Out Tonight (DCU, AU, PG-R, 4?)
Title: Out Tonight (4/?)
Fandom:DCU, Bat-Family Centered
Characters: Corvid/Gotham, Tim Drake/Robin, Bat-Family
Word Count: 2450
Rating: PG-R for swearing and mild violence
Disclaimer: I don't own the location of Gotham or the Bat-Crew, or any other DC owned Characters/Locations
Synopsis: Full Moons and Fall Nights are never easy.
Previous Chapters: Tonight, Almost a Party, Chatter
Author's Notes: This takes place in my Keeperverse. I play fast and loose with canon-continuity so I apologize if it seems off, but it is an AU. In this world Tim is still Robin and Jason is an anti-hero (who hasn't slaughtered bunches of people... he's just a little bad). And yes, I stole the title of this from Rent.
Corvid checks the clock as she rushes to change out of her clothes, it’s only 2am which means that she might have enough time to make rounds tonight. She slipped out of the gathering of Keepers as quickly as she could. In order to avoid anybody attempting to walk her home (Metro and Smallville were both rather insistent) she had to agree to meet with everyone in a few weeks for karaoke. She’s pretty sure that she’ll be able to slip out of it.
Corvid is very aware that most of the Keepers would think she’s insane for going out caped and masked to roam the rooftops. It would be pretty disastrous to Gotham if anything incredibly awful happened to her, but she can’t sit idly by while her city needs her. The East End can always use the extra help especially on Halloween… especially on a full moon. It’s a fact that ER visits and criminal activity both rise on Full Moons and in Gotham they more than double. Luckily she’s never tired on Full Moons anyway, there’s so much extra energy coursing through the city that she’s far too restless to just sit home. She wants to be out in the night, feeling the moonlight dancing on her, breathing in the crisp night air and seeing her city at it’s most beautiful. While the crime might go up at night, the darkness still hides so many flaws and whenever she pictures Gotham in her mind she always sees it at night.
She wishes it were easy to put on her costume. Unlike Superman and the Flash, she has no means to quickly peel on the Kevlar, or to quickly snap, lace and tie everything that has to be put on. Sometimes being (sorta) human is obnoxious, but the costume keeps out a lot of potential injuries and it helps her carry all the fun toys. Unfortunately she hasn’t gotten into any of the remote Batcaves to get the really fun toys, but it’s on her list. She’s pretty sure she could manage it if she could hack the BatComputer, she just hasn’t been able to get around Oracle. If Corvid weren’t so low on funds she would invest in a much better computer and then she might have a chance.
Corvid does one final check in mirror, making sure that her ID is safe. Once she’s out the door she’ll be Blackbird, and yeah, she knows it’s an obvious name. She actually chose it because it was her Mother’s favorite song, Corvid sang it at her parents funeral. Her Mom had bought her a little golden charm of a bird when she was born and now she wears it on her Mother’s pearls. (She had the charm placed on them when she had the pearls re-strung after the shooting… some of the pearls absorbed a little bit of the blood but she still wears them everyday anyway.) She likes Blackbird, and it’s not like she could run around Gotham with any sort of Bat name, because that would definitely draw attention. So far she’s pretty sure she hasn’t gotten much notice from Batman, all the he’s practically omniscient when it comes the Masks in Gotham, but she’s hoping to stay lumped in with the random background heroes who don’t draw attention if they stay out of anything too major.
She uses her secret exit from her apartment to the roof and surveys the night. She takes a few moments to check on the city, closing her eyes and opening herself up, and she can sense the usual frenzy of the Full Moon. Most of the Halloween related crime will probably come later tonight, so at least that is good. It seems like most of the heroes are soloing it tonight and Selena seems to be out of the area for now. She can feel Robin nearby, it feels as if he’s stalking Scarecrow. So far it doesn’t feel as if there’s a problem so she’ll trust that he can handle it.
During rounds she stops three rapes, two shootings, more muggings than she can count and about half-a-dozen B&Es. She’s flying through the air on a jump-line enjoying the feel of the night on her skin when she senses it; Jason taking a blow that’s going to knock him unconscious. She manages to roll into a rough landing on a nearby rooftop as she transfers some of that blow into herself. She focuses and pulls the pain, taking as much as she can so that Jason can knock out his target and drop them off in front of Police HQ. Damn, she’s going to be feeling that one tomorrow, and she’s pretty sure that her messed up landing is going to result in a massive bruise on her side. A part of her wants to hunt Jason down and ream him for being so careless, he really does charge headlong into battle without any concern for his health. That would be fine but she actually cares about his health so she’d rather he didn’t end up just another sad statistic of Gotham City. His death was hard enough the first time. It wouldn’t do her any good to yell at him, he doesn’t take advice very well. Experience has always been his best teacher and hopefully that last blow taught him to watch his flank and be more careful. Her aching muscles are telling her it’s time to head home. It sounds like a good idea since she’s pretty much finished her rounds.
Just as she’s about to drag her aching sorry body home she gets a bad feeling about Robin and an even worse feeling that there aren’t any available heroes nearby. She’s already way too drained from helping Jason to cause anything extraordinary to appear to get Robin out of the situation. She’s already on her way to where Scarecrow and Robin are before she even thinks much about what she is doing. Staying off of Batman’s radar isn’t nearly as important as Tim’s wellbeing.
She makes it to the abandoned warehouse as Scarecrow’s about to leave. Robin’s tied up in a corner looking absolutely terrified which means he wasn’t able to escape what must have been a really nasty dose of the Toxin. There’s a bomb in the corner that still has ten minutes left on which means that she’s got prioritize. She’s pretty sure that she can take out Scarecrow, get the bomb and then handle Robin… and if she doesn’t at least she’ll go down fighting. She puts on her re-breather and tries to ignore the feeling of Robin’s panic that’s already seeping into her. She grabs her whip and with a few swift flicks of her wrist wraps it around Scarecrow’s leg, tripping him and catching him off guard. Blackbird has always been good at blending into the shadows and now isn’t any exception. As he stares blindly around the darkness the she pounces on him, striking his pressure points. She’s fortunate that she surprised him (he definitely wasn’t expecting her) because it gave her an advantage, one she uses to subdue him quickly. She injects him with a massive sedative and binds him so thoroughly that she wonders if the cops will be able to untie any point in the near future.
The bomb is next on the list and luckily she still has more than five minutes to defuse it. It only takes about half of that time to deal with the bomb. She uses a prepaid cell phone to call the cops and then grabs Robin. She unties his hands and he immediately starts attacking her so she tries desperately to calm him down. She drags as much of his fear into herself as she can, even though it’s starting to make her paranoid and she has a growing certainty that Scarecrow’s going to break loose any moment and attack them. Robin seems to calm down slightly though, so she finishes untying him and they manage to get out of the building before GCPD arrives.
“Come on Robin, we need to get you somewhere safe. Where’s the nearest cave?” She knows it’s a long shot but has to try. She isn’t surprised when Tim refuses to give her any information. He’s really not looking good. There’s a bit of blood on his forehead and she can tell the head injury is bad. It‘s partially hidden by the upper part of his mask but she can sense how badly it needs treatment. From what she can see he must have at least sprained his ankle, bruised his ribs, and there’s the Toxin coursing through his body making him see the things that he tries so hard to keep locked away in the back of his mind and pushing his heart rate to dangerous levels. She doesn’t have an antidote for the toxin on her and he’s starting to babble. She knows she has to get him somewhere safe fast because a few of the things he’s saying would be really helpful in discovering his identity if she didn’t already know it.
The closest place with the anti-toxin is the Free Clinic in the East End, since she works there she knows it really well. “It’s going to be okay Robin, we’re going to the hospital, I’m sure they won’t miss a few supplies,” Blackbird knows that she’s talking mostly to herself but it makes her feel better. She’s always had a problem with talking to herself, sometimes it turns into long lasting arguments, but she’s Gotham so she can be strange if she wants to be. The Toxin in Tim is getting to her because she sure that she sees three different versions of the Joker (including Venom Joker) on her way to the clinic but she knows it isn’t real. It’s ridiculously easy to get into the clinic and she would have had them fix the security ages ago but it’s so useful. She lays Tim out on the table and administers a sedative, then hunts up the anti-toxin. Not all of the medical facilities in the city keep it in stock but Leslie set this clinic up and she handled enough hero injuries to know that it was a required medication. Once Robin has his medicine she sends up a prayer that he’s more out of it than she thinks he is because his head wound is bleeding more and that mask has to come off.
As she goes to remove the mask he starts fending her off. “Tim, settle down,” three little words make him go still even as his eyes get a little wide. She studies the mask for moment before figuring out how to get it off without harming herself and realizes that it‘s linked to Bio-Signatures which means he has to take it off himself. (She imagines that other Bat Sanctioned people could get it off, but she isn’t Bat Sanctioned.) “You Bats really do have all the best stuff. My mask doesn’t have half the security measures that yours does. Would you mind?”
Tim just lies there looking at her, but he has a huge amount of chemicals in his system and probably would rather remain silent than sound incoherent. She can read the defiance and suspicion in his shoulders and sighs. “Timmy, you’re bleeding on my boots. Mask off, we aren’t burying another Robin.”
He takes off his mask and she sets about the arduous task of treating a head wound. It takes everything in her not to pull his pain into herself. She hates seeing a Robin suffer. Once she can sense the Toxin is out of his system she gives him the pain medication that he would never accept himself. She wishes that she had a couple of nurses to assist her, but that’s clearly out of the realm of possibility. She’s treated far worse in No Man’s Land, poor Helena got herself nearly beat to death more than once, so she’s able to get him cleaned up. It doesn’t look too bad actually, a good portion of the injury is hidden by his hair and Tim’s good enough with make-up to cover the rest. She’ll do her best to help him heal quickly, unfortunately it means that the bruising she took early won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Magic always has a cost, especially for a Keeper.
Once she’s done fixing him she hands him his mask. Tim quickly puts it back on but he’s not looking as worried as he should be. He calmly places the Domino back on his face and instead of taking off he just sits there. Warning bells are sounding in her head and she just looks at him, “You’ve had your comm on this entire time haven’t you?”
He smirks an infinitesimal amount and most people wouldn’t even have seen it. She always was a natural when it came to reading body language and micro-expressions. It’s a gift and a curse. Cassandra would probably agree. “They’re on their way,” it’s not a question. Now that she’s paying attention to something other than Tim she can feel it- The Bat and Nightwing coming in hard and fast from two different directions. She leans down and kisses Tim on the cheek and jumps out the window. She thanks every God that knows of that she only lives across the street- it’s close to work. Plus it’s right above a cop bar, so she’s got built in security. Her Step-Dad was a cop and a damn good one. Her six step-brothers were all cops. Everybody in her family was either GCPD or Bludhaven PD, except her Mom. Her mom was a criminal psychiatrist who worked out at Arkham. Big Mike who runs the bar downstairs acts like she’s his adopted daughter, and threatens any guy who looks at her funny because she’s not allowed to date cops. She wishes she could tell him that her tastes are a little more… eccentric. There’s just something about a guy with deep emotional scars, an addiction to adrenaline, and a deep need to serve both of those things by fighting the superstitious cowardly lot of criminals that plague the world that drives her wild.
She’s out of her costume as quickly as possible, hiding it safely away and then watching out her window. She can see Batman and Nightwing leaving the clinic, Batman’s carrying Robin down to the car. From what she can spot they’re involved in a serious conversation.
Corvid let’s out a deep sigh and wonders how long she has until the Bats figure her out, “It won’t be long now… I should have drugged him more.”