[BATMAN] A Grateful City: Layla

A Grateful City, a Batman fanfiction series by Raberba girl

Layla (rough draft)

Summary: A young woman finally gets a chance to thank the boy who saved her years ago.

o.o.o

Her first instinct was to scream when she saw the man lurking in the entrance nook for her and her next door neighbor's apartments, but at second glance, she recognized the helmet. It was one of those vigilantes, not a criminal. "R-Red Hood?!"

"Just carry on, I'll be gone in a minute," he snapped, barely looking up from the injury on his calf that he was treating.

Layla took a deep breath. The chances were slim that she'd ever get a chance to actually speak to any of Gotham's vigilantes again. "Do you...do you happen to know who the Robin was in 2007?"

He froze ominously.

"I don't need to know his secret identity or anything!" she said hastily. "I just wanted.... Do you know him? Is there any chance you could get a message to him?"

"...That was me. I was Robin in 2007."

"Wait-- You used to be Robin?!" She knew that Red Hood was, at least sort of, an ally of Batman, but she'd never dreamed that the gun-toting vigilante with the most violent reputation of the lot had actually been a Robin, much less the one she remembered.

"You got a message or not?" he said defensively.

"Please don't be mad at me! I'm really glad to meet you. I--" She drew in another steadying breath. "When I was eleven, our house burned down. Robin was the one who found me and led me out, and calmed me down, and stayed with me until the ambulance came. I-I just wanted to thank you. All this time...I still think about it a lot.... Just-- Thank you. Thank you for saving me, and for being so nice to me afterward."

He fidgeted for a moment, then tugged his boot back over his freshly bandaged leg and stood up. "You're welcome," he said awkwardly, before vanishing into the shadows.

Layla exhaled, and her heart felt lighter as she unlocked the door of her apartment.

o.o.o

A/N: That date was very vaguely guesstimated. X'''D