A Natural Progression | Shazam

Chapter 9

"You wouldn't."

"I will. Go get Billy, Robin."

- - -

This whole thing was entirely unfair. Damien hadn't forced Billy to leave the mansion. He'd only given the boy a route in which to follow if he didn't want his presence on the cameras.

He knew he was hiding something- Billy was almost too normal to not be hiding something. Plus, the way he'd gone down that pipe told Damien that this wasn't the first time he'd done it.

Not to mention Batson's stitches- any normal child would be whining about them and trying to stay in bed, but Billy- Billy was weird.

He rolled his eyes and pushed the thoughts from his mind as he pulled on his tactical gloves, making use of his new motorcycle and leaving the Batcave with a roar of the motor. 

Billy couldn't have gotten that far- it'd only been about 15 minutes since he left. He was probably exploring Gotham, and this entire expedition would be for nothing.

Robin turned a sharp corner, eyes peeled for a scrawny boy with a head of messy black hair.

Instead, he found a pair of annoying thugs, cornering an elderly man and holding him at gunpoint. His motorcycle skid to a stop and he glared the men down, a sneer on his face. "Tt- amateurs," he said, watching as the men turned their pistols on him. Robin only rolled his eyes, climbing off his bike. "Really?"

"Wait- that- that's that Robin kid- Shit, dude we gotta get out of here, Batman might be-"

The man was unconscious in moments, a well-placed kick to the head from the boy making sure of that. Robin landed on the ground and glanced towards the second man with a smirk. 

"Batman's not who you should be worried about," he said, flipping out of the way as the man let loose with his gun.

He managed to get over the top of the bulky man and land on his shoulders, wrapping his legs around the thug's neck and using the momentum of his stumbling to drive him into a brick wall. Robin lept off his shoulders as he sagged, a soft moan coming from the man as he slipped into unconsciousness.

"Pathetic," the raven muttered, shaking his head and pulling out a cord to tie them up with.

He left them like that, hopping on his bike and skidding out of the alley to continue his search.

That search ended up taking much longer than he'd anticipated- he'd been searching for thirty minutes already and hadn't seen hide or hair of Billy. He decided to head back to the mansion and search the gardens for some kind of clue as to where he'd gone. 

The lights of buildings glinted off his bike as he sped up, tires screeching to a halt as he stopped just outside of the vast gardens belonging to Wayne Manor.

Robin shot a grapple up towards a tree, using it to swing over the hedge wall and land softly on the grass. There he found a definitive path that Billy had walked, with tracks padding down the grass and everything. 

He followed them through some trees and around a flower bush before coming to a stop.

Nightwing was standing in the clearing, a hand to his face as he stared at a patch of burnt grass. Billy's tracks vanished here, leaving Robin to look around.