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“Where is he?” Green Lantern asked, looking up and down the alley.
“I don’t know,” answered Superman warily, “he said he’d be here.”
“Perhaps he is running late?” came Wonder Woman’s suggestion.
“Yeah right,” huffed Green Arrow, “When have you ever known Batsy to be late?”
“If anything you’d think he’d be here early,” Flash agreed. “He set up the meeting after all.”
“Don’t suppose there’s any chance we got the wrong address,” Black Canary joked humorlessly as she began looking around for hidden danger. Batman had sent out a communique to the League to meet in Gotham at this exact location. That in and of itself was strange enough considering how territorial the Dark Knight was, but now that the host was missing from his own party? Something was definitely off about this situation.
“Fan out,” Superman began, but he was cut off by a deafening crash as dozens of black and white drones emerged from every door, dumpster, nook, and cranny of the alley, followed by a high, maniacal laugh.
“Well, well, well,” the voice crooned as the largest of the drones began to hover above the League. Its screen showed a pale face with a monocle and top hat grinning menacingly. “Look who we have here. I wasn’t sure you would all come. How loyal you are, each of you responding to the Batman’s request for a meet. Well you know what they say; birds of a feather!”
The League sprung into action as the drones began dive bombing them, shooting small laser blasts and whizzing around the team nearly too fast to keep track of. Canary and Wonder Woman managed to kick quite a few out of the air while the Flash corralled them close enough together for Green Arrow to shoot. Superman and Green Lantern took out as many as they could in the air as the drones swooped downward, hoping to ease the burden of their teammates fighting them closer to the ground. However, no matter how many they took out more seemed to fly in.
“What have you done with Batman?” Superman growled, punching one of the drones out of the sky.
“Oh don’t you worry, he’s safe, for now,” the villain laughed. “We’re having a perfectly civilized tea, and I think it’s high time you all joined us!” The drones were coming in even faster and it was becoming too much too fast. The League was going to have to regroup, but there was no time.
“Think again, Penguin!” came a voice suddenly. The League whirled around to see two figures racing down the alley towards them. Both wore red and looked to be little more than teenagers, though while one wore only a domino mask and carried a staff the other sported a red helmet and what seemed to be a rather impressive arsenal of handheld weapons. Reaching the scene of the action, the one with a staff twirled the weapon expertly to knock down drone after drone while the one in the red helmet shot a grappling hook up towards the roof and used it to swing into quite a few of the drones himself.
“My my,” said the man on the screen, Penguin as he seemed to be called, “look who came to the party. Red Robin and Red Hood; isn’t this a treat?”
“You know us,” the one in the helmet quipped back, “couldn’t resist catching up with an old friend.” He landed with a grunt on top of a drone, crushing it before directing his attention to the team. “The real question is: what are you guys doing in Gotham? Does B know you’re here?” he asked before firing the grappler and swinging into action again.
“He’ll lose it if he finds you,” the other boy said, a hint of laughter in his voice. He jumped out of a drone’s path and backflipped up onto the lid of a dumpster. As soon as his feet made contact he slipped, but managed to catch himself with the staff.
“Nice going show off,” his partner laughed, “maybe you should leave the tricks to Nightwing.”
“And maybe you should leave the comebacks to Spoiler.”
“Right back atcha!” The two fought the drones without missing a beat as they sparred verbally with each other, like it was second nature.
“Seriously though,” the boy in the domino mask said, his focus once again on the League, “what are you guys doing here?” Between the persistence of the drones and the surprise and confusion at the appearance of two teenage costumed allies, the entire team was at a loss for words. After a beat, Superman got his thoughts together enough to respond,
“Batman called and told us to meet him here.”
“What are YOU doing here?” Flash stopped to ask before zooming back to corral drones.
“We were at Batburger,” the one in the domino mask said as though it explained everything. He took out his own grappling hook and swung up to take out another drone, black cape billowing behind him. “We saw the Penguin’s drones out the window and came down to see what was going on.”
“And now that we’ve seen it,” the one in the helmet grunted, firing the grappling hook again, “We’ve seen enough. And I think you have too, Penguin.” The boy leapt into the air and swung up towards the screen. His partner ran towards the bottom of the cable’s arc and tossed the staff to him. Catching the weapon just as he reached the central drone, he used it to smash the camera. Suddenly, the rest of the drones began flying erratically.
“They’re flying blind,” Green Lantern shouted in realization.
“Yeah, and with no visual intel from the camera Penguin can’t send in replacements,” the caped boy shouted back. With no sense of direction the drones were much easier to combat, and with the steady tide of metal attackers stemmed, the Justice League and the two Gotham heroes quickly eliminated the fleet. Finally able to catch their breaths, the League and the strangers looked to each other.
“We need to regroup and find answers,” Wonder Woman said.
“But not here,” the helmeted boy said.
“We can do this back at the cave,” the caped one said firmly.
“What?” sputtered his friend, “No we can’t, nobody’s allowed in the cave! You know that; B would have our heads.”
“I’m not saying we take them IN the cave.”
“Oh no, we’ll just have them wait on the lawn while we check the security feeds. Yeah no problems there! It’s not like you can see anything identity-revealing from there!”
“Not on the lawn,” the caped boy said, eye roll evident in his tone even if it was covered by the whites of his domino, “outside the cave.”
“In what, the lobby? B didn’t exactly put in a waiting room.”
“Yeah he did.”
“When, after I died?”
“No, it’s always been there.”
“How would you know? You weren’t even there, Replacement!”
“Because why would your death make him put in a waiting room?”
“I didn't say I was the cause! Besides, I was there just today there’s no waiting room”
“What do you think that big room outside the entrance is?”
“Decontamination!”
“Boys!” Wonder Woman interrupted, silencing them instantly, “We will go to the Watchtower. Our first priority must be finding Batman.”
“Finding Batman?” the two boys asked in unison.
“Yeah,” Green Arrow spoke up, “that penguin guy said he has him.”
“What?” the helmeted one snarled. “How the hell did that bastard, oh when I get my hands on him-”
“Hood, Hood, calm down,” his partner, evidently the one called Red Robin as the other seemed to be the one Penguin had called Red Hood, “We’ll get him. You know Penguin isn’t as tough as he likes to pretend he is, especially not since he started hanging around with Riddler. B will be fine. For all we know he planned this himself.”
“Wait wait wait,” the Flash said incredulously, “The ‘B’ you’ve been talking about is Batman?”
“Yeah, leadfoot,” Red Hood mocked, “who else would we be talking about?” Green Lantern shook his head.
“What happened to ‘Batman works alone?’” The two boys stared at the League for a long moment before a wide grin crept onto Red Robin’s face.
“You guys have no idea who we are, do you?” The League’s silence gave them the answer. Red Robin burst out into a fit of hysterical laughter, while Red Hood groaned in exasperation tinged with the faint hint of a smile.
“Of course not,” Red Hood sighed, “of course he’s too stubborn and paranoid to have mentioned us.” The League stared in confusion, waiting for an elaboration that seemed less and less likely with every one of Red Robin’s laughs.
“So,” Superman prompted after a few moments, “who exactly are you? How do you know Batman?”
“We’re his associates,” Red Robin answered as he came down off of his laughing fit, clearly not wanting to say too much.
“We’re his kids,” answered his brother, smirk obvious in his voice.
“What?” shouted the entire League.
“Hood!” Red Robin scolded as Red Hood roared with laughter.
“You’re his kids?” Black Canary repeated.
“He HAS kids?” Green Arrow asked.
“He kept his kids a secret?” the Flash asked.
“Okay now that one shouldn’t really surprise you,” said the Green Lantern, turning to Flash. “The guy keeps everything a secret. Name one thing you know about him.”
“Uh, he doesn’t like olives,” Flash replied, tone more than slightly catty. “Every time I order a pizza with olives and I offer him a slice he says no.” He put his hands on his hips and smiled at his friend triumphantly. Green Lantern just responded with a sigh. Suddenly the Flash had a thought. “Are there more of you?” he asked, turning to the boys. “Does he have more kids or is it just you two?”
“Oh there’s plenty more,” Red Hood grinned cryptically, much to Red Robin’s chagrin. He was clearly loving every second of the team’s confusion.
“Okay, okay, we don’t have time for this,” Red Robin groaned. “We need to work on getting to Batman.”
“Right,” Superman agreed, “Let’s get up to the Watchtower and see what information we can gather.”
“No need,” replied Red Hood nonchalantly.
“He’s right, we know everything we need to,” Red Robin agreed. “We only needed to hit the cave security and intel systems to figure out what Penguin was up to. Now that we all know it’s a kidnapping as bait for some sort of trap we just need to get there. Hood and I know where he’ll be.”
“How?” asked Green Arrow.
“This is Gotham,” Red Robin grinned. Red Hood nodded,
“And nobody knows Gotham like us.”
The trip to the warehouse where Penguin was holding Batman was filled with questions for the two teen heroes. Eventually everyone asked at least a few, but most were rapid fire queries and curiosities from the Flash.
“You said there were more, how many more? Are you biological or adopted? Do you have a mom? Are you all crime fighters? Do you all only go out at night? Do you really live in a cave or is that just a codename for your base? Is Batman human or is he part bat? Does he have echolocation powers? Do you have echolocation powers? Does he actually not like olives or is it just pizza in general? Does he sleep hanging upside down? Is he nocturnal? Is that why he only goes out at night and acts grumpy whenever we have a League meeting? Because they’re during the day?”
“Flash!” Black Canary barked, “Shut up!”
“Sorry,” he said, bouncing with excitement, “It’s just really really cool to talk to someone who actually knows things about Batman.”
“It’s all good,” Red Hood chuckled, “but if you want any answers you might want to slow down, man.”
“Right, sorry. Okay so earlier you mentioned you had died? Was that like a flatlined in the hospital situation or an evil witch resurrection type deal or-”
“We’re here,” Red Robin interrupted. They had stopped a block away from what seemed to be an old abandoned warehouse. It was perfect for hiding a kidnapping victim and laying a trap, and what was more was that the town seemed to be full of them. They had passed at least three similar buildings on the way over, and the team’s biggest question was becoming not “where would the Penguin hide?” but rather “how did these two kids know which of the hiding spots he had chosen?” The League was really starting to understand why Gotham was the way that it was.
“So this is clearly a trap,” Green Arrow remarked.
“Oh definitely,” the boys agreed.
“Great, so what do we do?” That same sly grin crept back onto Red Robin’s face.
“We get caught.”
The Penguin and his goons were standing in the warehouse keeping an eye out for the inbound heroes. Standard patrol procedures were in place and every square foot of the place was covered. Then: a sound. Catching a glimpse of the small metal object rolling across the floor, the guards in the northwestern quadrant dove for cover.
“Bomb!”
The explosion echoed throughout the nearly empty warehouse, but no flames roared in to follow.
“It’s only a smoke bomb you incompetent bafoons!” Penguin yelled. “Get to the prisoner!” The goons rushed to where Batman was tied to a chair only to find Wonder Woman and Red Robin working to free him. Charging to push them away, the henchmen suddenly whirled around at the sound of gunfire. Looking around to find the source they saw Black Canary and Green Lantern beating up their colleagues right and left as Superman and Green Arrow shot the backup drones out of the sky while the Flash ran dizzying circles around the other goons. But none of them seemed to have a gun. Another round of shots rang out through the confusion.
“Over here, rockhoppers!” Red Hood shouted from atop a pile of crates. The goons ducked for cover and this time the gun the Hood fired was his grappler as he swung across the warehouse. Batman grunted angrily from behind his gag at the display. “Relax old man,” Red Hood said on the downswing past his mentor, “they’re nonlethal.”
The Justice League seemed to have the upper hand when suddenly a deafening electronic tone pierced through the warehouse catching the heroes off guard. In the momentary pause the goons were able to catch them, and within minutes all eight heroes were tied to chairs right alongside the Dark Knight.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” cooed Penguin. “A whole flock of heroes in one nest.”
“You already used that one,” Red Hood (ungagged due to their kidnappers’ inability to remove his helmet) retorted, earning him a blow to the head from a guard. Batman growled.
“That ought to teach you some respect,” Penguin smiled.
“Not likely,” Red Robin scoffed, now also ungagged after having managed to work his way out of it. Penguin swiveled towards him and smiled eerily.
“Ah, Red Robin. Have you finally gotten rid of that hideous black cowl for good or did you merely lose it in the wash?”
“Ah, Penguin,” Red Robin parroted, “Have you finally stopped driving that ridiculous oldsmobile or are you still stuck in the Roaring Twenties?” Predictably a guard hit him for the comment. Once again Batman growled. The Penguin turned to the League and grinned as he swaggered down the line.
“Kids today have no class, no style. It’s a tragedy, truly.”
“Speaking of style,” Red Hood cut in, “this isn’t yours. So riddle me this, Penguin, where is he?”
“Ah, I’m glad you asked! My dear friend Riddler is away just now on business, important things I’m sure you can imagine,” he said with a wink, “but I thought I’d borrow a page from his book of tricks. I’m so glad you noticed, though I hope you’ll agree I’ve put my own flare on things.”
“Yeah,” Red Hood agreed, “like for instance your puzzle took no time at all to solve.” The guard reached to hit him again but Red Hood threw his head back as the hand neared, smashing into it with the hard helmet. He snickered as the goon shouted in pain. “How about you focus on teaching your guards respect, eh snow boy?” The League could almost swear they heard Batman...chuckle?
“Is that so?” Penguin sneered. “So I suppose you worked it all out then? Master detective that you are?”
“Hood’s right,” Red Robin hummed, “it was simple. Take Batman, use his League communicator to send out a fake message, fight the JLA to establish yourself as a threat, lead them here to Batman, and capture them.”
“And don’t forget about the drone tech he stole from Wayne Enterprises,” Red Hood added.
“Highest grade on the market today,” Red Robin acknowledged. “Could use it for the illegal surveillance W.E. won’t grant the usage rights for, not to mention flood the market to drive W.E. out of business.”
“Allowing you to buy the company and seize control with the profits from your stolen tech,” Red Hood said, finishing his brother’s thought, “wiping out funding to all the organizations that W.E. supports and thereby giving you control of most of the city.”
“And priming you for a partnership with Lexcorp,” noted Red Robin, “and by extension Lex Luthor.” The explanation once again passed to Red Hood.
“But you can’t have Superman snooping around once Luther gets involved, or any of the other heroes once the two of you begin to branch out into other cities. So first,” he set up, dramatically passing the finale to his partner,
“You have to get rid of the Justice League.” There was a beat of silence followed by the sound of slow clapping.
“Very clever, very clever,” Penguin chuckled. “You almost cracked it wide open. But, no one’s perfect! In addition to buying Wayne Enterprises and partnering with Lexcorp, I have also arranged to auction off the members of the Justice League to the highest bidder. Just a little something to protect my nest egg.” He grinned at the assemblage of heroes. “Some of you have some very wealthy admirers,” he cackled. He turned back to the young Gothamites and turned his lips down in a fake pout. “So so close to the perfect solve, but alas you just missed one little thing.” Suddenly, a soft beeping came from Red Robin’s wrist. The boy’s lips curved into a sly smile.
“And you missed a few, slick.”
Suddenly an ominous laugh floated through the warehouse, light and thrilled and sinister.
“No,” breathed Penguin, looking around wildly, eyes trained on the rafters. “You aren’t here! You’re chasing Riddler in Venezuela!”
Everyone’s heads flashed upwards as a loud shattering surprised all of them except the three bats. Outside planning their capture the two young heroes had told the team that after they allowed themselves to be caught the codeword to act would be ‘slick.” So the League had been expecting the ropes and the chairs and the villainous monologue, followed by a bought of righteous fury; what they had not been expecting was the legion of brightly colored vigilantes that dropped into the fray from the ceiling on that same cue. The one in blue, whose voice sounded an awful lot like the one belonging to the laugh, stood and faced them.
“You rang?”
Instantly the heroes sprung into action. Wonder Woman roared and burst through her ropes in a single movement. Superman lasered the bindings holding the Flash and the speedster made quick work of freeing everyone else. Red Robin reared up in his chair and kicked the Penguin full force in the chest while Red Hood did the same to a nearby guard. Powers flared and capes swung as the two groups fought their way through the goons. When they had most of them incapacitated Batman spoke up for the first time.
“Where’s Penguin?” he groveled.
“There!” shouted a girl in a purple hood, pointing to a stack of crates reaching nearly to the ceiling. There stood Penguin, mere feet away from one of the holes that the surprise guests had made during their dramatic entry.
“Give it up Penguin!” Red Robin shouted. “We’ve got you cornered.”
“Au contraire,” he simpered, “it seems you have neglected to consider the consequences of your own actions,” Penguin mocked as he gestured to the hole which would provide his escape.
“And it seems you have neglected to consider the one advantage we have over you Penguin,” the boy grinned. “Robins can fly.”
Right on cue Red Hood and the young man in blue swung into the Penguin on their grapplers from their place in the shadows. They had crept into position as their partner had distracted the mobster, and moved in unison as Red Robin now fired his own grappler and swung over to the villain as he fell. “Not so fast,” he grinned and put a foot on the man’s chest.
The rest of the heroes came over to see their success, and the members of the Justice League finally had the time to take stock of their new allies. The young man in blue seemed to be the oldest but he could not have been older than his mid twenties. Alongside him were the girl in the purple hood, a girl dressed entirely in black much like Batman, a boy in yellow armor, and a girl with a blue undercut hairdo a bit lighter than the blue insignia on her chest. “Oracle,” Red Robin said into his wrist, adding another person to the League’s count, “did we get the data?”
“Downloaded and copied to all Cave and League servers,” came a young woman’s voice.
“Awesome.”
“Good work,” Batman told the young vigilantes, his good nature shocking the League.
“Okay, okay,” Green Arrow spoke up, “what is going on here?” Red Robin grinned.
“He did tell you there were plenty more.”
“You’re all his kids?” Green Lantern shouted. Batman’s glare instantly fell on Red Robin and Red Hood.
“Hood told them!” Red Robin yelped immediately.
“Oh nice going, Replacement! Just rat me out!” Red Hood shouted back. Batman just sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as the rest of the kids broke out into laughter.
“As long as they’ve seen you,” Batman said reluctantly, “you may as well go ahead and introduce yourselves.” The vigilantes in question introduced themselves as Nightwing, Spoiler, Black Bat, Signal, and Bluebird, as well as Oracle keeping tabs on tech and security from a remote location. Suddenly Batman stood up straighter and looked around. “Where’s Robin?” he asked, voice trying to conceal a falter, “did we lose Robin?”
“Relax,” said Nightwing, clapping Batman on the back like laying a hand on the infamous Dark Knight was an everyday occurrence. “He’s at school. It’s daytime, remember.” A soft “oh right” fell from the Bat’s lips. Introductions out of the way the League looked at this rather large Bat-family, still unsure of what to think.
“Thank you for your help,” Wonder Woman said warmly, shaking off the awkwardness as well as each of their hands.
“Yes, thank you,” Superman agreed as he did the same. The rest of the League nodded.
“But um,” the Flash piped up, “what...did actually happen? How did you guys find us?” The girl called Spoiler smiled.
“Red Robin sent out an encrypted communique telling us what was happening. We cut off all the Riddler’s communicators when we caught him, and so Penguin thought that we were still occupied and out of the country. That’s why he ran this operation now. Luckily, he was wrong.”
“We were watching from the skylight for an opportunity to move in,” Signal added, “and then we heard the codeword. Apparently Double R had already picked an opportunity,” he smiled.
“I planted a receiver when we were hidden by the smoke bomb,” Red Robin explained. “It searched for and copied the information concerning Penguin’s little ‘buy-a-hero’ auction. Oracle sent it to the League computers for you.”
“We didn’t miss that one little detail, we just needed confirmation” Hood smirked.
“How did you know the codeword?” Flash asked.
“It’s an old one,” Nightwing said with a smile. “I used to back-talk villains when I was a kid-"
"Used to?" snorted Bluebird with a smirk. Spoiler and the one called Black Bat giggled. Nightwing just stuck his tongue out at them before continuing.
“And call them pet names. So B and I came up with one that could work as a codeword if either of us were in danger.”
“And wasn’t too ridiculous for the old man to say in his intimidation getup,” smirked Red Hood.
“Impressive,” Black Canary remarked. “And I can see that the back talking is a family trait. Well, looks like maybe Batman was telling the truth when he said he didn’t need our help in his city,” she quipped. The man in question just grunted, prompting a laugh from everyone.
“So…” Green Lantern smiled, “now that we know they exist, want to tell us more about your little family, Batsy?”
“Where’s that gag when I need it?” the Bat grumbled. The heroes’ laughter could be heard for blocks.