Chapter Text
As soon as he closes the lid of the little burner phone, he slips back into character.
A sultry voice. A wide, sharp smile. Narrowed dark eyes hidden behind sunglasses, long acrylic nails that tap along the table like the sharp clacks of typewriter keys.
Emilia Novak isn’t based on anyone he knows, not like his better covers, but she’s good at convincing men to give themselves obnoxiously loud pep talks in front of the mirror, and she’s very good at convincing them to wear the bugged ties she’s bought to their next meeting with the mob boss who’s been threatening his angry clients so he doesn’t have to.
Emilia Novak never existed. She looks nothing like Richard Grayson, whose face has been plastered all over the papers since he was ten years old.
That’s good. It keeps them away from him, away from the Waynes, if the news ever got out.
“Hm,” Emilia Novak says, as a soft chime announces that the transaction is in progress. Within a few hours, the money will have made its way from this man’s accounts to those he’s already scammed before, with none the wiser.
Dick will be taking a cut, of course. It’s one of the Rules.
Never use the money-from-home on a job.
He pulls off Emilia’s long auburn wig, takes out the breast forms in a closet, and swaps clothes in bathroom, careful to never be seen by the cameras. By the time the men come back out again, he’s made his transformation from elegant, posh Emilia to a bumbling intern from the Midwest whose definition of 'city' six months ago had been anything above ten thousand people.
He slips out the doors, completely unnoticed, and takes a detour.
The contacts still itch against his eyes.
Emilia Novak is long peeled away from his skin. He takes the effort to peel Jimmy Burnside away, too, shaking off the Midwestern accent for a carefully-neutral American that he’s spent so long mimicking that it’s practically natural at this point. Along with the accent goes the contact lenses, which make a soft pink as they drop back into their case.
“I’m on my way,” he hums into a much more appropriate-looking phone for the heir to the Wayne family fortune, careful to steel his expression into something warm and nonthreatening as he steps onto the subway.
“I’m sorry, Dick,” says Barbara on the other end of the line. “I kept it out of the news for as long as I could.”
Dick takes a moment, and lets the mask slip. Numb, he thinks, is probably better than the way he feels, cut raw and open and bleeding, and he carefully, slowly arranges his face in response. He’s a performer. He knows exactly what is expected of him.
What Dick wants to do is cry and screech and wail, but that will have to wait until he’s back home.
In a soundproofed room, preferably. Maybe he’ll head back to Headquarters, instead. He can’t risk any of the kids hearing him, after all.
If it’s on the news soon enough, it means they’ve failed.
Bruce hadn’t told Dick about the job he’s been working. It’s finals season for Tim, which means Babs is their only hacker and either Dick or Cass need to play double duty and climb through vents, so the extra missing pair of hands- their mastermind and hitter, to boot- should have been something Dick was warned about weeks in advance.
Up until everything had gone wrong, the only thing Dick had even gotten snippets of was that this job was of the decidedly supernatural variety, some kind of reverse-Indiana-Jones gig. Which, rude- B knows Dick loves returning things to where they came from. It’s his favorite type of job.
Then, of course, everything had gone wrong.
They’d temporarily lost contact with Bruce, for long enough to find out that the simple-seeming artifact return had been turned on its head by fucking Intergang, that Bruce had gone ‘fuck it’ and shown up as Brucie Wayne, and that Brucie Wayne was now a hostage.
Dick still seethes at the thought. The Bat, who’s brought down countless corporations, countless mob organizations, and has returned hard-earned livelihoods and priceless life and hope back into the hands of hundreds upon hundreds of people, lost in a simple hostage trade.
Lost. What a funny word.
They don’t have any confirmation yet. And, well, at least he's here.
Not like-
Dick grits his teeth, and tightens his hand around the pole as he sways against gravity.
Tim doesn’t know yet, probably. His little brother- only halfway won in a hard-fought court case, but not adopted yet- is going to have his life upended into the air again unless Dick can argue in favor of his foster license fiercely enough.
Fuck, why is he compartmentalizing like this? What’s wrong with him?
His dad is dead. Again. Dick’s hand squeezes tighter around the upright pole in the middle of the subway. He lurches off at the next stop, incautious and with a lack of care, elbowing a tall, broad man so hard he hits the side of the subway car on the way out. It doesn’t matter.
The Parity headquarters are technically threefold. Well, more accurately, the Parity headquarters are wherever Barbara is, and Barbara Gordon, better known as the hacker, thief, and occasional vigilante Oracle has three preferred haunts: the headquarters building itself, well-loved with excellent wheelchair accommodations, the Cave, a mass of exercise equipment and old trophies that Bruce haunts- had haunted- like a mournful old ghost, and the Clocktower, which is both of their favorites. It’s the only one with a view. It’s the Cave that Dick heads to now. It’s not exactly the best choice, given that Headquarters has better soundproofing and the Clocktower gives him more roof access, but there are soundproofed rooms, down in the Cave, where he can scream and cry and yell for as long as he needs to.
On the street, heading towards the ever-long stream of taxis, he bumps into something heavy and solid- a young man, he thinks, but Dick doesn’t quite take note of his long face or the streak of white that curls into the air. He’s too busy moving.
By the time he makes it to the Cave, chest heaving, his anger has reached a fever pitch.
The heavy concrete-walled room on the edge of the Cave is soundproofed to everyone except the real bats, who can still likely hear him, even past the thick walls and thicker mesh keeping them away from the human denizens. Safe behind the door of the Screaming Room, Dick screams until he can’t anymore, digging his hands into his hair and wailing like a lost child, like he hasn’t since he was ten years old with the sight of his parents on the ground, limp like dolls, burned into the back of his eyelids.
By the time he digs himself out of the panic room, he’s calmed, some, heartbeat elevated but steady. He hasn’t torn out any of his hair, thankfully, and the skin on his hands is surprisingly still intact, despite slamming his fists against the concrete walls repeatedly. In fact, had it not been for the redness in his eyes or the tear-tracks he quickly wipes away with his shirt, one might assume that nothing had happened to Dick Grayson at all.
He switches his comm back on, the familiar buzz of Barbara on the other end of the line a grounding wire, vital when it feels like he’s going to surge right out of his skin.
“You cooled down enough to talk to the kids?” Babs asks, voice perfectly clinical. Dick wonders if she has some kind of audio bug in the Screaming Room. He really hopes she doesn’t. It would be awful if she’d had to hear any of that.
“Yeah, I think I’ll be good for a while,” he says, voice even. “Tim’s last day of exams was today, yeah?”
“I would assume so, given it’s a Friday,” Babs replies dryly. Dick snorts.
“I’ll swing by and pick him up,” he says. “He gets out in- fuck! Where’d the time go?”
Dick swings by the bowl in the mudroom to grab the keys. A pale hand reaches out to grab him before he makes it out of the door.
“Alfred,” he says in realization, everything-is-fine face dropping in favor of grief and concern. “We have to pick up Tim.”
“Have you heard?” the old butler asks, voice a dry rasp. Dick understands immediately. The last time he’d seen this face on Alfred was a few months after they’d buried Jason, when they’d first heard of Tim’s little exploits into exposing evil on high. It had been, for all of them, their first major loss in years. Bruce and Alfred’s wounds had been older, though reopened all the same, and even Dick’s own parents had been nearly ten years gone. None of them had been prepared for it- how could they have been?
In the tender, bruised way of a child who’s lost too much grown into a man who’s lost more- a man who lives a dangerous life, always on the precarious ledge of the grift- Dick had, to a degree, been expecting this. Alfred, who has buried two dear friends and a grandson, and now faces the same for a man he’s cared for as a son for thirty-odd years now, almost certainly hadn’t.
“I have,” Dick says smoothly. “And there will be time to grieve later, but I need to pick up Tim now. Better for… better for it to be all of us together, no?”
“Of course,” Alfred agrees, straightening. The pained vulnerability vanishes in the light of near-unshakable professionalism.
On his way to the high school, Dick pings the lawyers.
They’re going to need them.
As soon as he spots Tim, Dick knows that he’s heard the news. His younger brother’s face has taken on a decidedly ashy, deathlike pallor, and he walks stiffly to the car, as if rigor mortis has set in to living limbs. Admittedly, Dick has seen that one before. They do live in Gotham, after all.
The poor kid looks like he’s about to puke as he slides into the passenger seat. Dick clucks his tongue soothingly and reaches out with his free hand, brushing the hair away from Tim’s eyes. His little brother leans into the touch, collapsing bonelessly against Dick’s side, only impeded by the gearstick jabbing into his ribs.
The sobs aren’t quite muffled enough by the rain pattering across the windshield. Dick pulls away from the school, and then pulls over, heaving his younger brother into his arms enough to hug him properly. He hums soothingly, rubbing circles into his brother’s back like he’s just woken up from a nightmare. Dick wishes this was a nightmare. Then, maybe, things would be different when he wakes up.
By the time they make it back to the Manor’s gates, Cass and Kate have already called more than once, and, as they make it into the garage, Selina’s motorcycle gleams from where it’s haphazardly leaning next to the back door.
Dick wishes the rain had soaked through his jacket, when he’d gone to pick up Tim earlier. Perhaps then he’d be chilled enough to be numb, heartbeat slowing in the dive response common to all mammals, breathing even, conserving air. He’d be calm, at least- real, genuine calm, not the paper-think mask he stretches over his face in an artless attempt to keep everyone else from splintering.
“So,” Kate says, voice quiet and raw- she’s a hitter, like Bruce is. Had been. She’s not as used to hiding things under layers and layers of paper mache emotions as Dick is. Therefore, what she says next isn’t much of a surprise.
“What are we going to do about Intergang?”
Dick weighs his options in an instant. He can either reprimand her for speaking of such things when they’re still grieving, or he can offer solutions. Kate cuts him off in a millisecond.
“Cut the grift, Dick. We don’t need hand-holding.”
Dick flushes, for once completely involuntary. “I wasn’t trying to,” he says, voice carefully even. “We’re all upset. I don’t feel like yelling.”
Kate’s eyes narrow.
“We still have clients who need us,” Tim points out quietly. Cass, who has recused herself from the discussion, appears to agree with him, though the tightness in her hands as she clings to the side of one of the bouldering walls seems to leave that up for debate.
“We are still not entirely sure as to what happened yet,” Alfred offers, eyes flickering hesitantly between his three grandchildren.
“Fine,” Kate growls, “But I’m going to go looking for your father.”
How is that not manipulative? Dick wants to wail, How is it that you’d get away with saying something like that? Is it because it’s meant to hurt? It’s not- Dick slams down hard on that treacherous train of thought before it can lead anywhere close to the word fair. He already knows things aren’t fair. If they were fair, he would never have lost as much family as he has already.
“That’s hardly fair, Katie ,” a smooth voice purrs, dangerously sharp. “I know you hitters don’t tend to keep a close eye on your words, but do try to stay more aware of your bite. That was downright hurtful.”
Selina stalks past Alfred to stand next to Tim. For the most part, both are the picture of elegant stoicism, but for both, their trembling hands betray their distress.
Dick slips over by his brother, and is surprised to not feel the telltale bump of a lift. Something flashes in the corner of his eye, and Dick resists the urge to snort. Tim passes him his wallet with a soft, shaky smile.
“You’re getting better at that,” he murmurs, so low that he’d be surprised if anyone other than Tim can hear it. The spark of delight below the gloom is obvious.
Despite his skill in the athletic side of the field, Dick’s never really understood this part of thievery. He’s always been drawn more firmly to the meticulous costuming and ever-reaching smiles of the grifter, a performer down to his bones. He can fly with the best of them, and he can execute a lift with skill, Bruce had drilled him on that much, but he doesn’t have the same sticky fingers as Tim. Jason didn’t, either. Jason had been a fantastic pickpocket, one of the best Dick had ever met save Selina herself, able to read and return a person’s wallet in practically the time it would take Dick to blink, but that was training and necessity, not the sticky-fingered talent of a bored little boy who decided that magic wasn’t his favorite party trick.
He turns his attention back to Kate, whose expression has gone from hard and angry to soft and remorseful. Dick releases just a hint of the tension he’s holding in his shoulders. He should have known she didn’t mean it.
“I’m going to keep looking,” she says. “Take care of the kids. I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”
He nods. It won’t do any good to say anything right now. Kate regards him curiously, for a moment, before she lets out a deep sigh, crossing the space between them in moments.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” she continues, reluctance obvious on her face. Dick resists the urge to stiffen and back away, instead tilting his head, offering a tense smile.
“Don’t start,” she chides. “We both know that’s fake as hell, makes you look like a Raggedy Ann.”
“I’d like to think my acting is better than that,” he decides to say after a moment. Kate snorts.
“I know you, brat. Come here.”
The hug is awkward, but it’s something, and Dick relaxes into it all the same. Kate pulls away after a moment, snagging her bag on the way. Selina waits by the door, overly tense, and slinks out after her.
There’s a moment of deeply awkward silence, but Cass breaks it before he has the chance to.
“We need a job.”
Dick startles and stiffens like a cat caught off-guard, eyes wide as he takes in the situation. His sister has moved across half the Cave in what seems like an instant, once more standing on the ground now that their more distant family has left. Dick feels bad considering Aunt Kate and Selina that way, but it’s true.
“I must caution-” Alfred starts, but Babs cuts him off, voice echoing through the Cave.
“You’re right, Cass,” she points out. “At the very least, Dick and I are going to have to run a few jobs to keep suspicion off our backs in regards to timing. Neither you or Tim need to- or should- be involved.”
“I am eighteen,” Cass bites back. “You can’t stop me.”
“Ha! I remember thinking I was all grown up at that age,” Dick hums, “all ready to go out and do jobs on my own. I… was not. Not really, at least.”
Cass raises a single eyebrow.
“You know she's right,” Tim says. “We can’t do anything about Bruce. We can do something. There was this potential client recently, um, Adam Burke? He’s known for art authentication. See, we didn’t really have the time to take him on, ‘cause we were busy with the Mathis job, but.”
Four sets of eyes flicker to Tim, and he falls as silent as the grave.
Dick weighs his options. He wants Tim and Cass to be safe, obviously. Even running around on the rooftops of Gotham in body armor- the usual method of keeping their little winged critters away from a job- is safer than their more intricate jobs, especially when considering they’d be working as a skeleton crew. But Tim does have a point. They can’t control what happened with Bruce, but they can work together to help other people.
Babs is about to crack- at least, she’ll crack to Cass. He won’t win in a direct vote, and while as of half an hour ago he does have custody over Tim, he can’t pull the whole ‘because I said so’ with three other adults. This is the last chance he has to mitigate the risk.
“When I say you tap out, you tap out,” he instructs, voice final. Tim and Cass turn to him with matching looks of surprise, with just the barest hint of delight.
Dick knows how people grieve. He knows that both of these two have gone right from the initial shock and terror straight into denial. It doesn’t matter. They need a distraction regardless.
“Nothing in-person, either, and we take at least a week until Babs and I can get the job set up. And no roping in Stephanie, either, she still thinks we’re normal vigilantes and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Babs coughs in a way that sounds oddly like doubt that.
Dick knows this is the best way to throw them off of planning a con- get enough planning time ahead of things for the new reality to sink in, and giving them enough time to tap out when they’ll need it. The seeming concession will keep them from going and concocting a con behind his back.
… Or so he thinks.
“Actually,” Tim says, “Um.”
Dick tilts his head to the side.
“Go ahead. You have the floor,” Barbara says, wheeling out of the way. Tim grabs a remote from the center table cautiously, and clicks a button. The projector screens on the walls spark to life.
“I kind of already planned a con. Yesterday,” he admits. “I know I’m not supposed to do any planning by myself, but I wanted to try. And it’s nothing complex, just a distraction for a smash-and-grab-and-swap, but there’s this genuine Holstein that this family got out of Austria in the 1930s. When they did. And it was a gift, from the artist to the family, and three days after Burke authenticated it, a bunch of guys in suits show up on their front door trying to buy it for infinitely less than it’s worth. Anyways, they trace back to this guy, James Ochre.”
Tim turns, as if to ask if they’re all still listening. Dick nods. Tim clicks the powerpoint again, showing a middle-aged man with clearly dyed brown hair and a deep-seated look of calculation behind his dark eyes. He’s not surprised. Dick knows the Gotham mob types when he sees them.
“He’s got a reputation for liking expensive works of art, and a reputation for, if underpaying the original owners doesn’t work, just straight up stealing the pieces. Now, the thing about Holstein paintings is that the canvases are small, and it’s pretty hard to set them up with any proximity alarms, to boot. I’ve got scans of the gallery room. He’s hosting some kind of society event a couple days from now- I was thinking a quick, clean heist with whatever we can get, and then seeing about distributing the pieces to their original owners, but I’m stuck on how to make sure Ochre can’t hurt the family Burke is so worried about anymore.”
“Kick up a fuss,” Barbara offers immediately. “You said there’s an event? Something medium-sized, enough to upset the guests enough to call the cops, should be able to do it. Best case scenario, someone jumps the gun after realizing Ochre’s suspicious. Worst case scenario, Central cops are just as corrupt as Gotham’s, but we’ve still got plenty of artwork heading back into the right hands, and Ochre knows something’s up. Of course, the worst case scenario still isn’t acceptable. Who do we know in the Central police department that we could shove towards the first response?”
“Would have to be a pretty specific combination,” Dick points out, “And I’m not so sure about involving the police in the first place. Given this guy’s resources, I think it’s better to target any prospective mob buddies. Is he hosting any?”
“Nobody we know,” Tim says, standing up taller- he must have been expecting them to say that-, “But there are a few.”
“Pit them against each other,” Alfred says, easy as that.
It sounds so simple on paper- make the organized crime guys take each other out, kick everything up into a fever pitch until the fight spills out loud and angry enough for arrests to be made, which would lead any half-decent detective to the gallery full of stolen art less than three walls away from the event. Dick bets that if he tried, he could slam into the wall hard enough to bust through the drywall- people overestimate the strength and thickness of modern construction. And, to that end…
“Has he stolen any art from any of his mob contacts?” Dick asks, mostly spitballing, but the light in Tim’s eyes suggests that he’s stepped exactly where his younger brother was desperately hoping to find him. Dick’s energy matches Tim’s in brightness and magnitude as he watches his younger brother take to the floor in earnest, a wide smile crossing his face.
“You see, there’s this eighteenth-century Spanish coin…”
Dick has forgotten how much he hates being on a con with Tim and Cass when he can’t have eyes on either of them. The comms are good, more than good- they’re the nice jaw-vibration sensors that Babs has been slowly introducing them to over the course of the last few months- but Dick is used to grifts being him or Bruce when the kids are present, so that the other can keep a close eye on the brats. He’s not used to nobody having their backs.
Central City society events are, surprisingly, somehow even more stuck-up than Gotham events, which is ridiculous considering how over-the-top Gotham high society is. Had it not been for the fact that this entire party is at least twenty five percent mobster by weight, Dick might have fallen asleep already. He’s playing a man about a decade his senior, with warm hazel eyes and a jovial smile, but not enough bite to his grin to keep people interested. His job, today, is to fade into the background. To be a shit-stirrer, if he must, but never the center of attention.
Dick likes not being the center of attention. It’s a little difficult for him to do his job if all eyes in the room are pointed at him.
James Ochre, surprisingly, is actually present. He’s even more unnerving in person, all too-sharp smiles and narrowed eyes, glancing around the room suspiciously. There’s something almost familiar about the man that he can’t quite place, but it makes him want to call off the job immediately.
Over the comms, Dick can hear the faint acknowledgement from Tim as he lowers himself from the room’s skylight. The paintings are easy enough- while they’re valuable, they’re not rigged with many alarms. Cass is spotting him- Dick will focus more on getting information from Ochre.
“You’re a new face,” the man says, in a Gotham-tinged accent that Dick can’t quite place- one that deeply bothers him. Michael would chuckle lowly and rub the back of his head.
“Suppose I am,” he says after doing so, careful to add in a twinge of Chicago to his accent. Ochre tilts his head in acknowledgement.
“Heard you have quite the collection,” Dick offers. “I was wondering if you’d be interested in displaying any of it? I have a phenomenal gallery.”
There’s a twitch of interest from a few of the other guests. Business talk must excite them.
“I’m afraid not,” Ochre says, voice low, twisting at his fingers uncomfortably. “I’m rather… attached to all of my current pieces.”
“That’s understandable,” Dick hums. “Heard through the grapevine that you have quite the unusual galleon on your hands-”
“Son of a bitch!” one of the mobsters snarls, stalking over to them. “Don’t listen to this motherfucker, he stole that coin from me.”
Dick backpedals a handful of steps.
“Tim,” he hisses under his breath, “Now would be a good time to get the hell out of there.”
The heavy goon next to Ochre releases his hand. There’s an odd stain covering it, when he does, and Ochre’s wrist is pale from loss of circulation. Dick pretends to down another glass of champagne. Worst comes to worst, the Brucie Wayne is always an easy out.
“Tim,” Dick hisses on the other end of the comms, “Now would be a good time to get the hell out of there.”
Tim would like to, thank you very much, but Cass is currently preoccupied with the metric ton of League assassins on the rooftop, probably here for the same necklace Tim is currently swinging like a pendulum in front of.
It’s an old, heavy thing, probably from the sixteenth century judging by the style- he thinks it’s something he’s seen before on old portraits of Queen Elizabeth I, actually, which would place them firmly in the middle of the sixteenth century, maybe the late fifteenth if the pieces he’s thinking of are much older than the painting. The necklace is a mix of massive green jewels, set in gold, interspersed with diamonds and pearls- even without considering the material from which it’s made, this piece has to be worth, with historical value, well over a million dollars. It’s perfectly preserved. Tim wonders whose collection of crown jewels this one was stolen from.
Then again, there are also the materials to consider. Tim knows, from the faint glow cast in the low light, that these are no ordinary stones. Tim also knows, from years of heists just like this one, that there’s only one material that glows like this that wouldn’t be in the thickest of lead containers. This necklace, nearly five hundred years old and perfectly preserved, is the lure for the League assassins on the rooftop. There’s no way it can’t be.
The glowing green gems, which had once had their place of pride around the necks of queens, shine with a menacing light.
Tim hasn't spent the last near decade and a half of his life living under a rock. He knows Kryptonite when he sees it.
Dick hisses for him to make his escape again, but Tim pauses. If he leaves, that leaves a cruel man in possession of a rock that can kill Superman- millions of dollars worth of it, too. Tim scans the podium the necklace is placed on with care. There’s already a handful of paintings in his bag, including the Holstein, but… this shouldn’t hurt, right? There aren’t any alarms. Gingerly, he reaches out with gloved hand, tugging at the chain end of the necklace. It’s heavy- that’s the first thing he notices. It’s around five pounds, at least- not the heaviest he’s lifted, by necklace standards, but pretty close to it.
He doesn’t notice the quick blink of a laser as he tugs on the rope to pull himself up.
Above him, Cass stands victorious over a pile of groaning ninjas.
“You will be fine later,” she scoffs.
There’s a whine from the pile, and she rolls her eyes.
A crack from the opposite rooftop gathers her attention, bullet digging into the roof beside her. Cass pulls out a grappling gun, and prepares go go to work.
“My apologies,” Ochre says, holding up his oddly-pale hands, “Something’s come up that requires my attention.”
Dick’s blood goes cold.
He waits a few moments, so as not to be suspicious, and excuses himself, quiet as a mouse. There aren’t any security cameras- Dick supposes that’s a good thing. He doesn’t move as fast as Ochre- he can’t, in the man’s own house. The looking-for-the-bathroom excuse will only work for so long. He makes a mental note- the kids aren’t allowed on cons without more adult supervision, now. This is throwing Dick off his game by far too much.
There’s a whimper through the comms, and Dick moves faster.
“Oh, what’s this?” says a harsh, scratchy voice. “Is the Big Bird listening in? Oh, you’ve given me such a fantastic gift, Michael. I’ve so missed playing with your lovely little Robins.”
Dick freezes.
Something on the other end of the comm snaps, and so does he- launching into motion like a loosened spring, Dick slams through the door with the force of an oncoming train. The man in the middle of the room looks perfectly ordinary, but as he holds Tim with one meaty hand, he raises the other to smear at his face.
It’s makeup. Underneath the perfectly ordinary skin tone is a stark, corpse-like white.
James Ochre.
J. Ochre.
Joker.
He’s such an idiot. How didn’t he put it together?
By the time his brain has processed this new information, he’s approached most of the way. His eyes must be wild, he thinks to himself- he certainly feels half-feral, his hands trembling, his lip curled up into an inhuman snarl of fear and rage.
“Of course it’s you,” Joker rasps. “I shouldn’t be surprised. Where’s your father, little bird? Gone to join your other brother?”
There’s a glass case, about a foot away from his hand. Dick’s eyes flicker to it. There’s nothing here that can be used as a weapon, but maybe, maybe…
“You know, neither of them have been screamers,” Joker purrs, staring at Tim with something hateful in his eyes. “This one isn’t- he’s always been quiet- but the last one wasn’t, either. It really is no fun. I wonder, will you scream? If I kill this one in front of you? I heard you screamed for Jason. I’m sorry I never got to hear it.”
There’s a crash, and a flash of pain goes up Dick’s arm. He doesn’t care. The Joker’s eyes go wild, and his mouth opens as if to laugh.
The air doesn’t make it in time.
It takes only an instant, only a half-second, half a step, half a thought. Dick’s not even sure if he’s all the way aware for it. The important things are these:
Joker’s hand loosens, dropping Tim, who swings away like a pendulum, spinning aimlessly through the room.
Dick takes a step back from his work, hissing as his ruined palms make themselves known.
And, as Dick stalks over to his brother, reaching up with the child’s grappling-gun and his uninjured hand to fire into the air, a corpse slumps over like an abandoned marionette, wine-red eyes lifeless in the dark.
A single piece of glass, as wide and as long as a human hand, gleams from where it rests buried in the corpse’s jugular.
Wally doesn’t know how they missed this. Reacting late to a murder is one thing- even with a city that holds two (well, three, but Jay’s retired) of the Fastest Men Alive can’t catch everything. But the ID is pretty obvious, with the dye leaching out of his hair and the makeup smeared over his face- it’s Joker, the CCPD is sure of it, and Wally can’t find it in himself to argue.
… But what is Joker, a notorious mass-murderer from Gotham, where even the vigilantes stoop to more traditional forms of crime, doing in Central City?
“There’s a couple of pieces missing,” Barry hums. It’s just them, no Jay- he’s handling the rescues, tonight. He may be (mostly) retired, but he still loves helping, and none of them can fault him for it.
“What kind of pieces?”
“Over a hundred carats of Kryptonite kind of pieces,” Barry whispers to him. “Look at this. Would have been right here. Couple of paintings missing, too.”
“Is anyone else a little weirded out that there’s two of them?” one of the officers hisses in the background.
“The redhead’s the younger Flash, you can tell by the freckles,” another- a detective, this time- whispers back. “Used to be Kid Flash, the one in the yellow costume, about ten years ago.”
Wally waves politely. The detective snorts.
This is gruesome, that much is obvious. Joker’s collapsed backwards, the force of whatever hit he received enough to send a full grown man toppling to the ground. The glass piece is buried at least halfway through his neck- a feat of strength that suggests whoever they’re looking for attacked in more of a panic than anything premeditated. There’s a series of drops culminating in a pool near the middle of the room, where a rope swings from the open skylight. The killer probably left through there, but…
“We’ve got a blood sample,” he says. “This isn’t Joker’s.”
Barry nods.
Wally doesn’t really know what kind of help either of them will be right now, but he can try.
Some half-hidden part of him wonders, though, why whoever it was that killed this man didn’t even try to clean up the evidence.
“What do you mean, it’s all gone?” Wally half-wails. This is, of course, not as the Flash- no, this is as Wally West, forensic technician, who has just been informed that half his evidence is missing.
“I’m serious,” the officer says, “All the blood samples went missing, and we went back looking for more- whole thing was cleaned up and disinfected. Someone let a janitorial crew in there, but here’s the thing- none of their names were on the list of people employed by James Ochre.”
“Did the glass go missing too?”
“Yeah,” the officer says, waving his hands wildly, “Everything is gone, I’m not kidding. Stuff we got from Joker himself is still legit, but anything that could be from the guy that killed him? Poof. We got nothing.”
“Let me see the security footage,” Wally asks, “Please? I want to know who lost my evidence.”
“Ha, you forensic guys. Course I will, we fucked your side of the investigation sideways by losing all that, might as well let you take a look so you’re not pissed at us for the next six months.”
The videotape is, as expected, grainy and absolutely useless, but there’s something…
“Do you remember that guy?” he asks the officer, who shrugs his shoulders.
“Yeah, sure, Gotham PD. Weird guy. Wanted to see the corpse for himself. Said something about winning a bet over how quick the Joker kicked it when the Bat was out of town, but honestly, he just looked relieved.”
Wally groans, scrubbing at his face.
“So you’re telling me,” he says quietly, “That someone showed up to look at the Joker’s corpse, made an appearance at the evidence refrigerator before I was granted access to the blood samples, and appeared relieved when he was able to confirm he was dead? Do you know anything about this guy?”
The officer seems to realize the mistake in a moment, sitting down with a sigh.
“Shit.”
“Yep.”
“This is the guy that killed him, isn’t it.”
“Most likely.”
“... I’ll tell the Captain.”
“You go do that.”
Wally’s eyes shift back to the screen. The man- from Gotham PD, apparently, though Wally highly doubts it- turns to avoid the camera once again. He’s careful, never letting anything see his face, but… Hm. His eyebrows are awfully dark, in comparison to his hair. Dye, probably, or maybe a wig… although if it’s dye, that probably won’t say anything, since he’d probably wear it like that normally.
“Huh,” he says, “I’m not looking forward to telling Clark about this one.”