"You look miserable, sir."
Slamming his head back against the cool leather, Rowan let out a long, guttural groan. "You don't say..."
"Surely you're exaggerating? I remember school being quite tolerable."
"Alfred," Rowan smacked his lips and sat up, voice drier than sandpaper on one's bare ass. "The gremlin next to me offered me his booger today… And when I politely declined his 'good grace,' you know what that Gollum-looking ass did?"
Alfred's mustache twitched. "I dread to ask."
"He smeared it on my shoulder!" Rowan chucked it aside like it was covered in acid and unbuttoned his collar. "Twice, Alfred, twice! I can't even beat him up 'cause he's a kid!"
Rounding the corner, the Batler chuckled. "Perhaps private tutors would be preferable after all?"
"Please ask Bruce… I don't need tutors, I can homeschool myself just fine, just please! Please get me out of that hellhole!!!"
Dragging a hand down his face, Rowan slumped deeper into the seat.
Tired and beaten—not by Gotham's criminal masterminds, but by a day full of shrieking, mucus, and academic torture—he shoved a USB into Alfred's pocket with the demeanor of someone passing off state secrets.
"In it is a three-minute PowerPoint presentation. Charts, graphs, bullet points—the whole pitch on why I shouldn't have to suffer such injustice anymore. Sell it to the 'Boss.' I'm begging you."
Giving the USB a quick pat through his coat, Alfred winked. "I'll be sure to deliver it Master Bruce."
"Tell him it's a matter of my mental health."
Alfred arched a brow in the rearview mirror, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.
"You fought a professional assassin last month… A booger from a hyperactive child's hardly torture, is it?"
Leaning sideways, Rowan deadpanned, "He wiped it on my shoulder, Alfred. That's practically biological warfare… The Geneva Convention states he should be tried by the ICC! (International Criminal Court)"
The car turned off the main road, and the urban sprawl gave way to the structured calm of Gotham's medical district where GothamInstitute of Genetics and Genomes—one of, if not the most reputable local Institute—quickly came into view. Then, the Rolls Royce eased to a halt in front of the Institute. "Do you require my company, Master Rowan?"
"Mmm... No. I'll handle this myself."
Scuffed dress shoes tapping against the pavement, Rowan silently adjusted his button-up using the reflection in the tinted windows. Staring back at him was a boy with short white hair; a lean, wiry frame; grey-tinged olive skin and dark violet eyes which radiated judgment and exhaustion in equal measure.
"How do I look?"
Alfred stepped beside him, brushed an imaginary speck off his shoulder with a smooth flick, then straightened the boy's crooked tie. "Dashing, sir."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence. You look pretty awesome yourself, Pennyworth." Shooting the Batler a sly wink, grin flashing briefly, before dulling as he fixed his posture.
Since his alter ego was an unhinged child vigilante who spent his nights beating the hell out of criminals with a metal stick, Rowan figured the public version of himself ought to look like he'd never even been introduced to the concept of fun, hence the dead stare and scowl Bruce seemed so fond of. "Appreciate the lift, Alfred. Please pick me up in an hour."
"Enjoy yourself, sir. And remember, if anything seems amiss—anything at all—do not hesitate to call."
"I know!"
The doors to the Institute slid open with a sterile hiss, blasting Rowan with a wave of hospital-grade air conditioning and the faint, lingering scent of antiseptic.
He stepped in, posture crisp, expression flat—looking every bit like a miniature CEO scoping out a hostile acquisition.
A few heads turned in his direction as he made a beeline for the front desk, where he was greeted by a middle-aged receptionist with chunky glasses and too-peppy a smile. "… Did you get lost, kid?"
"On the contrary. I have an appointment with Dr. Robert Kirkland Langstrom. Could you check if he's in?"
"You have an appointment? You? Get outta here, brat." With a casual flick of his wrist, Rowan revealed the blazer draped over his arm, specifically the Gotham Academy emblem sewn on its chest, a symbol everyone in the city—be them crooks or kingpins—knew to be the breeding ground for Gotham's future 'elites.'
Actions may speak louder than words, but everyone knew money was more compelling than both.
Tilting his head, Rowan sprawled across the couch arrogantly and ordered, "Give Dr. Kirkland a call for me, will you, Mrs. Ellie?"
"E-Excuse me, could you repeat that?"
"Doctor Robert Kirkland Langstrom—genius geneticist and, if the rumors are true, bat expert. Tell him Jacques Renard would like a word."
The receptionist blinked, squinted, then leaned and repeated.
"Jacques… Renard?"
"Yes," Rowan replied, enunciating like she was dense. "First name Jacques. Last name Renard. Do you need me to spell it out?"
Mrs. Ellie's jaw clicked shut as she turned to her keyboard and tapped away with the kind of passive-aggressive fervor only underpaid desk workers could summon. Somewhere between keystrokes, Rowan caught a mumbled, "Stupid rich kid."
"You said something?"
"No, sir. Kindly take a seat in the waiting area. I'll notify you as soon as Dr. Langstrom gets back to me."
Settling into one of the stiff, over-sanitized chairs in the waiting room, Rowan crossed one leg over the other and began drumming his fingers against the armrest—a steady, irritable rhythm only slightly more polite than if he'd been tapping a knife on glass.
Rowan had just begun to seriously contemplate 'accidentally' toppling the coffee machine as a distraction to sneak past the front desk when the double doors at the far end of the lobby swung open and entered a man in a lab coat, tall and angular, with light brown hair already giving way to premature grey and a pair of wire-framed glasses sitting neatly on the bridge of his nose.
Dr. Langstrom leaned across the reception desk, speaking in hushed tones with Mrs. Ellie.
A few feet away in the waiting area, Rowan put on his best disinterested act and flicked imaginary dirt from his nails, his gaze fixed on anywhere but the desk.
He only looked up when the scientist finally came near. "Jacques Renard?"
Flashing a curious, yet empty smile, Rowan rose and extended a hand. "In the flesh… You must be Kirkland."
"… You're a kid."
"I'm aware. Will that be a problem?"
"I—uhm, no. No, of course not," Langstrom fumbled, clearing his throat as he motioned stiffly toward the door. "Why don't we, uh… Talk in my office?"
He was that desperate.
'Good.' As a filthy capitalist pig, Rowan considered it his moral obligation to exploit this tragically vulnerable, middle-aged man. "Lead the way."
The fluorescent lights of the hallway buzzed like dying insects as Langstrom disappeared further into the Institute, shadowed closely by Rowan who wisely kept his mouth shut while silently cataloging every security guard, cam and exit with casual glances.
"So," Langstrom began, voice strained with forced professionalism, "What exactly brings you to little ol' me, Mr. Renard? Whatever it is you want, surely there are better candidates than me?"
"Don't sell yourself short, Dr. Langstrom."
This was the same guy who invented Cross-Species Genome Compound in his basement.
Sure, the Serum had its… Quirks, but let's be honest, the fact that he even managed to cook up a half functional prototype with barely any funding already put him leagues above the rest of Gotham's scientific community and maybe even ahead of Bruce himself, at least when it came to his own field.
"I'm not—just repeating what's already said behind my back. If you've done your homework, then you probably already know all about my… Less-than-stellar reputation, Mr. Renard."
"In my experience," Rowan started, handing over the vial of blood along with the USB containing all that he and Alfred had managed to learn about the Deathstroke's Serum, "A bad reputation doesn't equal incompetence."
Didn't people doubt Einstein and Isaac Newton too?
"What are these?"
"A passion project of mine. I thought you might be interested."
"And you want me to work on it? Me?"
"I don't want you to—I need you to. You're the only one who can… And the only one who should."
Man-Bat might have ended up as one of Gotham's A-list rogues, but he hadn't started out that way. Hell, depending on the iteration, Rowan would argue the guy could've been a real hero—maybe even a close ally to Batman—if the Serum he cooked up hadn't turned him into a rabid animal.
"That's… A lot of expectations, Mr. Renard."
"Please, call me Jacques." Rowan smirked, strolling into Kirkland's office like he owned the place. "And like I said—don't sell yourself short, Doc. Now… Rumor has it you are in desperate need of funding?"
The scientist coughed awkwardly, hand half-covering his mouth in a weak attempt to salvage his dignity. "I… I've had some trouble securing financial backing, yes. I assume you're offering a solution?"
"I'll make my pitch after you've had a look at the files on that USB."
"Alright…" Sliding into his desk chair, Dr. Kirkland plugged the device into his laptop and opened the folder with a click. Minutes passed in tense silence, broken only by the occasional scroll and thoughtful hum as he sifted through the bloodwork and decrypted formulas. "The blood cells are still alive and thriving even after a month outside the body… How is this possible?"
After another ten minutes, the scientist finally leaned back, looking like he'd aged fifty years in just thirty.
"Mr. Renard, this is a weapon."
There was no other way to put it.
"And so is the Hybridization of Man and Beast, Dr. Kirkland." Rowan shot back, flipping the switch of the 'Useless Machine' next to a framed photo of the Doctor's old research team and watched with idle amusement as the mechanical arm popped out to turn itself right back off.
Kirkland sure knew how to entertain himself.
"My research was never meant to go public. At least not... in its current state." Kirkland's brow furrowed. "How could you possibly know about it? Only—"
"Only Francine is supposed to know?" Rowan cut in slyly, half-lidded gaze meeting Kirkland's widening, astonished eyes as he tilted his head slightly. "She's a wonderful woman, your wife. Truly. I'm jealous."
Kirkland instantly recoiled as if struck, then grabbed the boy by his collar. "Don't you dare bring her into this!"
Thrown off by the sudden reaction, Rowan ran his tongue over his teeth, then quickly adopted the classic Bat-Glare.
"Unhand me, Doctor. Or else."
Realizing the irrationality of his actions, Kirkland quickly released the boy and gently pressed on his temples. "My apologies…"
"It's not entirely your fault." Rowan admitted as he fixed his collar.
In hindsight, while he had only meant to display resourcefulness, he could have definitely phrased it better. "I did come off a little… Threatening. But rest assured, whether you agree or not, no harm will befall you or your spouse—you have my word."
"Words don't mean much."
"Mine do."
"I have to ask: Is this going to be mass-produced for war, or used for any immoral purposes? I don't want to aid criminals or shady governments."
The question didn't surprise Rowan.
Kirkland's fixation on bats had already tarnished his standing in certain circles, but his reputation was equally shaped by a history of defiance against larger entities, specifically by the many crime families in Gotham and even governmental institutions.
"Not at all. With the way the world is changing, my family and I just want to be able to protect ourselves… I'm sure you can get on board with that?"
"And how many people are in your family?" Kirkland scoffed.
'Bruce, Alfred, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd… Helena Wayne…' Mentally tallying up the Bat-Family, Rowan stroked his chin and hesitantly answered. "About twenty people? Give or take."
"That's quite a large family."
"What can I say? I'm French. We multiply like rabbits."
The part-time vigilante paused, then leveled a look at the good Doctor.
"Now, do you want the money or not?"
— [HELLBRED] —
"Six months… Six months was the span of time Kirkland claimed it would take for him to recreate the Serum, although I suppose 'recreate' is rather incorrect.
A drop of blood, even if it's alive, still wasn't much for the Doctor to work with, so he instead proposed to add his own 'tweaks.'
For example: The Bonding Agents which allowed the DNA of the vampire bat to be seamlessly integrated into a human body and, as I now understand, temporarily alter the Gene-Expression—Kirkland's magnum opus.
The reason Kirkland turned into a giant bat was because he specifically designed the Agents to work optimally with the species. However, with a few minor tweaks, it would work for any human, animal, and even Serum, drastically reducing the fatality rate compared to the Original 'Uncle Sam' shot up Wilson's veins.
But of course, compatibility was just one aspect to the Serum. There are many more, take for instance the now-proven accelerated growth which the good Doctor had predicted and warned me about.
Why does this happen?
How does it work?
Wasn't Deathstroke's aging slowed in the comics?
Excellent questions, everyone!
Allow me to clarify: See, the human body operates on a meticulously structured developmental timeline. Childhood, puberty, adolescence, and adulthood all represent sequential phases within a system designed for gradual, stable maturation.
Kirkland's Serum disrupts this natural progression.
It accelerates cellular division, saturates the subject's physiology with growth hormones, and compresses two decades of development into a fraction of the time.
Conventional logic would suggest such rapid advancement precipitates premature aging, however! Aging is not an inherent biological inevitability. In fact, if you inspect your genome this instant, I guarantee you will find no gene that encodes aging, because aging is not a programmed biological process, but is rather the inevitable consequence of CellularEntropy.
DNA degrades.
Proteins misfold.
Metabolic waste accumulates and slowly, but surely begins to outpace even the body's capacity for repair.
And so, with each successive division, your cellular integrity deteriorates, causing you to get uglier, wrinklier and ever closer to death.
The Serum counteracts this decline by enhancing DNA repair mechanisms, stabilizing telomeres, optimizing cellular maintenance processes, and thus enabling the body to mitigate damage faster than it accrues. Pretty fascinating, right?
It's not without its issues, obviously.
The risk of cancer's the big one.
Pretty sure that's why nearly every test subject before Slade Wilson ended up dead.
Their bodies likely just gave out, hemorrhaging while tumors bloomed like weeds on their corpses.
And then there's the insane metabolic hunger during the early phases, not to mention the emotional and cognitive underdevelopment that, in itself, is a whole ethical minefield!
Luckily, none of those was really a problem for yours truly as a meta-aware Reincarnator. I mean, getting cancer would've been a hell of a buzzkill, but I'm still breathing, aren't I?
Once we'd hammered out all the requirements—expectations, work ethic, nonnegotiables for the final product—it was finally Kirkland's turn to turn the table.
He requested a million up front to outfit his 'private lab' (Read: Glorified basement), then another $50K per month as an emergency fund, plus a $10K salary.
Honestly?
That was a damn steal if you've ever seen how much the Department of Defense throws around for inferior products.
Hell, Bruce and I were both expecting far higher numbers, but it seemed with the recent boom in alien tech and borderline sci-fi gadgets flooding the market, cutting-edge materials had gotten surprisingly cheap. And since we were just reverse-engineering and tweaking an existing Serum instead of making one from scratch, the costs were a lot more manageable.
It probably helped that I was only footing the bill for Kirkland and not an entire research team.
The negotiation ended as all good Gotham deals do: With a handshake that meant nothing and everything.
No contracts, no witnesses, just two men and the unspoken promise of mutual destruction if either betrayed the other.
My kind of arrangement.
Now, I wish I could say I wrapped up the day happy and hopeful, but this was Gotham.
The second you feel even a flicker of happiness, you can bet your ass something's lurking around the corner to wreck it. In my case, that 'something' turned out to be an old acquaintance—someone I hadn't crossed paths with since my days as a street rat.
Someone whom I was all too happy to put six feet under."
—[HELLBRED] —
"—Apology, sir, but I'll be 30 minutes late."
Rowan rolled his eyes skyward where the smog had already swallowed the last traces of sunset and asked. "Traffic?"
A weary sigh traveled through the receiver.
"—Traffic…"
That one word seemed to carry the weight of all the overturned trucks and flipped cars in Gotham.
Kicking a pebble across the sidewalk, Rowan watched it skitter into a storm drain and offered. "Eh, why don't you head home first, Alfred? I think I'll walk today—"
"—Absolutely not." The refusal was instant and as crisp as freshly starched linen.
"Alfred, need I remind you you're pushing 70? Making an old man wait in traffic reflects badly on me."
Dry as ever, the Batler fired back, "—Need I remind you, Master Rowan, that this 'old man' is more than capable of making your dinners taste like dishwater for the foreseeable future? Letting a child roam Gotham unsupervised reflects terribly on me."
"How dare you use my Spells against me, Pottah!" Rowan joked, laughed and added. "I'm being serious, Alfred. Go home, take a nap. You put up with my shit daily—you have earned it. Besides, I'm—"
Lowering his voice, the part-time vigilante whispered. "Robin, remember? If someone wants to try, I say let 'em."
"—You're without your armor and gadgets, sir."
"You really think I'm gonna lose to a couple of street thugs?" Rowan sighed.
Was he that terrible of a Robin?
He couldn't remember Alfred ever being this... Opposed to Bruce's other sidekicks.
"—No, I think you're going to get shot at without a scrap of kevlar on you, Master Rowan! And maybe I am old-fashioned, but I'm quite certain that's still detrimental to one's health."
"Alfred, I was a street urchin for half a decade, I'll be fine."
"—You can't play the sympathy card on me again, sir."
"I'm not trying to. I—" The wind shifted, guiding the stench of cheap cigars and cloying, rancid cologne up the part-time vigilante's nose. The words died on the tip of Rowan's tongue as he then caught sight of a familiar silhouette in the crowd… Familiar in a way that made his stomach twist with rage.
Rowan had hoped he was mistaken, but that was him, alright.
No doubt about it. "I'll have to call you back, Alfred."
It really was a small world.
"—Sir? Is something the mat—"
Ending the call without another word and shoving his phone back in his pocket, Rowan silently slipped into the crowd like a shadow, but as calm as his expression and as sharp as his movements, the vigilante's clenched fists and set jaw betrayed his inner-turmoil. Every step that silhouette took sent a spike of heat and hate through Rowan's veins in a way no Supervillain ever had.
Of course it did…
The cape-n'-cowl stuff was business.
This was personal. "Reuben…!"
There were countless types of sins committed in Gotham, from petty thefts under the neon glow of the East End to grand heists in the marbled halls of the financial district, and the horrors whispered about in the asylums where the worst of humanity festered.
Some crimes were small, barely making a ripple in the city's dark waters.
Others were tidal waves, leaving scars that never truly healed.
And then there were the monsters.
Some wore masks, others wore smiles.
There were killers who carved their names into history with blades and bullets; madmen who turned the night into their personal carnival of terror.
And then there was ReubenHatch, or Uncle Grin as he was once known prior to his 'death,' which—clearly—had been greatly exaggerated.
He looked the same as he did five years ago—like the kind of man you'd pass on the street without a second glance—a middle-aged, salt-and-pepper everyman with the weary slump of someone who'd worked too many years for too little thanks.
His face was broad and lined, the kind of wrinkles that came from squinting under bad lighting or frowning at unpaid bills.
The only thing that might've made a stranger pause was his smile—not because it was cruel, but because it was easy, practiced.
The kind of smile that made you think, 'Oh, he's friendly,' right up until you realized it never reached his eyes.
Rowan had half-a-mind to drop the bastard from the tallest skyscraper in Gotham and listen for the crunch when he hit pavement. But knowing him, the criminal probably had a couple of kids rotting away in his rented dump, and therein lay the problem.
Rowan might be angry; he might even wish the most violent demise upon the common criminal, but as Bruce had drilled into his head over and over again: Their first priority should always be the safety of civilians.
Rowan wasn't about to spit on his mentor's teaching.
Beside, vengeance could wait…
Revenge was a dish best served cold after all.
Following at a distance, Rowan watched as the monster ducked into La Morte Rossa, a pretentious Italian joint with red velvet curtains and fifty-cents worth of gold flakes on every dish. Through the window, he saw Reuben lean across the counter, and flash a grin that made Rowan's knuckles ache.
Ten minutes passed,
Then twenty,
And just when Rowan's patience was starting to wear well and truly thin, Reuben finally emerged, swinging a takeout bag like he hadn't a care in the world… Like he hadn't adopted Gotham's orphans just to force them to beg on the streets, and then maim or kill them when their cut came up short…
Like he wasn't the mastermind behind his admittedly small-time human trafficking ring…
Like he hadn't left Rowan for dead after beating the brakes off him when he was just five…
The vigilante was still one of the lucky ones.
The others were probably rotting in a ditch somewhere; or had been deliberately disfigured to increase the sympathy and, subsequently, donations from Gotham's bleeding hearts; or worse: Corrupted by the man…
The only line Reuben never crossed was touching the kids inappropriately, but let's be honest, that wasn't exactly a high bar to begin with.
Gnashing his teeth, Rowan had to count his fortune when the criminal finally came to a halt at the mouth of an alley lined by weedy chain link. Pushing into a fence gate, Reuben cast a glance up and down the street, before entering and closing the gate behind him, still unaware of his new 'stalker' who was already preparing for his takedown.
Alfred was usually right, but he was wrong about one thing, that being assuming 'Robin' had gone out unequipped.
True, Rowan didn't have his suit or utility belt, but he did have a year's worth of training, several fear-pellets stashed in his pocket, and three collapsible Batarangs. More than enough to handle a lowly criminal.
Somersaulting over the fence, Rowan climbed up a rusty pipe and peered inside. At the end of the hall, behind a door marked STAFF ONLY, Reuben dropped his keys on a plastic folding table, then rested his feet on the battered safe beneath as he counted the bills and whistled a broken tune that still featured in Rowan's nightmares at times.
He'd seen enough.
It was time to act.