Spike Spiegel vs Nightwing

The Arena

Spike Spiegel was chasing a bounty: a smuggler hiding in a neon-lit city somewhere between his world and the next. He tracked the smuggler to a rooftop bar, where a young man in black and blue had just knocked the same smuggler out cold.

Spike sighed. “That’s my bounty, kid.” Dick Grayson looked up, saw the gun at Spike’s hip and the easy stance, and recognised a dangerous man. “Then you’ll have to take him from me.” Spike lit a cigarette. It was going to be one of those nights.

Round One

Spike fought like water, the way his Jeet Kune Do teaches: relaxed, loose, every movement flowing into the next. His first kick was so fast Dick barely blocked it, and the second caught him in the ribs.

Dick answered with the acrobatics that made him the first Robin. He flipped over Spike’s next strike, landed behind him and cracked an escrima stick across his shoulders. Spike laughed. He liked this kid. That would not stop him collecting the bounty.

The bar’s few customers retreated to the far wall with their drinks. Spike circled, hands low, bouncing lightly on his toes like a boxer who has decided nothing matters very much. Dick spun his sticks and matched him step for step, reading the rhythm of his shoulders the way Bruce taught him to read every opponent.

The Turn

They traded blows across the rooftop, tables flying, neon signs flickering. Spike was the better pure striker, his punches arriving from angles Dick had never seen. Dick was faster, more mobile, and trained by the best martial artist on Earth.

Spike drew his pistol, more to end things than to kill. Dick had seen that move a thousand times. He was already in the air, flipping over the bar, and his escrima stick knocked the gun from Spike’s hand before he could aim.

Spike vaulted the bar after him, landed on the counter and kicked a bottle of whisky into Dick’s face. Dick ducked it and swept the counter clean with a stick, and Spike dropped, rolled and came up swinging. The rain picked up. The neon sign above them flickered and went dark.

The Finish

Spike fought on barehanded, grinning, landing a spinning back kick that sent Dick sprawling into a stack of chairs. Dick came back up and fought harder, combining acrobatics and stick work into a relentless storm.

A stick to the knee, another to the wrist, a flying kick to the chest, and Spike went down on his back among the broken glass, the rain falling on his face. He lay there for a moment, then started laughing.

“Fine,” he said. “Keep the bounty. You probably need it more than me.” Dick helped him up and handed him back his cigarette, slightly damp. “Want a coffee?” Spike shrugged. “Whatever happens, happens.” They split the bounty anyway.