The Batpoint Paradox

Young Just-Us and the Monologuing Mercenary

(Ft. An Unconscious Dick Grayson and Tim Drake's Emotional Baggage)

This chapter is dedicated to @rubyfirenight! Thanks for all the help and edits, couldn't have done the fight scene without you (they're way better at those than I am:))!

*Tim

Dick and I were following up on a lead that was supposed to turn up some clue on the identity of the speedster working with Talia. To our surprise, the lead did pan out, though not in the way we thought. We were unable to uncover any information on the speedster's identity, but we did discover another of her co-conspirators, unfortunately, it turned out Talia was working with Deathstroke. He managed to catch us by surprise, first, he took Dick out with a swift stab of a tranq dart, leaving me to fend for myself against the deadly mercenary.

'This is fine, I'm fine.' I thought to myself.

I've faced worse odds, I just needed to keep him busy until either Dick woke up or Jason responded to the S.O.S signal I'd set off the moment Dick went down. Squaring my shoulders and extending my bo-staff I faced off against the one-eyed man, I could take him, yeah I had this.

"I swear you bat brats are like cockroaches, no matter what we do you always find some way to crawl back. They've really tried about everything at this point, blackmail, coercion, mind control, even killed a few of you. Yet somehow you just keep coming back to be a pain in the ass," Slade regarded me pulling his swords out before continuing.

"We were hoping that this would finally be the thing to do it, get rid of the bat, get rid of the birds right? But lo and behold here you all are again, personally, I find it somewhat amusing, inconvenient, but still amusing." As he spoke, he started to come at me, and like that it was on, I figured I'd just keep letting him talk, with any luck it'd distract him at least a little bit. Not that my hopes were up for that, but still.

"But see I was never the architect of this particular scheme, that's all her, I'm just along for the ride, I could give a crap which way it goes at this point. See in this reality Grant is alive, but Rose is dead, guess that's some law of the universe or something, always a cost." There was a resigned sorrow in his words, one I was pretty familiar with, I would never like Slade, never trust him, never side with him, but his pain over losing Grant was one of the few things about him that made me think he might have some humanity left after all.

I ducked, dodging one of his swords aimed for my neck, the metal barely scraping the skin off my chin as my head went back on its axis, whilst my right hand slinked down towards my belt, grabbing a Batarang. I aimed a strike to his left calf, my knee scraping the cement, my arm swinging with all the force I could muster just missing my target by a hair as he dodged. Without losing the momentum I turn and spring off my knee, spinning the sharp metal to the left around in my hand, and manage to strike his right arm, batarang tearing through Deathstroke's Kevlar like its butter. The sight of the mercenaries' dark blood seeping from the cut point caused a surge of satisfaction to rush through me.

Point Tim.

"Nice shot kid, you're the one they always underestimate, all the other bird boys have their things. Robin, trained since birth to be the ultimate combatant, with the genetics to back it up. Hood who built his armor from the street, outfitted it with bat training then baptizing it in hell and coming back with vengeance, though even I wouldn't want his demons."

He snorted derisively at the last part and punctuates the statement by lunging forward with the sword in his left hand, landing a slash to my side that I can't quite dodge. Once again, ignoring the pain, I straighten myself, readying my stance to seem as if I had not been all that affected. Not that Slade appears to notice or care as he continues on his review of my brothers.