Young Writers Society

Eddie wished he'd brought some extra-extra snacks. It was getting dark and he was still hungry. He turned down an alleyway, sulking about his snack-less state and kicking a pebble as he walked.

Meggie would have brought extra-extra snacks, he pouted and kicked the pebble a little harder. It skidded across the cobblestones and vanished into a shadowy doorway. He trudged over to the doorway, This is the worst day ever. He knelt and groped around in the shadows for his pebble. It was a really good pebble, smooth on all sides and just the right size to fit in his hand. He wanted it.

He couldn't find it. Tears welled up in his eyes.

"You lose something, sonny?" a voice said from behind him.

Wiping his eyes with his fists, Eddie turned around to see a very tall man - the tallest man on the planet - standing in the alley behind him.

"Yeah," Eddie responded as he tried not to cry.

"Let me help you find it," the man said, kneeling down next to Eddie. There was a matchbook in his hand.

Eddie nodded and the man struck a match. almost immediately, Eddie spotted his pebble. He picked it up, joy welling up in his chest.

"What's that you got there?" the tall man gestured to the pouch on Eddie's belt. It was the coins Meggie had left him with. She told him to keep them in the hideout, but he wanted to bring them with.

"My moneys," Eddie said, checking his pebble for scratches in the light of the match.

The man shifted, and Eddie saw that he was glancing at someone at the other end of the alley. "Where'd you get that much money?" the man asked curiously.

"It's mine," Eddie said. His pebble was all scratched up on the edges. He frowned.

"Can I see it?" The man reached for the pouch.

Eddie scampered back, "No," he said firmly.

The man stood up, dropping his match and stepping forward. He stepped on the match, but he didn't seem to notice. It was suddenly really, really dark, and Eddie was starting to see the shadowy forms of the man's really, really big friend.

He whimpered, "No," hse said again.

The man was going to say something else, but Eddie darted past him only to find himself being grabbed from behind and dragged into the air with his arms pinned to his sides, "NO, no nonono-" a grimy hand over his mouth silenced him. He kicked at the person holding him, at the man, at the air, at everything, growing more and more scared with his every muffled scream.

It had been a long day. All he really wanted to do was finish up his patrolling for the day, head home, and go to bed. Usually picking up Damian from school was part of the equation, but Damian was away with his classmates on a field trip. That was the reason he was out so late - if Damian was home, he would have had to pick him out hours ago. He had just been roaming the streets instead, beating up the occasional crook and dodging Dick whenever he saw a hint of the familiar Nightwing suit.

But just as he was turning the corner, he found himself in an entirely different alleyway.

Which was strange, because he had been pretty sure that there wasn't anyone suspicious lurking around the corner. He glanced around a little wildly, drew his gun from its holster, and peeked into the alleyway right next to the one he had suddenly been in.

And that was when he heard the muffled screaming.

And the screaming sounded like it was coming from a kid.

Eyes widening behind his helmet, Jason moved from around the corner into the shadows of the alleyway. He surveyed the scene from the darkness. Four men in total, all seemingly capable fighters. But none were metas or supervillains, so at least he had that. The jingle from a bag of coins alerted Jason to where the screaming boy was - that was where he would go first.

He shot the other end of the alleyway.

Heads turned as the bullet collided with the hard ground. Jason took the opportunity and struck in the darkness, lunging for the man holding the struggling boy. Jason wrenched him from his grasp - coins continuing to jingle in the boy's pouch - and retreated back into the shadows, aiming a bullet for the man's hand as retribution.

Then he placed the boy on the ground and got to work.

The man with the bullet in his hand wasn't going to be a problem. He wanted him to think he was, but Jason wasn't going to give him even that kind of respect. He landed a good punch in his face and sent him careening back towards the edge of the alleyway. A kick to the next man's abdomen sent him backwards into the man standing right behind, and the last crook was disposed of with a twisted arm and a push into the ground.

He clapped his hands together.

"There," he said, "all done."

He turned back to the boy and gave him a warm smile he forgot the boy couldn't see behind his helmet.

Eddie scrambled away from the person? Thing? He couldn't tell through his tear-blurred vision and the ringing in his ears from the miniature explosions they or it had caused. He whimpered and found himself against a wall. He turned and...another wall. The doorway. He had backed into the doorway.

Profoundly upset, he collapsed down and pulled his knees into his chest, sobbing. If Meggie were here, she would know what to do. She would make all the people go away. She'd get him back to the hideout.

The hideout. He had to go to the hideout.

He looked up, still crying, at the thing with the red oval-shaped thing instead of a head. He could see a little better now, and he decided that it was definitely a person. A person with weird clothes and a strange kind of bent-up wand.

Eddie hoped the person was like Meggie. That this person was a good person.

In retrospect, he should have expected that he would scare the boy - even if Gotham as a whole was used to its fair share of vigilantes and villains, it was still possible a kid could get frightened by a vigilante in a dark, dangerous alleyway.

"Hey," he softly said, crouching down in front of the crying boy. "It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you."

He glanced around for a moment. Seeing that all of the men were unconscious and no one was in the near vicinity, he took off his helmet, shook out his hair, and tucked said helmet underneath his elbow. His eyes glowed a soft, gentle green, and his little white strands of hair stood out among the darkness - not that he could see any of that.

"I just saw that those men were trying to hurt you," he added. "They're going to be alright - they'll just be hurting a lot when they wake up, and they'll learn that it's not a good idea to go after guys like you."

He gave him a big, exaggerated wink.

Then, struck by an idea, he dug into his jacket's inside pocket and pulled out one of the boxes of pocky he had been saving for when he got back to his apartment. Pocky was a treat, but this boy definitely needed something to cheer him up.

He ripped open the box and tore apart the bag. His helmet clattered to the ground as he got a stick for the boy and one for himself.

"Here," he said, "try this, if you haven't had one. It always makes me feel better when I'm feeling scared and done."

He took a big, exaggerated bite out of his stick.

He swallowed and grinned.

"It tastes great, see?" he said. He pushed the stick a little closer to the boy.

Eddie hesitantly took the candy. The boy's eyes were glowing. He didn't know that the mer could do that.

He nibbled on the end of the stick. His eyes lit up and he took a big bite. It was gone way too quickly. He thrust his hand out, "Can I have some more?" he requested.

The boy wasn't old enough for his grey hair. Like Meggie wasn't old enough for her cane. Eddie grinned. This boy was just like Meggie, a helper.

Jason grinned even larger - switching from crouching to sitting with his legs crossed in front of the boy. "Of course," he said. He held out the pack to the boy, taking his gun and chucking it at the face of the man who had the boy earlier. He should have punched him harder the first time around, but he wasn't going to make the mistake again.

The man fell back to the ground - unconscious - and he quickly took back his gun with his free hand.

"My name's Peter," he said. "Peter Parker. What's yours?"

"Eddie," he said cheerily, "Why's your hair white? And what's that?" He pointed at the gun, then grabbed a bunch more candy. Meggie had a lot of weapons, but none of them looked like that. Eddie took a bite of one of the sticks. These were his favorites now, even better than Cook's pastries.

He looked over at what Eddie was pointing to.

"This is my gun," he said - confusion seeping into his voice when he realized the boy didn't know what a gun looked like. Considering what had just happened, he would have thought Eddie knew a thing or two about dangerous things. But maybe that was why it had been so easy to attack him?

Then he pointed up at his white strands of hair.

"And these are a fashion statement that went horribly wrong," he said, giving him another smile in lieu of his earlier confused expression. "Or horribly right, depending on how much you like it."

Eddie leaned in to look closer at the glowing eyes. Mer weren't supposed to be able to do that. Maybe he was something else. Cursed?

"What happened to your eyes? Can I touch your hair? Meggie never lets me touch her white hair. She's blonde, mostly, so you can't really see them but when she puts her hair up you can. Why do your eyes glow?" he asked this all at once between bites of candy.

He faltered.

He hadn't realized his eyes were glowing again - Damian had known that he was in the pit for a bit, so he hadn't had to come up with a lie then. But what should he say now?

"It's my superpower," he finally said. "I can make my eyes glow - it just makes me look cool, which is why I have to rely on this-" He patted his gun. "-to take care of bad guys."

He leaned down a little so his hair was dangling in the air in front of Eddie's face.

"Go ahead," he said. "By the way, who's Meggie?"

He reached up and touched the lock of white. It was softer than he expected.

"Meggie says I can't tell you who she is," he said and drew his hand back, taking another bite of his candy, "She says no strangers."

She did. No strangers were supposed to know her, or where the hideout was. Was Peter still a stranger? Eddie tilted his head. He knew Peter's name. And he had saved him. Maybe he wasn't a stranger.

That was a little suspicious, but it was valid. He had said similar things to Damian before. All that meant was that he couldn't call up "Meggie" and let her know that her brother (?) was alright.

He'd just have to do this the hard way.

He put his helmet back on, making sure it was nice and secure before he got back to his feet. He left the pocky with Eddie; he had more in his jacket, and he had an even bigger stash at his apartment.

"Well," he said, "we should probably get you back to Meggie now - she's probably worried about you, and it's not safe to be alone on the streets. I'll stick with you to make sure no bad men get to you, okay? And if anyone tries to hurt to you when I'm not looking, tell them Red Hood is with you - that'll scare them away."

He held out a hand.

Eddie stood up and put his arms up, "Carry me," he requested, putting down one hand for long enough to stuff his remaining candy in the pouch with his coins, crumbling it in the process, before putting the arm back up.

Well, he couldn't object to that.

Grinning underneath his mask, he picked Eddie up and left the alleyway - and the unconscious men - behind.

"Just tell me where to go," he said. "We'll get there in no time at all."

Eddie grinned and clung onto Peter, "All the way that way," he said, pointing in the direction of the edge of town, where the triple peaks of a mountain were visible over the tops of the buildings, "In the side of the rocks."

He ducked his head into the crook of Peter's neck and closed his eyes, suddenly tired.