Robin's Shadow (Batman OC)

Chapter 3: Making Friends

There was a local auto shop in Crime Alley that would sometimes take in spare tires for scrap. They would pay us a little cash if we brought them in, so we learned how to dismantle abandoned vehicles and take the tires off. Well, we tried to only target abandoned cars, but when the opportunity struck, we would steal from citizens. 

When we were 10 and in 5th grade, we got approached by a few other street rat kids after we boosted some tires. They had apparently watched us as Jason and I swiftly robbed a parked Sedan that was too good and tempting a target to pass up. Their names were Ricky and Zach, they were 12, and they also boosted tires in Crime Alley, just for a different buyer in town. 

We started to befriend them because they gave us good intel on where to get warm meals, or good places to get a shower on weekends or summer break. Jason and I would shower at the school gym each day, but weekends we got pretty smelly so finding a new place was useful. They took us to a few other places where kids like us were welcome, and even hooked us up with a better contact to sell boosted car parts to. 

Ricky and Zach took us to meet their buyer after a month or so of hanging out. He was a gigantic overweight, shady man named Little Larry. He would take car parts of any type and buy them, no questions asked, and paid a little better than our current tire buyer. He owned a local auto store, and obviously didn't use new parts on his customer's repairs, and was most likely a front for some other shady business. We weren't in a position to be too picky though, we needed the funds.

When Little Larry said he would take Jason and I on as collectors, which is what he called the street kids who gathered supplies for him, he left it up to us to learn how to boost the parts. He didn't get a crap who brought him parts, so long as they were usable and in good condition. Thankfully, Ricky and Zach knew how to entirely boost all the valuable parts off cars and showed us the ropes, since we only barely knew how to take off tires. We learned so much about cars, which was fairly cool for me since I barely knew how to change a tire in my first life, and cars didn't exist in my second life.

It was genuinely nice, we were finally beginning to have friends. We went around with Ricky and Zack for a few months, making a little team together boosting cars. We even began to laugh and joke with them, something Jason and I have never done with other kids here, or even anyone outside of us. I was using the lessons I had learned from my last life and letting friends in and trusting in them to work towards a common goal together.

I didn't remember that this isn't Konoha. 

Gotham is not a place to make friends.

About six months after meeting Ricky and Zach and becoming close to them, we were out on a job together. We were a little farther away from our home turf, looking to steal from some richer people's cars. I was on lookout since I was the most observant and could hide the best. Jason was on tire duty while Zach was supposed to be distracting passerby's. 

Ricky was supposed to be getting parts out of the hood's of the cars, but he apparently had a different plan.

I was perched on a fire escape, hidden in the night's shadows, and sent a signal for Jason and Ricky to target the black Mercedes near us when I saw no one around it. Jason began to quickly get the tires off, but I noticed he was all alone. I looked around, trying to spot our friends and see what they were doing. 

I found them down the street, talking to some shady looking men wearing sunglasses, despite the fact it was night and dark out. I frowned at that, they were supposed to be distracting the rich people, not the local thugs. At first I thought they got busted, but I observed their body language, and our friends didn't look in danger. I felt like something was wrong, so I decided to make an executive decision and abandoned my post.