luke henry ; robin (notjustsidekick) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-02-24 23:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | robin |
Who: Bat!Luke
What: Someone needs to be the Bat. Clearly Luke is that someone.
Where: Around Seattle.
When: Sometime late Thursday (2/24) night.
Warnings: None, unless fail counts.
The suit was too big.
Luke was expecting that even before he tried it on, since any idiot could see the size difference between himself and Thomas. No amount of training could change his body type, never mind magically increase his height, but after the latest letter to the editor they had no other options. Seattle needed the Bat. They wanted the Bat. Someone had to give him to them, and if Thomas couldn't do it then he'd just have to do it himself. Once the trial run was out of the way and everyone realized the Bat hadn't abandoned them Luke could start thinking about making a suit for himself that actually fit. The point was to show that the original Bat was still around, but if worse came to worst maybe a new Bat would have to be good enough. From the way Thomas was talking it didn't seem like he was going to be putting the cowl back on anytime soon.
When Thursday night came he was at the warehouse with a borrowed cape and material to pad the cowl, since it didn't fit quite right either, and once he'd managed to get himself in the suit he studied himself in a mirror he'd purposely placed against one of the walls.
Beneath the lights Luke looked nothing like the Bat Thomas had been.
When Thomas was in the suit he was intimidating, whether it was in light or dark, but no one would look at him now and tremble with anything akin to fear. His only slight consolation was that he'd be little more than a Bat-shaped silhouette in the dark, and with any luck that would be enough for now. He secured the comm in his ear with a sigh and pulled the cowl over his head, adjusting it properly until he could see without the thing sliding all over the place and into his vision. A small part of him advised that this was a bad idea and he should have let Nightwing do it, but Luke shoved the voice aside. He had to do this, not for himself or even for Thomas, but for everyone out there who saw the Bat as a symbol of hope. He couldn't let them lose that hope.
It was a cool night, and thankfully the moon was obscured by clouds that made it darker than it would have been had there been moonlight. He stuck to the darkest parts of alleys and slunk along the brick walls until he found a spot and ascended to the rooftop. It became clear quite quickly that even the easiest of movements were difficult in the suit, and he had to keep his steps slow and deliberate. It was easy to lose his balance, too easy, which he found out the hard way when he decided to make the leap between two buildings and misjudged himself, just managing to fire a line in the nick of time before he could plummet to the ground. Damn it. Hardly a stellar way to start the night, but at least no one was around to see the Bat make an idiot of himself.
It actually wasn't too bad for the first couple of hours, though that was mainly because he didn't exert himself very much at all. There were some near misses on fire escapes and more instances involving movement difficulty, but the only thing he suffered was a wounded pride. His main goal was to be seen, and he purposely positioned himself near rooftop edges and darting in and out of alleys where civilians of all sorts could catch sight of him, long enough for them to realize who he was without being able to figure out that something wasn't quite right. Fortunately they also saw him before he fell flat on his face. (He hoped they didn't see that, at least.)
As the night progressed, however, Luke couldn't help thinking that the only way to really shut the critics up would be to show that the Bat was not only back out on the streets but back in action as well. Sure, Max would be pissed, but maybe it'd be worth it. Just a couple of guys - nothing too big, not yet. Nothing he couldn't handle even in a suit that didn't fit him right. It wasn't that bad, he told himself.
He only half-believed that, though.
Luke was still having an internal argument with himself when foreign voices reached his ears, one dark and threatening while one was high-pitched and terrified. He peered over the edge of the rooftop he was perched upon and saw a man in dark hoodie shoving a woman down the alley and behind the adjacent building, where it was too dark and hidden for anyone to come to her rescue. Anyone who didn't have his vantage point, that is. He hesitated, knowing that if he'd been in a suit that fit right the guy would be a walk in the park, and he was seriously wishing that he would have just painted his Robin suit black and worn the cowl with it.
Without thinking he leaned forward and felt his traction slip, and the extra weight of the too-large suit worked against him. His attempts at regaining his balance and staying on the rooftop failed as he pitched over the edge and towards the ground, and the fact that the man was standing and brandishing a knife at the poor girl in a position that allowed him to break Luke's fall was nothing short of a miracle. He felt something crunch sickeningly under him as he rolled off the man in a daze, barely noticing that the girl had already made a run for it and bolted out of the alley. His mind was still back up on the rooftop and hadn't quite caught up to the fact that he'd fallen over the edge, something he'd never done even when he was just starting out as a vigilante.
He was too winded to get up for a couple of long moments, and there was a sharp pain in his right arm when he tried to move it; he thought he might of pulled or sprained it during the fall since it wasn't bad enough to actually be broken. "Great," he muttered, staring up at the inky sky and feeling like a complete idiot, which was not a feeling he relished.
Luke just managed to get to his feet and was relieved to find a pulse on the man - he was alive, thankfully, but it was likely that more than one somethings had been broken. He was about to grapple back up to the rooftop when he heard footsteps approaching the mouth of the alley and froze before scrambling for cover. Somehow he made it behind the corner just as two figures appeared, silhouetted by the dim streetlights that offered some light out on the sidewalks. When they caught sight of the unmoving and slightly battered body of the man Luke fell on the sound of guns being cocked was unmistakable. Stubborn as he was, he knew that since he was at a disadvantage this wasn't the time to play hero. In a stroke of genius he muted his comm, because risking Max's anger was worth avoiding the sound of gunshots being heard, and he fired the grappling hook upwards and hauled himself up immediately afterward.
The footsteps pounded against pavement as the two men searched for the source of the noise, and the bullets came far too close for comfort as he threw himself over the edge and onto the rooftop, rolling over and over until he finally came to a stop. Inaudible shouts followed him, probably taunts to come back down and fight, but they were ignored as he pushed himself to his feet and waited to see if the men would try to follow.
They didn't, but for good measure he snuck a look down at the alley anyway. For some reason just the sight of the men combined with the fact that he couldn't do anything about them made him forget logic for a very brief instant. He'd found little sharp things he thought were called shuriken in the warehouse and brought some along, and now seemed like the perfect time to use them.
Luke rose suddenly, with only a second to take aim, and threw two down at the men without much hope that they'd meet their mark. He felt a small flare of satisfaction regardless and turned immediately afterward, breaking into a blind run as muffled yells sounded behind him. It wasn't a smooth path; he rolled and tumbled with a lack of the physical control he'd been taught to maintain, but adrenaline got him up and moving again, firing lines to get from building to building even if he barely made it half the time. His main goal now was gaining distance.
His luck ran out when one of his grappling hooks missed its mark and he fell, managing to catch himself on the railing of a fire escape for a moment before he lost his grip. He landed on a dumpster and rolled off the edge onto the ground, wincing at the dull pain coursing through his arm. Luke didn't even know where he was right at that moment. All he knew was that it was silent, dark, and the sounds of traffic and voices were dim and far away.
It felt like an eternity before he pulled himself up into a standing position. He'd forgotten that his comm was muted until now, and switched it back to normal without saying a word. Instead of using another grappling hook he limped around the dumpster and slid to the ground, resting his back against it to give himself a few minutes to rest out of sight, not that anyone was coming down here anytime soon.
Luke couldn't help but laugh at himself, even though there was nothing funny about the situation and there was no real humor in the sound. He was really, really ridiculous. Max was wrong - Thomas wouldn't be proud of him. He'd be pissed off first, probably for a while, and then he'd think he was just a stupid kid trying to be something he never could. Which was true. He was pathetic enough to think that he could be the Bat when it would take at least another ten years for him to actually grow into the damn suit, if at all, and that was just for starters. Whereas Max likely saw this as a band-aid on the bigger problem, an attempt to give actual Bat sightings instead of false claims, Luke held out far more of an expectation. He'd thought that maybe, just maybe, if Thomas was forced to give up the cowl then he could be the one to take over. The fact that it was a genuine hope struck him as kind of sad now that he was huddled behind a dumpster, feeling like a little kid trying to be all grown up and failing miserably. He'd accidentally crushed one guy and ran away from two others - hardly admirable stuff.
Taking the suit wasn't the best idea. He'd known that from the start, but he'd tried to tell himself that it wouldn't be that bad. He should have known better. 'I'll manage' probably wasn't the best mentality to have. If he was actually going to do this, act as the Bat until Thomas decided to return (if he ever did), then he'd need a suit that fit him properly. This one was a temporary solution at best if Luke was the one wearing it. Of course there were doubts, especially now; maybe Nightwing was a better choice, maybe he wasn't good enough to be the Bat and never would be, maybe he should be fighting to get the real Bat back instead of trying so hard to replace him.
Unfortunately he didn't have the luxury of being able to sit there and mull it over for hours on end.
Luke struggled to his feet, glancing up at the sky and deciding he could stay out a little while longer before heading back to the warehouse. His arm hurt but he could still move it fairly well, and the other aches would probably appear as bruises tomorrow morning. To hell with heroics - he was practically useless in this suit. He'd just have to make do with trying not to fall off any more rooftops and hope that he looked convincing enough to anyone who might catch sight of him on his way back.