birdie blurb blurb blurb

Robin Tuffin is Birdie’s hero. He’s actually everyone’s hero- but it means a little more when the man is your father. The only person more headstrong and devoted than herself, and a big man whose strength has saved many people from certain death.

People in the village think that because Birdie’s a little older now, she’s the one to take over his place. A sort of Batman and Robin exchange where Robin graduates and becomes a fully fledged superhero himself.  For a while, she was on track to do exactly that. She became the leader of the volunteer search and rescue team, completed courses in the country’s military bases, and has a long list of achievements that roll onto the floor if you try to pen them all down. 

And granted, she was dedicated and succeeding in the image of her father, but it was different in the headquarters. 

She wasn’t Ruby Tuffin, with the reliable reputation for being equally strong and kind- she was just Birdie. A sweet young girl with a golden smile and not much else to offer.

Everyone around her seemed to cradle her like she was China just waiting to shatter on the floor. Nevermind her history with Kirra, just her age and her naive disposition was enough for the agents to see her as a houseplant of sorts; good for the work environment, and their duty to keep alive.

In the headquarters, she wasn’t even Dick Grayson. Birdie was Batman’s pet dog who had to have their paws wiped before she slept at night. As she sat in the transport vehicle, she stared outside the window, ears turned out to the conversation around her. 

The team was discussing the plan for whatever lay outside the vehicle- not that she would know. Her status as the newest agent meant that she was rarely filled in on where she was patrolling, what they had to watch out for, and what role she had to fill. It didn’t help that the group she was with was filled with such foreboding figures; Brimstone, Sage, Sova, and since Raze was on injury leave, Lyrus. The first three were too busy asserting their presence as protocol higher-ups; the last was just fine scrolling on her tablet and chewing gum and nodding when her opinion was asked. 

Birdie chewed the inside of her cheek. That sort of disposition was so freakin’ cool, she wished she could be like that. 

“Excuse me?” She peeped out, raising her gloved hand as a means to politely break the chatter. It unfortunately does not work, even when she gives a pleading look to Sova. Her mentor was too busy making pinpoints on the touch screen, offering them to an absorbed Sage and Brimstone. Birdie then tried coughing subtly, to no avail. 

Great. This was about to break her record for the fastest she’s lost her temper. Birdie was not impatient, nor was she rude. She was actually usually coupled with mostly positive adjectives, which she was thankful for. Birdie strived for that kind of positive association, because as her father always said; “No one likes a rude girl.” 

Though he only said that to her, and never really enforced that kind of thing with her brother. Who she often had to apologise on behalf of. Hm. Maybe she needed to ring Dad tonight and have a chat about gendered parenting and the long term effects that seem to have surfaced on todays’ mission.

Feeling herself a little warm with annoyance, Birdie slid on her goggles and slumped in her seat, letting the sweet hues of pink distract her momentarily. In the corner of her eyes she caught Lyrus putting her tablet down- a rare sight- and stared right into the reflection of her goggles. 

After pointedly rolling her eyes, the brown haired woman cleared her throat, effectively ceasing the present conversation. All three heads turned to her, to which she nodded her head in the vague direction of Birdie.

How did she do that? She wanted to question the woman, but she was already absorbed back into the digital world of her tablet. She turned around to the three lead soldiers, all of which were looking right back at her, frozen in their spot. 

“Are you alright? Is the road too rough?” Came Sova’s concerned voice, followed by Brimstone pointedly slowing the car down. Birdie smiled as wide as she could, shaking her head. 

“No, it’s good. Just a little…confused on what I’m going to be doing. On the patrol. And what we are patrolling. For.” She let out. 

Lyrus snorted as Sova smiled softly. Usually Birdie loved watching people smile at her as much as the next guy, but this time it did not exactly instil confidence in her. 

She was hoping for more… Suave look of expectation that screamed; “Of course! You, Ruby, are capable of anything! Why don’t YOU tell me!” But this one was more… “Aww… Birdie! You are Existing!”

She hasn’t been at the headquarters for more than a month, but she was getting tired of it.

“Lyrus and Sova have the perimeters covered. Brimstone and I will be there to gather information, and assist if anyone is hurt.” Sage stated. Birdie nodded attentively, mentally noting down everyone’s roles for… everyone, huh? 

There was never a moment in her life where she felt so belittled. A sting of bitterness strikes through her heart as she chews on her bottom lip, over the moon that her years of harsh training and extensive experience has amounted to her being left out of the most basic missions.

 

Birdie opened her mouth to prod further, but with her father’s words in the back of her head, she simply smiled thinly and turned back to the window, letting the pink tinted-sky keep her company instead. 

The team of five (though it could be argued it was four) inspected their initial contact point. A plain deserted area in Bind, with surprisingly humid and thick air circling their feet. Brimstone tapped pointedly on his arm guard, likely trying to gather intel on the narrow winding buildings that awaited them. 

Them, as in everyone but Birdie. Upon reaching the destination, it was discovered that no one was left to secure the vehicle, and thus she was thrusted the heroic duty of making sure no one stole a car. 

A car with such advanced security that bodyguarding it was like trying to teach Kirra how to carve wooden statues. 

“You are sure you will be safe?” Sova’s concerned voice almost makes Birdie want to roll her eyes.

“Yes.” 

“Are you alright? You seem…”

Upset? Betrayed? Angry? Frustrated with constantly being underestimated?

“Pale. You should take off that jacket, I don’t want you to have a heatstroke.”

Sova is Birdie’s mentor. He is also one of her closest confidants, who has been with her the whole journey in joining the protocol. He is gentle, caring, and thoughtful, but right now he is the biggest douchebag ever.

In fact, Birdie would rather have that heatstroke than listen to another word come out his mouth. 

“I’ll be fine, thanks for worrying.” She tried her best genuine smile, unzipping her thick parka and tossing it aside to satisfy the blonde man. Sova pats her on the shoulder before leaving with the other three. She watched with vice as their silhouettes disappeared into the dust, looking like a proper team. 

And then there was one. 

There wasn’t exactly much to do in Bind, especially when you are tasked with the most ridiculous job ever. 

Birdie tried to entertain herself by scouting out the landing area, by trying to identify the customised parts of the car, and even counting backwards from 1,000.

When she reached 128, a soft noise distracted her. Bodily instinct jolted her from her spot on the car’s hood onto the ground, eyes darting side to side for another bout of sound. It was an unremarkable noise to most, barely anything different from the cracking sand hitting against the tires, but with Birdie’s trained ears, it was the first sign of distress. 

When you are on a mountain base, trying to find a lost climber in the midst of a snowstorm, you don’t just listen for someone crying out for help. You listen for the sound of shifting snow, of laboured breathing, of climbing gear slipping out of frostbitten grip. 

Krrrrrrk

There it was again. The exact same sound, with the kind of replication that just doesn’t naturally occur. 

Birdie jumps to the other side of the car hood, and flings the door open to the back compartment, grunting in annoyance when she realises there was no spare ammunition left for her. 

They weren’t even planning on letting me defend myself. She thinks bitterly.

But she doesn’t let the lack of guns stop her, and with a loud slam, she shuts the car door and begins sprinting to the direction of the noise. 

If she was wrong about this, she would have to admit that she abandoned her post, failed to complete the simplest of simplest of tasks and prove the protocol right. But if she was right, and she was damn hoping she was; she might just prove herself a useful member on the team.

Birdie skirts around a crumbling clay column, and pauses when the sound becomes louder. It’s now an audible shifting sound, as if someone was trapped under rubble and struggling to push it off of them. Has someone in the team gotten injured? Shot? Was there an enemy in the territory? Thoughts raced through her mind as she rushed to the now clear source of the sound, sweat dripping down her face and onto her suffocating thick turtleneck. 

Damn, Sova was right. It was fucking hot out here. Maybe if she had actually been informed on where she was headed, she could have worn something other than her arctic gear.

A strangled groan alerts Birdie to a particularly suspicious pit in the ground, and she all but slid in the mud to get there as fast as she could. Confirming her suspicion, a young woman cries in pain at the bottom of the ditch, with a large piece of rubble pinning her left leg down. 

“Please, you have to help me!” She shrieked, and Birdie’s heart sank upon seeing the puddle of blood the woman sat in. That rubble had to have torn at her skin, or at worst crushed her bones. 

Before adrenaline has time to set in, a routine sense of calm fills Birdie’s nerves,

“Can you feel your leg?” Birdie yelled. She slid down the ditch’s wet mud and barely caught herself once she reached the base. The woman barely managed a nod, sodden hands still gripped tight on her buried limb. Her dark hair was slicked tight against her forehead and cheeks, sweat beading and dripping down her chin like it replaced tears.

The blonde woman placed her hands gingerly on her shoulder, giving her the best look of confidence she could offer. 

“That’s a good sign. What’s your name, miss?”

“Is… Isra. Thank you for finding me, I’ve been here so long.” 

Isra’s strained voice sent a shiver down Birdie’s spine. If she had been trapped down here for so long, then one of the team members must have heard her- what with Lyrus’s excellent hearing, and the amount of ground they had the ability to scan.

They couldn’t have just… left her, right? 

Birdie shook the thought as soon as it formed. There were more important things to focus on right now. With a quick movement she grabbed her sleeve’s hem, and ripped it down to procure a strip of long cotton. 

“May I?” She asked gently, gesturing to Isra’s leg. Isra nodded.

With practised fingers the blonde woman tied a passable tourniquet alongside Isra’s upper thigh, careful not to touch her shorts or her skin for too long. 

Once she was done, Birdie shifted towards the rock, still keeping a careful eye on the tourniquet. It would stop the bleeding enough to stop the rush of blood when the rock was lifted off, but it would need to be replaced whenever they got somewhere safer. But for now, everything seemed the best it could. Birdie flashed a smile at Isra.

“I’m happy I found you in time, Isra. Do you think any part of the rock has gone into your leg?”

“...No. It just hit me when it slid down.”

“That’s good news. On the count of three, We’re going to try and pull you out alright? One, Two-”

On the count of three, Birdie gripped the jagged rock’s underside and lifted it with all her might, and after a sharp exhale of air, the rock began to budge. Isra grabbed her leg, trying to pull it from the small space created. 

“Not yet!” Birdie exclaimed through gritted teeth.

Sitting on her knees meant that she had less momentum and reliance on her leg’s strength, and her grip faltered momentarily. Birdie sucked in another breath and stilled her shaking arms, finally able to inch the piece of rubble to her thigh level. 

“Now!” 

Isra wasted no time and pulled her leg out, the line of movement sending her flat onto her back, heaving and panting. Birdie immediately let her grip go loose, the rock falling with a flinch-inducing thud. 

“Are you alright?” She asked. 

Isra gave her a tired smile, hands still clenched on her bleeding shin. From first glance, it thankfully looked to be nothing more than just a skin-deep scrape, likely from the initial contact. But Birdie knew better than to just assume Isra was fine. 

She had far too much experience with overzealous men getting their limbs amputated from refusing to treat a ‘simple cut’.

After she caught her breath Birdie got to her feet and scanned her surroundings. Nothing but dusty worn buildings and long-abandoned shophouses. How did Isra wander into a place like this in the first place?

“Do you know where you can get some help? I’ll take you there.” 

“I live nearby… My dede can fix this.” 

Isra guestred lamely to her leg, though it seemed to have stopped bleeding, revealing the tender layer of pink fat that lay underneath. Birdie nodded, smiling at Isra’s (albeit flat) joke. It always surprised her how quickly the average civilian recovered from shock- though she found she underestimated them a fair bit.

She offered her arm to Isra, and with maximum effort, the two managed to climb up the ditch and onto the cracked terracotta floors. Birdie followed Isra’ directions, stopping every few minutes to check how her leg was faring and whether the underside of her eyelids were still pink. 

Eventually they reached a part of Bind that was more lived in, coming across a small marketplace with rows of vendors selling dried fish and fruit. 

“Isra! Isra!” 

One of the vendors suddenly exclaimed upon seeing her. An eldery man rushed out of his fabric stall to her, face white with shock. His glasses sat on his nose crooked, but he did not bother to fix them.

“Dede!” She cried. 

“What on earth happened to you! Do you know how worried we all were? We thought those thugs had taken you away, you know?” He scolded, though his watery eyes showed that he was more than overjoyed to have his granddaughter back. “And your leg? You’re lucky I know how to patch these up, very lucky!” 

Isra nodded frantically at the greying man. He rambled on for a bit longer until he was satisfied, then pulled her into a crushing hug. 

Birdie sighed contentedly at their reunion, and knowing that Isra was in safe hands, was ready to head back to the car and wait for her team members to come back from patrol. After all, this was enough action for her today, and she too was satisfied with doing her own little part.

Before she could walk too far, Isra’s tired voice called out to her.

“Wait! Don’t go yet!” 

Isra tried stumbling to her, but was promptly stopped by her grandfather. 

“Can I know your name?”

Birdie felt the instinct to return the question with Ruby. Ruby who could save people with a moment’s notice, who belonged to the Tuffin family of modern day heroes. 

“I’m Birdie.” She replied.

“Thank you for finding me, Birdie. I don’t want to think what could have happened if you didn’t.” 

A dark expression flashes over Isra’s tanned face, one that Birdie was far too familiar with. It was scary to imagine being stranded like that, after all. 

“I’m just happy to help.” 

“Is there anything we can do in return? I- I ruined your shirt, do you want me to make you a new one?” Isra offered, with a nod from her grandfather. 

Birdie laughed airly, shaking her head to decline the polite offer. After a moment she perked up, reminded of something the grandfather had said. 

“There is one thing you could help me with. You said something about thugs around here. Can you tell me more?” 

The grandfather scoffed. “What? Those kingdom hooligans? They’ve been here for months, trying to get all of us to pack up and move so they can build some… laboratories. If you see any of them, you’d do us all a favour by knocking them over in the head!”

Kingdom? What was Kingdom Industries doing all the way out here? Birdie bit her lip and frowned, already trying to find a believable way to relay this information to Brimstone, while telling how she managed to gain it. 

“That’s more than enough- and I hope you stay here, regardless of what they do.” Birdie said, and with a final smile, she began her trek back to the car. 

Just as she was almost out of earshot, she heard Isra’s voice one more time.

“THANK YOU! YOU’RE MY HERO!”

The words leave her warm and giddy.

What does not leave her warm and giddy is the panicked conversation she overhears right as she comes up upon the team car. She specifically picked out Sova’s frantic footsteps, and despite his lack of words she could picture the expression on his face- stony and guarded, staring right into the floor and mouth sealed tight. Brimstone and Sage seemed to be pouring over some device, trying to pick up her location from there. 

Birdie looked down at her feet, cringing at the amount of dirt and dust that coated over her whole body. The last thing she wanted was for her team to think she went out on a happy scenic stroll while they were out saving lives- I mean, she was doing that too! But even then, if she told them the truth, who’s to say they wouldn’t get angry at her for leaving her post? That she was endangering civilian lives by not letting the professional professionals handle it?

She felt ridiculous, just hiding behind a large rock and wasting everyone’s time and emotions, but she just did not know what to do. She thinks about what her father would do in this moment, and unfortunately cannot even think of a time when he was put under this kind of stress. 

After all, Robin handled everything perfectly, without breaking a sweat or wavering in his confidence. It was usually Hero or Birdie who would panic about all the possibilities, or scared of embarrassing themselves; and it was usually Robin who would pat them on the back and tell them there was nothing to worry about. 

Birdie huffed. This was why she could never be anything more than Robin- Robin as in kid Robin, not Robin Tuffin; Batman. She approached the car with mild bitterness in her heart.

The team went quiet when they saw her, perfectly paused in their actions like little action figures. Brimstone was the first to speak, after a long pause of silence.

“Where have you been, kid? Do you know how dangerous it is out there?” He hollered with furrowed eyebrows. 

Great. Another reminder of Dad.

“We don’t know what Kingdom is trying to do out there and-”

“They’re trying to relocate the locals so they can replace their lab.” Birdie leaned against the car, overcome with a sudden bout of exhaustion. “The lab from… Fracture.” 

It was strange, she felt fine running around and hoisting rocks twice the size of herself, but under the piercing gaze of everyone it felt like she was collapsing in on herself. 

“How do you know this- Birdie?” Sova started, rushing towards her when Birdie slumped against the car hood. Her vision floated around in particles, and since when was her throat so dry?

Maybe this wasn’t metaphorical exhaustion.

She felt Sova’s warm hands pat her body like she was a cadaver, and his tight grip pulling her hands in front of her. “Who did this to you?” He cursed. 

Who did what? Birdie lolled her head to the side, barely catching a glimpse of her bloodied hands. Was this Isra’s blood? But she had been very careful not to touch it in case of infection. She must have scraped them pretty bad when she lifted the rock up. Hopefully she had not torn her radial artery, or else that would require a lot more than Sage’s healing to fix up well. 

“Someone was stuck under a rock?” Birdie offered with another smile, even if it was the thousandth today. 

Sova shook his head, and he pressed her hands between his own. Definitely very Ouch, but the apologetic glint in his eye made up a little for it. For a while, it looked like he wanted to say something, but couldn’t find it; or rather, he couldn't get himself to say it.

“She’s right.” 

Lyrus stated as she looked up from her tablet, flipping it around to Brimstone, who picked it up and began reading it.

“From the local newspaper last week, apparently three units of Kingdom agents were dispatched around here  for mysterious reasons” Sage joined in next to Brimstone to read the tablet, even Sova perked his head up, even if his grip only tightened. 

Birdie craned her neck to look at the singer, who gave her an impressed nod. 

“Our patrol didn’t mean shit because they knew we were coming. What they didn’t expect;” She swiped on the tablet, revealing another article, one of the exact places Birdie had found Isra. “Unstable architecture caused by gunfights around the city, creating landslides.”

“Hey, even though you would have gotten into trouble if no one was there, I’m glad you went. Now we know what these pricks are up to.” 

Even at this moment, Lyrus was still somehow the cooler one. Even if Birdie had saved someone’s life, and gotten intel from the enemy, Lyrus was still the cool one. What a girl.

Brimstone looked over at Birdie, then sighed.

“We’re still going to have a- lengthy conversation about this. Get in the car, all of you.” He barked. 

Sova helped Birdie up, and while everyone else shuffled into their seats, he lingered behind with her. 

She slid into the car next, parallel to Lyrus, this time next to Sage, who’s hands glowed with a faint blue hue. 

Birdie huffed and sank back into the seat, and found herself staring out the window once again. 

She did her best today, or at least that is what she thinks. Looking over at Brimstone’s grey reflection in the car window, she realised just how different her role as Birdie would differ from Ruby.