Fic: Introducing Robin
Title: Introducing Robin
Fandom: DCU (future-fic)
Characters: Tim Drake, Helena Kyle, Cassandra Sandsmark, Mia Dearden, Lian Harper, Christopher Kent and Officer Harper
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: If I owned them, why on earth would I write fanfiction?
A/N: I think I finally have a name for this ‘verse. Tenatively, at least, I’ve been calling it the “Inheritance ‘verse.” It seems appropriate. Also, Officer Harper does not yet have a canon first name. So I named her Larah. Just so I would have something to call her.
Getting a new sidekick, Tim quickly learned, was a bit like having a new baby: everybody you ever knew suddenly just had to stop in and gawk at them.
Cassie was the first. It was after the new Robin’s first night out on patrol. Helena had been so excited that she hadn’t slept well the night before and, as a result, the moment they got back to the cave and she calmed down enough for her adrenaline to wear off, she fell asleep on the training mats without even taking off her costume. Taking just enough parental care not to wake her up, Tim had carefully changed his charge into her pajamas and carried her up the stairs to her room.
He was just tucking her in when Wonder Woman arrived, dropping through the bedroom window swiftly to regard them both. “I can’t believe it. You actually did it.”
Tim glanced up at her, petting Helena’s hair absentmindedly as he did. “Hello, Cassandra.”
“You actually did it,” Cassie repeated, taking off her rather intimidating silver helmet and setting it on the bedside. “You actually took some poor kid and turned them into Robin.”
“I didn’t take anything,” Tim said calmly. “Helena found me.”
Cassie clicked her tongue in disbelief, looking down at the little girl in the bed. Helena stirred slightly, sensing the unfamiliar eyes on her, and curled to one side defensively. The child eventually settled back down so that one of her hands was twining around Tim’s. Cassie gave a wistful little sigh, rounding the bed with a few long strides and resting a hand on Tim’s shoulder.
“…She’s beautiful.”
The corners of Tim’s mouth quirked up slightly. “Yes. Yes she is.”
Cassie’s hand began to move, messaging his shoulder gently. “I think that she’ll be good for you. We worry about you, you know - cooped up in this dreary old place all alone. It’s nice to know that you’ll have someone watching out for you.”
“I’m supposed to be taking care of her,” Tim said simply. “Not the other way around.”
“Who says it can’t go both ways?” Cassie leaned down to whisper in his ear. “You need someone to take care of you, Tim. Someone…special.”
She wrapped one strong hand around the back of Tim’s neck, gripping his hair and pulling back his head. He closed his eyes and allowed her to kiss him for a few long moments before he pushed her away. “Don’t you need to be getting back to Superman?”
With a few disappointed blinks, ‘Cassie’ disappeared and Wonder Woman returned. She stood, picking her helmet up from the bedside table and putting it back on as she moved in route to the window. She paused just a moment on the sill, but didn’t look back.
“Goodnight, Timothy,” she said softly, and then took off into the night.
Tim didn’t look up as she left, but he stroked Helena’s hair for a long while afterwards, as though focusing on the one thing in his life that was completely right would make forget all of the regrets.
( - )
A week later, when Red Arrow stopped by to review some strategies for taking out the remaining factions of Penguin’s Gotham-Star City drug chain, she brought Speedy along to meet the new Robin.
Lian was almost sixteen now, tall and strong and already beginning to show hints of the wild elegance that her mother had used to charm her father. Her costume had changed somewhat since Tim had last seen her, and he suspected that ‘Aunt Cissie’ had a hand in the redesign - aside from the Indian-yellow hood, belts, gloves and boots, she now closely resembled the ‘Dark Arrowette’ persona that Cissie had donned towards the end of her career.
When she entered the Batcave on Mia’s heels, her eyes immediately darted to where Helena was practicing with her crossbow. It was rapid-fire practice, so Helena and her targets were constantly moving. Load the bow, aim, fire. Load, aim, fire. She was not yet precise enough to hit the bull’s eye every time, but she was getting damn close.
Speedy narrowed her eyes at the exercise and notched her bow. With a few swift shots, she had struck all three of the bull’s eyes that Robin had been aiming for, knocking one of her crossbow bolts away, and fired a fourth arrow at the other girl’s leg. Helena realized what was happening and leapt away just in time to avoid injury, somersaulting through the air to face her attacker fiercely.
“So, you’re the new Robin,” Lian muttered, lowering her bow enough to look down at the younger girl. “I’m not impressed.”
Helena said nothing, just straightened to her full height, keeping her arms curled at her sides in preparation for attack. Lian approached her, stepping over the mats with long, confident strides. “What’s the matter? You mute or something?”
Helena shook her head. “I talk. You’re Speedy.”
“I can tell that you were trained by the world’s greatest detective,” Lian said coldly, squaring her shoulders to make the arrow-shaped symbol on her chest all the more obvious. She began to walk circles around the younger girl, judging her seriously. Helena remained perfectly still. “You’re kind of scrawny.”
“Lian,” Mia warned from across the cave.
Speedy shrugged it off. “I’m just saying.”
Helena glanced at Lian, and, behind her mask, her eyes seemed to glint gold. “I could beat you.”
“Oh yeah?” Lian’s green eyes flashed the way that her father’s always had when faced with a challenge. “You and what army, squirt?”
She reached out to grab Helena’s shoulder, but her hand barely got a chance to brush the younger girl’s cape before her arm was suddenly seized. Before Lian could react, Helena had shifted her stance and thrown the older girl across the room. Speedy recovered herself just enough to twist around in mid-air and land on her feet, her hands already reaching for her bow as a conditioned reaction. “Why you…!”
Helena struck, darting across the training mats to strike at Lian with the flat of her hand. Speedy block Robin’s attack and threw out one of her own, only to be parried again and again. They went back and forth, exchanging blows, parries, blocks and dodges as a pace that grew gradually more and more rapid, until finally, Helena swept Lian’s legs out from under her and dropped her to the ground.
Speedy hit the mat hard and barely had time to lift her head before Robin was standing over her, one curled fist just inches from the older girl’s nose. Lian sucked a few deep breaths into her lungs, glaring at Helena with an expression that, if looks could kill, would have dropped an elephant.
Helena met her gaze with a serious impassiveness, a careful poker face masking any and all emotion therein. “Told you so.”
Lian snorted and grinned. “Okay, okay, point made. Let me up.”
Robin paused a moment longer, then stepped back and let Speedy climb to her feet. From across the cave, where the two mentors were standing by the supercomputers, the former owner of the Speedy title glanced over at them and smirked. “Well, it looks like they’re getting along.”
Tim nodded distractedly. “Like there was ever any doubt?”
“I dunno…” Mia shrugged and adjusted her quiver, resting one arm across the high back of Tim’s chair lazily. “You can never tell who Lian’s going to rub the wrong way. And, don’t take this personally or anything, but your little bird is just a tad on the weird side.”
This time, in spite of himself, Tim grinned, just the slightest bit. “What can I say? It runs the family.”
( - )
About two months after Robin’s first night on the streets, Superboy appeared.
Tim had always liked Chris Kent. He was a good kid, despite his parentage, always full of confidence and willing to support his friends even in the worst of times. The two of them had always had a good relationship with one another, ever since the first day that they had met in the Batcave, back when Tim had been Robin. Though Chris’s time in the Phantom Zone had frozen him at age ten for enough years that Tim was now at least two decade his senior, the boy’s hero worship of Batman had never faded - much to the chagrin of his current guardian, Superman.
Tonight, he arrived just the same way that he always did - dropping out of the dark night and hovering alongside Batman on his patrol to make his presence known, and then dropping to the roof behind the vigilante pair when they finally came to a stop. “Hey, Batman!”
Tim did not turn around, but he moved his head just enough to see the boy out of the corner of his eye. “Christopher. Do Superman and Wonder Woman know that you’re here?”
“Cassie knows. She’s cool with it,” the thirteen-year-old grinned, adjusting the fingerless black glove on his right hand with the bare fingers of the left. Then he adjusted the collar of the black vest that he wore - modeled not-so-subtly after the tunic that Tim had worn as Robin, though Chris wore it open to reveal the red shield that decorated his long-sleeved navy blue shirt - and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black jeans. Despite his odd garb, he seemed totally at ease with himself and his surroundings. “I just wanted to meet the new kid, you know?”
With that, he kicked off the ground to float over to Helena, circling her in a tight loop, the toes of his black tennis shoes just barely brushing the asphalt. Robin tensed, leaning away from the boy as he moved within her personal defensive ‘bubble.’
“I wasn’t expecting you to pick a girl,” Chris said to Batman off-hand, then grinned broadly to address Helena. “Not that I mind, of course. Cassie was right, you’re really pretty.”
Helena took a step away from the boy and glared at him, bristling like a cornered cat. Superboy floated ever closer, the same smile on her face. “What’s the matter? Shy? You don’t have to be scared or anything, I’m a friend. Hey, I bet we’re even the same age.”
A light hiss slipped out of Robin’s mouth. Tim recognized the sound - Helena’s patience for people and for the invasion of her personal space was growing short. Chris, however, noticed none of this. “You know, back when Bats was Robin, he was pretty kick-ass. Did he teach you all sorts of cool tricks and stuff?”
“A few,” Helena said, the only two words she’d spoken since Superboy had arrived.
The soft sound seemed to take Chris by surprise, but after a moment of recovery, his grin spread even wider. “Really? Like what?”
“Come here and see.”
Helena turned her head to the side slowly, her body curving around gracefully until all that Chris could see was her profile. As her ponytail slipped over her shoulder, framing her downcast eyes, she almost looked like a shy model offering the camera her best side. But Tim could see the slim hand slipping down her side towards a certain lead-lined pouch on her utility belt, a storage case for hazardous materials. With her concentration still on Superboy, there could be only one thing that she was reaching for…
Chris, on the other hand, had no idea what was going on, and took a step closer when Helena beckoned. His single raised eyebrow indicated that he expected some kind of display or maybe even a gift.
Well, Helena certainly gave him something - a sharp, hard backhand strike that caught Chris right under the chin, the third finger of her hand bearing a glowing green ring. The Kryptonite radiation instantly canceled out Chris’s powers, but the force of the blow sent him flying despite that, sliding across the rough tarpaper until he finally came to a stop, groaning in pain.
Helena slipped the ring back into her utility belt and turned away, her point clearly made. “Can we go now, Batman?”
Batman motioned with his hand to indicate that she was free to go and he would catch up in a moment. As Robin swung off into the night, Batman crossed the roof and knelt down beside the recovering Superboy. “Are you all right, Christopher?”
“All right?” Chris sat up, rubbing his sore chin and staring after Helena with a dazed expression on his face. “Holy uppercuts, Batman, I think I’m in love.”
Behind the white-out lens of the mask and cowl, Tim rolled his eyes. He patted the Boy of Steel on the shoulder and straightened. “Go home. You have school.”
“Yeah, sure, you’re right,” Chris said dazedly, already floating several inches off the ground. “Hey, Batman? Do you think I could…”
“No.”
Superboy sighed wistfully and shrugged, slowly adding altitude to his flight. “Oh well. Can’t blame a guy for trying…see you around.”
Tim watched to make sure that he really was leaving before he finally moved to follow his sidekick’s path across the roof. He and Helena needed to have a long talk about how she interacted with strangers. If nothing else, the last thing he needed was a flock of metahuman suitors all with their eyes on his little girl.
( - )
The only person who didn’t try to push their way in to meet the new Robin was the police commissioner. They went to meet her personally.
Admittedly, it was only because she had called them, broadcasting the secret code that only Batman would know over the connection that only they would be able to pick up. She was standing in the shadows beside what had been the Batsignal when they arrived, her head turned towards the sky and her breath just barely visible in the dark, icy night air.
Batman took care to rustle his cape so he would not startle her when he spoke. “Commissioner Harper.”
Commissioner Larah Harper turned to him, a smile already on her face even before Robin dropped out of the darkness to land beside him. As she crossed the roof, Harper stopped to pat the big, old spotlight fondly, the way one might greet an old friend. “I remember the first time I ever saw Gordon light this baby up. And every time after that, come to think of it. It never stopped being exciting. Or inspiring.
“Wish I could light it now. Let the world know you’re up here, watching Gotham’s back,” she sighed and crossed the roof to face him. Tim had grown and she had not, so now she had to look up to him, but she didn’t mind. She’d never minded. “Those were the good old days.”
“Maybe they’ll come again someday,” Batman said, his voice gentle even though his face was hard. Harper smiled, but neither of them had any faith in his words. The conversation was an old ritual between them, to keep the loyalty between them alive despite what the world tried to do to it. You said you had some information for me?”
The Commissioner nodded and flipped open the file she carried, flipping through the paperwork idly as she spoke. “Rumor on the street is that Great White Shark - or somebody who’s taken over the name - circling through the Underground trying to unify it the way Penguin did. Our sources say he’s gaining power fast, but hasn’t dirtied his own hands with anything that we can stick - yet.”
Batman had already known that much, but the information in Harper’s file would still be invaluable. Most of Batman’s snitches feared him and would tell him most anything to get him to leave, but the police still had the trust of even Gotham City’s worst - as long as they publicly denounced Batman and all of his ‘barbaric practices.’
“Also,” Harper sighed in disgust and pulled out a small packet of papers, mostly pictures of teenagers in colorful make-up and outrageous clothes. “There’s a gang of Jokerz starting to raise hell on the lower east side. Most of these kids are just reckless or mis-informed, but one of them butchered three cops last week. Literally. With a meat cleaver.”
“I’ll look into it,” Tim promised. He always took the murder of police officers very personally, as an affront to justice itself.
“I knew you would,” the Commissioner smiled thankfully, and handed the entire file over to him. With their business concluded, she glanced to the red-suited girl who had been standing quietly behind Batman for the entire meeting. “So. I see the rumors were true. You must be Robin.”
Helena gave one short, simple nod. Harper turned towards her and reached out to place a hand on her shoulder, but Robin took a step backwards to avoid the touch. The Commissioner understood and withdrew her hand. “All right. You like your space. I can understand that.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned down just enough to look Helena in the mask. The older woman’s smile was clear, even in the gloom. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Robin. I’m Commissioner Harper. Your boss and I are old friends. If you ever need anything, all you have to do is ask.”
Helena blinked at her, as though baffled with the statement and the officer’s manners. Harper continued to smile and dropped her voice down, leaning in just a little closer as though she was getting ready to share a secret. “You’ll take good care of our boy, won’t you? He’s very important to this city, even if they don’t always accept him. It’s a big job to him in line. You think you’re up to it?”
“Sure!” Helena actually grinned, her eyes lighting up behind the mask.
“Why do none of the women in my life think I can take care of myself?” Batman asked rhetorically, his voice dropping into a more threatening range.
But Commissioner Harper just laughed and straightened, turning back towards her old friend with a playful little smirk. She brushed a few locks of hair out of her eyes and sighed. “I best be getting back to my office. Wouldn’t want to deny the Mayor the chance to gripe at me about cost efficiency yet again.”
Batman gave her a single curt nod, placing a hand on Robin’s shoulder. From inside the scooped cape, Robin waved the Commissioner goodbye. Then, with motions so fluid they looked like a synchronized diving team, the two of them shot off their grappling lines and disappeared into the night.
Larah Harper waited long enough to watch until the bright red dot that was Robin had been swallowed by the darkness. With a vague hope that such thoughts would not be self-prophetic, she turned back to the old stairwell door and began her decent back into the bowels of Gotham City.