originally posted on station456.tumblr.com on March 25th, 2012
**********
Mark straightens his legs and pushes them together, as he’s extending his arms out from his sides. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He shifts his weight forward ever so slightly.
And just like that, he’s falling.
The cool, night air pushes itself into his face, which would be blowing back his hair if it wasn’t for his mask. A jet-black mask covering his entire head, leading up to plastic ears that look like that of a bat. Approximately six seconds before he would have otherwise got a ticket to the hospital at the ground, he took out his ClawGun and shot it out at a pole above him. This attachment from the gun portion to the claw by a durable string allowed him to swing over to a tall flagpole, housing a flag with the good ol’ stars and stripes. He grabs onto this with his right hand, followed by his left and and his two legs. He slides down the pole to the roof of the building that the flagpole is attached to.
Mark puts a hand to his stomach, looking down from the roof, as he catches his breath. Mark is around six feet tall, thin but certainly built. He’s not ripped but sports what just manages to be a six-pack chest, with healthy muscles on his arms and legs. His suit is skin-tight yet moderately protective. The logo with which he affiliates himself with is plastered in dark purple across his pecs on an otherwise straight black suit. His gloves are made of leather, and at the ends of each of his digits lie a sharp claw.
Mark is Bat-Claws.
Mark is also currently in the process of training himself. For what, he really can’t be sure. He never has been sure about anything, come to think of it: Where he’s going, who he is, who he wants to be.
Now that he’s caught his breath, he sprints along the building, preparing to jump from rooftop to rooftop until he tires. Once he reaches the edge of the first building, he pushes his right foot onto the far edge hard, and propels himself to the next building. Once he gets to the end of this building, he does the same thing; but this time, instead of a solid landing his foot is caught on the tip of the next platform. Mark panics as he lands on his arms, receiving a few cuts directly before he realizes that he’s close to falling off of this old, worn-down mass of bricks.
Mark attempts to grab hold of something to stop himself from falling, but fails and he begins to plummet towards the pavement. He attempts to pull out his trusty ClawGun – his only gadget – but merely finds himself in a non-life-threatening but humiliating dumpster, filled with bags of rancid-smelling trash cushioning his fall.
Our protagonist lets out a sigh of self-disappointment
He’s what you could describe as a newcomer to the masked vigilante business. No, scratch that – Business is not a good word to describe what he does. He isn’t paid to do it.
Perhaps this is an opportune time to give some back-story on Mark. His last name is Wayne, which should provide a good starting point.
Maybe it’s best just to come right out and say it: Mark is the offspring of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle. Batman and Catwoman. Caped crusader and crooked criminal.
It’s not a love story. Mark’s creation does not fall into the “When a mommy and a daddy really love each other..” scenario. It is a crappy result from one of their scandalous acts of fornication.
Selina always wanted to be a mother, but only an accident like this could make it actually happen. If it was a decision entirely on Bruce, he most likely would have went to the blank clinic to get a blank, but Selina wasn’t gonna have that.
Mark had a rather strange childhood, as, surely, one can imagine.
At this point in time he’s in his 30s. His father is dead: He never quite learned how he died. But the moment he heard about his father’s passing, he ran off to an area across the country. A place where one of his friends he met online lives. They currently live together.
He just couldn’t live with the death of his father. Despite having such an odd set-up growing up, he was quite close with his father. He loved him, and it was certainly mutual. Just like any normal relationship between father and son. He wanted to be far away from Gotham and has no plans of going back.
Mark doesn’t know what’s going on with his mother. He was rather close to her as well, but not nearly as he was with his father. It was nothing against her, he just didn’t get to see her as often. She was always out doing something: Most likely stealing. When he was around 15, he woke up to find a reality without his mother. He asked his father where she was, but he said he didn’t know.
So here he is.
He walks to a nearby alleyway that he was at previously. Behind the dumpster in this alleyway he hid a backpack. He took the bag, quickly stripped off his costume, and stuck it in the bag. Underneath he has on a pair of gray sweatpants and a plain white t-shirt. Mark’s hair is dark brown and messy as it always is, with unruly bangs always getting in his eyes. And, to get the elephant out of the room, he’s white.
Once the costume is in his bag, he throws it on his back and begins to make his way towards his house. Or, his apartment, rather. His friend’s apartment, actually.
***
“I swear to God, man, it seems like you were bit by a radioactive leech. Just call yourself Leechman. With great apathy comes great laziness!”
“Ray…” Mark’s really not sure on this one.
“Yeah, bud?” Ray chides.
“Just, shut up. And I told you already, I -”
“Yes-yes, you’re bearclaw or whatever. You need to quit mooching off of me, man. Get a job or something. Get a girlfriend. Or boyfriend. You’re straight, right? I don’t know.”
“Uh,” a pause. “The name is Bat-Claws.” He’s avoiding the sexual-orientation-question.
Ray lets out a sigh. “Yeah, Bat-Claws, sure. Ya’ know it was so cool to have you come over and live here. Never thought I’d meet you in real life – thought our friendship would remain an internet thing. But now -”
“I’m hungry.” Mark lets out bluntly, interrupting Ray.
Another sigh. “Look, it’s gonna be Mickey D’s again today.”
A smile quickly grows on Mark’s face. “Awesome! I’ll have -”
“A twenty-piece chicken mcnugget meal with a sprite. I know.”
“Thaaaaaaanks broskay.”
“Whatever.” Ray spits out, annoyed but in a rather light-hearted sort of way. They’re good buddies.
Ray grabs his keys and heads out the door to his car, after telling Mark not to blow the place up. Should be easy enough, Mark said.
Mark clicks on the television. It’s a standard definition tv, 4:3. It’s old. And nothing special.
His instinctual clicks of the remote brings him to Nickelodeon, but that channel is fuzzy. He clicks over to Cartoon Network, and it’s the same story. He tries Comedy Central. Same. Feeling desperate, he gives the Disney Channel a shot. And nope.
He’s having some pretty awful luck. He decides to just watch the boring news for a while. It was rather boring for him.
A press of his finger on the power button of the television turns it off. He walks over to the window. He brushes the curtain aside so he can see outside. It’s still rather light outside, being only 4:30. It’s the summer time, and appropriately hot. Which Mark hates: Hot weather gives him headaches.
Just as he was about to walk away from the window, he spots a shady looking man walking down the street. He is dress in muddy jeans, a gray shirt one would wear under their main shirt - tattered with holes, big brown boots, and a ski mask.
Ahead of the man, Mark spots a woman. A rather attractive woman. This woman is yoga-pants-clad and has on a tight, teal t-shirt. Her skin is nicely tanned and her blonde hair is in a ponytail. In her arms is a regularly sized brown purse and a smart phone. She is standing directly in front of an alleyway.
What are the chances?
***
“Give me the purse!” Brad shouts at the woman whose right arm he has in his iron grip, in the middle of an alleyway.
The woman screams, but no one is around to answer her call, besides one teen who saw but ran in fear. She tries desperately to run but the man’s grip is too strong.
“Shut up! And give me the purse!” Brad barks at the woman, whose iron grip of her own is tightly wound around her bag.
“No!” she shouts. She then shoves her teeth into his left cheek and bites.
“YAAAAOWCH!” he yells, loosing his grip on her.
She has her chance to run but doesn’t immediately as she’s too struck by the intensity of the situation. She instead trips.
Brad seizes the opportunity and grabs her foot.
***
Mark runs back to the couch and grabs his backpack. He hurriedly grabs the zipper and pulls it up. The zipper snaps off.
Shit.
Mark is forced to pinch the base of the now deformed zipper and slowly pulls it up and around the backpack. He yanks out the pants of his costume and haste-fully puts his first leg into them, and then his right, but he didn’t do the latter as elegantly as the former: A misplaced leg sent him falling to the floor.
Once he was back on his feet, he put his pants on proper, on top of his sweats. Then, on top of his t-shirt, he puts the torso of his costume on. Lastly, his mask, gloves and black boots.
Finishing his little ritual, he grabs the ClawGun and sticks it in the band of his pants. Now that he is fully prepared, he makes his way over to another window in the apartment.
He has a hard time opening these.
“Aaaah, damn-damn-damn how do you open these. How-how-how did Ray-Jay?!? Ray-Nay! Ray saaaaaaaaaaaaay! Saaay how to do it?!?!”
The door then opened and in came Ray with their dinner. “Uh, Mark?”
“RAY! OPEN THIS DAMN WINDOW!”
“Why!??!”
“JUST DO IT!”
Ray complies, throwing the food to the floor and opening the window with ease. Bat-Claws leaps out without an ounce of grace, landing in another dumpster in an entirely different alleyway than the others.
***
“SOMEBODY HEEEEEEEEEEEELP!” Alexis shouts.
The mugger grabs her face by her cheeks, looks her in the eyes, and just gives her a nasty look that says more than anything he could have made verbal.
And just then, a man in a ridiculous costume shows up, and says “Ma’am, do not be alarmed. Bat-Claws is here to save you!” with hands on his hips.
***
Alright, I’m here, I’m here. Mark thinks. What do I say – what do I say – what do I say.
“Ma’am, do not be alarmed. Bat-Claws is here to save you!”
“Haha! And what are you gonna do to stop me, bub?” the mugger shouts.
Mark, passionate and determined, sprints toward the mugger with fiery eyes. Once he is close to the mugger, he takes his claws and slashes him across the face, leaving a few streaks of bleeding, slashed flesh.
“AAAAAAAAAAAH! Damnit! I’m done, take your stupid purse!” The mugger releases his grip on the purse and runs away.
A smile forms on Mark’s face. He turns his gaze towards the woman. Man. She’s pretty hot,his now calm mind thinks.
“Thank you so much!” the girl tells him, giving a hug. “I really have to go, though! Thank you so very much, again!” And just like that, she was running in the opposite direction.
Mark feels good. He looks down at his boot to take a breather, but then something catches his eyes. A fat roll of twenty dollar bills, that the woman must have dropped. He quickly picked it up and saw that the woman was in shouting distance.
But he didn’t shout.
I wouldn’t mind some extra cash, he thinks.
