Fic: No Guiding Light -- Dick/Tim
Chapter 10
‘This is ridiculous!’ Dick banged his fists on the steering wheel. ‘Five locations and nothing. They could be anywhere. Keep trying their radios!’
‘Fine, but shouting at me isn’t helping,’ Damian replied.
‘Try to remember that principle in our training sessions!’
‘Whatever,’ Damian whispered under his breath, and then he spoke into the radio. ‘Batmobile to Red Robin and ... Red Breast.’
‘What?!’
‘Well, I don’t know what Jason’s code name is!’
Dick gritted his teeth and gripped the steering wheel tightly. This wasn’t Damian’s fault. He was right. Getting pissy with him wasn’t helping. Dick hated that feeling of his life spinning out of control. It had happened to him so many times and he never ever saw it coming. Why hadn’t he seen it this time? Why had he let everything slip away? Why had he been continually looking to Bruce to make it all better? Bruce loved them all, Dick knew that, but he’d never been big on expressing that love or bringing his family together or doing what was best for a damaged child. Bruce wasn’t their guiding light and the mistake had been forgetting that and expecting him to set everything right. Dick should have been firmer about Jason, clearer to Bruce about Damian’s expectations and, most of all, he should have told him exactly what was happening with Tim instead of expecting him to notice.
‘No reply,’ Damian said. ‘Crap, we’re not going to find them.’
‘Not without celestial intervention.’
And that was the moment something dropped onto the Batmobile roof with a heavy thud. Dick eased his foot off the accelerator.
‘What the hell was that?’ Damian asked. ‘Is it still up there? Wait, let me check the cameras.’
Damian bent and began accessing the Batmobile’s external camera settings and a dozen six inch by 4 inch screens lit up with pictures of the outside of the vehicle.
‘It’s a person,’ Damian said.
Dick stared as an upside-down face peeked through the windshield and a slender hand tapped on the glass. ‘Yeah,’ Dick said. ‘Sort of.’
‘Who or what the hell is that?’
‘That, Robin, is Ragdoll.’
Dick applied the brakes.
**
‘I don’t have time for this now.’
‘I do beg your pardon, Mr Nightwing. I thought perhaps your butt was lonely again.’
‘You freak!’ Damian said, his hands on his hips.
They were parked haphazardly on the side of a busy street. Other cars whizzed past with blaring horns and annoyed shouts.
‘But I see you already have company,’ Ragdoll said, looking Damian up and down. His blank mask somehow managed to convey an air of disgust. ‘He’s better off without you, you realise. Awful boy.’ He tapped his chin. ‘Saying that, though, I would still like to have sex with you. I imagine you could break me in a dozen delightful ways.’
‘Oh, I’ll break you all right.’
Ragdoll made a gleeful noise and clapped his hands. ‘Goody!’
‘Right, we’re going,’ Dick snapped. He opened the Batmobile door and Ragdoll skipped and hopped and flung himself inside.
Dick groaned. ‘You know what? Fine, sit in the back, but just keep quiet and don’t get in the way.’
Ragdoll clapped his hands again and Dick had to restrain Damian before he could turn the engine back on and rejoin Gotham City traffic. He weaved in and out, Damian hacked into the traffic system and changed their red lights to green and Ragdoll whistled Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell.
‘Ragdoll,’ Dick said. ‘Was that you on the roof back at the warehouse?’
‘Certainly not! Who do you think I am, some sort of stalker? Besides, I couldn’t find you and, believe me, I looked under every stone, but then I thought to myself, why would you be under a stone? Silly me. Where are we going, by the way?’
‘We’re not sure.’
‘Don’t speak to it,’ Damian said. ‘You’ll only encourage it. Batmobile to Red Robin, answer or I’ll kick your ass. Are you listening to me? I always go easy on you in training. You suck at fencing and your logic skills are flawed. Dick is a better detective than you.’
‘Nice try,’ Dick said. ‘He knows they’re all utter lies.’
‘Excuse me, I really do hate to interrupt,’ Ragdoll said, interrupting anyway. ‘Did I hear you say you’re looking for the whereabouts of the infamous Red Robin?’
Dick glanced at Ragdoll in the rear-view mirror. ‘Yeah. You know where he is?’ he asked, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
‘Of course I do! I’m his number one fan!’
‘I thought you were my number one fan.’
‘Not on a Thursday, silly.’
Damian tutted. ‘Do you actually know where Red Robin is or are you simply giving me the excuse I don’t really need to string you up by your testicles?’
‘You really don’t have to resort to bribery, young man. I’m happy to tell you for free. Besides, I got rid of those fussy old things long ago. I decided streamlining was the only way for me.’
‘Ragdoll,’ Dick warned.
‘He’s at the corner of Fifth and West. That old building that used to sell naughty things for women until a pesky fire put them out of business. Some might say they had it coming, selling such perverted tat. Furry handcuffs indeed. Now, a leather swing would have been much more compelling and might even have turned my delicate eye.’
‘Exactly how mad are you?’ Damian asked.
‘Ragdoll! Seriously, this is life or death.’
‘Is it? Goodness me! Then fly, my pretties! Fly fly fly!’
‘This better be for real,’ Dick muttered, and the Batmobile took off and flew over the tallest buildings. ‘Batman, we’ve got a location. I hope.’
**
The flight took five minutes. Dick aimed the Batmobile down towards the street and they skimmed the traffic. The citizens of Gotham City were used to seeing the Batmobile just as they were used to seeing shadows swinging through the air and Batbikes taking the street corners at breakneck speeds. The Batmobile took West Street at top speed and when Dick braked at the last possible second, the air jets, designed to stop the car from tumbling through the air, kicked in with an ear-splitting whoosh. Eighteen people were blown over, a bicycle was re-directed into an open doorway and the flower shop lost every single one of the flower heads on its outside display.
‘Scanning,’ Damian said as the Batmobile lowered in front of a boarded-up shop front. ‘No one on this level, but there are life-signs in the apartments above and the basement. Many life-signs.’
Above them, Bruce swung through the air and landed on the sill of an open window. ‘I have this floor,’ he said through the radio. ‘Batgirl is in place on the fire escape. She’ll take the floor above.’
‘I get the floor below,’ Damian said.
Dick nodded. ‘I guess that leaves me with the basement.’
‘What about me?’ Ragdoll said. ‘Ooh, dibs on the drainage system!’
Dick really didn’t want to question him on that. ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘take this,’ and Dick handed him a tiny in-ear radio. ‘No singing or whistling and in the name of all that is good and sacred, no yodelling. If you spot Red Robin, call it in.’
‘Oh, this is so exciting!’ Ragdoll exclaimed as Dick and Damian opened the doors and the three of them spilled out onto the street. Ragdoll ran straight for a drain and Dick and Damian crashed through the boarded-up front door together.
‘Maybe we should have considered stealth,’ Damian said as the wood cracked and splintered.
‘Too late.’
The shop had been empty for a while. There were shelves still fixed to the wall, but the floor was littered with old cardboard boxes and one dusty, black lace bra. The room smelled damp and unused.
Together they headed for the back and Damian took the stairs up. Dick crashed through another door into the back and found a set of stairs going down. He checked the building plan on his wrist scanner and found exactly where his set of life-signs were. There were three, all in one room, all moving rapidly. What the hell were they doing?
Dick jumped down the stairs and took the corridor at a run. He crashed through the door and took out the first man with a Wing Ding to the forehead. A quick glance around the room told him neither Jason nor Tim were here and he informed Bruce and the others with one word before he knocked out another suspect with a good high kick. The third suspect, who was holding a cardboard box, stood open-mouthed across the other side of the room. Dick ran at him and the suspect dropped the box. It hit the ground with the sound of smashing glass and a vapour began to rise into the air.
‘Whoops,’ said the man.
‘What is that?’
‘Don’t worry, it won’t affect us.’
‘Then who?’
The man hesitated and Dick slammed him against the wall. ‘WHAT IS THAT?’
‘I don’t know, I swear! We were told that it only affects women, but we were never told what it does.’
‘Where is Scarecrow?’
‘Uh, I ... erm ...’
‘WHERE?!’ Dick shouted, slamming him against the wall again.
‘I-I think they keep him upstairs, but I don’t know.’
Dick had been around criminals long enough to know when they were lying, when they were telling the truth, when they were handy to keep around and when they needed to be knocked unconscious for convenience sake.
Dick dragged out all three bodies and shut what appeared to be an airtight door.
‘We’ve got toxins here. Looks like they were getting ready to ship out. I’ve tested against all Scarecrow’s known formulae and while this is definitely his work, it’s not an exact formula we’ve seen before. One of the men said it only affects women. There’s enough here for one hell of a conviction. Red Robin’ll be psyched.’
‘Secure the area,’ Bruce’s voice came back.
‘Done,’ Dick said, placing a strip of explosive along the bottom the door. It worked like a tiny and sticky version of a gas bomb. If anyone opened the door and triggered the explosive, the resulting gas would knock out an ordinary man in less than five seconds.
Dick made his way back up the stairs. Damian had secured his suspects and located a pile of money and Batgirl reported in that she’d delivered the wedgie of the century and found suitcases full of cocaine. Bruce’s floor had the most suspects. Dick’s scanner told him from the original ten, five now had heart rates which indicated they were unconscious.
This floor was as bare as the shop and the basement. No carpets, no pictures on the walls and absolutely no attempt to do any dusting. Cobwebs hung in the corners, a door was hanging off its hinges and, standing next to a groaning body, frayed rope dangling from his wrists, was Red Robin. He stood out as the brightest thing in the room and Dick smiled at him with utter relief. To Dick’s surprise, Tim smiled back.
‘Thanks for coming,’ Tim said.
Dick nodded and held in everything he needed to say. Now wasn’t the moment but, god, he was damn well going to say it soon, no matter what anyone might think.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m good. I came for Jason, but his cover was blown. I didn’t know until I got here and they got the jump on me. I finally got free, but not before they took Jason to see the boss. They went this way.’
Tim led them further down the corridor. An ear-splitting bang filled the air and a section of wall next to Dick’s head fell apart. Tim launched himself at the wielder of the shotgun. The scuffle lasted no more than a second and then they were both moving again.
Steph and Damian joined them at the end of the hall, Damian in possession of a struggling criminal. Bruce seized him and forced him to his knees. He towered over the trembling man, all black cape and piercing gaze.
‘Where is your boss? Where is Scarecrow?’
‘I ... I have no idea where the boss is, but Scarecrow is in there.’
‘Scarecrow isn’t the boss?’ Steph asked.
‘N-no. We used him for the formulas, but he got greedy and the boss got real cranky.’
‘One life-sign,’ Damian said, glancing at his wrist-scanner and pointing to the door opposite. ‘I’m not registering any booby traps.’
At Bruce’s nod, Dick kicked open the last remaining door.
Strung up in chains on the wall, white-faced and red-lipped, crippled with manic laughing and his mouth contorted into a wide, hysterical grin, was Jonathan Crane, Scarecrow. When he saw Batman, his laughter turned to screams.
Chapter 11
‘Tell me about Jason,’ Dick said. They were back in the corridor, alone while Bruce and Damian questioned a more-than-half-mad Doctor Crane, Damian peering with morbid interest but standing well back while Bruce brimmed with rage.
‘He’s been undercover for the last six weeks. I’ve been working with him for the past three. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.’
Dick waved the apology away and Tim continued.
‘He’d been out of contact with me for seven hours. He usually checks in every six. I came here to do recon, establish if he was still here, and they were waiting for me. It was an ambush.’
‘They knew you were coming.’
Tim shrugged. ‘They knew someone was coming. Dick, he found out who was really running things and he went postal.’
Dick looked through the open doorway at the flailing Jonathan Crane. Scarecrow’s face twisted with both laughter and sheer terror. There was no mistaking that expression.
The Joker.
‘We both thought Crane was the boss, manufacturing , shipping and dealing a new drug, the whole caboodle. It’s some sort of date-rape drug in gas form.’
‘Are you sure about Jason?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Is there a chance he set you up for an ambush?’
‘No, not with the Joker. No way. Once the Joker realised who he was, he obviously figured more of us would come.’
Damian walked back out the room. ‘Joker broke the Scarecrow,’ he said sulkily. ‘We’re not going to get anything out of him.’
‘None of the mooks are talking, either,’ Steph said, appearing next to them with her hands on her hips. ‘And I was real persuasive.’
Damian gave her a wicked grin. He’d been teaching her how to inflict maximum pain with minimal damage or evidence. He was a bad influence. Dick chose not to notice. Over the years Damian had found a line and he didn’t cross it. Out of all of them, he was the most controlled, and that was something Dick would never have thought he would be able to say about Damian. If they all stood in a line to lose their tempers, Damian would be at the back. At this moment, Dick was sure Jason was right at the front. He glanced at Tim and hoped he wasn’t standing right behind.
‘Oh dear, did I miss all the fun?’ said a very wet Ragdoll. His fake hair dripped water onto his shoulders and a puddle formed around his feet.
‘Did you get stuck in a U-bend?’ Damian asked, his expression a picture of disgust.
‘Only for a moment, but then I popped up and surprised a moustached man having a slash.’ Ragdoll rang out his cape. ‘We had tremendous fun together. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any splishy splashy fun with someone. Which reminds me, I must show Alice my rubber duck collection. I’m sure she’ll be delighted!’
‘A little part of my soul just died,’ Steph said.
‘But enough of my aquatic adventures; is our mission complete?’
Dick shook his head.
‘This is stupid!’ Tim said. He paced and punched the wall.
Yep, Tim was second in line.
‘Calm down,’ Dick said. They needed to think logically. Someone had to know where the Joker was and where he’d taken Jason.
‘You don’t get it,’ Tim said. ‘I was Jason’s back-up. I screwed up. I charged in without thinking. Why did I do that?!’ He clasped his head in his hands and visibly tried to get control of himself. ‘We had no idea the Joker was behind the whole set-up.’
‘You had no idea,’ Bruce said. He stood in the doorway, his expression completely devoid of anything and his body language indicating nothing. ‘But did Jason?’
Tim stared at him. Dick could see something had clicked inside his head.
‘He knew,’ Tim said. ‘He knew all along. We were obsessed with finding out who the Draytons really were. When I worked out it was Scarecrow, Jason ... He was nonplussed. He knew Joker was behind it and he wanted me off the trail. That’s why he cut contact. I’m so stupid!.’
He wasn’t stupid. He was like Jason, obsessed and unable to see clearly. Tim’s utter focus on the job meant he was too close and his objectivity was compromised. That was Bruce-speak. To Dick, Tim was just struggling.
‘Why would he want to take on the Joker alone?’ Steph asked. ‘That’s suicide.’
No one wanted to answer that. There were too many possibilities, the main one being that he wanted to rip the Joker apart and finish him for good with no interference. No matter what Dick’s stance was on that, he understood and he knew Tim did too. Dick put his hand on his shoulder.
‘Maybe I didn’t want to see it,’ Tim said, his voice quiet.
Dick shook his head. ‘Don’t try to second guess yourself. Let’s concentrate on finding Jason.’
Which wasn’t going to be easy. Where would the Joker take him?
‘May I ask what you are doing?’ Ragdoll asked as he peered over Damian’s shoulder.
‘No. But for everyone else, I’m checking the security cameras.’
‘There’s aren’t any security cameras in the building,’ Dick said.
‘Correct, Grayson. A plus. But there are cameras on the Batmobile. I’m circling her around the immediate-’
‘What is it?’ Bruce asked.
Damian looked up at him. ‘I can’t believe we missed it. The roof. They’re on the roof. Someone must be jamming the scanning signal.’
‘Jason, probably,’ Dick said.
They all ran for the roof at the same time. Dick had a vision of them all getting stuck in the doorway in one big lump. It was a hysterical reaction and he tried to push it away. Time was suddenly moving too fast and Dick felt like he was running through toffee. Too slow! Maybe he didn’t want to ever reach the roof. Maybe he didn’t want to see Jason’s body, battered and bleeding. Maybe he didn’t want to see his brother dead, because that was what they were going to find, wasn’t it? Because the Joker always won.
Bruce reached the roof first. The sky was black and starless and the moon glared down at them. They glanced around the rooftop. It was empty apart from two rickety old tables, a collection of chairs, Jason and the Joker.
‘JASON!’ Bruce shouted, and then he fell to the floor.
What the hell?
Damian dropped to his knees next to him and struggled to roll him over. He plucked a tiny dart from Bruce’s jaw and held it up.
Dick had to hope it was a tranquilizer and not poison. Damian was already testing it so Dick kept going, his long legs moving him faster across the roof than the others. If Jason died - again - it would be the end of Bruce and fuck knows what it would do Tim.
‘STAY BACK!’
At the scream, Dick stopped, Tim and Steph coming to a halt just behind him. It took a moment for Dick to realise the demand had come from Jason.
Both the Joker and Jason were badly beaten. Jason’s left eye was almost popping from its socket and dark blood was trickling down his chin. His fist, pulled back and clenched, dripped with the Joker’s blood and his knuckles were ripped open and raw. Below him, lying dazed but still faintly giggling, was the Joker. One side of the Joker’s face was swollen to twice its size, his arm was hanging at an unnatural angle and most of his teeth were missing.
They weren’t here to save the Jason from the Joker. They were saving the Joker from Jason.
Another moment and the Joker would be finished. Just one moment and it would all be over. Just one moment and if killing the Joker didn’t finish Jason off, then maybe Jason could live again. Something about that thought made Dick’s heart drop into his stomach. He couldn’t speak and he couldn’t move.
‘Jason, wait,’ Tim said.
‘For what?’ Jason’s voiced was slurred and he swayed slightly where he knelt over the Joker.
‘Don’t do this. This isn’t the way.’
‘No, no! Don’t say that to me! I thought out of everyone you understood. These bastards do whatever they want and we don’t do shit about it except lock them up. That wouldn’t even be so bad if they just stayed there, but they don’t, do they? How does that happen? Tell me you don’t want the Joker dead?’
‘I ... Jason, what I want, what we want, it doesn’t matter. We don’t kill.’
Jason’s top lip curled into a snarl. ‘You don’t kill. You, because you’re a bunch of cowards! You don’t want his death on your precious consciences. Well, what about me? What about what he did to me?’
‘If we could change it, we would,’ Dick said. He edged a little closer.
‘That means nothing to me. I HAD TO CLAW MYSELF OUT OF MY OWN GRAVE!’
Dick remembered once being buried alive. He’d had to smash his way out of the coffin and dig a horizontal path to minimise the chance of being spotted. The horror of being buried alive, with little air, hot and cramped, had brought him to the edge of panic. Only Bruce’s training had saved him from madness and death. But what had happened to Jason was so much worse. To die so young, so horribly and painfully and then to wake so alone.
And to then find out the one who did this to you was still running around, still killing and laughing about it and the one person who was supposed to take care of you had allowed it.
There wasn’t a person in the world who could blame him for his hatred.
It would be so easy, Dick thought, to take five long strides, seize the Joker by his neck and snap it. So fucking easy. It was a thought no one would believe Dick Grayson would have, but he’d come close to killing the Joker once before and it would be so easy to let go again and finish the job.
It would be so easy for any of them to finish the job, but that wasn’t what they did. It wasn’t what they stood for. When the Batfamily started killing it would be the beginning of the end, the unravelling of the Superhero age.
Or maybe that was just Bat-ego.
‘Please don’t do this,’ Dick said, because if you do then you’ll never come back from it. I’ll lose you, then I’ll lose Bruce and then Tim and then it’ll just be me and Damian and then one day I’ll lose him too.
‘Jason,’ Tim said, ‘we’ll make sure he never gets out again. I promise you, this is it for the Joker. He’s done. You’re safe.’
Jason looked at him, his face streaked with blood and tears.
‘We’re your family,’ Tim continued. ‘We look after each other.’
Jason turned back to the Joker, his expression filled with rage. ‘Why do you even exist?’ he asked. ‘Who put you here?’ He shook his head. ‘You know what you are? You are living proof there is no god. No god would be this cruel.’
Tim slowly edged to Jason’s side and knelt beside him. ‘I know you want to end him. I do, too.’
‘Do I get a say in this, folks?’ the Joker said. ‘We could flip a coin for it? No, wait, that’s not me. Do you know what I do? Of course you do. I’m the one that beats the little Robins to death! But they always come back. The perpetual Robin. I’m surrounded by them! Ahh, save me!’ The Joker performed one dramatic flail and then relaxed. ‘I’m so glad you introduced yourself,’ he said to Jason. ‘Looking at your face now, it reminds me of how I splintered your skull.’
Jason lunged at him and Tim struggled to hold him back. The Joker was too weak to do anything. His body was emaciated and his brightly-coloured clothes hung slack over pointed knees and elbows and a sunken chest. His fingers were like spider’s legs and his cheeks hollow. He looked sick. Sicker than normal. He looked old.
But that grin was still there.
‘I kept one of your teeth,’ he whispered.
Jason fought to get away from Tim, but Tim was strong and he was determined. He bared his teeth with the effort and his grip on Jason remained firm.
‘Got off me! I’ll fucking kill him and you can’t stop me! This is my moment, my kill! I wanted him to suffer, but now I just don’t care. I want him fucking gone! How can you fuckers stand there and let him say these things?! Why haven’t you got the guts to finish this?!’
And then Dick saw it. A tiny red dot moving along the wall. Moving towards Tim.
‘Get down!’
But it wasn’t enough to just shout. Dick ran. He felt his heart jolt as his legs buckled and he crashed down, knocking Tim and Jason to the ground. He heard the shot and then the sound of flesh and bone erupting. Dick’s eyes were closed now, and he thought he would never be able to open them again.
‘We need cover!’ Steph shouted.
‘On it,’ Damian replied, and Dick heard the Batmobile park mid-air behind them.
Dick felt movement below him. He opened his eyes and saw Jason first.
‘You okay?’ he asked him.
Jason scrambled to sit up, his eyes wide and one side of his face even more bloody than before. He nodded.
‘Tim? Tim?! You okay?’
‘Apart from the skull fracture you just gave me, you mean?’
Dick smiled and laid his head against Tim’s shoulder. ‘Are you really all right?’ he said. His arm snaked around Tim’s waist and held him tight.
‘Really, I’m-’
They both sat up and saw the Joker at the same time.
‘Oh my god,’ Steph said. ‘I might need to barf. I’m not sure.’
‘Well, decide before you get in the car,’ Damian said.
Dick was stunned. In an instant, their entire world was changed, and Dick felt it immediately. It was like the sky was suddenly on the ground, sanity and madness had swapped places and Dick’s bones were made of Jello. Reality had shifted. The one thing Dick thought could never happen, had happened.
The Joker was dead.
The Joker was lying sprawled on a Gotham City rooftop and he had half a head. The other half was splattered up the wall behind him. The Joker’s everlasting smile was smeared across brick and cement and, after a single twitch from his foot, his withered frame was finally lifeless and still.
Dick exhaled and he felt a lifelong tension drain from his body.
‘He’s gone,’ Jason said. ‘He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone, he’s gone, HE’S GONE!’
Bruce, weak and staggering, fell to his knees and wrapped Jason in his arms. Jason screamed his rage and fury, pounded him with his fists and a lifetime of angry words.
Bruce just held him, taking every blow, not restraining him, but holding him until Jason’s voice cracked and was lost. Jason wheezed and pulled air into his lungs in great gulps. He closed his eyes and then finally the rooftop was silent.
Chapter 12
The traffic outside had screeched to a halt almost as soon as word got out. Now crowds of people surrounded the building, young and old, some morbidly curious and some disbelieving. Pushing started and police in full riot gear kept them back. Many priests prayed for the souls of all those the Joker had killed over too many years and one prayed the Joker himself would find forgiveness in heaven. A thousand people prayed the Joker would rot in hell. The crowd chanted and jeered, helicopters circled, sirens wailed, the press jockeyed for coverage. Gotham gridlocked, every car radio chattered and speculated and sound waves poured from open car and apartment windows and filled the streets with one collective voice of Gotham News.
‘The League will take it from here,’ Clark said into the darkness of the Batmobile. His cape lightly billowed in the breeze, primary red against the black sky. He closed the Batmobile door and the sky and the noise of Gotham were gone.
‘Should we ...?’ Damian touched his gloved hands to the steering wheel.
Bruce and Jason were already back at the manor, courtesy of the League’s transporter, and now that Steph had gone her own way, it was just Dick, Tim and Damian left to fly back in the Batmobile.
‘Maybe we should do a lap, give them some time?’ Damian finally suggested. ‘And I mean a lap of America.’
No one answered him so Damian nodded his decision to himself and the Batmobile lifted from the roof and headed south.
‘Do you think it was really him?’ Damian asked, and then he laughed at himself. ‘Only in Gotham does a person ask such a question.’
‘And Metropolis. Star City.’ The sting and dryness in Dick’s throat told him he hadn’t spoken in some time. ‘Central City.’
The Batmobile was silent again and Dick wished it would actually make a sound, a beep of the computer, a crunch of gears or a roar of the engine. If only one of them would cough or sigh or scream. But there was nothing, just a void encased in the best engineering on the planet. The console glowed a deep red. It was the only illumination inside the car and it bathed the three of them in crimson.
Tim pulled his cowl from his head. ‘I’m done,’ he said.
**
It was good to be away from the city. The manor was just the way they’d left it. There was no reason it should be different. It was exactly the same. Of course it was.
So why did it feel so different?
And it wasn’t just the manor. Dick felt different. He crossed Tim’s completely different bedroom on totally different legs and sat on a bed that would never be the same again. When he spoke, it was with a voice that was changed.
‘Are you sure about this?’ Dick was dressed in jeans and a shirt, but Tim sat next to him clad only in boxers.
‘It’s what you want, right?’ Tim said. ‘You want the costume gone.’
‘Yes, but you need to want it, too. It’s not about me and it’s not about Deathstroke and it’s not about Bruce or Jason or the Joker. This is about what you want.’
‘I don’t want to end up like him. Like Jason. You know, maybe now the Joker’s really gone he’s got a chance at living, but you saw him up on that roof. There’s not a single part of him that doesn’t hurt and it all started from somewhere. One single event that led to another and then another. From Robin to the Red Hood to murder to madness. The Joker killed him, then Bruce killed him and then he killed himself. I don’t want that to be me. I can feel the darkness pulling at me, the violence growing. I’m slipping and I can’t stop. I lost so much - Steph, my dad, Bart, Conner, Bruce - and sometimes I get them back and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I can’t deal with that uncertainty, that hope.’
Dick understood that. Death wasn’t always forever and while it was wonderful to hold your dearest friend in your arms again, it also gave you a terrible and perpetual hope you would eventually get back everyone. It kept you awake and waiting for something that would never happen.
In their world, there was no such thing as closure.
The Joker was dead. Dick had seen it close-up. The Joker was absolutely and completely dead, but Dick knew there would always be a part of him that would expect him to come back. That feeling would be amplified inside Jason a thousand times over.
‘I know this sounds lame,’ Tim continued, ‘but I’m on this path and I’ve got to get off. I’ve got to stop, because I am going to end up like Jason.’ He got up and lifted the Red Robin costume from a chair by the window. It was folded in that obsessively neat way that only Tim could manage. ‘Take it,’ he said. ‘I’ve made my decision. Take it to Deathstroke.’
Dick stood and stared at the costume. He kissed Tim gently and let his lips linger there until Tim kissed him back. For just a few moments he shut the rest of the world out. How could he have let this go? He wanted Tim back, right now, and fuck everyone else. Why had they thought they should end what they had? A cold thought trickled from Dick’s brain down into his spine. Had Tim ever agreed when Bruce came back that they should end their relationship and go back to being brothers?
No, he hadn’t.
‘You know,’ Dick said, taking hold of the costume so that both he and Tim were holding it together, ‘the day Bruce came back, it was the best day of my life.’
Tim nodded and looked away and Dick moved one hand to his cheek. He needed Tim to look at him. He needed to know Tim understood. ‘But it was also the worst. It just took me a while to see it. I’m sorry.’
‘You broke my heart, Dick.’
‘I know. If it’s any consolation, I broke my own too.’
Dick kissed him again, slow and deep, as though the kiss itself could give Tim the comfort and reassurance he needed. He had to touch him right now. He needed to feel Tim’s warmth, his body alive, breathing and beautiful. As Tim’s arms wrapped around him and all Dick’s nerve endings suddenly fired, he wondered how he’d gone so long without this.
The costume dropped between them.
**
Dick met with Deathstroke on top of a penthouse in the northern part of Gotham. The air was just on the bitter side of cool and in the building below them, a party was in full swing. The rooftop thumped with the music and happy voices whooped and shouted. It was one of a hundred spontaneous parties organised around Gotham to celebrate the day the Joker died.
‘So, Red Robin is officially dead. Did he resign or did you have to strip him?’
Dick handed over the costume and ignored the leer he knew Slade was wearing beneath the cowl. ‘His choice.’
‘Good. Consider the contract dropped.’
‘And you can consider this a gesture and no more. The Joker’s dead. Your contract is null and void.’
Slade pulled his cowl off and smiled. ‘Don’t get cocky, Dick. I could still carry out the contract out of a sense of honour.’
‘Seriously? With anyone else I might believe you, but not the Joker. You seriously took work from him? How could you do that?’
‘This was a game to me, a challenge. Don’t look so annoyed; if the Joker hadn’t hired me, he would have hired someone else. With me, you had warning. I was never supposed to kill Red Robin outright, I was supposed to bring him in. The Joker got it into his addled brain that Red Robin was the Robin, the one he killed all those years ago and still haunts him. He was paranoid. He saw Robin everywhere he looked.’ Slade suddenly laughed with genuine amusement. ‘He didn’t see the real Jason Todd coming at all. Ironic. All those years of paranoia and it turns out Robin really was undercover and out to get him. Funny, a real killing joke, you might say.’
Dick’s head was spinning. Why did nothing make sense anymore? Dick had intended to bring Slade in for the murder of the Joker, but now he wasn’t sure. The line was blurring again and Dick couldn’t clearly see it anymore.
‘Did you miss on purpose?’
Slade lifted an eyebrow and laughed. ‘Pardon?’
‘Did you fire at Tim and hit the Joker because I pushed Tim down? Or did you deliberately aim for the Joker? Slade, did you deliberately murder the Joker or not?’
Slade moved in close. Dick held his ground, even when he felt Slade’s breath on his cheek.
‘What makes you think that was me?’ Slade whispered.
**
Dick’s head was still spinning when he arrived back at the Cave later that night. He’d gone out expecting a major smack down with Slade and had come back with not even a scratch and a bunch more questions.
The Cave was silent apart from the sound of clanking spanners. Dick smiled despite his unease and general confusion and made his way down to the cars. Damian was sorting through a large trunk full of wires. Every so often he huffed and tutted and clanked and then went back to pulling at the large knot of multicoloured wires.
‘What ya doing?’ Dick asked.
‘Apparently, I’m sorting out someone else’s mess. You know, I keep my mouth shut when it’s the Christmas lights, but these are expensive and some of the coatings are rare and difficult to produce. They should be treated with respect and care.’
‘Respect the wires. Check.’
Damian tutted again. ‘What do you want, Grayson?’
‘Just checking in. How’s Jason?’
‘Quiet,’ Damian said. He dropped the knot of wires back into the trunk with an extra loud huff.
‘Sorry, uh, I’ll keep my voice down?’
‘No, I mean Jason is quiet. As is my father.’
‘Our father.’
‘Do you want to untie these wires?’ Damian threatened.
Dick put his hands up in surrender.
This was nice. This was familiar. This was Damian being moody and irritated and it made Dick want to hug him.
‘Neither of them are saying much. What do you say, I suppose.’
Exactly. Which one of them pointed out that the Joker’s death was a wonderful thing for everyone?
‘I think father is waiting,’ Damian continued. ‘He wants to gauge Jason’s reaction once the shock has subsided. I’ll admit, I have no idea what it’s going to be like once the reality sets in. Do you think he’ll put his evil ways behind him?’
Dick resisted tutting at Damian’s dramatic way of putting things. The tutting noise was a bad habit he’d picked up from Damian. It had been eight months since his last tut and he wasn’t about to set himself back.
‘I hope so. With the Joker alive he was never able to move on.’ Dick wondered how Barbara was doing. He’d tried calling her, but she wasn’t answering. Like Jason, she needed time.
‘Well, you know my feelings on the matter,’ Damian said.
Oh yeah, they all knew Damian’s view on the Joker and the punishment he felt should have been dealt after Jason’s death. It was one of the reasons the League kept a close eye on him and why his status as the leader of the Teen Titans was under constant review. Only his one hundred percent success rate with no team, enemy or civilians deaths and Dick’s character reference kept the League from removing him from Titans Tower by force.
‘I need to speak to Bruce,’ Dick said, changing the subject before he started thinking about his own views on the Joker. That wasn’t a place he wanted to visit right now.
‘I wouldn’t. Best leave them. I for one would rather they think through their responses, and then we can get the fallout over and done with sooner rather than later. Interrupting them is likely to slow them down.’
‘It is important.’
‘Is it about Tim?’
Dick nodded.
‘You’re going to tell Bruce, aren’t you?’
‘I think I have to.’
‘Good. Of course you realise he already knows.’
‘He doesn’t know.’
‘Of course he knows. He knows everything that happened. He knows and he chooses to ignore it because you do. Tell him later and once you’ve shouted at each other for the traditional forty-two minutes and kissed your new-slash-old beau, get me that pizza you promised. I’m still waiting, you know.’
Dick wasn’t sure how to react to that. Was it possible Bruce really did already know? He didn’t dare hope, because he’d always thought once Bruce knew he and Tim had formed a sexual relationship, Dick would be disowned. He was the eldest. He should know better.
It was fear that had kept him silent, fear of seeing disappointment in Bruce’s face, fear of being cast out and fear of Tim relying on him not to fuck up because he always, always fucked up. Now, the fear of losing Tim, never holding him, never making love to him, never laughing with him and going to sleep next to him, was worse than anything else he could imagine.
‘Dick,’ said a deep voice, Bruce’s voice.
‘Oh, hey. I was, uh ... I was just on my way to see you. How’s Jason?’
‘Sedated. Have you spoken with Deathstroke?’
‘Yeah, the contract has been dropped. And with the Draytons, aka the Joker’s men and Scarecrow, looking at life for the cocaine and the date-rape gas, it looks like Tim is in the clear.’
‘We will need to bring Deathstroke in for the murder of the Joker,’ Bruce said, and he turned his back and walked away. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Actually, Slade said he didn’t do it.’
Bruce stopped, but didn’t turn around. ‘You believe him?’
‘Yeah. I do.’
Bruce walked away and Dick was sure it would be a long time before they spoke of it again. ‘Bruce, wait!’
Dick trotted after him and ignored Damian’s groaning noises. ‘We need to talk. About Tim. About lots of things, actually. About your behaviour and mine. About you and Damian.’
‘Somewhere in the dark we lost each other,’ Bruce said. It jolted Dick that Bruce was so blunt and behind him he heard Damian drop his ball of wires.
‘We’ve been less than a family, I realise that. Dick, we will talk, but now is not the time. Jason must be my priority.’
‘Yeah, of course. I understand that.’
Bruce looked over at Damian and asked a silent question that was more telling about how well they really knew each other than any kind of biology. Damian nodded back at him and his expression wasn’t completely unhappy.
Bruce gripped Dick’s shoulder. ‘Soon. I promise. It’s going to be difficult, but we will find each other again. Speaking of which, Tim is upstairs.’
‘He is?’ Dick said casually. ‘Oh, okay. Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’ As Bruce finally walked away he said, ‘And Dick, look after Tim. If your relationship pulls us further apart, you will only have yourselves to blame.’
Ah. Of course he knew. Dick felt like the biggest idiot on the planet.
‘Not gonna happen. I love him. Tim is my world.’
Whoops, he should really have announced that to Tim first before blurting it out to Bruce who smiled slightly, Damian who just couldn’t get a grip on that wire ball and Alfred who was coming down the stairs with tea, biscuits and a startled expression.
But it was true, and Dick couldn’t wait to get upstairs to tell Tim.
Epilogue
Dick wrapped his arms around his knees and stared out over the city. The sun was setting behind the tallest building and Gotham was silent. A mile south was the Joker’s funeral and while the cheap, wooden box containing his body burned alone, the rest of the city mourned those who had died over the many years of the Joker’s reign. A one minute silence turned into two minutes and then three minutes and then twenty and now fifty-nine.
The cars below sat stationary in their lanes as the traffic lights flicked from colour to colour to colour. A bird squawked overhead and the wind gently blew and ruffled Dick’s hair. The Joker burned and Gotham closed her eyes and slept, her pulse and her beating heart hushed in remembrance.
Then the sun disappeared and a deep blue replaced gold, waking up everything and everyone as it swept the city. Engines started, the bustle of people returned. Gotham stretched and yawned and returned to business as usual.
Dick lowered his legs over the side of the building and took Tim’s hand in his. ‘Nice night for a new beginning,’ he said. ‘How do you feel, partner?’
‘I feel weird. I think the costume is riding up my butt.’
‘I’ll get Alfred to take a look.’
They blinked at each other.
‘Forget I said that.’
‘Already deleted from my memory banks. Forget you said what?’ Tim grinned. ‘See?’
They stood together and Dick took a long appreciative look at his new partner. Tim’s costume was almost identical to Dick’s but it was a deep, golden orange and the stripe across his chest and down his arms a flaming, Superman red. A wide golden belt was wrapped around his waist and a golden mask covered his eyes. Tonight, Flamebird was born.
‘Wow,’ Dick said. ‘Yeah, this was definitely your best idea yet. Let’s do a quick patrol, then head back to the Manor for dinner.’
‘You think Jason will show?’
‘My inside sources say yes.’
‘Are your inside sources Damian?’
‘Yep. You know, I worry about those two. Those three actually. That’s going to be the team-up from hell.’
Tim laughed. ‘I hope Bruce knows what he’s getting himself into.’
‘I hope so too. Three isn’t a crowd, it’s a car crash.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t want to meet them on a dark night.’
‘No way,’ Dick said.
They stood on the roof in the fading light and for the first time Dick allowed himself to hope their family was saved. Tim fired his line first and jumped and Dick swung after his form like he was following a guiding light blazing through the darkening streets of Gotham.
**
‘Is it all there?’ Ragdoll asked. His mask in his hand, he peered over Catman’s shoulder. ‘Is it? Is it enough to buy our dream home?’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Catman said, still counting and piling up banknotes, ‘but this is serious money. We didn’t earn this much in the last six months.’
Ragdoll beamed. ‘Oh, I could buy that outfit I’ve always wanted. Tell me honestly, my loyal friends, do you think I can pull off rubber?’
‘’Doll,’ said Deadshot, ‘I don’t wanna think about what you can pull off. Yeah, it’s all here. Well, guys and gals and those who checked “other,” I think that was the best day’s work we’ve ever done. I’m thinking we could start our own Supervillain assassination service.’
‘With you on the trigger,’ Scandal said, ‘I say we can’t lose.’
Bane crossed his arms. ‘But next time we don’t let Ragdoll run around giving hints and clues to the good guys. He could have brought the Bat down on us all. He still might.’
‘If the Bat comes hunting for the Secret Six,’ Catman said, ‘it’ll be for the tranquilizer we shot him with.’
Deadshot shook his head. ‘Don’t start. Scandal, tell him.’
Scandal shrugged. ‘The client was very clear. Batman had to be out for the count. She didn’t want him throwing himself in front of a bullet.’
Bane scowled at all of them. He’d been sure this job would mean their deaths, but a week had passed and they were all still alive. The others had never really faced Batman, not like he had; they didn’t understand, especially that idiot buffoon who was still wearing those goddamn pixie boots. He gave Ragdoll an extra hard glare.
‘But I had to save those poor little birds!’ Ragdoll said in defence, turning to Black Alice. ‘I’m their number one fan. And I also planted a seed, and now Nightwing’s butt will never be lonely again. Oh, I do love a happy ending!’
The End.