Chapter Text
They called you Mimic. Not because you were a shapeshifter; no, no, no, you could just replicate people’s skills and abilities. It was quite a useful power, though not without its cons. While next to the likes of someone like Superman, you were practically a god, if you were just with a group of regular people, you’d be as useless as them.
You weren’t a well known hero, just appearing here and there for the locals. However, recently a few newspapers caught sight of you. Maybe you were gonna become a celebrity. You had a costume, a simple spandex suit that was purple with some patterns and a matching mask. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it hid your identity from the public, so it did its job.
It had been quite a long day. Your day job was as tiring as it usually was. Working minimum wage was definitely not ideal, but the tips weren’t so bad. As you were walking back to your apartment, you heard sirens blare from a bank. Great, just great! You had your suit with you, so you could jump in and help. Plus, it was 11PM and dark out so you didn’t need to hide yourself too much, just behind a nearby alleyway.
“This is a robbery!” a man holding a gun threatened.
“Yeah, no sh**!” you hollered from the entrance. You kicked the man in the stomach, knocking him onto his knees. Thankfully, one of the customers knew very advanced fighting. You would’ve thanked them later, but it would probably jeopardise your work and/or your identity.
“I will shoot!” another man with a gun said.
“That’s the function of a gun, glad you figured that one out!” You would probably die one day from running your mouth. You kicked him as well.
“Who are you?” a frightened citizen asked.
“Call me Mimc,” you replied. “Or hey, maybe even call me up for dinner sometime.”
A robber went to kick you. You ducked, sweeping them off their feet.
“Sorry, gotta dash,” you chuckled. “These robbers, so rude!”
A man who you recognized as Tim Drake, Bruce Wayne’s adopted son, was helping evacuate the citizens. Phew, you did not want to deal with injured people. Thank goodness he was there.
You let the fighting flow through you naturally. While you used the techniques of someone else, you were conscious of all the moves, no muscle memory at all. You weren’t a mirror of someone, just kinda...absorbed their training in a sense.
You grabbed the shoulders of one of the robbers, stabilizing both of you so that he didn’t fall over as you did. You flipped yourself until you reached his back. Your hands swiped the gun from his grasps. With your foot, you aimed for his spine and sent him over to the wall.
Yeah, and you were one to show off too. You hoped someone got a good photo of you flipping yourself. Techniques like that would have most martial artists coming for your throat, but if it looked good, and still was useful in a fight, why not? Well, you could think of several reasons as why not, but you weren’t wanting to play Devil’s Advocate right now.
You disarmed the rest of them, and before you knew it, the police arrived. You quickly explained to them the situation, thanked them for arriving before any major harm, and dashed off.
You saved the bank from a robbery. And when you turned the knob on your apartment door, you found out that your apartment had been robbed. Irony was just hilarious.
Which brings you to the situation you were currently dealing with.
Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to go out and uh- ask the Batman to recruit you. Okay, in hindsight that wasn’t the greatest thought, but hey, it would all turn out fine, right? Well, granted that you were able to fight alongside everyone else. Ah, maybe you shouldn’t be breaking into the Joker’s lair. Oh well, your apartment was already robbed, might as well.
You rested your feet on the roof of the Joker’s lair, waiting for the time to strike. Honestly, it wasn’t that hard to find and you didn’t need anyone else’s skill sets to find it; the giant Joker face was a pretty big giveaway. You looked through the windows that were planted on the roof. It looked like Batman’s team were having a little trouble with the henchmen.
The only reason you hadn’t jumped into the fight immediately was because you were kind of overwhelmed with the amount of skills this group of heros had. The last time you’d been this shocked was when you first discovered your powers. Okay, you got it, Batman’s team was insanely skilled and out of your league.
When you landed on the Joker’s roof, you thought you were having a migraine. Now, you had been in crowded places before, but you hadn’t experienced this feeling since when you started being a vigilante. The amount of skill this team had, it almost terrified you. You got over your migraine, separating the skills in categories.
The way you were able to mimic abilities was a bit weird. Granted, being able to mimic abilities was already a bit weird, but oh well. When coming across potential abilities, you would be notified of them through your brain. You couldn’t see them, no, that would be messy. It was similar to mind reading; you were able to process them in your head automatically. If you closed your eyes, you could almost picture the words.
You didn’t know how your powers worked, but you definitely knew they weren’t memory-based, with the exception of muscle-memory. The only logical reason you could come to was because that stuff was based in your physical body, not just the patterns in your brain. Then again, muscle memory only really appeared when you were using someone else’s abilities for quite a long time, so maybe they needed time to develop.
Nevermind that though, you had a fight to dramatically enter.
You began to search through the team’s skills.
One guy had quite the experience for guns. Neat, but unnecessary for now. You looked further through the abilities. Another person had expertise in...boomerangs? Well, to each their own, whatever worked for them. You continued searching.
All of them had expertise in martial arts and hand-to-hand combat. Useful to know, but nothing you didn’t expect. They probably had different styles of fighting, but you didn’t care. Okay, maybe you cared a little bit, you wanted to look cool. Now, which one was the flashiest out of them? Ooooooh, one person had speed added onto their fighting skills. Definitely a good pick for this fight.
You breathed in. This decision was either going to be an amazing one, or it was going to blow up in your face. Whether literally or metaphorically didn’t matter to you, it could’ve been both knowing Gotham. You kick the glass that stood underneath you, using all of the force and weight you could.
You landed with a thump, your feet hitting the concrete floor. That was an odd choice for flooring, but you shrugged it off. The Joker probably couldn’t care less about his flooring choices.
The noise of shattering glass attracted people’s attention. Most notably, the attention of the Joker’s henchmen. One went to try and trip you up, but you dodged it. You sent a left hook to their jaw, blood dribbling on the floor.
“...Who the fu** are you?” Red Hood demanded.
“On a more important note, why are you here?” the little Robin questioned.
“Did you follow us?!” Nightwing snarled.
“No time for chitchat!” you say, round-house kicking one of the Joker’s henchmen. “You needed backup, right? Questions can come later.” You also just really wanted to avoid their glares and questions. You’d answer them when you didn’t have to hold off clowns from trying to kill you.
“Well, can we at least know your hero name?” Red Robin asked you. As you opened your mouth to answer, a henchman’s body was thrown over to you. “...I’ll take that as a no then.”
A few more of the henchmen get knocked out, and you’re all able to rest for a bit and assemble for a plan.
“We’ll need someone to go to the control room and set off any traps,” Batman stated. He turned to you. “Can you take that area alone?”
“Uhm..no?” you answered a bit awkwardly. “I mean, if the henchmen are there, then I suppose, but it’ll be easier with someone else with me. I don’t have much experience with fighting?”
They stared at you with questioning looks.
“I’ll explain later, jeez! Just pair me with someone!” you spat out.
Batman sighed. “Red Robin’s good with technology, he’ll be with you.”
“Question, does anybody just happen to be able to dodge bullets?” you asked. A beat of silence passed the group, staring at you with confusion. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“Why do you want to know?” little Robin (you couldn’t be bothered learning his hero name) questioned.
“Uhm...no reason?” you lied. Little Robin squinted his eyes at you. “Questions later!”
Batman explained the rest of the plan to everyone. You and Red Robin had to traverse through the lower levels of the Joker’s lair. Which meant going down several stairs. At least it was easier than going up. You all disperse, heading to your assigned area.
Red Robin lead you to the hatch you were supposed to go to. He pried it open, motioning for you to follow him down the stairs. As you descended, Red Robin tripped. You laughed.
“Better keep up birdbrain,” you snickered.
He grunted. “It’s Red Robin to you!”
“Whatever you say, wing wimp.”
The two of you hit a stop after a while, coming across...an elevator! Some deity must’ve been gracing you today; or not since you know, the whole apartment robbery thing. Either way, it was an elevator and you wouldn’t have to go down a 200 million flight of stairs. You two sat in the elevator quietly. It was a bit awkward really, but your legs got to rest so you weren’t complaining a whole lot. The elevator dinged, and the doors opened.
And then a clown got thrown at you.
How fun!
You groaned to yourself, pushing the body off of you. Red Robin got up easily, running out of the elevator to find...more clowns. You take a second for yourself to mimic his fighting skills before joining to help him fight the abundance of henchmen.
“Before, you were fighting quite similarly to Red Hood, back when he used hand-to-hand combat,” stated Red Robin. “But now...you’re fighting differently.”
“Yes, yes, hides the identity,” you lied quickly. “Now come on, no time for talking. Those henchmen aren’t gonna hit themselves.”
“You seem to be doing most of the talking,” he scoffed.
“Mhm, and continuing the conversation makes you so much better,” you shot back with a roll of your eyes; not that he could see it very well. Then again he was Red Robin, so he probably had some super cool skill that made him aware of your eyerolls. He huffed, throwing a henchman your way in response. “Hey! Not cool dude!” You shoved the clown off of you before kicking them in the stomach.
The two of you fought off the rest of the henchmen. You ended up flopping to the ground with a pant. Who knew clowns could be so aggressive?
“Get up, we still have to reach the control room!” Red Robin grunted, pulling your arm. “What? You’ve never fought Joker’s henchmen before?”
“Just-” Pant. “-because I can-” Pant. “-fight well doesn’t-” Pant. “-mean I won’t get tired!” Why was talking much more difficult now? You groaned, burying yourself deeper in the concrete (if that was even possible).
“Hurry up, we’ve got more ground to cover,” he said, pulling you back on your feet.
“Can I sue the Joker after this?” you questioned. “Or perhaps get him to pay for my medical bills?”
He laughed. “If the guy is openly trying to attack you, I doubt that he’ll give you money.”
“You never know. I might actually be his long lost child!”
“Fat chance.”
You eventually stopped complaining about being worn out and followed him to where the control panel was. And then you got ambushed by more clowns! At this point you’d think they were obsessed with you.
Red Robin stopped fighting for a bit.
“Hello?” you call out.
“How do you fight exactly like me?” he questioned.
You froze a tiny bit. “Good question!” You ducked an attack just as he does. Actually, now that you think about it, his fighting style was really similar to the guy you were mimicking back at the bank robbery.
“Hey, did you happen to visit a bank earlier tonight?” you asked.
He cocked an eyebrow. “I thought questions were for later?”
“I’ll answer yours if you answer mine,” you offered.
“Yes, I was at a bank today, I had some errands to run. There was actually a bank robbery there, but I helped people evacuate, so it was all good.”
Oh fu**, you knew who he was. A punch almost hit you. Focus. “What? You didn’t use your super cool ninja skills on the robber?”
“Well, no, couldn’t risk revealing my identity,”
“I thought justice never rested,” you commented, flipping over one of the henchmen. “You’re getting lazy it seems.”
You two continued to fight off the rest of the henchmen before gaining uninterrupted access to the control panel. As he went to work out what lever or button did what, you were thankful that your chatting distracted him enough to forget about his questions. And you were also thinking about how Red Robin was Tim fu**ing Drake.
This was excellent blackmail material to work with.
For teasing purposes of course.
Okay, now that you think about it, there was probably way more to work with than just teasing, but that was for later.
Red Robin, or Tim you guessed, finished with the control panel. He did whatever smart guy stuff he normally did, and before you knew it, the Joker had been defeated yet again. Batman had his crew take you to a nearby dark alleyway. Wow, they sure had a lot of those in Gotham.
“Okay, start talking,” Batman demanded.
“Already was talking, surprised you haven’t noticed,” you chuckled.
“Who are you?” Nightwing hissed.
“My hero name is Mimic,” you answered.
A face of recognition washed Red Robin’s face. “OH! The one that popped up recently! I don’t know how I didn’t recognize the suit sooner.”
“Do you have shapeshifting abilities?” Nightwing asked.
You shook your head. “I mimic people’s abilities. If the Flash stood next to me, I would be able to run at the same speeds as him. However, standing in a subway train would at best give me the ability to run a little bit faster.”
“So your power relies on the people around you?” Batman inquired. That was probably a metaphor for something. Eh, you couldn’t be bothered finding it out.
“Pretty much.”
“You mentioned before that you needed to pair up with someone, is your power why?” Batman deduced.
“Caught me!” you grinned. “Also why I asked if anyone knew how to dodge bullets. It was a long shot anyways.”
“Pun intended?” Nightwing smirked.
“No, but now that you point it out, why not?”
“Could you perhaps...mimic a gun?” Red Hood challenged.
You gawked at him. “It’s a physical object, of course the fu** not!”
“I was just curious!” he defended, holding his arms up.
“What about muscle memory?” Nightwing asked you. “When you mimic someone’s abilities, I would assume that you get their muscle memory too?”
“That’s kind of a mystery to me,” you shrugged. “From what I understand, I can’t mimic someone’s memories since they’re electric signals in the brain and I’m sure I can’t replicate those. By that logic, I shouldn’t be able to mimic muscle memory, but I’ve had one or two cases of it. Then again, those abilities came from people I knew for a long time, so I imagine it develops the more I mimic something.”
“How and why did you come to us?” little Robin questioned. “There are probably several other crimes happening right now, and many other heroes to resort to. Why us? Other than the fact that we’re the best.”
“How is a pretty simple one to answer,” you said. “I figured that you would go to the Joker’s lair around this time. I’ve read in the news that more of his crimes have popped up recently. His lair wasn’t very hard to find. I’d be blind not to find it. That, and the fact that you Robins-” you pointed to Tim and little Robin. “-have bright red suits. That’s also a pretty big giveaway.”
Tim scoffed. “Noted.”
“And why?” little Robin said.
“You see, some guy I was fighting found out who I was and he broke into my apartment and stole the majority of my belongings. He proceeded to trash my apartment, and then I was kicked out by my landlord so that’s fun.”
“So...you then went out to find us?” Tim questioned, squinting his eyes through the domino mask.
“Yes, I have a perfectly good reason,” you stated. “I wanted to get recruited by Batman so I could live in the Batcave. I’ve heard it’s quite spacious, you can take me in.”
“Your definition of a good reason is quite different to mine,” Tim remarked.
“Hey, I didn’t have the ability to use anybody’s smarts when I was in the situation, so don’t blame me.”
Batman sighed. “It’s late. You’ll probably be able to find some friend’s house to crash at. We’ll discuss this tomorrow.” He paused to scribble down an address. “One of us will be at the Batcave. Sit tight with them until I arrive.”
They grabbed their grappling hooks and headed off. You were left still pondering how they all had grappling hooks and managed to exit in sync. Well, almost all of them left.
“Who are you behind the mask?” Tim questioned as the others headed off.
“Why do you wanna know birdbrain?” you said, eyeing him through the mask. “Take an interest in my amazing self?”
He coughed into his hand. “No, I just...wanna know who you are.”
You smirked. “Just admit you think I’m just absolutely awesome.”
“I will punch you in the face,” he said flatly.
“Not very polite of you,” you tut.
“Yes, because I should always be polite to people who try to move into the Batcave unannounced.”
“Or perhaps you mean Wayne Manor?”
He went silent.
“How did you-”
“Oh! Would you look at the time!” you exclaimed, looking at your wrist. “Gotta dash!” You ran off into the city before he could question you further.