Chapter four - Horror movie behaviour
Red Robin had stayed maybe an hour more to discuss other suspects. He hadn’t pushed about Rodwell, but something about how his gaze had kept drifting to her picture made you think he wanted to.
He left eventually, needing to get back to Gotham, and you had all but fallen into your bed, fully clothed, laying atop the covers, and passed out. You awoke to the sun streaming in through open curtains, feeling groggy, dehydrated, and sure that your time spent living like a pack rat as of late was about to brutally catch up with you.
You don’t care. You can’t. Not now that you know he’s safe. You drag yourself into the kitchenette of your apartment and regain sympathy for your neighbours. The smell is ripe. Or is that you? When did you last shower?
You flick on the coffee machine and pour some cereal. Only to discover the milk has soured. Of course.
You clap your hands together as you come to a new plan. Shower, fresh clothes, and you’d bring in coffee and pastries for the pen. That should score you some points towards keeping - or regaining your job.
Peeling off your clothes and stepping into the hot water, you rehearse your argument.
“I know I disappeared, and that is unacceptable. But please understand I was under extreme stress given the loss of my partner due to presumed death…” You sigh as you lather yourself in body wash. No. No, that won’t work. You can’t appeal to Captain Harrison’s sense of humanity or compassion - you seriously doubt he can even spell the word empathy, let alone demonstrate it.
“You can’t fire me. You don’t have any other female detectives. How would that look?” As you massage in shampoo, you consider it. It’s low. Manipulative. While it’s true his sexism had kept other women out of the bullpen and you got in because he couldn’t deny all the women in his force without being suspicious… It feels slimey to use it. Mc Elroy wouldn’t hesitate to go lower, and that ran in laps around your brain as water circled the drain. You had told yourself that you were looking out for the little guy. That you picked your battles to try and do real good.
What good have you done?
You have agreed to help Nightwing - to help Dick, and for all your scheming and red string what have you done?
Nothing about the system has changed. You have done nothing but fall apart when Dick couldn’t come to your window.
Distantly it registers that you are no longer standing. You have curled up on the floor, back to the tiled wall and knees to your chest. That while you cannot feel tears for all the other water, you must be crying by the heaving of your chest.
You scream. You are so tired and feel so ineffectual and useless and for the first time in so long you feel you have an excuse to leave the force and its corruption and find something that doesn’t wear away at your soul…
But you are going back. Not just going, you are going to have to swallow your pride and plead to be granted your perch back in Bludhaven’s finest, the vultures of misfortune.
You wipe your snot on your forearm and let the water wash it away.
Strangely your little tantrum had helped. You were going back.
You had to go back. You HAD made a difference.
Mc Elroy made a comeback, but you had still kept him off the force for months by speaking out and when you had the bastard that was helping Heartless, you would turn your gaze and fury on Mc Elroy in force. You would watch him like a dog and you would not be complacent again. You’d have his balls on a fucking platter one day.
And no, you hadn’t made grand systemic change. But the urge to was new, inspired by the literal superheroes that were now dropping into your little apartment. You had however, done your best to do right by every case, no every victim, that had crossed your desk, and that had mattered.
You were going back. You were going to get whoever was helping heartless. No you haven't done it yet, but plenty of cases take time. You just had to stick with it.
You push yourself off the tiled floor and to stand. You are about to reach for your conditioner, but instead go very, very, very still.
It’s hard to hear over the crash of water on tile. But there is someone breathing in your bathroom.
The wooden stick holding your loofah isn’t very heavy, but it is the best weapon adjacent thing available to you and would surely hurt when cracked over this creep's head. Then, you’d run for the bedroom where you kept your gun in the top draw when not affixed to your uniform.
You raise it over your shoulder as you throw back the curtain, only for it to be caught by a black gloved hand with blue stripes along the fingers.
You aren’t sure if it is a name or an insult but you yell it all the same. “DICK!”
He’s not even looking, that awful, privacy respecting, heart attack inducing, wonderful man.
By the way he laughs, guilty and uneasy, he must take it as the latter.
“Sorry! Sorry! Please put down the bathing suplies!”
“What is wrong with you?”
You scold, letting the curtain fall back as you turn off the water and grab your towel.
“In my defense-” Dick cuts himself off as he starts out overly passionate, takes a deep breath and tries again.
“I saw the windding on my way across town and let myself in and then well, I don’t make a habit of following attractive women into the bathroom, but you screamed and I thought maybe you needed help. Once you stopped and seemed okay I… look. Sometimes you follow a woman into a bathroom because she’s screaming bloody murder and then you realise that if you leave and shut the door she’ll hear and get freaked out but there’s no not terrifying way for there to be a man in your bathroom so you can’t just sing out… and while you’re trying to work out what to do you get attacked by a loofa. Ya know?”
As you wrap the towel around yourself you take a deep breath. “Can’t say that’s ever happened to me, no.”
Nightwing chuckles wryly. You laugh too. “But I - I’m not mad. I see the logic. Thank you for… coming to help.”
“Anytime. I’ll uh… I’ll be outside.”
It was only a white lie. Not even a lie really. He had seen the wingding. So what if his little brother had said she was in a depression spiral so he’d come to see if there was anything he could do to help? He had seen the wingding coming in.
And it was bad. He made himself useful bagging up some of the takeaway and cracking open a window, but the state of the apartment was nearly as bad as Wally’s room had gotten back in the young justice days. And his dear partner didn’t have super speed to make the tidying easier.
The red string board was near unreadable for the sheer quantity of sticky notes and string. His own face stared back at him. Had she not taken it off out of suspicion he was the suspect still, or because she was reluctant to accept the notion that he had died in that fire as he had wanted everyone to believe?
It had hurt hiding from everyone. Lying was a necessity of the burden he took on, but that didn’t make him somehow immune to the pain of imagining his civilian friends - of imagining his partner - fearing for him. Grieving for him.
He is roused from his thoughts by her reappearing. Having dressed in black slacks, a white top, and a blue jumper.
Nightwing blue? Or did he need to spend time with his younger brothers to have his ego checked?
“Are you okay?”
I’m sorry. Please forgive me. The words burnt unsaid on his tongue, but Nightwing hadn’t faked his death as far as she knew. He had no blame in her mind and owning to it would raise to many questions.
“No.” she admits, sitting on the couch, and he moves to join her.
“Want to talk about it?” he offers, wrapping an arm around her. She snuggles closer and every part of him aches to never let go of this moment. Of her in his arms and safe, the two of them together in a way that can never truly last outside of it.
“Red Robin filled me in but…” she sniffs. Dick hands her a tissue.
“I spent the last… however long… thinking the man I love is dead.”
Dick feels himself tense. “...oh?”
He needs to swallow, because his heart probably shouldn’t be next to his Adam's apple.
She gives him a strange look. Pained and hurt and lost and almost angry.
“My partner. Grayson.”
Contray to what his shower deliema and subsequent loofa attack may suggest, Dick wasn't an idiot. He was one of the worlds foremost detectives. It was incredibly difficult to shake him.
But here he was, holding and attempting to comfort his dear, beloved, yearned for partner while she confessed love - not the passing affection or attraction he had known she felt for him but love - for his alter ego. And he could do practically nothing about it due to the blue V shaped bird on his chest and the black mask on his face.
"But… is he… not a suspect in your investigation?" He asks, his tounge feeling thick and heavy and terribly clumsy in his mouth.
"He is, He was. It isn't him. I know I pointed out a good deal of suspicios circumstances but I … I know he is innocent in this."
She knew he was innocent. She loved him.
He should be all but over the moon. Except he felt numb. Hollow even.
She loved him and he had decived her their entire time of knowing each other. She wanted him and he wanted her in turn and he couldn't ever do a thing about it because even if she found it in his heart to forgive his many, many, many lies, the need to lie would put her in danger as long as she was in her life and he could not let that happen.
"He's a lucky man" he manages after a long and terrible moment of silent guilt.
It hadn't slipped out per say.
It was more that in the recovery of your distress, his closeness after missing him so long, and the self hating guilt of what you would need to do to stop the Heartless mole, you were simply to tired to keep up your act or keep any more secrets from him.
So you tell him the truth. Of why you helped him and of what you know - at least in part.
"He's a lucky man" Dick says awkwardly, and you can't help but smile, supressing the urge to hit him on the arm. You wished for a return of the notion but figured he would not give it in the mask. You'd have to wait - which would be an agony - but no matter what he would say when he last said it, you were sure he would at least do it kindly.
"Do you think he knows?" You ask, wiping at your eyes, smiling as you try to enjoy your game once more.
"I- I doubt he deserves you either way." he croaks, his gloved palms running over his thighs.
"Not what I asked." is your reply. Dick is quite for a moment, his jaw working overtime.
"Well, you may be my favourite detective in Bludhaven… but he seems like a particularly talented one. He … might have worked it out, yeah."
You do laugh then. It's freeing, and had he not been there it seemed unlikely you could have done it. It erupts out of you like a shaken bottle of lemonade.
"Oh I don't know - he may need it spelt out for him. I agree he's an incredibly talented detective… but he does miss some rather obvious hints from me. I- I sampled peeps popcorn for him, and I don't think I would do that for anyone else."
"Peeps popcorn? That sounds… well it sounds pretty tastey to me. Sweet, crunchy, foolproof, cheap, makes you think of a carnival… I have a new favourite detective in bludhaven. You lost serious points for this anti peeps behaviour." He teases, his mask shifting up to accomodate his mask.
"Take your sides. I am and always will be right." You say, pushing off the couch.
Dick doesn't get up just yet, looking at you from his spot on the couch. "I missed you"
he mutters, soft, but you catch it all the same.
"And I you." you reply as you shove your things into your purse.
"So… you'll need your job back yeah? I - I think I can help with that. Or at least I can get you help. I have a good relationship with Mayor Zucco and I can ask her for a letter to back up your reinstatement."
You take a deep breath, and you nod. "I would… appreciate that. I hadn't been quite sure what to do."
"Hey. I aim to serve and protect bludhaven. And her people are better served and better protected by having you on their police force."
You can't help but feel warmed by the pure sincerity in his voice. To be belived in by him, it feels almost recklessly uplifting. As though you could do anything at all. It was giddying.
"You flatter me."
"It's not hard to do. Just need to be honest."
The mayors email is remarkably effective to restoring your positon, and remarkably fast. You almost don't want to know what he has on the Mayor.
It did not howerver help the fact that your reinstatment was clearly against Captian Harrison's wishes, based on the tone of his welcome and the fact that he'd already had most of your personal possessions are in a box in lost and found. Someone has taken your good pen.
It's on officer Jame's desk. Prat. At least hide it.
You set your laptop on your desk and open your inbox. As you skim through for anything particularly urgent, Dick comes swanning into the bullpen. Someone gasps.
You do to, performativly, a few seconds later. "Dick!"
It's less of a performance to push back from your roller chair and cross the room to hug him, pressing him tight against you as you act as though this is the first reunion, for his benifit, and the first you've heard of his saftey for the beinifit of the many prying and peering eyes.
He smells diffrent than this morning, the sweat smell that lingered on his nightwing suit gone and replaced with his regular cologne, mingling with the clean laundry smell of his recently washed shirt and his shampoo, it was enough to send your head spinning with a strange sense of coming home.
"Missed you." he mumbles, his chin resting on the top of your head.
"Fuck you. You scared the snot out of me!" you scold, trying to sound angry but similing anyway.
"And m'sorry. Terrible thing to do to the best partner a detective could want." He says sincerly, squeezing your shoulders.
"Never do that to me again." You insist.
"I solemly swear to never deliberatly have a group of assasins try to kill me, set my home on fire and be forced into witness protection for my own saftey - because it would upset my partner." He says very seriously.
You nod, and take a step back from him. "Good. Good. I will hold you to it."
As you step away, a group of uniformed officers and a few detectives move forward to shake Dick's hand and welcome him back.
You try not to be jealous. He'd been on the run for his life - a reason you agreed was valid to miss work - and your distress and grief was not seen as the same in the slightest.
But something, no someone, or rather their abscence, catches your attention. Officer Janet Rodwell had not moved from her place by the watercooler, her cup crushed, water on her shoes, looking queasy.
You try to meet her eyes, and she turns away.
But you do not surrender easily, and cross the floor towards your friend and ally. Something is wrong, very wrong, and you refuse to let her face it alone.
"Janet? are you okay?" You ask, moving to stand in her path, tilting your head to the side in concern.
She blinks rapidly, wringing her hands. "Yes. Yes of course I just didn't expect to see y- him back so soon."
You nod. It had gone over very well, all things considered. "mm. Things are really looking up. I- I do feel bad."
Janet clapses into her chair, her fingers drumming on her leg as she stares at the laminate wood surface. "For what?"
"Well I said I would watch your back. And then I completly fell apart and abandoned you to the wolves." You admit, sitting on her desk.
"You were grieving. Hurting. I understand." she still doesn't look you in the eye.
"I have some work to do, so if you don't mind?" she contines pointedly, and you take your cue to leave.
As you return to your desk, Dick is looking through his own files, and offers you a warm smile as you sit down.
"I hope Janet is okay. She seems stressed. Or ill."
"It would make sense," Dick says, hand on his chin.
"What, with her son's health."
"Yes…" you mutter, chewing on the inside of your cheek.
"He has a bad heart doesn't he?" you feel your brows go heavy and sink down your face in thought.
"Say uh Dick…" you shut the laptop.
"Who was in charge of the barricade in the Heartless case?"
"Would have been in the notes that went missing." he says thoughtfully.
You nod. Its a thread. You need to get back to your board. You need to think and you cannot do that properly right under the nose of the woman you are coming to suspect. You slip your purse into the draw of your desk and then lock it. Then you wait.
Ten seconds.
Thirty seconds.
A minute.
Two minutes.
Three minutes.
Four minutes.
Five minutes.
Six minutes.
Seven minutes.
Eight minutes.
Nine minutes.
Ten minutes.
Elven minutes.
Twelve minutes.
Thirteen minutes.
Fourteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes.
Sixteen minutes.
Seventeen minutes.
Eighteen minutes.
Nineteen minutes.
Twenty minutes.
Twenty agonising minutes you look busy and wait, till you look over your side and groan in frustration. "Dammit I left my purse at home. I- I need to run and get it. I will be back before you have time to miss me."
Dick looks up at you from his files in confusion. "But I thought-"
"I left it behind. I have to go Dick." you tell him firmly and he seems at least to understand that there is urgancy in your voice.
You stare at your board.
“Is that an objective opinion?” Red Robin had asked you.
It most certianly had not been.
Janet Rodwell had motive. Her little son in desperate need of care. Of a heart. Of exactly what this sick fuck had been harvesting.
She would not have had access to the files traditionally, but given her specific pain and her likely involvement in the case, if your memory severed, no one would have raised an eyebrow to her curiosity.
Her pledges to look out for you - your return of them. Had she been toying with you? Was the commradiere real?
She'd been horrified to see Dick back - was it because he was onto her?
Or… no. She hadn't said Dick to start.
She had begun to say something else. "Y-"
You.
You rip the picture down off the wall and glare at it. She was working for him but… was it a true choice or was it the last desperate attempt of a mother not to burry her little boy?
But how many parents had been burried as children wept because of the involvement of Janet?
You had been so blind. But more then your own foolishness want taunts you is the betrayal. That and the sickening thought of if you had been the friend you had wanted to be would she have confessed?
You watch the sun set over- not that wasn't right it wasn't time yet. But the sky was strangly dark as your gaze fell on the wingding and the dust it accumlilated in the deepest depths of your depression. Strangely dark and … what was that red glow on the greying blue horizon?
There comes a knock on the door. Dick, you assume, here after waiting a suitible time to avert suspicion and to crack open the case.
You pick up the wingding and wipe it on your sweater as you open the door, the picture crumpled in your other hand.
It is not the kind eyes of Dick Grayson that greet you.
Dick is not making a joke or calling you sherlock of Bludhavens best detective or offering awful snacks or terrifying you in the shower.
Janet looks at you with eyes red from witholding guilty tears. She sighs as you take a frightened step back.
"I'm sorry to." she croaks.
"It would be better for you if he had really died. Then maybe you wouldn't have to."
Janet isn't very big, you'd stand a chance. But she saw more feild work then you did, and you'd just come from a significant time rotting, you'd been far fitter before that.
Hopefully, despeartly, you near pray you will get the chance to tell him yourself. But somehow you doubt you will have that joy, or many others in your short remaining life.
Janet lunges at you. You lunge at Janet.
She would have a gun. You know she has one issued to her. She is not going for it. So, it stands to reason she is not wanting you to die by a bullet.
you kick out at her chest. She dodges you, and grabs your arm as you try to move away.
The photograph falls to the floor.
You can't throw a wingding, but it is sharp, so you slash out with it, cutting her face but crucially missing her eye.
She yelps in pain and you look around, frigtend and desperate you dive for your phone. The screen glows a strange red and pulses like a heartbeat. You have been hacked. Cut off.
This was planned, and properly. Not a hit because of what you know, you must have been an intended target for some time. You feel your chances at survival slipping through your fingers.
You scramble for the paper. It costs you lowering your gaze and your back. You get the paper but bending to retrive it results in a blow to your spine as Janet hits you from above and behind with a lamp.
You hit the rug with a grunt, and as Janet flips you over and wraps her hands around your neck, in a last ditch of effort you stab her picture through the wingding and hurl it out the window as hard as you can. Glass breaks. Dick would be able to work it out when he saw the broken glass that something had happened, and the missing photo would tell him at least the who if not how you came to know it. Then with that he could trace back the same things you had.
She has not simply shot you. This attack was planned and she works for heartless which means you…you are an offering. You, for whatever reason, will be the next person found with a hole punched through your heart and nothing in your chest. You have time, at least till her boss arrives.
But as the acrid smell of smoke hits your nose with the breaking glass, you realise with dread that time will not be enough to save you.
Dick is not coming. Not now. Not for hours.
The reddening sky. The grey cloud blown by the wind, faint yet still detectable to the nose - after all, humans are well equipped to detect and flee from our most primal fears.
Dick, Nightwing… neither is coming. He is not coming. The smoke, the red glow in the distant city… you know the spot well. You spent long hours staring at it when you thought him dead.
Your partner, Grayson, is not coming to save you, because he is busy.
Haven is on fire.
Before you get mad at me. I am NOT sorry and I will do this again. Thank you for reading - I hope you enjoyed it, I would offer to pay for therapy but uh... I am very small and I have no money.
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