Origin Story

The hatchback squeaked as Batman pulled up to the drive-thru menu.

“What do you want?”

“Ummmmm—”

The speaker whined. “WelcometoMcDonald’s. WhatcanIgetyou?”

“Just a second, please.” Batman removed the black gloves from his hands. Massaged his fingers. “Robin?”

“I’m thinking,” the boy said. The seatbelt clicked when Robin unfastened it, and he crawled across the console. Batman sunk back into the headrest as the boy stretched and stuck his nose out the rolled down window. The menu glowed against the plastic of his domino mask. “What’re you getting?”

“I’m not getting anything.”

“You’re not?”

“I ate earlier.”

“You should get something.” The mask was slipping down his nose. It was too big for him. “My dad always gets something and then makes me promise not to tell my mom.”

“I don’t eat this kind of food.”

The boy crawled back over the console and returned to the box crate on the passenger seat. “What do you eat?”

Batman sighed. “Not this.”

The speaker squealed again. The same voice said, “WelcometoMcDonald’s. WhatcanIgetyou?”

Batman looked at the boy.

“I eat cows,” Robin said.

“Cows?”

“Yeah.” He adjusted the mask and reached down into his backpack. He pulled out a notebook and a pen. “My mom says hamburgers are cows.”

“Three hamburgers. And a fry.”

“Youwantcheeseonthat?”

Batman turned to Robin. The boy nodded. “And a toy.”

“Yes. And a toy,” Batman repeated to the speaker.

A pause. “The toy only comes with a happy meal, sir.”

“Then I’ll take the happy meal.”

“Theburgerhappymealorthenuggethappymeal?”

“The burger happy meal.”

“We’reoutoftheburgerhappymealsir.”

Batman flexed his hands on the steering wheel. “But you have burgers?”

“Yessir.”

“So you’re out of the toy?”

“Nowehavethetoy.”

The steering wheel groaned under his hands. “I don’t understand.”

“Wedon’thavethepattysizethatgoeswith—sir!”

Batman pulled through the drive-thru and up to the window. A pimpled teen in red polyester rolled back the sliding glass. “Sir, I haven’t given you your total yet!”

Batman leaned out the car window, the cashier’s pupils dilating as they locked eyes. “You will give me fries and three cheeseburgers.”

“I will give you fries and three cheeseburgers.”

“And the toy.”

“And the toy.”

“And you will give me a free milkshake—”

“Chocolate,” Robin added.

“—a free chocolate milkshake for my trouble.”

“For your trouble,” the cashier nodded, accepting the bills in Batman’s outstretched hand.

The window closed between them, and Batman eyed the steering wheel. The rubber was cracked and crushed where his hands had squeezed it. A pen poked his shoulder. “What?”

Robin had his notebook open in his lap. His gap-toothed smile filled his whole face as he pointed to the steering wheel. “What else can you do?”

————————————————

Earlier

Robin Vale had been eating blueberry ice cream when he realized his parents were missing.

They went missing often: at the Washington Monument and Nordstroms and the Smithsonian. Parents were like that. They were easily distracted.

In front of him, the cornstalks leaned in the wind. The afternoon sky rolled and grayed. Robin sat down in the grass; he was still deciding if he liked blueberry ice cream.

He started the timer on his Batman watch.

He would wait here for fifteen minutes. If his parents hadn’t found him by then, he would look for an old woman or a young woman with a nametag. In the meantime, he pulled his notebook out of his backpack and licked more ice cream off his cone.

Blueberry picking had been his mom’s idea. One hour in DC traffic and two hours of winding Virginia roads to a farm with four stars drawn on a whiteboard outside its entrance. He checked over the time tallies in his notes:

Mom’s Quality Time Chart by Robin Vale

Time spent calling communications director Greg: 47 minutes.

Time spent complaining about news editors: 1 hour and 4 minutes.

Time spent emailing/texting: 2 hours and 39 minutes.

Time spent picking berries: 7 minutes.

Before Robin had filled half his basket, she’d returned to the car for her charger. She hadn’t come back.

Maybe his father had gone to check on her. Or maybe the muses had taken him. Demanded he sketch a cornstalk. Or a scarecrow. Or a scared crow.

The muses were always taking Robin’s father away. Sometimes they took him so quickly he left his glasses in the refrigerator or the car running in the driveway. Somedays all he had time to eat before they stole him were handfuls of cereal straight from the box.

Robin liked his father better when the muses gave him back. On those days, he picked him up from the bus stop. He bought him comics. He shared his cereal.

His dad had been the one to suggest getting ice cream. He’d told Robin it was artisanal and then had to explain what artisanal meant.

Notes by Robin Vale

Artisanal: a good or weird thing made by hand or using cool tools

The definition looked lonely under his notes for next week’s science presentation.

He’d wanted to do his report on Batman, but Mrs. Jamison had refused. Batman, she said, wasn’t a carnivorous predator; he didn’t count. Robin had pointed out that Batman ate meat. He hunted prey. His prey were just criminals.

“A fictional character,” Mrs. Jamison had said, “cannot be the subject of your animal report.”

So Robin had chosen the next best thing:

Facts about Vampire Bats by Robin Vale

• Carnivores
• Can fly and crawl
• Advanced hearing
• Hunt at night
• Drink blood
• Inspired the greatest superhero of all time

As he reviewed his notes, Robin licked at the ice cream dripping down his fingers. After much testing, he’d decided blueberry was a good flavor.

If his mother were here, she would have already wiped the mess away with a napkin. If his father were here, he would have been licking ice cream off his own hand. Robin’s mother would have frowned.

Thunder rumbled and Robin shoved the rest of his cone in his mouth all at once. He stuffed his notebook into his bag, next to a Dark Knight comic.

The waves of corn were tall and Robin was alone. But that was okay. Robin was usually alone. The trick was to pretend he wasn’t.

He walked along the dirt path that bordered the cornfields. On his left, he passed an orchard. The corn all looked the same but he remembered these trees and how they smelled sweet.

The first drop of rain landed cold on his cheek. The skies burst like the fat blueberries he’d picked earlier that afternoon.

Robin darted toward the trees. He slipped and slid, pushing water out of his eyes and his drenched hair off his forehead.

He hit something solid and fell backwards into the muddy grass.

Lightning flashed.

By that light, he saw a man.

Lightning flashed again.

There were two men actually. And a woman backed against a tree. Fingers held over her mouth. Water soaking her clothes.

She struggled and got her mouth free. She screamed and the man slapped her, pressed against her. The other man, the one whose side he’d run into, was looking back at Robin. He reached into his pocket. Sharp silver flashed in the lightning.

Robin’s heart thrummed against his rib cage. He knew this man. His father had tipped him when they returned their blueberry baskets. Now he tipped his knife in Robin’s direction.

His light-up sneakers blinked as they slicked against the mud. His fingers sunk into the wet grass. He tried to yell.

His watch beeped instead. His fifteen minutes were up.

The man took a step toward Robin, and the woman gasped at the edges of another yell.

Lightning flashed. Robin stopped breathing.

There between him and them stood Batman.

————————————————

Earlier

Batman watched the wallet burn to dust, the plastic cards gloss and marble and blacken. He hadn’t read them. He never did.

He added receipts to the fire, wrappers. Pocketed the cash.

He stood. His chest was damp from the creek and his black turtleneck absorbed the water as he shrugged it on. He shivered.

The buzzing in his fingertips stopped just as he pulled on his coat. He sighed, relieved. Highs were what they were because you lost control. But losing control for too long, especially at this stage, had never worked out for him.

He had already dumped the bodies in the river. Burnt their clothes and his. He reviewed what was left—car keys, cellphone, lipstick, class ring, watch—and chose the last, snapping it around his wrist.

He hated it, the collecting. It made him feel like a serial killer on a TV special.

He tossed the lipstick and the ring. He crushed the cellphone in his palm before he fed bits of it to the water like breadcrumbs.

Then he left.

His bag was much lighter without the change of clothes and the plastic he had used to wrap the bodies. He tossed the car keys in his gloved hand. He would drive the car south and leave it in a ditch. Then he’d make the trip back to DC on foot. This last kill had been good, young. He was strong enough, he was sure, to make it to the board meeting in the morning.

The first of the rain fell as he hopped the fence bordering the farm. That was lucky. The water would wash away any of the blood he’d missed. The drops tap-tap-tapped on his coat and he pulled up the collar.

Someone screamed.

It was too soon after he’d hunted, and the buzzing in his fingertips started again. His body wound tight, shoulders taunt, jaw clenched. He needed to leave, needed to distance himself from that clearing in the woods as soon as possible.

A single step brought him just outside the grove of trees where the rain and thunder were muffling a cluster of heartbeats. He sniffed the air. Apple and sweat and rain and fear.

He took the domino mask out of his bag and snapped the elastic band around his head before he took another single step.

There was a second of shock when he appeared, enough for him to see the woman, the men, the knife. “Two against one?”

The man with the knife lunged, jabbing at Batman’s abdomen like a child trying to stick a straw in a juice box. The wounds healed themselves but not fast enough to stop fresh blood from soaking into Batman’s black slacks. “What a waste,” he said.

The man staggered backward, his switchblade dropping into the grass. “Jesus Christ.”

“‘Fraid not.” Batman dropped his bag, removed his trench coat, and hung it over a tree branch. Then he walked up to the man, grabbed his arm, and twisted.

Pop!

The man screamed and sank to the ground.

The other man pulled a gun from his pants, pressing it to the girl’s temple. She screamed and Batman had to cover his ears.

“Don’t come any closer,” the man said. “I’ll—”

Batman took a single step and appeared behind the man. He grabbed his face in both hands and twisted.

Crack!

The man crumpled to the ground with his gun. The first man had found his knife again and lunged.

Batman stepped in front of the woman and the knife sliced through his shoulder. He swung the man into another tree and snapped his neck.

“You—you,” the woman behind him was stammering, and Batman grabbed her by the wrists. “Stop,” he said.

Her mouth snapped shut and they locked eyes.

“You will forget everything about this,” he said. Fuzzy warmth buzzed between his eyebrows. He couldn’t hear her heart over the rain, but she stopped shaking as her pupils dilated. “You will forget and go.”

“I will forget everything about this and go.”

He nodded, releasing her, and she walked calmly out into the rain.

That left him to clean.

The grove was convenient. No cameras, no witnesses. He didn’t have the time or the tools to dispose of the bodies. The farm would close soon. He would have to rely on the rain and hope that no one would find them until morning when he would be long gone.

“Batman?”

————————————————

Later

“Could you lift a car over your head? With your bare hands?”

“I haven’t tried.”

“But could you?”

“Maybe.”

Robin wrote that down. “Can you fly?”

“No.”

Another note. “Do you save people a lot? Like you saved me?”

“I was trying to save the woman. But yes.”

“Because you’re a superhero?”

Silence. Then, “Because I have to.”

Robin didn’t write that down. Instead, he ate a fry. “Why?”

“It makes things even.”

————————————————

Earlier

Robin had never heard grown men scream. Not in real life.

They were lying face down in the mud, black lumps made fuzzy by the rain. Robin was pretty sure they were dead. What he didn’t understand was why they still scared him and the man who had made them scream didn’t.

He was taller than Robin’s father, slim, dressed in all black. He’d hung his cape on a tree branch and was shrugging it back on. It billowed out in the wind. His mask didn’t have pointed ears but it was definitely a superhero’s mask.

“Batman?”

Batman swiveled around. Robin stared at him. He stared back. He took a single step toward the cornfield and disappeared.

Robin jumped up. He needed to find his parents. He needed to tell them about the men lying in the mud and the woman who forgot everything and the man who made her forget. But he didn’t. Instead, he ran to the cornfield.

The rain was coming down in thick sheets, and his sneakers squelched in the wet grass. Flat corn leaves smacked his face as he ran. He tumbled out into one of the manmade dirt paths, landing hard on his knees. The rain had turned it slick and slippery with mud, and Robin felt like a fish at the clay bottom of a creek, water plinking off his eyelashes and rolling down his nose.

He took big gaspy breaths, bubbles of air in the water, shivering in his soaked clothes.

The tears came slowly and then all at once, drops that slid down his face and dripped off his chin with the rain. He cried for his parents, who were probably scared without him. He cried for the woman and cried because of the men. He cried until his throat hurt and his eyes burned.

Something warm and wooly settled over his head, blocking out the water. Robin grabbed the edges of it. It was Batman’s cape.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” The voice was quiet and smooth, nothing like the gravely one Batman used on TV.

Robin looked up and around but the walkway was empty. “Where are you?”

The corn stalks across from him parted. The man stepped forward but kept the dirt path between them. He was still wearing his mask.

“Where are your parents?”

“I don’t know.” Robin tried very hard not to let his voice tremble.

Batman held out his hand. “Let’s go find them.”

————————————————

Facts about Vampires Bats by Robin Vale

• Vampires do not like to talk about certain things, like where they were born and when, and how they became vampires. Probably because they have tragic backstories like most superheroes do.
• Vampires will say they don’t like capes, but this is a lie. Mine wears a long black one called a trench coat, even in the car.
• Vampires wear masks when they fight so no one can find out who they really are. My vampire let me wear his mask. It’s not comfortable.
• Vampires are always cold, even in the summer, and they’ll insist on keeping the heat on in the car.
• Vampires cannot turn into bats. But they don’t mind them.
• Vampires can control people with their eyes. Sometimes it doesn’t work on kids. It doesn’t work on me.
• Vampires will say this doesn’t bother them. It does.

————————————————

Earlier

“What about them?” Batman pointed to another couple under the wood pavilion. The rain had lightened to a drizzle, so Robin could make out their faces. But that wasn’t necessary. The man’s head was full of hair. Robin’s father was bald.

“That’s not them either.” He looked up at Batman. “Maybe they’re waiting in the car?”

“Maybe.” Batman frowned. He’d taken his mask and gloves off when they left the cornfield. Now they just looked like regular people, trying to stay out of the rain.

Robin knew it was weird, parents waiting in a car while their son was lost on a farm. But the only alternative was that they had left without him. And that was worse.

Batman led him around the pavilion and to the parking lot. His parents’ car was there, shiny with the rain. It was powered off, empty.

“Maybe they went to the police already?”

Batman grunted. He let go of Robin’s hand to slide his gloves back on. He pointed to Robin’s backpack. “Don’t you have a phone in there?”

“I’m eleven.” That sounded so much better than ten. And in two months, it would be true.

“So?”

“My mom says I have to wait until I’m twelve,” Robin said. “What about you?”

“I don’t have a phone right now.”

“But you’re an adult.” Robin couldn’t imagine an adult without a cellphone. He was pretty sure his mom would die without hers.

“Phones can be tracked,” Batman said. “And I can’t be caught by authorities.”

Robin nodded sagely. “Because you’re a vigilante.”

“Vigilante is a big word for a ten year old.”

“Eleven,” Robin said. “And my mom says I’m precocious.”

“Yeah? And what does that mean?”

“It means I’m smart for my age.”

Batman considered him. His eyes were blue, the same color as Robin’s and his mom’s. “Do you know their number?”

“My mom’s is 202-687-0939. My dad’s is 202-765-2239. My address is 5407 Central Ave SE, Washington, DC 20013.”

“Long way from D.C.”

Robin shrugged. “It was my mom’s idea.”

“Wait here.”

“No—” But Batman was already gone. Robin wrapped the cloak tight around himself, shivering even as the rain lessened.

Batman wasn’t gone long. He appeared back at Robin’s side without making a sound. He held out a phone. “It’s borrowed,” he said.

Borrowed, Robin understood, was code for temporarily stolen. He called his father first. Then his mother. He called his father again. “They’re not answering.”

Batman tapped his foot. He cast little looks back over his shoulder. He knelt down in front of Robin and looked right in his eyes. His pupils got big and black. “We’re going to find a nice couple, Robin, and you’ll go with them. They’ll help you find your parents.”

Robin’s ears tingled and his eyelids felt heavy. He shook his head out, and cold rain dripped down the back of his neck and under his shirt. “You can’t,” he said. “You can’t leave me with strangers!”

Batman shook his head. “I’m a stranger.”

“You’re the police.”

“I’m not the police.”

“You’re better!” Robin said. “You help people and don’t take any of the credit!”

Batman sighed. “Robin—”

“The man with the knife worked here,” he said. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Batman considered him again and Robin was sure he could see him wavering. “Just take me to the police station. I’ll walk in by myself.”

“The closest police station is half an hour away.”

“Longer, probably,” Robin said. “You have to take back roads. To avoid crowds and cameras.”

“Yes.”

Robin smiled. “You’re surprised I thought of that, aren’t you? I told you I was precocious.”

Batman bit his lip. Robin said, “My mom was at the police station last time.”

“Last time?”

Robin buried his head in the wool cape. It smelled like rain and pennies. “They’ve forgotten me before.”

Batman looked at the quiet parking lot and then up at the gray sky. He sighed. “We need to borrow a car.”

————————————————

Later

“Are you sure you’re not Batman?”

Batman flicked on his blinker. “Yes.”

“Did you make this mask yourself?”

“No.” Batman said. “I got it at a Party City.”

“So it’s not artisanal?”

Batman laughed. “Eat your burgers.”

————————————————

Earlier

“I didn’t know they had McDonald’s out here.”

“They have McDonald’s everywhere,” Robin said between mouthfuls of hamburger. “My mom says they’re the jewels in the crown of corporate America.” He took a long sip of his milkshake and wrote something down in his journal. “What does corporate mean?”

They’d stolen the hatchback from the parking lot. But they were driving it to a police station. So it really was more borrowing than stealing.

The road they were on was small, barely two one way lanes, and the fields on either side of them were dark, so Robin faced inward, studying the driver’s seat. “Are you a vampire?”

“What makes you think that?”

Robin licked a line of ketchup off his thumb. “You run fast, you can control people, and you don’t eat food. Plus, you wear a cape.” Robin touched the black wool still wrapped around his body.

Batman snorted. “It’s not a cape. It’s a trench coat.”

Robin took another bite of his hamburger, mulling this over. He wrote in his notebook. “Do you eat people?”

“Their blood,” Batman said, “yes.”

Robin sipped on his milkshake. “Bad people or good people?”

“What?” Batman had been checking his wristwatch. It was big and silver, just like the one Robin’s dad wore.

“You said you eat people. Do you eat the bad people or the good ones?”

“I don’t ask them. I eat them.”

Robin’s nose scrunched up. “That’s mean.”

“Do you ask the cows if they’re good or bad before you eat them?”

Robin looked down at the burger in his hand. Minced onion and ketchup were spilling out the sides. “No,” he said. “But you can’t talk to cows. You can talk to people.”

Batman shrugged. “Some people are bad people even when they don’t seem like it.”

Robin was quiet for a while. “Batman,” he said, “only hurts bad people. And he never kills them.”

“Good for Batman.”

Robin stared down at his burger and thought about the cow who had died to make it. Then his stomach rumbled and he took another bite, ketchup running down the side of his chin.

————————————————

More Facts About Vampires by Robin Vale

Vampires will tell you that they’re not good but they are. I know they are. Because vampires will stay up and answer all your questions about them when you’re bored on a long car drive, even if they are very tired and don’t want to.

————————————————

Later

Twelve miles from the Williamson County Police Station, Robin fell asleep.

Batman turned on the radio and twisted the dial until he found something with a real bass in it, not a synthetic one. Robin murmured something in his sleep and his head fell forward. Batman gentled him back with his free hand.

The next song started and ended, and a saxophone played. Batman changed the channel.

“—bodies of a man and a woman washed ashore in a Gatten backyard after today’s heavy rainfall—”

Batman turned the volume dial down until only his ears could hear the newscasters:

“—identified as Vermont Senator Madeline Moore. The second body, a man, age 41, was soon confirmed to be her husband DC Comicbook artist Robert Vale. Police are issuing an amber alert—”

Batman turned off the radio. He parked the car on the side of the dark road and grabbed the notebook Robin had left on the console. On the inside of the cover was an inscription that anyone else would have needed light to read:

Property of Robin Vale. If found, please return to 5407 Central Ave SE, Washington, DC 20013. Or call 202-765-2239 because I don’t have a cellphone. Please do not read. Thank you.

The seat next to him squeaked as Robin rolled over, and the vampire snapped the book shut.