A Robin Redbreast In A Cage, Puts All Of Heaven In A Rage

[snarkyboywonder.livejournal.com]

It's not a good idea to be a criminal in Gotham City tonight.

And if you're a large, bulky man who looks a bit like Roland Desmond, god help you.

Swinging through the city, scowling and heedless of the rain, Robin is on the prowl.

Three days ago, the former criminal kingpin Roland Desmond, better known as Blockbuster, escaped from Arkham Asylum. He had to have outside help - after his last crime, the League decided Blockbuster was too dangerous and asked Zatanna to undo Neron's intelligence enhancement. Since that time, Roland Desmond had roughly the intelligence of a four-year old, and no memory of his misdeeds.

And now he had escaped. Robin doesn't know who busted him out yet, but when he finds him, he has a cup of warm milk and a healthy beating waiting.

As for Blockbuster... Robin doesn't care what his mind's like. The murdering bastard killed Stephanie. And Robin never got a hold of him the first time. He's got three years of vengeance waiting for Blockbuster, and before this night's over, Blockbuster will know that vengeance.

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[shiva-wusan.livejournal.com]

Odd as it is, Shiva had faith that he would not strike her with the blow she had taught him. Though, on some level, she believed it would be fitting that he strike her dead and it would be an acceptable death.

"Little Bird, you are not well."

[snarkyboywonder.livejournal.com]

For the first time in well over twenty-four hours, a thought enters Robin's head that has nothing to do with Blockbuster.

"Shiva, I..."

He feels the familiar feelings in her presence... guarded respect, something almost akin to the awe he feels for Bruce, tempered by the knowledge that this is a woman who would not hesitate to kill him if it suited her needs. It pierces his mind, cutting through the din of rage subtly enhanced by another.

"Something's wrong."

Understatement of the year.

[shiva-wusan.livejournal.com]

Shiva looks toward Robin and Robin only. Blockbuster is not of her concern in the least. There is an affection she feels for this boy, this young man, which is dangerous to her and she knows it. In this case, while blockbuster is a threat, Robin is much more concerning.

"Something has unbalanced you, Little Bird."

Reaching out, she puts her hand against the side of his face, thumb against his cheekbone. "What drives you?"

[snarkyboywonder.livejournal.com]

Tim looks at his onetime mentor, glazed eyes seeming to find focus somewhere in her own.

"What drives me is... revenge?"

He looks back to Blockbuster, bloody and cowering, and reason slowly returns, bearing with it the awful weight of what he has done, and what he was about to do.

He slowly lifts his hands, knuckles bloody with another man's blood, and stares at them, horrified.

[shiva-wusan.livejournal.com]

"That does not sound like you, Little Bird." Carefully, Shiva pulls her hand back from the young man, looking at him, Blockbuster behind her. The blood does not bother her though it may bother him.

"For whom do you seek revenge?"

[jla-miscreants.livejournal.com]

Blockerbuster's still standing. Just barely. He's dazed, and he has no idea what's going on.

But something about Shiva's sudden presence makes him uneasy.

[snarkyboywonder.livejournal.com]

Blood is a familiar thing for Shiva, not so much for Robin. True, he's bled and made others bleed before. But always, he has tried to prevail with a minimal amount of bloodshed. Battles have been an equation to him, a calculation of the minimum force expenditure necessary to achieve victory, the optimal result. He can't remember a time he wanted to make a man bleed, before now.

Neron's influence is fading, but the anger is still there. His eyes focus back on Blockbuster.

"For an innocent girl. For someone I cared about, someone that piece of trash murdered."

[shiva-wusan.livejournal.com]

"Ah."

If Shiva was going to say anything else on that matter, it is held back for the time being. She looks toward Blockbuster for a brief moment before looking back toward Robin. "Revenge does not seem you, nor does murder."

Something in her tone indicates, she is slightly questioning that statement.

[snarkyboywonder.livejournal.com]

Robin knows what she's getting at. He reached that point with Shiva, just as Bruce did before him. The point where she told him flat-out he could go no further, not until he shed the weakness that forbid him from killing. Like Bruce before him, Tim refused to cross that line, turning back at the summit and instead using what he had learned to win the day.

And now he's back at that summit. Pushed back to the edge, by a force just out of his sight. But Neron could never have pushed Tim that far if a part of him didn't want to go back.

And now he struggles with that duality, caught between two paths, two masters. This is about more than Blockbuster now. More than Stephanie, even.

"... No." he says at last. "It's not."

Tim doesn't know if he's a killer. But he does know that he's not a murderer. This isn't a foe with fists bared standing against him. This is a crippled shell of a man, cowering in terror.

And Robin can't take any kind of revenge on that.

[shiva-wusan.livejournal.com]

"Ah."

Shiva stands straight and takes a step back from him, as if to give him the space to recover himself if that is what he needs to have. There is something here that is not right beyond Robin's desire for a vengence that is not the sort he would usually look for.

"What will you do now then? Do you still wish his death? He is a pathetic creature."

[snarkyboywonder.livejournal.com]

Does he still wish Blockbuster's death? Maybe. There's always been a secret part of Batman that yearned to finish the Joker, after Jason and after Babs. Blockbuster is his Joker. The only villain who ever hurt someone he loved. Somehow Batman managed to overcome that, and years later, he's still managed not to kill the Joker.

Robin doesn't know if he doesn't have Bruce's emotional discipline, or if he's just not that strong.

But he won't kill Blockbuster. Even if he wants to.

"I won't kill him." he says, dodging the issue of whether he'd like to see Blockbuster dead for his crimes.

"He's... already suffered enough already."

[shiva-wusan.livejournal.com]

"You know that is not what I asked you."

Still, Shiva does not press the issue, at least not that issue. At the moment. "What will you do next?" Her eyes scan the area once before returning to look at him.

[snarkyboywonder.livejournal.com]

"I'm going to get the police. They can have him."

Robin can't meet Shiva's eyes. He knows if he did, she would see what he can't admit to himself.

[shiva-wusan.livejournal.com]

"As you will."

Shiva is reluctant to leave him like this. He is obviously still unsettled, perhaps vulnerable to whatever happened happening again. Her lips flatten in a line as she thinks upon it more firmly.