but that didn't stop the heart-stopping terror of its acceleration.
The bike has an embedded touch-screen, which I toy with hesitantly while driving (texting and driving is obviously a non-issue with this family). I put the bike in semi-automatic control, hoping it'll save me some painful collisions. To my relief, it opens the tunnel's door and swerves whenever it deems me too close to something.
I key in my destination while praying to the Ancients that I won't slam into a brick wall or another car at the speeds I'm going.
Luckily Batman is as good a designer of motorcycles as he is a detective, because I end up at my destination without dying painfully. I take in the unremarkable building in front of me, giving myself one more chance to recount how idiotic I am.
How can I be so dumb?
But Jason is one of the brothers, isn't he? Dick talks about him like he's misguided, not evil. He wouldn't hurt me. Actually, I have no idea what he would and wouldn't do. I've never met the guy; he could be Satan. To be more accurate, he can't hurt me. Not really.
Okay. No weapons, no backup, definitely no powers, and no plan.
...
I've totally got this.
Since it apparently makes all my decisions, I let my impulsivity and idiocy take control and lead me forward. My rational brain, calling reason a lost cause, does the other little things; taking off the helmet, squaring my shoulders, and walking steadily, right through the rusted gates and the even rustier doors. So easy to get in, such a trap.
Dead silence.
No, not silent. There's a wheeze of air, the turn of a fan, and the steady drop of liquid on metal. I continue forward, looking around for signs of life or struggle, trying to squelch the rising uneasiness inside of me. No. If I'm going to be this stupid, I'm going to be all in.
Walking silently, I pass underneath an overhang and enter into a cavernous room. The voice comes from above and behind me; curious, wary. "I've never seen you around before." Frozen in fear for only a moment, I turn around to take my first look at the only Robin I haven't met, looking up to see a twisted sort of Batman.
The suit is almost the same as Dick's-with the exception of a couple color differentials-but the posture, the smirk... they're all wrong. Looking him over only once, I address him with a tilt of my head. Then, dismissively, I turn away from him and look around for Robin and Red Robin.
Noticing drips of blood, I look up to see that Robin is suspended above me by his feet, arms in a bloodied straitjacket and a livid face stuffed with a gag. Red Robin's wings are broken and in a pile a ways to my left, with its owner nowhere in sight.
I'm ashamed to say my first response to that is disappointment.
"Don't ignore me," the impostor Batman snaps as the silence stretches on (except for Damian's muffled curses).
I face the Batman again, scrutinizing his position. "How do you get up there?"
He scoffs at my response. Then, with blinding speed, he hops over the railing and sails through the air, cape like bat wings in the air. Rising from the crouch he landed in, he towers over me. "Where's Dick?" he demands in a low voice.
Despite the situation, despite the immaturity, despite the humorless figure in front of me, a smirk forcibly climbs on my face and my eyes avert downwards for just a nanosecond.
I bite my lips to quell any humor trying to escape, but for some reason it's just too funny. Laughter bubbles in my throat and, horrified, I stuff a fist in my mouth. Then I shake my head at him to answer his question.
"Are you… laughing?"
The bewilderment in his tone only feeds my laughter, and it snakes out around my hand. The impostor Batman looks at me with utter shock, as if he can't understand how this is happening. Before he can find more words, a clang draws our attention up. Tim, shaky and also bloodied, groans as he pulls himself to a standing position.
"Dani," he slurs, gesturing widely in my direction, obviously drugged. "Get awaaaaay-" He trips on nothing, even standing still, and falls heavily on the railing with his forearms.
I turn back to Jason, hiding my mouth with my hand and whispering conspiratorially, "I think Tim hasn't had his coffee yet."
Impostor Batman leans back, putting space between us. "What?"
"Coffee? It's basically Tim's..." I cut off, waving aside the weak joke. I'm defaulting to my banter defense, as nervous as I am with a rogue bat and two Robins incapacitated. Jason obviously didn't understand. Trying a different tactic, I stick out a hand. "I'm Dani. With an i."
He looks at my hand, completely lost. "Who are you?"
I withdraw my hand and twirl it in a circle. "Rewind." I stick my hand out again. "I'm Dani. With an i. That's D-A-N-I." He does nothing. No hand, no words. "Jason, right?" I try to keep my tone light, but a traitorous note of concern slips in.
Jason jerks from his stupor and steps back. "You are a bat. Unbelievable. Dick's doing what Bruce did. Black hair, blue eyes. The cycle never ends." He sounds disgusted, but also… betrayed. Didn't Dick say something about how every Robin so far had taken great offense whenever replaced?
"I'm not a bat," I argue, letting my hand fall. "And I'm not a hero."
Jason glares. I think. The mask, you know. "You're just a civilian?" I shrug with a half nod. "Then leave, before I make you." His colored tone drops back into darkness, as if he'd just remembered that he is supposed to be Batman.
"You can't make me do anything," I sass, and immediately wish I hadn't.
He launches forward, grabbing me around the waist with one arm and lifting the other. Damian gives a shout and Tim struggles with his body again, but that's all lost as Jason's grappling hook deploys and we're shooting into the sky. I reach my hand into his belt and grab a bunch of random items, a good enough pickpocket that he doesn't even notice. I slide them down my sleeve and hold it level so its contents don't tumble out.
Jason drops me on a building nearby and cuffs me to a pipe before I can gather my bearings enough to scramble to my feet. With one more weirded out look, he's gone as quickly as he came. I tug my hands, which are cuffed together and to the pipe, just like my feet. With an annoyed huff, I phase through both.
Handcuffs free from my hands, I push their mechanism inward until it resets, open like I'd picked them normally. That done, I face the building I'd been escorted from. Okay. Let's try this again. I pocket all the capsules and batarang things I'd stolen from the belt and ride down the fire escape.
Five minutes later, I'm exactly where I was ten minutes before. I stroll in, just like before, but this time on the second floor. I know how to be silent, being half-ghost and all, and I end up right behind Jason without being noticed. Don't give me too much credit; his taunts of Damian mask my steps.
"Miss me?" I ask his back.
He whirls around, fists clenching and hand going to his belt. "I tried to be nice," he growls, deep in his throat, but he doesn't withdraw anything yet.
"So now what?" I gesture beyond him to Damian, who's struggling to see me around Batman, and Tim, who's struggling to stand. "You stop playing nice and beat me into submission? Not going to happen. Or you would've done so in the first place." My humor, while still simmering below the surface, is masked by a heavy layer of firmness. Since he isn't going to take me seriously, I'm going to have to be serious.
Jason seems to reevaluate me. "Since you know me so well," he responds.
Ignoring the shivers down my spine at his sinister voice, I move past him, leaning my forearms on the rail and deliberately showing him my back. "I don't know you at all. But I was dumb enough to come here without backup, so I kinda have to hope you don't kill me, right?" Good, Dani. Appeal to his morals.
I give an awkward smile, knowing my gamble to be completely unfounded. He shouldn't know I don't have backup, but… I don't know. This whole ordeal just might kill me. I lock eyes with Damian, and his expression tells me the same thing.
"Are you another Robin?" This time he speaks with curiosity, though the change in tone is the only difference in his persona.
I smirk and point to my ever-present red beanie. "I'm Red-Capped Robin (that's the Australian Robin for you uneducated folk). My code name is RCR. I'm the 87th. Like all my predecessors, I have black hair, blue eyes, and only see the world in shades of white, black and red." I nod briskly at the end of my declaration, watching Damian balk from the corner of my eye.
Jason's face reflects something akin to twisted awe, and he joins me side-by-side at the railing. We watch Damian struggle like its a scenic sunset. "You're going to get yourself killed, kid."
"At least it'll be with a smile!" I chirp, emphasizing with a bright smile. He shakes his head. At least he's too amused/bewildered to cuff me again.
"What are you doing with this family?" His tone darkens as he jerks his head to the two brothers still struggling with their bonds. "They'll wipe that smile clean off your face."
I shrug, twisting my mouth up. "Food."
The edge of his mouth pulls up a fraction. "Sounds familiar." His twitch of a smile pulls back into a frown, more sad than angry this time. "Do you really not have a plan to rescue these two?"
"Besides asking you to let them go? Nope."
The sadness of his frown doesn't lift. "And if I say no?"
I contemplate this, having honestly not thought this far ahead. "Guess I just wait until Dick comes. But trust me, I can irritate you into submission long before that." He opens his mouth, but I continue. "And don't say you'll just expertly tie me up out of here, because I may not have assassin or techno skills, but I can escape anything you whip up. Then I'll come back here."
"You're ruling out drugs and a fight."
He says "a fight" like I could put one up. I wave that off. "You already promised you wouldn't touch me."
His tone darkens, warning me against assuming that. "No, I didn't."
Those shivers again. I play them off with a half-hearted, "Must be my wishful thinking then."
He snorts and falls silent, thinking.
I only wait a couple minutes, passing the short time by playing the blinking game with Damian. He's funny for assuming I know Morse code; I blink randomly back. I know Jason is watching, trying to discern whether we're actually communicating or not. Finally, I break the silence. "Do you know what he's saying?"
This time, Jason has a real, amused smile. "He's trying to tell you to get Tim or call Dick, or get out of here."
"Was I saying anything?"
"Not even close. Except for a bunch of S.O.S.s."
I frown in disappointment. "It's the only code I know." I look at Damian, who looks beyond frustrated at me. "Also, I don't have a phone."
Jason looks at me incredulously. I think. Again, masks.
I shrug. "I lose them. Or I would, I guess, since I've never really had one. Besides, what would I use it for?"
Amusement colors his tone again. "In this case, you would use it to call Dick."
I wrinkle my nose at that. "Yeah, see, that just sounds wrong." Jason snorts a laugh. "Although his contact would be hilarious and his ringtone could be a male stripper theme song."
Jason laughs out loud this time. "You are too awesome, kid."
"Dani. With an i."
"With-an-i. Got it."
We fall silent again, watching as Tim tries to struggle over to us. "Are we actually going to just sit here waiting for Dick?" Jason asks, mask-eyes on Tim.
"I'm not waiting for Dick. Maybe you are, I don't know."
He glances at me briefly. "One too many name jokes."
I scoff, flipping my bangs out of my way. "There can't be too many; there will never be enough." I pause for a moment to catch his smile before going on. "And to answer your question, I suppose that depends on why you're doing all" I wave around at the ominous warehouse "this."
He regards me, frown contemplating my request for an explanation. Decided, he shakes his head. "Sorry, With-an-i. Don't know you that well."
"Alright. I'll BS my way through this, too, then." With a small hop, I plant my feet on the railing. I think best when I move. With my arms out, I take a couple steps. Jason moves seamlessly with me, probably suspecting I'll fall. I appreciate him being willing to catch me. "I only know what Dick's told me. He said you were Robin, and because of that, you died. Then you came back from the dead, only to find that Bruce hadn't avenged your death." I look down at him, trying to judge if I offended him or not. "Do I have it right so far?"
He nods stiffly, and I continue on my walk.
"So you did this whole, 'kill Batman' thing. Lots of bad blood, for a long time, but to my understanding, weren't you guys room temp at the time of his death?"
His mouth hardens, and that small gesture speaks volumes. Tim and Damian are ruffled and drugged, but not too seriously injured. Jason hasn't made one move to hurt me. This isn't a villainous plot, it's Jason grieving.
"I don't have parents," I proclaim, trying to make my voice strong even as I want to bury that truth away. My walk around the room nears Tim, and I walk on regardless, Jason swerving to avoid his heap. "But I did have a foster father, of sorts." I pause in my walk, and Jason stops with me, frown questioning. "He was no good." I shake off my uneasiness-talking of Vlad-and move forward again.
"I was kind of a surrogate child for one he actually wanted, and he orchestrated this whole scheme-yes, scheme is the only word that works for what this was-where he could get his hands on this kid. Well, a lot of things happened after that, and the kid got pretty badly hurt. Still, he got himself and me out of that place. Later, when he got better, I asked why he didn't put that guy in jail."
I'm editing the story as I go, careful not to mention names or powers or the whole cloning ordeal. "I couldn't fight against this guy myself. I don't even have a birth certificate. At the time, I was twelve. But this kid, he had pull. He could do what I couldn't." I focus on my feet, knowing how easy it could be for me to forget where I am and fall from the railing. "He said more people would be hurt if we outed the guy. He's pretty powerful, keeps a lot of things, if unethically, in check.
"But even more than that, they have this kind of… mutual destruction deal. If he outed the guy, they would both go down. I thought he was just being selfish. And it took a while to let go of that. I was really resentful, but…" I pause in my story again. "When we met, I was on the wrong side, but he was still with me anyway. He saved my life and gave me a kind of freedom I'd never known. He was willing to die for me before he even knew me.
"I was trying to pretend that he was on this other guy's side, but he was always on mine. I still don't understand myself why he won't do it, but I figure, he's done enough good to be a little selfish, don't you think?"
Jason's silent, whether because he's still trying to make sense of my words or because he's actually considering them I can't tell.
"I know that might not make the most sense in regards to your own situation, since I can never really understand the whole deal you went through. All I'm saying is, my kid is your Batman, in a loose sense. We're pretending there's a distance between us, that they can never understand, but in reality, they understand even better than us. They understand what needs to happen, despite what we want. What happened to us will never happen again, or it won't until they're too dead to do anything about it, and those accountable will get what they deserve."
"Can you really be so sure?" Jason growls, deep and soft. "Bruce is dead. The Joker will never get what he deserves."
I tilt my head at his caustic tone. "It'll never feel that way to you. It'll never feel that way to me. You just have to focus on what's better than them. Which isn't really all that hard." I wink. "Would you listen to me if I had something to say about you?"
He's quiet for a moment. "I listened to your story, and that was pretty long."
I hum, focusing on my path again. "It was, wasn't it?" I gesture at the warehouse once again. "Jason, this isn't you. All this…" I wave up and down his Batman costume. "Isn't you. You're trying to prove yourself right; that Batman was doing it wrong. But he wasn't. You know that. You're just trying to justify his death." I roll my eyes. "Seriously, you guys and justice."
Jason has a genuine frown on his face, and I can tell he doesn't like what I'm saying. Still, I press on.
"You don't need to justify anything. You aren't Batman. You are your own form of hero. There's a name for it that I can't remember just now, but you know what I'm trying to say. Besides, there's no need to replace Bruce because it turns out he isn't dead."
Jason stops.
At the end of my rant, I hop down from the railing and face the stunned Batman.
"He's… what?"
I shrug. "Went back in time, apparently."
The picture of shock, I leave him to his processing and kneel beside a groaning Tim, who had given up trying to stand and was just laying there. I frown at his form and poke his face. Disoriented, he waves me off, widely missing me. Jason appears right behind me, and I look up at him. "He isn't dead."
"Bruce is alive?" he demands.
Tim makes a couple choking noises in his mouth, arm still floating around in the air. "Bat," he forces out.
I smile encouragingly. "That's right, Tim," I coo, and he struggles to get four of his fingers down on his airborne arm.
At that, I stand and face Jason, now commanding. "That's where Dick is now. We can tell you all we know, but now that we've established you aren't evil, we should really get these two" I point between the other bats "back to the Cave before Dick and Bruce get back. We can forget this happened, but we don't really have to because to my understanding they've both tried to kill each other and they're both still allowed in the Manor."
I can see the "no" on Jason's face and plant my hands on my hips. "Those are my conditions."
After a tense staring contest, his resolve drops and he nods, reaching behind his back. "Where's my…" He pauses and glares at me.
I glance down and then back up, straining an innocent smile. "Riiiight," I draw out, as if just remembering. "I took those…" I put my hand in my pocket and offer him back all the objects I'd taken. "You know, in case you tried to kill me." I keep smiling as he stoically takes the items back. Feeling like there's more to be said, I offer, "Master escape artist and pickpocket, did I mention?"
Finally he relinquishes a smile, but that might've been because of Damian's enraged shout as his bonds were cut and he fell face first onto the floor below.
I really like that chapter. I also really like Jason, so I'm making him a part of this story.
As always, I eagerly await your reviews!