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Chuck Brown’s eyes fluttered open as the sounds of Saturday morning cartoons echoed through his apartment. He sighed as he sat up, his blanket falling from his body. He rubbed his eyes, his exhaustion from last night still getting to him. And being woken up at - he took a glance at his alarm clock - 5:37 in the morning did not help him catch up on his lost sleep.
“She’s up already?” a voice asked him. He looked over to his side to see a messy mat of red hair laying on his pillows, her features hidden by their blanket.
“Of course she is, Roxanne,” Chuck told his girlfriend. “She’s a hyperactive teenager, and it’s summer.” Roxanne groaned as she shoved her head under the pillow.
“Well, tell her to turn it down. This thrillseeker is trying to pursue the greatest thrill of all: a good night's rest.” Chuck nodded before yawning and standing up. He gathered his Kite Man costume, threw it on, as he was not going to let a child see him in his underwear, and walked out into the living room of his apartment, where he was greeted with a familiar sight.
“Morning, Uncle Chuck!” his niece and foster daughter Stephanie spoke as she munched on a bowl of cereal. She was dressed in her usual purple pajamas, watching the TV as an old re-run of some cartoon Chuck never bothered to learn the name of. “Did I wake you?”
“Yes,” he spoke bluntly before going over to the TV and lowering the volume. “Aren’t you too old for cartoons?”
“First off, you’re never too old for cartoons,” Steph responded, before shoveling a spoonful of cereal into her mouth. “Second,” she continued after a few seconds of chewing, “there’s nothing good on right now. Not unless I want to rewatch Wendy The Werewolf Stalker or Hello, Megan! again.” Chuck hummed, accepting the answer.
“Well, just keep the volume down. Roxy’s trying to get some sleep. We were out late last night.”
“Oh, that reminds me!” Steph jumped from her seat on the couch and grabbed her uncle’s hand. “I have something to show you! It’s in my room!” Chuck allowed the young blonde to pull him elsewhere, stopping at the door to her bedroom. She let go and closed the door, leaving him waiting outside.
“Just give me a few minutes, I haven’t figured out how well it fits yet!” Chuck raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by that.
“Haven’t figured out how well what fits yet?”
“Not yet! I don’t want to spoil the surprise!” Chuck sighed and waited. Silence passed between them before the door opened up, showing the surprise Steph wanted to show off. And Chuck’s mouth hung open slightly in surprise.
There were a few obvious differences with the costume. The green had been swapped out for purple, while the yellow and brown was swapped for a dark blue. Additionally, her hair, done up in a ponytail, stuck out the back of her cowl. But aside from that, and the things out of her control, such as her gender and age, it was very obvious who she was trying to emulate.
“Kite Girl!” she announced, a massive grin on her face. “Hell yeah!”
Chuck was… stunned. He didn’t know how to respond to something like this. Sure, he thought it was great that she was inspired by somebody other than her dad. But, he wasn’t exactly the best of inspirations. He was some C-Lister who Batman never even considered important enough to arrest most of the time, and who the courts didn’t consider important enough to charge with a crime on the occasions that he did. And he got hurt, a lot.
He didn’t want to see Stephanie hurt.
“What’s wrong?” Steph asked, her face dropping. “Don’t you like it?”
“No, I do. It’s just… why me?” The blonde scoffed.
“Why you? Uncle Chuck, please. You’re the best father figure I ever had. Way better than Arthur ever was. Why wouldn’t I emulate you?”
“I…” Chuck paused. “Alright, just… this is only a costume, right?”
“Of course. I mean, I did figure out how to make the kite work.” She tapped the small kite on her chest, and a bigger, purple one sprouted from a small pack. “I just don’t know how to fly it.”
“I would be happy to teach you. Just promise me you won’t do anything crazy.” Steph held up her hand.
“Girl Scout’s Honor.”
“You were only a Girl Scout for 2 weeks, remember?” Steph stuck out her tongue in response, and Chuck laughed. “Alright, let’s get you flying. And don’t worry, it took me a few tries to get it too.”
`
A few weeks had passed, and a lot of trial and error later, Steph had gotten the hang of kite flying. While she was nowhere near as good as her uncle yet, she could still handle herself pretty well. But while their lessons were going to continue, they wouldn't be tonight. Steph had gone off to her friend Harper's apartment to hang out, leaving Chuck and Roxy all alone. Were they any other adult, they would take full advantage of the empty apartment. But they weren't any other adults. They were Kite Man and Roxy Rocket, and they felt most alive when they flying. And so, they flew.
The now former villains, both in their respective costumes, flew through the air on their respective airborne vehicles of choice - do kites even count as vehicles? - with not a care in the world. They had no intentions of committing crimes tonight. Or, really, any night. Ever since Chuck came into Stephanie’s custody, he tried to set a good example for his niece, and Roxy followed through, even if it was begrudging. But she was slowly learning how to find other kinds of thrills, even if it wasn’t as potent as the adrenaline junkie wanted.
Maybe crime fighting would provide her that thrill? He’d thought about it a few times, but he wasn’t so sure Batman would appreciate his help. Or that he could really even be of help. Or-
“Hey,” Roxy spoke. She tapped Chuck on the shoulder, knocking him out of his thoughts and getting his attention.
“What?” Roxy pointed downwards.
“We’re being flagged down.” Chuck followed his girlfriend’s arm, spotting a small figure, dressed in red, green, and yellow, waving them down, and a taller figure in black and grey next to him, completely still, yet even from this distance, the pair could tell his eyes were trained on them.
Batman and Robin.
“You didn’t do anything, right?”
“Course not,” Roxy answered. “Plus, I mean, if we did, they’d be a little more hostile towards us, right?” It was true. Neither of them seemed to be after them. It was more like they wanted to talk.
But about what? Only one way to find out.
Chuck and Roxy dove down, the former slowing his descent and landing gracefully before putting away his kite, and the latter diving off her rocket before landing with a flourishing handspring back to her feet.
“You two are a bad influence,” Robin spoke as he watched them land.
“We didn’t even do anything.” Batman’s perpetual frown deepened slightly.
“Then explain why I found her dressed as you.” He turned around and brought a previously unnoticed figure from behind him, the both of them instantly recognizing who she was.
“Hi, Uncle Chuck,” Steph spoke as she waved her Batcuffed hands at them. “Aunt Roxy.”
“Stephanie, what the fuck?” Roxy asked.
“We caught her vandalizing the side of a building, after finding similar spray paint marks on the sides of various other buildings,” Robin spoke, his arms folded. “Then she hit me in the face with a brick.”
“I wasn’t vandalizing it,” Steph snapped. “I was trying to give the two of you a clue.”
“So you admit to working with somebody,” Batman spoke as if it was a statement of fact and not speculation.
“There’s no way in hell I would ever work with that bastard! Look, I’m not working with anyone. I was trying to help you two.”
“If you wanted to help, you should have just come to us and said something.”
“Oh yeah, that’ll go over great. I’ll just track down Batman and Robin and give them cryptic messages in a costume while they’re trying to solve a major crime with no leads. That won’t end with me arrested. At least with the fucking spray paint, I could do it anonymously.”
“And yet you still ended up arrested.” The thought of Stephanie in a Gotham prison, even if it was the likes of juvie, filled Chuck’s mind, and he panicked. He didn’t want to see her in jail, especially with the enemies her father had made over the years.
“Look, I can personally tell you that, without a shadow of a doubt, she’s not working with any criminals.” Robin glanced between the two, obviously comparing their costumes. “Er, current criminals. Look, Batman, how many times have you actually arrested me for my crimes? I’m just a former bank robber, and not even a good one at that. Are you going to put my niece in jail for something like light vandalism?” Batman’s frown deepened significantly.
“No. But as your guardian, you are her responsibility. Do better, Chuck.”
“Of course.” Chuck gave a mock salute as he watched the dark figure uncuff Steph, the young blonde rubbing her wrists once they were off.
“Come on, Batman,” Robin spoke. “We have a case to solve.” Batman nodded and took out a grapple hook, launching it and letting it carry him away once he hit a stable surface. “Stay out of trouble, Stephanie.” Steph stuck her tongue out at Robin, before turning towards Chuck and Roxy.
“Come on, there’s still time to set up the rest of the clues.”
“No,” Chuck said, his voice unusually firm, unlike how he usually spoke.
“No? Why not? He’s still out there.”
“Because I said so,” Chuck replied. “You could have gotten hurt, or worse!”
“And if I wasn’t out here, they would never find him, and-”
“Who the hell is him?” Roxy spoke up.
“Arthur!” Steph yelled, her emotions boiling over. “My dad, he… he got out of Arkham. I saw it on the news a few weeks ago, they said he was cured of his compulsion to leave clues. But then, unexplainable crimes started happening around Gotham. The kind that are obviously his work, if you knew him well enough. And Batman and Robin didn’t, because he wasn’t leaving any clues. They weren’t catching him fast enough, and at this rate, they weren’t going to catch him. So I…” Steph gestured to her costume. “I needed to spoil his crimes. To make sure he didn’t hurt anybody, not like…” A tear rolled down her cheek. “Not like he did to Mom.”
“Hey, it’s okay.” Chuck went over to his niece and pulled her into a hug. “It’s alright. He can’t hurt you.”
“I know,” Steph sobbed lightly. “But he’s going to hurt others. I want to stop him. I need to stop him.”
“And we will.”
“What?” Roxy asked.
“Yeah. I’m not going to let him hurt my niece again. And I’m also not going to let Batman boss her around like he wants to. She needs supervision for this stuff. We’re going to be the supervisors. How does that sound, Stephanie?” Steph sniffled and gave the only reply she could.
“Hell yeah.”