Batman and Her Daughters, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

First Meetings (Clara Kent, Rickie Grayson, & Batman) [rough draft]

'Welp, it's official: Lex Luthor is a crazy egomaniac.' Clara Kent sighs as the elevator doors close behind her interviewee even before the obligatory "Thank you for your time" finishes leaving her lips. The call button then refuses to work, meaning that Clara has to figure out a different way to get off this floor.

It happens to be the same floor where the daycare center is located. Casting a rueful look at the decorated window behind which a large group of children are busily playing, Clara picks a direction at random and starts heading down the corridor.

"There's something weird about you."

Clara freezes instinctively for a moment, then forces herself to relax and turn around. One of the children is outside the playroom, leaning against the wall as she scrutinizes the reporter. She's a pretty child, with cute clips in her long black hair and casual yet well-fitting, expensive clothes. Her eyes are a brilliant blue, and her gaze is sharp and assessing.

"What do you mean?" Clara asks.

"Something about your walk. Your posture. You're five-foot-eight, one-thirty-"

Clara is shocked at the accuracy, particularly coming from a kid who's simply eyeballing her and can't be older than eight years old.

"-but you walk like you're bigger than that."

Clara is pretty sure the kid is not talking about her weight. "Uh...I-" Then she suddenly realizes why the child looks familiar, finally connects the face to photographs and headlines. "Wait. You're Riccarda Grayson."

"Rickie," the girl corrects warily. "How did you know?"

Oops. "Your Lexcorp I.D. was sticking out of your pocket."

"No, it wasn't," Rickie asserts correctly without checking.

"Yes, it was," Clara says anyway.

Instead of growing uncertain, Rickie tilts her head consideringly. "You're interested in me now that you know who I am. You're a reporter?"

"That's right," Clara affirms, fixing her press badge so that it faces outward again. "You up for an interview?" This is a very unexpected golden opportunity. Bryce Wayne has been very protective of her new ward and very strict about what is allowed into the media. If Clara is successful in snagging an interview, it will be the first one Rickie's given.

"Hmm. Let's say, if you can tell me what else is in my pockets. If you can't, then no."

Clara hides her smile. "Sounds good to me." She uses her enhanced senses to detect the smells of various kinds of paper, rubber, and metal; the shapes of various dense items; the particular crinkles and clinks of each object. Educated guesses fill in the blanks.

Meanwhile, Rickie is assessing the reporter, doing her best to remember all of Bryce's detective lessons and figure out things from the clues. Batman won't let her out at night unless she can master this part of the job as well as the fighting. 'Her hair's a little uneven and her clothes are nice but well-worn, so she probably doesn't have a whole lot of money. Bet she cuts her own hair.' Rickie ignores a bittersweet pang as she remembers her old home, the way her parents would cut her hair and find every way they could to save money.

'She's windswept; maybe she was the one in Luthor's helicopter earlier. She didn't look like she knew her way around when I saw her; probably lost, maybe even snooping. Midwest American accent...' Rickie racks her brain, trying to remember enough to narrow it down. 'Kansas...central Kansas. Still strong, so she's probably new to the city. Something's off about her glasses. Maybe they're not real; part of a disguise? There's a bulge in her pocket, and I can see a red spot of light...darn it, she's probably recording all this right now.'

Oblivious to the analysis, Clara begins to list, "A bouncy ball; a flyer and some ticket stubs; your wallet, phone, and a house key; some string; a pen, pencil, marker, and notepad; a set of miniature tools; a mirror and something plastic that's about the same size; gum; Band-Aids; tissues; some kind of snack or candy bar; and a pocket knife that I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to have." She smiles at the girl's wide-eyed surprise.

Then Rickie glares and says suspiciously, "You cheated. I don't know how, but you cheated."

"I guessed right, then?"

"Hmph."

To make it up to her, Clara treats the girl to pizza at a nearby arcade, so they can at least hold their interview in a child's standard of comfort. Rickie is excited as soon as the arcade is in sight, and proclaims as she bites into her first slice of pizza that someone named Alba only lets her have it on special occasions.

"Who's Alba?" Clara asks as she picks up her own first slice.

"The butler. And she's kind of the boss, too."

Clara chuckles, imagining a longsuffering, professional woman trying to keep her flaky employer under control while also seeing to the needs of a new child under their care. "Do you like her?"

"Oh, yeah! She's like the grandma I never had. Sometimes she's the only one around to talk to, too; Bryce sleeps a lot... Because she parties all night, you know. It was worse when I first came because Bryce barely talked to me at all, but then it got better and now she takes me to games and shows and stuff. I still get bored, though! The manor's huuuuuuge, and it's just me and Bryce and Alba, and I really want to go to real school because I never went before and there's lots of other kids there, but Bryce and Alba say I have to get to 'grade level' before I can go. I have to do schoolwork every day. I like Alba better than the tutor we had at the circus, though. And she knows literature better than Dad did, but Dad was better at math and he used to teach me, Bryce says I'm already grade level at math. It's literature and history I still suck at. Science is the biggest one, though; we do that aaaalll the time, even when we're not doing school."

Clara feels genuine affection for the child as she listens to the easy rambling. "So you like living with Bryce?"

"Yup. She's really cool when she finally started paying attention to me. She never had kids, you know, so she didn't know you're supposed to play with your kids, but now she does, so we do stuff together. Sometimes even when she's really busy, because you know she owns a company, she'll bring her work into the schoolroom and we'll do our work together, or she'll work in the living room with me when we watch TV. It's like still being together even when we're not doing stuff together, you know? And she gives good hugs. I had to teach her because she didn't know how to do that right, either, but she's all big and solid and sort of wraps around you and makes you feel safe, and she likes me more now so she's not all stiff and weird anymore. Sometimes she calls me 'sweetheart,' I like it when she does that."

Clara is very curious, since none of this sounds like what she expected from airheaded heiress Bryssie Wayne. "I'm glad to hear that she loves you and is doing her best. Everyone thought it was odd that she'd adopt a child while still single."

"She didn't mean to, but she says I remind her of herself."

Clara can see why, though it's still not clear why Bryce went so far as to take the child into her own home rather than simply setting up a trust fund or something. "How do you like Gotham itself?"

"It's crazy! I've been all over the world, lady, and I'm telling you, there's no place like Gotham - in a bad way!"

"Lots of unsavory types running around there," Clara agrees. "The Falcones and Maronis, that Oswald Cobblepot fellow, the Batman..."

Rickie gives a bark of laughter at the last one.

"What do you think, real or not real?"

"Even if he wasn't," Rickie says through a mouthful of pizza, "Gotham's so crazy, I bet someone'll dress up like a bat and go out to punch bad guys just because they heard a rumor that someone else was doing it." She swallows. " 'S dangerous, though. Someone who doesn't know how to fight right and doesn't have good enough armor...they can get really hurt."

"I heard something about that recently - guy got arrested for property damage, right along with the thieves he was stopping. He was hospitalized for severe injuries. He claimed to be Batman, right?"

"That guy was definitely fake. If there is a real Batman, he wouldn't get caught."

"Too cool for that, huh."

"Too well-trained. You can't go jumping around on rooftops without training."

"Like circus training?" Clara suggests with a grin.

Rickie grins back. "You think I could be Batman someday? Or Batwoman, whatever."

"I think you can be whatever you want to be."

"Not Batman, for sure. He's doing it wrong, you know. All the 'I am Vengeance, I am the Night, pee your pants in terror at the sight of my pointy ears and giant cape' stuff-"

Clara is trying hard to hold back laughter at the girl's enthusiastic impression.

"-all that, I mean...it sometimes works, but not always. They did studies, you know, on dogs, and not all of them respond to fear. Sometimes it just makes them meaner instead of wanting to do the right thing. There's gotta be more of a balance, you know?"

"A balance..."

"Yeah. Darkness needs light, fear needs hope. Just..." She fiddles with her napkin. "Just something I was thinking about."

"I think it's a very good thought."

Afterward, once Clara has seen Rickie safely back to the Lexcorp building, she doublechecks her recordings and then starts dancing in triumph. Interview with Olivia Queen, interview with Lex Luthor, interview with Riccarda Grayson, she is on a roll today. She can't wait to get back to her computer and start writing.

Night has fallen, and she's so deep into revisions that she doesn't register the sound of a second heartbeat in the room. A sharply gloved hand seizes the back of her head and smashes her face into the keyboard. Clara's first, disoriented thought is dismay about her damaged glasses.

"Who are you?" a gravelly voice demands. "Why is your birth certificate a forgery? How did you defeat Deathstroke on Bryce Wayne's yacht? What do you want with Riccarda Grayson?" The questions pour out, and Clara starts to wonder if she's imagining the panic mixing with the fury in her attacker's voice. If she were an ordinary woman, she'd be helpless and terrified, pinned facedown by a powerful, angry assailant like this.

However, Clara is not an ordinary woman, and now she's angry, too. This joker thought he could get away with invading her home, interrupting her work, breaking a computer that she cannot afford to replace, dammit; demanding information on her sources as if Clara would ever do anything to put an innocent woman and child in danger...

Effortlessly, Clara rises to her feet and turns, which breaks the grip of a figure who, judging by the quality of the suit and equipment, is probably the real Batman ('So he does exist,' Clara thinks absently). She seizes the masked man by the throat and slams him against the wall as easily as if he's a doll. "Just. What the heck," she says flatly.

Now the Dark Knight really is panicking, though in a controlled way. When writhing and some weird fancy moves fail to break Clara's hold, he reaches for his belt and then sprays something in her face. Knockout gas, possibly, but it simply feels like being sprayed in the face with water, and Clara barely blinks. "You really are- Why a bat?"

This time, it's a flare of electricity from a small device on the glove, which tickles slightly.

"I thought maybe you were just going for a generically scary look and the newspapers came up with the bat thing," Clara continues, "but you've got an actual bat logo on your chest."

A small bomb goes off in her face, but Clara just blinks a few times and re-focuses. Impatiently, she seizes the cowl and rips it away to reveal...a woman's face.

A recognizable woman's face.

"Wh...What are you?" the woman murmurs in disbelief.

"I'm trying to decide which headline is best: 'Batman Is Real,' 'Batman Is A Woman,' or 'Batman Is Bryce Wayne.' "

The flash bomb is what works, completely blinding Clara and startling her into loosening her grip. The Bat is immediately gone, and Clara's groping hand, the one not filled with a Bat cape, grasps on empty air. Then she suddenly remembers something more pressing than an escaped captive she wouldn't know what to do with, anyway. Luckily, her recording device with its precious interviews is intact. She'll have to re-write the article, which is a pain, but the source material is safe.

'...I just got attacked by Batman. Batwoman,' she thinks, and fights the urge to laugh. She looks down thoughtfully at the cape, then tries it on, with the poor torn cowl hanging down her back. She looks pretty silly in the mirror, but when she goes up to the roof and starts to fly over the city, feeling the fabric spreading out and flapping around her...it feels good. It feels cool.

It feels right.