Present Day

"That's kind of fucked up to call the person who just saved your life, don't you think?"

I stared up at him, dumbfounded and annoyed. He was clearly dressed as Robin but he wasn't my Robin. He was at least a quarter of a foot shorter, his hair was more tamely styled, his build significantly slighter. The outline of his face was sharper edges and his voice was an octave higher than I was used to.

He saved me, but I had no fucking idea who he was.

"Who the hell are you?" I grunted out, slowly twisting half away from him and sitting up. I rubbed at my sore throat and winced at the realization that tomorrow it was going to be an unflattering violet color.

"I'm Robin," he answered. "Who the hell are you?"

I laughed without any real humor, shaking my head at him and ignoring his question. "No, I know who you think you are. What I asked is who you really are? Because I know the real Robin and you're not him."

"Then you clearly don't know as much as you think you do, because I'm the one and only, baby."

My tolerance hit a low and without even thinking about it vines crashed through the high room windows and wrapped themselves around him, lifting him up so that his feet were dangling and kicking out at the air below.

"What the fuck?" he yelled out, his voice piercing in the silence of the room.

Up on my feet again, I brushed broken glass off of my clothes and inspected them disinterestedly as I went on speaking.

"I'm going to ask you again and one way or another you're going to give me an answer. I can respect the loyalty that Batman has instilled in you, if that's in fact who you were trained under. Otherwise, you're just another wannabe in cosplay who needs to stop ruining the good name of the boy wonder. So... who are you?" I spoke so calmly that I had to admit it unnerved even me.

But to his credit, the boy didn't crack. As much as it annoyed me, I could respect it.

"You can do whatever the fuck you want to me, my answer will still be the same. I. Am. Robin."

I glared up at him in silence only to find his icy eyes glaring right back at me. He'd stopped struggling against the vines and just hung there, waiting for whatever torture he was sure was about to follow.

Despite my thinly veiled threat, I couldn't bring myself to do anything to him. I still wanted answers and god knows it wouldn't have been my first terror session, but I couldn't do it to him. Between the authenticity of his suit and the ferocity with which he claimed the crime fighting alias, I was 98% sure that he was of Batman's tribe.

Maybe he was Robin; a new one to replace Dick after he went AWOL. It didn't have to mean anything bad had happened to Dick. If it had, I'm sure I would've heard something about it somewhere. There was no way Bruce Wayne would have a funeral for his adoptive son without it being in the news somewhere. I had to hold on to that; I didn't want to think about it otherwise.

"Well, hon, if you aren't going to torture the answer from the boy then I suppose I'll have to," an unexpected and British male voice broke the silence from across the room. Lightning struck just outside a window, lighting up the room long enough to reveal a tall man with a scruffy chin and short brown hair staring us down from near the stage. He wore a long dark trench coat over dress clothes and looked like he'd pointedly stood under the downpour taking place outside for at least an hour. He was leaning against the wall as if he'd been there all along. Doused into darkness again, I heard him snap his fingers before electricity sprang from them and acted as a flashlight illuminating him. "Though I can't promise he'll survive."

"Who the fuck are you?" both Robin and I asked in unison, not even glancing at each other.

Our intruder only seemed amused. "My employer calls me Hurricane. I quite prefer it to my real name, truthfully. To be called Daniel seems so bland in comparison." He shook his head as he spoke, unconcerned with saying too much.

"And your employer is...?"

This time he barked out a laugh that couldn't have been more condescending. "Darling, you didn't think a severe rainstorm coincidentally happened the same night as the gala, did you? In the middle of a drought? Come now, you must be smarter than that."

"D'amato," I whispered to myself, feeling like a fool for not realizing it before. Of course he had something to do with it; it was easier to rob the guests inside a venue then out in public with too much space for them to move. Still, I couldn't help but wonder what this guy got out of it all.

"Where is he now?" the new Robin demanded as if he weren't still 6 feet above the floor.

"What does it matter to you?" Hurricane countered.

"Simple," the kid shrugged. "I wanna finish kicking his ass before I leave him tied somewhere for the cops. He ran off like a little bitch before I could get to him."

"As entertaining as that sounds, I can't help you. I need him free in order to get my money. I did a job and now I need to be paid. But first, I think I'll earn a bonus for myself in the form of a vigilante sidekick identity; dead or alive." With that he held his hand out, palm towards us and a harsh wind blew into us.

I started flying backwards, nearly hitting the wall when my vines created a cushioned net for me to bounce from and stabilize on the floor. I looked up to find that the vines that had come to my rescue were the very same ones that had held Robin captive. But instead of finding him on the floor beside me or charging at our new common enemy, he was still afloat and kicking his legs out below him.

Except instead of being tied up in plants he was stuck in a mini cyclone that seemed to be sucking all of the air from his lungs.

I looked over at Hurricane as I stood back on my feet, watching the sheer pleasure on his face from what he was doing. He was so focused on Robin that I might as well have not even been in the room.

It gave me the perfect opening to interfere.

I threw my arms forward, directing my vines to attack and watched them spiral towards Hurricane with a vengeance. A half dozen of them weaving between each other in the air to land on target; only to be shot down by lightning.

I let out a pained scream as I bent in on myself, feeling the vines get struck and catch fire as much as if it were my own skin. Usually I could hold back the pain from any damage they were dealt in fights, but this was too much. Rage filled me, the scream dying to escape inside quickly rising to my chest and making me use the part of myself I reserved for high strung situations.

When I opened my mouth again, the sound was loud and forceful, sonic waves flooding the air and crashing into anything in their way. The remnants of my burning plant limbs disintegrated, the ash carried away on the sound-waves and blowing into Hurricane's face as it all blasted him backwards and into the wall with a structure shaking force. The windows above his head shattered, the glass showering down on him as he fell face down and covering his head from the debris.

Robin dropped down with a thud next to me, gasping for air and clawing at his throat as it flooded through.

I ran over to him and grabbed his arm, pulling him to his feet before he yanked away. His blue eyes were wide as he stared at me and demanded, "What the fuck are you?"

Six years, and it was still a question that stung a bit because I didn't have a real answer.

"I'd love to tell you sometime, but maybe we could get out of here before weather man over there gets his bearings again," I replied. "Unless you enjoyed not being able to breathe?"

His eyes darted between me and the dazed man on the floor across from us before he shook his head. "Fuck this, I'm out of here," he said, turning to leave. I grabbed his arm again, earning another yank away and a glare. "Don't touch me."

"I just saved your life, you ungrateful little shit," I hissed.

"Yeah, thanks for that. Now we're even."

"Don't—" But it was too late; in signature BatFamily fashion, a cloud of smoke covered my vision and when it cleared, he was gone. "Definitely a Wayne protégé," I mumbled to myself.

"You should've teamed up with me, love," Hurricane called across the room as he shook the glass shards from his body. He kneeled on the floor brushing his hand through his hair, the faint tinkle of the glass hitting the ground heard in the distance. "These vigilante heroes are all the same. Think they're better than us, when really we're gods in comparison. If you'd saved me I'd owe you a life's debt, not run when opportunity presented."

"Yeah, well, you tried to kill me so I don't see us running the world together anytime soon."

I could hear the smirk in his voice. "But you can see it, can't you?"

For a minute there, I did.

I could never entirely be on board with the hero shtick; saving ingrates who more times than not probably didn't deserve it and would turn around the next day and prove it. If you thought about it, a lot of the villains had pretty decent backstories and reasons for doing what they did. If people weren't so concerned with where they would be headed after their time on earth, they would probably see that.

If they saw me and Hurricane, they'd probably see what I did in that moment. A powerful duo that could hit anyone and anything without them knowing it was coming. We could have the whole world fear us with just one powerful wind combined with my pheromones. We could have them all bend to our will.

All I had to do was say the word, and it was done.

"With what you can do, why are you here? Why squat in a place that looks like it needs only one good gust of wind to take it down? You could literally just compel yourself a penthouse apartment somewhere, so why stay here?" Dick's voice echoed across my mind as I considered it, the image of his concerned face following suit.

I exhaled deeply as I repeated my answer to myself in a whisper. "I'm not trying to draw attention to myself. Drawing attention puts me in a spotlight that makes it hard for me to do what I have to do in order to survive."

Through the broken windows I could hear the sirens of the police getting closer and I knew it was my time to go.

Hurricane knew it too as he got to his feet, taking a wobbling step towards me. "You can see it," he repeated. "Which means it's inevitable. And if it's inevitable, why not start now?"

"Because nothing is inevitable as long as there's a will to fight."

"How unfortunate," he sighed. I saw his hand raise and I knew what was going to happen before it even started.

I braved myself as I filled my chest with air and let it out with another sonic scream.

The sound waves crashed into his forceful winds, creating an explosion of air. Knocking together, our powers ricocheted back at us, sending us both flying backwards.

This time my vines weren't fast enough to cushion my impact as I slammed against the wall, part of it caving in behind me. I fell to the floor with a groan, my entire body sore and my vision entirely blacked out.

The sirens outside were louder than before and I knew they were finally outside the building.

I tried to rise to my feet and get away somewhere before they could find me, but instead I crashed again to the floor. I was sure I was done for when I felt hands grab my arms and start dragging me away. I blinked my eyes rapidly in an attempt to see who had a hold on me, only to see the impossible.

"Grayson," I breathed out, staring up at his face, hair a perfectly untamed mess. He wasn't wearing the Robin suit, just regular street clothes, and yet somehow he'd showed up when I needed him.

Somehow, he always knew.