Chapter Text
On an April night, four months after their less-than-stellar Christmas, in the Bat Cave, Batman stood in front of two figures. One was short, dressed in red, yellow, and green, and had an air of youth. The other was taller and wearing flashy blue with a huge popped collar, a plunging neckline, and sparkling gold sequins. All three of them had their arms folded, and it would be downright comical if they weren't arguing so much.
The taller one yelled, “Come on, Bruce! You cannot be serious!”
Batman glared and growled, “Nightwing…”
Nightwing
AKA Richard “Dick” Grayson, aged 18
The shorter one pointed to the taller one and shouted, “For once, I'm with him!”
Batman demanded, “That's enough out of you, Robin.”
Robin
AKA Jason Todd, aged 14
“Come on,” Nightwing tried again, “He's been Robin for almost a month! Shouldn't he be out with Batman? Batman and Robin! The Dynamic Duo! He can’t be out with Nightwing!”
“He's been by my side,” Batman argued, “And you should be grateful that I allowed you to be Nightwing as soon as you turned eighteen. Otherwise, you'd still have to wait another month until you’ve graduated.”
“You did not allow me-”
“You are still under my roof,” Batman responded.
“Bruce, Nightwing’s not like Batman. I work alone!”
Batman finalized, “You're going to take your little brother patrolling with you, and you're going to like it!”
“But-”
“There has been an increase in Joker’s activity lately,” Batman finally explained, “Jason’s new and will need more guidance to avoid the line of fire.”
“Can’t you teach him?” Nightwing begged, “He’s your son. You know, the one you adopted?”
“And he’s your brother,” Batman retorted.
Nightwing threw up his hands, “Fine! Fine, I’ll take Jason with me. But since you’re in Gothman, I was going to go down south to Bludhaven.”
“That’s a city away,” Batman mentioned, “Don’t make him swing there.”
“We’ll take my bike,” he added quickly, “And we’ll both have helmets!”
“Alright,” Batman agreed, “Be safe out there, boys.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nightwing waved off.
Robin sighed and ran off to grab a smaller “Robin” helmet, which was red with a yellow “R” on the side. By the time he returned, Nightwing had a plain black bike helmet and was straddling his bike. Robin popped on his helmet and hopped on the motorcycle behind his older brother. He grabbed the other teen’s back, and Nightwing roared the engine. They sped out of an opening of the Batcave and onto the open road.
Gotham was just as smoggy and as rank as ever. Right after they left the cave, they heard the humming of the Batmobile leave behind them. Batman traveled east to Amusement Mile, but the two boys traveled south. They kept driving, blasting late-night tunes from the radio, and made it Bludhaven.
As they drove down the streets, Robin commented through the shared comms in their helmets, “Are you sure this is where you want to live, Dickiebird? This place is just as bad as Gotham.”
“But it’s not Gotham,” Nightwing replied, “It’s a city with no vigilantes yet with just as much crime.”
“You’d have free reign,” Robin said.
“Yup! Oh, and there’s another thing about Bludhaven I really like."
“What?”
They drove through the streets until they parked near an apartment building. Nightwing took off his helmet and climbed off, and Robin followed. Nightwind led the way as they climbed up the fire escape and eventually made it to the roof. They stood on the edge, wind blowing in their faces. Robin mentioned, “Nope, not seeing it. This is just like Gotham.”
“This,” Nightwing said as he threw a hand out like he was showing off an art piece, “Is Gotham’s sister-city. Meaning we still see bad guys like The Penguin, but Batman isn’t here to stop them. Also, Bat’s rules don’t apply here. You know how he gets paranoid when aliens come visit, even if they’re part of The Titans or League? Well, he doesn’t have to worry about them if they’re over here.”
Before Robin could respond, they heard “Help! Help! Somebody, help!”
“That’s us!” Nightwing yelled as they began running across the rooftop to the direction of the scream. They jumped and used grappling hooks to fly between buildings. Finally, they saw three women, all dressed up for a girl’s night out, huddled together as five thugs were approaching them. One of the thugs snatched a shiny necklace off of one of the women, and another lurched to grab a bracelet from another. Robin shouted, “Holy jewel robbery, Nightwing!”
“Don’t try to steal my thing,” Nightwing complained.
Nightwing and Robin jumped down, landing harshly behind them. Nightwing joked, “See, this is why we can’t have nice things.”
Without much thought, Nightwing pulled out his duel escrima sticks. Blue electricity flashed between them. He swung it at the thug who stole the necklace. The thief dropped it and howled in pain.
Meanwhile, Robin dodged a punch before grabbing the arm of the assailant and using it to throw himself up in the air. He kicked out with both feet, kicking two people at once, before landing back on his feet.
Nightwing kicked another thug who had brass knuckles. Nightwing was decked in the face, but gave a kick in return. They exchanged blows until he got a lucky shot in with his escrima sticks.
Robin kept punching and kicking at the two he had attacked. He scraped his hand on the ground and threw it on their faces. With them temporarily blinded, Robin tripped them, and they toppled over into the other one. They both tumbled to the ground.
The two brothers brought their attention to the last thug. He was the biggest, tallest, widest, built like a fridge with a heavy chain in his grip. They readied their stances, preparing to fight…
The largest thug dropped his chain as all the color drained from his face. He made a mad dash to get away, knocking over a trash can before promptly running to traffic and immediately getting hit by a police car. The car squealed to a stop. They heard the thug yell, “Just take me! Just take me!” as the cops surrounded him.
Nightwing and Robin turned back to the women. They were all scared but also seemed to be in shock. Robin reached out and plucked the jewelry from the down thugs’ hands. Robin had wide, big, blue eyes, and held up the treasures to women and said, “I believe these are yours.”
The women shook themselves out of their fear as they cooed at him. One took the necklace back and said, “Thank you, honey.”
One took the bracelet and said, “Thank you, baby. Such a cutie! I didn’t think I'd ever get saved by a Robin before.”
Robin wouldn’t have admitted this, but he was soaking up the praise like a sponge. Nightwing grumbled before slinging an arm over Robin’s shoulder and plastered a smile on his face and yelled, “Well, he couldn’t have done it without Nightwing!”
“Bludhaven’s newest vigilante,” one of the mused, “You come and go as you please. How long until you’re ours permanently?”
“You’ll get me soon, ladies, don’t you worry,” he charmed.
Robin coughed into his hand, “Nightwing, we should get going.”
“Right. Well, ladies, take care now.”
They began to leave the women. Robin turned around and yelled happily, “Take care! And be safe!”
“Bye-bye baby!” they all yelled back, “We will!”
They returned to the rooftops. Nightwing glanced at the kid, “You’re stealing their hearts already.”
Robin replied, “I know. It’s weird.”
Nightwing nodded, “Come on. I want to take you back to those apartments.”
“What? Why?” Robin asked as he followed him anyway. They landed on the same apartment complex. Nightwing walked to the middle and held his arms out wide, “Robin- no, Jason, I want you to see this. I want you to know that this is where I’m going to stay. After I graduate, you can have all of that manor to yourself and Alfred. I’ve been eyeing the apartments for a while, and this is where I want to go.”
Robin took a moment to pause. “I…” he began, “These? Here? You have a whole mansion, Dickhead! And you wanna leave if for a stupid, cruddy apartment? Are you insane!?”
“No, Jaybird!” Nightwing yelled, “This isn’t about the manor. This is about freedom!”
“I’ve had more freedom in the manor than I ever had in mine and my mom’s apartment,” Robin pointed out.
“I love the manor,” Nightwing assured, “I love Alfred. I actually kinda like you too. But Bruce, well, I don’t know if you’ll understand this, but we’re not on the best of terms right now, and yeah, I need to leave the nest. I need to spread my wings and fly!”
Robin crossed his arms. He said, “You’re leaving because you and Dad keep arguing?”
Nightwing sighed and replied, “It’s not just that. Look, I said some of Bruce’s rules don’t apply here and that he doesn’t have to worry about metas and mutants and aliens. I wanted to be on this rooftop, on this apartment, because I had plans with someone, and we’re going to meet up with them. I hope she gets here soon.”
“Who?”
As if spoken into existence, a streak of light like a falling star fell from the sky and slammed on the building next to Nightwing. At first, all Robin could see was long, thick pinkish red hair. Then as the dust settled and they stood up properly, he could see it was none other than Starfire.
Starfire
AKA Koriand’r, aged 15
“Starfire!” Robin yelled, “What're you doing here?”
“I took a break from The Teen Titans to come visit you all,” she explained. She was clutching a paper bag and lifted it up, “I brought food! Still warm.”
Nightwing announced, “I can stop somewhere and grab us some drinks real quick!”
“I can fly down faster and pick some up,” she replied instead. She handed him the bag, and she flew off just as quickly. He opened the bag. Robin said, “Starfire? Here? But we’re so close to Gotham.”
“Yup. I asked her to. I said Bludhaven was free game,” Nightwing said as he peered in the bag, “A couple of burgers, some fries, and a bottle of mustard.”
“I thought she would have seen something shiny and came to check it out,” Robin teased, “I swear you look like a freaking ugly disco ball.”
“No, I don’t!”
“It’s really bad.”
“No, it’s not!”
She flew back with three to-go cups in a cardboard drink carrier. She also had another bag of food, “I got more! I didn’t know Robin was going to be here.”
“Neither did I,” Nightwing replied as he held up the bag, “Thanks, Star.”
The three of them moved to sit on the edge of the building. Nightwing sat between Starfire and Robin. They passed the bags and drinks around so that each of them had a drink, a container of fries, and a burger wrapped in paper beside them. They each began munching and sipping on their food. Then, Robin began, “So, Starfire, you’re still in the Teen Titans, right?”
“Yes,” she replied before pulling out the bottle of mustard, “Rob- Nightwing is too, but he’s still the leader. We agreed someone has to be! We decided that we didn’t want to leave to The Titans yet.”
He turned to Nightwing, “So, you were planning on meeting up with Starfire, alone, in Bludhaven?”
“We’re still friends!” Nightwing retorted.
Robin raised an eye, though it was hard to see with his mask, “And what color is your soulmark?"
“Hey! It’s still only pink.”
“You’re like eighteen now, Dick,” Robin mentioned.
“She’s only two and a half years younger than me! And I was seventeen like last month.”
“She’s closer to my age than yours.”
“Robin! That’s enough! We’re going to wait for a few more years before we make anything official anyway.”
Robin said, “You can still have Batgirl. And how does Star feel about that, huh? Kori?”
The two arguing brothers looked over at her to find her not paying attention. Instead, she was drinking the mustard.
“Starfire, you’re still not supposed to be drinking that,” Nightwing said, deadpanned.
She paused, mouth full, and swallowed a large gulp. She complained, “But I like it.”
Nightwing sighed, “Star, never change.”
She looked between the two of them, “I understood some of what you were saying! The new Robin asked you about your soulmark, right? Those are still so interesting to me. Sometimes I wish I was human so that I could have one!”
Robin nodded, “That’s right, aliens don’t have any. Isn’t it weird to have a soulmark with someone when you don’t have one yourself?”
“No, not at all. It’s just another thing that makes humans so weird!”
Robin looked down at his legs. He had tape wrapped around his thigh to cover Bruce and Alfred’s marks. He said, “At least I actually cover mine up when we're running around in spandex, unlike Dickie over here who didn’t like half the time.”
“That was before B and I figured out how to leave for patrol in a proficient manner, okay? Like, I tried, but sometimes I just forgot. Besides, we were always out at night, and we were running around so much that no one's gotten any good pictures. I always remembered to cover them when B or I was at a press conference or had to talk to Gordon, and we always triple prepared before we were going after a big villain. Plus, no one really cared,” Nightwing said, “And soulmarks are all random anyway. It’s not like anyone could have used them to track down who they belonged to.”
“Yeah, but if you ever went out in public as a civilian, and you didn’t cover them, and then someone could figure out you were Robin! Then, they could unmask Batman too.”
“But,” Nightwing argued, “That didn’t happen. And if someone sees them and connects the dots somehow now, then it doesn’t really matter. I’m not Robin anymore.”
“You could have tried better!”
“Oh yeah,” Nightwing challenged. He quickly reached out and grabbed Robin’s sleeve. He hoisted it up and revealed the uncovered arrow soulmark, “And what about this one?”
“It’s mostly hidden!” Robin yelled.
Starfire, ever curious, looked over Nightwing and peered closely at the mark, “You have an arrow! How fun! But, uh, is it supposed to be like that?”
Robin questioned, “Like what?”
She made a hump motion with the hand that wasn’t holding the bottle of mustard. “Oh,” Nightwing realized, “Like it looks raised?”
She nodded, “Exactly.”
Robin explained, “That’s because it is. When Dick had me first meet Roy, I guess he got startled because he shot at me and grazed me with an arrow. It actually scarred over, but soulmarks just go over scars, so now it looks 3D.”
“They can?” she questioned, “I had no idea!”
Nightwing shrugged, “Mine aren’t scratched, and neither are Beast Boy’s or Cyborg’s.”
Starfire cheered, “Our friends have such fun soulmarks!” she addressed Robin, “Beast Boy has a gem on the back of his hand for Raven that colors in red and glows pink. He also has a gear on his shoulder for Cyborg. Cyborg has a leaf under his eye for Beast Boy. It turns green when he touches it!”
“Even the Teen Titans are connected like that, huh? Everyone has somebody, I guess,” Robin commented.
“What do you have?” she couldn’t help but ask.
He shrugged, “A batarang for Dad. I guess because he’s Batman? I mean, I met him when he was Batman, so maybe that’s why? A whisk for Alfred. Have you met him?”
“The butler,” she answered, “Once or twice. He seems nice!”
Robin nodded, “He is. He loves to cook too. Sometimes he shows me how. Then Nightwing’s is a safety net. Speedy’s is the arrow. And then I have a file folder and a dagger.”
“Who are they?”
“Don’t know,” Robin answered, “Haven’t met them yet.”
Nightwing nodded, swallowing a bite of a hamburger, “We believe him, B, Agent A, and me all have a soulmate we haven’t met yet. Then we and A and have a second person B doesn’t have.”
Starfire nodded, “Nightwing mentioned a camera and a bird before. Are those the ones you’re talking about, Robin?”
“Yeah,” he replied.
She hummed in thought then said, “Ah, I see. Then I am sorry that you have yet to meet them.”
Robin nodded somberly, “My folder, well, they’re lonely all the time. And the dagger? Well, it blinked. Brand new, fresh out of the pussy, and it blinked! Did Dick ever tell you about that?”
Nightwing whacked him on the head, “Hey! I thought we were finally getting you to quit swearing!”
“I’m working on it! I don’t swear in front of Dad at all or at school!”
Nightwing sighed and wrapped an arm around his shoulder, “And we couldn’t be prouder.”
Robin shoved a fry in his mouth. He looked over at the slightly older teens. “I’m sorry I ruined your pretty-much date. Batman said it was too dangerous for me to stay in Gotham during The Joker’s newest plan. I guess I’m not good enough for that yet,” he informed Starfire. Then he asked Nightwing, “How are you guys so good at being heroes? How are you so good at just being better? Like, Dick, I swear you hardly have to try anymore. I’m never gonna be able to do that.”
Nightwing couldn’t help but bark out a laugh, “Ha! What!? Jay, that’s not true at all. Star and I’ve just gotten a lot of practice is all. Look, you said so yourself that you’re becoming better in general. You’re becoming a person! You’re doing well in school and watching your language, and when was the last time you had a cigarette?”
“A little over a month ago,” he answered.
“See, that’s good!” Nightwing shouted.
Starfire smiled and nodded, “That is progress!”
“Honestly, Little Wing, with a little bit of luck and a lot of training, you’ll probably make a better Robin than me.”
“The best!” Starfire said and gave him a thumbs-up.
“I… Yeah, you know what,” Robin began, “I will be. Mark your calendars! Because- because this time next year, I’m gonna be way better than I am now! And I’ll be able to be the best Robin and help as many people and meet as many people as I can. For you,” he pointed at Nightwing, “And for my folder, and your bird.”
“I’ll be sure to mark it down,” Nightwing said as he pretended to write in an imaginary planner, “‘April twenty-seventh, Jason is the best Robin.’ Of course, of course,” he stopped and smiled at his younger brother, “You may not be the best by next year, but that’ll be okay. Like I said, we’ve got years under our belts, so it takes a while.”
“I’ll be a better Robin than I am now,” he finalized.
“That’s fair,” Nightwing agreed, “Now, are you gonna finish your fries?”
Robin immediately shoved another one in his mouth. Starfire offered one of hers instead.
The trio sat on the edge of the apartment roof, enjoying each other’s company, until about three in the morning. With that, Starfire left, and Nightwing took Robin home. Batman was already there receiving a few stitches from Alfred. A quick costume change and some showers later, they were sent to bed.
Dick was in his room sporting a t-shirt and a pair of pajama pants. He was about to hop into bed when he decided to do one last thing. He found his school backpack on the floor and fished through it. It was full of wads of paper that happened to be thrown in there, and was nothing like Jason’s neat and tidy bag. He pulled out a pencil and a notebook. He tore out a page and wrote:
April 27th. Jason is the best Robin.
He folded the paper and placed it in a bedside drawer in his nightstand. Would he remember it? Probably not. But that didn’t matter; he simply wanted it there. He returned the notebook to his bag. Finally, he tucked himself into bed. He cradled his hand, “Good night, Baby Bird. Sweet dreams.”
The house settled as the occupants went to sleep.