Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Two Months Ago.

“Dick, don’t be like this. I’m just trying to help!” Dick’s fist was inches away from the blood that dribbled down Roy’s face. Roy's elbow dug into Dick's collarbone, holding him just out of arm's reach.

“Help how?!?” Dick yelled. His vision tunneled, tinted red around the edges. “Kicking me off my own team?” He spat. He shoved Roy into the wall. “How’s that helping anything?!?”

“Dick, you’re not in your right mind. I’m not kicking you off the team. Back off, now.” Roy let him go, and Dick did the opposite, closing his hands around Roy’s collar. Roy grabbed him by the wrists and forced him to let go. Dick pushed him again.

“Dick! You’re way out of line!” Roy wiped the blood from his nose and pushed him back, just enough to keep him out of arm’s reach. “What the hell is wrong with you?” The worst part was that he sounded more genuine than mad. Dick could feel the blood congealing on his fists. He couldn’t face the guilt, so he turned to rage instead.

“You want to help?!” Dick shrieked. “Bring back Joey! Bring back Raven! Danny! Jason! Or kill me and make it stop!” He stumbled back. Blood dribbled, blossoming out of Roy’s shirt. Oh my god. Roy took a step forward, and Dick could see the sword between his ribs. He stood behind Roy, a mirror of himself sneering as he held the blade there. No, no, no, no, no. “Stop it! Get away from me!” Dick yelled, hysterically. And suddenly Roy was back to normal, as if there’d been nothing wrong with him in the first place. The air left the room, and Dick couldn't breathe. “Just leave me alone.” Dick ran. They ran after him, but Dick could hide, and he'd always been faster.

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Now.

Twenty-one dead men sat with snapped necks laid in body bags spilling out of Gotham Memorial’s moratorium. The Batman stood scowling in the center of the mess. Not that it meant much; his resting face was hardly lighter than a scowl. Bruce was hardly ever happy, the good old days had died a long time ago.

They’d found themselves working together more often. Dick came running home with his tail tucked between his legs after his last mission with the Titans wound up with half his team dead. He wasn’t sure where else to go; the Tower was in ruins, he’d been evicted from his apartment, and he’d burnt down every bridge he had left. He almost didn’t come home, but then, Bruce asked him to stand in as Batman after the fiasco with Jean Paul. And Dick, though insulted that he was apparently Bruce’s second choice, said yes.

Tim’s enthusiasm at his presence helped. The kid was half the reason why he was staying in Gotham at all. An uneasy truce had formed between him and Bruce, but somewhere in the tight line of Bruce’s shoulders, or the rigid grimace of his mouth, Dick got the feeling something big was about to change.

“The major crimes unit fished them out of the estuary.” Bruce said, gesturing around them. He stood over one of the bodies, and lifted the blanket over it, revealing the extensive bruising around the dead man’s neck. The man’s face was expressionless, his head shaved. There was a scar under his right eye and a wing symbol nestled in a massive tattoo across his chest. “They floated in from the harbor from south of Gotham.” Bruce looked over his shoulder and made a face. Once upon a time, he might have known what Bruce was trying to convey. But he was out of practice, and had spent the last three months more worried about not letting himself fall apart.

When Bruce didn’t continue, Dick took a moment to think. To the south of Gotham lies her sister city. “Blüdhaven.” He filled in. Bruce stared back, then walked out. The meaning behind that was clear enough. Dick lingered, looking over the corpses. They were out of Batman’s self-imposed jurisdiction, one that Nightwing didn’t have. They were his responsibility now. He took in the shaved heads and offensive tattoos as the scent of bleach seared his lungs. He studied the bruises that looked suspiciously like fingerprints and took pictures of the small winged tattoo that all the men shared.

He turned away from the bodies, and took a look at the lone laptop in the lab. It sat on a desk, half buried by a disheveled stack of paper. Surgical tools were scattered next to it. The place wasn’t very organized. Dick flipped open the laptop, it asked for a password. On a whim he tried opening the desk drawer; people often leave passwords lying dangerously close to what they unlock.

The desk drawer was locked but Dick made quick work of it with his lockpicking set. The drawer opened with a clunk, it was heavy, full of paperwork. He skimmed the labels and took scans of the ones that shared names with the twenty-one dead men. Once he finished, he rummaged through at the back, and found a notebook containing all the diener’s passwords. Dick couldn’t help but grin at the carelessness; it made his life a whole lot easier. He pulled a small USB from his right gauntlet and plugged it into the laptop. He copied all the related blood and toxicology reports then headed out.

He left Gotham that night. Dick hadn’t asked for permission to crash in one of Bruce’s downtown apartments, so he didn’t notify anyone of his departure. Bruce hadn’t mentioned it once, so he figured he didn’t have a problem with it. He’d moved into the place after his stint as Batman. And now he packed, waiting for the washer to finish running as he watched the dawn break over Gotham. The way the golden light scattered across the rooftops reminded him of those good old days… which were best not to think about.

He remembers them so vividly, though, coming home in the morning light, Alfred handing him a snack and taking his cape. Then handing him another book to study. And the Titans back then… hanging out with Donna, Wally, Garth, and sometimes Roy. Those meetings had been some of the best times of his life. And then Roy joined full time, and Mal and Lilith had come on board. With Bruce’s permission, he’d started living with the Titans and began taking college classes early.

And then he dropped out halfway through his first semester. The Titans disbanded because they were all sick of one another. His move back home marked the beginning of the end. He and Bruce had started fighting long before the bullet to the shoulder broke the camel’s back. Robin was fired, and Bruce’s stone-faced silence proceeding it pronounced whatever was left of their relationship outside of Batman and Robin dead.

Those ‘good old days’ were fun while they lasted. But time brutally marched on, leaving the past trampled in the dust. A new team of Titans was formed, but Dick had driven that iteration into the mud. The dryer buzzed violently and Dick went back to work. He grabbed his toothbrush and the single load of laundry that he owned, cleaned the dishes, and vacuumed the floor. Clearly, Bruce had taken notice that this is where he was staying, because a box full of their latest and greatest equipment showed up outside the front door. He stowed it in his bag, alongside his Nightwing suit, and wrote a nice note to Alfred. Then, he left. He didn’t look back.

He spent the bus ride to Blüdhaven alternating between dozing against the window and skimming the local news on his phone. If he’d been paying attention, maybe he’d have seen the spray paint on the ‘Welcome’ sign. “Welcome to Hell. Get the fuck out.” If that wasn’t warning enough, the endless scroll of constant crime and corruption covered in the news feed didn’t paint a prettier picture of his destination.

Dick woke up when the bus stopped, not realizing he’d fallen asleep. No sooner than he stepped onto the pavement, he spotted a young girl being heckled by a group of guys twice her size. Dick’s blood boiled, she couldn’t be more than sixteen. “Hey!” He called sharply. “Lay off my sister.” He stepped in front of her protectively, and snarled at the group. She didn’t call his bluff.

“Sister?” The shorter guy sized him up as his friend smartly took a step back. “You two look nothing-”

Dick grabbed the guy by his arms and pinned them to his side. He dug his fingernails into the man’s muscles, clenching his hands painfully tight. “You got something against adoption?” The man shook his head, his jaw hanging open. Dick dropped him. “Get out of here.” He pushed the man back. His friend grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back. They disappeared into the crowd. Dick turned to the girl. “Are you okay?” She looked as if she were about to throw up, and her arms were crossed tightly against her chest.

“Fine.” She stared at the ground. Her hands were shaking. She wore an oversized coat that was clearly second hand, and not her size.

“What’s your name?” He softened his voice and sagged his shoulders, trying to make himself look a bit less threatening. He supposed that was a bit hard when she’d just seen him run off two guys.

“Tandy.” She took a step back. “What do you want from me?” She crossed her arms. Her fingertips barely cusped the sleeves of her jacket.

“Here.” He pulled out his return ticket on a hunch. He could buy another. Or swallow his pride, apologize for going AWOL on the Titans for the last two months and call Wally. “I want you to go home.”

“I don’ want that.” Tandy said quietly. Daringly, she looked up. He caught a glimpse of her wide eyes before she shyly looked away again. “I can’t go back.” Her voice wavered on breaking. “Not to that, I can’t-”

“Okay, you don’t have to go back home.” Dick pulled out all the cash he had left in his wallet. “You don’t have to go back to them. But this will get you lunch. If you need anything - a job, a home, school, whatever, go to the Wayne Foundation office on third street. It’s near the bus station. Tell them Dick Grayson sent you.”

She managed to look up for longer the next time. She looked at him searchingly. “Okay.” She agreed, then took the ticket and left. Maybe she just wanted the money. He watched until she got back on the bus, then grabbed his bag and left. Blüdhaven wasn’t somewhere you went to seek salvation. One less person in this city was one more soul denied to hell.

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Dick spent the rest of the day alternating between scouting out apartment buildings and calling landlords. He walked through the city without a destination and tried to get the lay of the land. He read ‘Help Wanted’ signs outside every bar and store in town, and admired the city’s local artists’ graffiti. Some of it was small, just initials penned on normally out of reach places. But others were displays of grandeur which revitalized decrepit places.

He took his dinner early in a small diner. The grease on his cheeseburger dripped down his wrists as he eavesdropped on the locals’ conversations. A woman named Jasmine was getting a divorce; good for her, from the sound of it. The television was turned to the local news, and a slight blond woman with too-white teeth smiled brightly as she reported about the police ‘cleaning up’ a homeless encampment at the edge of the Central Business district. Down a few booths, and leagues quieter, Dick overheard a raspy voice complaining about Freddy Minh shaking him down hard for his debt. Dick stored away the bits of information, resolving to follow up on the last.

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A few days later, Dick Grayson hadn’t followed up on that information, but he had found himself a place to live. He stood on the 3rd floor of 1013 Parkthorne Avenue having paid the next two months rent, both for himself, and Dr. Fledermaus - an old alias he dusted off to prevent himself from having any next-door neighbors. The lock on both their doors were broken; he’d have to fix that tomorrow, but for now, he threw the door of his brand new apartment open.

A whiff of musty air washed over him and the sneezing fit that ensued rivaled Wally’s worst hayfever. Dick gazed fondly at his dingy apartment. The carpet was crumpled and burnt in various places. Where it picked up, a layer of muck caked the floorboards. He swore he saw a rat skittering around in the edges of his vision. At least he hoped it was a rat, and not him seeing things again. He wasn’t even through his door, when a screaming match broke out between a couple upstairs. Shrill voices were accompanied by percussion; some truly astounding acoustic stomping, which shook the whole building right to its foundation.

“Home sweet home.” Dick muttered to no one at all, dropping his bag inside the door of apartment 3A. He could tell already, that he would hate it here. Which made it the perfect choice for him.

“KILL YOURSELF! DO IT! YOU WON’T YOU CUNT ASS BITCH!” Screamed the man. Something heavy shattered against the floor. Dick drew in a long sigh. Though he supposed he should have been expecting this. Blüdhaven didn’t seem like the type of city where people fostered healthy relationships.

“SHUT YER TRAPS OR I’M CALLIN THE COPS!” Their landlord threatened from the bottom of the stairs. And after an aggressive bout of stomping and a string of words that don’t bear repeating, it became clear that the couple’s anger at her exceeded their anger at one another. Dick supposed there were worse things to bond over.

The couple did not make their distaste unknown. As Dick stepped inside his trashed apartment, poor Clancy - the landlord, was called a host of names Dick did not feel comfortable repeating. It was not pretty, and it got worse the further he got in. Heaps of trash lay strewn against the ground. It was unsanitary - a patch of dark brown in the carpet could pass for shit or blood. Needles lurked in the corners, Dick had to watch where he stepped and where he sat things down. The place was truly abysmal.

No matter. It was the cheapest place in town, had a halfway decent landlord, and most importantly for his night job - had two rooms wedged into a discreet corner of a building. It wasn’t a quarter as nice as his apartment in New York City was. But he specifically made sure there was a provision in the lease for not burning all his shit if he forgot to pay rent for two months. And because Clancy was desperate to fill the spot, she agreed without asking awkward questions.

Dick finished his careful journey to the lightswitch, and flicked them on. The lights burned blindingly bright for half a second before sputtering out dramatically in a shower of sparks. “Ah well. Fuck it.” Dick threw the bag of all his belongings onto a chewed up sofa, and marched right back out to the electrical box opposite his door.

He cringed at what he saw. “That’s a fire waiting to happen.” He muttered. Every engineering instinct Bruce had drilled into him told him to run. He wasn’t even that qualified of an electrician, most of what he knew applied to defusing bombs! Although… in this case… that pretty much summed up what he was doing. Pennies plugged half the fuses, and wires were spliced together haphazardly without putting back their insulation. Quick, easy, cheap. Deadly. But no one likes to talk about that last bit. If a single inspector or electrician within the city limits actually did their job, Dick resolved to eat all the pennies in one go.

Dick took a calming breath. This wasn’t a big deal. He could handle this. One trip to the hardstore, five hours, six electrical boxes, a pair of rubber gloves, some locks, a pack of heat shrink, several loud disagreements with the neighbors, and twenty seven replaced fuses later, he had. There was at the very least not a fire hazard in front of him, but he’d have to check out the rest of the apartment’s wiring later. Dick walked back into his room, carefully sidestepped the biohazards on his floor, and flicked on his lights. They stayed dark, because while at the hardware store, he’d forgotten to buy bulbs to replace them

Dick muffled a scream. Fine. No lights for tonight. He threw his duffle bag into the couch and took another deep calming breath. Or well. What would have been a deep and calming breath if he could ignore the overwhelming odor of piss.

Dick gagged, what was that? He stepped closer, trying not to vomit on the nasty floor. On further examination, it was definitely the couch. He cringed as he took his poor bag off the nasty thing. The couch would need to go and it would need to go tonight. To top off the night, the elevator wasn’t working. Which meant that Dick spent the next half an hour lugging a piss stained couch down three flights of stairs, which is exactly as enjoyable as it sounds.

“Don’t you dare leave that there.” Clancy said pointedly, when he reached the bottom, obscuring her mouth and nose with a cloth. She took a few steps back and jutted a thumb over her shoulder towards the door. “Out.” She commanded.

“You sure clean up nice for the new renters.” Dick replied, trying not to sound too bitter. He failed epically and practically hissed at her.

“Sorry, but you saw it first and came back with the money. That’s on you, love. Not me.” Dick bit his tongue; she was right. Clancy was kind enough to hold the door for him, with tears welling in the corners of her eyes the entire time. “Bless yer soul, I’d’ve walked out of this shithole when I had the chance to. Can’t say ye weren’t warned.” And with that the door fell shut.

He dragged the foul smelling couch to the curb. It blended in with the rest of the decor. Broken bottles and half-opened bags of trash littered the streets with rubbish of all sorts. The smell was something so fierce, it made the piss couch seem like nothing. Dick hadn’t been around long enough to grow accustomed to it, and he supposed he never would. At the very least, he could understand the cause of it - he hadn’t seen a single garbage truck collecting trash in the poorer sections of town. The rampant litter was a reflection of city dumps charging a fortune per bag. And no one seemed to give a crap unless it spilt into the more touristy areas. He sighed. There was no real way of getting rid of this couch without a car, and he didn’t have one of those. Not for the first time, he thought about buying a ticket, and getting on the return bus home.

That wasn’t an option. Bruce asked him to go to Blüdhaven and if he failed, well… he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to come back from that. His life since leaving home felt like a long trudge on a slog of failures. He needed this. A chance for redemption - not the piss couch. That, he pushed against the curb before heading back up the front steps.

There was something hungry in the way he moved, and perhaps a little desperation in the way he clenched the door handle too tightly. He needed a way to make a difference - on his own, with no one to lose or let down. If he failed here, the worst that would happen was more victims washing up in Gotham’s harbor. And if he succeeded? Low risk, high reward. He hadn’t realized how desperate he’d been for a fresh start. Maybe Bruce could tell. It was up in the air - he supposed he wasn’t all that subtle, but Bruce was as dense as a brick.

He glanced back before he shut the door, and took one last look down the street, pondering his place in it. The few street lights that worked flickered dimmer than the ones that blew up in his apartment, in a way that screamed of neglect rather than faulty wiring. In the light that was left, Dick could just barely make out the uninviting shapes of boarded up windows and doors. He had to wonder, was this a way of testing if he still had what it takes? Or was it a punishment for his failures? Both? Neither? Bruce’s logic was lost on him. He knows part of it is about his own independence; Bruce had made enough mistakes there to know that Dick chafed under control. Dick hoped this was an olive branch; a way of keeping close to home while having his own space, but he still couldn’t help feeling as if there were more to it. It was always complicated with Bruce. Dick let the door fall back into place, he could ruminate later.

It was late in the night when Dick finally made it back into his room. He replaced the locks first (because those, at least, he didn’t forget). Then he showered and cleaned out the top drawer of his dresser, which was enough space to unpack the meager amount of clothes he’d brought with him. And finally, after a long day filled with suffering, he did what he actually wanted to do, and changed into his Nightwing suit. Being Dick Grayson felt a bit wrong right now, but Nightwing? He took a moment to admire the new suit, and the blue that streaked down to his fingertips. He breathed in, somehow Alfred must have gotten ahold of his measurements, because it fit exactly right.

Dick practically exploded with pent up energy the moment his feet left his windowsill. He leapt to the next floor’s fire escape and monkey-barred to the edge, then swung himself out and over the side. From there it was an easy stretch to reach the roof. His jittering hands stilled as he shot his grappling gun on the roof of the taller apartment building next door. The building cast a convenient shadow down the side nearest to Dick’s apartment and had half its windows boarded up, making it the perfect way to climb to higher ground without attracting any unwanted attention. He’d scouted it out before; his apartment was the perfect place for a budding solo hero to set up shop, despite being lacking in living standards. Not that it mattered all that much.

He exhaled, and threw an arm up over the side of the building. He took another breath, then pushed himself over the top, and flopped onto his back, letting his legs dangle over the side. He grinned. The climb wasn’t terribly long, but it felt good to work out. A lot of detective work was sitting in a corner and reading, so Dick savored the moments when he got to do something physically demanding. Dick peered up into the night. The smog was so thick tonight, he couldn’t see the stars. It made him think of Gotham. It made him think of New York. And the nights he spent as a kid performing in polluted cities across the world. Smog united them all.

He thinks for a second about a road trip the Titans took, just on the cusp of his seventeenth birthday. They’d driven out West for a mission, but Roy was the one with the license, and so he’d happily forced them all on a detour to a dark spot and properly introduced them to the stars. If Dick could wipe the fog away, he wonders if he’d remember the stories that Roy told as he gazed up at the constellations. Dick tucked away the memory, it was best not to dwell on impossibilities.

He rolled over his shoulder and planted his feet on the roof, then directed his gaze down from the heavens. The building he’d climbed was about ten stories tall, which didn’t give a perfect view, but was enough to steal his breath away. Mostly because of how haphazard the buildings around him seemed to be. He stood on the tallest by far, but each building in the light seemed to be a different style and size, cobbled together in whatever way was the cheapest. The flickering street lights aren’t restricted to his street; for blocks, the power cuts in and out while further off towards casinos, all he could see was the lights. Neon, in massive colors, monstrous beings miles away in Avalon Heights. A fraction of the wasted electricity could power his entire block.

Dick leaned over the edge, but didn’t leap, even though he wanted to. Instead he turned and stepped alongside it. When he was young, he stayed safe by following his parent’s rules. “It's not good enough to plan out your next leap, think three moves ahead.” Time spent with Bruce upped that number. He wasn’t foolish to go leaping off of buildings before getting the lay of the land. And though he’d spent his nights up till now working through that mental map, he hasn’t been around this section of town. Dick walked the perimeter of the building looking for potential ways down, then tried the access door. It was locked, but not in a way that would be a problem for him. He popped the door open quickly, just to check that he could. He took a peek down the stairwell, before shutting it again. From there he inspected the vents in the center of the building, bolted shut - but accessible if you had the right screwdriver bit. He took stock of all the potential escape routes, then leapt to the next roof, and repeated his inspection.

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Dick spent five hours mapping out the rooftops in his head, and came away with at least twelve discrete routes back to his apartment from the center of the city. He resolved to alternate using them, just in case someone was lurking in the shadows. He came up with a couple escape plans too. One would hope that he wouldn’t need them, but years of tells him otherwise. Dick can’t fly, like half of his friends. He doesn’t have super strength or speed or magic powers. His friends aren’t here to help him make a quick getaway or take out someone bigger than he is. If a meta attacked him at home, without a plan he’d be dead. Too many people didn’t appreciate the hours of preparation that go into successfully catching a killer, without getting killed yourself.

As the morning dawned, Dick headed to his apartment, practicing one of the trickier routes he picked out. It took him longer than he would have liked, but he chalked that up to being up what was bordering on twenty four hours. Finally, he landed back on his firescape and slipped back in through his window. He dutifully showered again, though it did little to erase the stench of Blüdhaven. He found a broom in the closet, and swept the trash on the bedroom floor into a tidy little pile. There wasn’t a bed in the room yet, which made his job easier. And then there was nothing left to do, except curl up on the floor, try to sleep, and wrestle with the question of if he’d done the right thing by coming here.

Chapter Text

By the end of his first week in Blüdhaven, Dick’s biggest lead was dead.

It started when he found the winged symbol on the back of a diner while meticulously walking through the city to build his internal map. It didn't take long to find a drug dealer, and took less time to get the guy to squeal by threatening to shove an escrima stick up his ass. The symbol was Angel Marin's and ever the people pleaser, the dealer speculated that Freddy Minh might be after Marin to get rid of the competition. Dick had a solid lead for all of three hours. And he went looking for Freddy Minh at the perfect time - he caught his wife screaming for her children at an open door, and a truck hurtling down the driveway at record speed with a fridge in the back and False Faces at the wheel.

Dick took one look and jumped. Freddy Minh might be a crime lord, but no way in hell was he letting kids get caught in the crossfire. Black Mask's gang had other priorities, and a guy in a fox mask of all things decided Nightwing needed a haircut. “Oh, fuck you!” Dick said, as he ducked a knife aimed at his neck. The thing tangled in his hair, and a chunk ripped out. Wisps of hair whipped up in the wind and floated out the back of the truck. “I spent a long time growing that!” He kicked the fox-man a little harder than he should. It felt a little to good to hear the crunch of the man's nose breaking under his heel.

The car was still careening through the streets, and Dick got complacent. He didn't check that foxy was down for good before he opened the fridge. And he left himself wide open for attack when he was startled to find a briefcase and not kids in the back of the fridge. He'd been ready to grab the kids and jump out; but instead he took a moment too long to stare, and dumbly opened the offending briefcase. “Embryo's?” The frozen eggs were the last thing he saw before Foxy cracked his head open and his vision went black.

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Dick woke up to salt water filling his lungs. He pushed down panic as he sank, because panic would get him killed faster. His hands were tied together, and his feet were tangled to something which pulled him down into the abyss. His mask was still on, and once he got his bearings, he could see the cement bricks. Fuck. He could see the gravestone now: “Here lies Nightwing, a failure who died three days after going off on his own.” Not happening, he was absolutely not going to die here. He worked on his hands fervently, getting enough force to snap zip ties underwater felt impossible. His wrists rubbed raw against the damn things, which cut through his sleeves. There was blood in the water, adrenaline kicked in hard as he thought of what that could attract, and somehow Dick snapped the tie binding his wrists together. He grabbed a pocket torch out of his gauntlet, and took the next minute to free his feet. Then he swam for what felt like an eternity. The stupid briefcase weighed him down, and it would take too long to get it off. His lungs felt like they were about to burst and his arms felt like lead. Spots began to dance in his vision as the surface became clearer. And finally-

Dick took a breath just before he passed out, and violently hacked up water. He clung to the nearest dock post, spitting up water and chunks of his dinner. The bitter sting of salt engulfed his lungs and nose, and it was all he could do to force himself to breathe. He stayed there until he was sure no one was watching, then charted a path through the shadows back to solid ground. He nearly kissed it when he hauled himself up on the concrete, but he didn't dare, not with all the polluted water he just inhaled from the bay. It was better not to tempt fate.

Dick stemmed the bleeding at his wrists and freed his left hand from the briefcase. He stared at the damn thing. He really didn't feel like dealing with Freddy Minh tonight, but it felt wrong to throw it away. Mrs. Minh had looked so anguished with it gone, he could picture her distraught face clearly in his mind. Dick sighed. Sometimes he hated being the “good guy”. So Dick hauled his sorry ass off the ground and swung towards the Blüdhaven Police Department - they could deal with the Minhs, and he could go home and make sure he didn't catch pneumonia after this.

Unfortunately, Dick learned that no good deed goes unpunished in Blüdhaven. As he handed off the case, Chief Redhorn slapped a pair of cuffs on him and Detective Dudley Soames leveled a gun at his head. Externally, Dick kept his composure even, he stilled himself, and made himself smaller. Internally he wrung his own neck for getting caught twice in one night. He felt like an utter amature out of his depth and cursed himself for assuming Blüdhaven would operate the same as Gotham. He should have known that a police force dedicated to harassing homeless people wouldn’t be welcoming to ‘one of those superhero types’.

Dick didn't flinch as the cuffs tightened painfully against his sore wrists. “Get him out of here.” Redhorn grunted. Dick glared at the large man and took in his red face. Veins angrily bulged across his forehead, his hands were balled up in fists at his sides. He looked like the human version of a rabid bulldog. Redhorn glared back at him with beady eyes, then sat back down at his desk and took a drag of his cigarette. Stress, Dick guessed, was making that nasty little vice worse, as he saw the number of packs lying discarded in the bin aside the desk. Dick stayed quiet, slowly tightening his shoulder blades, and jamming his wrists closer together to slide his pick out of his gauntlet. “Did I stutter, Soames?!” Redhorn barked. Apparently he wasn’t worried about anyone listening in on the conversation. He waved a head. “You, him. Junkyard. Now.”

“If we kill him, you know who’s going to come looking for him. Right?” Soames asked. His voice was higher pitched, more nasally and nervous than Redhorn’s firm growl. His hands wobbled as he held the gun. He was jumpy and Dick didn’t appreciate being on the other end of the shaky barrel. Dick could disarm him, with or without the cuffs, but as the lockpick clicked, curiosity got the better of him. He decided to stay and play along, so he watched the slight man carefully.

“Then dress it up to look like an accident.” Redhorn threw his hands up. “Bury him so deep the Bat will never find him.” Dick rolled his eyes, that one wouldn't work, not with the trackers on his suit. “Or frame the False Faces, plant some evidence, I don’t care, we don’t need some costumed freak interfering!” Redhorn turned a dark shade of purple as he yelled. His hands twitched, and he looked like he wanted to strangle Soames just as much as Dick. “He’s a wild card in this.” A meaty finger was shoved in his face. It smelled of sweat. Dick made an offended face. “We can’t afford him fucking things up because the Bat wanted to do put some charity work in Blüdhaven on his resume!”

“Fine.” Soames huffed. “Whatever you think is best.” Neither man looked happy about the circumstances, but Redhorn didn't say anything more, he just returned to his paperwork. Dick made sure to let his soggy hair drip on some of the important looking sheets. Redhorn didn't rise to the base, but much to his delight, Soames stopped waving his gun around. “Move.” He shoved Dick from behind and marched him out through the offices. The place was deserted, aside from a poor janitor who kept his eyes squarely focused on his task. Soames kept one hand on his gun as he drove, but the further they went, the more Dick was convinced the man wasn’t going to use it. His hands were too loose and his posture read all wrong.

“Out.” Soames pulled the car behind a mountain of trash. The smell was unbearably foul, and maggots swarmed him as he opened the door. He shook, unable to use his hands to bat them away, because he still had to pretend he was cuffed. “This way.” Soames hefted his gun threateningly, and started the climb up the side of the mound of rotting food and litter. Dick scrunched up his nose. This couldn't too much worse than swimming through Gotham's sewers. Still, the unstable ground crunched and squished under Dick’s feet.

The climb lasted a while, and when they reached the peak, a landscape full of debris surrounded them. He felt like Simba on pride rock, looking down and seeing all the land that the light touched, except it was night, and he could only see thanks to his night vision lenses. Dick followed Soames further in, trekking through the kingdom of mush. Once they were so far in, that Dick had nearly gotten used to the smell, Somaes held up a hand and stopped. “A smart lad like you’s gotten yourself out of situations like this before, yes?” Dick held up his unshackled hands with a threatening grin. Soames nodded approvingly, but his trigger finger twitched. Dick ducked and lunged for the gun, barreling into the man and twisting the weapon out of Soames’ hands. “Oof-” Somaes butted his head against Dick's shoulder. “I’m not going to shoot you, lad. Redhorn might be an idiot, but I’m not.” Dick waited for the gun to hit the ground. He kicked it away, and twisted Soames’ arm hard for good measure. “Agh!” Dick's ego was slightly assuaged by the scream. “Now that was simply unnecessary, boy.”

“So what kind of deal is this, then.” Dick asked, reluctantly letting Soames go. He eyed Soames wearily, he wasn't a fan of playing 'Let's Make a Deal' with crooks. They always wanted too much in return.

“One where I don’t have many bargaining chips on the table.” Soames muttered, eyeing his gun across the way. “But someone like you could be useful here. You're outside the normal rules and alliances.” Soames paced back and forth. “That’s helpful, whether Redhorn sees it that way or not.” Dick picked up the gun and unloaded the bullets. Soames stopped and turned towards him, waiting until Dick met his gaze. He picked his words carefully. “Angel Marin hasn't been seen in weeks, and out of town players have noticed.” That tracked, Blüdhaven's problems may have trickled into Gotham, but Gotham's problems - the False Faces, had trickled into Blüd. “They’re upsetting the delicate balance of things. It’s only a matter of time before it escalates into an all out gang war.” Soames’ voice was nervous. Whether he was worried about something else or genuinely scared, Dick couldn't tell. Soames' brow furrowed. “I heard a rumor that the False Faces received a shipment from a special source in Gotham. It’s being stored at a warehouse on 18th street. My hands are tied, Redhorn doesn’t want the police involved.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you?” Dick was tired of walking into traps.

“Ah, but yer new here, lad. You need friends.” There was a spark in Soames’ eyes that Dick didn’t like. This man was getting too many ideas that involved him.

“Not interested.” Dick hissed, lowering his voice menacingly. He positioned himself higher up than Soames on the muck pile. “I have my own sources.” He bluffed. “Freddy Minh owes me a favor.” At least he would when he took the suitcase back.

Soames stared at him for a second, then laughed in his face. “Freddy Minh is dead, lad! For a moment there you had me worried.” Dick flushed as Soames continued to cackle. “So what I thought was right - you’re new to town, you don’t know the players. Otherwise you’d have wrapped whatever case you’re working on up and been on yer way back to Gotham, not chasing after embryos. I see what you’re trying to do, lad. Earning favors.” He wasn’t, he’d sincerely jumped into the harbor thinking people’s lives were at stake, but he was glad that Soames didn’t realize that he was a dumbass that got conned. “But you really have no idea what you're doing. You're in over your head.” The words stung more than Dick let on. Soames pointed at his chest. “You need someone like me.” He smiled, connivingly, then brushed off his coat. “Now, make this look convincing.” He spread out his arms melodramatically, and turned his face to the side.

“I need anyone but you.” Dick said, hitting him harder than he should. He loathed men like Soames, pretentious little pricks that think they have the whole game figured out. And what he hated more was how Soames was right - he didn't have the right information, and he couldn't afford not to follow up on the tip, because his only lead apparently died, so now some boxes in a random warehouse are the only clue he has. Goddamnit. Dick felt like wringing his own neck. He hadn’t checked in with Bruce yet either. First week done, and not a single thing for him to report. Other than now he knows Freddy Minh couldn't have killed the men in the harbor, unless his ghost was particularly vengeful. And it's unlikely the False Faces had anything to do with it, as they came onto the scene after. The pool of candidates shrunk as fast as it grew, but that’s how detective work is supposed to go. And at the rate the work was going, he was going to need a lot more time.

Whether time was on his side or not, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know how long Bruce thought this job would take him - what Bruce would count as a swift success or a drawn out failure was beyond him. The lack of leads plagued him on the way back to his apartment. Who else was even a player? Who had the motive to take Angel's men out? As he reached his apartment, it struck him that maybe he should start settling in for the long haul. He’d estimated that at the least, he’d make good on the two months of rent. If he could weasel anything useful out of Soames maybe he’d make good on that timeline, but it was easy to see the man was a snake full of half truths and white lies. He half wondered if the shipment was a ruse, to put him in the wrong spot while whoever Soames allied himself with committed more serious crimes elsewhere. Everyone in Blüdhaven had their own agenda, and everyone would try to use him to suit their own needs. Tip him off to the crimes they wanted him to respond to, and drive out the gangs that competed with them. That made things difficult. And it hurt the prospects of this being a relatively short mission.

Dick stepped into his bedroom through the window, and swiftly locked it again. He could feel a headache coming on as he went through the motions of arming his home-made security system. He needed his own sources, he decided. Not Soames. It was too risky to play a game he didn't have any inside sources in. But it had been a week, and he hadn't found an honest man in the Haven that was privy to the tangled underweb of the city. And if there weren't any honest men, he'd have to fall in with the dishonest ones. But not on their terms - on his own. But first - sleep. He skimmed the messages on his phone, making sure there weren't any emergencies before he left all his friends on read. Then he set the alarm to eleven and climbed into his sleeping bag.

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When Dick woke up, he couldn’t turn his neck more than thirty degrees to the left. Maybe, it’s time to invest in a mattress, he finally admitted to himself. Sleeping on floorboards for a week left your neck stiff as fuck and he hadn’t counted on dealing with that long term. A few days of running off four hours of sleep isn’t exactly ideal, but the exhaustion did ensure he could fall asleep, even in the most uncomfortable positions. Longer term, he’d have to figure out a more permanent configuration for his living quarters.

Dick stared himself down in the mirror, judging the uneven cut of his hair. He didn’t have clippers, but he handled a wingding just as well, and the edge was certainly sharper. He fiddled with the blade, briefly entertaining the thought of calling Roy. That was off the table, if the dozens of ignored messages in his pocket had anything to say about it. He’d cut his hair by himself before back when he lived with Bruce, but these past few years he’d gotten used to letting various members of the Titans live out their cosmetology dreams on him. Which meant Joey had been the last to style his hair. Cutting it felt wrong after he died. Joey would have been so disappointed in his hair; it'd been looking raggedy for months, the cut was just the final straw. Dick brought the blade up with one hand, and a comb in the other. It was just another thing he was forced to let go before he was ready. His hair fell into clumped cuts on the floor.

A part of him grieved as he swept up the strands of hair. He let himself pretend it was because his hair didn’t look as good as before. The style was basic but passable, and a quick shave later, he looked almost respectable. Concealer did wonders for the bags under his eyes. He dressed in long sleeves, and was careful to cover his scars. He was lucky it was nearly winter.

He gave himself a final once over, pushed thoughts of dead friends to the back of his mind, and took the steps by twos as he headed outside. He navigated his way back through the rows of help wanted signs he’d memorized before. In the center of the row of streets was a dingy cramped little bar. Hogan’s Alley wasn’t the nicest looking place, but its clientele was exactly the seedy kind of crew that Dick needed. The spaces in front of it were crammed with cop cars, and the window displayed its 92% approval rating from the health inspector proudly. An old ‘Help Wanted’ sign was crammed into the bottom left of the window. Unsavory stickers practically coated the door, many of which decorated the squad cars as well. When he’d first seen the place, he’d taken note, and last night an idea had been planted in his brain, but he still balked slightly at what he was about to do. Maybe there was some other way…

Before Dick could reason himself out of it, he forced himself through the door. A few of the patrons looked at him bewildered, before quickly going back to their drinks. An old guy behind the counter raised an eyebrow at him appraisingly. “The gay bar’s down the next street.” Dick didn’t know what he was expecting, but he wasn’t expecting that. It got the clientele going anyhow, laughter roared in his ears.

“Not exactly what I had in mind.” He said smoothly, flushing in spite of himself. If Joey were still around… not relevant- “I’m looking for a job.” Dick cut off his train of thoughts, kept that box of memories squarely tucked away, and refocused on the man behind the bar. He ran through a mental checklist of what he did wrong. Was he dressed too nicely? One of his fingers was bruised underneath the nail, did it look like polish? Concealer too obvious?

“Perfect, pretty boy like you’d make… better tips over there!” A loud drunk nearly toppled off his stool as he said it. The man was red in the face, and draped an arm around the barkeep as he howled. The old man looked a bit amused at first, then soured, and shook the arm off. Dick glanced at the clock over the bar. It wasn’t even noon yet, and there were patrons blackout drunk in the booths. “Especially with that ass!” Dick breathed deeply. So that's what it was. Again. On second thought, maybe he would make out better at the gay bar. But he kept his feet firmly planted in place.

“Give the kid a break, Chaz.” The old man reached over the counter and yanked the man’s drink away. “I’m cutting you off.” He looked Dick up and down once more. “But he’s right, you’d make out better over there. You’d get harassed less. And the clientele aren’t stingy bastards who don't tip.” He dumped out the glass and rubbed it thoughtfully with soapy water, waiting for Dick to consider the advice. A man at the end of the bar raised his hand, and the barkeep dried the used glass with a twist of his towel, then filled it up again. Dick waited patiently, watching the old man work. His hands were a bit gnarled at the knuckles, and the way the man moved was careful and measured. Once, this small place probably wouldn’t have needed any help. But it was obvious that time was catching up to the older man, despite his experience in the role.

“Maybe if I were looking for money.” And security, but he didn’t voice that. He could (mostly) guarantee his own security himself. The man seemed surprised when he found Dick still seated at the bar. “I’m an aspiring writer.” He did write for his school newspaper once and some Titans publications, so it wasn’t completely a lie. “I’m working on a gritty detective novel set in the near future and I’m having a bit of writer’s block.” He sighed dramatically, slumping over the bar. “I was hoping working here could give me some inspiration. Get the real picture of a detective working a case, maybe get some ideas for clues.”

Chaz oohed and awed. “Well ain’t that something.” He leaned forward, coming closer than Dick liked. “Well I could be your star.” Dick took in the stubble on the man’s face. The unkempt hair and the smell of beer on his breath. Inspiring wasn’t the first word that came to mind. “Come on, Hogie, give the kid a chance, I wanna be famous.” Chaz leaned back, and Dick let out breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Hogan looked downright frustrated at the situation.

“You got any experience working at a bar?” Hogan asked.

“No, but I’ve poured more than my fair share of drinks.” Dick laughed, thinking of Donna’s twenty-first birthday party. Chaz snorted too, though at what, Dick wasn’t sure. Dick deftly stood up before the snort turned into a spew. “And I’m good at dodging.” Though generally he was used to bullets. Unfortunately, the occasional civilian did throw up after a quick save with the grapple and Dick had grown accustomed to dodging those as well. Dick grabbed a rag off the counter and threw it at the mess.

“Well. Maybe.” Hogan said. “But you won’t hear any true stories here.” He gestured around the room. “Bunch of liars. I don’t know why I still let ‘em in here. Hell, I’m worried what they’d do if they were out there in their free time.” He shook his head and lowered his voice. “Force isn’t exactly what it used to be.” Dick had a hard time believing it was ever functional to begin with.

“Aw, you could come back, Hog’. It’s no fun without you.” Chaz wiped himself off with a napkin and glanced at the clock. “Speaking of which, time to get going.” He stumbled out the door, meeting his partner on the way out. Together they hobbled back to one of the cars out front. Dick sincerely hoped against all odds, neither of them was about to start driving.

“Great way to end your shift.” Dick commented, watching as Chaz tripped over his own feet. Maybe he’d do the city more good as a taxi driver stalking out the bars and keeping drunk drivers off the roads.

“End?” Hogan let out a strangled sounding laugh. “Kiddo, his shift started ten minutes ago. They're just getting started!”

“You’re kidding.” Hogan's expression told Dick he was not. Dick looked back out at the men. They looked more likely to cause an accident before they could respond to any. “They can’t drive like that.”

“They’ll sleep it off in their car and skip half their shift. Those two will at least, I don't have to worry about them. Sure you still want to work here?” Hogan asked. He gave him an understanding, almost kind smile, ready for him to decline. “The pay’s not great, and like I said, these slobs don’t tip for shit. They’re gross, rude, dirty, and hard to keep in line. I’d cut your losses and write about something else. Do some actual good in the world and write some cutesy kid stories about dinosaurs or something. My nephews love those.”

“Nah.” Dick made a show of looking around the room. His eye caught for a moment on a hushed conversation in one of the booths. He made out the words ‘docks’ by reading lips and some name(?) he didn’t recognize. At the end of the room, the television was tuned to the local news, and a few men shit talked the black activist making a case for keeping King Park’s homeless shelter open. And then there was the guy passed out on the floor a few paces away from the door. The place was utterly foul. “This will do just fine.” Dick felt like dirt was clinging to his skin.

Hogan sighed. “If you say so, kid.” He pulled out a marker, and circled a few dates on the calendar. “These are your days, I’ll be here in the back if you need.” The first day was tomorrow. “Shift starts at eleven and goes to six. It’s crap hours and don’t pay enough to live off of, but if that’s what you want, by all means.” He looked at Dick expectantly, as if waiting for him to back out. Dick stayed his ground and just nodded along. “Don’t expect more than twenty hours a week. I can’t afford more than that.”

“It’s perfect.” The hours at the least, weirdly accommodated his crazy schedule. He couldn’t afford to spend too much time away from the nightlife, and working too early in the mornings would affect his already destroyed sleep schedule. “Thanks, Mr. Hogan.” The old man’s eyes crinkled as Dick stood to leave.

“Be careful out there kiddo.” Hogan said, a little too knowingly for Dick’s comfort. “The way things are, I worry about things out there.” And Dick did too. He was more than a little relieved that Chaz and his partner appeared to be passed out in their car and not out on the roads.

And with that Dick headed back home to begin investigating the precinct. In twenty-four hours, he was thoroughly convinced that there would be no ‘Jim Gordon’ in this town. The most honest cop in Blüdhaven wasn’t a cop at all. It was the one who threw in the towel and quit before the corruption could seep in under his skin. With that in mind, he left to pick up a few things before heading to 18th street.

Chapter Text

“And you trusted him?” Tim squeaked, staring at him with wide eyes. Dick set the box of vials down on the counter and passed one over to Tim. “He could have walked you right into a trap.”

Dick shrugged. “I thought of that, but he held me at gunpoint and didn’t shoot.” Tim looked both awestruck and horrified. Dick paused. “I trust Soames about as far as I can throw him.” He’d forgotten, early on, that Tim was a normal kid, and he had maybe told a few too many graphic stories at his proding. The kid had quietly freaked out, staring at Dick with those wide eyes he has now. It wasn’t like that with Jason - he'd had the veil torn from his eyes long before he'd ever met the hero community. And with the younger Titans it was the same - Danny had grown up as a spy, and Gar had a more unconventional childhood than almost anyone Dick had met. Meanwhile, Tim had spent their first few encounters looking at Dick like he was about to crack because Dick had been honest when Tim asked about his experiences with Two Face. Not that his judgment of Dick was unwarranted - he was pretty much at rock bottom when he worked as Tim's Batman, but still, a fourteen year old shouldn’t worry about whatever the hell was going on in his head. He tried to be more careful these days. His image was helped by somehow being the most stable adult in Tim’s increasingly crazy life.

“I had it under control, my hands were free the whole time and I was watching his stress signs. I only stuck around for information.” Dick supplemented, hoping that would convince Tim he wasn't off his rocker. And then he had a horrible vision of Tim attempting the same thing. “Don’t try that until you have a couple more years of experience under your belt. It can go bad quick if you don’t have the right skills. Leave that kind of thing for Bruce and me to do.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” Tim snorted. He worked by Dick’s side and together they began mounting each of the unmarked substances on slides. “Well… unless-”

“No.” The thought of Tim mimicking his behavior makes him nauseous. It was bad enough that another kid had picked up the Robin suit. But the thought of leaving Tim alone with Bruce - who left Tim alone with a loose cannon only weeks after he finished his training… pushes that nausea out the window and replaces it with stone cold fear. There was no way that Bruce could have known that Azreal would snap and attack his own allies, but Dick still hasn't entirely forgiven him for endangering Tim when all he had to do was call. Frankly, he’s upset Tim didn’t call him sooner. But he can understand why Tim doesn’t find most adults reliable.

“You didn’t even listen. I was going to say unless Bart and Kon were right there. Actually…” Tim squinted as he held the slide up to the light. He sighed. “On second thought I think they’d just mess things up more.” Dick cracked a smile at that.

“My friends used to be the same way. The Titans weren’t always a well-oiled machine.” It’s fun to laugh and reminisce now about the times Donna got possessed or Mal teleported them into battle at the worst times, but at the time it didn’t seem very funny. “You’ll get along fine, give it time.”

“Ugh.” Tim plopped back into the rolling chair, sliding away. Dick grabbed the back before it rolled too close to the stairs. “How come everyone says that? I can’t do anything now if everything needs time. How are you supposed to get experience if you need experience to do something?”

“Well, if it makes you feel better you can run these samples for me.” Dick suggested. That way he could make a break for it before Bruce got back and asked him for a status report. Tim wrinkled up his nose, catching onto Dick's plan. So Dick took another approach. “You’re pretty good at chemistry. If you weren’t working with us, I’d worry Crane would recruit you.” Tim side eyed him, but his face still lit up at the praise. Flattery worked so well with Tim it hurt - because Dick used to be the exact same way. Sometimes he can feel that version of himself coming back. “I’ll help you run the first few samples, but you'll catch on quick and it'll be good practice to run the rest on your own.”

As they tested the first few samples, they chatted about school and things that felt way too normal for where Dick was in his life. He couldn't always relate to Tim, but listening is easy. And being removed from a situation makes it easier to offer advice. For a moment, Dick tunes out Tim's rambling and thinks of how odd it is to have this kind of relationship with Tim. Where they could talk about benign things while running a sample analysis. It hurts to think about how it could have been Jason standing there rambling about his English class and ducking out of after school clubs.

He slipped out the front entrance as rumbling announced the arrival of the Batmobile. He’d gained time and experience since leaving home, but some things hadn’t changed.

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Dick's ride home was peaceful; there wasn't much traffic and the setting sun cast stunning colors across the sky. Dick couldn't help but convince himself that something was going to go wrong. Like clockwork, Tim called just as he was crossing through Thawn Park. “There’s something wrong with the samples.” He warned, jumping straight to the point. “A couple of them started foaming about half an hour ago.”

“And?” Dick pressed his foot down a little harder on the pedal. He couldn't be certain he'd confiscated the only shipment of chemicals. In fact, the boxes he'd recovered looked like some of the samples had been taken out already.

“I don’t know. The computer gave instructions on how to neutralize the sample I was running, turns out you just need Witch Hazel for the poison, don’t even ask me how that works though.”

“It’s an anti-inflammatory, but what that has to do with it I'm not sure.” Dick mused. “It's a natural remedy though, I’ll put money down that Ivy’s been experimenting again. Something poetic about nature healing poison or whatever. Wait.” Dick felt like he was missing something. “How come you didn't call sooner?”

“After I figured out what to do with the first batch of them, a second group started hissing. They're spaced out.” Tim said. “Oh, by the way, the other bottles are liquid fear gas. It's not volatile, but it evaporates when the bottle is open. And if you put it next to the other stuff, well… the bottles build up pressure and eventually-”

“Boom.” Dick muttered. He thought about how large the samples they found were. “And suddenly you have a mass panic on your hands. And if someone comes to check what's going on, they get hit with the next wave.” He swerved his bike into the shoulder and sped past the other cars. “Got it. Great work, thanks Tim.”

“You need any help?” Tim asked. “The box looked like it was missing samples, I can ask-”

“I’ve got it under control, kiddo. I planted a tracker on one of their cars a couple days ago, and it’s made more than a few stops. I've got a pretty good idea of where to look.” The building the car had sat outside the last couple days a few blocks from Rabe Memorial Hospital seemed like the best place to start. It was sandwiched between a line of apartments in the center of the Spine - the city's redlight district, which bordered the False Faces territory. Dick's not quite sure who controlled the other side of the line. “You’ll be the first to know if I need backup.” Dick promised. The last thing he needed was Bruce running in guns blazing, because Tin thought he couldn't handle himself.

“Alright.” Tim sighed resignedly. “Good luck.” He added halfheartedly.

“Thanks, Robin.” It still felt a little weird calling Tim that.

In the next ten minutes, he broke just about every traffic law in the book before rocketing into the alleyway beside the abandoned office building which served as one of the False Face's bases. He parked his bike behind a pile of rubbish and grabbed the emergency pack with his spare Nightwing suit out from under the seat. He looked up, scanning for cameras in the dark. The windows on each of the buildings were all boarded shut, and there wasn't a trace of light. He found one camera, in the top right corner of the office building. He drove his bike out, then back in and stayed out of its line of sight. He parked behind a few bags of trash, then mounted a dumpster and launched himself onto the lowest rung of a fire escape on the residential building beside the False Face's base.

He peeked around the roof when he reached the top, leveling his eyes with the surface. He spied two more cameras on either side of the roof access door. Easy enough - he shimmied his way around the length of the building, finding footing on uneven bricks to relieve the pressure on his hands. Once he was sure he was out of the line of sight, he pushed himself up, and approached the first camera cautiously. It turned out not to be necessary, someone had snipped the wires at the base of the camera long before he'd set foot on the roof.

The second camera, on the other hand, was battery operated. He pulled a little star-bit screwdriver out of his pack and went to work unscrewing the base it was mounted on. Once it had enough wiggle room, he moved the camera slowly, adjusting it carefully until he was certain the door was completely out of the field of view, then screwed it back down and prayed no one had been watching the security feed. Then he slipped through the newly fashioned gap in the system and picked the lock on the door.

He entered the top of the staircase, and took the opportunity to change into his suit. Then he crept down to the nearest apartment and stole a bottle of witch hazel from some poor fellow’s bathroom cabinet. He left the same way he came. Quietly he slipped past the faulty camera, and stood at the edge of the roof, careful to stay in the shadows. He shot his grapple onto the roof of the base and began formulating a loose plan.

He’d memorized the floorplans of the building, and knew the best entry point was the leftmost window. But thermal vision showed three warm bodies milling around the room at the moment. There were four in the room over, and three in the room next to that. It seemed like the entire building was bustling which was a pain in the ass because there wasn't time for this to be a covert operation, if these bottles were following a similar schedule as the ones Tim had. Dick looked back at the top left window one last time, then let his feet leave the edge of the building.

He broke through the window feet first, smashing into the poor guy who was foolish enough to stand in front of it. Dick rolled forward with the impact, using his momentum to slam next goon into the door. He darted back up, turning before the final man could aim his gun. Lightning fast, he grabbed a wingding out of his gauntlet and chucked it into the man’s hand. The man yelped, as the gun clattered to the floor, and Dick wasted no time bouncing an escrima stick off his head. Three slumped bodies laid on the floor, the battle over in thirty seconds.

He scanned his surroundings in the next five, then took cover behind a metal bookshelf beside the door. Like clockwork, the crash from the window winds the rest of the building's inhabitants into action. Dick ducked as shots began rattling into the walls. One of them grazed the second guy Dick knocked out, and he risked reaching out to drag the men closer to his little hiding spot. He’s rewarded for his efforts with a sharp stinging sensation in his left wrist as a bullet ricochets off his gauntlet, bending the metal parts into his arm. “Son of a bitch.” He vented under his breaths. It was Donna who played bracelets and bullets for a reason.

He was quiet as he pressed himself flat against the bookshelf, not that it mattered much with the racket going on. Once the shots tapered off, he began to climb, carefully positioning himself at the top looking over the shelves at the door underneath. The men burst into the room, and Dick dropped onto the closest one, springboarded off, clamped his arms around a second man’s head and aimed dueling kicks at two guys on either side. The second man stumbled back into the hall, where three masked goons stood with waiting guns. “Ah shit.” Dick jumped as the shots began, clambering over a wall of cubicles as bullets flew over his head. The man he left behind screamed and dropped to the ground with a thud. Dick cringed, not his cleanest work.

He landed on an empty desk and ducked down. From the view, he estimated there were about thirty cubicles on this floor. Bullets lodged in flimsy walls, and some burst through, whizzing dangerously close to him. He turned thermal vision back on in his left lens, and followed the silhouettes of the men to track their aim as he ducked and weaved through the maze of cubicles. He edged his way around, trying to outflank the men. He stopped only to duck out the sides and send a couple wind-dings at his attackers when they were turned the other way. His aim was true, but it was a time consuming pursuit, he was getting tired, and men from the second floor were pounding up the stairs.

A bullet struck the light ahead of him, more importantly striking him with inspiration as glass rained down on his head. He aimed his next five wing-dings at the remaining lights and grinned in satisfaction at the shouts of confusion that followed. The doors to the stairs smashed open, and he slipped around another corner, chaos covering his tracks as he disappeared into the darkness behind the men who'd just joined the fray. It wasn’t long before someone fumbled out their phone, but he was safely down the stairwell before light illuminated the room once more.

Dick headed straight to the basement, jumping down flights of the stairs at a time. The basement was always where dumb thugs kept their ill gotten goods. And it doubled as the safest place to search without interruption as everyone stumbled around on the third floor. As predicted, there was a heavy steel reinforced door at the bottom of the staircase, which obviously barred his way to something special. After a few moments of finagling with his lock picks, he swung open the door, and peered into the darkness. Thermal vision revealed nothing; there was no heat nor light anywhere, the place was truly abandoned in the chaos. He grabbed a small penlight out of his dented gauntlet and cautiously took a step forward, closed the door behind him, and listened for any hissing.

You could hear a pin drop in the musty old room. He shined his light around racks of dilapted old shelving units, stocked with cardboard boxes, haphazardly thrown together. He pulled out a few. A box with papers sat next to a box of riffles, which sat next to a box of worn out furry masks. Dick groaned. The apparant disorganization was better protection against thieves than a lockbox could ever hope to be. He had no idea how much time he had to search it all.

He pulled out a lighter and watched the flame quaver. He set it down on the ground - fear gas was heavier than air, and he was willing to bet whatever gas leaked out of those vials was as well. He just hoped if a leak started, he'd be able to track it before an explosion. In the meantime he tore through the shelves nearest to him, starting on the bottom and working his way left to right. He kept an ear out, his heart nearly stopped when he heard feet pounding on the staircase, but they stopped on a higher floor, apparently searching top down rather than bottom up.

Dick found receipts and log books with enough evidence to put half the gang away for life. He found guns with the ends sawed off and illegally 3-D printed handguns. He found homemade silencers and some innocuous stuff as well - a six pack of duck tape, plastic plates and solo cups. Apparently they celebrated each other's birthdays because he found a box filled with party supplies too. But innocent stuff aside, there was so much evidence gathered in one place, he almost couldn’t believe how dumb this gang was. Or maybe not so dumb, considering there was likely a bomb sitting just a few shelves away, ready to destroy it all. Maybe having a police force that didn’t give a shit about interfering with them reinforced the careless behavior.

Now that Dick thought about it, if Redhorn hadn't wanted the police involved, could he have a deal in place with the False Faces? Or did he know about…

The flame leaned to one direction. Dick ran in the opposite direction, yanking the witch hazel out, and pulling boxes out of the offending shelving unit. The first was drugs, the second office supplies, but the third? Shiny jugs of frothing chemicals. A small hiss screamed through a crack in one of the leaking jugs. Shit. There wasn’t a safe way of defusing this! He doused the crack in witch hazel, and the bubbles veered away from the edge. If he had a little more time, he could figure something less stupid out, but dangerous solution it was.

Dick reacted fast, grabbing the hissing jug and hoped it wouldn't blow up in his face. He hefted it and chucked it across the room, then covered his face as shards of glass ripped into his costume. The cuts burned, he bit back a scream as the chemicals found a direct path into him. The edges of his vision turned white as he was knocked to the ground by the mini explosion. When he regained presence of mind, he doused himself in witch hazel, then dumped the rest of it in the other two jugs. Tired, beaten, and bruised, he turned towards the door. Footsteps pounded down the stairs. Not now. He groaned audibly and scooped up his lighter.

Apparently no one was grateful that he’d tried to save their lives because as the door opened, they were just as trigger happy as before. Dick threw a small electromagnetic pulse out from his cover. The men scrambled back, expecting a grenade, but all that happened was their flashlights went out. As did the entire building's lights and electronics, and the rest of Dick's gear. The basement was pitch black, and he stepped back, carefully remembering where he'd seen each of the men. A few shots were fired before someone yelled. “Don’t shoot! We’ll only kill each other.” Dick smiled, they were learning. He felt his way to the edge of the door. “Everyone stay still!” Dick locked himself into place with the rest of them. He could feel someone breathing down the back of his neck.

“If you hear someone move, shoot in that direction.” Well. Maybe they weren’t learning. That was a great way of getting someone killed. How long would they stay in this stalemate? Dick could be quiet. Very quiet. He took tiny steps following the scene he in his head. The breath on his neck slowly vanished. He side stepped some boxes on the ground, and gave the fourth man he’d seen a wide berth as he made his way to the base of the stairs.

“There!” Dick held his breath as seven rounds were fired off. He sprinted up the stairs in the racket. Chaos broke out as a man that wasn’t him screamed.

“You fuckers nearly killed me!” Dick breathed out in relief as the voice carried up the stairs. “What the fuck is wrong with you?! For fucks sake put down your guns and use your brains!” Dick suppressed a morbid cackle. Someone really ought to teach these thugs a thing or two. They were hardly a challenge as things stood, if he'd had time for a planned operation, he could think of a dozen ways to take them out. A moment later, Dick chided himself for the thought. If he wanted a challenge - all he had to do was take a look at the bigger picture. If Redhorn had known that the chemicals were faulty, then who was Redhorn getting his information from? Who’d wanted to take out the False Faces? A lot of people - but only a few could pull the strings necessary to pull this level of deception off. Dick stepped out onto the street with more questions raised than answered.

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Dick wanted nothing more than to fall into bed and sleep for a week. But he put a pot of coffee on and stripped off his suit, multitasking on his way to the bathroom. He swapped his boots for flip flops, unwilling to go barefoot when he kept shaking glass out of his hair and onto the floor. He checked his temperature, because god knew what Ivy had put into that concoction he got sprayed with, and luckily it was normal. He glanced at the cuts up and down his arms. They didn’t seem infected, and the stinging had stopped, and they didn't look deep enough for stitches. The only really nasty cut was where his dented gauntlet had dug into his wrist, which had already started swelling. He rummaged around in his understocked bathroom, and predictably didn’t find any witch hazel (he added it to his shopping list, in case this wasn’t a one-off). He did have the sense to buy a first aid kit on his second day in town, and Tim had personally delivered a homemade kit from Alfred. He set them both atop the bathroom sink. He’d have to take a blood sample and set up his equipment, no use in heading back to the Batcave to worry Bruce about a low-grade poison. It could happen later though, he wasn't feeling any symptoms.

Dick hopped in the shower. He turned the tap cold and let the drops smack directly into his face. His body ached and he let himself sink into a crouch. The water ran down his back, mingling sweat. Red droplets tinted the water pink as it swirled down the drain. Flecks of glass came from nowhere as he scrubbed his skin. The stinging kept his eyes wide open more than the chilling water did.

He was nearly done with his shower when he heard a knock on his front door. “Just a minute!” He reluctantly got to his feet and the bloodrush made stars dance in his vision. He blinked hard and grabbed one of his poor new towels, rubbing himself down fervently and coating it with blood. He frowned at the obvious stains on the dark blue towels, he’d thought the color would hide them, but next time, he’d cut his losses and just buy red ones to start with. Without another moment’s thought, he threw on his pants just as he heard the front door open.

Dick held his breath and grabbed the closest thing to him. He slid against the wall, just to the side of the door and took stock. The plunger in his hands wasn’t the ideal weapon, but it was sort of like his escrima sticks if he ignored the bottom of it. He silently flicked off the lights, mind suddenly much more alert and awake then the moment before. Someone was here, they’d broken through his locks and weren’t quiet about it, he heard the floorboards creak as the intruder came closer. One step, then another, the gait was hesitant but familiar… friend or foe, he ran down his mental list and-

“Dick?” There was a knock on his bathroom door. Dick set down the plunger and held a hand to his chest as he breathed a sigh in relief and willed his heart to stop hammering. “You in there?” He turned back the lights on in response. He sighed. He knew someone would come looking for him eventually, he just hadn’t expected it to be so soon. And he hadn’t expected it to be, well… Roy. He thought that was a bridge he'd successfully burned. Roy proved him wrong, pounding loudly against the bathroom door. “Ding dong, bitch! You can't hide from me forever!”

“Roy.” Dick tried for cordial. But that was hard when someone you were avoiding broke into your home and scared the living daylights out of you. The pounding stopped, and Roy cracked the door open. “Dude!” Dick scowled as Roy barged into the room. Boundaries were something the Titans never had.

“Don’t you dare start. You're wearing pants, you're fine.” Roy’s tone was flat. He was pissed, but his eyes softened a little as he saw the cuts on Dick’s arms. “If you’d bothered to pick up any of my calls, or responded to any of my texts, this wouldn’t have happened.” Roy crossed his arms, effectively blocking the door behind him. Dick gazed into his bedroom longingly, but Roy continued, undeterred. “You know who I had to get your new address from?” Dick opened his mouth to make an excuse, but Roy threw his arms open and stepped forward, cutting him off. “Bart! Who got it from Tim! Look, I know you didn’t leave the Titans on the best of terms, but we’re your friends Dick, after all these years you can’t just disappear and give us nothing!”

Dick picked his sleep shirt off the floor, mostly as an excuse not to look at Roy. “I don’t know what you want from me!” Roy continued. Dick wriggled through the arm holes. “I’m sorry about what happened with you and Kory.” Dick flinched. “And I’m sorry about what happened to Jason. I’m sorry what happened to Joey and Raven and Danny but-”

“Don’t.” He didn't want to think about that mission anymore. Roy’s face flashed between anger and worry. Dick didn't know what else to say. “I-”

“No, I don't care what happened or how bad you think you screwed up. You don’t get to leave after all those years. You don’t get to walk away.” His voice was raw and bitter. And Dick was bitter too.

“It was my choice to leave.” He muttered, grabbing the first aid kit off the counter. He sat on the edge of the bathtub, and started cleaning the cuts. He couldn’t meet Roy’s angry eyes. There was too much pain and hurt mixed in, if he looked, he would cave. Luckily, he'd thought through this apology about a hundred times. “Look, I'm sorry for how it happened, I know I was out of line. I shouldn't have taken things out on you. But I need you to respect my decision to leave the team.”

“You think this is about your decision to leave the team?” He could feel Roy’s eyes burning a hole through the top of his skull. “You needed time to get your head back together. I’ve been there. We’ve all been there, but you- you can’t just cut us off forever!”

“So you’ve decided I’m done needing time? That’s your call to make?” Dick angrily dabbed a bit of antiseptic paste onto the first cut. It stung far less than Roy’s words. “That’s bullshit and you know it. I’m done with the Titans.” He didn’t need more blood on his hands. There was enough dripping off of him as it was.

“You need us.” Dick most definitely did not. “We’re family.” One that he broke. “The least you can do is answer your fucking phone when the only people that give a shit about you call because goddamnit I want to know that you're still alive!” Roy deflated a bit, leaning back against the door. He watched Dick work for a few moments. “I’m not here to force you back, the team disbanded two weeks ago.” He confessed, running a hand through his hair. Dick blinked. He hadn’t known. “I just want to know that you're okay.”

Dick looked up, and Roy looked away. “Roy, are you okay?” It was weird, how Roy could pull the rug out from under him with just a few words. The anger died down as quickly as it started. He looked at Roy, and saw the bags under his eyes and the worried crinkles in his forehead. He had a new scar that peaked out from under his left sleeve, and a fresh cut on his cheek held shut by a butterfly bandage. His hair was long, like he used to wear it when they were kids. Tangled and a bit matted, with a braid framing his face.

“Yes.” He said, in a tone that meant the opposite. Dick raised an eyebrow. “No. It sucked. But after that I just… wanted to know if you were okay.” Dick watched carefully as Roy leaned against the doorframe. It was easy to see he was more upset than he was letting on. Dick figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea for Tim to ask Bart a couple of questions. “And you just. Ignored me.” Dick flinched. “I don't know why I expected any different.”

He hadn’t handled leaving the team well. His wedding was a nightmare, and the way he acted? Completely out of line. He’d burned so many bridges on his way out, he figured no one would ever want to speak to him again. He’d yelled at Roy and Donna, freeloaded with Wally, and acted like an utter asshole after his teammates died. It was no wonder Kory left him. And after that? How the hell was he supposed to face anyone again. “I’m sorry.” Was all Dick could say. Roy sighed and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. It made him look like Ollie, but Dick, kindly, didn’t share that. “After how I acted… I'm really sorry, Roy.”

“It’s fine.” Roy said, in a way that meant that it was not fine at all, and Dick was stressing him out, and that Roy was one step away from shattering. Dick felt squeamish as guilt clawed its way into his gut, settling into place like an unwanted visitor. He'd been so convinced that he should leave, that it would be the best thing for everyone if he just left without a trace. But it was clear Roy had suffered in his absence. He wished they'd never met. His heart quavered nervously as Roy came closer, and braced himself against the wall. Roy held out his shaking hands. “Let me help.”

Dick eyed him, calculating. He didn’t particularly like making others feel like he needed to be taken care of. Roy looked back, and there was a deadness behind his eyes that Dick saw in the mirror every morning. He handed the kit over. You should leave, Dick thought, but couldn't break the news gently enough. Without a shadow of a doubt, he knew he was bad for Roy. He knew damn well he was responsible for some of those scars on Roy’s body. And still, when Roy lifted his hands in invitation, Dick laid down his arms. He took Roy's hands and let him lead out to the kitchen table.

Roy spoke in soft tones, recounting the events of the last two months robotically as he cleaned Dick up. He wrapped Dick's wrist and pulled out some ice, and poured them each a cup of cold coffee. Then he set to the task of picking the last of the glass out of Dick's arms and cleaning his cuts. Dick couldn't do much, he could relate but he didn't have any advice so he simply listened, and leaned his head lightly against Roy's shoulder.

Chapter Text

Roy left before Dick woke up. He did the absolute bare minimum and reacted with a waving emoji to Wally's cheery good morning message from six hours ago. He felt like a bit of an idiot when Donna immediately replied ‘omg guys dick’s alive’, but he’d promised Roy to show signs of life at least a couple times each week. And the weeks passed fast.

Between the night job and bartending, work kept him busy. The police had plenty of tips for Nightwing to follow up on, half of which involved deterring the police themselves. And that aside, home renovations sucked up the few spare moments he had. Clancy gave him a raised eyebrow every time she saw him carrying in more furniture. “Don’t take this the wrong way, love.” She stopped him about two weeks after Roy visited. He was carrying in a disassembled metal bed frame. “But I got the impression you weren’t gonna stay long.” He set the parts down, and handed her his check for the next month’s rent.

“Things change, Clance.” Her eyes widened as she took the check. “Work’s keeping me here longer than I thought. I’m working on setting up some more, uh, permanent accommodations.” He’d graduated from a sleeping bag to a mattress on the floor, and he figured if he ended up leaving, whoever wanted the frame could have it. “You know how these things are with companies. Bureaucracy slows things down.” Clancy was under the impression he worked for his father at the Wayne Foundation, scouting out opportunities for charity in Blüdhaven. Which wasn’t completely a lie - he was spending a few minutes each day working on a proposal for the Wayne foundation to start a new branch in the Haven - it just wasn’t a full truth, he hadn’t secured any funding yet. But he would ask when the presentation was ready. Just because he was bullish about using Bruce’s money for his personal life, didn’t mean he didn't see the potential for what Bruce's money could do. “Don’t be surprised if I stick around for another month or two.” At this rate, he wouldn’t be surprised if his investigation dipped into the next year.

He was still working on mapping out the major players. From what he could tell, the casino owners had their own enforcers. While they ran legal businesses, no gang in town was dumb enough to cross them. Deep pockets led to deep connections with the police force, and blind eyes being turned if an aspiring thief turned up dead in “self defense”. The last official recording of an attempted robbery was two years ago, committed by an outsider who’d clearly been looking for some easy cash. No money was reported missing, and the man was never heard from again.

Meanwhile, Freddy Minh’s gang was slowly being dissolved in his absence, clearly struggling to maintain a presence, even without Nightwing’s intervention. He’d only caught some of Minh’s guys hanging around once or twice. For the most part, they’d gone underground, but not as underground as whatever remnants were left of Marin’s gang. The only news trickled down from the rumor mill about them was bad. Marin himself had shown up with his head on backwards two nights ago. The cop gossip made it seem like his underground gambling ring had all but dissipated in his absence. Apparently no successor was dumb enough to take his place.

And that about summed up what Dick had heard with the major players. As for the smaller gangs-

“Look, kid. I know you’re new here.” Andy had waited to ambush Dick in the bathroom. He stood leaning against the paper towel dispenser when Dick came out of the stall. Dick raised an eyebrow, this was certainly new - most of his tips came from eavesdropping on ‘private’ conversations. “I like the drinks you pour, Hogan’s shit at mixed drinks and can’t serve nothin’ but beer. You’re pullin’ your weight. So I’m gonna do us both a favor here.” Something about the way Andy looked at him made the hairs on the back of Dick’s neck stand up.

“Thanks?” Dick said, when the silence went on too long.

“I know the route you walk home.” Andy said. He looked down his nose, sneering at him. “You should stay home this Friday.” Dick felt his blood curdle.

“Or what?” He kept his voice neutral.

“Nothin’, I’m your friend here.” Andy said, crossing his arms defensively. “Just the guys I run with wouldn’t look twice before they shoot.”

“And something’s gonna happen on my route?” He asked.

Andy held his hands up. “I’m just sayin’ to be careful, that’s not a crime. You’re safe while you work here, but not everyone here likes your type.”

“My type?” Dick repeated. Something inside of him squirmed uncomfortably.

“You know what I mean.” Andy gestured towards him. And Dick was confused up to the part where his sleeve slipped down, revealing a swastika tattoo. Dick’s blood curdled. “It’s a shame really, you’re almost white.” It took about every ounce of self control Dick had not to pounce on the guy. Andy sneered and moved towards the door. “Don’t be near the Prodigal, wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to my,” he paused to look Dick in the eye, “-favorite server.”

Dick counted to ten as the door slammed shut, then splashed cold water on his face. He resisted the urge to shatter the mirror. Isn’t this what you wanted? A voice that sounded a bit too much like Bruce’s slipped into his head. Your own tips. From your own sources. Why bother getting so upset? Somewhere, a monkey’s paw curled. Dick sighed. It was good at least that he was warned beforehand.

He let go of the anger and turned to scheming instead. He simply imagined how good it would feel to break Andy’s nose in four days. Dick Grayson would call off sick on Friday and Nightwing would pay a trip to the Prodigal bar instead. His phone dinged in his pocket, and he grabbed it out. He grinned a bit sadistically. It might be overkill, but Nightwing wouldn’t go alone. All that was left was to figure out how to get The Prodigal Bar to shut down on Blüdhaven’s biggest weekend night.

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More than a few eyebrows were raised when the bartender from Hogan’s Alley casually strolled in and plopped himself down in a corner booth at The Prodigal Bar. The woman behind the bar eyed him warily. She kept glancing at him through her peripheral vision but other than that, was doing a pretty good job of pretending he didn’t exist. Dick didn't mind, and wasn't constrained the same way. He glanced her way, finding her tall, a bit slim and worn-looking. She was about the same age as him and her hands were half as calloused, which spoke volumes about the work she’d put in, because Dick had worked the trapeze since before he could walk, his calluses were practically grown since birth. The bartender wore a tank - despite the frosty air outside, it was warm in the bar. Dick could see the tattoos and scars which covered her arms. She seemed almost… comfortable putting them on display, in a way Dick felt himself envying.

It seemed a silly thing to get caught up over, and he wasn’t here to ogle other people’s scars. Of course he had to cover his up; it was a matter of protecting his identity. He wasn’t embarrassed by them, but thinking about a day where he didn’t hide them felt unimaginable. Even in private, scars made friends and family worry. He could practically smell the pity when people looked at his skin, even when those people were hypocrites who had nearly as many scars themselves.

The barkeep caught him staring. He tried to play it off as flirtatious, letting the embarrassment fester in him, feeding the feeling with old memories. He thought about the time Roy showed up to his twenty-first birthday as the ‘entertainment’ for the night. The whole thing was a mess. Heat festered in his cheeks. Dick switched his train of thoughts, and thought about spending weeks ignoring his closest friends, and the way he acted the last time he’d seen most of them. Something squirmed uncomfortably in his stomach. Dick stared at the table, face on fire, and stopped thinking before he threw up.

He had his pitch memorized, but the barkeep kept avoiding his booth, her patrons oh-so-helpfully coming up to the bar and keeping her busy. Fifteen minutes went by. Then thirty. No one kicked him out, or said a single word to him. He didn’t impede the atmosphere and the bar bustled around him, there was just his unspoken invisible bubble around him, a circle that no one stepped within five feet of. If he wasn’t used to stake outs, maybe he’d find it terribly lonely. He’d grown numb to that feeling long ago. He watched and listened, under the guise of playing games on his phone. Friends shared drinks, billiard balls clacked, and the jukebox played a steady stream of funk music. The forty-minute mark passed, and no one had acknowledged his presence in the last thirty minutes. This wasn’t working. That much was clear.

At the fifty minute mark, Dick slid out of the booth. The atmosphere changed, relief evident as he turned towards the door. He took a step that way, then turned and with him, the energy shifted again. The barkeep stared at him intently out of the corner of her eye, and more than a few patrons simply stared. He kept his eyes on the woman with purple hair. Her hand quietly slipped under the bar, and her forearm flexed as she grabbed something unseen. Dick opened his hands at his sides, and slumped his shoulders as he slunk towards the back. It was weird. Seeing the side eyes and sweat on peoples’ brows. He was used to hate and fear alike. He got it all the time at night. But never had Dick Grayson provoked such a reaction just for sitting somewhere.

He grabbed a cue stick, and polished the end of it with chalk. There were two people at the table already, but he’d waited until they finished the game to start moving. “I’ll take the winner.” He pulled a twenty out of his pocket. The winner crossed their arms. They looked uncertain, their head tilted back as they scanned him. They looked down their nose, but it had an entirely different feel to it than when Andy did it. Less sneering and more uneasy. Dick moved slow, taking measured steps as he circled the table and grabbed the balls out of the pockets. The silent judgment didn’t bother him, it felt normal after years spent with Bruce. “Give me a sec to warm up.” He asked. He rounded the balls up in the rack and rolled it into position, making that neat little triangle with the eight in the center. Then he lifted it, and placed the cue, then took his place at the edge of the table.

The thing about pool is that there is a hell of a lot more math involved than most people think. Lining up the angles for the shot was the first part, but were other things to consider. The height at which you strike the cue ball, for example, affects the spin of the cue, which in turn affects the way it ricochets after the initial shot. The force used must be precise for the cue to end up where you want it for the next shot. And the shot after that. Pool is a game where you always have to plan seven steps ahead. It requires precise physical control to tap the cue with just the right amount of force in just the right spot. And if you give the other player a turn? Your plans might as well go up in flames. Bruce had long preferred chess for honing mental acuity. But Dick? Dick loved pool. Titans Tower had a pool table, and after his first game he threw all his chess books out the window.

It helped that Roy was there. And his archery practice made him a goddamn natural that Dick hadn’t beaten more than a handful of times. Defeat fueled his drive for the game like nothing else and his aim had improved tenfold since leaving home. His precision control got better in the field as well, but it was more worth it to try and wipe that smug smile off of Roy’s face that he made after winning another round. That was a goal that Dick had dedicated an absurd amount of time pursuing.

The balls resounded with a deafening crack as they rolled out from the center of the triangle. None of the balls found a pocket, but they scattered satisfyingly across the table, and the sound was loud enough to make everyone’s heads turn. It was a good break, for an amature, not his best, but that was the point. The reigning champ took a peek at the table, enticed by the resounding noise. He watched their eyes flicker in interest. He took no time lining up his next shot, making a show of it as he leaned over the table. Nothing too flashy, but he sunk the one in the corner pocket they were standing nearest to.

He grinned eagerly when the cue rolled in front of the two, widening his eyes in surprise as if he’d gotten lucky. He morphed his face into a shit eating cocky grin as he walked around the table to line up the second shot. Roy would get such a kick out of this, Dick would have to text him later. The fourteen was in front of the two, directly in the way of the pocket. Normally, he’d make the two jump for a trick shot (very legal in games against other Titans, he’ll never forget the time Wally vibrated through the pool table to line up the shot, and ended up blowing it up), but he’d leave that one up his sleeve. He could feel the champ’s eyes on the back of his neck as he lined up a shot that would ricochet, instead of trying to knock both the two and the fourteen in on one go.

The balls cracked again. “Hm.” The champ hummed as the two neatly bounced, and rolled towards the pocket on the opposite side. It was slow enough for tension to build, as the ball teetered on the edge. Finally, the ball stopped, right at the edge. Dick sighed exaggeratedly, and watched as the resident pool champion twisted their own cue stick thoughtfully, then pulled their shoulder length hair back into a ponytail. Dick could sense his victory, and looked at them properly.

They were wearing a Green Day t-shirt and despite their colorful makeup, looked a tad young to be in a bar by Dick’s judgement (an expert opinion, now that he was a bartender). They had streaks of purple in their hair that matched the lavender twisted into the barkeep’s braids. Friends, he guessed, by the way the person followed his gaze and made eye contact with her. Something unspoken passed between the other two as the barkeep looked up. She shrugged, as if to say ‘go ahead’. “Best out of three?” Dick suggested.

“Deal.” They agreed. He racked his brain for information about Green Day as he placed the balls back in the rack. He knew Tim listened to them, he knew for a fact Tim owned that very same shirt. He’d heard a couple songs the last time he’d let Tim change the channel in the Batmobile. He tried to think of something to say that wasn’t just ‘so you like Green Day’ because that much was obvious.

“Favorite song?” He asked instead, nodding towards their shirt. They looked down, checking what they were wearing.

“No one knows.” Dick made a confused face, they rolled their eyes. “It’s the name of a song.” They said, as if that was totally obvious. “From their second album, before they made it big.”

“Ah.” He replied, quickly losing points in the conversation. “I liked Basket Case, but my little brother knows more about them than me.” He replied. It felt so weird, but so right to refer to Tim that way. “He didn’t show me too many other songs.” They looked bemused.

“Makes sense. Course he would start you on something basic.” They teased, lining up the cue ball to take their shot. He made a mental note to pass along the insult and tease Tim for being basic. “Mind if I break?” They looked at him eagerly.

“By all means.” Dick lifted the rack off the table. “Hit me with your best shot.” Classic rock after all, was a bit more his style.

Dick won the first game, but only by a few shots. Then purposely lost the next game by an even slimmer margin. It wasn’t a game between professionals, but Parker (who’s name he’d learned halfway through their first round) was good for an amature player. Really good. “That’s why I let them hang around.” Bea, the barkeeper, had introduced herself halfway through the second game. “They like playing pool, it gives them something fun to focus on.” She handed Dick a drink while they took a break before the last game.

“They’re underage, aren’t they?” Dick asked softly, in a tone that meant he already knew they answer. Parker looked a bit ragged for a teenager, sure, but Dick was used to that. He knew what he looked like at eighteen.

“None of your business. And if you tell your cop friends that, I will kill you.” Bea promised.

Dick sputtered, not having to fake his surprise. His mind raced through a dozen instances of being harassed at work. Friends? He felt nauseous. He suddenly understood why everyone had been so weary around him. Bea raised an eyebrow. “It’s just a job, Bea. I need the money.” He pretended to sip from the mug. “They’re customers, not friends.” He set down the mug to mark the point. “I only work there for the money.”

“You need the money? Please. There’s about half a dozen job openings on this block.” She paused, staring at him critically. “Roll around with the pigs and you’ll get covered in mud.” She muttered. “I mean it, Dick. You tell on Parker and there will be hell to pay.” She promised in a threatening tone.

“They’re too drunk to remember anything I tell them.” Dick scoffed. Which is probably a good thing, considering he’s had to muscle a few of them away from girls. “And half of them try bringing their own damn kids in the bar. I had to kick a twelve year old out of a bar last week. Twelve!” And the guy had cursed him up, down, left and right for it, directly in front of his kid. He’d had half a mind to call CPS, but it wasn’t like they’d do anything about it.

“Those are their kids.” Bea pointed out. “No one’s gonna arrest another cop. But someone like Parker?” The lines on Bea’s forehead crinked as she frowned. “They wouldn’t think twice about it. And Parker doesn’t have anywhere to go.” Her hands clenched the edge of the bar tightly. “They don’t have anyone to bail them out.” Bea’s jaw was clenched. “I know the risks. But I let them hang out here because it’s better for them than spending their entire life on the streets or at the shelter.”

Something clicked into place. “The one on King Park Avenue.” He’d seen those fiery eyes on television before. An article in the daily paper flashed in his mind. Protesters being beaten back outside the shelter. Bea’s shoulders sagged. There was a bruise coloring her dark skin across her bicep he hadn’t noticed before. He searched for some words of encouragement. From what he overheard, it didn’t sound like a hopeful situation. “You’re doing good work out there.” More than he could do as Nightwing.

Bea grimaced. “Those puppets at City Hall don’t agree.” She leaned back, crossing her arms in frustration. “All they care about is how much money the next casino owner promises to bring. They preach and preach about how we have to cut taxes to keep them here because they’re bringing good jobs.” Bea hissed. “So many ‘jobs’. Hundreds of ‘jobs’. Minimum wage jobs you can’t live off of and that’s if you’re documented and not being exploited for cheap labor. I have yet to see an ounce of good their money has done for this city.” She shook her head. “It’s all about the trickle down economics, right? They’re letting this city trickle right into the trash. They’ll bust up a block if they can make a buck off it. And nobody even cares.” She hugged herself tight, taking measured breaths. She proved herself wrong. Clearly someone cared. “Everything in this city happens for a reason, and people close their eyes to it.”

“I don’t know why I’m even telling you this. Not like you care.” She muttered, quickly walking away before Dick could protest. He glanced at the clock. It was nearing one. This was taking longer than he’d hoped, but it was worth it to build up the trust. He wouldn’t have time for Nightwing tonight, not with the other situation he’d have to deal with after this. He stood up, and dusted himself off. Dick Grayson had a wad of cash to lose on a game of pool. He spilled a little bit of his drink down his shirt, before going outside for some ‘fresh air’. He sat by the curb for a bit, catching his breath. It still smelled foul, but that was just Blüdhaven. It was quieter than normal; he could hear when the side door of the bar opened. He emptied the rest of his down the gutter before heading back inside.

“I’m upping the bet.” He swaggered in and confidently placed another four twenties on the table. He wasn’t made of money, but his job at the bar did pay something, and he had his savings. The bottom line was Parker probably needed it more than him. They eyed the cash hungrily, calculating. “You down?” They looked at Dick. He ‘drunkenly’ staggered a bit around the table, doing his best to make it look like an easy win. Parker grinned and took the bait, and slapped some money down on the table.

Dick made a show of being frustrated when a few shots went off wrong towards the end of the game. He didn’t flip the table or break any sticks, but he did stomp around like a sullen child. He hadn’t thrown a fit this bad over pool since the time Roy beat him seventeen times in a row. Parker grew smugger with each ball pocketed, and inched their way closer to the final shot. And finally…

Dick set the stage for Parker, sinking the cue ball after missing the five. He groaned dramatically, staggering over to the side of the table. He reluctantly handed the ball over. “Finish it.” He said dramatically, pretending he couldn’t watch. Then he stumbled toward the back and put his stick up, before sitting back down at the bar.

“That was nice of you.” Bea whispered as Parker lined up their final shot. A cheer went up through the crowd as Parker easily pocketed the eight in the right side pocket. Parker gave him a shit eating grin as they collected the money. His heart stuttered. They looked nothing like him, but that smile made him think of Jason. Dick blinked and the moment passed, Parker was Parker. And Dick was in a rundown bar in a rundown city, far away from whatever went on in Gotham.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dick hissed, turning around to get away from that grin. “I know when I’m beat. Should ‘ave cut my losses and walked home.” He pretended to slur his words.

“You’re not drunk, Dick.” Bea rolled her eyes. “Though that act was pretty convincing, even if you only had one drink.” Dick had ordered some non-alcoholic beverages which looked like the real deal while playing earlier. “I would have pegged you as lightweight, but I was taking out the trash when you poured out your drink.” She explained.

Dick grinned sheepishly. He already knew. He’d timed his trip outside to seeing her grab a bag of empty bottles before he struck up the conversation. When he went out, he conveniently sat just in view of the alley. “Ah. Well, you’re right about one thing. I’m not much of a drinker.” He admitted. It was getting closer to two, and the patrons were trickling out. “But it really was just a bad game. You get unlucky sometimes.”

Bea snorted. “Sure you do.” She looked at him with something akin to fondness in her eyes. “But luck had nothing to do with that.” Dick didn’t correct her. Wordlessly, he got up, and started helping clean up as an excuse to stay. She gave him a stern look, but didn’t stop him as he stepped behind the counter, and started washing mugs. The clientele dwindled down, leaving as their rides showed up, or walking home. It was nearly three before the last person left. Dick moved as if he were following the guy out.

“I have a confession.” He said, stopping by the door. Bea looked at him, that nervousness from early in the night creeping back up. He kept his distance, and took a couple steps back, so he was leaning against the door. He held up his hands. “I did come here for a reason.” He announced. Bea’s hands went to that thing under the bar once more. “I overheard some guys talking at Hogan’s.” Dick was still as he lied through his teeth. Bea was frozen in place, watching his every move. “I’m not their friend.” He reassured. “But I hear things. You know?” Bea nodded slowly, her mouth in a tight line. The way she looked at him was calculating, but not in the same way as Soames. It was cautious, not overzealous. As if he were someone she was still deciding on trusting, not like Soames looking at him as though he were a plaything. “Hanging with the pigs might get you covered in mud, but at least you know when one’s about to run you down.”

“Some of the guys that come in a part of a certain group. They don’t like folks like us too much.” Dick continued. The edges of Bea’s lips twitched into a firm frown. She knew where this was going, and Dick was glad he didn’t have to say it. “One of them warned me not to take my normal route home this Friday. Said he was doing me a favor because my bar-side manner was so good. They’re coming here, Bea. I wanted to give you a heads up.” She closed her eyes. Sorrow and anger raged in her body and Dick could sympathize - it wasn’t fair that she had to put up with any of this.

“Everything in this city happens for a reason.” She said breathlessly, whispering it almost as if in prayer. When she opened her eyes, her guardian angel was gone.

Dick was halfway down the street, ducking between two buildings and getting ready to climb another fire escape. As he predicted, there wasn’t time for patrol tonight, it was getting too close to morning. Besides, crime tended to happen early in the evening in Blüdhaven, when the police were still on patrol. Dick balanced on an upside down trash can, then leaped up on the building’s fire escape. He flipped up his hood. There wasn’t time for Nightwing to patrol, but there was plenty of time for Dick Grayson to break into a morgue.

Chapter Text

Rabe Memorial Hospital was the only public hospital in Blüdhaven’s city limits. The other facilities in Melville and Avalon Heights had been sold off and privatized years ago to help ‘manage the city’s debt’. Rabe was centrally located in the city and had been overworked and understaffed before the city’s healthcare system was gutted to make a quick buck. Fears of sky high prices for services drove residents of the inner city to stay home until they were in crisis and other than the occasional free pop-up clinic, Rabe was the only option. Which meant that the place was in a constant state of chaos.

Dick kept his head down and kept tight to the side of the building as he strolled towards the emergency room entrance. He pulled out a pair of sunglasses that covered half his face. It wasn’t the most foolproof disguise, but faking light sensitivity and a concussion could get him in the door, and really that was all that he needed. After that it would be easy to slip away.

What he wasn’t counting on was how desperate the situation had become at Rabe. Dick wasn’t new to understaffed emergency rooms. He’d been to Gotham Memorial more than his fair share of times, for treatment and to help out in the aftermath of mass poisoning incidents. He wasn’t queasy or squeamish, and could operate well in a crisis. He’d seen bodies packed into overcrowded rooms while people screamed. Still, it wasn’t something he ever really got used to. And it shouldn’t be something that happens on an average night. Tendrils of fear slithered around his heart as he caught sight of the state of the ER. As the sliding doors opened, the wall of noise hit him, and his breath was stolen away.

He caught things in glimpses as he poked his way through the room. Two nurses scrambled trying to lift a man with blue lips bigger than both of them onto a gurney. A scrawny boy with dark eyes shrieked as someone held pressure on a bloody wound. An unresponsive young woman was lying on the ground in the corner hidden by a crowd of people, her pupils blown wide, and needle tracks up her arm. A bald young man spewed blood as he screamed at the walls, noise doubled by a mother who screamed at the receptionist while her daughter struggled to breathe.

And that was just what Dick processed as the most critical cases. There were people spilling out into the hallways, and lines growing in front of the bathrooms. Just a handful of nurses tended to the people there. He glanced off down the hall he knew led to the moratorium. No one would give him a second thought if he slipped out. But it would have to wait.

He started by lifting the legs of the man, sliding them onto the gurney. The nurses looked surprised, but didn’t move to stop him. “Out of the way!” He yelled, clearing the people gathered around. He broke into a jog, pushing the gurney from the back. He doubled back once they’d gotten a good head start to the operating room. On his way back, he rummaged through an abandoned medical cart and found an emergency inhaler, naloxone, some gauze, and painkillers. He sprinted back to the front desk. “Asthma?” The woman nodded, Dick breathed a sigh of relief; he’d got lucky with his guess. “Don’t give her more than ten puffs. Give time between each one.” He pressed it into the panicked mother’s hands and cut her off when she tried to protest. “She’s counting on you now.” It duly registered that he broke a few laws doing that, but the receptionist looked relieved not to deal with the screaming, and went to work with other patients.

The man screaming up blood was beyond his skills to fix, so next he pushed through to the other side of the room and injected the young woman with naloxone and prayed he wasn’t too late and the drugs she took would react to it. He couldn’t stick around to find out. He doubled back and took over for the stranger helping the screaming boy, giving him painkillers, then writing on his hand what they were, the time, and the dosage. Then he wrapped the wound tightly in gauze, doing his best to ignore the screaming right next to his ear.

When the two nurses returned, one of them made a beeline for the man coughing up blood, and the other found the woman in the corner. A doctor had finally made his way into the fray. They still needed more help, but at the very least, no one was in immediate danger of dying. He let himself be pushed to the edges of the room, helping where he could. He found a chair for an older man standing with a broken leg, and a sling for a girl with a broken wrist. He passed out painkillers and wrapped wounds that really needed stitches. Eventually, he quietly slipped into the hallway he’d originally been shooting for.

He checked the time and grimaced. Five twenty-four am. He’d meant to be out of the hospital by now, dayshift started at seven thirty, and doing a thorough examination would take time. He jogged a little faster and took the next flight of stairs by threes. He thought about stealing a lab coat to blend in, but it turned out the hospital employees were so burnt out, no one gave a shit about a random dude weaving through the halls at the crack of dawn. No one stopped him or got in his way, or asked him what was wrong. He made it to his destination without a single suspicious glance thrown his way.

Bodies were overflowing at the morgue, lined up outside the door. Dick caught his breath as he examined them, and tried not to think about how small some of the bags were. He started with the largest bag, and felt around where the heads should be. Sure enough, one was smooth, the facial features undoubtedly on the other side. He pulled that gurney to the door and used a credit card to open the door.

He quickly slid the gurney with Angel Marin into the room, and locked the door behind him. He glanced around, seeing no cameras he flicked on the lights and pushed his sunglasses up on his head. He reached for the zipper, and in one swift motion, yanked it down. The putrid scent of rotting flesh assaulted him and his eyes began to tear as he stumbled back. It hadn’t been that long since Angel had died, had it? He checked the tag - right, not that long since reported. Dick choked on the scent, gagging as blood rushed to his head. Angel had to have been dead for at least a week. Dick slapped himself in the face hard, until he stopped coughing. Get it together. He’d seen worse than this, but there was something about that smell that always got to him.

Once he was ready, he stepped over and examined the body. The back of Angel’s head was missing clumps of hair and a thick green ooze coated parts of his skin. The flesh was rotted in places, and trash littered the bruises and wounds that blossomed down the man’s chest. He put on a pair of gloves, and picked out some of the debris. The skin was cold, and he had to use his nails through the gloves to pick at it. He dragged the junk out, and set it in the base of the bag. He ran a finger on the inside of a chunk missing just above the right hip. Flesh was peeled back and jagged around the edges, but there weren't any signs of bleeding. There were teeth marks on the ilium, if he had to guess, it was dogs. He double checked the file on the front.

‘John Doe, M, 30s-40s, TOD: TBD, Notes: Law enforcement recovered body from Greensboro Ave. Disposal Center.’ The report was initialized with a cursive D. S. written in the lower left hand corner as well as a sign off from a doctor.

“Hm.” He’d made a point of avoiding Soames ever since their first meeting. But it seemed Soames wasn’t quite done with him. He’d sent his message loud and clear - the police were in cahoots with whomever was giving people’s heads the one-eighty treatment. He wondered if they’d made Soames dump the body himself. Dick took pictures of the chart, then traced his fingers around the man’s twisted neck. It was mangled, broken in several places. What was Soames getting out of tipping him off? He took samples from under the nail beds, though he doubted that Angel had been able to lay a finger on his assailant. None of the men in Gotham’s harbor had. He put that thought on hold, and worked categorically, taking blood samples, fingerprints, scraps of his clothing, and pictures of all of the man’s tattoos.

The official autopsy clearly hadn’t been done yet, so he skipped searching through the rest of the lab. He was pushing six thirty by the time he was done with his own investigation. He was beat, and early birds would start their morning soon, so he booked it double time, making sure everything was in exactly the right place before he left. He pushed the gurney out, turned off the lights, and took one last look down the hall before rushing out the nearest exit.

================================================================================

“Need the red thread yet, Rob?” Roy climbed through the window, breeze scattering half of Dicks papers. Dick nearly hissed in annoyance. He had a front door for a reason!

“Roy! Seriously?” Dick stared at the papers mournfully. He’d spent all day organizing those. Roy laughed as he ruffled Dick’s hair. “It’s not funny.” Dick protested, slapping his hand away. There were fifteen distinct piles that had to be kept separate. Dick shot Roy dirty looks as he slid off his chair, and began collecting the scattered pages. Roy didn’t budge at first, but after a few minutes filled with the sound of rustling paper, he helped clean up his mess.

“You’re going to get them on… tax fraud?” Roy squatted next to him, scouring over a 1065 form. “Oracle get you all this?”

“I have my sources.” Roy looked back at the documents and raised an eyebrow. “And that goes in this pile, see- it’s related to Jack’s Casino, not Booth’s Adult Games.” Roy swatted his hand back when he tried to take the paper.

“I know, I know, I was just comparing them.” Roy said. “So who’s this magical source?”

Dick scrunched up his nose, and started sorting his pile by the page number. “Technically not a who. Back when Wally was working for the IRS-”

“Wait, time out.” Roy leaned back and sat flat on his butt. His brow scrunched as he rubbed at closed eyes, the way that made him look like Ollie. “Wally did what?”

“Worked for the IRS.” Dick repeated. Roy burst out into laughs. “Hey, you worked for the government too.” Dick pointed out. That stopped Roy laughing.

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” He groaned. “So what’s the story with Wally?”

“When Wally won the lottery, he had to pay taxes on the money.” Dick said. “He would have had to fill out a W-2G and one of these-”

“Less tax code, more explaining.” Roy prompted.

“You come into my home, and mess up my tax forms, and you complain about-”

“You being a nerd.” He bumped Dick’s shoulder with his fist, grinning lopsidedly. The hypocrite. Roy acted cool but Dick knew he spent his spare time working out impossible trigonometry to practice his ricochets. If he hadn’t seen the math he almost wouldn’t have believed it. Dick glowered at him. “Glad to see nothing’s changed since we were kids. Paperwork was the worst thing about being leader.”

Dick caught himself before he said ‘it’s not that bad’. Because if that’s what he said, he’d be stuck filing Roy’s taxes for the next seven years. Clever, very clever. He was running out of dirty looks to give Roy. “Anyways, winning that much ups your tax bracket and Wally let his dad of all people handle his finances.” Roy let out a small noise of disapproval. Rudolph West was a liar, cheater, scammer, and a con artist. “So you can guess about how well that went.”

“Is that when he lost the mansion?” Roy prompted.

Dick snorted. “The bank repossessed it, what - you thought Wally decided to downsize when he could live in a mansion? Our Wally?”

Roy shrugged. “He’s mellowed out a lot.”

“That was after he met Linda and Hartley. And realized there are better things to do with money.” They owed those two a lot for snapping Wally out of his asshole phase.

“Ah.” Roy hummed. “Yeah, that tracks.”

“So anyways, Wally’s parents lost all his money and he ended up owing the IRS because he didn’t withhold taxes at the time that he won it.” Dick shuddered. “He was in a lot of debt.” Dick had seen the numbers, Wally hadn’t asked him for help, but Dick went poking around anyways. It wasn’t pretty. “And because he doesn’t have a secret identity, when he causes damages during fights he gets sued. And the lawsuits cost money. So he took on more debt.” One of the benefits of anonymous vigilantism is that you don’t get sued when things go wrong. Wally, bless his heart, was open and honest, and it cost him a lot of money. “So to pay off his debts, he agreed to work for the IRS to arrest some creep for tax fraud. And while he was working there I may have figured out his login credentials,” because bless his heart, he uses the same ones for everything, and has since they were thirteen “and hacked into the IRS’s site.”

Roy took a moment to process all this. “So what I’m hearing is, if I evade my taxes, you can cover it up.” He set his hand on Dick’s.

“No.” Dick slid back his hand. He was not risking getting in trouble with the IRS. “I’m not breaking tax codes for you.”

“You break the law all the time. What’s a little tax fraud between friends?” Roy stretched his legs and glanced at the clock. “You ready to head out?” Dick followed his eyes. Shit. He’d lost track of time.

“Yes. Just. Give me a second to clean up.” Dick said, and dove into the closet to find his Nightwing suit.

================================================================================

The Prodigal Bar was empty when Dick and Roy walked in through the side entrance. The windows were boarded up, they flipped around the ‘Closed’ sign. It wasn’t long before the lights were on, and music shook the walls. Dick took his place behind the bar. His one and only customer of the night sat on a barstool in front of him in vigilante gear. He put a ten in the register and poured Roy a beer.

“Thanks.” Roy chugged the drink. They both knew it wasn’t enough for him to get drunk. “So, while we’re waiting.” Roy eyed the pool table.

“No.” Dick replied. He didn’t think he could handle losing tonight.

Roy didn’t catch on, because he pressed. “Well, if these guys don’t show then-”

“No. Come back when the place is actually open if you want to play.” Dick found himself saying. He most definitely did not have the time for that. “I mean-”

“No, I think that’s great.” Roy grinned. “Supporting local businesses and all that.” Roy could support local businesses without creaming him at pool. “You’d come with me, right?” He fluttered his lids flirtatiously, and Dick sputtered.

“I guess.” He sighed. “But not until I’m finished with my work.”

“You’ll never be finished with your work.” Roy pouted. “Come on, Wing, grab a stick, for old times sake.” He wandered over to the pool table by himself, mug half empty, left forgotten on the counter. Roy centered the balls and broke, netting three in one go.

Show off, Dick thought. He was about to tell Roy as much when the first bullet pounded into the wood.

“Down!” Dick yelled. Roy was already in motion, running towards him. He was nearly crushed as Roy landed practically on top of him, pulling him flat against the floor with his momentum. Roy scrambled to his knees and moved aside. “They’re early.” Dick muttered, a scattering of bullets riddling the wood out front. He sat up and pulled out the laptop he’d brought with him, and set it on the bottom shelf of the bar. He flipped it open and streamed from the camera he’d planted on the roof the night before.

“They’re organized.” Roy commented. Six men stood in a line, taking turns riddling the outside of the bar with bullets. A seventh barked commands and walked behind the line. They were dressed in uniform, with riot gear and combat boots, armed to the teeth with guns. Two trucks sat behind the lines, with more supplies in the back. “Ex-military if I had to guess. That equipment’s not up to code, but it looks kinda like what the marines wear.”

“I know some of them have police training.” Dick supplied. “That’s Andy, the guy that tipped me off.” He pointed out a guy towards the edge of the group. “And that’s Hunter.” He ran through each of the faces, but didn’t recognize any of the rest by name. Seven looked familiar, he’d seen him around the bar, but they’d never spoken. “Their drill sergeant’s also on the force, but I don’t know his name.”

Roy pursed his lips together. His fingers twitched on Dick’s shoulder. Two of the men began pulling a battering ram out of the back of the first car. “And they’re all on the… well fuck…” Roy trailed off, struggling a bit for words. He hadn’t exactly filled his friends in on the obscene level of corruption in Blüdhaven. “How does this city even function?”

“It doesn’t, mostly.” Dick confessed. “Unless you’re looking to blow all your money at a casino.” Dick flinched as an ear splitting bang reverberated from the door. “But it’s part of the local charm.” Roy gave him an uneasy side eye. Roy mumbled something that Dick couldn’t hear, because the door chose that moment to burst into splinters. The men charged in. Dick slipped his hand into Roy’s and gave it a squeeze. Roy glanced at him. Wait. Dick held up his other hand with a three. Roy didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded.

“There’s no one fucking here!” Drill sergeant kicked a barstool over. Dick nodded his head towards the edge of the bar, and let go of Roy’s hand. They crawled in opposite directions; Dick towards the windows, and Roy towards the back. “You pussies can’t keep a motherfucking secret to save your fucking lives!” The man hollered at the top of his lungs. “I asked you fuckers if you-”

Dick wasn’t curious about what they were asked for. He sprung up over the front of the bar and chucked an escrima stick into the side of the drill sergeant’s head. If the man hadn’t been wearing a helmet, he would have crumpled. Dick caught the stick as it ricocheted back. “FIRE-” The man screamed as an arrowhead peaked out the front of his hand, his gun clattering to the ground.

Dick flitted through the crowd, drawing the fire as Roy picked off targets from behind. “Save some for me.” Dick laughed, throwing one escrima stick directly into Hunter’s nose. He used the other to bash in Andy’s knee, before Roy downed him with a blunt arrow to the skull. He hadn’t worked with Roy in forever, but they fell into old habits seamlessly. Dick leapt and Roy’s arrows gracefully followed, leaving destruction in their wake. The fight was over almost as soon as it started. Seven bodies soon lined the ground, bleeding from a variety of arrow induced shoulder wounds. None of them would hold guns for at least a month, and yet, Dick was almost disappointed it was over.

“That. Was fun.” Dick admitted, as Roy wiped his hands on his pants. It felt good. Dick kicked Andy again in the side for good measure. Then spit in his face. Roy gave him an odd look so he stopped. Dick went back into professional mode, and surveyed the bar for damage. Aside from the door (which was a plank of wood, the real one safely tucked in the back) not much else was touched.

Roy frowned. “Well, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.” He said pointedly. His eyes bored a hole in Dick’s side.

“What?” Dick looked to his left side. There was a rip in his costume. “This?” He barely felt it. He waved Roy off. “It’s just a scratch.” The guys on the floor came away way worse. Together, they dragged the assholes out of the bar one by one. As the adrenaline wore off, he could feel the sting a bit more. Still, he cuffed Roy on the shoulder. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed working with the Titans. “I missed working with you.” Roy stilled under his touch as if Dick had shot lightning through him. “I meant the Titans.” Dick clarified, heat rising to his face. He blamed the blood loss for the slip of the tongue.

“I missed you too.” Roy admitted, not looking Dick in the eye. “Come on, let’s get you patched up.”

================================================================================

Roy was sour the entire way home and Dick for the life of him could not figure out where he had gone wrong. He sat on the lid of his toilet, his suit zippered down exposing his top. He shivered, uncomfortable with the way Roy was looking at him, with his jaw set and his eyes so pointed. It was stiff, and unlike Roy to get so worked up. Dick’s skin was numbed, but he could feel the thread tug as Roy determinedly sewed his side back together. The thrill of the night was gone; adrenaline faded and Roy’s bitter mood had seeped under his skin. He’d spent too many late nights out for this. He slumped against the back of the toilet.

“And here I thought you liked punching nazis.” Dick said slowly. Could he really have expected things to go back to normal because they had one heart to heart and another team up? I thought you liked working together, Dick thought. It was what he really wanted to ask, anyway. “What crawled up your ass and died?”

“Quit moving.” Roy tied a knot at the end of the line. “You’ll make me mess up.” Dick’s thoughts trailed off as he watched Roy work. It was a good knot, Clark might be known as the world’s greatest boy scout, but Dick would bet that Roy would have made a better one. He was good at that stuff; packing for picnics and setting up tents. On that trip out West, Roy taught him the names of celestial beings that Dick could only dream of from underneath the smoggy haze of life in Gotham. He’d been to space since then, but nothing had left him as awestruck as sitting in the back of Ollie’s old pickup truck with a blanket spread between him and his friends. He blinked hard, chasing those stars out of his vision. A lot of people could tie a good knot.

But not many people were Roy Harper. “I’m sorry I left.” Dick apologized quietly. He imagined the words taking shape, and swirling into the morning mist. He let them go. He felt oddly hollow, oddly vulnerable. Mostly tired. It was strange, as if floating and sinking all at once. He wished Roy hadn’t already forgiven him.

Roy chuckled wryly, as he covered his artful handiwork in boring white gauze. A shame, Dick thought, for Roy’s work to go unnoticed like that. He hoped the skin would scar well, he had stitches from Alfred and stitches from Donna, but none from Roy to remember him by. Perhaps that was morbid of him, but he lived a morbid life. “I’m not mad at you.” Dick didn’t realize he was holding his breath. “I was furious at first, but then I realized I shouldn’t have expected any different from you.”

That stung, deeper than the cut. Dick poked his head back up, if only to give Roy a halfhearted glare. “You can be mad at me if you want, Dick. But you know I’m right.” He finished taping down the gauze. “The thing about you is that you never stay in one place, you never have.” Roy stood up, and put the medical kit away. “I knew you wouldn’t stay. It’s fine. You’re not under contract.”

“I’m sorry.” The lights flickered. Dick didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m mad that I didn’t run after you.” Roy confessed. He guided Dick’s hand away from his face.

“You did.” Dick said. “I just ran faster. You have a family, Roy. A home. You can’t just throw it away to chase after me.” There were people that would miss Roy if he were gone. “No one expects you to do that.”

“You say that like that home wasn’t yours.” Roy’s voice was distressed and it rippled through Dick’s heart. “The Tower is your home Dick. Those people are your family.”

Dick shook his head. The Tower was a smoldering pile of ash and several corpses were left in his wake. Maybe that’s why he felt safer here, in the ruins of a dying city. There wasn’t much he could fuck up any worse than it already was. “This is my home. And you don’t owe me anything.” The lights flickered once more, sputtering their final breath before going out. Subtle lips danced across his knuckles and by the time he turned on his flashlight, Roy was gone.

The next morning he found red twine sitting on his kitchen table.

Chapter Text

Dick sat at his kitchen table, eyes focused on the twine. Data is only useful if you look at the relationships between them. All his walls were empty. Roy definitely meant it as a joke. But… it could be useful to visually map the connections out. He felt a little silly and a lot crazy, but he went out to buy a box of multicolored thumb tacks that morning.

And so the real detective work began. He dove headfirst into research, generating detailed profiles of those who’d profit off of Angel Marin’s death. He spent his mornings working on his wall. Like a gardener tending to ivy, the twine grew and spread. It flowered into suspects and branched together where they might meet and spiraled off into dead ends. Red thumb tacks made a neat line across the center, with yellow springing up to meet it. Each section was carefully aligned by color.

At work, he began stalking the suspect’s social media accounts and listening in on their conversations, from bugs he’d planted as Nightwing. He still kept one ear out for tips, but between pouring mugs of beer he pulled out his phones and stalked the accounts of casino executives. As Nightwing, he responded to the tips, but found himself drawn to the glowing lights of Avalon Heights. The glitzy part of the city housed its biggest profiteers. Overlooked, because the rest of the city was teetering on the edge of crisis.

With it clearly in focus he could feel its power pulsating, like a beating heart. The city was a creature whose veins sucked the lifeblood out of every community and brought those precious resources back to feed the gluttons at the city’s highest point. Bea tipped him off, pointed him in the obvious direction. He poured through tax codes and regulations, loopholes and exceptions. Everything in this city happened for a reason. The corruption the city suffered had a source, it had names - they were pinned to the center of Dick’s wall.

Two weeks after the thread started going up, someone finally was able to see his catastrophe. Tim apparently got bored in Gotham, and decided to break in through Dick’s window. Albeit, slowly. Dick watched disappointedly as Tim took entirely too long to disarm his security system. By the time he’d finished Dick had already had several opportunities to disarm and maim him, but he’d spent that time instead ruminating about the cause of Tim’s visit. Bruce hadn’t directly asked him to check in; nor had he asked Dick to report in the weeks he spent in Gotham. More out of uncertainty in their standings than out of courtesy. But the weeks had added up to months and Dick hadn’t sent word back. “Bruce send you to check up on me?”

“Nope.” Tim popped the ‘p’ as he sprang over the windowsill. Dick squinted, analyzing Tim for signs of deceit. “Came on my own. Gotham’s boring without you.” He seemed to be telling the truth.

“Hm.” Still, Dick didn’t let the topic drop. Tim may have come on his own volition, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. “He’ll ask.” Tim rolled his eyes and frowned, clearly annoyed by the topic. He didn’t understand and Dick couldn’t explain it. Not without throwing Bruce further under the bus than he already was. Besides, things were different between Tim and Bruce. Tim had a real dad, a not great dad, but a dad who took him on fishing trips and read his report card and did those formal types of father-son things. Bruce had read Dick’s report cards before he got beat to a pulp by Harvey Dent and they couldn’t reasonably explain his injuries so he’d dropped out of public school. That marked the beginning of the end of fatherly things. There were no fishing trips or adoption papers between them. Just a lot of shared trauma.

“I’ll tell him you’re paranoid.” The red twine starkly popped against the white wall. “I don’t get why you’re so weird about him.” And Dick hoped he never would. “It’s only because he cares.” It’s only because he’s controlling. “I think he misses you, yah know?” Then why did he send me away? Dick was glad Tim was fixated on his wall and not the emotional toll his words were taking. “What even is all this stuff?”

“Well that.” Dick glanced at the photo Tim was looking at. “Is Jenny Woodson, she owns Twin City Casino. She’s forty-seven, married twice and divorced both times. No kids.” Dick said, as if it explained anything. Tim stuck his tongue out at him.

“And she drives a Prius.” Tim continued in a mocking tone as he read off the paper her photo was taped to. Then he pointed to the next pictures down the twine. “And this is Michael Vance, John Brown, and Ethan Dougless.” Tim paused for a moment to stare at Dick. “I can keep going, but I thought by now you’d know that I can read, Dick.” Dick considered his next words, wondering how much the little blabbermouth would repeat to Bruce. “I passed basic literacy in the first grade, c’mon, seriously, what’s all this for?”

“I’m following the money.” Angel Marin had spent his life endangering the profit margins of the city’s casinos, so the next logical step was to investigate them. “Each one of these people had a financial interest in taking out Angel Marin’s operation.” He stepped up to the wall, next to Tim, and traced out the string. “These lines are the funding. Donations to these lobbies.” The group of yellows on the right. He traced the string to a group of blues on the left. “And bribes to these representatives, which includes the mayor.” He’d been a passenger on more than a few unreported vacations. “The lobbyists dictate the bills, which pass through these representatives, and then the mayor signs it.” A well oiled machine, greased with cash. Dick took down a newspaper headline clipping from the top and passed it to Tim. “And here’s how that works out.”

Tim grimaced as he read the following: ‘King’s Park Homeless Shelter Closed for Construction of Casino Parking Garage’. Tim passed Dick back the headline, and he pinned it carefully back in the proper place. “How long did it take you to put this all up?” Tim asked.

Dick shrugged. “Couple days.” He lied unintentionally. To Dick, it felt like a couple days. The longer he spent studying the patterns, the more he couldn’t think about anything else. He’d read dozens of bills and studied a couple court cases, spiraling down into the rabbit holes of tax loopholes and numbers that didn’t quite add up. He’d started hearing numbers in his sleep.

“And where does it lead?” Tim was tracing the lines up, in the opposite direction of city hall. There was a dark spot towards the top of the wall. A sheet of black construction paper cut into the shape of a silhouette. Dick was never one to skimp on drama. “Who’s tying it all together?”

“Great question.” Dick said. The final puzzle piece remained out of reach. The dark influence that coordinated the owners of the casinos had eluded him thus far. He’d come up with a placeholder name, but it felt wrong to put pen to paper before he knew who they really were. “If you figure it out, let me know.” He’d happily swap out that black spot. He’d spent hours pouring over the personal lives of each of the owners, hours more planting bugs in their offices as Nightwing. He ran the recordings through his own program that filtered out the silence and condensed the recordings into conversations, which were still hours long. It all added up to nothing. But at some point, someone would slip up. He came out of his thoughts at the vague realization that Tim was staring.

“Yeah somehow I don’t think I’m cracking this one, boss.” He said, gesturing at the ridiculous amount of papers on Dick’s wall. “This feels like another level of obs-” Tim cut himself off. “Uh. Detective-ing. Detecting?”

“Another level of detective work?” Dick suggested, ignoring the implication that he was ‘obsessed’. He cuffed Tim around the shoulders. “You know, you could use some practice.”

“Uh, uh. No way!” Tim protested. He squirmed out from under Dick’s arm. “The last time you told me we were doing ‘Detective Practice’ you made me watch a carousel for three hours.” Tim complained. “And you didn’t bother to tell me why.”

“You didn’t ask.” For three hours. Tim just sat there unquestioningly staring at a carousel. Who does that? “I told you it was detective practice. What kind of detective doesn’t ask questions?”

“Hey, I was just a kid.” Tim huffed, as though he was so much wiser and older now that a single year had passed. “No one told me what was expected. No one gave me a manual on how to be a detective.”

“Hey, you figured out Batman’s identity, so sue me if I thought you were some kind of boy genius and figured you could skip the basics.” Dick reached out and ruffled the kid’s hair. Tim squawked and brushed him off, then quickly flattened his hair. Dick grinned and tackled him again, trapping him in a headlock.

“Right place, right time.” Tim countered, laughing. He squeezed out of Dick’s arms, and Dick let him go. “I’m not half the detective you are.” He added ruefully. He stared up at the thread in awe.

“Maybe not now.” Dick placed a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “But you’ll be twice the detective I am. I guarantee it.” Tim had the makings of a detective, he was just too tied up in not breaking the rules. Which seemed counterintuitive, because Tim had been so pushy when he advocated for someone to take the role of Robin. As far as first impressions had gone, Dick had misjudged the boy- he could see now that the pushiness was built on a foundation of confidence. Tim considered himself an expert on Batman and Robin. Tim did not consider himself an expert in detective work, or martial arts, or vigilantism as a whole. He’d be stupid to- his humility kept him safer. “You’re catching on faster than I did when I was your age.” It was white lie - he’d been in training earlier than Tim and was leagues ahead of where Tim was when he was fourteen, but revising history couldn’t bite him in the ass, now could it?

Tim still needed a better poker face. His grin was all too obvious as he turned to read through the details under the photograph of Mark Vance. “Really? Then I guess I’ll settle for seventy-five percent as good.” He poked around Dick’s wall a bit more, running the tip of his index finger along the thread. “But only if it means I don’t have to sit in front of any more carousels.”

“Oh come on, that was one time!” Dick laughed. Tim turned back and raised an eyebrow suspiciously. “Alright, alright. Deal.” He was surprised Tim still respected him as a teacher after that little stunt. As it was, it was just about time for Tim’s next lesson. Though this one had less to do with detective work and more to do with balance. “You know, there is something I’ve been meaning to teach you.” Tim perked up, suspicion instantly changing to curiosity. “You ever ride on top of a moving train?”

================================================================================

Blood rushed in Dick’s ears as wind pounded his face, sharp daggers piercing his cheeks in the cold crisp night. He took a breath of bitter air and laughed, letting himself forget about the wall for a moment. The rush of adrenaline made him positively gleeful as he scampered up the rungs of the ladder. He stood on top of the traincar like he owned it, and resisted the urge to shout out in excitement. He wasn’t a child anymore, even if the wind in his face made him feel nostalgic.

“Dick?” Tim asked uneasily from behind him. “I know you’re the teacher and I’m the student or whatever, but this feels like a terrible idea!” The wind caught his voice, and Tim had to yell for Dick to hear him. Dick snuck a peak, lifting his blindfold and found Tim pale-faced, clinging to the ladder in a death grip. Dick let the blindfold fall back into place, then double backed, grabbing a hold of Tim’s wrist. “I don’t want to die!” He yelled shrilly.

“I won’t let you die, I used to do this all the time when I was a kid.” His parents most definitely would not have approved if they’d known this was how he’d spent his time when they were on the move. But his friend Raya had an older brother that taught her how to move atop the cars, and she, being a good friend, had quickly brought him in on her little secret. They, despite being overconfident cocky little brats, were not completely suicidal, and as such had not worn blindfolds. But being little acrobats without fear of falling, they’d clung to the hand-holds on the tops of the trains and felt like gods who soared across the countryside. He told Bruce about it once, and he’d devised a way to turn it into training. The blindfolds were his idea.

“You’re actually insane!” Tim squeaked. Dick had wondered how long it would take Tim to notice. “What the hell is wrong with you?!” Tim shook like crazy, but he let Dick help him up far enough to grab the handles on the top of the traincar. “Normal kids don’t spend time doing this!”

“So Mr. Normal Kid, how’s school going?” Dick half yelled into the wind. He stayed low, crouching as he kept one hand on Tim. The Robin boots had enough traction to keep Tim in place, but only if he wasn’t quaking in them.

“Is this really the time to be asking that?” Tim pointed out. “I’m trying to focus on not dying!”

“You gotta stay loose, kid. That’s what the talking’s for. You can’t keep thinking about dying or that’s how you’re gonna end up.” Don’t look down, Dickie! His parents had taught him that. As Robin Dick had been a chatterbox. Bruce hadn’t minded. It doubled as a distraction for their enemies. “I never shut up when I was your age.” He must have looked like a maniac back then. A chattering little bugger dressed up in circus colors, who could break your nose with a single kick. People feared Bruce, but they hated him. Now, at least the guy kicking in your teeth wore pants. “So how’s school?”

“I guess it’s good!” Tim’s teeth chattered as he talked, clicking loudly between the words. He felt Tim get his feet underneath him, as he settled into a crouching position. He was still trembling quite a bit and his voice sounded a bit hysterical. “I don’t know. It seems like when I check in, it’s going well. I don’t give it a ton of attention - there’s a lot of more important things I have to think about now. Plus Alfred helps me study, so I always get hundreds on tests, so I’m not failing even though I never do my homework.” Cautiously, Dick shifted his grip under Tim’s elbow, and together, they stood up. “He teaches better than anyone at the school. I don’t really get the point of going while I have him., but I don’t think dad’ll approve if I drop out of ninth grade.”

“Hey, I dropped out long before then, and Alfred had me studying calculus by the eighth. But I liked math more than the other subjects. And homeschooling’s a bit more flexible than public school.” He’d found history a bore and english to be a nightmare, and he’d nearly fallen behind (in Alfred’s standards, which were barely achievable in the first place). He was struck for a moment, by the memory of a similar conversation, and the appalled look on Jason’s face when he declared math was his favorite subject, and English was his most hated.

“I like math second best.” Tim admitted, bringing Dick back into the present. “Science is better, that way the math actually does something. It’s not just numbers sitting there for no reason.”

“What do you mean sitting around for no reason?” Dick felt more offended than he should. “Science is just applied mathematics, so really you like math the best. You’re just looking at it top down instead of bottom up.”

“Yeah but saying science is just applied math is like saying philosophy is just applied logic.” Tim countered. He wobbled a bit as the train curved. His grip on Dick tightened as he caught his balance. “The building blocks to a lot of the subjects are the same, math, reading, critical thinking. But there’s something about how everything comes together that’s unique. Therefore, I like science more than math.”

“Smart kid, I’ll grant you that.” Dick laughed. “You prepared that defense?”

“Bruce’s favorite subject is math too.” Tim admitted. “And he said the same thing as you when I complained to him about geometry. But Alfred’s is history. Together we’re teaming up to defeat the math nerds.”

“Booo.” Dick grinned. “You won’t win, we have Babs on our side. Computer science is literally just logic based math in a fancy format.”

“Ah, but that’s not the full story.” Dick could practically hear Tim’s smug little smirk. “Barbara was a librarian, she likes english just as much as programming. She counts for both.”

“So it’s a tie then.” Dick could stand that. “An equal number of math nerds and non-math nerds in the family.”

“For now.” Tim agreed. “Until you marry Roy.”

Dick started, losing his hold on Tim’s wrist. He stumbled, and took a few steps back, teetering towards the edge of the railcar. “DICK!” The sound of fabric frantically being yanked off cued Dick in to Tim’s blindfold coming off. Dick held up his hands and smiled, showing he was fine. It’d only taken him a second to catch his balance. Another couple seconds and he might have gone splat. But he was an expert after all. “Right.” Tim breathed heavily, as he realized the same thing. “Trained acrobat. Did this as kids.” Dick could hear him move back into place. He kept his fingers lightly on Tim’s back as he put his blindfold back in place. The turn was coming up, he didn’t want to miss it. “Of course you’re fine. If I did that I’d be dead.” He grumbled, Dick let it pass, because he’d clearly scared the shit out of the poor kid.

More importantly. “There is nothing going on with Roy.” Dick said, resolutely, lying through his teeth. Roy even talking to him was a gift, one he was not about to fuck up by trying to initiate romance. How Tim even knew he’d talked to Roy was-

“Damnit. I knew Bart was full of shit.” Tim grumbled. Ah. That explained it. Bart was one of kids that stuck around for Roy’s iteration of the Titans, but why Bart knew what Roy was up to? That was a different question. “He said Roy needed your address because the two of you had a nasty public breakup and he wanted to apologize.” Dick was going to strangle that kid if he ever stayed still for a moment.

“That is not what happened.” He said vehemently. The train curved. Tim screamed as he tumbled towards the edge of the car. Dick caught him easily by the scruff of his cape, and pulled him back down to the top. Tim wheezed beside him. “If anyone deserves an apology it’s Roy, I put him in a bad spot.”

Breathlessly, Tim piped up. “So you did break up with-”

“Tim!” They did not break up- they weren’t even together! “I broke things off with the Titans, I did not break up with Roy!”

“So you’re still together?” Tim asked, voice full of genuine confusion.

“What? No!” Dick fought the urge to facepalm. “I have never dated Roy Harper.” Flirted, sure. But dated? The last person he properly dated was Kory. Tim was at his almost-wedding, he should know this! “We did not break up because we were not together! We have never been together!” Dick tried to squelch the thought that they could ever be more than friends.

“Oh.” Tim almost sounded disappointed and Dick may be a detective but he couldn’t even begin to place a guess as to why. “Alright then.”

“Anyways, the bridge is coming up.” Dick warned. “Duck.”

“There’s a bridge for ducks?” Tim asked.

“No, Tim.” Dick sighed. “Duck!” He pulled Tim down to the ground as the air shifted. The gray tones behind the piece of cloth obscuring his vision faded to black. The noise of the train quadrupled in volume drowning out whatever Tim had tried to say. Two and a half minutes passed, and they stood in open air once again. By then, Dick figured out a way to segway into a different conversation. “So, you were talking about Bart. How’s your team coming along?”

“Um. Good.” Tim mumbled, sounding underconfident. “We’re trying.” Dick expected him to continue, but Tim didn’t go on.

“Trying to do… what exactly?” Dick asked.

“Stuff.” Tim replied. “I don’t know.” He groaned. “It’s like herding cats trying to get them to listen and I’ve tried herding cats and it’s not fun.”

“Why were you… never mind.” Conversation for a different time. “You’ll get through it. Once you get to know each other a bit better you’ll figure out your structure.”

“Hn.” Tim sounded so much like Bruce in that moment, that Dick nearly lost his footing again. Tim fidgeted, like something else was bothering him. He really was just like Bruce.

“Spit it out, Timbo.” Dick elbowed him gently in the ribs.

“We have a parent teacher conference coming up.”

And then Dick did lose his footing, but only because he was laughing so hard. “You have a what?” The Titans never had those. As if their parents could stop them.

“A parent-teacher conference.” Tim repeated, tone flat. Dick bit his tongue. “Red Arrow wants to meet with our parents. And I can’t ask dad, he’d freak out if he found out about… you know. This.” Dick moved back into position. “And I think Bruce would have a heart attack if I asked him to come to a parent teacher conference.”

“For someone who claimed they weren’t a detective, you seem to be catching on fast.” Dick commented.

“Anyways, I was thinking maybe…” Tim said the next thing so quietly Dick didn’t hear.

“Come again?” He asked.

Tim cleared his throat. “You kept an eye out while Bruce was out of town the one time. So I thought maybe you could go.”

“Sure.” He grinned. The air turned salty as they neared the coast. It was almost the end of the Green Line railway. “Why not?” It seemed like it would be a fun enough time.

Tim breathed a sigh of relief beside him. “Great, because Cissie’s mom is insane and I think she’s going to bring a gun to a knife fight.”

“Come again?”

Tim spent the return trip home explaining the intricacies of the complicated dynamics between his team members, their parents, and each other. Dick wistfully remembered the early days of his own group of troubled teens, then wrenched his thoughts away from that. There was no point in dwelling on the past. He ruminated on the present instead, keeping one ear on Tim, and his mind on the red twine.

================================================================================

The twine was unmoved, waiting for him once he’d bid goodbye to Tim. Dick skirted around his bedroom. It wormed its way deeper into his mind. He brushed his teeth, and cut his gums on the floss. The twine was in his hands. He picked at a scab while showering, and the twine poured out of him and swirled down the drain. He stood in front of his bedroom door feeling like an ant in front of a grand archway. Something Tim said nagged at him.

Barbara was a librarian. Dick had seen her in the library once. Her laugh rang in Dick’s ears, she threw her head back, scarlet strands splayed out. She placed a crimson bookmark in the novel she was reading, and helped him find the book he’d needed. Someone had to keep the books. Companies kept meticulous records. So where were they? The records that he needed. She liked english as much as programming, Tim said. Oracle swapped the books for a digital information sphere. If you can navigate the physical, the digital is second nature. That’s the thing about data, it can be stored in different ways, and programs draw the red twine between the numbers. Perhaps he should take a second look at each of the company’s finance departments.

He placed his hand on the door handle. Who led the finance departments? Who was second in command? Who kept the books of the kings and queens of the city - the books that kept them on their thrones? He’d drawn the red thread, but there were people making those connections. Money didn’t just magically jump from place to place, and he was certain Michael Vance and Jenny Woodson didn’t do their taxes by themselves. They were arrogant, they were kings; they had people for that.

The thought drove him forward, his mind all-consumed. He ignored the way his head pounded for sleep. He couldn’t sleep anyways, not when he could feel ants crawling under his skin. Obsession was a better fuel than caffeine could ever hope to be. He could sleep when he was dead. Red thread dangled off his fingers as thumb tacks pricked his skin.

Chapter Text

With the right momentum built up, a snowball can easily become an avalanche. Dick Grayson couldn’t stop if he tried. Three sleepless nights spent pouring through personal tax returns of lower-level finance executives, and Dick didn’t have the name of a person, but he had the name of a place. And then he passed out for twenty hours, quit his job, and started stalking the place day and night alike. He stole away for naps and dozed, but it was as if a switch had been flipped in his mind, and he couldn’t dream of anything that wasn’t the tidy brick building he sat atop of.

St. Anthony’s Home for the Aged looked innocuous on the outside. It was an apartment complex off of Caernarvon Avenue, smack dab in the center of Avalon Heights. It was a lovely little retirement home with a kind hearted mission, who’s website espoused that it ‘provided high quality care to older folks in need’. You had to be at least sixty-five to qualify for residence. Those who lived there ‘maintained their dignity in their golden years’ by having access to their own private apartment, instead of being crammed in a dimly lit room with a few roommates like your average nursing home. St. Anthony’s was a well-funded non-for-profit organization, donated to by key players at each of the city’s casinos and recorded as tax deductions. None of them had personal connections to the place, and some of them were too young to be thinking of retiring yet. He told himself this, because deep down he knew the connection was flimsy. They could just be after the write-off. But this was the only connection he’d found.

Like everything in the gilded city, the lovely little ‘charity’ was uniquely located to keep the impoverished out. It sat just down the street, from the Avalon Heights office of the B.P.D., who were more than happy to intervene when someone looking a little ‘lost’ wandered down the street. As Bea said - if you hang out with the pigs, you get covered in mud, little proper looking ladies were steered back into the shelters, and anyone looking like they didn’t make six figures in their prime was directed back to where they ‘belonged’ on the other side of town. He felt as though his feet were sinking into the goo. Everything about this city was intentional, it all had a reason, and he could feel himself drowning in the vastness of it all.

The glittering lights of Avalon Heights flashed in neon colors, narrowly missing the shadows that Dick had set up shop in. St. Anthony’s got 95% of its power from a clean source - an array of solar panels on the top of the building, which were tilted diagonally and held up by structs on the flat roof. It made for an excellent hiding place, although it was lacking in other ways. The top of the building didn’t have a roof access door and its security cameras hadn’t been child’s play to hack (more evidence, Dick felt, that he was on the right track). He had to keep monitoring the server they were based on to make sure no one got suspicious.

He recorded everything, watched everything. He set up his phone, laptop, and an external monitor, and watched six camera feeds at once, while keeping another eye on the comings and goings of residents and friends. He snuck in by night and took scans of the building’s welcome book. He lurked in halls that smelled too much like bleach, wormed his way into rooms, and searched for anything he could justify as suspicious. He could tell the place was off; the furniture looked glitzy but was made cheaply, the food smelled delicious but tasted like sandpaper, and the nurses smiled and laughed but their eyes were soulless. For a place with so many donations, he’d expected better.

“When I bought red thread it was a joke.” On the fourth day, Dick made the mistake of answering his phone. “Tim told Bart that you-” His thumb wiped across the screen with the greatest of ease. He blinked, surprised, as words stopped coming out of the little device, hardly realizing what he’d done. Falling back into old habits was second nature. It was too easy to slip the phone back into his pocket. He sent Roy a quick text simply saying ‘Busy’, blocked his number, and went back to streaming his video.

The sounds of their necks snapping permeated Dick’s dreams, when he slept for long enough to have them. He found himself staring at his ceiling when that sickening grinding sound wouldn’t leave his mind. He filled his vision watching the cameras remotely instead. Jokingly, Wally had once called Dick a machine. He was starting to feel more mechanical than human. But not in a cool, cyborg, Victor Stone type way. More in a non-playable character in a video game way. He was like little digital bits of data that operated on an algorithmic schedule. He watched the building, went home, failed to sleep, chugged protein shakes, and repeated.

He still kept up his wall, which spread to the other wall, and then the floor. Ricardo Garcia was the janitor that unlocked the door in the morning. He did his rounds taking out the trash before saying good morning to Carla Brown, a resident on the third floor who woke up earlier than everyone else. Carla walked to the dining hall and knitted, and the others slowly began their cycles as well. The nurses began to come in, and bustled around on the first floor, checking their stocks of medications. Most residents stayed in their rooms until about seven, when they started trickling down to the dining area. There were suddenly too many names to keep track.

Breakfast lasted until eight. Visitation opened up at nine. There were regulars that came each day at the same time. One was a missionary named Martha White, another was a priest, the reverend Chris Luthor. One, Jenny Appleton, was a librarian that lived down the street. She brought a cart of books for the residents to check out and read. They were all pleasant people, at least on the surface. Dick had no real reason to doubt them, but he found each one of them suspicious.

He was starting to think he was wrong. A week passed and there was nothing. He caught news of an apartment fire on the sixth day, and Nightwing had been nowhere to be seen. Twelve people died and Dick stewed in guilt, unmoving from the roof. He’d put too much time into this for the lead not to play out. He decided to wait one more day and give the watch a single full week.

The seventh day dawned, and there was nothing out of place. Breakfast came and went. Jenny gave out her books. The old man in apartment 3F yelled at the birds outside his window at two-fifteen. The sun began to set, early in the brisk wintery day. Dick dragged a hand down his face and fought the urge to scream. But the day went on. Lunch was served and old Ms. Whicklehire threw her mashed potatoes into Mr. Sonsire’s hair. Good for her, Dick had observed the man was a prick. “u blocked me???” A new number texted him at three in the afternoon. Dick texted back “later” and blocked Roy’s number again. Some of the residents began to retire early, and that was the most unusual part of the day.

Until a discreet navy SUV pulled into the visitor’s lot. Dick perked up, half heartedly. It was a car he hadn’t seen before, and when he ran the license, it came back as a rental - not terribly unusual, it could be someone out of town visiting an older relative. But still, his interest peaked, Dick watched keenly as the driver stepped out and opened up the door to the back seat. He grabbed a set of binoculars from his stash of crap he’d accumulated on the roof, and hastened to the edge to get a better look.

A towering behemoth of a man stepped into the fading light, deftly avoiding the beams of neon lights. He wore a neatly tailored pinstripe gray suit with an expensive gold watch on his meaty left wrist. There was an air of importance and grandeur about him that went beyond his massive size. But more importantly, each of his hands were bigger than watermelons. Dick could practically hear necks snapping underneath the man’s grip. It was him, it had to be. There was no one else in Blüdhaven that could leave fingerprints that big. “Blockbuster.” Dick mumbled. The name fit.

The man strolled towards the building casually, then stopped, and scanned the roof. “Shit.” Dick muttered, diving away from the side. He crawled down a ways, then poked his head back up.

Blockbuster was slamming the door of his car as the driver slammed it in reverse. Dick jammed a communicator to his ear while jumping off the roof. “Robin!” He shot his grappling line and careened towards the car. It swerved out of the parking lot just as Dick touched the ground. “I need you to log out my laptop and shut it down remotely.”

“Nightwing?” The growly voice that met him was most definitely not Tim. “Report.”

Dick cursed under his breath, sprinting towards the alley where he’d stashed his bike. He leapt for it, mounting fluidly before gunning it into the streets, careening between cars and hugging the double yellow line to catch up. “You picked a bad time for reports, Batman. Do what I asked or put Robin on.”

Bruce was silent for a moment. “It’s been two months, and you’re going seventy-five in a thirty. Explain.”

Dick laughed and swerved, nearly getting clipped by a side mirror. “You’re the one who taught me how to drive.” And Dick needed to focus on that driving! Blockbuster’s car turned into an alley, Dick pumped the brakes and leaned hard into the turn. Several cars blared their horns at him as he narrowly avoided driving headlong into a wall. “Now’s really not the time!” He yelled at Bruce.

“If you can’t handle-”

“I’m handling things just fine!” The remnants of Dick’s self control had dissipated days ago. He’d regret this later, but he needed to live that long. “All I need you to do is log out of my laptop and shut it down. If you can do that one simple thing, I will catch your killer! I’m almost-” He gained on the car, and it slammed on its brakes. “Fuck!” Dick slammed on his, and his neck snapped forward with the force. The handle bar jutted into his chest, but he stayed on his bike. Blood rushed in his ears. “Goddamnit Batman, I need to focus.” He snapped. He blinked stars out of his vision.

“-okay.” He caught the second half of what Bruce said when his head decided to stop pounding. Bruce signed off. The car in front of him started back up, and he quickly resumed the chase.

They twisted through the back streets of Blüdhaven, leaving Avalon Heights squarely in the rearview mirror. Blockbuster strayed away from the highway, upping the ante of their chase as they drove through more densely populated areas, coming dangerously close to pedestrian sidewalks. It was a deadly game of chicken that Dick couldn’t afford to stop playing, but it would have to end.

Dick took a chance at the next turn - he ramped up the speed, and jumped, digging wingdings into the hood of the car. His arms pulled at his shoulders as his body flew over the side, but mercifully his joints didn’t pull out of place. He held fast, the driver breaked, but too slow- Dick had managed to get his legs up around the back of the car. A second later and he’d been flung off. Reacting fast, he took advantage of the car being stopped, and smashed one of his escrima sticks through the windshield of the car. He smashed his fist through the driver's nose before he could slam on the gas again. Blockbuster sat in the back of the car with a gun aimed at Dick’s head. Dick rolled, and counted. One shot. He hit the ground. Two shots. He crawled to the opposite side of the car, taking cover as Blockbuster got out.

“You.” Blockbuster growled. “Are quickly losing your entertainment value.” Dick popped his head up, then quickly ducked as a bullet whizzed past his ear. That made three. And three more before the man would have to reload.

“And you.” Dick ducked a fourth shot. He felt like a whack-a-mole. “Can’t shoot for shit.” He baited, poking his head up, and ducking the fifth shot.

“Sit still!” Blockbuster roared in frustration. “Can a man not visit his mother without being harassed by vigilantes?” He rammed the car, slamming it into Dick. Shit. The car knocked him hard to the ground. He hadn’t been expecting that. The sixth shot nicked his left shoulder. “You have nothing on me, whelp.”

“Maybe not, but I knew where to look.” Dick scrambled to his feet and made a mad dash for the street. The gun clicked, then skittered past him, as Blockbuster threw it in aggravation. Dick turned back for another taunt, then thought better of it, seeing the man charging like a bull towards him. Dick ran headlong into traffic, jumping over dashes as tires screeched to a stop. He was lucky the sidewalks were empty; anyone with half a brain took off running at the first sound of gunshots. Still, there were too many people in their cars that could be leveraged against him, and he was this close to causing a pile up.

He scanned the street, and quickly recognized where he was. A thought occurred to him, and he ran for it. King Park’s Homeless shelter had been scheduled for demolition. It had been cleared out by the police, and yellow tape blocked off the parts of the building that were still standing. An abandoned building without bystanders. A perfect destination for a brawl, created by Blockbuster’s own arrogance, was just a block away. It was hardly minutes before he bursted through the rotted old door.

The irony of his circumstance, seemed lost on Blockbuster. “You crossed a line!” He yelled, smashing through the door frame. “No one threatens my mother and lives.” He fired off a round of bullets from a new gun. Dick dove into a hall. “I’ve allowed you to live this long to appease the Bat. I see now that it was a mistake.” Dick quietly slipped into a room at the far end of the hall.

Dick waited as the steps drew nearer. “Come out, little bird.” Blockbuster mocked. His voice shook the building. Dust rained down from the fluorescent light strips. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be.” Dick hardly breathed as the sounds came closer.

Luck was on Dick’s side; Blockbuster turned to the room across the hall from his. Dick burst into the hall and leapt once again, grappling the wall of a man from behind. His escrima sticks bounced uselessly off the larger man’s head. “Ah, there you are.” Dick gasped as Blockbuster bucked, throwing them both against the wall. His rib crunched sickeningly. His escrima sticks clattered to the floor, and he followed soon after. Meaty fingers closed around his neck, stealing away his breath. Shit. Stars danced in Dick’s vision, and he cut his own hand grabbing one of his windings out of his utility belt. With all his strength, he dug down as hard as he could. He rolled as he hit the floor again.

Dick wasted no time bouncing back while Blockbuster was distracted. As he tumbled, he reached for a stick and threw it into Blockbuster’s left eye. He scrambled back as he threw a few wingdings into the man’s shoulder. He barely made it to his feet before his escrima stick was hurled back at him. He raised an arm and defense and-

Crack.

Shit. His hand snapped back, then flopped uselessly against his forearm. He grimaced, he couldn’t feel it yet, but that was gonna hurt like a bitch when the adrenaline stopped pumping. More importantly it put a fairly big damper on his preferred fighting style. Dick ran. Blockbuster took a few more shots, then threw out his second gun, already out of bullets, and charged. Dick turned, running up a flight of stairs, and bursting through into the main community room of the shelter.

Dick weaved in and out between pillars that spanned floor to ceiling. Blockbuster charged right through them, the building shaking violently every time. Dick kept aiming him towards them, but as they neared the end of the main hall, he came close enough to send Dick sprawling. Dick rolled with the momentum and pushed back against the wall, diving between Blockbusters legs as he continued on right through it. The floor shook more violently, and plaster started falling in earnest from the ceiling.

Dick got back to his feet disoriented, desperately scanning the room for exits- there. A couple windows were at the far end of the room. He made a break for them. The walls were vibrating, and the ‘Exit’ signs blurred together, they’d take too long to reach anyways. Dick dove forward as half the third floor came crashing down, ripping through to the first, and covering him in plaster. “Blockbuster!” The man was nowhere to be seen. Dick coughed, hacking as the dust coated his throat. Not his problem anymore, if he wanted to live.

Dick ran like hell towards the nearest window. The floor shook and tilted beneath him, and the ceiling groaned, getting ready to give. One final leap was all that was left. He covered his head with his good arm, and hurtled through the window with all the force he had left.

“Go limp!” Dick obeyed instinctively, and someone hurtled into him, and together they rolled across the pavement, away from the sounds of destruction. Dick laid flat against the ground, with his arm still tucked over his head. A final wave of sound boomed as the building just a couple hundred feet from them fully collapsed. Dick blinked a few times. The haze wasn’t as thick tonight. If he tried, he could make out the dimly lit stars. He huffed out a shaky breath. And then another. Then laughed, dizzily. Then coughed, then choked on the dust. He felt wonderfully alive after spending the last few weeks in a haze. There was still nothing that could snap you out of your paranoia driven obsession like a near death experience.

“I’m glad you think this is funny.” Roy swam into view. He was pressing into Dick’s ribcage painfully. There was plaster dust in his hair. “I swear to god the next time you block up my phone I’m not driving all the way out here to haul your sorry ass out of whatever mess you’ve gotten into because I am-” Dick stopped processing Roy’s words as he ranted. He was stuck looking at the little bits of plaster mixing with snow in Roy’s hair.

Dick turned his head, marveling at how close the debris had come. He’d made it out of the building but without the momentum, he’d have been crushed. “Thanks Roy.” Dick could appreciate a good rescue. “For an archer, your timing is always on point.”

Roy made a desperate sounding choked noise. A vein pulsed in his forehead, and eyes screwed up in a way that Dick didn’t like. “I… am going to strangle you one day.” He promised, in a non-threatening tone.

“Go ahead.” Dick’s voice sounded like shit. “See what happened to the last guy.” Roy shook his head and stood up.

“Look, we’re even now. For everything.” Dick had no idea what Roy was even talking about. “I don’t care what Wally says about me kicking you off the team, and I don’t want to hear about that time that I left Donna’s records near the oven, and you took the heat for me. We are even, fair and square, keepesh?”

Dick blinked, narrowing his eyes at Roy. “You don’t owe me anything.” He replied. The world was still shaking, so he stayed on the ground. “You’re a load of shit, Roy.” They both knew it, but Dick rarely called him out on it. “I owe you like a dozen.”

“Then do me a favor.” Roy challenged. He offered Dick a hand up, and he took it. “Pick up my goddamn calls and answer my goddamn texts! I worry- and you…” Roy picked up Dick’s broken wrist and showed how his hand flopped around. “How come it always turns out like this?”

“Hm.” Dick hummed. “I don’t know.” Roy ducked under Dick’s good arm and slid an arm underneath his legs. “What if I say it won’t happen again?”

“Then you’d be lying.” Roy groaned. Dick leaned his head into Roy’s chest anyways. He was dizzy and Roy was warm. “Because the last time you said that you hung up on me, blocked my phone twice, and I had to go to Bart who had to go to Tim to get the data from the tracker on your suit, and I fumed and sped the whole drive here, and just barely made it in time to save your sorry ass.”

“I’m sorry.” Dick replied. “I won’t do it again.” He hadn’t meant to do it the first time, or the second. It just happened. Things always just happened with him. Why was he like this?

“Don’t start.” Roy grunted. “Because I know you’ll do it again. So just.” He turned to Dick with a wild look in his eyes. “Shut up and let me hold you.” Dick did shut up. Mostly because Roy’s eyes were pretty, and Dick was lightheaded. Roy’s arms were strong, but gentle. His brain numbed the world around him, and in that moment all he could do was stare at Roy.

He took in the data. The scratch on Roy’s cheek and the faint smell of blood. The sweat slicking back his shoulder length hair. The way the light cast a shadow over half his face. The way he looked at Dick with equal amounts of exasperation and love. I missed you. Dick had said. It was just as true now as it was then. And so Dick did something that surprised both of them; he made one last jump, and bridged the gap between them.

Chapter Text

Case File: Blockbuster
Date: xx/xx/xx
Author: NW

Report Summary:
Twenty-one men washed up dead in Gotham Harbor on date xx/xx/xxxx. On a tip from commissioner Gordan, Batman investigated the bodies in the morgue. Current flow indicated the source of the bodies was upstream; Blüdhaven. Nightwing was dispatched to investigate on xx/xx/xxxx. The culprit was determined to be Desmond Roland1, a business tycoon who influenced the city from the shadows, rarely showing his face in public. The subject is still at large following the collapse of King Park Shelter2. Federal charges have been filed following a report authored by IRS, local authorities were informed, but appear to be in disarray following the reported death of Police Chief Redhorn3. The result of the subsequent investigation into Desmond Roland is pending.

See page 19 for details.
See page 24 for details.
Investigation ongoing.

Dick closed his eyes, taking a momentary break. He leaned back against the couch cushions, willing the back of his neck to stop spasming. “I can’t believe Bruce still makes you write those things.” Roy leaned forward over the couch. “You’d think breaking your wrist would get you out of typing.” Dick grimaced, it wasn’t his wrist that was the problem. His poor abused neck wouldn’t let him work for more than ten minutes without cramping up. Roy nestled his chin in Dick’s hair and twisted his fingers through it, it was starting to grow out again.

“He doesn’t make me write them. It’s for my own files. You never know when documentation will be useful.” Dick countered. “Desmond’s not dead - they didn’t find a body.” And in their line of work, that meant Blockbuster would be back. “I don’t want to forget everything that I learned in this encounter.”

“You already have over a wall’s worth of documentation.” Dick blushed. Roy had stopped by his apartment to take it down while Dick was in Rabe Memorial, having his wrist casted. The papers sat in an disorganized mess in two trash bags. “What more do you need?”

“For the information to be formatted neatly in a way that’s easily accessible. And my wall to be clear for the next case.” Roy groaned, and shook Dick’s shoulders gently. Speaking of walls, Dick gazed at Roy’s. They were a gentle auburn and full of photographs intermixed with Lian’s artwork. His eye caught on one with the Titans, all grinning, hanging out at their old disco club. Roy was seated at his drums with a wild look in his eyes, and Mal crouched behind Wally, posing as if about to blow his trumpet in Wally’s ear. Dick and Donna clung to one another, laughing over some personal joke, with Garth and Lilith smiling politely on either side. He sighed, contentedly. Those were the best days of his life.

But he kept looking, and next to the photo that he’d singled out was a paper stuck to the wall with tape, with a mixture of colors smeared all together to make a distinct shade of gray, with flecks of red and green sticking out at the edges, which weren’t smeared as mch. Lian’s name was written in marker underneath. The good old days were gone, but they needed to be for something better to take their place.

“Just for the record, that was not an invitation to use my walls.” Roy said, as he followed Dick’s gaze. “I have enough of my own junk on them.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Dick teased. He reached up a hand to Roy and squeezed his fingers reassuringly. “Besides, I like your junk.” Roy turned a shade of purple, and Dick quickly corrected himself. “I mean your decorations.” He searched for the right words to describe it. “It’s homey. Besides, I won’t need any walls if I finish this report.” He added pointedly, going back to his typing. Roy’s hands lingered on his shoulders, as he watched Dick work for a while longer. Dick leaned back, stretching his sore neck, and Roy cupped his chin. He lightly pulled up, and the pressure faded. He let Roy guide his head through a series of different positions and sighed contentedly in relief as the pain lessened. When Roy finished, he traced outlines of fading bruises and rubbed gently at the little knots under Dick’s skin. He kissed the base of Dick’s neck, sending a thousand little shivers down Dick’s spine, before finally, he detached himself.

Roy draped a throw blanket over the couch, and tucked it around Dick’s shoulders. Dick looked at him dolefully, ever since becoming a dad, he’d become such a mother hen. And this side of Roy was so sweet. “Don’t stay up too late.” He warned. “Lian’s got a school play tomorrow, she’s going to be a tree. If you miss it, she’ll never leaf you alone.”

Dick snorted. “Please, she’s all bark, no bite.” A small smile bloomed on his face as he could hear Roy chuckle on his way out.

================================================================================

When the report was finished, Dick saved it on a thumb drive. The bats didn’t send things over email, it wasn’t secure enough to their liking for case files, and Dick supposed he did actually owe Bruce a proper report, and not a rushed call from the hospital waiting room. So Dick did what he’d dreaded since leaving home. He packed up his stuff and bought a bus ticket to Gotham.

“You don’t have to leave.” Roy’s hands twitched as he dropped Dick off at the station. Dick held them in his, though his cast made that a bit clunky. He stood on his toes to kiss Roy goodbye.

“It’s not forever.” Dick smiled. “That’s the thing about acrobats. I’ll leap out, and push as far as I can, but I’ll swing back to you.” He squeezed Roy’s hands then let them go, grabbed his things, and got on the bus. “You don’t need to chase me this time.” He promised, through the open window. Roy just looked at him skeptically, and ran with the bus a bit, until the fence ended. And then he waved.

He spent the ride staring at the familiar signature on the underside of his left forearm. He hadn’t seen Roy sign his cast, but he’d done so in metallic silver and gold sharpie, with the Great Frog band logo drawn just above it. Nostalgia hit him hard, Dick dug his earbuds out of his bags, and put on their first album. He traced the emblem and closed his eyes, letting the drums carry him away to a different time.

===============================================================================

“Dick! Hey!” Tim had pep in his step. He waved gleefully, practically bouncing, as he watched the passengers dismount the bus from behind the fence. “Over here!”

Dick perked up, and grinned at the kid. He waved back, walking over and giving the others a chance to pick up their stuff. “Bruce sent you to pick me up?” He asked.

Tim groaned. “No he was going to have Alfred do it, so I volunteered.” He pouted, in the more subtle way that fifteen-year-olds do. “Not everything’s about Bruce, sometimes I just want to hang out with you.” Dick’s heart melted a little bit. God, he loved this kid. He reached through the bars with his right hand, and affectionately ruffled the kid’s hair. Tim rolled his eyes, but didn’t step out of reach. “Oh geez, what happened to you?” He asked, taking note of the cast.

“Long story, thanks for picking me up, kiddo. I like spending time with you too.” He glanced at the time. There were a couple of hours out from when Bruce would get home. “I’m going to grab my bags, how about we…” Oh god, what did kids Tim’s age like to do? “How ‘bought we kill a few hours at the mall before heading home? And I promise I won’t bring up Bruce at all.”

The shine of Tim’s grin rivaled the sun. “Deal.”

================================================================================

A second signature joined the first. Tim’s writing was tiny compared to Roy’s, his name neatly written in small letters tucked away at the top of the cast if he was afraid to take up too much space. Dick needled him into doing it again.

And that was how the letters “T I M” ended up being drawn stupidly big on the back of his hand, each drawn in a separate color. Red, gold, and green. “You’re not worried people will make the connection with Robin?” Dick asked on the way home. Tim was generally a bit more careful with his secret identity.

“No.” Tim said. “They’re the Flying Graysons colors. Tell them a fan recognized you. Besides,” Tim blushed, “It’s not technically a lie.”

Dick resisted the urge to fluff Tim’s hair, because he didn’t want the kid to crash the car. “Lucky thing I have such a clever little brother.”

“Please.” Dick hoped Tim’s poker face would never get better, because it was cute to see his little smile. They came to a stop at a red light. “It was either that or your colors were inspired by traffic lights.”

================================================================================

“And there.” Dick tossed the thumb drive through the air. Bruce caught it. “Is your report. The mystery of the twenty-one bodies is solved.”

Bruce hummed, slipping the thumb drive away into his pocket. “Good work.” The words made Dick’s heart swell with pride. But Bruce’s eyes stared daggers through the cast on Dick’s wrist, and his mouth twitched into a frown. “I thought you said you were fine.” He’d called back an hour after Dick yelled at him. Exactly an hour, right down to the second. Dick wonders if he counted.

“I am.” Dick breathed evenly. Too many fights between them started like this. Dick going out for a mission and getting injured. Bruce could never stand to see Dick hurt. It made him angry. It made him guilty. And he could never power through those emotions and act in a way that didn’t leave Dick emotionally devastated on top of being physically wounded. It wasn’t fair, and it made Dick’s blood boil when he thought about it too hard. But he was too tired to pick fights. “Or, well, I will be.” He lifted the cast. “With time. You want to sign?”

The color seemed to drain out of Bruce’s skin as he was confronted with the object. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Dick half wondered if this was some kind of exposure therapy. Bruce’s eyes were calculating, his mind whirred away doing math that Dick could only guess at. Dick interrupted Bruce’s thoughts by throwing a sharpie at him, which he caught reflexively. Dick held out his left arm in invitation. Bruce took it, and held it as if it were made out of glass. Dick chaffed a bit. He wasn’t someone that Bruce could break. “You’re not going to hurt me with a Sharpie, Bruce.”

Bruce looked at him with so much unspoken regret that whatever Dick was about to say died in his throat. Bruce neatly penned his initials on the back of Dick’s thumb. Dick watched him, thinking. There had to be a pun there somewhere. “You know that’s not how you write to a thumb drive?” Bruce took a sharp breath, his expression pained. And then groaned. Full body cringed at the pun. But the ghost of a smile still danced across his lips. He placed a hand on Dick’s shoulder.

“Oh, that one was bad.” He capped the sharpie and pressed it into Dick’s hand. Then removed the hand and pinched the bridge of his nose, and shook his head. “So bad.” He made a sound that could almost be a chuckle, then collapsed down in his chair and pulled up the report, glancing at the summary. He turned back to Dick, curiously. “What do you plan to do next?”

Dick shrugged. “You don’t need me here.” He stated bluntly. Bruce flinched, but didn’t correct him. “I like it in Blüdhaven. It needs a protector. Desmond might be gone, but he’ll be back. And there’s Soames to deal with.” He’d thought through his pitch quite a few times. “It’s close by. If you need me it’s only an hour drive. Forty-five if I break traffic laws. And if the Titans reform, New York’s not too far away. Apparently there’s some kids using the Teen Titans’ name, I’d like to check that out.”

Bruce nodded, still watching Dick. “Okay.”

Dick blinked. “That’s it? Okay? You have nothing else to say?”

“Hnn.” Bruce folded his arms. “You’re an adult, Dick. It’s your life, when you moved to New York, I realized I couldn’t keep you here forever.” Dick leaned against the counter. He’d been waiting for that admission for a long time. It felt weirdly freeing to hear. “I trust that if you need me, you’ll call.” Something warm bloomed in Dick’s chest. “But Dick,” Bruce looked at him sharply. “Have Alfred check your ribs before you go. I know you well enough to see you’re not moving right.”

================================================================================

Dick didn’t know why he got so much pleasure out of forcing people to sign his cast. It was a weird power play to make normally reserved Alfred pen his signature on Dick’s bright blue cast. But he did, and the result was perfectly shaped cursive initials, just under Bruce’s.

“I trust that you’ve been resting, sir.” Alfred said, almost threateningly. Dick let his legs swing back and forth a bit, as he sat on the side of the examination table. He ran a finger over the small scar left where Roy had tied together his side.

“Please, I was staying with the Roy Harper. He wouldn’t let me do anything but rest. I think having Lian made him go soft.” For all his complaining, he was incredibly thankful for Roy’s hospitality. He’s glad Alfred and Bruce missed seeing the extent of bruising that had blossomed from his torso to his throat. He’d looked like death for the first couple of days, and was so sore he could hardly move. Alfred studied him, as if he could see right through bone and sinew to the damage underneath.

“Good for him.” Alfred said. “Perhaps I shall consult him for tips on how to restrain you.”

“Um.” Roy had restrained Dick with snuggles and popcorn and movie nights. He’d asked him to babysit Lian and left him with an armload of books to read to her. He’d braided Dick’s hair and sat up with him, as they talked late into the night. “I don’t think it would be your style, Alfred.”

Alfred smiled knowingly. “I know lad, just teasing.”

================================================================================

“Dick?” Bea Bennet crossed her arms as he walked through the door of The Prodigal Bar, nearly a week after leaving Roy’s. It was on the early side of the night, and just a few patrons graced the booths. “What are you-?”

“Woah, what happened to you!” Parker hopped off the edge of the pool table, cutting Bea off. “Aww, dude.” They looked terribly disappointed by the cast. “You can’t play pool like that.”

“Wanna bet?” He challenged.

Parker rolled their eyes. “Please, it’s one thing shaking down people for money when they’re drunk. But I’m not gonna dunk on some guy that got beat up.”

“You should see the other guy.” Dick quipped. Bea raised an eyebrow. She looked at him worriedly. “Joking.” He raised his hands defensively. “No one beat me up.”

“Then what happened?” Parker tilted their head. “And how come no one’s seen you around town?” Parker lowered their voice. “Bea was worried you’d died trying to fight off the nazis and the cops covered it up.”

“Nah. I’m not much of a brawler. The truth sounds kinda dumb.” Dick forced himself to blush. He ran his good hand through his hair. “I’m a bit of a clutz. I literally fell down the stairs.”

Parker frowned. “I’ve heard that excuse before.”

“Sometimes it’s not an excuse.” Dick said, even though in this case it was and he was lying through his teeth. But, at least it was a rehearsed excuse. “I got sick with the flu that was going around. And like an idiot I didn’t drink enough water then passed out and fell down two flights of stairs. My friend,” He stuttered a little bit, wondering if Roy and him were more than that yet. “Lives out by New York City. I’ve been crashing at his place while recovering.”

“Huh.” Parker raised their eyebrows suspiciously. “Sounds like a nice guy to let you crash for so long.” There was something insinuating in their voice that Dick ignored.

“He is.” Dick hummed. “And he kicks ass at pool.” Dick glanced back at the clock. “And he should be here right about… now.” As if on cue, Dick heard the door open behind him. “He’s got great timing.” Dick explained. Roy cuffed an arm around his shoulders and gently squeezed. Parker and Bea gave one another a look, and started laughing.

================================================================================

Parker left their name written out on the top of Dick’s cast, messy letters in rainbow colors. Dick passed the sharpies to Bea, who looked at him bemusedly. She wrote her name in swirly purple letters just under Parker’s. “Did you really fall down the stairs?” She asked, her eyes worried. “I know I called those guys your friends, but I was worried that you went to work, and they knew you warned me, and-”

“I quit working at Hogan’s after we talked. It…” He paused. “Made me realize a few things. You were right, I can find work somewhere else.” He smiled sheepishly. “I did actually fall down the stairs.” He said honestly. He fell down Roy’s front steps the first time he tried breaking out. It nearly gave Roy a heart attack to find him face planted amidst his daisies. “And Bea, I’m sorry.”

“For what?” She poured him a glass of water and passed it over the counter.

“I was so caught up in being sick, I didn’t do anything about the shelter.” He confessed. It was his biggest failure in Blüdhaven. He lost track, and hundreds of people lost their home.

“It’s fine.” Bea rubbed at her shoulders and sighed. “I grew up there, you know.” She confessed. “I’m going to miss it. I tried really hard.” She took a steadying breath. “But sometimes things don’t work out.” She said darkly. Dick nodded understandingly. “It’s not all bad though.” Bea smiled ruefully. “The deal City Hall cut with their investors fell through. An anonymous donor pledged half a million dollars to build a larger shelter in its place. It won’t be the same as it was…” Bea smiled genuinely. “But maybe it’ll be better.”

“Hey you told me, everything in this city happens for a reason.” Dick repeated. He slipped his phone from his pocket, and discreetly sent a ‘thank you’ to Bruce. “Hey, so. I was thinking.”

“About?” Bea raised an eyebrow.

“That sign in the window.” Dick nodded towards the front. “And interviewing for a job.” Bea smirked. “I don’t have many special talents. And two of my ribs are cracked right now, so I can’t lift more than ten pounds. And one of my wrists is broken. But I do have experience as a bartender. Even though it was only for like, a month. But I’m a hard worker. And this place is a lot nicer than Hogan’s.”

“Dick Grayson. The pay is bad, and the hours are lousy. This lot don’t have the money to tip well either.” Bea said, a bemused expression on her face. “But if you’d like, you’re hired. You start Monday.”

“Did I hear that right?” Roy slipped his arms around Dick’s waist. He poked at Dick teasingly. “Did you seriously just get a job? You?”

“Oh, lay off. I’ve had other jobs.” Dick butted his head back against Roy’s chin. Roy just laughed, and kissed him on the cheek.

“I’m so proud.” Roy said, in mock awe. “Look at you, all grown up with a big boy job.”

“Roy!” Dick yelled. Bea threw back her head and laughed. He tilted his head up, and Roy eagerly kissed his forehead. How could Dick be mad at those big brown eyes? “Do you see what I have to deal with?” He asked Parker, as they sat down at the bar.

Parker grinned mischievously. “Don’t look at me. I’m on his side. He’s better than you at pool.” Roy reached over and ruffled Parker’s hair.

“Thanks, kid.” And with that, he lifted Dick off the barstool, holding Dick like something precious, but not like something fragile. He set him down on the edge of the pool table, and made Dick watch as he showed off different trick shots. Dick sat there, strategizing for their next game together, and basking in the glow of the memories they were creating with one another.