Robin and Finch

Of Bats and Teams

The batcave was a place that very few people ever saw. Even amongst the Leaguers, there were very few that could claim they'd ever been in the batcave. Very few Leaguers even wanted to be in the batcave as an attempt to avoid their most broodiest member on his off days. The language of the Bat was hard to discern, but now anyone who saw him and could understand would be very confused. Since when was The Batman, the pessimist to end all pessimists, hopeful?? But that, mingling with some curiosity and triumph, was exactly how Batman felt as he stared at the screen in front of him, showing off the latest headline for the chaotic bird duo.

The picture on the screen was Robin mid cackle with a triumphant Finch next to him. It had been taken several months ago as the black haired teen openly laughed at the police assembled outside the lab they were robbing. When the two had first come around, Batman had been concerned, fearing mind control (which could be a large problem for him or any other Leaguer that got caught up in it) or coercion. His first encounter with the two quickly dispelled both theories and concern. The ginger had seemed nervous enough around him, but the nine year old had the audacity to laugh. Laugh! Then he gave Batman a small wave, the casual comment of, "We'll be seeing a lot of each other," and then was gone! His partner's speedster status was soon revealed. But then Joker had escaped and the two slipped from his priorities.

So how could Batman feel hopeful at this previous source of aggravation which had taunted him with the lack of information he'd been able to find on the children? Because he had found something no one other than The Greatest Detective and especially the Batman would have been able to find. The pattern. The missing link. And now it made sense! The randomly placed robberies, at random times, for random things!

It had started with one instance which immediately started to snowball into others. Catwoman was going to steal a particularly large cat's eye peice of jewelry, as the Bat discovered, but the day before the date of the planned heist, the avians stole that singular piece of jewelry from the museum it resided in. Originally decided a coincidence. Then Ivy and a rare plant. Joker and a device that could be used against the Bat. Riddler and the Natural History museum. And again. And again. Every time Batman caught wind of a heist that was going to occur, it was hit the same day or the day before it would occur by the two teenagers. Some seemed random or without a connection the Bat had heard of, but a quick goon interrogation later and it would reveal that same place would've been hit in the evening. And that was only the first of the growing theories now confirmed.

Another theory turned fact was police recovery of their stolen items. In a place like Gotham, 'recovery' usually included showing up with a burnt something that might've been the item(s) at one point in time. And that was it you were lucky. There would be no need for Batman if the police actually did their jobs correctly. So why was the recovery rate of items stolen by Robin and Finch 35%? Further investigating intrigued Batman; they were getting caught on purpose. Factoring in the times Batman received their things after crashing a suspiciously empty safe house with a suspiciously easy trail to follow, it then jumped to 78%. And finally, sometimes bags of stolen money would show up on the police's doorstep with a bat-terang embedded in one of the bags. The police couldn't tell any better (unsurprisingly) but Batman wasn't the one that dropped it off. The police just assumed. And now the amount was 96%, the remaining all consisting of cash. The two did have to get an income somewhere...

So Robin and Finch stole things that villains were going to steal and either purposefully lost the items, or returned them themselves. As far as it went, right? But Batman had discovered more odd habits from the teenage 'villains'.

One being children, the other being weapons, and both involved their hostages. The first wasn't uncommon with some of the more lenient villains in other cities, letting the children go early. In Gotham, it was practically unheard of. Those that did usually had a double motive or had some other trick up their sleeve. For Robin and Finch, it just seemed that always let the children go early which sometimes led to the police arriving early and them having to make a speedy escape.