Unlimited Universe - Batman & The Outsiders

Batman & The Outsiders

Fifteen year old Dick Grayson looked skeptically at the new school down the street. "Bruce, are you sure?"

Bruce Wayne narrowed his eyes at his ward. Even though he wasn't in his Batman outfit that look still carried a smoldering hint of danger. Dick could feel the scowl coming from behind him but had learned to brush it off.

"After seeing him stop a mugging attempt at Maple Grove Park I was able to follow him as far as Forest Hills before I lost him. What I saw of him and from hearing his voice it made me think he was around your age but I couldn't be positive with his mask and costume. I collated all of the sightings and, when possible, the direction he was heading. Daytime sightings during the week spike in this area so if he is your age..." Bruce was prompting Dick to figure out the rest.

"Then he must be a student here at Forest Hills High School, him and about three thousand other kids," Dick obliged, "and it's my job to figure out which one he is."

Dick could feel Bruce's scowl soften, there was almost some warmth in his voice when he said, "Exactly."

"We usually stick to the city, what's so special about this guy that we have to come out to Queens and enroll me here?" Dick was still looking out of the darkly tinted window of the limousine, making note of the homes and the kids walking along the street toward the school.

"He has potential but his fighting style is sloppy. He did well enough against two thugs trying to score drug money but if he could be in real trouble if he ran into someone like Hammerhead and his goons."

Without looking back, Dick responded. "He was good enough to lose you. In Queens."

He felt the scowl return.

Dick thought for a moment. "Alfred, drive past the school, go two blocks, turn in either direction then let me out there. If our target sees me getting out of a limo it's going to be harder for me to find him by just blending in."

"Very good, Master Grayson," came the response from the driver's seat.

Dick looked back over to Bruce as the car passed the tree-lined front of the school. You had to know Bruce Wayne well enough to tell which was an approving scowl and which was a disapproving one. Although no one else beside Alfred could tell, Dick could see Bruce had stopped scowling and was all but beaming with pride.

Dick grinned back at Bruce as Alfred turned onto a street two blocks away from the school (and out of sight of it) then said, "This is good, Alfred." The car came to a smooth halt. "Don't worry about picking me up this afternoon, I can make my own way back. I want to learn the neighborhood a bit and see if I can find out more about our guy."

And with that Dick Grayson let himself out of the car and began heading toward his new school, taking the first steps in what he hoped would be a successful mission to find this person people had begun calling Spiderman.

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Dick sat at his usual spot in the lunch room, watching the other students as surreptitiously as possible. It had been three months since school started and Dick Grayson was little closer to who Spiderman was than he had been. He had created social groups and placed as many as he could into them then went about eliminating them based on various criteria. The Goth kids were too low-energy and pessimistic, no one with that sort of attitude could bounce around and quip like Spiderman without it leaking into their normal life.

While the Jocks had shown more possibilities he quickly ruled many of them out due to body style, "douchiness" (although he didn't share that latter category with Bruce) and that Spiderman was spotted across town during a couple of sporting events each of those kids were attending or involved in. Dick was glad to disqualify Eugene "Flash" Thompson, or as he referred to him: "King Douche".

There had been some promising subjects in the band crowd, especially a kid named C.J., but they too ended up being disqualified by being around others while Spiderman was elsewhere. This same issue would crop up time and again with the drama club kids, the A/V kids and the kids he listed as "Other" because they didn't quite fit into any of the other groups. He was on the "Academics" and quickly running through them.

He had been watching Peter Parker for a week. Although Parker was the right height and possibly the right build, but he wore corrective glasses for his poor vision and his personality was far too submissive. Three weeks ago Dick had watched Flash and his cronies shove Parker in a locker for no other reason than they could. Parker had meekly accepted his fate. This was all on top of Parker's home life, living alone with his widowed aunt and her frail health, meaning there was no real way Parker was Spiderman.

Dick was moving on to the next name on his mental list when he was surprised out of his thoughts by a soft, feminine voice moving from behind him to his right.

"I'm sorry, but do you mind if I sit here? It seems like being 'the new girl in school' is somehow Latin for 'you can't sit here'."

Dick sat at this table specifically because it was so far from the crowd that it was usually empty. It was in the far corner of the room, allowed him to have his back almost against the wall and, at least until now, had allowed him to view the rest of the students in the cafeteria without anyone sneaking up behind him. She had surprised him by being able to come up so quietly behind him as to catch him completely off-guard.

She raised her eyebrows slightly. "Pretty please?"

It wasn't so much that she had somehow gotten behind him that kept him from responding already (although that was something he would have to figure out), it was his tongue was tied over how incredibly beautiful she was. In a heartbeat he had assessed her: approximately five-foot-four, slight build, light brown eyes, shoulder-length brown hair. She wasn't the must-be-photoshopped, head-cheerleader mega-model type, she was far more the sweet, innocent and kind girl-next-door type and had the most incredible smile he had ever seen

"O-o-of course," he managed to stammer out. Internally he berated himself. He had fought bank robbers, ninjas and had even helped Batman take down the Wrecking Crew once. He was a world-class gymnast and fighter, trained by Batman himself. How could a slip of a girl like this make him feel like his mind and mouth were clogged with cobwebs?

"Thanks, I'm freaking star-r-r-r-r-r-ving," she said as she sat her plate down.

"Hi, there 'Star-r-r-r-r-r-ving', I'm Dick," he said with a slight smile. He had managed to brush away most of the cobwebs, enough to feel himself suitably clever for getting the introduction out there. Now if his heart would just stop racing...

She held up her at him to stop him then bowed her head and whispered something in... Hebrew? It was then he noticed her Star of David pendant.

"Sorry about that," she said as she looked up from her prayer.

"Not a problem. You're Jewish?"

"No! I mean, yes! I mean..." she smiled but looked flustered as she tried to continue. She closed her eyes for a second, seemed to calm a bit then tried again. "Hi, yes, I'm Jewish. No jokes about living in 'Jew Gardens'. We've been here a week and I've already heard it twenty times." She said this with a smiling smirk, apparently she had thought it amusing the first time she heard it. She took a bite of the spaghetti on her plate and started chewing.

Dick was only mildly successful in shoving to the side how adorable she looked doing even something so mundane as eating. Still, he found enough focus to place his hand over his heart and widen his eyes in mock drama, "I wouldn't have dreamed of it, 'Star-r-r-r-r-r-ving'."

She quickly grabbed her napkin and used it to cover her mouth as she snorted. Her face reddened with the effort of trying not to laugh with a mouthful of food. Internally Dick congratulated himself on making a good first impression.

She finally recovered and reached her hand out as adults do when they introduce themselves. As he took her hand she said, "I'm Kitty. Kitty Pryde."