Another Bat Abandoned

Homeward

For some reason, Virgil had expected a better welcome home. She should have known better. It was her mother's time on the week-on/week-off schedule her parents had made their residential plan. A simple, 'hello', and that was the end of it. No, 'I missed you so much', or even 'Where the hell were you for two years'. No. Just, 'hello'. Where was Drake? Her brother had gone downhill so fast... too much had probably changed since the end of the fifth grade summer, when Virgil had finally gotten up the guts to run away to the circus.

A song came onto the radio.

Once there was a way, to get back homeward. Once there was a way, to get back hoooooome. Virgil slapped it off. What shit. Who needed a home anyways, she lied, I sure as hell don't.

"Hey, mom, where's Drake?"

"The psych ward again," said her mother.

And that was all Virgil needed as she sat down at the foot of her bed and plunged into the very end of the fifth grade school year.

She'd finally had it. After being ignored almost completely by everyone except her best friend, Isabelle, she'd had it. Walking home alone that Friday before the final piece of her life shattered, Virgil Cain had been singing quietly, "I scare myself sometimes, I've considered suicide." She was scared. Of herself, of the fragile balance that held her life together somehow, and of what might happen if something else changed.

Just like last time, in the span of a month, both of her dogs had been put down, her dad broke up with the girlfriend that had lived with them for five years, and finally, the Monday morning before the end of school.

Her mother and brother had had a fight in the car on the way to school. What Virgil didn't know was that after she'd been dropped off at elementary school, her brother told her mother that he had a noose in his closet and had attempted to use it a few times. That had landed him in the psych ward. Then he wouldn't spend any of their mother's residential time at her house (resulting in the same set of circumstances as the last time when the feud had been with their father) for the rest of the summer. Generally, it was shit. And Virgil couldn't tell anyone about her own curiosities with death and considerations of suicide. She couldn't break her family anymore than it already was. She couldn't break her father anymore than he was. So she didn't tell anyone. Told her therapist she was fine. Told her parents, her brother, her teachers, her friend. She didn't think she could feel shittier. Until Merian Wixon and Alexis Bertman managed to push her past the breaking point. She didn't want to hurt her family, but she couldn't take it anymore, so taking the only option she had left, she ran. And now she had come back to nothing more than 'hello' and another psychiatric ward visit.

At least she had the team. If they accepted her. Good lord, if they didn't...? If they turned away from her mask, even...? She wouldn't hesitate. She'd be gone before Robin could disappear.

So when Robin showed up in sunglasses and a hoodie, Virgil was nervous. Scared. Desperate. Her dark sunglasses matched Dick's, and they both wore gray hoodies and blue jeans.

Batman had already programmed her into the Zeta system. She was to be called Vigil on the team, the silent acrobat and physical combat expert. Batman had had a small period of time to train her before she went "home", but Vigil was a quick learner.

"Robin- B-01, Vigil- B-19," the tubes announced as they arrived at the mountain, facing the team that would either make or break Virgil Cain.