Basically a bouncer (I'm not a stripper)
You can’t get into a fistfight with Nightwing while on a stakeout
Part 10: In which Jason visits Bludhaven
Now on Ao3
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The story so far: Jason is letting a street kid named Leila stay at his apartment. His family is, unfortunately, aware. And he still has to hunt down the source of some new drugs.
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Characters: Jason Todd, Dick Grayson
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Hood hadn’t meant to team up with Nightwing for the night. He had only tried to politely notify him that he was heading into Bludhaven on a case. Of course, that meant Nightwing had quite literally dropped in on him during a minor brawl.
“What can I say?” Nightwing said as he zip-tied a couple goons to a streetlight. “You always have the best fights.”
“Don’t you have your own cases?”
“Nothing more pressing than keeping Gotham crimes inside Gotham.”
“Maybe this is a case of Blud leaking into Gotham.”
Nightwing shot him a sardonic look. Hood couldn’t imagine how he had melodramatically suffered when he’d worn Batman’s cowl. It didn’t allow for nearly so much expression. Neither did the persona. “So what’s the story?”
“Like I said last time. Dealing with someone trying to cut into the Bowery. They were trying to establish a protection racket, but I think that was mostly for street cred. Their real funding is coming from drugs.”
“What kind?”
“A few, I think, but mostly date-rape drugs.” The strain of cuddle pollen people were calling Daddy Issues was not dying out, despite him making an example out of the two dealers he had found distributing it. Most of his nights recently had been spent hunting down people who were using it on others. It was difficult to find time to cut off the supply.
Nightwing winced. “Why are those so much worse?”
“I got a tip that Generic Thug Number Three here—” Hood kicked the still-conscious man in the stomach— “was picking up something important. Followed him here. Where he and his buddies tried to jump me.”
The thug was wheezing. “Go to… hell.”
“It spat me back out,” Hood said, crouching down to search his pockets. “Hmm. Mr. Jovanovic, is it? You going to tell me what you’re up to this fine evening?”
The thug shook his head. Hood shrugged and used the thug’s thumb to open his phone. The thug didn’t resist, probably because several bones in that hand were broken. He passed it to Nightwing, who knew the Bludhaven number for non-emergency crime reporting. “Hey, Lily,” Nightwing said into the phone. “It’s me. Yeah, got six guys on the corner of Market and Hassel. At least a couple are gang members in Gotham, so maybe check warrants.”
The thug spat at Hood, who casually clocked him. He was blinking unsteadily, looking dazed. Hopefully he was concussed enough he would have a hard time remembering what had happened tonight.
Nightwing said goodbye to the line operator and handed the thug’s phone over. Hood scanned through his texts. “Why resort to perpetually-unreliable torture when people carry around all the information I need in their extremely hackable devices?” he asked with satisfaction. “I’ve got an address.”
“Here,” Nightwing said, passing him a device. “It’ll copy all the phone’s data, so you can leave it for the cops to find.”
“Delightful.”
Hood handed it back over once he was done, but Nightwing unfortunately did not take the hint, following him back to his bike. “Where are we heading?”
“Couple streets over. Gotta move my bike, though.”
Nightwing settled himself on the bike behind Hood without asking, and he considered pushing him off just for fun. But it sounded like the cops were close, and they would want a real statement if Nightwing got caught up with them. Really, he was doing N a favor.
The phone had had way more information than he’d yet had, including a bunch of apparent messaging threads between gang members, but most pressing was this pickup. The address was a dilapidated but operating pharmacy with bars on the front windows. It was closed for the night, but the instructions said to go around back and knock on a basement door. The two of them scaled a nearby fire escape to see if anyone would start fleeing once the news of the arrests trickled in.
“So, how’s Little Night?” Nightwing asked after a few minutes, voice fake-disinterested.
“We are not calling her that.”
Nightwing smiled in a way that said he was never going to give it up now that he knew it annoyed Hood. “But how is she?”
“Finally got her in school.” It had taken some serious hacking and even more serious bribery to forge all the foster care forms to allow Leila to attend school under her own name. It would have been so much easier to come up with a fake identity for her, but that would also make it harder for her to do anything legally later. The whole point of this was to make sure her life got better, not worse.
Actually, the whole point was supposed to have been to make sure the Penguin didn’t murder her. He had maybe lost the plot a little. “She’s stuck in fight-or-flight,” Hood said. “I’m trying to get her to relax enough that she doesn’t push away a real foster family.”
“You don’t think she’ll run away the second you aren’t watching her?”
You can’t get into a fistfight with Nightwing while on a stakeout, Hood told himself. Which was, dammit, probably why he was tagging along. “Sorry, did you have any suggestions, or were you just here to poke holes in my decisions?”
“I just wanted to know your expectations.”
Yeah, he’d frankly rather get shot at than talk about this. “I’m heading in,” Hood said, climbing over the fire escape rail. “Watch the front.”
The lock on the back door was easily picked, and there was no alarm. Hood cleared the basement before letting Nightwing know he could come in. “Huh,” he said as he met Hood in the small lab. From what Hood could tell, it was a compounding pharmacy, but one that was operating completely without oversight, since it wasn’t advertised outside. “Did the texts tell you what the pickup was?”
“Could be any of this stuff,” Hood said. Most of the lab equipment was familiar to him from the Batcave, but the most important things were the racks of pills and vials lining two walls. Most were labeled with handwritten numbers rather than anything meaningful. It was going to be annoying to test all of this stuff.
“Got something.” Nightwing had found a spiral-bound notebook and was flipping through it. “It looks to me like they’re experimenting with sedatives. Maybe trying to come up with a new formula.”
Hood held out his hand, and Nightwing passed him the notebook so he could start taking pictures. “That wouldn’t be the pickup. It isn’t actually roofies the gang is selling. It’s cuddle pollen.”
Nightwing raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. And I haven’t been able to contact Ivy. O hasn’t heard from her or Harley, either.”
“Ugh. Is it bad I hope Ivy’s raising money for some plot? Because the potential that somebody has figured out how to synthesize it without her—”
“Yeah.” Ivy’s ethics were complicated, but he’d still rather have her retain a monopoly on anything she produced. “But it doesn’t look like any of the actual street drugs are here. And this place isn’t big enough to produce the quantity I’ve been seeing.”
“Maybe they’re trying to expand their operation. Get a wider selection of offerings.”
Hood cursed under his breath. “I swear, every time a corporate type gets parole, organized crime gets five percent more appalling. It’s the people who only see money, not consequences.”
They worked in silence for a few minutes, Hood taking pictures, Nightwing taking samples. But quiet was too much to ask with Nightwing. “What about the Penguin issue?” he asked, crouching to examine some vials. “With Little Night, I mean.”
“Maybe his interest will die off with time?” Hood said. The idea sounded even weaker out loud. He’d had a few sources confirm that he’d put a reward out for someone matching Leila’s description, and had included some stills from security footage. Someone would collect on that, eventually. “I’m walking her to and from school for now.”
“Think that’ll work when she’s with a foster family?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? Maybe if she isn’t homeless no one will clock her.”
“And not associated with you?”
Hood didn’t answer, because he was trying not to deck Nightwing while he was holding vials of experimental sedatives. Thankfully, he didn’t keep pressing. “Kinda weird it’s only cuddle pollen, if it’s a date rape drug,” Nightwing said. “Not full sex pollen.”
Hood hadn’t even thought about that. He’d heard about Batman’s pre-Robin encounters with Ivy – decidedly not family-friendly – and it had never occurred to him that she could create more than one type of pollen. But of course she could. She’d mind-controlled the whole planet once. And yeah, sex pollen would make more sense for a date rape drug. So what—
The door burst open. Hood hit the floor hard as gunfire exploded above his head and crawled to where Nightwing was also taking cover. “Got any smoke bombs?” Hood asked.
“It’s like you don’t even know me,” Nightwing said, teeth bared in a grin. “I’ll take the left.”
Nightwing rolled the smoke bomb down an aisle while Hood crawled to the other side of the room. Two seconds later, it exploded, filling the room with thick grayness. Hood stayed in a low crouch, taking out knees while the idiots blindly fired their guns into equipment and chemicals. He felt the cold barrel of a gun on the back of his neck and spun around, grabbing it and tossing the bearer into two others.
The gun made a fabulous club.
Not that no one got a hit in. They had armor-piercing rounds, which ought to be illegal, and someone managed a glancing shot to his right tricep before Nightwing took them down. Someone kicked him in the back of the knee, which at least had the advantage of being the best direction to have a knee kicked. And there was a burning in his right thigh that spoke of an injury he hadn’t quite noticed.
When the smoke settled, there were seven more generic thugs writhing on the ground, some bones and joints visibly deformed. “You got the call?”
“Yep,” Nightwing said, shaking out some excess energy and snatching a goon’s phone to call the cops again. As he left, Hood made a mental note to have Jocelyn do another training session on proper technology use. No personal phones, no texts, and memorize numbers. Goons could be so stupid.
Out in the alley, Hood staggered, then looked down at the burning in his thigh.
A knife hilt stuck out at an angle.
“Shit.”
His leg buckled, and Nightwing was there, catching him. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. Got a safe house nearby.”
Hood shook his head, panting. “No, I’ve gotta – gotta get home. Leila is there.”
He didn’t need to see Nightwing’s face to know what he was thinking. That this was exactly why he couldn’t have anyone relying on him. Because he wasn’t reliable. “You’re not going to do her any favors by coming home with a blade stuck in your leg.”
Double shit. Nightwing was right. And, even worse, the world was spinning. “I think… m’t have s’mthin’ on it.”
Nightwing swore quietly. “Okay. Okay. Need the keys to your bike.”
Hood was slightly aware of Nightwing gripping his arms around his neck in a pack-strap carry. His toes dragged on the ground. And then he was aware of nothing.
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