Chapter Text
A shape, dark and bat-like, drops from a great height. It lands in a quiet spot between two stone gargoyles, balancing on its perch.
Dick Grayson adjusts his cowl. It feels heavy on his face. Even the city looks different through these lenses, a tinted filter with a bleached view. The leaden weight of the cape bulges and drags behind him.
The air is a sickly green; exhaust and smoke mixed with faint sewage. In its entirety, the archipelago is one gigantic, breathing organism, connected by the cells and tissues made up of all its people, infrastructure, and corruption. Rotten blood fills its veins, right down to the darkest corners.
Dick glances down at the mask in his hand, now staring back at him with its empty sockets and a bloated, plastic face. It’s a doll mask, something with childish rouged cheeks and an uncanny split of the lips. There is a part of a singed elastic attached to one end. The only evidence left at the scene of the mass disappearance of the customers and staff in the 24/7 diner “Hungry Hog.” It smells faintly of iodine and rubbing alcohol.
The name on the back of the mask has led him here.
Upper East District—a nightclub with its neon sign saying “Backroom,” the broken letter “a” flashing from white to black, back to white. Parts of the paintwork have been chipped, grime and trash piled in the gutters. The type of grungy clubs where drinks are cheaply served and cocaine is snorted from thick powder lines with rolled-up dollar bills in their restrooms.
Where decaying music and strobing lights pour out of the front entrance, a bald three-hundred-pound, six-foot-five bouncer is throwing out a young boy who couldn’t be older than twelve. Maybe thirteen.
“I wasn’t trying to sneak in—I was looking for my friend!”
The kid catches himself on all fours, splashing in a shallow puddle from the day’s earlier shower. He is surrounded by indifferent men and women alike in sparkling suits and dresses, their cheap, vibrant, drug-debauched reflections rippling in the dark, oily pools of trash water. Some have e-cigarettes pinched between their fingers, chatting among themselves between wisps of white fume. A woman looks curiously at the boy, but it’s only a quick glance.
“Nice try. Go home to mommy, kid.”
The boy raises his head. He’s got a cute face that scrunches up like a growling kitten, feral and untamed.
“Where’s Isabel?” he demands. “What did you do to her?”
“Who’s that? Your mommy?”
A man chuckles in the background.
“My friend.” The kid’s voice sounds thin, like an insect, drifting into Dick’s ears from three storeys down. “She’s gone missing.”
The bouncer eyes him. The boy pushes himself up, swinging his arm to get rid of a curtain of water. Dick notices the fishnet sleeve he wears under a loose shirt, his exposed skin dotted with bruises.
“We see a lot of whores coming through here every night,” says the big man, “but I don’t know who the fuck you’re talking about. Go home before I slap you around for a bit, brat.”
One of the waiting club-goers snorts and gives the boy a once-over, a lecherous gaze tainted with contempt.
The boy glares at the bouncer, lips bitten and swollen. Quickly, he turns away. Running off, shaking more droplets of water from his arms.
But the boy hasn’t given up. Dick’s eyes track him as he crosses the street, out of the bouncer’s sight, and then, with a swift movement, he hides behind a grimy dumpster.
The big man pulls off the rope and allows another young couple inside.
The boy waits. Time ticks by, ten minutes. Fifteen. When he’s certain their attention has changed focus, he makes a swift turn, ducking soundlessly into the alleyway cut beside the club building’s northernmost wall.
Dick leaves his perch. He follows, trailing the boy into the dark alley.
The Backroom is set at the corner of intersecting roads. Its northern wall, the one facing the alleyway, is graffitied and set in the frame of crooked, rusty pipes. There’s a side door that leads up into the club, affixed above a set of rusting stairs that glows green and yellow under the city lights. It’s shut; there is no one guarding it. The boy comes up to the bottom of the stairs.
Dick drops down like a shadow—a black shape cut out from the city’s nightscape, long cape trailing behind him. He lands right in front of the boy in a crouched position, shoulders hunched, rising into an intimidating shape of some cryptid monster that stalks Gotham.
The boy breathes an “oh shit” and backtracks, nearly slipping on the rain-glossed blacktop.
He stares at Batman through the dark; Dick can see his light-colored irises framed by widened lids. He’s taken on a defensive stance, hand sneaking behind his back—what he could pull out to use as a weapon, Dick has no idea.
“Knox,” Dick says.
“Huh?”
“Knox,”—Dick raises his voice, one he’s mastered close enough to Bruce’s signature deep, resonating cadence, though he’s never stopped feeling like a fraud while using it—“do you know that name?”
“Never heard of ’im. What the heck do you want? Leave me alone!”
Dick had hardly expected the boy to know everyone around here, though asking a local about a nightclub’s part-time employee was worth a try. Dick turns toward the door, pondering the scent he might pick up inside, his attention switching elsewhere.
That’s a miscalculation.
A soft rustle of clothes, then Dick feels something quick flitting below his left armpit, slipping surprisingly close to his torso.
The boy has moved with incredible speed, a plan made within a narrow, one-second window. Thin fingers brush past his belt for a moment, when he’s gone like the wind, lifting Dick’s cape, and the boy has whizzed past Dick, flying up the stairs with quiet feet.
Dick wheels around.
“Wait!”
But the side door slams shut, and the boy is gone.
Driven by a strange premonition, Dick’s hands rush to his belt, finding an empty holster where his escrima stick used to be.
*
The side door isn’t locked—an oversight by the security. It whines a pathetic protest when it opens.
Soon, it becomes clear that Dick’s unusual getup is unlikely to attract unwanted attention.
The club is full of masks and fancy costumes. Men in suits and black silken dominoes; women in dresses and spangled Venetian masks. Disco balls throw blinding flashes of colors all over the walls, painting the scene as a confusing throng of intoxication. Everywhere Dick looks is decadent chaos—here’s a splash of champagne wetting a bronzed chest adorned with two enormous, bouncing breasts cupped in a tiny beaded bikini top; there, a nude, plump ass sitting on a pair of linen-clad legs and grinding down until the ample flesh ripples, the dress pants stained with mysterious fluids.
Everywhere, there are men and women in masquerade, from simple masks to animals to monsters. Here’s Dracula; here’s Darth Vader. A lion. A pup. A beaked harpy.
Dick grips the doll mask in his hand while scanning the loud, crowded space, searching for the boy while simultaneously hunting for masks with vaguely familiar contours. He’s confident the boy will lead him to his man.
But the boy is lost within the sea of club-goers. Not a single face was denuded of covering.
Then Dick hears a familiar voice, and he singles out that call among a hundred others—an excited “Isabel!” in an adolescent voice that almost gets lost in the cacophony.
Dick looks toward the source, unable to single out the boy’s short stature among the taller throngs of party-goers. Then he hears the name again, and though he can’t pinpoint the source, it’s directed to a single costumed female figure pushing through the crowd.
The woman being addressed has a blonde bob. A pair of sleek silver earbuds is nearly hidden by her neat blonde trim, invisible from the front behind her half mask, decorated with hearts and clubs. She’s wearing a spangled purple dress that comes down only to the top of her thighs, her long legs ending in azure, high-heeled sandals.
She has a tray of martinis in her hands, heading toward a leather couch where a man and a woman are sitting.
The man has a wolf mask on; the woman, a rabbit. Lush curls fall out from behind the Rabbit’s twin plastic long ears, falling over a matching white dress. She doesn’t appear to be enjoying herself. Wolf has his arm around Rabbit’s shoulders possessively, a bare, muscular forearm sprouting thick black hair over healthy bronze skin. Rabbit might be sobbing, but Dick can’t be sure.
Dick looks five o’clock to the left, and finally, he sees the boy, shorter than the rest. He got himself a fox mask the way a spy or a seasoned investigator would, and now he’s pushing people out of the way.
“Don’t be such a fucking party pooper, Gloria,” the Wolf is chastising the Rabbit on the couch. “We’re supposed to have fun here, bitch!”
Rabbit gently lifts her mask and wipes her face. She mutters an apology that Dick can’t hear.
Wolf waves to the waitress.
“One here, querida.”
The woman wearing the heart-and-club mask bends low to give the masked man a martini. There’s a mist cast over each of her eyes, softening her spirit and keeping it dormant, as if she’s a puppet pulled by invisible strings.
“Come.” Wolf raises the glass to his rabbit companion. “Don’t make me angry by being such a whiny little bitch.”
The fox-masked boy reaches the waitress and tugs her wrist.
“Isabel,” the boy pleads, “come on. We need to leave.”
Wolf notices, snapping his attention to the new fox at the party.
“Now… What’s this? How old are you, kid?”
“Jason?” The blonde waitress’s eyes shed some of their haze. “Is that you?”
“Get lost, kid.”
“Felipe,” says the Rabbit, putting her hand on Wolf’s shoulder. “Please don’t.”
The fox boy—Jason—growls, reaching a hand behind him, where Dick’s stolen escrima stick is tucked inside his jeans. For a moment, Dick imagines him as a truly wild animal, cornered, desperate, and ready to attack like the feral kittens Dick used to feed, when the circus troupe stopped at a new city. Miniature but dangerous. He would’ve made a great Robin.
Jason takes a cautious step back, pulling Isabel with him.
Before he can leave with her, Felipe grabs Jason’s wrist.
“I believe you’re taking something that’s not yours.”
“And do you keep your filthy hands only on what’s yours?” Jason snipes back.
Even with the mask on, Dick can tell Felipe is pissed. He pulls the boy until he tears him away from Isabel, twisting Jason’s arm, marking up his skin. He leans in.
“Don’t think I don’t recognize you. You’re just a filthy little whore like her, aren’t you? You think just because you know everyone around here, you can act like a pompous little shit, do you? Know your place, brat.”
Jason doesn’t let the man’s painful grip or harsh words intimidate him. Instead, he sneers.
“Or what, fucker?”
Dick has seen enough.
Felipe begins to voice his threat just as the batarang leaves Dick’s hand.
Its whiffling is lost within the din of the club. Felipe’s soft curses are lost in the noise as he cradles the backs of his fingers. The weapon has only grazed the skin, but his body jerks away, giving Jason enough room to take Isabel’s hand and lead her away.
Felipe curses and stands up, stomping his foot. He begins pushing past the crowd to get to the fleeing couple.
The side door is blocked. Jason runs toward the direction of the restrooms with Isabel in tow.
As soon as they move, so does Dick, leaving quietly without attracting attention.
Thirty seconds later, Dick waits for Jason and his friend at the back of the club.
There is a row of windows close to the roof—the windows of the restrooms. That’s where Isabel emerges—long legs first, hanging from her torso, then her arms, feet kicking, trying to find ground. It’s clear Jason is holding her hands from the other side until her heels find purchase. Dick notices something winking metallic in her ears right as she lands.
Then Jason follows Isabel the same way—legs first—but this time he has to jump to get down.
“Come on,” he says, reaching for Isabel’s hand. But when he wheels around, he stops.
Jason recoils, shielding Isabel with his smaller body.
“Fucking hell!” he curses. “What the fuck do you want? Stop following me!”
“I believe you have something of mine,” Dick says.
“This?” The boy reaches back to pull Dick’s stick out of his pants. “I needed it!”
He swings the escrima. It whistles forward, slapping the thick fabric of Dick’s cape.
His fighting form is flawed in the way an untrained person is prone to be, but he’s agile and determined. Dick dodges and parries away the second jab coming his way, making mental notes of all the improvements that could be made for each blow.
He entertains Jason for a while, surprised at how willing he is to engage. Recognizing his own childish behavior, Dick grabs the head of the stick, pressing his glove’s rubber padding on the electrodes.
“Enough of this.”
Jason releases the weapon, but before he can escape, Dick grabs him by his thin arm. The boy tugs, trying futilely to disentangle himself. He hisses when Dick presses forward in a calculated move to invade his personal space.
It works. Dick can see unnerve coursing through the cords in Jason’s neck and, like all threatened animals, Jason bares his teeth.
“Let go!”
“I think you can help me,” Dick croaks. “‘You knew everyone around here,’ as Wolf-Face said just now. I think you knew more than you let on—I think you were lying to me. Let’s try this again—you’ve heard of the name ‘Knox?’ He works part-time in this club.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“This man is involved in a mass disappearance case, and I need to find out what role he played.”
Jason presses his lips together.
From this distance, the boy’s features are clear and bright. Appealing and boyish though a bit gaunt from the lack of nutrition, cute and likeable features, if only he stops scowling like a pissed-off raccoon.
Jason’s got heart-shaped curly bangs over a heart-shaped face, making him look younger than he probably is. Dick notices grime under his fingernails, healing scratches and bruises beneath the collar of his oversized shirt. His body is bone-thin, wrapped inside old, bleached fabric. His eyes are a shade of mesmerizing blue-green, deepened with a maturity no kid his age should be intimate with, but now they’re lit up in shock.
“Are you hiding something?” Dick shakes him like he’s an uncooperative doll. “Spill.”
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jason says. The guarded look is back. “If this fucker Knox is doing some shady shit, don’t drag me into it.”
“You’re a thief. You stole from me.” Dick brings out the threat card. “You’re not so innocent.”
“I needed it,” the boy defends himself. “If they were doing bad things to Isabel, I needed a weapon. I’m not involved with whatever shit Knox is up to, I swear!”
Bingo, Dick thinks.
“I’ll let you off the hook if you tell me where he is.”
“How the fuck would I know?” Jason tries Dick’s hold again, unable to free himself. He truly looks like a trapped small animal now. “I know nothing!”
What is he doing? This is a kid, and despite being a petty thief, he’s done nothing wrong. Suddenly ashamed of himself, Dick loosens his hold.
Jason takes the opportunity to back up, cradling his arm. But he doesn’t run away. He rubs the spot where Dick grabbed, staring at the ground. Dick feels terrible about it, and the glossiness in the boy’s eyes—threatening tears—certainly doesn’t help.
“I… didn’t grab you that hard.” As if that’s gonna alleviate the situation. Good job, Dick.
A sniffle. Shit. Dick isn’t Alfred… His friends all say he’s got a temper, especially with kids. He has no clue where to begin with soothing a kid!
“Um… look… I didn’t mea…”
“You think you’re this great savior, Batman,” Jason spits, wiping his eyes furiously, “but you aren’t gonna save someone like me.”
If Dick said the words didn’t breach a nerve, he’d be dishonest.
In fact, he’s completely astonished, petrified by that stinging accusation.
A feeling of inadequacy hangs in the thick, polluted air. Dick can smell the bitterness of the boy’s distrust just as he can smell the scent of sewage and decaying trash.
“Look…”
Dick stops.
He looks slightly to the left, his eyes bypassing Jason and landing somewhere behind him.
“Huh… Where did your friend go?”
Jason wheels around on his heel, his tears forgotten, staring at the place where the masked woman once stood.
Isabel is gone.
*
Jason is screaming at Dick to take him along when Dick turns his back.
It isn’t easy to pinpoint the woman’s whereabouts. Dick has to call up Oracle—his on-again, off-again girlfriend—to pull up the city’s CCTV cameras and use Bruce’s Brother Eye AI tracking technology to follow Isabel’s trail.
‘Well, good news, big guy,’ Barbara says. ‘It was late enough for her to be the only one traveling on most roads, so it wasn’t hard to single her out. I’ll send over the coordinates.’
Dick thanks her and ends the comm call, though he keeps her on standby. She’s happy to tease him about late hours, and so he teases her back.
“Go home—I’ve got this,” Dick says to the kid before leaving him in the alleyway, but he knows better than to expect the boy to listen. Boys like Jason, they don’t just sit around while people they care about are in danger. Heroism is soaked into their marrow.
The apartment Oracle has pointed to is inconspicuous, rather one in a thousand in this city. It’s a subdivision on the edge of the East Side, ten storeys, built from old bricks in its 70s design. The windows aren’t exceptionally big, and there are rusted metal fire escapes running down the side. Dick crouches on the roof of a taller apartment from across the street, adjusting the built-in magnification in his lenses. He searches the windows.
She’s not on this side.
Silently, he shoots a line toward the direction of 4th Avenue, swinging on top of a five-storey building on the west side of the apartment. He checks the windows facing that direction, scrutinizing each lit and unlit unit.
Then he spots her moving. Something is moving, at least.
Dick drops himself onto the emergency walkway.
It’s on the seventh floor. He plods the walkway, sidling up to the window. There are murmurs coming from within; the room lit by flickering lights.
Dick squats and peeks in, and there she is.
Isabel, standing there stiffly along with two other women. The women are all wearing showy or scanty clothing. Even Isabel had taken off her mask; her long, fake lashes stay like still water as if their owner can’t blink; like she’s a mannequin. Dick notices identical silver earbuds stuck inside each woman’s ears.
Something’s off about those earbuds. Dick makes a mental note about them.
The walls are half-painted, floors covered in a sheet of gray tarp. On top of a square table in the center is a .38, a packet of white powder, a lighter, a cooking spoon, and a clear inhalant mask. A large, gritty man tops the spoon with powder before pocketing the rest. He cooks the goods. It boils, then drips from the spoon into the bottom of the glass bottle, settling there as an amber-tinted, viscous liquid, giving off an unseen fume. He then screws the bottle’s mouth onto the inhalant mask and fixes it over his face.
“Oh—fuck,” he says to no one in particular, his voice muffled. Taking a deep breath, he relaxes back into his chair. “Thank fuck Morgan got the shipment on time…”
The man is in his forties. His shirt is stained, with the bleached word “Baiter” printed at the front, his beard brown and ungroomed, flattened behind his mask. He grunts when he shifts his heavy build over his rickety chair. Grabbing the bottle with one hand and taking another inhale, he snaps his fingers and points at Isabel.
Isabel, without blinking, drops down on her knees. She’s done this and knows exactly what the man with the Baiter shirt wants. He grabs a handful of Isabel’s hair to drag her under the table between his legs.
She starts working on his fly like an automaton.
Dick pulls back his fist. A second later, he’s punching through the window just as the man takes another long drag from his inhalant.
The window explodes. Its glass shatters like wind chimes, sending broken shards everywhere. The kneeling and standing women take no notice, even as pieces rain down around them.
Baiter swears, standing up, peeling the mask off his face. His pants fall to his ankles, leaving him in only his boxers while knocking his chair backward.
A thick arm reaches for the .38 on the table. Dick kicks the table, sending everything on it tumbling.
“Fucker!”
Dick steps up to the man and kicks him in the knee. Baiter falls onto his knees, bound by his own pants at his ankles, cursing as the shards dig into his skin.
“Knox?” Dick asks.
“Get fucked! You wait for my boys to break down the door and—”
Dick halts that speech with a boot in his face. Baiter shuts up and grunts, cradling his ruined, bleeding nose.
As he’s distracted, a corded batarang leaps forward to circle around his knees. It hitches tightly. The cord stretches taut, and Dick drags the man off the floor. With a curse, Baiter is flung out of the window, the broken glass pieces still fixed to the frame, scratching bloody slashes in his face before he’s hanging upside down over the railing.
Dick is out there with him instantly, using the railing as leverage as he leans over to talk to his lead.
“Now, let’s try that again,” he says. “Are you Knox?”
“Knox?” Baiter is thrown off. His face is flushing (though it’s hard to tell if that’s a result of anger or being hung), his body swinging left and right. “Nah, fuck that scumbag!” he screams. “Dumb fuck goes and gets involved in shady shit. How do I know where the fucker went? Huh?”
“What is this ‘shady shit?’”
“Fuck if I tell you!”
Dick lets the cord loose. Baiter says, “Oh, man!” before Dick catches him again.
“We can do this all night,” Dick says. “Now, want to tell me about your business?”
“Nah, this is fun!”
Dick reaches up to pull the cord again, expecting his captive to flinch, but Baiter only stares back at him with wide, crazed eyes.
His pupils are blown, his face flushing. Whatever substance he’s on, it has completely repressed his inhibitions.
Dick changes tactics.
“You’re having fun, aren’t you?”
“Why don’t you drop me and see, motherfucker?”
“I bet those drugs are some good stuff.” Dick smiles. “Know where a bat could get some for himself?”
“Why don’t you ask Morgan?” comes the answer. “That motherfucker’s always pumped to get new customers. Are you gonna drop me or not?”
Dick retrieves the doll mask from his pocket. He shows the face to Baiter, the skin-colored plastic winking mockingly under the streetlights.
“Do you recognize this?”
Baiter tries to raise his head from his position. He squirms, his eyes rolling toward the mask.
“Never seen a creepy-as-shit mask like that in my life.” He doesn’t sound like he’s lying; Dick doesn’t recognize any classical signs.
Gripping the cord harder, he asks, “Who are your customers?”
“Nah, uh-ah,” the man says. “He’s gonna kill me if I tell.”
So… not all his inhibitions. Whoever this guy fears, there’s enough logical thinking in him to know not to utter the man’s name.
“Who is ‘he?’”
“Look… I’m not scared of that motherfucker. I just say this because I know I can’t tell you or I’m gonna be toast. You get the drift?”
Dick drops the cord again—he expects nothing, but he has to try; Baiter doesn’t wail. He keeps looking up with those crazed, blown-pupilled eyes.
“Where did you get the earbuds to give to the women? Are they from the same man that provided the drugs?”
“I’m just the bagman. What should I know? Ask Reece Morgan if you want to know more. He knows people… He’s been in contact with some shady people. The drug, man… This awesome drug…”
Baiter grunts when Dick leans back to pull him onto the fire escape balcony. He ties his hands and feet with zip ties and leaves him there. The GCPD can deal with him—Dick has newer leads to follow.
Inside the apartment, Isabel is still kneeling. She’s surrounded by broken shards—some have fallen on her skin and dress—and her eyes are blank, staring into space. Dick notices the earbuds peeking from her ears, the same model worn by the other women. He removes the buds.
The effect is instant—Dick can see the moment intelligence returns to the woman’s eyes as she blinks herself awake. Almost immediately, she’s searching her surroundings.
“Jason?” she says, alarmed.
“Do you remember how you got here?” Dick asks, keeping a placating tone in his voice, something he’s much better at than his predecessor.
“I… don’t…”
“You were working in the Backroom. Does that ring a bell?”
Isabel blinks; with each blink, more recognition comes into her eyes.
“I used to work there sometimes. And, here…” She looks around her, then hugs herself. “A lot of girls know about this place.”
Dick winces, but he soon checks his emotions. That’s not why he’s here.
“Do you know a man named Knox?”
She is about to speak, then stops and flinches when something moves in the hallway.
Dick’s reaction is instantaneous. He gets up onto his feet and readies a hand at his belt.
Bruce would’ve knocked the door down, but Dick isn’t Bruce. He slouches behind the door frame, waits. He counts to three before thrusting it open.
The person on the other side doesn’t get a chance before Dick’s hand is fisted into the front of their shirt, thrusting them back against the hallway wall.
“Oomph!”
They’re small—too small to be one of Baiter’s “boys.”
Dick’s pose relaxes. Jason grunts, eyes wide, staring back into Dick’s lenses, trembling slightly; he is holding a baseball bat with both hands, still raised.
“Nice to see you again, kid.” Dick drops him.
Jason lands with an “ouch,” rubbing his butt like an injured chipmunk. When Dick looks down the hall, he finds two of Baiter’s guards slumped in the hallway.
“Looks like you’ve been busy.”
Isabel rushes over. Jason throws down the bat and hugs her.
The scene is almost too sweet to watch. Dick turns away, returning his batarang to his belt.
He picks the earbuds off the other women.
Isabel is looking over Jason’s head. She studies Dick, biting her lip.
“I know of Knox,” she says finally. “I know he’s worked there as a bouncer. I know he had trouble funding his heroin addiction, and because of that, he didn’t show up to work half of the nights. He was let go only a week ago.”
Dick muses. A week. That was when the disappearances happened.
“Anything else you can tell me?” He raises the doll mask. “Do you recognize this? Could Knox be someone who, hm… let’s say take part in some weird mask-related cult?”
Isabel shakes her head.
“Never seen that, but knowing how deeply he was in debt, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Dick nods in acknowledgement, then addresses the rest of the women. “Do any of you know who Reece Morgan is?”
One of the girls falls back against the wall and lets out a sob behind her palms. The other one just stares at him. Dick wonders how she sees him—whether he’s a fraud or a bully. Someone, like Jason said, with no business in saving people like them.
“Yes,” she says. “He’s our pimp.”
Dick brings up one of the earbuds to show them. “Is that how you got these? From Morgan?”
The same woman shakes her head. Isabel, who slowly withdraws from their embrace, says, “We’ve never seen these things. I don’t remember how I got them.”
“Morgan is a scum,” Jason spits. “He’s probably thinking of trafficking his girls overseas to expand his business.”
Dick returns the bud to his belt. “Go home. Be careful. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
It takes them a while, but the women file out the door once they’re more or less themselves, eager to get out of here.
Before Jason could follow them, Dick’s hand clamps around his upper arm.
“You followed me here. I thought I told you to stay back.”
He puts on a stern face, and yet, though taking on his fake Bruce voice, Dick can’t help but feel impressed by the kid’s resourcefulness.
Jason glowers.
“I didn’t. Isabel was my friend—I followed her.”
“Why here? How do you know you should check this place?”
“I—knew this place.”
The way the kid pauses tells Dick he’s holding back information.
“How did you get rid of them?” Dick motions to the hallway with his chin.
“The punks up front? Not that smart. Both of them bolted with the slightest distraction.”
“What distraction?”
A cunning smirk. It looks good on the kid, smart and mischievous, though more adorable than threatening.
“Morgan’s men can’t resist a chance to score some extra snow.”
Dick drops Jason’s arm. He considers the boy, taking in his confident stance, the defiance in his eyes, the genuine concern he has for his friend.
“Where did you get the snow?”
“I didn’t say it was real snow.”
Despite himself, Dick lets out a snort. It’s incongruous while wearing Batman’s uniform, but he can’t help it. The boy is a nice distraction from his otherwise gloomy work.
Baiter’s pants have been kicked off during the scuffle, and now all Dick has to do is search through the pocket where he saw the man stuff the drugs. He finds the baggie, pockets it.
“Hey!” The Baiter guy squirms against his restraints, hitting the window frame with his knees. “Don’t you touch those!”
“Oh.” A lightbulb seems to flash above Jason’s head. “I almost forgot.”
He reaches through the window and jabs his fist into Baiter’s stomach. Baiter grunts and curses.
“Stupid brat! Wait when I catch you alone—hrmph!”
Jason finishes stuffing the rest of the toilet paper into the guy’s mouth before standing back to slap dirt off his hands.
“Asshole.”
“Go home. Do your homework.”
He turns to Dick. “I’m not leaving, not unless I know the girls and I are safe on the streets.”
From the hallway, Isabel’s voice streams in—“Jason, are you coming…?”
“I give you my word. I’ll get to the bottom of the earbuds. Satisfied?” Dick says.
“Not really, no. Your word doesn’t mean shit; no word is good enough, especially from self-righteous proclaimed vigilantes who pat themselves on the backs for doing only the most superficial shit, believing themselves to be doing good for the city even though they only make it harder for us.”
Dick pinches where his nose bridge would be—a habit he’s never lost after inheriting the cowl. “Isabel, please take this kid home.”
“Go on without me, Isabel,” Jason calls. “I’m not leaving this dick until we get some reassurance.”
Dick sighs.
He retrieves his grappling hook and climbs out of the broken pane. Baiter is squirming and muffling curses when Dick steps over him. He’ll see if the kid can follow him. Ignoring Jason’s call, Dick drops to the ground.
By the time he reaches the alleyway where the Batmobile is parked, Jason is already there waiting for him.
“How did you get here so fast?”
“I can help you,” Jason says urgently. “I can be your… your confidant! Or spy! I know a lot about these people and where to find them!”
Dick only pauses slightly before getting into the driver’s seat. He shuts the door in the kid’s face, starting up the engine.
“Fine! We don’t need the help of some smelly old bat!” Jason stretches his arms to the side to make himself look bigger. “Just don’t cry the next time you come over and find your tires missing, okay?”
Dick keeps facing forward and takes in a deep breath.
“I can help you,” Jason continues incessantly. “I really can! There’s so much I could do like… like go undercover! Speaking to Morgan’s people! You know I can help!”
“Ignore him, Dick,” Dick says to himself. “He knows he’s irritating you.”
But despite how much he hates to admit it, Jason is right. The boy would be a valuable asset for the case.
Gotham isn’t Dick’s playground—not really—he didn’t grow up here, and even when he was Robin, there had always been a partition that separated him and the most dis-privileged residents. As much as he’s tried to remedy that by spending time on the avenues cleaning up crime, that’s different from the familiarity of someone who knows their way around, someone who understands the city and its hunger.
It would be helpful to have someone like this by his side, someone who knows these neighborhoods and can approach the folks most affected by the people behind the illegal dealings that, from what Dick can tell, are closely tied to the Hungry Hog case.
Dick could get Jason’s contact information and drill more information out of him later, but Dick suspects Jason won’t be satisfied that easily. The kid’s too smart for his own good; he deserves more credit than that. Dick has seen the type—he was the type.
Dick steals another look outside the car, where Jason is pushed up to the window, hands pressed against the glass, the tip of his nose almost touching. His face is determined, stubborn. Where has Dick seen that determination before? It fills him with familiarity—a sense of déjà vu.
“Okay,” he whispers to himself. “Alright. Richard, you’re really doing this…”
To do what Bruce did to Dick seems like the beginning of some cautionary tale. It should be the last thing on Dick’s mind… but Dick can finally see Bruce’s perspective. Dick is sick of wearing this cape alone.
Let’s hope it’s not a bad decision. Right, Bruce?
Determined, he presses a button on the dashboard, popping open the passenger door.
“Get in.”
Jason looks taken aback for a second, but he reacts quickly and rounds the car to get in before Dick could change his mind.
“You won’t regret taking me along,” he says excitedly, sitting himself back against the fancy seat. “Woah… Cool!”
“Put on your seatbelt.”
“Okay, grandpa.” Jason inserts his fingers along the edges of the elongated backrest, trying to locate the seatbelts for a long time before he finds them. He crosses the X-shaped belts over his chest.
Dick should feel insulted by that, but he still remembers the first time he sat on the passenger seat of the Batmobile with starry eyes and an annoyingly upbeat attitude.
Dick taps the controls that lock the doors before giving the vocal instruction—“Batmobile, hover.”
The car rumbles to life.
“Woah!”
Jason lurches back against his seat when the car’s hover system comes online, and it launches itself into the air while tucking away the wheels, spreading its wings, the entire outer shell of the vehicle becoming more aerodynamic as it stays suspended in the air.
Dick’s mirth is indescribable.
“Cool, right?” Dick small-talks. He can’t help it—he’s been waiting to discuss this with someone ever since the first day he was on the job. Bruce wasn’t much of a talker, after all. “You know, I’d have killed to have a flying Batmobile when I was Robin.”
“You were Robin?”
“Yeah. No reason to hide that fact now.”
Jason’s demeanor changes. Stiffening, he tilts away from Dick.
“You’re… not going to kidnap and murder me or something, right?”
Dick can’t help the smile reaching his lips.
“What makes you think Batman murders kids?”
“I don’t know.” Jason shrugs. “Scary bats and stuff, I guess?”
“Maybe you just have an overactive imagination. Ever read Dracula?”
“Dracula doesn’t fly around the city in a cape. That’s a movie invention. In the book—”
“Nerd.”
Jason gives Dick the finger.
The Batmobile is hovering over the city now, flying past a million lights until it’s a narcotic blur that drapes beneath and around them in cool clarity. Jason turns to the window and presses his face up to the glass, watching his city roll by, wowing every few seconds.
Dick steals a glance at Jason, getting a pang of guilt. Is this wrong? Is he wrong for offering this?
Bruce, am I doing the right thing?
“Listen up, kid,” he speaks up, taking on a serious cadence, “cause I won’t sugarcoat this—I’m taking you with me to offer you a job. Of course, there’ll be a trial period.” Dick isn’t positive about Jason’s response. Maybe the kid heard what Baiter said; maybe he wouldn’t take the bait because Dick wasn’t the real Batman—not the original one, at least. “Help me with this case, and I’ll clean up your neighborhood for you.”
Jason turns to him. The city’s bright lights are reflected in the darkness of his eyes.
“You’re joking, right?”
Okay. The brat is being a brat again, and Dick feels a sudden need to knock him down a notch.
“You’re too dangerous,” Dick says. “I can’t let some kid who would whack guys on the heads with a baseball bat out on the streets, now, can I?”
“Those men were rapist scums!” Jason says indignantly. “I knew they were doing nothing good to Isabel, and I had to help her out of it. What else was I supposed to do?”
“Look,”—Dick’s sincerity returns—“I don’t just ask you this lightly. You have skills I need.” You remind me of someone—myself. Dick keeps that thought to himself. “Not many kids could have done what you did. I think you’ll make a great helper. What do you think?”
“I—” Jason glances down at his hands. “Doing this will find the missing people? And help bring down the assholes giving Isabel and the others mind control earbuds?”
“You bet.” Dick pauses. “Plus, old Baiter back there was adamant he was telling everything he knew, but we both know he wasn’t, was he?”
Jason blinks. “Who’s Baiter?”
“You know, the guy in the black shirt with an orange print?”
“His name was Walter.”
“Sure.” Dick’s eyes flit over to the boy. “You sure know a lot.”
“And you promise to always take me along with you? No holding back information? No keeping me in the dark?”
Dick’s tongue is tied at that. He thinks it over.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I promise.”
“Alright. If I get to help, then I’m in.”
Dick smiles. He says nothing back to the boy, but he knows Jason has picked up on the tone. No one knows how this’ll pan out, but there’s only one way to find out, right?
Then comes the next part. The part that’s even harder than recruiting another Robin into the fold.
Dick gives the car a verbal command. A number is automatically input into the phone. Dick waits as the tone beeps.
“Alfred,” Dick says when he hears the click on the other end. The old butler’s familiar verbal confirmation coming over the speaker is like coming home. “I’m afraid… I’ve brought home a souvenir after the night’s events.” Dick steals a glance at Jason sitting in the passenger seat, lithe and small, with his midnight hair, sea-foam eyes, and round, bitten lips. “The boy is… uh… an asset for the Hungry Hog case.”
‘With all due respect, sir,’ says the old butler over the speaker, ‘I was afraid this would happen someday.’
“Sorry to disappoint, Alf.”
‘Nonsense,’ Alfred says kindly. ‘Please come home safe, young masters.’