Disclaimer: DC owns all characters that they own, and USA Network or Universal or someone else owns all characters they own.

Story Synopsis: Crossover with Burn Notice; takes place after the mid-season two start. Michael attempts to find the man who tried to blow him up, and evidence points to a certain Gotham City billionaire.

A/N: Formatting—all italics are the thoughts of Michael Westen. Bold is for introductions.

A/N2: Special thanks to Momma Michaels and Erin for the beta!

“No Regrets”

Chapter One

When you become a spy, you learn fairly quickly: you’ll have regrets. No matter how hard you try to do the “right” thing, the choices you make will have ramifications that you will not expect.

From behind what could barely be called a kitchen “island,” Michael watched through narrowed eyes as Carla sauntered away. Her malevolently gorgeous face turned toward him as she tugged open his blown-out door.

“Oh, and Michael? I’m so glad your mother enjoyed her new coffeemaker and your brother liked his jail stay. But if you don’t fall into line soon, they won’t be the only ones who like what we give them.”

A face-off ensued, and Michael wished his facial expression came off angered more than frightened. She couldn’t mean…There was no way she could’ve…

As the blonde femme fatal left, Michael whipped out his cell phone. Well, there was only one way to know for sure.

“Hey, this is Fi. Leave a message,” he heard and waited for the beep.

“Hey, Fi, we need to meet, and I hope you have something on my assassin.”

*^*^*

“Wayne? As in Bruce Wayne? As in Gotham City’s Bruce Wayne?”

The heat of the Miami evening already stuck Michael’s dress shirt to his chest, but that sort of heat he could deal with. Bruce Wayne—heat? That was something completely different, and he thought Carla was bad enough.

Sitting at their usual outdoor table at the bar, Fiona took a quick swig of her beer and sat back in her seat. For some reason, the glistening of sweat upon her skin in the dying sunlight appeared appealing. “The compound the assassin used to blow up your front door was one used in certain tests at WayneTech. There’s a lab on the outskirts of the city.”

Sam laughed heartily as he slapped Michael on the shoulder. “Just what did you do to piss off Bruce Wayne, Mikey? Man, that’s gotta take talent.”

“Either me or Carla,” Michael corrected, “and we don’t know if Bruce Wayne actually tried to kill me or someone who just had access to the explosive did.”

“Good luck with that. My FBI buddies can’t crack into Wayne Enterprises’ computers, so there’s no way in Hell or on this Earth we’ll be able to.”

“So, we’ll have to break in.” Fiona shrugged. “Shouldn’t be harder than Security Associates.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “Please, Fi. I already have an assassin after me. I don’t need mercenaries, too.”

“Hey, if you get terrorists, you’ll have bingo, Mikey,” Sam laughed.

“You think we could just ask Mr. Wayne for the information?”

“Oh, like that will work,” Fiona scoffed as Sam stole her beer.

“It would,” Sam paused and arched an eyebrow, “if we had his kid.”

There were a lot of things Michael would do, granted, but he had one rule he abided by. “No. No kidnapping.”

“It’s a perfect plan. Just hear me out,” Sam assured and popped a few chips into his mouth. “The big boss is in town checking out WayneTech’s division with the kid, and when I say ‘kid,,’ I mean the boy’s already…what? Fourteen? Fifteen? And we wouldn’t really be kidnapping. It’ll be more like borrowing.”

“Sam—”

“I didn’t know Wayne had a kid,” Fiona interjected.

Sam tipped his bottle toward her. “It’s not technically his. He adopted some circus brat after the boy’s parents were killed—The Graysons.”

Michael froze. “The Graysons? As in—”

Sam’s own face darkened, and he placed his beer upon the table. “Yeah, bruda. Those Graysons.”

Michael met Fiona’s worried gaze for a long moment, her eyes reflecting in the moon’s rise. She looked so innocent, so vulnerable, nothing she truly was, and he snatched Sam’s beer. “Maybe we can borrow the kid—just for a little while.”

*^*^*

Miami was a favorite vacation spot for millionaire playboys for a reason. Bikini-clad women rollerbladed down the walkway, while bars overflowed with those looking to hook up.

Perched upon the boardwalk overlooking the beach, Michael looked like one of the beach bums with one of Sam’s shirts open, a pair of beach trunks, and sandals. Fiona matched his motif with a bikini and a small, transparent skirt. Sam, however, looked indifferent, khakis and a Hawaiian shirt. They leaned against the railing and looked down at three particular boys horsing around in the relatively calm waters. The first boy Michael recognized immediately with jet black hair and piercing blue eyes. The boy lunged at another teen with curly black hair, who scooped water around like he owned it. The scary part? It followed him like he did. The last one pushed his blazing red hair out of his eyes to watch one of the aforementioned models dunk into the water.

Dick

The Target

“Okay, I see Grayson, but who’s with him?” Michael asked.

Sam leaned his elbows upon the railing next to Michael’s. “You’re looking Annie’s best friends—Garth, Prince of Atlantis, and Roy Harper, Oliver Queen’s kid”

Garth

Fish Prince

Roy Harper

Another Rich Kid

“Wow, that’s a lot of money sitting right there,” Fiona laughed.

“Fi, we’re not doing this for a ransom,” Michael reminded. “We just want some info.”

“Well, we’re going to have to do a split and snatch. Daddy Warbucks’s never too far behind.”

She motioned toward a small café on the boardwalk a little over a hundred feet away. Around a certain table sat a man with midnight hair, a polo shirt and khakis upon his well-built body.

Bruce Wayne

Daddy Warbucks

He shared the table with a bearded man with impeccable posture and a slightly younger woman in what appeared to be fishnets.

Sam whistled lowly. “Wow. Nothing can be easy, can it?” At Michael’s demanding glare, Sam added, “That’s the other parents.”

Arthur

Fish King

Dinah Lance

Girlfriend of Another Rich Kid’s Guardian

“Looks like they scheduled a playdate. Damn it.”

“Don’t these people know they’re supposed to hire stupid nannies and bumbling chauffeurs?”

Michael kept his eyes trained upon the teenager exiting the water, his sodden hair slapped against his cheeks, a wide smile plastered upon his face. He looked so…innocent, so young. He’d been through so much already, having lost his parents and now going to live with Wayne. And Michael had heard how many stories of people trying to kidnap him to get Bruce Wayne’s money?

The ex-spy finally lowered his eyes to his own hands. Could he really take this kid and put him through hell just to find out his own potential killer?

“Dick!” Bruce Wayne’s baritone voice called over the beach. “Come here for a moment!”

Grayson pulled a T-shirt over his head and along with his two friends, made his way across the beach, his sandals dangling from his right hand. As the trio neared the café, Bruce stood and even took his ward by the shoulder warmly.

Too warmly, like he was putting on a show.

Michael glanced about the boardwalk, his eyes darting to each person standing alone by the entrances of stores or at the bars.

“They know we’re here.”

Fiona narrowed her eyes as she headed out. “How can you tell?”

“Take a look at how he’s holding the kid. He’s showing how protective he can be—saying we won’t get him.”

“By himself?” Sam scoffed. “Mikey, I don’t see any bodyguards.”

“Yeah, weird, isn’t it? One of the richest men in the world comes to Miami, and he doesn’t bring one bodyguard? How about King Arthur? You think he would have some.”

Resting on her elbows, Fiona smirked. “How about the fact that Wayne knows we’re coming? You must have really annoyed him, Michael.”

Which would mean Wayne was in on it.

They needed no other confirmation.

Fiona pushed off the railing. “I’ll take Rusty.”

“I’ve got Fish Boy.” Sam hurried onto the beach.

Michael stepped forward. “That leaves me Center Ring.”

*^*^*

Contrary to the belief, kidnapping is nothing more than a procedure. There are a set of steps that must be followed to insure success. The first is probably the hardest to attain—isolation.

Michael walked half-way past the cluttered table. He blinked toward the blue-eyed boy, looked away, and then turned back. “No, it can’t be—You wouldn’t happen to be Dick Grayson, would you?”

The boy’s eyes flashed upward to take in the newcomer’s face before deterring to Bruce’s and then the king’s. Out of the three of them, he was the one being recognized? “Uh, yes, sir.”

“Wow.” Michael grabbed a chair from another table, occupied by only one person. “He’s definitely not coming, or else he would have been here by now. Mind if take this? No? Thanks.” He sat down, watching as the boy’s eyes became guarded, his guardian’s even more so. “I saw you and your parents perform in the Garden way back when. Wow, you must have been—oh, six? Seven?”

Bruce put a protective hand on Dick’s shoulder. “And you are?”

“Benjamin Lander. I do talent searches for child actors, and I must say, Mr. Wayne, I think your ward here would be a great lead for a reality series. We can show what it’s like growing up as one of the richest kid in the world. Is he the fourth? Fifth?”

“You’re the fifth richest man in the world?” Dinah laughed and put a hand on Bruce’s forearm. “Why am I dating Ollie instead of you? I think he’s only the twenty-second.”

Dick hesitantly shrugged. “That’s all Bruce’s money, Mr. Lander. I have nothing to do with that.”

“What? You don’t get an allowance of five thousand a week or something?”

“Dude, you get five thousand a week!” Roy exclaimed. He quickly shot a glare at the blonde woman at the table. “Dinah, you’ve got to talk to Ollie for me.”

Dick’s ice clicked the bottom of his glass. “Roy, I don’t get five thousand a—”

“How much is five thousand?” Garth asked before looking up at Arthur. “Is that equal to three—”

“Mr. Lander,” Arthur interrupted as he started to stand, pulling his son up with him. “If you wouldn’t mind—we were actually leaving.”

“Oh, sure, of course.” Michael pushed up as well. “Well, if you change your mind, then just look me up in the Yellow Pages. I’m there.” He put out his hand for Bruce to shake, but the man placed both his hands upon his ward’s shoulders and guided him along.

“Good day, Mr. Lander.”

Michael watched the people weave through the tables and toward the parking lot between the stores of the boardwalk. A soft smile etched upon his face, and he detoured toward one of the stands. Sure, smoothies weren’t as good as pure yogurt, but they’d do in a pinch.

*^*^*

The point is: know your target. He wants, his likes, his dislikes. And there is one thing every rich boy heir desires: a little more slack in the leash.

“Dick, I can’t believe you get five thousand dollars a week!”

Dick pulled on a light over jacket. “Roy, I don’t get an allowance, all right?”

“Wait, you get nothing?” Garth blinked. “Wow, time to negotiate.”

Dinah flung an arm about Roy’s shoulders and ruffled his still wet hair. “Maybe I should talk to Ollie about lowering it, huh?”

Stopping in front of a black Lamborghini, Bruce clicked off the alarm. “Arthur, Dinah, I believe it would be best for us to leave now. Thank you for the afternoon.”

“Oh, Bruce, do we have to go yet?” Dick said as he jumped onto the car’s floor to peer over the hood. “I didn’t even get a corndog.”

“Don’t whine, and we have a meeting at three with the Dr. Wagner.”

Dick rolled his eyes. “Which actually means you have a meeting with Dr. Wagner and I have a meeting with boredom.”

“I’m not having this discussion now,” Bruce whispered over the hood, “especially with those people—”

“I saw them, and please, they’re not dangerous. They didn’t even hide themselves. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Bruce continued to stare at Dick, an intimidation tactic, but with the meaty smell of boardwalk food wafting into the boy’s nostrils, the older man had no chance.

“Well, I know Arthur has to return to Atlantis, but Roy and I don’t leave until tomorrow,” Dinah offered, coming to stand behind Dick. “I don’t mind if the boys want to wander the boardwalk a little while longer, and I’ll go shopping.”

Roy snorted. “Please. We can take on the greatest bad asses this side of the Mississippi, but we can’t spend ten minutes alone on a beach?”

“The boy is right, Bruce,” Arthur assured, running a hand through Garth’s curly locks. “Let the boys have a few hours, and if you wish, I’ll send R’unn, the head of my security, topside when I return to Atlantis.”

Bruce glanced about the area, his piercing blue eyes scrutinizing the crowded area for any sight of the people before letting out a small sigh and pointing a finger at Dick. “Fine, but you will be back in the hotel by six, dressed for dinner and without a word of complaint.”

“Deal!” Dick exclaimed and ran to Roy and Garth, his sandals slapping against the blacktop like the booming beat of the bar scene.

The three boys left Dinah, Arthur, and Bruce to finish talking as they reentered the boardwalk. Garth padded his shirt and thumbed toward the showers on the edge of the boardwalk. “I’m going to re-hydrate. I’ll be right back.”

“Finally!” Roy cheered. “Going for fish sticks.”

Dick rolled his eyes and walked up to a sunglass kiosk, looking through the Oakley assortment. He’d come to South Beach and didn’t bring sunglasses? Sacrilegious.

Pushing up the glasses so they held back his bangs, he didn’t need to turn to feel the person approach and hear the slurping of a shake up a straw. He simply glared over his shoulder in the reflection of the mirror.

“Who are you really, and why are you following us?”

There are a few clues that tell you things aren’t exactly what they seem. One of them happens to be when someone knows you are coming when they’re not supposed to. That usually throws up a few flags, especially when the person in question is fifteen.

Michael finished off his shake and threw the cup in a nearby garbage can. “What gave me away?”

Now the boy turned, handing a hundred dollar bill to the store clerk without even a glance her way. “I saw you watching us on the beach as did Bruce. You didn’t look anywhere else. You came looking for us. Why?”

Leaning closer, Michael murmured, “Your life could be in danger.”

“By who? You?” Dick shook his head and started toward the middle of the boardwalk.

Smart move, Michael internally acknowledged. The boy was placing himself in the middle of people, where lots of witnesses could see what Michael would do.

Too smart.

“There are plans in motion you know nothing of and could make you into collateral damage,” Michael explained. “I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Again, why? Who are you to care? You’re not my guardian.” The boy watched him with crystal, almost impassive eyes, but they continued to observe, taking in Michael’s build and the grooves of his face.

Just who was this kid?

It mattered little, Michael decided and laughed loudly, so loudly that everyone in the area could here. “Oh, boy, you do so ever crack me up.”

Dick’s frown darkened; his voice lowered. “What are you doing?”

“Of course, I’ll give you a raise in your allowance. What kind of father would I be if I didn’t let my son get an Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirt?”

Realization dawned in the boy’s eyes, and he turned immediately to stalk toward a certain fish stand.

“You’re not my—”

“Oh, please! You always say that when you think you’re not getting your way!”

Michael had just established himself as Dick’s father to a crowd. If he fought now, too many people would believe it just to be a domestic fight, and no one would come to his aid. He would have to get his allies, people who knew him, and sadly enough, they were already indisposed.

Michael reached the boy before he strode ten feet and clasped him on the shoulder. “If you value your friends’ lives, I wouldn’t do anything rash,” Michael advised and motioned toward Roy and Garth.

*^*^*

“Hey there! I saw you doing a few rounds out there,” Sam chuckled as the shower beat Garth’s back.

The marine marvel watched him with growing trepidation. “Can I…help you?”

“Well, that’s what I’m hoping. See, I’m from the University of Miami of Ohio, and man, seeing you swimming out there—it looked like you ruled the water. I’m a coach, and if I could get you to try-out for the team, boy, would we have a chance of winning the NCAA championship this year.”

His hand dipped under his shirt.

*^*^*

“Oh, can I steal one of those?” Fiona asked, her hands cupped at her chest level. “I’ve been just swimming all day and am I famished.”

Roy’s eyes widened as he took in Fiona’s toned body, and he held out his holder. “Of course. You surf at all?”

“Only the littlest amount.” Swishing her hair to the opposite shoulder, she bit down on the stick before placing her opposite hand on Roy’s bicep. “Well, I’m really more of—OH! Is that your muscle? Wow, you must be so strong. Did you get that surfing?”

Her hand ran all the way up to Roy’s chin.

*^*^*

Dick’s eyes widened at the gleam of the handgun in Sam’s waist band and the hold Fiona had upon Roy. He averted his eyes and stuck his hand in his own pocket. “What do you want?”

Michael flopped an arm about Dick’s shoulders and pulled the boy close like a father. Smiling with a wide, phony grin, he ran his fingers down Dick’s arm and dipped into the boy’s pocket to extract the cell phone.

“Tell you what. You come with me for a moment, and your friends don’t get hurt. You struggle, maybe make a scene, and they’ll be what’s white and black and red all over.”

Step two of kidnapping involves actually taking your target. Of course, on those rare occasions, the plans don’t always go…well, as planned.

Garth twisted off the valve and stepped off the platform. “Sorry, I don’t plan on going to a topside college, and even if I were, it wouldn’t be fair to the other athletes.”

“B-But—But!” Sam stepped in front of Garth, preventing his return to the boardwalk. “Don’t you want to know about the scholarship?”

*^*^*

“Um…I do some lifting,” Roy put on his charmer smile and handed Fiona another fish stick. “So, what brings you to Miami? On vay-cay with your husband?”

Her hand drifted down his cheek and caressed his chin. She moved the fish stick in his hand toward her mouth. “I’m actually a native—looking for a little fun.”

“And you’re like—what? Forty?” Roy dipped his last fish stick in Tartar sauce and bit off the end. “As much as I would to continue this conversation—”

*^*^*

“Why are you here?” Roy and Garth asked simultaneously before twirling to look where Dick had stood.

*^*^*

“That’s right. Just a few more feet, and then we’re going to go for a little ride.”

Dick rolled his eyes as he once stepped onto the blacktop. “Do I get to ride up front with the big boys?”

“Depending upon how good you are and how many cops I see in the area.”

From a little over a hundred feet away, Michael saw the guardians still talking, though by the nods and the quick handshake between the men, he knew they were leaving shortly.

Of course, that didn’t stop the boy from pivoting on his heel and delivering a roundhouse kick to Michael’s midsection.

Dick threw up a hand. “Bruce!”

The billionaire’s head whipped around at the shrill, and Michael knew he only had one moment before the plan crumbled. Even as his body thudded against the trunk of his Charger, he reached out to grab the boy’s arm and tug him back. Dick moved to elbow Michael in the face, a maneuver honed only by those who knew jujitsu at a black belt level, but how the kid knew that could wait.

One didn’t become a spy without being good at fighting, and he caught the elbow before delivering a blow to the boy’s midsection with his knee. Fisting his fingers in the boy’s hair, he lifted up Dick’s face and landed a right hook, thumping the boy to the ground unconscious.

And one didn’t keep alive while being a spy without allies, so even as the trio of parents came forward, bullets riddled the streets from atop one of the stores. Dinah opened her mouth and, to Michael’s surprise, let out some sort a blare that rocked Fiona from her post.

The damage was done, however. By the time Fiona fell, Michael had slammed shut the trunk and stepped on the gas petal.

Sure, restraining your target is one of the major steps to keeping your catch, but one you can always put off. The most important aspect is just getting out of the situation with all four appendages attached.

The large doors cutting off Michael’s apartment from the nightclub clanged shut, and Sam walked forward. “Look, I don’t know what that woman did, but this whole situation just doesn’t seem right.”

Sitting upon the Charger’s trunk, Fiona dropped her hand from the back of her neck. “Violent vibrations coming from some woman’s scream isn’t normal.”

“And neither does a fifteen-year-old kid having a black belt in jujitsu,” Michael added.

“Same thing with this kid’s playmates. They were hard to put down.”

“Well, we’re not exactly dealing with our normal people,” Sam assured. “Bruce Wayne is the fourth richest man in the world, so it makes sense he’d want his kid well-trained for something like this.”

Michael motioned for Fiona to clear off and clicked open the trunk. “Okay, but good enough to tag me—”

“TWICE!” a still young voice blared as the trunk snapped open, and a pair of feet slammed into his cheek. He hadn’t managed to roll, his face would have been cracked in two.

The pain buckled his knees, allowing the teen to launch out of the trunk. He flew through the air and landed, tearing toward the doors of the driveway. Fiona pulled out a gun as the boy struggled with the locks, but Michael managed to work to his feet, grabbing her wrist.

“NO!” he moaned.

“We have to stop—”

Sam nodded. “No, Mikey’s right. We shoot that kid, and we’ll never find out what we want from Wayne.”

“They’re beanbag rounds, you—”

“Guys!”

The boy disappeared out of the doors, and before Sam moved, Dick backed into the alcove once more, his hands raised in a surrender position.

Michael dropped his hand from his cheek, even though the pain still throbbed as a slightly shorter, but still muscular man with a ferret go-tee walked through the doors, a .45 trained on the boy’s forehead. “Hey, Mike. Just got my ‘get out of jail free’ card. Thought you’d like to apologize for not letting me collect two hundred dollars, maybe cut me in on your new project. By the way,” Nate cocked his head to the side, “aren’t you Wayne’s brat?”

“Nate…” Michael grumbled through his swelling lips and stalked forward. “I thought you shaved the dead thing off your face.”

“That was before I spent a week in prison, and you decided to go for ten to twenty.”

Michael came to Dick’s side, seeing the boy’s face clearly since they fought. Blood dried under Dick’s nose from the hit that stole him consciousness from him while a dark contusion began to color his right cheek. Fear brightened his eyes, though he fought desperately not to show it with a tense face and narrowed lids. He hunched over from what appeared to be a torso injury, and Michael realized with regret that he must have broken a rib when he kneed the boy.

No matter what you’ve seen or what you’ve done, there is nothing more heart-wrenching than looking into the eyes of a scared kid.

Slowly and gently, he took the kid’s hands and felt the trembling of his body before tying cable wire around Dick’s wrists. He then placed two arms on the boy’s shoulders.

“It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

“Says the man who just kidnapped me,” Dick spat.

“Oh, you are a feisty little one, aren’t you?” Fiona came forward to grab Dick’s cheeks and slick a hand through his disheveled hair. “Good-looking with an attitude.”

“Nice put-on American accent. What are you really? British?”

Fiona pulled her hands from his silken hair. “Irish.”

“Former IRA, huh? And what about you, wash-out?” Dick’s eyes lowered and rose to take in Sam’s full appearance. “Build is closer to former army but by the suit? I’m thinking Navy Seal. Government pension not enough? Need to resort to kidnapping and ransom?”

Michael’s hand clamped down on Dick’s shoulder and forced the boy toward the stairs. “Oh, you can just check out our MySpace page.”

“The way I’m looking at it, we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other for the next—oh, hour or two before Bruce finds me. We should at least get to know one another.” Dick glanced over his shoulder as he climbed the stairs, first taking in Michael and then Nate. “So, mercenary and his criminal younger brother?”

“I’m not a criminal,” Nate defended. “I’m an entrepreneur.”

“Who sells what? Stolen merchandise?”

Michael pushed the boy through his still burned front door. “Get inside.”

He knew the strong front was only a defensive mechanism to keep the boy from completely freaking out, and for now, he’d take the mouth until he finally decided to gag the kid. He wasn’t one for restraining anyone, least of all kids, but sometimes, you just have to do what you have to do.

As he entered the loft, Dick stopped and blew out a low whistle. “Wow. This place is certainly one of the worst I’ve been held captive in. Please tell me you didn’t decorate it on my account.”

Michael pushed the boy down onto his bed and detoured to a cabinet under the sink. “Actually, this is home.”

Dick blinked. “You live here?”

The place hardly looked habitable with a rusty refrigerator, a bed without a backboard, and creaky flooring. Metal stairs led to a second landing where a computer sat but little else. The other object of value seemed to be weights under the stairs. It looked more like a warehouse than an apartment.

The bed bounced when Michael dropped the First Aid kit on the mattress, even that little movement enough to steal a hiss from Dick’s lips. “Not all of us can afford mansions on hills or get them handed down through the generations.” He took out gauze. “Lift your arms. Nate, grab the kid’s shirt.”

“I was born in a trailer by the Big Top.” Dick leaned back and sent incredulous stares at the two brothers. “And hands off.”

“Well, I need to get hands-on if I’m going to wrap your ribs,” Michael said, “or maybe you’re masochistic and want me to leave you alone.”

“I thought that was your title,” Nate laughed.

Dick’s innocent eyes shot from Michael’s to Nate’s before he let out a growling sigh and tentatively lifting his hands. Nate snatched his shirt bottom and lifted up to give Michael access to Dick’s torso.

“Look, whatever you want, Bruce will pay.”

Sam snapped off the cap of a beer. “Kid, this isn’t about money.”

Nate scoffed, “It’s not?”

“It’s always about money,” Dick replied, shivering slightly as Michael began to wrap the gauze about his broken chest.

“Your father tried to kill me, and I want to know why.”

The trembling stopped and was replaced by honest rage. “You have the wrong person.”

“The explosives came from your father’s lab,” Fiona offered. “I don’t think that was a Valentine’s Day present.”

“Bruce doesn’t kill,” Dick affirmed as he pushed down his shirt once Michael finished. “He—”

“—owns a multi-billion dollar company. He probably has killers on retainers,” Sam inserted, tipping his beer in reverence.

Dick narrowed his eyes on the older man. “You don’t know Bruce. You have the wrong person.”

He said nothing else, just writhed his wrists attempting to free himself.

Michael pursed his lips and stood. “And you were wrong about me. My name is Michael Westen. I used to be a spy.”

*^*^*

“Either that kid is delusional or we really have the wrong person.” Sam tipped the bottle back against his lips.

Michael crossed his arms. “Be that as it may, we can’t let the kid go until we know for sure.”

Fiona, Sam, and Michael retreated outside to talk, leaving Nate to watch the boy.

Sighing, Michael sat back on his railing. “Sam, I want you to do surveillance on Wayne. See what he does, who he talks to. If we’re lucky, he might even lead us to the assassin.”

“Will do, bruda.”

“Fi, I want you to find out more about the people Wayne was with. If we might run into them again, I want to know what they can do.”

“I’m surprised by what Grayson can do,” Fi replied, pulling back her hair in a ponytail. “He’s a little observant buggar, isn’t he?”

“Well, what do you expect?” Sam asked. “He’s Joshua Maddox’s son. Of course he’s going to be more aware of his surroundings than most people.”

“Yeah, but I thought Joshua was going to raise the kid as normal.”

“Is a circus acrobat really normal?”

“A hell of lot more normal than—”

“All right!” Michael wiped his hands down his face. “Let’s be honest. Nothing about Joshua was normal.”

That much the three of them could agree on.

*^*^*

Bruce Wayne, despite his money and lifestyle, was boring to watch. Sam let out a howling sigh as he sat upon the other roof, overlooking the penthouse of the Westin Hotel. He looked down at his watch and rolled his eyes. Darkness had fallen less than an hour prior, and part of Sam thought he’d see some action by the fifth—or was it third?—richest man in the world now.

The man came out of his bedroom and swept across the foyer toward a picture window, stealing Sam’s attention. Slowly, the older man’s eyes grew, and he snatched his cell phone.

This wasn’t the type of action he asked for.

*^*^*

“You ever think of anyone else but yourself? I mean, Mike! The only thing you have here to eat is yogurt,” Nate groused as he slammed shut the refrigerator. “Or at the very least get some variety. Don’t they have key lime pie or Boston cream favors now? Couldn’t you at least get some of those instead of crappy blueberry?”

Perched on the second floor of the loft, Michael rolled his eyes and sat back at his ancient computer. “I wasn’t planning on entertaining.”

“What? Your fortune cookie didn’t read, ‘Might snatch and grab a fourteen year old’?”

“I’m fifteen,” Dick interjected.

Nate bumped the refrigerator door shut and pulled off the top of a yogurt. “Hey, you could be gagged. You want that?”

Glancing through the grate under his feet, Michael watched Dick closely, making sure the boy’s cable wire still held his wrists to one of the support beams. With his butt on the floor and his legs crossed, he barely moved except for his angered glare at the older man across from him.

“Nate, leave the kid alone,” Michael ordered.

“You want some yogurt?” Nate levitated a spoon toward Dick’s mouth, then pulled it back quickly. “Huh? You want—ugh!”

Michael jerked at his brother’s cough and saw through the grated floor as Dick held Nate in a headlock, starving his younger brother of oxygen. Michael cursed under his breath, ignoring the questions shooting through his mind. It didn’t matter how the kid got loose. It didn’t matter that blood leaked from his torn wrists, and his hands shook as he dropped the unconscious Nate to the ground.

It only mattered that Michael leapt over the stairwell and blocked the kid’s escape.

He barely made it as he dropped before the door and narrowed his eyes at the furious teen. “Unless you want a time-out, I suggest you calm down.”

Now, Michael saw the gun in Dick’s hand, which the boy must have stolen off of Nate. He cocked the weapon and pointed it directly at Nate’s lifeless body.

“Unless you want your little brother to have a permanent time-out, I suggest you move.”

Pushed to his or her limits, anyone has the capability to kill. Most people never reach those limits, which is why the government still works. Despite that, there are born killers and there are born innocents, and you know which is which just by looking into their eyes.

“You won’t,” Michael proclaimed but still knew better than to take a step. “You’re not a killer. You’re just a scared, little rich kid waiting for Daddy to ride in on his white horse.”

The boy’s hand never shook, not like his eyes, but he somehow found the strength the smirk. “You seriously do not know Bruce.”

Dick whirled on his heel and tore toward the patio, discarding pieces of the gun as he took it apart. Michael saw the kid’s own life flash before his eyes, or what little he knew of it, and ran after the boy. With the boy’s broken ribs, Dick couldn’t move as fast as he probably could’ve, and Michael managed to seize the boy by the jacket. The teen spun out of the jacket and flipped backwards to avoid the crushing strike. He staggered once he landed, an arm cradling his torso at the excruciating pain that must have blossomed.

Michael dropped his fighting stance and reached forward, “Kid, let me—”

Taking advantage, Dick wound on his heel to hit Michael in the chest, but this time the spy caught Dick’s ankle. The boy lifted up with a grunt and slammed his opposite foot into Michael’s arm, flipping free. Michael lunged forward, and though Dick blocked his first punch, Michael kneed Dick in the stomach. The boy would have stopped the attack if he’d been at full strength, Michael knew, but under the circumstances, he hissed and clutched his torso. Delivering an elbow on Dick’s upper back, Michael allowed the boy to slam to the floor. As he writhed, Michael reached for a specific bottle on his counter.

As a spy, you are forced to do things you don’t want to. You can rationalize them by saying they’re for the greater good and that you had no choice. But I’ve learned there is always another choice, and that greater good? I’ve never understood just what that was—until today.

Michael screwed open the bottle and straddled the boy’s waist from behind.

In a pinch, Benadryl will work as a quick substitute for a sedative. Of course, you have to force it down your opponent’s throat for it to work.

His weight pressing down on Dick’s broken ribs brought a strangled shriek from the boy’s lips.

And nothing opens your opponent’s mouth like crushing pain.

With a hand fisted in the boy’s hair, Michael lifted up Dick’s head and inserted the bottle in between the boy’s teeth. As the medicine flooded Dick’s mouth, Michael locked his hands on the boy’s chin and held the bottle in place.

His cell phone jingled with the song “That’s What You Get” as the boy tugged on Michael’s hands, but nothing could detach them from his face. The purple liquid squirted from the cracks of his lips when wet hacks jerked his body, but Michael refused to let up until most of the bottle disappeared. Only then did he throw the empty container and simply pressed his body onto Dick’s, keeping the boy pinned until the fight bled from him completely.

Still sitting, Michael pulled the cell phone from his back pocket and flipped it open. “Yeah, Sam?”

“Mikey, we got trouble.”

“No kidding.”

“No, you don’t understand. This is the type of trouble makes all spies turn with their tails between their legs and hide under rocks.”

“Well, it can’t be any worse than wondering why a fifteen year old knows how to take apart a gun and fight with jujutsu, aikido, and half a dozen other martial arts. Who does that?”

“Robin.”

“…What?”

“Mikey, the kid is Robin. Like of ‘Batman and—’”

Glancing down at the boy underneath him, Michael shook his head and cursed under his breath.

Dick

The Target

Boy Wonder

To Be Continued…