“No Regrets”

Chapter Two

There are a few things spies are actually afraid of. Contrary to popular belief, dying is one of them but not the biggest. In all of my missions, I’ve found nothing can blow an operation better than a cape. They have no government affiliation—specifically—and they believe their mission, whatever it is, is more important than yours.

“Well, these are no longer necessary,” Michael grunted as he cut through the cable wire.

Nate snorted and rubbed the back of his neck from the kitchen counter. “That’s debatable.”

Dick slowly dropped his arms from the twin supports where he’d been tied like a Y and massaged his now raw wrists. “Y—You’re letting me go?”

“Oh, wishful thinking,” Sam laughed from the counter and threw a pack of pictures at the boy. “Let’s just say you won’t be going anywhere for a while unless you want us to do a show-and-tell with a few government agencies and maybe a particular evil crowd of bad-asses.”

Sending the older man a bewildered glare, Dick followed the gaze to the pictures at his feet before his face blanched several shades. He dropped into a crouch to pick them up, and for a moment, Michael thought of rushing to the kid’s side. Dick was still recovering from his involuntary nap two days prior, and if he passed out and banged his head, they’d have more problems than just an angered father.

Dick shook his head in denial as he flipped through picture after picture of Bruce Wayne in his penthouse suite. So? Nothing new, or so he thought until he found the ones of the Batsuit in a suitcase and Batman on the roof of the hotel.

His hand quivering, Dick scowled. “Circumstantial evidence. You’d have to be crazy to make me believe that Bruce is—”

Michael came forward to snatch the pictures out of the boy’s hands and shrug on his way back to Sam. “Then I guess you wouldn’t mind if I hand these to Sam and tell him to give them to his FBI buddies, huh? If Bruce Wayne isn’t really Batman, then it won’t matter what they do with this information, will it?” He slapped them on the counter and took a yogurt from the refrigerator. “Oh, you’re free to go now.”

Yet Dick didn’t leave. Instead, he flopped down to Michael’s bed, his forearms on his thighs. Michael averted his eyes, only imaging what the boy was feeling. It probably mirrored the same one he had when he was first told he was burned in the den of mass murderers.

“Those aren’t the only copies, are they?” Dick finally ventured.

Michael looked to Sam, who actually nodded but stammered, “Uh, of course not. We wouldn’t have only one copy.”

Dick’s forlorn face caused Fiona to sigh, and she swung her legs off of one of the stools. Coming to sit next to Dick, she placed an arm about his shoulders and massaged his upper back. “Look, we’re not trying to hurt you or Mr. Wayne. We just—”

“Bruce didn’t do this, all right?” Dick pushed off the bed and away from Fiona, sending deadly stares toward Michael. “I don’t know who’s after you, but after spending however many days I have with you, I can tell you weren’t voted ‘Friendliest’ by your high school class.”

“Here. Have a yogurt,” Michael offered, putting his down on the counter.

Dick blinked. “What? All of life’s problems can be solved by eating yogurt?”

“It regulates metabolism, provides protein, and is Michael’s favorite food.” Fiona leaned back on the bed. “It also comes in twenty-four different flavors.”

“Don’t you people eat anything else?”

*^*^*

The gentle night breeze easing off the Miami seacoast seemed to sooth Dick’s cheeks as he dipped his head back and savored the moonlight. While the boy appeared relaxed in the daytime, he seemed to come alive at night, being one with the shadows and its dim light. After being cooped in Michael’s loft for almost a week, the small trip to the usual bar helped his frayed nerves, and Michael watched him closely from across the table. No one would know this boy, with dyed brown hair, green contacts, and a Miami Dolphin’s hat, was actually the fourth—or was it fifth?—richest kid in the world.

With his legs bend underneath him, Dick shoved a quesadilla in his mouth. “So, why do you think Bruce is trying to kill you, Michael?”

Sam almost spat out his beer. “Wow. A bullet has more subtlety than you.”

“Please.” Dick sat back in his chair and snorted. “You kidnapped me. Where was subtlety there?”

“I think it would be best if we kept some sort of boundaries,” Michael offered.

“Where’s the motive?”

“Kiddo,” Sam warned.

Another quesadilla slipped down Dick’s throat. “Dude, I’m the protégé to the freakin’ Batman. I think that lets me play Clue with you, Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlet here.”

“Don’t you think you could be a little more discreet?” Fiona whispered.

With a roll of his eyes, Dick glanced over his shoulder and poked the man in the shoulder at the next table. When the bald man turned, Dick deadpanned, “Bruce Wayne is the Batman.”

At first, the man did nothing more than blink, but then he burst with uncontrollable laughter. “Oh, please! If Bruce Wayne is the Batman, then I’m Superman!”

Dick settled back in his chair and sipped his ice tea. “Trust me. I know Superman. He’s not.”

“Michael’s loft was wired—wait.” Fiona almost dropped her beer. “You know Superman?”

“Yeah, he’s kinda like my uncle, but Bruce will deny that.”

Fiona whispered into her beer, “His uncle is Superman, Michael,” and then took a long swig.

“So, this has gone from ‘I’m-just-hungry’ dinner to a ‘We’re-all-going-to-be-vaporized’ dinner,” Sam laughed nervously. “Great. I’m at least ordering a few more beers before I’m going out. Hey, kid. No chance that’s a hard ice tea, is it?”

Dick glowered but continued to with a lighter tone, “So, from what I gather, Michael’s loft was wired to explode, and you think Bruce was in on it.”

“The explosives came from the WayneTech labs down here,” Michael supplied after ordering another ice tea from the waitress—not hard.

“You do realize he has—what? Thousands of employees if not millions. He’s powerful, sure, has really good deductive skills, but I really don’t think Bruce has telepathy to know what every single one of his employees are thinking.”

The boy was proud of himself, Michael observed as Dick sat back with a furled eyebrow. “And on top of that, you have no motive. Bruce doesn’t even know you. Why would he want to blow you up?”

Sam opened his mouth, but the waitress put a plate of clams in the middle of the table. Instead of retaliating, he lifted up the food. “So, who wants shellfish? Michael, Fi?”

Dick smiled at the obvious joke—he’d have to have been blind not to notice it—and Michael growled, “Sam, the kid’s at my apartment.”

“Well, Fi, how about you? Dick, come on. You must’ve have eaten shellfish at one of those stuffy dinners.”

“Can’t,” the two said simultaneously. “Allergic.”

Fiona glanced back at Dick, who cocked his head to the side at the unreadable look in her eyes. Michael quickly intercepted.

“So, Dick. How’d you become Robin?”

“Oh.” Dick fumbled with his last quesadilla, his eyes trained upon it. “You made the connection, huh?”

“Wayne pays you well?”

“Michael,” Sam hissed.

“What? He’s a kid, Sam,” Fiona practically shrieked. “Wayne’s putting a boy in danger just by letting him—”

“Whoa!” Dick put his hands in a surrender position and shook his head madly. “Who are you to make judgments about Bruce’s parenting?”

Fiona’s lips pursed, but other than the burning frustration in her eyes, she said nothing as Dick continued.

“Have any of you seen your parents fall to their deaths in front of you? Have you ever been kneeing in their blood as you beg them to get up, even though you know they can’t?” Dick averted his eyes—to hide the tears, Michael guessed. “By your silence, I’m taking that as a no, so don’t judge me and don’t judge Bruce.”

Michael spared a glimpse at Fiona, watching as she began to reach for Dick’s shoulder but then pulled back, instead crossing her arms and sitting back in her chair. Sam took a long swig of his beer, and Michael closed his eyes.

No matter what he’d done, he couldn’t stop the black hole of guilt from sucking his warmth.

“You don’t become a spy by having a good childhood,” Michael whispered.

Dick met the older man’s eyes—the kid was unafraid. “Are you saying I’ve got the makings of being a spy?”

“No.” A pause. “I’m saying I wish you didn’t.”

*^*^*

Fiona’s breathless voice cut through the darkened apartment. “He’s scared.”

Leaning against the doorframe of his deck, Michael glanced back as she approached. Her long hair plunging off her shoulder, like she knew he liked it. He loved to smell the peach scent of her long locks, taking comfort in its presence. Once she stood side-by-side, he looked back at the boy asleep upon his bed, his shirt switched for a tanktop, his shoes still on and dangling off the side.

“He should be. We’re the very people his daddy should have gotten him a bodyguard for.”

“Yeah, well, he’s not exactly a normal boy. He probably could take out most of the thugs who would try to grab him.”

“And that makes you proud?”

Fiona shrugged as her longing eyes drifted backwards. “Do…you ever think—”

“Fi.” Michael cut her off, his frustrated fists shaking. “It could have never worked out.”

“I’m just saying—”

“There’s a reason spies don’t have kids.” Michael couldn’t bear to look at her, knowing the tears glistening in her eyes. His voice fell to a whisper. “This. Right here. Can you imagine what Carla would do if I…if we…?”

“I don’t have to imagine, Michael,” Fiona reminded harshly.

Michael mentally wished to hit himself. They never spoke about it. She never mentioned it after that one mission in Dublin where he found her fists dripping in the man’s blood, tears long shed and death in her eyes.

Spies never had good childhoods.

Soft moans manifested into cries behind them, and before Michael even moved, Fiona crossed half the distance. Settling on the edge of the boy’s bed, she brushed his bangs off his forehead with the tips of her fingers, drawing him out of the all-too-real night-terrors.

The boy’s eyes blinked open. “Mom…?”

Michael closed his eyes, his heart mimicking a pain so deep he could never imagine, but he knew Fiona felt.

*^*^*

Fortune 500 companies have one thing in common. Their buildings are massive labyrinths with numerous places to hide and numerous places to hack into computer files. The problem most times is getting in, which if you have the CEO’s heir in your apartment and threatening to turn his mentor-slash-father into twelve government agencies, becomes a lot easier.

“Charles Finley and Jackson Kroger to see Lucius Fox,” Sam announced to the security guard at the desk. Dressed in suits, though only Sam wore a tie, Michael and Sam appeared like businessmen ready to negotiate a multi-million contract. The security guard didn’t glance twice at them before waving them through and instructing them to the fourth floor.

“Kid’s good,” Sam commented as they stepped onto the fourth floor and subsequently into a conference room.

Where a computer should have been.

Instead stood a rather tall man with a black power suit and blue tie. As he turned, Michael tensed.

“Top of his class apparently.”

“Mr. Kroger, Mr. Finley,” the man’s silky voice cooed as he walked forward, a hand outstretched. “Bruce Wayne. I believe you have acquired an invaluable possession of mine.”

Michael stared at the hand before lifting his eyes and walking backwards. “If we’ve come at a bad time, we can—”

Wayne was faster than Michael anticipated and clamped down upon his forearm before he made three steps. “I’m only in Miami until tomorrow. I can’t reschedule.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Sam demanded as he reached inside his jacket, but Bruce pivoted on his heel, delivering a roundhouse kick to slam Sam into the far wall. Then, he turned his attention to Michael.

Home court advantage isn’t a weapon for spies. Most of our jobs happen on foreign soil, so you learn to be in dangerous territories. But some battles are losing ones, and you have to know when to fight and when to flee.

Michael lifted his knee, but Bruce blocked it with his hand. The move forced Bruce to release Michael, who pivoted on his heel to kick Bruce. The Dark Knight accepted the blow with his forearm and attacked with his palm as Michael did the same, smacking the heel into each other’s chin. They both rolled with the attack to lessen the blow, and when they faced once another, Michael lifted his head.

“The boy is safe for now. Don’t press your luck.”

“He’s an innocent. Whatever vendetta you have against me has nothing to do with him.”

A gun cocked, and a little over ten feet away, Sam trained his gun barrel at the back of Bruce’s head. “Mr. Wayne, I think rescheduling is the only option you have at the moment. Stay a little longer in Miami, rest on the sandy beaches, enjoy the great Cuban cruis—”

“—and we’ll send you one of those little memos with letters cut out from different magazines,” Michael spurted as he headed toward the door.

Bruce kept his eyes trained on Michael. “I haven’t gone to the media yet, but I have no reservations calling them and the authorities if that’s what it takes.”

“The reason you didn’t go the authorities yet is you didn’t know if Dick Grayson or Robin was kidnapped.”

To his credit, Bruce didn’t flinch or even acknowledge the realization.

“Maybe we should call a joint press conference,” Sam offered as he came to Michael’s side. “We have few documents they’d love to see as well.”

“And the FBI, CIA, NSA…all the norms,” Michael dolled.

Bruce’s eyes never wavered from Michael’s. “I take it you don’t want five million in small, unmarked bills.”

“You must really be the world’s greatest detective. Tell you what.” Michael opened the back door. “Wait for the letter, and then have your people call my people. We’ll do lunch.”

“I want to talk to him.”

Sam laughed nervously. “Yeah, we’re from the spy trade, and we have our own little codes. I can’t image but you and yours—”

As a spy, you learn how to lie. You learn how to fake emotions that you don’t feel, facial expressions, and even make your eyes lie. Those who are good enough, however, like other spies, can tell when you’re faking and when you’re being truthful. It’s a six sense of sorts, and it doesn’t matter if the man is Chuck Finley, mysterious jack-of-all-trades, or the freakin’ Batman.

A scared dad is just a scared dad.

Bruce Wayne

Target’s Guardian

Batman

Scared Dad

Michael hit the speed dial on his phone and put it his ear.

“You have got to be kidding,” Sam whispered. “This could blow the whole—”

“Shh!” Michael hissed, causing Sam to raise his arms in a surrender gesture and take a step back.

“’ello?” a feminine voice replied.

“Fi, put the kid on.”

“What! Michael—”

“Fi!” He sighed. “Please.”

No other words were needed as Michael hit speakerphone.

A younger voice echoed through the silent room. “Hey?”

“Dick.” That one word, spoken with a mixture of relief and fear, tore through Michael’s heart.

“Bruce? Oh my God! Bruce, I’ve tried to tell them you didn’t—”

“Are you all right?”

The coolness in Bruce’s voice instantly calmed the frantic teen. “Yes, sir.”

“They haven’t harmed you?”

“I have a few broken ribs from the first time they grabbed me, but…no. I’m all right.”

Bruce’s face visibly relaxed with the boy’s voice, and it surprised Michael that the man didn’t ask any question of whereabouts. He simply concerned himself with Dick’s safety, and Michael vaguely wondered how many times Bruce had been through this.

The ex-spy hit off the phone and slipped it back in his jacket pocket. “We’ll be in touch, Mr. Wayne.”

Bruce stopped them at the opening of the door. “Mr. Finley, Mr. Kroger, I do not trust people easily, those who kidnap my ward even less. Just so we are clear on terms, know if you hurt that boy any further, there will be no place you could ever hide that I would not find you.”

Sam and Michael exchanged glance before Michael put on his shades. “Understood.”

Once the door shut behind them, Sam let out a sigh. “Borrow the kid? What were you thinking?”

“I bet those were your words, Sam, not mine.”

“Yeah, but you went with it. That makes me ‘with stupid.’”

*^*^*

“So what’s with you and Michael?”

Fiona choked on her yogurt. She hacked violently until the substance finally traveled down her throat, and she took a few deep breathes.

“Excuse me?”

Camped out on the bed, Dick threw down a two of hearts on a three of clubs. “I think you’re way pass the denial phase, don’t you? Or does he still have cooties?”

“I think someone is having yogurt for dinner.” She came about the counter and stood over the teen’s shoulder, cocking her head to the side. “Oh, there is no way you’re winning this game, Love.”

Sighing, Dick counted another three cards and flipped over the last one. “Yeah, I can figure out the pattern of mass murders who dress like rejects of Party City, but I can’t win a simple game of Solitaire.” Disgusted, he threw down his last few cards and began to gather the rest.

Fiona put down her yogurt down on the table behind her and climbed across from Dick, noticing the boy’s own yogurt. Oh, Michael would not like that. They were out.

Sitting down in almost the exact same position, she furled her fingers upward. “Give ‘em.”

Dick shrugged and handed them over. He failed to meet her gaze. “Um…thanks…for last night. I—I really can’t control the nightmares sometimes.”

She snapped the cards’ edges together as they knitted into one pile. “You get nightmares a lot?”

He shrugged again. “Right after my mom and dad…y’know, I got them daily. Used to drive Bruce crazy. If I fell asleep in the Batmobile, he couldn’t leave me alone.”

She began to deal. “He leaves you alone?”

“He normally drives me home by midnight on school nights, but sometimes, he’s the middle of the case and I just fall asleep in the Batmobile when he’s researching,” he said while using air quotes. “Of course, now they just come when this type of stuff happens."

Fury burned in her eyes, but she directed it toward her cards. Not one match. “You’re…You’re nothing more than an asset to him, aren’t you? An employee—”

“Hey, if I was an employee, I’d be getting paid.” Dick scowled at his own cards and put up three fingers. “I don’t even get an allowance as it is, and if I’m nothing more than asset, he would have left me with one of you crazy guys by now.”

Fiona took her own cards and put down her flush. To her surprise, Dick put down his own—a royal of hearts.

“This has happened to you before?”

Dick ripped off the top of his yogurt. “Yeah, ten or twelve times. I’ve lost count. Why?”

Fiona gathered the cards again. “How do we rank on your experiences?”

A smile. “A broken rib or two aside and the Benadryl cocktail, it could be worse.”

“Yeah, how so?”

“You could be making riddles all the time or laughing maniacally or making me eat nothing but yogurt. Oh, wait—”

The front door slammed against the wall, causing Dick to jump and Fiona to whirl with her gun drawn.

Michael entered first, his eyes narrowing at the boy upon his bed. “Perhaps we weren’t clear on the ‘help us, we won’t expose you’ contract we had.”

Cross-legged on Michael’s bed, Dick pulled the spoon from his mouth and swallowed. “You wanted to get into the building. I had to call someone to get you on the list, short of giving you my access card, which would have flagged Bruce even faster. You had to know that Mr. Fox was going to tell Bruce. That’s your fault, not mine.”

Fiona shrugged. That was pretty accurate.

Michael let out a growling sigh. Dealing with this kid was like dealing with Joshua himself. “Okay, so what do we know?”

“Other than nothing more than yesterday,” Sam interjected, grabbing a beer. “Mikey, you saw what I did.”

“Which was?” Fiona prompted.

“Wayne didn’t seem to know us or even know what we were looking for,” Michael relented.

Dick smirked. “Told ya.”

Michael opened his mouth to retort when it opened even further in a gasp. A little red light shone in the middle of Dick’s forehead, and the boy blinked at Michael’s horrified face.

“What?”

Luckily, Fiona was already moving. Before Michael breathed, Fiona tackled Dick, knocking the boy to the ground and pressing his body into the wood. His yogurt splattered across the floor.

“What the—” Dick tried to hit her off, but Fiona was stronger than she looked. “Hey, I’m sorry I took the last yogurt, all right? But that was the only thing in the—”

The shattering glass of Michael’s windows interrupted Dick, and it jolted Michael’s motor functions working. By the time the first black-clad assassins swung into the window, Michael kneed one in the face and swung to shoot another in the shoulder.

“Fi, get Dick out of—ugh!” He accepted a blow in the mid-section, but the assassin suddenly slammed into the wall, writhing in pain.

Sam, holding a shotgun filled with beanbag rounds, took aim at another. “One potato.” Another shot reverberated; another assassin fell to the floor. “Two potato.” Another fallen assassin. “Three potato.”

The window behind Dick and Fiona shattered inward, and Michael sprinted across the floor. “FOUR!”

Sam shot one of the men, knocking him out the window, while Michael engaged one of the three men.

Michael spared a glance toward Dick, who now stood behind Fiona as she engaged two men, muttering that she wished she had some explosives. The boy looked torn, especially when Fiona knocked a gun out of a man’s hand that had been aimed at her. The boy wanted to help, but he wasn’t sure what to do.

That all changed when a gun trained upon him, and the person holding it pulled off his mask—Victor.

VICTOR

Michael’s Handler

Sam growled under his breath, “Oh, not that crazy sonvabitch.”

VICTOR

Michael’s Handler

That Crazy Sonvabitch

“So, Michael, is this one of your desperate little people you shouldn’t be concerning yourself with? Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Oprah can multi-task, not you.”

Dick reached for something in his pocket, but Victor pulled the trigger. Dick immediately snatched his arm and fell to his knees, blood seeping through his fingers.

Anger flowed through Michael’s veins, but even worst, a strange feeling followed. He’d felt it only a few times in his life—when he’d thought Fi had died, when Sam had been compromised and taken by drug dealers, and when his mother received her new coffeemaker.

He was scared.

“Victor, the boy’s a cousin of a cousin, maybe eight times removed. I’m just babysitting until I give him back to his dad. You kill him, and I lose fifteen dollars an hour.”

Gradually, the assassins gathered their footing and aimed their weapons at Michael, Fiona, and Sam.

“Oh, serious green,” Victor snarled and crouched down to tilt Dick’s head up with a finger upon the boy’s chin. He stared at the boy’s facial features for a moment before blinking. “You look…familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?”

“No, but maybe you know my dad.”

A flash of black came through the shattered window behind Dick, boot heels crashing into his face and sprawling the man into metal stairs. As he stood in the darkened apartment, only his outline rose like a vampire rising from the dead.

BATMAN

Dick’s Dad

Though paling, Dick smiled. “Thanks for coming.”

The momentary shock allowed Michael to take out the assassin nearest him, elbowing the man in the face, as Victor wiped his bloodied chin and pushed to his feet. “Whoa. Seen Dracula too many times, big fella?”

Batman glanced backward long enough to meet Dick’s eyes before his own drifted to the blood spilt on the boy’s arm. His eyes narrowed, and Dick squeezed harder down on his wound.

“I’m okay, really,” he murmured.

Michael kicked a third assassin the groin and backhanded him across the face.

It has been said, “An enemy of my enemy is a friend.” At times, that is sound advice. You can work with Russia if you’re putting down Germany, but more times than not, the enemy of an enemy is still just the enemy, and they have issues with each other, too.

Dick’s eyes widened. “Behind you!”

Victor lunged at Batman, wrapping his arms around the Dark Knight’s waist and crashing hard to the ground.

Whirling, Michael sunk a knife deep within an assassin’s shoulder. “Fi! Get the kid out of here!”

After tossing an assassin out a window, Fiona ducked a shot from another, whom Sam took out a second later. She fell to her knees at Dick’s side, her hands lightly taking his shoulders. “Class’s out for today,” she huffed.

Dick tore from her grip. “I’m not leaving Batman.”

“Now isn’t the time for debate.” She tugged and immediately regretted the action when he winced and pushed her off. “Look, be happy you’re not strapped with a bomb or worse, and the CIA knows some real bad boys who would willingly do that to you and him.”

Dick followed her nod toward Batman. The Dark Knight kicked Victor out the window before he accepted and return blows with three more assassins. No doubt he would deal with them easily, but how would he deal in a federal prison?

A beanbag round slammed into an assassin who lunged at Dick and Fiona, and the woman finally jerked him to his feet. Sam laid down suppressive fire as they sprinted—or as best as Dick could—across the apartment and out the door. Michael was on Fiona’s heels, Sam directly behind him.

“Fi, Sam, get Dick somewhere—”

The boy stopped just before the last stair, and Michael’s jaw tightened as he saw Victor’s gun once more trained upon Dick’s forehead.

Blood dribbled from the man’s cheek; his disheveled hair made him appear more insane than usual. A wicked grin dented his features. “You know, it’s going to bother me until I can figure out just where I know you from.”

“Victor—”

“But—” Victor lifted his gun and ruffled Dick’s hair, not caring when the boy flinched. “Tell you what. You come with me, sport, and I leave the kid to your two buddies here.”

Michael squeezed by Fiona to stand in front of Dick, effectively cutting the boy off from Victor. “Why?”

Victor looked sincere for the first time since Michael had known him. “Kids are off-limits.”

“Oh, and shooting him was nothing more than a love-tap?”

“Oh, please. It was a scrape. He could have gotten that playing touch football.”

Another assassin thumped against the ground, and Michael looked at Victor. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. You still get to see the boss. She just might spank you for being naughty.”

Michael threw his keys to Fiona, and even in the darkest of night, she caught them. He ushered Dick into the back seat of his car, Sam next to him.

“Get down,” Sam ordered and laid on top of the kid.

Still, Michael saw the boy looked up as the Charger tore through the front gate, and as Michael left, he repeated the boy’s gaze. Sure enough, the Dark Knight stood in the shattered window, watching helplessly as they left.

To Be Continued…