Fic: A Better Choice part 3
A Better Choice Part 3 (Through A Glass Lightly series)
Fandom: Batman
Continuity: Post-CoIE AU, Umbraverse
Characters: Jason, Dick
Rating: PG-13?
Warnings: Foul Language
Word Count: 4,504
Summary: What should have happened in Batman 426 when Bruce was an ass and Jason found out that Catherine wasn’t his biological mom.
Author’s Notes: This is the result of a brainstorming session for a different fic with vespertila . Thank you so much for dragonbat2006 ’s lovely beta and dungeonwriter ’s input! C&C is always appreciated :)
Previous parts One and Two
“You’re sure this is a good idea?” Dick’s annoying voice is in his ear. Again. This is the fifth time that he’s asked that in the last twenty minutes.
Jason grits his teeth as he looks at the less-than-imposing chain-link fence. He’s very thankful that the installation’s physical defences aren’t nearly as meticulous as its cyber-security. “Very sure,” he grits out. “My hacking skills aren’t good enough to get past their systems. But I need to see the files on Sharmin Rosen’s current assignment.”
All of his phone calls to the numbers he’d found for Bruce’s contacts at Shin Bet hadn’t yielded anything. Which wasn’t a surprise but he had still had to try.
He’s jarred out of his thoughts by his partner’s next comment: “You know, I could have hacked it for you.” This is not the first time Dick’s mentioned that particular offer. Jason’s teeth are starting to hurt.
“This is my case and she might be MY mother,” the teen hisses into the comm. “So I’m the one that needs to do this. You just keep an eye on their systems and let me know if anyone is headed my way.” Speaking his reasoning aloud-also not for the first time, gah!-makes him want to... something.
Maybe he should count his blessings that Dick’s last dose of Dayquil was three hours ago. Meaning that the worst of the bouncing has now passed. However, he’ll be needing another dose soon. Best to try and get this out of the way before it’s time for that eventuality. As he sneaks into the installation, he muses about leaving an anonymous note for the bigwigs on how they really need to beef up their security. The few guards he sees are less-than-attentive. Getting into an office with a computer wasn’t that hard. That Dick wasn’t yakking his ear off the entire time was a fucking miracle. Actually...
“N? You still with me?” he whispers. Jason really wouldn’t be surprised if the idiot was having heart palpitations or some other crap from all the over-the-counter meds his supposed older brother has been mixing.
“Yup, right here Little Wing; just been checking the security network. And no, you haven’t tripped anything,” he assures Jason cheerily.
Somehow, Jason is pretty sure there’s more to it than that, but he lets it go. He’s standing inside what has to be some sort of command centre. Before him stretch rows of work stations, each with a computer console mounted atop a desk. After a quick look around, he curses under his breath. This explains a lot. These work stations aren’t hooked up to an outside line. So it’s a good bet that the information he needs is kept on an internal server. It couldn’t have been remote hacked even if he’d taken up Dick’s offer. That makes him feel a little better. At least until he notices the next obstacle. The keyboards are in Hebrew.
Okay, it’s fine. He thought this might happen and planned for it. Jason has a pocket dictionary and phrase book with him, but he knows that they won’t be enough. Gingerly, he sets a gloved hand on the mouse and moves it a fraction of an inch. He’s rewarded when the black screen turns royal blue and a grey box pops up. There’s an official-looking logo and a lot of writing he hasn’t got the time or ability to puzzle out, but he doesn’t need to be a genius to figure out that the flashing word with the empty field below has to be asking for a password.
He groans. Now what? He’s not giving up now, not after getting this close. He thinks for a moment. Then, carefully, he extracts a thin lock pick from one of the compartments of his utility belt and cautiously jimmies open the drawer. He makes a face. He hadn’t really expected to find anything useful, but it had been worth a try. He sighs and moves down the row, hoping against hope that somebody somehow... YES! It takes him eight tries but finally, inside one locked drawer, he sees a slip of paper with what appears to be eight letters and numbers. It’s a password! It has to be! Quickly he opens the dictionary to the page with the alphabet-the alef-bet, rather. His face falls. These letters don’t look anything like what’s on the paper! It’s... it’s chicken scratches!
Wait... what are all these other columns? The first one on the left has the name of the letter in English. The next one over is headed ‘book’ and has the letters he’s vaguely taken note of on most of the store signs he’s passed by. The next column: cursive... wait. Are these supposed to be another way to write the same letters? Cripes. He knows that even in English, some letters don’t look much like their printed counterparts but this... this still doesn’t look like anything on the paper. “Nightwing? What the HELL is Rashi script?”
Dick sounds amused. “It’s... well... it’s kind of like a...” His voice trails off for a moment. “Actually,” he continues, “it’s a font. See, back a few hundred years ago, just about the only books printed in Hebrew were religious texts. And usually they came with commentaries and annotations. One of the best-known commentaries was by a scholar named ‘Rashi’ and the printers always put his notes in a different typeface so it would stand out. Oh, and by the way...”
Jason scowls. Dick’s tone is far too casual, all of a sudden.
“Shin-Bet likes that script a whole lot.”
The scowl deepens. But the non-numeric characters on the paper he’s found DO look something like the markings in the ‘Rashi’ column. If written by someone with extremely poor handwriting.
He starts typing the password, and then stops. Why is the stupid system doing it backw-oh. Hebrew goes left-to-right. It’s like mirror-writing. He’s got to type the last character first.
He’s in! Of course the data is all in Hebrew but it’s in the ‘book’ font. And he knows a keyword search field when he sees it. So... if he types in Sharmin Rosen’s name, and copies what comes up... then Dick will be able to feed that to the Titans systems and see what he can decode. Okay. So... ‘Rosen’. He just needs to spell it out using the Hebrew letters, right? So the letter with the ‘r’ sound... resh should be first. Then... they use the same letter for ‘o’ and ‘v’???? Fine. Vav it is. Then s would be... samek and n, nun! That should...
“Damn it!”
“No luck?”
Jason can’t believe this has all been for nothing. “There’s no personnel listed under Rosen. She’s probably got some freaking code name like ‘Desert Wolf’ or ‘Mata Hari’ or something.”
“You sure you’re spelling it right? You know the ‘o’ is written with a...”
“With a vav, I know, okay? Resh, vav, samek, nun. That’s nun as in nada.”
There was a long pause. Then... “Try a zayin instead of a samekh.”
“What?”
“I know you write ‘Rosen’ in English with an ‘s’, but you pronounce it like it’s a ‘z’. Try using the Hebrew letter with that sound, instead.”
Jason realizes that his hands are sweating. Hardly daring to breathe, he makes the change. For several long moments, an hourglass replaces the blinking-line cursor. Then...
“YESSSSSSSSS!”
Okay, a happy dance would be absurdly inappropriate at the moment. So instead he focuses on the task at hand. Transferring the files to his thumb drive seems to take fucking forever. Needless to say, he’s jumpy as hell when he has what he needs.
Now he just has to get out. As he retraces his steps, he thinks about talking to Bruce about getting a Robin suit in black. He clamps down hard on that idea. If everything goes well, if he can find the woman that gave birth to him, then he may never set foot in Wayne Manor again.
He doesn’t think about what that will mean for his career as a teenaged vigilante. He can’t now. Later, when he’s found his mother and seen what kind of person she is. Maybe she’ll be cool with it. He’d hate to have to hide it from her.
Enough of that, Jason tells himself. Right now, he needs to concentrate on not getting shot.
Thankfully, it’s quiet. He hasn’t been here long enough for anyone to have noticed anything’s up. Still, when things go this smoothly, it makes the spot between his shoulder blades itches. Finally he’s over the fencing and heading for the van where Dick is waiting. The teen nearly jumps out of his skin as a hand descends on his shoulder. He’s already in the process of throwing his assailant when he recognizes his partner in...espionage? Yay for reflexes. Of course Dick has his own set of those, and he flips through the throw, to land on his feet again with disgusting ease.
With the man standing before him grinning, Jason is even more disappointed that he didn’t actually face plant the acrobat’s dripping nose in the dirt.
“Get everything?” Dick wants to know.
Jason nods as he moves into the back of the vehicle. He needs to strip and change, just in case they get pulled over, or something else equally annoying. “Yeah. I think so. But we gotta run it through a translator to be sure. Anything interesting happen out here?” He shimmies out of the tunic and pulls on a forest green t-shirt. The pixie boots and panties are soon discarded and he sighs as he pulls on the jeans. Bare legs always have made him nervous, ever since that incident that took place a year ago.
“Not really,” Dick admits.
Jason eyes him. He’s not entirely sure what he’s hearing in the other young man’s voice. It’s not quite surprise, nor is it regret. Huh, whatever. “Well, that’s good. We need to get back to the hotel and then figure out where we’re going,” he says waggling the thumb drive by his ear.
When Dick starts nodding like a demented bobble-head, Jason gets the desperate urge to smack him. The ass would not doubt blame the cold meds for his behavior, but Jason knows better. No, he’s really not feeling a migraine coming out, but geeze!
******************************************************
He’s honestly starting to hate planes. Massive loathing, really.
Getting back to the hotel and packing up hadn’t been hard. Translating the files had been surprisingly easy; they hadn’t even needed to use the systems at Titans Tower. And booking a light was utterly routine. But then the plane arrived three hours late. He should have boosted the Batwing.
Oh well, too late now. The flight takes them to Kiryat Shmona in Israel’s north. From there it’s a matter of getting themselves into one of the tour groups that trek across the border. The guy next to him smells like he hasn’t bathed in a month. Dick also sneezes most of the way, which almost gets them into at least one fight.
Their guides are adamant about the need to stay with the group, since Americans are not viewed favourably in Lebanon. While they do their best the keep the group together, it’s really not that hard for Dick and him to slip away.
At least this time, they don’t have to worry about stopping anywhere. Covered up with keffiyehs, the pair heads to the seedy area of town that holds the Hotel Blu, where Rosen is supposedly staying. Jason cases the street. This is a nasty place; he wonders how many thugs are lurking in the shadows. Not that he is concerned, given his skills, but some street rat habits are still very much a part of him.
It’s mid-afternoon, but that doesn’t really mean much. He glances up at the surrounding buildings.
“So, what’s the plan?” Dick wants to know around a mouthful of... something he’s not sure he wants to know the name of.
Jason suppresses a shudder and hopes the asshole will keep his mouth CLOSED. Unlikely, but he can still hope.
“We gonna bust in there, tie her up and interrogate her?”
The words are light and teasing. Jason rolls his eyes.
“Jason Todd is going to knock on her door and ask her a few questions.” He can positively feel Dick gaping at him. His fingers flex. He really wants to hit the jerk.
“And she might decide to shoot the random kid who shows up at her hotel room, asking personal questions, while she’s in the field, on assignment.”
There is an infuriating amount of logic in that.
“I suppose you have a better idea,” he snaps in a hushed whisper as he grabs Dick’s shirt and drags him into an alley.
The acrobat swallows whatever he’s eating and nods. “Yup, something more subtle.”
Jason can’t repress the derisive snort. “When have you EVER been subtle?” This is, after all, the guy whose suit has a fucking disco collar.
“Oh, hush; I have my moments.”
“Few and far between though they are,” Jason grumbles under his breath none too quietly. Dick chooses to ignore him.
“Let’s recon, check if she’s out. If she’s not, we wait until she is. Then we sneak in and steal her toothbrush. We can run a DNA analysis on that. If she’s the one, then we can figure out the best way to approach her. And if she’s not, we haven’t caused problems for anyone.”
Jason is skeptical. He stands there, arms crossed, glaring at Dick. “I don’t suppose you have a single-molecule analyzer in your pocket,” he mocks.
“Well, no,” Dick admits. “But we can take samples back to the Tower and examine them there. Then, if anyone is a match, we come back. ’Sides, people lie. DNA doesn’t.”
He’s gritting his teeth. He was ready to chew off Dick’s head until the jerk laid that last part on him. Fucking hell! It’ll take so much TIME! And he wants to find her NOW.
Jason ruthlessly suppresses these thoughts. They have uncomfortable ramifications that he wasn’t ready to deal with; mainly because there is part of him that feels like a disloyal douche bag towards Catherine. Taking a slow, steady breath and promising himself that he won’t kill Dick until after they’ve found his mother, he forces himself to nod.
This isn’t how he thought it would go down in his head. Though if he’s honest with himself, he really hadn’t thought it through.
He growls under his breath as he feels Dick place what’s probably supposed to be a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Little Wing. It won’t take that long.”
It doesn’t. Breaking into her room that is. It takes longer to get the staff to confirm that the woman is the room’s only occupant. Even so, Jason and Dick take not only the tooth brush, but also a dirty glass with a lip print on it and some hairs with follicular tags from her brush. All are carefully bagged and labelled.
“We can stay,” Dick offers as they make their way from the building. “There are some good sight lines from across the street.”
He gets that the guy is trying to be nice in offering to sit surveillance with him. There are even several reasons why it would be a good idea, not the least of which being to make sure they did get the right room. But really, it would just be so that Jason could get a glimpse of the woman who might be his mother. And that’s not a good enough reason. Not for this.
Still, there are better reasons.
The teen scowls. He doesn’t glance at Dick. This is his mission, not Goldie’s, so the decision is his. Besides, whatever mission Sharmin is on could be dangerous; maybe having someone watch her back would be a good thing. Okay, that sounds pathetically weak even in the privacy of his own head.
Fuck it.
“Yeah. But only until midnight. We have no idea if she’s going to come back here or bug out.” They know she’s not finished whatever it is, because of the clothes in her room, among other things. However, should things go bad, it’s all stuff she could leave behind.
Dick is nodding at him. And NOT being a damned bobble-head. Well, that’s an improvement.
They head for a vantage point atop a building across the street. It has a fair amount of cover screening it from the various windows in the area. They settle in. Three hours later, there is still no sign of Rosen, and Jason is beyond bored. Not to mention hungry. Dick has been reasonably quiet, which worries him. He’s just about to suggest that he go get them something to eat, when a commotion by the hotel entrance grabs his attention.
“I don’t fucking believe it!”
“Don’t believe what?” Dick asks, even as he grabs for the binoculars.
Jason swats him off, needing to take another look for himself. Yes, it is Shiva Woosan heading into the hotel! Well, that makes life easy! Or not, because in the next moment, a truck pulls up and four men with guns jump out, grabbing the woman and bodily hauling her into the vehicle. Crap!
He leaps up and is moving to the edge of the building even as the van pulls away. Shit! They are going to get away. He doesn’t have a bike he can grab here, and following on foot isn’t an option. This isn’t Gotham, he doesn’t know the terrain. Besides, the truck is already rounding a corner.
“Sonofabitch!” he explodes. When Dick tries to put his hands on Jason’s shoulders, the teen shrugs him off violently. “That was her! She’s one of the other possibilities!”
“Woah, Jay, slow down. I really need you to clue me in here.”
“Shiva Woosan. She’s on my list of possibles. I recognized her from Bruce’s files. And now, she’s been abducted!” With him just sitting there, doing nothing productive! He turns to go, but it’s an impotent gesture. The truck is long gone.
Dick catches his attention again by letting out a low whistle. “Lady Shiva? Really? I’ve seen the file on her and she’s not an easy person to grab. Even with four guys trying it.” When Jason glances at him, Dick looks positively thoughtful. “Actually, if the psych profile is right, she’d probably consider only four to be an insult.”
Now Dick is frowning, and so is Jason as he processes not only Dick’s words, but also his own memories of the file, which aren’t much. This really isn’t adding up, and the longer he thinks about it, the father away the truck gets. What’s the next step? Obviously, they have to figure out who took her.
“Come on, let’s get changed and get some wheels,” Dick suggests, grinning exactly like an idiot hopped up on daytime cold meds.
**********************************************
It takes a while. Okay, that’s an understatement. It takes fucking forever! And since they don’t have a lot of clues to work with, they have to jog some memories the hard way. The local lowlifes may speak a different language but they sing just as sweetly as the Gotham variety. Especially when he and Dick tag team them. Mostly, Jason is used to Bruce being the heavy. It’s actually amusing as hell that skells are trying to hide behind Dick to get away from HIM. Heh.
Night has fallen and they are both in costume. It’s a calculated risk. American vigilantes are bound to attract attention, but so would a pair of American tourists. At least this way, if someone comes gunning for them, they’ll be wearing some armour. Well, he will. He’s not entirely sure about Dick’s get up.
Yet, surprisingly, no one does come looking. He’s getting that itchy feeling between his shoulder blades again. It gets worse as they hunker down outside a militia encampment in the Bekaa valley. According to their source, it’s a group of radical Shiites. Very well-armed radicals, by the looks of the guards.
Jason is back to scowling. There are way too many guns for them to just waltz in and kick ass. Especially since they don’t know where in the encampment Shiva is being held.
“We need to get in there and recon,” the teen mutters. Then he blinks as, out the corner of his eye, he sees Dick beaming at him. “What?!” he hisses, glaring at his so-called partner.
“They grow up so fast...” the asshole croons. But before Jason can reply, Dick is all business and is eying the sentries. “That corner there. We can take one of ‘em out. And then, we can play dress up.”
Jason’s own grin is more than a little feral. He likes this plan. Taking the guard down without an alarm being raised that will tricky, though. Of course, when the guy pulls his pants down to take a piss, Jason blesses his luck and takes advantage of the situation.
Getting a second guard for Dick is just as easy. Which strikes him as downright odd. While he likes easy, this is almost painfully so. That ‘not right’ feeling is back.
“Yeah,” the acrobat whispers. “I agree.”
It’s different, having someone know what he’s thinking without him saying it. Well, Gordon manages it, sometimes with scary accuracy. With Bruce on the other hand it’s only a sometimes thing. And not about stuff that really matters, like when Jason is telling him the truth; or how much it hurts to know that he’s not being believed.
Dick pulls him back to the present. “Come on. We need to take these guys out before they notice anything. Which means we need to be really sneaky. Think you can manage that?” Even with the cloth wrapped about his face and a mask over his eyes, Jason knows he’s being teased.
“Think you can manage not to sneeze?” He shoots back with a little grin of his own.
“Oooooh, seeing as I’m a walking pharmacy at the moment, I think I’ll be fine.”
Jason rolls his eyes, and then they hit it. Or rather, they hit the other set of guards. And the mooks making dinner. And oblivious idiots playing cards. He’s finding that being sneaky is a lot harder then it usually is. Of course, he’s not usually sneaky, nor up against so many heavily armed religious fanatics. They seemed particularly stubborn about going down quietly, even when given a precision strike to the voice box.
Still, between the two of them, they manage it. With their opposition ingloriously trussed up, they begin to systematically search the encampment. There is a locked wooden structure at one corner, which turns out to be the armoury. Jason whistles softly.
“Damn. This is going to make a really big boom when we blow it.”
“Have I told you that I love how your mind works, Little Wing?” The white-out lenses are down, but he just knows Dick’s eyes are dancing behind them.
“Heh.” Indulging his pyro tendencies will have to come later. They still have to find Shiva.
When they’ve been through the last tent without finding any sign of the woman, Jason can’t help but worry. “She’s not here. Do you think they killed her?” He hates himself a little as hears the desperation in his own voice. They’ve come so far! She can’t be dead!
“I doubt it,” Dick says as he’s looks around the tent. “But we can go wake up one of the idiots, if you want.”
Jason is just about to agree when the world goes black.
Before he even registers that he’s conscious again, he’s thinking, I should have heard something! Then he opens his eyes and what he’s sees isn’t pretty. At all. Dick is taking a beating. From the woman they came to save. Oh, he’s doing a real credible job to trying to hold her off, but Jason would bet that the woman could give Bruce a hard time.
So he really doesn’t know what he thinks he’s going to accomplish by jumping into the fray, since he can admit to not being as good as either man. Yet, he has to, because it’s his fault that Dick is here with him. He watches and yes, Dick has her attention, and she’s standing with her back to Jason. Fine. Don’t make a sound; don’t give her reason to look this way. He goes for the kidney shot, that turns out to be only a glancing blow, but yeah, that got her attention, though he hasn’t come anywhere close to debilitating her, not going by how she’s turning on him. But his attack opens her up to Dick, who is up and moving, doing something that Jason can’t see, and then the woman is stumbling, falling. Going down hard into Jason’s fist!
Shit! He hadn’t meant that to happen! He hadn’t actually wanted to hurt her, but she hadn’t been leaving him much choice. He’s pretty sure she busted a couple of his ribs.
“Is she okay?” he’s asking, as Dick begins to tie her up.
“Oh I’m FINE, Robin,” Dick says with a glare, but there’s no real heat to it. “I hit her with a tranq. She’ll feel it in the morning, but she’ll be training more terrorists soon enough.” When Jason blinks at him, he continues. “This is a terrorist training camp. And she’s the head instructor.”
So. It wasn’t a kidnapping, but a test. Jason snorts and crosses his arms. Charming. Just grand. If this is his mother... he suppresses a little shudder.
Oh, right. He pulls a tissue and a small evidence bag from his belt. Carefully, he wipes at the woman’s bloody nose. None of the files he’d looked at in the Cave had any DNA records in them.
Shiva’s glare is impressive, as is the fact she’s quietly working the bonds, despite the drug in her system. Yeah. They really don’t want to be here when she gets free.
“You could have just asked,” the woman tells him in a voice that is steel wrapped in silk.
Jason says nothing. Yeah, there is a LOT he wants to say. To ask. But he keeps Dick’s words in mind: people lie.
“Are we good to go?” Dick asks him.
He can only nod, because now he’s not sure he wants to know. No, fuck it. He does. And knowing doesn’t mean that he has to like, approve of or live with the woman. It’s just that he needs to know. That’s why they are here.
They leave. Fully aware that she will be free in a matter of minutes, no matter how securely Dick bound her. The pair is back in their vehicle before Dick asks what is obviously weighing on his mind: “What if it is her?”
Jason says nothing, because he has no idea what to say.
End of Part Three.
Fandom: Batman
Continuity: Post-CoIE AU, Umbraverse
Characters: Jason, Dick
Rating: PG-13?
Warnings: Foul Language
Word Count: 4,504
Summary: What should have happened in Batman 426 when Bruce was an ass and Jason found out that Catherine wasn’t his biological mom.
Author’s Notes: This is the result of a brainstorming session for a different fic with vespertila . Thank you so much for dragonbat2006 ’s lovely beta and dungeonwriter ’s input! C&C is always appreciated :)
Previous parts One and Two
“You’re sure this is a good idea?” Dick’s annoying voice is in his ear. Again. This is the fifth time that he’s asked that in the last twenty minutes.
Jason grits his teeth as he looks at the less-than-imposing chain-link fence. He’s very thankful that the installation’s physical defences aren’t nearly as meticulous as its cyber-security. “Very sure,” he grits out. “My hacking skills aren’t good enough to get past their systems. But I need to see the files on Sharmin Rosen’s current assignment.”
All of his phone calls to the numbers he’d found for Bruce’s contacts at Shin Bet hadn’t yielded anything. Which wasn’t a surprise but he had still had to try.
He’s jarred out of his thoughts by his partner’s next comment: “You know, I could have hacked it for you.” This is not the first time Dick’s mentioned that particular offer. Jason’s teeth are starting to hurt.
“This is my case and she might be MY mother,” the teen hisses into the comm. “So I’m the one that needs to do this. You just keep an eye on their systems and let me know if anyone is headed my way.” Speaking his reasoning aloud-also not for the first time, gah!-makes him want to... something.
Maybe he should count his blessings that Dick’s last dose of Dayquil was three hours ago. Meaning that the worst of the bouncing has now passed. However, he’ll be needing another dose soon. Best to try and get this out of the way before it’s time for that eventuality. As he sneaks into the installation, he muses about leaving an anonymous note for the bigwigs on how they really need to beef up their security. The few guards he sees are less-than-attentive. Getting into an office with a computer wasn’t that hard. That Dick wasn’t yakking his ear off the entire time was a fucking miracle. Actually...
“N? You still with me?” he whispers. Jason really wouldn’t be surprised if the idiot was having heart palpitations or some other crap from all the over-the-counter meds his supposed older brother has been mixing.
“Yup, right here Little Wing; just been checking the security network. And no, you haven’t tripped anything,” he assures Jason cheerily.
Somehow, Jason is pretty sure there’s more to it than that, but he lets it go. He’s standing inside what has to be some sort of command centre. Before him stretch rows of work stations, each with a computer console mounted atop a desk. After a quick look around, he curses under his breath. This explains a lot. These work stations aren’t hooked up to an outside line. So it’s a good bet that the information he needs is kept on an internal server. It couldn’t have been remote hacked even if he’d taken up Dick’s offer. That makes him feel a little better. At least until he notices the next obstacle. The keyboards are in Hebrew.
Okay, it’s fine. He thought this might happen and planned for it. Jason has a pocket dictionary and phrase book with him, but he knows that they won’t be enough. Gingerly, he sets a gloved hand on the mouse and moves it a fraction of an inch. He’s rewarded when the black screen turns royal blue and a grey box pops up. There’s an official-looking logo and a lot of writing he hasn’t got the time or ability to puzzle out, but he doesn’t need to be a genius to figure out that the flashing word with the empty field below has to be asking for a password.
He groans. Now what? He’s not giving up now, not after getting this close. He thinks for a moment. Then, carefully, he extracts a thin lock pick from one of the compartments of his utility belt and cautiously jimmies open the drawer. He makes a face. He hadn’t really expected to find anything useful, but it had been worth a try. He sighs and moves down the row, hoping against hope that somebody somehow... YES! It takes him eight tries but finally, inside one locked drawer, he sees a slip of paper with what appears to be eight letters and numbers. It’s a password! It has to be! Quickly he opens the dictionary to the page with the alphabet-the alef-bet, rather. His face falls. These letters don’t look anything like what’s on the paper! It’s... it’s chicken scratches!
Wait... what are all these other columns? The first one on the left has the name of the letter in English. The next one over is headed ‘book’ and has the letters he’s vaguely taken note of on most of the store signs he’s passed by. The next column: cursive... wait. Are these supposed to be another way to write the same letters? Cripes. He knows that even in English, some letters don’t look much like their printed counterparts but this... this still doesn’t look like anything on the paper. “Nightwing? What the HELL is Rashi script?”
Dick sounds amused. “It’s... well... it’s kind of like a...” His voice trails off for a moment. “Actually,” he continues, “it’s a font. See, back a few hundred years ago, just about the only books printed in Hebrew were religious texts. And usually they came with commentaries and annotations. One of the best-known commentaries was by a scholar named ‘Rashi’ and the printers always put his notes in a different typeface so it would stand out. Oh, and by the way...”
Jason scowls. Dick’s tone is far too casual, all of a sudden.
“Shin-Bet likes that script a whole lot.”
The scowl deepens. But the non-numeric characters on the paper he’s found DO look something like the markings in the ‘Rashi’ column. If written by someone with extremely poor handwriting.
He starts typing the password, and then stops. Why is the stupid system doing it backw-oh. Hebrew goes left-to-right. It’s like mirror-writing. He’s got to type the last character first.
He’s in! Of course the data is all in Hebrew but it’s in the ‘book’ font. And he knows a keyword search field when he sees it. So... if he types in Sharmin Rosen’s name, and copies what comes up... then Dick will be able to feed that to the Titans systems and see what he can decode. Okay. So... ‘Rosen’. He just needs to spell it out using the Hebrew letters, right? So the letter with the ‘r’ sound... resh should be first. Then... they use the same letter for ‘o’ and ‘v’???? Fine. Vav it is. Then s would be... samek and n, nun! That should...
“Damn it!”
“No luck?”
Jason can’t believe this has all been for nothing. “There’s no personnel listed under Rosen. She’s probably got some freaking code name like ‘Desert Wolf’ or ‘Mata Hari’ or something.”
“You sure you’re spelling it right? You know the ‘o’ is written with a...”
“With a vav, I know, okay? Resh, vav, samek, nun. That’s nun as in nada.”
There was a long pause. Then... “Try a zayin instead of a samekh.”
“What?”
“I know you write ‘Rosen’ in English with an ‘s’, but you pronounce it like it’s a ‘z’. Try using the Hebrew letter with that sound, instead.”
Jason realizes that his hands are sweating. Hardly daring to breathe, he makes the change. For several long moments, an hourglass replaces the blinking-line cursor. Then...
“YESSSSSSSSS!”
Okay, a happy dance would be absurdly inappropriate at the moment. So instead he focuses on the task at hand. Transferring the files to his thumb drive seems to take fucking forever. Needless to say, he’s jumpy as hell when he has what he needs.
Now he just has to get out. As he retraces his steps, he thinks about talking to Bruce about getting a Robin suit in black. He clamps down hard on that idea. If everything goes well, if he can find the woman that gave birth to him, then he may never set foot in Wayne Manor again.
He doesn’t think about what that will mean for his career as a teenaged vigilante. He can’t now. Later, when he’s found his mother and seen what kind of person she is. Maybe she’ll be cool with it. He’d hate to have to hide it from her.
Enough of that, Jason tells himself. Right now, he needs to concentrate on not getting shot.
Thankfully, it’s quiet. He hasn’t been here long enough for anyone to have noticed anything’s up. Still, when things go this smoothly, it makes the spot between his shoulder blades itches. Finally he’s over the fencing and heading for the van where Dick is waiting. The teen nearly jumps out of his skin as a hand descends on his shoulder. He’s already in the process of throwing his assailant when he recognizes his partner in...espionage? Yay for reflexes. Of course Dick has his own set of those, and he flips through the throw, to land on his feet again with disgusting ease.
With the man standing before him grinning, Jason is even more disappointed that he didn’t actually face plant the acrobat’s dripping nose in the dirt.
“Get everything?” Dick wants to know.
Jason nods as he moves into the back of the vehicle. He needs to strip and change, just in case they get pulled over, or something else equally annoying. “Yeah. I think so. But we gotta run it through a translator to be sure. Anything interesting happen out here?” He shimmies out of the tunic and pulls on a forest green t-shirt. The pixie boots and panties are soon discarded and he sighs as he pulls on the jeans. Bare legs always have made him nervous, ever since that incident that took place a year ago.
“Not really,” Dick admits.
Jason eyes him. He’s not entirely sure what he’s hearing in the other young man’s voice. It’s not quite surprise, nor is it regret. Huh, whatever. “Well, that’s good. We need to get back to the hotel and then figure out where we’re going,” he says waggling the thumb drive by his ear.
When Dick starts nodding like a demented bobble-head, Jason gets the desperate urge to smack him. The ass would not doubt blame the cold meds for his behavior, but Jason knows better. No, he’s really not feeling a migraine coming out, but geeze!
******************************************************
He’s honestly starting to hate planes. Massive loathing, really.
Getting back to the hotel and packing up hadn’t been hard. Translating the files had been surprisingly easy; they hadn’t even needed to use the systems at Titans Tower. And booking a light was utterly routine. But then the plane arrived three hours late. He should have boosted the Batwing.
Oh well, too late now. The flight takes them to Kiryat Shmona in Israel’s north. From there it’s a matter of getting themselves into one of the tour groups that trek across the border. The guy next to him smells like he hasn’t bathed in a month. Dick also sneezes most of the way, which almost gets them into at least one fight.
Their guides are adamant about the need to stay with the group, since Americans are not viewed favourably in Lebanon. While they do their best the keep the group together, it’s really not that hard for Dick and him to slip away.
At least this time, they don’t have to worry about stopping anywhere. Covered up with keffiyehs, the pair heads to the seedy area of town that holds the Hotel Blu, where Rosen is supposedly staying. Jason cases the street. This is a nasty place; he wonders how many thugs are lurking in the shadows. Not that he is concerned, given his skills, but some street rat habits are still very much a part of him.
It’s mid-afternoon, but that doesn’t really mean much. He glances up at the surrounding buildings.
“So, what’s the plan?” Dick wants to know around a mouthful of... something he’s not sure he wants to know the name of.
Jason suppresses a shudder and hopes the asshole will keep his mouth CLOSED. Unlikely, but he can still hope.
“We gonna bust in there, tie her up and interrogate her?”
The words are light and teasing. Jason rolls his eyes.
“Jason Todd is going to knock on her door and ask her a few questions.” He can positively feel Dick gaping at him. His fingers flex. He really wants to hit the jerk.
“And she might decide to shoot the random kid who shows up at her hotel room, asking personal questions, while she’s in the field, on assignment.”
There is an infuriating amount of logic in that.
“I suppose you have a better idea,” he snaps in a hushed whisper as he grabs Dick’s shirt and drags him into an alley.
The acrobat swallows whatever he’s eating and nods. “Yup, something more subtle.”
Jason can’t repress the derisive snort. “When have you EVER been subtle?” This is, after all, the guy whose suit has a fucking disco collar.
“Oh, hush; I have my moments.”
“Few and far between though they are,” Jason grumbles under his breath none too quietly. Dick chooses to ignore him.
“Let’s recon, check if she’s out. If she’s not, we wait until she is. Then we sneak in and steal her toothbrush. We can run a DNA analysis on that. If she’s the one, then we can figure out the best way to approach her. And if she’s not, we haven’t caused problems for anyone.”
Jason is skeptical. He stands there, arms crossed, glaring at Dick. “I don’t suppose you have a single-molecule analyzer in your pocket,” he mocks.
“Well, no,” Dick admits. “But we can take samples back to the Tower and examine them there. Then, if anyone is a match, we come back. ’Sides, people lie. DNA doesn’t.”
He’s gritting his teeth. He was ready to chew off Dick’s head until the jerk laid that last part on him. Fucking hell! It’ll take so much TIME! And he wants to find her NOW.
Jason ruthlessly suppresses these thoughts. They have uncomfortable ramifications that he wasn’t ready to deal with; mainly because there is part of him that feels like a disloyal douche bag towards Catherine. Taking a slow, steady breath and promising himself that he won’t kill Dick until after they’ve found his mother, he forces himself to nod.
This isn’t how he thought it would go down in his head. Though if he’s honest with himself, he really hadn’t thought it through.
He growls under his breath as he feels Dick place what’s probably supposed to be a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Little Wing. It won’t take that long.”
It doesn’t. Breaking into her room that is. It takes longer to get the staff to confirm that the woman is the room’s only occupant. Even so, Jason and Dick take not only the tooth brush, but also a dirty glass with a lip print on it and some hairs with follicular tags from her brush. All are carefully bagged and labelled.
“We can stay,” Dick offers as they make their way from the building. “There are some good sight lines from across the street.”
He gets that the guy is trying to be nice in offering to sit surveillance with him. There are even several reasons why it would be a good idea, not the least of which being to make sure they did get the right room. But really, it would just be so that Jason could get a glimpse of the woman who might be his mother. And that’s not a good enough reason. Not for this.
Still, there are better reasons.
The teen scowls. He doesn’t glance at Dick. This is his mission, not Goldie’s, so the decision is his. Besides, whatever mission Sharmin is on could be dangerous; maybe having someone watch her back would be a good thing. Okay, that sounds pathetically weak even in the privacy of his own head.
Fuck it.
“Yeah. But only until midnight. We have no idea if she’s going to come back here or bug out.” They know she’s not finished whatever it is, because of the clothes in her room, among other things. However, should things go bad, it’s all stuff she could leave behind.
Dick is nodding at him. And NOT being a damned bobble-head. Well, that’s an improvement.
They head for a vantage point atop a building across the street. It has a fair amount of cover screening it from the various windows in the area. They settle in. Three hours later, there is still no sign of Rosen, and Jason is beyond bored. Not to mention hungry. Dick has been reasonably quiet, which worries him. He’s just about to suggest that he go get them something to eat, when a commotion by the hotel entrance grabs his attention.
“I don’t fucking believe it!”
“Don’t believe what?” Dick asks, even as he grabs for the binoculars.
Jason swats him off, needing to take another look for himself. Yes, it is Shiva Woosan heading into the hotel! Well, that makes life easy! Or not, because in the next moment, a truck pulls up and four men with guns jump out, grabbing the woman and bodily hauling her into the vehicle. Crap!
He leaps up and is moving to the edge of the building even as the van pulls away. Shit! They are going to get away. He doesn’t have a bike he can grab here, and following on foot isn’t an option. This isn’t Gotham, he doesn’t know the terrain. Besides, the truck is already rounding a corner.
“Sonofabitch!” he explodes. When Dick tries to put his hands on Jason’s shoulders, the teen shrugs him off violently. “That was her! She’s one of the other possibilities!”
“Woah, Jay, slow down. I really need you to clue me in here.”
“Shiva Woosan. She’s on my list of possibles. I recognized her from Bruce’s files. And now, she’s been abducted!” With him just sitting there, doing nothing productive! He turns to go, but it’s an impotent gesture. The truck is long gone.
Dick catches his attention again by letting out a low whistle. “Lady Shiva? Really? I’ve seen the file on her and she’s not an easy person to grab. Even with four guys trying it.” When Jason glances at him, Dick looks positively thoughtful. “Actually, if the psych profile is right, she’d probably consider only four to be an insult.”
Now Dick is frowning, and so is Jason as he processes not only Dick’s words, but also his own memories of the file, which aren’t much. This really isn’t adding up, and the longer he thinks about it, the father away the truck gets. What’s the next step? Obviously, they have to figure out who took her.
“Come on, let’s get changed and get some wheels,” Dick suggests, grinning exactly like an idiot hopped up on daytime cold meds.
**********************************************
It takes a while. Okay, that’s an understatement. It takes fucking forever! And since they don’t have a lot of clues to work with, they have to jog some memories the hard way. The local lowlifes may speak a different language but they sing just as sweetly as the Gotham variety. Especially when he and Dick tag team them. Mostly, Jason is used to Bruce being the heavy. It’s actually amusing as hell that skells are trying to hide behind Dick to get away from HIM. Heh.
Night has fallen and they are both in costume. It’s a calculated risk. American vigilantes are bound to attract attention, but so would a pair of American tourists. At least this way, if someone comes gunning for them, they’ll be wearing some armour. Well, he will. He’s not entirely sure about Dick’s get up.
Yet, surprisingly, no one does come looking. He’s getting that itchy feeling between his shoulder blades again. It gets worse as they hunker down outside a militia encampment in the Bekaa valley. According to their source, it’s a group of radical Shiites. Very well-armed radicals, by the looks of the guards.
Jason is back to scowling. There are way too many guns for them to just waltz in and kick ass. Especially since they don’t know where in the encampment Shiva is being held.
“We need to get in there and recon,” the teen mutters. Then he blinks as, out the corner of his eye, he sees Dick beaming at him. “What?!” he hisses, glaring at his so-called partner.
“They grow up so fast...” the asshole croons. But before Jason can reply, Dick is all business and is eying the sentries. “That corner there. We can take one of ‘em out. And then, we can play dress up.”
Jason’s own grin is more than a little feral. He likes this plan. Taking the guard down without an alarm being raised that will tricky, though. Of course, when the guy pulls his pants down to take a piss, Jason blesses his luck and takes advantage of the situation.
Getting a second guard for Dick is just as easy. Which strikes him as downright odd. While he likes easy, this is almost painfully so. That ‘not right’ feeling is back.
“Yeah,” the acrobat whispers. “I agree.”
It’s different, having someone know what he’s thinking without him saying it. Well, Gordon manages it, sometimes with scary accuracy. With Bruce on the other hand it’s only a sometimes thing. And not about stuff that really matters, like when Jason is telling him the truth; or how much it hurts to know that he’s not being believed.
Dick pulls him back to the present. “Come on. We need to take these guys out before they notice anything. Which means we need to be really sneaky. Think you can manage that?” Even with the cloth wrapped about his face and a mask over his eyes, Jason knows he’s being teased.
“Think you can manage not to sneeze?” He shoots back with a little grin of his own.
“Oooooh, seeing as I’m a walking pharmacy at the moment, I think I’ll be fine.”
Jason rolls his eyes, and then they hit it. Or rather, they hit the other set of guards. And the mooks making dinner. And oblivious idiots playing cards. He’s finding that being sneaky is a lot harder then it usually is. Of course, he’s not usually sneaky, nor up against so many heavily armed religious fanatics. They seemed particularly stubborn about going down quietly, even when given a precision strike to the voice box.
Still, between the two of them, they manage it. With their opposition ingloriously trussed up, they begin to systematically search the encampment. There is a locked wooden structure at one corner, which turns out to be the armoury. Jason whistles softly.
“Damn. This is going to make a really big boom when we blow it.”
“Have I told you that I love how your mind works, Little Wing?” The white-out lenses are down, but he just knows Dick’s eyes are dancing behind them.
“Heh.” Indulging his pyro tendencies will have to come later. They still have to find Shiva.
When they’ve been through the last tent without finding any sign of the woman, Jason can’t help but worry. “She’s not here. Do you think they killed her?” He hates himself a little as hears the desperation in his own voice. They’ve come so far! She can’t be dead!
“I doubt it,” Dick says as he’s looks around the tent. “But we can go wake up one of the idiots, if you want.”
Jason is just about to agree when the world goes black.
Before he even registers that he’s conscious again, he’s thinking, I should have heard something! Then he opens his eyes and what he’s sees isn’t pretty. At all. Dick is taking a beating. From the woman they came to save. Oh, he’s doing a real credible job to trying to hold her off, but Jason would bet that the woman could give Bruce a hard time.
So he really doesn’t know what he thinks he’s going to accomplish by jumping into the fray, since he can admit to not being as good as either man. Yet, he has to, because it’s his fault that Dick is here with him. He watches and yes, Dick has her attention, and she’s standing with her back to Jason. Fine. Don’t make a sound; don’t give her reason to look this way. He goes for the kidney shot, that turns out to be only a glancing blow, but yeah, that got her attention, though he hasn’t come anywhere close to debilitating her, not going by how she’s turning on him. But his attack opens her up to Dick, who is up and moving, doing something that Jason can’t see, and then the woman is stumbling, falling. Going down hard into Jason’s fist!
Shit! He hadn’t meant that to happen! He hadn’t actually wanted to hurt her, but she hadn’t been leaving him much choice. He’s pretty sure she busted a couple of his ribs.
“Is she okay?” he’s asking, as Dick begins to tie her up.
“Oh I’m FINE, Robin,” Dick says with a glare, but there’s no real heat to it. “I hit her with a tranq. She’ll feel it in the morning, but she’ll be training more terrorists soon enough.” When Jason blinks at him, he continues. “This is a terrorist training camp. And she’s the head instructor.”
So. It wasn’t a kidnapping, but a test. Jason snorts and crosses his arms. Charming. Just grand. If this is his mother... he suppresses a little shudder.
Oh, right. He pulls a tissue and a small evidence bag from his belt. Carefully, he wipes at the woman’s bloody nose. None of the files he’d looked at in the Cave had any DNA records in them.
Shiva’s glare is impressive, as is the fact she’s quietly working the bonds, despite the drug in her system. Yeah. They really don’t want to be here when she gets free.
“You could have just asked,” the woman tells him in a voice that is steel wrapped in silk.
Jason says nothing. Yeah, there is a LOT he wants to say. To ask. But he keeps Dick’s words in mind: people lie.
“Are we good to go?” Dick asks him.
He can only nod, because now he’s not sure he wants to know. No, fuck it. He does. And knowing doesn’t mean that he has to like, approve of or live with the woman. It’s just that he needs to know. That’s why they are here.
They leave. Fully aware that she will be free in a matter of minutes, no matter how securely Dick bound her. The pair is back in their vehicle before Dick asks what is obviously weighing on his mind: “What if it is her?”
Jason says nothing, because he has no idea what to say.
End of Part Three.